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gingerbreadmonsters · 8 months ago

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something to believe in

or: and i am crowned king, over all the lands of wonder.

gn!reader, warnings for yandere-typical obsession and mild stalking, sweet little warden’s what-could-have-been. i beg, i beg – do not leave me in this abyss, where i cannot find you! an AU of the AU – consider this an alternate origin story for the vega and warden of human nature, that’s a little less canon-compliant and a little more obsessive. inspired by turn around, look at me by the vogues and shakespeare’s sonnet 147, and forever indebted to the utter gorgeousness that comes from the wonderful @sincerelywhistler. don’t bother haunting me. warden getting a certain someone under their skin in 9000 words or less.

part of the skyside oops! all yandere! collab for halloween – do go and check that out to see all the spooky, creepy goodness that the server has to offer! there's some incredible talent on display in there, and i'm very very grateful to the lovely @angelicaether for masterminding it all -- thank you for letting me in to peddle my ridiculous fascination with vega and warden yet again 💕😅💫

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(...wait, what do you mean, 'vega's not the yandere one here'? you couldn't possibly mean – no, you wouldn't dare...)

He's so beautiful.

Grey light flickers coldly across the wall, and the droning chatter of the radio fills the air. The room is more crowded than usual, dull footsteps muffled by thin carpet, and it’s almost uncomfortably warm.

How long has it been? You can’t really remember. Months, at least, perhaps even a year – and yet the same thought echoes through your head even now, all this time later.

It’s oddly reassuring, to think of his beauty. A comforting thought, a soothing refrain. A smooth, well-worn groove in your mind, familiar ease as it slides into place. There are so few things that you can be sure of, so few things you can rely upon, that it’s reassuring to have something to hold onto. Something that you know won’t ever change, something that couldn’t possibly leave you.

It’s reliable, a rare constant amid the habitual chaos. It’s calm, and it’s sweet, and it’s kind. It might even be true.

I hope it’s true.

You wouldn’t know. You’ve never actually seen him.

It's become habit now, whenever you have a moment. You’re almost surprised that they haven’t asked you to start paying rent, with how often you find yourself here. Ageing monitors flicker with blurry static, the monochrome shapes of prisoners reflected exactly in your eyes.

The human officers here in the security room don't like it, but there's not actually much they can say – you’ve got the clearance to be here, because your job requires you to have access to the inmate records that are kept in this room. And even when they do try to keep you out, you're not above a little harmless cloaking to sneak in here unnoticed. Hiding is second nature to someone like you, and you’re very, very good at it.

None of them are that good at magic anyway, but it wouldn't really matter if they were. No human, Department or otherwise, could find you in a million years, even if they wanted to.

You’d actually been right here in this room, standing over by the filing cabinet, when you’d first heard of him. The Stealth who’s normally in here was sitting at his desk opposite the door, filling out some sort of incident report, and you’d overheard him complaining about it to one of the Freelancer correctional officers nearby.

It’s not as though incident reports have ever been anything unusual at this facility, but your demon’s senses weren’t fooled. The smell of blood was thick in the air, unmistakable even as it was drowned out by a stinging wave of antiseptic, along with the persistent, unsettled tension bubbling in his core. It was unusually sour, but not bitter – you remember having to fight the urge to wrinkle your nose. Something must have happened.

The story, when you started paying attention to the conversation, wasn’t entirely routine – but it didn’t sound like anything too out of the ordinary. An altercation during the morning rounds, a mistake by one of the human wardens. Six injured, and two in critical condition. A prisoner being moved from the high-security corridor to the maximum-security block.

That sort of thing doesn’t exactly happen every day at the facility, but it’s to be expected when you’re dealing with so many dangerous inmates. That’s the whole reason why the maximum-security building even exists – this place, just like the countless other containment facilities scattered across the country, is more or less a dumping ground for whoever the Department can’t fix, and whatever they aren’t powerful enough to kill.

Mildly curious, you’d snuck a look down at his desk as you walked past, trying to nonchalantly peek at the report while the Stealth was looking away. Eyes darting across the page in a split second, greedily taking in as much as you could. He hadn’t filled much of it out, but right there, at the top of the page—

An identification number, and a prisoner’s name. Vega.

Vega.

The name hadn’t been immediately familiar, but that didn’t mean you hadn’t recognised it. You remember the familiar feeling of the sky stretching out inside your skull, how readily the slim shape of Lyra had revealed itself to you, its brightest star glittering in your mind’s eye.

An altercation, eight wounded. A demon prisoner, dangerous enough that the Department had wanted to put them away in one of the most highly-guarded containment facilities in the country… but who hadn’t killed a single human warden when the opportunity arose?

There had been no picture attached to the report, but all you really needed was the name. You’d looped back around to the records cabinet, gaze darting around the room to check that nobody was watching you, before opening the drawer where the high-security inmate records were kept – at the time, you didn’t have access to the maximum-security files, so you’d been hoping that his record hadn’t been moved yet.

A-E, F-J, K-O... The file separators had been put in rather haphazardly, but luckily they’d all been roughly in the right places. Yellow folders for humans, red ones for demons. Blessedly, the Department’s insistence on keeping paper records as well as digital ones meant that the file had still been there. Silently, you’d pulled the right one free and flipped the folder open, to find—

Oh…

With him being a demon, you knew that you didn’t really need to see a picture. As a matter of course, it’s rare for any of your kind to have a consistent appearance, unless you happen to be involved with long-term human affairs like the Department. A photograph of a demon is almost always useless – all it tells you is that a demon might have worn that face once, but that doesn’t mean that they’d ever worn it before, or would wear it again.

The photo was a little out of focus and slightly distorted, courtesy of the terrible quality that so often plagues photographs of demons. Arcana tends to show up poorly on camera, so demons who don’t bother to synthesise a tangible, physical skin surface usually end up looking blurrier than their surroundings. It’s infuriating for humans, unused to their complicated electrical technologies failing, but until they invent a better type of camera, there’s not actually much they can do about it.

Despite the dim, grainy quality of the photo, the face of the demon looking out at you was utterly striking. Sharp, handsome features, somehow delicate and cruel all at once. The shape of tall horns, cut off at the top by the edge of the frame. Long, dark hair falling down past his shoulders, the suggestion of a bitter smile. A cold, empty glare that seemed to slice right through the paper it was printed on.

He’s so beautiful.

You’d only been able to stare, somehow entranced. He’d looked so… so demonic, nothing filtered out or watered down, in a way you weren’t sure you’d ever seen on Elegy. You can remember how your own eyes ached to see his, sclera unashamedly black and shiny, how your head began to pound, suddenly all-too-aware of the pressure of keeping your horns cloaked.

You’d held an unnecessary breath as you brought the photo closer to your face, as if looking harder might reveal something new you’d missed. The picture showed so disappointingly little, and all you wanted was to know more. What else about him was demonic? Did he breathe? Did he blink? Would his claws be long, would his tongue be pointed – and if he bared his fangs, how many would there be?

His file wasn’t especially long or detailed, so you’d raced through it, soaking up all the information you could. A Sadism demon, imprisoned for experimenting on humans, captured after a fight with an incubus somewhere in downtown Dahlia. Unable or unwilling to speak out loud, broadly uncooperative when approached outside of feeding periods, generally passive but highly dangerous if provoked.

Skilled manipulator, known to use violence, intimidation, and coercion. Openly admits to significant history of human experimentation, with no signs of guilt or desire for repentance. Ambivalence towards human suffering and casual threats of violence strongly indicate potential to cause significant harm and/or fatal injury. Consider a possible threat to life.

More than anything else, he sounded fascinating.

Without really noticing, you’d stopped paying attention to the rest of the security room – you jumped at the sudden whine of the radio at your hip as it crackled to life, the voice of one of your superiors from upstairs calling you back. Hurriedly, you’d jammed all of the papers into the folder before slotting it back into the file organiser, re-locking the drawer, and scurrying out of the room without looking at anyone.

For the rest of the day it had been all you could think about, this mysterious demon locked away in the depths of Block E, the maybe-shape of his once-silhouette burned into your brain. What would he be like? Would his voice be high or low? What would his aura feel like, as it curved to fit against yours? Filling out paperwork, preparing for tomorrow’s rehabilitation sessions, trudging into meetings behind your supervisor – you might as well have been a million miles away, consumed with curiosity and the thought of a distant star.

Those thoughts never went away, only getting stronger and stronger as days began to pass, then weeks, then months. The shape of Lyra seemed to call to your unconscious mind, its sparkle almost as comforting as that of your own constellation, singing out through the blackness of space to grasp the glimmer of your namesake star. You began to come into work even earlier than before, finding ever more excuses to loiter in the security room and stare at the small, faded monitor that held the camera feed you were desperate to see.

It didn’t matter that the video was always blurry. It didn’t matter that there was no sound, or no colour, or that it would skip and stutter every few seconds. He never moved, except to shift his gaze minutely from the wall to the door – he never spoke, and even if he had it wouldn’t have been aloud. With no window for the sunlight to move across, even his shadow was still, painted black across the wall behind him.

Day after day, hour after hour, a perfect statue in the garden of your mind. You watched him endlessly, unblinking eyes swallowing up each grey pixel of his being. Every halting, crackling frame of his existence, precious treasure to be hoarded in the soft fats of your simulated body.

The world had changed, and yet nobody ever noticed. Your supervisor was thrilled that you were working more and talking less, eager to push even more of her responsibilities onto you than she already was. The rest of the office followed suit, the few that had ever spoken to you before now thoroughly disinterested in your new enthusiasm for work, hardly aware of the way your eyes would glaze over as soon as you could sit down at your desk and disappear into a daydream.

It had been a surprise, even to you. You never used to dream.

When you first came to Elegy, you didn’t know how to sleep. You’d been taught what it was, and that humans had to do it, but nobody had ever shown you how it worked. All you knew was that it was something that happened at night, and that a human who didn’t do it would die.

Gradually, you’d managed to figure out roughly what it was. A sort of unconsciousness to allow humans to replenish their energy, that happens in the dark on a soft sleeping pad. It takes hours and hours, and it can only start if they lie very, very still. Their bodies move while they sleep, but not on purpose, and occasionally they see bizarre visions that some say can predict the future.

They call happy visions dreams, and scary visions nightmares. Demons, along with a small number of magical humans, can manipulate these premonitions if they like, but it’s not very kind to do it without permission. If a human finds out that you’ve been secretly messing with their dreams, they’ll get really upset.

It sounded weird. You didn’t want to sleep. It wasn’t something your body would ever need to do, and it didn’t sound like something you’d be interested in. Wouldn’t it be boring, to lie there in the dark without moving for so long? Wouldn’t it be strange, to feel your body moving without your say-so?

You did want to dream, though. What sort of odd things might reveal themselves to you? Maybe it would feel like being one of those human Seers. Demons have always been exempt from the Sight, but you’d wondered if perhaps this would be another way to look into the future.

You’d opened up your work computer and gone on the human internet to see if you could find out more about it, and daydreams sounded like just the right thing. A dream that could happen during the daytime, without needing to waste time sleeping – but unfortunately, upon closer inspection it didn’t seem like quite what you were looking for. It was just a fancy name for being bored, for thinking about random things instead of whatever was going on in real life, and you’d been quite disappointed.

That hadn’t stopped you trying, though. And once you’d started, you’d been hooked.

The life of an Inchoate is nothing if not hungry. An Inchoate demon’s body burns through Arcana faster than any other, a sick sort of penance for being so greedy in its tastes. Nothing satisfies it, nothing can satisfy it. The great chasm inside, the yawning black hole in your core shrieks and wails endlessly, crying out for something to satiate its impossible need. It’s like a child or an animal, this wretched form, thinking of nothing but more, give me more, I need more!

There’s no proof, but you’ve always wondered if that’s why you’ve ended up the way you have. When your hunger can’t eat, it starts to eat you – is it that exhausted desperation, forever staggering and stumbling away from the beast inside, that’s driven you down this path? Open wide, open wide, open wide. When your own body punishes you for the crime of its own existence, what petty rules should you even care to follow?

It’s torture. The entire earth to feed you, and your eternal curse is to starve.

Not then, though. Not when you learnt how to dream. Suddenly, the world was opened to you, the concrete walls of the facility falling easily away. You didn’t have to think. You could let your thoughts drift on the breeze, falling through your fingers like a handful of sand, letting your body do the work as your head floated far away. Papers came and went, stamped and signed, the rhythmic tapping of keyboard clicks a lullaby that soothed you into blissful escapism.

You didn’t have to sit at that dreadful desk, you didn’t have to listen to those awful humans. You could go somewhere else, somewhere good and bright and kind, where the earth was sweet and the stars danced in the sky. It would be a place where you’d never need to be alone – the deep, aching loneliness of life on Elegy would fade into nothingness, and you’d finally have found what you were looking for.

People who would never leave you behind, who would notice when you weren’t there. Who would want to spend time with you, and who would want to talk to you because they liked you, not just because there was nobody else to talk to. Happy, funny, charming people who’d smile when they saw you and sigh when you left – and you’d be just as charming, just as funny, just as happy.

You wouldn’t be missing out, anymore. The special, secret place in your head was filled with sweets and cake and shiny glitter, and every day you dreamt of the same thing. The gnawing inchoate hunger would fade, and you’d finally be satisfied. Filled to the brim with good feelings, permeating every speck of your being, stuffed with happiness and joy and contentment until you could barely even move.

Each detail painted and polished in a thousand rainbow colours, a charmed life that only you could see. The very air would be golden, and the sea clear and warm. Friends, real friends, the sort that you’d always wished for but never really known. For the first time, you’d be someone’s first choice.

As pleasant as those daydreams were, you’d never been able to entirely ignore the quiet, nagging sensation that something was missing – something deep and vital, some unspoken absence right at the aching heart of it. Some feeling that you couldn’t quite place, one you only faintly recognised in the back of your mind. It was oddly raw, tender and bloody like a bite and a bruise all at once. A bitterness, a loneliness, a new sort of hunger that had no name.

No name, that is, until him.

Paper rustling as you flicked through his file, the song of the computer cables and the air conditioner and the CCTV. He was just so irresistibly, incredibly singular, a tantalising mystery. You couldn’t let it go – the perfect image of him, in bright and painful clarity, cutting through the distortion. You wanted him, you want him, in a way you can’t possibly hope to explain.

It’s like a disease. Your daydreams are filled with thoughts of Vega, outlined in passion and coloured with longing. How he’ll hold you like a lover, the smooth slide of his tail against yours, how he’ll smile as your horns knock softly against his when he kisses you. His fangs will surely be sharp as they carve their way into your soft neck, and his claws will surely sting as he takes your waiting hand in his. The saccharine fantasy is as beautiful as it is hazy, vague impressions of flowers and ribbons and sparkles stamped across the inside of your skull.

Perhaps your mind has been warped by the shallow trappings of human romance, the miserable weakness of their feelings – is it truly demonic to want those things, or have you just been on Elegy for too long? Even if you have, does it matter? It doesn’t make the cravings go away. He’s the answer to your prayers. Contentment, companionship, escape.

There’s another feeling, too, that seems to flicker to life when you think of him. Imagining him so close to you, his hands and his fangs and his voice, the drag of your fingers across his simulated skin. The quiet fizz of Arcana as you finally touch him, again and again, the eager harmony of the magic that makes you as it begins to sing with him. It’s dark and rich, settling somewhere deep in your body and making you feel all… all strange. This facsimile of a human body starts to rebel – your mouth suddenly seems too dry, your skin too hot and your heart too fast. You gasp for deep breaths you don’t need, unusually restless, struggling to push down the bubbly, sparkling sensation that crashes over you like a wave.

You don’t know what that feeling is, and it’s frightening and thrilling in equal measure. There’s something addictive about it, the way it drips and pools in the soft tissues of your body like honey, thick and warm and slow. Your body feels elastic, muscles stretching and contracting in the heat, and your eyes close without you even really noticing.

When you meet him, you’ll have to ask him what it is. He must know. Perhaps he’ll teach you.

The plan was always going to be tricky to pull off. Most of your work takes place with human prisoners, so you weren’t even allowed into his cell corridor before he was moved, but now that he’s being kept in the maximum-security block it’s even harder to get access. That place is so heavily surveilled and guarded that it’s practically impossible to get near it – you have to get signed approval from your department head, book in a timed entry window so they know when you’ll be there and for how long, then pass through several high-level security checks before you can go inside.

Even if you could fake your way through all of that, you wouldn’t be able to go in alone regardless. Nobody is allowed to enter unaccompanied, no matter the reason. It's a facility policy that technically applies in all the cell blocks, but in practice it’s only the maximum-security and demon-holding areas that enforce it. Those are the most dangerous places for officers to go alone, where the inmates are far too dangerous or powerful to be dealt with one-on-one, so it makes sense – but for your purposes, it’s an infuriating, insurmountable roadblock.

You’d need to find someone to go with you who wouldn’t mind what you’re going to do, and what are the odds of that? As far as you’re concerned, it’s basically impenetrable.

Unless you count Camelopardalis, that is.

He’s only a temporary fixture at the holding facility, on loan from the headquarters in Dahlia as part of the biennial staff training initiative, and he's so lovely. You'd never had the chance to really meet him before, seeing as this is the first year he’s been assigned to your department, but he’s just so effortlessly friendly that you can’t help but like him. He’s always saying hello to you in the corridors, or striking up a short but sweet conversation at your desk when he passes by, his quiet smile somehow infectious despite his understated nature.

Once, he even managed to miraculously convince your department head to let you take an extra half-hour’s break during lunch, and you’d spent it chatting away together in the cafeteria about all sorts of things. It turns out that he’s remarkably funny once you get him talking, all dry wit and wry observations – you’d almost cried laughing at his impression of the superintendent from upstairs, one hand clinging to his arm to keep yourself upright, and you can still remember the sparkle in his eyes as he lightly rested his free hand on top of yours in return.

The walk back to your desk together had been far too short. He’s such a gentleman, you’ve always thought, so charming and polite.

You find yourself bumping into Camelopardalis – or Cam, as he insists you call him – quite a lot these days, now that you come to think of it. Not that you’re complaining, of course. He makes for extremely pleasant company, kinder to you than you remember any of the humans who normally work here ever being. In fact, you’d probably say that he’s the closest thing to a real, proper friend that you’ve ever had.

It’s not his fault that he’s just a little bit too late.

If only it had been him, this would all be so much easier. In your mind’s eye, you can see it all now, as clearly as anything. He’d do it properly for you, you know he would – flowers and letters and kisses on the doorstep, a shy smile on his face every time he held your hand. Nothing would hurt, and nothing would go wrong. He’d be happy, and you’d be happy too. You would have loved to fall in love with Cam.

The great tragedy of the solar eclipse. In another life, perhaps he could have been something more. But here, now, the jagged shadow of your secret fascination looms too large for you to ever ignore, drowning the small shape of a lone Serenity daemon in its all-consuming darkness.

“After you.”

Harsh, white light bears down on both of you as Cam holds the door open, gesturing to you with his other hand. Dipping your head in thanks, you hurry through the doorway and into the screening room, permit papers in hand.

He’s told you before that he’s been trying to push for more focus on the treatment of demonic prisoners, especially considering how human-heavy the facility staff is, but the higher-ups are never willing to put enough resources into training to make any sort of meaningful difference. Apathy – or maybe just laziness, I guess, he’d said mournfully, over a paper cup of dreadful-tasting office coffee. All these years, and it's like they haven't realised how dangerous it is for humans to even attempt to incarcerate demons. Considering the state of this place, it's a miracle there hasn't been a riot already.

You'd just shrugged, resigned. It's not like they care about any of the inmates, anyway. What made you think they'd do anything special for the demons?

Wishful thinking, probably. But what else can I do?

It's not as if you disagree with him. He's entirely right, and the treatment of demons here needs to change before something goes horribly wrong. But if it just so happens that his attempts to increase staff development might overlap with your curiosity about a certain, very well-guarded demon, then can you really be blamed for what might unfold?

You’d asked him to bring you here as part of your training – a mostly made-up excuse about wanting to get better at working with demonic inmates, rather than being restricted to just human ones. You have clearance to speak to the human maximum-security inmates, and you've seen most of the areas where demonic inmates are kept, even if you can't speak to them. So, you’d managed to persuade Cam that you needed to see the difference between the human and demon restricted areas for yourself – that the only place it would be worth taking you would be the one place you've never been allowed to enter.

Fortunately, he seemed to swallow the excuse easily enough. He even said it wasn't that difficult to get your entry clearance temporarily modified upwards, so that he could take you – it seems like your recent industriousness has paid off with your supervisor. Cam says he thinks it's because she's recognising how efficient and obedient you are, but you suspect that she's hoping to promote you so you’ll be allowed to take on even more of her work. Useless, lazy idiot. All she does is complain about the work everyone else is doing, instead of actually doing anything herself. What do they even keep her around for?

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. You know what you’re here to do.

The security checks go quickly, the two of you ushered through a variety of metal detectors and aura scanners. It’s still kind of funny to you whenever they make you do biometric scans, considering how easy it is for you to fake your way through – you hadn’t even had fingerprints before you started working for DUMP – but it’s probably just so the process is the same for everyone who comes through here.

“Ready?”

Cam gives you a soft, kind smile as he waits by the door to the cell corridor, one hand already on the unlock mechanism. “You remember the plan, right?”

The air in this block is thick and sugary, so heavily saturated with magic that it feels like toffee sticking your teeth together. You nod, trying not to look as jittery as you feel.

“Right hand side, cell number 1028. You’re going to do the talking, and I’m just there to watch.”

Cam dips his head in acknowledgement. “And your panic switch?”

You push your sleeve up just a little, so he can see the flat, orange band around your wrist. It’s coded to your magical signature, just like your normal green one, but an ordinary bracelet wouldn’t be able to get through the intensity of the wards in this block. This one is specially made to work in such a high-saturation environment, and you can feel the powerful magic inside it resonating faintly through your wrist and making your fingers slightly numb.

“Very good,” he says, and the door swings silently open. “Let’s go.”

The cell corridor is wide and bleak, just like every other, all concrete and painted metal. It’s bright, as is standard, grim floodlights blasting the space with blindingly-white light, and the lack of windows makes it impossible to tell whether it’s night or day outside. There’s no breeze, but you grimace at how cold it is, any warmth you might have had leached away in an instant.

Following Cam down the corridor, it’s impossibly quiet. The warding magic in the air is so dense that your footsteps don't echo, layers and layers of energy folding over themselves and slowing your movements so much that it’s difficult to walk – you can imagine that a human would have a hard time even breathing normally. No wonder none of the human officers want to come here. You don’t know for sure, but you imagine that this is how it would feel to walk along the bottom of the sea, the unyielding, compressive power of all that water constricting your body as it bears down on you. Uncompromising force, inescapable pressure.

Your unwitting companion doesn’t know it, but you’ve come prepared. Thanks to your idiot supervisor, you’ve had access to the maximum-security prisoner files for weeks now, so you know exactly which cell you’re really looking for. You’re almost there, you’re almost there! As you pass by, you can’t help but hold your breath in giddy nervousness, the zing of adrenaline fizzing in your mouth as you fight to keep the excitement off your face.

Cam stops outside cell 1028, the reinforced door heavy and imposing, and you have to dig your nails into your palms to stop yourself from turning your head to the left. The cell door you want is so, so close, but you can’t give the game away just yet.

We’re here, he murmurs into your mind, seemingly unwilling to break the silence. Still feeling up to it?

Resolutely, you meet his eyes. Yeah. I’m ready.

He knocks softly on the door, probably out of habit – it’s not like the sound would be able to get through the wards on the cell, no matter how hard he knocked – and presses his palm to the unlock switch on the wall. His magic surges, swirling through his hand and into the mechanism, before the panel flashes green and the door unlocks.

“Regulus, yes?” he says to the prisoner inside, and you follow him into the cell before the door locks behind you. “My name is Camelopardalis. I’m here to speak with you about the events of last week, if that’s alright with you.”

The temporary ward that activated when the door released keeps the prisoner, Regulus, from actually reaching you, so he sits on the bed while you conjure two chairs for you and Cam to sit on. You already knew that he was an Empathy daemon before you came in, and that he’s not even meant to be in this block at all – that’s the only reason Cam had been allowed to bring you. He’s not actually very aggressive, so he’s normally in one of the lower-security areas, but apparently there was some incident a few days ago that means they’ve moved him in here for his own safety while his ordinary cell is being repaired.

Cam and Regulus talk for a while, but you don’t really take in much of the discussion, to be honest. You’re mostly just distracted by your own racing heartbeat, choking on the tension that nobody else can feel. Why does it matter, whatever it is they’re talking about? Why should you even care? There’s something much more important going on, something so deeply, intensely vital that you couldn’t possibly focus on anything else.

He’s here, he’s here. Right now, at this very moment, you’re just a few metres away from Vega. The object of your obsession, the mystery that you’re longing to solve. You might never get this chance again. In just a few minutes, you’ll see him – at last, you’ll see him with your own eyes, see all the things the cameras can’t show.

Oh, if only you could have come here alone. You could spend hours here, you’re sure, making up for all the days and nights spent looking at the poor facsimile of him that decorates the surveillance screens in the security office. How close will you be able to get? How long will you be able to look? If you’re lucky, you might even—

“Is there anything else you’d like to speak about while I’m here?”

Cam’s voice jolts you from your whirling thoughts, leaning forward slightly in his chair as he speaks to the prisoner, and you try your best to look like you’ve been paying attention.

…Yes.

His voice is faintly muffled, as if through glass, and it belatedly occurs to you why that is. You hadn’t really noticed, but you realise that Cam has been the only one speaking aloud, while Regulus has been using telepathy to project his words through the temporary ward. Perhaps it’s that he doesn’t know how to speak, or maybe that he just doesn’t like to.

You’ve often heard that Empathy daemons have trouble learning how to speak out loud, partly because they develop at a different rate to other demons, and partly because they’re not meant to be observed by humans who aren’t their charges. They’re taught to speak telepathically as much as they can, so that other humans nearby can’t hear their disembodied voices when they’re invisible, but that generally means that they have difficulty remembering how physical speech is meant to work.

In any case, he must say something to Cam that he doesn’t want you to hear. You feel a tiny burst of Serenity-flavoured magic bubble against your aura, a polite warning, and the conversation goes entirely silent as they continue to speak.

This is it – now or never. Catching Cam’s eye, you blink once and incline your head ever so slightly towards the door. He blinks in reply, and you can tell that he’s not entirely sure why you want to leave, but his aura seems to acquiesce. Gratefully, you stand up from your chair and hurry out of the cell, bracelet letting you slip easily through the door and the wards.

You’ll have to hurry. Cam shouldn’t technically have let you do that, seeing as it's facility policy for you to stay together at all times in the maximum-security areas, but you’re hoping that he thinks you’re just being polite to Regulus by not staying when he obviously doesn’t want you to overhear him. He doesn’t seem to pose much of a threat, so why would you need to worry? Even if he tried to break through the ward and do something to Cam, he’s got a panic bracelet just like you – and from what you can tell of Cam, he seems like he could hold his own if it really came down to it. He’ll be fine.

Steeling yourself, you turn your back to the door and cross over to the other side of the corridor, one door to the left. The small, metal plate above the door says 1025.

It’s such a short distance, yet it feels like a lifetime. Creeping closer and closer to the cell, your eyes are fixed on the small, rectangular viewing slot. It’s heavily warded, just like the rest of the door, so there’s no need for it to ever close – you’re told that it’s a security measure, installed so that prisoners can never know when they’re being directly observed. All they can see is a bright, clouded blur, regardless of whether someone’s looking through it or not.

Paranoia seeps through your brain, freezing water soaking through the back of your skull. You’ll surely be on camera right now, but nobody’s really watching, are they? Unless something happens, nobody ever really pays attention to the CCTV – and nothing’s going to happen, right? There’s nothing suspicious about just looking, is there?

Something moves, a trembling blur just at the edge of your vision. Your head snaps down, eyes instinctively searching for the danger, but it’s – ah.

Your hands are shaking. That’s never happened before.

How… human of you.

The crushing silence seems to clutch at your ankles as you come to a stop, terrifying in its totality. It feels wrong, somehow, for it to be so quiet. Like this place is somehow separate from the rest of the world, an unearthly space out of step with the rest of this plane.

Reinforced metal lines the walls, cell doors towering over you. The air feels even heavier in your chest than before, so thoroughly saturated with power that it seems to pop and crackle with each breath. Was the ceiling quite this low before? White light floods the corridor, and its reach is so complete that you cast no shadow.

It’s too late to back out. You’ve got to do this now, before Cam comes out of that cell and asks you what you’re doing. Your whole body feels on edge, pulse hammering in your throat and stomach all strange and fluttery, like a fizzy can of soft drink that’s been all shaken up. Careful of the ward alarm, you don’t touch the door, but you lean slowly towards the viewing slot, and—

and—

Oh…

You can’t move.

You can’t even think.

All you can do is stare.

Demonic bodies are inherently static, in a way that human bodies just can’t replicate. There’s no need to breathe or blink or swallow – there’s no real need to do anything, except feed, and you don’t have to move to do that. Behaviours like nodding or fidgeting are entirely cultivated, learned habits from an age-old history of human coexistence.

Stillness makes humans uncomfortable, so your species has learnt not to stand still. It’s half courtesy, half pragmatism. Skin changes colour to blush without blood, the hand pulls back from the flame half a second too late. At its core, it’s about survival. Codependence, long exposure. The mimicry of a predator.

Yes, a predator. The creature before you, utterly unmoving as he sits on the side of the bed, is something much, much worse.

No photo could have done him justice, no blurry camera footage could have captured him in enough delicate detail. You can only see his side profile, and yet you’re struck by how immensely, instantly handsome he is – you can’t explain exactly why, but something about his face is just so captivating that you can’t tear your eyes away.

He’s like a sculpture in a museum, all strong lines and clean angles. Sharp horns jut cruelly away from his face, starkly silhouetted by the bright light from above, and you briefly wonder if they’d draw blood if they were to touch your skin. They’re not glossy, as such, but they do seem to reflect the light slightly. Soft white illuminates the tiny ridges and curves in their surface, glinting off the vicious-looking points in a way you’ve never seen before on Elegy.

It’s like the light doesn’t quite know how to react to his magic, fracturing as it crashes over him, splintering and shattering like stained glass. Is it because of his form’s composition? It must be. You’ve never seen a demon able to do that – to take a physical, corporeal form in a way that permits existence on Elegy, but that still holds the qualities of the raw magic it’s composed of. It’s completely enchanting. You’re not sure a human would be able to see it.

His hair is long and smooth, parted just in front of his horns so a little of it frames his face on either side. The rest is gathered up high somehow at the crown of his head, before falling gracefully down his back. His stillness makes it impossible to tell, but you imagine how it might move if he were to turn his head, dark strays fluttering lightly in the nonexistent breeze. Your fingers ache to reach out and touch it, to brush your claws across his jaw and push his hair back behind his pointed ear.

The dull prisoner’s uniform he wears is in perfect shape, not a single crease or stain to mar the coarse, sand-coloured fabric. Your gaze drags across his form, searching eagerly for what few hints of his shape you can discern, but it’s not much. You can see that he’s tall, certainly taller than you – which, to be fair, you already knew from his file – and the apparent litheness of his frame does nothing to betray the strength that you know must hide there. The half-sleeves of his uniform finish just above the elbow, leaving his forearms bare where his hands are folded in his lap. His tail disappears as it curves around past the far side of his body, and the tips of his claws are lethally sharp as they catch the light from above, long and elegant.

However he does it, the illusion is incredible. If you really focus, you can just about see the delicate shimmer of Arcana across his skin through the wards, so subtle as to be almost imperceptible. Although you can’t feel his aura, he looks old. Powerful.

Greedily, you drink in every millimetre of Vega’s being that you can see. He’s entirely mesmerising in his stillness, smooth and perfect like a statue of an angel. So immediately, inexplicably fascinating – how does he do it? What is it about him that draws you in? Your core longs to reach out to him, to call him to you, aura pressed up against the surface of the ward like it might slip right through.

Your whole world, filtered through a few inches of missing metal. Everything narrows down to now – this one, most vital moment. Fire seems to surge through your body, the blind faith of your conviction forged into something new, something raw, something hungry. It’s the feeling of falling, the blistering heat of a tumbling star. There’s no doubt in your mind – you can already feel it, strong hands digging into your waist, and you’re sure he’ll catch you. The cold blackness of space. A new type of gravity, falling into orbit.

It’s so much. Without really noticing, you stagger back a few steps, eyes still locked on the door in front of you as your body tries to grapple with the immense weight of this strange new feeling. You’re breathing far too harshly, teeth rattling as you tremble, your physicality unable to keep up with the seismic shock of emotion that ripples through your core. You’re changing, the feelings that make your form melting and morphing like water as your mind struggles to reckon with itself, the world around you coming into a new sort of focus.

You’re mine.

Silently, your unblinking eyes begin to cry. As you shudder, clinging frantically to the shape of your physical body, the words seem to take root at the awful, weeping heart of you. The delicate balance of emotion is undone and remade, that careful mixture that shapes everything you are and everything you want to be. You’re mine, and I want you, and I’ll have you. I want you, and I need you, and it’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine.

This shrieking, struggling sensation, thrashing in your chest like a bird in a cage. Wicked talons claw your ribs to pieces from the inside, catching on the bone, ripping and rending the fat and flesh and organs – you’re shredded into ribbons, coughing up feathers. Let it out, let it out, choke it down. How can you get away from the thing that’s inside you? The cruel beak peck peck pecking through the skin to get to him, and you’ve never wanted anything so horrifyingly, terrifyingly much.

Don’t make me stop. Mine, you’re mine. I can’t, I can’t, I need it – I want you, I want it, let me have it…

Do you even know what’s happening any more? Does it matter? All you know is this new and lovely creed, frightening in its intensity and dreadful in its desires, and you smile blackly as it blossoms deep inside your body, soaking into every astral part of you. It’s not a human sensation. It’s all-encompassing, a demon’s feeling. This incredible oneness, body and mind so connected as to be inseparable. To think it is to become it, and the only thing you can think about is how much you want – crave – need him. How it howls, how it hurts, an aching pressure that wraps around your heart like a snake, writhing as it crushes th—

“Is everything alright?”

“Cam!”

Your brain instantly floods with paranoia, sharp and white like a camera flash, the acid fear of instinctive shock lighting up your whole body as your head snaps inhumanly fast to the side, whipping around to see the confused-looking Serenity daemon standing right beside you.

“You…”

Stunned, there’s not much you can do except stare wide-eyed at him, desperately trying to hide the terrible storm that rages inside. He can’t know. He can’t.

“I, um… I wasn’t expecting you to be – you know, to be, like, right there…”

You trail off into a laugh that probably sounds as forced as it feels, breath still not quite back in your control. Cam doesn’t look entirely convinced, a tinge of worry bleeding through his aura, but he tilts his head slightly and puts on a smile that in any other case would be reassuring.

“Sorry for the surprise,” he murmurs soothingly, one hand coming to rest lightly on your shoulder. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He’s gentle, so gentle as he brushes the wetness from your face, the pad of his thumb just below your eye. “How about we head back to the office, hm?” he suggests. “I know this place can be… ah, it’s quite intense, isn’t it? Especially the first time.”

You nod vaguely, not really listening, but you can’t help the sudden flare of panic that races up your spine as he tries to nudge you back down the corridor. Not yet, not yet! He’s right there, your Vega, your Vega, you can’t just leave, can you? You have to do something, but wh—

“Oh!”

Cam freezes, stumbling slightly as you drag him down towards you – one arm around his waist, the other over his shoulder. Instinctively, his arms wrap around you in return, palms flat across your back as you press the side of your head into the curve of his neck. You can feel every breath he takes, chest to chest, slotting easily against you.

Just… just a second, you whisper into his mind, and you don’t even have to pretend to feel overwhelmed. I just need…

He nods, so sweet and adoring, like he could ever understand. It’s alright. We’re not in a hurry. Take your time, okay?

From the outside, it probably looks like nothing happens.

That’s good.

You don’t stay there long. Only a few seconds – maybe half a minute, at most. Then, Cam leads you out of the cell corridor, and out of the maximum-security block entirely. Nobody stops you, and nobody says anything.

It’s not a very long walk. Inside, upstairs, through the badge check. He takes you back to the office, and sits you down at your desk, and the rest of the day passes entirely normally. Grey clouds drift past the window, threatening to rain but never quite managing it. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Yes, it’s very normal. Paperwork comes and goes, keyboard clattering non-stop until it’s dark outside, and you reach down to pick up your bag from underneath your desk. The front office is almost empty as you leave, only one or two people still around, and the man behind the desk doesn’t even look up from his computer as you sign out.

Yes, that’s it. Normal. Perfectly, exactly ordinary.

He hadn’t noticed a thing.

Perhaps he’d been distracted, or perhaps you really did pull it off. The cold air of the cell corridor, freezing you from the inside out as your eyes began to change – getting wider, darker, sharper. Focus changing, pupils expanding. Magic simmering beneath the surface of your skin, filling your eye sockets, dissolved into the liquid that a human would call tears.

Cam must not have realised how close you were to the door. He must not have thought how easy it would be to look through that thin, irresistible viewing slot, just one more time.

The bright sugar of temptation, fizzing sweet and tart on your tongue as you drank in the scene. A single figure, painted against the stark white of the wall behind him, sitting tall and graceful on the edge of the bed. The unmistakable shape of horns, viciously sharp, worn proudly like a crown. Long fingers twisting into light fabric, wicked claws threatening to tear right through. The pointed spade of a long tail, not quite hidden from view.

And two curious, pitch black eyes, staring straight back at you.

Caught between ticks of the clock – it was only for a moment. He couldn’t have known. He couldn’t. Considering the strength of the wards that envelop his cell, layers upon layers of complicated warding magic, it just isn’t possible that he could have sensed you at all – let alone seen you. He doesn’t know you even exist. There’s no way.

Inhuman perfection, the stone tears of the statue of an angel. Head tilted to the side, dark hair falling slightly over one shoulder. Frozen air turned to dust in your lungs, a still heart stuttered over a beat it couldn’t take – and slowly, ever so slowly, Vega had turned his head to look at you.

Head over heels, falling through space. He’s mine.

It’s always been so easy. The doors out of the front office are automatic, and they take a little while to close. It doesn’t take much to just step right back in, unnoticed as the guard looks away, and disappear back down the office corridor you came from.

In the morning, you’ll go and speak to your supervisor. ROLE AMENDMENT REQUEST: REHABILITATION OFFICER (DUAL SPECIALITY). You’re already certified to deal with humans, anyway, and the higher-ups don’t care about demons at the best of times – the form you’ve left on her desk is neatly filled out, block capitals in black ink, and you think she’ll say yes.

In the meantime, things are a little bit slow. It’s been dark outside for a few hours, and the night shift is only just starting. There’s a few security officers in here, dotted around at their desks, but they’re all too busy staring at their own computers to really pay any attention to the rest of the room.

Although the ceiling lights are always on, bathing the room in their harsh fluorescent glow, you’ve always thought that they leave the room remarkably dark. It’s the mass of screens that covers the far wall that really illuminates everything, the huge cluster of monitors where the CCTV feeds flicker endlessly. They seem to tower over you, a great monument to your grand ambition, a silent siren’s call. Magnetic, addictive. You can’t resist their pull.

It’s like a dance as you pick your way through the office, the imaginary rhythm of a waltz playing in your head with every step. Past the Earth Elemental who sits by the door, past the photocopier, underneath the ceiling fan. The stacks of paper in that Stealth’s intray don’t move as you skip happily through the gap between desks, your steps make no sound on the cheap carpet as you twirl past the nest of filing cabinets next to the coffee machine. Nobody looks up as you pass them, totally unaware of your presence, and that’s exactly the way you like it. They can’t see the brightness in your face or the lightness in your heart – it’s a special surprise, a secret just for you.

The Freelancer who’s meant to be watching the tapes is already sitting in the chair, so you have to stand. The electricity thrumming in the air reminds you of the thick magic of the maximum-security cells, that heavy taste of ozone coating your teeth and sliding slickly down your throat, and it makes you swallow involuntarily. How much longer will you have to do this? How long until this room is nothing but a distant dream?

You already know it’s going to be wonderful. All the glass and the plastic will fall away in a shower of sparks, cracking and popping as they hit the floor, and when you reach out to touch him you’ll find more than just a monitor. It’s a love story, isn’t it? He’ll be there, right in front of you, to touch and taste and feel. He’ll see you and he’ll smile, he’ll say it’s alright, my love, I’m yours. You’ll be safe, and you’ll be full, and you won’t ever be alone again.

Just a little longer to wait. Without you even noticing, a great big smile spreads across your face, and you’re struck with the sudden urge to press your face right up against the cold, flat surface of the monitor. The future has never been so close. At last – at last! – you’ll finally be happy.

Grey static, harsh and grainy. The buzzing song of the CCTV soars ever higher, a beautiful melody that rings like a bell, echoing through your skull. And there in front of you, immortalised forever in your eyes and your mind and your core, is the still, silent blur of pixels that makes up the perfect form of Vega, Vega, Vega.

He’s so beautiful.

The night shift carries on. You smile as the dim light goes through you, and invisible fingertips brush gently across the smooth glass of the screen.

He’s mine.

in the mood for more? here’s the series masterlist

main masterlist

oops! all yandere! collab masterlist

this is an original fanwork by @gingerbreadmonsters - please do not repost or misattribute.

#redacted asmr #redacted audio #redacted vega #redacted warden #ginger writes #gingerbreadmonsters #redacted cam #redacted camelopardalis #redacted regulus #redacted fic

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