Chapter Text
“Do you…think he’ll wake up anytime soon?”
“Maybe. He’s a heavy sleeper.”
“…should we try to wake him?”
“Maybe.” Sun heard a grunt, and listed to the side as the ground shifted beneath him. His left arm burned as it pulled taut. “I can take it from here, if you want to find someone. Or rest.”
“…are you sure?” Velvet. That was her voice; her smooth accent.
“Yeah. I got this.”
“I can stay.”
“It wouldn’t be my first time dealing with him.”
Velvet laughed, breathy and lifeless. “Okay. Thank you, Neptune.”
Sun felt a buzzing hum against his body, and heard footsteps vanish into the quiet.
Without thinking, he opened his eyes. That was a mistake: harsh, unnatural light bounced off the linoleum floor beneath him and sent his head spinning. He reflexively grunted in discomfort, only for the ground to, again, shift beneath him.
No. Wait. Not the ground.
The ground disappeared, and Neptune’s face swam into Sun’s vision. And yeah, Neptune was pretty, but Sun’s head was still throbbing. He groaned again and let his eyes fall shut. “Ugh.”
“Sun? Are you awake?”
“Dunno.”
“Are you okay?”
Sun grunted. His body tilted to the right.
“Hah, fair…how do you feel?”
Sun opened his eyes just a sliver, and regretted it instantly. Neptune looked at him with a focused concern, his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth pressed into a thin line. Sun would’ve laughed, if he thought he could manage it. “Remember…cliff diving?”
Neptune’s expression relaxed, but only a little. “You mean that time you snuck away from Haven to go cliff diving, and you made me cover for you because I didn’t want to come?”
Sun nodded. Another mistake: his whole body careened forward with the motion, and the wave of dizziness that followed crashed into Sun so violently he shut his eyes to stave off nausea.
“Shit. Sun.” Neptune’s voice moved to the left, and Sun felt Neptune slip under his arm. He must’ve been there while talking to Velvet, too, Sun realized. Then one of Neptune’s hands braced against Sun’s chest, to hold him up. “I got you.”
Of course he did. “Remember…afterwards…with the rock…” Sun tried, determined to answer Neptune’s question and to string together a full sentence, as his wits sluggishly returned to him.
“That rock you hit your head on after your aura broke?”
“Mhm. Like that, but worse.”
Neptune took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh. “You should lay down,” he decided.
Probably. Sun hurt all over, and exhaustion weighed him down so heavily that Neptune was undoubtedly tired of holding him up.
But Neptune didn’t move.
Sun cracked his eyes open again. This time, he made an effort to actually look at what was in front of him: the unevenly-tiled floor (Shade Academy’s), his own sneakers, Neptune’s bare arm. “What…happened?” he asked.
Neptune stiffened. Sun felt it. “You don’t remember?”
Sun frowned. He locked his gaze on his untied right shoe, and tried to think back before the current moment. Past Neptune, past Velvet, past the thick brain fog that clouded everything beyond that.
“We…snuck out after curfew,” Sun guessed. “I think?”
“Yeah. That’s right.” Neptune sounded surprised. Sun considered reprimanding him for that, but Neptune shuffled forward so Sun could see him again. When Sun looked up, Neptune’s eyes were bright and hopeful. “You remember what we were doing?”
Again, Sun frowned as he thought. He closed his left hand into a fist, gathering Neptune’s shirt behind his shoulder blade.
He didn’t notice his head had drooped down until Neptune’s hand left his chest to lift it back up.
They were so close.
“I…remember being bored.”
Neptune’s face fell. “Thanks,” he deadpanned.
“Not with you, genius.” Sun tugged at Neptune’s shirt, and watched the corner of his mouth tick up. “We were…talking to people. Right? And they were boring.”
“And then?”
And then…and then. Things got even more hazy, then, like Sun was trying to view his own memories through frosted glass. Even mostly held up by his own two feet, even with his brain stringing together a half-dozen words consecutively, he could only recall brief glimpses. A flash of gold, a flip through the air. “I stepped outside. To get some air.” Frustration burned as he thought harder, to no avail. “But after that it’s–I don’t–”
“Hey. That’s alright.”
Sun’s annoyance fizzled out as soon as Neptune spoke. He wasn’t sure whether he found Neptune’s words more calming, or his voice, but the effect was the same: an oasis in the harsh desert, a break in the rainclouds for light to shine through. The rest of the world (including, at the moment, Sun’s own brain) rejecting Sun, keeping him on the outside—and then Neptune.
Neptune kept talking. “You stepped outside to get some air. Then you went to a fight club with Velvet. That’s what you told me, at least.”
Right. “The Mirage,” Sun supplied.
Neptune lit up. “Yeah, that’s right. And then a couple hours later, Yatsuhashi and I found you there. But you were both brainwashed.”
Sun blinked.
“I–I know it sounds weird!” Neptune defended. He looked away from Sun for the first time since…since. “But it happened to Professor Rumpole, too. It’s a thing!”
“So…am I still brainwashed?” That would explain a lot.
“No, not anymore. Yatsuhashi fixed it, somehow, but he got himself brainwashed afterwards, so I don’t know how. You just, uh, passed out on the way back to the school.”
That explained less. Only why Neptune was holding Sun so close and so tight, really.
Sun should pass out more often.
“I guess whatever Yatsu did hit you worse than it hit Velvet, since you were fighting while brainwashed,” Neptune suggested. “Velvet was just watching the fight.”
“Hm. Yeah,” Sun half-agreed. Neptune had offered a sliver of dignity; Sun wasn’t going to refuse. “So what now?”
Neptune shrugged. Sun felt it. “We’re talking to Professor Rumpole in the morning. I think. Unless Velvet’s gone to do that without telling me.”
“Great,” Sun said. The mere idea of speaking to any authority figure tired him out all over again. He let his neck go slack, and landed his forehead on Neptune’s shoulder. He was brainwashed; he couldn’t be held accountable for his actions. “Can I lay down now? ‘m tired.”
Neptune shook with a quiet laugh. He’d kept his voice quiet this whole time, Sun realized, ever since Sun had come to in obvious discomfort.
Sun’s chest ached.
“You can sleep as soon as we get somewhere that isn’t…here,” Neptune promised.
But Sun was halfway gone already. Consciousness slipped away from him, and he didn’t move to catch it. He didn’t want to. Not while his face was buried in Neptune’s shoulder, and Neptune’s hand rested gently on his neck. Not while he absorbed Neptune’s body heat through his thin white shirt, and Neptune’s other hand rubbed up and down his back. Maybe if Neptune held Sun like this while Sun wasn’t brainwashed, Sun would know if he’d feel like this if he wasn’t brainwashed. Maybe–
Wait.
Shirt?!
Sun yanked away from Neptune. His whole body pitched back with the sudden movement, and he felt a swelling pain as blood rushed to his head. He ignored it, and let Neptune keep him on his feet as he finally took a good look at his friend.
“What are you wearing?” Sun asked, alarmed.
“Wh–huh?” Neptune looked down at his own body, then back up at Sun. “I always wear this!”
What a lie. Neptune stood before Sun in a white button-up, untucked and disheveled around the collar where Sun’s face had been. It fit him well: hugging his chest, curving around his hips. Tight enough, on the whole, to see the outline of an undershirt beneath it. And he’d rolled his sleeves up. “Where’s your jacket?” Sun demanded.
“Oh.” Neptune deflated a little. His necktie was gone too, Sun noticed. And his gloves. “That’s…a long story. It’s…I can’t really wear it anymore.”
Sun raised his brows. “You grew out of it since this afternoon?” The sight of Neptune in one less layer—practically naked, by Neptune’s own standards—had been enough of an adrenaline hit to wake Sun up for a moment, but he could feel the brain fog rolling back in. He gripped Neptune’s shirt (shirt, he should’ve realized earlier) a little tighter, so he wouldn’t collapse.
“No, it still fits. Fit. But…Professor Rumpole turned it into gold with her semblance. We had to fight her before we could leave to find you and Velvet.”
Gold? Fighting a professor? “It’s rude to mess with the brainwashed, Neptune.”
“I’m not messing with you! It’s in her office. You can see it tomorrow morning.”
Sun folded forward, and rested his face on Neptune’s shoulder again. “Rude,” he repeated.
Neptune chuckled softly. “I think you’re losing it,” he said, and, well, no one ever claimed his smarts came to him quickly. Whatever it was, Sun had lost the moment he stepped into the fight club. “Let’s get you to bed, okay?”
Without waiting for Sun to answer, Neptune moved to the side and threaded his arm around Sun’s waist. A chill swept over Sun, and only the weight of his own exhaustion saved him from shivering in response. With his first shuffled step forward, Sun leaned heavily on Neptune for support.
He couldn’t have made it on his own.
“This isn’t our room,” Sun observed through half-lidded eyes.
“Nope.” Neptune unlocked the door and kicked it open, Sun tucked against his side. “It’s Team BYRN’s.”
“Who?”
“Team BYRN.”
“Yeah. Who’s that?”
“My new team.”
Oh yeah. Right. Sun and Neptune weren’t teammates anymore.
Sun gripped Neptune tighter.
Wait. “Why are we here? I don’t sleep here.”
“Yeah, I know.” Neptune stepped inside the room, dragging Sun with him, and kicked the door closed behind them. His new teammates must’ve been elsewhere; they were alone. “It was closer than Team SSEA’s.”
Absently, Sun wondered why Neptune knew that. Sun himself could hardly remember his new team name, let alone where their dorm was.
“You can take Yatsu’s bed; it’ll be a while before he gets back. And I’ll be here to make sure you don’t try to wander off and fall down the stairs, or something.”
Sun didn’t need a babysitter. “I can walk fine!” he protested, and shoved away from Neptune to prove his point.
He managed for about three seconds before the vertigo hit, and he stumbled forward.
“Whoa!” Neptune stepped in front of Sun and caught him by the shoulders. Once he’d steadied them both, he raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Don’t get too crazy.”
Sun rolled his eyes, but even that strained some muscle he didn’t know he had. “Fine,” he bit, rather than admitting just how badly he needed rest. “Maybe you’re not completely wrong.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Just mostly wrong.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Sun set his jaw. Apparently Neptune’s ‘I told you so’ was so obvious he didn’t even bother saying it, which was more infuriating than if he had. Sun opened his mouth to retort anyway, but–
But Neptune was touching his face again.
At some point, Neptune’s hands had crept away from Sun’s shoulders. They rested on either side of his neck, now, right below his ears: his fingers buried in Sun’s hair, and his thumbs at the tip of Sun’s sideburns. His palms were soft and warm.
Had Neptune’s gloves been turned to gold too?
Had Neptune ever touched Sun like this while his brain was working properly? Surely Sun would have remembered that, even in his current state.
So Sun gave up. He was brainwashed; unaccountable for his actions. Instead of dropping an awesome comeback, he tipped his head forward until his forehead knocked against Neptune’s. Gently.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” he complained.
“I know,” Neptune exhaled, though he didn’t deny what he was doing.
Sun lingered there for a moment. Neptune was so close. His goggles cut into Sun’s scalp; his breaths tickled Sun’s skin. His eyes searched Sun’s own, even though Sun was too distracted by Neptune’s slightly-open mouth to meet them, or to remember…whatever they’d been talking about.
Then it hit him. “I’m not sleeping in Yatsuhashi’s bed,” Sun declared, louder than he needed to.
Neptune straightened with a frown—the moment wholly shattered—and dropped his hands back down to Sun’s shoulders. “Huh? Why not?”
“Why not? Because it’s weird! Yatsu’s under mind control right now because he sacrificed himself to save me and Velvet, or whatever, and you want me to sleep in his bed?!”
“Uh…yes?” Neptune thought for a few more seconds, then sheepishly rubbed a hand over the back of his undercut. “It…does sound kinda bad when you put it like that, I guess.”
Sun scoffed. “Duh. I don’t even know Yatsu that well. I’ll just sleep with you.”
Neptune froze.
“Wh–what?” he stammered. It was his turn to pull tight at Sun’s shirt.
Sun rolled his eyes—ouch—and tried not to take offense. “Dude. I’m not sleeping in Yatsuhashi’s bed. You brought me here. I’m gonna pass out now.” Then he assessed the room’s four beds, found Neptune’s, and gathered the strength to stumble towards it.
“At least take your shoes off first,” Neptune muttered from behind him.
Somehow, Sun managed. He kicked off his shoes and stripped out of his pants and shirt before crawling into Neptune’s bed, where sleep nearly claimed him the moment his head hit the pillow.
Then Neptune, clad in only his boxers and undershirt, joined Sun. He brought that thing with him: that newfound thing that’d been harassing Sun all night, every time Neptune got close.
And lying together in a twin bed, sharing Neptune’s tiny pillow…they were close.
Sun was on his side, with his tail hanging over the bed’s edge. Neptune was on his back, ramrod straight and eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Neptune,” Sun whispered, batting sleep away as best he could, just to hold onto that thing for a few extra minutes. And there was something he needed to say.
“Hm?” Neptune rolled his head to the side, so he could meet Sun’s eyes.
They were close. Neptune’s tiny pillow was tiny.
“Neptune,” Sun repeated.
“Yeah, Sun?”
Neptune’s mouth had landed squarely in Sun’s line of sight. It didn’t move much while saying Sun’s name.
Sun stared anyway.
“Sun? Is everything okay?”
“Uhh…”
Neptune smirked. The sudden movement of his mouth brought Sun back to the current moment, even before Neptune reached over and brushed him upside the head; a slap Neptune was too gentle to see through. “Go to sleep,” Neptune said.
Sun tore his gaze away from Neptune’s mouth and studied his eyelashes instead. They were long, and they looked soft. Neptune was so pretty; why had he never had a girlfriend?
Finally, on the slippery precipice of post-brainwashed sleep, Sun’s brain grasped the words he’d been scrabbling at. “You’re a great Huntsman,” he whispered. “I’m…glad you came for me.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Sun frowned. Neptune heard him wrong. He’d heard ‘I’m glad you came for me’, not ‘I’m glad you came for me.’ You. You.
Neptune had found him when he was lost. Sun couldn’t imagine anyone else even trying.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I? While I was under their control.”
Neptune snorted. “Of course not. You wouldn’t do that; we’re partners.”
And Sun’s chest ached. Worse than his legs, worse than his brain. He bowed his head forward, unable to look into Neptune’s kind eyes while speaking the awful truth. “We’re not even on the same team anymore.”
It shouldn’t have mattered so much. Since when did Sun care about arbitrary categories and labels? Since when did he care about school assignments, whether they were exams or teammates? None of that impacted how he chose to live his life.
And yet—probably thanks to the stupid brainwashing—it mattered. And it was devastating.
Two of Neptune’s fingers pressed under Sun’s chin and guided his face upwards again. “Hey,” Neptune said. His gentle voice starkly contrasted the focused determination in his eyes. “You think I care about that? We’re partners. Okay? You and me.”
You. You.
Sun nodded once. His forehead met Neptune’s halfway through.
“Mm,” Sun agreed, and fell asleep almost before he’d closed his eyes.
He dreamt, that night, of Menagerie. Of sweet tropical fruits, and flowering trees, and burning pink-orange sunsets. Of the sparkling blue ocean that wrapped the island in a protective embrace, kept it safe, kept it itself. The ocean that reminded Sun, with each glance…
That reminded Sun of…
He dreamt of Blake, on the boat to Haven. As quiet as the stars above them while she’d apologized; fear kept her voice low. I’m sorry, Sun. I like you, but…there’s someone else. Someone I can’t be without.
Then, silence. Only the waves lapping at the boat’s sides dared to break it. Sun hadn’t quite understood, then.
He dreamt of Menagerie, like he had a thousand times. But this dream was different: there was no disappointed confusion, no phantom pain that buzzed and crackled in his chest.
I get it, he told Blake, this time. There’s someone like that for me, too.
Sun wasn’t sure his head had ever not hurt.
Neptune was obviously trying to be conscious of that—he kept his voice quiet, and his grip was gentle as he shook Sun by the arm—but even with eyes shut, the room around them was bright enough to make Sun’s head pound. He grunted, and buried his face in the pillow.
It smelled like Neptune’s aftershave.
“Sun.”
“Mmmmf.”
“Sun. I know you’re awake.”
“‘m not.”
“I brought food.”
And suddenly, Sun realized that he was starving.
He took a deep breath, and cracked one eye open, just a sliver. Amidst the painfully bright light flooding the dorm, he found Neptune, crouching beside the bed.
But it wasn’t just Neptune. It was Neptune—still without his jacket, but in a probably-fresh button-up and necktie, the nerd—a banana, a muffin, two water bottles, and a jar of painkillers.
And Sun’s thing.
Sun groaned as he sat up. That wasn’t going away anytime soon, was it? Last night hadn’t been an anomaly. Sun was going to have to deal with it eventually.
And Neptune himself wasn’t going to help.
He joined Sun on the bed as soon as Sun had managed to sit. Sun leaned on the headboard for support, and as soon as Neptune was there, Sun leaned on him, too. “Thanks,” he said, as he took one of the water bottles and popped it open.
“Sure. Scarlet and Coco’s team got back last night. We’re going to talk to Professor Rumpole in a half-hour. I told Velvet I’d ask if you were up for it.”
Sun didn’t answer until he’d finished the water bottle. He still felt awful—almost worse than the night before, because tiredness no longer drowned out the rest of his discomfort—but he should probably go. He could use the distraction, if nothing else.
“You going?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” Sun took the second water bottle and downed it just as fast as the first. Still, his voice scratched against his throat when he spoke. “Then I’ll come, too. We’re partners, right?”
Sun made the mistake of glancing towards Neptune as he spoke. Neptune looked a little surprised, at first—his brows drew up in the center, nearly reaching the end of his bangs, and his eyes widened—but after just a moment, he smiled, instead.
“Yeah,” Neptune agreed, and handed Sun the banana.
As Sun ate, a distant thought snuck into his mind: Neptune probably did this with all the girls, too. Probably stuck around the morning after, took care of them, bought them breakfast. Neurotically looked like he wanted to ask if that was good for them.
That made him a better man than Sun. Sun…okay, Sun had never had a one-night stand. He’d never have gotten away with it as Starr’s ward, and then there’d been Blake, and now…
He swallowed his final bite of banana and moved onto the muffin.
Sun knew himself well enough. He would’ve bolted.
Too soon, the muffin was gone. It turned out Neptune had gotten a fresh set of Sun’s clothes from Team SSEA’s dorm, too, and those had been next on his get-Sun-awake-and-into-the-meeting checklist. As Sun got dressed, he wondered, again, why Neptune remembered where that dorm was. Maybe he hung out with Sage more often than Sun thought. Maybe he was into Electra or Ariadne.
As soon as that thought popped into Sun’s mind, he grabbed the painkillers and dry-swallowed five. Their upcoming meeting couldn’t come soon enough; Sun really needed to think about literally anything else. Maybe he could even get brainwashed again!
But no, that wouldn’t work. Already, Sun’s memory of The Mirage was clearing up. It seemed nothing had been permanently wiped from his mind.
If he had the chance to relive what happened after his brainwashing, however…
Neptune interrupted his thoughts when he turned to Sun with a smile. “Good to go?” he asked.
He’d taken ten minutes longer than Sun to get ready, despite waking up earlier, and already being dressed, and not being hungover. But now, with every strand of hair gelled into place (it looked the same) and Sun back on his feet, Neptune reached for the door without waiting for Sun’s answer.
If he opened it, that thing might escape.
“Wait,” Sun said. He caught Neptune by the arm, since Neptune wasn’t grabbing at him anymore. “Thank you. For…everything.”
Neptune smirked. “You already said that. But sure; it’s whatever.”
Sun frowned. Whatever? “No,” he clarified. “Thank you. For helping me out last night, and for breakfast, and–”
He caught himself before he finished the sentence aloud. Neptune would freak out if Sun said ‘holding me’ or ‘touching my face’ or ‘letting me pretend any of that was normal.’ They didn’t have the time to get into that now.
Instead, Neptune looked even more amused. “Yeah, like I said. It’s whatever. I got you.”
“Ugh.” Sun groaned. “I’m serious!”
“So am I! It’s not a big deal, dude.”
Sun gripped Neptune tighter. Not enough to hurt; just to emphasize his point. Neptune was supposed to be brilliant; how could he be so dumb?
“What I mean,” Sun explained, “is that you’re important to me.” He kept his voice slow and deliberate. “And it means a lot you’d do…all that. Even though you don’t have to, since we’re not teammates anymore.”
For a moment, Neptune didn’t say anything. He didn’t even move.
Sun, again, considered another round of brainwashing.
But the moment passed, and Neptune’s expression softened. “Oh. Um. Yeah. Thanks.” He rubbed his undercut with his free hand. “You’re welcome, then.”
So, that was that. Sun nodded, and let go of Neptune’s arm.
But Neptune wasn’t done. “It’s not like I would’ve had to do any of it, though. Even if we were on the same team.”
As if Sun’s brain hadn’t gone through enough recently. If Neptune hadn’t done all of that out of obligation…did that mean he’d done it because he wanted to?
The idea soothed Sun’s lingering aches.
But Neptune pulled Sun back to reality with a pat on his bicep. “Come on. We’re gonna be late for this meeting,” he said. Then he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
For once in his life, Sun was just happy to follow.