Author's Note: This is a sequel series to Amy, Captured. To get the full experience, please read through that one first.
Hey, everyone, we're back for another round. The events of this chapter take place concurrently with the tail end of the last chapter, so just bear that in mind. Other than that, I don't really have terribly much to say this time around.
Thanks go to Isabel for her editing and creative input, and to Allyourbase for being a fantastic editor too. Votes, feedback and comments are hugely appreciated. Enjoy!
********************
Ren lay on her bed, muscles lank and throbbing, the pulsing dull ache a memory of their previous tightness. Sweat beaded on every exposed inch of skin, and her blood drummed a beat of discomfort behind her eyes. She felt like she should get up and stretch the kinks from her limbs, but her vision hadn't entirely cleared yet.
'
Fuck
,' She tried not to whimper, but didn't entirely succeed. Every movement made her skin itch and flush with heat. It would pass momentarily, but that didn't exactly make her feel better
now
, did it?
At least the voices had become bearable, lately. When she had been a kid they would flood her mind in a torrent, the individual words indistinct below the sheer volume of the Chorus. She hadn't understood why it was happening to her, back then; her mother had sat by her side as she weathered the pure, sensory assault, as her body attacked itself.
Of course, she understood now; it was a part of her inheritance, the same as her enhanced strength or mismatched eyes or odd skin. Something that marked her, set her aside from everyone else. When it hit her, when she doubled over in agony in the middle of a crowded street, or even in the privacy of her room, like this, it reminded her that there was no place that she properly belonged.
Halves occupied a strange kind of no man's land in the universe; there were so, so many worlds out there, teeming with life of every imaginable variety. And sometimes, folks got curious about just how similar those other entities were. They'd get the itch to...
explore.
Mostly that was harmless curiosity; even assuming the physical possibility of inter-species relations, there was generally no way for
exploring
to lead to viable offspring.
But sometimes, two species matched up well enough that a child
could
be produced, and the question became: where does that child go?
Ren was the daughter of a human father and an alien mother. And she looked it. There were large segments of human society that was
fine
with that, but there were equally large segments that were not. It was the same elsewhere. Halves didn't
belong
anywhere, not really. No matter the individual reaction, there was no planet, no culture, where Ren would ever feel truly at home. Hell, there were even whole regions of space that had no legislation regarding the rights of Halves, so in essence they had none.
She didn't go to those places. Invariably, something bad would happen.
Really, those intense bouts of psychic pain were just the icing on a cake of vague, upsetting disappointment. It had always kind of been her against the rest of the universe, so maybe that was the best she could hope for. She sighed.
Her hand crept up to sweep through her hair, damp and matted with sweat. She clicked her jaw, stretched her beleaguered muscles and pulled herself up off of the bed with a growl. God
damn
life could suck, sometimes.
But then, sometimes things came along that made everything better. Or at least, let you forget your troubles for a while. Let you bury them somewhere.
A wolfish grin spread across Ren's face; she was imagining burying her troubles, and a couple of other choice objects, in Amy.
Yeah. That'd do it...
****************
Tsugi slipped silently into the cell; Amy seemed absorbed in the view from her window, and hadn't noticed his presence. He stopped, just shy of the doorway, head tilted to one side, wondering if she would figure it out eventually. After several moments of this, a thought crept into his head.
Even Tsugi himself had to admit that he was terribly hedonistic, at times, and what he was currently thinking was a mite childish, all things considered. The idea of expending the effort was somewhat out of character. But he was still young, and if youth was good for one thing, it was the occasional bout of silliness. With that in mind, his feet slipped silently across the cool metal floor- he had foregone shoes- as he edged closer to the pretty redhead.
When he got within range, his hands slipped over Amy's eyes, casting her into darkness, 'Guess who!' He sang, with a self-effacing grin.
Amy had stiffened at the first, surprising touch, but she quickly slouched once it became clear what was going on. An explosive, deadpan sigh escaped her lips, and she gently took hold of Tsugi's wrists and pulled them off of her. She spun around slowly, eyed him with a combination of suspicion and outright expectation.
'What, you're not going to play with me?' Tsugi pouted playfully.
'Now why would I want to do that?' Amy said, bitterness tingeing her voice. 'I
know
exactly why you're here, and it's not exactly a prospect that fills me with joy, you know.'
'Why not?' Tsugi planted himself down next to Amy, inspecting her face closely. 'I've
seen
you with the others. You always look like you ain't having fun, but you also always get off,' His head tilted to one side, his hand drifted out to brush an errant strand of hair away from Amy's face. The touch was surprisingly intimate, and she flinched. Tsugi grinned, 'I think there's something in that.'
It was remarkably easy to keep Amy off balance; her face went bright red at the reminder of her body's increasingly traitorous behavior. She looked away, unwilling to take Tsugi's impassive gaze, because, well, he was
right.
