Blood In The Water | Pillarmen x Fem!Reader

7| The Hope Experiment

"Say what you want or let it burn up in the back of your throat."

Kars can feel his words clawing at his tongue, his muscles jumping with anticipation even as he sits motionless. His body wants to lurch forward, take action, do as he pleases simply because he is entitled to under the divinity of the gods. But he can't.

It's midnight, maybe, and the moon hangs strung above the circle of huts like a puppet with its string made of stars. In the slight of glittering, pale light, Kars can make out the figure of (Y/n) sitting on the edge of her bed, however just barely.

He knows that she is acutely aware of her position in terms of their relationship. And that may be the worst part.

Its been a month or so now since the hut had been built, and there was no sign of rescue coming soon. (Y/n) was looking to change that.

"What would you do for me?" She asked, as if she didn't already know the answer.

He remained kneeled before her bedside, his body continuing to fight against his mind for control. "I was sure I've made it obvious." He said. "Anything."

"Then I have a task for you. It'll be hard, think you can handle it?"

"Don't doubt my devotion. Nothing will ever be too difficult if it's for you."

"Right." He could feel the glare she gave him melt through his skull, but what a wonderful feeling it was to know her eyes were on him. "I need you to swim out to sea, where my plane crashed, and retrieve a radio. Anything else you find with that, I'll be grateful for."

"Of course."

His head dipped somewhat, something that could be taken as a sign of acknowledgement, but should've been seen as heavy disappointment. All of this work, this progress, he's made over so many days were starting to seem futile.

The most (Y/n) has ever allowed was them sharing food, and only recently had he been given the permission to even handle her worn clothes, which he'd often times sleep with when especially lonesome. And yes, while that spelled progress enough, it was going at a snails pace, and even threatening to stop.

To put it plainly, there was no reward, nothing to be given back for his efforts; and it was beginning to eat away at him.

"Something on your mind?" Her words break him from his thoughts, and he fears that his annoyance might've been noticeable enough to upset her.

"Nothing of importance, love." Even in the dark he could see her scowl at the pet-name. "Just let my mind wander."

"What about?"

"I feel... Drained."

"How so?"

"I want to know that I'm doing right by you, that what I do has a significance towards us. I want something to know that I'm not just wasting my time, or, to know I'm not just wasting yours."

"So the dog wants a treat for doing a few tricks?" She snapped. "I thought you were better than a begging stray, Kars."

Perhaps he'd been too honest.

"I am, forgive me for what I've said. I mustn't be thinking straight."

"Clearly." A pause came to follow her words, considering, when she let out a breath of amusement. "Though, if you really would like a reward, name it. I suppose even you deserve a break."

"Really?"

"I don't have much to offer in my sorry state, but whatever you'd like, it's yours."

Another tactic she'd decided to use. (Y/n) thought back to a study she remembered reading about, during one of those boring, uneventful days in the hangar. A mouse was dunked into water and left to swim, and for fifteen minutes it fought to stay above water before it gave out.

Before it could drown, however, the scientist conducting the study pulled the mouse from the water, and let it rest for a bit. Only after a little while was it thrown back into the water again, and forced to swim once more.

The mouse, instead of swimming for five minutes, swam for sixty hours.

The conclusion was drawn was that since the rats believed that they would be eventually rescued, they could push their bodies way past what they previously thought possible.

If hope can cause exhausted rats to swim for that long, what could a belief in yourself and your abilities, do for you?

(Y/n) was the scientist, and Kars was the rat. She let him swim for a bit, so now was his time to rest, only so that he may have the energy to tread the water longer.

"Go on." She said. "Tell me, what is it you'd like?"

He goes silent for a moment, thinking. "...You?"

"No. Pick something else."

"Then, to have you put me to rest would be nice."

Wherever he was from, it was most definitely not from a place where the negative connotation of that phrase existed. To her, it sounded like he wanted her to kill him, and that nearly made her grin, for it'd be one less problem around. However, she became immediately aware of his error in tongue moments after, and her smile dropped.

"All I could ask of you is to help me sleep." He reiterates, seemingly picking upon her misunderstanding. "The past few nights, it's been terrible--"

She cuts him short. A sob story is the last thing she wants to keep her up ,let alone a pity party from Kars. "Enough. Just get on the bed and go to sleep."

He'd already clambered onto the mattress within a moments notice, instantly at the marines side with unadulterated glee. Being close to her was enough to set fireworks off in his head, so one could imagine what sharing the same bed ought to have done.

And while Kars may have expressed his recent trouble with sleep, (Y/n) could only help but feel that he was lying-- or at least had rubbed off his troubles onto her.

Constantly, she was awoken by his arms looping around her like constricting snakes, or with a head pushing into where her shoulder met her neck. Every ten minutes, it was always something, and that something was always Kars.

He seemed to sleep fine, as far as she could tell, though there were points in the night, during those moments where she'd push off the limbs attempting to entangle with hers, that she'd spot a disturbance in his peaceful face.

Twitches, here and there, though nothing out of the sort. He'd look angry, then sad, then stiff all over again. He'd look tense, and frustrated, then nothing. A viscous cycle, which seemed to influence his fight for closeness, was never ending.

At what (Y/n) guessed was three in the morning, maybe four, she gave up, and the moment she did she could feel those arms, long and thick, wrapping around her torso again, pulling her flush against the hard, rocky chest of the desperate fool behind her. She had lost the battle, but the war had yet to be won.

So, rest now, little mouse Kars, because tomorrow it will be back to swimming, and you will get no reward or break for a long, long time.