Guts Over Fear ◇ NIKITA

Let's Talk About Your Feelings

The last thing Alys remembered was having tea with Amanda. Waking up in the room she used as a Recruit set an edge to her breath. The fact that she was strapped down to the bed only made it worse. Her head hurt and it was flooding with memories. The way Nikita had once tied her to the very same bed, but this time she wasn't having fun. From what she could tell, the room was empty, leaving her alone with imaginary Nikita. "You're so cute when you're defenseless," she giggled, her fingers slowly tracing over Alys's torso.

But when she closed her eyes, she was with Noah; bound and blindfolded, completely at his will, her heart racing in her ears. "In areas where you can, you're a giver." His lips on her ribs, his fingers tracing circles in her hips. "It's time you know what it's like to recieve." Alys forced her eyes open and fought against her restraints, her breathing coming raggedly.

"What's troubling you, Alys?" Amanda asked, causing Alys to jump, her eyes wide. As if in answer, the blonde rattled the cuffs on her wrists, her back arching as she struggled to get out of them. "You need to calm down." The lights in the room got brighter and Alys closed her eyes from their harshness. "The electrodes on your head are using the electrical impulses in your mind to power the lights. If you can keep them dim enough for two minutes, your cuffs will unlock and you'll be free to leave."

Both Nikita and Noah were touching her now, causing her to squirm in her restraints. Without even having to look at them she knew their seprate touches, the hungry way Nikita kissed her skin compared to the slow way Noah did. It was easy to see the two different kinds of love she held for them. Nikita's was forbidden, most commonly sought out as an act of their own rebelion, so often lost that Alys was surprised she still remembered it so clearly. Noah's was freeing, replacing the Alys Division created with a new one, vulnerable to his content smile and bright eyes, too recently lost to have forgotten properly. "Get me out of here!" she yelled, her voice raspy and strained.

"You get yourself out, Alys. Control your breathing, you won't be allowed your inhaler for the remainder of the evaluation." But that was the thing - it was close to almost impossible to focus with what was going on in her head. She couldn't stop thinking about how she was so touch starved that even the idea and her imagination, it was just as unbearable and it simply made her weak. She knew she could have neither, but this sort of lucid dream was the closest she was going to get.

"What did you do to me?" she rasped, still struggling. The lights would go in and out, dimming faintly before returning to the brighter settings.

"I poisoned you with a light sedative and some sodium pentothol, the combined affect is a bit hallucenigenic, your strength is depleted, your most recent thoughts will come to life... You can't keep up at this forever, Alys." She wanted to scream, but she didn't have the lung power, she could hardly even hold a proper moment of breathing. So, a strangled cry left her, her limbs thrashing in her restraints.

They had both been so intimate with her in their respective moments, she clutched to them desperately. Nikita was holding her, her body still trembling, when Alys realized how much she loved her. "If we had met outside of this place, so much would be different," Nikita whispered. "We wouldn't have to hide."

"I don't want to hide," Alys sobbed, finally resting against the matress when her limbs could no longer fight.

"You don't have to, Alys," Amanda directed, stepping closer to the bed as the lights flickered in and out. "Just tell me what's wrong."

Noah lifted the corner of her blindfold, his expression sersiously sincere. From here she could see red marks on her wrist, signifying her intense struggle. "You're perfect, Alys. Nothing can change that, especially when you get better with each passing day. I don't want to ever hear you say otherwise."

"Nothing," Alys admitted. "I just...miss them." She wasn't breathing nearly as hard as she had been, using the feelings of Noah's hand at the center of her chest and Nikita's fingers in her hair to soothe herself. The lights were barely on now, Alys's fists unclenching as she relaxed herself into the matress.

"Who are they?" Amanda asked calmly, watching the girl's muscles relax.

There was a soft, familiar kiss on the back of her shoulder, her head turning to try and see who wasn't there. "Noah..." she softly moaned, her voice uneven from all the yelling and crying she had done.

"I'm here," he assured, his lips pressing to the corner of her eye.

"Who else?" the redhead chimed. Alys turned her head to the other side when she realized she hadn't felt Nikita's hands leave her hair. When the locks clicked and her limbs were free, they were both gone, only she and Amanda remained. Alys didn't realize how much she had over done it until she tried to get out of the bed but only managed to roll off of it, landing hard on the floor.

"Get out," Alys coughed as she pulled the electrodes off of her head, the lights in the room turning off as she continued to pant on the floor.

"Birkhoff's been waiting for the evalutation to end. I'll send him in." But the blonde didn't process her words, only thinking of her guilt. In the place that had been explicitly Alys and Nikita's place, she chose Noah. He did have a tendency of making Alys forget her, at least for a while. However, she owed Nikita more than that.

Now that she wasn't forcing herself to relax, her skull was starting to pound. A pair of hands rolled her over and stretched out her arms, opening up her lungs as she practically gasped it all in. "Hiya, Birky," she wheezed out, looking at his almost pained smile. "I'm fine," she reassured him softly.

"Shut up, you aren't," he lightly scolded. "God damn Amanda." He pulled her to sit up and allowed her to clutch to him in support. Birkhoff pressed her inhaler into her hand and held her fingers around it until she was able to grasp it on her own. But as Alys brought it to her lips and used it as instructed, her mind traveled places other than him. Mostly, she couldn't get over how sick she'd have to be to admit to herself that she got off on the bits of that involved Noah and Nikita. Having the both of them at once...

Birkhoff was helping her stand in small incriments and tried to sit her on the bed, immedeatly changing his mind when she struggled and refused to sit to lead her out of the room. "Talk to me, Aly. What'd she do to you?"

"I believe I've done nothing wrong, so these games can't touch me," she informed, her head swimming from the movement. "She's barking up the wrong tree."