damned_institute | Nightshift 36: M31-40

ZEX still looked wounded somewhat, hurt, even though he wasn't aware of how much of that showed on his face. The thought of it all being a lie was so painful, but the thought of willingly believing a fantasy instead of facing reality, he could not do that.

His human thought he was dead, ZEX had had to convince him of his identity at first, that he was who he said he was. Had he simply altered his human's delusions, persuaded him to incorporate him back in again? He felt like he was choking.

ZEX was willing to hold on to him in return, get some warmth from him, although it didn't put any of his troubled thoughts to rest. It was still difficult to speak.

"I... had a visitor today." ZEX paused, again struggling for words. He leaned closer to him, his voice a weak whisper. "I'm... worried."

[tighter, not titer, in my last post. Argh. -_- *should possibly not be posting when he's had a whole three hours of sleep* *posts anyway, then goes back to bed*]

Ah.

That... explained a lot, actually. If ZEX's visitor had reaffirmed the lies of the institute, and ZEX wanted to believe them for some reason (it must have been someone he trusted a lot, right?), then... "Admiral, you're not the person this place, or your visitor, tells you you are. Even if you want to believe it, or think you should, you're just not." Careful, gentle, feeling almost as if ZEX was going to break apart if handled too roughly, he stroked his hair again. "Delusion wouldn't explain the monsters in the halls, anyway, or us being let out at night-- no real institute would do that--- or the way Fwiffo and Tanaka are here, too, or any of that. They just want you to give up."

It was a rather forced smile he gave ZEX, too worried to find a real one. "And I wouldn't expect the most brilliant military leader from the war to surrender without a fight."

It would be nice if it was that simple.

It was so nice to be touched. ZEX leaned against him, trying to get as much contact between them as possible. To fit against his body. If nothing else, he'd always like being touched. He sighed, his throat tight and still struggling.

"Look at me, Captain," ZEX said weakly. "I am human... what proof is there that I was anything different, aside from my believing it to be true? What proof do I have that I ever inhabited a body other than this one?" Pain running clear through his voice. "I have nothing, nothing more tangible than belief... I had to prove my identity to you when you came here, since you watched me die." His voice cracked for a moment, and he shuddered, agonized. "How do you know I wasn't lying to you then? That I'm not lying to you now?"

Strained and breaking. "Where is any proof?"

"Admiral..."

If he could think of a comforting lie, think of anything that would make ZEX brighten up, move him away from this terribly weak and frightened mood... It's as bad as watching Talana hurt, his brain mentioned, somewhat to his surprise, but then he shoved the thought back as irrelevant. Of course watching ZEX hurt was painful; Zelnick always wanted to help and protect his allies, after all.

"Admiral, this may be human," and he touched ZEX's face gently, "but the mind in here and the soul in here--" a tap against ZEX's forehead, a tap over his human heart, "those are you. You have my belief, too, even if I needed to be convinced-- but just talking to you convinced me, remember? The way you act and talk, it's Admiral ZEX through and through, not the human they want you to believe you are."

He sighed, leaned his forehead against ZEX's, and murmured, "I wish I had proof to show you. I wish I could wave my hand and set it all right, you in your VUX body, Fwiffo in his Spathi, Tanaka in his Shofixti... this place crumbled to the ground and left to rot in its lies. But... I'm only one person, one person with a few friends and allies, and it'll take a while.

"But you're one of those fr-- those allies, ZEX," and he didn't even notice that he used ZEX's name, not his rank, "and you're as precious to me as any of the others. So... even if you can't believe in yourself for yourself... couldn't you believe in yourself for me? I need Admiral ZEX here."

He had rambled a bit, he realized, so he shut up.

ZEX blinked when tapped, unconsciously, and he would have been happy just to accept what his Captain was saying, let it go and touch and stroke his human instead.

But it did not help him to want to believe something. If they both believed in the same delusion, it was meaningless... and the conversation still hadn't settled it one way or the other for him. He could not be trapped in between.

ZEX sighed softly at his words. His human was so kind to him, clearly cared deeply for him (such a wonderful feeling, even in the midst of all this), even used his name... could he, could Max have hurt him that way? The two of them broken by his actions, now starting again in a safer, shared delusion like it had never happened... Every time the thought brought up that sick feeling again.

"Are you sure you need me?" ZEX spoke softly. "Cal... Captain... what if I'm the reason that you're here?"

If he...? "If that were the case... then you'd have to stick around to help me get back out, yeah?" He somehow found a smile for ZEX. "But it's not the case at all. Landel's the guy to blame. He's the one who somehow got us all pulled away from our worlds and universes and lives and stuff, and hypotheticals just make things too complicated."

Wait.

Ta--Tanya had said "Max" was the reason "Caleb" was here, didn't she? That Max had hurt Caleb, somehow.

Oh, man. If her story and the story of ZEX's visitor matched up, then... Tanya had been adamant on the subject of staying away from ZEX, and he imagined that "stay away from him, he screwed you up bad" looked a lot like "stay away from him, you screwed him up bad" from the other side.

"Your visitor," he started, slowly, "did they tell you that you were the reason I was here?"

"I wouldn't leave you here." ZEX closed his eyes, thinking back to his conversation with DAX. One thing that he refused to relent on... if there was nothing else, at least that he knew for sure. The human Captain was his. "It'd be very irresponsible of me." And he wasn't irresponsible.

At least, he did not believe that he was.

ZEX sighed again, a hand raising to cover his eye, then he seemed to catch himself and force it away. He blinked and tried to force everything to mesh back together, to stop seeing double. "Max... I..." He paused for a second to try and compose himself. "He did. He told me you don't remember what I did to you. What happened." ZEX paused again, strained. "At least... consciously."

Zelnick found another smile, though he didn't bother wondering why it seemed easier after what ZEX had said. "Thank you."

"Well, he was right on one thing." Why wasn't ZEX covering his eye? He looked like he wanted to... if he half-started like that again, Zelnick would do it for him. "I don't remember whatever he thinks I went through... because it didn't happen, even if he says it did." A second-long pause, and then he added, "Aside from the Alpha Cerenkov stuff, but I kinda doubt that anyone would bring that up to you while trying to convince you that you're Max."

"Are you sure?" ZEX said, somewhat distantly. "It's strange, how it all matches... alternate lives running in parallel to one another, justifying each other..."

ZEX gestured for a moment, and then stopped to stare intently at his hand. Human hands... human skin, all of it, it didn't change. Why didn't it change-

"I once tried to kidnap you, as you put it, didn't I?" ZEX had a distinctly haunted expression, and he had a somewhat distant tone in his voice. Still speaking faintly. "Something you still hold against me, don't you...? Wouldn't it be strange, had you escaped and Caleb had not? You escaped, watch me be torn to shreds... what happened to Caleb, do you think?"

His voice faded, nearly speaking to himself, still distant. "Not the delusions themselves, but the reasons that one would believe them..."

"So they thought out the story before feeding it to us. Just means they're thorough." Though it would have been a bit worrisome... if Zelnick had doubted himself at all. He didn't.

"Hey, now." He frowned, just a bit, and smoothed back ZEX's hair as if it would smooth all his uncertainty away. "I may not be happy with what you tried to do, but that doesn't mean I hold it against you." Learning more about ZEX... he understood why, mostly, or at least he thought so. And it was really, really hard to hold it against ZEX when there were bigger problems, and when Zelnick had already seen him die so unpleasantly. "And I'm not Caleb, so it doesn't matter what happened to him," not even if he'd left Tanya terribly sad and a classful of children untaught.

"DAX..." Thinking about him was so difficult... DAX had always been loyal to him. To think of him working for this place... it had to be impossible. ZEX hesitantly shook his head, instinctually afraid to move further, then again caught himself. He shook his head with more force, trying to ignore the shivers of fear it sent through him. If he was human it didn't matter. "He was human, just as I am now... his voice..." ZEX shuddered and slumped against his human, holding on to him tightly. He wasn't sure if he'd even understand the significance of it. "His voice..."

ZEX buried his face against his human's neck, and he wished more than anything to have his body back again. That was something that couldn't be easily explained away. He was shaking. "Are you sure you're not him?" He was trying to keep his voice calm throughout the whole ordeal, look at things logically, try and find an answer, and now desperation bled through his voice. "How do you know? How can you be sure? I'm- I'm in this body, human and he knew me, DAX-, a whole pathetic life of cowardice that Max escaped by going mad, becoming someone better, pretending to be a genius because- I cannot lie to myself, I cannot do that, I swore..."

He'd been struggling very hard to keep his thoughts in an orderly line, confront the problem in a rational way, try to avoid that drowning choking feeling by thinking clearly, and still he sank deeper and he was beginning to panic. ZEX grasped desperately at the shreds of pride he had left and forced himself to stop speaking, instead holding onto his Captain as tightly as he possibly could. He had to calm down.

The emphatic headshake was... odd, and he couldn't place why. But he did place that name, DAX, "Your subcommander, right?" All he knew about the guy was that he'd been on the bridge with ZEX when the beast-thing had gone rampaging, and that ZEX had mentioned him once or twice since then-- in a positive light, and more fondly than he did his species as a whole, so... a friend, too, Zelnick guessed. "Is it impossible that he's been brainwashed? Or that it wasn't really him, just a really good copy? I mean... with a telepath or two working for him, I wouldn't put it past Landel to create our visitors from what we expect or who we want to see...."

ZEX's face against his neck started to bring that familiar flush up, but... but no, this was pure comfort, and he shook off the vague feeling of "oh god ZEX is feeling me up again" in favor of stroking ZEX's hair, petting him soothingly. "Absolutely, positively, one-hundred-percent certain that I'm Captain Zelnick, pilot of the flagship Vindicator, and not Caleb, science teacher." And he knew because he knew, every part of him knew that that he was and always be Zelnick, the kid from Unzervalt that wound up trying to save the galaxy.

He didn't give that reason; he had a feeling it wasn't anywhere near as good of a reason as ZEX wanted.

"And even if Max were a coward," he murmured, "you're not. No coward would jump on a big dangerous thing and help kill it, like you did last night." Gently, pretending that it wasn't as intimate as it looked, he reached back a foot to hook around a chair leg and tug it away from the desk, then stepped back to sit in it, pulling ZEX down in his lap.

"Yes, he was my Sub-commander... he was always very loyal to me." ZEX sighed at the thought of him, the particular lilt in his voice and turn of phrase that marked him as decidedly him. "He would not lie to me, but I know it was him, even if he was human... his voice, he spoke just like him, with that particular regional dialect he had, with tinges from living on Cerenkov and being near me for so..." ZEX paused for a second, still drained. "For us, language is extremely important, it's highly individualized to each of us. I'm not sure if humans have an equivalent... I know it was his voice..." ZEX shook his head again, pained. "If it had been anyone else, if he hadn't sounded right, if it didn't add up the way that it does, I wouldn't feel this way, I'm sure of it..."

He gave a shaky sigh at being touched, his hair was so sensitive. How he loved how that felt. "You've always been human... it must be easier for you to know." A teacher... he could see that. "This body, to be changed to this form is impossible, and if I was never changed to begin with, then... I just want... I want to know, for sure... " He wanted to go home, he wanted things to go back to normal, but that seemed too weak a thing to say out loud, and he'd already lapsed too much already.

"If he believed himself to be someone else, who knows what he could do..." ZEX mumbled, miserable, although his thoughts were quickly derailed. Puzzled and blinking, he of course didn't resist being pulled closer to him, or sitting on his lap either, although he hadn't quite expected it. Being held really did bring up warmth and affection, which he was glad to cling to rather than that suffocating helpless feeling.

He stayed close to him, rested his head on his shoulder and closed his eyes, letting out a shuddering breath. "I'm so tired of this... an identity crisis once a lifetime is more than enough." ZEX kept his arms around him. "I'm getting too old for this kind of stress anymore..."

"So they found the most effective weapon to make you doubt yourself," Zelnick reasoned, "someone you trust too much to ignore, and used him to get to you." He thought that over for a moment, then continued, "I doubt he even knew he was being used, or that what he was remembering didn't happen. It's pretty easy to get humans to remember things that never happened, and if he's been turned human, like you..."

Of course, that applied the other way around, too, but Zelnick wasn't going to think of that.

"A lot of things are impossible," he said, "but that doesn't stop them from happening anyway. Most of this place is impossible-- I have no idea how a creature like the one from last night would even survive, and that arthropod that attacked you should have been crushed under its own weight. And magic..." He smiled, a bit. "Magic is impossible by definition. Which doesn't seem to stop people from using it, here."

Holding ZEX in his lap seemed to be doing wonders (and the vaguely happy feeling he got from ZEX feeling better was entirely ~~maternal~~ paternal, Zelnick convinced himself, and rooted in their status as allies), and he stroked the other man's back, soothingly. "Then don't get stressed about it." It seemed obvious enough to him. Sure, it was hard not to worry when you were alone at night and trying to sleep, but it was really easy to ignore problems and focus on other things if you kept yourself busy.

"Remember things that never happened..." ZEX mumbled. "That's the problem... I'm not sure which is which anymore. If I had my body, if I wasn't trapped this way, it'd be easier, but as it is... it all could be a lie. I cannot live a lie."

ZEX sighed. Accepting impossibility didn't provide answers... it just ignored the problem. He disliked having things defy explanation... it made them unreal, which didn't help him determine reality from fantasy. "Impossible things are impossible... defying explanation only makes one doubt your own perceptions. If you're seeing impossible things, who's to say you don't believe impossible memories, convincing yourself they're just as real..."

ZEX just felt drained, which was definitely preferable to his earlier mood. If nothing else, sitting with his human was muffling his emotions down to a managable degree, which he definitely appreciated. He hated appearing so vulnerable, much less in front of a human... it hardly suited someone of his stature. Even if a normal VUX might have crumbled under the pressure here already, ZEX knew he was better than that.

"This isn't a problem I can ignore... if I have been lying to myself, if this all was a delusion, I have an obligation to myself, to my character to accept reality. If I drove you mad and sentenced you here, and hid behind fantasies of capability to escape responsibility for it, I have to stop." Although, DAX had said that if he did leave here, he could not see his human again... that it would be too dangerous. He could not lie to himself... but he could not leave his Captain behind, or abandon him somewhere. None of his problems had a clear solution. ZEX sighed and ran a hand along his Captain's side. "If we're simply illusions, we may not know each other at all. Everything we've done together may have been meaningless..."

ZEX seemed fairly determined to worry about this, and Zelnick sighed a little. Man, if he ever got this distracted by questioning his place in the universe and whether he was real or not, he hoped it would be around someone who'd yell him out of it. Hayes, maybe.

Not that he was going to yell at ZEX. Even if he wanted to, the very idea of intentionally upsetting an ally for no good reason was offputting. (He was more than good enough at doing it unintentionally, anyway.) So, instead, he thought about how to affirm to ZEX that he wasn't Max.

"Okay, so, if Admiral ZEX is a delusion," he began, "why are there monsters at night trying to kill, or at least hurt, all the patients? Or is it just a shared delusion?" He glanced down at ZEX's leg. "Was that pain a delusion, too?"

He leaned his head against ZEX's, and continued, "If Caleb was drawing off your delusion to form his own, why can I remember Slylandro and Utwig and Supox, and other species you wouldn't know? How can we remember so many corresponding details, and be joined by two others who fit into our universe, but not know a thing about our supposed lives as Max and Caleb?" He hardly noticed the hand up his side. "And even if it is delusion... it doesn't mean that what we do together, what we think and say and believe, are automatically invalidated. They've still happened."

... not that he was happy about everything they'd, uh, done together, but he really couldn't say that it hadn't happened. There had been two eye witnesses, after all, and his being one of them really made it kinda hard to ignore the testimony.

"Hmm..." ZEX closed his eyes. He wished his injury had been a delusion, since it had been completely humiliating, but he still had the marks to prove it. "DAX didn't believe me when I told him what happened. He said... I did it to myself, going through withdrawal from some kind of hallucinogen, or something of that nature anyway. I'm not sure if that's worse than what actually happened or not." He sighed, still tired and struggling for a clear answer. "I had no proof for him except my word, my memories... it makes one wonder. If we're mad, who's to say our word is to be trusted... and if we were mad, would we even know?"

ZEX sighed again when his human leaned in closer to him. Maybe this was a battle he should have waged on his own... he didn't like putting so much pressure on someone else to solve his problems, particularly when they had no easy answer. But still... "Our delusions diverge on several key details... I'm dead in yours, aren't I?" You killed me came to mind, but he decided not to say that in so many words. He'd never understood why his human believed he saw him die beforehand... he was obviously alive. This gave a motive for it that was hard to ignore. "You struck a possibly fatal blow against the Ur-Quan, something I thought impossible, in a noble and heroic quest to save our sector from enslavement... do you wonder, sometimes, if it seems too perfect for you? Where our delusions split apart, where I die and you live, you've merely expanded on your own without me?" ZEX paused, and he sighed again, leaning against him with a barely noticable shudder. "But then again, I don't think Caleb would want to escape his life as much as Max would. What DAX described sounded so unpleasant... I don't blame him for trying to run."

ZEX waited for a few seconds, then pulled away from him a little to sit up straight. He blinked again, trying to make the world focus as usual, hand starting for his eye before he forced it away. "Hmm... I shouldn't be dragging you into my problems. This kind of thing is just... difficult for me. When I was young, I had to learn to accept myself for who I was, despite everyone I knew telling me I was perverted, damaged, mentally ill. All of that." A somewhat pathetic attempt at a weak smile. "I told you before, about our therapists. I withstood their threats and attempts to 'realign' me because I knew who I was, and that what I wanted was natural. As long as I knew that, they had no influence over me."

A pause, and he looked down. "It's... self-doubt is not a good feeling for me. It brings back memories I'd rather forget."

The idea of ZEX addicted to a drug was mildly absurd, and Zelnick found himself almost laughing over that. "While I suppose withdrawal could make someone see giant arthropods, I don't think it could take a bite out of you, too." And at the next bit, he quoted, "'We're all mad here'... heh. I think I read someplace that wondering if you're crazy is proof enough that you're not." The words didn't mean much, but they were comforting to Zelnick, in their own way.

He sobered at the mention of diverging fantasies, though. "I don't know what to tell you, Admiral. What happened happened, though, even if it seems implausible. Though, if it did turn out to be a delusion..." He grinned at ZEX, trying to brighten the mood. "Either I'm far more imaginative than I thought to come up with all the things that happened, or I'm far duller than I'd like to believe to come up with several years of trying to stave off boredom between fights." He didn't comment on ZEX's death; he'd seen it with his own two eyes, but he liked ZEX too much to want to think about it. (Not that his reasoning was that articulate in his head, or he might have noticed that he liked ZEX.)

Briefly, he thought about Caleb, what he knew of him. "Yeah, he agreed, quietly, "it sounds like Caleb had a really pleasant life." His voice became almost wistful as he added, "Not that it matters, since it's not real... and neither is Max, no matter what our visitors say."

Argh, he'd said he'd do it, and he did it, solving the problem of ZEX's bouncing hand by covering ZEX's eye himself. It was kinda annoying, watching that hand twitch up and down like that-- by which he meant really annoying, though his irritation was faint and almost fond-- and if ZEX was twitching because his eye wasn't covered, Zelnick would fix the problem.

"I don't mind," he said, honestly. "I was just going to stay in here anyway, and if I could help an ally while doing that, well, it's a productive night." He smiled at ZEX. "And you still are you. I promise. Even if you doubt yourself, you're Admiral ZEX, and you're far too smart to let this place mess with your head for long-- right?"

"I don't know much about human narcotics... I wasn't in a position to argue with him. Or at least, I didn't have any proof for my position..." ZEX sighed. "I do hope you're right..." It still didn't explain everything...

"I suppose my own life has its inconsistencies as well." ZEX tried to return the smile, although it was still weak. "One would think if it was to be my ideal life, I wouldn't have imagined myself being exiled and alone for twenty years, waiting for you." His smile strengthened a little. "I would have had you immediately."

A pause where he thought for a few moments, and he sobered again. "Although, if things did indeed go as DAX described... then you wouldn't have left your life by choice. It would have been my fault... dragging Caleb from his happy life to be here, with me." A moment of self-awareness, and he reached out to touch his human's face. ZEX spoke softly. "I suppose, in a way, that's not so different from what really happened, is it..."

He wasn't sure what answers he had expected from his human... he still didn't have much evidence one way or the other, and the question of whether or not this was all a lie still nagged at him. When his human raised his hand to cover his eye for him, snapping the world back into focus and into one human, one person, he remembered the one thing that he refused to question when speaking with DAX. Even if he really was this Max person, he could not leave here... not without his Captain with him. That was something constant between both identities, the importance of his human to him, and that he could focus on. Until he had more answers, more solid proof, he could focus on something that he knew.

His human's hand on his skin made it easier to think of him, rather than the crisis that faced him, and in consequence it lifted his spirits somewhat. ZEX tried to return his human's smile, still touching his face with one hand. "You know, DAX told me that if I was ever to leave here, be Max again like he asks, I would never be able to see you again. You would... 'press charges', whatever that means, against me. It would be too dangerous. I told him you wouldn't do something like that to me..." ZEX leaned in closer to him. "But even if you did, I wouldn't care. I won't let you get away from me, no matter what happens. I've waited too long to have you, and I'd rather die than let you go."

And whether he was Max or ZEX, that wouldn't change.

Somehow, the conversation had swung around to the topic of him, and Zelnick blinked in faint bemusement before he started to blush faintly. "Yeah, if I had to craft a perfect fantasy world, there wouldn't have been half so many Ur-Quan, and the Ilwrath and Dnyarri would rather make daisychains than chaos," he half-joked, trying to pretend that him being the pivotal bright spot in ZEX's life wasn't at all flattering. Er, creepy, he meant.

"Er" indeed, actually; that was the first thing he said when ZEX declared his intention to follow him, no matter what. Then he explained and agreed, "Pressing charges means accusing you of doing something illegal. And I really wouldn't do that to you unless you actually, y'know, did something seriously illegal, and I held it against you." ZEX's hand on his face and possessive declaration was totally... creepy, yes, not at all kinda weirdly sweet, "I'd die without you" was incredibly creepily co-dependent and not at all the reason Zelnick blushed more and suddenly felt a little like his stomach was trying to do backflips.

"Yes... and I doubt my life would have been quite so difficult. It does puzzle me, why someone would want to imagine facing the kind of baseless persecution and prejudice that I did..." Unless Max had his own motivation for that as well... another reflection of his unhappy life? Perhaps Max had been persecuted unfairly himself for some reason or another, and just unconsciously worked that into his fantasy, although he seemed to have given a happier ending to ZEX in a way. He tried to keep his voice light, but it was a bit difficult with his current train of thought. "One might think in an ideal world, I'd be interested in my own species, even... but perhaps Max had his reasons for that as well. It's hard to say."

Although, he couldn't imagine not being interested in humans, particularly the one sitting beneath him right now with a hand over his eye. He did smile, this time genuinely, at how his human changed color in that fetching way he loved. He leaned in quite close to him, one hand on his face and the other idly running along his human's side. "That's what I told him," ZEX whispered. "He worries too much." And if there was anything that could get ZEX's mind off his problems, and indeed off of mostly anything else...

ZEX shifted a little, slowly, on his human's lap, his wandering hand toying with the edge of his shirt, and he briefly touched his lips to his Captain's skin before whispering again. "Besides, there are... other things you could hold against me..."

"I can't imagine why anyone would make up your life for theirself," he agreed. It was hardly the sort of world one would escape to, with the trauma and the horrible therapists and such... something to think about sometime when ZEX wasn't being so distracting, all too close and touching him and making his heart beat faster.

This was definitely about the right time to pull away, since ZEX was obviously feeling better, and since Tanaka didn't seem very likely to come by and interrupt at this point. Definitely the right time. And entirely the wrong time to make an uncertain sound and keep holding ZEX and not protest at all, definitely.

Apparently, Zelnick had a bad sense of timing.

"It wasn't all bad, human..." ZEX was still smiling, although close proximity to a human body did tend to have that effect on him. Particularly his Captain's when he was in this position. "But if it was a fantasy, I could think of several things that could be improved..."

Not that his existential crisis was foremost in his mind right now, what with his Captain so warm beneath his hands and obviously in need of some encouragement. He was continually surprised by the strength of chemicals in the human brain... how easy it was to focus on the physical now! And far preferable to the alternative, given that he still didn't have a solid answer, and if he wasn't who he thought he was, then...

That could wait. His human's chest was in desperate need of being thoroughly touched, and something that important deserved his full attention. Not that he'd allow his human's mouth to go unappreciated either, and he had to make that clear as well. Although, leaning in for a kiss did feel a bit strange with his Captain's hand still over his eye... not that he'd let something like that stop him.

This was much better already.

If Zelnick had been thinking at all, he might have decided that this felt far better than trying to verbally reassure ZEX. (Or done the sensible thing and stopped ZEX, though sometime over the last week the urge to do that had faded.) Since thinking was the last thing on his mind, he instead kissed ZEX back, tentatively, slowly sliding that awkwardly-placed hand to rest against ZEX's cheek instead of over his eye. And ZEX's other hand, that felt good, too....

Not that he enjoyed this, certainly not any part of this scenario at all, ZEX in his lap and kissing him and feeling warm and comfortable against him. It was something he could live without, and he was absolutely going to put a stop to it any moment now, as soon as he found his inhibitions and common sense and such.

It was so much better when his human reciprocated! It seemed that he always had to take the first step, but gradually his human's periods of resistance were becoming shorter and shorter. A success by any measure! Coming to accept what, ZEX was sure, were deep and abiding feelings towards him. Whether or not they were both mad and pretending at being other people suddenly didn't seem to matter as much, although he remembered, in a distant sort of way, that it had been very important not too long ago.

But that was then. Right now he had much more urgent matters to attend to, such as stroking his human's smooth, warm skin, and kissing him more fervently. Finally continuing after their unfortunate interruption last night! And unless his Captain's roommates (were they even still there?) decided to intervene, ZEX wasn't about to be interrupted again. He needed this right now, he thought firmly. More than usual.

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*wibbles all over ZEX*

identity crises are no fun O<

no. they aren't. D:

O<

._.

if only i had my tentacles, then things would be different O<

*Signs ZEX up for SC* I want him to feel better~ ;_;

actually if he gets his uniform back that'll be very helpful O3

Oh, true! :D And I think that, if Captain looked in his closet, he'd find his own uniform~ hmm! <3

if only ZEX had gone to get a sweater tonight

then he'd have no excuse to cuddle captain-- er, I mean, angst?

His cunning plan has been discovered!

But not foiled~ yet. >.> XD

we'll have to see how the night goes~

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wibbles all over ZEX

Signs ZEX up for SC I want him to feel better~ ;_;