Capítulo 30: 30. Hyde Steps Out
Later, all she could recall was that she reached out from a nightmare in her sleep, and a greater nightmare descended upon her world, bringing blood and guilt and sacrifice. Sacrifice, but not of herself: a sacrifice she'd have to live with, unless she was too weak.
Her world was far darker than she'd imagined it could be.
Eventually, she would recall the terrible choice she failed to make, and then the devastating taste of utter defeat.
And in the end, she would wonder about the price you paid for luck.
But for now, she slept, and recalled nothing at all.
***
Save us this time, Mommy?
***
No, no, no. Strike that. Bad idea.
Although.
Maybe you can bear it without going mad.
It weaves its chains with our own power, and you have none.
Serendipity
Open your eyes again.
***
Hyde paced back and forth in front of the bed where Artoria Alter had placed the children and the Master. They were all that was left and—well, they weren't very much. "Come on, come on, come on, wake up!"
There she was. Right there. The Master that had recognized him. Serendipity. Pride in your work, that was the thing. Stick to what you believe in, work hard, and recognition would come. Keep at it long enough and eventually they'll be screaming your name.
Thinking was hard for Hyde. He knew this. He was meant for action! To get out there and cut some throats, maybe a few abdomens. For Jack. Poor Jack. Poor Hyde, too. In a better organized world, he wouldn't have to do this. Instead, he'd be the cause of very worried thinking in other people.
Yes, thinking was hard for Hyde, but on the other hand, some things were important. He wanted very much for Serendipity to wake up again. Like the children, she'd been dismissed as too weak for the nightmare creature to steal away, but he knew she'd be able to think at least a little better than him.
And if she couldn't, well, there were other activities he wanted her to be awake for, too. You had to roll with life. But waiting was the ultimate in ants in your pants, especially in a situation like this.
Every few minutes, he went over to the bed to see if she still lived. You could never be sure unless you checked. He'd brush her hand across her lips, insert a finger in her mouth. Once, he put his hand on her chest, over her heart.
Roughly. Roughly over her heart. He found out what he needed to know, anyhow.
But Artoria Alter, who didn't trust him, told him not to do that again. Artoria Alter, who didn't understand that for anything more, anything really fun, he'd need the Master awake. Really, it made you suspicious of what the black-hearted tyrant got up to with captured maidens in her tent.
Artoria was just so full of herself, the way she bossed him around. But like the children and the Master, Tora had been left behind by the nightmare creature. Weak enough to overlook, but powerful enough that she slept still, trapped in a petty madness. It hadn't touched Artoria, though, just as the madness inflicted on Jekyll had left Hyde free to simply stroll right out of the nightmare creature's little world.
But Artoria had no secret strength. She wouldn't be Excaliburing anything. Especially not him. Hah!
He ought to show her how weak she was by fondling the Master all over. By pulling off those Magus-given clothes—
But no. No, no, no, no. None of this was right, which made acting wrong much less fun. He had to be good—God fucking dammit. No. Surely he could wake her somehow?
Finally, near dawn, when he brushed his fingers across the Master's lips, they parted naturally. He watched her closely, and her shadowless eyes opened a moment later.
"Hyde?" she said, her lashes fluttering as she focused on the face only a few inches from hers.
Hyde grinned. The thrill of recognition would never get old.
"Heyyy, Master," he said. "How are we going to fix this?"
She pushed his face away as she sat up and he licked her hand, because of course he wasn't going to miss an opportunity like that. Her eyes moved over the two snack-sized children sharing her bed: little Pan, tiny Lulu.
"There was a fight," she said slowly.
"No," corrected Artoria, joining Hyde beside the Master's bed. "There was a rout. Cú Chulainn betrayed you and brought the creature from the woods into the Keep. Of course. Treachery destroys everything eventually," added the blackened King of Knights impassively.
"No," said the Master. "I called for him. I don't remember why—" She frowned and lowered her gaze to her hand, where once again, the Command Seal array was empty.
Hyde said helpfully, "Once he was back, but not really, if you get my drift, you used one Seal to try to call him back, really. It just made him turn into that Berserker thing. That sort of got the ball rolling on the whole massacre. I didn't see you use the other."
Serendipity paled and it was so cute Hyde wanted to lick straight through to her oozing center. "M-m-massacre?"
"No one was killed, not even Ritsu," said Artoria crisply. "That would have been counter to the creature's purpose. They were one by one incapacitated and," her mouth curled unpleasantly, "infected."
"Even Merlin?" the Master said, in a tiny little voice that sent a thrill down Hyde's spine. God damn, this was damn hard. Harder than he deserved. He deserved something else entirely. He circled the bed until he was behind the Master, and fixed his gaze on the despair curve of her neck as she hunched forward.
Jekyll ought to be yelling at him right now, but Jekyll was busy huddling in a corner of their shared mental parlour, muttering inaudibly to himself. That was actually too creepy. But his sweet, fragile, breakable Master would fix it, even if he had to stitch her together first to make it happen.
As the silent stare between Artoria and Serendipity drew itself out, Hyde sat down on the bed behind Serendipity and started pulling on stands of her hair, watching when she winced and when she didn���t.
Finally Artoria said, "Merlin tried to flee like the coward he is, but the creature wanted him the most, and took him first. That made defeating the others easy." She gave Hyde a cold look as she spoke, and he smiled broadly at her as he slid his arms around the Master's waist.
"Hyde," she said, her voice trembling. "This isn't the time—" She stopped abruptly as he licked her ear. Encouraged, he bit her ear and then licked down her throat. She sat very still, her pulse pounding under his tongue. A catch in her short, quick breathing finally short-circuited his carefully hoarded reason. All he could think of was the so many things he wanted her awake for. The thought became the action, as it often did.
But he'd barely brushed her lips with his own when the silence from Jekyll got to him: a vast emptiness his deviance alone couldn't fill. He bit her lip instead before pushing her away. "Aw, fight back, would you? If you let me walk all over you, how are you going to defeat that bastard in the woods?"
Serendipity smiled briefly, in a way that made Hyde feel a little uncomfortable, like other people felt when they were naked. When her brow darkened once again, he felt much better.
She said, "Defeat it? Now? How? Is there a plan?"
Artoria shrugged. "Not from me. I'm nothing but an additional consciousness in Tora's soul now, and my only plan is to guard you until you all wake up. Tora already understands that if you live, life has to go on. Sometimes breathing is the best you can hope for."
Then they both looked at him, like they'd planned it that way.
"God, having to do everything around here is so annoying! No wonder Cú went berserk." Hyde sprang to his feet and kicked the log burning in the big hearth. It broke amidst a shower of sparks. "I don't make plans, see? Except very short-term ones that involve stringing up fingernails to make you a necklace, ok, I do make those, pretty much constantly. I kind of have to, because otherwise it is so boring here."
"Hyde," said the Master gently. "What's your plan for the creature in the wood?"
"No, no, no! I don't have a plan." He grinned. "I have a thing I can do. You make the plan."
"Tell her the thing, half-wit," said Artoria icily.
He hopped back onto the bed again, sitting on his knees, leaning forward on his hands. "The creature took Jekyll too. Into that Bounded Field, that little world where it's draining everybody. But I got bored with that, so I walked us right back out again. Back and forth, back and forth. I can do that. You do the rest."
"What do you want me to do?" The Master's brow furrowed and it annoyed him. Was she an idiot? Oh, oh, or maybe she was fucking with him. That was probably it, had to be it, and it was a much more pleasant idea too
"Talk, talk, talk to them, Master. Talk them out of the Bounded Field. Use their secrets as stepping stones. The secrets they think only you can see." He waved a hand. "I mean, I see them too, but they know better than to listen to me, they've all got A-Rank Hyde Resistance. Except Jekyll, of course. We may have to, uh, work together to get him out again. Heh, heh, heh." Delicious thought. But contemplating that would drive him wild again.
Fingernails on a string, each one polished up. That was something to concentrate on.
"Jack and Astolfo?" queried Serendipity.
"Gone. They're all gone. And the scrubs outside, too. And the fuzzy-wuzzies. Come on, come on! You're awake now, so let's go."
"No," said Artoria flatly. "She is not fit yet. She only just awoke. She must at the very least eat."
Hyde rolled his eyes. "We don't have time to sit around playing house, not even the way I like. Besides, who's going to cook? Are you going to cook? I'm sure as hell not going to cook. Tell you what, I'll kill her something in the woods. Raw meat's good for your fighting spirit!" He whacked Ren on the back and then caught her as she almost fell off the bed.
The press of her breasts against his arm sent his mind back to an earlier conversational thread. "Alternately, you could just say, 'ooh, yes, do me, Hyde,' and that'd be great, too. Just don't sit there so passively or I'm gonna end up doing something that'll get me nailed to an anthill with honey smeared on my balls. Especially if we don't get Jekyll back."
Ren sat up again, pushing him away. "You… want Jekyll back? I thought—"
"Hell yeah! What the fuck? What's the fun of doing anything without that little voice screaming that _I shouldn't, I shouldn't_? Plus, if Jekyll's gone, it's like losing a get-out-of-being-hanged card. I mean, who's going to kill me when it also means killing that sweet, floppy cherub? Though, seriously, Master, I mean _floppy_. Don't count on him for—" Suddenly Serendipity's fingers covered his mouth, which seemed like a great opportunity to lick her again.
She grabbed his lower lip and tugged on it gently before releasing him, and his motormouth started right back up again. "Jekyll likes having me around, too. For, oh, a million reasons. Of course, he needs me to admit it for him. So, yeah, you gotta sort this out or my life expectancy's gonna get a lot shorter."
"Is that why we don't have time?" she asked.
"Ahaha. Hahahahah. Hahaha. No." For some reason this didn't seem to be enough for her, as her eyebrows furrowed and her mouth curved into a perfect o. He stuck his finger in, shuddered as her tongue flicked over his fingertip, and yanked his hand away, all the way to behind his back. "Creature's feeding on them somehow. I mean, if you don't wanna do that whole 'conquer the world in Ritsu's name thing' after all, I guess you don't need them. I wouldn't miss them, except for maybe the kids." He stuck the finger she'd licked in his own mouth a moment, thinking. "Nah, we should go, right now. Pretty sure that's my best odds for happy fun time later. You give up on world domination, and you're not going to be anywhere near strong enough for what I want to do."
"One hour," said Artoria flatly. "She can drink some tea. I refuse to believe you can't make tea, half-wit. You are English, aren't you?"
The thing about being recognized is that you no longer have to respond to other forms of address. So Hyde didn't, admiring instead the way Ren's hair twined around her throat. But then the Master gave him a tiny, encouraging smile and sweet, frustrating annoyance washed over him in a great wave.
He rose to his feet. "Fine! I'll make tea! Blame yourself if it ends up poisoned, or if razorblades end up in your cakes. I _tried_ to keep me out of the kitchen, but I can only do so much. My job is _kill kill kill_, people, not babysitter."
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