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Flowers bloomed beneath his feet as he walked along the river bank, following the path to the sea without any reason at all. The air was warm and soft, smelling of spring and forest, and Sharpness greedily breathed in heavy amounts of the natural fragrance. In the distance, large mountains surrounded him, scattered across the surface of the overworld.
He wasn't sure where he was. He just happened to be there, and it just happened to feel familiar, but it wasn't like he had any ground to be able to question the oddity of the situation. Here, he had no purpose or goal in mind. His legs absentmindedly forced him to stroll through the tall grass alongside the rushing river.
Somewhere at the back of his head, Sharpness could feel the faint, barely there sensation of being watched. He wanted to turn to see if there was anything out of the ordinary, or if his mind was just playing tricks on him again. But at the time, all he knew was to keep walking, not daring to falter or stop. Although, it didn't help that the feeling only grew with his paranoia, and he was truly helpless to do anything about it. His heart thumped loudly in his chest, but that was all that was different of him. He couldn't control his face or his eyes, and his body moved all on its own, like how it did before he knew that he was being observed.
Then came the sound. It sounded from behind him, far behind him, but the noise still reverberated in his ears and replayed in his head. It was the telltale sound of a boot crunching over grass, just like his own—a miscalculated step at it's finest. But prior to that one step, every other step hadn't gone noticed whatsoever. It had been just one moment too early from the steady pace that Sharpness maintained.
The effect came shortly after, his hands began clamming up and his heart worked itself too fast and too quickly. He was never one to be preyed upon, and yet, the only way he could describe himself at the moment was prey. Something, or someone, had been hunting him in broad daylight and he hadn't bat an eye until now. Worse, he was forced to keep up the act of blissful unawareness.
With the stalker known, his instincts caused him to hyper-focus on every small sound or shift in the air. He could begin to hear soft breaths, and feel the way the air moved to accommodate for the additional presence. They got closer, and closer, and Sharpness kept walking as if he hadn't had a clue about what was happening. It felt like his mind was there but his body wasn't—like they were both two separate beings and he had no control over himself at all.
Each sound of grass crunching and shifting grew louder and stronger until the perpetrator evidently no longer cared about being inconspicuous. Every stride no longer matched in tandem with his own, and they became more bold and prominent. Sharpness attempted to recall where his belongings were, but he found that he had nothing but the clothing on his back. The realization made him swear to himself. He had no weapons or armor, completely defenseless.
Sharpness then felt a hand grab his shoulder, causing him to flinch, before he was pulled and shoved into the river.
He heard himself splash and plunge into the water before it all became muted once he was fully submerged. Out of instinct, he attempted to gasp or breathe, but water quickly filled his lungs and only made the situation worse when he began coughing and choking. His limbs flailed and pushed to kick and swim, but it was as if there were weights tying him down. His vision slowly crept with black spots that slowly blanketed the muddy green atmosphere of the river water, and Sharpness welcomed them as he wanted it to just be over already. He hadn't wanted any of this.
But all hope was lost when the ghost of a hand shot through the dense water and grabbed onto his shirt, before pulling him out of the water. He felt uncharacteristically small and lightweight as he was being manhandled by just an arm. It felt very unlike him, who was taller than most, and had a dense body built for combat. The darkness that was once all he knew quickly disappeared at the snap of a wrist and replaced with the blinding sunlight. He coughed and choked up water as he was dropped to the mud by the river, like he was nothing more than a rag doll that could be tossed around so carelessly.
A shadow loomed over his head when the figure peeked at his pitiful state, shielding him from the overbearing sun. There was no face that he could recognize, and the armor they wore was so painfully impersonal that Sharpness couldn't possibly tie them to someone he knew. Faint, swirling, grey bubbles floated around the air, and he knew by then that he had been stalked and hunted by someone using an invisibility potion. He wished that he could call them a coward, if only he could quit coughing and making a mess all over his chin.
Netherite shone brightly in the sunlight, reflecting the most sharp edges with a glint. The blade was dark enough for his own reflection to appear at a split second, and to him, he looked utterly helpless and defenseless. The green eyes that looked back felt too cowardly to belong to him, and his face looked to hollow to be his. But perhaps the image he had of himself didn't align with reality. The hands that held the sword were steady and calm—like they had done this countless times, to many other victims before him.
This is it, he thought. Just do it already—get it over with.
And when the sword pierced through his torso, he let out a guttural scream.
But he didn't respawn. He hadn't blacked out and woken up on a bed like he usually did, no. Instead he lay there, in pain, screaming profusely and yelling out for anything, anyone, to come and save him.
No one came.
Sharpness wanted to cry, throw up, and shout until his lungs gave out and his throat was raw, but there wasn't much he could do besides lay there and take it. It hurt so much; unlike any pain he had ever experienced before. His body twitched and trembled, and Sharpness wasn't sure if his face was moist from tears or sweat. He didn't know who it was or why this was happening to him and why it just had to hurt so badly.
The netherite sword was yanked out of him, and white-hot searing pain blasted throughout his body.
But the stalker paused. There weren't any eyes there for Sharpness to see, but he could feel the gaze of the monster that stared at his raw, vulnerable self. And with dry awe, they finally spoke, in a voice that he couldn't recognize from anywhere, at any given point in his life.
"Wow, you really are something. It's so perfect. Nearly the textbook definition of perfection…"
Sharpness bolted up with a shout. It was dark, unlike the sunny sky he thought he knew. His hands frantically searched and patted around for the handle of his sword, or perhaps even one of his numerous small blades, but they shook too furiously to grapple onto anything. He was on the floor, along with his blanket and pillow, and his long hair was a tangled mess around him. The sheets were wrapped and restricting around his ankles like cuffs, and he thrashed and struggled against them to try and free himself.
His breaths were shallow and fast and he couldn't control the way he shivered against nothing. His skin was was sensitive and there was a gnawing feeling left behind that he was still being hunted, but there was nothing there to make him feel that way, and there hadn't been anything in the first place. His hands anxiously trailed along his torso until he could find a gushing wound, or any sign of there being one.
But the pain wasn't really there and there wasn't any water, or invisible people, or grass, and flowers, and blue skies—no. Sharpness was alone, on the floor of Jude's room in his base.
Every shadow that he could see made him tremble and curl away in an attempt to put space between himself and what he thought were enemies. Their indefinite shapes morphed into figures that grew daunting and larger, making him shut his eyes in fear when they wouldn't disappear. Sharpness felt nauseous and that he needed to vomit, but he swallowed down the bile and tried to regain his control over his surroundings.
He wasn't there anymore, Sharpness tried to reassure himself. He was safe and alone in Jude's base, in an open room located in the west wing. Yes, the aquarium was only across from him at the other end of the underground atrium. The shadows weren't moving and there wasn't anyone hiding. He was safe, on the cold floor of Jude's room, and it was only just a nightmare. None of it had been real.
But it just felt so real. The kind of pain he felt couldn't have come from anything imaginable or made-up, and the voice spoke in his ears as if he had really heard it.
"Nearly the textbook definition of perfection…"
Sharpness shivered in disgust. The phantom sensation of the sword penetrating his body made him feel unclean and disgusting, and it had only been intensified by the gaze of the mysterious bastard. It was something deeply rooted within. Something that couldn't be scrubbed away with soap and water, no, it was something more than just surface level—and he despised how he wanted to evade his own flesh in an effort to feel independent from the persistent dirtiness that lingered beneath the marrow of his bones, or the molecules of his blood, and the code of his DNA.
He hadn't realized that the coughs and gags that he heard were from himself. Saliva flooded his mouth as his throat threatened to release vomit, but Sharpness willed himself to swallow it all down. He wouldn't want to throw up on the stone flooring in Jude's room, making more of a mess to clean up than he already made.
Carefully, Sharpness kicked away the sheets that wrapped around his ankles and freed his legs. He then slowly raised a trembling hand to grip the white mattress of the bed in order to support himself as he got up to stand, wobbling on his own feet like a newborn calf. He decided that he could use a glass of water to ease his mind and mouth.
He hobbled slowly, teaching himself to remember how to walk again. He held onto the white, pale wood of the door frame, but paused when he heard hurried steps rush down the stairs. Peaking his head to the right where the noises came from, he saw Jude, paused at the last step of the stairs.
The air was thick between them. Jude looked at him, worried, and he was breathing hard as if he had just ran a mile without pause. The rabbit raked his eyes up and down his figure, and Sharpness didn't know what he saw in the dim light, but it was enough to put a frown on his face.
"Sharpness—Sharp, hey, are you good?" Jude carefully began walking closer.
He didn't know how to respond. Instead, he stood leaning on the doorframe with a hand gripping the wood, watching as Jude gradually approached him. He moved carefully and precisely, as if Sharpness were nothing more than a feral animal in his base. Which, he wasn't too far off, knowing that the swordsman had a hair-trigger temper and a tendency to be off and unpredictable.
Jude's eyes somehow found a way to reflect light even despite being in the dark. It was almost like they get brighter the darker the environment, and he wanted to laugh at the picture he thought of. Jude, hiding away in the dark, given away by his own eyes. He didn't know what the unique trait was for or where it came from, but Sharpness found it mesmerizing. He liked his eyes. They trailed along his taller figure, before shifting around to see the mess of his bedding all over the ground.
Sharpness hoped he wouldn't be too upset about it, and matter of fact, he was nearly about to apologize and offer to clean it up and request that Jude go back to building his trap.
But the rabbit supposedly had another plan in mind.
His gaze hardened once he met Sharpness's eyes, who had already been looking at him curiously. Jude's facial expression began shifting from concern to cold indifference, and the swordsman started to feel self conscious about himself. It wasn't like he could help his own response to his nightmares, but at the end of the day, he was only a guest in Jude's base, and yet he made another mess. Perhaps that must've been the reason why the rabbit looked up at him in a way that made his stomach drop in guilt.
Sharpness opened his mouth to try and apologize, but the air was knocked out of his lungs when Jude meanly shoved him back. "Fuck, what was that for?!" he wheezed while regaining his balance.
"I don't know, are you gonna do something about it?" Jude challenged, stepping back into Sharpness's space.
Sharpness hadn't responded. He looked at Jude with incredulous and disbelief in his tired green eyes at the audacity. Sure, he was allowed to be mad at him. But shoving him wouldn't prove a point.
With a light push, softer than the one that Jude gave him, Sharpness regained control over his space. "Jude, what are you trying to do right now?"
Jude shrugged, feigning nonchalance. If Sharpness had been any less exhausted and paranoid, he would've noticed that it was too scripted, and unlike the man he knew. "Take your armor off, let's spar."
"I—here—now?" Sharpness sputtered.
"Yeah. What, are you too scared now? Same rules, let's get on with it."
Sharpness clicked his tongue in annoyance. The familiar feeling of irritation began settling in his system, replacing his previous anxiety with something he was accustomed to.
Jude sure knew how to play with his buttons, and he wished he could question how or why.
His helmet and boots had already been discarded, but Sharpness slept with his chest plate and leggings. He softly grunted as he unclasped the netherite bindings to his chest plate before shrugging it off and haphazardly throwing it behind him. It clattered and clanked on the floor and joined the pile of white bedding as Sharpness freed his legs from netherite leggings, that eventually met the same fate as his chest plate.
It felt weird being exposed and light without his heavy armor. He never took it off much, not unless he bathed or physically sparred with a partner.
Rolling his wrists, Sharpness warmed up his joints and popped his knuckles. If Jude wanted it that badly then fine, he'd get it. He stalked towards Jude, and with every step he took forward, Jude took one backwards.
"C'mon, what're you waiting for? Hit me already," goaded Jude. And with that, Sharpness balled his fists. "Try me, bitch," he spat.
His first strike was to Jude's abdomen, to which the rabbit narrowly dodged, before pouncing on him. He fell back with a strangled huff before immediately taking action and grabbing hold of Jude's shirt and flipping them over, in order for him to be on top. Sharpness managed to land two, shaky blows to his face, before Jude grabbed a hold of his forearm and rolled them over. Sharpness tried to grab onto the collar of his shirt, but Jude, already predicting what he was about to do, forced his head to stay put on the ground.
Sharpness snarled as Jude pinned him down.
"Is that all you've got?"
And he thought he nearly saw red. They struggled on the marble floor outside of the trapper's room, Sharpness attempting to regain control and Jude fighting to keep his. Jude's thighs kept his arms locked uselessly to his sides, and it was clear that he had underestimated the strength his legs carried. Sharpness was reduced to nothing more than a trembling, wiggling mess on the ground and Jude had only watched with amusement reflected in his magenta eyes.
"Yield. I know you want to…" He drawled out. And Sharpness was left with not many choices.
"No, give me one more chance I—"
"Say it, Sharpness"
"…Off—get off of me," he whispered quietly, and it was only then did Jude get off of him and release his hold. Sharpness heaved out ragged breaths as he got up on his feet, properly riled up and pissed.
He challenged Jude with a glare as they circled around each other like wolves, and his arms were raised in defense. The faint moonlight led by the stairs had barely lit the dark atrium, and without it, everything would have been pitch black. The light allowed for him to see the small smile forming on Jude's face, and it made him angrier at the thought that Jude was entertained by this, almost delighted. It made Sharpness realize that it was very possible for them to be doing this over something other than the mess in Jude's room.
The trapper was the first to attack this time. He aimed a punch at Sharp's nose, but the swordsman caught his fist and sent a blow to the man's chest. Jude stumbled back, before kicking Sharpness's knee, which caused his legs to give out. That was cruel. Sharpness went to grab Jude's legs as he fell to his knees, but Jude, already anticipating his move, swapped their positions before they fell on the ground. Again.
Grunting upon impact, Sharpness grabbed the back of Jude's knee, before turning them around once more. His fist shook with how hard he clenched his fingers together, and the man beneath him didn't move when he let his fist collide with his jaw. It didn't feel as good as he wanted it to. There was no relief upon contact and nor was there any satisfaction. Sharpness raised his hand again, ready to strike once more, but he couldn't bring himself to finish the move.
God, fuck, why wasn't Jude struggling? Why wasn't he fighting back?
Sharpness only sat frozen with a hand fisting the other man's shirt, and Jude hadn't made a move to push him off. Their chests rose and fell with their heavy breathing, lungs strongly expanding and retracting as they caught their breath.
"Are they gone yet?" Jude asked.
"…What?"
Jude's lips thinly pressed themselves together. "Whoever you thought was hurting you. Are they gone?"
The strange question made him stumble his words. "I—um, yeah I—I guess," he muttered.
Sharpness lowered his arm and released his hold on Jude's shirt. So to say, he was confused and in pure disbelief. He thought Jude was being an asshole over his room being in complete disarray. But the likeliness of the other reason motivated him to want to throw another punch. Fucking hell, Jude, why was it that he always had to be this way?
"Jude I—fuck, I'm sorry…" Sharpness mumbled, "How badly did I hurt you?"
Jude only smiled softly, and Sharpness wished he would stop doing that already because there was nothing for him to smile about. And yet, as his bright eyes gazed up at him, Sharpness could only feel unworthy of the way it made him feel.
"It's fine. I know you wouldn't hurt me, and I wouldn't have allowed you to do anything if you could."
The raw honesty in his voice was what did him in. Sharpness felt everything all at once, the guiltiness he felt for the whole ordeal and the emotional struggle from his sleep. A choked noise escaped his lips once he sagged down onto Jude's chest, feeling arms wrap around him protectively and promising safety, grounding him. He snaked his own arms around Jude's neck, and the man momentarily lifted his head up to allow Sharpness to find a comfortable place to rest his hands.
"It's okay, I've got you," he cooed at Sharpness, gently brushing his fingers through long, tangled, blond locks. "You're safe here, you're not there anymore…"
The mattress was dipping where Sharpness sat. He avoided looking at Jude while nervously chewing on his cheek. Instead, he traced his eyes across the odd flooring of the bedroom. The bedroom could hardly even be considered one, and it was devoid of any personalization; having a line of jukeboxes along the wall across from the bed and a broken trap at the end of the room. It felt like more of a place to sleep rather than a real bedroom, and the thought made Sharpness feel weird. But every emotion besides frustration was weird and unfamiliar to him, so the thought didn't hold much value.
Across from him, Jude was fiddling with the extra armor stand he had in his inventory, looking for a decent spot to place it. It made him feel more wrong or at fault when he remembered that Jude was supposed to be building a trap with Parker.
Well, he had certainly forgotten about Parker, and it showed. He felt more embarrassed at the thought of Parker having to carry a stronger workload without Jude, since said man was currently occupied with babysitting him.
"Does this look good to you?" Jude turned around, showing him where the armor stand was. He didn't tear his eyes away from the floor when he muttered an "it's fine," to the other, his voice barely audible and quiet. Jude's soft steps echoed in the room, before his two feet stopped in front of the ground that he stared at.
"Hey, look at me."
At the command, Sharpness finally looked up.
"Do you wanna try sleeping without your armor for tonight?"
He hesitated, but the hope in Jude's voice made him slightly nod, and he rewarded Sharpness with a smile. "Okay," he said.
Jude carefully picked up the discarded armor on the floor, his hands gently handling every piece and fitting them to the armor stand at the other end of the room. His fingers traced the red, red stone trimming of the helmet in his hands, and Sharpness's heart beat faster when he thought that, in a way, the red stone was like Jude, in the sense that it reminded him of the trapper because of how much he used the red dust. Whenever he wore his armor it was almost like he carried a part of Jude with him, to protect him as he fought.
But the armor couldn't ever possibly compare to the real thing.
The singular pillow on the floor was picked up and thrown onto the bed, before the blanket followed. The blanket landed on Sharpness's lap but he hadn't moved or flinched upon contact with the white cotton. He wasn't sure what would come after their moment, or how he could possibly sleep when he was beginning to feel afraid to.
"Sharp… do you need me to tuck you in, too?"
Sharpness nearly pouted. "No, but Jude could you… could you stay?"
Jude only blinked at him, taken aback. And Sharpness suddenly felt silly for asking such a thing.
"Never mind, you can go back, it's f—"
"Sharp, scoot over," Jude said with finality.
Sharpness laid down and tried to wedge himself as closely to the wall as possible in order to make room for Jude. It was difficult to fit two men on a bed made for one, and they kept shuffling around awkwardly to find a comfortable position. But with a huff, Jude made the decision to pull Sharpness in closer and tuck his head under his chin. Sharpness let out a content sigh against Jude's throat, and he softly curled into the smaller man.
Their legs tangled naturally together until it was nearly impossible to tell them apart or define where one began and where the other ended. With the arm snaked over Sharpness's waist, Jude was able to pull the swordsman in closer, and with his other arm he petted and brushed against Sharpness's soft hair. The message was clear to him. He was safe here, in the rabbit’s arms, where he didn't need to sleep with armor or worry about nightmares.
And when his eyes began drooping and his breathing slowed to an even rate, he no longer thought about everything that had happened in the span of thirty minutes. The feeling of pain or uncleanliness dissipated, and so did his worriedness about their abrupt sparring session. If anything, he was grateful to be in Jude's arms, and to have him ground him back to reality.
But if Jude woke up the next morning to an empty bed and empty armor stand, he didn't mention it when they crossed paths. They wouldn't dare to speak of their new arrangement, but something else began changing right before their eyes, and they hadn't yet noticed it.