` ` Out of It ` `

He thinks he sees a hand.

It is the shape of a hand, anyway. He turns the shape around in his vision, over and over, tracing it and registering the shape before ultimately letting the thought slide off, nothing but melted butter, the same as the stuff the gloved hands in front of him have been washing off this pot. It is easier to let it go.

"Velli?"

It's a brief change in the surrounding static. The sound is deeper, which should be familiar right now. Pay attention, something in him whispers.

So, he listens.

"Velli."

Right. That is his name. Or, a variation of it. So many people call him so many things that he probably has a thousand names by now. Mm- no, no a thousand is too much... A hundred, maybe? How many variations of Machiavelli can a person make? Logical ones, that is.

Still, none of them feel like they particularly fit right now.

Velli, that voice says again. Oh. He is supposed to respond. A little "mmhm?" rings in his ears in a different frequency, one that has this other person merely blinking in reply.

"...Are you okay?"

They look worried. That is wrong, right? This one, he is not supposed to be worrying them.

"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be...?"

A mouth opens, words spilling out. From somewhere farther off, he listens to the mix of inflections and rambling, knowing it probably amounts to something logical, something halfway reassuring. His body is good at that after all, right? Spilling nonsense and spinning it into something human-sounding? Hand gestures and little smiles, the right combinations of words and sounds- it is all instinctual by this point, so natural he could do it without a thought.

And... it seems to be enough.

The person's brows furrow. Then, as he blinks, they're gone just as fast as they had arrived; it is just him and the static once again.

It buzzes around pleasantly. Calm, oppressive. Empty.

His vision settles on a spot on the dish below. Hands are pressed against it, unmoving. Nothingness.

He lets it fill his ears.

...

...

The frequency changes once more.

There is a different person's limb in front of him now, freckled and lighter toned; their fingers grip what he knows is a chin, dragging his vision up from the pot.

Their hair is curlier than the other's was.

They say something. It is muffled. All he does is blink again, before he watches them sigh, words being tossed towards the person from before, who apparently returned here with them.

"You've been cleaning the same dish for half an hour." He hears them this time. They sound... agitated. "I think it's clean by now, yeah?"

Their hair nearly blends in with the dark. Melting shapes.

The person waits.

...They wait a bit longer. But, when a voice does not arise in reply, they sigh again.

"Are you actually okay?" Their brows are furrowed too now. In concern, he notes. He is not supposed to concern this one either, he is pretty sure.

Their freckles look like noise.

Another reassurance drips into the air. Something trained. This person, however, does not seem to listen to it.

There are more words exchanged between the two people, but he finds that he cannot be bothered to pay attention to it right now. Instead, he lets it slip into the steady static, a nice hum while he stares after them.

"I'm okay." He hears, again and again.

It is only when he glances down that he sees that the two freckled hands are now holding the gloved ones.

"Vel." His name. "Hey, hey, you with me?"

Another hand. It pressed flat above the area where he knows his eyes should be.

"He's not feverish..."

"Well he's obviously out of it. What did you do?"

"Why do you assume I did something-?!"

"Because you always do."

Their voices slide over him. Still, something ingrained in him insists that he should reply.

"He didn't do anything." He hears. It blends into the way the freckled one turns and says something to someone farther off, away from them. "You can stop fussing, I told you I'm okay."

For a brief moment, he feels... something, but it is chased away by the static that flutters through his system. He feels it over everything, nothing but the thrum of it through where each limb should logically be placed.

He feels it, instead of the fingers that squeeze the ones in front of him.

He feels it, even as his position begins to change.

This one, he dimly notes, always had a habit of doing this: he blinks, his vision being moved briefly higher over the other two as white and blue dances in the peripheral. There are legs beneath him now, standing in the sand, no longer sat beside a fire.

The pot, it is in first one's hold; he had not even realized it had been taken.

There is a huff, then; it blows a few hairs, but he cannot feel a thing. Horns enter his vision, followed by narrowed eyes- but whatever words come from that flutters away from his grasp as he finds himself staring at the waves of white.

It looks...

It's white and blue, curling up along black leather and up and down larger forearms.

It looks soft.

He knows it is soft.

The hand in front of him, it plays with one of the stray curls. This... is an odd feeling. It curls around the black of the glove, around and around, pressing against the static but not quite breaking it. It is so short, and...

And he knows it is warm.

...The static is cold.

It feels cold.

There are palms tugging him around and words being spoken in some low tone impossible to decipher over the static, and other fingers- one gloved and grey- tugging him, saying to sit, to rest, and he is still so, so cold. They will not stop touching, and something twists internally; that fur would be so soft. He knows it is warm.

He...

He wants that.

It is wrapped around him, he thinks. All around his vision he sees waves of it, covering him; this one, he knows they are protective. Though, all of them are, considering how they remain so close, so touchy.

He wants to feel that.

Blearily, he watches as fingers tug the gloves away, showing off white palms and large patches of scars. They're so cold.

Even colder is-

He flinches. Water...? It is splashed onto the palms, colder than the static, much colder, and he cannot help but shudder as it sinks in. The static thrums, interrupted briefly, and he can only blink again as dark eyes bear into him.

"-feel that?" He catches. His vision settles on the palms before he is being shaken again, the voice more insistent. "Hey, hey, stay with me. Listen- this, can you feel this?"

"...Yeah."

"What does it feel like?"

"This is dumb. I told you-"

They flick him. The sting of it is muffled. "Stop being difficult. Just tell me what it feels like, dickhead."

...It takes a bit more focusing. The fingers rub against it, thumb pads meeting slickness.

It glides over cracked skin.

He goes with what he knows.

"Cold." That feels right. It's cold.

"Mmhm." A pause. "Is that all you can think of?"

It runs through those fingers, glistening. "...Wet."

"That's better." They nod at him. Their fingers find the palm in front of him again, wiping away the water before deciding to press insistently into the skin. Their nails leave behind crescent shapes, pretty things, before running down the length of it, over and over.

"What about this?" There is an awkward softness to their voice. They're not used to this.

He swallows at the thought.

Their nails... he picks through the static again, trying to focus, reaching out, and... and they are a little hard, but pleasant when they scratch along the skin there.

Oh. It feels good.

"Good." He echoes.

"I'll have to remember that." They nod once more. They move the- his- the... His hand. They move his hand over to the waves of white next. "How about that?"

There are not gloves in the way this time. The- his fingers, they splay out over the surface, tentative. The strands of fluff lick at his fingertips, like cotton.

It... It's soft. Like he knew.

"You're soft." He murmurs to no one. The person above him huffs again, and this time, he flinches as strands of hair move in his vision, bothered by the exhale; there is a nail in his hair, he finally registers, that has been tugging at the pulled back strands this entire time, easing them out of the hair tie.

A breath. He chokes on it, a stopped plug, as he feels it brush against something in his gut. It... It hurts. It hurts.

His hands tug themselves out of the person's. Against himself they fold, safer here as he swallows down the nausea that resulted from probing whatever the hell that was. No, he insists, no. He does not want to touch that.

A hand takes his again and he can only shake his head. Hey, he hears, followed by a low tone, impossibly soft, tapping at his heart, squeezing the shriveled thing. It hurts, he wants to yell in the moment, it hurts, let me cling to this, let me stay gone. I don't want it, I don't want to be here.

Why can't he only feel some things? Why does it have to be everything?

There is fur around him, holding him. It's so stupidly soft.

It's so warm.

Adam is so warm.

God, he wants to be warm.

He wants to feel that. To feel all of them.

Something stupid and painful surges through his throat, burning behind his eyes as it settles, sending shudders through his shoulders as he clings. Of course he clings, it is all he ever does- and all it ever does is cause problems. That's all he does, damn him, that's what he is doing right now.

Fuck. Fuck.

A stupid noise escapes him.

But...

Those arms, they let him bury himself.

There is a hand on his back. It rubs a trail down his spine, gentle as metal can be.

There are arms around him, wrapped as tight as they can without hurting him, longer nails tracing the hairs on his head, tugging them out one by one, because he said once that he liked having his scalp played with.

There are fingers holding his and eyes staring into him, voice as soft as they can manage with the way they were raised, and he wants to feel it. He wants to feel all of it. He wants to be far, far away from whatever rotten tar pit is in his chest and bury himself in the touch of these three- but life has never once been fair to him, has it?

He chokes on the nausea. It burns.

Adam's arms squeeze him tightly as he presses his cheek against his chest, a shaky breath leaving him as Azazel's hands find his shoulders, his thumbs rubbing small circles into the blades. And Isaiah, bless her, just holds both of his hands for now, rubbing their own circles into the palms.

He breathes in, inhaling the musk of leather. he hears the gravel of Adam's throat as he lets out a grumble, the sound reaching all the way into his chest. There are nails scratching along his head, behind his ears, the way they know makes him melt.

He doesn't deserve any of this.

The thought finally makes his chest hitch.

He doesn't deserve a single bit of this.

"Are you with me?" Isaiah's voice. It prods more and more at whatever hurt thing writhes inside of him. Her fingers tap his chin, easing out at least an eye to look at them, theirs meeting his. "Machiavelli. Stay with me?"

...He hates that tone. He prefers when she is flicking him, rattling him around, telling him just how much he hates him. He cannot stand this gentleness, as bad as he craves it. This thing that Isaiah can tug out, that only seems to come out around their gang.

It leaves his throat suddenly so tight he cannot possibly speak. Stupid. He's so stupid. How is he supposed to resist that?

How is he supposed to despise himself when Isaiah looks at him like that? Like he means something?

He doesn't want to be human. It is nothing but hurt, nothing but grief- but these three apparently want him around, and God is it hard to resist that when they hold him like this. When they are this warm.

He swallows. He knows he must look pathetic, but what else is new?

"Okay." It is just a hoarse whisper, something he knows is his own. "Okay."

And he lets himself be held, until he is ready to feel human again.