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The room’s quiet. Mike is sleeping next to her.
El watches him carefully. He’s grown more into sharper features over the years. She brushes a stray lock of hair away from his face, he’s still pretty though.
Footsteps creak from outside the door and she grows still. If she lifts her head, she would see the shadows peeking from the light under the doorway. The bad men are coming, coming to rip her out of Mike’s grasp and to take her away again. For more of their sick tests.
He made her complicit, they knew that. It’s why they kept him here, it’s why she didn’t end it all ages ago. Even when he was held kicking and screaming, spewing insults at the men until the fight eventually left him.
That was an unspoken agreement between them and her. Mike stays. If they have to be here then Mike stays, and he stays unharmed. She remembers when someone got cocky, pulling a gun to his head and El jerked her head to the right, watching as the guard’s neck snapped and his body fell to the ground. Mike especially didn’t want to let go of her that day.
The men didn’t try that again, they didn’t reprimand her either. Not when her little display gave them exactly what they wanted.
There’s voices at the door now, muffled ones that sound like arguing and El watches. She wraps an arm around Mike, protectively pulling him closer as he sighs in her hold. Her hand on his back grips his shirt. She stares, as the shadows move and the door creeps open. Not right now please, she can’t handle any more tests.
The door slams itself shut, and the lock clicks. The knob jiggles and there’s more arguing until that soon fades, and they eventually leave.
She still stares at the door. He starts to stir a little.
“El,” he murmurs (because despite what the lab says her name is El, not 011). “You alright?”
El sniffs and nods, catching some blood and staining her white shirt. She’s still drained from earlier today. “I’m alright.”
He’s silent. If he were more awake he would fight her on the issue, pushing her until she brought it up. But instead he just moves closer, slotting his head under her chin. “Alright…” he answers quietly.
She feels his breath start to even out again on her neck, and the tension in her body melts away. Her grip loosens from his shirt, moving to now rubbing his back in a comforting manner. For him or for her, she doesn’t know. But she does finally start to close her eyes, and rest.