Archive of Our Own ^beta

Netzach is trustworthy, or at least, far more trustworthy than Hod herself.

She’d read somewhere, once, the phrase “trust to do what it is in their nature to do” - and that phrase applies to Netzach more than anyone else in Hod’s periphery. Netzach may be lazy, but she does her job - and when she tells Hod this won’t hurt, it’ll make you feel better, it won’t be like before, I promise, she can’t help but trust her. Her breath doesn’t even hitch when Netzach tightens the tourniquet - she doesn’t even tremble when Netzach draws the syringe. The liquid is viscous, drawing thick and slow, and Hod watches owlishly as Netzach flicks her fingers against the syringe. The bubbles pop against her ragged fingernails, and Hod stares at the brightly colored paints staining Netzach’s fingers with a warmth in her chest.

Netzach doesn’t seem to hold the same fondness, but Hod is long since used to being unhappy with her feelings. 

“Sorry - I dunno if I’ve asked. Does the smell of rubbing alcohol get to you?” Netzach asks as she opens a small packet and a sterile scent emerges. “That first life, it used to make me feel sick.”

“Ah - no, not really. I guess we have to be careful about that kind of stuff now, huh?” Hod stammers out, squirming in her seat as Netzach wipes down the crook of her arm. Even if they can’t die, the idea of getting infected by whatever kind of contaminant could find its way into the Library is hardly appealing. 

“Unfortunately,” Netzach drawls, and for all that she’s improved, that they’ve both improved - neither of them have really stopped flirting with death, have they? Maybe it’s less of a flirt and more of a lust, but she barely has time to think about that concept - stewed in prose she’s learned from the books she’s been tasked to collect - when Netzach asks, “Ready?”

Hod jumps a bit, and Netzach laughs a bit, and for a moment they’re somewhere kinder. For a moment, Hod is sitting at the end of a hospital bed, and for a moment Netzach believes in something greater. There’s none of that now - just dead ends and broken memories and thrice-tried lives and whatever means they have to pretend they're in some better place they don't deserve.

(But it's not her fault, Hod will tell herself later, with a glassy-eyed stare at an empty ceiling.  Netzach coerced her.)

"Breathe in," Netzach continues, not waiting for Hod's reply - and she does, but it's more sharp than steadying, and she winces as the needle pierces her skin. 

Netzach's brows furrow, and she pulls the tourniquet off - one hand prods at Hod's raised veins while the other supports the syringe. Her focus is beautiful, in its own haunting way - Hod wonders if maybe this, too, is an art. The thought would make her giggle, but all of her focus is on keeping still, even as her tongue nervously wets her lips. Netzach hums to herself - Hod wonders if she's even aware  of it - as the needle pierces a bit further, a bit sharper, and contents of the syringe are slowly injected. 

"It's cold ," Hod says as Netzach finishes, carefully pulling out the syringe and putting gauze onto the pierced vein.

"...mm, is it?" Netzach asks lazily, turning to draw a second syringe for herself. She doesn't clean her arm, Hod notices, but she's mesmerized by the flow of liquid into Netzach's veins, glaring substance turned mellow under her skin.

"Um.. am I supposed to feel something?" Hod asks, still barely-fidgeting in her seat, as if motion will change something .

"Nah, not yet," Netzach replies idly, barely regarding Hod as she puts the needles in some sort of hard container, even though they can just as easily fade back into light. When Netzach finally looks back at Hod, it's with a muddled gentleness, something like remorse encased there.

"Geez, you're stiff. Inhale," and Hod does, sharp through her nose, "..and exhale." And she does.

"There you go. It's gonna be okay. No weird hallucinations this time."

Hod nods, the motion tight and scared. She'd agreed to it, but now it feels like a bad idea, another thing to ascribe morality to, another regression to that broken box of a self. She's thinking too much, thinking so loudly she's sure Netzach can hear every failure pouring out of her, but she keeps her silence. Instead, she settles on the ground next to Hod's chair, resting her head against Hod's thigh.

"You're warm," Netzach mutters, her tone heavy with drowsiness and contentment.

Hod doesn't reply, but she does lift a hand to run through Netzach's hair idly, carding through what strands aren't caught up in a sloppy bun. Netzach leans into the touch, and for a minute, for an hour, for this liminal time, Hod is content to simply be here. Somewhere along the line, time dilates, stretches out and then back in, and it's a few moments after that, when her head starts to feel fuzzy and heavy and she feels every heartbeat as if it were a conscious action, that she finally pulls her hand from Netzach's hair with a nervous giggle.

"Is my heart supposed to, uh.. it feels like it's going to burst ."

Among other things. The pulsing of blood is flushing her cheeks and going to other places she'd rather not consider, even as thinking through a spoken sentence starts to feel more like trying to make sense of radio static.

"...uh, yeah, sure," Netzach replies, dropping her head from Hod's thigh to roll back onto the floor, looking up at Hod with shockingly bright eyes for someone so empty . "Are you okay?"

"I think so." 

Hod's fingers are white-knuckled in her skirts, and a wave of something washes over her, making her fingers prickle, making her groin twinge and making a wave of nausea hit her. She bends over for a moment, her breathing stuttering, and Netzach's hand settles on her knee, an anchoring presence.

"Talk to me, Mich- Hod," Netzach still drones , but it's with kind concern.

"I feel.. hot," and she wonders if she's talking too loud, or too quietly, or if she's even speaking aloud at all. "..and, um, dizzy? A-and.."

Oh, she can't say that. Netzach looks up at her expectantly, and she bites her lip hard enough to taste iron and shakes her head.

"..horny, right? You don't have to be a prude."

Hod gasps at her boldness, goes to shake her head no but ends up shaking her head yes . There are hands on her, then, bunching up her skirts and shifting them, and Hod's too focused on the heat flooding her and the amusement that's starting to tinge her thoughts to wholly notice.

"Hey, Hod? C'mon, give me an answer."

Had Netzach asked anything? She must have - her hair is pinned up more tightly than before, and she's kneeling between Hod's legs, and when she presses her palm flat against Hod's crotch she can't help but gasp, suddenly aware of just how wet she is.

"Y-yes!" Hod squeaks out, and that's apparently all Netzach needs.

Her ragged fingernails tug down Hod's tights with a shocking amount of gentleness, a practiced ease, and Hod barely has time to register the cold before her panties are gone, too. She gives a little nervous giggle, digging her fingers into the arms of her chair - and that's about all she gets before her brain melts .

Netzach has no hesitation, as if she's been waiting for this - one of her hands braces on Hod's thighs, and she takes her clit into her mouth with a sort of practiced ease, soft and gentle flicks of her tongue that muddle Hod's brain. This is a new sensation, overwhelming and perfect , the only ripple in the puddle of water she's turned into. She shifts and twitches and tries putting a hand on Netzach's back - the other woman gives a little affirmative hum at that, a reverberation that sends shocks through Hod's body. 

Someone is breathing heavily - someone is squeaking and whimpering - someone is tasting iron. 

Netzach stays there for a while, not letting Hod pass that crest to orgasm, but so gentle and slow she hardly feels teased. It's hard for her to tell time like this, anyway, when she feels every vein in her body, every rush of blood, every nerve that Netzach's tongue explores. A disappointed whine slips off her lips when Netzach pulls back - even with her distorted vision, the sheen on Netzach's face is visible, something that makes her feel so utterly embarrassed that she can't help but hide her face in her hands.

".. is that bad?" Netzach asks, and Hod peeks through her fingers and shakes her head no.

"No one's ever d-done this to me before," she chokes out, and Netzach's face darkens, or maybe she's just imagining it - she doesn't have time to think before Netzach is back under her skirts and her tongue is in her cunt.

One hand is still toying with her clit, gone from needy to over-sensitive , as Netzach's skilled tongue explores her as unceasingly as a starving woman offered a feast. Hod is sure she's grabbing Netzach's hair too roughly (and when did she start grabbing her hair again?), but when she accidentally tugs as a shock runs through her Netzach whines , and that makes her feel like she's doing something right, something good . She tugs again, harder, and Netzach whines again, fiercer, and that's all there is for hours, or maybe for seconds. 

Her hands tugging, her tongue exploring.

The orgasm builds slowly in Hod's stomach, and then suddenly - she barely gasps out a warning - "Netzach, I'm-" before she's clenching around her tongue, shivering and whimpering and utterly overstimulated. When she goes to push back her sweaty hair, she finds tears on her cheeks - when Netzach pulls back, finally, blessedly, regretfully, her cheeks shimmer with moisture and her pupils are blown wide with euphoria.

"..feel good?" Netzach asks, sounding just as dazed as Hod feels, and she nods, tries to verbalize but just squeaks , and for some reason her body won't stop trembling.

Netzach yawns, settling her still-sticky face against Hod's thigh, and maybe later Hod will regret this but for now the anchoring touch is all she could ask for. 

"Don't worry about me," Netzach adds, waving a hand dismissively. "You can return it later."

Hod doesn't reply, just leans back in the chair and stares at the lights dangling from the ceiling and counts Netzach's slow breaths, until every regret named Michelle fades away from her periphery and into oblivion.