Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The lights hadn’t dimmed.

Not that he expected them to, really. The slot machines still hummed softly in the background, their flickering screens cycling through bets and prizes no one was there to claim. Glasses sat untouched at the bar, beads of moisture sliding down their sides, dripping onto the velvet-lined counter like tears no one would notice. The warmth in the air still lingered — a false kind of warmth, one that clung to skin but didn’t reach the bones.

ITrapped stood in the center of the casino floor, hands in his coat pockets, gaze unmoving. There were no screams. No panic. No one had even noticed.

That was the part that got to him, strangely. Not the blood. Not the sword. Not even the emptiness where Chance should have fallen, where he had expected — needed — a body to be.

Just… silence. As if the building itself had swallowed it whole, like the moment never happened.

A breath dragged into his lungs, slow and bitter. Dusty. There was still the faint scent of Chance’s cologne — something sweet, ridiculous, like spiced berries and sharp citrus. Always something over the top. He hated how that smell stuck to everything. The carpet. The table. His own damn sleeves.

He hadn’t meant to leave the sword manifested for so long. The glow had finally dimmed, the energy fading back into his arm, back into where the Darkheart clung like a second pulse. It was quiet too. That was concerning. The blade had fed off blood before — reveled in it, even. But now?

Now it only felt sated. Content.

Like it had gotten what it wanted.

He turned slowly, surveying the casino. His casino, now.

It wasn’t supposed to go this way. Not exactly.

The plan had been simple. Get close. Win his trust. Use that paper-thin bond to get into the estate and find the rumored vault, the key to the Banlands — all that ancient wealth and locked-away power his parents had hoarded. No one would miss a degenerate gambler like Chance, he thought. No one would mourn the smiling idiot too high on adrenaline to see a knife in the dark coming for him.

And yet.

Here he was, standing in the empire Chance had never taken seriously. The weight of ownership pressed down on his shoulders, unfamiliar and heavy. It wasn’t victory. Not really. It wasn’t even satisfaction. It was a delay. A breath held. A step taken too early off a ledge, the kind you don’t realize was the edge until it’s too late to catch yourself.

He walked toward the bar, each step a slow echo across the empty room.

A part of him expected the ghost of Chance’s laugh to follow him. That awful, confident snort he always let out when he thought he’d outsmarted someone. But there was only the creak of wood, the sigh of old machines still playing for no one.

He settled on a stool. Let the silence wrap around him.

Had he killed him?

It should have been simple. The sword had gone through. There had been a sound — not a scream, not quite — and then nothing. Just… light. Fading. And the warmth of Chance’s body vanishing from the space between them, like it had never been there to begin with.

The silence afterward had not been triumphant. It had been hollow.

He drummed his fingers on the counter, thoughts slow and sticky.

He needed a plan.

The estate — that was still the goal. The keys, the vault, whatever legacy Chance’s foolish parents had locked away. But how? How was he going to find it now, when the one person who could have led him there had simply evaporated into the air?

His lips curled into a faint grimace.

Perhaps he’d acted too quickly. Let his temper — no, his impatience — get the better of him. Three months of careful planning and coiled restraint, wasted in a single, impulsive blow.

But he couldn’t regret it. Not entirely.

Chance had always been going to die. That was inevitable. The only variable was when. And ITrapped had simply chosen “now.”

He rose from the stool after a long while, tugging at his gloves like he meant to leave, though he hadn’t quite decided where to go. The casino would stay closed for a time — perhaps under the guise of repairs or renovations. That would buy him time. Time to think. To search.

To figure out what the hell came next.

The stool groaned under his weight again as he sat back down, jaw tight. The old bar lights buzzed faintly above, casting their tired glow across the counter, dull and uneven. The air felt denser than before, as though the walls were holding their breath, waiting for him to remember.

He didn’t have to reach far.

That night bled easily into the present. Every detail etched behind his eyes like burns that refused to fade. He could still smell the gunpowder, the smoke from Chance’s favorite brand of cigars, and that ridiculous cologne—spiced berries and citrus. Always too loud. Always so… him.

He’d never forget the way Chance smiled across the table that night — the kind of smile people wore when they knew they were going to lose but didn’t care. Or maybe the kind you wore when you knew you couldn’t.

The game had started like it always did.

With ITrapped setting the rules.

“I’m bored,” Chance had muttered, slouched back in the deep red armchair with one boot kicked up on the edge of the card table. “Entertain me, Trappy.”

“I told you not to call me that,” ITrapped said coolly, swirling a glass of something amber and sharp in his gloved hand.

Chance grinned wider. “You like it. Makes me feel like we’re friends.”

He didn’t respond. He just let the silence stretch.

Instead, he stood, reached into the hidden drawer beneath the table, and retrieved the revolver — a six-chambered thing, heavy and old. Worn black steel, oiled perfectly. A relic from a darker time. It clicked when he spun it on the table.

Chance sat up.

“Ooooh,” he whispered, eyes alight. “Is this one of your games, or are you finally admitting you want to kill me?”

ITrapped smiled faintly.

“Why can’t it be both?”

He didn’t have to coax him. That was the thing about Chance. He lived for this. For danger. For sharp edges and loaded dice. He’d always lean into the fall if it meant feeling something on the way down. That was what made him so easy to control — and so hard to predict.

“The rules?” Chance asked, already reaching for the gun.

ITrapped stopped him with a single finger pressed to the barrel.

“Russian roulette. One bullet,” he said. “Each spin is fresh. Estate’s on the line.”

Chance’s grin faltered for only a second.

“You’re serious?”

“Have I ever not been?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he pulled out a sleek black envelope and slid it across the table. It bore his seal — the one Chance still didn’t know he forged, imitating Chance’s father’s mark with maddening precision.

Chance stared at it.

“This says you get everything if I lose.”

“Correct.”

“And if you lose?”

“You get me.”

Chance blinked. “You?”

ITrapped smiled. It wasn’t warm.

“All of me. My power. My control. My memory.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Chance laughed, a low, dangerous laugh that bubbled up like steam through cracked stone.

“Damn, Trappy. That’s hot. But you’re either bluffing… or you’ve really lost it.”

“You’ll have to find out.”

He could see it happen — the exact moment Chance’s addiction to risk overrode common sense. That shine in his eye like a child on the edge of traffic, daring the car to come closer. No fear. Just the need to know how close he could get before it hit.

“I accept,” he said, and without missing a beat, spun the chamber and pulled the trigger.

Click.

ITrapped watched him. No smile now. Just the stillness of a predator.

“Your turn,” Chance said, licking his lips.

The chamber spun. His finger lingered on the trigger longer than necessary. He was calm. Steady.

Click.

And so it went.

Back and forth. Five empty chambers.

Each pull more tense than the last. By the final spin, there was only one bullet left.

It was his turn.

And they both knew.

He didn’t spin.

He didn’t have to.

The bullet had settled in the last chamber.

Chance leaned back in his chair, arms draped across the sides like a prince watching the guillotine rise.

“You gonna take your shot, Trappy?” he asked softly. “Or are you gonna give me your soul?”

There was something in Chance’s voice then — something real. Like he wanted to know. Needed to know if someone would actually follow through.

ITrapped didn’t speak.

He just raised the gun.

Time slowed.

And for a moment — just a moment — he hesitated.

He could still feel it. That millisecond of doubt. The weight of possibility pressing down like lead.

Then, he pulled out the Darkheart.

The silence in the bar felt like that moment again. The echo never truly left.

He had expected blood. A body. A scream, even.

Instead, there was nothing. Chance’s body fell back into the chair, mouth slightly parted in shock, and then—

Light.

And he was gone.

Disintegrated. Dissolved. Like the world had deleted him for cheating death too many times.

ITrapped clenched his fist on the countertop.

He had won. He had everything now.

And yet…

And yet.

It didn’t feel like a win. It felt like an unanswered question.

Was Chance even dead?

Was the bullet even real?

Or had he played right into another game, one he hadn’t understood?

The hum of the bar lights was louder now.

ITrapped pressed two fingers to his temple, the memories grinding behind his eyes like rusted gears. That damn voice — Chance’s voice — still echoed like it had never left the walls. Even when the body was gone. Even when the blood never came.

“You sure you won, Trappy?”

No matter how many times he replayed it, the memory refused to end on his terms.

He stood abruptly, the stool scraping sharply against the floor. A glass that had been resting near him clinked as it tapped against the counter — too lightly to be intentional, but with just enough force to make a crack spiral up its side.

“Still annoying,” he muttered.

The fact that Chance was dead and still managing to haunt him with smug laughter from behind the curtain of memory was infuriating. It was as if their presence hadn’t dissipated — just shifted. An echo wearing perfume. A ghost with no manners.

He had wanted closure.

But that was the thing about Chance. He never shut up.

Not even when he was killed.

The casino behind him looked smaller now as he crossed the cobblestone path. Its red neon buzzed faintly, flickering like the last breath of a dying star. He didn’t look back. He wouldn’t give it the satisfaction.

His coat caught the wind as he walked, boots silent across the road that led away from the lights — toward the hills, toward the estate.

Chance’s house.

Or rather — what was left of it.

He’d never been allowed in when Chance was alive. “Too personal,” they’d say. “Too boring,” they’d add. But really? It had been a fortress. A nest of secrets. A place they kept even ITrapped out of, which said something.

Now it was his turn.

It was night when he arrived. Always night in these hills. The gates stood open like they had been expecting him, iron bent outward as if someone had pushed them with more strength than necessary.

That… wasn’t how Chance left things.

ITrapped paused, one hand hovering over the gate’s jagged edge. He tilted his head. The wind was still. No animals. No insects. Not even the sound of settling wood from the old trees that lined the yard.

“Of course his house is cursed,” he murmured to himself. “Of course he wouldn’t let it die quietly.”

Still, he stepped inside.

The path was long — crushed stone, once neat, now crooked. Overgrown grass spilled over the steps. Somewhere to the right, a long-dead fountain trickled with water that smelled metallic, but never dried up.

The house loomed above like a crooked king. Gray wood, four chimneys, tall stained-glass windows with warped images of masked dancers and blindfolded gods. Every inch was excessive. Arrogant.

Just like him.

He stepped through the front door, which creaked open without force. Not locked. Not barred.

Welcoming.

Suspicious.

The inside was worse. A twisted museum of one man’s ego.

Books with half-burned spines. Paintings of his own face, stylized, distorted. Journals scattered like breadcrumbs across the hall floor. Clocks — so many clocks — all ticking at different speeds.

It felt like being inside Chance’s head.

ITrapped moved slowly, his fingers trailing across dust-coated surfaces. A journal lay open on a hallway table. One he hadn’t touched yet.

The writing was unmistakable.

“I think Trappy wants to kill me. That’s cute. He finally figured out I’m not afraid of dying. Good. Maybe that’ll make it fun.”

His hand curled into a fist.

“If I do die… I hope it’s by his hand. I want to see his face when he wins and realizes I rigged it anyway.”

He tore the page out and shoved it into his coat pocket.

“Still. Annoying.”

But he hadn’t come for nostalgia. Or for petty vengeance.

He came for answers.

He came for what came next.

Chance’s parents — rich, powerful, untouched by their son’s madness. They had what he needed. But not just money.

Recognition. Access. Legacy.

He couldn’t take it by force.

But if he could prove he inherited what Chance left behind — if he could become what Chance had been to them — he could take more than just a fortune.

He could take the role.

He didn’t want to be himself anymore. That was never the plan.

He wanted to be what the world wanted. What they would kneel for. What even Chance couldn’t laugh at.

And to do that…

He would start with the bedroom.

The door creaked open with resistance, as though something on the other side didn’t want to be disturbed.

Chance’s room.

ITrapped had expected… worse.

He thought it would stink of sweat and arrogance. Be littered with love letters and empty bottles. Photos of people he toyed with. Or perhaps chalk outlines from self-inflicted games of chance, immortalized in dark jokes.

But what he found was—

A bunny pen.

Messy, chaotic, and unmistakably lived-in — but not in the way ITrapped imagined. The walls weren’t covered in madness. There were no scribbled formulas, no trophies of risk. Instead, there were hanging hammocks made from old blankets. Scratching posts. Scattered hay. Chew toys.

The entire floor was layered in soft carpet with rugs balled up like someone — something — had pushed them out of place. A tipped-over bowl of dry food. Half a carrot on the floor.

And in the center of it all…

A massive, dark grey rabbit.

Still. Breathing.

Watching him.

ITrapped stared.

His fingers twitched at his side, like they weren’t sure whether to clench or reach for something.

The rabbit was huge. Not just large — unnatural. Its fur was thick and dense, with folds along the haunches. It blinked slowly, black eyes too calm to be normal. Behind one of its ears was a patch of darker fur — shaped unmistakably like a spade.

Spade.

He remembered the name.

Barely.

Chance had talked about him a few times — more than a few, if he was being honest, but he never really listened. At the time, he’d assumed it was another metaphor. Another one of Chance’s symbols.

But no.

It was… just a bunny.

Still alive.

Still here.

Outliving him.

For a moment, ITrapped stood in the doorway, motionless. The weight of the room made the air dense, like time had decided to sit and rest here.

This room hadn’t changed since the day Chance died.

Maybe even longer than that.

He didn’t know what irritated him more — the fact that Chance had clearly loved this stupid animal, or the fact that Spade seemed so unbothered by his owner’s absence. As if death had just… happened.

As if grief was just a scent that had long since aired out.

He stepped closer.

The floor creaked softly beneath him.

The rabbit didn’t flinch.

“He had a bunny,” ITrapped murmured. His voice didn’t carry much inflection — not anger, not sorrow. Just acknowledgment. A fact stated in the face of contradiction.

The rabbit chewed the carrot slowly.

ITrapped frowned.

“Figures you’d get the room. The sanctuary. You really were his favorite.”

He crouched down slowly, knees popping with tension. His hand hovered just over the rabbit’s head.

It would be easy.

So, so easy.

One twist. One curse. One flick.

A symbol erased.

A remnant burned away.

He could destroy everything left of Chance. Truly start over. Wipe the board clean.

He could do it.

He should do it.

But…

His hand lowered instead.

And he pet it.

The rabbit’s fur was surprisingly soft. Dense but smooth, like velvet over muscle. Spade leaned into the touch. Not in fear. Not in defense.

In familiarity.

Like it had happened a thousand times before.

ITrapped looked down at the creature. For a moment, his face softened, but not in a kind way — more like his muscles had grown too tired to hold the scowl.

“You don’t even know he’s gone,” he whispered.

He didn’t expect an answer. But the silence was enough of one.

Chance’s bed was untouched — or at least unused. More toys than pillows. Chewed-through towels. A broken lamp in the corner that had clearly been knocked over long ago.

This wasn’t a room.

This was a nursery.

A shrine to something soft, delicate, and utterly unlike the man ITrapped had killed.

It made his stomach twist.

He hated how confusing it felt.

As Spade nudged into his palm again, ITrapped muttered under his breath:

“What the hell am I supposed to do with you?”

The rabbit twitched its nose.

No answer.

Just presence.

Unmoving. Undying. Unbothered.

Chapter Text

He had been standing there too long.

The room had lost its shape around him, colors bleeding into each other like a waterlogged painting. He didn’t know how much time had passed — minutes, maybe an hour — but Spade hadn’t moved. The damn rabbit was still pressed up against his boot, resting its head there like ITrapped was part of the furniture now.

He wanted to kick it.

.

.

.

He didn’t.

“You’re just a rabbit,” he muttered. “You’re not even a real part of this.”

But his voice lacked certainty.

Spade lifted his head, ears twitching with the slow grace of something that had never known urgency. His black eyes locked with ITrapped’s — silent, still, maddening.

“You don’t even know he’s dead,” ITrapped said again, like maybe saying it enough would force it to matter.

He knelt down. The floor creaked again, louder this time. Spade didn’t flinch.

“Do you care?” he asked, half-laughing under his breath. “Do you miss him? Or was he just a food dispenser with a stupid laugh?”

Spade tilted his head.

It felt like a question back.

ITrapped sat on the edge of the bed — or what remained of it beneath the scattered toys and clumps of fur. The mattress sagged. The whole room smelled faintly of hay and something sweet, like fruit that had long since dried up.

His fingers ran along the edge of the bedsheet, where a few patches had been chewed through. There were teeth marks everywhere if you looked closely.

He didn’t know Chance had been this kind to anything.

He pressed his fingers to his temple.

“What am I even doing?” he hissed. “I came here for documents. Keys. Codes. Something I can use. Not a walking pillow.”

But he hadn’t moved. Not really.

Spade hopped up beside him, uninvited.

The weight of him was strange. Heavy. Real. ITrapped had seen bigger animals, but this one felt like it chose to be here. Not because it didn’t know better, but because it knew exactly what it was doing.

Spade pressed against his side.

And ITrapped did nothing.

“You’re going to be a problem,” he muttered. “A soft little ghost haunting me.”

His hand reached out again.

It hovered.

Shook.

Then rested lightly between the rabbit’s ears.

He could still do it. Right now. Snap the neck, clean and fast. Be done with the last piece of that obnoxious legacy. No more of Chance. No more reminders.

But the silence in the room had weight.

And he realized something unsettling:

He didn’t want to be alone here.

ITrapped pulled his hand back, curled his fingers into a fist.

Spade leaned into him again anyway, stubborn.

He stared down at the rabbit, jaw clenched.

“Fine,” he said softly, almost inaudible. “You stay. For now.”

Spade gave no response. Just breathed.

ITrapped exhaled slowly and let his head fall back.

He would leave soon.

There was still things to do.

But not yet.

Not yet.

“—biggest rabbit breed in the world, I swear! Spade’s gonna get so fat one day he’ll need his own room, not just mine—”

The voice rang out from somewhere else. Somewhen else.

ITrapped didn’t move.

He was still sitting there, hand half-raised again as if the gesture had frozen in time, hovering near Spade’s twitching ears.

Chance’s voice continued, flippant and bright, like sunlight bouncing off glass.

“You ever seen a rabbit thump his foot at the TV? Spade does it when the commercials come on. He hates ads. Smartest little guy ever. Smarter than most people.”

The memory was uninvited.

He hadn’t meant to think about that moment—hadn’t wanted to. But it came all the same, a trickle of sound and color leaking in from the past. Chance, flopped over the casino lounge chair with a smoothie in hand, legs dangling like he owned gravity itself.

ITrapped remembered sitting across from him. On the couch. Behind the desk. Somewhere that didn’t matter.

All he could remember clearly was the heat in his face.

And the migraine gnawing at his skull.

All Chance did was talk.

Talk and laugh and swing his arms like he was conducting the world’s dumbest orchestra, drawing shapes in the air with his drink straw.

“And get this—Spade’s favorite isn’t carrots. Isn’t that weird? All the cartoons lied. He’s a lettuce guy. I think it’s a texture thing.”

ITrapped had clenched his jaw so hard that day he thought something might crack.

He remembered staring not at Chance, but through him. Noticed how his lips moved too much. How he’d lean in too close. How his volume never dropped, not even when ITrapped was visibly unraveling.

He had tuned out most of the words.

What remained was that feeling.

The clatter of Chance’s existence. Constant, scraping, chaotic.

God, he had wanted him to shut up.

Just once.

Just for a moment.

The memory vanished like smoke, thin and bitter.

ITrapped blinked.

Spade was still there beside him. Still warm. Still silent.

The perfect opposite.

“I didn’t listen,” ITrapped muttered, almost to himself. “Didn’t think you mattered.”

The rabbit sniffed at his coat sleeve.

“And now you’re all that’s left.”

He looked down.

He wasn’t sure who he was talking to anymore.

His eyes caught on to the carrot that was still on the floor.

Old, slightly dried at the ends. Rolled off from a shallow dish in the corner that must’ve once held better food—greens now wilted and turning at the edges. The carrot stood out like it was trying too hard. Bright orange in a room painted in lazy grey, mess, and half-memories.

ITrapped stared at it blankly.

“…Didn’t even like carrots,” he muttered, voice low. “Said it like six times.”

The thought came without emotion, just that dull, irritated flavor his thoughts took when Chance hovered too close to them.

He could already hear the imaginary version of Chance trying to defend it.

“Well, I just left it in case he changed his mind! You never know with rabbits! They’re complicated creatures!”

God.

Even dead, Chance was annoying.

ITrapped rubbed at the side of his face, jaw tensed. It should’ve been easy. Throw the carrot out. Let the room rot. Leave the rabbit in someone else’s care—if he even counted as someone. Spade was just another leftover piece. A useless thing with no part in the plan.

Except.

Except he hadn’t walked away yet.

He hadn’t even stood .

His hand was still resting on Spade’s head, the thick fur soft and warm under his palm. The rabbit didn’t seem bothered. Didn’t even look at him. Just pressed closer.

Comfortable.

Trusting.

It grated on something sharp inside him, but also—

God. He was still here.

The room was a disaster, full of scattered hay and tipped-over boxes and floor space that had clearly been a playpen more than a bedroom. He told himself he hated it. That it was beneath him.

But he still hadn’t left.

“…I’ll stay here for a while,” he said aloud, voice like stone skipping once across water. “It’s just… convenient. Closer to the parents. Easier to dig into their assets from here. Useful.”

Spade gave no response beyond a heavy breath and slow blink.

ITrapped moved the carrot out of sight with the side of his foot.

“And someone needs to keep feeding you,” he added, quieter, as if it wasn’t meant to be heard at all.

He didn’t look at the rabbit again. Just the wall. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.

It seemed he had a new responsibility now. At least Spade was quieter..

Chapter Text

He blinked slowly, unsure if his eyes had ever truly closed.

The lobby was always the same in Forsaken—dim, sad, brown and black and too quiet. The kind of quiet that buzzed in your teeth, like the aftermath of a blown fuse. Light fixtures flickered with intentional inconsistency, casting long shadows across the wooden floor. There was no sound except for the occasional soft clink of a glass from the bar or the rustle of unseen movement from the halls beyond. Everything about this place felt… posed. Like it had been made to look lived-in but was never actually touched.

Chance sat in a booth with high walls that swallowed him, one arm slung across the back like he had all the time in the world. But they didn’t feel relaxed. His fingers fidgeted with the ring on his pinky, spinning it around and around. His heart wasn’t racing—something dulled that. But his thoughts never stopped.

What the hell even happened?

He remembered the game. They remembered him. ITrapped, across the table with that infuriating calm, the smirk that never quite touched his eyes. The gun. The weight of it. The chamber spin. The smile that had no right to be there.

Chance had laughed. He always laughed. Because he didn’t think he could lose.

But something had gone wrong.

Or maybe something had gone right.

He leaned forward, elbows on the table, gaze dragging over the smooth wood grain as if it might answer for them. ITrapped had always been difficult to read—not because he was mysterious, but because he was empty. No tells, no ticks, no heart behind the words. Chance used to think that was funny. Cool, even. He liked people who could outplay him. He liked being surprised. And ITrapped? He had surprised him more than once.

But that last game… That wasn’t a surprise. That was a decision.

Chance didn’t know if he was dead. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t. Forsaken wasn’t exactly picky. He’d seen other people here. Lost things. Forgotten things. Sometimes people didn’t even realize what they were missing. Sometimes they didn’t even know they were gone.

He knew something was missing.

They missed him.

Not in the way people missed friends or family. But in the way you miss the moment just before a coin lands. The moment of chance. The rush. That man had been an opponent. A mirror. A mistake. And Chance had loved every second of trying to get under his skin.

He wondered if he ever did.

ITrapped never raised his voice. He never reacted. But Chance remembered his eyes, on that last spin. How for a single second, he’d caught something—something real. Fury? Relief? Guilt?

…No. Not guilt.

ITrapped didn’t feel guilty. He didn’t do guilt.

Chance smiled to himself, one hand tapping a loose rhythm on the table. “Shoulda known better,” they muttered.

There was no bartender, no one to hear them, but they talked anyway. They always talked. Silence was a waste.

“Guy like him… don’t play to win. He plays to end. ”

His grin flickered. That was the truth of it, wasn’t it? He hadn’t been a rival. He’d been a problem to solve. Something ITrapped could outthink and outmaneuver and erase.

But still.

He didn’t feel erased.

Somewhere out there, ITrapped was probably already moving on. Sifting through the pieces. Plotting the next step. Cold and efficient like always. Chance could picture him now, brushing past old memories like they meant nothing, probably tossing out the junk he left behind, maybe even—

His thoughts caught.

Spade.

Their chest pulled tight, a flicker of something warm and sharp curling behind their ribs.

Would ITrapped get rid of him? Would he even care?

“Don’t you dare,” they whispered, half to the room, half to whatever thread might still connect them. “You leave my damn rabbit alone.”

Spade had nothing to do with this. He didn’t choose sides. He just… stayed. And Chance had always liked that about him.

He leaned back again, letting his head rest against the booth wall, eyes half-lidded as the ceiling lights buzzed overhead.

“I bet you’re pretending not to care. That’s your thing, right?” he muttered with a soft laugh. “But you’re feeding him. You’re there. So, maybe… maybe you’re not as empty as you think.”

The thought brought him a strange peace.

Maybe he had lost.

Maybe he was stuck.

But the game wasn’t over.

Not yet.

“Deep in thought, huh?”

The voice snapped Chance from the lull of their own mind. They blinked, lifted their head, and found themselves staring up at a familiar silhouette—a red visor, tilted slightly from habit, and a uniform too crisp to be accidental. Elliot stood by the booth, balancing a steaming pizza box in one hand with the kind of ease only someone unnaturally committed to their job could manage.

Chance blinked again, letting the fog of memory settle in the back of his head. “Oh. You.”

Elliot gave a crooked smile, the corners of his mouth lifting in that permanent I’m here to help expression he seemed cursed to wear. “You looked like you were trying to figure out if the ceiling was hiding a life secret. Everything alright?”

Chance rolled his shoulders with a languid stretch, slipping the ring off his pinky and back on again just for something to do with his hands. “Yeah. Just thinking.”

Elliot raised a brow and slid into the opposite side of the booth without asking, setting the pizza down between them. He didn’t open it. “Thinking’s dangerous around here.”

“Yeah, well. Breathing’s overrated, too, but I still do it.”

That made Elliot snort. “Fair enough.” He drummed his fingers lightly against the lid of the box. “You’ve got that look, y’know. The ‘I just lost something important but I’m pretending it’s fine’ look. You sure you’re good?”

Chance tilted their head, lip quirking in mild amusement. “You do this with all your customers?”

“Only the ones who look like they’re trying to stare through the furniture,” Elliot said with a shrug. “I’m not a therapist or anything, but I know what it’s like to carry something heavy and act like it’s not. You don’t have to explain it.”

A strange moment passed between them, quiet and soft like the flicker of candlelight in a storm. Chance looked at him—really looked—and saw no recognition. No buried awareness. Elliot didn’t know who he was, or what he’d done. He wasn’t another player in the game. Just a guy with a job, a stubborn heart, and a dedication to making sure people ate.

“Thanks,” Chance said finally, voice quiet but real.

Elliot smiled again, easy and warm. “Anytime. I’m always around. You’d be surprised how many people forget to feed themselves here.”

Chance huffed a breath—almost a laugh. “Yeah. No kidding.”

He nudged the pizza box an inch forward. “You wanna share it, or is this one of those sacred delivery things?”

“Normally I’d say no, but…” Elliot opened the box, revealing a perfect half-and-half of pepperoni and mushroom. “For you? I’ll make an exception.”

They ate in silence, and for a while, Chance let the thoughts of ITrapped fade into the background. Just a little. Not gone—but buried under something warm, something real, something that didn’t ask him to be anything more than a guy in a booth with too many thoughts and a slice of pizza in his hand.

It wasn’t much.

But it was enough—for now.

Chapter Text

It was a quieter morning than ITrapped expected. Sunlight slanted through the stained, half-bent blinds in thin golden lines, cutting across the room in an almost theatrical way.

He hated it.

The light, the warmth, the sense of being somewhere that felt lived-in. It was domestic in a way he’d never bothered to understand, and now it was draped all over him like an unwanted blanket.

Spade had made himself comfortable beside the bed, massive ears twitching in his sleep, his body rising and falling like a slow tide. ITrapped had spent the night on Chance’s bed, or what was left of it—it creaked from years of neglect and was covered in fur despite being clearly made for human use. He didn’t sleep much, only enough to let his mind reset.

He still hadn’t made peace with the idea that this was where he was now.

The plan, as it had been, was to leverage Chance’s winnings, fake some papers, track down their parents, and force their hand. They still held power—old money, political strings, private circles of influence—and ITrapped needed that. Chance, for all his recklessness and compulsive need to win, had made their fortune grow. But he had always been the weak link. Charming, loud, dumb in that specific way that made people trust him too easily. His thrill-seeking was a distraction. He had connections, but no spine to use them right. ITrapped was going to fix that. That was the plan.

But the house had slowed him down.

Everything here smelled like Chance—cheap cologne and fur and too many sugar-sweet drinks left half-consumed on nightstands. It was messy in a way that felt deliberate, like the chaos itself was a form of comfort. Chance never threw out his junk mail. He had three copies of the same magazine stacked in the bathroom, unopened. There were little photos pinned to cork boards in the hallway, of him with other people ITrapped didn’t recognize—laughing, losing, grinning like a fool.

He stopped at one, fingers hovering but never quite touching. Chance was holding Spade in it. Mid-laugh. Eyes squinted. The rabbit looked less impressed. But Spade had stayed, hadn’t he? That damn rabbit had stayed through it all. And now ITrapped was stuck feeding it. Cleaning around it. Being in its space.

He ran a hand through his hair and turned away, muttering to no one in particular.

“Stupid.”

The word echoed softly through the hallway. But he didn’t take it back.

Back in the bedroom, Spade was awake now, stretching out his hind legs before sitting upright, watching him in that unnerving, neutral way only rabbits seemed capable of. ITrapped stared back. He felt like they were measuring each other. Or maybe the rabbit just wanted food. He scoffed under his breath and headed for the kitchen.

The fridge was surprisingly well-stocked. Another detail that irritated him. Like Chance had been preparing to live. Like he wasn’t supposed to lose. There was fresh produce in the drawer—romaine, parsley, some chopped celery in a plastic container. He found another carrot, shook his head, and shoved it to the back without comment.

The process of preparing Spade’s food was more meditative than he’d expected. Wash the leaves. Chop the stalks. Arrange it in a shallow bowl. He didn’t try to be gentle, but he wasn’t rough either. He just did it. Like it was part of the plan.

But somewhere, deep down, he knew it wasn’t.

This wasn’t the plan.

Staying here. Feeding a rabbit. Wandering through hallways full of someone else’s memories. Waking up to warmth and sunlight and stupid soft fur rubbing against his ankle like it meant something.

He set the bowl down in front of Spade and crouched beside him, watching the giant rabbit sniff cautiously before digging in.

“I’m not keeping you,” he said flatly. “I’m just making sure you don’t die on my watch. That’s all.”

Spade didn’t respond. Of course he didn’t. He was just a rabbit. But ITrapped still felt like the silence had the final word.