Work Text:
Ventilation Shafts
"Ohhh, my bad! Sorry Hordak, I didn't know the tiny foods were a part of your newest rationing program to save horde expenses," Entrapta said understandingly. "But they still are adorable! Oh, just look at those tiny protein bars! So cute!"
With that, she popped one of the bite-sized protein rations into her mouth and chewed with her eyes happily closed, and Hordak relaxed again.
"Expenses, yes," he confirmed carefully, taking a sip from the nutrient solution he usually preferred over solid food. Entrapta chattered on.
"Yum, so good! How does food taste so much better once it's small? I have no idea, at least none that is scientifically sound. Haha, and here I was thinking you'd whipped them up just for me! How silly."
Hordak's ears twitched and he tensed up again. "Don't think you're privileged for preferential treatment like that," he snapped.
Except that she was, but he'd rather light himself on fire than admitting that. Entrapta nodded.
"I see. And the tiny plates to go with the tiny protein bars? And the tiny glasses for my fizzy drink?" she inquired innocently.
Hordak went very still.
"Cost-cutting measures," he rasped without moving a muscle.
"Ohhh, okay!"
Entrapta kept eating, seemingly satisfied with his explanation. Apparently her love for tiny food stemmed from the fact that the small bites allowed her to eat and talk at the same time, or so he assumed.
Hordak sighed into his drink and tried to relax. As he has hoped, it worked after a minute or two of listening to his lab assistant prattling on merrily about wire insulation, the sublimation point of cesium and the tanks she'd been repairing all day without ever taking a single break. Hordak had had to basically pry her away from her work after she'd started to look shaky and worn and insisted that she'd stay in the sanctum with him to eat. He'd made up some halfhearted justification for this quite... personal offer based on his wish to make sure she wouldn't collapse on the way to her room, since that would slow down their work. He hadn't even believed himself but Entrapta, as usual, had simply agreed with her trademark enthusiasm and now they were sitting in his dimly lit sanctum by a small table, facing each other, Entrapta with her tiny protein bars and Hordak with a glass of pale green nutrient drink.
Earlier that evening Hordak had made a trip to the kitchen to yell at some unlucky chef louder than necessary to prepare the kind of food for Entrapta that she'd mentioned missing so often. He'd completely forgot to also come up with an explanation for this rather... romantic gesture, but she seemed to have bought the lie. He felt slightly bad for it, but he absolutely couldn't handle telling her the truth if his life depended on it.
It didn't matter. She liked the food, she was taking a break, they were alone for once (after sending the imp as well as the clingy Emily away for some errand) and all he wanted was to enjoy some privacy between just the two of them.
While she was chatting away, Hordak pitched in every now and then but mostly he reclined back in his seat and allowed Entrapta's voice to wash over him. For some reason it always helped to drown out the constant painful buzzing in his head, and made him feel centered, if only for a moment.
Today, though, her usual display of excited hand- and hair-gestures was interrupted by an occasional and still very repetitive shake and flex of her right hand. It was subtle, but definitely there and kept reoccurring, and after a while Hordak caught himself fixed on that unusual hand-motion she made. He tried to ignore it, tried to just focus on her glittering scarlet eyes and the way she leaned forward over her plates or the way just thinking of vertical condensers made her smile.
She shook and flexed her right hand, smile faltering, before going on.
She popped another protein bar into her mouth and happily prattled on about semiconductors and the proper temperature to work them.
She shook out and flexed her hand again.
Hordak felt his eyelid twitch.
"Stop that."
"Shtop fhat?" Entrapta asked innocently, mouth full.
"That... hand thing you do. What's that for?"
Entrapta blinked at her right hand as if it was the first time she saw it, swallowing thoughtfully. "That? Oh, nothing, nothing," she said, a bit too fast, "Don't worry about it!"
"It doesn't worry me, it irritates me!" Hordak snapped, more forcefully that necessary. It did start to worry him and he certainly didn't want her to notice. More composed, he added: "Stop it. Please."
"Okay!" Entrapta chirped. She kept eating, drank her fizzy nonsense, but it didn't elude Hordak that she simply stuck her right hand under the table to hide it from his view.
By the motion of her shoulder he could tell that she did the flexing again.
With an exasperated sigh, he placed his glass on the table.
"Entrapta, something is wrong with your right hand. I demand an explanation. Now."
She blinked at him, a thimble of fizzy drink halfway to her mouth, then finally sighed herself and raised her hand back up from her very inefficient hiding spot to gesture as she spoke.
"Ah, you know, I've been attaching new gaskets to some of the tanks and there were a few rivets to place and by 'a few' I mean about six hundred and I used this very uncomfortable tool all day and now my right hand hurts. Really badly actually, I mean, I've had this before here and there but this time I might have overdone it just a teensy tiny bit..."
Entrapta stopped mid-sentence when Hordak reached out over the table.
"Show me your hand."
She blinked at his outstretched fingers. "Uhhh..."
"I'm not going to hurt you," Hordak added with a painful little sting in his stomach. Was she afraid he would?
"Oh, no, I know you would never hurt me!" Entrapta hurried to say. Hordak had to actively steady his breathing, teeth clenched together to keep his face still.
Of course she wouldn't. All his other henchmen would cringe and cower in fear if he so much as made a step closer to them and here Entrapta was, saying she knew he'd never hurt her, and how right she was. Did she really trust him that much?
"It's more because, uh... I'm not really used to getting touched by someone who isn't all metal and wires..." Entrapta said carefully, breaking his train of thought. "But... Ah, you know what? I suppose it's okay. You're my lab partner after all. Here."
With that, Entrapta took off her heavy purple welding glove and placed her right hand in Hordak's, just like that.
His face a mask of indifference (while his insides whirled with a very strange, warm kind of confusion), Hordak carefully turned her hand in his to examine it. It was so much smaller than his, but warm and firm, her pale skin a pretty contrast to the blueish slate gray of his own skin. Her hand wasn't exactly feminine, not like one would expect the hand of a princess to look like, but more like the hand of a worker, with short fingernails, healed burn marks here and there, scratches and oil stains. Still, something urged Hordak to hold it like the most delicate, precious object he'd ever had the honor to lay his hands on. With great care, he examined Entrapta's fingers, knuckles and her slender wrist.
"You overstrained your sinews," he stated eventually. "The pain should come from this tense spot right here."
He pressed gently against the inside of her palm with his thumb and winced when Entrapta let out a small squeak of pain.
"Ouch! Yup, it sure does. Ah, this is awful! What do I do now? I have so much work left to do..."
Hordak looked at her as she complained about her dilemma, thoughts racing. There was a very simple solution here but it took a lot of contradictory self control to get his next words out. The hardest part was acknowledging that he very much looked forward to it, and that was a bad sign.
"I... I suppose I could massage your hand. Work the sinews and tendons a bit to relax them. I've dealt with this on my own hands before," he suggested, trying to sound as business-like and unaffected as possible and feeling like he failed miserably to do so.
Entrapta stared at him with a surprised expression. "Are you sure...? You would do that for me?"
Her tone didn't really make it clear if she understood the raw intimacy of the gesture. Still, Hordak made sure to sound appropriately annoyed when he spoke again.
"Of course! Imagine the delay our project will suffer if you develop cramps or an inflammation or worse! We cannot risk that. Now, hold still."
"Oh... okay."
With that, Hordak started to gently massage and rub Entrapta's palm between his clawed fingers. He carefully trained his eyes on his task to avoid looking at her face and seeing something there that would cause his mask to slip. It was too nice, he acknowledged grudgingly, touching her, even if it was just for work purposes. Bending her fingers and wrist while gently kneading her hand, he worked his way through the cramps and tight spots and soon felt her sinews relax under his touch.
Hordak froze when Entrapta let out a soft, breathy hum of pleasure.
"Oh, this is really nice, actually. Who would have thought you had such nimble fingers, Hordak?"
He blinked, ears twitching.
Taking a deep, slow breath to steady himself, Hordak continued, desperately ignoring the sweet little sounds of approval Entrapta made and what they did to very rarely used parts of his mind.
"Is it helping?"
"Uhuh... A bit more on the inner side of my thumb, please... Oh, perfect. That should do it! Thanks!"
With that, he expected her to pull her hand out of his grip.
She didn't.
Feeling oddly helpless, Hordak kept holding her small hand in his, staring at her in search for something that would tell him what to do next. Letting her hand go felt like it would hurt if he attempted it.
Entrapta smiled, but the smile had an odd, unusual edge to it, as if she wasn't quite sure what to say herself. That was worrying in itself since she usually just opened her mouth and spilled out her mind when she was around him. She never really wasted time to overthink a phrase.
Eventually, she said, very slowly, with her hair drooping insecurely: "How about my other hand...?"
Hordak blinked. "Does it hurt too?"
"No, I mean... Maybe. I'm not sure. Maybe it's going to hurt tomorrow, who knows?"
"I suppose I could repeat that, then," Hordak said, trying to sound generous.
Still, Entrapta didn't remove her hand from his. Instead, she brought her left hand to her mouth and used her teeth to take her glove off. She started at the index finger and worked her way over, one by one, bringing each finger to her lips to pull at the tips of her glove with her teeth. The little sounds her lips made while she did so and the way she finally bit down on the leather of her thumb to pull the glove free stirred something so deeply inside Hordak that he wasn't entirely sure if his face betrayed him at that point. Heat pooled low in his core when Entrapta placed the glove next to the other one, shooting him a radiant smile.
"There you go!" she chirped, now both of her hands resting in his trembling palms.
Hordak nodded wordlessly and bit down on his tongue for a moment to steady himself. He cleared his throat and got to work, gently and carefully massaging both her hands in his.
It was very strange how easy this suddenly was. Entrapta closed her eyes, a small, content smile gracing her features, occasionally humming with pleasure while Hordak worked her hands. After his initial tension had settled, he somehow fell into a state of something almost like deep relaxation, focused entirely on his task and on her and how she responded to his touch. It was simple and peaceful, so unlike all the other things they usually did together, things that almost always revolved around war or tech or portals, about his big goal. This, though, was quiet and insignificant and still it made the entire horde and that burning hatred that drove him forward seem so meaningless and far away, a distant angry little flicker, drowned out by Entrapta's gentle, steady warmth.
Hordak wasn't sure for how long they sat there, holding hands. At some point he had stopped rubbing them after there was not a hint of tension in them anymore and settled for just holding Entrapta's hands in his. He knew that he had to figure out a way to excuse himself sooner or later, but right now, he didn't feel like it. This was way too good. Entrapta seemed to feel the same, if he read the depth in her gaze correctly.
Suddenly, he felt really, really miserable about lying to her about the food. Something about the things they'd shared this evening had changed something, broke a dam inside him, and not telling her felt like a sin.
Hordak took a deep breath and started speaking. "Entrapta, I...I have to tell you the truth about something..."
"Oh...?"
The spell was broken when the imp stormed inside the sanctum on the back of Emily, crossing the lab and disappearing behind the tanks in a noisy heap. Hordak snarled and got up to bark some commands. He was interrupted by Entrapta's heartfelt laugh.
"Well, I guess that's the sign. I should go to bed. Come here, Emily! Heel!"
Ignoring her mistress, the robot rolled towards the door, dislodging the imp in the process who skittered up under the ceiling.
Entrapta sighed as she watched her robot disappear again, then turned back to Hordak.
"Hordak, uhm... Thank you. For the nice evening. My hands feel great. I can't get wait to get back to work tomorrow!"
Hordak steadied himself. "It was nothing. Listen, Entrapta... This project we are working on requires meticulous precision and accurate teamwork, and thus, I'd like to level with you about something. To improve workflow and avoid inefficiency. About your food..."
He stopped mid-sentence when Entrapta suddenly was on eye level with him, using her hair as support, her face inches from his, and placed a small, warm hand on his jaw.
"You know, Hordak, how I sometimes use the ventilation shafts to move around here? And by sometimes I mean constantly? And you know how my imagination sometimes runs really wild, and I see things that aren't there or get confused? I think I had that today, when I took a wrong turn and ended up in the kitchen ventilation shafts, and I'm not sure but I imagined you standing there threatening to skin the chef alive if he didn't make proper tiny protein bars for me, on tiny plates, with tiny glasses of fizzy drink, and if I didn't just imagine that, it would be the sweetest thing that anyone has ever done for me, all my life."
Hordak's veins felt like they were filled with ice and he couldn't do anything but stare at her face, her smile, and the way her eyes shone. He didn't move a muscle when she leaned forward, quicker than thought, and then her lips touched his cheek. The contact was over after less than a heartbeat but it burned, it burned itself into Hordak's core, lingered, left a scar, the sweetest pain he could imagine.
Then her feet were on the ground again and she beamed up at him from below.
"But you know how I am, I probably imagined all that. Good night, lab partner! See you tomorrow!"
With that, she turned and waved and ran after Emily, rounding the next corner.
Hordak remained standing there for a long moment, looking after her, mind flailing.
The next morning, Entrapta mentioned nothing of what had happened after he'd massaged her hands, only briefly commented on how good-as-new her fingers felt. She also commented on how adorable her tiny breakfast was, with tiny carbohydrate bars and all, but Hordak didn't feel threatened. After a long period of inner turmoil he was now resting in the eye of the storm, and while he did feel like things between them had changed, they had changed for the better. There was an unspoken truce of some sorts, a silent understanding, a link between them that existed between words.
If Hordak let his thoughts run loose, he felt like the horde could stay in hell, and he'd rather stay here with Entrapta and work with her, share time and space and laughs with her, for the rest of his life.
And then, Catra brought the sword.