Chapter Text
iTrapped still remembers the way it’d happened.
Chance’s body had slumped, first, head lolling forwards like a doll’s. Their forehead rested on iTrapped’s shoulder, hair spilling down in uneven waves over his back as their fedora came loose. Their sunglasses lay forgotten, buried in the foot-deep snow.
The alleyway stank of piss and drunk highschoolers stumbling their way home. No shadows moved on the walls. It felt like the world was holding its breath for the moment Chance would spring up again, wink those stupid golden eyes of theirs, and drag iTrapped back to the casino.
Like Chance would grab his cold hands in their own warm ones, comment on how he should invest in gloves, and happily skip home with a grumbling iTrapped in tow. Like they would proudly show off Spades for the hundredth time and boast about their casino.
None of that happens. The snow just keeps falling, falling, falling, and the flakes catch in iTrapped’s golden locks. A heavy groan escapes the limp marionette in his arms as a hand grips the side of his immaculate suit for purchase.
Their yellow irises meet his own. For a moment, he thinks that Chance might not say anything, even as their lips part– that their last bit of energy would fail them, and that they would slide to the floor without another word.
“Why?” Whispers the doll clinging to him, frozen lashes fluttering with the effort of speech.
Nothing answers, and the wind continues to blow heavily through the narrow twists of the alley. iTrapped’s frostbitten eyes stare back coldly. He tries not to focus on the faint coppery scent of warm blood rising from the snow, or the drip of red rivulets darting down his blade.
Tries not to focus on Chance’s worn, faltering breathing, or the way their gaze is filled with something like blame. Like hate, or like– like betrayal.
Around them, the night air sings and the moon smiles down at both. The stars wink in and out of existence. Would Chance become one of those stars once they died?
“–loved you.” Chance murmurs, tone hollow and rent of all warmth. iTrapped catches the broken end of what sounds like a goodbye forever. The phrase loved makes an unnatural emotion twist in his chest.
“Yeah, I loved you as well.” He says bitterly, even though he doesn’t mean it, and his voice is empty– even though he doesn’t understand half of what i love you means. He says it hoarsely. Quietly. Too tame to be anything close to grief, yet too gentle to be completely remorseless.
Chance doesn’t hear the guised apology. The words fall on deaf ears, and a body hits the snow with cold finality.
He wakes up. The apartment is empty. Outside, snowflakes caress the window next to his bed.
iTrapped’s hand presses against the glass, and the chilly bite of frost nips at his palm. It leaves a print. The view from said window faces the street, where cars are currently stuck in morning traffic– the honking is too loud for his liking.
It must’ve been what’d woken him. The digital clock to his left reads 7:49 AM; he slumps back into bed, preparing the roll over again and go back to sleep.
Golden eyes burn brightly under his eyelids.
“Aw, come on!” Chance grins fervently, gaze glittering with some kind of passion that almost leaves iTrapped scrambling for words. “You’re no fun! It’s just one drink.” (It’s just one drink, they say, while basically hanging off iTrapped’s sleeve.)
“I’ll indulge you. This one time, only.” He grumbles begrudgingly, accepting the small glass tilted towards him. He swirls the scarlet liquid inside, peering at it with an expression of doubt pasted over his face.
iTrapped lifts the glass to his lips, sipping the wine. It’s… okay. Better than the shitty stuff they serve at bars, but lacking the tanginess of expensive champagne. He wouldn’t have expected anything else from a casino.
“It’s alright, isn’t it?” Is what Chance is able to get out before being swept away by a crowd of partygoers. Their smiling face disappears under a stream of admirers.
“Chance!” Someone cries out. “Come have a drink with us!”
“Chance,” another says, “it’d be amazing if you could join us for a game of cards.”
“Chance!” A nameless face in the crowd shouts. “We’ve been waiting to hear about your new plans for the casino!”
All Chance does is laugh, the same laugh that they’d always give around other people. Too warm, in iTrapped’s opinion, and yet it somehow always managed to fill the entire room. People stared. Gawked at the sunshine that made up Chance’s smiles.
Ate up every bit of attention they’d give the audience. Asked for more afterwards. They were charming in that messy way that iTrapped had gotten used to seeing, the persona that slipped out in public spaces with others.
Around him, their grin became less. iTrapped had always told them that they were too much, all the time. Chance’s bright expressions cracked into worn facades and tired lifts of their lips, but nothing more than that.
iTrapped preferred the other Chance. The one that smiled more than they needed to. It made him feel like he was losing less every time he spun the barrel of the gun and tossed it towards the golden-eyed person across the table.
It made him feel less guilty about deceiving someone who was quite literally sunshine personified, someone who wasn’t as shallow as their bubbly laughs suggested. Chance could’ve trusted anyone, and it was the one who wanted them for their name and their money.
“Excuse me?” Someone asks lightly behind him, tapping his shoulder, and he turns around.
The mask slips back on almost immediately– the look on his face when he’d been looking at Chance melts away faster than ice in summer, and it is replaced with a schooled expression of calm enjoyment.
It’s a woman. She stands slightly shorter than him, wearing one of those nightclub-type crop tops that cut off a bit later than he would’ve liked, and a miniature skirt to match. Her waist-length black hair flutters in the air behind her. The type of woman that would’ve been considered quite pretty to any other, and coy enough to be taken to bed if iTrapped wasn’t… iTrapped.
“Wanna dance?” She offers, holding out a hand. He takes it. The cool smile on his face, barely more than a tilt of his lips, makes her face flush. “Of course.”
They waltz across the dance floor. Much tamer than expected for a pair at a casino party, but it’s not like he’s complaining. Better to get it over with, charm some women, and quietly slip away to stay by Chance’s side again.
Perhaps he could coerce them into another game of Russian Roulette if he got away fast enough. Hm.
Despite that, he stays with the nameless woman for most of the night, then dances with a few others. They all turn adorably red when he says a few choice words, but he never lingers longer than necessary.
And if he feels Chance’s eyes on him more than once during his little chats, well– that’s just him. Nothing else.
He wakes up. The apartment’s still empty, but now lacks its defining noises of constant traffic. He looks outside the window, and there’s no one on the streets.
10:03 AM. What was he planning on doing today, again? Unless he wants to go grocery shopping(which he does not, actually) it’s in his best interests to do nothing. Lie on his bed like a corpse dead body heavy gym weight. Accomplish absolutely nothing and waste an entire day.
“Works like a charm every damn time,” he mutters, and drops back onto the pillow.
The wine from that day had tasted sweet, he remembers, probably more sweet than it needed to be. Sour as well, but not as much as it was sweet.
If he’d kissed Chance that day, maybe he would’ve known what they tasted like, too.
iTrapped’s gaze sweeps across the tense atmosphere of the crowd and the opponent’s poised figure. The unlucky contestant’s finger taps against the wood nervously, and if he had to guess, they were sweating with anxiety.
Chance, the only person in the room who seemed to be relaxed, kicks their legs up onto the table, leaning backwards and tilting the chair. “C’mon, sweetheart. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a bit of fun.”
Even Chance had his tells, though most people wouldn’t bother to look for them. To others, Chance was the unbeatable: the confident and the unbelievably lucky.
To iTrapped, who had seen Chance’s facade crack more than once, been the one to drag them home from gatherings that had stretched too long into the night, they were just as fallible as the rest. A statement to mankind’s hubris, sure, but not impossible to defeat.
He sees Chance’s nerves in the flicking of their eyes, darting towards iTrapped’s general direction every few seconds as if searching for reassurance. He smiles coldly once, though he’s not sure they see the encouraging gesture. Their Adam’s apple bobs as they swallow.
A beat passes. No one speaks except for some in the audience, discussing in drunk voices and betting on the two sitting at the table. And then:
“You gonna let me win so easily? Let me put a bullet through that thick skull of yours?” Chance says in their trademark voice. Low and coaxing. Rough enough to make it sound like a challenge, but soft, lilting, like they were the predator speaking to its prey.
iTrapped enjoyed this version of Chance far more than the other one. This one knew how to push people out of their comfort zone. This one was reckless, violent, fueled with so much more flame than the version that collapsed into iTrapped’s arms after a long night.
Any resistance the opponent might’ve had crumbles easily at the quiet, dangerous glint in Chance’s golden irises. Their fingers close around the grip of the gun that had been settled in the center of the table, index already on the trigger. The harsh lighting of the room makes the metal of the pistol seem more volatile than ever.
Anyone could see how clammy their hands were as they raise the gun to their temple, shaking in adrenaline and dreaded anticipation. The room holds its breath.
The wall behind the man explodes into shades of brilliant crimson.
“You did so well.” iTrapped murmurs when Chance immediately folds like a house of cards into his chest the moment they are out of sight. It’s hard to keep the disappointment from leeching into his tone.
Chance should’ve died. They should be gone by now. The casino’s janitor should be wiping their remains off the walls, yet they’re here and already tucking themself into iTrapped’s half-hug, probably so drunk that they have to be carried back to their mansion. Again.
“Home,” slurs Chance sleepily. Holy shit. How did they even manage to look awake during the game? “Can we go home, ‘Trap?”
We. iTrapped’s gut twists in disgust and thousands of other emotions that his brain battles with. He straightens up instead, fixes his collar from its wrinkled state when Chance had grabbed it mindlessly, and slips an arm under the small of their back
He sweeps them up into a princess(prince?) carry as he steps down the carpeted stairs. “Of course we can.”
Chance lived just around the block, a few minutes’ walk from the casino. It was convenient, for starters, to live so close to your own business, and also near iTrapped’s apartment. He could walk home after dropping Chance off.
“Excuse me,” he smiles at a man who was in the way of the door. “Must get back home before they throw up.” The man turns around, confused, and iTrapped sweeps past.
It would be very funny to have to explain to someone why he was carrying the owner of the casino. He decides, though, that it would be more awkward than amusing for Chance to be seen like that, and even worse if they thought he was kidnapping Chance.
Outside, the night breeze is mercifully cool. It’s much less stuffy than it was in the casino, where drunk men gambled away half their life and then shouted when they lost, and people crowded at tables to watch games of life-or-death.
“You’re cold.” Chance says bluntly, though their eyes remain closed.
iTrapped gives a startled, genuine laugh. He doesn’t miss the way Chance stills at the noise.
He wakes up, and doesn’t waste any time checking the clock. 11:35, blinks the white numbers on its screen, and he curses. Wasn’t Chance supposed to be here for a–- a–-
Oh. That’s right. The apartment is empty.
iTrapped gets out of bed. It’s close enough to the afternoon that he can consider lunch at this point instead of breakfast, but he isn’t hungry. Just the memory of Chance appearing at his front door randomly one morning and him running with it makes him sick to the stomach.
Chance always managed to arrive exactly on time. Once, when iTrapped had been to their office, he’d seen little color coded sticky notes about important meetings or plans stuck to their wall, and they’d quickly hidden them, face flushed.
He was supposed to have been looking for clues about the Banlands key. Instead, his attention was caught by the notes. One of them, underlined thrice in red ink, read:
HANGOUT WITH TRAPP!!!!
With four exclamation marks. Four. All looking like they’d been traced over in an effort to resist adding more. What was so interesting about him that simply the idea of meeting up made Chance happy?
He thought he could deal with it, until Chance started showing up unannounced(though often with little gifts, so perhaps it was forgivable) at the strangest times. iTrapped had always grumbled, but let them in anyways.
It had been… okay. Chance was someone easy to let in but stay guarded around. They could’ve also been someone who was spared, but that’s– that’s in the past now. Something unfamiliar pricks like a thorn in the bramble’s nest of his chest. He shoves it aside.
The gnawing feeling is back. He’d been sleeping it off, hoping it would go away, but it just wouldn’t stop. iTrapped felt its presence in his stomach, hot and bubbling and clawing away at whatever was left of his sanity.
Chance had barely cleared their twenties. They still tumbled through life like it was something to be challenged and lived up to: if there was a bridge, they’d jump off it just for the thrill. If there was an obstacle of any kind, they’d simply smash themself right into to see what would happen and hope it cleared itself up later.
He’d killed them.
iTrapped was older than Chance by only nearly a year, yet he felt as if he’d seen centuries more than they ever had or will. His eyes assess for danger. Theirs search for stimulation. He fights tooth and claw to fend for himself, make sure he survives another day. They have never had to worry about money or safety.
He’d killed them.
Maybe it was that envious part of him that’d pushed him to the brink and finally slid the sword through Chance’s stomach, or maybe that’s what he tells himself to help him sleep better at night. Perhaps the truth is that he’s just what he is: an ugly, selfish thing that will do anything but let someone in.
He’s twisted. Wrong. What else could have driven him to murder Chance, the embodiment of purity and innocence? Chance was flawless.
iTrapped had stained them both permanently, whether either of them liked it or not.
The walk down the hallway seems to take longer than it should, with his feet dragging along the floor. His shirt feels too tight, the vest closing in on his neck and squeezing the air out of his body. The crown usually perched high on his head has tilted to the side, so he abandons it at the kitchen table in favor of not getting a headache after about three seconds of waking up.
It seems unavoidable. With the steadily growing chokehold of guilt also comes a pressure at his temple that slowly spreads as he shuffles around, retrieving his phone from the countertop where he’d left it the night before.
In the messages app there are texts from Ellernate and Caleb, but mostly Ellernate. Many of them consist of varying combinations of “why aren’t you picking up” and “where the fuck are you”, though some get creative with the wording.
Six missed calls from Ellernate in the past three days since he’s killed Chance. Two from Caleb.
Five voicemails. He doesn’t bother listening to any of them, instead letting the phone slip through his fingers and land with a dull thump onto the counter.
His hands bury themselves in his sleep-ridden blond hair. Three days ago, it’d been combed and slicked back, tied into a nice, neat ponytail that sat obediently at the back of his head. His suit had been crisp.
His Darkheart was not polished, cleaned or sharpened. Maybe it was too blunt. Either way, it’d explain why Chance gasped so loudly when iTrapped had first shoved it cleanly through their torso.
Blood spilling onto the once-clean white snow. A small, steady stream of red that peeks over Chance’s bottom lip inches its way down their chin. Their posture is stiff and hunched. In their eyes you find blame and heavy-seated hate.
Suddenly his chest constricts. Grief claws its way up from the depths of himself, wedging itself firmly into the space between his heart and his ribs, an oppressive weight that didn’t want to be lifted. The emotions that he’d been trying so hard to ignore had now finally settled in a place where he could no longer look the other way from.
Chance was like a pebble, the kind that stuck in your shoes and refused to leave until acknowledged. iTrapped didn’t know whether it was better that he had something to remind him of them or if it was a curse to always see their eyes in the autumn leaves and the setting sun.
If he tried to remind himself that he didn’t care about Chance– and that was true, he didn’t– the stubborn man would always be there. Somewhere in the backdrop. The tiniest speck of remorse dotting iTrapped’s many murders.
Evening sunlight filters through the window of the living room, pooling onto the carpet and part of the couch. The kitchen of his apartment is connected to the living room. His eyes track the dust particles in the stream of light.
If there weren’t the small signs of someone occupying this space, you’d think that nobody owned the place at all. He’s never been the type to decorate or keep personal mementos. His apartment looks unlived in and empty.
Quiet. Lonely. Unassuming and cold, despite the warm sunlight making itself at home in the living room. He could leave any time he wanted, throw his things into a battered little box and drive away to the next city. Next experience, maybe, somewhere far away from here and the memories spoiled by red stains.
Chance’s grave would be something to be forgotten in a private place. iTrapped could be free, yet he can’t bring himself to do it.
“You’re so… hah, so serious about everything.” Chance says, the words spilling out of their mouth muddled by alcohol. “Can’t even be fun every once in a while.”
His throat burns when his stomach threatens to empty itself in the kitchen, and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. He clamps down on the small noise fighting to escape him and focuses on his phone.
iTrapped isn’t sure whether to scream or cry or break something. He’s not the type to cry, which he hasn’t done since he was a child, and breaking something would probably get the landlord to evict him before he can blink twice. Screaming would only earn him a noise complaint.
There’s nothing left to do but stare down at his shaking hands, the harsh white light of his phone blurring with the tears forming in his eyes.
He doesn’t even realize his fingers have moved and that he’s called Ellernate before he hears the familiar ringtone through the sharp ringing in his ears. It echoes across the empty apartment like a mockery of what could’ve been.
The music was something that had been a joke between the two during simpler times. Before the Banlands, before the scheming, and certainly before Chance.
Please don’t go to voicemail. Please, please don’t go to voicemail. He just needs one thing that he can anchor himself to before everything falls apart piece by piece. If the call doesn’t go through, he might just throw that stupid vase of roses Chance had given to him right out the window.
“Hello?”
Someone picks up, and it’s Ellernate.
His voice and his reassurance had always been a constant throughout all these years. It was something iTrapped had found solstice in, and now it saves him one more time.
Suddenly, he realizes that he hasn’t quite thought through what he was going to say to Ellernate. After nearly half a year of radio silence due to Ellernate being trapped in the Banlands plus three days of nothing after iTrapped had freed them all, it was hard to know what he even wanted to say. Hello surely wasn’t enough, and anything else probably wouldn’t even make it past his throat.
His body decides for him. “Nate?” He mutters, then wonders how he must sound right now. Pitiful, probably, tone lacking all of its usual vigor and spite, cracking with disuse and strain. “I need–- I need–-”
(What does he need? He's forgotten. Something goldenrod-yellow lingers in the back of his mind.)
iTrapped’s voice fails him first, and his legs follow suit. Nothing else manages to force its way through the block forming in his throat, and it chokes him. He slides down the side of the kitchen counter where he’d been leaning and clutches the phone to his chest.
Ellernate’s next words come out all muffled because the phone is scrunched into his shirt. “‘Trapped? What happened?”
When no response comes, Ellernate sighs. “--fuck, okay. Wait up, I’ll be there.”
The call clicks off. The apartment falls silent once more save for iTrapped’s harsh breathing.
“I hate you.” iTrapped hisses when the light finally fades out of Chance’s eyes. “I hate how you managed to make me feel like I wanted to spare you.” He pulls the Darkheart out of their chest, its tip coated in congealed blood, and shoves it right back in in a different location. Their heart.
“You can–” stab. “--go to–” stab. “--hell!” He screams, because there’s no one that’s going to be checking out some shady alleyway at one in the morning.
“You’re so disgusting, and you– you’re despicable. Deceiving me, of all people. Tricking me into softening around you.” Fog puffs out around his face as he pants with the exertion of running a sword through Chance’s body, over and over and over again.
It’s winter. The cold wraps itself around iTrapped, seeps into his bones and swirls into his blood until he is part of the frozen cityscape and Chance is nothing at all. They look completely mauled, scarlet dripping down one of their best suits.
iTrapped feels no regret. None at all. Chance was meant to die, marked for death from the very moment that he’d met them, and they’d known nothing at all. He should feel proud for a mission carried out so well.
Instead, the heavy feeling of guilt settles in his heart. Above him, the night sky sings, and Chance’s glassy yellow eyes stare at the emptiness of the expanse of the void. iTrapped stops to take in the scene.
His suit, splattered with blood that wasn’t his own. Chance, covered in gore, lying so still on the floor of the alley. They’d never been this still before, iTrapped recalls, because they’d always been bouncing with energy or talking so fast that he had to strain himself to keep up with their sentences.
“I’d tell you to go die, but it looks like you’re already dead, anyway.” He says before smiling frostily– one last attempt at nastiness, probably– but it wobbles and shatters even as he tries to keep the mask on.
Tears start falling, thick and fast and inexplicable. His vision blurs and narrows down to a point with Chance’s cold, lifeless face in front of him.
The realization hits before the pain in his chest does.
He’d killed them.
iTrapped’s hand feel cold and clammy. Chance hadn’t deserved that. Chance hadn’t deserved any of the things that iTrapped had done to them.
The deception. The lies. The almost affectionate nudges late at night when they were both drunk as hell and couldn’t tell the difference between lefts and rights. iTrapped himself can’t tell which ones were real and which ones were fake.
They were in the way. He had promised his friends that he would do anything to get them out of that hellscape, and now he has. He’s sacrificed the world, sacrificed Chance, to give them freedom.
He’d kept his promise.
He’d kept his promise, he tells himself, but somehow even that rings hollow.