Chapter 8: Pity Party
The smell of industrial cleaner couldn’t scrub the memory from my skin. The east wing floors gleamed under the harsh fluorescent lights, a mocking testament to my obedience. My mop swirled in the bucket, the gray water a perfect mirror of the storm inside my head. Ruby’s face, that terrified, fascinated surrender, played on a loop behind my eyes. Salem’s hand on her head. My dismissal.
I was a ghost in my own life, pushing a squeaking cart through empty corridors, the echo of my failure following every step.
The supply closet was a tomb of antiseptic and damp mops. I just needed a fresh roll of paper towels, a mindless task to fill the silence. I fumbled for the light switch.
A hand closed over my wrist.
I jerked back, but she was already moving, a whirl of purple and determined energy. The door slammed shut behind us, plunging the narrow space into near-darkness save for the thin strip of light under the door. Before I could protest, her body was against mine, pinning me back against the metal shelves. Bottles rattled behind me.
“I saw you,” Nebula breathed, her voice a tight, excited whisper in the dark. Her green eyes gleamed inches from mine. The energetic vibrancy she showed the team was gone, replaced by something feral and sharp. She smelled of chlorine and coconut shampoo.
“Saw what?” I grunted, trying to push her off, but she was stronger than her lean frame suggested, fueled by a desperate adrenaline.
“Leaving her office. After Ruby went in.” Her fingers dug into my shoulders. “You looked like you’d seen a god and been found wanting.”
I stayed silent. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic prisoner.
She leaned closer, her lips brushing my ear. “I know about the ledger, Qrow. I know you tried to play a hand you couldn’t win.” Her laugh was a brittle, painful sound. “We’re the same, you and I. We’re the ones who watch from the deep end while she teaches her favorite little dove how to float.”
Her hands slid down my chest, her touch terrifyingly deliberate. I was frozen, caught between the shame of my defeat and the shocking warmth of a human connection in this void.
Then her hand was between us, pressing hard against the front of my work pants. I flinched. A traitorous heat, unbidden and immediate, stirred under her palm. It was a physiological betrayal, a stupid animal response to touch after so much sterile loneliness.
“See?” she murmured, a vicious triumph in her tone. Her fingers traced the outline of my hardening cock through the thick fabric. “She’ll never look at us the way we want.”
Her teeth grazed my neck, not a kiss, but a claim. A punctuation mark. With a practiced desperation that spoke of rehearsed fantasies, she yanked my zipper down. The sound was obscenely loud in the cramped closet.
“But I can make you forget her name.”
Her breath was hot against my skin, laced with a bitter victory. My body betrayed me, swelling under her touch, a stark contrast to the cold knot of shame in my gut. I was a statue of conflict, pinned against the rattling shelves.
“Don’t,” I breathed, but the word had no force, no breath behind it. It was a reflex, a final ghost of propriety.
“Don’t what?” Nebula’s voice was a scrape in the dark. Her fingers, clever and insistent, found their way past my waistband. The cool air of the closet hit my skin, then the shocking heat of her hand. “Don’t tell you you’re not alone? Don’t point out that she’s in there right now, probably with Ruby’s head in her lap, and you’re out here with me?”
Every word was a needle. She was painting the truth in ugly, undeniable strokes. Salem’s office felt a world away, a sealed chamber where a different kind of worship was happening. Here, in the smell of bleach and mildew, was its pathetic echo.
Her fist closed around me, a tight, knowing grip. A sharp, involuntary sound escaped my lips. It wasn't pleasure. It was the release of pressure, like lancing a wound.
“See?” she whispered, her mouth moving to my jawline, her teeth pressing into my stubble. “You hate her. You hate me. You hate yourself most of all. Let’s just… feel that.”
Her other hand fumbled with her own pants, pushing them down her hips. She guided me, the blunt head of my cock pressing against the damp warmth between her legs. She was ready. This wasn't spontaneity; it was a planned detonation.
My hands, which had hung limp at my sides, finally moved. They didn’t push her away. They grasped her hips, fingers digging into the sharp bone beneath her skin. It was an anchor in a spinning room.
“Yes,” she hissed, a furious, triumphant sound. She didn’t wait for me. She sank down, taking me inside with a single, sharp, conquering motion.
A grunt was punched from my lungs. The physical sensation was a white-hot wire, cutting through every thought. Her inner muscles clenched around me, a savage, welcoming grip. She braced her hands on my shoulders, her short purple hair tickling my face as she began to move.
It was a frantic, punishing rhythm. The shelves dug into my back with each of her thrusts. Bottles of glass cleaner and disinfectant clattered together behind us, a chaotic percussion to our coupling. Her breaths came in short, sharp gasps against my neck.
“She’ll never…” Nebula panted, her voice breaking with each downward plunge, “…let you… inside… her office… again.”
Each word was a thrust. Each thrust was a truth. Salem’s cold, commanding face flashed behind my eyelids, replaced instantly by Ruby’s awed submission. They were in a clean, well-ordered world of power. I was here, in the dark, being fucked by a girl who saw me as a weapon against her own obsession.
Nebula’s tempo increased, becoming jarring, relentless. Her nails bit through my shirt. There was no tenderness, only a race toward obliteration.
“Forget her,” she demanded, her voice a raw scrape. “Forget her name.”
I couldn’t. It was branded on the inside of my skull. But my body, traitorous and starved, was chasing its own end. The heat pooled, coiled, a spring wound tight by anger and humiliation.
I gave up. I let the storm take the wreckage.
My hands slid from her hips to her ass, pulling her harder onto me, meeting her frantic pace with a desperation of my own. A low, animal sound tore from my throat. It was surrender. It was defeat.
HE GIVES IN.
The release was a violence. It ripped through me, a seismic shudder that emptied everything—the shame, the longing, the pathetic ledger, the image of Ruby on her knees—leaving behind a hollow, ringing silence. I sagged against the shelves, my forehead dropping to her shoulder.
She stayed there, impaled, for a long moment, her own body trembling. Then, slowly, she pulled away. The chill of the closet air on my wet skin was a immediate and shocking condemnation.
We didn’t speak. She pulled her pants up, the sound of the zipper deafening. I fumbled to put myself away, my fingers clumsy and numb.
The thin line of light under the door painted a stripe across the floor, a boundary I didn't dare cross. Nebula leaned her head back against the opposite shelf, breathing heavily. When she finally spoke, her voice was hollow, all its furious energy spent.
"See?" she said, barely a whisper. "Now we both have a new secret to keep."
She turned, opened the door, and slipped out into the bright, empty hallway without looking back. The door swung shut, leaving me alone in the dark with the smell of us, and the cleaner, and the profound, absolute silence of my own capitulation.