these lips aren't sealed | ☀ + venus

He had been slowly inching across the floor of the living room, eyes set on the door to the room with the enormous piano inside. It had been years since he was allowed to touch one but he still had the notes in his head and the music on his fingertips. If he could just touch one, maybe they could come flooding out of him again. He held a duster in his hand and had carefully been picking up each decoration in the room and making them shine once again.

Sun had been eyeing the piano for months, ever since Venus had given him a tour of the house a little over half a year ago now. His grandmother had gone through great pains with all of the illegal pieces of music she had been hoarding to teach him. If it was inside Sun's head it no longer needed to be on paper. He could not and would not forget a note.

He was five little steps from the door, four if he took an especially big one, when Venus spoke to him from the entrance of the living room off the main hall. Sun had been concentrating so hard on appearing inconspicuous that he hadn't noticed his approach. He jumped a tiny bit, hand tightening around the duster so that he wouldn't drop it.

"I need a spotter," he said. It sounded like an order. Sometimes Sun had trouble with Venus because a lot of what he said was in the same tone and a lot of things sounded like orders. However these words looked like a soft equation in the air above their heads. "for the bench press, if you don't mind." That would imply that Sun had a choice.

In the recent weeks Sun had slowly become more comfortable and had begun to understand that he could get away with a little bit of disobedience. Instead of being respectful of the line between insubordination and disobedience he had begun to test how far he could go.

For a moment, he looked longingly towards the piano but Sun liked Venus. He was calming. Sun liked that he followed a concrete routine, it made it easier to know where he was in the house. With a slight nod he carefully placed the duster down on the shelf he had been working on and followed Venus to the mansion's 'small' gym.

Sun watched as he placed large black cylinders onto a stick. He noticed that Venus had put an equal amount on each side. Perhaps it was symbolic. Sun was not certain. Nathanial had not liked weights and he had never been inside a training centre in his life.

”All you have to do is stand behind the bar and make sure I don’t drop it on myself,”

Sun nodded. It seemed easy enough. It looked heavy but Sun had never been a stick. Nathanial had insisted that his Avox be physically fit.

Still, the weighted stick appeared heavy, he wasn't so sure it was safe.

He watched nervously as the bar was raised and lowered over Venus' head. One slip of his hand and the bar would fall and land on him and squish him. Maybe he'd die. Sun didn't want that to happen, he liked Venus. He was quiet and in the mornings he made breakfast and Sun was allowed to eat it too. He'd seen a squished head before too and it wasn't pretty and he didn't want Venus' head to look like that because it was too pretty a head.

Worried, he put his hands on the bar so that if Venus dropped it then maybe he could grab it and pull it away from his head. If it landed on Sun instead of Venus then that would be allowable. He'd been taught since his incarceration that him being hurt was preferable to anyone else. The steady motion of the bar raising up and down without even a waver of exhaustion was comforting. Sun knew that Venus was strong and good at everything he did but the worry was still there.

His mind began to wander as he watched, despite his fear, and he couldn't help noticing the way that Venus' arms looked as he lifted the weights up and down. There was a beautiful fluidity to his movement, one that he would like to try and transfer onto paper later when he was able.

He kept his hands firmly on the bar until Venus finally put it back into place. A sense of calm fell over him as he did so, he was glad that Venus was not hurt.

"Do you want to try?"

No.

Not Really.

But Venus didn't really include Sun in his activities often and if Sun could extend their time together and therefore that sense of calm then he would be happy. So he nodded slowly and traded places with venus on the bench, holding the bar above his head in the same way that Venus had.

He stared up at Venus who now stood in the same place that he had. His hands were close and it was odd to see his face upside down. Sun liked his eyes. He had eyes that could be sharp but were often soft when he looked at him. He would try hard for Venus then.

With a soft grunt he raised the weighted bar and found that it was rather heavier, a lot heavier than Venus made it look. With a sinking feeling he realized that his arms had not had enough activity in his time with his new masters and they would not be able to hold the weight.

It had been nice while it lasted but maybe he was going to be the one with a squished head.

With a sigh of resignation he tried to bring the bar down as slowly as he could in order to not injure himself. His arms could not sustain it and with a shake they gave in.

He squeezed his eyes shut so that he would not have to see his death come for him.

Death did not come for him despite the fact that maybe it should have. Sun was often pleasantly surprised by the sheer amount of survival skill he had. By his own count, he probably should have been dead approximately four hundred and eighty-two days ago, and then a few more times since. Still, he'd always managed to live. He did not open his eyes, revelling quietly in the moment. With all that he'd been through it was expected that Sun might welcome death, that maybe he should. He liked to feel the warmth of the afternoon sun on his cheeks and the tart taste of strawberries far too much. Besides, an Avox' life was not their own. It was up to his masters to decide whether he should live or die.

"Are you okay?"

Venus' voice was gentle and his hands were careful as he lifted Sun's chin away from his chest. He opened his eyes and blinked slowly, surprise evident at his continued state of breathing. He pursed his lips carefully and looked up at the bar resting safely above him. Venus must have caught it and put it there. He had stopped the bar from landing on Sun's neck.

Sun stared up at the bar, feeling slightly confused. He could not recall the last time that someone had helped him with the thought of keeping him safe.

”You didn’t have to do that. You could’ve said no..”

A deadness had grown inside of Sun's heart like a rot in the centre of a tree. He was beautiful from the outside, healthy looking too. His insides were breaking away and falling into nothing, pain had leeched the warmth from his heart and lungs, fear had made him compliant. He had been made into the perfect Avox, unassuming and willing to do whatever he was told to do. Everything he did was done because he had to do it. He would not even get out of bed if he knew that he did not have to. The last time Sun had done something purely for enjoyment he had been fourteen years old.

Of course he had to. He could not have said no.

Venus and Vepar were weird.

Sun did not argue with him. There was no point, despite the fact that neither of them had hit him yet Sun knew that it could still happen and that it probably would. After a while everyone he met started to hit him. It was not a matter of if but when. Arguing would only fuel it and make it happen sooner.

There was something however that Sun was itching to know.

you. saved. me. on. purpose. he signed up at him, letting his head fall to the side in order to show that it was a question. He blinked up at Venus, waiting for him to explain his actions. Nathanial would have let the bar fall. Perhaps he would have even made sure that it was heavier.