Chapter Text
The Hotel was dark. The Hotel was quiet. The Hotel was everything Basketball needed.
Basketball stepped into her hotel room and locked the door, slipping quietly under her blankets and letting the warmth envelop her to rival the cold she’d carried onto the bed. Everything lately had been a lot, to say the absolute least. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a break, a real break, or the last time she’d slept in her own bed rather than at the desk in her above-ground factory.
Between the competition, the Robot Flower problem, and.. other issues regarding a certain magical number, the pressure was so powerful and heavy it threatened to crush Basketball under its weight, however flexible she was. But now, as the smoke and storm clouds cleared, it was gone.
At least, it was supposed to be.
Robot Flower was back to the way Basketball yearned for her to be, whole and loving again. The devastating storm – the storm she had to sit in that room watching, powerless to do anything about – was over. Everything was supposed to be okay now. That was what the others told her; to just be happy, to just calm down.
But unfortunately, happiness and calm weren’t exactly usual to her anymore. It was hard to settle down without getting the nagging feeling that there was still something awry, something to be worried about, or even someone watching her. Nobody bothered to listen when she tried to tell them these things, of course.
They’d say, “well, it’s obviously a little hard to trust Robot Flower now,” and “duh, there’s a mess after that huge storm we had,” and “of course there are people watching us, Basketball, that’s the whole point of a show,” and “there was never a One.”
All of the little dismissals ate her up inside like crawling and hungry bugs that she couldn’t shake off. Nothing, nothing had been right, not since.. well, she didn’t even know the last time it had been. She would have to assume it had been months, a year, maybe two, since she’d known the freedom of not having a stressful weight on her (albeit metaphorical) shoulders. At this point, it was easy to forget.
A few moments of tossing and turning passed before she sat up again. She needed an outlet. Relief. Something to clear her head. Maybe then, she’d manage to feel better.
Reaching out to others was a nonstarter, she’d spent enough time in her lab to know that it wasn’t a comfortable place to take refuge in (not unless she wanted to feel the nagging urge to get to work), and ‘just sleeping on it’ had never done anything more than give her unpleasant dreams of rain and thunder and math. Even her body had begun to feel sore, not in the way that suggested she’d done anything real to cause it, but in a way that felt as though the unease had rooted into her very bones.
..Her body.
That sparked an idea. Maybe she could take to ridding herself of it all in a more.. physical manner.
Of course, the thought was somewhat jarring when it first came to her. She’d pleased herself before, it wasn’t anything new, but.. never to cope. Never to relieve pressure deeper than simple need.
Basketball pressed her legs together, propped herself against the wall and her soft pillows, and drew in a bracing breath. She could only hope that she wasn’t too noisy, lest anyone else in the hotel overhear her.
Her legs started to move against each other, sending small ripples of heat throughout her body and stimulating her usually hidden sweet spot until it was visible; a subtle, but still faintly noticeable entrance she allowed only herself to see. She didn’t exactly have any hands – or fingers, by extension – to work with, but the friction created by her movement worked to substitute what she would’ve needed them for. She felt something tighten within her, and what was once only ripples became a deepening pool, and she continued as she began to sweat – it felt better between her legs.
But the pools, however deep they were, held a heat that was much too low for the relief she sought after. At first she was just re-adjusting her position to suit her preference, until she started to grow more restless, tossing and turning uncomfortably. Friction alone couldn’t sate her, not tonight. Basketball stopped and leaned back on her pillow. She needed something more, something real..
She blinked. She felt the softness of the pillow against her back. Another jarring thought crept into her mind. Could she..? It wouldn’t hurt to try, right?
Basketball took the pillow from behind her and settled it in the space between her thighs, huffing as she tried to keep it steady. By the time she began to grind into it, the feeling building up inside of her was already beginning to fade.
Her hips moved without any true rhythm, but that wasn’t what mattered to her; it was getting the soft cushion shuffling between her legs to amount to sweet, tantalizing pleasure. And tantalizing it was. Now it wasn’t arousal climbing to a peak, but frustration, as a pained groan escaped her. Not enough, she thought. More.
It was harrowing to imagine what she looked like. When her position didn’t satisfy her, she shifted to full-on straddling it, the sensation of the pillow’s surface against her teasing her, while the heat remained just barely below a boiling point and the tightening remained all the more present until it shifted into a coil. So she picked up the intensity, abandoning light grinding against the plush texture and rising to movements that were rough and desperate.
Straddling her pillow began to work, however muffled the stimulation felt. She found it harder to control her legs when she rubbed against the pillow enough to create sparks of electricity, sparks that turned into volts that turned into shocks that made her start to twitch and jolt involuntarily.
It was no longer just sweat between her legs.
There it was, bliss. The pools of heat, now boiling, threatened to flood her, and the world around her melted away, reduced to nothing but a haze. It was there that the stimulus became overwhelming, electrifying, and her breaths became shallow and accompanied by small whines.
Her motions became almost wild. She was so.. close.. the ache for release taunted her, it danced just out of bounds from where she sat on her bed.
Until Basketball gasped sharply. Her body, shaking moments before, went stiff, as though a real electrical volt had struck her, and she found herself absorbed by ecstasy. Warmth overtook her while the tight coils within her finally released, and then.. and then..
..and then it faded, just like that.
The heat ebbed into a fuzzy nothingness that left her yearning for something more. It still wasn’t enough. Maybe nothing would be enough.
There were never any quick and easy ways for her to feel good, and she would be naive to think that the cure to all of her woes would turn up in her lap, but the fact that simple peace could be so close, yet so far out of her reach, was enough to make her feel empty after the high.
Sleep. That was what she needed right now, even if she would have a few nightmares. It was late, and she wasn’t going to keep herself up trying to get that high back. Basketball let out a heavy sigh before rolling over, lying back down on the pillow (the one she hadn’t used) , and shutting her eyes-
“Oh, come on!”
-Before the sudden echo of a voice made her shriek.
In a panic, she threw the blanket over her exposed body, frantically trying to hide herself from the intrusive voice. She.. she knew that voice. That smooth, taunting voice. The familiarity of it all came creeping all over her, as if those same bugs had lost their appetite and instead begun to scurry and flee and make her tremble in their wake.
The shadows in her room suddenly began to move and dance around her figure, hauntingly, tauntingly, sadistically . The scene was surreal, almost out of a dream, or, more fittingly, a nightmare, swirling and dizzying until it finally slowed to a stop, and there it was: the one-shaped shadow on the wall opposite to her bed.
“That’s all you’ve got? Seriously?” The silhouette jabbed before Basketball could even process the sight. “I was just starting to enjoy myself.. you really know how to bore me.”
One.
Basketball remembered One so clearly it was as if their meeting had just happened. She remembered her room, her storm, her figurines, her contract. She remembered being bound to that chair, squirming and struggling while One watched in amusement, while the rain continued to ravage and wreck all that Basketball loved. She remembered staring into One’s eyes, her beautiful, horrible algebralien eyes.
She stared into them now; their face was the only definable characteristic beyond the shadow. One didn’t even blink. Neither did Basketball. It wasn’t that she was too afraid to, it was that she just.. couldn’t. She couldn’t think of anything except that deal, couldn’t remember to blink or twitch or move or flee from the dark figure that could very easily sweep her into the night again.
Then the words registered with her.
Basketball emerged from her stunned trance. “..Were you..” Her voice trembled as she finally spoke, but it wasn’t only fear that coursed through her; instead, the shock and panic was giving way to red-hot anger. “Were you watching me!?”
“I wouldn’t say watching,” they hummed, feigning innocence, “more like, hm.. observing.”
One had been watching – “observing” – her get off. Great.
“What gives?” One whined. She spoke in a tone adjacent to that of a child’s, frustrated that they couldn’t get the toy that they wanted. “I mean, seriously! I expected more of a finale than that.”
Basketball was at a loss. A finale? A finale? “..Huh?”
Without warning, One sprung from the wall and landed gracefully beside Basketball’s bed, the dim moonlight from the window illuminating her proper form. She was stunning, just as Basketball remembered – but, of course, Basketball knew that was just a part of her deception.
Then they took a step towards her, and Basketball sat up, remembering her sense of danger, remembering what One was capable of, and, most importantly, remembering to make sure the blanket didn’t slip off of her. “You get back! I- if this is something about that.. deal.. I’m not letting you take me! I don’t want anything else to do with you!”
“Awh, really?” One’s voice condescended her in a way that stabbed at the bitter and fearful anger that was hitting its peak. “Deals aren’t all there is to me. I thought you knew me better than that!”
Her heart was pounding, the closer One advanced. She shifted away, unable to will her legs to carry her further than the bed; that, and, well.. she didn’t want them to see what she was keeping hidden under the blanket.
“Get away from me,” she continued to say as they neared.
A hollow laugh escaped them. “Oh, Basketball..” They took another step closer to the bed. “I just want to help,” another step. “Now, if you’d listen to me instead of keeping up that angry act, I’m sure we can reach a civil agreement.”
When Basketball didn’t bother to entertain an answer, One hummed in thought.
“How about you consider this, hm, a gift? Get the thought of our silly deal out of your head, I already have your signature.” Step, step, step. It was in no time at all that One was hovering right over her. “Imagine I’m leaving you a present, Basketball. Wrapped and decorated and fancied up, just for you! And I’m sure we can both agree that the best part of a present is that you’re not required to pay for it, right?”
“I don’t.. what?” Basketball wondered if this was some sort of strange manipulation tactic, an attempt to make her think they were even remotely trustworthy. If it was, she was surprised that they thought she would buy it.
“I‘m saying I have a proposition for you.”
She looked around to double-check that the room was still hers. Eventually, a sigh escaped her, the more tired she grew of One’s antics. “Okay. Okay. What do you want?”
One smiled in satisfaction and, thankfully, took to small, pacing strides around Basketball instead of continuing to invade her personal space. “What I saw earlier told me that you still have a lot of stress that you need to get out of your system. You’ve been holding it in there for so long, and now you’re resorting to futile methods of relieving it. That poor pillow, huh?”
Anger began to fade into humiliation.
Basketball couldn’t help but ask, “How- how much did you see?”
“All of it.” One deadpanned, enough to make her wince. “I had my reasons for visiting you at this time of night, but when I noticed you getting up to some interesting behavior, I was curious! I couldn’t help but stay and enjoy the show.”
Their words lingered, and Basketball felt a shiver, strange and warm, an uncomfortable fuzz sinking into her leather surface.
All of it, they told her. One had seen – no, not just seen – stayed and watched and reveled in all of it. The same unblinking eyes that met hers now had been taking in the sight of her desperate attempts to pleasure herself since the moment she started , and worst of all, One talked as if they had enjoyed it.
“That’s..” Basketball breathed in, trying (failing) to shake the horrible tingling sensation off. “You- you realize how sick that is, right?”
One kicked their foot in place of a dismissive hand wave. “Mm, that’s not important.”
“Yes it-”
“Anyway,” they cleared their throat and continued. “As I was saying, it looks like you need some help. And luckily for you, I’m all about helping people! Even if you look down on my methods,” leaning up against the wall, they smirked at her; she swore through the dim light she saw their cheeks fading into a deeper blue. “How’s about I offer you this: relief, pleasure, everything you so rightfully deserve, no payback needed! Just a gift from the good of my heart.”
Basketball had to process what One meant, thinking back on their encounter before. One was selfish, One wanted power and control, One wouldn’t give a ‘gift’ if it wasn’t laced with ulterior motives. Then she thought on what was happening now; One spoke her offering as if it were something out of a fantasy, not as if experiencing the cruel satisfaction of forcing Basketball into a deal, but rather as if imagining a scenario that filled her to the brim with something akin to..
..Lust.
All at once, everything clicked.
Oh.
“..You..” She began, “You- you came in here to..” and she couldn’t even finish her sentence before she burst into shaky laughter, out of pure shock rather than any sort of amusement (and if this was a joke, One didn’t have a very good grasp on what comedy was). “You’re kidding . I- I don’t have time for these.. sick.. games. If you came in here just to mess with me, I’m not listening.”
Basketball gouged One’s reaction. She expected to hear One laugh that stupidly hypnotizing laugh of hers, brush it off, pick at her for not being any fun, and get to the point.
One only raised an eyebrow.
Basketball’s heart sank.
“..You’re serious.”
The warm shiver returned, stronger, hotter, sicker.
When One did laugh, Basketball felt melted; she felt ill. One had enjoyed it, every ticking second of it. In fact, it was more than just enjoyment; they wanted her, hungered for her, they imagined themselves in a position so intimate that it sickened her. It was almost shocking that a being of such power would want to do such an act with someone like herself, but she knew exactly why:
Basketball was nothing more than a plaything to One. She’d forfeited any power she had against One when she crumbled and signed that contract, and now they were getting their own high from seeing Basketball so defenseless. This was merely a game, a chance for them to play with their fantasies as they pleased. Basketball was a toy that One would use until she broke.
And that warmth – that stupid, stupid warmth – still hadn’t gone. It just kept intensifying, especially when her mind started to wander off to the same fantasies she used to have. The same fantasies she was sure One was thinking of.
She remembered, distantly, the things she used to dream about. She would squirm uncomfortably on the open grassland, half-awake, imagining scenes she wouldn’t dare reveal to anyone. Back then, she had a craving to be ordered, controlled, possessed, she wanted to be told what to do, and in every fantasy she found herself on her knees for someone else, pleading and whining and obeying.
Basketball thought she’d moved on from that, abandoned the little scenes and forgotten all about them, but the idea of actually living it, having somebody to do that to her, made her so dizzy she could almost faint.
Unfortunately, that somebody presented itself as One.
“Of course I’m serious,” the unsettling joy in One’s demeanor hadn’t faded, but now she was smooth, like honey in a sense, just sweet enough to become unbearable, yet addicting all the same. “I mean, come on. I know how much you need release, a good release. I know how much you’ve wanted something like this, Basketball.”
Basketball began to grow frustrated. She didn’t like whatever sickness One was brewing up inside her, she didn’t like how hot everything had gotten, and she didn’t like One. She hated One, she had to. One was a monster masquerading as a benevolent entity. She took pleasure in seeing people like Basketball struggle and squirm and fluster at her mercy.
“Why do you want this so much?” She asked before they could keep worming into her mind.
Their only answer? “I’m not doing it for me!”
“That’s hard to believe when you’re standing here trying this hard to convince me.” Basketball sat a bit taller. “It sounds to me like you’re desperate.”
The scoff that her words earned from One suggested she’d finally found a nerve to strike.
“Bold of you to assume that I’m desperate.” One bit back with teeth that formed a crack in their facade, allowing Basketball a look at their own hard-to-contain frustration. “I’m not the one who drove herself to exhaustion. If I were you, I’d remember my place and give in already.”
“Make me, then.” Basketball muttered, mostly to herself – but One picked up on it. A smile tugged at her expression, breaking her unamused scorn.
“Make you?”
The gravity in the room shifted, causing Basketball to look around in confusion, before she realized it wasn’t the gravity at all. A faint blue glow that she quickly attributed to One’s magic had surrounded her and begun to lift her off of the bed, forcing her to go eye-to-eye with them.
“Oh, I could make you. I could make you do lots of things.” One continued, “Anything. I could make you say yes if I wanted,” there was a scary look in their eyes that told her they weren’t joking. “Now that you’re my signatory, I could give you any order I pleased. You couldn’t resist even if you tried.”
She couldn’t resist now either, feebly kicking her legs as One dragged her to their level. The blanket began to slip, and she panicked, just barely managing to catch it before it fell any further.
“But, you know what? I won’t. I’m giving you a choice,” she stopped to observe the sight, humming, seemingly reveling in Basketball’s frustrating helplessness. “And, just look at you.. It’s honestly hilarious how hard you’re trying to hide your real feelings, even when they’re right there on your face.”
Was she blushing? That would explain the sudden rise of temperature on her cheeks, but- no. She was just angry.
“And a very pretty face, if I do say so myself..”
Shit, she was blushing.
“Shut up.” Basketball snapped, just barely holding onto the fabric along with her own dignity the more One treated her like a thing.
“Make me!” One sang right back to her.
The glowing force holding her up then vanished, and she landed back on her bed with a slight bounce courtesy of her purpose.
One resumed in her circling. “There’s nothing you have to lose here, you know,” then she stopped. “Unless, of course.. this is your first time?”
Basketball flushed almost instantly. “I- It’s not,” she stammered, “It won’t be a time at all.”
“Why not?” One asked. “We both know you want it to be.”
Basketball halted. No, no, no, no, she didn’t want to. She didn’t care about how acutely aware she’d suddenly become of the dazzling, starry glint in One’s eyes, nor did she want to think about the uneasily festering need squirming around within her being at the proposition of pleasure. She didn’t entertain the idea of One could give her that – she couldn’t entertain the idea that One could give her that.
Instead of an immediate no, she said, “I’m not giving you the satisfaction.”
One leaned in close.
“But isn’t your satisfaction more important?”
So did Basketball.
“My satisfaction doesn’t matter to you.”
Then One sighed, allowing her voice to lose its high pitch and drop to a low, husky mutter. “Maybe I’ll be satisfying both of us,” her gaze then drifted to Basketball’s lower half. “Say.. what’s under that blanket?”
The second One’s leg moved in her direction, Basketball squeaked and pulled away, dodging them before they simply set it back down. “I kid, Basketball. Lighten up!”
One didn’t stop there. They moved closer in again, but not to reach for Basketball – rather, to settle right next to her on the bed. Then came the shiver, and Basketball’s breath took a hitch without her even realizing it. It was starting to become glaringly clear that One, in fact, did not radiate heat intended to melt her when in close proximity.
“Cozy bed you’ve got.” One mused, shifting on the soft mattress. “Mm.. I can definitely work with this.”
“Woah, woah, woah!” Basketball almost fell off the bed in her attempt to move as far away from One as possible. “Wh- h- hey- I never said yes!”
“I know. Honestly, I’m really losing my patience,” they kicked a leg over the other, and she instantly recognized the same stature they took on when gazing at her from their sofa chair. The lighting in their room gave them the radiance of a star, she thought, before very quickly attempting to snuff it out from wherever in her mind it – along with other thoughts – tried to unearth itself.
It was getting increasingly difficult to continue pushing herself to move away, to withstand the twisting, rising want, and she wondered for a moment if One had put some sort of hypnotic spell on her, breaking down her walls of defense, chipping and cracking them until they crumbled just like Basketball had the first time. She knew that she wasn’t nearly as disgusted as she was supposed to be.
What was wrong with her?
“Basketball?” One cut through her thoughts ever-so-smoothly. “Are you going to keep staring, or are you going to give me a solid answer already? I don’t have all night!”
“Whatever you’re doing to me, stop.” Basketball said though gritted teeth.
One paused, eyes narrowing. “Hm?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Then One grinned, catlike, seemingly gathering what Basketball was trying to imply. “What am I doing to you?” They asked. “As far as I know, I haven’t even touched you yet.”
Yet – every little, seemingly insignificant word only made her feel worse.
“Oho, am I giving you a little feeling, Basketball?”
Basketball forced herself to look away, at the wall, at the window, helplessly towards the door, anywhere that wasn’t her side. What she was met with was that same magical force taking her by the face and bringing her right back to One. She kicked, tried to pull away, and One brought her closer, too close, close enough to reach the point where even her eyes couldn't dart to anything besides them.
“Look at me when I speak to you,” they warned.
"I’ll do what I want,” she bit back.
“You don’t know what you want.” One pulled her in enough for her to feel the softness of their body on the other side of the blanket. “But I know what you need, and what you need is me.”
Basketball squirmed uncomfortably against them, the fabric only somewhat muffling the awful texture of one body against another, but the sudden jolt and shivers it gave her prompted her to slow to a stop. “Maybe,” she began, “Maybe you need me.”
She’d struck that same nerve again.
“You’re getting real bold with that mouth of yours,” they said bitterly. “And I’m getting tired of going around in circles with you. I don’t need you, Basketball, don’t get so prideful.”
“You sound pent-up.” Basketball continued to test.
“I am not-” One’s voice raised until they both remembered where they were and glanced anxiously towards the door. Then she sighed, shaking off the frustration Basketball had all-too-easily sparked in her. “..Alright. Alright! You know what? Fine. You can look at me however you want – not to say that you’re correct, of course – I don’t really care what someone like you thinks. But I do care how you feel, and I know how stressed you are.”
Basketball looked down. She hadn’t truly relieved herself of anything, the pressure was still there and real and painfully present no matter how much she tried to hide it.
“And, remember! No deals! Seriously!” Once more, One tilted her back up to meet her stare. “If that’s what has you so worried, I’d like to state again that this is a gift, no payment required, just for you, take it or leave it.”
“You are asking me for something,” she said, her anger dimming into mere frustration, annoyance with One’s persistence and her own self for being willing to so much as listen to this. “You’re asking me for a lot of things.”
“Basketball," they addressed her, strikingly stern, nearly demanding. “Do you want relief?”
Basketball paused.
“Do you?”
“Not from you,” she finally answered.
One scoffed. “Well, who else would give you such a generous offering?”
Another shameful pause. Basketball had to think; would anybody she knew really want to do such a thing, let alone see her that way? If they did, did they really care enough to think so thoroughly about what she would want? Basketball never, never told a single soul about the fantasies that were coming back to her now, nor did she want to, but One seemed more than willing to play them out.
Her silence was enough of an answer for One, who broke it with a self-satisfied “That’s right. Nobody.”
That was what cut deep. Nobody would give her this, nobody would listen, nobody would ever listen. Nobody but One was so attentive to her, it was twisted and wrong, what they wanted was disgusting in its own right, but they paid attention. One knew things that nobody else knew, and while the thought of such was horrifying, it held an intimacy that nothing else could replicate – nothing else but this, of course.
“And nobody needs to know. Alright?”
Nobody needs to know.
“I’m the only person who can give this to you. I’ll make you feel a way you’ve never felt before, and all you have to do is say yes.” One’s voice was so soft and snakelike that it practically put Basketball in a trance. “And then, when we’re done, we can move on like nothing ever happened. You can live your life, I can enjoy mine, and our next meeting will be much more.. formal!”
No. That was what she had to say, true and final.
It came out as “.. Fine.”
As if a switch had been flicked, One’s demeanor shifted entirely. “What was that?”
They perked up, eyes bright, visibly excited in a way that was almost uncanny for someone like them, and then, as if the same switch had been pressed back down, they fixed themselves to appear just as composed as they had been moments before.
The force released Basketball. By instinct, she made yet another attempt to increase the gap between them, only to be met with the invasively cold texture of her wall pressing against her back. Her heart pounded as One backed her into the corner, that shiver so overpowering that she struggled to figure out what to do with her body in the moment of vulnerability.
That wasn’t all Basketball was feeling overwhelm her body. In One’s presence, she was sweating again, shaking again, feeling the dizzying rush and tightening in her stomach again.
..Her heart wasn’t pounding out of fear, was it?
Oh, no.
“Go on,” they pressed. “Speak up.”
“Fine, fine, fine! Fine. I’ll do it, whatever, are you happy now?” Every single word fell discordantly off of her tongue, unguided and raw and angry and terrible and relieving, perhaps a strange mix of it all.
“Finally! Sheesh.” One reached out to her, keeping her in place with the side of their leg. “Now-”
“Under one condition.”
One halted entirely, drawing her leg back to her lap. “Oh. Pulling that card, are we?” She looked a mixture of amused and irritated, torn between entertaining Basketball’s antics and punishing them. Luckily, she chose the former. “Very well, then. What are your demands?”
“Admit that you’re just as desperate as I am.” Basketball ordered with a bit of a challenging smile finally starting to tug at the corners of her mouth. She didn’t like One, nor this, not by any means, but she would be a liar if she said it didn’t feel somewhat satisfying to kick One a bit closer down to her level.
One evidently wanted to wipe that smile clean off. “Hah.. Can’t admit to something that doesn’t apply to me, can I?”
Now Basketball was the one raising an eyebrow.
The next thing that came out of One was an exasperated groan. “You are so difficult.. Alright. I’ll admit I have a few cravings of my own that have been rather.. hm.. distracting for me, and you could just happen to fix that. But I won’t say I’m nearly as low as you, and come on, I’m sure you’re just dying to get started, aren’t you?”
One more chance. One more exit. One more opportunity to back out, turn One down, maintain the last small shred of power she had against them, keep her dignity and refer to her methods of temporary satisfaction until she came up with something that would more effectively aid her.
"Fine."
And yet, as the she echoed the same word of defeat from before, she didn’t take it.
“Good.” One purred, satisfied with their ‘victory’ of sorts. “I promise you won’t regret this.”
There was no turning back now, no opting out, and no getting rid of that shiver.
Then One pecked a small kiss to Basketball’s cheek, and her mind short-circuited.