Free Web NovelMatt had been sitting in silence for several seconds.
He wasn't saying anything. He wasn't moving. He just sat on the edge of the bed, hands on his knees, staring at his fingers as though he expected them to give him an answer.
And neither of the two girls was talking either.
Noxx didn't dare. She was still lying there, one hand still on her throat, breathing slowly, and every time she opened her mouth slightly to say something, she closed it again.
She was afraid.
Afraid that any word she said would make Matt launch himself at her again. So she stayed still, quiet, waiting.
The blonde, on the other hand, wasn't afraid. She was confused. She looked at Matt, then at Noxx, then back at Matt, with her head slightly tilted and her eyebrows raised, not understanding what was happening or what she was supposed to do.
The silence stretched.
And then Matt let out a breath, and looked up. He directed his gaze toward one of the walls of the room. A smooth, empty wall with nothing hanging on it. He stared at it for a moment, focused, and the wall changed.
A door appeared in the center.
He had put it there, the same way Noxx put things in that world — with imagination. A wooden door, simple, with a metal handle.
The door swung open on its own, and on the other side was a bar.
A place with low, warm lighting, a long counter of dark wood, shelves lined with bottles of every color behind it, tall stools lined up in front of the bar, and a few round tables further back.
Noxx looked at the door without understanding.
The blonde's eyes went wide.
Before the blonde could say anything, Matt stood up.
"Come with me," he said. "Please."
Both of them froze.
Not because of the place, not because of the door — but because of Matt's words.
Please.
Matt never asked for favors. Matt gave orders.
Matt said "do this", "shut up", "stay there", "no."
Matt didn't ask for things politely.
Not with them.
But he just had.
Matt went in first. He crossed through the door, walked to the end of the counter, lifted the section of the bar that served as a pass-through, and stepped behind it. Into the spot where the bartender would stand.
He took a glass from a shelf, set it on the bar, and started putting something together. He grabbed a bottle, measured some liquid, grabbed another, measured some more. He did it with calm, almost automatic movements, not looking too hard at what he was doing.
Noxx got up from the bed.
She did it hesitantly. Slowly. Without taking her eyes off Matt for a single moment, as though she still hadn't fully decided she trusted him not to do something strange.
Noxx walked to the door, stopped at the frame, and looked at the bar from there.
The blonde, on the other hand, was already inside.
She had come in almost at a run, and now she was circling the place, looking at everything, touching everything, with that usual loud curiosity of hers.
"What is this place?" she asked.
Matt didn't look up from what he was doing.
"A bar."
"A bar?" The blonde walked up to the shelves and stood staring at the colorful bottles. "And what are all these bottles for?"
"Making drinks."
"Drinks?"
"Drinks for adults."
The blonde tilted her head, not entirely understanding, but nodded anyway. Then she spun around and looked at the stools lined up in front of the bar.
"And why are there so many chairs?"
"To sit on."
"So many of them?"
"It's a bar," Matt said, with the same flat tone. "People come in, sit at the bar or at the tables, order something to drink, and stay for a while."
The blonde processed that.
"And you used to go to a place like this?"
Matt paused for a second. Then kept measuring.
"Sometimes."
He didn't add anything else. The blonde didn't ask further, because something in Matt's voice told her she should stop there.
"Sit down," said Matt. He nodded toward the stools in front of the bar.
The blonde walked over to one, climbed up, and settled onto the seat.
And immediately jumped back off.
"Ah!"
Matt looked up.
"What?"
"It's cold!" The blonde rubbed herself with both hands. "And slippery! I'm sliding off! I can't stay still up there, it's uncomfortable."
Matt looked at her for a second.
"If you wore clothes, that wouldn't be a problem."
The blonde puffed out her cheeks. She crossed her arms, pouted, and looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"I'm not getting dressed."
"Then put up with the cold stool."
"I'm not getting dressed…" The blonde lifted her chin. "Unless you dress me!"
Matt went still and blinked, caught off guard by that declaration.
He hadn't expected that answer. And for some reason — after everything that had happened, after all the tension, after nearly strangling Noxx just minutes ago — that answer, so stupid, so absurd, so utterly her, pulled something out of him that hadn't come out in a long time.
A laugh. Barely a breath of air through his nose and a brief twitch of his lips.
But it was a laugh.
The blonde's eyes went wide when she saw it. Then she smiled, proud of herself, even though she didn't entirely understand what she'd said that was funny.
Matt shook his head, the last of that laugh still on his face, and slid the glass he'd just finished across the bar toward her.
"Here."
The blonde came closer, not sitting this time, and looked at the glass. Inside was an amber-colored liquid with a couple of ice cubes floating in it.
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"What is it?"
"Try it."
The blonde picked up the glass with both hands, with a degree of suspicion. She brought it to her face. She smelled it. She scrunched her nose slightly. And then, instead of drinking, she stuck out her tongue and barely dipped it into the liquid, lapping at it like a cat testing water.
The moment her tongue touched the drink, her face crumpled.
"Blech!"
She pulled her tongue back in, eyes shut and nose wrinkled.
"It's awful! It burns! And it's bitter!"
Matt let out another small laugh.
"That's not how you drink it."
"Well it tastes terrible!"
"Because you're licking it like an animal." Matt braced both hands on the bar. "It's not for licking. It's for drinking."
The blonde looked at him, not seeing the difference.
At that moment, a voice came from the side.
"Matt."
It was Noxx.
Noxx had moved closer. She was no longer standing in the doorframe but a couple of steps from the bar, arms slightly crossed over her chest, looking at the blonde's glass.
"Could you make me one?"
Matt looked at Noxx.
For a second, Noxx looked like she regretted asking — as though she was bracing for him to say no, or something worse.
But Matt nodded.
"Sure."
Noxx blinked, surprised by how easy that had been.
Before starting hers, though, Matt reached out and took the glass from the blonde.
"Hey, that's—"
"Watch."
Matt lifted the blonde's glass, brought it to his lips, and took a sip.
A real sip.
Matt swallowed, then set the glass back down on the bar and slid it toward her.
"Like that. A swallow. Not with your tongue. You put it in your mouth and you swallow it." freewebnovel.cσ๓
The blonde took her glass back. She looked at the rim where Matt had drunk from. Then she looked at Matt. And then, slowly, she copied him.
She brought the glass to her mouth. Took a sip — a small one — held it on her tongue for a moment, and swallowed.
This time she didn't make the disgusted face.
She furrowed her brow slightly, working out the flavor, and then her eyes opened.
"…Oh."
She took another sip. A bigger one.
"Oh. It's… it's good. Kind of sweet and bitter at the same time. And it warms you right here." She pressed a hand to her chest. "I like it!"
"Slowly," said Matt. "Don't drink it all at once."
The blonde ignored that entirely and took another sip.
Matt sighed, but didn't push it. He grabbed another glass, another bottle, and started making Noxx's.
He made it differently. Less strong. More ice. When he finished, he slid it along the bar toward her.
Noxx picked it up with both hands.
She stared at it for a moment. Then she took a sip — small, silent. She made no comment. Didn't say whether she liked it or not. She just drank, quietly, shoulders slightly hunched, eyes low, waiting.
Waiting for Matt's next instruction.
"Another one!"
The blonde's voice broke the silence. She'd finished her glass and was tapping it against the bar, smiling.
"I want another one! The same!"
Matt looked at her.
And instead of saying no, instead of telling her to calm down, instead of telling her to be quiet—
Matt grabbed another glass.
"Alright."
He started making her another.
Noxx looked up slightly.
She watched Matt make the drink for the blonde. Watched him not scold her. Watched him keep up with her, answer her, explain things with patience — even if it was that tired tone of his.
And Noxx was surprised.
Because Matt was treating the blonde better than before. Not by much. But better. And that small, almost invisible change shifted something inside Noxx from one uncomfortable place to another.
She didn't know if it was relief.
She didn't know if it was jealousy.
She just took another sip in silence.
Matt finished the blonde's second drink and handed it over. The blonde grabbed it with a happy shout and started drinking right away — not lapping at it this time, actually drinking it properly.
And with what was left in the last bottle he'd used, Matt made one for himself.
He poured it into a glass. Came out from behind the pass-through. Walked over to the stools. And sat down on one, landing across from both girls, on the outside of the bar just like them, the three of them now with their faces more or less at the same height.
Matt looked at his glass for a moment and took a sip. Then, with considerable difficulty, he said a word he had almost never said in his life.
"Sorry."
The bar went quiet.
The blonde, who was mid-sip, stopped. She lowered her glass slowly, the liquid still in her mouth, not swallowed, staring at him.
Noxx went completely still.
Because Matt had never done that before. Not genuinely.
Never.
That is — if we set aside the time he apologized when she went through that deeply embarrassing moment in front of him the first time she had a physical body. But beyond that…
In all the time they'd spent together — in the cave, in the mental world, through every fight, every argument—
Matt had never apologized for real.
But he just had.
Noxx swallowed.
"…Are you alright?" she asked, her voice slightly unsteady. "Matt, is something wrong? Are you—?"
"I'm fine."
Matt turned the glass in his hands, watching the liquid shift inside it.
"I've been thinking about it. These past few days… I've treated both of you badly. Really badly. I've yelled at you. Ignored you. Shut you down every time you tried to say something."
Matt tightened his grip on the glass slightly.
"And what I did today… what I did to you… that was the worst of it. I almost killed you over a stupid idea. Over something that wasn't even your fault."
Matt looked down.
"Sorry."
Noxx set her glass on the bar and raised her hands. frёewebηovel.cѳm
"No, no, wait." She shook her head, quickly. "It's fine. Really. You don't have to worry. I understand."
"No—"
"I understand, Matt." Noxx looked at him. "You've been trapped in the queen's world for a long time with that woman on top of you, talking at you, touching you, calling you her daughter while she watches your every move and you can't escape."
Noxx lowered her voice slightly.
"If I had to deal with her every single day the way you do… maybe I'd lose it too. Maybe I'd explode at someone. So it's okay. You don't have to apologize."
Matt shook his head.
"That's not an excuse."
"Matt—"
"It isn't." His voice came out firm, though tired. "The queen treating me like garbage doesn't give me the right to treat the only two people who work to help me every day like garbage."
Noxx opened her mouth.
"But I haven't been much help…"
Matt looked at her.
"What?"
"That I haven't helped much." Noxx played with the rim of her glass without looking at him. "I don't do anything right. I couldn't see the outside world while you were sleeping. I couldn't protect you from the queen. I couldn't explain to you why you couldn't picture killing her. I'm just useless."
"The cave," said Matt.
Noxx looked up.
"You saved me in the cave," Matt went on. "Without you I wouldn't have come out of there alive. Without you I never would have gotten out at all. That's not 'not helping.'"
Noxx's shoulders dropped.
"That… that's the only worthwhile thing I've done," she murmured. "Once. In the cave. And since then, I've just been dead weight…"
Matt looked at her for a long moment.
"You put yourself down too much."
Noxx was left without words.
She opened her mouth to answer, to tell him that wasn't putting herself down, that it was simply the truth, that it was logical to think that way because it was what was happening, because she couldn't do anything right and that wasn't an opinion, it was a fact—
But Matt kept talking before she could sort out the words.
"And that's my fault too."
Noxx blinked.
"What?"
"I've been insulting you for months," said Matt. "Months of telling you you're useless. That you're an annoyance. That you're good for nothing. Months of treating you like dead weight, dismissing everything you do, never acknowledging anything you've done."
Matt looked down at his glass.
"That's what I taught you to believe. I've spent months building that idea in your head. It's my fault that your sense of yourself is what it is."
"No." Noxx shook her head. "No, that's not—"
"You are what you were raised to be."
The words came out simple. Direct.
Matt said it thinking about himself, in part. Thinking about how he too was the result of the things that had happened to him, the things that had been said to him, the things he had lived through.
Noxx, hearing that response — hearing him talk about how someone is raised — felt something stir inside her.
An irritation she hadn't expected.
Noxx set her glass down on the bar with a little more force than necessary.
"You can't compare us to a human baby."
Matt looked up.
"I'm not—"
"Yes you are." Noxx looked at him, agitated, brows drawn together. "You talk about raising us, about how you shaped us, as though we were small children learning everything from scratch. But we're not that. When we woke up we could already reason. We could already speak. We could already think. We already knew—"
And she stopped. The words cut off in her throat.
The irritation mixed with something else — something warmer — that rose to her cheeks.
Noxx looked away, pressed her lips together, and didn't finish the sentence.
"Alright, you're right," Matt answered.
Noxx looked back at him.
"You have a point," Matt repeated. "You and the ego-weapon aren't human. You weren't born the way we're born, you didn't grow up the way we grow up, you didn't learn things at the speed a human learns them. I can't compare you to a baby. That's true."
Matt paused.
"But there's one thing that is the same."
"What?"
"You learn from me."
Matt looked Noxx in the eyes.
"Both of you. Everything you know about how to treat people, how to behave, what's right and what's wrong… you learned it from me. I'm the only thing you've had close to you since you've existed. And I taught you with yelling. With hitting. With insults or silence — and the lesson that attention is a reward you earn by behaving well."
Matt tightened his grip on the glass.
"So yes. In terms of learning — in terms of who you both are right now — that's my fault. No one else's."
The bar went quiet again.
The blonde wasn't saying anything. She had set her glass on the bar and was watching them both in silence, not understanding every word but understanding the tone.
Noxx kept her eyes on Matt and felt them start to sting.
She felt something rising in her throat — a knot, a pressure.
Noxx wanted to cry, but she didn't want to.
Not in front of Matt.
Noxx stood up. She pushed back the stool, turned her back to Matt, and pretended to look at the bottles on the shelf, blinking rapidly to keep the tears from coming.
"So what are you going to do then?" she asked, without turning around. Her voice came out a little tight. "Going forward. What are you going to do?"
Matt looked at her from his stool.
"I want to start treating you both better."
Noxx stayed still, her back to him.
"Both of you," Matt went on. "Treating you like what you are. Like… companions, I guess. Because, unfortunately for you two…"
Matt took a sip of his drink.
"The three of us are going to be together for a long time. Or well — five, if you count the two I left resting on the queen's nightstand."
Noxx let out a small sound. Almost a laugh. Almost a sob.
Then she was quiet for a moment.
And when she spoke again, her voice came out different — lower, and nervous.
"And your family?"
Matt didn't answer right away.
He thought about his mother, about his sister, and about the graduation.
He thought about what going back would mean.
Matt closed his eyes for a moment.
Then opened them.
"Considering all the problems I've caused up to now…" he said, quietly. "And all the ones I'm still going to cause…"
He took one last sip of his drink.
"I give up."
