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This damn pickpocket had a way of stealing his dice and acting like it was normal. 4c couldn’t quite tell what had gotten into him, but every time they ended up with seven dice and 4c only had four, he felt like his throat closed up and his chest felt suffocated. He could never bring himself to say anything about it.
He ended up with five dice again. “Five dice in a six dice game, huh?” The champion across from him had said. “Better make due.”
He grit his teeth. The farkled. Then they were mysteriously gifted an extra die from the Gods.
Bullshit.
They finished scoring. Seven hundred ahead.
4c took the dice and rolled again. Bank a one and a five. Another roll. Three twos and a five.
Nom’s hand rested on his shoulder, coming from nowhere. 4c flinched, the weight of armored hands scaring him out of his dissociative haze. Nom glanced at the paper, noting the score silently. Not great, and definitely not in 4c’s favor. 4c didn’t dare to look at him, worried the look in his eyes would feel too much like pity. “Take the five and reroll.” He muttered softly.
The champion’s foot tapped loudly. Impatient. Maybe 4c was hesitating too long? Was he thinking too hard about it? “Why not take them?” 4c muttered.
“You can score better on three dice than two hundred,” Nom muttered.
4c was terrified of farkling this roll. If he did, the champion across the table from him would be at a significant advantage, even more so than before. He glanced up, then back down, his hands flexing as if he wanted to move.
“Breathe, 4c,” Nom reminded. 4c took a breath, slowly sliding the five away, taking the three twos. “You got this.”
He rolled. Three fives. Nom’s hand tightened slightly on his shoulder.
4c went to reach for the pencil. The could almost feel the champion’s gaze across him, but he didn’t look up, but Nom’s stopped 4c. “Roll again.”
He swallowed, blinking. A shiver ran down his spine. Nom had told him to roll again before. Never on his side, though.
4c didn’t move. He remembered the time when he didn’t have a choice. Where he was told to roll again, or he was told to stop rolling. When he acted against his own accord, like a puppet pulled by his opponent’s strings. The gods favorite plaything.
His vision almost started to blur. He swore it started to go dark at the edges, until he glanced up, briefly looking at Nom over his shoulder. He hadn’t told Nom about the details, yet. Just that he was put in hell. There was no way that Nom had any way to know, or any way to weaponize it or use it against him. Right?
“You have a nine percent chance of not getting a one or a five,” Nom assured, hand steady on his back. Statistics were easy to parrot though. Harder to believe in practice, and he couldn’t stop the way he prickled when Nom told him to roll again.
Six dice. The chances of getting a one or a five was over ninety. That wasn’t including a three of a kind. “I can’t.” He choked, voice cracking.
Nom put his hand over 4c’s. “Breathe,” He reminded for the second time so far.
4c noticed his hands were shaking. Nom’s hands covered his quickly, pulling 4c’s attention away. He didn’t look up, but he could hear the champion scoff.
“It’s okay. You scored enough to tie it. If you roll again you can get ahead.” Nom nudged him slightly. “Besides, you’ve already beaten this one.”
Right. Low stakes. He’d lose a little bit of gold, but he wouldn’t lose any more of his soul. He already lost that in hell.
“You’ve got it, 4c.”
4c blinked a few times, gathering the dice and rolling again.
Three ones and a five. “Told you,” Nom said proudly.
He let out a shaky, almost confused laugh, reaching for the paper. He was nine hundred points ahead now.
The champion, as if finally satisfied with what 4c had done, reached for the paper to check it. He felt a sting in his chest, having his math checked for him like he was a child, or like he was someone who couldn’t be trusted. 4c would never cheat at a game of farkle, especially against a god’s champion. His god’s champion.
4c looked down, avoiding their eyes, and he watched an extra die roll out of his sleeve onto the table with a heavy silence in his chest.
Just as quickly he watched as Nom shifted to the side of the table, slipping one of the dice off while the champion was allegedly checking 4c’s math, silencing the click by catching it on his boot.
Nom gave a knowing look to 4c. Both of them said nothing.
The champion set the paper down with a hum, saying nothing, but seeming to wordlessly accept the score. He glanced down and looked confused.
“Something wrong?” Nom asked.
He said nothing. 4c didn’t say anything, and Nom stayed silent further.
They rolled and 4c felt tense, like at any moment he could snap. Stupid dice game. At this point he should just stop playing entirely. Unless maybe against Nom, but between Nom telling him to roll again and the uncontrollable feeling of his own body moving, he didn’t think he was ready to face Nom yet. He was sure Nom would understand.
They watched the champion roll a one and three threes, taking them. They decided to roll one more time, and 4c let out an audible sigh when they turned up with a four and a six.
He grabbed the dice. He needed to score one thousand two hundred to win.
“You got this,” Nom assured, hand returning to 4c’s shoulder.
Four fives.
Two hundred points away.
4c didn't immediately reach for the pencil, glancing at Nom. “Should I?” He found himself asking.
“Do it.”
He rolled the other two dice.
Two ones.
Nom nudged 4c sharply, and he almost stumbled.
He reached for the paper. Nom didn’t tell him to roll again to see how high he could score in one roll. He won this one, exactly where he needed to be.
The champion scoffed, and was gone as quickly as they had arrived.
4c won.
“There you go!” He said, and 4c felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
He found himself giving a weak, hazy smile, blinking and finally focusing on Nom in front of him, sand in his hair and the frames of his glasses.
“You’re that much closer to getting your soul back,” Nom encouraged, and 4c gave a weak nod.
“Well- the last one is the hardest one..” 4c reminded, yet Nom’s encouragement and adulation wasn’t quelled the way he hoped it would be.
Nom pat him on the back, “And if anyone can do it, it’s you.”
Another weak, unbelieving nod from 4c.
“C’mon. You can get your soul back.”
-
4c was almost shaking when he stood at the table against this one. His voice reminded 4c too much of Nom. Nom if he was just a little bit harsher with a little less kindness in his heart.
Nom the night that they met.
He didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to bury those memories as deep down as he could and ignore that he ever saw Nom like that. Since then he’d never seen Nom truly angry. Never heard him growl and never saw him, tail lashing, wings flared, covered in blood.
Yet that growl had etched itself into his mind, especially when he looked at the cloaked figure across the table from him.
Nom glared at them with a look so sharp that 4c was sure he hadn't yet seen it before.
They rolled first. Three ones and a five. Bad start for 4c. He would feel his legs start quivering, almost buckling beneath him.
He took the dice after their score had been written down.
Nom's hand rested on the table from where he stood beside 4c, and he wasn't sure that it felt much better until he realized he took off the gauntlets, left were his actual hands. Such a small difference it would have felt trivial if not for the small exhale he let out, and the tiniest fraction of tension leaving his shoulders.
4c rolled the dice. Four ones.
He breathed carefully.
Nom didn't say anything, but he was worried that if he went to bank that he'd be forced to roll again.
Either way, he tried.
“One more roll couldn't hurt, right?”
He froze up, head spinning for just a moment. One hand braced against the edge of the table as he struggled to stay present. Struggled to stop from sinking back on the memory, the anxiety, the fear of doing something he didn't want.
“Is that your decision to make?” Nom questioned sharply.
The champion hummed with disapproval, but didn't say anything further.
4c wrote down his points quickly.
1050-2000
They took the dice and rolled, taking three fours, a one, and a five. They rolled again, taking two ones and leaving a straight without realizing it.
On this roll they hesitated before reaching for the paper. 4c was still ahead.
“Be consistent.” Nom whispered.
4c didn't think that was possible with an opponent that could (and would, and will) force him to play risky.
He rolled. Two ones and a five.
Good enough
“I don't think so.” They said, and 4c was moving before Nom could protest for him.
Farkle.
Damn it.
4c let out a breath, blinking away the blur at the edge of his mind, focusing instead on the click of the dice as they rolled, and the tense breaths that Nom took next to him.
1700-2000
They rolled again. Three ones.
Nom's hand returned to his shoulder, lighter now that the weight of his armor was gone.
He felt like he was going to cry.
The champion didn't roll again, and it was 4c's turn.
The weight of Nom's hand was enough to ground him. Enough to remind him of why he was playing.
He rolled. A one. Rolled again. Two fives. Again. Another one. He hesitated. Two dice left, was it worth it? He was still ahead.
4c looked at Nom. “You're ahead. Go on,” He said, giving 4c a smile that felt reassuring.
Small scoring always felt worse. Like somehow he had more to lose, when it was only three hundred. He was three hundred ahead.
He rolled. Two ones.
“Oh, thank god,” He breathed, and the figure across him clearly grimaced.
“Again,” Nom encouraged.
4c rolled again. Two more ones. He was about to reach to roll again when the champion, seeming irritated, muttered “Maybe play it safe?”
His hand reached for the pencil and paper.
He could see Nom's jaw tighten again. “Sorry, Nom.”
“You aren't the one who should be sorry.” Nom said, eyes fixed on the champion across from him, his words pointed.
4c shifted uncomfortably, writing down his score.
2700-2500
Damn it. He could still do it, though. 4c was bouncing his leg. Nom seemed to be equally as tense, and 4c could imagine without the weight of his armor, he’d be bouncing his leg just as much as 4c was.
“Nom, I’m scared.” 4c muttered.
He surprised himself with that one. He tried to cover it up with a laugh, but his hands were trembling and Nom was always so good at telling when he was nervous. It was practically like 4c had no poker face at all.
They rolled the dice. Three ones. “Fuck-”
“4c,” Nom called, hand suddenly feeling heavy on the back of 4c’s neck. “It’s okay.
He could hardly focus. He blinked, and Nom called his name again.
“4c, breathe.”
Everything was growing distant. Everything was cold, a weight falling over his shoulders and yet he could hardly focus on Nom’s hand where it rested.
“You’re scratching,” Nom said, pulling 4c’s hands where both of them were visible, holding his wrists. Not that scratching did any harm. Slime healed over just as quickly as it was wounded, but the pain was still there.
4c blinked, but the edges started going dark.
Nom snapped in front of his eyes, and he just flinched back, his breath catching in his throat, lungs burning.
He finally looked up, catching a stern, focused look in his eyes that sent 4c back into the darkness. Into the cold, foggy space between the earth and the abyss. Sent back to the frigid, blue wasteland. He tried to sink back into himself. To melt into a heap, to crumple into a pile of slime on the floor, but Nom was holding his wrists, and he felt so weak in comparison to Nom and he wasn’t strong enough.
His mind was grasping onto consciousness the way that he was grasping onto the edge of another jump, slipping and sliding further down, down, down–because he wasn’t strong enough–closer to step one exactly where he started, where he would have no choice but to do it all again.
4c couldn’t breathe. Well, he could, but every breath came short, shallow, and shaky as all hell. It ached in his chest, lungs flaring but it felt like no oxygen was making it into his system.
“4cvit.”
His knees buckled. Nom held on, keeping him from hitting the floor.
“Breathe,” Nom encouraged, voice soft. A voice that 4c had remembered him using with Katie once before after a spar, telling her that she was doing good.
4c didn’t deserve that.
He didn’t even have a soul.
“I-I’m sorry,” He gasped, voice not quite a sob but shaking and scared. “I’m sorry Nom- I’m sorry..”
Nom shook his head, slowly releasing his grip on 4c’s wrist. 4c couldn’t hold himself upright, crumpling against Nom’s legs, shaking and dry-heaving. At least he wasn’t crying.
“What!” The champion complained, following up the sharp scratch of a single line of pencil on paper. “You can’t do that!”
“I can, and I am.” Nom hissed, “He forfeits.”
Ignoring further protests, Nom crouched down, resting one hand on 4c’s back as he muttered sorries and words that meant nothing.
“You’re okay, 4c,” Nom muttered, settling on the ground next to 4c, just for 4c to curl up and crawl in his lap. He wrapped his wings around 4c, collecting what he could of his slimy, squishy, trembling form into his arms. “You don’t have to farkle yet. You don’t have to farkle at all if you don’t want to.”
4c shook, and was most certainly sobbing by now. “In- In hell they made- they made me-”
Nom tightened his grip around 4c, a pressure that eased the ache in his chest and the burn in his lungs. “I know, they made you do a lot of things,” Nom muttered, “Breathe, 4cvit. You don’t have to abide by what they say anymore.”
He nodded jerkily, sniffling.
“You get the final say.”