This is not Marley's fault.

He did not ask for this. Actually, he asked for the opposite of this. He has no body heat! He's a walking corpse, he's unbelievably cold all the time, and because of this, it's only natural that (were he in a state that he wasn't totally conscious of what he was doing) he would gravitate towards the nearest source of warmth.

It's normal!

The alarm going off in the morning is something he's used to, really. He doesn't freak out and fall out of bed anymore, to his credit. He does jolt a little but he doesn't move from whatever position he's in too much. From what he can tell, he's laying on his side (if the solid surface pressed against his cheek is anything to go by.)

The alarm shuts off after a moment, and the lights are on. They're a little dimmer than usual but they're still practically blinding. He reaches up with his hand to cover his eyes as they fail to adjust to the brightness of the room immediately. He doesn't realize how long he stays like that until he hears a familiar voice ask moodily;

"Are you gonna get up or what?"

The strange thing about it is that he not only hears it in his ears, but it's almost as though he can feel it. The vibrations that come with talking, that is.

Marley takes his hand off his face—begrudgingly— and starts blinking to get his eyes to adjust to the stupid fluorescent lights. "Can you turn the lights off? Jeez," he mumbles, asking whoever said that. Whoever turned the lights on in the first place.

Actually, that was probably Nero. His voice sounds a lot closer than usual though. Maybe he's standing by the light switch? Good. Use it.

"No. Get off of me."

Ha, that doesn't even make sense. Get off of who? Nero? Last time Marley checked that guy was across the room turning on lights and...

Hang on. Marley's not cold. Wasn't that a problem yesterday? It's pretty hard to forget a huge surgery that you weren't told about, which resulted in you being freezing cold for like a day and a half. Maybe two days. Who knows? It was-

Wait a second.

Marley notices that his eyes are pretty well adjusted now, but he's growing scared to look around. Why? Because he's laying horizontally on his bed, he can tell by the awkward position his legs are in against the wall. Also, the surface his head is on seems to be moving up and down, slowly.

Marley's starting to get an idea of what's going on, and he can't help but to internally curse the gene that made it so hard for him to get logical thoughts in his mind after waking up. He turns his head to the right, and immediately catches sight of a raven haired man giving Marley his hourly death glare.

Except, said raven haired man is a lot closer than expected.

Nero has a birthmark under his right eye, so faded it's near impossible to find. Freckles dot his nose in a scattered array, looking more like stars than anything else. His eyes are red and glowing as ever, skin colored like honey and emanating a refreshing morning glow. He really is attractive. He could be a model if he wanted, Marley's sure. If only he weren't so—

"Are you fucking deaf?"

Marley's head is on Nero's chest.

As soon as the realization crosses his mind, Marley leaps across the bed, back to the wall. Immediately after they lose contact the cold begins to set in, but he can't find it within himself to care. Oh god, he's an absolute disaster. Nero is the enemy within the alliance, okay? No cuddling. Actually, Marley shouldn't even be complimenting him. Whether it's internal or not, it's bad for his health.

What is he thinking? Freakin' cuddling with Nero like that?

To Marley's shock, Nero doesn't even acknowledge it. He just stands up and walks over to his side of the room, going through his clothes to find something to wear for the day. He leaves his own blanket on Marley's bed.

Even though Marley is slowly beginning to come up with reasons why it's totally not his fault that that happened, he still can't help but to apologize, "sorry," because that was sort of inappropriate.

Marley is totally expecting a sarcastic remark, because that's pretty much all Nero is capable of. However, the man surprises him by responding with a very neutral;

"Don't worry about it."

I worry about everything.

-

Three more days go by without incident. Nero continues sleeping in Marley's bed, but Marley had set up several blankets and pillows between them to keep the first incident from repeating. They had another midnight meeting yesterday, and Marley realized on the days that they have those Nero doesn't even go to sleep until they get back.

Nothing important happened at the meeting. Bren tried to get Marley to sketch out his dad's office and Marley did his best, but he's only been in there once so it's not very detailed. Probably not accurate, either.

He notices that there are no breaks here. No weekends off. It's the same thing every day, no exceptions, and Marley wonders how long it'll take for this to drive him insane. He spends the majority of his time with Leilani, when they aren't planning his father's demise.

"Uh, Prince?" Someone asks. Marley looks up to find one of the girls at Leilani's lunch table looking at him in concern. He doesn't know her at all, but then again, the only one here he actually does know is Leilani herself. The rest of them are just the background noise of voices that accompany any meal he has here.

Marley gives her a questioning look. She goes on, "sorry, but I was just wondering, are you okay?"

Marley raises a brow. She's acting like she just said something rude. She looks really nervous to be talking to him, brown eyes trained on the table instead of his face. She was just checking on him, why is she acting like he's gonna execute her? "Yeah, I'm good," he responds.

She looks a bit relieved, for whatever reason. "That's good," she replies, finally making eye contact with him, and not looking away. Marley can't shake the feeling that this entire interaction feels totally weird. Her hair is up in a pony tail on the side of her head and she has no food in front of her, but her words sound practiced.

Marley nods, slowly. A few seconds later everyone starts to get up from lunch and Marley realizes it's 4:30. Alright, cool. Marley walks with Leilani over to the trash cans and discards what little is left of his lunch. He's totally planning on just heading back to either his or Leilani's room to hang out, but is stopped when he hears;

"Marley Nocona, please report to Doctor Rellik's office."

Leilani's head snaps up to look at him, expression contorting into one of sympathy. Marley understands her concern, but he's so ready to have some freakin' body heat that he can't even pretend to dread this visit. It's about time, holy shit, if Marley had to spend one more day like this he would have lost his mind.

He says his goodbyes, hurriedly, and doesn't spare anyone else in the room a look as he makes his way toward the exit at a brisk pace. Never did he think he'd be excited to see Doctor Rellik, yet here he is.

He makes it to the doctor's office in record time, and doesn't even spare the window guy a glance as he opens the door and walks into the torture chamber. The chair is still in the center of the room, and Marley doesn't think twice before taking a seat in it. He places his wrists on each arm rest and waits for the click of the cuffs, which comes seconds later.

It seems like forever until Rellik steps into the room, and when he does, Marley's spirit falters.

The man doesn't look like he usually does. All professional and apathetic, there to fulfill one purpose. Marley's never seen him act guilty.

"Hello, Prince Marley, how are you?" He greets. Has he ever greeted Marley by his title? Has he ever greeted Marley at all?

Marley blinks. In his haste to get here, he hadn't even grabbed his blanket. Hopefully Leilani has it, because losing a blanket would suck. He'd have to use another one and who's to say he won't misplace that one too? Unlucky.

"I'm really cold," Marley replies. No point in lying just to be nice. Rellik's a doctor, he probably wants the truth anyway.

Rellik nods, not even trying to hide the way he examines Marley up and down. Marley almost expects him to say, you look it.

"Well, I expected that." He responds. Marley wants to roll his eyes. "Other than that, though, have you been experiencing any dizziness? More tired than usual? Gastrointestinal issues?" The man takes a seat at his computer desk thing. Marley tries to think on what he said.

Marley has no clue what gastrointestinal means, so he just rules that out. He felt tired at first, but that sort of went away. The same goes for dizziness—but other than that;

"No, I'm just cold."

Rellik nods, eyebrows pinched together. He looks horribly conflicted. Of what, Marley hasn't a clue. The man starts typing on his laptop, and after a few minutes go by Marley realizes that something feels wrong here. If he's getting his heart back today, what's with the waiting? Didn't Rellik say it wouldn't be a problem? Is there a problem?

After five minutes go by, Marley really can't sit still. Also, his leg is starting to itch and he has no way to relieve it. So, Marley decides to prompt, "is everything okay?"

Rellik doesn't pause in his typing as he replies; "Yes, it'll just be a second. How are you liking 1-A? You've been here a few weeks now, I believe."

Honestly, Marley's lost track of the time he's spent here. That's how routine this place is. Also, what does this guy care?

"It's great," Marley responds, not even attempting to sound excited. Rellik doesn't seem like he's listening. Marley swears it's at least five more minutes before the man finally says;

"Okay, I have good news and bad news."

Rellik finally turns away from his laptop so he's facing Marley. He can't decipher the look on the doctor's face, but it's not a positive one. Actually, it looks almost apologetic. After Marley doesn't answer, he continues, "which one do you want to hear first?"

Is this actually happening? Did this guy really just say that?

"Uh..." Marley pauses. He decides to play along, "bad?"

Rellik nods. "Okay, so, I'll go ahead and tell you that I won't be doing your surgery today."

Marley freezes. This guy has got to be kidding him right now. He has waited days in the freezing cold for this. It's been all he's thought about—he nearly ran just to get here for nothing? No, there's no way. If he's not getting his heart back today then why is he even here? Why... What...

Rellik doesn't wait for an answer. In fact, he continues pretty hurriedly after catching the expression on Marley's face. "I felt that I should bring you down here to explain to you that I will be keeping your heart here for a few more weeks. I have some theories that I'd like to study."

Marley raises his eyebrows. A set of particularly harsh chills run through his body.

"I'm sorry, I really am. If the cold gets too harsh you can always go to Resident Services and they'll give you some more blankets."

Blankets! Don't! Fucking! Work!

Marley's too shocked to even think of an intelligent response.

"The good news is that if everything goes well I might actually have a cure for you within the next month."

What?

Rellik smiles at him. Like, actually freaking smiles. Now, of all times. It's unnerving to say the least and Marley just can't seem to process everything that's happening. He's going to have to deal with this for even longer? This horrible, biting chill that he cant escape no matter what he does? This liar said that Marley would be warm in a few days. It's been a few goddamn days!

Who gives a shit about a cure?! Marley's already fucking dead!

"You're kidding me," Marley responds. His voice sounds off even to his own ears. It's low—lower than Marley's ever heard it. Rellik's eyebrows raise.

"No, I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promise. Hopefully it won't take too long for me to figure this out."

Marley's not listening. He's hearing, sure. Rellik's words are registering fine, but he just can't find it within himself to give it any attention. "No, no, are you-do you know what it's like to be this cold?"

The doctor blinks. "I can't say the same for you, since I haven't done a full examination of your current state, but a corpse adapts to the temperature around it."

Who cares! Who?!

Marley's shaking, he realizes. Maybe he is going insane. He wonders if there's a fireplace in 1-A. Rellik seems to sense the upcoming hurricane that is Marley's anger, which is the exact reason the man gets up and sends some departing words.

"Well, I'll see you when I see you. Have a nice evening."

Then he's fucking gone. Right though his stupid secret office door. Marley swears that when he gets out of here, when he becomes king, he's going to tear this place to the fucking ground. He's gonna video tape it and he's going to watch it every time he's as pissed off as he is now because he knows for a fact—he knows that it'll cheer him right up!

What bullshit.