Gunnerkrigg Court, Gamma & Zimmy, PG: "Another Year"
If I could make an animated songvid, I'd do one for Zimmy/Gamma to "I Will Keep the Bad Things From You" by The Damnwells, and shed fandom tears everywhere in the process.
Another Year
Fandom: Gunnerkrigg Court
Characters: Gamma & Zimmy
Rating: PG
Summary: New Year's Day. (Page 664.)
The first of January finds Zimmy hunched up on the spiral staircase behind her dorm, at the turn where it's usually quiet, if there aren't a lot of people in the bathroom, and she's thrown rocks at the nearest lights. Gamma's beside her, holding her with a hand on both shoulders.
Still - January first finds her.
It's all closer to a countdown than anything else. This isn't another single day but another year, a new threat of day after day that gives her time and opportunity to walk off the edge of her own head. Some days, she could hate Gamma's smile.
What's it counting down to? When is whatever it is going to happen? Zimmy's got a lot of answers and she's always getting new ones, night after brand new night for another year.
Gamma's smiling, as if it helps. She likes that everybody's having parties and giving good wishes, including to people they normally don't speak to. Gamma's holding her like she knows that it will matter, in the end. It does help, it does - today things feel really quiet for no reason, and the ash in Zimmy's eyes is smudging off a little bit, streaking grey down her face like it's make-up. It might matter that she's here - it might matter all the way through to the end of another whole year.
The future keeps ticking towards them, and Zimmy knows that Gamma being nearby will always help. But it hasn't always helped enough. Gamma needs to sleep, Carver can't always stand in, and there's a world that seems to need to find its way through Zimmy's head. So when's it going to happen?
No way of knowing. She can't get the hang of hoping.
It's quiet for now, so she's still in the relief of that. She doesn't say anything and lets Gamma smile, because even that doesn't mean that Gamma's stopped understanding. She's lived with this for years too - but she knows about hope. She never, ever waits for the end, even on a day like this.
Zimmy doesn't want to wait for it. She wants to absoutely hate the idea of it, and to blink ash off her eyelashes and feel lighter. It's a good day, she tells herself. It's not really the first; that's something people say because it's how they think. And it's not the last (maybe it won't ever be?). So she can stay quiet and hidden, listening to Gamma hum and feeling the way she cared, and (there will be another, but) it's not the worst day.