Short!Fic - If I Return Half-Broken (DA)
Influenced and inspired by, oddly enough, the Great Big Sea song "Boston and St. John's". For nakitamanomiko, without whom I would get nothing done, and who owns Nero (X6-756) and 442 (ironically, X5-442). Hello (X5-447) belongs to me. Takes place directly after "The Berrisford Agenda".
You don't go to work, because you know better. Because you know all of Max's offers are half-empty, and the rest of what's there is ridicule and you can't deal with that right now, you're not sure if you can handle it. You know you would, if it came to it, but you don't know how well it would turn out in the end and anyway, the last thing you need is someone asking you what's wrong, like it's anything you can put in words, like it's something that should ever be said out loud.
You're not even talking to the others, and locking yourself in your room only helps on that front minimally. They know something's up, though. They stopped trying to get you to open the door after the third time when you snapped and shouted for them to get the hell away from you. They were trying to help.
Hearing them outside while you sit in your room and pretend you can't hear a piano in the back of your head is almost comforting, and by the second day they've given up trying to bother you, so you just listen. Hello slips a card under the door, you think it probably says "get well soon" or something lame like that, she's always doing that stuff. 442's going to have to talk to her again about pointless reasons to go out among the ordinaries. You'd do it, but you've locked yourself in your room and you don't want to come out yet. You don't want their questions.
Max calls in the afternoon, and you don't pick up. She didn't mark it urgent, so probably nobody's dead yet. At least, no one he cares about. And the one that might as well be...
You can't think about her. It hurts too much and you're not used to that kind of pain. That kind of hurt isn't you. Soldiers don't hurt like that, that's weakness. It doesn't really do a lot of good to think about it that way, though.
That night, someone tries the door again. You're getting up when it opens, and Nero's putting away the lockpicks and walking right in.
"I'm tired of sleeping on the floor," she says, and you shift over, let her lie down next to you like on any other night. As if you have a choice. It's not like you can keep her out.
Your whispered "thanks" doesn't get an answer, but you sleep tonight. And you go to work tomorrow.
You don't go to work, because you know better. Because you know all of Max's offers are half-empty, and the rest of what's there is ridicule and you can't deal with that right now, you're not sure if you can handle it. You know you would, if it came to it, but you don't know how well it would turn out in the end and anyway, the last thing you need is someone asking you what's wrong, like it's anything you can put in words, like it's something that should ever be said out loud.
You're not even talking to the others, and locking yourself in your room only helps on that front minimally. They know something's up, though. They stopped trying to get you to open the door after the third time when you snapped and shouted for them to get the hell away from you. They were trying to help.
Hearing them outside while you sit in your room and pretend you can't hear a piano in the back of your head is almost comforting, and by the second day they've given up trying to bother you, so you just listen. Hello slips a card under the door, you think it probably says "get well soon" or something lame like that, she's always doing that stuff. 442's going to have to talk to her again about pointless reasons to go out among the ordinaries. You'd do it, but you've locked yourself in your room and you don't want to come out yet. You don't want their questions.
Max calls in the afternoon, and you don't pick up. She didn't mark it urgent, so probably nobody's dead yet. At least, no one he cares about. And the one that might as well be...
You can't think about her. It hurts too much and you're not used to that kind of pain. That kind of hurt isn't you. Soldiers don't hurt like that, that's weakness. It doesn't really do a lot of good to think about it that way, though.
That night, someone tries the door again. You're getting up when it opens, and Nero's putting away the lockpicks and walking right in.
"I'm tired of sleeping on the floor," she says, and you shift over, let her lie down next to you like on any other night. As if you have a choice. It's not like you can keep her out.
Your whispered "thanks" doesn't get an answer, but you sleep tonight. And you go to work tomorrow.