[ it was different when the Beatles sang it ]

[ifthebroomfits]

WHO: Nico and Victor
WHEN: December 2017
WHERE: California
WHAT: Nico and Victor have an awkward talk about a very sensitive subject

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[killbotwashere]

On one level Victor's aware of Nico in the bathroom. He's plugged into the building's fiber optic trunk, hacking merrily into public databases, scraping locations, schedules, prisoner lists, transfer times. Filling dossiers with digital chaff and rudely doctored photographs. He giggles a little to himself.

When he hears Nico moan, he turns towards the faint sound of her voice. She doesn't sound okay. She sounds a specific sort of not okay. Something he was supposed to remember. The light of the setting sun leans into the room as he turns, gets him right in the eyes, red and orange and yellow - Karolina? - and startles him into sudden clarity.

"Nngh. oh. oh shit." Vic's mind was like a box of puzzle pieces shaken by a toddler. Sometimes he was lucky and enough of himself stuck together that he could fill in the rest. There was something important he was supposed to remember to do, something he had told himself to ask her but only when he was having a good moment. Shit. Now. Hold it together.He's felt the changes in her body when he

[killbotwashere]

He squeezes his eyes closed, bows his head so their foreheads touch. "Okay. All right. Keep talking to me."

He doesn't like acknowledging the shifts in himself, but he has to, he has to learn to manage it better. The sad part is that it doesn't actually bother Victor when he's dissociated. He doesn't feel the lack. It's just the transition that hurts, the lost time, and the way it affects the people around him. There aren't enough people around him to push his mind into human directions.

"I'll stay. I'm staying. We'll, heh, we'll get a copy of Dr. Spock or whatever. There's a lot on the Kree up in here. Captain Marvel. Very relevant. Just need to help me write it down."

[ifthebroomfits]

She does reach up this time, cupping his jaw. Her palms rasp against his dark facial hair. They were never this close as teenagers, since Nico had always kept the world at an arm's length. She bristled until the people she cared about slipped out of reach---and then she'd hold onto them desperately, grabbing them. Maybe the way Victor seems to be in a constant state of freefall is what has her holding so tightly onto him, uncaring of what it means

[killbotwashere]

It's like she's physically keeping him from flying apart and he's grateful. He's grateful to Nico for so many things, even if being this close to her and feeling these things is sometimes hard for him.

"Listen. Even when I'm not...hrrgn." He whispers, ashamed. "Even when I'm confused, I still know what's important, okay? I'll still be here. It's getting better, I swear."

He closes his hand around hers. He'd let her lead him, hold her till she slept, find something she could eat. Help her sort this thing out. Their lives had to change, this was no place for a baby, no life. Whatever part of it he could, he'd make something right.