[oneshot] sometimes i feel a little mad
Title: sometimes i feel a little mad
Pairing: moses/pest
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life, gen
Warnings: swearing, ptsd, casual drug use
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: advent calendar day 3, for staypainted. they deal with things as best they can. 1,130 words.
"What's the point of being a fucking hero," Pest says as they peel away from the curb again, over-loud so the police at the front can hear him through the barred doors, "if the fucking feds are just gonna lock you up for it?" He breathes out through his nose. "This is some bullshit."
They've been inching slowly forward in the van for what feels like hours. He's still got his feet propped up on Moses' seat, slouched uncomfortably against the corner of the cage, cuffs digging into thin wrists clasped behind his back. There's a vicious throb in his left leg when he shifts and Moses glances up just in time to catch the wince that flits over his face, gives him a measured look.
"'S fine, bruv," Pest says automatically, and grins wide-but he stops moving his lower body, settles for letting his mouth run instead. He's always lacked the essential parts of a working brain-to-mouth filter, but Moses doesn't mind because he likes to listen. The low sound of his voice fills the cramped cage and Moses nods along, gaze cool and level.
"Hope your nan's okay," Moses breaks in, later, after Pest's subsided to glare at the ceiling of the van in righteous anger. Pest turns his head and their eyes meet over the rumbling of the engine, and of course it's just like Moses to cut straight through the layers of bullshit to the heart of things.
"Yeah," he says finally, sharp blade of his shoulder twisting forward to scrub his mouth. "And-Biggz, man. He doesn't know yet. Didn't get a chance to tell him before," he shrugs, awkward, mouth slanted downward-"you know. This."
Moses stares at the floor, back hunched in tight like he's just been hit with a blow to the stomach. "Tia'll do it."
"We should be there, you get me? This is Den and Jerome we're talking about."
Moses' eyes flick up again, faint amusement creeping in around the edges of his face. "If you figure out a way to bust us out, cuz, let me know."
"Way ahead of you, fam," Pest says easily, but it's just an excuse to start talking shit again because focusing on anything else is too much right now. "You know, if we had the right tools I could pick us out of here faster than the fucking Road Runner, fam. Jiggle the lock a little and-pop!-off we go where the feds can't find us."
In the end, it's community service. A hundred measly hours of it for Pest and three hundred for Moses because of the weed-and zero jail time, which is an honest-to-God miracle when Pest considers that two suits were killed in the crossfire and how extensive all the collateral damage was besides. He's almost a little disappointed. Community service's barely a slap on the wrist, like something straight out of a fairytale.
"My dad's a lawyer," Sam explains, when they abruptly get booted out of the juvenile circuit three days after they're taken in. She meets them at the local station and looks like she hasn't slept at all since Guy Fawkes Day. "The police didn't want the entirety of Brixton rioting on their hands. We told them about the aliens. They didn't believe us at first, but then they found all the forensic evidence they needed in your flat, Moses, and outside the block where the first attack happened." She shrugs. "Plus, people don't take it very well when their heroes get arrested."
"Thanks," Moses says quietly. "For your help, I mean. You didn't have to."
Sam sends him a flat look. "After you saved our lives?" He ducks his head. "How's your foot?" she asks Pest.
He lifts a shoulder, grimacing. "Alright."
She raises her eyebrows and leans down to grab his shin before he can pull away fast enough, looks vindicated when he lets out a muffled yelp. So he gets bundled up and away and has to spend one long fortnight-convalescing from his wounds it says on the official documents, meaningless words that Pest really couldn't care less about. The hospital is sterile and foreign: the food is too bland and the air suffocates with cleanliness. He's itching to go home.
Nan's as tearful as ever when he does come back, bulky plaster swathed around his left leg, two stone thinner than he'd ever been before the aliens came out to play. Pest clunks to his room and isn't surprised to find Moses spinning around in his desk chair, knees tucked under his chin, hands toying with one of the sparklers from beneath Pest's bed.
"They haven't found your uncle yet?" he asks.
Moses shakes his head. "Not sure if he even knows the flat's been blown out." He sees the tetchy expression on Pest's face and his lips turn up a little. "Never mind, fam. Doesn't matter. Social services, they still don't know what the fuck to do, so your nan said it'd be okay if I stayed here."
"As long as you don't wet the fucking bed like-" Like Jerome did after the Halloween party in fourth year, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in the back of his throat. Moses jerks his head up, remembering.
"Yeah," Moses says. "I won't.
See, it's only afterwards-when Pest is just beginning to understand the finality of funerals and the bitterness in Dennis's dad's eyes from across the chapel, Biggz' hands clutching at his mum's sleeve-that he wishes he could've stayed longer in the police van, or at the station, or eating shitty mush at hospital. Some nights neither of them can stand to sleep, the ghost of pain in Pest's left leg still keeping on despite the removal of the cast at the end of the month, Moses going rigid with nightmares next to him whenever he manages to doze off.
(Pest never wanted to die, but nobody ever told him how hard it was just to survive.)
A new king of the block moves in to take Hi-Hatz' place and life goes on, Pest nicking joints off the dealers for when the shaking in Moses' hands gets to be too much.
Biggz has his family, of course, and the girls've got each other. Moses has no one.
Pest finally says this out loud when they're sharing a plain cigarette outside the youth center a couple of weeks before Christmas, all dressed up in orange jumpsuits for the piss-poor tedium of community service. Moses sends him a strange look, flicks the burnt-out cig butt onto the ground and crushes it underneath his shoe. When he breathes out, the plume of smoke floats away on the wind.
"I got you," Moses says quietly, and keeps shoveling snow.
fin
Pairing: moses/pest
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life, gen
Warnings: swearing, ptsd, casual drug use
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: advent calendar day 3, for staypainted. they deal with things as best they can. 1,130 words.
"What's the point of being a fucking hero," Pest says as they peel away from the curb again, over-loud so the police at the front can hear him through the barred doors, "if the fucking feds are just gonna lock you up for it?" He breathes out through his nose. "This is some bullshit."
They've been inching slowly forward in the van for what feels like hours. He's still got his feet propped up on Moses' seat, slouched uncomfortably against the corner of the cage, cuffs digging into thin wrists clasped behind his back. There's a vicious throb in his left leg when he shifts and Moses glances up just in time to catch the wince that flits over his face, gives him a measured look.
"'S fine, bruv," Pest says automatically, and grins wide-but he stops moving his lower body, settles for letting his mouth run instead. He's always lacked the essential parts of a working brain-to-mouth filter, but Moses doesn't mind because he likes to listen. The low sound of his voice fills the cramped cage and Moses nods along, gaze cool and level.
"Hope your nan's okay," Moses breaks in, later, after Pest's subsided to glare at the ceiling of the van in righteous anger. Pest turns his head and their eyes meet over the rumbling of the engine, and of course it's just like Moses to cut straight through the layers of bullshit to the heart of things.
"Yeah," he says finally, sharp blade of his shoulder twisting forward to scrub his mouth. "And-Biggz, man. He doesn't know yet. Didn't get a chance to tell him before," he shrugs, awkward, mouth slanted downward-"you know. This."
Moses stares at the floor, back hunched in tight like he's just been hit with a blow to the stomach. "Tia'll do it."
"We should be there, you get me? This is Den and Jerome we're talking about."
Moses' eyes flick up again, faint amusement creeping in around the edges of his face. "If you figure out a way to bust us out, cuz, let me know."
"Way ahead of you, fam," Pest says easily, but it's just an excuse to start talking shit again because focusing on anything else is too much right now. "You know, if we had the right tools I could pick us out of here faster than the fucking Road Runner, fam. Jiggle the lock a little and-pop!-off we go where the feds can't find us."
In the end, it's community service. A hundred measly hours of it for Pest and three hundred for Moses because of the weed-and zero jail time, which is an honest-to-God miracle when Pest considers that two suits were killed in the crossfire and how extensive all the collateral damage was besides. He's almost a little disappointed. Community service's barely a slap on the wrist, like something straight out of a fairytale.
"My dad's a lawyer," Sam explains, when they abruptly get booted out of the juvenile circuit three days after they're taken in. She meets them at the local station and looks like she hasn't slept at all since Guy Fawkes Day. "The police didn't want the entirety of Brixton rioting on their hands. We told them about the aliens. They didn't believe us at first, but then they found all the forensic evidence they needed in your flat, Moses, and outside the block where the first attack happened." She shrugs. "Plus, people don't take it very well when their heroes get arrested."
"Thanks," Moses says quietly. "For your help, I mean. You didn't have to."
Sam sends him a flat look. "After you saved our lives?" He ducks his head. "How's your foot?" she asks Pest.
He lifts a shoulder, grimacing. "Alright."
She raises her eyebrows and leans down to grab his shin before he can pull away fast enough, looks vindicated when he lets out a muffled yelp. So he gets bundled up and away and has to spend one long fortnight-convalescing from his wounds it says on the official documents, meaningless words that Pest really couldn't care less about. The hospital is sterile and foreign: the food is too bland and the air suffocates with cleanliness. He's itching to go home.
Nan's as tearful as ever when he does come back, bulky plaster swathed around his left leg, two stone thinner than he'd ever been before the aliens came out to play. Pest clunks to his room and isn't surprised to find Moses spinning around in his desk chair, knees tucked under his chin, hands toying with one of the sparklers from beneath Pest's bed.
"They haven't found your uncle yet?" he asks.
Moses shakes his head. "Not sure if he even knows the flat's been blown out." He sees the tetchy expression on Pest's face and his lips turn up a little. "Never mind, fam. Doesn't matter. Social services, they still don't know what the fuck to do, so your nan said it'd be okay if I stayed here."
"As long as you don't wet the fucking bed like-" Like Jerome did after the Halloween party in fourth year, he wants to say, but the words get stuck in the back of his throat. Moses jerks his head up, remembering.
"Yeah," Moses says. "I won't.
See, it's only afterwards-when Pest is just beginning to understand the finality of funerals and the bitterness in Dennis's dad's eyes from across the chapel, Biggz' hands clutching at his mum's sleeve-that he wishes he could've stayed longer in the police van, or at the station, or eating shitty mush at hospital. Some nights neither of them can stand to sleep, the ghost of pain in Pest's left leg still keeping on despite the removal of the cast at the end of the month, Moses going rigid with nightmares next to him whenever he manages to doze off.
(Pest never wanted to die, but nobody ever told him how hard it was just to survive.)
A new king of the block moves in to take Hi-Hatz' place and life goes on, Pest nicking joints off the dealers for when the shaking in Moses' hands gets to be too much.
Biggz has his family, of course, and the girls've got each other. Moses has no one.
Pest finally says this out loud when they're sharing a plain cigarette outside the youth center a couple of weeks before Christmas, all dressed up in orange jumpsuits for the piss-poor tedium of community service. Moses sends him a strange look, flicks the burnt-out cig butt onto the ground and crushes it underneath his shoe. When he breathes out, the plume of smoke floats away on the wind.
"I got you," Moses says quietly, and keeps shoveling snow.
fin