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He does not hear the door open. Even the shouting goes unnoticed until Kai’s small fingers gently pull his dark hair, waking him up in a matter of seconds. She says nothing but her eyes are wide with fear.
Before Dexter can ask what is wrong, the female voice pierces through the walls. Mum is angry, definitely, and somehow the fact that the anger isn’t directed at them does not make it better. A male voice replies, raised into a yell, and Dexter can’t really remember his name but he is pretty sure it begins with an S. Does not really seem to matter anyway, since the guy is probably on his way out right now.
Kai is not old enough to understand the curse words but she too can feel the tension that is more than enough to scare a four-year-old. Dexter wordlessly hands her his own favorite teddy so she has something she can hug close while Dexter maneuvers her under the bed.
The small, dark space under the bed has been declared a safe hideout – those rules existed since the day Dexter had agreed to play with Kai’s dolls, only to be pretend to be a monster and reach out for the plastic figures with claw-like fingers. Kai had shrieked in joy before pushing herself under the bed, effectively saving herself and the dolls.
No one can harm them under the bed.
Dexter squeezes himself into the space after her. He knows better than to be scared, it’s not the first time after all. But Kai prefers the safety of the game, and soon her breathing slows into something he recognizes as sleep.
He closes his eyes too, ignoring the crumbs the floor is pressing into his cheek, and waits for the shouting to fade away into background noise. He is faintly aware of the outer door slamming but decides it’s not worth opening his eyes for.
Kai always opens the door too quietly to wake him up. They both have their own, tiny bedroom, none of them quite big enough to fit a bunk bed, but she spends most of the day messing up his room anyway. When she enters it at night, however, something is usually wrong.
She still pulls his hair to wake him up.
“What?” he asks, voice muffled by sleep and the pillow.
“I’m thirsty.”
So a nightmare, then.
He turns over, keeping a hand on his blanket so it does not fall off. “Go fetch it, then.”
“The light are off, stupid,” she says and tugs his sleeve harder.
Eventually he groans and stands up. Kai jumps into his bed the moment he leaves it, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders. It is going to take forever to convince her to go to her own room now.
Dexter grudgingly enters the kitchen, not caring that it requires three steps into the darkness before he can turn the light switch on.
As he fills the glass for Kai, he quickly searches through the drawers until he find a half-empty pack of Oreos to bring with him.
On his way back he notices the door is open to their mother’s room, the light from the kitchen revealing an empty bed.
He shrugs slightly and makes a mental note to remember to get up to feed Kai breakfast in the morning.
Dexter is not sleeping when Kai bursts through the door, swaying on her feet and knocking an empty Pringles can off the drawer in the process. He wishes he had been sleeping since it is better than staring daggers at your phone, waiting for your baby sister to call when she still isn’t home an hour after she was supposed to return.
“The fuck, Kai.”
He throws the phone at her and misses. The screen is already broken anyway, and it’s not like it isn’t used to hitting the floor.
“Big bro,” she slurs, hands on her hips, glowsticks in her dark hair. Her mismatched outfit has a stain down the front. Smells sickly sweet.
“You’re late,” he scolds and he knows he sounds stupid.
“You’re lame,” she shrieks, falling over to land back first on his bed.
“’least leave a note next time.”
“I did.”
He narrows his eyes as remembers coming home from his shitty job in the shitty store and finding a half-crumbled paper on the kitchen desk. “How the fuck should I know who Dave is? I thought his name Chris. Or Fuckface.”
“Yeah, Chris is a Fuckface,” she agrees. “But Dave was nice. Cool party.”
She sniffs and he noticed the redness in his eyes. “So not that nice?” he asks and debates whether it is time to show up at her school with a baseball bat on his back again. Just to scare the worst of them off. As if he could ever take them in a fist-fight.
There are actual tears in her eyes now but they both know her sadness only last 48 hours tops. Boys come and go – that is something Dexter learned when Kai turned 14. “Steve’s an asshole.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he exclaims and gives up on trying to remember all the names. He does let her cry into his shoulder and rubs her comfortingly on the back. “What did I tell you about boys?”
“They’re fuckfaces.”
“And what did I tell you about fuckfaces?”
“Don’t fuck them,” Kai says obediently, even when they both know she’ll break that promise in a week or two.
“Good.” Dexter lets her hug his pillow. “Great.”
“…Yeah.”
He silently crosses his fingers behind his back. “’least you didn’t get pregnant.”
The last night before he has to leave, none of them sleep.
Kai slips into his room, somehow finds space enough in his bed so they both can lay there, arms around each other.
She whispers demands into his hair. “Please don’t die, asshole. I’m gonna haunt you down and kill you if you die, you stupid jerk. Don’t die, Dex. I don’t want a dead brother and I’m just gonna knock over your stupid ashes over the floor and then I can never clean again. Please don’t die, big bro.”
Dexter tries to whisper promises back to her and somehow finds the strength to joke that she never cleaned the floor anyway.
Their Drill Sergeant slams the door open in the middle of the night, and Grif hates this place.
He yells orders and insults at them, and Grif hates this place.
The rest of his bunkmates are already outside, halfway through the lap they have to run, and Grif is still in his bed, hating this place.
The Sergeant pulls him out of it with force, and Grif scrapes his knees against the floor, and he absolutely hates this place.
He is shouted at until he begins to jog, legs wobbly, the anger stuck in his throat, his eyes burning.
And Grif hates his Drill Sergeant and he hates midnight practice and he hates this place with his entire being.
He has just fallen asleep when Sergeant Lloyd opens the door. Unlike the Drill Sergeant he does not try to tear off his arm. While this outpost may suck – it’s cold and they still have to run laps and they have to carry their weapons around at all time because ‘stuff’ might happen – it is better than Basic Training. Basic was also Hell, and Grif cannot imagine any place worse. Unless the place has bats, of course.
“Private Grif,” he says loudly as he pushes his shoulder until Grif opens his eyes, “You are supposed to be on patrol.”
“Oops. I, uhm, don’t really think they miss me, sir.” He can’t remember a single patrol where he actually made it the entire route around the base. He usually sits down on the ground at some point, complaining about his sore ankles, or uses his time outside to take a smoke break.
Most of his fellow privates don’t want to be paired with him, for obvious reasons. Not like Grif cares. He is pretty sure he has been forced into the Army of Assholes.
“This ain’t a school camp, Grif,” Sergeant Lloyd says as he watches Grif stand up. “I don’t care if someone insults your mother.” Grif has to hold back a snort at this point. “I don’t care if someone calls you a girl. I honestly don’t give a shit if you all hate each other’s gut. What I do care about is this base and your responsibility for it. So get out there and keep watch.”
“For what? The fucking mailman?” Grif honestly doubt they have one since he has not been allowed to send any messages back home yet. Fucking bullshit, all of it.
Sergeant Lloyd crosses his arms in a manner that can only mean one thing.
“Dish duty,” he says, and Grif sighs before the word has even left the Sergeant’s mouth.
With sunken shoulders he leaves the room. “Alright, I’m going, I’m going.”
Sergeant Lloyd stares daggers into his back, and Grif decides he needs a better hiding place. No one and nothing has ever kept him from napping before, and he does not want to lose his one and only skill.
To Grif’s surprise, no one opens the door to the locker room.
He closes the door behind him softly, squeezes himself into the space between two lockers and rests his head against the metal. Chances are he’ll get at least two hours of sleep before they find him. Then dish duty, of course, but that has become a daily routine by now.
Grif sleeps until he wakes up by himself.
His body is stiff and he has no sense of time. He cannot remember the last time he had been allowed to sleep in like this.
Whatever joy that should have appeared from this, is drowned by the sudden eeriness that seems to creep up his spine the longer he stays on the floor.
Sergeant Lloyd is neither too stupid nor too sentimental to leave the locker room be. They should have found him by now.
The entire base seems quiet as he stands up, footsteps echoing as he makes his way to the door.
He almost burst out laughing in relief when it won’t open. “Very funny, guys.” Of course they have decided to lock him inside the locker room as a punishment. They are probably eating his tray of dinner in the mess hall right now, laughing their asses off.
The smile dies on his lips when he realizes he is able to turn the knob. What keeps the door in place is a pressure from the other side, and when Grif braces his shoulder against it, he manages to push the door open.
The body of Private Gorton slumps over as Grif forces his way out.
Wide-eyed, he stares at the limp soldier, the blood that has dried around a gaping wound, the blood on the armor, the blood on the door behind him, the blood that is tainting the walls, the blood that continues down the hallway in the shape of footprints that don’t even look like they were created by boots.
Grif opens a door and finds Private Bastian and Hopper dead. Lieutenant Capra seems to have been guarding the door before her throat was slashed.
Grif opens a door and finds the remains of Sergeant Lloyd. It’s hard to tell since the grenade explosion did not leave much behind. His legs are shaking too much to bring him close enough to make sure.
Grif opens a door.
And another.
And another.
“Hey, fatass!” The nerd never really knocks. Mainly because they are sharing the room and that sort of formality therefor isn’t needed. “Wake the fuck up.”
He does not shove him or pull his limbs. He does not even lower his face just above Grif’s as he shouts. Simmons prefers a certain distance when he yells his insults.
Grif tightens his grip on the blanket. “No.”
“No? You can’t just say no. Sarge wants us to defend the base.”
That comment causes him to open his right eye. Just slightly. Enough to see Simmons in his full body armor and a rifle in his hands. “What? Are the Blues attacking?”
“No,” Simmons admits gingerly. “But they might.”
Grif rolls over again to stare at the wall. “Sarge says that every day. They never attack. Let me sleep.”
“It’s 10am!”
“So?”
Simmons finally marches over to tear the blanket away from him. Grif makes grabby-hands but it’s already out of his reach. “So you have to get your fat ass off the bed and help me. Sarge has already thrown out your breakfast.”
Grif wakes up. “What?”
“I saved you a bit. But I’ll only give it to you if you help me defend the base.”
Not much of a choice then. Grif gingerly puts on his armor. “How do we defend the base against something that isn’t happening?”
Simmons shrugs. “That’s what we have to find out.”
Sarge is less gentle in his way of waking him up. He slams the door open so harshly it almost falls off its hinges.
“Rise and shine, buttercup.”
Grif has to admit that Sarge has a point that the best way to convince someone to do something is by sticking the end of a loaded shotgun up their face.
Donut is too gentle in his way of waking him up.
“Good morning!” he sings, walking around Grif’s bed with a bounce in his steps.
Grif groans. He can hear Simmons and Sarge roaming around in the kitchen. When he opens his eyes, Donut is holding a cup of coffee in front of his face.
He accepts it, mumbling thanks, and almost chokes when it touches his tongue. Not coffee, apparently.
He is still gagging when Donut explains, “It’s my special kind of herbal tea. Simmons agreed your health could need it.”
It’s a gentle way of saying that his lifestyle choices are utter crap. “Simmons drinks this shit?” Grif asks with an eyebrow raised.
“No,” Donut admits. “He said you could have his cup. That’s very generous of him, isn’t it?”
Grif makes a mental note of to exhale his smoke into Simmons’ face later. He has come to enjoy seeing the nerd sputter.
Grif does not hear Simmons enter their room. He does not feel him shake his shoulder, either.
Not until he adds enough force to make a sharp pain blossom down his chest. Jesus. Fucking ow.
“I need to check your stitches,” Simmons explains sternly and tears the blanket away. Grif blinks. Simmons adds with a shrug, “Or you could die from an infection. Would make my noble sacrifice rather worthless, so lay still.”
“Stiches?”
It’s Simmons turn to look confused. “Yeah. Your stitches. From the surgery. Remember?”
“Tank,” Grif thinks out loud with numb lips.
Simmons exhales. “Good to know the painkillers are working,” he mumbles under his breath. He bares Grif’s mis-colored chest and places the medkit on the bed. The two skin tones meet in a chaos of colorful bruises.
When cold metal fingers touch his skin, it slowly clicks inside Grif’s brain.
“Ow,” he mutters. The metal sends goosebumps over his entire body.
Simmons only hesitates for a moment. “I told you to lie still. Idiot.”
“Ow,” Grif says again. His head feels too heavy to be turned away from Simmons’ face. The nerd continues to frown as Grif continues to stare.
“I’m not even touching you.”
“Oh.”
“You better thank me later for this.”
Simmons slips back into the room without making a sound but Grif is already awake. When the mirror was shattered, he heard it. It’s not the first time so he did not jump from his bed in panic.
Now he just stares quietly at the doorway until Simmons finally appears. “’sup?”
The nerd looks genuinely surprised to see him awake. Then the shock changes into an embarrassed blush. Caught in the act. “I, uh, slipped.”
“Sure.”
Simmons’ expression is contorted as he turns his back to him. He is halfway into his bed when Grif asks, “Need any stitches?”
“S’not that bad.” Simmons crawls under his blanket but turns over so he is staring back at Grif’s face. His red knuckles are visible even in the darkened room.
“You sure? Donut hates bloodstains on the sheets. I don’t want to hear of his rubbing methods again.”
“It’s fine.”
Simmons’ cyborg eye is glowing in the dark. Grif does not dare to blink. “Want to talk about it?” he offers.
Even though Simmons says no, they end up spending the rest of the night talking about their bullshit childhoods.
Grif is not even sure how Kai has crossed the canyon without being spotted but suddenly she is in his room, leaping from the doorway to land on top of him in his bed. “You’re leaving?!” she shrieks.
Resisting the urge to cover his ears, goddamn she is still so fucking loud, Grif turns his head and sees to his relief that at least Simmons isn’t here right now. He then shrugs Kai off till the point where he can breathe again. “Shit. Who told you?”
“Tucker. He’s leaving too. And Caboose. And Church. It’s sexist! Sexist orders! Why aren’t they pushing women around?! It’s unfair.”
Grif does the math. His sister will be alone in the base. He’s figured that much by now, but shit, hearing it confirmed does not make it easier. “’least you lucked out. Nothing is going to happen around here with you and Sarge stuck in each end of the fucking canyon.”
“That’s not lucky! That’s boring! And I don’t want him to stay. I can’t invite old gross people to my parties. I’ve heard you can kill them if the beat is too quick. I don’t want to be a murderer.”
“Then don’t invite him. Just… stay in your base and keep away from him. Don’t get yourself killed, don’t get pregnant, and don’t embarrass the family.”
“You say that like it’s easy!”
“It is! You have a whole base for yourself! You know what I’d give for that?! You can take all the naps you want!” He nudges her shoulder. “See, it’s awesome. So don’t fucking complain about it.”
“Then why don’t you stay?” she demands, arms crossed and hair falling in her eyes. Sometimes she looks like the bratty toddler she once were.
He sighs. “’cause I can’t. I have to go stupid military shit with Simmons.”
“’least you got to bring a partner.”
“Yeah. Wait, what?”
Kai’s face turns sad in a way that Grif’s knows he can’t fix with a glass of water. “But I just got here. What’s the point of going through all that trouble if you’re just leaving again?”
Grif does not know how to answer that so he stays quiet.
“And this place doesn’t even have a ship I can steal,” Kai wails and burrows her face into his shoulder. He pats her back and inhales the smell of her hair. Some part of Hawaii still sticks with Kai while Grif lost his long ago.
“You stay here, okay? I’ll come back for you when the stupid, dangerous shit is over.”
“But you’re slow. What the fuck am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“What did I just tell you?! Nap, for fuck’s sake. C’mon, I practically raised you, you should know this shit.”
Kai hugs him tight enough that he can feel her heartbeat. His chin is resting in her hair, his burning eyes are fixated on the doorway and his stupid Red teammates are smart enough to stay away.
“Don’t die.”
“Don’t get pregnant.”
Even when they are no longer sharing a room, Simmons makes a habit of waking him up every day. He knocks on the door and if Grif still isn’t replying two minutes later, he will actually enter the room.
“Get the fuck up! The others are waiting.”
Grif smirks. “Get the fuck up, what…”
Simmons reminds him of Sarge when he growls something under his breath. “Get the fuck up, Sergeant.”
With his new title, Grif has been given his own private quarters. Which is alright. He doesn’t have his own personal fridge so there is definitely room for some improvements. Rat’s Nest is alright but has it flaws.
Grif will never admit that he misses Sarge. Guy was a total asshole. But this place is filled with strange, new assholes – all less an asshole than Sarge – and it feels like the assholeness is closing in on Grif.
He knows Simmons has not made any new friends either. Probably why he is still clinging to Grif like a lost puppy, knocking on his door and handing him orders. Sometimes he even writes the reports when Grif has declared he does not give a shit.
Grif cannot help but feel a tiny bit grateful for Simmons’ constant presence. Probably why his own private quarters were not as great a reward as he expected it to be.
He considers getting up.
But, on the other hand, it is strangely satisfying to wait in his bed until Simmons slams the door open, declares that he is the worst Sergeant ever and marches into the room to rip away his blanket.
Simmons is knocking on his door the next morning.
“Grif, wake up.”
“Or what?”
“Or… Or I’ll tell a superior.”
“I am the superior.”
“Fuck.”
He also knocks on the door the day after.
“Why are you not up yet?”
“Because I gave myself the order to sleep in late. Never question a superior, Simmons.”
And the next.
“How can someone be so fucking lazy?!”
“You forgot the last part, Simmons.”
“I don’t want to say it.”
“But you know your fear of breaking formalities will get you to say it anyway.”
“…How can someone be so fucking lazy, sir?”
“You never fail to disappoint, Simmons.”
And the next.
Simmons is not exactly graceful when drunk so he manages to trip and fall to the ground before reaching Grif’s bed. The crash itself is enough to wake him up, so Grif sits up to stare down at his fallen friend. “Seriously, Simmons.”
“Fuck,” the cyborg mutters into the floor.
“How much did you have to drink?” Grif asks and reaches down to offer him a hand.
Simmons stares at it for a second, eyes glazed, and when he grabs it he does not let go.
“Simmons?”
And then the cyborg leaps at him, clinging onto him, grips his shoulders so tightly that it hurts. As if the floor is gone and Simmons would fall if he let go.
There are raw, fearful emotions in Simmons’ face. His eyes have a wild look in them and they are staring at Grif. He can smell the alcohol in the cyborg’s breath. He is not quite sure where Simmons has found the drink, and he actually feels rather hurt that he has not been offered any. He is, after all, the guy who fell off a cliff.
“You were gone,” Simmons slurs, and Grif wonders if a voice can affect your organs. His heart is definitely racing right now, and his gut… Kai always talked about butterflies but right now Grif has to look down just to be sure the rest of his body is still there. The parts of his skin that Simmons is touching are burning.
He sends him a crooked smirk, hoping it will wipe away the desperation in the facial features that Simmons still has in the human side of his face. “But not really. Couldn’t let Sarge have the satisfaction.”
“You were gone,” Simmons says again. His lips are still parted after whispering the words. Grif looks at them.
He briefly notices that drunk Simmons has forgotten the close the door and that is probably a bad idea considering…
Grif falls backwards, Simmons on top of him, and they land as a heap of tangled limbs that none of them, for once, try to claim ownership over.
They have no door in their makeshift home in the corner of the crash site. Grif likes to remind Simmons of it.
“At least knock before you enter.”
“Haha.”
“Seriously, what if I had been naked? Sarge would have had full view of you throwing yourself at-“
“Wash says we only have food left for two weeks,” Simmons cuts him off, voice tainted by a tone that Grif does not really want to identify.
The cyborg is looking directly at him. Not in the secretly angry kind of way where he would silently demand to know where Grif has hidden his stolen snacks. He is grateful he is not receiving that stare right now since it has been a great struggle to keep himself away from the supply and he does not need unfair accusations right now.
The stare Simmons is giving him can be directly translated into holy fuck we’re screwed – what do we do now?
“So?”
“So?” Simmons shrieks, voice breaking slightly. “We have two weeks left to live, Grif! Doesn’t that bother you a little?”
“Duh, we have two weeks left for shit to happen. And guess what, Simmons – shit always happens to us. So no, I’m not worried.”
Simmons tilts his helmet. “You’re not thinking about our inevitable doom?”
Since the base is rather quiet, Grif allows himself to trust that Sarge is not around for the moment. He straightens out his back. “Is this your way of asking we should fuck? ‘cause I feel like you’re asking if we should fuck.”
“What?”
“And, look, I really want my answer to be yes but I really would prefer to be sure that Sarge is not going to walk in on us in the middle of it.”
Even with his helmet on, Simmons is visibly blushing. He has never been too kind of the idea of letting Sarge know of the new arrangement or whatever it should be called. Even when Grif is sure half of the canyon has already made the bets whether they have done it or not by now.
“Oh god, the images. I need some fresh air.”
Grif watches him walk away. “Don’t slam the door behind you. It’s not polite.”
The Rebel HQ is somehow big enough for all the Captains to get their own room. It apparently goes with the title or something. Grif is lying in his bed, definitely not thinking about Sarge or Donut, when Simmons opens the door.
He slips in quietly, and without a word Grif moves over so the cyborg can lie next to him.
They keep eye-contact for just a moment before Grif wraps his arms around him and rest his cheek against pleasantly cool metal.
There is a single knock on his door. Grif snaps his eyes open and wonders if anyone else is unable to sleep. Maybe some fool has gotten himself drunk and tripped and slammed his head against Grif’s door.
It would not surprise him if half of Armonia is awake. The war has been revealed to be fake, but it seems like a new bigger one has just begun. A war that is real and dangerous and involves crazy mercenaries with too good aims.
Grif has thought about death before. A lot, actually. Especially since the cliff accident.
He does not want to call himself worried. Worry is not something he wants to spend his time on. But how can he not think about the consequences that can come from this?
He considered joining Simmons this night but if the cyborg sensed that Grif was just the tiniest bit freaked out, he would probably short-circuit or something.
Simmons never knocks when he wants to wake him up in the middle of the night.
“Captain Grif?”
And he most certainly never calls him Captain.
What little sleep that has tried to grasp Grif’s brain disappears immediately, and he is at the door in four large steps. When he swings it open, he is face to face with Bitters and Matthews.
They look exhausted but not drunk. Thank god. Grif is not dealing with drunk teenagers right now. Reminds him too much of…
“So,” Bitters says shortly, and then stops as if the word itself works as an explanation.
Grif crosses his arms.
“We couldn’t sleep,” Matthews then reveals. There’s an ugly bruise on his forehead, barely hidden by his brown hair. But as far as Grif knows, all his men made it out of the battle today. He wonders how long it’ll last. He wonders if they wonder.
“Night raid?” Bitters suggests with a shrug, cutting straight to the chase while still looking like he does not give a shit.
Grif is very proud but does not say it.
Instead he says, “Remember, 70 percent goes to the Captain.”
Simmons is so quiet that Grif first awakens when two arms are wrapped around his body.
“’should just share a room,” Grif mutters into the red hair. “Waste of resources like this.”
The cyborg trembles in his hold and Grif isn’t sure if he’s agreeing or sobbing.
They are aware, like everyone else, that something big is happening soon. Big battle. Shit. Doyle has proven that not everyone makes it out of big battles.
Grif knows Simmons is thinking the same, and metal fingers dig into his hair, pulling slightly.
Inhale. Exhale.
Grif presses lips against his neck and mutters something only for Simmons to hear.
The cyborg stops trembling. “Oh, fuck you, Grif.” His eyes are still fearful but there’s a ghost of a smile on his lips.
Grif returns it. “Fuck you too, nerd.”
The laser meets the ground. The door is forced open.
That is the last thing Grif is aware of before the blur.
Chaos is hard to describe but Grif would use the word ‘loud’. Gunshots that won’t stop. Grenades that explode. Yells that his brain is too preoccupied to understand.
The Grif-shot is heavy in his arms but his grip on it does not falter. He cannot remember if they were taught this back in Basic. He does not believe he was ever prepared for it.
He thinks of the battle with the Tex-clones. It was a rhythm, really, to keep them at bay. Grenade, death, grenade, death. Just don’t miss. Fairly simple, he supposes.
But of course practice is harder than theory. Grif does not dare to tear his eyes away from the doorway, not even to check on the others, he does not even turn his head… And, yet, suddenly the enemy is in front of him, diving under the grenade and –
Grif reacts by instinct, turning the Grif-shot so that the blade pierces through armor.
The enemy drops and Grif pulls back the weapon.
Panting he looks down at the body, first wondering if he had truly made it, but then…
There’s a faint memory of opening a door and a torso ripped open and the red…
A scream pierces through the blur, waking him up, and when he blinks he sees only chaos but…
A hand, too strong, tightens around his wrist, metal fingers creating dents in the plate, and the hand is pulling him closer, bodies touching, turning, shielding –
When Grif comes to he is on the ground. There’s a fly eating the inside of his brain, filling his ear with buzzing.
He cannot move his body, cannot move his head, and he stares right into Simmons’ shattered visor.
A piece of glass falls from it, clanking against the metal floor, and reveals a cyborg eye with no light in it.
Grif opens a door. Behind it he finds silence and blood and death.
He knows that.
And he opens the next one.
He makes his way through a dead base, one door after another, and he continues to find the same nothingness.
He opens the door and the next one and the next, even when he’s not nearly sure what he is looking for.
Grif tugs his blanket around himself, ignoring how painful it is to stretch his stitches.
The HQ is quiet around him. Mourning, grieving, healing ever so slowly, pain in every corner so that no one really dares to celebrate despite the fact that Chorus did win.
His room is even quieter. Can the sound of breathing echo, he wonders and stares into the wall.
He should close his eyes. He can finally sleep in, for once. No one needs him in the morning. No one is going to wake him up.
Grif blinks.
Under his bed, tucked safely into the corner, wrapped in a blanket and stored in a box, is a metal arm that no one can really use anymore.
Grif presses two fingers to his wrist and reminds himself that Simmons’ heart is still beating for him. That thought has never disturbed him before but now it is more depressing than comforting.
He lets his hand fall again.
There is a healing planet outside, and Grif leaves his door unlocked. It does not really matter anyway.
He rolls over, tries to find a comfortable spot, and fails. It feels like Simmons’ heart is inflamed. There’s a deep, burning pain whenever it beats. He should probably ask Doctor Grey about that but she is most definitely busy.
Besides, Grif is not really planning on leaving his bed.
He rolls over, turning his back to the door.
No one opens it.