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The explosion in his chest seems a long time coming.
Emotions are dangerous. This is something he knows from before the airship, from before Texas, from before—before—
He’ll put it this way: it’s not something he had to be taught.
The kitchen is empty, both in people and in food. This should be more concerning than it is. Somehow, he can’t find it in himself to care, pacing across creaking floorboards without regard to the rest of the ship or the time. The light on the counter—a flickering, kerosene thing from times ago—shudders as he passes it.
It would be so easy, he thinks, to leave. So, so easy. There’s nothing binding him here, really, and when his anger gets heavy it seems as if it’d be easier to heave it over the side. Stop weighing them all down.
A single breath, and a blip, and he rids them all of the fire that threatens to consume them. Hell, he could teleport back on before they even get anywhere; no one would notice.
He’s not sure what keeps him from doing it. He is sure that he stays on board.
Morning rises, the sun creeping bloated over the horizon. People slowly seep into the kitchen, typical offenders first; he offers a one-handed wave to Ray and Peanut, who give him a wide range to continue in his pacing.
It’s a sleepy morning. They always seem to be, as of late. When he turns, he can see Fizz scraping ice from the deck.
All he knows is that it feels wrong to disturb the relative peace. Havok, war-torn and exhausted, is a statue at the helm. Saph stares through the horizon at his left. Lanie, the dear they are, does their best to keep the two of them from starving or freezing.
“Karl’s being an ass,” they say, filling the coffee pot with water. “Not that that’s unusual. Heat’s broke, though.”
Ghet blanches. “It’s nearly November,” he says, tone pleading as if he can reverse the actions of a rather bitchy engine. “We’re in Norway, for Christ’s sake.”
“So we dress in layers,” Lanie shoots back, before slamming their hand against the side of the coffee machine. “Don’t be a dick, Kanes.”
“This place is enormous,” he mutters. "We'll—we'll freeze, Lanie. Knowhere is huge."
“All the more reason not to heat it,” they say. “All the more likelihood there’s blankets in some supply.”
“I can’t believe you’re siding with the engine,” Ghet says, leaning forward against the counter. “Of all things, the engine.”
“There’s not exactly much I can do, here,” Lanie says simply. “Not really like I can change his mind. And believe me, I didn’t think I’d be siding with a commie, either.”
“This is so fucking stupid.”
Lanie shakes their head. “It’s bad, is what it is.” They run a hand through greasy hair. “But it’s probably a good thing. All our power is dedicated to keeping us in the fucking air. Can’t waste fuel trying to keep people warm.”
They aren’t meant for the sky.
The realization comes to him sometime in the middle of another sleepless night, forcing the chill from his muscles as he sits with his legs hanging off the side of the ship. It’s quiet, and he’s freezing, and for once in it’s God-forsaken existence, his coat isn’t doing its job. He wraps his arms tighter around his shoulders.
He’s mad. Madder than he should be. It almost feels as if his body decided to do all the heating for him, Boiling his blood in his chest and tightening his throat until he feels like he’ll burst or vomit or both.
“You should come in,” Khio shouts from the door. He can barely hear it over the roar of the wind. “It’s cold out here.”
He doesn’t answer; gives a one-shouldered shrug.
“Ghet,” Khio says, and he’s closer this time, hovering at his shoulder. Ghet can feel the warmth of his breath on his neck. “Come on. You’ll freeze.”
He doesn’t move; just kicks his feet against the hull and stuffs his fingers into his pockets. Khio’s hand comes down on his shoulder, just frantic enough to tell Ghet he’s scared he’ll fall off.
“At least be careful,” he mutters. It sounds more like a question. “Now come on, you idiot.”
“You ever think about the South?” Ghet asks. Khio blinks, face scrunching up.
“The South? What, like the region?”
“No like the—uh—yes, you fucking dumbass, the region.”
Khio laughs, fingers tightening around his upper arm. “Not really.”
“Oh,” Ghet says softly. “Yeah.”
Khio shifts, and suddenly a chin is on his shoulder, arm wrapped around the other. “You okay?”
Is he? He isn’t sure anymore. The cold seems to seep into anything it can get its hands on, but utterly fails in chilling the hot flush of anger that threatens to burn him alive. He sags back into Khio’s chest.
“I fucking hate it up here,” he says quietly.
When Khio drags him back inside, he lets it happen.
--
It’s raining. Ollie is ankle-deep in mud, brow furrowed and wings stretched out in a mockery of an umbrella, trying desperately to raise crops out of the sludge. Havok stands with a straight back and shaking fingers as Ollie attempts to keep a promise they both know is impossible.
They need this. They really, really do.
“We’re going to starve,” Saph murmurs. Ghet puts his arm around her shoulders. “We’re going to starve.”
The freezing rain turns Havok’s hair brown and plasters it to his forehead and the back of his neck. He sets a careful hand on the center of Ollie’s back, between the base of their wings, and offers them a soaked hug.
“We can’t do anything,” Saph says, a certain helplessness slithering into her tone. Ghet runs his hand up and down her spine and watches Havok’s mouth move. “We’re going to starve, and there’s nothing we can do.”
And maybe it’s true. Maybe they will. For all Ghet’s anger, it seems rather like he’s going to be another unimportant footnote on another unimportant rogue crash log. There will be no bang, there will be no explosion, no martyrdom; there will only be the inevitability of a slow, creeping death as they attempt to hold up a sky that wants nothing more than to fall.
Lanie slams their hands against the table. “We’re not fucking doing this again.”
Havok draws in a sharp breath, rubbing nervously at the nape of his neck. “We don’t have much of a choice.”
“Listen,” Lanie says, as if there was an interruption to begin with. “We dock, we die. Simple as.”
“It’s not like we’re on a wanted list,” Fizz says, and the anger that seeps into her voice is oil-slick and suffocating. “If we stay in the sky, we’ll eventually run out of fuel.”
“We’ll run out of fuel regardless,” Maya grumbles. “We’re gonna die, I’m telling you.”
“No one is dying!” Lanie explodes. Ghet suppresses a shiver and watches Saph’s unresponsiveness as desperation crawls along his gut. “So long as we keep this fucking thing running, no one is dying.”
“We’re dockin’,” Havok says lowly. “We can’t keep it up for much longer. We need fuel.”
“What we need is to stay in the air,” Lanie growls. “We can’t—Havok, you fucking numbskull—we can’t afford another fight.”
“We can’t afford much of anything, Lanie, if you haven’t noticed,” Fizz says, and Lanie looks as if they could tear her limb from limb.
“We keep moving,” they say. The finality in their tone is shaky, but it’s there. “We keep moving, okay?”
“We’re going to die,” Maya says again. “We’re gonna fall from the sky and kick the fucking bucket—”
“Shut up,” Lanie mutters.
Ghet feels a bit like he’s watching a car accident. “We shouldn’t argue about this.”
“It’s important,” Fizz bites back, but her eyes are soft.
“I’m with Lanie,” Saph says, and every head in the room whips around to look at her. She runs her shaking fingers against her jaw. “We need to keep moving.”
And there’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Havok shoots to his feet, slams both palms against the table, and shouts with a heaviness that threatens to kill “I am the captain!”
Nobody moves. “I am the captain,” he says again, chest heaving, “and you do what I say, and we’re goin’ to dock whether you like it or not. This isn’t up for a damn discussion.”
Lanie only blinks. Saph seems to have imploded, eyes hollow as she brings her knees to her chest.
When Havok straightens, pushes his hair back from his eyes, and stomps off, nobody follows him.
It’s very quiet the next few days. Saph takes up residency on one of the common room couches, shoulders wrapped in a thin blanket. It gets colder. On the worst nights, Ghet can see his own breath even when inside.
Whatever he considered quiet before, he was wrong. Sometimes he can hear Khio shouting himself hoarse down the hall, or Havok and Peanut’s soft conversation in medbay, but for the most part Knowhere is silent.
For not the first time, he finds himself thinking of leaving.
Too simple. They’re running out of fuel, they’re running out of food, they’re running without a destination—
So easy. Too easy. He doesn’t think he’d be very missed, here. Besides, he’s always been a fan of drifting.
And then Khio is there, smiling at him, offering a deck of cards.
(He wouldn’t survive out there. Neither would Khio, and he doesn’t want to force him back into that situation. So he stays. Doesn’t bother blipping to the ground, even in the middle of nowhere, not even just to scream his frustration out.
The ship may be massive, and the role he plays may be small, but the support system he’s been built into is reliant on each part.
He can’t do that to them. He just can’t.)
He only knows it’s a Tuesday because Ray claps his shoulder and hands him a trash bag after breakfast.
“You’re up,” he says simply. “I got first floor already.”
He doesn’t like cleaning. He doesn’t hate it, either, but it can get repetitive. But, a task is a task, and he’ll take anything that keeps him from sitting around and freezing.
It’s mundane. The second floor is a bitch to work through—mostly living quarters—but he gets by anyway, working systemically through each occupied room.
Havok’s is colder than the others. Saph’s doesn’t look like it’s been touched in months. He tries to ignore whatever it is that threatens to strangle him when his hands shake against the doorknobs.
Winter has never been kind to him, but this almost feels like targeting. Kicking him while he’s down, so-to-speak. The roiling thing taking residency in his stomach isn’t unfamiliar, but it is disarming, and it is irrational. He wishes he could just be the mediator he needs to be, but he can’t, he just can’t, this stupid seething holding him in some undefined box, holding him back from the things he needs to do. He’s stuck in quicksand or something worse, sucking at his ankles and choking him out, keeping him from doing things. From being someone. Suffocating.
Well. Whatever.
He heaves the garbage bag into the chute and tries to keep himself from exploding.
--
They dock. Somehow, they dock. When the ship shudders to a stop against thrashing waves, it seems like a miracle they even got down here in the first place.
The seamen who help tie them down seem nice enough, broad-shouldered and water-worn but helpful nonetheless. They all watch as Havok and Kat descend to speak with them, gathered around the window in a mass three deep. He rests his arms on Peanut’s shoulders and tries to keep his breath steady.
“This is dangerous,” Lanie grumbles. “This is really, really dangerous.”
And they’re right. It is. Powered colonies can be a handful; if Havok explodes or Kat runs her mouth, they’ll be dead before they even get a chance to take off. At least with humans there’s a chance of overpowering them, but here? With a playing board where they’re the ones at a disadvantage? It’s a dangerous game to play.
“Kat’s a good negotiator,” Saph says quietly. “They’ll be fine.”
“Easy enough for you to say,” Lanie shoots back, and the ugly thing from before rears its head in Ghet’s chest. “You’re just fine sitting complacent and watching them kick it.”
“You’d rather fall out of the sky,” Saph says. “And I’m with you, not against you. This is dangerous, but—I dunno. They can handle it, is all.”
Lanie huffs, squaring their shoulders and crossing their arms over their chest. “Havok’s too stupid for his own good.”
“Havok is not stupid,” Saph scoffs, and Ghet feels something fracture.
“Just drop it, okay? Just fucking drop it,” he snarls. Lanie raises their eyebrows, giving a low whistle. Saph just looks utterly lost. “They’ll be fine. We’ll get fuel and we’ll dip. Whatever happens, happens, so just fucking drop it.”
It’s quiet again. None of them move when Saph huffs and walks off.
The ocean is angry. He’s never really liked the water, and it slams against the portside as it tries to tear them apart.
Anger is bad. Emotions are dangerous, and the ocean seems anything but tranquil.
His radio buzzes. “Uh, hey—” it’s Kat, holy shit, holy shit, they’re all looking at him— “Uhh, we might need a quick get out—”
He’s down before she’s able to say anything else. She lets out a shrill scream as he collapses into her, boots landing heavily against the steel flooring. Havok puts a steadying hand on each of their arms.
“We just need enough fuel to get us to the next outpost,” he says, talking to someone Ghet can’t quite make out. The world is still reeling around him. “You’ll let us take it, and you won’t tell anyone else that we were here or what we’re doin’.”
And, woah.
“Holy fuck,” Ghet mutters. “Holy fuck, holy fuck—”
“Shut up,” Kat says. “Shut up, shut up, we’re not—we’re not dead yet.”
‘Might as well be,’ something in him screams, because it’s in that moment he sees the gun this lady is holding.
Well. Maybe gun isn’t quite the right word. It’s tech of some sort, designed to shoot, but it also looks like it could blow the whole of this colony into the fucking sky. Havok tugs him into his side.
“Hi, Ghet,” Havok says lowly. “Welcome to the party.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ghet says. He wants the struggle against the grip. He doesn’t.
“Take her,” he mutters. “Get her out of here.”
“And you?”
“We need this,” Havok says, and his whole demeanor changes in half a second. He shoves Ghet away from him, spine straightening, hands held out in front of him as if they’d shield him from the massive weapon the woman has. “You’ll take me to the nearest station.”
The woman shifts, hefting the gun up onto her shoulder. “I ain’t giving you shit,” she snarls, but the uncertainty lacing her voice is enough to spur Havok into action.
“You will,” he grits, taking a tentative step forward. The woman’s eyes glaze. “You’ll do what I ask you to.”
Ghet swallows, turning to Kat. “We need to go,” he says quickly, hooking a hand around her wrist.
“Woah, woah, hey, hang on—”
And they’re back in the common room.
“Someone get Saph,” he hollers, steadying Katea. She looks as if she's about to throw up or pass out or both.
“You're a dick,” she mutters. He ignores her.
“We need to be in the air as soon as possible,” he says, not that there’s anyone listening; frankly, he can’t tell either way. The room is swirling and sparking like he stood up too fast.
“Hey, wait,” Kat starts, and suddenly she’s lurching into him, weight against the arm he holds her up with. “What about Havok?”
He. . . doesn’t really know the answer to that one.
“Get Saph,” he says again, ignoring the churn in his gut and Kat’s sputtering response. “We’re gonna need to move.”
“Where the fuck are you going?” Kat manages as he shoves her off of him.
“Back,” Ghet says, and if the response is cut off over the sound of the teleport, he’s not able to tell.
Havok is at the loading dock. He’s also shaking.
“You need to leave,” he says, and the firmness in his voice nearly makes Ghet turn-tail and run.
He’s not so sure when he started being able to resist the charmspeak. He’s not even sure that’s what’s happening. What he is sure of is the “no” he spits out.
“I can’t just leave you,” he says. Havok looks like he wants to argue. “Look. We may need the fuel, but we need you, too.”
He shuts his mouth. Opens it again. “Don’t talk anymore.”
And, well, he doesn’t. There’s 7 people in front of them, and Ghet can only watch as Havok talks each of them into action. Like he’s playing chess, or something, moving each pawn with a single word, fit to do his bidding. Fuel is loaded in massive tanks into their cargo space, and when Havok reels the door back shut, it almost seems too good to be true.
“Saph’s getting us in the air,” he murmurs. Havok turns to look at him, eyes flashing beneath a creased brow.
“You need to stay quiet—”
“Hey!”
And, well. That’s not good.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Havok turns rather slowly, holding out his hands in a placating gesture. Ghet does not turn around. Ghet stays right where he is and tries to keep himself from running back to the ship.
“We’re leavin’,” Havok says, “and you’re going to let us let us go and you won’t tell anyone we were here—”
“God damn it, he's got charmspeak,” the person says, and oh shit, oh shit this isn’t good and he—
He turns just in time to witness a gun be hefted onto a shoulder—
And—
Radio static and movement and shouting and—
Havok is stumbling back and he’s stumbling forward and seven sets of eyes are boring into them—
“Time to go!” Havok says, just about the dumbest thing possible in this situation and there’s a shriek as something loads and the gun fires and he grapples Havok’s arm and they're gone, they're out, except—
He's graced with the rather uncomfortable sensation of an energy blast hitting him in the side, knocking him backwards, traveling through space and into the cabin of the airship and out the other side. Well, maybe “uncomfortable” is putting it lightly, judging by the guttural scream that tears itself from his throat as the flesh just above his right hip is singed off.
They collapse into Kat. This is probably a good thing. Havok is gone before the room is even finished spinning, shouting orders and hollering for “Ashley, we need Ashley, someone get her up here—”
Kat's got her hands on his forearms, trying to tug him back to his feet. “You're alright, you're alright,” she says. “Ghet. Ghet, listen to me, you're alright.”
He's not breathing. He doesn't feel like he's breathing. The room is spinning and blurring and the nausea is clawing its way up his throat and threatening to spill out of his mouth. Kat lets him slide to the ground, coming to rest on her knees. Her hands dart; brushing the hair from his forehead, grabbing at his face, pressing down hard against his side. He grits his teeth against another scream. “You're alright. You're alright. Ash is on her way, and we're—we’re gonna get away, and you're alright.”
He's not. He absolutely isn't. Each time his chest heaves, it feels as if the blast is hitting him again. His fingers find the wound on his side, worming their way between Kat's, and when he pulls his hand away, it comes back coated in blood.
“How bad is it?” He asks—slurs, really, and the fear that runs through him is something foreign and electric.
Kat's eyes dart. She swallows. “You want me to sugarcoat?”
“I can't look,” Ghet says, grabbing at her forearm. He winces when he smears her in blood. “Just give it to me straight.”
“It’s, um,” Kat starts. She's crying. When did she start crying? “You—please don't die.”
Well. He's not really sure what to say to that.
And the wood screams.
The ship is in motion, except it isn't, it's still tethered and the body of the thing itself is shouting against the attempt and the whole place lurches, Kat's hands slipping against the wound and up his ribcage and he can't help the scream he lets out as the heels of her palms dig into what has the be a gash that threatens to spill his guts across the floor of the cabin.
Something breaks. The entire operation careens forward and Peanut is there, finally, paler than he's ever seen her and stumbling as Knowhere finally gets away from somewhere. Her face swims in his vision, and he offers her teary eyes a bloody, exhausted wave as Kat talks at her.
“—I don't know what happened, he's—he’s gonna bleed out, I—”
Another pair of hands pressed against the wound. The noise he lets out is animalistic and one he's not capable of holding back. Her hands are cold and soothing but it’s too much and it’s not enough and it burns, it's fire and ice spreading from his side and through his veins and leaving him choking, and they're making it worse, it hurts—
Ashley is talking. Not to him, but she is. It scares him to realize that he's probably getting foggier because of blood loss and not just general confusion. The prospect of passing out is suddenly a lot scarier; if he blacks out, this is, this is it, and he—
He doesn't want to die.
“Ghet,” Peanut says, holding his face in warm hands. She looks fake, haloed in the sickly winter light. “Ghet, I need you to do one more thing for me, and then you can rest, okay?”
He nods. It's all he can do, really, being as he can't quite feel his hands.
“Okay,” she says again, “okay. Okay. I'm—I’m so sorry.”
“It's okay,” he murmurs, something tugging in his chest. “I'll be okay, yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says, and she pulls one of her hands away to wipe at her eyes. “Yeah. You will.” The sudden determination in her voice is an angry thing.
“Ghet, I need you to take us to medbay,” she says carefully. “I need you to take us there, and it's the last thing I'll ever ask you to do but you're going to die if you stay here and I can't get us there fast enough or without you bleeding out and—”
Here's a fun experiment. Powered aren't meant to be pushed to their limits. On a good day, Ghet can get 3 round-trip’s under his belt. It requires lots of food and lots of rest, but he can do it. Alternatively, two round-trip's with a passenger or two.
This is not a good day.
She's still talking, bless her heart. Her hands find his cheeks again, and she's shouting at Kat and talking in harried tones and he can just make out a slew of scared faces behind her and he thinks he's exploding or dying or maybe the two are mutually exclusive and he—
He—
Okay, here's the experiment:
If a teleport grits his teeth, grabs a medic, and claws his way through space, will he get there before he dies of blood loss?
Hypothesis: no.
Findings: yes.
It’s very bright in medbay.
Peanut is there. For the most part, this is unsurprising. He feels as if he’s been hit by a bus or a truck or a sonic energy blast, which—ding ding ding!—is actually what happened.
His breath is coming ragged. He finds that he can’t really move, and when he tries to push himself up, it’s as if someone’s lit his entire right side on fire. The bandages wrapped around his middle make him feel as if he can’t quite fill his lungs all the way.
“Go back to bed,” Peanut says softly. “You need the sleep.”
“How long has it been?” he asks, breath still struggling to keep up.
“Sleep, Ghet,” she says.
“Can’t you just tell me?”
She sighs, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. “Three days,” she says softly.
Oh.
Oh. Wow. That’s, uh.
Whatever’s churning in his gut, he’s not a big fan of it.
“You’ve been in and out a lot,” she says, and now she’s talking talking. “Just a few times, long enough to get some water in you. Lots of visitors.”
“Lots?”
“Kat. So many times, Kat.” It’s endearing. Laughable, almost. “Khio. Ollie. You know, the usual.”
“Havok?” he asks.
Peanut swallows. Medbay suddenly feels a lot quieter; he watches her blurry figure shutter the windows. “He’s dealing.”
“Just dealing?”
“Navigating,” she says. “We have another stop coming up. Ollie was able to grow some stuff when we stopped at the Faroe colony?” She wrinkles her nose. “Something like that. Enough to sell, at least. We’re headed to a small powered outpost in Iceland. Thinks we can refuel without stealing it or getting shot.”
It’s surprising in that it isn’t. He feels as if he’s choking. “And everyone’s safe?”
“You gonna keep asking questions?”
“You keep giving me answers,” he says. She huffs a breath out of her nose.
“No, not really,” she says, and gestures with both arms at him. “Better if you’d go back to bed—”
“I’m gonna throw up,” he says suddenly. And it’s true, and Peanut barely gets the bowl in front of him before he’s dry heaving. Every breath leaves him feeling as if his side’s being torn open again. Maybe it is. Ashley’s hand is cold between his shoulder blades.
“I’m sorry,” he manages. “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” she says. “How about some water?”
He nods, and she helps him into a sitting position and pushes a bottle into his hands and rubs soothing circles into his shoulder.
“He feels really guilty, you know,” she says quietly. “Wouldn’t stop apologizing to Lanie.”
He lets the bottle fall from his lips. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “And you’re letting him steer?”
“Not steer, navigate.” She sighs. “Doesn’t wanna be a dead weight, he said.”
“Leave it to Havok,” he mutters, and pushes the bottle back at her. She takes it with another sigh, and pushes herself off the cot.
“Now are you gonna sleep? Or do I need to go get EF?”
“Did we get the heat back on?”
“No,” she says. “I’m calling her right now.”
“Alright! Alright,” he says. “Fine. I’m sleeping. Whatever.”
“Yeah, ‘whatever’.”
He doesn't. Can't, really; and maybe he’s just being cheesy, but EF looks like an angel when she holds his face in her hands and lets him slip away again.
--
He only knows it’s Tuesday because Ray gives him a pitying look and goes to do the second floor himself.
“I hate this,” Ghet mutters, fingers dancing over his side again. Fizz bats his hand away.
“You need to be more careful,” she says. “You could have died, and they’re worried.”
Anger, again, laden thick and hot and heavy in his chest, spreading out into his limbs and burning against the bandages and leaving him feeling like he’s about to explode. “Yeah, but I didn’t, and I wish you all would stop treating me like I did.”
Fizz swallows. “We’re not just going to stop worrying about you,” she says carefully.
And maybe that’s true. It’s most likely true. Still, it makes him feel so helpless, being babied like this. Treated like he’s made of glass, which, well. He isn’t.
There’s no head to come to. The whirlwind only sweeps him up and keeps him in the air. There’s no explosion, there’s no build, there’s only a seething, inescapable anger that trails him through the rhythm of each day.
Wake up. Eat. Sit around or try to make yourself useful. Every two days, go see Ashley.
“I think I’m having a breakdown,” he says quietly, staring up at the fairy lights. They glare back down at him, unforgiving as they blur against his eyelids.
Peanut sighs. “I’m not that kind of medic.”
“I know,” he says. “I just—I dunno.”
“You know?” Peanut asks, and suddenly her face is looming over his. “Or you don’t?”
He groans. “You’re impossible sometimes.”
“You love me,” she says with a grin, and goes back to dressing the wound. He wrinkles his nose as she pulls off another piece of blood-stuck gauze. “Tell me more, though.”
He thinks about it for a beat. “I just—I don’t know. I feel like I can’t even breathe around here.”
“Like, literally?”
“Figuratively,” he affirms. “The whole heating debacle did not help, though.”
She laughs out of her nose. “Khio thought I was gonna have to treat you for frostbite.”
“Do you have any meds?” he asks, hissing as she pulls away another piece of gauze. “Like, I dunno, morphine or something?”
“We barely have water and you’re asking if I have morphine?”
“Well—I mean, can’t you just do that fancy thing—?”
“I’m not exhausting myself just to redress your stupid wound, Ghet,” she snaps. He shuts his mouth.
It’s quiet for a beat.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re fine,” he says. And it’s true. He lets out a shaky exhale as she pulls back more of the gauze and cold air hits the broken skin.
“Last one,” she says. “Then antiseptic and fresh bandages.”
And, well. The days continue the way they have. The wound heals, and winter starts to thaw, and their next three stops go off without a hitch.
The sun is surprisingly warm on his shoulders. Ollie’s leaned into his left side, wing coming up around his shoulders in a makeshift coat. Their hair sticks sweaty to their forehead.
"You did good," he says. Kat launches another bundle of radishes at his head.
"Thanks," they say softly.
It's good. This is really, really good. They can't starve, not when Ollie's somehow managed to grow a near month's supply of food from the cracked, frozen soil. He only wishes he could help in the harvest.
“You okay?” he asks. Ollie guffaws.
“I should be asking you,” they say simply, and then it precedes to fall silent as neither of them bother to answer.
Havok eyes them from where he’s digging potatoes. Offers a small smile.
Things aren’t perfect. They haven’t ever been, he doesn’t think, not even in the beginning when everything seemed to be.
“I’m better,” he says. “I’m. . . managing.”
“Hell yeah,” Ollie says with a grin. It’s contagious. “Managing.”
And it’s true.