Work Text:
There is so little room in this tiny, no-bedroom apartment. Every bed has to be shared by whoever can fit, and if they can’t fit there then they sleep on the floor; having a room is an impossible, far-off luxury.
They’ve still set up a curtain for Elaer.
It’s been a week since Líadin––and a week since they’ve left the bed, in and out of fitful trances. Normally, it’d be them and Conway and Tracy and Charley if they can find a spot, squished together under a blanket in the cold or just side-by-side in the heat. But those three have given Elaer plenty of space. Haven’t even asked for their bed back. Haven’t even really...talked, much, at all. Lots of whispered stuff in the rest of the apartment, though. Lots of tiptoeing. Sometimes, crying, usually followed by the sound of the exit door closing.
They’re all torn up about it. Just, none of them quite as much as Elaer. None of them that knew her quite as long or quite as closely.
(None of them except Faleal, actually, who hasn’t said much of anything. He makes dinner and they eat it in silence, leaves a dish just outside the ratty curtain for Elaer. It is cold when and if they finally take it. They rarely do.)
They stopped crying days ago. Now, it’s just occasional hiccups stifled into the one pillow. They just––they want. They want to be left alone, and they want someone to hold them, and they’ve left their blanket by the side of the bed because it fell off and they want Líadin to tuck them back in, and they’re too old for that but they want not to be.
It’s all just so––so fucking unfair.
So fucking unfair that they had to find her like that, all––the way she––that they had to find her. How could somebody so good die when there are so many shitty people who deserve it more? How come she had to be buried in a hastily-dug grave with a little piece of brick as a headstone? Why the fuck do they age so slowly and she doesn’t?
They’re so angry and they don’t know what to do with it.
So they snap. Kektush tries to lull them to sleep with humming and a hand in their hair; they bat him away, snarling and snapping, vicious. When Tracy tries to wheedle them into a wrestling match, they tell her to fuck off and leave them alone. Everyone who approaches them gets an earful and, sometimes, a biting jaw or a swift kick. And they hate that they’re doing it, but what else is there to do when they want to burn the world down?
---
Faleal has been quiet.
Frustratingly, infuriatingly quiet, actually.
As soon as the funeral ended, it was like everything––at least in his mind––returned to normal.
And he just doesn’t get why Elaer is so distraught.
It’s the middle of the night when everybody else is asleep that they trudge over to Faleal, who is reading some ledger by candlelight, with their blanket wrapped tightly around them. They shuffle their feet, wide-eyed, shoulders hunched; he sighs and, without looking up, gestures for them to come over. So they do, all too willing to flop into his lap and curl up there, safe.
Quiet vulnerability like this is...hard. It’s harder still to press their cheek into his chest just as hot tears begin to flow, to muffle a hiccup into his shirt.
He doesn’t ask them why. Just wraps one arm around them and uses the other to untangle a bed-made knot in their hair.
“I––” Oh, they hate how their own voice sounds, so high and fragile. Faleal pauses. “I miss her.” Slowly, he returns to running his fingers through their hair, dislodging some old dirt. “I dunno––what to do without her.”
He is silent for so long that Elaer wonders if he heard them at all.
---
It’s Haslord that drags them back, scruff of the neck, hand bloodied, middle of the night. They’ve shattered some window and didn’t bother to look at whose it was. Fuck it. And they kick, they bite, as they’re dragged back home, fighting every step of the way.
They expect Faleal to be angry. They want him to be angry, fuck, yell at them, hit something, be disappointed, even, anything, anything to prove he’s feeling. When he crouches to Elaer’s height, tired golden eyes looking a million miles off, they hiss and spit like a wild animal.
His voice is hard, sandpapery. “Did that make you feel better?”
“Fuck you!”
He doesn’t answer that. Just keeps staring.
They deliver a swift kick to his shin. It earns them nothing from Faleal and a cuff on the back of the head from Haslord.
“Elaer.”
“ No. ” They spit the word out, literally and figuratively, onto the floor by his feet.
He stands. He sighs. There’s nothing behind it. “Then go to bed.”
“No!” Anything. Their voice pitches up an octave, shrieking, hoarse. Anything to get him to show something. To look at them. Please.
Instead, he looks through them, and their heart breaks a little more. “Then don’t.”
---
The next thing they break is every plate in the apartment.
Those have been collected over years from wherever they can find them. There’s a few from Kektush’s work, one or two left behind from people long-gone, some they found at rummages and swaps. Everyone goes to great lengths to keep them clean and intact; they’re the only set they have.
Elaer smashes every one. Some of them shatter easily, just dropped from shoulder height––others take a sharp throw downwards, a stomp of the foot. A few, they throw against the walls. Destruction is the goal and if they can chip that cheap fucking paint then all the better. They take Líadin’s favourite and stamp it until there’s nothing left but a pile of ceramic powder.
When Faleal finally enters, finally home from––whatever it is he does, they guess, whether it’s work or whatever––Elaer is standing in the aftermath of a maelstrom.
He has to pay attention now. He has to! He just has to. Despite themself, they’re grinning as they huff from their exertions. Their arms outstretch; “‘S all of ‘em! I broke all of ‘em!”
If nothing else, they expect him to speak.
But he doesn’t even do that. He just––he just looks at them. Kind of. Mostly through them. And he looks so tired, like it’s been years since he’s rested. And he points towards a broom.
For a moment, Elaer looks...vulnerable. Their eyes go wide, their legs shake, their face flushes. They look like they’re going to cry––they feel like they will, for a second. Then––they can’t––they––with a furious shriek, they rush towards him, little fists pounding at whatever they can reach. “Fuck you! Fuck you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you! I-!”
Firm hands wrap over theirs. “Stop.” He doesn’t even sound hurt. Just exhausted, like he wants to do anything in the world but deal with Elaer.
They rear their head back and slam it into his stomach.
“Elaer.” He sounds like––like––he wants them––gone. A sob tears forth from their throat at the realisation. They headbutt him again. “Enough.”
“No! I hate you!”
“Mh.” With that, he lets go of their hands and steps back. They don’t realise they miss the contact until it’s gone.
---
They have so little to pack.
Some clothes. A couple knives. ...Líadin’s scarf. But not much goes into their little burlap sack.
If they wanted to be sneaky, they could be, but they’re not; they’re practically stomping across the floors as they, ever so slowly, put their things away. Everyone is asleep but they know Faleal won’t be. They have a plan around it . He’ll wake up, and see them packing like he’s caught them, and they’ll give a big speech–– If you wanna keep me around, then you have to care about me and you have to care about Líadin! Otherwise I’m gonna go where I’m wanted! (Which...if they think about it, isn’t anywhere, so they don’t think about it.) And then...then, they’ll go back to bed, they think. Tracy’s been sleeping on the floor and they wouldn’t mind letting her back into the bed to curl up together, she’s warm.
So they’re loud. They’re slow. They want Faleal to find them.
He does.
He looks so tired. He looks like he’s past the point of caring. And they stare at each other across the darkened room, the only sounds the others’ breathing. Even in the low moonlight, Faleal's eyes appear to glow, twin dying embers. When he doesn’t speak, Elaer does, puffing their chest out.
“...I’m running away.” When they rehearsed this in their head, they didn’t sound quite so fragile. “‘Cause you don’t want me. And I’m––”
“Then go.”
It’s worse than a blow across the face.
They can’t stop themself from choking up––from looking just as hurt as they feel. “I––” What do they say to that? “I will!” Oh, and a tear falls out before they can stop it, which they wipe away furiously with the back of their hand. “I’m gonna go and you can’t stop me!”
Not that he looks like he’s trying. He looks like he’d sooner open the door for them than try to keep them closer. He doesn’t even say anything, he just––
“I mean it! I’m going!”
And still, there’s nothing. Faleal doesn’t ask where they’re going, or why, or how he can stop them. He doesn’t even seem perturbed. Just exhausted. Just ready to send Elaer on their way, goodbye, have a good life or don’t, what does it matter.
Why don’t he just look at them?
They take a step back. They shuffle their bag onto their shoulder.
“...I’m really going.” The conviction has slipped. They want to dump the contents of their bag all over the ground and crawl into bed. For all their bravado, their expression is pleading: please make me stay.
And he doesn’t.
He turns. Goes about his business like it’s any other day. Doesn’t try to stop them from leaving.
And, after a minute of shuffling, of trying to squeak out anything convincing, of barely holding back tears, they just...go.