Work Text:
Cleo had seen the messages when she’d been with the Fairy Fort, and she’d seen the messages when she’d been red. What she hadn’t expected was for Scott and Pearl’s seemingly meaningless boop’s to carry over into their physical conversations.
When they reunited after being apart in the dead of night it appeared in the form of an index finger pressed to a shoulder and a quiet, happy ‘boop’ uttered that Cleo swore she wasn’t supposed to hear. When something awful happened the emotionless four letters that came over the screen of the communicators suddenly seemed to have an awful lot more behind them. She could read the word and instinctively sense the panic and the fear, even if she couldn’t decode the message beyond that. The two seemed to have an entire language built up around one word and it worked perfectly. They always knew exactly what the other meant when the touch was on the tip of their nose or the back of their hand.
She had questions, but she didn’t know if she’d been with them long enough to ask.
When she was given another life from Scott - all three of them now safely green - she felt more at home. She’d been taken in by them, entrusted with the location of their new secret base, and as they sat in the small underground shelter and listened to Scott’s plans to make the place functional and more beautiful, she decided she could.
Cleo waited until he stopped talking, until the crackle of campfire cooking their dinner was the only sound to be heard. Their armour had been taken off to allow them to relax and it allowed Pearl to rest a head against Scott’s shoulder.
She didn’t know much about their alliance, but Pearl had given Scott two lives. They were clearly closer than the rest of the world knew.
“So, the boops?” Cleo asked, wondering if that would be enough to encourage the pair to explain themselves. It didn’t - only encouraging Pearl to laugh and lean her head closer to Scott as she whispered a quiet ‘boop’. “Any particular reason?”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Scott said with a shrug, before shifting against the cobblestone behind him to get more comfortable. It didn’t really explain anything but Cleo took that to mean she wasn’t supposed to know, and that was fine. They were allies, but they’d only just become allies. The five minutes before she’d gone red didn’t really count, considering they were apart the entire time. The trust between them would grow and if they ever decided to let her in on their language, she’d be honoured. She understood.
“It was our language when we were kids.” Pearl broke the near silence, and that put all sorts in Cleo’s head into place. When they were kids, kids together. It made sense as to why they seemed to have such a close bond, closer than anyone else in their world seemed to have. “Scott’s my brother. Older brother if you couldn’t tell.”
“You couldn’t.” Scott grinned. “I exfoliate.”
“You rub lilypads over your face, that’s not exfoliating.”
“Alright, but I’m not the one with crows feet at twenty five.”
“I do not have crows feet!” Pearl laughed, and Scott leaned against her to jostle her just a little, in the way that Cleo had always wanted a sibling to tease her. Now being let into their group felt like an entirely different thing. They were family, they were blood, and they’d let her into their home and given her one of their lives. She was honoured. She was more than honoured. It would take it a lifetime to make it up to them - but if she was lucky, and if she was careful, she had two. Two lifetimes that she would make as long as possible.
“It was our own secret language growing up, we’d only say boop to each other because then no one else knew what we were actually talking about. It’s in the eyebrows and the fingers.” Scott said, wiggling the fingers of his left hand at Cleo.
“It’s hard to explain after two decades but you’ll pick it up.” Pearl told her. “After all, you’re part of the family now.”
Cleo blinked.
The pause was different this time. The fire felt a long way away, the flames still warming her skin but the sound so unbelievably distant. She could feel Scott and Pearl’s eyes on her as her own gaze was cast downward and her mouth opened ever so slightly as she processed their words. Part of the… The…
That wasn’t something one of them would say lightly, that was something that was discussed at length. They’d talked about it, about her, and decided that she was part of the family. Decided to tell her that she was part of the family. It wasn’t like Cleo was particularly lonely - she’d always had allies, she’d always had people to call friends, but a family? Part of her wondered if they meant it, part of her wondered if she was allowed, but a bigger part of her wanted nothing more than to accept it with everything she had. She wanted to feel the kind of love that wasn’t based on an uneasy truce or a contract, a kind of love that was unconditional and wholehearted. She wanted that kind of warmth and security that she’d never had a chance to feel before. Even if she wasn’t lonely, the mere thought of being part of the family filled a void in her chest that had been gaping and begging to be filled - and she hadn’t even known it was there.
“Cleo?”
Scott’s voice brought her out of her thoughts and back into the moment. Had she just been staring into space since Pearl had uttered those words? She must’ve thought she’d done something wrong, and she couldn’t let that stand. Not if they were family now.
“I… I don’t know what to say.” She laughed, her laughter light as she let out a breath that seemed to have caught in her throat. “That’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me, I don’t even know where to begin. I-- Thank you.”
Cleo didn’t miss the look between the siblings in front of her, or the smile on their faces as they shifted away from each other. Instead of sitting opposite her and side by side they shimmied around the edge of the cave and practically sandwiched her between them.
She felt safe.
Scott wormed an arm between Cleo and the wall, his hand on her opposite shoulder tugging her closer as Pearl brought a hand in front of her face and pressed her index finger to the tip of her nose.
“Boop!” She said gleefully, and Cleo understood. She understood everything that Pearl was trying to say to her with that one word and she understood exactly how it made her feel.
Home. She was finally at home.