Chapter Text
It smells like rain. There is a flicker of green at the edge of his vision, which is strange. Usually Delta is at his right, where he can see him. If he chooses to make himself visible at all, anyway.
It takes most of York’s willpower, but he forces himself off the floor and onto his feet, towards the edge of the porch where the roof meets endless sky. It’s a little scary, for him, but Lina’s always berating him for how little he leaves the house. And he’s always liked rain. There wasn’t any on the Mother of Invention, he remembers that much.
Everything else feels fragmented, little bits and pieces that don’t add up. They’re not linear, either, and Delta always does his best to reorder them for York, but it hardly helps. York struggles with them so Delta locks them away.
He sticks his hand out into the rain, holding his coffee close to his body. Raindrops fall mercilessly onto his hands, and it feels good. It does. And he’s a little surprised by it, because he’s felt numb for so long-
It feels good. So York puts his coffee on the railing, balancing the thermos and watching it carefully for a few moments. Delta runs the numbers through his head - there is a 97.78% chance that the thermos will stay balanced until you return - and that’s not quite good enough, so York reaches out to adjust it and is greeted by a mild shock in his fingertips. He drops his hand, and Delta thrums apologetically in the back of his head. Not good enough, he thinks, but Delta hums, the gentle green at the edge of his mind. It’s good enough.
He steps out into the rain then, letting it fall over him. It’s heavier than he’d originally thought, and soon enough he’s soaked through, his hair flattens against his head, ungelled today because he couldn’t work up the energy in his shaking hands to fix it. His shirt - North’s shirt - clings to his skin heavily, rain drips down his face like teardrops. It’s good.
York feels clean again, water droplets running in rivulets across his skin, dripping from his hair and Delta makes calculations about the exact timing of the drops crossing York’s vision periodically, about the number of seconds between each drop that lands on York’s tongue, about the chances of raindrops landing in the exact same place.
When York had first been implanted, Delta had kept these calculations hidden. Over time, Delta had begun not quite flooding York’s brain with them, but running them through his system. It relaxes York, Delta had discovered, and it was painfully obvious how he needed that these days.
York lets the numbers run through his blood, Delta underneath his skin, just there. It’s nice. To really feel Delta with him, rain washing him away.
“York?” Wash stands on the porch now, next to North. North is holding York’s thermos, and then - 97.78, York reminds himself. He tries to push that number out of his mind. It doesn’t matter, it isn’t relevant.
Instead he walks back toward the porch, and he remembers the water thoroughly drenching him now. He thinks about those numbers now. His hands still shake, too much caffeine and not enough sleep, North will say as soon as he gets close enough. His hands still shake and he’d swear he could feel the rain in his blood. He can taste the heavy weight of summer rain on his lips, crisp and cool and beautiful.
His hands still shake, but he smiles anyway.