Chapter Text
El can't breathe.
He's fucked, more than fucked, and the worst thing is that he did it to himself. His hands tremble at his sides and his lungs ache at the force of his breaths. It's almost worse that this whole thing's his own fault. He feels like he's choking no matter how hard he breathes. Air moves, relentless, in and out and in and out and in and out and in and--
Noise cuts through the sounds of silence and futile breathing like a dagger. It's like he's hearing a tea kettle through a distant scrapyard television, the sound high and wavering and full of static.
It takes an alarming amount of time for El to realize that the sound is coming from him, and he slams his hand over his mouth so hard his teeth scrape the skin of his palms.
They're going to find him. They're going to root him out like a cat hunting a mouse, moving with instinct and saving the questions for after his corpse cools on the dirt. They're going to find him hiding in the bush like the spy he cannot afford for them to know that he is, and then they're going to kill him.
He can't even blame them, really. If he found some guy listening in on his conversations and hiding behind a bush, he'd probably think they were a spy too. And El knows what people do to spies.
He's seen it, first hand, all up close and personal. The Federation is ruthless to spies--even more ruthless than they already are--and El knows the Islanders would have every reason to be just as violent, just as cruel, especially to him.
He stays as still as he can, his lungs wheezing and ribs aching with the strain, and tries to keep his breathing muffled behind his hands.
After a long, quiet moment, Foolish finally says, "Ẉ̷̧̳̈́ȩ̸̰̳̽͊́ȉ̸̳͋r̸̮̕d̴̹̅. It's probably just a crossed signal or something."
… signal?
"Y̴̟̆͆͠ȩ̴̂͆̚a̵͎̔̔̊ĥ̸̛̪̭͜,̵̯̣̆ ̷̳̍̕m̸͚̐͊̆a̸̬͛̇̍n̵̢̏͌͠, I guess," Roier agrees, "Bad said this line was pretty secure."
Mercy strikes before El can really take in whatever the hell that was supposed to mean, the voices fading away. Their conversation carries off somewhere distant, sounds obscuring and fading from view until he can't hear them at all. El's hands shake harder now.
Somehow, someway, neither islander noticed him hiding like a weirdo in the bushes, leaving him alone again. The solitude feels like a relief, this time, instead of a condemnation.
He still waits half an hour before coming out of the bushes, though. It's a tense half hour, his muscles groaning in protest at the awkward position he's decided to hold, but his breathing starts to calm at around the halfway mark and he finally feels real again by the time it's over with.
That was fucking close.
---
El isn't looking for trouble.
To be fair, he isn't usually looking for trouble--it seems to like finding him more than it likes being found--but this time he's actively avoiding trouble like it's the plague, or a really pissed supervisor. He keeps his head down and maintains a possibly extreme level of distance from any islanders he happens to cross, deciding to venture into the darkness of the forests and even a cave once just to stay out of their sights.
He doesn't mean to end up at Foolish's build. Like he said, he isn't looking for trouble. But, like he also said, trouble likes to find him even when he isn't looking for it.
Maybe even because he isn't looking for it.
Maybe it likes to go after the ones who aren't looking for it, just because. That seems like the kind of thing trouble would do.
Either way, no matter what he means or what trouble intends to do, El ends up passing the edges of Foolish's build before he knows it. It's probably a tower or something with how comparatively narrow the base is. It's ten times the size of any build El's ever made, not that he's exactly known for building. But, it's much smaller than anything he's seen Foolish working on before and there are beams that reach far beyond the current height of things, so he figures it has to be the start of a tower.
He can see Foolish climbing around the build like a goddamn monkey, practically swinging off of it, unafraid. Leo, in perfect E.G.G. fashion, follows her "father's" antics to a tee, risks to her health be damned.
El bristles, but that's just…instinct. It's not like he cares, or anything.
Still, he settles down and watches the both of them as they work at a near-breakneck pace, Leo scrambling after her "dad" like a duckling. It…it does something weird inside his chest. It's not quite a twisting and not quite an ache. It isn't painful, but it's not exactly pleasant either. It's only made worse when, as their work descends closer to the ground, El gets a better view of the two of them.
El doesn't know a lot about the E.G.G.s. He knows they exist, and he roughly understands how they operate, somewhat, but he has next to no knowledge about the day-to-day stuff. He doesn't know their favorite colors, or even much about their personalities. He doesn't know why the E.G.G.s do the things they do.
He doesn't know the E.G.G.s and he doesn't know Leo, but El? El knows what hunger looks like.
Even as Leo throws herself into the build, her hands shake and stumble. She curls in on herself a few times, never sparing the pain on her face more than a second before launching back into the barrage of tasks she's tackling. She's hurting, in a way that's truly and completely obvious to El, but it's clear from the glances she sends to her dad that she doesn't want him to notice.
And, Foolish doesn't, chatting and chatting away as he builds, his laser-like focus turned only onto one thing. The fact that that one thing could be anything but his daughter, his hungry daughter, leaves El wrongfooted in a way he hasn't really dealt with before. The fact that she isn't saying anything for what seems to be a reason almost makes it worse.
As the time ticks on, more blocks placed and the build growing in size and structural integrity, Leo's hunger grows too. El tries not to wonder when the last time she ate was. The islanders are generally good parents, El knows. Even good parents make mistakes, but there's something about this particular failure that has El's fingers twitching into his inventory before he can even think about it.
On the ground, not too far away, Foolish tears through some chests in search of the next blocks to place. Leo watches into the emptiness of the forest with a dispassionate gaze, bored and, obviously, hungry.
El swings before he can think about it. The golden apple soars, flying high in an arcing curve before smacking Leo right in the head. The E.G.G. shouts in surprise, practically flailing as she snaps around to stare at the empty space El was just inhabiting.
Foolish looks up from the chest, his face equal parts amused and concerned. "What's up?" he asks. El tries to quell his fury.
Leo looks in El's direction with wide, searching eyes. Then, she glances down, turning the apple over in her hands.
"Leo?" Foolish asks, looking like he's just a second from laughing. El normally likes Foolish, but right now, he'd like to fucking strangle him.
'It--' Leo's signs are shaky and all done with one hand, the other clutching the golden apple to her chest. 'Nothing.'
"Alright," Foolish says, turning back to the chest as his laser-focus returns to the task at hand. The much less important task at hand. "If you say so."
Foolish turns his focus back to the build, but Leo's focus stays on the apple in her hands for so long that El almost starts to worry that she isn't going to eat it.
Then, eyeing the forest just a few feet off from where El's hiding with a hesitantly grateful smile, Leo takes a bite.