Work Text:
“We can figure this out,” Paige says, practically stuttering. Hayward can almost feel the uneven footing she stands on. Some part of him itches to reach out and stop it, but he can’t move.
The air is thick enough to drink, heavy with old scabs and wounds that they both keep picking at every night like this is new ground they tread on. Hayward is sick of it. He hates listening to them spit and fight, listening like a child pressing their ear to a door to hear their parents' arguments.
Hayward opens his mouth to intervene, but Dennis beats him to it.
“Ah! She can’t admit it! My proud daughter-”
“You don’t get to call me your daughter anymore!”
The words are so out of left field that Hayward flinches. He watches as spittle flies from Paige’s mouth and lands on the soft carpet below. Her face is red, her shoulders hiked up to her ears. Hayward doesn’t think he’s ever seen her like this.
Dennis looks equally shocked, eyes wide partially in outrage and partially in fear. Nobody speaks.
Paige exhales loudly for a few seconds before she says, “All the time. You call me your daughter. And I hate it. Hah,” she barks out a humorless laugh, “I almost hate it more than being called your son. You never call me that unless you want something. Unless you’re calling me for money or you’re trying to prove a point. Like I’m a child you need to condescend to. Like we’re in the front seat of your car and you’re giving me tips on how to spot a mark, and you speak slowly and with small words like this is something a child should be learning.”
“Paige-” Dennis starts.
“I hate it,” she spits again, “And I hate you. And you can take your snide remarks and shove them up your ass. I don’t need it. Or you.”
If Hayward wasn’t watching so closely, he might have missed the flash of devastation on Dennis’ face. It hardens as quickly as the winter frost into a stony mask, but Hayward sees it.
What has Dennis done to Paige?
Paige is still fuming, seething through her teeth. She stands there for a few more moments before she clenches her fists and barrels out, shouldering the door open. Her footsteps grow quieter.
Dennis looks stunned. He rests a hand on the armrest of the sofa, maybe bracing himself. Hayward can’t seem to move himself. Words bubble in the back of his throat, but he’s not sure what he can say. He doesn’t know anything about the anger between a father and his daughter.
A son and his mother are a different matter entirely.
Hayward wants to ask how Dennis could squander his daughter like that. How he could look at someone so beautiful and brilliant and honest , and try to turn her into a liar and a cheat. And when that didn’t work, he used her honesty against her.
Hayward doesn’t know if he could ever hate this man. But he sure as hell doesn’t like him.
Hayward thinks all this, the air still as thick as the heavy fog that rolls in off the riverbank. He doesn’t say any of it. Instead, Hayward darts out the door and after Paige.
It’s dark out. If Hayward was anyone else, he would have lost Paige to the countless rows of beets and the near darkness of the waning crescent moon.
But he was a former member of the Cloak for something, and Hayward likes to think that he still carries some of that with him. He found Paige the first time, in that apartment where the man had beat his wings until they sounded like the blood in his ears. He can find her again this time.
He finds her sitting in the tractor. Hayward has a feeling - though he won’t ask - that she’s come here before for similar reasons.
She stares sullenly out the windscreen, her eyes glazed and one hand limply holding the gear shift. Hayward keeps his footsteps audible, making his approach known.
He pauses as he sidles up to her. “You okay?” He asks.
Paige swallows. “I overreacted back there.”
Hayward doesn’t do this. He doesn’t comfort people. If it had been anyone else, he’s not sure he would try. But this is Paige Duplass.
“Sounds like you needed a good yell,” He says, trying to inject a bit of wry sarcasm into his voice.
“Isn’t that the truth?” Paige only replies. She pauses and looks down at her hand, fidgeting with the gear shift. “I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at him like that. At anyone.”
Hayward doesn’t know what to say to that. He shifts closer, hoping that his silence will still be of some help.
Paige looks down at her other hand, resting loosely in her lap. “I didn’t mean for you to find out I was trans.”
Hayward starts, because that’s not a turn he was expecting the conversation to take. He does his best to take it in stride, because it looks like she needs to say some things.
“I don’t tell anyone that. I’ve never told my boss or my friends or hell, even my exes. I kept them at arm's length. Never let them spend the night. I told one of them I was asexual, because she wouldn’t stop pushing.” Paige darts a glance to Hayward, as if he’s going to put her in cuffs for admitting to a lie. Hayward only meets her gaze as best he can, trying not to let his emotions show.
“I don’t want you to think it’s because I’m ashamed to be trans. I like my body. But it’s mine, ” Paige continues with a fervor. She clears her throat and goes on, a little quieter. “It’s mine. I don’t want anyone to take that from me. I…” Paige pauses, “I hate that he just told you like that. It wasn’t his to say. It was mine.”
On impulse, Hayward reaches down and lays his hand on hers. Her hand is cold and his feels blisteringly warm in comparison. He rubs a thumb along the back of it, maybe trying to warm her up. She looks down at it, but doesn’t pull away.
“Maybe we should make a god of memory wiping, so you can erase my memory and I’ll never know.”
Paige laughs, and she brings her other hand over to sandwich Hayward’s. Despite the chill of her fingers, Hayward can’t say he wants to pull away. He smiles. She clasps his hand close and laughs. It’s beautiful.
“It’s out now,” Paige says, “I trust you.”
Hayward lets the weight of those words settle in his bones. He resists the urge to do something crazy like kiss her knuckles. Fuck. This might be going too far.
“Do you still need to vent a bit?” Hayward asks, “I think I saw a shed, I’m sure we could find some hammers and start smashing things. Make our own little rage room.”
Paige chuckles. “Yeah, why not?”
She lets go of Hayward’s hand when she hops out of the tractor. The pair make their way through the dark field and towards the shed.
It’s an absolute mess, which makes sense for Dennis. A rusted ride on lawn mower and a few different types of saws, none of which look like they’ve been used recently. The shed’s a decent size, big enough for both people to stand in. Hayward grabs a hammer off the workbench, lobbing it over to Paige. She catches it with a deft hand. Hayward grabs a large socket wrench, hefting it a few times to get the weight of it familiar.
“So…what, we just start hitting things?”
Hayward shrugs. He takes the wrench and smashes the workstation. The rotted wood splinters easily, and Paige jumps a few inches into the air. When Hayward pulls back, her eyes are wide.
She laughs, breaking the silence. Hayward chuckles too.
“Okay then,” she says, and promptly swings the hammer into one of the legs for a table saw. It takes her a few goes, but eventually she hits it hard enough that the leg breaks off in a jagged tear of metal.
Paige is efficient and methodical as she sweeps through the shed. After a while, her efforts turn more frenzied. She gets a look in her eyes that has Hayward backing off, letting her have the run of the place. He stands against a wall and watches as it takes her three tries to smash a small box filled with screws. She keeps missing, hitting the floor with a sharp clang.
Paiges gives up, wheeling on her feet and spotting the lawn mower. She doesn’t waste a moment and starts immediately smashing the tires. The metal crunches under her blows, emitting an awful noise that has Hayward cringing. Paige doesn’t seem to notice.
As she keeps hitting, Paige grows more and more frenetic, her eyes blazing with fury. She screams, loud and harsh and a little gut wrenching as she drives the hammer into the body of the lawn mower. The metal crumples, caving in on itself with pitiful weakness.
She just keeps going. Her ragged scream draws out into a sob, and still she keeps on smashing that lawn mower. Hayward watches her and wonders if this is what heartbreak feels like. It might be.
It isn’t until a piece of metal flies off and nearly strikes Paige in the face that Hayward spurs forward. He gets off the wall and makes his way towards her as fast as he can. Shit. Maybe this was a bad idea. God, it’s a wonder she hasn’t already been hurt.
Hayward approaches from the side. “Hey. Hey,” he says, trying to keep his voice low and steady despite the fact that he’s feeling a bit panicked. Up close, he can actually see a few shallow scratches on her cheeks. They don’t appear to be bleeding, but it’s hard to tell with the way she’s still moving, still punishing the lawn mower for something her father did.
He grabs her arm, trying to brace her. Paige stops immediately, her chest heaving. There’s tears in her eyes. She looks so devastated. Hayward doesn’t think he’s ever seen a person so angry and sad. Not one he cared about at least.
“Hey,” he says, holding both her arms in his palms. He looks at her with as much calmness as he can muster. He wants this. He wants to be a rock she can anchor herself to. Someone she can use to weather the storm. Hayward waits until the manic energy fades a bit from her eyes. He rubs his hands up and down, just once.
She looks sullenly at the wrecked lawn mower. “Sorry.”
“It-it’s okay. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
Paige quickly swipes at her eyes, her fingers coming away wet. “Fuck,” she says with a little laugh.
Hayward looks closer and is glad to see that her face looks unbroken. Just a few shallow scratches on her cheeks and neck. Shit. Hayward should have been more careful.
“I could really go for a hug right now,” Paige mumbles, a bit shamefully.
Something unnameable wells up in Hayward’s chest. He grins, just the tiniest bit. “All you had to do was ask.”
She shoots him a sarcastic little glare and Hayward’s smile stretches into a real one. He moves his hands around her back, pulling her into his chest. She tucks her chin over his shoulder and wraps her arms around his upper back, clutching tightly.
They stay there longer than is really necessary. Hayward feels like he should pull away after a few moments, but she doesn’t make a move to retreat and Hayward doesn’t want to deprive her of any comfort she needs.
It feels a bit perverted to think it while Paige is obviously in no fit state, but Hayward does enjoy the feeling of learning her in this way. He can feel the curves of her skin and the rhythm of her heartbeat against his chest and the smell of her hair. Peaches, Hayward thinks. He resists the urge to take a deep inhale, contenting himself with pressing his nose against the side of her head in what he hopes is a measure of comfort.
Paige sighs and goes almost boneless in Hayward’s arms, which he doesn’t expect. He keeps her steady, holding her close. He can feel it in his chest as her heartbeat finally begins to slow and she seems to relax.
When Paige pulls away, Hayward lets her go without a fuss. He catches her wiping her eyes again, but she doesn’t look at Hayward. Instead she goes to sit against a wall, pushing aside the debris to make a space. When she catches Hayward’s eye, she gestures to a spot next to her. Hayward follows.
They sit against that wall in silence for a minute.
“I know you think I’m being ridiculous. That my dad actually made some good points and that I’m acting like a spoiled brat for yelling at him.”
“No,” Hayward says immediately, a little surprised that she thought that. “I don’t think you’re…being unreasonable.”
“I just,” Paige sighs and won’t look at Hayward. He watches her profile as her jaw works. “He might be right about some things. But he’s not going to just give us things out of the goodness of his heart. He’s going to name a price, and he won’t name it until he fulfills his end of the bargain, because he knows I feel bad about leaving him hanging,” Paige mashes the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, groaning. She doesn’t speak until she pulls her hands away, letting them fall into her lap. “I don’t trust him. I don’t trust his contacts. I would rather do anything than let him get more involved than he already is.”
Hayward bites his lip. He knows Dennis isn’t lying about having useful information and contacts. He knows the practical thing would be to ignore Paige’s discomfort and to go ahead with their eyes open for any deception.
Hayward can’t make himself say that. Instead, he says, “Okay.”
Paige looks at him in sharp surprise. “Really? Just like that?”
“I don’t want to do anything that’s going to make you upset,” Hayward says with an awkward shrug. It’s the truth. It feels weird to say. “We can figure it out.”
Paige swallows and searches his eyes. Hayward lets her, hoping that he’s not so blatantly obvious. She seems to find what she’s looking for and nods. She faces the front again. “Okay. We’ll find something else.”
“Besides,” Hayward says, “I don’t know if your dad will let us back into the house after we destroyed his stuff like this.”
Paige laughs. Hayward savors it. She surprises him by leaning into his side, resting her head on his shoulder. Hayward froze, trying not to spook her.
“He never used this stuff anyway,” Paige says, a note of bitterness in her voice.
Slowly, Hayward lifts an arm and wraps it around her shoulders. The movement tugs her closer, her head now resting near his heart. Paige doesn’t pull away.
“I hate him,” Paige whispers, but the low tone does not bely the anger simmering there.
Hayward rubs her shoulder. He doesn’t know what to say. Paige sighs and neither of them say anything for a few minutes.
“Do you want to leave in the morning?” Hayward asks.
“Where will we go?” Paige asks in reply.
Hayward shrugs, the movement jostling Paige’s head. “Dunno. But if you don’t want to be here, we can figure something out.”
Paige turns her head, nosing a bit at Hayward’s shirt. She mutters quietly, almost too low for Hayward to hear, “Thank you.”
Hayward isn’t sure if he was meant to hear the emotion in those words. He just ducks his head, pressing his lips to the crown of her head in a pale imitation of a kiss.