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Eris Shindanai is not one to wake up early. She used to be, (well not like she had much of a choice; there was always something she had to fix, or interfere with, or blow up) but it’s been months since the Zenith had fallen and she and Sona had fled to the middle of nowhere. She hasn’t woken up before 10am since.
Sona, on the other hand, wakes up almost religiously at six-in-the-fucking-morning. At first Eris thought it was a joke, something Sona did just to screw with her, but after about a week of this she realized that no, this is actually just something that she just does. Most of the time, Sona getting out of bed also wakes Eris up, who draws her back in for a cuddle and refuses to let go. Sona obliges for a bit, at least until Eris falls back asleep, then worms her way out of Eris’ death grip and continues with whatever morning routine takes her three- fucking- hours .
Eris once asked her what she does for that long and Sona had just shrugged and replied “training.” Eris has never been awake early enough to confirm this.
It’s the smell of coffee that eventually wakes Eris up, which then leads to her noticing the quiet drum of rain on the window pane. After this, it’s incredibly hard to ignore all the noise coming from around the corner: the clanking of pans, Nova’s high laugh, the whir of the coffee machine that she knows will be her savior in a few minutes. She’s very successfully blocking out everything else except for the thought of coffee when she recognizes Sona’s footsteps drawing closer to their room.
“Eris,” Sona’s voice calls from the hallway, and Eris rolls over and groans.
“Fuck off,” It comes out as more of a grumble.
“Good morning to you too, love,”
“What time is it?” Gods, Eris can barely understand herself, her voice gravelly and muffled by the pillow she’s talking into. She watches as Sona’s blurry figure appears in the doorway.
“11:30,” Sona responds, somehow able to understand the string of incoherent words. Eris groans again. “Come on, Nova and Arsen made lunch,” Eris opens her eyes at the mention of food and Sona scoffs from across the room.
“Lunch?” Eris mumbles hopefully.
“So you will wake up for food but not for me?” Sona teases, taking a step forward.
“You know, dream you is much nicer,”
“Oh you dream about me? I’m flattered,” Eris rolls her eyes from beneath closed eyelids and hears Sona shuffling closer to the bed.
Eris can feel the way the bed sinks as Sona sits on the edge of the mattress, turning over slightly so her face is pointed in her general direction. Leans into it when Sona reaches over to brush the hair off of Eris’ forehead. Eris closes her eyes again, something she would have never allowed herself to do before, but now it's different. Everything’s been different with Sona. She hums softly, enjoying the soft comfort and warmth of the familiar feeling, when Sona draws back her hand and the space suddenly feels empty. Eris opens her eyes in confusion, just to be met with the sight of Sona bringing down a pillow to whack her in the face.
“Oh, I hope you rot ,” Eris snatches the pillow and chucks it across the room at Sona, who laughs as she disappears around the corner.
“Come get lunch. Jenny is going to be here in a bit, you know. If you are not up by then, she will drag you out of bed herself.” Eris mumbles some halfhearted curse in response and tumbles off the mattress, if not more for the hope of coffee than anything else.
Eris has long since abandoned keeping track of what day of the week it is. It could be Sunday, could be Tuesday, but honestly the only thing Eris is keeping track of is that it’s too early in the morning for her to care. Her days have all seemed to blur together in a jumble of Sona and taking care of her kids, with the occasional trip to pick up a new recruit or scavenge around for materials that might be useful. Jenny stops by sometimes when she has the chance, something that’s been happening more often now that most of the Hollows had been rebuilt.
Jenny’s been put in charge since Voxter’s betrayal. There really wasn’t much of a debate about it, seeing as everyone knew she was the obvious choice, but after a vote that was more for formalities than anything she was officially appointed. For the past few months, she's been busy rebuilding the Hollows and working on some… “personal projects,” as Jenny would say with a smirk.
Sometimes, though, she finds the time to stop by and visit Eris and the others. She brings news from the rest of the world and the occasional piece of fixed-up junk as a “gift”. Eris knows it’s mostly because her workroom is too full to hold anything else, but she’s grateful for it nonetheless.
Today is one of those days, which most of the time Eris would be somewhat happy about if it weren’t for the fact that she would much rather be asleep right now.
“Eris!”
“I’m coming!”
She uses her foot to fling a t-shirt from the floor onto the bed, giving it a halfhearted sniff before tugging it over her head and walking into the hallway.
She’s almost halfway to the living room when she hears a loud pop coming from the kitchen and the sounds of Nova screaming and oh gods, I thought it was all over why is it still not over ? Her mind automatically flips through all the possible scenarios: somehow Enyo had survived and found them, or maybe some of the remaining mechvespers had planted a bomb to finish off those who had killed their precious Zenith. She skids around the corner, her metal arm already raised, and stops as she takes in the scene in front of her.
She doesn't know what exactly she expected, but a kitchen covered in flour and her kids and girlfriend matching suit is definitely not it.
“Oh, hi Eris!” Nova chirps, spinning around the twisting barstool with enough force that she accidentally topples over. Arsen’s worried face barely has time to register before she pops up from behind the counter, unscathed with a wide grin plastered across her flour-dusted face. “The flour bag exploded,” she adds as if the evidence isn’t sprinkled over everything in sight.
“Yeah, it exploded after she threw it at me,” Arsen sighs, shaking out his shirt and watching as the white specks drift onto his already-covered shoes. Sona watches Eris from the side of the kitchen, taking in her stiff demeanor as she slowly lowers her arm. She walks over to Eris slowly, somehow still looking unfairly pretty with flour smeared on her face and curls dusted with white. She reaches for Eris’ hand and gives it a small squeeze, which Eris knows is an unspoken question: do you want to talk about it?
Eris gives a single shake of her head and a smile, which Sona returns with a kiss on her forehead. “We’re ok, love,” she whispers, and Eris is grateful for the verbal confirmation nonetheless. She pulls away, turning back towards her kids and hardening her expression slightly once more.
“What did I tell you guys about throwing stuff around the kitchen?” Eris barks, but there's no malice in her voice. Nova jumps to her feet at the sound of her voice, then uses her entire arm to brush the flour off the counter and onto the already dirty floor.
“There! All clean,” Nova brushes off her arm and Arsen shakes his head, getting up to go to retrieve a broom from the closet.
They’ve both been doing better now since the war ended, now somewhat used to the quiet peace of the postwar honeymoon. But still, the space next to them echoes with their missing third piece. They don’t bring her up with words often, but Eris can feel her empty presence. She sees the faded green dye staining the bottom tips of Arsen and Nova’s hair from when they used the rest of Juniper’s dye a few months ago, and she notices the way Nova sometimes rubs the colored ends between her fingers when she’s lost in thought.
It’s an unspoken thing now. They don’t bring up anyone who’s gone. They keep Xander and Milo’s names out of conversation and stay silent about Enyo for Sona’s sake. What was left of Juniper’s belongings still sit in a locked case at the foot of Nova and Arsen’s bed, the clasp untouched but the top carefully wiped down to eliminate dust. Eris herself hasn’t found the courage yet to open it either.
Eris tells herself it’s because there’s no point in mourning those who are gone. It didn’t help when she cried over her parents years ago, and it certainly wouldn't help her now. But in reality, she feels like it’s more that she doesn’t know where the grief would take her if she let it consume her.
She remembers the unyielding cold that had taken over when she thought Sona was gone. Her unwillingness to do anything more than breathe, and even that had gotten old after a while. If she thinks too much she doesn’t know where it would bring her, and she has too much to stay for to risk getting lost again.
She glances towards Sona, who’s busy readjusting her eyepatch, at Arsen as he reappears from around the corner with a broom, and over to where Nova’s back to spinning around on the bar stool. She stops thinking about Juniper’s locked case.
“I already got your coffee,” Sona nods towards where a mug sits on the counter, faint wisps of steam dissipating into the air. Eris shuffles over to the mug and takes a long drink, hoping the coffee will wake her up enough to be somewhat coherent when Jenny arrives. Not even five seconds after she has the thought, there's an aggressive knock on the door, followed by the violent rattling of the door handle. Eris quickly downs the rest of the coffee.
“Eris! Let me in, ya little bastard! It’s pissing rain out here!” Another bang on the door. Eris contemplates leaving Jenny out there just to have her suffer, but she figures that if she doesn't open the door soon Jenny might just kick it in.
“Eris if you’re not here in five seconds I will kick this door down!” Jenny warns. Well, at least her violence is still predictable. Eris unlocks the door.
“Hi,” Eris greets her with raised eyebrows, watching as her sister stomps inside, water dripping everywhere. She’s holding a large tote bag that looks to somehow be waterproof. Jenny, however, very much is not.
“I swear to all the gods, I’m going to make a copy of that damn key for myself.” She growls, kicking off her shoes into the pile by the door and shaking her head like a wet dog to rid her hair of water. Eris turns away to avoid getting soaked, still feeling the water droplets as they land on the back of her neck.
“Why are you here so early?” Eris uses the back of her hand to rub the remaining sleep from her eyes.
“Eris, it’s almost noon.”
“Oh. Well, that’s still pretty early.”
“You need to get your ass out of bed before eleven.”
“I saved the fucking world. I think I deserve a break,”
Jenny snorts. “Oh please. I saved the fucking world. You helped a little, I guess,” By the time she’s done taking off her jacket, there's a very sizable puddle of water beneath her. Eris attempts to wipe it up with her sock.
“Oh yeah, here,” Jenny thrusts the mystery bag into Eris’s hands. “It’s a radio. Piece of shit when I found it, but I fixed it. Merry Christmas.”
“It’s the middle of August,”
“It’s an early Christmas present,” Jenny starts down the hall, rounding the corner to the kitchen. Eris rolls her eyes, dropping the dripping present next to the shoes before starting after her sister. Jenny stops short at the sight of the kitchen. “Wow. What the hells happened in here?”
“Nova’s trying to make lunch,” Eris sighs.
“Hey! I’m making lunch just fine.”
“Well, it doesn’t look that way,” Jenny uses her finger to swipe a line through the dusting of flour on the countertop. “You gonna clean this up, Sparky?” Nova scowls at the nickname. Jenny’s been calling her that ever since Nova tried to hotwire a car and almost blew it up.
“I’ll clean it later,” she replies with a wave of her hand, and turns back to mix what Eris thinks is cake batter.
The rest of lunch prep is, for the most part, successful. Nova and Arsen end up making a surprisingly good mac-and-cheese, while Sona and Eris contribute a salad made of (hopefully) edible flowers. Jenny talks about her latest idea for making transportation between The Hollows and their other trade locations more efficient: a train that runs on used mecha fuel; Sona delivers the news about the new recruits in the area and gives Jenny some new information on the technology she can salvage in the now destroyed Godolia.
It’s overall a quiet lunch- well, as quiet as it could be with Eris and Jenny in the same room. Nova’s attempt at making a cake for dessert turns out surprisingly well (apart from the whole flour debacle), and Nova and Arsen eventually finish cleaning up the kitchen. The flour bag gets closed and stored away with a scribbled, “Nova: do not touch” scrawled in Eris’ handwriting on the bag.
Jenny leaves shortly after lunch, claiming she has a project to work on although Eris is fairly confident this “project” has a whole lot to do with meeting up with Zamaya. Eris says as much, resulting in a scowl and an eye roll from Jenny but still no denial.
Eris and Sona’s afternoon ends up with them going on a picnic in the rain, which sounds romantic at first but mostly just results in a very wet blanket and some ruined food. They do end up coming back with a bouquet of yellow flowers, though, so it’s a win in Eris’ book.
They take far too long to walk back, the rain making the path slippery and their vision hazy. They end up running back together, hand in hand as they stumble up the path between kisses and laughs. It’s dark by the time they get back, when they walk in Arsen and Nova are already setting the table for dinner.
“Finally!” Nova yells down the hallway as she hears them enter. “Took you guys long enough,” Sona wrings out her hair and watches as what seems to be a whole waterfall cascades to the floor. She looks back up at Eris who’s standing on the doormat looking remarkably like a soaked cat with the expression to match: her hair plastered to her forehead and every inch of her body dripping water.
“You look like a wet cat,” Sona stifles a laugh, a glint in her eye as she flicks a sopping wet strand of hair out of Eris’ face. Eris almost hisses at her in response. Instead, she settles on shooting her a halfhearted glare before shedding her jacket and letting it fall with a wet splat on the floor.
“Whoa.” Nova rounds the corner and stops when she sees the floor that now resembles more swamp than hardwood. “What happened to you guys? Did you get lost?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Sona winks toward Eris.
“Ew, ew, stop being gross! We’re about to eat!”
“Oh, you think that’s gross? How about yesterday when Sona did this thing with her tongue that-” Nova turns on her heel and stalks back towards the kitchen, hands covering her ears.
“Ok! Dinner’s ready!” Eris cackles from behind her.
The rest of the evening is uneventful; mundane in the best ways with a familiarity that Eris will forever be grateful for. Sona trims the flowers and puts them in a cup of water, displaying them on the living room table. They eat, clean up the dishes, clean up the floor, clean up themselves (Eris realizes just how much they have to clean up after each other in this household), and eventually all turn in for bed.
She and Sona head to the living room where they’ve made it a habit to read a bit before heading upstairs. Well, Sona reads- Eris tries to for a bit, but normally either gets a random burst of energy and decides to do a workout, or she gets tired and falls asleep on Sona’s chest. The latter is exactly what happens again for the fifth day in a row.
Eris likes to think she’s gotten better at dealing with the nightmares. Throughout her entire life she’s had to deal with loss and mourning; there’s not exactly anything new there. Consequently, the nightmares aren’t anything new either. She’s had time to get used to them; to find a routine to deal with them and somewhat recognize the patterns leading up to them.
There are days where she can sleep through the night in peace, and others where it’ll take her hours to even fall asleep. She thought today would be fine- it’s been weeks since her last nightmare- just to be woken up in the middle of the night with the image of Milo at the masquerade ball in the tree, dried blood covering their face and pale eyes staring into nothing and-
Eris wakes up and promptly falls off of Sona and onto the floor. Fuck. Fuck . She thought she was done with this: the panic and helplessness she was able to bypass for weeks. She can’t breathe and her clothes are suffocating her and she can't untangle them because anytime she looks down at her hands all she can see is their blood.
She feels Sona’s hand on her shoulder, a gentle weight that grounds her; it brings her back to the sofa in the messy living room, the fan in the kitchen humming softly. A flash of yellow in the corner of her vision draws her attention to the bouquet of flowers she and Sona had picked earlier. Sona’s hands reach over slowly to untangle her shirt. She doesn’t say a word, but her expression is gentle, her hands soft. Eris notices the crescent-shaped scars across Sona’s hands and thinks faintly how much they remind her of the moon. She takes a stuttering breath.
The nightmares are different every time she has them: sometimes it's Juniper with blank eyes and tear tracks tracing lines down their faces, sometimes it’s Eris being swallowed up by the ground with Sona’s hands around her neck. But most often Eris will look down and blink and suddenly there's blood staining her fingertips. She wakes up gasping and the blood disappears in the next second, but the image of the mother and daughter’s matching pale eyes is still left echoing through her entire body.
And Sona can take her hand and intertwine their fingers and whisper “you did what you had to, love” over and over again, but Eris will always wonder if she can still feel the suffering she caused threaded through her fingerprints.
She knows Sona understands. The nightmares, the guilt, the constant fear- Sona might just be the only one who understands. Because above everything else, she’s terrified at the thought of Sona leaving her again.
And she knows Sona worries about it too. She knows it’s irrational- seeing her under Godolia’s corruption again when there’s nobody left who could tear her apart like that. But Eris worries nonetheless. Losing Sona once, seeing her under tangled layers of corruption- that already broke her. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to witness it happening again.
Occasionally she still hears Sona’s voice from the cabin. Cold and without feeling, her eyes utterly devoid of the tears that were there seconds ago: “I really thought that would work,” and Eris wakes up with a gasp and tries her best to will the memory from her mind. Sona will wake up too, she’s always been a light sleeper, and she’ll see the look on Eris’ face and understand.
She’ll take Eris’ face in her hands and gently trace her cheekbones with her thumb. She’ll brush the stray strands of hair out of her eyes and press their foreheads together. “I’m here. I’m real. I promise, love. I’m real.” And Eris will believe her.
—-
It’s about half an hour later when Sona brings up the idea of the radio.
“You wanna give it a try?” Sona asks, nodding towards the bag. Her fingers comb gently through Eris’ hair where she's leaning against Sona’s sternum. Eris hums a response and rolls off Sona to retrieve the bag from the other side of the room.
Sona kneels next to the radio and twists one of the dials, adjusting one of the antennae to try to get a signal through the static. With a few seconds of twiddling dials and pushing buttons, a staticky version of some old country song starts playing through the speakers.
“Oh great, leave it to Jenny to give us a piece of shit radio that only plays country music,” Eris knocks on the side of the machine, but all she manages to do is turn the volume up higher.
“We can make it work though, right love?” Sona stands up and holds out her hand. Eris smiles softly and takes it.
“I suppose so.”
They ignore the music for the most part, instead standing there together swaying out of time with the song- Eris’ head on Sona’s shoulder and arms wrapped around each other. They eventually move to the kitchen, where even with all the extra space Sona still insists on stepping on Eris’ toes every few seconds.
“You’re a terrible dancer,” Eris mumbles quietly into Sona’s shoulder.
“Yeah well, my supposed teacher is worse,” she teases. Eris moves to gently shove Sona’s arm, but somehow Sona manages to catch Eris’ hand and spin her around to lean her backward into a dip. “How’s that for a terrible dancer,” Sona whispers into Eris’ ear and Eris has never been so in love in her life. Sona straightens back up and despite the ceiling above them, Eris swears she can see the stars framing her face.
They dance for a few more minutes, talking in hushed tones so they don’t wake up Arsen and Nova asleep in the next room over. The shitty country music keeps playing in the background, but at this point, Eris can barely hear it anymore. At one point their slow dance evolves into the macarena, then a “who can be the quietest tap dancer” competition, and eventually some very incorrect tango. They end up stepping on each others’ toes more times than they can count, both so out of time with each other it would seem like they were dancing to two different songs. But it’s fun and stupid and it’s with Sona and that’s all that Eris cares about.
Sona twirls her around, she twirls Sona around, they both try to twirl each other around at the same time and end up tangled together: Sona’s arm somehow trapped behind her head and Eris facing the complete opposite direction. They collapse onto the couch seconds later- both completely out of breath, giggles escaping between gasps for air, hands still clasped together.
“Oh my gods, if I have to listen to one more crappy country song on this piece of shit I will be throwing it across the room,”
Sona laughs and reaches over to the radio, flipping a dial and effectively changing the channel. Eris gapes at her.
“It could play this the whole time?” Eris complains and Sona just smiles.
“I just wanted to see how desperate you were to dance with me,” she winks and Eris scoffs.
“Wowww, I see how it is. Good luck finding a dance partner next time then,”
“Good luck finding a dance partner as good as me,”
“Please, don’t flatter yourself,” Eris scoffs. Sona raises her eyebrows, a smirk on her face as she leans in ever so slightly.
“You flatter me enough already, darling,”
“A mistake I've learned that does nothing to dampen your ego,”
“Oh, hush. You love it,” Sona purrs. She brings her hand up to Eris’ face, her thumb lightly tracing her cheekbone. Eris doesn’t miss the way her eyes flicker down to her lips, the way her hand effectively cups the back of her neck to pull her closer. Sona’s body turns to face Eris fully, her eyebrows raised as if in a challenge. A question: where do you want to go from here?
“Yeah, I do,” Eris whispers back, leaning in and closing the rest of the distance between them.
Sona kisses just like how she fights. With passion and hunger and a desperation like she’ll never be able to get enough of it. It’s a feeling Eris is all too familiar with, something she knows she does as well.
Eris has never found anything before that she’s liked more than being a Gearbreaker, but kissing Sona might just rival it. The adrenaline of a fight that makes her head spin, the thrill of taking down a God- it all seems so small compared to the dizzying feeling of Sona’s lips against hers.
Sona’s hand finds its way to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair, and Eris makes a weak sound in the back of her throat. She feels Sona smile against her lips and Eris knows she’s smiling too.
And this is how they are now. No panic, no chaos. No monarchies to tear down or bots to destroy. It’s just Sona. And Eris revels in it.
She opens her eyes slowly, because as much as she wants to stay in the moment she wants to see Sona more.
And Eris sees Sona, Sona, Sona , and she knows she’ll never find anything more beautiful in her life. Her curls are messed up and Eris still spots a few specks of flour dusting the tips of her ears from earlier. Her eyes are still closed, a ghost of a smile tilting the corners of her mouth up and Eris leans back in to press a gentle kiss on her lips.
“I love you,” She says, because that’s something she can just do now.
“I love you too,” Sona replies with absolute certainty, pressing another kiss to Eris’ forehead and reaching between them to take her hand.
—-
Sona falls asleep first. Eris recognizes when her breathing evens out and her face relaxes completely, any tension draining from her expression. Eris presses a soft kiss to her forehead and uses her free hand to pull the blanket over the two of them.
They fall asleep like that: with fingers intertwined and Sona’s arms wrapped around Eris’ waist.
And if this is how Eris can wake up from now on: with Sona next to her and her kids safe in the next room over, well, she thinks she could get used to it.