Work Text:
Crow isn’t unfamiliar with sudden, plummeting downward spirals, but it’s the first one since he’s started actively working with Shu and Limbo.
It starts for a stupid reason, like it always does. Limbo and Shu are breaking into some modern art gallery for evidence of embezzlement in the director’s office as Crow watches them through the security feed and pops chips in his mouth, feet hiked onto his desk very, very professionally. On the monitor next to Shu picking a lock is the general CCTV footage from around New Sieg. It’s an old habit, hearing the whirring of his PC fans and tuning out to watching the streets of New Sieg, feeling far away and an almost pleasant type of outsider.
He can’t hear the whirring of his fans now though, instead preoccupied by Shu and Limbo’s incessant banter in his headset. Crow has spent inordinate amounts of time to the tune of them silently tracking down various targets but today, they argue almost the entire way down.
“Shu, once you get into that room, check his desk drawer first, left and third from the top. It’s the only one electronically locked.” Crow says, mid chew. The awesome thing about being the boss is that he gets to be a slob, and nobody has to know.
“Sure. It’s unlocked now?”
“Who do you think I am?” Crow squawks in offense. Of course it’s already unlocked. He’d unlocked it before they even got to the door.
Limbo whistles, he himself also stuffing his face full, but with canapes, “Y’know, I always thought movies were exaggerating when hackers could just open anything electronic.”
Crow laughs. He almost says something along the lines of Not all hackers can do it! The Boss of the Underworld shouldn’t be compared to the common hacker, but holds himself back last minute because anymore bragging than he’s already done would be grounds for immediate retaliation, and he doesn’t want Shu and Limbo ganging up on him. Besides, the praise is nice.
Shu rebuffs Limbo with a swift “You think it’s typical to be a crooked lawyer?” which Limbo sulks, and mocks back in a high pitched voice, “They call you the Killer Killer.”
Crow savors the dialogue. It’s been one of those weeks he’s glad for human interaction outside tipping the Uber driver for his week’s worth of take-out. Still munching on a chip, he explains, “I’m familiar with the lock company he’s using. Also he used his work email for the account, and his passcode’s his birthday so it’s not the hardest job in the world.”
Greedy and corrupt? Absolutely. Good at his job? Hell no. He’d probably have gotten caught by the police already, but he manages a scattered collection of museums and galleries across the city and they’re all only moderately high worth, so he’s gotten away with consistently taking a little off the top.
Limbo had found the job from one of his clients at a dinner event that he forced Shu to accompany him to. He was disgruntled (and jealous) his competitor was getting what seemed like an exorbitant amount more than he was. Crow had perked up because it sounded sketchy, the type of thing he could milk money out of and wasn’t outside the boundaries of anyone’s moral compass.
He was right, by the way! Calculating from his bank transactions, Victor Russell had been making a pretty penny for a while before any complaints started heading his way. Crow figures they can blackmail him for pretty much all he’s worth and then still hand him into the cops. Win-win scenario.
And then he sees a traffic accident from the corner of his eye, and he focuses on that instead of paying attention to the director heist. A gear shifts in Crow’s brain. His body knows before he does. He sees the colliding car on the other screen–That’s how Dad died–and then he realises he’s shivering all over.
It’s not the worst traffic accident he’s seen, not even on New Sieg CCTV, but for some reason, it reminds him of Dad and that makes him sick. A churning feeling builds in his stomach like a stone dropping into the ocean as he feels his heart beat uncomfortably in his chest.
“—Crowww? Crow? Earth to Scarecrow? Boss of the Underworld?”
Limbo’s voice registers.
“Urgh yeah? What is it?” Oh boy, he sure hopes His Voice Is Not Shaking Right Now. There’s no camera in the director’s office, so he should, technically, just be on guard duty to make sure there are no prying eyes that have gone to investigate Shu and Limbo’s disappearance, but evidently straying from his job. All he sees is the open swinging door from the hallway—empty so they’re safe—and the cheerful, busy exhibition premier happening outside.
“We have the documents, you were right, first try.” Limbo says cheerfully. Shu sighs, and mutters, “Let’s scram, I hate it here.”
He wasn’t allowed cigarettes inside; something about how it affected the paintings.
“You guys should probably go back and mingle with the guests a bit, just so it’s not as suspicious.” Crow swallows, his mouth feeling dry, “You can uh, drop the documents off here tomorrow morning.”
Crow, once again, hopes his voice comes out smooth. Cheerful might be a stretch, but he’s going to die of mortification if they can hear from his voice that he’s suddenly become upset for no good reason. He hears the beginning of a grumbling confirmation from Shu and switches off comms before something in his chest explodes.
He feels very, very far away. He bites down on his tongue.
The traffic accident didn’t even look that much like his dad’s. The CCTV footage is kind of terrible. He sees the way the car collides into the pedestrian, grainy enough he can’t see the gore. The person was jaywalking, but it was at an intersection where there’s typically jaywalking so it shouldn’t have happened. He doesn’t know if an ambulance is on its way yet, and distantly he knows he should tune into the emergency line, see if they’ve already gotten a report or if he should give an anonymous tip off.
But he doesn’t. Instead he sits, and thinks. Remembers. His hands feel weird and numb on the armrests of his seat. They were tied up, he thinks, when they showed him the footage. He was used to getting manhandled into various seats back then, and by the time they killed Dad, fighting had just become a routine to keep himself vaguely sane before they dragged him to whatever computer they needed him to work on. The constant adrenaline had shot Crow’s nerves to hell and upon reflection, even without needing to- needing to-
Even without needing to, he probably would’ve short circuited soon anyways. There wasn’t much more they could’ve done to him, he was reaching his limit.
That day, he remembers the laughter the most.
They sat him down and he didn’t get a word in because he saw the footage that had already been playing. Colored and a little hazy, he spotted his dad, in his rumpled sweater and slacks, and just knew, before the truck even hit him.
“This is fake,” he said, just so he could feel himself say it. The people behind him laughed. He could feel himself begin to lose control of his breathing. “This is fake,” he reiterated, like it’d be true if he could verbalise it. Some guy behind him lost his shit. Guard #3, Shitty Moustache, he used to call him (he never knew their names but he knew the regulars). He grabbed Crow by the jaw and Crow wanted to punch him instinctively, but his arms were still tied behind his back. Spittle landed on his face as the man laughed at him, “You really think we’d fake this shit? You really think we’re fucking pussies? Even after all this?”
And then he switched holds, grabbed a large chunk of Crow’s hair and shoved his face into the monitor as the footage repeated in a loop. Crow distinctly, then, realised he was losing his shit in a different, worse way, and that he didn’t know how to breathe. The thoughts circled around his head like a merry-go-round: Dad’s dead, my fault, Dad’s dead, my fault, Dad’s dead and it’s my fault, I’m never leaving here, I’m going to be here forever, this is going to be my life forever and then I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die.
And then it was like something popped. Crow remembers it as a pop sensation. It felt final. He can’t really remember anything after that. He daydreams about it sometimes, his brain actually exploding into a mess of viscera with the sound of a balloon popping. He has faint memories after that, of smells, or colours, things people said to him that result in three to five second reels of memory over a period of five months. They’re different to the clinical detail he remembers the rest of his experience in. He doesn’t think he’s choosing to forget those, he thinks they don’t exist at all.
Crow forces himself to breathe deeply with a shuddering exhale. He can’t trap himself right now in the memory, he has a case to follow up with. In the short time he’s been drifting off, he’s already gotten texts from Limbo, the notifications shining brightly on his lock screen.
Limbo: Did you hang up?
Limbo: Me and Shu are out lol. He couldn’t handle the party for long
Limbo: We’re going to Paraíso Garage to celebrate tonight wanna join
Scarecrow, ten–no fuck–thirty minutes ago would have been ecstatic to hang out but he grimaces at the thought of it right now. It’s going to be one of those nights he spends staring off into space, avoiding any body of water like the plague and teaching himself how to breathe again like a normal human being.
Scarecrow: I thought heist was over and handled so I hung up :( Sorry can’t hang out tonight I have other underworld work to do :(
Limbo: Huh? Really? Shu was under the impression that other than this you were unemployed
Scarecrow: RUDE??? DID YOU THINK THAT TOO?
Limbo: I plead the fifth.
Scarecrow turns off his phone. He breathes a sigh of relief. He’ll be fine. He just needs to take the night to himself. Maybe go to bed early. Definitely not go near any sink or his pool. Listening to relaxing bird noises, because he’s heard those help in times of turmoil. Something something mindfulness. Go to sleep early, meet with Limbo and Shu in the living room and analyse the data as they play Guilty Gear on his television.
“Anima,” he hears himself saying, “Can you make sure the traffic accident we just saw was taken care of?”
He doesn’t hear her reply as he climbs up the stairs.
.
Crow lies in the plush of his bed and feels the guilt sink into him, pinning him to the mattress. He needs to… He needs to give something up for his crimes. Whatever’s been done to him doesn’t ever feel like enough, and the heavy badump, badump of his heartbeat weighs heavy. He’s going to spend his entire life making reparations and it still won’t be enough.
Is altruism to alleviate guilt really altruism? Can he become a good person if he just throws money at his problems enough?
...He makes a mental note to make a donation to the hospital tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or whenever he can speak again so Anima can do all the work for him. There’s some sick sense of satisfaction in feeling like this he doesn’t know how to name. It feels so right, to lie in bed and want to rot there. Even after all this time, he doesn’t know how to live with himself.
His heart hurts, thinking about it. He wants to grab it from his chest and squeeze it like a water balloon. Squeeze it until the pain feels intentional. He doesn’t know how to handle himself when he gets like this. Stopping the feeling feels Wrong, because this is the closest to punishment he’s ever going to get, and if he can’t at even tough it through this, what’s the point? Simultaneously, he wants to squirm away, because he can’t face himself and all the ugly things he’s done.
God, Crow feels so pathetic. Tomorrow morning Limbo and Shu are coming over, so he has to pull himself together. He can… do that. He has to do that. There’s a nameless desperation to how hard he’s latched onto them (He doesn’t want to name it). It’s nice knowing people, who you talk to semi-regularly and have clearance to your house. It’s nice to have friends (?) that you can talk to face-to-face sometimes. Even go to a bar with.
It’s a wild desperation, Crow knows, because he knows full well that he’s going to drag himself out of bed tomorrow morning and come off as self-assured and competent for the sake of them keeping him around. Crow wants to call them friends, with an aching need he didn’t know he still had, but even he knows friends is a stretch. They’re… partners, fellow fixers, people he works with, and works with frequently because their skills align and complement one another. Shu and Limbo have had a longer, ongoing, separate partnership from Shu-Limbo-Crow that they can fall back on if Crow fucks things up, so Crow isn’t going to fuck things up.
He feels a different type of panicked pang swell in his chest at the idea of them tossing him aside. He’s going to tough it through tomorrow. He’s going to tough it through tomorrow and finish the case up in record time so he can wallow in peace without them knowing he’s a mess. The idea of them finding out how big of a mess he is swallows Crow in abject misery and terror. That’s even besides the idea of them finding out about Crow Miller, cyberterrorist, Constantine peon.
His stomach churns at the thought. Crow grits through his teeth. The idea of getting out of bed is daunting and impossible, but the idea of puking on his bed is deeply unappealing. He used to keep a bucket next to it, because he’d wake up in the middle of the night hyperventilating, sometimes screaming, and the disorienting dizziness would have him vomiting chunks of his dinner before he knew which way was up. He’s since retired the habit in the hopes of getting better, which he now regrets because he doesn’t know if he can get up in time.
His weak stomach has him curling in tighter on himself, and he forces himself to breathe deeply. Sending oxygen to his brain right now should be first priority, tied with breathing deeply to lessen the nausea.
Pull it together Crow, he thinks to himself, and forces himself to ignore all his serrated thoughts. He prioritises in his head:
1. Keep fooling Shu and Limbo into thinking he’s worth keeping around and not a total liability.
2. Not vomit on his bed.
3. Try to get some sleep instead of sinking into the vat of self loathing he’s precariously dangling right above.
“Anima,” he forces himself to say despite it feeling like knives are digging into his throat, “Can you turn on… peaceful bird sounds?”
“Ambient noise?”
“Y-yeah, that.”
A minute or so later, he’s entreated to the beauties of nature. He tries to sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a good day. Tomorrow’s going to be a good day.
.
It’s not going to be a good day. Scarecrow wakes up screaming and quite nearly vomiting onto his bed and just barely making it to the en suite. His heart is beating out of his chest and he thinks he’s going to have a heart attack. The worst part is that he doesn’t even remember what set him off. Dreams, to Crow, are fogs of war he trudges through, only snippets of hands and rope and laughter making it with him into clear consciousness. Everything else is lost to the depths of his subconscious, always, and he’s just left to clean up their mess.
He doesn’t know what time it is. He seriously, seriously hopes Limbo and Shu aren’t here yet.
“Anima, are Limbo and Shu here yet?”
He says it so quietly it barely echoes from the toilet basin. For a moment he thinks that she hasn’t caught him saying it, but then she replies, concisely, and helpfully, “Yes they are.”
“Fuck.”
What’s the longest he can keep them waiting before they get suspicious of something? He can’t… He can’t let them see him like this. The thought has him heaving again and he has to force himself to stop. He has to pull himself together.
He… He has to… He has to pull himself to
Crow shuts off his brain.
It’s nicer to say “Crow shuts off his brain” than “Crow can’t think anymore” so that’s what he says. A floating sensation floods his body and Crow feels like he’s being thrown out of his own control panel. He stands up. He cleans his face with a dry towel. He looks into the mirror. His limbs move by themselves. When he looks into the mirror, he can’t name who’s looking back at him.
He goes downstairs. Limbo is eating toast on the couch whilst Shu is pilfering through his pantry. He hears Limbo tease him for waking up late, “-Rise and shine Crow.” and he hears Shu opening a pack of chips. He hears himself reply but once the words leave his mouth he can’t quite pin what he actually said.
Everything just. Feels. A little far away.
He thinks he sees Limbo and Shu exchange between each other concerned glances. He doesn’t really know.
He blinks and time passes. There are brief moments of lucidity in the day where he registers where he is, like seeing something in film. He’s at a table with Crow and Limbo combing over documents. He’s making cups of coffee. He’s staring blankly at his PC as they play games in the background. He’s saying bye and sending them off. He’s back to staring at his PC.
When Scarecrow finally, properly, comes back to, he’s squeezing a pillow tucked close to his chest and he’s watching the 1996 reboot of Captain Ginger on the TV. Not too far into it, Season 1 Episode 23, right near the first season’s finale. He comes to with a full body shudder, blinking as his mind comes back into focus.
His hands and feet feel deathly cold and he hugs them close to himself as he waits for thinking to become easier. He watches Captain Ginger blankly, like it’s white noise. The rest of the house doesn’t exist. The feeling of the suede cushion against his fingers, the soft couch against his feet. Captain Ginger (‘96) as he’s captured by the enemy organisation, bound at the feet of his greatest archnemesis, the panther lieutenant, deemed conveniently and memorably, The Lieutenant. It’s a tense moment, where all hope seems lost. Scarecrow knows better; it’s his 4th rewatch this year. Being captured was all in the plan. Captain Ginger breaks out of his chains and with the help of his guy in the chair, a puppy named Cloves, dismantles a key operational headquarter as well as arrests The Lieutenant.
Of course, he comes back by like, episode 5, next season, but that’s for next season. His triumphant victory is lorded with an emotional but lengthy credits sequence to an emotionally charged ending song, showing clips of Captain Ginger’s highest highs and lowest lows.
Scarecrow’s rushing ahead of himself. On screen, Captain Ginger is still at the mercy of The Lieutenant, hands tied behind his back.
Crow can’t help but think of himself in the same situation. Except it wasn’t all according to plan. It very much wasn’t all according to plan. If Captain Ginger was in his situation, what would he have done? An 8ft bear probably would’ve fared better against Constantine’s hired arms than he did when he was 15, but would Captain Ginger have fought in the first place? Would he have clearly bided in his time in wait until he found a way to escape? Would he have fought harder, did none of their requests at all despite the personal cost?
Crow doesn’t know. He squeezes the pillow tighter. He’s not a hero, he’s the boss of the underworld. Not that he feels like it right now. Right now he feels like a particularly sensitive piece of meat, flayed raw. At the very least, bosses of the underworld don’t feel a sense of guilt. He can’t think of all the people he’s hurt unwittingly, stupidly, cowardly, because he didn’t understand the consequences of what he had done. A particularly stupid child.
He curls tighter into himself. It doesn’t help alleviate the deep, pulsing pain in his chest. Sometimes he thinks parts of himself never stopped being 16, never left Constantine, that these wounds will always be tender. They’ll never stop being tender, open, and he knows that they’ll always deserve any touch, any prodding, any pressing. He deserves to be hurt until he can’t handle it, and even then, more so.
He watches Captain Ginger until the morning and he can see the wildfire sunrise spread into his periphery. He hasn’t moved in the past what? Eight hours? And at the sight of sun, he wills his limbs back to life, winces as the pins and needles set in, articulating each of his fingers and feeling them crack.
He makes himself a cup of coffee and his breath hitches as the steam warms him up. He moves to his desk.
Crow knows, rationally, logically, he’s left, but he can’t stop picking at the memories like a scab. He doesn’t know when to stop. It makes the wound worse, but it’s whatever. He deserves it.
He doesn’t ever… intentionally do it.
Lie.
Fine. He doesn’t normally intentionally do it, but it happens more often than not when he’s working on code and there’s a quiet spot in his work. Hearing the whirring sound of his PC’s fans whilst waiting for data to process means he’s just staring into blue light and then, it starts.
It’s not like a switch or anything, just a… a note, a reminder, a pop-up that makes him think way too hard. I was in a chair like this when they wanted me to dig up those government records. I was in a chair like this when they handcuffed me to the armrest and pointed a tazer at my side watching me work. I was in a chair like this when I refused and they choked me for it. I was in a chair like this when he- they? He. When he asked me if I wanted to live and made me beg for it, apologise to him for struggling. I was in a chair like this when
And then the data processes. Or the upload finishes. Or the download’s completed. And he’s a little worse for wear, hands shaking as he maneuvers his mouse, but fine. He does the rest of his work but just, with his brain shifted a little to the left. Like he’s shutting down small percentages of his capacity to think, instead devoted to combing through the memories.
They never hurt to think about. Not in the ways he sees in movies, where flashbacks result in big flashy panic attacks. They’re just, there. Pressing reminders of past experiences he doesn’t even remember feeling. First person becomes third person becomes first person again. He remembers sitting in a chair like that, and typing, and being shocked until he vomited, and not being able to breathe, and crying, not even thinking as he said whatever he thought would save his life the most, but only an echo of the strong pulsating fear that used to strum along his veins like blood. He doesn’t remember anything besides the phantom of that fear, of that pain.
All he’s left with is a laundry list of things that were technically done to him and on bad days that doesn’t feel like enough. All the damage in the world wouldn’t be enough, but he can’t even remember the ones he went through.
Crow can’t helping picking at the memories like scabs, but he free-falls into them headfirst now without knowing how much it will hurt. The world should end for him once he finally splats on the asphalt, but he’s too much of a coward to do anything about it. He doesn’t eat breakfast, picks at a can of Monster between sips of his coffee, stares at his computer but none of the words seem to make sense on his screen. He can read them, just shy of comprehending. He gives up after half an hour, and pulls up the security feed again.
Dozens of angles pop up on all his monitors and he indulges himself by looking at them, obsessing over if anything’s out of place. There never is, but he thinks about how easily it would be to leak his address to Constantine, to fake a leak. Crow Miller is alive, he lives here.
Too much of a coward to do that. Send a text message. One text message to make the world right again.
He doesn’t really remember when he decides to get a drink but he’s sipping from a beer bottle at one point in the day. He doesn’t remember either when he’s decided to dip his feet into the pool but suddenly, he can feel the numbing cold of the water against his feet, the pleasant dizziness of however many drinks he’s had.
Right. He gets like this sometimes. He used to be so, so scared of the water but he thinks, nowadays, if Shu or Limbo pushed him in, as they sometimes tease, he probably wouldn’t freak out to the point of concern. Is that something he deserves? It was awful. So, so awful when he couldn’t even touch it. Spend days trying to take a bath or shower only for a splash of water in his face to crumble away any progress. His mind blanks, sometimes, when he has what he assumes are panic attacks. All he remembers is lying on the floor, time past without him knowing, light-headed.
Does he want to return to that? Is it selfish not to?
He takes another sip of his drink.
.
He’s relatively tipsy by the time he hears Limbo in the house. He’s still nursing the same beer, but there’s a pleasant buzz in his head, a smooth transition into a gentler loss of control. He watches the pool water ripple outwards, enjoys the soft push against his fingers as he trails them to admire the patterns.
Anima doesn’t announce Shu or Limbo’s presence to him anymore when they enter the house, on account of all the times they’ve stayed late after a case, or stayed over because it’s cheap, or arrived for a meeting before he had woken up. It broke his concentration when Anima announced their visit, and in a wild display of trust, just gave them full clearance to leave or enter.
He’d like to revoke that now, because he doesn’t want them here. They’re both nosy people, pushy people and he’s scared of the consequences if they see his ugly, bleeding wounds and decide to dig their fingers in.
Limbo’s preternatural sense for secrets and his dangerous motivating hatred of them were always a vague problem for Crow, but now that he hears Limbo humming in his living room, knows he’s a rabbit that’s invited a wolf into his home. He’s always condemned himself for not rolling over and dying when it would’ve been the best option, but now that he’s actually doing it, there’s something exhilarating about finally giving up.
He knows what Limbo does. He’s going to see Crow’s pathetic attempt at suturing and rip out the stitches until he’s nothing but the worst crimes he’s committed. He’s glad he’s been drinking for this. The alcohol braces him better than any defensive mechanism he could’ve built would.
He hears the glass door sliding open, and Limbo’s mindless humming too and doesn’t turn around.
“I thought you said you couldn’t swim,” Limbo says, sitting next to him, his shoes off and dress pants pulled up tight onto his calves, “Pass me some of that beer.”
Crow does so, still not looking at his face, “I can’t swim.”
Limbo kicks into the water and creates a vortex which they both marvel at silently for a while as Limbo takes swigs from his beer.
Nobody breaks the silence, for Crow doesn’t know how long. He’s much more focused on the pool, and the water. Every once in a while he holds his hand out and Limbo gives him back the bottle for a couple of sips before taking it back. He wonders if drowning would be more gentle if he just sank too far down to swim back up.
Breaking the silence with Limbo is like pulling him off the couch after more than eight hours of Captain Ginger. He has to will himself into it, pull himself up like a wilted plant at the sight of sunlight.
It’s barely a whisper when he starts, “Should you be drinking? How are you getting home?”
Limbo waves his hand dismissively, laughs too loud and too casual. “Shu’s driving. He’s in the car.”
Why is Shu waiting in the car? He wonders if they talked out a plan before coming here, have a Plan A, B and C for if he decides to high tail it like a breeze in the air. Not that he could. The idea of “escaping” right now feels hopeless. He bites his tongue. What’s Limbo waiting for? What’s his angle? A practised ease to his movements like he’s studying Crow for dissection and knows exactly where to cut.
Crow’s voice cracks when he asks, “Aren’t you going to ask me anything?” and doesn’t dare to look up. Limbo’s gaze feels like it’s boring holes into his skin, even without him looking back and inadvertently giving answers to questions he doesn’t want to be asked.
Limbo’s voice comes in even, intentionally without inflection as he returns the question: “Do you want me to ask you anything?”
Crow doesn’t know. Does he want to confess? Pour out all his history for inspection?
“No,” he admits. He doesn’t. He knows he doesn’t.
Limbo hums in satisfaction, “Then I’m not going to ask you anything. You can tell me later.”
Telling him later sounds like carving out a pound of flesh. Like he’ll break into hives at the first word. Would they believe him if he said that? Ummm, actually! Haha! I’m allergic to telling the truth. About myself. For no particular reason. Yeah right.
Not particularly thinking, or maybe thinking too much, Crow slowly, carefully, choking on each word asks, “Do you,” Do you defend bad terrible people who were stupid? Who didn’t know the consequences of their actions and should’ve? Who did things because they were arrogant and pitiful? “Do you defend people who you know are guilty?”
He can still feel Limbo’s gaze on him. His own eyes are locked onto the water, back to peaceful, peaceful nothing. A warped image of a tiled floor.
“That depends. As a lawyer? I don’t decide who’s guilty. It’s not up to me. I defend people who I think have good cases, or interesting cases, and the judge and judicial system decide who in the eyes of society are guilty.”
Limbo pauses, thinking. “But as a Fixer, if I know someone’s guilty, then I’ll do something about it. I decide what’s wrong and what’s right. Outside my power as a lawyer, I’ll do something about people who are guilty and won’t get caught for it.”
Scarecrow laughs, “Because you want to get into Heaven after all.”
Limbo snaps his fingers in delight, “Exactly.”
Crow twiddles his thumbs. Limbo probably… What would Limbo do if he found out? He’s friends with Shu, but Shu isn’t ashamed of what he does. He doesn’t hide it. He knows the consequence of taking a life and he bears it with a dignity Crow doesn’t have.
Limbo sighs. Limbo puts his arms around Crow and Crow jolts hard in the spot. Limbo freezes. Crow. Crow doesn’t know what to do. When’s the last time someone’s touched him like this? He’s always known Limbo was casually affectionate, same as Shu, but this was… He had just gotten used to slaps on the back and leaning on him to look at various things! This was…
A step up he wasn’t expecting. Crow swallows. If Limbo’s escalating, that’s a good thing right? They don’t think he’s pathetic for acting this way- or maybe they do, but they’re fine with it? Is he supposed to lean back into it? Is he supposed to… is the word reciprocate? What is this show of affection supposed to-
Limbo starts lifting his arm back up and, “Sorry, were you uncomfortable with tha-”
“No, no!” Crow hurries, and then realises how loud his voice is and whispers, “I-I’m fine with it.”
He can feel the tips of his ears going red, and as soon as he can feel his cheeks getting flush from embarrassment, he covers his face with his hands. He knows he can hear Limbo laugh in the background, and he’s so humiliated, this is so humiliating.
“I’m fining you for this,” Scarecrow snaps, hands still over his face, peeking through his fingers. Limbo is doubled over himself, laughing hard.
“Dude, have you never hugged someone before- no- that wasn’t even a hug man-”
Limbo’s sentence is never finished because Crow puts a hand over his mouth as he’s laughing, “S-Shut up!”
He finally sees Limbo’s face as he unfolds from himself, still clutching at his stomach. It’s…
It’s just Limbo’s face. He’s seen it over and over again. Crow’s almost ashamed at how scared he was, now that he sees Limbo and there’s nothing on his countenance that looks like it could spell certain doom. Limbo takes a deep breath to calm himself, small chuckles still falling out.
“Crow, you sound like a highschool girl when you act like that.” And Crow suddenly wants to push him in the pool just to get him to shut up, “C’mere, c’mere.”
Limbo pats the space between them, and Crow, glaring through his bangs, scooches closer. Limbo puts his arm back around Crow’s shoulders and sighs. Crow doesn’t know how to lean into the touch, if he even should, but the distance is at least, not a stretch for Limbo anymore. He feels Limbo squeeze him just a little closer, head tilting in his direction.
“Listen Crow, if you need legal representation, I’ll give it. And if you need a guy killed, uh, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you and direct you to Shu, okay?”
Crow feels himself tearing up, and looks back at his lap with great interest. His voice is cracking again when he asks, quietly, “What if I did something really, really bad in the past?”
Limbo looks at him incredulously, “Worse than killing people?”
Crow’s voice cracks more, “Maybe? Maybe yeah?”
Limbo hums, “Is it going to be a problem now?”
“Probably not.”
“Then we’ll deal with it when you want to talk about it. Theoretically, in this situation, where you did something worse than whatever Shu’s doing now.”
“Yeah,” Crow asks again, not crying.
Limbo laughs, and squeezes him even closer, “Yeah. By the way, me and Shu dealt with Russell because you’re really, really out of it. You just need to tip off the police.”
Crow bites his lip and doesn’t cry, even more. Digs his palms into his eyes and takes a couple deep breaths. He’s fine, god, he’s fine.
“Can you,” Crow starts, and bites his lip harder at how needy his request sounds, “Can you and Shu stay over tonight?”
If they’re not here, he’s going to spend the night blankly staring at the 2006 sequel to Captain Ginger and picking at his nails instead. If they’re here, he’ll at least have company for a couple of hours whilst he binges it.
Limbo nods, as if this is something serious and not a lame request at all, “Sure man. I’ll go call him in. Are you going back inside?”
Crow doesn’t really want to, but the way Limbo’s asking feels like there’s a right answer. He hesitates, giving one last look into the calm waters of his pool, and then nods, biting his tongue to curb the returning anxiety, “Yeah… Yeah I’m going back inside. I’ll go send his bank transactions over to the police department.”
Limbo flashes him a thumbs up and climbs out of the pool, stretching like a particularly satisfied cat and yawning. He jogs back into the house despite Crow’s concerned exclamations of, “D-Don’t run!” and “Wipe your feet before you go inside!”, waving aside his concerns lackadaisically in a way Crow’s totally fining when he gets back.
Crow himself pauses before pulling himself out the pool. His feet and fingers are all wrinkled and he winces as he feels his entire body ache in a way that’s only possible when he’s spent the last day stock still.
There’s still a swimming dread in his chest he doesn’t know how to deal with, but, knowing in the next fifteen minutes Limbo will be back with Shu, that they’ll spend the night with him ordering in shitty Chinese food and complaining about it, that he’ll beg them to watch Captain Ginger with him to and that then they’ll spend every episode talking over it and complaining about the plot holes: He needs to go inside for those. He needs to… He needs to move, wade through the swamp of guilt and failure and disappointment he’d prefer sinking into.
More importantly, he knows he needs to be, at the very least, verbal, for Anima to donate to the children’s hospital he told himself he’d donate to a night- two nights- Jesus Christ- too. He sighs. One step forward.