Archive of Our Own

Fade was many things.

She was doggedly stubborn. She was fiercely loving. She was analytical, and patient, and self-sacrificing. She was viciously persistent, hard-working, and deeply loving, in her own private ways.

She was a bounty hunter and a Valorant agent. She was a decent artist. She was a terrible cook. She was a person surrounded by thick thorn walls, defensive and protective, but deep down, she was just as soft as anyone else.

She was many things, but out of everything, she was not sick.

At least, that was her narrative. It was what she told herself as she woke up one day, just days after Vyse had been brought back to Headquarters, with her sinuses clogged tight.

Her throat killed, as if it had been raked from the inside with barbs. Her blocked sinuses made her dizzy and uncoordinated, and messed with her hearing, as if she were floating in a space not quite on the same plane of existence as the rest of her teammates. Her muscles ached, weeping at the slightest movements, and exhaustion had seeped into her bones until they were heavy and uncooperative.

Anyone who looked at her would have called her sick. If they’d tried to say it to her face, though, Fade would have denied it until her dying breath, so they kept it to themselves.

She’d been through a rough hit. She’d worked herself to the bone trying to help her teammates find the Hourglass base. She’d spent more than one night sleepless as she chased each trail she could snap up from the undergrowth, but the facility’s cells, aside from Vyse’s frozen chamber, had been empty.

She hadn’t admitted to herself how much she’d pitted on him being there.

After so long looking for him, it was hard to ignore the tightness in her chest that was growing increasingly present. At first it had been only a stab at his memory, but as the months drew by, it had become a consistent, crushing weight that she couldn’t combat.

As they’d chased Hourglass down, her lungs had constricted. She could barely breathe, as if she were holding herself suspended, frozen in place. The world around her passed in slow motion as her apprehension flooded the hole that her grief had left in her chest.

She’d been running herself so ragged, pulling herself so taut, that she hadn’t been prepared for how hard she’d crumble under her disappointment.

Her not-illness was almost certainly a symptom of it. The panic of realising the chase for him led to a dead end had been immense. She’d screamed down the phone to Brimstone, ranted until her throat ached and her eyes prickled with tears she refused to shed, and her adrenaline had then drained from her, hard.

She’d woken shivering from a fever just days later. It was another tough blow - likely a punishment for pushing her body so far without rest when she wasn’t a teenager anymore - but she wouldn’t give in. She shrugged off the fever and dove back into her work, even if she had to do it with her mind spinning.

“Fade,” Neon had frowned at her on the second morning of her symptoms, when she’d woken to see Fade with her nose completely blocked and her skin sickly and pallid. “You should stay in bed.”

The previous day, Fade had felt like shit, but she’d been able to get away with hiding just how bad it was. Her nose had been blocked, her throat had been growing sore, and she’d looked visibly ill with how pale and weary she looked, but she wasn’t quite so miserable as this, and she’d managed to speak with a clear head to anyone who approached her.

Now, it seemed Neon was putting her foot down.

She pressed a cool palm against her forehead and winced at the heat she felt there, but before she could fuss, Fade brushed her off, taking Neon’s hand into her own and kissing her fingertips.

“I’m fine,” she responded, and firmly ignored how her stuffy nose distorted her voice. “Don’t worry.”

“You can’t just tell me not to worry and expect me to say yes,” Neon cocked her brow. “It’s not like you’ll take better care of yourself even if I’m worrying. I know you better than that.”

She was right, as irritating as that was to admit. Fade tried not to scowl at being so easily clocked, and focused her attention instead on turning Neon’s hand to expose her palm and wrist. She kissed down her hand and across the sensitive point at the base of her wrist, and Neon ran her fingertips lightly over her cheekbone.

“Hey,” she said softly. “You can’t distract me.”

Fade grinned sheepishly into Neon’s palm, and kissed her wrist again.

“I can try.”

“No,” Neon’s stern face broke into a soft smile, and she bit back a chuckle. “I’m going to keep bugging you.”

“I can try really hard,” Fade’s grin grew, and Neon laughed as Fade rolled them over and buried her face in the crook of her throat.

“Fade!” she giggled, and Fade pressed a wet kiss to the hollow at the base of her throat.

“Tala,” she murmured, and nuzzled up the line of her carotid. “I’m fine. I promise.”

“Hm,” Neon hummed, sounding far from convinced. She lifted her chin, outstretching her throat so Fade could shower her in affection. She traced her fingertips in a slow circle across Fade’s back and heaved a quiet sigh.

She might have opened her mouth to speak again, but Fade’s body wrenched of its own accord, and she let out an explosive sneeze against Neon’s throat. Neon shrieked, ripping herself away as far as she could, and shoved Fade away with a vicious hand against her cheek.

"Tangina, kadiri!" she snapped. “Gross!”

“Ugh,” Fade groaned, her head swimming. “Sorry, shit.”

“Don’t sorry me!” Neon snapped. “Go blow your nose, you rancid ass!”

The sweet moment was gone, clearly, with no chance of returning. Fade grumbled, but she tiredly pulled herself out of bed and headed to the bathroom to clear her nose.

She cleared her nose and washed her face, and she might have lingered with her hands under the warm water for longer than she needed to. It was soothing, as much as she’d never admit that out loud.

Neon was waiting for her outside the bathroom. She’d stripped off ready to take a shower, but she stopped Fade before heading past her.

“You,” she scowled. Fade blearily met her eye - clearing her nose had made her feel a little more alert, but she was still struggling to focus. Her not-sickness was a weight dragging her down. It stuck to her thighs like a mucus-green bog and made it a battle to form a single coherent thought, let alone listen to her very angry girlfriend.

“What?” she blinked, and Neon’s scowl darkened. She shook her head, shooing Fade back towards her bed, and clicked her tongue in displeasure.

“Get back in bed. You’re not going to work today.”

“Huh?” Fade frowned over her shoulder at Neon. “Tala, I’m okay. I can’t stop now.”

“You can and you will,” Neon’s expression sharpened, turning dangerously flinty. “Look at you. You’re barely picking your feet up.”

“Tala,” Fade frowned, pushing back against Neon’s urging. “I can’t. Not now.”

Tala paused, meeting her eye, although her expression didn’t soften.

“Why?” She asked it less like a question and more like a cold accusation. Fade didn’t rise to it, and shook her head as she fought to answer her coherently.

“I just lost out on weeks of searching,” her voice was hoarse and crackling from her sore throat, and she didn’t have the heart to say it loudly. It came out barely more than a brittle sigh, but that was still legible in their quiet room. “I need to keep looking. I need at least a start on where I’m looking next. Otherwise, I’m…”

She trailed off, her words failing her. She swallowed, wincing at the pain caused by such a simple gesture, and Neon’s expression faltered slightly. Her face flickered, a glimpse of pity shining through her frustrated determination, and she slowly shook her head.

“Hazal,” she murmured, and Fade fought back against her instinctual urge to bare her teeth at that tone of voice. She couldn’t stand being pitied, even by Neon. It felt like weakness, and left her more vulnerable than she cared to tolerate.

She tore her eyes away, focusing instead on the aching in the muscles of her neck. It hurt just to hold her head upright, let alone to walk. Lying down did sound nice, as much as the thought of a rest day left her with far too many barbs buried under her skin.

“I need to keep looking,” she murmured again, and Neon’s lips pursed as her expression tightened with pain.

“Come here,” Neon moved past her to sit on the edge of the bed, and Fade reluctantly sank onto the mattress beside her. She took Fade’s hand into hers, and Fade leaned her shoulder against Neon’s for support in keeping herself upright.

She wanted to argue. She wanted to fight against the idea of slowing, but her heart and body were heavy. She rested her head against Neon’s and shut her eyes, and Neon swept her thumb back and forth across the backs of Fade’s fingers.

“It’s not your fault he wasn’t in those cells,” Neon murmured to her. “And it’s not confirmation of anything. You’ve been looking for him for years, and this isn’t the first rut you’ve hit, is it?”

“No,” Fade murmured, and her chest panged at the memory. Each time she reached a dead end, it hurt her more. It was just more reassurance that he was gone for good, and less hope of finding him, with so much time wasted on finding everywhere he wasn’t.

“You’ll keep looking,” Neon gently squeezed her hands. “And you’ll find another trail before long, just like you did before. You won’t find him when you’re all clogged up with fever.”

Fade pressed her eyes shut with greater force, as if she could crush the anxiety in her chest with her eyelids alone. She couldn’t choke up the traitorous thoughts in her head. If she voiced them, it would only give them life.

She couldn’t risk it.

Instead, she nodded quietly, and let Neon tuck her back into bed. Her nose was already beginning to clog again as she pulled the blankets back around her chin and turned onto her side.

Neon drifted away to take a shower, and Fade let herself drift, carried away by her fever into a not-quite sleep. She merely rested, breathing through her mouth, and her mind loosened until she was almost thinking about nothing at all. When Neon emerged from the shower, Fade cracked open one eye to watch her as she flitted about the room, pulling on her day clothes and equipment for her.

She filled a water bottle for her and grabbed flu medicine from Fade’s first-aid kit. She left both of them on the bedside table, bundled Fade with an extra blanket from the wardrobe, and then leaned over her to press a soft kiss to her temple.

“Stay there,” she ordered as she straightened up and turned to leave. “I’ll let Brimstone know you won’t be working today. You should go back to sleep.”

Fade grunted in response, and reached out from her nest of blankets to take a dose of medicine. It was paracetamol-based and promised to soothe her aching muscles and her sore throat. It was a small comfort and would hardly fix how shitty she felt, but it would give her the edge she needed.

She didn’t need much. She just needed to shift her fever far enough that she could seize the reins back from the fog of her blocked sinuses. It would only take a little push.

Neon would be back at the end of the day, and by then, Fade would be back in bed, resting as she’d promised. There was no reason to worry her.

It would be fine, Fade knew; if she got up to get some work done during the day, Neon didn’t need to know about it.

-

“Sick?” Brimstone sat back in his chair, and his eyebrows climbed to the lip of his hat. “That’s a first.”

“I know,” Neon snorted. “She’s hard-headed, but she really can’t get any actual work done when she’s like this.”

“Of course,” Brimstone drummed his fingertips against his desk. “Honestly, I’m just surprised you got her to admit it.”

“She didn’t,” Neon’s mouth twisted into a half-smile. “Not without a fight, at least. I’m going to get some soup started for her. I don’t think she’s going to get any actual rest unless I’m on her ass about it.”

“All right,” Brimstone nodded. “She was scheduled to work alone today, except for a catchup with Harbor. I’ll let him know not to expect her call, and I’ll let Reyna know she’s only got Gekko this afternoon. I think she’d planned a practice mission for you both, but maybe they can run drills with Deadlock and Clove instead.”

“Thank you,” Neon dipped her head in gratitude, and Brimstone gestured to the door.

“So long as there’s nothing else, you’re dismissed.”

That had gone smoothly. Neon didn’t often take time off, but she’d seen Jett and Phoenix take enough time off of work that she’d seen Brimstone fight back against some of their requests more than once.

Maybe it was that they in particular simply took too much time off work, or maybe Brimstone was only being so generous because Fade never took time off, but he’d accepted her leave request for herself and Fade without argument. Fade being sick enough to warrant a day off wasn’t something to question, it seemed.

She was certainly sick enough to warrant taking care of. Neon had known the second she’d seen her that she was in no state to be left alone to sleep this off.

Neon didn’t mind. She wouldn’t say so to Fade, but she liked taking care of her.

She’d been taken care of so diligently as a child that it felt a little like giving something back to a world which had been remarkably kind to her in her circumstances. She didn’t want to imagine what life would have been like without all the loved ones who’d thrown themselves into helping her.

It was cathartic, too, beyond all the kindness she’d been down. It made her feel needed. It made her feel human, in a world and a working environment that all too often made her feel more like a burden, or some kind of science experiment.

She wasn’t a weapon on legs, not when she was gently wiping sweat off of her girlfriend’s brow and making sure she had enough to drink as she slept off a fever.

She couldn’t do too much about a cold, but she had her Lola’s sopas recipe and a determined mind. She strode into the kitchen like a woman on a mission, grabbed macaroni, leftover cooked chicken, hot dogs, and cabbage, and got immediately to work.

It wasn’t a complicated recipe. It was homey and warm, tasting remarkably of Neon’s childhood. The smell of it, even as she got all her ingredients into the pot and brought it to a slow simmer, still sent her back in time to her Lola’s sunkissed kitchen.

They spent countless afternoons like this, standing patiently by the stove and stirring a pot of homemade warmth, while the evening sun bathed the room in gold and a neighbour’s chickens made a chorus outside. It was a vivid memory, even now, so many years later.

Neon’s chest stabbed with heartache, and she swallowed back her grief. It wasn’t the time.

Her Lola was in her heart always. Neon remembered her every day, and she’d always be a part of her, but Fade needed her now. Her Lola had always encouraged her to focus on the present when she grew too caught up in fearing for the future; Neon knew she would have said the same about being caught up in the heartache of the past.

The sopas came together quite quickly. Neon spooned a hearty portion into a bowl, separating the rest to be kept for later, and bounced once on the balls of her feet before turning to head back to her girlfriend.

She carried the bowl carefully back to Fade’s room and opened the door as quietly as she could - the doors sliding open was fairly quiet anyway, but she pressed her foot against the door to slow its movement, turning it near-silent.

She looked up and into the room expecting to see it dimly lit, with Fade tucked in bed and probably snoring. Instead, the work lamp was lit, and Fade sat at her desk, with her laptop and a notebook open in front of her. She was bent over the notebook, scribbling away, and so deeply drawn into her work that she didn’t notice Neon standing, gobsmacked, in the doorway.

Her astonishment soon turned to rage. Neon’s tongue ran away with her - and huh, she was starting to sound like her mom every time this happened - and she snapped, louder than she’d intended.

“Hazal Eyletmez!” she damn near shouted, and Fade jumped a fucking mile from her seat.

“Shit!” Fade cursed, and reached up to grab her chest. “For fuck’s sake, Tala.”

“Ano ka ba? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Neon stormed forward, slamming the bowl down on the desk and only quietly marvelling at how she managed not to spill it. “Get your ass back into bed, right fucking now, or I’ll shock you into a coma.”

“You finally learn how to pronounce my last name and it’s so you can threaten me?” Fade, still breathing hard as she came back from how hard she’d been startled, shook her head.

“Yes, I’ve been practising,” Neon scowled. “Now get back into bed.”

“It’s not that serious,” Fade raised her arms in the air, backing away from her desk and back towards her bed.

“It’s about to be,” Neon muttered, and her hair flickered, beginning to light up with the strength of her rage. Fade’s eyes widened at the sight. It wasn’t too common for Neon to get so pissed off that her Radiance began to crackle to life, but now, she was struggling to keep herself from lighting up like a high street on a winter holiday.

“Okay, okay,” Fade lifted her hands higher, and turned to wander miserably back to bed. “I was only doing a little bit.”

“I don’t care!” Neon urged. “You need to rest. Do you seriously think anything you write in this condition is going to be legible later? You can barely walk straight.”

Fade grumbled something incoherent, clearly irritated, but Neon brought over her bowl and pushed it insistently into her hands.

“Eat,” she glared down at her. “It’s good for you.”

Fade eyed her, her expression twisted in annoyance, but she kept her lips pursed and didn’t talk back again. She tried to sniff, only to come up short when her nose, entirely blocked, refused to cooperate.

“Gross,” Neon sighed under her breath and turned to refill Fade’s water bottle as she sank her spoon into the broth. She grumbled to herself all the while, with annoyance still flaring in her gut. “Haiyah, Hazal…”

She returned, water bottle and fresh tissues in hand, in time to watch Fade blow on her food, eye it as if it had personally offended her, and finally take a bite.

Her expression was frozen, twisted in displeasure for a while longer, before softening. She looked down at her soup as she chewed and swallowed, and a faint spattering of red dusted her cheeks.

“It’s good,” she mumbled, and Neon couldn’t help but smirk as Fade took a second spoonful.

“Good,” she admitted, only a little smugly, and sat on the edge of the bed to watch her girlfriend tuck into her meal.

Fade ate in silence, with heavy eyelids, but her shivering had stopped. Neon supposed the medicine must have done its job and eased some of her fever, although there was only so much it could do.

“Hays anong ginagawa netong tangang toh,” she murmured as she brushed Fade’s fringe away from her face and pressed her palm against her brow. “Still hot. You can’t have gotten any actual work done in this state.”

Fade bristled, clearly annoyed - Neon suspected she was bothered by how much she clearly enjoyed the sopas when all she wanted to do was be belligerent and fight back against any offer of help, but she couldn’t be too irritable when she had a warm bowl of soup to enjoy.

Neon watched as she slowly ate the entire bowl. She ran idle fingers through Fade’s hair all the while, and once she was done, she took the bowl to clean it out in the bathroom sink. She’d need to take it through to the kitchen and wash it properly later, but for now, she didn’t trust Fade to stay in bed unless Neon was watching her.

Stubborn ass, she thought to herself, grumbling a little more, but a soft smile tugged at the corners of her lips all the while. Fade was a belligerent little shit to take care of, but Neon loved her for it.

She headed back into the bedroom, grabbed Fade’s laptop, and got into bed at her side.

“Come on,” she announced as she sidled up to her and opened the laptop across their knees. “We’re watching a movie.”

“Oh, are we?” Fade chuckled, although she still sounded congested. “Do I have any choice in that?”

“No,” Neon rested her head on Fade’s shoulder. “If this is the only way I can be sure you won’t get up again, I’ll gladly force you to stay in bed and watch movies with me all day.”

“Okay,” Fade snickered, shaking her head but not arguing any further. She knew she’d lost all benefit of the doubt with her earlier stunt. There was nothing she could say to convince Neon she could be trusted to get some actual rest.

“I’m even going to be very nice and let you pick the movie,” Neon smirked, and Fade barked with laughter.

“Wow, nice.”

“Don’t give me that,” Neon looked up at her through narrowed eyes. “You always pick weird shit.”

Fade laughed again, but shrugged. She couldn’t deny it; it was true. Fade was more likely to pick a bizarre arthouse film designed to be a heavy statement piece than anything casual or light-hearted. She enjoyed films about the deeply honest horror of the human condition, which Neon had been intrigued by until she’d agreed to watch Eraserhead with her.

She’d been thoroughly freaked out, Fade had apologised, and from that point onward, Neon usually chose the movie whenever they watched something together.

Killjoy had an enormous library of films for the agents to choose from. She didn’t say how she got access to these, but none of them were under any illusion that she’d gotten her hands on them legally. So long as nobody asked too many questions, they were happy to ignore it.

Fade scrolled through the list and eventually settled on The Lighthouse. Neon had never seen it - it didn’t exactly look like her type of film - but she’d heard good things. It had won a number of awards, from what she’d heard, so she had some hope that it would be at least a little palatable.

She was proven wrong fairly quickly. Not long into the movie, Robert Pattinson was fantasising about visions of sea monsters and bludgeoning a gull to death in a fit of rage, and Neon found herself cringing away from the screen.

She could have complained, and in most instances she likely would have, but for Fade’s sake, she kept her mouth shut. She’d told Fade she could pick the movie, and she wouldn’t punish her for it.

As much as she tried to focus, Neon struggled to keep her attention on the movie. She wanted to pay attention, to show Fade the respect of showing interest in the things she liked the same way Fade did whenever she watched one of Neon’s movies, but as the movie descended into more bizarre visions and a complicated dance between two unreliable narrators, Neon found her eyelids growing heavy.

Her metabolism was high. They both knew that. Neon’s body ran at such a pace, driven like a machine that roared across granite streets, that she often found herself burned out. She grew hungry extremely quickly, seeking calories to replace what she’d burnt. If she didn’t refuel, or if she ate a little too much, she then often found herself exhausted.

She’d focused on Fade that morning. She hadn’t been hungry enough to take a bowl of soup for herself, but now, she wished she had, if only so she could stay awake to finish the movie with her.

She fought back against sleep, reaching up to wipe the fatigue from her eyes and biting down hard on the inside of her cheek in the hopes that it would bring her back from the verge, but it was a losing battle.

She drifted off to the sounds of a wave crashing into the characters’ living quarters, and in the edges of her consciousness, she felt Fade pressing a gentle kiss against her brow. She fell asleep with a soft smile on her face, and the gentle knowledge that even if she grumbled and scowled at Neon for forcing her to take it easy for a day, she still loved her.

It was a relatively short nap. Neon was only asleep for about an hour and a half. She woke up to the movie over, and the bed next to her empty, with Fade’s laptop shut on the sheets.

Neon stirred, grumbling to herself. She rested the backs of her fingers against the laptop lid to find it still warm - wherever Fade was, she hadn’t been gone long.

“Oh, Hazal,” she slurred, her words still thick and slowed with sleep. She pushed herself into a sitting position, scowling across to Fade’s desk, and found it was empty too.

Annoyance flared in her stomach. Neon took a deep breath, readying herself to get up and go find her girlfriend, but before she could move, Fade opened the door and returned with a steaming mug.

Neon glared up at her, and shouted, only mostly coherent.

“You!” she snapped, and Fade froze in place, lifting her free hand in surrender.

“I wasn’t working!” she immediately justified herself.

“You…” Neon, still foggy from sleep, narrowed her eyes. “Where…?”

“Don’t worry,” Fade chuckled. She was sounding more congested again - Neon suspected it wouldn’t be too long before she needed a fresh dose of medicine. “I took my bowl back to wash it and grabbed a drink on the way back. I promise, I’m not trying to work.”

“Mm,” Neon hummed, pondering whether she believed her. She sleepily scanned Fade’s face, but didn’t see any hint of a lie there. With a weary nod, she slumped back into the sheets and wiped the sleep from her eyes. “...Good.”

It was a small step, and Neon still wasn’t pleased that Fade had gotten up to wash up the dishes that Neon had already planned on washing later, but it was a step, nonetheless. She could accept a quick trip to grab a coffee over Fade sneaking to her desk to get extra work done.

Fade got back into bed, sitting up against the headboard, and grabbed a book from her bedside table. Neon shifted closer in the sheets and wrapped her arms around Fade’s waist. She nuzzled against her girlfriend’s abdomen and let her eyes slide shut, and Fade reached down to brush her fingers back and forth through her hair as she began to quietly read.

-

That night, Neon kicked Fade out of bed.

“Go take a shower,” she urged, even as Fade groaned in protest.

Fade had gotten a little better during the day. The medicine, warm food, and rest had done her good, but as the hours drew late, she was clearly going downhill again.

“Can’t it wait?” she asked with a completely blocked nose, and Neon shook her head.

“Trust me. You’ll feel better after some nice hot water.”

Fade let out another grumble. She cursed under her breath in Turkish, mumbling something long-winded that Neon didn’t understand and didn’t think she wanted to. Still, she got up and limped to the bathroom, clearly suffering from aches in her muscles once more.

She took a long shower. Neon listened carefully to the water running, and while Fade showered, she got up to strip the bed and put on fresh sheets. As she worked, she heard the snap of Fade’s hair care bottles and the slap of water against her skin as she scrubbed herself clean, and after a considerable amount of time, the shower shut off.

Fade emerged reddened from how hot the water had been, but her nose was a little less blocked, and she got into bed without any further complaint. Clearly, it had helped, even if she wasn’t in the mood to admit it.

Fade lay on her side, facing away from Neon. This wasn’t uncommon - Neon found it difficult to sleep unless she was holding something after years of cuddling Squish-Squish, and Fade enjoyed being held. It made her feel secure, although some nights she needed to be the one holding Neon, for the added security that she couldn’t vanish so long as Fade was holding onto her.

Neon wrapped her arms around Fade’s waist and pressed a gentle kiss to the slightly damp skin at the back of her neck. Fade’s breathing slowed at the contact, and she rested a hand over the top of Neon’s, tracing a slow circle over the back of her knuckles.

“Are you still angry at me?” Neon asked in a low voice. She kept her tone light - she didn’t believe Fade was actually irritated with her, but she reacted with bared teeth to any implication that she needed help. She took confirmation of her humanity to mean weakness far too often.

Fade snorted, and gently squeezed Neon’s hand.

“I wasn’t angry at you.”

The way she said it was weighted. She didn’t say so out loud, but her implication was clear - she was upset, not at Neon, but at herself.

Neon blinked slowly, and kissed her throat a second time, on the edge of her cat-paw Radiance marking. She had a thousand questions she could have asked. She could have needled her for details, but she didn’t think it would be productive. It would only have brushed against painful nerves.

She didn’t plan on asking for such personal details, but as it was, Fade didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m afraid, Tala.”

She said it quietly, but calmly. Her voice was level, and she didn’t move to turn to face her, or to grip Neon’s hand more tightly in stress.

Neon glanced up at her, and pressed her palm flat against Fade’s stomach, gently squeezing her from behind in the gentlest approximation she could make of a hug. It was quiet encouragement to continue talking, without pressure or questions that could end up being difficult to answer.

“I’m scared for him,” Fade continued, and as she did, her voice began to waver. “I… I really thought we’d find him in that facility. It sounded…”

She trailed off, her breath stalling in her chest, before she forced herself to steadily inhale.

“It sounded like exactly the kind of place that someone would be keeping him, but it was empty.”

Her breathing began to quicken, turning tight and rapid in her chest, and Neon gave her another light squeeze, hoping it might ground her.

“He wasn’t there, and we’re back to square one, and I don’t know how many more times we can go through this cycle. How many times, how long, how…”

She swallowed hard, and Neon watched her throat wobble. She was fighting tears, and they were beginning to crack her voice, although it had already been hoarse from her illness.

“I don’t want to think he’s dead,” Fade breathed, with so little force that it was barely audible. “I don’t want to believe it, I can’t. But, I…”

She trailed off, then, and didn’t speak again. She lay there and trembled, clearly still fighting back tears, and Neon pressed her nose into the crook of Fade’s throat, holding her tightly.

She didn’t respond right away. Fade needed time to let this wave of emotion, of near-panic and grief she hadn’t addressed, pass her by, and Neon wanted to choose her words carefully.

There wasn’t much she could say that would comfort her. The writing on the wall was clear. Whatever had happened to him wasn’t good, not after so long, and Neon would have been lying to say that she wasn’t starting to suspect he was dead, too. To assure her that there was no chance of it would have been lying.

Instead, Neon only held her tight, and promised what little she could.

“We’re not going to stop looking for him, mahal ko,” she murmured. “Not ever. We’ll rip up the earth on the far side of Omega if we need to. We’re not going to give up on him.”

It was a small thing to promise, given all they were up against and all the dead ends they’d already reached. It was all they had, though, and they both knew it with a grim certainty.

Fade twined her fingers through Neon’s and gave her hand a squeeze. She didn’t speak, but that gesture alone was enough for Neon to know that she was okay.

She was grieving, and struggling hard with the reality of another failure. It wouldn’t get easier, and Neon couldn’t take her pain away, and Fade knew that as well as Neon.

Sometimes it was all they could do to hold each other and know that if they were afraid, at least they could be afraid together.

Neon held her until Fade drifted off. It was a beautiful rarity to see her sleep - Fade rarely fell asleep first, and she almost always woke before Neon did. It was a blessing to see her like this, with her face smoothed over in sleep and her body relaxed, secure in the knowledge that Neon was holding her, and she wouldn’t let her go.

Neon pressed another gentle kiss to the stretch of Fade’s neck before tucking neatly against her back and closing her eyes. She fell asleep feeling Fade’s chest rise and fall, and willed her embrace to be just tight enough to hold her together.

-

Fade was sick for a few more days.

Neon couldn’t get clearance to take the next several days off of work, but she nipped back to her room between practice drills and training sessions to check on her, bringing her water, medicine, and more servings of sopas whenever she needed it.

Fade found it hard to take it easy. On the second day of her illness, when she was just starting to feel better, she asked Neon for permission to get up and do some work.

“Absolutely not,” Neon had said right away. She shook her head, pinning Fade with a strict warning stare, and Fade visibly deflated. Her expression crumpled in disappointment, and Neon pressed a sympathetic kiss to the top of her head.

“I’m feeling better than I was,” Fade argued, although her tone was subdued, and she knew she wouldn’t change Neon’s mind.

“I know,” Neon murmured. “But that just means the medicine’s working. If you push it, you’ll only wear yourself out and it’ll take longer to get better.”

She pulled back to meet Fade’s eye, and Fade begrudgingly nodded. It was reluctant agreement, but she knew Neon was right. She glanced down, staring gloomily into space at the notion of putting off the search for another day, and Neon softly chuckled.

“Hey,” she drew an affectionate thumb over Fade’s cheekbone. “Look at it this way. One day, I’m going to get sick, and I’m going to be chomping at the bit to go to work, and you can get revenge.”

“Revenge?” Fade cocked her brow, smirking at the notion, and Neon grinned.

“Exactly. You get to tell me I can’t go to work, no matter how much I whine about it. Suitable payback, I think.”

Fade snickered, and turned her face in to nuzzle Neon’s hand. Neon cupped her cheek and leaned in to pepper a barrage of kisses over Fade’s brow and temple.

“Tala,” Fade bit back a grin at the affection, and reached up to caress her forearms. “I’ll hold you to that, you know. Next time you’re sick, you don’t get to fight me when I tell you to stay home.”

Neon let out a bark of laughter, and agreed to it.

She turned to head out to work, and promptly forgot about the little promise of revenge she’d made. She didn’t get sick all that often, and once it was out of her mind, she forgot she’d even said it.

Fade’s playful warning should have been a clue that it would one day come back to bite her in the ass.

A few months later, Neon woke up struck with a fever and chills, and Fade had a little too much enjoyment on her face as she announced Neon would need to stay home.

Neon, with her brain turned to soup from the heat of her fever, blearily looked up at her and pouted. She might have retorted once she fought through the thick mud of her thoughts, but Fade shook her head before she got the chance.

“Look at me like that all you want, Tala, but you’re staying in bed.”

Neon’s scowl grew, and Fade couldn’t bite back her chuckle. Neon groaned, still too weary and fever-ridden to find her words, but Fade tussled her hair and turned to get out of bed.

“Stay there. I’ll call in for you and let Brim know what’s going on. Can you get back to sleep?”

Neon slumped miserably into her pillow, and twisted her mouth into a grimace.

“Yeah…”

“Good,” Fade softened her tone, but when Neon opened one eye to watch her get dressed, she turned to meet her eye and flashed her an impish grin.

“What’s that look?” Neon glared, and Fade shrugged.

“Just thinking about what you said last time I got sick. This is my revenge, remember?”

Neon didn’t, to be honest. She squinted, struggling through her shrouded mind to think back to when Fade had been stricken with fever, and when she finally remembered, she rolled her eyes and turned her face in to her pillow.

“... Hay, nako…”

Fade laughed, but crossed the room to bend over and kiss her on the temple.

“I’ll bring you some soup. Get some sleep, bebeğim.”

She left the room without another word and Neon was left stewing in her misery. She grumbled incoherently, angry at the world, but she couldn’t quite stay angry at Fade - not when she promised to take care of her even when she felt so rotten.

It was a small thing to promise, but it was all they had. Neon supposed that was something of a recurring theme in their lines of work.

They faced horror and grief on a near-daily basis, and they did it knowing it was the right thing to do. It was hard, but knowing they had each other made it easier, if only a little. They had no choice but to suffer through the heartaches of life, but it couldn’t be all that bad when they could shiver out their bad days with a belly full of soup, a make-up stain from a kiss still branding their foreheads, and their partner’s arms snugly wrapped around their waists.