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Sterling was tired.
Unsurprising, considering the… everything, of the last few months. Still, it didn’t feel fair to wake up tired. Even during the literal war he’d never felt this bad. Deimos was still alive during the war. He flung an arm across his eyes, taking a stuttering breath. So it was going to be one of those days.
After probably way too long, he worked up the energy to get up, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, purposefully not looking at the other side. Alexis had come by, a month after the funeral, and put all of her things into boxes. Sterling was appreciative, really he was, but it had hurt, it had hurt so much, to see the last things of his lover packed away. He’d yelled at Alexis. She’d taken it, waiting for him to run out of steam, before gently telling him that keeping reminders around him wasn’t going to help him move on. He hadn’t responded, because all he could think was that he didn’t want to move on, and he didn’t want her to bring up therapy again. He might not be fine, but he didn’t need a stranger telling him how to grieve.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the floor-length mirror leaning next to the door, and suppressed a sigh. Okay, seeing the bags under his eyes himself, he could understand why Alexis was so worried. Maybe he should go back to bed. His body apparently disagreed, as the building pressure in his bladder reminded him that he should probably go deal with that before trying to sleep again. He ran both hands down his face before opening the bedroom door.
A flash of red in the corner of the room made him pause, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. It really was going to be a bad day, huh?
“Hey Dee.” He muttered, offering a brief smile in her direction before heading to the bathroom. At least today’s hallucination took after the Deimos he preferred to remember, instead of the one they’d buried. He patted his hands dry on a towel that really needed to be washed, pulling it off the hanger and tossing it into the laundry before returning to the apartment’s main room. Deimos was staring at him. That wasn’t unusual, but the perplexed expression was. Normally she just looked sad.
“I restocked your favourite cereal.” He told her. “I’m gonna have toast.”
“What?” It was quiet and confused. She was staring at him still, tail flicking back and forth in agitation.
“You still like Apple Jacks, right?” Do hallucinations have cereal preferences? They’d never spoken about it before.
“...Yes?”
“Oh, good.” He smiled at her again, popping two pieces of bread into the toaster before pouring a bowl of cereal. By the time he’d added the milk, his toast had popped, and he buttered it quickly. When he turned around, Deimos was staring at the bowl like she’d never seen cereal before.
“Not up for it?” He asked calmly, taking a bite of his toast.
“Are you okay?” Ha, no, I’m fine, just hallucinating my dead girlfriend.
“Hmm, well I thought I was.” He shrugged, looking into his water. “Guess I’m not if my conscience is asking me that, though?”
“Conscience?” Deimos echoed.
“Oh.” He really didn’t want to do this today. “I guess you’re one of those, huh?”
“What are you talking about Sterling?” And she was stepping forward and all he could do was close his eyes, because he didn’t want to deal with this.
“Y’know,” he hummed, “maybe I should take Alexis up on that therapy thing. Because I really don’t want to have another shower breakdown tonight.”
“Sterling-”
“So, can we maybe skip the whole, ‘I’m not really dead’ spiel? Please? Because if you’re convincing enough, I will believe you, and I don’t want Alexis to have to deal with that.” She’d looked so heartbroken, last time, and he hadn’t even told her about the hallucinations. She’d just found him curled up in the bath, staring into space.
“What- did you hit your head?” Deimos reached into one of the pockets on her belt, and huh, Sterling had forgotten she used to clip pen lights on the inside of each pocket so she always had one. Her favourite was a cherry red one with blue flower stickers. He didn’t know where it had gone. The one she was holding now was dark green.
“I’m okay, Dee. Promise.” That got him an achingly familiar look of disbelief.
“Sterling, you’re not making sense and you’re reacting far too passively to your dead girlfriend standing in your kitchen.” Sterling flinched at “dead”, but didn’t disagree.
“I guess I got used to it.” He muttered. The light paused, pointed to the table, and huh, Sterling didn’t realise hallucinations could interact so cleanly with the environment around them.
“What do you mean, ‘got used to it’?” She sounded upset. Well, if this one thought she was real, she probably wouldn’t react well to being told she wasn’t.
“I’ve been having a good week, too.” He sighed. “Well, at least you’re whole. The last couple have been, well, you know better than me. Maybe this is a good sign- although the first few were whole too, and Google said that was sign of denial, but I know you’re dead, so I don’t think I’m back in denial.”
“Sterling, I’m- I’m not a hallucination, or whatever you think I am.”
“Okay.” He replied amiably. He didn’t want to argue, even if she wasn’t really there.
“I mean it- have you been hallucinating me? That’s- shit, Sterling, I’m sorry.” Sterling blinked. That was new. Deimos ran a hand through her hair, wrist looping around her horn and pulling her hair to twist around the base.
“Fuck, I didn’t- I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I just thought- well, I thought you’d move on. I never meant to hurt you.”
“It’s not your fault.” Sterling didn’t like this. Alexis had been working hard to convince him Deimos’ death wasn’t his fault, but he didn’t want to transfer blame to Deimos, that wasn’t fair, and it was a cruel thing for his mind to do. Maybe he was still in a bit of denial.
“It is!” Deimos snapped. “I knew, I knew going into it that I was going to die, and I was selfish, because I didn’t think it would hurt you but it has. It has.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not! You think I’m a hallucination!” She groaned, tugging at the ends of her hair and Sterling instinctively leaned forward to stop her and-
And he caught her wrist.
They both froze.
“Dee?” Her hand dropped and she twisted his grip so they were holding hands.
“Yeah, Silver. It’s me.” She offered a weak smile. “Surprise?”
Sterling moved before he could think and wrapped her in a hug. Fuck, if this was a trick or a dream, he didn’t care, because she even smelled like her, that faint mango scent of her shampoo, and he hugged her tight to his body. If this was a dream he didn’t want to wake up.
“Sterling?”
“Shh.” He whispered, holding back tears. “I- if this is a dream I’m going to cry.”
“It’s not.” She pulled back to look him in the eyes. “But Sterling- I do- I need to tell you something. Because I’m not dead and I lied but I don’t want to keep lying.”
“Okay.” He buried his face into her hair and breathed. “Okay. Can it wait? Just for a little bit?”
And she relaxed into his hold and hugged him back and,
“Yeah. Yeah, it can wait.”