Work Text:
“How’s the set looking?”
Cleo startles, “Knock before you come in next time, X. As for the set, you’ll have to see for yourself.”
“Sorry,” Xisuma wanders further into the room, peering at the set, “I forget, sometimes, about your predicament.”
“Call it what it is,” They say, tone dripping with spite, “A curse.”
Xisuma nods, clearly not wanting to press her any further.
“This is all looking great,” He remarks after scanning through her creations, “And Joe’s happy with it all?”
She snorts, “I’d hope so, considering he helped make most of it.”
“Oh, I forgot you guys are good friends!” He lightly smacks his knee.
“You seem to be forgetting quite a lot these days,” Cleo points out, “I mean, sure we’re only three weeks away from the performance-”
He interrupts her, groaning, “Don’t remind me!”
“-But you ought not to put so much pressure on yourself! You always lecture us about taking on too much, and then you turn around and do exactly the same yourself!”
“That’s my job, Cleo,” Xisuma says bluntly.
They grimace, “Your job is to direct the rest of us, not to carry our burdens. Take me for example, the set is almost done and looking good. I’m feeling fine about my role, and yet you’re in here with me for no reason other than to stress yourself out!”
“You have a point, I suppose. I’ll get out of your hair,” He darts for the door, leaving before she has time to question him.
“That wasn’t me asking you to leave!” They sternly bark at the door, but he’s too far gone to hear them.
Cleo sighs, rather wishing Joe was around. Sometimes, she feels like the others at the company are frightened of her. Whether it’s the blotchiness of her skin and the sickly look the curse has given them, or their consistently fiery manner, Cleo isn’t quite sure, and hiding away in the workshop hardly gives them any revelations in that regard. But either way, Joe has never seemed phased by her. He’s never once treated her differently from any other human, because at their core Cleo is human, in spite of all the stitches and sawdust that roam beneath her skin just as in every one of her creations.
Still, there’s better things to do than worry about other people, and lingering on those thoughts would only make her a hypocrite.
Instead, they get back to work.