Work Text:
11 P.M.
At eleven p.m. that night, two minutes away from midnight, Medkit receives a call.
He huffs when his phone starts ringing. No doubt it’s Subspace, coming to annoy him again, possibly for the seventh time this week, since neither Sword nor Rocket should be awake at this unholy hour. His breath fans over the papers that he’s currently hunched over.
(His claws scratch over the wooden tabletop in agitation, going back to that spot with the permanently burned-in coffee rings to scrape at it. He wants to pick up, he really does, but he pushes the feeling down and swallows the pain.)
The phone case is cold in his hands. Medkit rakes clawed fingers through his mussed-up hair, picking up the phone and looking at its screen. The brightness is blinding in the dark of his room, where only a single lamp flickers with yellowish light.
Unknown Number, calling you from…
His thumb hits the answer button.
12 P.M.
“Subspace?” He tries, and Medkit can only imagine the static that comes out on the other side of the line instead of his voice, pouring out like droves of–
Wet, harsh sobbing slices through the silence and something clatters to the floor.
The silence lasts nearly an entire hour, yet he can’t bring himself to hang up. Maybe it’s the occasional muffled noises filtering through the call, showing some sign of life from the other, and then again maybe it’s the traitorous pity that worms its way into his system. He’s tired. Perhaps Medkit should go to sleep.
“Hello?” He tries, resolutely telling himself that this is the last time he’ll be saying that again. For the first time in a good forty-five minutes, the opposite line stutters to life.
1 A.M.
“ Hi ,” Subspace whispers hoarsely into the receiver of the phone. His hands are shaking. The knife gleams, dull, on the floor, as he hears Medkit gasp from the other side.
“I,” The healer mutters awkwardly after a moment of silence. “I didn’t know you’d start talking. I thought this was a joke.” He adds, feigning resignation. Deep in Subspace’s chest, his heart stutters. The metallic grinding noises of the night patrol Biografts sound, somewhere in his complex building, their heels clicking on the cold stone floor, but Subspace is still.
“I wish I could kiss you.” He says in a sort of drunken stupor, quiet yet so blunt that he can hear Medkit choke through the phone.
2 A.M.
“--I wish, I wish so badly that I could hug you and laugh with you again. You should feel disgusted, Med–” Medkit registers the renewed use of a proper nickname instead of Meddy , the noise haunting him throughout the years, although somehow he doesn’t mind much. “--but there’s nothing I can say, right? Nothing I can do to excuse myself?”
Subspace doesn’t wait for a response. “I guess, I mean– I guess I mean I’m sorry.”
And then the tears come. The healer can hear choked sobbing spilling out from Subspace’s side, raw and vulnerable and ever so honest, something that Subspace has never been before.
3 A.M.
“Go to sleep.” Medkit whispers gently into the receiver once Subspace has finally gone quiet. The call clicks shut.