Work Text:
“The fuck is this?” Flambae snaps, the rolling chair creaking dangerously as his heels hit the tabletop. “What, am I in detention?”
Robert pinches the bridge of his nose. He didn’t exactly expect a round of applause in response to his pep talk — at best, he could hope that the ex-cons would digest it quietly and in private. Nobody likes admitting that they’re in the wrong. He really hoped that Flambae would take his words to heart and simmer the fuck down one day.
But today was not that day. It doesn’t help that the sensory deprivation tank water fucked up his hair, allegedly. It looks exactly the same to Robert.
“Considering how much you all were acting like children this morning, I’m severely tempted.”
“Leave me out of this. I didn’t sabotage anybody.”
“Yes, good job. Now you just need to work on…” A whole torrent of adjectives come to mind, few of which are appropriate, so Robert simply waves his hand in Flambae’s general direction. “That.”
“Bitch, did you just gesture at all of me?!”
“No, I gestured at everything but the ponytail. That part’s a lost cause. Look,” Robert says quickly, hoping that Flambae will at least wait for him to finish his sentence before curbstomping him, “we’re getting off topic. You said something a little concerning back in the field and I wanted to check in.”
“Ooh, he wants to check in.” Flambae’s voice comes out in a mocking mumble, which is a good sign. If he can’t actually find something objectionable about what Robert said, that’s when the mocking voice comes out, if only to draw out his own anger.
“Yeah, the bit where you said that you wanted to die? Concerning.”
Flambae doesn’t slow his roll, he stops it completely. His mouth clamps shut. His face becomes pale and drawn. He looks like Robert just walked in on him with his pants down — actually, no, he imagines that would involve a lot more indignant screaming. Walked in on him with a gun to his head is more fitting, he supposes, although it feels more… cruel.
Fuck, it’s weird feeling sympathy for these assholes.
“I was joking,” Flambae says immediately.
“Nope. Try again.”
Flambae gets his feet down and leans over the tabletop a bit, and he suddenly appears smaller. He’s always big, of course, but he always seems to know how to spread himself out more, occupy more space, intimidate. Watching him put that act away in real-time is almost like a magic trick.
Robert read somewhere that the fetal position protects your organs from attackers. Flambae isn’t exactly curled up, but compared to his usual posture, he might as well be.
“I’m not going to institutionalize you, we just need to have a conversation.”
Flambae tenses instantly. Robert realizes, belatedly, that “I want a conversation” is what Mecha Man said a few minutes before slicing this man’s fingers off.
“Just… I need some reassurance that you’re not in danger of harming yourself, okay? I know we’re not exactly friends, but even if we were enemies, I still wouldn’t want anything to happen to you on my watch.”
A long silence.
“...Did anyone else hear?” Flambae breaks eye contact.
Ah. “No. I was pretty confident that I could get you out of there, but in the event that I couldn’t, I didn’t want the rest of the team to hear that.”
Flambae mumbles something that kind of sounds like “thanks.”
Gee, half of a “thanks,” that’s the most thanks I’ve ever gotten from you, Robert thinks. What Robert says is nothing, because he feels like he’s the protagonist of a horse girl movie and some untamable fucker is sniffing at the food in his hand.
The felon leans back in his seat, staring at the ceiling.
“...I had this fuckin’ fantasy, when I was younger. That if I blew my own head off—”
Flambae mimes a gun, complete with a popping sound.
“Or whatever, when people heard the news, they’d be sorry. ‘Oh, we should have let him know how hot and perfect he was!’” He says, falsetto. “‘We should have been nicer!’ ‘We should have… listened.’”
He leans forward again, suddenly exhausted.
“And everyone would miss me and feel terrible. Didn’t really give a shit about the actual killing part, because at least then everything would be over — I just wanted to fuckin’ explode and catch everyone else in the blast. And I wanted it to hurt.”
A laugh.
“Man, it’s almost like I’m a fuckin’ villain, or something, right?”
Robert sits down — it doesn’t feel right to be standing over Flambae while having this conversation. His knee goes off like a gunshot, and he hisses.
Flambae grimaces. “Hey, fuck my suicidal thoughts, your knee is trying to kill itself.”
“You unfuck those suicidal thoughts right now, we’re talking. First of all, you’re not a bad person because of things that only happen in your head. You’re a bad person because of all the arson.”
“What are you, my shrink?”
“No, I’m just a guy who wants to help. And what I’m hearing is that you haven’t had a lot of those in your life. I think what you actually wanted out of that fantasy was the reassurance that people care about you, and — well, you said ‘everything would be over,’ and I read somewhere that in a lot of cases, these kinds of thoughts aren’t really about death, they’re about wanting to escape a situation. It’s just that the only way you can imagine doing that is by dying. But you can stop me if I’m totally off base.”
Flambae has put his head down on the table and makes the grumpiest noises to ever exist into his folded arms.
“Look. I don’t know what you’ve been through, and you’re not obligated to tell me. I just need to know that you’re okay.”
Flambae makes an “ok” sign. It is, notably, with his fucked up hand.
“Need a little more than a hand signal to confirm you won’t kill yourself.”
“Oh, for fuck’s—” Flambae sniffs and raises his head. “I said I want to live, okay? I had those thoughts a long time ago. I was…” His face scrunches, like it’s painful to even say it. “In a bad situation. But it’s over now. I’m fine. I’m doing fine.”
“Good. You have an actual shrink you can talk to?”
“Mhm. It’s fuckin’ — required for my parole.”
“Okay. I would call ‘em. Long-standing suicidal ideation aside, you did almost die today.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be able to get an appointment in a few months.”
“Good psychologists take emergency calls. If yours doesn’t, complain. That’s one of your best talents, so I’m sure you’ll get somewhere.”
“You flatter me.”
“Please. If I wanted to actually flatter you, I’d tell you that you don’t need to set your own fires to be at the top of the Z-Team. You have that strength on your own.”
Flambae scoffs. “Of course I do. I’m perfect.”
“Sure, buddy. Just letting you know that it’s fine if you’re not. Enjoy your lunch.”
He’s quick to stand and rush to the conference room door — if Robert didn’t know better, he’d say Flambae’s almost running away, until he stops. And sighs.
“Robert?”
“Hm?”
“Thank… you,” he forces out. “Like… genuinely.”
“Just doing my job.”
Flambae rolls his eyes. “Go eat your twinkie, bitch.”