Work Text:
Tendo wondered, sometimes, if home was a place, or merely a state of mind. There were a lot of homes over the years, full of love and loss and laughter, and every single one of them had felt like forever right up until the moment that they weren't.
He'd taken it for granted; he'd been arrogant. A mix of cultures had formed him, different countries, different races, all blended together into a warm, comfortable sense that anywhere could be home because he came from a little bit of everywhere. It was only when the monsters arrived to destroy it all, that he realised how wrong he had been.
He hadn't known how lucky he was, or how attached those deep, familiar roots were. He'd been living happily in the leaves, convinced that life was vast and secure, without the horrifying realisation that it was all one great, big, tree, and trees could be felled. Hell, not just that; the stump had been scored and burned, the earth salted, making what had once been eternal nothing more than a husk of a memory.
He'd found other places, too social to survive without them. A butterfly, flitting here and there and making the world a little brighter where he could. The PPDC had become home, and community; friends and relationships and eventually family, both by soul and by blood.
The blood, though… that was the problem.
He was a talker, not a fighter, but throughout it all he was there. He had hope, and when that hope guttered he learned to pretend, because the people dying on the other end of the comms deserved better than their guiding voice confirming what they all already knew.
It was a bit like religion; reaching out for solace and strength when the only real peace came after. Life was a long road, full of trial, sin and the hope of repentance, but there was only one end to it. Souls were eternal, mortal life not so much, and the only real difference anyone could make was the destination.
Heaven or Hell, hope at the end of the line or certain torment- it often felt that he was the one responsible for making the choice, in ensuring people he spoke to, people he knew, got a bearable passing. He was the the last voice heard by far too many, and it was more power than he had ever wanted.
Tendo was nobody's god, and rightfully so; he was too weighed down by regret, too aware of his own failures, but he had been… something. Something blasphemous. It was hard not to be, when yours was the voice guiding good people (better people than he could ever be) into the valley of the shadow of death.
He talked them through, lied when he had to, because the evil there was made to be feared. The kaijuu were the very embodiment of old testament wrath and ruin, so much so that Tendo sometimes wondered what they'd done to deserve such horror.
Other times… he knew. He spoke to, made Faustian deals with, the very worst humanity had to offer; saw them profit and pillage and ruin untamed. He'd learned that the true evil wasn't the creatures from the deep, after all. They were just the consequence. The Flood and the Reckoning, come to purge.
If the Breach had been some twisted rapture, it would make sense why so many good people died by it. More lives extinguished than anyone had the ability to count, but there were always the ones left behind. The ones who saw all that horror and somehow remained… they came out changed.
Hell, if it really was the Rapture, then Tendo's worth was judged in the crushing fact that he had survived. He'd placated, lied, and been handed the respect of people better and braver than he could ever hope to be. He'd heard so many last words, like a twisted Confession, and throughout it all he'd known that there was exactly nothing he could do to make things right.
It was hard to go back after all the things he'd seen. Heard. Done. All the lies he'd told, both to others and to himself; it's going to be fine, hold steady, someone's coming, just keep talking to me, they'll be there soon… Tendo had never taken a human life, but he still had blood on his hands, and sin of that magnitude corrupted.
He wasn't a hero, wasn't still alive because he was brave, or bold. He simply survived, staggering under the weight of his own confused guilt and the knowledge that if he touched the last, few, truly good things with his tainted hands, he might well ruin them.
“Well don't you just look miserable as sin. You're lucky you're pretty, Tendi, because on anyone else a face that long would be criminal.”
He'd been off in his own head (and yes, miserable as literal sin), which was Tendo’s excuse for jumping half way out of his skin at the sudden appearance of Jia in his personal space.
“Jesus fuck!” It was fairly likely that he'd aged at least ten years from the shock alone. “Gonna have to put a damn bell on you…”
“You'd be so lucky.” Perched atop Tendo's workstation wearing a little bit of red leather and a whole fucking lot of attitude, they weren't exactly easy to miss. His shitty headspace was clearly making him unobservant. “But don't change the subject, Bossman; you look like shit.”
“Yeah, thanks for that.” Tendo was more than aware how shit he looked; he'd not exactly been sleeping, since the shock wore off and reality set in. He went through the motions; clothes, hair, plastic smile, but there was only so many times he could paper over the cracks before the strain bled through.
Of course, Jia had probably known about that for longer than Tendo himself had. They'd been working together for, hell, it had to be going on six years now, and all of that time spent in close quarters and the proverbial trenches. It was hard not to see through each others’ shit after that.
His suspicions were pretty much confirmed, when instead of the shark smile Jia so expertly wielded, he was given a long, slow look from serious dark eyes. No cat-eye contacts today, which was reserved for days when Jia meant business.
“You've been avoiding Alison's calls.” Well shit, apparently Tendo had ruminated himself into an Intervention. “You've also been playing catch me if you can with Medical; I've had Jeth up in LOCCENT every day this week, and wouldn't you know it, every time he pops up you've vanished without trace.”
That- was not inaccurate, unfortunately. Tendo had cottoned on to the fact that Medical was stalking his ass around about the time Lars Gottlieb, aka Herr Dickhead, had been punted out the door. Apparently having two less Angry Germans to worry about had set Jethro loose on other likely targets.
Alison… that was another matter entirely. Tendo wasn't normally the sort of person who lied to himself, but he could bury his head up his ass in the name of self preservation. Pretending that he didn't know why the sight of Alison's name on his phone came with a looming sense of dread was one of the few screws holding his sanity in place.
“I've been busy.” The excuse sounded like bullshit, even though it was technically true. Tendo had been busy, doing a whole lot of work that he'd made for himself as an excuse to escape how shitty he felt.
“Sure you have.” Jia was too perceptive by half, and it was fucking annoying to be on the recieving end of their single-minded attention. Well, unless it was a sex thing; that sort of lethal focus tended to work out quite nicely. Or it had, before Tendo's libido had skulked off to die somewhere quiet.
“What do you want from me, Jia? Confession?” Tendo was tired. He was exhausted, sick of the mess his head had spun into and miles beyond the point where talking about it would make a damn bit of difference.
He could barely get his head round what he actually felt, or why he was so overwhelmingly terrified at the thought of going home to the family he thought he'd been fighting for this whole time.
Jia made a decisive sound. “I'd be a shitty priest.”
Honestly, they were more suited to the form of some ancient, pagan god. Deceptively powerful, perceptive and mercurial; lust, hunger and the ozone twang of old magic at midwinter. It certainly wasn't difficult to picture Jia wearing a ram's head mask and little else, dancing in the moonlight.
“Yeah, the Seal of Confession is hardly your vibe.”
“Ha!” In truth, Jia could keep a secret better than most, but rarely saw the need to. Knowledge was power, and they always seemed to have an abundance of it. “I get enough psycho-bullshit injected into my brain from the Drift, like fuck am I doing any of that shit myself.”
As if Jia didn't routinely use their near-lethal understanding of human behaviour on the unsuspecting masses. Usually, it was obnoxious politicians and incredibly shady mafia types, but nobody was actually safe from their all-seeing gaze.
Fuck, but Tendo missed the days when they used that power to psychoanalyse their way into a threesome. He felt less naked with his cock in their mouth than this. “So, what, you're just here to lovingly point out how shitty I look as a weird kind of PSA?”
“Eh.” Jia smirked, but the underlying emotion was mortifyingly gentle. “It's a slow news day on our secret, no Bossman allowed message thread. I have to find my fun somewhere.”
One of these days, Tendo was going to convince Newt to hack into that group, because it absolutely did exist and that knowledge routinely drove him up the damn wall. Though perhaps on a day when they weren't discussing how hard he sucked at life. “Which one of them put you on babysitting duty?”
Jia huffed out a laugh, and flashed too-sharp teeth at him. Apparently it was a fanged retainer day, which normally would have tweaked Tendo's sex drive, but it was difficult to dredge up a response when his head was a mess of anxiety and survivor's guilt. “All of them. Obviously.”
How lovely; apparently Tendo had gained a whole legion of mother hens. “And you're not selling me out to Jeth and his doctor agenda because-?”
“I'm not selling you out yet.” Jia fixed him with a long, assessing look. “The Rules are there for a reason, remember.”
“I'm not about to do something-” Tendo wanted to say stupid, but suddenly all he could think about was Hermann, alone in the lab, confessing how bad things had gotten without any of them realising. “I'm not going to do something I can't take back.”
It went against everything his faith had ever taught him, for a start, and deep down Tendo knew for absolute certain that he was alive for a reason, and would keep on being that way until God's will said otherwise. Yes, he was conflicted, miserable, confused, but he wasn't looking to do something final.
“I believe you.” Strange, how nice it felt to hear that. Jia was the master of bullshit, but not when it mattered, and Tendo had started to doubt himself a little. “But that doesn't mean you're okay.”
“Are any of us right now?” The world was a damn sight more okay than it had been in a while, but that didn't exactly fix the damage that had been done. There weren't monsters erupting from out of an interdimensional rift anymore, which was nice, but the damage they caused wasn't going away in a hurry.
Fuck, Tendo wanted a drink. He also didn't want a drink, because he felt a little bit like once he started he wouldn't know how to stop. Cancellation of the apocalypse or not, he couldn't actually afford to deep drive into a mire of self-pity and alcoholism. Jeth would absolutely murder him…
Hopefully unaware of Tendo's spiraling inner narrative, Jia shrugged a shoulder. They made a big show of examining their nails, which were painted a glossy, stab-a-bitch red.
“Shit's complicated.” Their dark eyes were scarily intense, when they flicked up to meet Tendo's searching gaze. “We've been living at ground zero, dealing with the worst shit imaginable, but despite what it looks like from down here there's still plenty of normal out there.”
It didn't feel possible, but Tendo knew it was true; just because his universe had been carpet bombed into rubble didn't mean the whole world was like it. Earth was a big damn place, and those useless fucking walls had been put up to protect something real.
“I guess it doesn't feel real, from where I'm standing. Logically, I know there are places out there that have been pretty much untouched, but we've seen nothing but shit for so fucking long.” Tendo suddenly felt dangerously close to the horrible, twisting knot of discomfort that had sent him spiraling in the first place.
Jia clearly smelled blood in the water; their eyes were suddenly sharp enough to cut. “Earth's a big planet, humans are tiny. A whole country can be bombed into rubble and a plane ride away there's a father of four with heart disease eating McDonald's.”
Definitely too close! Tendo was suddenly crushed by the knowledge that Raleigh had been clawing out an existence building that godforsaken wall. Rations, starvation, the chance to eat all tied up in how much you were willing to risk your neck… and half the world away there was Tendo, bitching about a weird tasting bagel.
“Jia…”
“Tendo.” It actually made him feel worse, when Jia's sharp gaze softened into something that could only be called compassionate. “I'm not actually trying to get into your head about this.”
Like fuck they weren't. Tendo dredged up a scowl that felt a little bit like too much effort. “Bullshit.”
Jia didn't immediately snap his head off; a clear indicator of how obvious his impending breakdown was becoming. “I'm not. I'm the last person you want to pick this apart with, and we both know it. I'm just here to knock you out of your own head for a minute, before you get lost in there.”
It was a bit late for that, in Tendo's opinion. He'd been circling the abyss before a whole bunch of people he knew really fucking well had ended up dead in a matter of minutes. The world no longer ending and their jobs of the last decade suddenly becoming obsolete was just the cherry on top.
“Right. What should I be doing, then? You know, aside from my actual work.” Hopefully Jia wouldn't mention how little of that Tendo had actually been doing; too caught up in his own shit to focus on anyone else's.
The look that earned him? Oh yeah, Jia definitely had a whole bunch to say about it, but they were probably going to take pity on him. At least they might, if he canned the attitude.
“Right now you need to get the fuck out of LOCCENT.” As if by magic, Jia produced a little plastic container from what felt like thin air, and waved it at him. Inside was a single, perfect cupcake, complete with swirly blue and yellow frosting. “Take this to the helipad, smoke some dope, maybe throw shit at the ocean.”
Tendo wasn't hungry, but he took the damn cupcake; you didn't just say no to Jia when they had that look in their eye. “You think that'll help?”
It wasn't an entirely honest question, and the both knew it, but Jia was kind enough to grace him with an eye roll instead of the third degree.
“I think it'll get your ass out of LOCCENT, because in, hmm...” They made a show of checking their watch. “Oh, about five minutes time, Jeth will have escaped the bitchy little edgelord I sent to distract him, and you had better believe he's coming for you.”
Well shit. Apparently it was time to make himself scarce. “You sure he's not going to follow me up there?”
Jia just smirked at him, because of course they fucking did. “Oh yeah. My weaponised edgelord promised to mention that was where he was going; barring an actual medical emergency you've got yourself a Jeth-free zone for the next couple of hours.”