Work Text:
The room was dead silent and pitch black before the communicator chirped, the peace rudely interrupted by the quiet tone. Elliot groaned from beneath his blankets, blearily uncurling himself from the nest he made of his bed and blinking his eyes. He was far better at seeing in the dark compared to the average human, but it still took his eyes a moment to adjust, and even then it was hard to see anything. Vision requires light, even night vision, and he’d curated his room to be as dark as possible when he was sleeping, leaving little for his retinas to work with.
He’d almost forgotten why he’d woken up at all when the device chirped again, snapping him awake from where he was starting to drift back into sleep. Elliot growled a little as he reached over with a hand heavy with exhaustion, lazily slapping his palm over the object on his nightstand and pulling it into bed with him. He clicked the button to accept the call and gave a little hum to show he was there, not bothering to flip it open to check who it was on the screen. He had no guesses, really, nor did he particularly care. The only people who possessed such communicators were the former students and faculty of the H.I.V.E. Academy, and the only people who had called his in ages were his teammates, talking long distance during jobs and using them essentially as a glorified walkie-talkie.
In fact, this was the first time since he’d joined the H.I.V.E. Five that the call feature was being used. There were two voice communication functions on it; one where you pressed a button to talk, like a radio, and the call feature, which functioned more like a cell phone.
He was slightly taken aback when his sister’s voice came out of the speakers, sounding hoarse and… weak. He’d been planning on just hearing out whoever called and going right back to sleep, even snuggling himself back into the blankets after having accepted the call, but something about the way she spoke had him sitting up, looking at the hexagon in his hand with tired concern.
“Hey, Ellie… I, uh, I’m assuming it’s you. I mean, this is your contact, and that noise sounded like you, but, um…”
He could hear her take a deep breath on the other side, followed by some shuffling.
“I— I’m sorry. I know, I probably woke you up, or you were in the middle of a job, or you were hanging out with your friends, or— or, whatever. I just— I…” Again he heard some movement and a sigh. “God, fuck, this is stupid… do you— can you, um, turn on your— your video? Please? I— I want to see you.”
Quickly he flipped open the screen, immediately regretting it when it lit up and temporarily blinded him, a small hiss leaving his throat while he recovered.
“Shit, fuck, I’m sorry. It’s— it’s fine, you’re probably busy—” She started to ramble, and before she could hang up on him he switched the video function on, shaking his head to let her know he was alright, then gesturing to his eyes and flicking his chin with his middle finger twice, signing “light.”
“Oh. Right. Yeah, that’s— don’t blind yourself.” She laughed a little, but like her voice it too was quiet and weak.
Elliot set his communicator on the bed in front of him so he could use both hands to speak, holding them up to his head as if taking a photo with a camera, and then tilting his head.
“I… I can, if you want. I just… I probably look like a mess right now. Sorry, I know this is weird. I just wanted to… I don’t know. I guess I just— I needed to—” She sighed again, followed by a frustrated groan. “Fuck, this is so dumb. I— I know you’re alive, and you’re fine, and everything’s okay and stuff, but I just… I don’t know.”
He gave a look of sympathy and a small nod. She didn’t need to explain herself if she didn’t want to or couldn’t. He understood, and he didn’t need to see her to talk to her like she needed to see him, though it was becoming obvious she’d asked him to turn his camera on for more than just being able to have a two-way conversation.
The room returned to silence for a while, the only sign that his sister was still there being the subtle sound of her breathing and the occasional noise of her shifting. Finally, she spoke again, asking, “How… How is everything? Back in Jump?”
He shrugged some.
“God, you’re a pain in the ass. Swear that’s your response to everything.”
He grinned at her tease, mostly just glad she was coming back to herself. Then, he stared off into the distance in thought, before gesturing again. He put a hand into a fist with his thumb between his middle and index, “T,” then made both hands into regular fists and crossed them twice for “fight,” his lips lifting in a silent snarl. After a short pause, he held out one palm facing the ground, and hit against the top of that hand with his other, still in a fist, making “meteor,” followed by pointing at himself and then sweeping a closed hand forwards, as if he was holding something and swinging it out.
“Holy shit,” Eden laughed a little, awed, “Did you actually make contact? Like— actually hurt her?” She asked.
He held his palm out flat again, but this time he wiggled it side to side in an ‘ehh’ gesture, with a facial expression to match. One hand was then held up with the index and thumb in an L shape, and the other smacked the index like a punch, “hit,” his head giving a small nod. Following that was sticking his indexes out in points towards each other and jabbing them together twice, “hurt,” and shaking his head some.
“Damn. Would’ve been crazy if you had. Either way, I can’t imagine the bird was happy.”
He shook his head again, this time with a grimaced expression.
“So how’d you guys get away with that? Like, even if she wasn’t badly hurt, there’s no way he let that slide. Little bastard’s totally got a thing for her, and he’s probably not used to seeing her bleed, right? He must’ve freaked.”
Elliot nodded, but then put his hands into what looked like ‘okay’ signs and waved them aside, meaning “distracted,” and grinned.
“Hah! Shit, I didn’t think of that! So were they all freaking out about Starfire?”
Again he made the ‘ehh’ motion. He fingerspelled out the word “Raven” and nodded, but followed it by putting his fingertips to his chest like claws and moving his wrists for “beast,” then put his hands out with palms facing each other and moving them up and down for “robot,” both words accompanied by a shake of the head.
“Right, yeah, that makes sense, since she’s got healing magic or something. Wish I could’ve seen how pissed she must’ve been about Robin panicking over nothing and you guys getting away because of it.”
He shrugged, scratching idly at his neck as things became quiet again. After a while he pointed at her through the communicator and tilted his head.
“Oh, I’m… I’m fine. Just, uh, had a rough day, I guess. Well— nothing was wrong with the day, it was fine. More of a rough night? I don’t know. It’s— it’s really fucking embarrassing, but I must’ve had a nightmare or something. I don’t remember what it was, I just… I woke up and I… I just needed to know you were okay. I don’t know, maybe I’m just still not used to living alone. Like— yeah, at school we had separate rooms, but I still knew you were there. If I really wanted I could go see you. Teachers might get pissed about it, but I could. Now it’s just…”
He held his hands like he was giving two thumbs up, touching one thumb to the other and moving it away in an arc, signing “far” and again tilting his head.
“Yeah.” She sighed.
He gave her a look, brows scrunched like he was concerned.
“No, Ellie, I already said I can’t. C’mon, I could barely stand your friends just when we got drinks together or shared a school, you really think I could live with them? I’d probably shred Jinx or throw Gizmo out a window on the first day,” She laughed a little, but it felt forced.
His lips tightened as he looked across the room at the wall, his face oddly guilty.
“Absolutely not. We agreed, okay? Look, Ell. This— this is good for me. It’s good for both of us. I can’t always…” She drifted off, and he had to wonder how the sentence would have ended. Can’t always be there? Can’t always drag him down? Can’t always need him? Knowing his sister, any ending was possible, so long as it held a grim view of herself.
The next bout of quiet was interrupted by a yawn, a loud yowl-like noise that made him smile some. Good to know that in the months they’d been apart, her many strange sounds hadn’t changed. He pointed at the communicator again, then held an open hand towards his face and brought it down, touching his fingers together through the movement, signing “sleep.”
“Ew, maybe I should get you away from those guys. Since when do you stick to real sleep schedules? Gross.” She joked, and he could almost see her stupid smile, even without her camera turned on. “Alright, fine, whatever, Sister Catherine.”
At that he made an exaggerated grimace, as if being compared to one of their former caretakers had physically hurt him.
Her laugh came through the speakers dulled, and he wished he could’ve been there to hear it in person, bright and loud like it was supposed to be, not crackled and muted. It faded into another sigh, her tone swinging wildly. He didn’t blink at the sudden change, used to his sister's emotional swings. She rarely felt things subtly, which meant she often went from a 100 on one side of the spectrum to a 100 on the other in an instant.
“This is… weird, and all, but… do you think you could leave the call on? You can shut off the video, I just…”
He nodded with a gentle smile, not letting her continue any further. As if proving he meant it, he moved the device back onto his night stand, placing it so the camera looked over his bed, and then laid himself back down, wiggling a bit to find that sweet spot between the pillows again.
“Thanks… Um. Whoever wakes up first can just go ahead and hang up. We don’t need to talk in the morning, just… you know.”
Again, he gave a nod, and after only a minute he fell back asleep, his room brightened by a screen and the soft sound of his sister’s breathing from halfway across the country.