Here Comes a Thought (Battleborn Fic)
Here Comes a Thought (1536 words) by charbax Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Battleborn (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Alani & Toby (Battleborn) Characters: Alani (Battleborn), Toby (Battleborn) Additional Tags: Meditation Sessions, Spoilers, for the character backstories, anxiety mention, unsanitary mention, please read fic notes for context its not anything like. body fluids tbh., death mention, accident mention, body trauma mention, Songfic, ...is it? Summary:
A meditation session between two beings with anxiety. Alani & Toby friendship fic inspired by tenta--prince's pic, inspired by an anon. https://charmemes.tumblr.com/post/175946413712/thanks-to-whoever-sent-me-this-not-my-best-but
Fic underneath readmore, otherwise AO3 link here!
Outside of the rogues, Toby rarely trusted people.
Ok, Ernest was an outlier, but only because he was actually really nice and was supportive of Toby, in that hard, commander way (ie. zealous use of 'Maggot!' and shouting). Honestly, it was helping Toby's self confidence make leaps and bounds ever since he signed up with the Battleborn, even if it threw him off sometimes.
But the commando bird was on a mission to Bliss, recapturing an old UPR base, and his own flock - group, he reminded himself, the Rogues were definitely not aviants, even if sometimes they felt closer than his own biological family - were on Fortune's Favour, not onboard Nova. With this kind of thing, they would be the first he'd go waddling to, but alas, there was only him and a scattering of others preseny. And while they were on varying scales of niceness (Bene-jerk notwithstanding), the thought of approaching them with this problem made him want to keel over and die instead.
Hence, he opted to wandering around the hulls of the ship like a feathery spectre, checking for faults, because faults could lead to holes, and holes could lead to failures, and failures could lead to systems malfunctioning, and systems malfunctioning could lead to Nova spiralling out of control and crash-landing onto one of the few planets left in the system, resulting in the fiery death of everyone onboard…
Even anxiety can ruin the easiest of tasks. Toby cursed. There also seemed to be a correlation between his stress levels and swearing, if the string of worries and extremities leaving his beak were anything to go by.
In fact, he was concentrating so hard on calming himself down that he didn't notice that he had barged into someone's space until he heard polite coughing from above, then a voice said, "Uh...you ok there?"
His beak clamped embarrassingly fast as he finally took in his surroundings. He must've stumbled into the water reservoir, judging by the water tank. The large room was windowless and dark, lit only by the blue glow of the tank in the lower half. Perched on top of a floating platform was one of the newer members of their motley crew, who was blinking down at him. It took another second of panicking to remember her name; Alani, the monk from Akopos. Outside of name and general calm nature, that's all he knew about her. After all, he's only responsible for checking the background of potential rogues, not the rest of the battleborn. That’s Ghalt’s job.
"It’s-it's nothing, miss Alani, sorry to disturb you, it won't happen again, sorry." He stuttered out, the word running together into one, conjugated disaster.
He was already backing out of the room before Alani replied, "It's ok! It's just a bit weird how you just walked in here. Without knocking."
"Sorry again."
"Wait! I mean," she sighed. "I meant like how preoccupied you were. Unless you normally barge it to people's rooms un-announced?" She unhelpfully added.
Toby made a noise of embarrassment, “Yeah, I don’t normally don’t do that. I was, uh, busy thinking.”
“About?”
“Nothing really. Just me being my dumb self and worrying about nothing, so sorry to bother you again, miss Alani!”
Alani was silent for a moment, from contemplation or awkward shock (Toby's money was on the latter), then she said "Want to sit with me?"
He blinked. She patted the space next to her with emphasis, the movement setting the platform bobbing gently on the water's surface. Would it...be ok? He could always just say no...and end up disappointing her more than he already did right now. With that in mind, he took a deep, fortifying breath, and scurried up the ladder on the side of the tank. It was easy paddling across the short distance to the platform, with him sparing only a moment to voice a concern.
"Uh, this is the ships water, right?"
"Yup." She confirmed.
"...won't we end up drinking this?"
"Yup.” She repeated. “Don't worry though, my nanobots- I mean, cleansing energy, gets rid of pollutants. They work a lot better than any water filter."
"But won't we be drinking them too?"
"Yeah, they’re probably inside your body already."
Toby had nothing to say to that apart from a quick face of revulsion. He didn't say anything else however as he pulled himself to Alani's metal island and gingerly planted herself next to her. "Okay, I'm here. Now what miss?"
"Meditate with me? Just copy what I do." And she closed her eyes, folding her hands pose-perfect onto her crossed legs. Aviant limbs weren't exactly great for crossing legs and twildling thumbs, so Toby let his flippers flop onto his outstretched legs, one on top of the other.
"Like this?" He asked. She nodded, then her shoulders rose and fell in a controlled breath. Like a bad habit, Toby's mind leapt to the worst conclusion of even the ever patient monk losing patience, and he already prepared to leap from the platform and make a second attempt to an ungraceful exit. He was stopped by Alani’s sheepish smile.
"Oops, sorry. I meant breathe slowly." She looked as sheepish as she could with one eye still closed. With a silent breath of relief, Toby inhaled and exhaled. Then repeated. And repeated.
She stayed silent, letting the only sound be the echo of dripping water. Toby was aching to fill the quiet with something, anything, extending but not limited to the non-existent weather on the ship, but miss Alani didn’t look like she wanted to be disturbed, so he sucked it up and tried to meditate as she said. His thoughts, as always, started swirling again, like a shard storm that decided that it wasn't done wrecking havoc on a science dwarf's laboratory just yet. Before long, he was squirming in his spot, struggling to remain still like the monk next to him. He was frustrated too. Frustration at himself, at the meditation, even the tiniest bit at Alani for not seemingly solving his problem. That last one he shoved back down even if one small, dark bit really wanted to let it fester and grow. And that wherein was the problem - he was bad at recognising what was his fault and what was the fault of others, so it was easier to lump everything together and blame himself even for the smallest of things, because, in the end, it meant he could fix it, and he wouldn't be kicked out again for not fixing it. It meant that he was still wanted by those around him, because what was he without others needing him-?
That’s when he heard of the sound of water churning instead. "Please don't freak out." Was her only warning. The water rose above them in a dome, smoothing over and clearing like glass. Despite the way it enclosed over him, Toby felt anything but anxious. Rather, it seemed that the room, heck, even the entire ship, had faded away, leaving them in a small bubble of just him and Alani. Like every problem, every worry, was washed away, if for the moment, to be displayed for his perusal.
"I thought it might help if you keep thinking of your worries being outside of the bubble.” Alani said.
The words burst out of Toby’s mouth before he could stop them. “But they still get to me.”
“Yeah, and that sucks. Things get to me too.” Alani admitted. “But I think, hey, I got my bubble. They’re just...thoughts in here. Like butterflies, I guess. Man I miss butterflies.
“Ugh, I’m getting distracted. I got my bubble! You got a bubble too. I don’t think you can actually conjure one out of water, unless avians can and I just didn’t get the memo. But you got one. And when the worries come fluttering back, bring it up, mentally. You are here. You're here. You're going to be ok.”
And the weird thing was that Toby actually...started to believe her. He can’t will away the anxieties, otherwise this would be the perfect universe, but it’s a lot easier to look at them from this side of the bubble. Through the watery lens, he could imagine what would happen if his Berg malfunctioned in the middle of battle and not stop the shot that might take Whiskey's life. Or if a mine detonated at the wrong moment, catching Shayne and Aurox in the midst of their blood run. Not only failing the Rogues, but the entire Battleborn. They were terrible, horrible images, but with the blue tint on, his mind already picked out some solutions – increase the frequency of the maintenance rounds. Train with Shayne and Aurox more to get a feel for their behaviour on the field.
Trust them, instead of bottling it up and letting the hurricane carry him away. Of course, that's easier said than done.
"Miss Alani?" He ventured quietly. "Can I...come back whenever it gets bad?"
"Sure! Just knock first."
Yeah. He can do that. "Thanks. For helping a little."
Alani just smiled gently, and closed her eyes again. He followed suit and let himself be.
'I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.'
