Summary: You finally reach out.
Warnings: Shame/self-loathing themes, explicit language
Word count: 1,1k
A/N: We're bringing some lightheartedness into this fic finally...!? :')
The next few days were ordinary. On the surface, at least.
You went to work. Cooked dinner. Folded laundry.
Life continued as usual, as though nothing had happened at all.
Except… you couldn’t get Brandon out of your head.
No matter how much you tried to push the thoughts away, they kept returning. You wondered what he was doing. How he was feeling. If he was thinking about you too… or had already moved on.
The worst part, you found, was the uncertainty. You didn’t know if he would ever reach out to you again. Whether it made any sense that you kept checking your phone without meaning to.
Your rational side told you to just forget about him. He had probably already found someone new to fuck anyway.
But the other side of you, your heart… it wanted to hold on. Maybe, just maybe he would text you. Maybe he hadn’t forgotten you.
And oh, it was so hard to figure out which side to listen to. You wished you could text him – perhaps just to have closure, to know where you stood.
But you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. You wouldn’t even know what to say.
~
One afternoon, you were out running errands in the city.
You hadn’t meant to take that road. In fact, you had planned to avoid it entirely. But it turned out it took only one moment of being lost in your thoughts to end up turning the wrong corner.
And you recognized it immediately.
The street where Brandon lived. Where he might be right now, just a few floors above the pavement. Only meters away from you.
You considered turning back. But you couldn’t. Something kept pulling you forward.
You stopped in front of his apartment building, your gaze drifting up to where his floor was located. He was probably still at work at this hour. Or maybe he wasn’t.
To avoid standing there awkwardly on the sidewalk forever, you had to make a choice quickly.
And before you could think too much about it, you entered the building.
You weren’t even sure what you were going to do. You doubted you had the courage to actually ring his doorbell. But somehow, it would have felt wrong to just walk away.
Because he meant something to you.
What a dangerous place to be.
You called the elevator. Rode it all the way up to the top. And there it was: The door to Brandon’s apartment.
You stood in the quiet hallway, eyes flicking between the bell and the door. Just one press of a finger and Brandon might be standing in front of you within seconds.
You tried to imagine the look on his face when he saw you. Would he be glad? Surprised? Or something worse?
With a quiet exhale, you shut your eyes, trying to make up your mind.
Eventually, you stepped closer and pressed your ear lightly against the door, listening for any sounds inside. There were none.
You didn’t ring the bell. He was probably not home anyway – or at least, it was what you tried to convince yourself of.
But still, you wanted him to know that someone was thinking about him. To leave something behind that told him you had come by.
You opened your handbag and pulled out a notebook and a pen. After tearing out a page as quietly as possible, you pressed it against the door and started writing.
Hey.
I hope you’re doing okay.
I would love to hear from you.
But no pressure.
Should you draw hearts?
Nah, that would be too cheesy.
You decided not to sign the note with your name. He would probably recognize your handwriting anyway, from when you had scribbled down your number after your first shared night.
You didn’t have anything to attach it with, so you gently placed the note on his doormat, hoping it would stay there until he got home.
After taking one last look at it, you turned back toward the elevator, heart pounding. You felt like a teenager sticking a note to her crush’s locker in high school. Hopefully Brandon wouldn’t find it embarrassing.
No. It would only have been embarrassing with the hearts.
~
Brandon had spent the evening wandering through the streets without any destination, trying to avoid the silence of his empty apartment.
Movement always helped when his mind wouldn’t let him rest. It was part of why running had become such a habit for him – it burned off energy, gave him something to focus on besides the heaviness in his chest.
He had smoked cigarettes, sat on benches, watched people, walked until he got too tired to keep going. Just anything to avoid being alone with his thoughts.
By the time Brandon finally made his way back home, it was well past eight. He trudged along the dimly lit streets, his legs heavy, hoping the exercise would help him fall asleep more easily later.
He entered his apartment building and called the elevator. He expected this to be a night just like so many others before, where he would shower, kill the remaining time until he went to bed, and try not to give in to old temptations.
But when the elevator doors opened onto his floor, he noticed something on the doormat outside his apartment. A piece of paper.
He knelt down and picked it up. The handwriting was unmistakable.
His stomach dropped.
Brandon fumbled for his keys and unlocked the door. Took off his coat and scarf. And he sank down on the floor, back against the wall, eyes fixed on the small note in his hand.
He read it.
Once. Then twice.
And a third time.
It was from you. You had been here. You had reached out.
His chest tightened. But for once, it wasn’t painful.
It was warm.
And before he even realized it, he was smiling. A real, genuine smile.
Not out of politeness. Not for an audience.
How strange that something so small could mean so much.
Brandon got up from the floor and went to retrieve his phone from the pocket of his coat. He unlocked it. And this time, he opened your chat.
The last message you had sent him was the one telling him you were on your way to his apartment. From last Sunday.
Nothing since.
He stared at the blinking cursor. Then began to type.
Stopped. Deleted it again. Started over.
And once he was finally satisfied with the sound of his message, he hit send.
Thank you for the note. I’m doing okay. We can call if you’d like.
Timothy Olyphant hopes Alien: Earth Season 2 gives Kirsh more action scenes and greater emotional depth.
“I'm particularly interested in his emotional range, because technically most people emote, cry, sob, and throw a fit when they're trying to get something, so a synthetic being shouldn't be any different, right?”
I often wonder what happened to Brandon's parents, since they are not mentioned once in the movie and never seem to call him or contact him (or Sissy) otherwise. Fassy himself pointed out that his own family is a great source of comfort and security for him, whereas Brandon has none.
Brandon mentions on the date that his family was from Ireland, so my personal headcanon is that they still live there and Brandon moved to NYC for work at some point. He might have intentionally ended the contact for whatever reason; possibly tied to the trauma that him and Sissy both went through.
