forever and ever ago @chinesebakery requested a drunk!fitz mirror to this drabble, and here it is! Academy era. Not angsty but not fluffy.
“Thank you, officer, I can handle it from here.”
“I really am sorry, ma’am,” the patrolwoman repeated, eyeing Jemma’s pajamas and the blanket lines on her bare arms. “But he said he has no friends and your name was on the roster next to his—”
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t destroy anything else,” Jemma confirmed grimly, then shut the lab door behind her.
Fitz blinked up blearily from the lab desk they’d only been sharing a few weeks. His curls were smooshed on one side, like he too had been trying to sleep, though according to the campus patrol that had roused Jemma from her dorm room, he’d been here at least an hour, “improving” upon the other students’ experiments, in his own words.
“What’re you doing here?” he mumbled, a bright pink blush blooming across his cheekbones. He shook his head and turned back to the model in his hands – or rather, the remnants of what had once been a model before he’d handily dismantled it. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re right, Fitzy, I should be sleeping.” She ignored his scowl at the new nickname. “We should all be sleeping. Our first demonstration is on Thursday, or did you forget?”
“But you thought you’d celebrate with a drink, or five?” She gestured to the empty glass tumbler on the counter.
He shook his head, sharp enough she was surprised not to hear something crack. “Not celebrating.”
Jemma groaned. How the greatest minds could be reduced to a few syllables through alcohol or the presence of a shapely derriere – “Do you want to talk about it?”
This time Fitz actually laughed, a derisive scoff matched with a smug smirk he’d never have chanced with her sober. “With you?”
“Yes, with me, Fitz. You’re drinking alone on a schoolnight and breaking into private school property – you should’ve called me.”
Jemma had had about enough. She didn’t need to be friends with Leopold Effing Fitz to graduate: she only needed him to pass this lab, which would require several more months of barely tolerating each other and stepping on each other’s toes, but she could do it.
“You know what?” she snapped, stepping right up to Fitz and flicking his floppy hair with one finger, “You know what the cop said? ‘He has no friends.’ And that’s true! It’s not even a pathetic self-pitying exaggeration. Because anytime anyone tries to help you or get close to you, you do this! You act all sullen and self-sufficient and you just drive everyone away!”
He was staring at her, mouth slightly ajar, and the instant she stopped speaking Jemma felt shame wrap around her.
“I think you should go,” he cut her off, turning away and sitting heavily so she could see only his back and the uneven way he was breathing.
I’m just like you, she wanted to say, would’ve said if she were a different person, the type of person to reach out and touch his back and let him cry like he was so obviously about to do. I can’t do this either.
Instead, she walked away towards the door, twisting the tie of her pajama bottoms between tense fingers.
She had just opened the door when behind her, Fitz whispered, “Please stay.”
