It is coming home, the way she holds her breath as she takes her shaky-steady steps up the pedestal that holds the portal in place—a beam of pure light the size of the floor mirror in her room in her mother’s place, prepared to swallow her whole. Between one breath and another, she leaves the cold gray room full of personnels in stupid hazmat suits for the familiar teal green sky that she dreams of every night she closes her eyes—in her end-of-hallway rooms, worn-out sports duffel bag in the corner as the only constant in her life.
Now, the same duffel bag hangs over one shoulder against her side, but she isn't there anymore. Because she is home. And home is waiting for her on the end of the grand quartz path leading off the portal, in his spider wagon with that grin on his face that he hasn’t quite managed to practice with her yet.
“Grimesy!”
She’s running to him like a little girl winning her first big game, a father yelling her name on the bleachers, in the audience, in the crowd along the sidelines. Something Sasha has never quite had, but she reckons it would feel like this, running into someone’s arms like they’re the whole world. Letting them take her bag to store in the back while she climbs up, makes herself comfortable on the little wagon bench near the saddle, feet up on the board. Grinning ear to ear at the way he looks back to make sure she’s there, really there, not another one of his little daydreams where he catches a glimpse of blonde on the corner of his eyes when he’s reading, around the corners of the house when he’s all alone.
Grime reaches out to pat her shoulder twice. Between the crackling that the wheels make as it collides with the pebbles along the path to the city, the glassy sheen lining his good eye felt like a jab to her rib. Wants to tell him I’m sorry you had to go all this way to pick me up on such short notice. Wants to tell him I didn’t think you’d come for me. Wants to ask him why did you come anyway? Knows his answer will be the most endearing shit she’ll ever hear in her life even if he coughs it out a little awkwardly, and her throat will go all tight and sharp because he loves her more than she knows it.
She doesn’t, though.
“Your grin is getting uglier every day.”
He rolls his head around and scoffs. “Well hello to you too, Sasha, nice to see you back.”
She stifles a laugh. “But hey, a little practice with me and it’ll get you all the ladies around with that winning smile of yours.”
“Exceptionally bold of you to assume it’s the ladies that I want.”
The sun is just tipping towards the horizon by the time Grime pulls over the wagon in front of a tiny cottage just outside of Wartwood—she’d been all drowsy from sleep when he woke her up and guided her off the wagon into the front porch, but she’s pretty sure her room being half covered with pink paint has nothing to do with it.
“Oh, dear frog—I completely forgot to tell you about all that,” Grime says when he finds her standing still at the doorway of her bedroom with her jaw hanging in confusion. “It was supposed to be a surprise and I thought I’d still have time to finish it before you visit, but I guess you’re far too impatient for that.”
And Sasha laughs, truly laughs, because there’s messy traces of baby pink paint along the wall before it ends halfway around the room—there’s a splatter of pink on the corner with the bucket of paint like he had abruptly thrown the brush back into the can when he messaged him this morning, dropped everything he’s doing for her because she’s coming, and he’s coming for her, and he loves her more than she knows it.
There’s that sharp pain in her throat again, and Sasha does her best to swallow it whole, urging her feet to step into the room and drag her duffel bag with her.
“And oh, I’ll be out getting some groceries before the store closes while you’re unpacking,” Grime calls out from the living room, and she pokes her head out the doorway with a small frown.
“Oh it’s cool, don’t worry about it—I brought us those cheeseburgers you liked,” she shrugs, “we can have it for dinner?”
“As much as that idea appeals to me, I don’t like having you around without food in the kitchen,” he waves her off dismissively, making his way around the couch and towards the front door. “We can eat your burgers tonight, but I’m still getting those vegetables I know you never eat.”
Sasha scoffs out a laugh, shaking her head and jumping onto her feet, soles of her shoes thudding against the wooden floor. “Okay, okay, but I’m coming—wait up!”
“Hurry along then, Grub n’ Go is closing in a few hours—did you not take your shoes off in my house?”
Maybe sometimes, when she’s getting a snack or two, but she doubts that could be called grocery shopping. Other times, she’s helping the Boonchuys carry all their bulk supplies from SpendCo, trying to pretend for a moment that she’s not fantasizing being a part of their happy family when she's walking along their side—but mostly, her allowance is spent on takeouts, eating dinner from a carton box on the hood of her car, swinging her heels against the trunk and watch the traffic go by. Throw her famous duffel bag over her bedroom window—at her mother’s or father’s, it doesn’t matter. There’s not much of a significant difference to it anyway; she’s not interested in their little game of happy family, and they all know it—so they leave her to her demise, and she lets them play their little game, listening through the walls from her end of hallway rooms.
It matters when she does it with Grime, though. Watch him browse through the aisles with a basket clutched on his side like he’s some kind of warrior-turned-housewife overnight, giggle to herself at the thought of it, lets him roll his eyes at her with that pretend-exasperation in which she knows drips with fondness anyway.
Skipping towards the cashier with a grin, smiling over the simplest things; dropping cabbage heads and cauliflowers into a bag, hang it over one shoulder and feels that the weight no longer bothers her; because she’s swinging groceries rather than that old duffel bag, and here, she’s not packing all her love into a bag and drag it around hoping someone would give her somewhere to put it down. Here, her love is packed in a bag to be chopped and cooked over fire, thrown on a plate; here, her love is on the dinner table, on every wooden strip that holds the house up, in every brush stroke of the paint lining her walls.
To think of what she started with here…
“Keep up, Sasha, you’re eating those vegetables no matter how hard you cry about it!”
Somewhere along the line, that changed—with the rising of the sun, every constellation that glimmers in the dark, the love grows; and so will she.
It’s probably an intoxication hazard, eating cheeseburgers with pink paint smeared on her hands, but the both of them don't seem to really care, sitting with backs against the rest of the unpainted wall.
She’d picked up the brush so that Grime wouldn’t make her eat the vegetables he brought, at least not tonight—she’d been hoping to stall it for as long as possible on her visit here, but with how keen Grime is on cooking for her, Sasha doesn’t think it’ll work for long. Either it’s him trying to be fatherly, trying to show what he’s learned on his cooking lessons with Hop Pop to beat the makeout session allegation she’s been teasing him with, or if he just really liked making her suffer—Sasha doesn’t know. But she could appreciate the gesture, whatever it truly is—because why would he be here, telling her to put vegetables in a basket even when she’s groaning all the way about it? Why would he build a house with a room across his and paint it baby-pink if it weren’t to tell her no matter where you go, there’s a little room in this little cottage I built with my hands where you’ll always belong, in this world or any other? Why would he drop everything that he’s doing to be with her; lose whole arm for her if it didn’t mean that he loves her, that Sasha Waybright is loved?
The sharp pain returns, burning its way down her throat; before she knows it, she’s choking on the chunks of cheeseburger she’s chewing, breathing all raggedy and broken like something ugly had managed to wake itself inside of her, trying to claw its way up—and Grime is wide-eyed and alert on her side, scrambling up to his feet and out the door to come back with a glass of water. Searching for his calloused hand, clutching it like a little girl learning what the word scared means for the first time. He’s on his knees in front of her, now, patting her shoulder blades for as long as it will take her to let herself cry. And so she does. And he holds her through it all, because it’s what they do.
“Breathe. I don’t need you to do anything but breathe, Sasha.”
It’s what dads do.
“This is stupid. I don’t know why I’m crying.” (That’s a lie. She knows exactly what it is—but it’s something incommunicable, it burns in her throat, her tongue; she will never be able to say it, but he understands it anyway, because that’s what dads do.)
“That’s alright,” he murmurs. Easing her breaths with every stroke of his claws that runs through her hair (did Olivia teach him that?). “It happens to the best of us.”
“No, this is really stupid,” she stutters, brushing away the traces of tears along her cheeks like it’s filthy. (What she doesn’t know is that he’ll hold her anyway, because that’s what dads do). “I don’t know why I’m crying.”
“Alright, Sasha. You can cry. It’s alright. I’ll be right here.”
(Because father is something distant, the tall faceless figure she’s never known the warmth of all her life, but dad felt like a promise. A promise that she’ll always be loved despite everything her hands had done. A promise that these hands—hand—will always hold her.)
A pause. Her head resting on his knee,and when Grime moves back to his rightful place on her side, it rests on his shoulder instead—her filthy tears soak into his sleeves, and he lets it, because that’s what dads do. And in constant, in continuity, the love will always be there for her; in this house, in this pink painted room, in this world or any other—because she’s a daughter, she's his daughter, and that’s what dads do.
“What would you say if I put those glow in the dark stars on your ceiling?”
me, getting phsyic damage trying to write the spaceship museum scene from tlou except it's grime and sasha : oooooughhwjhhhoowaaaaahhhhh waaahahaoaughhhhhhhuuhuuuuuu imjgonfakiljmyself (still not a word in the google doc)
abaddon: what is the one place person or thing that you most want to destroy?uhhh hmm the world probably? i mean there are so many shitty things happenin that choosing one seems wrong. just blow up the world. or destroy me? because i am shit an at least i won't hav to deal with things and the world won't hav to deal with me, win win!! :•>lucifer:what are you most proud of? uh i am probably most proud of my art, i lov bein consistently one sided! lov tht one dimensional peronality o mine!! hhah :•)
