He curls up against her body and she holds him tight, putting the book she’s been reading aside. She hasn’t seen him for sweeps because he was drafted and he's been home for just a little bit over three weeks.
Meaningless ramblings from Bentiv regarding her partner and the situation at hand.
2688 words. Fluff ish. War mention. Ptsd.
She can see now why he was picked for battlefield leadership. She had always been curious about how he would act in the battlefield and that curiosity had been more than fulfilled for the brief time she was there, and yet she understands even less why it bothered him so much. He can be very vicious and he's a damn good leader! She was under his command, and he's very organized, very down to earth, very competent.
And it's weird.
It was weird.
That's just not the person she's used to seeing.
She's just never seen him do the shift before in person. Something clicked there and he went into leadership mode.
And now he's back home. He hasn't really changed, but he's not acting the same as before, still. She can see how the way he acted back then on the battlefield reflects in the way he's always acted, but right now…? He's somehow both colder and sharper, and she's not sure how to feel about it. Tense, but politely so.
How long was it? Like four sweeps and a half? He’s gone much longer without a break, but it still is very a long time to be away. His last group of students were surrendered to the drones because his appointed 2nd in command didn’t have the authority to have them wait more like he usually has them do. Other students came in. Two entire classes. This means a whole crew didn’t get to meet him before being sent away in the meantime, and the newer class is almost gone again without knowing him at all.
Has it really been that long? he asked.
It has. It has.
Bentiv sighs as she ruffles his freshly cut hair. Shorter, prickly, almost curly. Buzzed at the side the mask’s system attaches to. Buzzed hair feels good to pet. She lightly touches the tiny port above his ear, making his coarse fur stand on end and his fins twitch. It doesn’t hurt, but he doesn’t like it much when people mess with that. It’s funny to her. She goes back to just running her fingers through his hair.
She examined him quickly when he came back.
That gash on his head from the last time she saw him in person – three entire sweeps ago, mind you – was healed, but left a thin scar across his forehead. It would most definitely fade the next molt. One of his horns had been cracked close to the base, but it was already starting to seal up. He had a bit of a limp on his left leg from a bruise, a couple deeper cuts on his tail, his fins are in absolute tatters because of the helmet, but all of it would heal. It would leave no long standing scars. Nothing to remember them by. Knowing the fact that he was mostly in the cannon fodder district that meant that either he was skilled enough to avoid getting hurt (he didn’t flee at all back there! She is still very surprised at that, given his track record) or his armors are just that good. Definitely the latter, she assumes. He did say it was grinding. Literally. Whatever that meant.
From the examination, what worried her the most was his weight. Right now he was probably on the lean side of muscular, despite the width, which for the fighters he was leading is more than desirable, but dangerously underweight for a seadweller, especially one that's been comfortably overweight for most of his life. It's actually pretty harmful for a depthdweller like him: if he needs the extra energy, for whatever reason, molt, injury, illness, he just won't have it. They need to be extra careful for now, she’d told him. It’s serious.
She doubts he had been eating decently then because he's always been so goddamn picky with how he likes things, and he's been barely eating at all for the weeks he's been at home. He still doesn't feel like he has enough energy to cook anything proper, too tired, he says, and he refuses to eat anything he hasn't prepared himself because it's just never quite right.
You need to stop being lazy with the cooking and put some weight on, she said, that’s why you’re tired all the time. He shrugged her off.
He's all sharp edges, tough meat and pointy joints. Claws and teeth and spikes and horns. The soft is gone, and he’s even more uncomfortable to lay on than usual as he refuses to go fully unarmored. She had to actually argue with him so he would at least keep the mask off while she's around so she can at least see his dumb stupid face that she’s missed very much.
He's complying so far. Begrudgingly.
He still has his thick armor undersuit right now and normal civilian clothes over it.
He's got big dark circles under his eyes from the many perigees of lack of sleep and his face looks worn.
Same person, same eyes, same scars. Still different. There's a different feel to it.
He wants people to see him even less, or so he'd told her. He wants to be alone.
You don't count, he said, but there's been enough people on his ass. And he's stuck to it, too. He hasn't gone out at all. He sleeps a lot and keeps himself busy with whatever hobby that feels engaging enough at the moment and sometimes he just sits there staring at nowhere in particular.
She doesn’t even know if he told anybody else he was coming back…?
That’s fine. Less people to be bothered by. She can have him all for herself.
He digs his face into her belly and crosses his arms over his chest, trying to compress himself against her like some sort of animal. She curses him out, asking him to take his glasses off because he’s already too spiky for her liking, so he better take off whatever removable corners he can. He makes a small nose laugh, then does so. Hugs her by the waist.
She's glad he's letting her at least touch him even if it's not all that comfy. It's the first time he lets her touch him for this long since he's come back. Touching things is very important. She likes fidgeting with things.
His hair is wiry and his skin is rough and he's uncomfortable and he's not warm and she can barely feel his breathing, which is weird, but she's used to it. He feels like a very solid and pointy boulder on her lap right now, heavy. Still, she missed it. She missed the weight of him against her. Their talks and their fights and their closeness. He's not like the girls she's used to holding at all. It’s different. He's just himself, her best friend, somebody to trust, somebody to fight with no strings attached. That makes it special, somehow. It feels more.
She knows he feels the same and that she never has to worry about it for as long as they live. Even if they fight.
She also knows he likes her warmth and her softness, compared to his own cold angles. Her outgoing against his quiet. He basks in it. Wants to be close, despite being direct opposites.
When he allows himself to be close, that is.
He's been… cold. Physically and emotionally, now that she thinks of it. Quiet, but not the comfortable kind of quiet he usually is around her, he's just kind of not all there. He's somewhere else in his head. It's very odd. He replies as he normally does, although with shorter sentences, and his face is expressionless and he gestures around much less and he sounds flat. The flatness drives her insane. The pitch is all wrong. He knows the pitch is wrong, too, it’s all he minds when talking. He sometimes tries to fix it, but it always goes back flat after a little bit. He got used to the formal bullshittery of the fleet again, and he’s having a hard time unwinding, she's assuming.
She assumes a lot of things.
She can’t help but wonder what’s going on in his head. He doesn’t seem particularly depressed or sad or angry, which is what she had expected. It’s what everybody expects really. Come back from war angry at the world and unable to leave bed, pathetic and pitiful. But he’s not that, he’s never been. He’s just sort of apathetic and much more higher strung than usual.
…
She also thought he’d at least look happy about being back home and seeing her again after so long! but he hasn’t. He hasn’t tried to contact any of his proteges either, nor his only living kid. He doesn’t smile at her when their eyes lock together. He doesn't bake or sketch new armor ideas or work on his little pet projects.
He’s not back to being The Armourer yet, and neither of them knows if he'll come back to it any time soon as he's still on the hook for being drafted again, and very soon.
He’s a good commander, a good leader. They need those out there, help expand the empire, help keep the empire safe, they said.
He’s more useful out there with the soldiers than with the students here, they said.
He's on that limbo.
He doesn't want to go back, though. ‘Rather stay here. ‘Rather be with the students and doing administration work and building the guns and setting up warships, but there’s that implicit “but i’m going back either way” there, eating away at the both of them. Not knowing how much time together they still have before he’s sent away again. If he’s sent away again. Oh messiahs, she hopes they let him stay.
Still, he sits there, he plays with the cat that’s still alive and they’ll talk about nothing in particular for a bit, trying to keep the tension away. Sometimes he’ll play a game, she’ll read a book and they’ll just be together in the same room, not talking, not touching. Sometimes she tries to piss him off, just to try and get him to argue with her, but then he just leaves.
Little things that amount to nothing. It’s been slow.
Sometimes he’ll lay on her lap like this for a little bit to rest, or she’ll lay on his to read, or they’ll do it like they are right now, and she’ll play with his hair and his soft, tattered, velvety fins hoping he’ll purr, but he never does, because his mind is somewhere else.
She feels a lot of things about it.
She doesn’t want him to go. She wants him by her side and normal and wrestling her and comforting her and being his stupid little self pretending to be happy and cheery in that annoying way that gets on her nerves. Deep down it does make him happy. Both of them. He likes control and routine. She likes the stability it brings. It just works. Everything clicks in place and it makes it bearable. She’s out for weeks at a time, he’s busy all the time, they fight a lot, but it’s previsible. It’s good. It’s a game they play. It’s just part of the fun.
It’s ultimately not up to them right now, sadly. Unless she kills somebody about it.
(She’s tempted to. Anything to have him around. The mess it would spawn, though? That would piss him off for real. It’s why she hasn’t done it yet. He doesn’t want the extra attention it would bring.)
Still. It nags at her. The entire thing’s made him more detached than usual. He’s never been the epitome of warmth behind closed doors, to be fair, but he just feels much harsher lately, too. That doesn’t really bother her because it means that being the way she is, she hasn’t been trying to not step on eggshells like normal people would do, and if something bothers him he’ll just shut up and leave, no questions asked, and he hasn't complained yet. On the bad side, that also means she has no opportunities to ask questions, request stories or to rile him up to have some fun, which she’s missed a lot. He just doesn’t seem to want any conflict whatsoever and he doesn’t want to go into details about the ones he’s been through, lest it make her want to kill somebody she shouldn’t or bring out bad things. So he goes quiet and leaves. Sometimes he even locks the door of his room if he’s particularly bothered, something he never does otherwise, and it’s extremely annoying.
She sighs, lost in thought. He doesn’t seem to notice.
It feels familiar, to be fair. He used to be more like this when he was younger. He’s not putting on an act this time, he’s just grumpy. He’s crabby, he’s always been in private. He’s not “Armourer” or “Commander” here. He’s her Bat, or Crabs, even, the one childhood nickname that stuck this long. Crabby, yes. Very.
She shifts her position, making him tense up slightly. She lies down on the couch, staying under him, keeping his weight on her chest, putting her arms against his back. The weight is grounding. He doesn’t move.
Still, her mind won’t shut up.
The worst thing is that Bentiv has no idea what exactly is bothering him and so she cannot help. He doesn’t talk about it, he just shuts her down when asked like he always does, but he doesn’t redirect the subject, he just looks at her some funny sort of way, pinching his nose, looking at her like she grew a second head. She knows that it’s got nothing to do with death and killing and casualties because he’s always been weirdly fine about all that despite the fact that he’s a fucking wuss. Maybe something about the power dynamics? That might be a stretch but she’s seen how his superiors treat him and it’s nasty. Still, she knows him well enough, she knows he likes being in control. So what IS the problem?
No clue.
He’s just tired. Tired and done. Done and anxious. Unsure. Scared?
Well, she’s scared. She’s been scared. She scoffs, but she was terrified of him getting hurt and her not being there to protect him, the way he did to her.
She got hurt in the campaign, he took care of her and immediately sent her home.
Maybe he's depressed…? She has no clue. She was kind of depressed.
Going from job to job, planet to planet, mission to mission, ending rebel stragglers, getting intel. From girl to girl and bed to bed to bed to couch to bed to bench, from empty bottle to empty bottle, bar to bar. Never staying still. Never a place to go home to. Never a reason to take much of a break. He’s her home and without him there, the house is empty. There’s no reason to be in it.
See, this makes sense.
But then again, she has her reasons and she's normal. Her motives make sense. It's easy. She felt bad because she missed him and he could've died and he never messaged or wrote or called all that often and she had nobody to talk to for three sweeps, like, really talk to.
And he's just a bit of a freak. She doesn't get it.
She yawns.
Maybe she’s just projecting a lot.
Probably, yeah.
Eh.
One day at a time.
Someday they'll figure this out. For now she holds him a bit tighter, petting his hair mindlessly and feeling the restlessness and the loneliness wash away. They’re both safe and home and together for now. For as long as it lasts.
She missed this.
Here's to hoping at least one of them falls asleep tonight.
[ a camera starts rolling. it starts shaky as the person holding it sets it down on a wooden table, but it slowly goes into focus as they lean over the camera. muttering can be heard as the camera's settings visibly change. the person fiddling must deem it good, because they lean back, in full view of the camera. fundy sits in front of it, his large black hat covering all but the tips of his soft orange ears and a flop of orange hair across his face. he blows up at it, moving it temporarily before it falls right back down on his face. he scowls.
"hey, chat," he begins. "long time no see. things have-" he does a strange noise here, a combination laugh and scoff. he seems stressed. "a lot of things are different around here. i mean, for one, look around!" he steps back and reveals his surrounding area, which looks to be some sort of modern building. "quackity hooked me up with this place after i agreed to help him out in las nevadas, and so far it's pretty sick! but that's not- that's not what i came here to talk about."
he leans close to the camera. "things around here- around the server, not just las nevadas- are getting... they're tense. things are going to start changing around here, and drastically. ever since dre-" fundy's face darkens. "since dream escaped, tensions with everyone have been high."
"this is where i'll be documenting everything i'll be doing to- well- my d- wilbur, quackity, and dream are in the middle of all of this, right? use your detective skills chat, what do they all have in common?"
he shoots a feral-looking grin at the camera. "me."
fundy steps forward to shut off the camera and ends up tripping into the table it's set on, knocking everything loose as it falls to the ground and the recording stops. ]
