Midas 14 - Freedom With No Muscles pt. 3
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Three days later, Kestrel found him in the kitchen rewashing clean cups.
There were eight lined beside the sink. All of them had already been washed after breakfast.
Midas ran a ninth beneath hot water, turned it slowly in his hands, inspected the rim, and placed it upside down on a fresh towel.
Steam fogged the lower edge of the window.
His sleeves were rolled to the forearms. The water reddened his hands, though he didn't seem to notice.
Kestrel stood in the doorway.
He saw her reflection in the dark window above the sink and his shoulders straightened but he didn't turn around.
Progress, perhaps, or exhaustion.
She entered and stopped at the other side of the island.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.”
She waited.
Midas picked up the next clean cup, turned on the water, and washed it.
Irritation sparked inside of her. Even though she wasn't angry at him mostly, it still searched for somewhere to go.
“Midas.”
His hands stopped. His eyes stayed on the cup and she almost told him to put it down. The command sat ready on her tongue but she swallowed it.
“Do you want to stop?” she asked.
Midas looked down at the cup. Water ran over his fingers.
“No.”
She blinked. She’d expected compliance.
“Why are you washing them?”
“They were not inspected.”
“They’re clean.”
“Yes.”
“You know they’re clean.”
“Yes.”
The water continued running.
Kestrel watched him wash the same cup again.
Knowing wasn't stopping.
The realization arrived without drama, not a bright revelation that forced the room to change. Her cheeks burned with a quiet revelation.
She’d been treating knowledge as if it were freedom. Understanding a rule didn't mean the body could obey a different one and being told didn't mean you were allowed to stop created the muscles required to stop.
Midas knew the cups were clean.
He knew he wasn't required to wash them. He knew the kitchen didn't belong to Charlotte. He knew there wasn't an administrator coming to inspect the rims. He knew Rho would complain about wasted water before she praised him for cleanliness.
His hands continued anyway.
Kestrel thought of Wick and how young and frightened he must’ve been trying to give her choices she’d returned. Every one of them had felt like an object mistakenly placed in her hands.
He’d told that she didn't have to stand behind her chair. She’d stood there anyway. He’d told her she could eat before he did. She never started until he’d lifted his fork and taken his first bit. He’d told her she could sleep with her bedroom door closed. She’d slept propped up against it so she could wake if he moved through the hallway. She’d always been a step or two behind him
He knew she understood his words. He hadn't understood why they didn't change her.
Then Charity. Charity offered food to people who hid it beneath mattresses and beds to people who slept under them. She offered pain medication to people who swore they didn't hurt because pain had never altered their assignments. She kept doors unlocked for people who sat awake all night watching the handle. Choice after choice placed had been in front of bodies with no strength to lift them.
This was what Wick had faced with her. This was what Charity had faced with half the safehouse. This was freedom without muscle.
Kestrel pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table.
Midas glanced at her.
She said nothing.
He washed another cup.
Then another.
Kestrel watched the steam rise. She watched the tendons move beneath the damaged skin of his hands.
“This is unnecessary,” he said after awhile.
“Yes.”
He looked at the cup.
“You disapprove.”
“I don’t know.”
That brought his eyes to her.
Kestrel rested her hands loosely on the table.
“I don’t want you to think you have to clean things to stay here.”
“I do not think that.”
She believed him.
That was the difficult part.
“Do you think something bad will happen if you leave the cups?”
Midas’s mouth tightened.
“No.”
She believed that too.
He knew no one would punish him.
His hands still needed the cup.
The washing gave the fear somewhere to go.
Kestrel nodded.
“All right.”
Midas looked at her.
“You’re not going to stop me?”
“Do you want me to?”
His face closed.
Then reopened by a fraction.
“No.”
“Then no.”
He turned back to the sink.
Kestrel remained at the table.
After the last cup, Midas washed the sponge, the sink, the tap, and then his hands. He dried them carefully, pressing the towel between each finger as though moisture left behind might count as failure.
The kitchen was silent except for the radiator clicking beneath the window.
Midas looked at the row of cups.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Kestrel considered the question.
“Nothing.”
His shoulders tightened.
She corrected herself. “You finished washing the cups. I’m sitting here. Rho is probably about to come in and complain that someone reorganized the tea again. Dinner is in an hour.”
Midas waited.
“That’s all,” Kestrel said.
He looked at the clean cups.
Then at her.
“You stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Kestrel could have said because I love you. She didn't. Swallowing the words hurt as much as swallowing hot coals.
“I wanted to sit with you.”
Midas absorbed that.
His gaze dropped to the table.
“I haven’t been very good company.”
Kestrel’s jaw tightened.
“Recovery isn’t gratitude.”
He looked up.
The sentence had come from somewhere deeper than she expected.
She continued before she could make it prettier.
“You don’t have to be pleasant because we helped you leave. You don’t have to improve on a schedule. You don’t have to make the safehouse feel successful. You don’t owe anyone a version of yourself that proves this was worth doing.”
Midas stood very still beside the sink.
Had she said too much?
“What do I owe?” He asked.
Kestrel felt the old instinct, an easy, comforting answer that would be too large to believe, rise.
Once again, she took the hot coals and swallowed them.
“You owe the same things everyone here owes.”
Midas waited.
“Don’t deliberately hurt people. Don’t take what belongs to someone else. Follow the safety rules that apply to everyone. Tell staff if you know the building is on fire.”
His brow tightened faintly.
“That is all?”
“For the safehouse.”
“And for Basque?”
Kestrel’s chest tightened.
“We’ll work through the legal part.”
“And for you?”
She held his gaze.
“Nothing.”
Midas looked away. He didn't believe her.
She let him and stood. That was new.
Midas’s shoulders moved as though he might straighten again.
She stopped before leaving the table.
“I’m going to make tea.”
He looked toward the kettle.
“I can—”
“I know.”
She filled it herself.
Midas stood near the sink with no task, visibly uncomfortable.
His hands flexed once at his sides. He glanced toward the towel at the clean cups and the cupboards.
Kestrel didn't offer him work nor did she force him to sit as the kettle began to heat. She didn't
After a moment, he crossed to the table and pulled out the chair opposite hers.
His hand remained on the back. He looked toward the door, then toward Kestrel, and sat without being told.
Then sat.
Without being told.
Kestrel ignored it. She made tea.
Light and sweet for herself. Strong and plain for him because she had learned how he took it, though she had never asked whether the preference came from Basque or from before.
She set her cup in front of herself and placed his in the middle of the table.
Midas looked at it. He didn't reach for it.
They sat in the kitchen while afternoon light faded against the windows with the clean cups dried beside the sink.
Nothing bad happened. No one inspected them. No one thanked Midas. No one told him how far he had come.
After several minutes, he moved the second cup toward himself one inch. Then another.
Kestrel looked down at her own tea, forcing herself not to watch. She didn't watch.
That was part of it too.
Midas wrapped one hand around the cup as the warmth entered his fingers. He didn't drink immediately, holding it.
A choice didn't have to become action the instant it was made.
Freedom, when it had no muscle yet, didn't always look like doors thrown open.
Sometimes, it looked like a man rewashing clean cups because stopping was still more frightening than exhaustion. Other times, it looked like letting him finish. Sometimes, it looked like sitting nearby without turning his pain into a lesson about your own, and sometimes, it looked like a bed used for ten minutes.
An apple carried upstairs.
A towel refolded on the seventh pass.
A cup left within reach.
Not assigned.
Not required.
Not earned.
And, eventually, taken.