oh mother i am so afraid /pollux blitz

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

Patricia’s up and left and I’m the idiot left standing here holding the bag.

They tagged her toe and wrapped her body in black, masked up with white hazmats zipped up tight to protect them from what plagued her and I sat there in the corner just watching it happen. Patricia Valfierno was then added to the pile and just like that, she became indistinguishable from everybody else. I heard a peacekeeper say it was a waste to bring us all home. Half of us are already dead just a couple days later.

They called Patricia's last gift a waste of time and I wanted to set them on fire, because what the fuck. There is so much hate in me I haven't been able to open my hand into a palm since Patricia died.

Just another adult who promised to be there for me and wasn't. Definitely the fastest turn around, damn, the woman's even a victor in death. I should probably hate her for it but i’ve already learned how useless it is to hate the people that leave you.

But maybe I’ll hate her anyway, let that feeling consume me instead of grief.

I don't think I can bear this kind of pain anymore.

Maybe I just don't want to.

"You don't have to," Patricia says.

Yeah, the plague left me alive but it left me a gift or two, like a fucked up little party favour. Except I know that she's dead because this time, it all happened in front of me, not like how it was with Cain.

"No, I really do."

A phantom hand falls on my shoulder, squeezes lightly but I have enough clarity to know what's real and what's not now. I push my face into my knees and protect the back of my neck with my hands, closing up like a fist.

"Just be fucking dead, then."

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

They finally let me out a few days later when the last of the blush left my cheeks and I wouldn't stop pacing my room like a caged animal. I stand there on the street outside of Gingham Electric in an old sweater from the factory's lost and found. Everything I brought to Six was incinerated after I was put into quarantine and unfortunately for me, that was pretty much everything I owned.

So fuck me I guess.

My body turns slow, first towards the end of town where Wolfgang's apartment is but then I pivot again. When we parted ways I was pretty certain I was going to die, maybe I did. You know that moment when you realize that you've become a drain on the people you care about it but you don't know how to fix it?

Yeah.

I start walking across town instead, towards the big houses with their lights all lit up in the dark and the gate that stands at the end of it. When we were shitty little kids, Wolf and I used to stand at the entrance and throw rocks through the bars, just seeing if we could get a response. At the very least, a sign of life.

"Where are you going?"

I figure if she's just going to up and leave after making me promises then I deserve something from her in retribution.

"Guess."

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

I throw a rock through the window in the back door because I'm not a delicate person.

"Come on kid, what are you trying to do here?"

It's heavy enough to make a hole but not enough to shatter the pane, just fracture everything around it into little uneven chunks in a halo around where it went through. I pull my sweater sleeve down to protect my fist and push bits of glass through so that I can reach down and flick the lock.

I don't know how Victor houses work, if there's an alarm that's about to go off or whatever, but knowing as little as I did about Patricia I do know that she fucking hated Peacekeepers. There's nothing I can trigger that will bring them.

So then I'm in a dead woman's kitchen, staring into a cupboard holding a very random mug collection. I feel like the mugs people keep says a lot about them so I reach in and grab a small white one, basic except the handle is a little ceramic wrench. The silver paint is scratched up and there are grey marks on the bottom of the cup from the scraping of a metal spoon.

I turn my head and look out the back window at the yard. I rest a hand on the kitchen table. I think about Patricia drinking a cup of coffee out of this mug every morning and watching the world wake up.

She glances up at me before turning back to her view. "It's sweet that you think I was a morning person," she says.

"Well, were you?" I ask.

"I don't know."

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

The sleeve of the old leather bomber jacket I found in the hallway closet catches on the corner of a wooden hutch in the front hall. There's a catch-all bowl sitting on it and it clatters a bit from the nudge. I pause, fingers running over the edge of the shelf, gone soft and round from years of standing there and being brushed against.

Light from the street lamp outside falls in from the window, casting a sliver of light on the bowl. There's nothing really in there, just a scratched up flash drive, a nail for hanging pictures, a small ring of various keys and a single penny.

But I scoop all of it up and shove it into one of the pockets of my new jacket.

And I don't know what I'm doing, I'm just taking and taking as if that can plug up the hole that's been eating through my chest over the past few days.

I don't know why loss is like that- pain, but not even sharp- just a wave of all these regrets hitting you all at once.

Like what if Pat lived and I was here because she invited me and I never threw a rock through the window of her house.

I wonder if she had regrets too, I'm sure she did, but I wonder if I was one of them.

"No way." Patricia is leaning in the doorframe of the kitchen.

"You don't know that," I tell her, "You're part of me, not her."

"I know it."

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

I had to leave because I couldn't be there anymore, not with all of her things surrounding me, filling every corner of the house up.

There's a pack on my back, a nice leather one I found in a closet. I went digging through her cupboards, found some warmer clothes to wear, a few things of canned food and a spare toothbrush still in the packaging. It's enough to get me through if I have to be alone.

Which is hard and confusing because I was born as one of two. I was made to never be alone and even after three years I can't shake that loss. I can't fill that hole either with my brother's things because I'm not allowed home, so I wear another person's life like it's my goddamned right instead. I think that maybe Patricia would have been proud of me for taking what I'm owed instead of asking for it.

I just wish that I could take that too, the ability to safe hold the people that matter to me.

I wish I had more than just the basic skills I learned from years of looking after Cass but I dropped out of high school when he died because I thought I should.

It didn't feel right somehow, to go on living life like nothing was wrong.

"That's what I wanted you to do."

"Shut it Cass, you're dead so you don't get a fucking say."

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

Maybe it's stupidity that has me on the front steps of the Mercier clinic or maybe for once, I'm finally choosing a path for myself instead of getting pushed down one.

Whatever it is, half of my decision is driven by the fact that it's started raining and the jacket I took only has a fabric hood. I'm not contagious anymore, yeah, but I'm still healing. I can hear my mother's voice in my ear, always chastising me, "You'll catch your death."

It was only ever because if I got sick then it was certain I was going to make Cass sick too. It was always kind of nice though, to think for a moment that my mother loved me.

I enter before I can lose my nerve and march up to the counter. There's a boy behind it that must be roughly the same age as I am. I lean on the table, dripping water onto the lacquered wood.

"I wanna talk to the mayor," I say, "Right now."

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

"Absolutely not," says the lady. I think the Mayor called her Ana maybe but I already forgot.

Then Alaric says, "Ana, dear, just think about it." So I guess that I was right, "This clinic needs someone capable to take it over when we're done here."

"No way, we do not need a plague victim in here," she snaps back without even pretending to take a moment to think, damn. "Or another mouth to feed."

Valid reasons, I nod along in agreement, biting my lip. Maybe I should tell them about the soup I took from Pat's pantry. Think it said, Harvest Pumpkin. I blink. That's so fucking stupid, I can't believe I even just thought it and here I am, asking the mayor to teach me how to save lives.

"My dear," Alaric says, tone soothing, "this isn't you."

Then something magic happens. Ana tips into Alaric and says nothing for a long moment. Then she looks at me over Alaric's shoulder and smiles and it's gentle and warm and so kind and beyond what a guy like me deserves and I have to look away.

Kind of makes me want to finally cry.

When I look back it's almost like she's seeing me for the first time since she entered the room.

"Honey, have you eaten?" she asks me and her tone is just as kind and gentle as her eyes just were but this time, there's pity there too.

I stare at her, eyes wide, then blink quickly. Maybe she doesn't know how deep warmth like that can cut.

"No?" I answer.

[✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ]

P O L L U X  F O S S E

Less than twenty-four hours after my release, I'm once again surrounded by the unwell.

There's also a meal in me though and my body is all warm from a shower. There's a pillow beneath my head and I'm sleeping in a bed instead of on a cot in quarantine. The things I collected from Pat's place are laid out almost reverently on the bookshelf at the foot of the bed and I read like, a whole page of the book I stole from her bedside table too.

Guess I'm a med student now?

Alaric said I'd start off small, it'd be mostly a lot of reading and watching but I guess you've got to start somewhere and I don't have to pay for room and board if I help out in the clinic. Once it was decided I'd be staying, things moved fast. Ana moved her son into her daughter's room and made them share so they both fucking hate me already, which is neat.

I'm not charming like Wolf or sweet like how Cass was, I don't know if I can win them over, I don't know if I care.

I lay here in the dark knowing that I should feel great right now, but I can't stop seeing that hole I made through Patricia's window. Should have been easy revenge for the hole she put in me. Our time together was quick and brutal, just like a rock through glass.

But the pain is still fucking there, beating like an extra heart.

"Fuck," I whisper and a tear rolls down the side of my face. I raise my hand above me in the dark, clenched up in a fist, tight, shaking, and I open it quick, fingers extending out in the dark.

"I'm sorry," I say, "I'm sorry, Pat."


end.