a piece of me for a piece of you { felicity & lionel } day 5

[k!ah]

The sun had started its descent as I climbed the dodgy as all hell ladder to get into the watch tower. It screamed and screeched beneath my weight. Mouse circled around us as we climbed, sweeping in so close at time I swear I could feel the brush of his wings against my shoulder blades. he was worried, and had been from the moment we had begun the climb.

"Stop fretting," I grumble at him as we reach the top and I haul myself onto the platform, my breath coming in ragged gasps as my fingers press against the tender and broken flesh of my stomach. Rolling onto my back I glance down, my hands pulling at my layers of clothing until my abdomen was revealed to the elements. "Shit," I grumble, closing my eyes for the briefest of moments before pulled myself to my feet and somewhat stumbled into the towers sad excuse of a cabbin.

Stripping off my jacket, vest and undershirt I slump against the bed before I fumble through my pack, pulling out one of the needle and threads scatter amongst the contents. "Hey Felicity," I say around the needle and thread perched between my lips as I shove my pack onto the floor. Pulling the needle from my mouth I give her a lazy grin as I gesture down to my stomach. "Help a friend out. I think I might pass out if before I get the stupid thing closed if I do it myself." I shuffle back on the bed before lying down and holding out the equipment for her to take.

I wait for her to take the needle, studying her silently for a moment. We hadn't spoken much since last night, and as I watched her I found myself wanting to steal another piece of her, another piece of what made her who she is. So I offer her a piece of myself as a silent barter. "My father would think I am a pathetic for asking for help. Though I don't think there is anything I could do that he would approve of. He's a real pice of shit- I think I hate him. How fucked up is that?" the words feel like a weight has been peeled off my shoulders and I smile slightly up at her. "I've never said that before, but I have wanted to for so long. More than I think I realised."

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

FELICITY
CARROW.


It gets very hard to take off the mask.

Felicity feels it settle into her features, even watching Marceline and Hal disappear amongst the trees. She hadn't finished her countdown aloud, had only taken a steadying breath after while before lifting her armored palm for a high five. "Could've gone worse," she says, and it feels good to play act as someone else.

She's always been a bastard, but she's never been encouraged to be worse. Few ever encouraged her at all.

By the time night begins to fall, the pair of them have exhausted the scope of the woods and the iron in her bones has gone molten again under the heat of praise. Compulsion kept her true to her word, trailing almost mindlessly along their new friends footprints. They left heavy compressions in the melting earth, no storm raging to cover their tracks with fresh snow. She thinks about Izzy every time she bends down to inspect the little mushrooms popping up from the base of the tree trunks.

The sun had remained through to the evening; Felicity had watched it sink past the horizon, feet dangling off the side of the tower while she watched Lionel and Mouse scavenge around at its base.

"You're missing the best part," she'd said over her shoulder, but the wind carries her voice towards the sunset and she doubts he hears her over the creaking metal ladder. If he does, he ignores her and lets Mouse usher him through the door and inside. With a lingering look towards the horizon, she sighs before pulling herself up with the railing, tucking her feet back onto the solid metal grate flooring.

Busying herself with the fragments hunk of metal in the corner rather than confronting the thing she's hiding from is the easiest choice in the world; she drops to her knees next to the corrugated ridges in the corner, tracing a gentle finger along their rough edges. The gashes are nasty, and she can see the spark where a wire got frayed and whoever did this caused some sort of combustion.

She's just running her finger through the grime when Lionel startles her out of focus. She pretends her heartbeat doesn't spike just the slightest, when she turns and realizes that he has sprawled himself across the bed in the opposite corner. Fire erupts in the depths of her heart, raging against self-imposed walls. The mask shifts, an almost slip, before: "you're going to pass out no matter who does it." She levels him a look she knows he won't see. The flashlight casts strange shadows, and she realizes with a grimace that she should probably block some of its peripheral light.

Felicity can't help but fumble a bit with a bit of the tent's wiring to create a funnel for the light to focus on the generator, rather than casting the whole place in warm, light. The tower is beacon enough. They don't need to be alerting everyone left that they were sleeping up here.

A crack in the fortress, I think I hate him; she uses her pliers to tighten a few looks wires. How fucked up is that?

"I dunno, pretty sure pitting your two sons against each other is what was pretty fucked up, but what do I know." She abandons the toolkit on the floor, finally, and manages a shrug and an eye roll despite the surge of understanding in her chest. She tucks in next to him on the thin mattress, nudging him over despite the injuries. Resting back on her heels, she leans towards him a little more than she needs and takes the needle from his hand. "I don't think there's ever been much I wanted to say that I didn't, if I'm being honest. Never been any good at biting my tongue. Plus, if I don't say it out loud, I'm fairly liable to forget."

A part of her expects her hands to tremble, but she busies her mind with translating how to do the right stitch into binary code. It's the only form of meditation that has ever successfully helped clear her mind.

"Stop wiggling."

felicity tries to fix tower generator
DKgYM5u7FD1-10

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