both of us | {kay}

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

. LANI .
breathe out
breathe in

It's cool this morning.

Not enough to make me shiver or huddle together for warmth, but the kind of cool that makes me wish I were still in my mother's kitchen bright and early in the morning, just as the sun is breaking the horizon, with the smell of coffee drifting through the air. This is my favorite kind of weather, when it has rained the night before and the skies are sunny in the morning. It seems so hypocritical and makes no sense and I like that, but I like anything that doesn't make sense because it is my job to understand how things work and the things that are confusing are what remind me I am not perfect and I am not a robot. What I do is an art that doesn't always get the recognition it deserves. To others, be it a painted picture or words on paper or notes sung aloud, I am interested. But for me and my profession, I am grateful.

Usually when I get to work, the feelings I feel go away. It has been a long ride for me to swallow back the longing and the nostalgia. My emotions were my biggest threat in this game, and maybe they still are. Maybe I am just better at hiding them in the shadows of my mind. But when I get to work, that is all I am allowed to think about. It's better if I don't feel, anyway, especially when anyone can die around me at any time. It's a scary thought, so I don't let myself think it. Usually.

But today I sit at a desk alone. Today, I have no partner.

Three days ago, he was taken from me.

Yesterday was his funeral.

Today I am still alone.

Tomorrow I will still be alone.

So I let myself feel today, if only for my own sanity. Fifteen years of working together and just as suddenly as we were thrown together he was taken from me. I keep half expecting him to crawl out from under his now empty desk and say "Man, you really fell for that?" but I don't think it will happen. It hasn't yet. But it could. Anything could happen, even if it doesn't make sense. (I love the things that don't make sense.)

I try to distract myself with paperwork but I can't focus so I just shove it to the side, lay my head on my desk and sulk, only ever moving to breathe or to sip my cappuccino. Today is a beautiful day. Zair would have liked this day, but he can't. So I am stuck in this beautiful day with no one.

No one.

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

That flow, that spark, that crown, you looking at the king of the jungle now
Stronger than ever can’t hold me down

For Benedict Tucker, it's another Monday morning. He'd pushed the absolute limits of his alarm clock, had chosen to douse himself in cologne instead of forfeiting more time to a shower, and crammed most of a banana into his cheeks on the way out the door. His uniform - which was only properly crisp when it returned from the dry cleaners - fell askew. He'd missed at least one button, and attempted to rectify the situation on the train to the center of the Capitol. He caught a few shocked stares as he shrugged out of the white jacket, which only encouraged him. He spent most of the ride in his wife beater and suspenders, only making a passing attempt at smoothing out his jacket. As he stepped onto the platform, he shrugged it back on, matched the buttons, and marched into his precinct headquarters.

"Ahh, Mondays," he said to the administrator, flashing his badge (which had been sewn into the jacket as he'd misplaced it so often) as he waltzed through the metal detector. Dick scooped up the stack of missives from his desk on his way to the break room. Which, incidentally, was the best room in the entire building. Nowhere else could you find such piss poor coffee and such excellent gossip.

He strolled in, prepared to be ambushed by a weekend full of parties and hookups and scandals, to find eyes downcast and mouths twisted. He couldn't account for it, so he babbled about his own follies as he poured himself a mug of stale coffee.

From the corner of the room, "yeah, I'm sure no one noticed. Funerals are fucking tough. It's just not going to be the same here without him."

Dick pawed through the stack of papers, teasing out a letter from the Captain. He used his teeth to open the envelope. The sticky sweet of the glue coated his tongue as he scanned the contents of the letter. "Fuck," he muttered.

"Something eating you, Tucker?" One of the funeral-going Peacekeepers asked, an edge to his voice.

Dick straightened, burying the letter in the stack of paperwork. "Wasn't a statement. It was a question. You know funerals; they're always followed by an orgy. I'm surprised y'all are able to walk today."

"Fuck you, Tucker."

"Love to, but I've got work to do." He bit down on the papers, carrying them in his mouth. He waved with his free hand, balanced the hot coffee carefully with the other, all the way back to his desk. Some of the break room Keepers muttered as they walked passed his desk, but they were all entirely too used to him. It was glorious that he'd even gotten one to tell him off, which was depressing. He really needed better quarry.

Sipping on the coffee, he turned over the letter again. He read it twice, just to be sure there wasn't any wiggle room. Then, ignoring the instructions to be prompt and polite, he kicked his feet up on his desk. And he watched her. For an hour he watched grief consume her; for an hour he watched the loss drain all of the color from her face. In that span of time, he fiddled with the pencils on his desk, made paper airplanes out of the forms he was supposed to fill out. But he never touched his coffee.

Everyone else in the office talked about the funeral, about losing their colleague. But no one once approached her.

When he was positive the coffee had cooled beyond repair, he gripped by the base, and stood, spilling the mostly full container all over his rumpled uniform. He made entirely too big a fuss, changing in broad view of the field of desks. He stripped down to his boxers and wife beater, dug out a pair of jeans and paisley sweater from the lost and found, and tucked his ruined uniform under his arm. "Gotta get this stain out before it sets," he said to the Captain, who just rolled his eyes and reminded him about the goddamn forms and promising him overnight shifts for a week. But Dick wasn't even listening as he strolled up to Lani's desk.

"Time to go," he said by way of introduction. "This uniform has a date with the cleaners, and then you and I are getting lunch." He grinned his shit-eating grin. That's the thing about the fool: nothing, not even something foolish, is ever done by mistake.

banner credit: brooke
lyrics: flo rida good feeling

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

. LANI .
breathe out
breathe in

Just when the thought that I should probably do at least some work today pops into my head, I see Benedict Tucker standing over me. I have to roll my head to the side so my eyes can meet his. I flash him a look that questions his presence without words, and he takes the bait. "Time to go," he says, and it's enough to make me sit up straight and rest my chin on my folded hands. "This uniform has a date with the cleaners, and then you and I are getting lunch."

I decide arguing is pointless, as is answering in general. I haven't been around him enough to be completely certain, but I have certain the claims that Dick lives up to his name well in the fact that he can only hear his own voice. So quietly, and hopefully without him noticing, I wipe my face on the sleeve of my white uniform to wipe any tears that may have came out without my permission, and then I follow him out of the building.

"So, how did you get that?" I say to him over the crowd of people going to and fro work. It isn't uncommon for us to show up in street clothes if it's a paperwork day, but one look at the wife-beater he wears tells me otherwise. Plus, to be fair, he did greet me by saying we were going to the cleaners. Beside the fact that he is a stranger and my partner is currently rotting in a casket, I am sort of happy that he has gotten me out of the office. I am sort of starved and being there is just a constant reminder that, a) I'm perfectly alone there and, b) I still have to do work regardless of what happens, or I won't have a job.

If I am here and the papers are here, they may as well not exist. "Thank you." I say simply. The rush of people has forced us to practically walk as one person and since we are so close I don't have to raise my voice quite as much. "For getting me out of there."

"For helping me forget," I want to say, but I don't. There is a sort of shame that comes with relief. I should be ashamed. For forgetting. For wanting to. Zair deserves better than that, even if he isn't here anymore. I will always respect him. Or, the idea of him at least. But still, I can't deny that there is a pressure that seems almost ever-present when I think about him and not thinking about him is the only way I remember to breathe, and maybe it isn't entirely selfish to need to breathe. I take in a deep breath through my nose, smelling the asphalt and coffee and Benedict's aftershave. He smells nice. He always does, despite looking like he doesn't own a currently-working shower.

"Nearest cleaners are three blocks that way. My favorite cafe is another block past it. Sound good?" Speaking in short, incomplete sentences makes it easier to talk, but I think it's because my mind has been so scrambled lately that even making a complete thought is a bit difficult. It's my job to ignore the pain. It was always my weakness not to be able to and maybe the watchers were right back in training. Maybe I shouldn't have ever made it through, but here I am and I may not be faring well but I am fighting the best I can and in the end I always manage to pull through. I just have to keep hope alive. And my next partner.

And myself.