A/N: I'm trying a new format (new to me, at least, as it seems to be rather popular with other fanfic authors) for the author's notes of this fic, so please bear with me!
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Title: Interim
Author: NinthFeather
Rating: T
Summary: Four 500-word drabbles, one per Gundam Meister, and one per year of the time-skip between Season 1 and Season 2. Each drabble focuses on one season-one Gundam Meister from the point of an OC during the time-skip. (Yes, I'm including Neil in that, just be patient, I know how I'm gonna do it.) Drabble one: "The new guy is way too quiet, Mark decides."
WARNINGS: Mentions of someone getting sick to their stomach; if that grosses you out, you've been warned. Nothing else, though. Spoilers for the end of Season 1.
Disclaimer: Unless having a plushie replica of Exia counts, I do not own.
AN – I picture Mark as a big, stocky guy who looks imposing, at least and maybe even a little scary but is actually very nice in a clumsy sort of way.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The new guy is way too quiet, Mark decides.
He's short and dark and intense, his mouth always curved downward into an expression that's not quite a full frown, but definitely isn't a smile either.
He doesn't talk to anyone unless he has a question about his job duties. Even then, his sentences are terse and clipped. When he gets really impatient with an explanation, an imperious note shows up in his voice, and it sounds so foreign in his otherwise inflectionless tone that Mark is sure he learned it from someone else.
He's smiled, once, when one of the guys brought his daughter to work, and she tried to give him a dandelion she'd picked from the lawn. It looked almost as if it hurt his face to do it, and his expression ended up scaring the poor child, but the way his mouth curved was definitely an attempt at a smile.
Mark tries to get him to lighten up. He offers to take him on a hunting trip, once, but the new guy looks at the rifle Mark is offering him with disgust and excuses himself to the restroom. The garage's walls are thin, so everyone hears it when he throws up.
After that, Mark starts noticing the way he flinches whenever someone comes up behind him, the way he likes to stand with his back to the wall, and how he never really seems to relax. He sees a special report about child soldiers on the news and he wonders.
But it's the new guy's business and no one else's, after all, Mark decides, and so he doesn't pry. The others start to catch on, too. After a few weeks, people stop offering him rides to church because he clearly doesn't want them and boy, is he good at glaring. The attempts at friendliness decline until suddenly, the boy is well and truly left alone.
And then, one day, Mark finds him asleep at his worktable, with tears leaking out of his eyes, and hears him mumble something that sounds like "Lockon." And even though Mark has no idea what a "Lockon" is, he figures it must have been something important to this guy, once.
Mark shakes his shoulder, just slightly, and then jumps backwards before he can put him in an arm-lock—that's what he did to last guy who woke him up. The new guy blinks a couple times, and rubs his eyes, and, for a few seconds, looks almost human, but then his expression goes blank again and he glares at Mark for a few seconds before returning to work.
He quits after a few weeks, and says he's moving somewhere else. Before he leaves, Mark shakes his hand, and asks him his name, because he's never actually heard him or anyone else use it.
"Setsuna F. Seiei," the new guy— though Mark supposes he can't call him that now, since he's quitting— says, and there's just a hint of pride in his voice.