A/N: This is just a sweet little Slippy and Falco friendship piece in which they both make much-needed confessions. Happy reading!
Slippy was walking past the door to Falco's room on board the Great Fox when a loud female voice stopped him in his tracks. "Shit…you know something? I should have aborted you."
"Whoa, hey, now," a calm, masculine tone replied. "Patricia, consider what you just said. How do you think that makes your son feel?"
"You're wasting your time, doc," a third person said dismissively. "She doesn't care."
The third person had been Falco. Recognizing his team mate's cadence, Slippy shook his head. The avian had clearly decided to waste the afternoon watching the trashy talk shows he was so strangely fond of. None of the rest of the team understood why Falco liked seeing the dregs of humanity airing their dirty laundry on television. They'd suggested once that he spend his spare time more constructively, but rather than take their advice Falco had retreated to his room. Now he indulged his habit on his personal screen rather than the one in the common room. In a way Slippy appreciated this, as he disliked hearing strangers yell at each other five days a week. At the same time, though, he thought it was a shame that everyone saw a lot less of Falco as a result of his TV predilections.
Under usual circumstances Slippy would have kept walking once he realized what was going on. The only thing that stopped him now was the fact that he couldn't recall Falco ever talking back to his programs before. During movies the avian was a snarky chatterbox, but when real people were tearing each other apart he fell silent. The woman who had spoken first must be a real piece of work to have irked Falco into giving a useless retort.
And she was going again, too. "I mean it. I didn't want a baby, but my scumbag boyfriend got in the way. I had an appointment at the clinic and everything until he talked me out of it. He got all sappy, told me oh no, he was gonna take care of me, take care of the baby. He was gonna get a good job, buy me a ring, get us off of housing assistance. We were gonna live the Cornerian Dream, he said." A short, sharp whistle – the avian equivalent of a derisive snort – sounded. "It was a lie, of course. The prick hung around until I was too far along to get an abortion, then he vanished. Left me alone with a baby I never asked for."
"Okay, now we're getting somewhere," the unfamiliar male voice put in. "Patricia, how did that make you feel?"
"How do you think it made me feel? It made me feel like I'd been abandoned! It made me feel stuck! It made me feel like getting blind drunk and throwing myself down the stairs a time or two! And I did it, too, but it didn't do any good. No, that grubby little parasite hung on inside me, draining me just like his father had."
"It sounds like maybe you transferred your hatred for your ex onto your son." Slippy struggled to recognize the host, but he couldn't. The voice didn't match that of any of the three TV personalities whose shows Falco liked. There was something else odd about what he was hearing, too, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.
"Of course I did! How was I supposed to not hate him when he came out looking just like that deadbeat who'd knocked me up? I tried for a minute or two after he was born. I tried to love him, or at least not to hate him. But all he did was take, take, take. Yeah, I know, children do that, but damn it, I didn't want to be a mother. I never wanted to be a mother, and I was one anyway. And there was nothing I could do about it."
"Ever heard of adoption?" came a scathing suggestion from Falco.
Slippy's eyes widened as he finally pinpointed what was missing. Falco's talk shows were always full of audience reactions, the hisses and cheers that told the people at home who they were supposed to be rooting for. Those ambient noises were completely absent from this recording. He couldn't imagine a production company breaking from the usual formula for such lowest-common-denominator swill, though. What the hell was Falco watching – and apparently being worked up by – in there?
"Adoption wasn't an option, you cocky little bastard," the woman snapped back. "Do you know what people would have said about me if I'd given you to the cops? They would have called me an unnatural woman. They would have shunned me. I wasn't gonna shoot myself in the foot like that. I needed my friends. I needed my community."
"Yeah, you're right. Neglecting me emotionally and letting your boyfriends smack me around when they were high was way more acceptable than giving me a chance at a normal life would have been."
Slippy gave a squeak of shock. This wasn't a show at all; he was listening to a private conversation. What he'd thought was a television program must actually be a video call between Falco, his mother, and a third party. Guilt warred with concern as he continued to linger by the door. On the one hand he was blatantly eavesdropping. On the other, this sounded like the kind of confrontation that Falco might need to talk about afterward. Had Fox or Peppy been home he could have fetched one of them. They knew far more than he did about Falco's past, and they had more experience in getting him to open up, too. But they were off-world and not due back for days. If anyone was going to lend a friendly ear when this was done it had to be Slippy.
"I gave you everything!" Falco's mother declared. "I put food in your mouth and clothes on your back, didn't I? I kept a roof over your head."
"Easy now, Patricia," warned the man Falco had referred to as a doctor.
"You only did those things when you remembered not to spend all of your money getting your nails done or trolling the bars for your next sugar daddy!"
"Okay, now, let's stop and talk about that," the doctor tried. His voice betrayed the beginnings of desperation. "Patricia-"
Patricia wasn't listening. "I had needs too, Falco!" she shrieked. "I was too young to be a mother! I wasn't done having fun!"
Falco's volume rose to meet that of his mother. "Yeah? And what was I supposed to have, huh? Because all I can remember now are the things I didn't have. I didn't have a sense of safety in my own home. I didn't have anyone to turn to when I had a question or a problem. I didn't have a mother. I didn't have love."
"That wasn't my fault!"
"Well it sure as fuck wasn't my fault!" There was a thump that Slippy interpreted as Falco jumping to his feet. "And it isn't going to be my fault if you rot in jail for the rest of your miserable life, either!"
Suddenly Patricia was all sweetness and reconciliation. "Oh, no…oh, Falco…sweetheart…I'm sorry, I just…I get so emotional…please…"
"No. Just...no." Falco's words shook. "This was your shot at making things right, and all you can think about is yourself. You're not even trying. So fuck it. I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore."
"That's your choice, Falco," the doctor put in, "but I want to make sure that you know that successful completion of family counseling is a requirement of your mother's early release. The judge may make her serve her full sentence if she's unable to do that."
"I don't care. She hasn't changed. She hasn't learned anything from all the time she's spent behind bars. She might have given birth to me, but she's a terrible person and I want nothing to do with her. I don't ever want her to try to contact me again."
"Weren't you listening?" Patricia was shrieking now, and Slippy shrank back from the door. "I didn't mean what I said, you stupid bast-!"
Silence cut her off mid-sentence as Falco ended the call. Angry footsteps moved towards the hallway. Slippy gulped. There was no time for him to escape. His intention in listening had been good-hearted, but he wouldn't blame his team mate for being upset about it. What he had overheard were all terribly private things, things that Falco had never mentioned of his own accord. It was going to be a long rest of the week if the only other person on the ship decided to give him the cold shoulder in retaliation for snooping.
The door opened. Their eyes met, and Falco paused. To Slippy's surprise there was very little rage or annoyance present in the avian's expression. In their places were confusion and hurt, two emotions that were far more painful to witness. "Falco? Are…are you-"
"How long were you standing out here?"
Slippy had expected to be yelled at. He'd been questioned quietly, however, and in his surprise it took him a second to answer. "Um…a minute or two, I guess?"
"...So you heard all that."
"I heard...some of it."
"Where'd you come in?"
"At...at the part where she said that she...well...that she should have..." Slippy could feel his face growing hot. "Gosh, Falco, I didn't mean to-"
"The part where she said she should have aborted me?" He asked the question as if he was making small talk about the chance of overnight rain.
"Ah...yeeeeaaah. That part. Listen, Falco, I wasn't trying to-"
He was interrupted for a third time. "Damn it. I knew I was stupid to try and do that from here. I was stupid to do it at all. Stupid to try." He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips against his temples. "I guess you see now where I get all my patience and goodwill, huh?"
Slippy gaped at him. "Falco..."
Falco heaved a sigh and shook his head. His eyes opened as his hands fell back to his side. "Yeah. Well. Sorry about that. Sorry about her." His focus shifted to some point a thousand yards beyond Slippy's shoulder. "...Sorry about me." And with that he turned in the direction of the docking bay and started walking.
Speechless, Slippy stared after him. Falco – Falco Lombardi, of all people – had just apologized for...for what? For being himself? Slippy's brow knit. Sure, Falco's sarcasm was dark and biting and unpleasant to be on the receiving end of, but he was rarely incorrect in his observations. The fact that Slippy was often the target of the avian's cruelest remarks was just a side effect of his being mediocre at most of the things that Falco was exceptionally talented in. Sometimes it hurt, yes, but Slippy had long ago heeded Fox's advice about not taking it personal. Honesty was something that Falco had never shied away from; if he felt real dislike towards a person he would say so outright. He'd never said anything of the sort to or about Slippy, so they were good.
It wasn't Falco's habit to offer blunt truths about his own life, however. His inborn attitude was a double-edged sword, but he was skilled enough in wielding it that he rarely cut himself. For him to fall on his own weapon instead of slicing Slippy to verbal ribbons for sticking his nose where it didn't belong left the toad with his heart in his stomach.
Only when the other man had disappeared did he find his voice again. "Falco! Hey, wait!" He jogged after him, half-certain that he wouldn't have stopped at the sound of his name but determined to catch up anyway. Rounding the corner, he almost slammed into his quarry. "Gah...oh. You...you actually waited."
"Yeah, well...what is it, Slippy? What do you want?"
"Um...hey, look, are you okay? I mean, that...that was rough. What she said. Your mom."
Falco's eyes widened. Slippy would have sworn that he saw the glimmer of unshed tears in them just before their owner blinked rapidly and shrugged. "Whatever. It's not the first time I've heard any of it." The answer sounded forced, but Falco went on before Slippy could object. "I'm gonna go do a couple loops of the planet. Make sure everything's where we left it."
"But patrol's not due for three hours." The team was receiving small but steady paychecks for remaining on-call in Cornerian orbit and making their presence known a couple times per day. With Andross destroyed and his remaining supporters dispersed there wasn't much else for them to do besides hover over the capital and go on the occasional milk run. They weren't really needed for security purposes, or so Fox said, but giving them something to live on until the next time there was trouble had been a nice gesture on General Pepper's part.
"Then we won't have to do it in three hours, will we?" And Falco turned to go again.
"Hey..." It didn't feel right. Falco went on random flights all the time, but he never told anyone he was doing so. He just left, came back, and filled out the log so that the others knew they didn't have to patrol unless they wanted to.
Falco glanced back at him. "Hey what?"
"Um...don't do anything dumb, okay?"
A short whistle sounded. It struck Slippy how similar it was to the one that Patricia Lombardi had uttered not ten minutes earlier. "What would I do that's dumb? Huh?"
"I don't know. I don't know what's in your head. I just don't want you to..." To get in trouble. To get hurt. To hurt yourself. It was mostly that last one that he was worried about, if he wanted to apply a little of Falco's honesty to his own emotions. "...To do anything you might regret."
The line where red feathers met blue ones above Falco's right eye quirked upward. "Or anything you might feel like you should regret?"
"I would regret it if you did something dumb. Especially if..." Slippy's momentary boldness petered out. "If...you know...it was something that couldn't be fixed."
"If it was really dumb, you mean."
"Yeah."
"Huh." Falco watched him for a second more before he resumed his walk toward the docking bay. "...Huh."
Slippy, not knowing what else to say, let him go.
