The Weight of Responsibility
Rating: T
Summery: Sometimes the weight of responsibility can be terribly, terribly heavy. Liam is, for once, vulnerable. Gil is, for once, able to offer comfort. Friendship fic, slightly AU.
Characters: Liam, Gil, and Break. Vaguely implied Liam/Break.
Comments: Credit where credit is due, the idea for the eye thing comes from a fic I read on a Livejournal Meme called "Mutual Scars", I liked so much I used it and hoped the author wouldn't mind. This fic sprung from a want to write the result of a slightly dysfunctional Liam/Break relationship, Liam coming up against something he couldn't and didn't know how to deal with, and Gil being less than an angst blob. Hope you enjoy this, please drop me a review to let me know what you thought.
Spoilers: Up to Retrace 56, Major spoilers for Isla Yura's party.
Gil had looked for Liam in both the library and in his private rooms, both places the other man should have been in, but he wasn't in either. This was something of a problem for Gil, he was supposed to give his report to him and last time he had seen him Liam had requested the papers as soon as possible.
No one had been all that surprised when Liam had become to go-to person for all of the paperwork regarding the Isla Yura party mess, after all, it was something of his specialty. And, considering the level of disaster that had occurred at the mansion there was a lot of forms to fill out, reports to be written, and many different people's accounts of what had happened to be sorted through. Personally Gil was relieved Liam was dealing with it, he could just imagine the towering stacks of paper and he had enough trouble with his own considerably smaller paperwork duties as it was.
Currently he was heading for what he considered the third most likely place for Liam to be in, his office. He would have looked here first but since Liam had been rather badly hurt in the battle at the party (he remembered all too clearly the sight of the other man, tattered, covered in blood, looking up at Break with mild amusement through broken glasses) and lately he tended to either be doing paperwork in the library, since it was closer to his own rooms, or actually in his rooms asleep because he had strained his healing body to the limit.
Any doctor who thought Break was the worst patient in Pandora had never meet Liam Lunettes. Not two days after the party Liam had been on his feet -and never mind what the doctor had recommended- and had been back to as much work as he could manage.
Gil wasn't too surprised to find the door to Liam's office not completely closed, it was common for him to not close it all the way lately, and Gil wondered, suddenly, if that was because Break sometimes had trouble finding doorknobs and it was easier just to make it so the door opened at a single touch. There was no doubt in Gil's mind that Liam had known about Break's blindness all along; the two were too close for him not to have known.
Unlike Gil, who was still cursing himself for not working it out sooner.
The door to the office swung without a sound when he pushed it and Gil could not have been more surprised at when he saw inside. The room was habitually neat, clean, and mostly organized. Liam's desk might have always piled with paperwork, but it was done in such a way that it was clear that the one who had done it knew exactly what was where. The shelves of books that lined the wall were always in equally neat rows, these were books that had been taken from records from one reason or other, borrowed from Pandora's extensive library, or, as Gil knew from looking himself, a few were compilations of research done by Liam himself. The office was always the picture of an organized mind.
But today it looked as if someone had gone mad in here, the ordered piles had been scattered and lay all over the floor, the chair behind the desk had been overturned, even books had been pulled off the shelves. It took Gil a fill minute to actually wrap his head around the picture it was so out the ordinary. Only when he had managed to pick his jaw up off the floor did Gil notice that that what he had come to find was actually here.
Liam was sitting on one of the rungs of the ladder he used to reach the upper shelves of the bookcase easily. He was hunched over, his head in his hands, obviously more than a little upset.
"Liam?" Gil asked cautiously and Liam gave a started gasp, as if he hadn't noticed Gil even entering the room up until that moment and leapt to his feet. This was not a smart move for a man who was only just healing from being rather severely shredded. With a hiss of pain Liam grabbed his shoulder (the one that had been laid open to the bone, he well remembered the sickly sight of white in the moonlight) and crumpled to his knees. Immediately Gil threw himself to his own knees next to him, his hand hovering uncertainly just above Liam's uninjured shoulder, not sure if he could, or even should, offer support.
"What…" Liam seemed to be making an inspired effort to keep his tone normal, " What did you come here for, Gilbert?"
"Oh, um, I have my report," Gil held up the papers. "You said you wanted as soon as possible so…" he lamely let the sentence trail off in the face of the mass paperwork destruction around him.
"Put it on my desk," said Liam hollowly, making no move to get up.
Sensing there was something wrong Gil did as he was told, but returned to kneel again at the other man's side. From this side he could more clearly see Liam's face; the bandages on the other side of his head had shielded his expression previously. There was red around Liam's eyes, as if he had been crying not very long ago.
Was he that upset his office had been wreaked? Well, of course he was, this would take hours, maybe even days to sort out, it was an undeniably cruel joke to play on the man. And there was only one person Gil knew of who would do such a thing.
"It's- it's okay, Liam! Look, I'll help you, it'll go fast." Gil tried to make his voice encouraging; though this was not something he was called on to do often. He cautiously reached out to put a hand, not on Liam's shoulder as the side he was now on was his hurt shoulder, but on his back. It hadn't been noticeable before but now that he was touching him Gil realized that the muscles under his hands were so stiff that they were actually trembling slightly from the tension.
In that moment Gil had never felt so sorry for anyone, except perhaps himself. "You can't let Break bully you like this!" he burst out. "He might think this is funny but that doesn't mean you can't hold him responsible for his own actions! You've got to talk to him about this, tell him it isn't funny to you. He won't stop doing this kind of thing until you do that. And if you won't talk to him -I will!"
The expression Liam turned and gave him was blank. "…what? Break… didn't… do this."
This made Gil deflate notably. "Oh." he said, rather embarrassed. "Sorry." Then he noticed something that hadn't been obvious until Liam turned to face him. "What happened to your eye?" he asked.
Liam flinched back, turning his face away. "Leave it be, Gilbert."
"But it looked like…" there had been something off about that eye. A terrible idea made his stomach drop. "What's wrong with it?"
"I believe I asked you to leave it be, Gilbert." Liam said, his voice trying to be icy, but failing somewhat in strength.
This was the second time, the second time, that a person he had counted as a friend tried to do this to him. First Break, now Liam, and Gil would be damned if he was going to let someone else shut him out when they were obviously hurt.
Before Liam could protest it Gil reached out and grabbed his chin, forcing the other man's head around so he could look him in the eyes. He had been right. Surprise at the sudden action had made Liam widen his eyes, which made it even easier to see.
One of the wounds to the side of Liam's face had strayed so close to one of his eyes it would take inspection this close to see that it just barely hadn't touched it. But that eye had a thin white film over it despite that and, if one looked closely, the color of his eye was paler.
"When I walked in," Gil said slowly, his lips suddenly feeling very numb, "You didn't notice me until I said your name. I thought that was odd at the time because you must have seen me out of the corner of your eye. Unless, of course, you couldn't see out of that eye."
"I can see." Liam said, leaning back, out of Gil's grip. He looked away, hiding the filmed eye again.
"Then why didn't you see me come in?" he demanded. There was no way he was letting himself be lied to again.
Liam stood; wincing as he did so, he had his back turned to Gil as he took a few steps away, as if he need the space. "…don't tell Break." he said finally.
"He would want to know."
"No!" Liam said it so suddenly that Gil actually jumped. He paused for a moment, and then went on in a leveler tone. "He doesn't need to know. He… he has enough to worry about at the moment."
"Are you… alright?" he asked, cautiously.
It occurred to him that no one had probably asked Liam this question in a long time and the way the other man's shoulders went stiff when he did made him sure of it. Liam was the one who asked if others were alright, especially with Break, not the other way around.
"Please leave now, Raven."
'Raven', he had said, the title, not 'Gilbert' the name. There he went, distancing himself from him just like Break had. But Gil was not letting this happen twice, especially when the voice he had used to do it had sound so… wrong. Gil was not very good when it came to other people and emotions, and really he didn't know Liam quite well enough to tell but he thought the other man's voice sounded… upset. That was the best word he could find for it but it wasn't quite a perfect fit.
"No." he replied. "I… I don't know if I can help, but… whatever it is… I want to help." it wasn't coherent, but it was heartfelt, and he hoped that would make up for it.
"Please go away." Came the flat reply. "Now if you would please, Raven." His voice might not have given away anything but his hands were fisted at his sides, even with gloves on he had to be digging his fingernails into his palms.
Everything about Liam, the way he was standing, the stiffness in the way he held his shoulders, his strangely toned voice, made Gil think of a wire stretched almost to the point of breaking, quivering under tension, just waiting for that last bit of pressure that made it snap.
"Let me help you." he repeated.
There was an uncharacteristically bitter laugh from Liam, "I don't think you would quite understand…" then he paused. "No. You have Lord Oz. I suppose there is a little similarly."
He 'had' Oz? What on earth was Liam talking about? His master was his master, he looked after him when Oz actually let him and tagged along when he wouldn't. There really was nothing he could see of similarity between- oh.
For some time he'd always known that Liam looked after Break, it was there in the nagging, after all, but with Break's blindness -however long he even had been blind, Gil didn't know for sure- the workload that came with 'looking after Break' must have become staggering.
The weight of responsibility was a heavy one sometimes. Maybe even crushing.
"It must be hard to… to be the person someone lives for." Gil said, slowly, not sure if these were the right words, or even the right time to say this, "I know, while he thought you were… when he and I were fighting the Baskervilles, I had never seen him like that. He just… didn't care. And that was because… he didn't have you. Because he needs you. He needs you to be there for him."
There was a horrible laugh from Liam, black and dark, and then he turned to look back at Gil, a horrible, bitter little smile on his face. "Does it even occur to you that sometimes I get terribly tired of being relied on to 'be there'?"
Gil's gaze went slowly from the chaos of the office to Liam's twisted smile. The suspicion that the man in front of him might have actually already snapped some time before he had come into the room spread it's dreadful feelers though his mind.
And who, really, could blame him? Everyone needed a shoulder to lean on and Break… Break was too caught up in himself sometimes to see what was right in front of him. Quite literally now.
"I…" Gil tailed off, then asked softly, "How long have you felt like this?"
Something flickered across Liam's face, as if the bitter expression he had been desperately trying to hold together had cracked and underneath was… something raw.
He took a step toward him, "It's okay. I mean, everyone gets overwhelmed."
"I have to support Xerxes." Liam said, though his voice was hollow again, like they were worlds said out route. "I don't have time… I can't afford to…" he waved a shaking hand as if to encompass everything about the situation.
Gil lay a hand on his shoulder, the safe one, "Tell me. Let me help if I can. Cry if you want, I do it all the time, it works wonders, really!" He tried smiling encouragement, though he wasn't sure how well it worked.
"I'm blind in one eye." Liam said it so suddenly it was like he had been longing to say it the entire time. "I can't see anything. I've never… it's terrifying. And there's no time to be afraid because there are things to do that can't be delayed and… the plots never end," Liam looked up at him and his eyes were just a little too bright behind his glasses, "Even if you're so tired of them. Even if all you want to do is close the door and forget it all. The deception and the lies and the conspiring, they can never end. And I just… I can't do this anymore."
He didn't think twice about what he did next, if he had Gil was sure he probably would have messed it up somehow, he just knew, right then and there that Liam needed this and even though he might not have been the best person to give it he was the only one currently available. Reaching out Gil pulled Liam into the circle of his arms so his head rested against Gil's shoulder.
It was the only thing he could have done. And it seemed to help. He could feel Liam shaking in his grip, and wondered, briefly, if the other man was crying. If he was it was silently and since his face was currently buried in his shoulder it was hard to tell.
Gil gingerly rubbed circles on Liam's back, remembering a long time ago when he had been very young and Lord Oscar had done a similar thing for him. It had felt good at the time, he remembered, and once he'd cried himself out he had felt a lot better for it. The same thing might not apply here but this was the best he could do and all he could think of.
The fact that his shoulder was starting to feel wet was both encouraging and terrifying.
For the longest time Gil had thought Liam Lunettes was one of the strongest people he knew. After all, the man put up with a master most found insufferable, kept Break almost in line, and did his work with incredible efficiency. It might be easy to fluster, embarrass, or enrage him but the same could easily be said for Gil himself. Besides, Gil had long been envious of the way Liam was unquestioningly closer to Break than anyone else.
But seeing him now, clutching at his own arms, huddled into his embrace, irrefutably crying tears of exhaustion and frustration and fear Gil realized there was a price for that. And it wasn't one the Gil thought he would ever strong enough to carry. The weight of responsibility was terribly, terribly heavy.
And, to be honest, it almost made him a little relieved to find that Liam Lunettes was not as perfect as he had thought. It made Gil feel better, in a strange way, to see he too had flaws.
"What's going on?" the voice from the door made both of them freeze. Break was standing just inside the doorway, a frown on his face. "Liam?"
Liam disentangled himself from Gil's arms hastily, swiping the back of one glowed hand across his face so quickly that Gil had only a glimpse of red eyes and tear tracks before they were hidden from view by that arm.
"Break," said Gil, who felt rather like he should announce that he too was in the room. "Liam's here too."
"There was a reason I didn't tell you I was blind," Break muttered, sounding rather annoyed. "I know he's here, there's no need to announce it. I do not need to be coddled. Now, what's going on?"
"Gil came to deliver his report." said Liam; he had turned away from Gil to hide his face, though his voice was a terribly attempt at normal.
Immediately Break frowned, stepping toward Liam, "Something's wrong."
"No." Liam said. "Nothing is wrong."
And at that point Gil had officially had it up to here with the entire situation. He walked right up to Break and grabbed his arm; Break seemed so surprised that he actually let Gil tow him over to where Liam stood. Gil took Break's hand and planted it on Liam's face, right over the scar so he couldn't miss it.
Then he turned and left. He paused just long enough at the door to hear Break say, "You were… crying?" before he closed the door to the office behind him.
That had been the easiest solution to the whole problem.
After all, Liam might know Break better than anyone else did but that also had to mean Break knew Liam equally as well.
They'd work it out.
end.