Title: Teaspoons and cake-bites
Prompt: Prompt 10—No place like home
A/N: I might need to tweak this a bit later
Summary: He sits with them, counting his life in teaspoons and cake bites.
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"Another?" Sharon asks, holding out a platter of cupcakes. It is spring, a season of colour, and they're all decorated like the tulips and daffodils that surround them.
Break smiles. Reaching out for one, he ignores how his bones creak, how his body complains. His eyesight has gotten dimmer, his movements a touch slower. It's a miracle no one has noticed this.
Then again, he has always been the most observant of his group.
"Of course." He takes three, ignoring Sharon's exasperated sigh.
"I don't know where that all goes,"' Reim says, shaking his head disapprovingly. "You should eat something else for once."
"And forsake all these delicious treats? Emily would be horrified." His puppet holds her hand to her face, a show of mock horror. "But I will if you're willing to feed me. Is that an offer?"
Reim chokes on his tea. Laughing, Sharon reaches around the table to pat him on the back. The china clink as her arm brushes against them.
"I didn't know you were so eager," Emily says in a high falsetto, amazed. "You should feed me too."
"Break," Sharon laughs and any warning her voice might have held is lost.
Recovering, Reim pushes his glasses up. "I'll do it if you finish all of your reports for once."
Break stops chewing mid-bite, not really expecting that answer. It's amazing the backbone Reim can show sometimes.
Sometimes. Grinning, he licks his fingers slowly. "I do all of those reports."
"No, no you do not." Reim glowers, setting his teacup down. Pulling out a stack of papers from his folder—how does the man fit all of those in such a small briefcase?
It's a greater magic trick than Break disappearing into cabinets and drawers.
"These." Reim emphasizes his words, setting down the stack with a loud thud. "These are all yours. And you haven't done them."
"Ah, but they are done—look at the reports, so neatly typed." Break lifts one with two fingers, and flips through it slowly. "The chains captured mention of an intention, a voice compelling them. My, I'm impressed by my own word choices. I never knew I could write so well."
"That's because I wrote them!" Reim snaps, trying to pull the report back from Break's grip. "You didn't write them and I had to do them."
Dancing back, Break continues to flip through them. "But they have my name on them."
"He has a point," Sharon adds, unhelpfully, and Reim sputters.
"Because I had to cover for you!" Reim twitches, and Break halts. He might be pushing a little too far this time.
His body agrees, relaxing when he slows down. There's stiffness in his shoulders, hardly perceptible, and Break disguises his wince with a smile as he sits down.
His body, he knows, won't last much longer.
"I'll write the next one," Break promises. It's a lie, even Reim knows that.
Despite that, his friend calms down. "See that you do."
Break takes another cupcake. He doesn't deserve this, not really. These friends, these times, these memories.
(He can still hear her voice, begging him to stay.)
He doesn't but he sits with them anyways, counting his life in teaspoons and cake bites.
"I will," he says, and tries to mean it this time.