A/N: The long awaited second chapter! -crickets chirp- Okay, yeah. So I'm the only one waiting for it?
Time passes, but it does not pass quickly. Each second, minute, hour, day just seems to stretch on and on, into the unending darkness.
Todd doesn't sit in front of the window anymore. Instead, he stays in one of the back rooms of the Devil's Nest. Usually alone, sometimes with Sloth.
Once, Martel walks past and it is Wrath sitting there.
Both boys are sitting on the floor, legs drawn up to their chest in mirror images of sorrow. Todd's head is tilted down and hair covers his eyes, but Wrath is scowling at the wall and the young homunculous' eyes are dark. Too dark. An angry, empty sort of dark.
Martel decides that she needs to speak to them both then, because this cannot go on forever. Just like they cannot stay in the worn-down bar forever.
"Todd, Wrath." she says, nodding at them.
Wrath looks up at her, with those angry dark eyes of his. Todd doesn't.
Martel sighs, leaning against the doorway. Crosses her arms over her chest and then crosses them, but doesn't speak for the longest moment. When she does, it catches the mutants attention fast.
"We're leaving. In three days. Dorochet and I." says Martel, and Todd's head snaps up so fast that she's surprised it doesn't hurt him. There is surprise and fear and anger in those dark amber eyes, but at least they weren't empty.
"What do you mean you're leaving?" croaks Todd, and Martel takes that previous thought back.
She wishes that Todd's gaze was empty again, because his feelings were coming through in his voice. That fear, that distrust, it was there.
"I mean we're leaving. There's no point staying there if Greed isn't around." answers Martel, and is this the first time that she has said his name since that very first day? When she had to break the news to everyone? Yes, she thinks that it is. Strangly, it doesn't leave her feeling broken.
Just a little stale.
For Todd, it's as though she has just physically struck him. He flinches and draws back, trying to back away from Martel without actually moving. Small, thin arms wrap around his chest and he has to look away from Martel because he thinks he may cry again.
And it's one thing to cry in front of Sloth. Even Wrath or Dorochet.
But Martel is different.
Martel is big and strong and fierce, and someone that Todd actually looks up too. Respects and wants to be respected by. So he tried desperatly not to cry in front of her, but it sounds all too much like someone about to leave him.
Martel doesn't notice, doesn't realize, just keeps talking. "I don't know about Wrath, but I know that Sloth's going to come with us. What about you?"
A moment of silence, broken only by Wrath scrambling up onto his mismatched limbs. "If Mommy's going, then so am I!"
Silence again, and those empty eyes have centered on Martel. She wonders what's going through Todd's mind, then she wonders if she even really wants to know.
Decides she doesn't, because suddenly the young mutant seems all the more broken.
Without someone else by his side, he seems even smaller.
Without Greed, he is lost.
But he speaks anyway, uncurling his limbs as he does so. "I ain't stayin' here."
It's simple, but not the answer that Martel is looking for. Not the answer that she needs. "Are you coming with us or not, kid?"
Todd blinks. Looks almost surprised, actually, and did he think that Martel was just going to leave him? Because that is something that would never happen, could never happen, should never happen.
They are a family now, and Martel may not have dog in her but she was still plenty loyal.
"Yeah, dawg." says Todd, after a moment. He nods and the faintest light flickers in his eyes. "Yeah, I'm comin' too."