Comfort
I mean, I know you're famous
And busy all the time,
Going places,
Seeing People
More important than me.
It's wrong to make breakfast with Callie still asleep, like the world's turned over on itself, but Callie needs the rest. She takes the cinnamon rolls out of the oven, then tiptoes down the hall and cracks open Callie's door.
She's still there.
Marie eases the door closed and lets out a breath. She'll wake up soon—even now, it's rare for Callie to sleep past 9—and she'll find her favorite breakfast already waiting, just like Gramps used to make, with apple sauce and sliced bananas to go along with it. And Callie will smile in a way that doesn't reach her ears, and sit down in the chair furthest from Marie's, and act like she's acting normal in all the ways she's not.
But today, she's having breakfast.
Marie's phone buzzes. Drown texted Morning, beautiful.
Morning, Marie texts back. Not today.
Give your cousin a hug from me. If she needs a normal day, Sync and I will do league with you two.
That makes Marie laugh. If she's up to it, sure. But don't wait up.
Love you.
Marie hesitates, typing and erasing, before sending Love you, too, and dropping the phone before she can change her mind.
Callie had another panic attack last night, and she can't see a therapist because it's related to the splatoon (she tried calling Gramps' emergency cell, the one with the basic plan only if there was an emergency, but there was no answer and he probably wouldn't have a recommendation anyway), but Marie has an idea this time.
Callie's door opens. Marie pokes her head out of the kitchen and grins at Callie. "Good morning!"
Callie's eyes are closed; she sniffs the air. Good sign. "Morning, Mar," she says.
"It's Marie, if you forgot again," Marie says, her chest tight. "I made cinnamon rolls."
"Thanks, but I'm not hungry."
Okay, Marie's not standing for it any more. "You need to eat, Cal," she says. "Doctor's orders; you lost way too much weight. You're having breakfast."
Callie plays with the ends of her tentacles. "Fine," she says, her shoulders slumping, and Marie lets out a breath of relief and moves ahead of Callie, so she can enter the kitchen without their shoulders brushing.
"I got you something," Marie says, once they're both seated and Callie has a cinnamon roll in front of her.
Callie tears a piece off her roll, but doesn't eat it. "I don't need gifts."
"But I want you to have this one." Marie grabs the bag she left under the table and sets it between them. Out come two MP3 players, each with a wireless clip-on speaker shaped like a star. "These have Calamari Inkantation on them on repeat. 500 hours battery life on one charge. Because you said that's the only way you know anything is real."
Callie stops, her eyes wide, her fingers unmoving amid shreds of roll. Marie doesn't move, because Callie doesn't seem to—she's not looking at anything, just staring, and it gives Marie the creeps long before Callie looks at her. "You're lying. Or it's a trick, or—"
Marie presses play on one player, and the sound comes out, tiny and perfect, filling the room. "That's max volume. At half, you'll have your own soundtrack, but no one else should—" Marie stops, because Callie is crying.
Marie pushes the two MP3 players closer, and Callie's hands shake as she attaches the star speaker playing now to one tentacle. She doesn't adjust the volume, though, and honestly the last thing Marie should worry about at this point is her hearing. "Thank you," Callie whispers. She looks at the destroyed remains of her cinnamon roll. "This is—just—thank you." She takes a deep breath. "I'm done."
Okay, good deed or no, Marie's not falling for that. "You haven't actually eaten anything."
Callie winces. "Come on, Marie, I don't—"
"Doctor's orders." Marie points at the cinnamon roll's remains. "Either finish that or I'll get you a fresh one, but I don't think you've eaten anything since you got home."
Callie's shoulders slump, but the chair she put herself in doesn't leave her with an easy exit. She picks up one shred of cinnamon roll and takes the world's tiniest nibble.
Then she sucks in a breath and turns to Marie, and for the first time in days, there's a light in her eyes. "It's good!"
"I hope so," Marie retorts, because she can't let Callie know her hearts ache. "It's been your—"
"No, I mean, it's good," she says, shoving another piece in her mouth. "It doesn't squish weird, there's no grainy texture, it doesn't just look and smell like a cinnamon roll, it tastes like one!"
Marie takes a bite of her own cinnamon roll. She needs to text Four later, tell Four she has to feed Octavio for a while; no one can splat him until he's been questioned properly, but right now, Marie can't trust herself. "Dip it in the apple sauce." She slides the plate of rolls over to Callie. "You always insisted that was the best way to eat them."
"No, no, just the rolls are fine!" Callie takes another and bites into it, closing her eyes and humming in pleasure. "I can't even—I mean, this is amazing, I just..."
Callie babbles on, but Marie's listened to her for years, and she knows Cal's not saying anything that really needs listening to. What matters is that she's not eating not because she's not hungry. She doesn't trust the food.
She doesn't know what they fed her down there, what Callie thought she was eating or what she was actually eating. Marie may never know. And it doesn't matter, if she can just get Callie to eat.
That, Marie can handle.
"If you come to the store with me, I can get more cinnamon rolls, and we can have those all day," she says. "But tomorrow, you can have as many cinnamon rolls as you want, as long as you try one other food."
Callie's ears twitch. She presses her hand to her chin in thought before nodding. "I can do that," she says. "Just... don't make me keep eating it when it's wrong."
Marie won't.
But if this is what it takes, she'll do it. Anything to get Callie's smile back.
She still aches to hug Cal, but that... it has to wait. Callie isn't ready yet. But that's fine, now.
They have all the time in the world.