A/N: Today is my dump day XD
TornxTess Vday challenge piecekthx? Yes. Quite.
I do not suck at het. I do not suck at het. I do not suck at het.
NO HET-SUCKING ALLOWED.
…. Ew?
-.-.-.-
Any Reason
-.-.-.-
It was hard to keep loving someone when they weren't there.
Distance was like a disease, getting worse with time. He was tempted to do even more rash things, more dangerous things if her safety was at stake- half because he didn't know her that well anymore. And he needed to make himself think he did.
Ashelin.
Something clanked, like a tin falling off a shelf and rattling. Tess was rummaging around in the back, counting out rations.
Tess.
The other woman in his life, if he wanted to lump his caged existence into categories. He'd taken stock of her before. How hard he'd been on her at first, a gut reaction to his anger at the lack of Undergrounders, the spinelessness of Havenites and the grim possibility that she might fail. That he might fail, really. Driving her, never letting up. She never bent.
Even when she started crying the instant she shut the door, she never said stop.
In the end, it was never really about the job. It was about the thinly veiled lust with which everyone with half a testicle eyed her. It was about that immediate drop in standard- with her heart she could've been a man, but she said she'd miss being girly too much. In the end she just needed to prove herself, and the Underground was a good enough cause.
Torn didn't mind that. Sometimes he questioned his own motives. Was it anger that kept him here, or something a little more righteous? Something a little less childish, something more like the Underground mantra?
Sometimes he crumbled here, all alone. Turned a little uncertain. There had always been someone to tell him what to do. Now it was all his to call- his judgment with no second opinions, which was a dangerous thing sometimes. It was hard to be that certain, when he couldn't even manage some little things.
No one even set the clock. There was no time down there, no sense of day and night. He slept when he needed it, but more often when he couldn't.
Men would come in from missions to find him dead asleep, and no matter how skewed the times were, nothing made him feel more worthless. He would slide out of bed as though it were greased, not even grabbing for the coffee cup, because it was stone-cold when he went to sleep. He faced them all with preternaturally wide eyes, trying to dissolve the haggard itch there by keeping them open. Open, open, open.
After they left, he would stay up for hours more, running on a catnap.
She caught on to this, but he wasn't supposed to know about the shrill warnings she shot at the other men. When he really needed it, he got eight hours sleep and he knew why. But she really needed to learn how thin those doors were. Secrecy was never her strong suite.
But she had to take care of him when he couldn't do it himself. It was like an instinct.
The air was filthy. Recycled again and again, wet and smoky. It was making his voice worse, getting into his lungs and sticking there. He got sick more often than he'd admit, not allowed to go outside. He always figured sick and trapped was better than worthless and dead, but he'd never admit any of that.
The first time he'd had those hacking, wet coughs, he'd growled at her when she threw a warm, damp cloth over his head. He knew what to do with it, and sullenly wrapped it around his mouth and nose when she left. But it was a start, when he didn't tear it off immediately when she came back in. She'd smiled at him, sweetly, a little something of a reward for being so good.
He'd flung it off then, but it was still a start.
Tess.
Before, she'd been a nuisance. Now, she was his only link to the outside world.
She would come back, tell him stories. Sitting on the edge of his table while he scribbled away and pretended to ignore her. Anyone would think he didn't care, and true, he didn't know her stories. But words weren't what carried- he couldn't tell what she'd told him already, or what was fresh off the press of that day.
It was her. Just her. The way she crossed and uncrossed her knees, or tilted her head or chewed her hair. When she lapsed off in the middle of her stories, it seemed like nobody noticed.
He wouldn't look forward to seeing her. He didn't look forward to seeing anybody. But something settled down with a frown inside of him, as she came in. Not happy- did he look like the smiling type?- but something better than his usual tight-jawed, wide-eyed dissatisfaction.
She made things better, but he didn't bother looking up as she came in.
"All counted." She wiped her hands on her shorts, strolling up beside him.
"And how long can we scrape by on this group?" He asked flatly, making a thick, important-looking mark on another map.
"Long enough for me to get you more, silly. You won't starve." She rolled her eyes. He made a neutral sound and she started past him, dragging her fingers on the table.
"I'm going to bed."
She stayed, sometimes, when he needed it. Just to have another breathing body around.
And he always pretended to understand.
"City wide awake?" He asked gruffly, voicing a common concern. The unspoken fact that no one could see her exiting the underground was the pretense of it.
A pretense, but not much else.
"As always- a teensy bit more than usual. But hey, I love sleepovers. You didn't bring cocoa, did you?" She chimed, playing into his hands.
He gripped that excuse and deftly tucked it into a mental pocket. He waited, pen hovering, wet with ink, above a map of the ammo dump that had gotten blurry hours ago.
Eyesight, stamina. Everything was dropping off like flies. Deader and deader every day.
He stood up, suddenly.
"Tess?"
She looked back with a small, feminine sound, blue eyes wide. She was half-propped on the ladder to her bunk. So completely at ease with herself, so unmindful of how she looked with the fleshy curve of her legs right before they were tucked into her pants- still bulged the tiniest bit, promising the roundness further up- that he had to stop.
He swallowed.
"How are things at the Hiphog?"
Precursors, his voice was like something out of a horror story these days.
"They're… good." She said slowly, full lips dropping open with the last word. She studied him, hiking one foot off the bunk and swinging slightly.
"Daxter comes and visits me sometimes."
Deep in his mind he knew she had just told him that, but they both ignored it together.
She reached up to twirl a piece of her hair, a fine line knitting between her thin brows.
Really, she'd told him all of this, maybe yesterday, maybe the day before. But he needed to hear it again.
Once, he'd been in that bar. Once he'd walked in like he belonged, wrapped up in red, and he needed to belong now- just this once. Even down here, he'd always needed to belong. He needed a simple 'yes', a reason to think he was doing something good.
She'd lived through a lot with him. Done it without complaint, but he wasn't one to say thank you.
He crossed the room, dodging the table awkwardly. His legs tingled, pins and needles, and she watched him quietly, with that piece of hair tucked between her lips.
Somehow it popped out before his arthritis-wracked hands slid over her shoulders and pulled her flat to him.
Feeling like a fumbling, dull teenager, he stopped his heavy breaths before leaning downward. Lungs frozen, Torn pressed a soundless kiss to her lips and nearly recoiled at how feminine she was. How she didn't stink of the oily sludge he dripped into the furnace day after day to keep it hot- how he smudged her, with all the dirty things he'd touched. Even the water reeked. But she came into his arms warmly, adding to the disbelieving tingle that coursed through his neck as she pressed back.
It was a suggestion, not a demand.
He drew back at that thought, senses returning cold and hard. He looked at her, eyes wide.
She squirmed only for his benefit, the intelligent steadiness in her eyes belying her comfort.
"That's okay." She said softly, pink mouth tilting. Curious.
He just stood there, looking horrified. But right before he was about to turn and leave on stiff legs, her face warmed with understanding, and she took him by the arm with her small fingers.
"Come here." Her voice was warm, breathy, strong, and forgiving all at the same time.
He stepped into the lower bunk like it wasn't going to hold him, led by her grip. Sliding off her shoes, he could only watch with the strangest echo of that shock as she stepped in after him, nudging his knees unblushingly to the side to make way for her curves. She settled next to him like a soft, real reassurance. The rustle of coarse cloth that he could always hear but never touch as she settled down to sleep.
He was still sitting up. She pushed him down, having the sense not to giggle as he made a resentful sound, though it was clear she wanted to.
He lay there, motionless, feeling like a decrepit. Feeling heavy and cold and all-too ready to get up and leave. As though responding to an invitation, however, Tess climbed up his chest, tucked her blonde head under his chin and let out a sweet, lingering sigh. She was asleep within minutes.
Torn went to sleep, too, after a while. Before his eyes closed, his hand curled gently over the small of her back.
-.-.-
He loved Tess, in his own way. He wouldn't get her gifts, or remember her birthday, but she understood that.
Neither had held anyone in weeks, but he didn't like to think that was a reason.
More like a sister, really. But he did love her.
Really.