Chapter Text
Total destruction is a gradual process. A porcelain vase will fall with one strike of some reckless child's bat, but crushing it into a fine powder might take the entire house collapsing. Debris upon debris, something so large and inevitable that would push it far beyond repair. Or, perhaps, the deliberate work of a man with too much time on his hands. Multiple strikes, rapid and angry, until he is satisfied.
Whatever it may be, the method loses itself in the result. All one needs is time to make their desired object a stain on the concrete. As it warps into a pile of dust, every memory crumbles alongside it — from the shape it once held to its murderer — and the world continues on spinning.
If someone cried, if someone so much as noticed, grief is a temporary process. Opposed to breaking, it pales. Even the strongest of cities cannot be repaired after a certain point. Rome rose and fell; there's a toddler's favorite stuffed animal in a landfill somewhere. Everything tangible breaks. Everything tangible dies.
Simon Blackquill was a shattered man, sitting in pieces outside the detention center.
December 20, 2027. Freezing, he sighed into the silence of a winter night. It was uncanny to see his breath fade away. Had things gone according to plan, he'd be writing his will and ordering his last meal right about now, yet here he sat unchained. Something in him yearned for the weight of shackles round his wrists once again, as he had no idea what to do from here.
Comfort wasn't a word many associated with the prospect of dying. Simon was an outlier in that respect, and several others. Once he stopped tallying the days, closer to a thousand than one, he just wanted it all to end. Each night he'd fall asleep hoping to catch pneumonia, or never to return alive and get chastised for prison fights, because death meant the pain would end. Dark or light, his scars all ached like new. From a stab wound that never fully healed to the webbed electrical burns along his forearms, everything ached. Constantly.
In prison, agony became his default, his regular. He felt like a walking corpse, mind and body slipping away before his eyes, with nothing he could do about it. Every night, he would cry himself to sleep and pray to gods he didn't believe in: Let all of this be a horrible nightmare, let him wake to the loving faces of his family. Pain shouldn't have hurt if it was all he ever felt. It did anyway.
Time stripped away his ridiculous hero complex, his hopes, every ounce of joy. Fame morphed to infamy. All he did was hurt, ashamed of his own body and everything he meant. Headlines called him an omen of the law's dark age. The bloodthirsty prosecutor who'd slipped through the cracks with a kind face, a façade to disguise insanity. And he'd suffer for it.
All of this done by his own volition, but ultimately bearing no fruit he could enjoy. Athena got accused despite his efforts, his sister incarcerated, his master still beyond the river. The anguish he brought upon them, upon himself, what was it for? If the truth always prevailed as Wright so insisted, Simon spilled his own blood for naught. Every nice aspect of his life, torn away and apart, for nothing at all.
He was no samurai. He was hardly even human. The only thing distinguishing him from a bird without feet was the ability to disappoint, given you wouldn't expect something incapable of landing to make a vain attempt at flight. Simon had put himself through so much unnecessary torment for the illusion of accomplishment, as if ending the miserable parasite wearing Fulbright's skin would fix all the pain away.
Neither revenge nor freedom made it disappear. Simon still let his mind marry the idea of his noose, without a soul there to grieve him. Death, in a way, was a freedom like no other. Lighter than the truth, responsiblity, and reliving that scene every waking moment. Rage was a welcome distraction in court, then hunger at some cheap ramen bar. Now, unbound, he didn't have the option to procrastinate on living. His empire of dirt faced him like the jaws of a beast.
Nothing had changed but the scenery. New models of old cars blitzed past his empty eyes like hummingbirds. Advertisements of games and restaurants he'd never heard of coated the outline of a city he knew, once upon a time. Just a new layer of paint over his cell. Simon knew he was meant to fill his heart up with dandelion seeds and see in three dimensions again, but his optimism dried up long ago. The flowers hadn't any sunlight.
Snow built up on his lashes, but he didn't blink, letting it obscure all that lay before him. Earth moved on. Besides the morgue workers uprooting his unmarked headstone, not a soul even needed him for their paycheck. No longer did he have a semblance of purpose, with his only goals completed. Call it subhuman, selfish, whatever you may; Simon was broken beyond repair, and he didn't want to be fixed.
The prospect of living as this shell of a man terrified him. News outlets and release forms pieced him together with a poor hot glue job, tossing him back onto the shelves like the horrors were a delusion. Yes, fate gave him a non-zero chance that he made it back from Hell, but springing to life after he'd been embalmed and sat pretty wasn't exactly the plan.
How did anyone expect the ghost of an honorless ronin to navigate the 21st century? Why did Simon even expect himself to accomplish it? Once, he'd been so carefully planned, weekdays thought out by the minute, then prison wrung out his sense of time. Despite his now being in dire need of a formula, he drew a blank. What a joke.
Cold bit at his ears and nose, reminders of what an utter fool he must look, grimacing at the sky as if he could exact revenge on it. Sat upon a stray bench in the detention center parking lot were him and three cardboard boxes, holding what remained of his belongings. He'd probably find a coat buried there somewhere, but frankly, he didn't care enough to check.
Brainstorming in the snow wasn't something he anticipated doing right now to any extent. Alas, here he was, willing an answer to show itself at any moment. He struck down the obvious ones without much thought. All of his family was either dead, jailed, or in Japan. Given the tenth of pay he'd received from his work in prison, hotels were too expensive. Did Air B&B still exist?
That was only if he didn't settle on an alley to sleep in and let the winter take what it wanted of him. Vanishing seemed much easier than finding the willpower to live on. After all, he'd done his duty and protected his master's treasure until the very end, but he would never be unbound from it.
As exhaustion mounted, the boxes looked more and more like pillows, but he wasn't the type to give in to temptation. He'd come up with more dignified places to die than a wet plastic bench, thank you. For additional insult to injury, his only friend was a bird, and a bird that he didn't know the current location of. If Taka were human, would he even…
"Simon?"
He blinked and looked up, as his train of thought came to a screeching halt.
"What're you still here for?" Suddenly drawing a shadow over him stood Athena. Her sunkissed skin wasn't yet rosy from the frigid weather, bright ginger hair housing a few stray snowflakes. Like a daisy in a field of spider lillies, she stood in stark contrast to everything surrounding her, a visage of warmth among endless cold.
In that moment, he was overwhelmed with the urge to throw her at a wall, the kind you get with puppies and little spring chicks. Clearing his throat, he shoved that thought down with a shiver. "Had to pick up my things," came his raspy answer, terse and close enough to the truth.
"Oh." She glanced at the pitiful selection beside him and frowned. A faux fur mane decorated her neck, the hood of a perfectly-ironed yellow coat. She adjusted her hands, clad with mittens, around the messenger bag at her hip. "That's all they gave you?"
"I'm as perturbed as you are." Enough eye contact. Simon looked down and fiddled with the collar of his old suit. "This will never be clean no matter how many times I run it through the wash."
It wasn't the loose buttons and fraying hem, nor the belt missing stitches, nor the tattered boots' soles hanging on by a thread of hope. Both he and Athena knew, though they never said it aloud, that bloodstains like these couldn't be removed.
"Well, I just came to finish my paperwork. Maybe tomorrow we could do some shopping," she mused after a beat of silence. "But I'm going home first. It's almost ten."
He hummed his acknowledgement and began stacking up his belongings, a poor mimickry of someone who had places to be.
"Where are you headed? If it's in the same direction, I'll make you walk me."
Standing on unsteady legs, he mulled over his bank of lies. Odd, how in a world of only crimson and ash, she remained fully colored. He didn't want to tarnish her vibrant figure with any more suffering. Though she'd grown past taking such words at face value, Simon almost told her he was going somewhere far away, on vacation.
If only she couldn't see right through him. No matter what he said, no matter how vacant of an expression he wore, his heart spoke louder. God, he wanted to rip that thing out of his chest. Why couldn't Simon turn it over and empty it, go numb like anguished men did in films? Why did he still have to feel?
She heard the guilt, the resignation, the anger. All of it, the center of his being he'd never rid himself of. He saw it in her eyes, as she leaned backward and a crease formed between her brows.
"Don't look at me like that, Athena."
"You don't have anywhere to go, do you?"
Their conversations had been this way ever since they left the courthouse, her completing every meaningful aspect of human interaction, while he curled further into himself like a pill bug. Now and again he'd say something foolish or let the silence speak for him, and she'd give him that look. He wasn't sure what it meant. Pity, maybe.
Athena waited a moment for some sort of correction, and when it didn't arrive, she threw her head back. "Oh my god, Simon!" Unceremoniously snatching his personal effects, pity turned into thorough scolding. "How long have you been out here? You're going to catch a cold!"
"Don't blame me, you dolt! Heaven knows my apartment has been through two families since I last stepped foot in it," he seethed. Before she could offer any solutious, Simon readied every defense possible. He would tolerate no more of that from her today.
"Why didn't you just say so?!" She straightened her hold on the boxes, whatever she intended to do with them. "You're so weird. Willing to serve a life sentence for me, but can't trust me with something that important. No tiene sentido. That makes zero sense."
"This", he made a vague gesture in her general direction, "is exactly why I didn't want to tell you. Give me my things."
"No way, José. I'm taking you to my place."
Of course. "Absurd. You know I can't accept that." He felt his fingers trembling, every minute breeze passing through him like a knife, hair failing to make his neck anything but itchy. It took all of his strength not to make like a child, complain and shiver. He acknowledged how ridiculous denying her was, and did it nonetheless.
"Why not? All you did these past years was to protect me. Now, I want to take care of you. It's the least I can do."
"I do not need taken care of."
"Never said you did. I said I want to."
Simon reached for his things back. Athena, in some sort of attempt at dodging, stumbled and nearly hit her head on the concrete. He shot forward to catch both her and the boxes, then backward to set them down and reinstate his iron walls.
Snot-nosed, she grinned and thanked him, clueless of the pit that formed in his stomach as soon as gravity took its hold on her. If she as much as scraped her knee, he might have lost his mind. What made this girl think that infecting her home with his misery could be a positive thing?
"Come on! You can take a hot bath, then we can have a snack and go to sleep."
"You don't understand."
"Let me."
His wrists burned. He tried to back away from her as an ambulance wailed in the distance. "I can't."
"What are you so afraid of?" She moved back into his peripheral vision, vibrant and blurry like candlelight.
Wide blue eyes pried into his soul, even as he looked away, then back up. Hardly noticable, they were still swollen from tears shed in the midst of today's court proceedings. Her expression reminded Simon of how she'd looked at Metis seven years ago — something that could be repaired, pieced back together. Even now, she was not able to wrap her head around the fact that death is an incurable disease.
Inhaling, he faced a street lamp to his right. Umbre hid the guilt in his eyes, the hesitant quiver of his brow, all that he wouldn't divulge when he opened his mouth. "With no exaggeration, you saved my life, Athena. I cannot even begin to thank you enough for all that you've done."
Athena pursed her lips, and Widget flickered deep blue.
"So I ask now that you rest easy, and fret not. There's no more monsters to rescue me from."
She was quiet for a few moments as she fought for words. Her breath would hitch and fizzle out, and eventually, she decided not to say anything at all, instead taking a step forward. The frozen road beneath her ground and cracked as she went, too loudly.
Until she broke through the wall, graceful like it was butter, and embraced him. Arms met around his back, and her head lay upon his chest, ear to his heart. So very warm. That hair of hers might as well have been the fire it resembled, a precious light of hope during this murky winter. Gentle was her touch, the way you'd cradle a wounded animal, not a convict.
"You don't understand how much I love you," she said.
Like a statue or an idiot, he didn't move. He didn't breathe. This was the first time Athena had hugged him since that day. Even now, despite gaining seven years of long hair and an attorney's badge, she buried her head in his coat with more love than he deserved. If he shut his eyes, he might have been able to imagine the same happy child clinging to him, only taller.
“I didn't just fight for the truth today.” Her voice came hushed by the thin layers of fabric that shielded him from the cold. She sniffled, beet red nose scrunching up as she staved away tears. “I fought for you, Simon.”
He couldn't breathe, choking on every snide remark he'd prepared as offense. When did he forget that she might have cared for him as much as he did her? How did he forget? All those years, everything he did was to protect just this. The little girl with a heart too big for her body, someone so gentle and kind she would melt the North Pole. If she asked, he'd pluck the stars from the sky for her, because the world deserved to see her smile. He couldn't bring himself to take that away now.
"Maybe it's selfish, but I need my best friend here with me, and you deserve a peaceful sleep more than anyone tonight. Just stay. Go on your next journey in the morning, samurai."
Simon huffed a laugh, beyond tired. "Fine."
Athena ran Simon to her apartment like Pheidippedes, excluding the death upon arrival. If this prosecutor had anything to his name, it was longer legs, so he trailed behind at a brisk walk.
The distance wasn't much — hardly comparable to running laps in the prison yard — just a few blocks away. He'd somewhat expected it to stretch on longer, for the city felt large, more so than it ever had. But that was irrational. If her home and work weren't within jogging distance, Athena would likely own a bicycle. A car, even.
Clearly, she did not. The duo passed a giant parking garage and too many bike racks to count. Nary a soul populated them as they went, some vehicles even topped with snow, all left behind while the world slept. The roads were empty.
A few right turns, and there her apartment complex was. Under the moon, it was hard to distinguish any color at all, but he could've sworn it was oddly… blue. Two residents still had their lights on, visible through balconies lined up on either end. The entire place was awkwardly crammed between a laundromat and some small restaurants, none of which he recognized.
Simon's arms were full, having won the battle for his things, so Athena had to beckon him inside via incessant hand waggling. "Aren't you freezing? Don't be a slowpoke.”
He hadn't realized that he spaced out. Even now, he found himself hesitant to enter, despite all the effort she went through for his agreement. If only it were summer — he may not have given in and stayed behind under warm weather. Tonight, it was just too cold.
Alas, they met in a small lobby, no landlord in sight. Cheap furniture served as a divider between the front desk and ground floor apartments, with a stairwell tucked into the end of the hallway. Livable, yes. Not the nicest place he'd seen, but beggars can't be choosers. Compared to prison, this was a utopia.
"My room's on the third floor," Athena told him. "Three-twelve. Probably remember that."
"Twelve?" Simon frowned.
"Yeah. Why? What's wrong?"
That was his cell number. He shook his head. "Merely confirming. Now guide me, O Athena."
She snorted. "You're such a dork." Rolling her eyes, she opened the stairwell door and began the hike upward.
Once again, he followed without a word. For an apartment complex, this place smelled oddly relaxed. Sandalwood and cotton, hints of takeout in the second floor’s hallway. However, it could very well be that he'd just grown too accustomed to death row. There, it always smelled like blood and metal, or whatever drugs the man across from him bribed in.
All of his tall tales about prisonmates had been fabricated on a whim. Not a single man he spent those years with earned any form of respect. One strangled his cheating wife, the other stabbed his dealer when things went south. Angry fools who benefitted from poor gun control, the cookie cutter sadists, money-hungry sore losers.
Meanwhile, the residents of this building were more than likely regular citizens; parents and workers. Just… people. Refreshing, though among them, Simon made for a crow in an aquarium. Uprooted and left somewhere new. He wondered how long it'd take for him to adjust to such normalcy, if at all.
They made it to Athena’s home. Immediately, Simon was instructed to wipe his boots on a gaudy welcome mat that shouted ‘hello’ in cursive. From floor to ceiling, her walls were decorated with motivational quotes and family photos. Sunflowers rested in mugs on shelves and adorned a quilt draped over the sofa. There was a throw pillow shaped like a bumble bee on the hardwood floor.
“Do you love it?” she asked over her shoulder, grinning.
“No.”
“Look who just rolled in from frown town!” With ease, she pulled off her shoes and hung up her coat. When he did nothing but stand uncomfortably in the doorway, she once again waved him inside like a dog. “Come on. Just put your stuff up and don't drag snow in.
Simon draped his haori over the coat rack. It looked like he’d spilled ink on a painting of the golden summer sky. His boots lay next to runner’s sneakers in every color of the rainbow, accompanied by one pair of heels. “Never took you for the organized type.”
While he was busy examining the strange red stain on his sleeve, Athena turned around and settled her hands on her hips. “What's that supposed to mean?”
“You tell me.” Simon gave her his best ‘it means I think you're an airhead’ smile as he walked past her. Revealed deeper inside was much of the same, only given a hallway splitting off to the left and an opening for the unimpressive kitchen.
“You’re a jerk.” She pouted, looking back and forth from his face to the living room. Evidently, she wanted to gauge what he felt about the place.
He did not expect her to actually care for his opinion on the decor. “I’m not sure letting jerks into your place of residence is such a good idea,” he said. “Jokes aside, garish as it is, it’s tolerable. I'd expect no less from you.”
Boundless energy returned to her, and she jumped with a ridiculous level of glee for that statement. “Thank you! I'll order some food, my treat.”
“Athena, I had five bowls of ramen two hours ago.”
“What's one more? You're tall. Must take a lot to fill that big ol’ stomach.”
“It sounds to me like you’re the hungry one here.”
She opened her mouth, but Widget chirped first: “I want a pizza greasy enough to fulfill my caloric intake for the year!”
Simon stared.
Athena did the same. “…Go wash up, I'll find you something to wear.”
He nodded — hesitant, conflicted. For one thing, he felt and was filthy. He didn’t even know when the last time he’d truly bathed was, and his hair was so matted it pulled him down like a weight on his back. However, for the same reasons, he did not want to leave this spot. Finding out what looked back at him in the mirror, let alone seeing his own body, terrified him to no end. Whatever he saw, he wouldn’t like it.
Only his friend seemed rather frantic to get him clean, and he might have been even more chagrined had he lounged around her home in this state. So, dragging his feet, he found the washroom.
Right as he entered, it was just as he feared. The mirror, pinned up above citrus-scented handsoap on a marble counter, didn’t wait to greet him.
Simon’s eyes bore holes into his bare feet. He couldn’t look. Seven years ago, he stood in front of a mirror much like this one as he groomed himself for that day. Neatly combed his hair, flattened his tie on a clean white button-up, and flashed a smile to be sure no rice had stuck to his teeth. If he hadn’t taken an extra ten minutes for breakfast, or if his commute to work had been faster, would events have unfolded the same way? Though it hurt, he could not help but wonder how many ways he failed.
Still, why bother? He lost everything that day nonetheless, and for the rest of his life, would live knowing he’d failed her. Time travel has not been invented. For the rest of his time on Earth, it would ruin him, tear him apart from the inside out, more brutal than any torture he was subjected to in prison. He’d rotted away, never to be the same again.
Therefore he knew that, as he looked up, he wouldn’t recognize himself. Not like this, broken and mutilated.
When his neck began to ache, he found that hypothesis correct. His skin was ghastly pale, near transparent, every vein visible as blue fractures on his forehead. Barely did his face retain the same shape, now gaunt and angry, and his eyes were completely empty. Void, with thick bags beneath, scars from skin thin enough that weeping tore it.
Who was this?
Simon didn't know the man in the mirror. He leaned forward, searching desperately something familiar, watching a body he’d never claimed move at his whim. All the way to his posture and the width of his shoulders, none of him was as he remembered. Aura never lied. His eyes and hair were vantablack, save for one patch of stark white to match the skin. Like something out of a horror movie. Terrifying, foreign. He didn’t know this man at all.
“You okay?”
If he’d turned any faster, his neck would be broken. His heart dropped to his feet, then crept back up into his chest when he saw Athena.
Widget shone yellow, and she stepped back. “Woah! It's just me.”
He bit the inside of his cheek. The porcelain underneath him was cool and fragile. Downward, his reflection also stared back from the drain. It slipped away when a droplet of sweat fell from his brow. “I’m fine.”
Athena approached him and settled a hand on his trembling shoulder. “It’s alright if you don’t wanna talk about it,” she said. “Just try not to lie to me.”
“…Don’t you hate how I’ve changed?” Simon murmured.
Without hesitation, she replied, “No. I hate that you’re suffering.”
Blinding, warm light. There came times he simply wanted to rot in the dark.
She patted him on the back twice and walked further in. Water ran. He turned to see her filing through a myriad of soaps, all in different shapes and sizes. Now and again she’d open one to sniff it, then set it back down. Simon tried to list off the brands he knew. Dove was the only one.
“I only have women’s stuff,” she informed him. Looking up again, she fidgeted with her earring. She’d forgone the ponytail and left her hair to spill over her shoulders. “So you’re going to smell like lavender and coconut for a bit, sorry.”
“What kind of wet noodle do you think I am?” He was happy to change the subject. Not as much about the implications of that statement. “I should be offended you think me the type to be emasculated by such a thing.”
“Désolé, désolé. Men can be weird.”
“Not a lick of faith in me.”
“I said I’m sorry!”
Seven years ago and earlier, little Athena would come to Simon for comfort on days the Space Center had too many guests. Glassy-eyed, she’d pull at his coattails and ask to go somewhere quiet, and he’d comply. More often than not, she’d fall asleep with her head on his lap. Otherwise, they’d play games and read books until dinnertime.
Things were backwards now. Athena ran Simon a warm bath, brought the clothes he’d been wearing for a week to the laundry machine, and helped him into the tub after he stumbled. His life force had been drained entirely for the day, so he let her wash his back, then his hair.
Her touch was considerate, every movement thought out, like he’d fly away if she exhaled too hard. He felt humiliated being taken care of by someone a decade his junior, but again and again she’d reassure him: They were family. No matter the circumstances, she’d care for him, and knew he’d do the same.
He’d be a fool to continue on dreading vulnerability around Athena, anyway. After entrusting his life to her and laying his heart bare for the courtroom just hours ago, he didn’t feel the need to waste energy hiding his scars.
“Did they ever let you brush your hair?” she asked, running her fingers through the rat’s nest on his head. Impressively, she’d made some progress, pulling apart the greatest mats with surgical precision. She brought it into segmented locks of black, and started a direct attack with her — as she put it — best comb. “Your split ends have split ends, dude.”
“For ten minutes under supervision. Weekly.” He laid his chin on his knees. “Combs are a dangerous object.”
“That’s crazy…”
Athena trailed off. Her eyes found Simon’s forearms. Instinctively, he moved to hide them, wincing as the water hit burns that were nowhere near healed.
To the broader human race, one who is willing to take another’s life may be considered subhuman. Unworthy of living without pain, at the very least, so his prison guards felt justified in searing his flesh with the Phantom’s sick invention. They would leave a window for the wounds to fester, then deepen them, rinse and repeat. It’d only been a week or so since his last round of torture.
Athena took Simon’s hand in hers once he relaxed, careful not to brush his injuries. Juxtaposed with all of the anger in her voice, the gentle hold was strange. “This bad, and no one treated you at all?”
“What’s amazing is that I begged for a doctor,” he chuckled humorlessly, “and they refused.”
“Everyone’s got to start throwing cops more.” Very displeased, she let go and stood up, padding over to the counter. Her medicine cabinet was hidden behind the mirror. She started rummaging through a cluttered assortment of itch creams and empty Advil containers inside. He was beginning to notice that she owned a lot of everything. “Honestly, I might just take you to urgent care. Not sure anything I have here will help.”
“No.”
“No?”
“Tell me — in what world would any doctor worth their salt see these and not contact law enforcement?”
“Maybe that’s what you need,” Athena said. She found an unopened package of bandages at the very back. “To press charges, I mean.”
“What I need is for you to stop at CVS and buy more of that gauze.”
She tutted. “Because this is the kind of wound you treat at home.”
“Precisely.”
“I’m being sarcastic, Simon.”
“I am not.”
“…Guess I can’t force you,” she conceded, settling back on the tub’s rim to brush a new segment of his hair. “We can go to the drug store tomorrow, but I don’t know if they’ll have anything that works.”
Simon nodded, then flinched when it caused her to yank at a stubborn knot. Fleetingly, the sensation brought him back to his sister preparing him for school. He remembered her nails always pressed on pink, head adorned by thick curls, and long-winded lectures about proper hair care. According to her, the only thing humans and machines had in common was the need for regular maintenance.
Aura resented the gradual decline of his health and hygiene, reminding him during every visit that he had to care for himself, and he never listened. He regretted it now, after scrubbing himself raw just to get the dirt off his skin, and enduring the ache of his scalp as Athena worked her magic. But he wasn’t sure there was any way to foresee this. Pain from irritated skin didn’t quite match up to pain from regular torture, no?
“Junie texted earlier.” In record time, Athena was almost finished detangling. “She said she’ll bring a charcuterie board to celebrate tomorrow.”
“Does she know I’ll be there?”
“Oh, crap, no. Don’t let me forget to tell her.”
“I don’t know if she’ll be too enthusiastic to see me.” Simon pulled back and cracked his knuckles, eyes on the pristine white walls. “All I brought to greet her after seven years was a false accusation of murder.”
“Eh. It’s not like you were going out of your way to get her jailed.” She successfully ran her fingers through his hair a few times. It was astounding, the sheer level of skill with which she’d picked apart every knot. “Junie’s too nice, anyway. I’m, like, one hundred percent sure she’s already forgiven you.”
“That makes me feel worse.”
“You’re really hard to please. Do you know that?”
Athena later stepped out, leaving him alone with a simple white tank top and sweatpants. Simon dried, dressed, and avoided the mirror.
He found her in the living room, kneeling over a mess of first aid equipment spread out on the coffee table. Her phone’s glow illuminated most of the area, with no sun to filter through the windows, and no lights on outside the kitchen. She wordlessly pointed him to the couch.
As she took his hand, he couldn’t help but notice how much smaller hers were. Bearing the flaking remains of yellow nail polish, her skin was neither calloused nor dry. Only strengthened from weight lifting, with a hangnail on the left thumb.
Just as he did, she had ten total fingers. Two palms. Fate was cruel to the both of them. Athena came out stronger. Simon didn’t know what he’d become.
She folded a damp rag and, ever so lightly, began cleaning. Logically, Simon knew it was supposed to sting, but he felt nothing at all. Worrisome, he knew, as she pursed her lips and continued working. In short periods of soft pats, she would brush away dead flesh and blood, then find another area to repeat the process on. It was slow and grating, but not painful. All he would ever ask for was that reprieve.
When as much as she could accomplish was done, she wrapped his wounds in a few layers of bandages and sealed them with a small bow. He felt loved, and didn’t deserve it.
“I’ll pay you back tomorrow.”
“For what?” she asked, standing to do away with all of the trash.
“Gauze,” he said. “Whatever else I end up using.”
Weary, she smiled and brushed her hands on her shirt. “That’s alright. You don’t owe me a thing.”
He crossed his arms and watched her ceiling fan spin above him. Every few minutes, he’d hear the pull chain clink against the lamp. Too homely for comfort.
Athena padded off and returned with no less than five blankets, throwing them over him unceremoniously. She set two more pillows against the arm rest. “If it’s uncomfortable, we can always switch.”
“I’ll be fine.” Simon pulled one blanket from over his head, straightening it in his lap. “You’ve done enough for me.”
“No.” As they made eye contact, her smile had fallen. She fidgeted with Widget, turning it on, then off again. Its permanent glow of sorrowful blue swam through the dark room. “Nothing’s enough until I can hear real happiness from you.”
Simon paused, at a loss for words.
“I hear you suffer,” she said, “all the time. I just wish I could take all of your pain away.”
He gestured to the seat next to his. “Sit down.”
Athena did, resting her head on his shoulder. All he saw was a head of blazing hair and freckled shoulders. He wrapped one arm around her. He knew that she knew every moment of his life was agony, but it did not hurt any less to hear confirmation from her. Let alone with this much guilt.
“If I had to assign a form to happiness… it would be a clear stream nestled deep within a dense forest. For miles you must walk to find it, as you die of thirst.” He stared forward. This was hacky. “You cup your hands together and attempt to drink. Only a few droplets reach your mouth, and the rest spill.”
She looked up at him.
“There are solutions. One could whittle down a cup, or dip their head straight in. My hands, however, are calloused and ever-trembling. It hurts to try. You may be there supporting me, Athena, but the solution is ultimately my own to find.”
“I wish I could do more.”
“Won’t you fall thirsty if you spend all of your time helping me?”
Her hands formed small fists. She opened her mouth, just to close it again.
“I’ll find it.”
“…You don’t believe yourself.”
“No, I don’t.” Nor did he know how to live once he made it out of this ravine. Nor how to live at all. But… “Trust in someday.”
“I trust in you.” Athena closed her eyes and laid a hand over his. “We can take it one step at a time.”