Work Text:
Santos knows she's fucked up as soon as she lets herself open the drawer. She was just going to look at them, but that's how it starts. She should know better than to give an inch to her urge on a day like this. There's no way it's not gonna take a fucking mile.
The scalpel sits in her pocket like a lead weight all the way through the rest of the shift, and it isn't until she and Huckleberry walk through the door of their apartment that she lets herself sweep into the bathroom yelling "Dibs on first shower!" and hold it in her hand, still in its plastic wrapper. The way everything blew up at the end, with Robby and Al-Hashimi and goddamn Langdon has only made the itch stronger.
Santos has rules for this kind of thing. It's the only way not to let it take over. She doesn't own a pencil sharpener or a razor blade. She won't use a kitchen knife, or anything else that people might prepare food with, because it's gross. And she'll throw away this scalpel when she's done with it tonight. Bury it in the bathroom trashcan, where Huckleberry is unlikely to go looking anyway given his track record on cleanliness. She'd thought being a farm boy would give him a good work ethic with chores and shit, but he's more on the raised in a barn side of the spectrum.
She shucks her shoes and her pants and turns on the shower and the vent to mask any noise. She sits on the edge of the tub, feet on the floor, and then she hesitates. She stares at the raised scars on her upper thighs, running her fingers over them. Is this really what she wants?
Sure, Garcia isn't going to be seeing them any time soon, and she's not stupid enough to accidentally kill herself going too deep, but she was reminded today about what happens when you try to make it all your problem, all your fault for too long.
Numbly, she sets the scalpel on top of the toilet tank and climbs into the scalding shower. She's red as a lobster when she gets out. She puts on her sweatpants and T-shirt and throws her dirty clothes into the pile forming at the entryway to her room.
And then she stands in the doorway of the bathroom, frozen.
"Are you… gonna get out of there, or…?" Huckleberry says, more exhausted than annoyed after the day they've had, and Santos pushes down the urge to find something to yell at him for, because they've been through enough today and she's already going to ask more of him tonight.
She picks up the scalpel, still in its packaging and tries so, so hard to keep her face blank and asks, "Can you throw this away for me? Like, outside in the dumpster or something."
For a moment, he just stands there and blinks at her, uncomprehending, until it hits him. "Oh. Yeah, I can— do you need me to do anything else?" Santos shakes her head and holds it out for him to take. He picks it up gingerly and immediately heads out the door, as single-minded in this as he is with any other task, and doesn't she feel like shit for being another problem for him to solve.
She resolutely settles herself on the couch and waits for the door to open again. "Go take a shower, and then we can talk," she says, before he can get a word in.
"Okay."
She puts some bullshit on the TV with the volume off and spaces out, startling when Huckleberry pads out of the shower and into his room. Thankfully, he doesn't see it.
His hair is dripping wet when he sits on the opposite end of the couch from here, giving her space. He never dries it off properly. Santos doesn't know how he can stand it.
"You don't have to say anything about it, if you don't want to." His eyes are fixed to the screen, processing about as much as she is of the reality show.
"I know." She's worried this is another thing she's going to have to prove herself about, that she'll have to overcome in his eyes, but she swallows and says, "I used to do it a lot. And sometimes I still want it. But I'm not suicidal or anything," she says, in a hurry to clarify after… after. "It's just. A habit."
"Okay," Huckleberry says.
"Okay," she says.
"Do you want a hug?" Santos thinks for a long time, and Huckleberry starts to backpedal, but she scoots over closer to him on the couch and puts her head on his stupid wet shoulder, and both of them relax a little bit.
"I do like living with you," she says.
"I like living with you too."