All her tears had dried by the time Haven entered Rory’s room for the final time. As she slowly shut the door behind her she took the time to look over the room. It was littered with things neither could carry, and missing most of what they both cherished. All of his pictures had been taken down and packed away. The clothes he couldn’t make room for still sat in his hamper or on the floor of his open closet. Some of her own were mixed in with it. His father’s suitcase, of course, sat on his desk ready for transport.
She stood holding her favorite Jansport by the strap. A newer pair of sneakers were stuffed deep inside, surrounded by the clothes she considered practical for their journey ahead. Bathroom essentials, two pairs of pants, a few basic tops, layers for warmth, and her favorite tee’s she’d taken from the abandoned cabins she once called home. She held a coat in her other hand, with a pair of boots dangling by their strings. The worn sneakers on her feet would be left behind with the rest.
The backpack was stuffed full, and yet she’d still made space for her father’s sketchbook. Any photos she had of her time on the island had been carefully tucked between the first sketch and the cover. It had been hard to look at the team photos when she packed them. Rory had told her of his suspicions by that time, and while she believed him she still found it hard to comprehend.
Each photo with Katja made the ache in her chest worsen, and yet she still kept each one of them.
“Do you need help packing anything else?” She asked softly, although she knew he didn’t need it. The words were empty, more like a verbal olive branch before she said what was really on her mind.
Rory had planted himself near the window, which had remained locked since the incident with Haven. The scattered mess was a reminder of his years spent on the island. Equipment he had never returned, borrowed and purchased clothing that he had worn ragged over the years. On his desk rested his old high school letterman jacket, which he had managed to snag out from beneath a pile of old hoodies in the little closet space he had. But what he needed remained secured in his suitcase and in a duffel stuffed underneath the bed. He turned his tired gaze towards his partner and shook his head.
”Can’t use most of this stuff anymore. It made packing easier.” His voice shook, as if it were hollowed out and reverberated an exhaustion that had been building. There was something about the air between them that he could tell was wrong, and he could hazard a guess as to what it was. But putting a name to it and ushering it out was too much for him. If a storm was coming, it would come.
Haven could only nod in response. While she’d never needed anything to take flight but her sneakers, she could only imagine what it felt like for Rory to even look at his Hyperball equipment now. Although she wasn’t sure if she understood exactly how he was feeling after his outburst on the beach.
She walked over to the bed to rest her Jansport and boots at the foot of it, in the place she’d placed it’s empty form not too long ago. Her coat was laid over the end of the bed. She slipped off her worn sneakers and tucked them close together, before turning to face him.
“Rory,” she began, hesitant about what she would say to him for the first time in their short relationship. “What happened earlier… Are you alright?”
Rory’s expression darkened for a moment. He moved his hands into his lap from their positions on the armrests. ”They needed to know.” He refused to look Haven in the eyes as he continued to stare out the window, wringing his hands. His voice was more firm this time. ”I’m fine.”
“I know you’re not fine.” She rebutted, her back muscles tensing with a mixture of frustration and worry. Maybe she didn’t have the energy to argue with Harper, but she wasn’t about to let Rory lie to her. Not when she could see how much he was hurting.
“I know it hurts you more than the rest of us. Of course it does. You were best friends.”
”Were we?” There was a sudden and almost desperate fervor In that question. He finally turned his head towards Haven, his eyes still red and puffy from earlier. ”Or was I just a mission for her?” He shook his head, the remnants of the rage he felt earlier that day beginning to boil in his chest. ”She was never one of us.”
“She was in the beginning, Rory.” Haven kept her tone soft. Her sympathy for his heartache was keeping her own anger at bay, for now. “She was broken when she came here, like most of us were. If her life before was anything like what you told me she went through in the trial… I don’t think she had any reason to doubt the sweet lies Hyperion whispered to us.”
She thought of the way Katja’s anger had dissipated the moment those blue eyes met her own. How her heart had cracked just a little more as she recognized sympathy in her expression. It hurt that Katja had lied to them for so long, and yet it was worse that Katja still cared for them after all this time.
“I’m not trying to justify what she’s done. I don’t want to forgive her for it.” Her tone was bitter and heartbroken as she spoke, but her eyes soon fell to the floor as she gathered the courage to speak her mind.
When she finally lifted her eyes to meet his sky blues, her tone was firm despite the concern in her eyes. “I don’t think she deserved what you said to her, though. It was cruel. You weren’t acting like yourself, Rory.”
“Please tell me you didn’t mean it.”
”What if I did?” It was less of a question and more of a statement as his tone and expression hardened. His eyes lacked the usual light and spark, instead dull orbs that seemed to look past Haven.
”I don't care if she was lied to, Haven. She betrayed us. She trusted terrorists who attacked us, and she would have never come clean about it. You and Harper can defend her all you want, but she is not your friend.” Rory’s hands gripped each other tightly in his lap, a pained sneer forming on his lips. ”She was the monster, not Amma.”
“I’m not defending her.” The words came out a bit faster than she intended. She didn’t know if they were right, but she at least didn’t mean to be defending someone who had betrayed them this way.
“Amma was never a monster, either. Tiamat was the monster underneath. The Foundation created that part of her. Dae-... he made her that.”
Her stress was returning in the way her hands began to shake at her sides. Again, this was a side to Rory that she had never seen before. A side that she knew came from the pain he held within himself. A pain that she wasn’t sure she could comfort.
“Katja meant it, when she said that she never intended to hurt us. When she said that she didn’t know about the trial.” She continued as the frustration of it began to simmer in her stomach. “It’s all so fucked up.”
”Kruger's friends nearly killed you, Haven.” His tone seemed desperate and pleading, underneath the pure disdain with which he spoke Katja's name. ”She should have known. After what Hyperion did, after everything… she's not an idiot. She just didn't care.” Rory turned his gaze away from Haven, looking out the window as if he would catch a glimpse of the person they talked about.
”If she was sorry, she would have confessed after the Trial. But no… she continued to lie to us and pretend like she had nothing to do with them. And now she says exactly what you wanted to hear, and you're willing to believe her?” Rory looked back towards Haven, an anger in his eyes that dissipated the second he saw her shaking hands. His brow stitched together in a mixture of confusion and concern. His tone grew limp. ”I… don't believe her, Haven. And even if I did, I will never trust her again.”
Haven exhaled as she saw the anger leave his eyes. Relief and heartache consumed her as he seemed to become less hostile about it all, just because of her. She tucked her hands into the pocket of his hoodie to hide them.
“I just… I can’t believe she lied for so long. She did care for us, in some twisted way.”
”She had a funny way of showing it.” There was no smile or jest in Rory’s words, and it stung with the faintest remnant of anger. But he took a moment to breathe, letting out his anger. His voice was calm and resolute. ”I stand by what I said to her, Haven. She needed to hear it.”
“I think what you were feeling at that moment was right, Rory. I really do. I’m angry, and I’m also just heartbroken.” She wrung her hands together where they were hidden from view now and watched him through her lashes. It was hard to say it directly to his face, and yet she gathered the courage to tilt her chin up and meet his gaze. “But I can’t stand by how you said it.”
“I hope that’s okay with you.”
Rory's face screwed in temporary discomfort. He opened his mouth to respond, before biting his lip to stop himself. He turned his gaze away, taking the moment to recenter his thoughts. This only amplified his disappointment. ”I would have stood by you punching the shoulders kid. Or going after Torres.” He looked back towards Haven, confusion knitting his brows. ”But Katja… she lied to us for years. Stood by an actual terrorist that actually hurt people like us. Said nothing and didn't help find the others who nearly killed you, and you can't stand calling her out?”
The fire was lit behind his eyes as he lifted a hand to roll his wheels, slowly spinning himself to fully face Haven. ”Was I supposed to say please and thank you when she stabbed us in the back, or ask her to do it again? Or should I just stay quiet and see which one of us she helps kill next?” Rory's nostrils flared in indignation, and his cheeks burned with a rage that refused to continue eating away inside. His eyes refused to get the memo, still bearing the sad pain he had since the dance.
Haven’s cheeks turned pink to match his, in the way that they always did, but this time it was a result of her frustration. Her own brows had furrowed in response to his accusations, and his last words had sent a shiver up her spine that made the muscles on her back ache. Another muscle in her neck ticked as she quickly rebutted.
“That’s not what I mean, Rory.” Her voice was louder this time, laced with hurt that he’d even assumed that she didn’t want Katja to know how much pain she had caused. “I was ready to back you up if nobody believed you, and if Katja denied it, I was going to be the one to call her out next.”
“But you said that no one loved her, and then you used Amma against her like she hadn’t just been dragged into hell with that thing. Katja was clearly torn up about Amma, and you twisted the knife. You cut deeper than you needed to, Rory. I don’t know if it’s because of how you’re hurting, or if you’re still hung up about how you used to feel about her, but I know you didn’t get any pleasure out of it. Even if you smiled when you said it.”
She shook her head as she took a breath.
“It wasn’t you, Rory.”
Rory nodded, running his tongue along the inside of his cheek as he took in Haven’s words. Her frustration was finally clicking into place in his head. His eyes shifted down towards the ground for a moment, before he simply shook his head. ”Being me hasn’t done us much good, has it?” He let the words settle for a moment before he looked up again. Tears formed in the corner of his eyes, as his voice grew borderline desperate. ”Didn’t help you, didn’t help the team, and it didn’t help Amma either. Being me got me in this fucking chair!” His eyes shifted to his seat, and he slammed a fist onto his arm rest, wincing slightly from the pain of it.
But that only wound Rory up more.
”I didn’t enjoy it, but at least I hurt her, Haven. Not because I liked her, not because she was our friend, but because she hurt us! I couldn’t hurt Hyperion, I couldn’t hurt the monster, but I knew how to hurt her.” The tears flowed freely at this point, his fists clenched so tightly blood laced his fingernails. ”We’ve lost everything without even a chance to fight back. So I hit her where I could, where it would hurt, where she would feel for even a second what I do because we can’t even touch the others. And we never will.” His voice had crescendoed into a booming shriek, that was almost immediately snuffed out by a sudden exhale of tension as Rory was hunched forward, almost doubled over.
His voice grew quiet, as if he had used up what little energy he had left on the tirade. He still refused to look at Haven, barely able to see the ground as what few tears he had left clouded his sight. ”I needed to do something. Anything.”
He heard a few soft steps, and then suddenly Haven was kneeling before him. Through his blurred vision he could see her hands reaching for his. They carefully peeled back his fingers where his nails had dug into his palm, and slid themselves into his open gestures to press against the self-inflicted wounds.
“Being you brought us together.” She began, her voice shaking with sorrow. “Being you got me through all of this. I don’t know how I could have survived it alone.”
“You’re all I have left, Rory. You’re all I want.” She squeezed his hands as she looked over his defeated expression. “It was all out of our hands from the start, and I’m just… I’m so glad you’re still here.”
A few of her own tears slid down her cheeks.
“Tell me what I can do to help you through this. You’re not alone. We’ll get through this together.”
Rory squeezed Haven's hands back, and his shoulders sagged with exhaustion. What little anger had seeped out of him, leaving just the shell. He shook his head. ”I don't know, Dove. I don't know.” He lifted his head to look about the room and the assorted mess.
”For now, I just need help getting to bed. We've got a long day ahead of us.”
Haven took a breath as if she had more to say, but her eyes fell to their intertwined hands and she just nodded in response. Slowly, she rose to stand and wiped off her face with the back of her sleeve. Her hands then tucked her stray hairs behind her ears as she moved around to the back of his wheelchair.
She pushed him over to the side of the bed, beginning their nighttime routine they’d only had a few nights to act out. Except this time there were no little jokes to make light of their situation. Haven knelt down to remove his shoes, placing them in front of where his duffel was tucked under the bed. She stood again and moved to his side, placing a single kiss against his temple as she waited for his arm to sling across her shoulders. Her own arm slid around his back, and then the other under his knees.
She lifted him out of the chair with ease. The center of her back ached with the movement, but it had become a normal pain over the last week. A bearable pain. She didn’t mention it as she rested him on the bed. As she released her hold on him, her arms moved then to carefully position his legs with a pillow underneath his knees.
“Is that comfortable? Do you want your shirt off?” She asked, moving up to his torso where she adjusted his pillow under his head although she knew he could do it himself.
He always felt so useless at this part. The tenderness with which Haven always helped him was the only thing that kept him from losing his mind. But he still needed to do what he could. He sat himself upright in bed. ”Can you please shove this in my bag?” He lifted his arms to his back and yanked his shirt up over his head, before holding it out towards Haven. His exhausted face tried to contort itself into the facsimile of a pleading smile.
Haven nodded as she took his shirt from him, eyes lingering on his for a second before she knelt down to fold his shirt into his duffel. She took a breath as she stood, preparing herself for her own display of what she’d been left with following the dance. Slowly, she pulled his hoodie off of her back to reveal the tank top she’d been wearing underneath. She faced him for as long as she could as she folded it over her arm, and only turned her back to him to take it and her coat to a chair nearby.
What remained of her wings twitched as she moved, while normally her wings would have shifted behind her. The pin feathers that covered the healed skin were growing faster than she expected. The openings at the top of the pins already revealed soft, downy feathers that made the nubs look like freshly hatched chicks. They were still itchy, but as her arm bent behind her back to scratch at them she just couldn’t find the right angle. She huffed and swallowed down the frustration of it before turning back to the bed.
Soon she had crawled over Rory to take her place next to him. She sat upright for a moment to tie her hair back, and then toss her dirty socks into the hamper across the room. As she laid down, she still found it strange how large the bed felt now. She no longer needed to cling to Rory’s side to give her wings space. After their argument, their first fight, she left a bit of that extra space between them as she turned to lay on her stomach to give them some breathing room. With her head on the pillow, she finally looked across at Rory’s head where it laid on his pillow.
“Do you think you’ll sleep soon?” She wasn’t sure when she’d fall asleep, herself.
Rory had watched Haven undress, watching her movements carefully. As she revealed her back, he felt another wave of pain and regret. She was healing better than expected… but the grim reminder of what she lost made his tirade feel immature. He watched her try to stretch near her wings, before she gave up. He instinctively reached down below himself to lift himself up, before a small shot of pain in his right leg reminded him of his own situation.
He scooted himself over slightly as Haven went to lie down, staring up at the ceiling with a hand over his stomach. The distance between them felt deeply uncomfortable. Her question cut through the air between them. Rory shook his head, turning over to look at Haven. ”I doubt it.” He paused for a moment, before he took a breath. The movement was quick, and punctuated with a small grunt of discomfort, as he lifted himself up onto his side. ”Do you need help with those?” He motioned towards the nubs on Haven's back with his free hand, as one arm kept him propped up on his side.
Haven’s brows rose with hesitation, unsure how she would feel about another’s touch on such a sensitive spot, before she thought of the relief it would bring and nodded. With a sigh, she shifted herself closer to him. The kind gesture closing the distance that their fight had created.
“Can you just… scratch between the feathers? Gently, please.” Her voice was soft, carrying a tone of apprehension that came with letting anyone near her back like this. She hoped he wouldn’t be hurt by it.
Rory gave a small nod, lifting a hand up and placing it on Haven’s back. He slowly rubbed the area near her joints first, his fingers massaging her skin in an effort to help her relax. He then hesitantly moved his hand to the closest one, hesitating the moment his finger glanced feather. His brow was knit together as he focused on being slow and gentle, his fingers softly scratching at her direction. ”Like this?”
She’d melted like butter the moment he massaged her aching muscles. Her eyes fluttered before they closed, and she allowed herself to relax under his care. Even as his fingers neared the center, the only thought she had was that she wished she’d asked for this sooner. A bitter pang of regret made her breath catch in her throat before his fingers began to move between her pins. It was bittersweet relief.
This moment should have been the first time he touched her wings.
“That’s perfect.” She murmured, a hint of her sorrow in her tone. “It might even put me to sleep.”
Rory nodded, moving his hand to the farther set. ”Then get some rest, Dove.” He continued with the small, gentle movements, doing what he could to soothe his partner. He lost the hesitation in his touch, growing more comfortable the more Haven relaxed.
His confident ministrations soothed her discomfort far faster than either expected. Her breathing soon became slow, deep pulls of air into her lungs. Her mind went quiet, focused solely on the feeling of his fingers.
“Thank you.” She managed to slur out as her exhaustion began to settle into her bones. She gave him one last, sleepy blink his way as a smile crept onto her lips, before her eyes closed again and she was lost to sleep.
Rory continued to gently massage Haven's back until he was certain she had drifted to sleep. He looked at her face for a moment, his own exhaustion wearing on his face. But he leaned forward, brushing his lips against Haven's cheek as he extended himself as over. As his head was near hers, and the swarm of feelings that bloomed inside his chest ceased their fighting, he whispered softly to her. His words were tender, clear, and deliberate. They felt natural as she rested near him.
”I love you, Haven.”
Rory turned away, repositioning himself onto his back to stare at the ceiling. His cheeks burned, and his head swam with the day's events.
Sleep would not come for him that night.
Qia
Master Bruce
PatientBean
wintersoldier
Mcmolly
Carlyle
mickilennial
Hound55
Roman
Festive
