ess

freelancer who shows up at damien’s house in the middle of the night. both their partners aren’t with them right now, gavin is visiting aria and huxley is with his moms—damien stayed behind for job reasons. anyway, freelancer is having a real bad relapse, overthinking and feeling guilty about everything that’s happened since they arrived at d.a.m.n. from worrying everyone with kody, to not being able to protect caelum from vega, to the look in huxley’s eyes when they had to break the news about xavier. things that they thought they had gotten over, had grown from, had changed from. but in this moment, it all comes rushing back. freelancer tries to hold it all in, not wanting to bother anyone further. whatever, they’ve been through this many times before, and it’s always passed. they breathe in and out real slow, like they’d taught themselves to do since they were young. but all of their past solutions seem to lose all power as they sit cross-legged in their bed with tears streaming down their face. and so, after what feels like hours of crying, of wiping their tears—rinse and repeat, they stand up shakily, throw on a hoodie and shoes, and grab their keys. the next half hour is a blur, and before they know it, they’re on damien’s doorstop, no warning call or anything, knocking away. if they were in a better state they would have thought to ring the doorbell instead, but they’re not. and so they knock again— four more times, standing still as a corpse.

unbeknownst to them, this freaks out damien. it’s the middle of the night, so this can’t be good. the first few knocks were loud enough to wake him out of his sleep, and he sits still for some moments, until he hears the knocks again. grabbing his phone, he checks for any signs of who it could be, but there are no missed calls from his people. so he hops out of bed, slipping into some shoes, and coming down the stairs in a hurry. maybe it’s a neighbor. i hope everything’s alright, he thinks. he looks out the window next to the front door. the person out front has a black hoodie over their head so he can’t see their face well, but he recognizes the striped pants huxley bought right away. he opens the door immediately.

“are you okay? what is it?”

they look rough. by now, freelancer had already wiped the tears away, but their face is still a dead giveaway of how they’re feeling. damien feels his stomach clench.

freelancer breathes, opens their mouth like they’re about to speak, but no words come out, and they close their mouth right after. it reminds damien of the old him before meeting freelancer— the him that hated to cry, hated showing any emotions that would allow others to look down on him. then he met them, and they showed him that there are people that care, that would never make him feel less than for being human.

damien sees their chest rising and falling rather quickly, and feeling his own start to do the same, he grabs their wrist and tugs. freelancer walks past him as he closes the door, but instead of confidently walking in as they always do, like they own the place, they stand still right behind him. by this point, damien’s stomach is in knots. he turns and walks right in front of them, staring at their face.

“what happened?”

the whole situation is strange— he’s never seen them like this before. their demeanor is off putting, freelancer who usually stares him right in the eyes no matter the conversation and jumps at the chance to joke with him, now just stares straight at the ground, not saying a word. he’s not quite sure what to do. it’s different than when he comforts huxley, who hugs him tight and doesn’t hide a thing—or gavin, who’s so articulate and intellectualizes all of his emotions. it’s not like lasko, who cries pretty easily and starts spilling the truth and can’t stop, or even dear, who regulates the hell out of their emotions so that him comforting them is usually a calm conversation over tea. no— freelancer just stands and stares, not saying a word.

“okay.” he grabs their arm, “sit down.”

with this, they finally look up at him, and their face makes him feel sick. their brows are furrowed together and they shake their head back and forth, like someone who’s done something awful.

fuck.

still, he guides them over to the couch. they sit down and he follows, not taking his eyes off of them. he sits to their right, and freelancer stares at their hands that lie palm up in their lap. damien looks down at them and places his hand right on top. this makes freelancer look at him, tears welling up in their eyes, as they finally speak.

“damien…”

they say his name in a breath of desperation, like a plea; a cry for help. and so he waits for some seconds, for them to tell him what he can do. his heart hammers in his chest, but on the outside, he remains calm.

until they begin to cry.

he’s never seen it before. their face slowly scrunches up, and as tears fall, they move their hands from under damien’s to wipe them off, but to no avail. their breath hitches, and more tears come, until they can’t stop them at all. freelancer just tries to breath through it, and it’s clear they are trying to remain silent. damien just stays quiet, but he lifts his hand, hovering mid-air for a second, before placing it on their back. he thinks about all the times freelancer has comforted him, how they used to sit face to face on the ground or in chairs freelancer pulled up, not quite touching. but after the years passed, it changed to hugging one another. he doesn’t know if he should do the same; doesn’t know what they want in this moment. so he just sits close, rubbing their back slowly.

after a few minutes of almost silent crying, freelancer goes still again. they pull their sleeve down so it covers their hand, and wipe their face, before turning to him. they’re looking down again, and damien moves his hand. as they tilt their head damien just knows that they’re about to apologize.

“stop—don’t.” he says, and freelancer stares at his face for a moment before nodding.

damien blinks away tears of his own, and takes a deep breath. “i’m gonna make some tea, okay?”

they nod again, with a quick whisper of “okay”, and he’s on his feet, heading toward the kitchen.

as he puts the tea on, he begins to spiral. what could have happened? was it something with gavin? were they injured somehow? he already analyzed them at the door, and it didn’t seem like they were physically hurt. did they…hurt someone else? freelancer is still silent on the couch, and so is everything else. the kettle whistles and fills the room loudly, just for a second. damien sighs shakily and pours two cups of tea, adding sugar and honey in freelancers’s just how they like.

he walks back to the living room, warm tea in his hands, mentally preparing himself for what they’ll say. but the living room is cold and empty.

they’re gone.

there’s a moment of eerie silence,

when he befriended freelancer, the whole ordeal felt so….strange. it was extremely foreign to him. freelancer didn’t expect much out of him, in fact, it was almost like they expected nothing at all. like they just enjoyed his presence. even when he knew he was being an asshole—there was no snide comment from them, no bashing or walking away. they would just smile or laugh, and continue on.

we even see hints of this in the audios, it’s clear that he believes this—his “can-do” attitude stems from this belief that relationships are transactional. in the “supporting an incubus” audio, he pushes the situation, trying to help gavin. yes, this is because he cares about him, but part of that is also because he knows gavin cares about him— and he believes he owes him for that because, why would someone care for him? why would they love him? it must be because he can help them out, so he will. in fact, he’ll do everything he can to.

in the “your fire elemental friend confides in you”  vid, he even admits admits that he’s grateful freelancer “stuck it out with him that long” and how it took a lot of patience. he also says that he wouldn’t have any of it without them, and how he believed he didn’t deserve it in the first place.

at one point, this belief turns into certain feelings. as he admits in the audio, he thinks nothing he has currently in his life would be possible without freelancer. imagine that feeling, switching from living an unhappy, unfulfilled life to constantly being around people who love you for who you are, and actually being content. and add this to his complex of feeling like he owes people for the smallest things—yeah.

the kody situation. we could say that their lack of initial reaction was due to them not having knowledge of bridging, but even after huxley explains it to them they have this sort of..lack of response. it’s everyone else around them that really seems to care—they’re the ones who let freelancer know that actions need to be taken. and only then do they do something. they don’t bring the situation up themselves, like in the “meeting up” vid with hux, it’s only when he says he wants to talk about it do they say it’s okay. even when kody confronts them it doesn’t seem like they care about the situation, it’s lasko who jumps in to defend them.

they always divert attention from themselves to their friends. i even remember in an audio with huxley, he’s asking about their life and they give some short answer, then immediately ask about his. they do this in audios a lot, answering questions briefly and then listening to their friends talk about their feelings.

i’ve seen people upset about the damn crew seemingly not comforting freelancer regarding inversion, and i’ve also seen people claiming that it could have happened behind the scenes—to which people respond by saying this is an audio channel and anything that relevant would be made into an audio or at least referenced..which it wasn’t. i do agree, but i believe it’s intentional. and here’s why:

i believe fl didn’t want to be comforted, they wanted to help the others. yes their friends care about them, but fl is so far removed from their feelings they would never bring them up. it’s not even a thought in their mind which is a huge problem. even when gavin comforts them in his audio, it’s because he feels that something’s wrong with fl, and i believe if he didn’t have the means to do so he wouldn’t have noticed. not because he doesn’t care, but bc freelancer doesn’t hide their emotions in an intentional way—more so by way of not caring about it themselves. to them, their feelings aren’t relevant unless others make it so.

i also believe they introduced everyone to each other because they didn’t want to be the center of their friends lives. for background, i’ve seen people say they don’t like how fl was “pushed inside” in that audio (bowling), like huxley and damien focusing on each other the whole time or gavin joking around about sleeping w lasko. ppl have expressed that fl is the listener so it’s odd that their friends barely acknowledge them. i think this was also intentional, to shed light on fl’s character. here’s why:

before this audio, things may have gotten too close for comfort for fl. not in a “i don’t want you to be my friends that much” but more in a “i don’t want to be the center of your lives” way. their friends (including gavin) all previously implied that fl really was their only or their closest friend. huxley says being around them is the first time he’s felt seen, that people always use him and that he’s others friends but no one’s his friend. he says it’s different with fl, that he feels he can finally “be himself”. damien says that fl was his first friend at d.a.m.n, since he would always stay in his apartment focusing on school and that people didn’t bother to get to know him. lasko pretty much says the same; that fl was their closest friend. and gavin ofc felt the same, saying that he was finally treated like a person instead of some sex object.