Mrs. Q

Atlas hesitates, but she's so still, so quiet. They move closer.

The setting sun catches the red undertones of her hair, braids falling around her face instead of pulled into their usual bun. It paints the edges of her silhouette in gold. Atlas blinks away sunspots and stops at the edge of the roof.

"Casey?" they say softly.

Casey sighs behind her knees, but she doesn't move.

Atlas rubs at their face with their hands, then just. leaves 'em there for an indulgent second. Any of the others would know what to do, what to say. Atlas…doesn't.

When Atlas looks again, Casey's looking back, just with one eye and most of her face still in shadow.

"None of the others wanted to look for me after all that?" Casey asks, dry.

'All that' being a new and terrifying surge of power that exploded off of Casey after a minor argument between them all. Casey's never been the hardest hitter on their team, but she knocked all of them back several meters with one accidental blast.

"You know what they're like," Atlas says.

"I know what they're like to you."

It's stupid to feel stung by that, because uncomfortably honest truths are what Casey does. And almost everyone has moved past their distrust of Atlas. In fits and starts. Mostly.

"You're not me, Case. They trust you, it's just…none of us take change well."

Casey puts her knees down but turns her face stubbornly away, so Atlas can just see her cheek and jaw, the tension there.

"You think? I'm not taking this well. Things are happening to me, Atlas, and I don't—"

Her voice cracks on that last word, and Casey falls silent.

"You're changing." Atlas sits down, too abrupt. Casey jolts a little in their peripheral vision, but they keep their eyes on the people below, tiny and faceless. "You don't know why, or when it will stop, or how much of you will be left when—if—it does."

"I don't mean this the way it sounds. But I don't wanna be like you." Casey's so quiet that Atlas can only barely hear the words above the ambient hum of traffic and electricity.

Atlas shrugs.

"I don't wanna be like this either, frankly," they say. Maybe Casey needs to hear some uncomfortably honest truths herself. "But what other choice do we have? Die? Maybe you're noble enough for that. I'm not. You're the best of us, Casey, but I really hope you don't let that be the death of you. We need you."

"Not like this. You haven't even seen—" Casey cuts herself off, turns even further away.

Atlas reaches out. They put one hand on Casey's shoulder, turn her back towards themself.

"You don't need to hide from me. Not from me of all people."

She still won't look at them, so they slowly put their fingers to her face, hidden from them. She's so warm, almost feverish, and Atlas resists the urge to flinch away from the heat. She follows the barely there touch and finally, finally meets Atlas's eyes.

Her eyes aren't brown anymore. They're some indeterminate metallic colour. Red, Atlas thinks at first, or gold? Something outside the normal spectrum, maybe. Not just the irises, either, the whites of Casey's eyes and the pupils alike have been swallowed up in this new colour.

There are lines of the same shimmering metal spreading from Casey's eye sockets across her face. They seem random, until Atlas spots the knife abandoned on Casey's other side, dripping that same ichor.

Atlas doesn't visibly react to Casey's attempted self…eye removal? Jesus. Later. Right now, Casey needs them to look at her unflinching, like nothing has changed. She needs them to drape an arm across her shoulder despite the heat pouring off of her, and she needs them to treat her like it's any other night.