Staying the Night Prompts | status: open
@loyalrage asked: “[ DISCOVERED ]” receiver wakes up in the morning to find sender asleep on their couch because sender was watching over them.
He knew the risks that came with the job, not that it mattered… death lurked around every corner with a knife or a bullet waiting for him, and just because he’d feinted the last few dozen times didn’t mean he could escape forever. At some point his get-out-of-jail-free card was gonna get punched.
This last time had been a little too close for comfort.
He hadn’t meant for anyone to find out, planning to stick it out in his trailer and lick his wounds like the wild animal he was. Bahamut’s 7 had given him medical leave to heal his broken arm, but it would not likely be enough for him to make a full comeback, and his piss-poor luck of it having been his gunblade arm didn’t give him high hopes for his future with the mercs, not to mention his future as a ‘free’ man outside of D-District prison.
But unbeknownst to him his emergency contact had been informed — contacts that probably existed in Balamb Garden somewhere, maybe Cid. Maybe Squall. Neither thought pleased him. But if that had been the case neither man came. The one that DID show up, however, surprised him.
Fujin.
He hadn’t seen her for some months, and only then in passing. He didn’t keep the same company he used to, not wishing to drag his old posse down into the pits with him as they had been given a pardon from arrest when Seifer took full responsibility. He found her on his doorstep when he got home from the hospital, and despite reassuring her that he was fine and could manage on his own, found her sleeping on his couch still the next morning.
He gazed down over the back of the threadbare seat to her curled with her arm under the mismatched throw pillow he himself had fallen asleep on countless times, the static of the TV droning like quiet white noise in the background where it had lost signal as it often did some time in the night — he’d get up on the roof and fix it later… somehow. For now he merely stood there, contemplating, biting on his bottom lip, trying to decide whether to let her be or to wake her.
Turning he would walk barefooted back into his bedroom and yank up the throw blanket he kept at the foot of his bed for cold nights with his own good hand and return to her to drape it as carefully as he could manage over her sleeping form. If she was going to insist on helping he’d put her to work when she woke up, but for now he’d let her rest — who knows how long she waited outside that door for him to come home.
He fumbled around the small kitchenette for a mug, struggling a little with his left hand to open the instant coffee canister he kept on his counter top and cursing to himself when he spilled the first spoonful. What a nuisance. He succeeded at last in boiling a kettle of water and making himself coffee, taking a seat at the card table he called his eating spot and sipping the black, bitter drink with marked resignation.
