#ostomy

Emre’d been in the bathroom for ten minutes. Freja stood across the hallway. Her eyes hadn’t left the door even when she’d tried to glance them elsewhere. 

This wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. With the horrendous migraines his captor liked to gift him after wrenching control of his body, it was a miracle he didn’t sprint to the bathroom and vomit more than he already did. Today’s had been more of a consternated speedwalk. He told her to wait and disappeared behind the door. 

Five more minutes passed. 

It was fortunate this was a more out-of-the-way hallway in the Rialto complex- somewhere between the living quarters and the storage rooms. Freja only had to fake a nod to the usual security squad. But their next round was in five more minutes and there would be unavoidable questions if she was still here by then.

Shame on her. Worrying about herself when Emre was. . . 

Was. . .

She clenched her arm in her hand. 

Or maybe he was just really constipated and she was making an utter fool out of herself. Like she was the sort of fawning airheaded arm candy that the rest of Talon already thought she was, as they whispered among themselves about why she’d chosen to stay. 

She heard the footsteps of the security squad round the corner. She ducked into a small offshoot, a space with a lone rusting table and chair, a remnant of whatever this building might’ve been before being commandeered for far worse purpose. She leaned against the wall towards where the bootsteps echoed from. 

They passed right by her without looking twice. 

Idiots. Though, Freja supposed, security detail this far within the compound was likely reserved for the lower ranks or as punishment. After the squad faded from sight and sound, she allowed herself to move again.

Her stomach twinged when she looked at the bathroom door. 

She should. . . check on him. Just to make sure he wasn’t passed out. Or worse. 

She crossed the hallway and pushed the door open a crack. “Emre?” 

“Freja?” Came his voice, matching her volume before he snapped, “Freja, what the hell are you doing in here?”

She slid through the door and pressed it shut behind her. With luck the security squad was out of hearing range- if they didn’t smell the odor first. She choked back a gag.

“What part of ‘wait here, I’ll be back’ don’t you understand?” The stall door at the end rattled as something metal- probably his cybernetic arm -smacked against it.

“Are you alright? Yes or no, then I’ll go.” 

“Yes! Now g-” He cut himself off with a wide range of Turkish that she knew was all the swears he told everyone back in Overwatch that he didn’t say. 

“Emre,” she took a silent breath to calm her pulse, “tell me what’s going-” 

“Just get out!” He shouted. “Get out! Get the hell out of here- can’t even use the goddamned bathroom by myself, now can I? Need someone to change my fucking diaper?”

God forbid someone’s concerned! she wanted to snap, but the words were stopped by the lump in her throat. This wasn’t Emre, he was never this angry. . . fandens også, she was sounding like a waif in a romance movie, making excuses for the ‘troubled’ love interest. She slammed her hand against the door handle and pulled it open hard enough for the hinges to squeak. 

The door shut behind her at a glacial pace, the hinges complaining every centimeter of the way. She put her hand over her mouth and huffed hotly into her palm. She-

“Wait. Wait, Freja! I’m-”

And yet she slipped back inside within the space between heartbeats.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t-” His voice trembled out of his throat and off the tile flooring.

She leaned against the door to shut it. 

“I’m sorry. Please don’t- don’t leave. Don’t leave me. I mean, leave from in here but not- but not-” his voice cracked. 

A small sob, that he tried to cut off by clearing his throat. 

“I won’t leave you alone with Talon.” Freja said. 

“. . . thank you.” 

“Do you need help?” 

“No! No, just go, I need to clean up.” 

“Toilet paper? Paper towels? A washcloth?” She offered. 

“I. . .”

“And I’ll make sure no one else comes in.” 

“. . . it would be easier if I had some water also,” he mumbled. 

“What if you used the sink? I’ll hold the door, and I won’t look.” 

“Are you sure?” he asked, as if he wasn’t the one compromised right now. 

“I promise.” 

She turned around and braced against the door handle, forcing the door into its seating against the doorframe. She trained her eyes to the pattern of the wood grain behind the metal handle. 

She heard the stall door open, then his footsteps. The smell became much more intense. She did not look. 

The sink turned on. The paper towel dispenser ratcheted, five or six times around. Water hitting the paper, then that dampness hitting the metal of cybernetics. The rustling of the trash bag. Emre’s huffs of annoyance. Metal scrubbing against skin. A wince. More swearing she didn’t know the words for, but knew meant something vulgar about someone’s hypothetical mother. 

Then, a distinctly organic sound, flesh but not quite recognizable as skin. The ratcheting of some sort of lid. Metal plating clicking shut. 

Water droplets flicking against the bowl of the sink, then one more paper towel from the dispenser. Emre let out a long sigh. 

“Finished?” Freja asked gently.

Emre paused, before taking a few steps. “Can you. . . check if I’m clean?” 

She turned around. His gaze was towards the floor, his lips pressed into a thin line. She scanned lower. Skipping past the glowing eye of the bastard responsible for all this, she noted nothing but some splotches of dampness, just water, towards the bottom of his torso and tops of his thighs.

“You’re clean.” Freja said. 

He nodded. “Alright. Let me clean up in there.”

“No. Let Talon clean it up. Fuck them.”

“No. The janitor doesn’t deserve it.” He began racking the paper towel dispenser. 

“Do you want me to help-?”

“No! I’ll take care of it.” 

“Alright.” 

She refocused on holding the door as he disappeared back towards the stalls. The toilet flushed, then damp paper towels scrubbed against porcelain and floor tile. 

He reappeared a few minutes later. He threw the paper towels away, then took out the trash bag and tied it up. The smell lessened.

“There. Now we can go.” Emre gestured with his hand for her to move so they both could leave. 

She stopped him. “Something on your finger.” 

He spun around so fast his heels snapped against the tile, hiding his hand behind his chest so she couldn’t see it. Metal clacked against metal as a tremble ran through him. He marched to the sink and began scrubbing. 

“It’s alright, Emre.” Freja told him. 

“No, it’s- it’s humiliating.” He slammed his palm against the soap dispenser a few times.

She waited. Eventually, he turned the water off and reached for a paper towel, only to find the dispenser empty. 

“Here.” Freja offered the end of her cape. 

“No.”

“Your hand’s clean now.” She gestured. “And the end always drags near the ground anyway. Doesn’t matter.”

He exhaled. She met him halfway, handing the reinforced fabric to him. It wasn’t actually absorbent but it was better than nothing. He wiped once, then shook the rest of the water off. 

“You’re not going to even ask?” He said.

“Why would I?” 

“Not curious how a grown man made a goddamned mess of himself?” 

“You don’t have to say anything.” 

“Just another gift from this one, like the rest of it.” He gestured to the eye, then to the rest of himself. 

“Is there anything that makes things easier?” 

He hesitated, before answering, “having more room. Every stall here is too small.” 

“No disabled stalls here.” She hadn’t seen any in the women’s restrooms either within this compound. 

“Because ‘only the strong will survive’,” Emre quoted and made a gesture with his cybernetic arm. Likely imitating someone, maybe a prior Talon member. Freja wasn’t sure who. 

“Fucking morons, the lot of them,” she assessed anyway. 

“Yeah.” He sighed. “And maybe I’m the biggest moron of them all.”

“No you aren’t.”

“You’d think after all these years I’d know how to-”

“Doesn’t matter. Accidents happen. Not your fault.” 

He glanced down at himself. “I don’t even know why it’s built that way. Maybe it’s designed to humiliate me?” 

“I can do some research. You’re not the only person on earth with this extensive of cybernetics.”

“Maybe you can read one of Ziegler’s papers? I’m told they’re riveting.”

She didn’t laugh. “Maybe. I’ll see what I can find.” 

He reached around her, looping his hand through the door handle. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” 

“Agreed,” she let him. 

—

The day passed by, with some fool’s errand or another for their employer.

After they’d both finished dinner, Freja gestured Emre over to her side of the table. She held her tablet close to her chest, so that the smattering of other Talon agents across the mess hall couldn’t see anything they shouldn’t. He shuffled closer. 

“The closest match is an ostomy,” she whispered as she pointed to the diagram she’d found on the internet. “Does that look like what you have?”

“I think so.” 

“It looks like a lot of people have them. Even without cybernetics.”

“Even without. . ?” he scrolled the website, stopping at a picture of a fully organic human with an ostomy pouch. 

Freja handed her tablet to him. His fingers hovered over the picture, before trailing up to a tab labeled ‘new patient guide’. Then he pulled away.

“I’ll check it out later,” he said. 

“Of course. Keep it for now, then. You can give it back in the morning.” She pressed the tablet against his chest. 

He turned off the screen then tucked her tablet under his arm. He looked away, shook his head, then looked back. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing to me.” 

“Then you’re welcome.”