Terminal (Terminal trilogy #1)

15: Holy dread

[A/N: whoops! Accidentally posted this one first. So! Accidental double update. Hoorah. I'm thankful for Blake this thanksgiving

image above: a blake! I buy a lot of commissions.]

"You look like a boy on Christmas morning," I remarked, seeing how Blake grasped his file to his chest, lighting tearing at one of the edges. "You can probably read and walk, you know."

"I want this to be formal. Like a will reading! It's my entire hazy life, after all."

"Don't get your hopes up. Most cubi and hounds shirk this sort of work."

"It will have something though."

My mind was clear again, and seeing Blake this energetic was doing wonders to cheer me up. Good people were like that. Uplifting. Like kind and elderly dogs. "We can just dive by my dorm if you really can't wait for the base. The elevator will probably be long enough too though. Seriously, expect only a paragraph or two."

"Stop trying to push me down about this! I'm looking at this thing and imaging a full length novel. I don't want to take your logical, informed backtalk as any sort of truth."

"Let's just get it over with," I said, bemused, taking a turn towards my old dorm room. I hadn't locked it, and it wasn't like there were many squatters in Hell.

"You're just not into having fun, are you?"

"I'm very fun!"

"When. When have you ever expressed joy, happiness, and gaiety in your life."

"You're the one who encouraged me to seek this rogue path. Before all this wandering, man, you should have seen me every Saturday night, curled up in my room watching the gossip roundups with a glass of hot chocolate."

"Where'd you get the hot chocolate? You literally only have a mini-fridge in your room."

"Kell gave it to me. I wasn't working for a wage, so sometimes he'd buy me it, since I don't go for coffee, and that's all the office ever had."

"It's good to hear you weren't totally a friendless freak. Which, sorry, I mean in a joking, friendly manner."

"...He came over once and watched with me."

"That's nice."

When we came to my still-exactly-the-same room, I sat on the bed semi nostalgic. It had been only a few days since I had left, but I'm the sort of person who hates change. I missed every little thing about this ugly little box, honestly.

"What are you waiting for?" I said, making room on the bed so Blake could sit down. I stretched out on my back and closed my eyes, listening as he flipped through the folder and took out the likely two pages that constituted his file.

"Oh," He said. It was too soon to be a full reaction, so I waited.

I breathed in the old smells of my room, that scent somewhere between dirt, rot, and ocean breeze air freshener. I slowly became aware of a sound coming from Blake, and then suddenly there was a distinct sob.

All at once, he was crying. It was one of those terrible cries, with sobs and coughs and snivels and a steady stream of tears. I think he was talking to me, he was certainly making some sort of noise, but it was impossible to make out.

He brought himself together very slowly, but every time he was close to calming down he erupted in another rounds of sobs. Eventually I think he just gave up and went with it.