#oh I thought this was shorter

[cerastes]

Imagine W's ultimate show of trust to the Doc, if she ever decides to bring herself to that point somehow., being inviting them to share a ration with her out in the field. Or sort out some munitions over a chat about the places she's been. Or, as you said, indulging in the peace of just peeling some potatoes. I blame you for infecting me with W enlightenment.

! Yo. That’s some actual 200% Trust stuff right there.

W vaguely, casually inviting Doc out for a walk, telling them that if they decide to come, to give word that he’ll come back later. Doc says they’ve got a lot of work to do. W insists that Kal’tsit won’t give ‘em hell since she’ll explain. Never once has Doc seen Kal’tsit actually reprimand W, or W fail to finesse her way out of a lecture, so sure, why not? W’s reply is simply a smile, one that looks infinitely similar to her usual mocking smirk, but somehow, this time, it reaches her ears, and yet, it feels like it could deflate any time. Doc has seen this emotion before, and while they can’t put a name to it, they know it to be mutually exclusive with joy.

The ensuing chat is meaningless, but not unwelcome. Something about the Penguin Logistics girls being really good in a brawl for mailwomen and tour guides, something about the music room being quite lively, what with Vigna, Courier and Blue Poison habitually going there to play the guitar, with the “kiddos”, as she calls them, looked with admiration, Frostleaf trying to mimic them with her air guitar as Ifrit headbanged, something about how it was funny to see Aak and Warfarin wheel a very unwilling Fang into the infamous Doctor Blood’s lab, right before Dobermann and Kal’tsit caught them red-handed and dole out the appropriate pay docks and, worse still, lectures that seem unending as they are redundant, but ah, see, that’s the thing with Kal’tsit, she may say the same thing for the course of 3 hours, but she somehow keeps using different words, never sounding too redundant, it’s just like that time years ago when Kal’tsit caught raiding the pantry in the wee hours of the morning. How could Doctor not remember that one, it was a classic in Babel! A legendary pursuit that lasted two hours and was followed by four of lectur--

And then W stops.

That’s meaningless. 

They don’t remember that funny anecdote.

And if they did? Then she surely wouldn’t be walking down memory lane with the “Doctor”. She surely wouldn’t be here right now. 

It’s because they’ve lost all of that, that they have gained this little space, away from the mobile city, in the middle of nowhere, where they can talk.

They sit down across from each other, with the camp’s fire between them, on boxes tastefully labelled “Doctor” and “Me” with black paint. W throws Doctor a potato and a knife. There’s no Gummy or Matterhorn here, buster. You want food? Better get peeling while the water comes to a boil.

So they peel in relative silence. Potatoes. Onions. Dicing some carrots. Uncorking some cheap Kazdel ‘vintage’, if unused sewer lines from long-devastated cities could be considered casks, but hey, it’s got a nice kick and you can pick it right up after wandering back into an old campsite if you leave it fermenting before departing for the next battlefield. Just one of those nomad’s secrets, wink wink. Or do they call them “lifehacks” now? Reunion didn’t exactly have the latest in lingo, W laments.

Throughout all of this, Doctor cannot help but feel a certain tightness in their chest and a hollow pit in their stomach. It’s a feeling Doctor has heard others describe, but they’ve never been able to put a name to it, but they know it to be strange bedfellows with joy. Was this the same pain holding a tight grip on W’s smile before?

“Have we done this before? You know, before.”

But W only chuckles. “Maybe we did. Maybe we sat right here, maybe we had the very same cheap liquor, left to ferment in the same circumstances. Maybe we fixed the very same stew, maybe that knife feels oddly comfortable because that was the one we’d lend you.”

She stresses the plural, and the Doctor, too, stresses. She continues.

“Maybe you earned our trust, maybe you were just the way you are... Superficially, at least. Maybe that’s still something exclusively superficial. Maybe I’m intentionally tripping on the same stone twice, and if that’s the case, this time, it’ll cost me less than before, as it’ll be only one life.”

“As opposed to how many?” the Doctor doesn’t ask, doesn’t dare ask.

“This stew is perfect: Cheap, easy to prepare, nutritious, filling, and the pot is easy to clean afterwards. We make this stew a lot since it reminds us of ourselves as Sarkaz mercenaries... Convenient, gets the job done, and then you can just move on with your life after disposing of it. You used to love this stew.”

W gets real close to the Doctor, face to face, potato and knife gripped still, close enough that her warmth permeates through their mask, breathing audible, blood a frenzied mix of boiling and frigid.

“Do you still love this stew, Doctor?”

W’s explosive charges are less loaded than this question. Agonize, they did, trying to find the right way to diffuse this situation, but she doesn’t give them time to respond, fortunately. A dud, perhaps?

“If you still like the stew, then perhaps we can’t be friends, but... If you don’t find it to your liking, perhaps I can show you other rations and dishes we make out here, ones more nuanced, ones packed with a little more care, you know?”

Instead of sitting on a box across the fire from Doctor, W sits next to them now, finally abandoning the Doctor’s personal space.

“I’ve just been thinking very seriously about this, see? You really... And if I’m wrong about this, heh, shame on me, but you really don’t seem like the kind of person that likes that stew anymore. Just something I’ve learned from watching. Watching you. Watching the new blood. Watching the trust they place in you, the affection, the laugh and cajolery and jocosity of it all. And in the center of it all, what is it that you do? You reciprocate, and it drives me crazy.”

The Sarkaz’ voice raises just for a second.

“Because this could be much simpler, this could be as easy as click click boom, you know? Hit the switch, have a laugh, carry on, but no, you’ve made this far more complicated than it had to be. If you had remembered the anecdote, I could’ve just hit the button half an hour ago, and by now, I would be done picking up whatever was left of you, hiding it in an abandoned sewer line and then sealing it, and I’d be on my way to Columbia right about now. I hear they got some nice new settlement for Infected there now. If only you had remembered.”

But the Doctor did not remember. Not about the time when Kal’tsit lectured W for hours on end, nor about the time they disposed of the leftover stew. Not about a damn thing. The bombs in the box labelled “Doctor” were almost comically redundant, for whatever firepower they could hold, they’d never compare to the edge of Doctor’s conscience, twisting from within. 

“...I heard you carried that FrostNova girl’s body. Thanks for that,” carried on W. “And for that, in addition to everything else, I’ve decided that maybe we ought to eat more than crummy stew next time. Which side of you is the real one? I guess I’ll -- we’ll -- find out soon enough.”

After that, no more words were traded. Peel, they did, and eventually, dinner was ready. The stew was somehow bitter and bland. Doctor couldn’t be happier, and was already anticipating what they were going to make next.

Maybe they’ll have anecdotes the both of them remember to fill the silence while peeling potatoes next time. Not that silence is unwelcome. Silence is meaningful, and a surprising amount of times, what unveils the truth behind someone’s heart.