Work Text:
It’d been a week since Prism stopped finding strength to get up. Work started to fizzle out as a requirement to her, but she went anyway.
A week, maybe more, maybe less. Time stopped mattering. An ache of guilt from a crime she didn’t recollect boiled under her skin, much like the burn on her stomach and arms. The skin already peeled off, the wound began healing, but Alice had not. She chalked the burn up to being clumsy while cooking for herself, she’s always been stubborn, eager to prove she can do stuff.
But why did every fiber and nerve of her being not want to call Hakim?
She missed him like summer in winter, the earth it’s moon, Romeo his damned Juliet; but her fingers became uncooked clay when met with his number on her phone. How weak she’d grown, dependent on someone else to help her feel whole.
> [CALL FROM: MY LIGHT . . . ] [CALLING . . . ] "Hey, babe? I got a killer headache, can you come over?"
> “What — Fuck, Pris — Come … over? Now?”
> “Please? Rue suggested it’s better to have someone nearby. And I miss you. You haven’t been texting.”
> “Pretty sure I had a fuckin’ reason.”
What was that reason? Why did something hurt?
> “Hakim. What the fuck are you doing?”
It leaves just before she can grasp it, every wisp of a memory retreats from her hand. Something went wrong, but she doesn’t know what.
She couldn’t move from her bed. Her ribs felt heavy and her legs defied her. She looked at the succulent placed on the window sill. It lost it’s color. She looked at the laptop on her desk, it hadn’t been charged in a long time. It was probably dead.
She should get up.
She hasn’t done the dishes in a week, she probably should get to that. She hasn’t brushed her teeth in a while, when last had she? She ate leftover Chinese a few days ago.
She should get up.
Alice knows her washing is still in a pile in the basket, but she can’t bring herself to get up to wash them. It’s easier to play it up online, it works for a bit, her Dazzling’s engaging. But, after a bit, even they stop paying attention.
Why should they? There isn’t much special about you, you’re easy to replace. Easy to leave, abandon, throw away. Stop trying.
“I should get up.”
But her legs didn’t move. Her fingers lazily swiped at her phone, but not even her For You page distracted her from thinking. Thinking. It’s all you can do, isn’t it? “Shut up.” Too afraid to acknowledge it?
“Coward.”
The soup in the fridge was definitely stale, or moldy. When last had she washed her hair? Everything felt far from her skin, even if it were pinched, it took long to register it.
> “Fuck everything. Fuck him, fuck his situation-ship, fuck work, just fuck.”
Were any of those words said? Maybe she had a nightmare about him abandoning her, again. She has a lot of those, sometimes she confused them to be memories. Denial looks ugly on you.
“Stop talking.”
“I simply relay it as is.”
He can’t have left her. Where is he? Why hasn’t he texted back? Why is nobody telling her anything?
I can’t do this, I’m alone, it’s dark, nobody is coming to help me. Nobody is here, I’m alone, I’m always alone, nobody likes me—
Hakim was with her last night. Where did he go? Was she dreaming he was with her? Did she have a fever during the night?
She was crying.
“I’m not even scared of the dark anymore,” Alice muttered, picking out her hero suit and searching for her lipstick.
He died.
Hakim had died and she didn’t even know about it.
She stopped bothering to play up being chirpy. Nobody looked at her posts anymore, anyway, so it’s not like anyone would care if she vented a bit.
> “I can’t get up out of this bed.”
He was dead. Nobody would come to check up on her. “I . . . I don’t have anyone else, do I?”
No. You should’ve realized that much sooner, Pris.
“Right. I should’ve.”
He was alive.
Somehow.
Like it was just nothing. Back to helping everyone but himself. Never resting. Even on the hospital bed, Hakim was asking Prism how she was doing.
Selfless, “idiot,” too concerned with helping others, “never letting himself rest.”
Where was her sun, shining for everyone else? Is it wrong for the moon to mourn warmth after being deprived of it?
Surely not.