Work Text:
Even unconscious, Cold’s expression was blank. His eyes did shift below their lids, though rarely, and never with the franticness of the others’ in their nightmares. Contrarian wondered what he was dreaming about.
Eventually, and with no preamble, Cold’s eyes opened slowly. He glanced at the other before sitting up, face not betraying his thoughts. Contrarian rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome?”
“For what?” Cold asked. As usual, the other couldn’t tell whether he was being genuine or annoying.
“Pulling you out of the river, where you apparently decided to have an impromptu nap!” Contrarian reminded him. His feathers were still soaked through, so he couldn’t imagine Cold had genuinely forgotten, but it was never easy to tell with him.
The two sat a little away from the river, just under the shelter of the trees. Though it was the middle of the day, Contrarian was in the process of lighting a fire for warmth. Not that Cold would appreciate it, of course, but sometimes you’ve got to be the bigger person.
“I wasn’t napping,” Cold replied. “I was watching the water, and now I’m here. I assume I passed out.”
“Did you…” Contrarian paused, looking up from the fire as he realised that this might be an even bigger problem than he’d anticipated. “Were you trying to drown yourself?!”
“No,” Cold responded evenly. Not shocked that he’d suggest that, not annoyed that he thought he would, not even laughing at how outlandish it was. Just… cold. “I was watching the water, wondering what it would feel like to drown. I don’t know why I fainted.” He paused, then added, “I wouldn’t go out of my way to end my life; there might be more to do before then.”
Right. Okay. Contrarian wasn’t sure that was better, but that’s could be someone else’s problem. “When was the last time you slept?” He asked instead.
Cold blinked slowly, tilting his head. “I’m not sure.” This time, there was a glimpse of something there—almost an emotion, but not enough to tell what he was thinking. Was he worried? Confused? Surprised? Conversations with him were exhausting! “A few days ago. What does it matter?”
Contrarian could’ve guessed: he looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot, his feathers were in complete disarray, and his skin had an unhealthily pale look to it. Still, his expression was as calm as ever. “Have you at least been eating properly?” Contrarian asked.
The fire was lit by now—not blazing, sure, but it was the best he’d get. Cold shifted closer, apparently unconsciously.
“I ate lunch with you the day before yesterday,” He replied.
Alright, that was a bit better. Still not exactly healthy! Fucking hell, Contrarian couldn’t believe he used to think of this guy as the stoic one; at that moment, he looked almost as bad as Broken.
He let the conversation go silent for a few minutes, knowing that Cold wouldn’t break it. Instead, he set two fish he’d caught earlier to cook over the fire. Cold watched him silently the whole time.
“Alright,” Contrarian said eventually. “You’ve got to stop this.”
“Stop what?” Cold responded.
“Stop-“ Contrarian gestured at the other’s whole body. “-this! Stop letting yourself die!”
Cold raised an eyebrow, one of the only expressions he ever made as far as the others had seen. “I’m not. Like I said, I’m not going to kill myself. What would the point in that be?”
Running a hand down his face, Contrarian wondered if this was how the others felt talking to him. “I’m not saying you’re trying to kill yourself, Cold. I don’t think you want to die—or at least, I hope not—which is why you need to start looking after yourself. You passed out today because you haven’t slept in days! You’ve got to at least be a little bit worried about that.”
“I don’t get worried,” Cold reminded him. “I don’t feel anything. I thought you’d know that by now.”
“Yes, you tell us every day,” Contrarian sighed. “And that wasn’t an issue when someone else was in charge of the body.”
“I don’t see why it’s an issue now.”
“Because we can die now!”
Cold shrugged. “We could die before. We died several times before. It was only bad for you because you couldn’t separate your minds from the body.”
Contrarian floundered for a few seconds, searching for a way to explain to Cold why death is a bad thing. In the end, he just said, “You can’t just… not feel anything. That’s not how people work.”
“That’s because I’m not a person,” Cold pointed out. “None of us are. We’re… how did She put it? ‘Shards of broken glass’.”
The other shook his head. “No. We used to be,” He paused as he searched for the words, and Cold didn’t interrupt him.
“It’s like… okay, so, running with the glass metaphor for a sec. It’s like if The Long Quiet and The Shifting Mound were a mirror, and the Narrator—or, who He used to be—snapped it in half. Obviously it’s a mirror, it’s made of glass, there’s no way to snap it cleanly, so it shatters. But the pieces He’s holding stay mostly together, so there’s still two bigger main shards along with the little uneven slivers that came apart from them. The Long Quiet and The Shifting Mound were incomplete, sure, but they still kind of worked as mirrors on their own, but we—the tiny shards—we were too small to work as mirrors without them. So when we joined up with The Long Quiet, it made him a bit more complete, and we could help out a bit, but we couldn’t actually work as mirrors without him.
“But now he’s gone. He chose to remain as an incomplete almost-half of a mirror, and run off with his other almost-half. We’re not attached to the mirror anymore, so, as shards of glass, we wouldn’t be able to function on our own. We’d be… discarded, I suppose; left on the floor and forgotten about or swept up in a dustpan and thrown in the rubbish.
“But that didn’t happen. Or at least, whatever the real life equivalent of that metaphor would be didn’t happen (I dunno, I’m not an expert on eldritch gods). However it happened, we have bodies now; we’re not just slivers of glass anymore, we’re… maybe not whole mirrors, if a whole mirror is whatever we used to be, but at least bigger shards. Or maybe just very very small mirrors.
“What I’m trying to say is that, whatever we were before, we’re more now. If you want, you can argue that we’re not people, maybe—I don’t know what the qualifications for that are—but at the very least it’s obvious that we’re more than what we were. We’re more than the one personality trait we represented—or we can be, at least, but it’s a hard transition to make.
“I’m the contrarian: when I was part of The Long Quiet, all I really did was disagree with the Narrator for the hell of it. I enjoyed it, of course—He got so annoyed when I got him to throw the dagger out the window, you should’ve seen it—but that falls apart now that He’s gone. I suppose I could keep messing with the rest of you—which I do—but that’s more of a hobby than a life plan. Like, I have to do other stuff too! I can’t just live my life in relation to someone else!”
Contrarian paused to take a deep breath. He’d gotten a bit sidetracked at the end there, but the point still stood. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re not just a voice anymore. You’re not an advisor, you’re not a shard of glass: you’re a person. You have to think for yourself, make decisions for yourself, look after yourself. You can’t keep just being cold.”
Cold remained silent. His eyebrows were slightly raised, almost an expression of surprise. After a moment, he said, “What a long-winded way of explaining your point.”
Contrarian sighed heavily. He supposed he hadn’t expected Cold to change completely on the spot, but it was still frustrating to see him so unfazed. “Will you at least eat something?”
Cold peered at him for a few moments, then shrugged. “Okay.”
He took the offered fish, now cooked, and bit into it. Scales and bone crunched between his teeth, and blood dribbled from the corners of his mouth. After the first bite, his eyes widened ever so slightly and he began to chew with more vigour, stuffing the rest of the fish into his mouth as quickly as he could swallow. Not as quickly as one might expect from a starving man (well, “man”) but at least it showed some emotion. Contrarian held out his water flask, which was immediately drained.
“Feel better?” He asked.
Cold hesitated before replying, “I… don’t know.”
Contrarian blinked. He wasn’t sure what answer he expected, but it definitely wasn’t that. It seemed like a good sign, though. “Oh-kay then. I suppose that’s better than a no?” The other one didn’t reply, now staring into the fire. Contrarian wasn’t even sure he’d heard him.
He looked up when Contrarian stood. “Where are you going?”
“Fishing. Which is what I was about to do before I found you face-down in the river and got sidetracked. You should get some sleep; stay by the fire if you want, but I’m not letting you out of my sight until I know you’re not going to collapse again.” He turned to walk away.
“Could you-?” Cold cut himself off, but Contrarian had already turned back to face him. He was staring into the fire again, expression still blank. He finished, quietly, “Could you help me preen?”
Bewildered silence from the other. Then, a knowing smirk. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
Cold’s eyes narrowed, not a glare but definitely an expression of annoyance. “Could you. Help me preen. Please.”
“Mmm,” Contrarian pretended to consider it, even as he sat back down behind the other. “Alright, now you’ve said the magic words.”
He began to run his hands down the other’s still-soaked wings and back, pulling out a concerning amount of dirt and broken feathers. When did he last clean himself? If he’d gone this long without food, water or sleep, then Contrarian shuddered to think of how long he’d abstained from things that weren’t necessary for staying alive. He probably hadn’t washed this body since he got it.
“God, you’re a mess, you know that?” Contrarian muttered, to no response. He was about to say something again, trying to prompt some kind of emotion, when Cold suddenly went limp beneath his hands.
The other paused. Did he really fall asleep that quickly? Then Cold opened one eye to peer back at him, looking almost disappointed. Holding back a laugh, Contrarian resumed, and this time Cold sighed softly with relief as he relaxed.
It wasn’t long before he was asleep entirely, head sagging down between his slumped shoulders. Contrarian rearranged him carefully into a more comfortable position. Then he crossed his arms over his chest like a corpse because he thought it was funny.
After stoking the fire, satisfied that Cold was warm and safe, Contrarian finally made his way to the river.
Cold was… Cold was cold, and he probably always would be. Just as Smitten would never get over the Princess, just as Broken would always be timid, just as Contrarian would always be a huge pain in the arse. But they weren’t limited to that anymore. Now, Smitten could learn to be happy without Her, Broken would eventually be able to be happy, and Contrarian could care for his friends. And one day, Cold would learn how to feel; he’d already started, from the look of it.
It would take a while to become whole, but they’d get there eventually. Until then, they could rely on each other to cover their faults.