Author's Notes:

I still have no idea what I'm doing.

I’m no good with tears, me. I never know what to do.

What I’d said had clearly been the right combination of everything wrong to say because Adagio was bawling her eyes out. It’d been like flipping a switch. One moment she’d been looking fairly alright, maybe a little dour but nothing too serious. The next everything had fallen to pieces and I had no idea how I was meant to react.

“Uh,” I said. Helpfully.

Adagio lunged at me, her arms coming in underneath mine as she wrapped herself around me. This took me by surprise and I ended up standing there, not sure where to put my hands as she cried even more loudly and now directly into my chest.

“Uh,” I said again. For want of anything better to say. Very, very gingerly I patted her on the back. Whether this helped or not I didn’t know.

I could feel an expanding patch of dampness on the front of my shirt. The amount of tears she must have been putting out was beyond belief. I patted her back again.

“There there? This isn’t really my area of expertise, I’m sorry.”

“Just be quiet and hold still!” Came her muffled response.

I did as I was told.

After maybe a minute - for no reason I could really put my finger on - my arms went around her. She, like Sunset, was tiny compared to me. Well, shorter at least. I heard her hiccough and her crying didn’t get any quieter but she didn’t say anything about it and if anything seemed to try and dig herself deeper into me.

“Hey,” I said quietly, giving her a squeeze. “Hey, it’s okay. It’ll be alright.”

“We lost!” She wailed. Her fingers dug into me and man were her nails sharp. I think my own eyes were starting to water but I didn’t say anything. I was mostly here for moral and physical support at this point, and there wasn’t much I could say anyway. I mostly just tightened my grip.

“We banked everything on winning - everything! And now it’s all gone! Everything is gone! We’ve lost everything! I’ve lost everything!” I heard her say into my ribcage.

I had a feeling she’d lost everything, somehow.

She didn’t say much more after this, going back to just wordless sobbing, hands finding fresh parts of my back to claw at in despair.

I tried to remember the last time anyone had offered me tender reassurance in a moment of vulnerability but I drew a blank. I wasn’t sure that had ever happened to me at all. So I just winged it.

“For what it’s worth you got me,” I said.

Sniffling, she pulled back and peered up at me. Her eyes were red-raw and bleary - though still huge - and she had an impressively disgusting streak of snot down the front of her face that it would probably have been polite of me to point out soon, but her expression cut right through me all the same.

“I do?”

Perhaps I should have picked my words more carefully. No backing down from it now.

“Yes. For what it’s worth, like I say. I’ll help you out as long as you need it. Okay?”

She clamped back onto me but at the very least wasn’t sobbing as badly as she had been a minute before. The extent to which she was digging her face into me was unexpected, especially given she was doing it on a spot she’d already practically soaked through with tears. This shirt was going to need a wash.

“Are you hungry?” I asked.

Adagio sniffed again and finally unwound herself from around me, taking a step back.

“Yes,” she said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and then not really knowing what to do with it afterwards. Then she decided she was beyond caring, and just shrunk into herself a little bit.

“Figured. You haven’t eaten anything all day, have you?”

“No.”

“Would you like me to make you dinner?”

“Yes,” she said. Adding a moment later: “Please.”

“Alright cool. I’m not, like, a chef or anything so it’ll probably be pretty boring I’m afraid.”

I figured it was best to forewarn her of this. She’d find out soon enough one way or another, but at least this way she couldn’t say she wasn’t prepared. To my surprise she smiled. Not much, but a little. A tiny crinkle at the very corner of her mouth. A good sign, I thought.

“That’s okay, I can’t cook either,” she said.

“Great, we can be bad-cooking buddies. Go on, you go clean yourself up and I’ll get dinner done. You know your way around, I take it?” I asked. She nodded.

“Marvelous,” I said. She sloped off to the bathroom and I promptly shed my t-shirt. It was covered in a variety of fluids by this point, none of which would really be the sort of thing you’d want around food you were preparing. Slinging it into the corner where all dirty clothes went to wait to pulled open a drawer to look for something fresh.

“Uh…” I heard from the doorway. Adagio was stood there with a fistful of tissue pressed to her nose and was just staring at me stripped to the waist and bent over a drawer. I gave her my best raised eyebrow.

“I’m not decent,” I said in what I hoped was a complete deadpan. She did not turn away, which was a surprise. At the very least she was keeping her eyes on my face. It still didn’t make me feel especially comfortable.

“Uh, yeah - I couldn’t get another shirt or something, could I?” She asked, plucking at the hem of the t-shirt she had on. Presumably it too had been splattered with tears and worse. Or maybe she just didn’t want to keep wearing the same thing she’d slept in. I could understand that. I gestured in the direction of the main room.

“I washed the clothes you came in with, they’re hanging up in the lounge. Probably dry by now. Hopefully. Unless you feel a need to keep wearing my stuff?”

“You did what?”

“You kind of, well, left them in a pile of the bathroom floor. Didn’t seem a good place to leave the only thing you had with you so I, ah, washed them and hung them up to dry. Sorry…”

You never know when something that you thought was a nice thing to do might actually turn out to have been the exact opposite of what you were supposed to have done. I braced myself for a severe telling off. Maybe I’d overstepped a bound. Maybe I’d made some assumption or other that I shouldn’t have done. I expected the worst.

“Thank you,” she said with a slightly larger smile than before before disappearing from view.

Oh.

That wasn’t so bad.

I finally settled on a replacement t-shirt and made my way to the kitchen, doing my best to avoid looking into the lounge after catching enough of a flash in the corner of my eye to know that Adagio was changing. I kept my head down and set about making something that involved pasta. Nothing fancy. Tomatoes might also have entered into it. I’m not an expert.

In short order I had something that most people would recognise as a meal. Spooning out the results into a pair of bowls I grabbed some cutlery and moved back to the lounge.

“Done changing?” I asked, pausing on the threshold. Adagio, looking appalled, stepped into view and gawped at me. As horrified as I was at this, I did have to admit she looked a lot better back in her own clothes. It suited her better. The gloves were a bit odd, but they still worked.

“You watched me?”

With my hands full of bowls I couldn’t hold them up for defense. All I could do was vigorously shake my head.

“No no no, I just assumed you would be. Feel better?”

Her eyes narrowed. I held my breath. It felt as though she was trying to penetrate the very recesses of my mind to root out even the merest trace of dishonesty on my part. Even I started to wonder if I had just watched her change, her look was that intense. Then she relaxed.

“I do,” she said.

“You look better. Not that you looked, you know, appalling or anything before. You just look more like yourself. More comfortable. It’s nice,” I said. Or babbled. Again. I always do that. To save myself from further misfortune I thrust a bowl in her direction.

“Dinner,” I said.

Taking her bowl and blowing on it Adagio sat down in what was rapidly becoming ‘her spot’ on the sofa.

“Want a drink or anything?” I asked.

“Please,” she said. I set my own bowl down and moved off.

In the kitchen I spied Sunset’s discarded, untouched bottle still sitting on the side.

For a good second I did consider just giving it to Adagio. She’d never know, right? But no, no dice. I took out a fresh one for her and took Sunset’s for myself. Whatever. Works out the same.

“Here you go,” I said, handing it over and sitting down to next to her. Her bowl was still cooling. She took the bottle with both hands and cradled it between her knees, staring down into the neck of it. I just drank mine, keeping an eye on her as I did so.

“You alright?” I asked. She didn’t respond or even appear to notice, continuing to stare deeply at the bottle. I reached over and gave her a poke on the shoulder. Her eyes snapped up.

“Hmm?”

“You alright?” I repeated.

“Oh. Oh yeah. Just, you know, it’s been a rough week,” she said with a tiny, slightly pained smile. Putting the bottle down onto the table she picked the bowl back up and blew again, taking an experimental forkful and finally finding it the right temperature to start eating.

“So I heard,” I said, getting my own bowl.

Dinner was adequate in my estimation. We ate in silence for a bit, neither of us really knowing each other well enough to make small talk. Someone like Sunset I’d at least managed to get read on and was also very good for just talking about anything you felt like. Strangers and new people were an unknown quantity, and that was always risky.

Do you make a joke and risk it falling flat, or do you say nothing and risk being seen as aloof and odd? These are the things that keep me up at night. Or they would be. If I cared. Which I didn’t.

I finished my food before her and washed up, coming back in time to find her round up the last pieces of errant pasta. With those done she brought the bowl up to her face and was starting to lick the thing clean before she finally clocked me standing there. Sheepish, she lowered the bowl again.

“Enjoy that?” I asked. She nodded, blushing. It was hard to tell if she was blushing actually given the sauce she’d managed to smear on her face. I pointed.

“You got a little, uh, well, everywhere,” I said, taking the bowl from her. She tried and failed to wipe some away, succeeding only in spreading it again. It was sort of cute in how inept it was. How she was so bad at it I could only imagine. “I’ll get you a napkin, hold on.”

In short order: me to kitchen, bowl to sink, napkin back to lounge and over to Adagio. Like a well-oiled machine, me.

“Thanks,” she said, mopping up errant sauce. I sat, keeping myself angled towards her, back straight. A serious talking posture, I hoped. I waited until the napkin was done with. This bit required a cautious approach.

“Now - and don’t start crying again, please. Not if you can help it - you are going to have to think about what you’re going to do. I have work again tomorrow, and the only person I have in this town I could call on to watch the place with you and keep you company is a mortal enemy of yours. That and I already called my favour with her in,” I said. Adagio opened her mouth in protest and then pouted, crossing her arms and sulking down into the sofa.

“Can’t I just stay here on my own?”

There was no delicate way of approaching the lack of trust that comes naturally from having met someone only the day before. As laid back as people tend to say I am I do have limits Letting random girls just hang around my place with no supervision was definitely something I had an issue with. Call me paranoid.

“I don’t really...know you,” I said as delicately as I could. She looked wounded anyway.

“You don’t trust me?”

“Well, uh, there might be a little bit of that, yes - but also I, uh, well, I figured you might get lonely if I left you here all day. You, uh - you know?”

This was the height of bullshit and both of us knew it. It was so bad Adagio couldn’t even come up with anything to say back to me. She just sort of stalled and had to look away. Oops.

If I’d had a clock in the room this was where we both would have heard it ticking. Since I didn’t though all we got was silence. Someone drove past outside, and that was about it.

“I could come with you to work,” she said, not looking up. “Just hang around or something.”

She shrugged.

“Uh…” I said, immediately thinking this was a bad idea. But, actually, maybe not so.

I mean, when I went in in the morning’s I was the only person there. The only person’s feet she’d be getting under would be mine. That’s assuming she even made a nuisance of herself at all, and something told me she wouldn’t. Just a gut feeling. If she sat there while I did whatever it was I needed to do I could keep an eye on her. It was far less than ideal, but it wasn’t the worst idea I’d ever heard.

“That might work, actually…” I said, scratching my chin. Her eyes lit up.

“Really?”

Never had I seen anyone so excited to be told they could come with someone else to work. First time for everything.

“My work is very boring, just to warn you. But it’d work, sure. Bring a book or something, I don’t know.”

Adagio just nodded, and further awkward silence descended. Didn’t even have any cars going by this time.

“It was very nice, what you did,” she said suddenly.

This could have meant any number of things.

“Uh, it was?”

“I completely forgot about all the stuff I was wearing.”

Oh, that. I flapped a hand

“Not a big deal. As metal as you looked wearing my stuff I figured you’d feel more yourself this way. That and, you know, mouldering clothes aren’t so fun. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s not just that. Everything you’ve done for me has been really nice and you didn’t need to do any of it.”

I hated stuff like this. Really not a fan of being thanked for things. I don’t even care. Just makes me uncomfortable. People have the weirdest habit of thanking me when I haven’t even done anything especially impressive, too. I considered what Adagio was doing to be this, because I really hadn’t done anything that was going out of my way. It’d had been the work of a moment and every part of it easy. I squirmed.

“No really it’s fine, not a big deal,” I said, pairing it with an aggressively apathetic shrug. I wanted waves of ‘not a big deal’ to come radiating out of me, to leave no doubt. She searched my face for a clue of what I might have been trying to communicate while I continued to squirm and failed to look her in the eye.

“Well it’s a big deal to me,” I heard her say.

Before I could tell her (again) that it wasn’t a big deal she scooched across the sofa and latched onto me, coming in under my arms to cuddle in close. I was taken off-guard, just like last time. I sat in stunned silence with her moulding herself around me, bringing her legs up onto the sofa and nestling. I didn’t know what to do.

“Uh,” I said.

“Can just rest here? For a bit?” She asked. She was putting her weight onto me in such a way that I was being pushed back into a corner of the sofa. I didn’t think I had much choice. My arm went around her shoulder almost on its own.

“Uh, sure. If you want.”

She made herself at home on top of me while I stared, wide-eyed, into space. I really had no idea what was going on. This warm, soft bundle of girl getting comfortable half spread on the sofa and half spread on me, for reasons clear only to herself. I had a face full of curly hair as well. At least it smelt nice. All of her did, in fact, somehow. Something that managed to cut through whatever I’d used to wash her clothes. A natural scent, I guess. Rather like the ocean on a warm day. With less rotting fish.

Or maybe I was imagining that. It’d been awhile since anyone got so close or so cuddly.

Not long after that she fell asleep. At first I thought she was just being quiet, then I heard the sounds of snoozing. It was adorable. Painfully, painfully adorable. I was of course now completely trapped but worse things had happened to me.

Adagio didn’t seem so bad to me. No more so than anyone else I’d met. Bit strange how eager she was to cry/sleep on me, but maybe that’s normal? Who was I to question? She’d had a rough week by all accounts, so perhaps she was just feeling bit out of sorts. Who knows?

Some time later - twenty minutes maybe, possible more - she stirred, stretching and yawning. Blinking she turned in place and looked up at me, squinting with bleary eyes.

“Did I fall asleep?” She asked, a considerable amount of her own hair falling across her face.

“You did, yes. A little bit.”

“Pffbt,” she had to spit some hair out. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Maybe you’d like to go take a nap?”

She disentangled herself from me and sat up, stretching and yawning some more, arms raised above her head.

“I don’t know why I’m so tired…” she said, still groggy.

“Bad week?” I suggested. She nodded, eyes half-closed.

“A nap might not be a bad idea, then. I’ll probably make an early night of it as well.”

“You want your bed back?” She asked through yet another yawn, standing up and swaying in place. She very nearly toppled over onto me and would have done so had I not reached up to steady her, hands on her hips. That felt like a weird thing to do, but less awkward than having her faceplant in my lap.

“No, it’s fine. You’re still a guest. Ask me again in six months time,” I said.

Her eyes opened wide.

“That was a joke,” I clarified.

“Oh. Hah. I get it?” She clearly did not get it. I rose to standing as well and gave her a pat on the shoulder.

“You go sleep. I’ll get you up in good time before I go to work, yes?”

“Sounds good to me,” she said, smiling. She even gave me a little wave before leaving the room, one which I couldn’t help but grin with and return.

She’s not so bad.

I actually remembered a proper duvet and stuff this time and took advantage of Adagio heading to the bathroom to quickly nip into the bedroom - my bedroom - to grab some of the guest stuff that was stuffed into the wardrobe. A bit musty and in need of a wash but it’d do. Certainly better than what I’d had the last night. Settling it all down on the sofa I had something that looked much more respectable and pleasant to sleep in.

My eyes fell onto the napkin that Adagio had left wadded up on the little lounge table. I rolled my eyes. Should probably tell her where the bin lives, just for future reference. I’d probably have to tell her how a few things worked around my place, actually, come to think of it. Now that’s weird to consider. All of this weird.

An afternoon and early evening of odd events. A week that has gone in a direction that I did not see coming.

Never really been a hug person. I don’t object to them in principle I was just never really good at them. And like mother always said, ‘a handshake is as good as a hug’.

Still. Couldn’t deny that it had been rather nice. Refreshing. Made a change to things.

It had, as said, been a while.

Then my phone buzzed. This was unusual.

Pulling it out I found I had message from Sunset, which gave me a bit of a lurch. A pleasant surprise, but a surprise all the same. I mean sure she usually sends me something every day but it’s still always a surprise - I live in a perpetual state of expecting her to finally get tired of the bother.

Still. Until then. Pleasant.

“How’d it go?” Said the message.

“Alright. I think,” I replied.

Along with emotions, hugs and cooking, texting was another thing I was pretty sure I wasn’t much good at. It was always either too much or too little. Never just enough. No Goldilocks text-zone for me.

There was a moment or two of nothing as I waited, then the phone buzzed again.

“That’s good! Is she gone?”

Oh dear. There wasn’t any real way to slice what I had to say. Best to just be honest.

“Not yet.”

More waiting, although not that much.

“What?”

Ugh. How can one word carry so much weight? Just sitting there. Even I’m not dense enough to think that a single word reply is anything other than curt, annoyed and confused. I felt my stomach tying in knots though was less clear on why.

“It’s complex,” I sent back. I felt this was a succinct summary of the situation. Succinct and useless, but still. I wouldn’t really know where to start otherwise.

“Can I call you?”

That could only be bad. No way out of it though. I wasn’t going to lie.

“By all means.”

A heartbeat later and my ironically-chosen ringtone started up.

“Hello, it’s me,” I said on taking the call. A reflex.

“How is it complex?” Sunset asked, launching right into it.

I held forth at length, though I really tried not to. I tried to keep my explanation compact and useful. Adagio’s crying episode was mentioned along with my cackhanded response. Sunset listened more-or-less in total, stony silence, only occasional butting in to offer disbelief or astonishment at whatever it was I said I’d done.

By the time I got to the end it was obvious that there wasn’t actually that much to say at all. It boiled down quite simply to the fact she’d cried and I’d bottled out of kicking her to the curb. Worse, I’d seemingly left myself upon to putting her up indefinitely. I hadn’t thought about it that way beforehand but from Sunset’s astonished reaction it became pretty obvious even to me that this was, perhaps, a misstep on my part.

“You said what?!” Sunset had practically squealed after I’d repeated what I’d told Adagio in my effort to calm her down.

“Oops?” I ventured. Not really the best thing to say.

The hug was not mentioned. I didn’t deliberately leave it out, I just didn’t feel it necessary to mention. Superfluous detail, you know? I’d covered the essentials and that’s what counted. Right?

Sunset sighed down the phone and I could almost feel her intense, burning disappointment in me.

“Well I don’t know what you can do now,” she said.

“Shit. You’re my competent friend, where does that leave me?”

“I’m your only friend,” Sunset pointed out. On the face of it this didn’t seem like it could be true but it didn’t take much thought for me to realise that it was, in fact, completely accurate.

“That’s - uh - okay that’s true. Shit. I’ve messed up, haven’t I?”

“Yep. She’s definitely your problem now. Hey, if I cry and snot up your shirt can I get you to do stuff for me?” Sunset asked and I could almost picture that smirk of hers again. I rolled my eyes.

“You’re more than welcome to try. Anything you want me to do specifically, or is this just to see if it works?” I asked, turning my hand over and examining some of the fresher cuts I’d acquired.

“Oh I could probably find something to do with you.”

There was an edge to the way she said this that sent a chill up my spine. I stopped moving and flicked my eyes to the left. An odd nervous habit I’ll admit, but one that’s hard to suppress.

“Huh, is that, ah, so?” I asked, at a loss for words.

Before I heard what Sunset might have wanted to say Adagio appeared in the doorway, so quietly and so suddenly I nearly dropped the phone.

“Who are you talking to?” She asked. She’d put on my clothes again, presumably to sleep in. Which meant she’d been through my drawers. I’d probably have to talk to her about boundaries at some point if she was going to stay here any longer.

“Uh, it’s Sunset,” I said. Adagio’s face fell.

“Yes?” Came Sunset’s voice in my ear. This was the worst two-way conversation I could imagine having at that moment. I wasn’t sure which way to go first. I went with Sunset.

“Sorry, my gue- uh - Adagio came in. Sorry,” I said, ears on Sunset but eyes on Adagio. My brain buckled and bent underneath the strain. But held. Just.

“You should probably see what she wants, then. She is your problem after all,” Sunset said. At least she didn’t sound overwhelmingly annoyed or upset. I would take what I could get.

“Yes. True,” I was doing my best not to convey the anti-Adagio slant of the conversation to Adagio who was - as mentioned - standing mere feet away and watching me closely. I mouthed ‘sorry’ at her but she said nothing and didn’t move a muscle.

“Alright then. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, yeah?” Sunset asked.

“I look forward to it.”

“Me too,” she said. And then she hung up.

“Sorry. Personal call,” I said to Adagio, pocketing my phone. She held up a cable. I had no idea why she would do this and then worked out that it was, in fact, my phone charger.

“Thought you might want this,” she said, tossing it to me. I fumbled it and caught it mostly with my lap. How considerate of her!

If it hadn’t been for the beaten up charger some night-shift person had left at work my phone have died hours ago. I’d quite forgotten about the charger being in my bedroom at all.

“Oh, thanks!” I said, holding the cable up and giving my best and most convincing smile. It did not work.

“Was she calling to check if you’d got me to leave?” Adagio asked. How did she know? Could she read minds? Was this more evidence of sorcery? Otherworldly powers? Or was she just perceptive? I decided to err on the side of ‘perceptive’. Most people would probably have worked it out the same way she did. I was just dense.

No point in lying either way.

“She was, yes.”

Adagio was downcast, shrinking again. Sad to see.

“Oh,” she said. “I can go, if you want. If it’d be better for you…”

This was exhausting. Though understandable. I stood again and walked up to her. I did consider putting my hands on her shoulders. Not sure why. She seemed the touchy-feely sort, so perhaps I felt she’d respond to it. But I did not. Even after the crying and the napping it felt as though it would be taking liberties. But that’s me.

I compromised by just sort of...standing there in front of her.

“I meant what I told you before. I will help you as long as you need or want me to. Okay?” I said. I saw her digging her toe uncertainly into the floor a moment or so before smiling up at me.

“Okay. See you in the morning?”

“That’s the plan,” I said, giving a thumbs up

That was, indeed, the plan.