(no subject)

[freedrinkplease]

Pig had been rooting around.

It was simple: Pig needed a sense of absolute security. That and a combination of boredom (honestly, American TV confused the shit out of him and there was only so much of Spongebob he could take), lead him to wander around the apartment, sleepwalking with his eyes wide open.

"Red White and Blue," he mumbled, clapping his hands together and rubbing them as he walked down the hallway to Tillman's bed. "The great unknown, Runt. The great unknown."

It's not quiet a smile, not quite a laugh but it's something, and he creeps tentatively in the room. There's nothing there, but his smile doesn't falter.

"See? Fulla gray so we can brighten it up. Make it our own little world, love. No need for goin' to the sea." The light, fluttering chuckle was there.

"No. No, no.... Noooo, not goin' into the FUCKING sea. We be stayin' here. Pig be waitin'. Jesus, Runt."

It takes him a few moments of just sitting on the bed to calm himself so he can stop repeating the word no over again, and he sits up abruptly to wipe his face on Tillman's jacket.

"Piggy actin' like a wee babbin," he reprimands himself, licking his lips. He's still shaking, but he refused to let it go, continuing to look around. "This be an adventure, Pig. With Tilly's brown. Tilly's brown, allright like?"

He licks his lips and opens the one door he hasn't done so yet, staring at the duffelbag with Tillman's name on it. Staring at it before he crouches down and pulls it closer, unzipping it gingerly.

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[freedrinkplease]

"Calm," Pig repeated. The touch was hard and it hurt, but it wasn't not going to bruise and Pig found himself in a rather reversed situation. It was runt's hands that would always cause his breathing to slow, it was Runt's one word sentence (and sometimes no words at all) that would cause the decline in Pig's anger.

"Just be calm, boy. Just relax."

[slayer_not_player]

Tillman pulled away just enough to see Pig's face, to look and verify that the warmth under his hands was real. That flash of blue returned, vivid and sharp and Tillman exhaled at the sight of it.

His grip eased and he rested his forehead against Pig's once more. Pig. Pig and not a walking ghost from the past. Pig in his filthy jacket, standing in his little apartment, in New York, in the states, and not some far off city that he could hardly pronounce. Pig who wanted him to be calm.

He closed his eyes. Different sensations floated back to him: the sound of traffic outside and the smell of his shampoo, altered slightly by mixing with Pig's skin, the soft hair under his fingers as his hands moved up and back. The phantom taste of gritty blood faded from his mouth. His heartbeat slowed.

[freedrinkplease]

"There we be, ah? Two people in a gaff," Pig's voice was happier, still trying his best to imitate Runt.

"Leave, Tilly. Here like." There was no smile, but the tone improved as he leaned over to kiss the other's forehead before sprawling his legs over one side of Tillman's lap, nearly wedding-style as he began to pet the other's cheek.

"Here like, in the land of King Pig."

[slayer_not_player]

Tillman concentrated on the sensations and the unfamiliar lilt in Pig's voice. When he opened his eyes again, the harsh tan tones of the desert had faded back to their natural gray. The world was soft and dull.

He exhaled again, a more focused action, followed by an equally controlled inhale.

"Sounds alright, kid." He gave the back of Pig's neck a little squeeze of acknowledgment.

[freedrinkplease]

"Sound, yeah?" Pig's smile is slight, but evident. He still hasn't let go of the other's forehead, sitting in his lap and petting his face like he was an animal.

"You be the Knight of Pork City," He announced, and with his free hand he held up the dogtags around his neck.

"I be wearin' them?"

[slayer_not_player]

A hint of a bitter smile touched at Tillman's lips. A knight. As if he could be so noble.

Tillman carefully closed one shaking hand around the little metal discs. They were still cold from resting on top of a layer of leather and it was strange. He couldn't remember the last time that he had traced the letters with his thumb without them being warmed with his body heat.

He could not guess why Pig would want to wear his tags or how getting shot at in the desert made him a knight, but then, not being able to figure the kid was part of the reason that he could hold Tillman's focus.

He caught the collar of Pig's shirt with his finger and slipped the dog tags in the opening he made. They jingled and he patted Pig's chest to silence them.

[freedrinkplease]

Pig smiled.

It wasn't like when he had smiled before--Pig grinned often when he was pleased with something, but this was an honour. It wasn't taken lightly in Pig's own little made up world, and he pats his chest, too, mimicking the other and giving him a salute with the wrong hand.

"There we be, eh? Coupla soldiers, coupla tin men. You fixy-fix the problem with the fat mammy you talking to?"

[slayer_not_player]

Tillman had never been calmed so quickly after an episode. He was used to feeling raw and exposed for hours afterward, to feeling as though his scars had been neatly reopened, to feeling anxious and scared and defensive and sometimes murderous.

Exercise was the tool he used to banish his demons when he was alone. The ability to shift his focus from the world, to himself, to his body, to the screaming of fatiguing muscles, and eventually to nothing at all was a kind of transcendence that was time-consuming, but effective at calming him down.

Somehow Pig had carved a shortcut with gentle touches and soft babble. Tillman still felt somewhat raw, somewhat exposed, but he also felt compelled to keep the conversation going, instead of his usual desire to squirrel himself away alone.

"Problem is fixed," he confirmed. "Sink. Simple."

He found his hand resting on the boy's hip, though he could not recall when he had put it there. After a second of deliberation, he moved it away.

[freedrinkplease]

Pig's nose wrinkled, pleased, and as he pat the other's head like a little kid, snorting like his namesake a few times.

"Good boy, then. Tilly good."

He was just glad the other was calm. The only time he'd seen someone like that (that wasn't himself, talking to a mirror, talking to himself, talking to holes in the walls and distant fantasies) as Runt's dad, and it would always wind up with her crying and getting hit.

"Pickin' up these tools now or mam'll--"

Oh. That's right. Tillman isn't his little brother and his mother doesn't give a shit. Pig's nose wrinkles again.

"--throw a great fit."