Work Text:
Lea [2:18 PM] we need to talk.
Nothing good ever comes out of that phrase. Isa’s been obsessing and overanalyzing that text for three hours; he’s on his way to Lea’s apartment after working a shift with the Restoration Committee.
What could there possibly be to talk about? He ruminates on it up until Lea opens the door, stomach a sick and seething mass.
“Hey,” Lea says, trying and failing to smile at him.
Cold fear grips Isa’s heart—it’s all he can do to mutter “hey” in return.
“Come sit down with me,” Lea tells him, and it’s only because Isa knows him so well that he recognizes the fragile, disappointed undertones in his voice.
“Alright,” Isa replies softly, resigned.
It’s the beginning of the end.
“So...these last few months have been amazing, Isa. Some of the best times of my life. But...”
There’s always a but. Isa watches him passively, green eyes glimmering in the late afternoon twilight.
“You won’t...” Lea is clearly struggling for words. “You won’t let anyone help you. You’ve shot down all of my ideas; you won’t talk to me when you’re hurtin’...Isa, I can’t help you when you keep shuttin’ me out.”
“It’s not your responsibility to heal my hurts,” Isa says instantly, robotically.
“I want it to be, Isa!” Lea’s lost his patience: gone is his veneer of calm civility. “When we were kids, it was so easy to read you. I know our time in the Organization—“
Isa flinches minutely. Lea presses on.
“—changed things, but you won’t even try to get better!”
“We aren’t children anymore.” Something bittersweet sits heavy on his tongue. He exhales slowly. “I think my time as Saïx tore a hole inside me, and all of my goodness has been leaking out ever since, little by little, day by day.”
Lea looks angry. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous?” Isa snaps, a cruel, ugly look on his face. “No less ridiculous than your obsession with being remembered by every passerby you’ve ever encountered.”
“You don’t get to— look, asshole, if you’d let me finish my sentence, I would’ve said that it was ridiculous because atonement isn’t a destination, it’s a journey, and you’ve traveled damn far.”
Isa feels hot shame climb into his throat. “I...I didn’t...”
“But maybe not as far as I’d thought.” Lea’s eyes are cold even with tears spilling down his cheeks. “So maybe your journey should take you back to your place, and you can go on a quest to get your shit tomorrow.”
Isa’s heart stops. “Lea—”
“ Fuck you, Isa.”
After a moment of weighted, tumultuous silence, Isa stands up, walking on shaky legs.
He doesn’t look back, and the loud slamming of the door shatters the tense quietude between them.
Isa goes home.