Dawn Chorus (Proxies x Reader)

Brittle sticks of straw jab at the folds of my fingers. They leave little scratches and beige shards against my skin as they crumble in my touch. I am trying to reweave the brim of the sunhat as apology for dropping it in one or all iteration of conflict with Jack. If all things were normal, it would have laid forgotten on the forest floor, resuming its slow decay, but only a few days later when I came to lounge in the warmth of the sunroom and ease the ache Tim has beaten into the gaps between my bones, the hat had been here, sitting on the table, a little worse for wear. I've patched things up to the best of my ability, burned flat the fraying ends of the ribbon before gluing it back in place, attempted to fill all the thin places with fresh reeds, now I am working on the brim.

My legs are stiff from sitting on the thin carpet of the sunroom floor for so long, but I feel content and lazy as a cat in the warm, overly sweet air in the room. The sepia tinge no longer bothers my eyes after spending hours in it, and I've come to some type of agreement with whatever lurks beneath the floorboards. We are quiet together and loud together, step and sit and breathe in tandem to mask the other's presence. We can be together and still alone.

Roses first come to mind when describing an old lady scent, but this room smells more of dandelions and muffins nearing a month old and not yet stale. It's a specific scent, too floral but still earthy, sweet and only faintly of vanilla, not warm. The air is warm but the scents are not. I like the scent. I like the room, more and more as I spend time in it.

"You can't hide from him forever," he says from the doorway and nearly startles me in doing so.

"Who said I'm hiding from Tim?" I ask.

The muscles in my neck itch with the desire to turn towards the doorway. My back is too him, feeling far too bare and vulnerable. I hunch against these feelings, focus on gingerly guiding another stick of straw through the layers of others.

"Who said I was talking about Tim?" He asks in return.

I glance back then. Hoodie has settled on the little raised lip in the doorway between the room and the hall. He has his mask off, hazel eyes staring right through me. If I stare long enough, I will no longer be able to place his face, how unfamiliar and familiar it seems to me. His legs are pressed up awkwardly against his torso, too long for how he has chosen to sit.

My body aches just thinking about all the answers. The scattering of bruises, some so deep they know the name of every tissue in my body, and a little of welts across my limbs as he took a winter dried switch to my arms and legs. More he and others don't know about. Sometimes my stomach still oozes blood through the intact skin, remnants of something that never happened, and after a long day of dragging myself through obstacles, searching the woods, and trying to fight Tim, it always leaks worse. I always wear an undershirt to sop up the blood, cling and dry to my stomach like an additional layer of skin. And my back, still unhealing.

I think I have a concussion as well, or my emotions are just more intense than usual. Like right now, simply looking at Hoodie my heart squeezes and there is a sting in my eyes.

"Who are you asking about?" I respond after a little too long.

Hoodie does not answer. Maybe because asking has shown I'm too stupid to figure it out, or maybe because there is nothing more he thinks he can get from that conversation. A piece of straw jabs into the side of my finger in my miscoordination. It hardly hurts, still I ouch. It's an excuse to turn back around and focus on my weaving, at least. A breeze passes through the building, a little sour and burnt smelling, unlike the normal character of the air. I shiver against the sudden intrusion of cold. Hoodie's silence is far too heavy.