Pity

Author: Fropster

Word Count: 2.0k

Original Text: (link)[Format 1] (link)[Format 2]

## Synopsis

*In which Pandora plays therapist again, even in some other timeline, but only for people that are as bad or worse than him.*

*It's hard being honest, but they're both trying*

Note: Set in an alternate universe where Pandora and Tania only experience half their emo backstory and quit halfway through. Pandora’s a linguistics major studying to be a translator while Tania’s studying social work in the same college. Obviously there’s characterization changes.

## Story

Tania doesn’t know why she’s here again. This same cramped apartment that isn’t even hers.

It's small. Less a home and more a residence. Everything’s placed so that only one person alone could live in this space. The kitchen is tiny and the living room only consists of a couch that’s really more of a loveseat and a tv that’s near constantly tuned to international news on the chance it’s even used. The walls are bare, no posters or picture frames hung up or anything that might show its owner’s personality. Instead it’s lined with rows of college textbooks on linguistics mixed in with a few dozen foreign books with titles she can’t pronounce.

One might say the apartment’s owner is diligent, maybe practical to a fault, but that’s not what she sees. It's a room that’s almost inhuman, creeping into uncanny everytime she looks at all the finer details for too long.

It’s this place that Tania is somehow familiar with, invited even. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know and it’s absurd.

“Uuuugggghhhhhhhh…”

A low, guttural groan escapes her lips. That little bit of that frustration and uncertainty spilling over.

“You good?” she hears from the foot of the couch she’s sprawled on. It's Elijah, the owner of the apartment they’re in, knees close to his chest and head laid on the chair’s armrest. He’s close, by necessity really; the room’s so small there’s no real place to sit aside from here.

“You keep coming here unannounced every week now,” he says when she doesn’t respond. His voice is cool. solid. grounding yet not entirely real. “At least tell me if you’re here to vent or just to act pathetic.”

“Shut up. you’re the only guy I know who doesn’t have beer stocked up.” Tania glares at the back of his head, but he doesn’t relent.

“You should meet new people then. outside of bars too.”

“Not my fuckin’ fault every single college brat just wants to get drunk and party all night.” But it is her fault that she keeps getting herself roped into these things. Telling herself she wants to stop only for the next small thing and the next minor inconvenience to tempt her back to that comfort of being numb. Of not knowing a damn thing. Pathetic.

“Didn’t you meet some people a month or so ago?” he says, and she winces at the reference. It only reminds her they don’t talk anymore. “They seemed nice from what you made of them.”

They weren’t. It started out alright, she and them had met up from a group work in one of her classes and decided to meet-up every so often. No bars, so no risk of breaking her longest streak yet of going clean. It was nice, the casual chats and talks in cafes and around town. Trying out new restaurants and fitting clothes they probably wouldn’t buy. She might’ve enjoyed it, had fun even.

But some part of that was pity. She realized when they clung to her a little too tightly, spoke to her a little too gently. Like she was a glass sculpture about the break. But she was a person. At least she wanted to be.

“You can’t call that shit friendship,” Tania says with a little more force than she intended, frustration spilling over after being kept inside for so long. “Self-indulgent pricks, looking down on me like that.”

Elijah doesn’t say anything. offers no resistance to the storm that’s been brewing inside her for a while now.

“I don’t want their damn pity. It’s fucking disgusting, acting like I can’t fucking live on my own unattended. Like I need to be coddled like a shitty toddler to exist.” The words leave her mouth like sandpaper. It makes her throat bleed out with every syllable, but she needs this. “Is it too much to ask? To just let me feel like I’m fine on my own and my life isn’t a fucking house of cards about to be blown away by a light breeze?”

She’s about to continue, force those last bits of desperation out of her system. but it’s tiring being angry all the time. “...can’t I just… *feel* like I’m doing okay… on my own?...”

It ends with a whimper.

Elijah does not immediately respond. The lack of words is filled with silence. Cold, dead, silence. Not entirely dead though. She can hear her own sad whimpering, the slight shaking of her own limbs mismatched with the uneven rhythm of her own breaths. In contrast, she hears his breathing is slow, steady, with small exhales drawn out until the next. She imagines this is how a plant breathes, or maybe a machine imitating a plant. Either way, it’s not human.

Still, it’s that rhythm that grounds her. it keeps her from her own thoughts, from her own spiral that she’s this close to escaping and this close to getting dragged in again.

When she’s calm again, she sees him looking straight up. if the ceiling weren’t there, maybe he’d be looking at the stars. He looks a little wistful, a little somber, a little human. It's the first time she thinks she’s seen him like this.

“I had an uncle when I was younger,” he says out of nowhere. His voice is low. There’s dissonance there that wasn’t present before. “I don’t remember my parents. my first memory was him picking me up and bringing me to a run down apartment that’s just a bit bigger than this one.”

“He took care of you?” she asks. It's the first time she’s heard of his past, before the person he is today.

He hums in affirmation, low and short. “Until I was sixteen. There wasn’t a lot to go around, but we got by. Had a lot of freedom back then. Let me go wherever I wanted as long as I came back before 5. On special occasions, he’d treat me with one of those flavored cup noodles that looked imported. It wasn’t much looking back, I’d probably be able to buy one with pocket change right now, but I liked it.”

He's unusually open. Tania can’t help but cling to every word like it’s fleeting stardust. She can’t help but want to know.

“He sounds nice,” she says. Her voice is soft, almost unheard if it weren’t for the sheer silence. “Do you miss him? Your uncle, I mean.”

“Maybe. I’m not that sure really. I don’t think it’s something I ever seriously processed.”

“Oh.”

She doesn’t have anything to say to that. Silence starts to creep in once again. Just their two breaths mixing in this tiny room while she tries to process all… this. What it means, why he said it.

“Hey, Elijah?” she asks, trepid. It’s unexplored territory, for both of them. This simple act. “Why'd you tell me this? I don’t… I don’t understand.”

He sighs. His eyes close and they face the obstructed sky while his breaths become deeper. Tania looks at him and wonders if this is exactly how she looked just moments ago, about to spill her guts and let it all out. But it’s different. He’s preparing himself, deep breaths to calm nerves she didn’t know could be shaken. It’s not the impulsive mess she spat out.

When he opens his eyes, he looks at peace.

“I think he pitied me.”

It comes out of nowhere, not really. but to her it does. She can’t help but do a double take at what she’s just heard. “Huh?”

“My uncle,” he says. Slow. Cautious. “I said I’m not sure if I miss him, but I'm pretty sure he pitied me. Ever since he took me to the last time I saw him, he pitied me.”

Tania does not say a word. Offers no resistance to what he’s about to say.

“Even still. I don’t think the things he did meant nothing. Even if it was out of pity, I don’t regret having him take me in. That pity’s the reason I’m still alive right now, why I am the person I am. That pity took care of me until it didn’t and gave me the closest thing to comfort I could’ve gotten at that time,” he says, like each word is precious and guided from his lips with utmost care.

“I guess pity’s the closest thing to love I know.”

It ends with a sigh. Relief. A weight off his shoulders.

Even then it’s tiring. Elijah slumps further into the armrest of the couch and slides a bit on the floor. Tania looks at him like he’s human, vulnerable for a second like the world just might force him to crumble, and like he might just be ok with it. It's strange. She wants to get used to it.

Just like before, it’s silence again. They both need a break from words too heavy for either of them. She thinks about those words, the ones just said that were directed at her.

“Hey.” Her voice is firm. No stuttering or whimpering.

“Yeah?”

“You think I should patch things up with them?”

“You know, I’d usually say that I wouldn’t give a damn what you do with your life, so don’t ask me,” he chuckles, a hint of mirth in there. She realizes all the emotion she’s felt from him is subtle. Small but there. “Right now though? Go ahead. You already heard what I think about it.”

She hums in acknowledgement, low and short.

“Hey Elijah?”

“Yes Tania?”

“Do you pity me too? Is that why the door’s unlocked whenever I come here?”

It takes him a moment to respond. It’s not something he has difficulty saying, but rather something he’s never even thought of before. He mulls it over. Gives it the consideration he thinks she deserves. It's a wait only honesty can cause.

After almost half a minute, he says, “Maybe. You remind me of someone I know. Maybe I’m just giving you the pity I couldn’t give him.”

“Maybe?” she asks. It’s strange seeing him uncertain, unsure of something.

“Maybe. Not sure. I’m not gonna pretend like I perfectly understand my own emotions. The best I can give you right now are half assed ‘maybe’s and ‘I think so’s. Maybe I’m just using you to make myself feel better about my own regrets. Maybe I’m not. I don’t know.

“Even still, I probably won’t go out of my way to help you. I don’t think I pity you that much.”

He was honest. His own uncertainty proves it. Maybe she’s fine with this kind of pity, this transparently disgusting, partially insincere, uncertain pity. It doesn’t make her crawl in her own skin. Make her want to run away in disgust and never see him again. She doesn’t know what it makes her feel, but she’s fine with feeling it again.

Tania looks up at the sky, obstructed by the ceiling but still there, even if they can’t see it. “Now that I think about it, this is the first time you’ve told me anything about your past.”

“You never asked.” he shrugs, instinctual, but stops himself midway. “And honestly I’m not keen on telling people about it.”

“Huh. You’ve never told anyone else?”

“Not counting you? No, not a soul. Even then what I told you barely scratched the surface.”

She takes that in, then chuckles at the thought. Somehow she’s the only person that knows a little glimpse of the person named Elijah.

“Hey, *Elijah*? One last time.”

“Yes, *Tania*?”

“Do you think…” She pauses. Her thoughts stop for a moment to organize themselves, be arranged into words that she’s satisfied with. “...do you think, if I knew the full thing, your past I mean, I’d pity you too?”

He laughs, small and light. The thought must be absurd to him. “Nah, probably not.”

“Still, wouldn’t it be nice if I did?” She can’t help but laugh too. Maybe it is absurd, but for some reason she can’t help but cling to hope right now.

He considers it. Seriously. Sincerely. She really could get used to this.

“Maybe.”

“See? I told you.”

***END***