draft 2

[corpsefluid]

In that moment, when Higgs jumped, Fragile knew it was all true.

Even stripped bare, on his knees, trying to stop a nuke from killing thousands, he was swaying. Looking ready to puke on her boots..

The betrayal cut deeper than his cowardice though. Her own mother had chosen him of all people. Her mother had been alive all this time, knew where Fragile was all these years, and not once said a single word. Instead, she sent Higgs, and expected Fragile to call him brother. This man- no, this boy, who had abandoned his own family and stolen hers.

This overgrown adolescent who couldn't stay sober more than a couple of days. Sheer luck of the genetic lottery allowing him to dump responsibility on others while he nursed his next hangover.

Higgs really was just a useless, cowardly, alcoholic coasting on her father’s reputation. He didn’t work for it, and instead of helping people with his gift, he wasted it on pouring more alcohol down his gullet. Meeting clients hungover or even still drunk from the night before, wasting her work and sacrifices. Wasting people’s lives.

And all this time, Higgs knew. Knew how much Fragile had struggled with being abandoned, knew that woman was her mother, and kept the secret anyway.

Then again, how could she expect him to understand? She'd met his father, heard about how he'd run away from home over a punishment. How he wouldn't even let his only family know he was alive.

That's what made her blood boil. Higgs' father was alive, even wanted to see him, and Higgs wouldn't even look at a letter. Instead he clung to her mother who vanished off the face of the continent for well over a decade without a single fucking word.

Higgs hadn't even noticed that Fragile had left him her misanga. It would be so easy to catch up with him later...

He still believed his beach was his sanctuary where no one could follow.

He always ran there. He kept himself from running longer than Fragile expected, but he still ran eventually. Keeping him out of his beach shook him, but he still felt safe enough to stay there. Lingering long enough that despite the difference in time scale, he was still there after she instructed her new friends on how to handle the bomb. Hadn't even tried to walk back or mitigate the fact he abandoned a live nuke in the hands of terrorists.

It wasn't about blowing up another city anyway, it was about knowing she was right about Higgs. Amelie needed the knot intact, but Higgs didn't need to know that.

It did make Fragile wonder if Higgs had found a way to stash his booze there. Enabling his addiction seemed to be one of the few things left that Higgs was willing to dedicate his creativity and intelligence toward these days. If he figured out how to do anything new with his beach, it would be finding another way to get pickled on the job.

Even his own men stopped calling him to escape BT territory.

Yet when Fragile offered alternatives, they balked. Despite their inability to rely on Higgs, they were incredibly resistant to new ideas. Only a handful had been willing to take a BB. One porter took a BB and returned it to her the same day. Fragile hadn’t been able to get him to explain why, just that ‘it wasn’t worth it.’ Her best guess was that it was some kind of egomaniacal bullshit move from Higgs.

Amelie had warned her that Higgs was territorial. The monopoly on the west coast was one thing, but it seemed ridiculous to extend it to technology. Higgs clearly didn’t want to do the work detecting BTs, but no alternative was allowed on his turf.

She noticed the pattern quickly: every porter who accepted a pod soon requested transfer to Fragile Express.

Fragile kept her own pod hidden from Higgs, saved it for solo runs. She brought it this time however, he needed to see that they didn’t need him anymore. That he was not irreplaceable.

Fragile jumped.

The second Fragile set foot on Higgs' beach she smelled vomit. She'd been right about him being drunk. He only had the guts to try getting rid of the bomb because there was still enough liquid courage in his stomach to keep him going. Just not enough for him to follow through and actually save people when it was his hide on the line.

Despite however many hours he'd spent on his beach before Fragile decided to catch up, Higgs had not gotten smashed. From the looks of things, he had only used the time to vomit and cry. God forbid he used his power for something useful.

None of his power, physical strength, nor size meant anything, because at the end of the day all of it was wielded by a selfish little boy disguised as a man, too wrapped up in himself to do anything for anyone.

Higgs’ shoulders hitched with each breath. The bare skin of his back speckled grey where the timefall hit before he jumped, covered in a sickly sheen of sweat and crusted with sand that clung to his damp skin.

Fragile hadn’t caught Higgs this sober in months. She would never have found him this lucid if she had decided to pursue him some other time. It was better this way. While Fragile had scared Higgs, he wasn’t truly afraid of her. Not yet.

If she gave him a chance to regain his footing, Higgs could still turn around and give chase.

Even though Fragile was so much more powerful than him now, if Higgs got it into his head that he could come after her he would not stop worrying that bone, no matter how futile.

Fragile had spent enough time fearing him and what actions he could take to have her the way he obviously wanted her. She needed him to avoid her, be afraid of catching her eye, to fear the idea of her deciding to catch up with him. Understand that she could get to him at anytime or any place if he tried to cross her.

She wished she could find a way to get rid of the slimy way he looked at her, but apparently not even the weight of a few thousand lives and being held at gun point was enough for that.

Fragile waited a moment to see if Higgs would even notice the invasion or if he’d stay absorbed in his little pity party. Deep down she supposed she knew he wouldn’t, but she gave him a chance and once again he failed.

So she went ahead and took his attention.

Using the insultingly small and simple little handgun he’d given her, and fired into the empty sand beside him. Just close enough he would feel the sand the shot kicked up.

A part of Fragile hoped he’d piss himself.

Fragile wasn't going to shoot him, wasn't even going to leave a mark. Higgs ran, she wasn't going to let him pretend he tried at all. Higgs was going to live with his choices. Shooting Higgs would be doing him a favour, and Fragile was done doing anymore favours for Higgs in this lifetime.

It's incredibly effective, from the way the initial noise startled him out of his self-absorbed misery to the rising panic as he realised he couldn't run from this the way he had everything else, and finally his fried neurons catching up to the fact she was standing over him holding a gun.