AU oneshots

Taloft gently opens the door to Amy’s room, trying to avoid hitting the kid sniffling behind it. He quietly announces himself as he does so, making sure Amy is well aware of who it is and what hes doing. 

He steps forward and closes the door, kneeling down to clasp her ungloved hands in his.

Her crying gets worse, curling up and away from him. Not the usual response.

He inspects the area further. The carpet is sharp spikes and the wall is turning purple where it has contact with her head and arm. Her small fox toy sits a bit away. 

Thats why its not the usual response. He resists the urge to inhale through a grimace. Rough night for her. He hopes she hasn’t been like this long.

He changes to sitting criss-cross, letting her try calming down a little more before he tries anything. Risky what he’s about to do, but letting her sit there and spiral won’t fix it. Hes talked to her many times before, and no matter if he says it wasn’t her fault, she still trembles at the thought of touching him or moving from the spot shes claimed. The issue is the refusing to move, sometimes falling asleep in that corner. He’d be willing to let that happen if she hadn’t already been having troubles sleeping the whole week.

Sometimes talking works, sometimes reading a story, and now he’s going to try something else.

Taloft rolls down the sleeves of the shirt hes wearing and coaxes Amy into his arms, trying his best to console her. 

She shakes her head and clenches and unclenches her fists and tries to say words that won’t come out. She doesn’t want to hurt him. She refuses to. 

Taloft only says if she doesn’t want to hurt him, then he wont be hurt, he carefully and slowly wraps a hand around her much smaller one. Her breathing gets faster and shes panicking but when he flips his palm over and theres no traces of purple, her face of despair turns to frustrated confusion. He takes the opportunity to invite her closer, and it takes a bit of convincing he’ll be completely okay before she scoots closer and allows herself to be scooped up, too scared to do it herself.

She buries her head into his shoulder and curls up, not hugging back besides tight fists in his shirt but not trying to leave. The shirt hes wearing starts to crystalize but Taloft’s hands and neck remain intact where she touches them. 

He rubs slow circles on her back, waiting for her breathing to slow. It takes awhile of him reminding her where she is and distracting her with the idea of tea and stories for her to loosen her grip. 

Thirty minutes? Maybe? He wishes he could wear watches more regularly without getting too stressed that they turn into bombs.

Shes stopped crying, but her face scrunches again at the crystals now growing out of his shirt.

He tries to crack a joke about how the shirt was bad anyways, and hey, hes intact! and its not funny, but it makes Amy relax a tad. Lets her know he’s not mad.

He shifts Amy to rest on his hip and stands up. 

“Lets go get some tea alright?”

Amy, too tired to object, nods into him. 

He grabs the small fox plush as an afterthought.