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just a glass

Summary:

Devo breaks something small of Amber's and panics.

Notes:

content warnings in the endnote!!!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

It was stupid really, how clumsy he always seemed to be. You’d think that after all of those years, the Benevolent parish would have been able to train it out of him.

Though, to be fair, they’d certainly tried their hardest. He’d gotten his fair share of punishments for accidentally spilling tea on someone, or knocking over a bottle of ink… or breaking a dish.

And now? He feels his hands slip off of a wet cup he had just cleaned, and it’s sent falling to the floor.

He lets himself hope, for just a second as it falls, that it’ll be fine. It’s somehow survived this long on the ship. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be fine now.

Of course, with his luck, as soon as it hits the floor, it shatters, pieces of the sturdy glass scattering across the floor in large chunks.

He feels his breath catch in his throat as he looks down at it, hands shaking.

He can already hear Guidance’s voice chastising him, in that fake, reassuring tone of hers. He can feel the weight of having to bring Guidance cups of tea whenever she called, no matter what time, or if he was already doing something, until he consistently got it right.

Oh, come now, Devotion. Again? Well? What are you waiting for? Pick it up.’ She’d said after he’d tripped over the folded edge of a rug, and dropped yet another cup of tea to the group through the haze of his tiredness.

Quickly grabbing a cloth to wrap the pieces in, he drops to his knees on the floor and ignores the feeling of the smaller glass chunks against the legs of his pants. Luckily the pants seemed to be protecting him from them just fine, but he’d definitely need to change after this, or risk tracking glass with him.

“Shit!” He mutters out as he finally processes what cup it was; part of a set that Amber had bought for them to share.

He’s busying himself picking up the larger shards and setting them on the counter when he hears someone yelling to him from the hall, followed by footsteps, then the door opening.

“Hey, Devo? Y’alright in here? I thought I heard-” Amber says, stopping as she sees Devo flinch and turn towards her, backing himself into a wall using his hands and feet, with one of the hands painfully gripping a shard of broken glass.

“Amber! I am so sorry- I did not mean for this to-”

“Woah, woah, calm down. It’s chill. I didn’t think you’d purposely break somethin’ of ours-” Amber said, holding her hands out in front of her.

“And I know that you bought it, so I really should have been more careful, but-” 

“Devo,” Amber said, trying to get his attention as he gripped the broken shard tighter. Walking over as quickly as she could, shoes crunching on a few of the glass pieces, she crouched down next to him.

“But my hands were wet- and it just slipped, and-” 

“Devo!” Amber yelled, putting her hands on his shoulders, and smoothing over the wrinkles in his sleeve. Shocking him into silence. “You’re fine, kid. It was just a cheap set I found the other day. It’s not like a bought some expensive glassware for our ship that we manage to nearly obliterate every other mission. I honestly should’ve found somethin’ a little sturdier.”

Seeing the scared expression on Devo’s face, she puts her arms back at her sides to look him over. God, she really wants to beat Guidance into a pulp right now.

“Can I see your hand, Devo?” Amber asks, gesturing to his hand with one of hers. His healing abilities would be quite useful right now, but they haven’t had the time to run back to Seldom’s yet, so she’ll have to do.

“I can do it myself!” Devo yells, jumping to his feet and just barely avoiding cutting himself further on the glass. “You do not need to worry about me, Amber! I am not a kid, and I already broke your glass.”

“And? Devo, you breaking a cup doesn’t mean that you’re not bleeding onto our floor right now. C’mon, gimmie your hand.”

Carefully relenting, Devo lifts his hand up to Amber’s, letting her uncurl it from the glass it was wrapped around, like he hadn’t noticed it was there.

Thankfully, the chunk itself didn’t seem too sharp, and there were just a few pinpricks from the corners of the piece.

“Ohh, wait, I got an idea,” Amber says, reaching into her infinny pack and pulling out a small potion vial.

“Amber, you do not need to waste a potion on me! Those are expensive,” Devo said, trying to pull his hand away from the green ones wrapped around his wrist.

“I’ve got plenty,” Amber said with a wink, before dumping it onto his hand, causing him to let out a hiss of air between his teeth. 

“What- Where did you-” 

“There you go,” Amber says as she finished drying up the rest of the potion, interrupting his questions. “That was easy enough, right?”

With a smile, she pushed Devo out of the room and closed the door before he could question her further, then began to sweep up the remaining glass.

Notes:

// content warnings!! References to past child abuse (Guidance's "Teaching"), Self-harm (Specifically, Devo cuts himself on glass at one point by holding onto it, without realizing he's doing it, and seems to have a general disregard for his safety.)

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