FFM 2026 1: Homesick

We return to the world of Whoops this FFM! I am currently having a Very Bad Day and getting fresh new FFM-form-factor words on the screen felt like scraping something from the side of a barrel with an improper tool. Naturally, I made it the problem of one of my characters. Sorry, not sorry, this guy has issues and today is one of those days where at least one of said issues deserves a spotlight (insert DeviantArt’s grinstare emoticon here).

This story’s exact timeline placement is currently unclear, but it’s somewhere around the timeframe the current storyline is in anyway.

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Steirdrar took a deep breath, held it in for three beats, then let it out. Again. And again. And again. And again.

It did not help. If anything, the hollow feeling within him got worse when he registered that breathing exercises were not doing the trick yet again. They had worked perfectly throughout all his time in the IRS, including spying for the AIRF, but somehow jumping the border to the AIRF side had made them ineffective at calming his negative moods (ironically, the only thing he needed them for nowadays). It was even worse to know that he could not pick up his communicator and read through old text conversations to trick his brain into easing his homesickness.

Since nothing else he had on hand had worked, he took advantage of his bunkmates already being out, took his boots off and curled up into a ball on his bed. It helped only marginally, a minuscule substitute for a familiar hug as it was.

…Well, since that was not doing the trick either, he might as well give in and make it worse.

The little fireproof container was in his hands faster than he would admit to the therapist he still had to continue seeing. He paused for a moment to try to argue himself out of opening it but the arguments he made were hollower than anything he had ever said during interrogation resistance training. He opened the container and pulled the two photos out.

The last time the entire family had been together in person… That day, Zeldron and Ialthia had announced that they were going to start trying to have a child even though the war was still stuck at a standstill. “I’d rather raise a child alone than have none at all,” Ialthia had said and looked at Zeldron in that way that told everyone that if he died in the war, there would never be anyone else for her. They had all understood and Mom and Dad had immediately offered their help with taking care of the child, knowing that they were extremely unlikely to be sent on the field after such a long time being stationed at the Dest Military Academy.

Mom had snapped the first photo while the rest of them had been talking about the recent solar eclipse. Steirdrar still remembered the grin that had appeared on Dad’s face when they had noticed what had happened, and not just because that same grin was on the second photo, what with Dad angling the camera so he was in the photo too when he took it. The end result was askew but between everyone laughing, chuckling or grinning in it, it had been deemed “more than good enough — good enough to pass my courses even“, as Dad had put it. Although, Steirdrar and Zeldron had both later agreed that it had to be more about Dad not wanting to risk not being able to recapture the loving look Mom was giving him after handing him the camera than the photo being “more than good enough”.

Steirdrar took a deep, shuddering breath and blinked as fast as he could, trying to keep the tears from getting out. More than a few of his colleagues would notice if he cried before his shift and he absolutely did not want that on top of everything else they were talking about behind his back (oftentimes very literally, very much within an average Human’s hearing range).

Still, he missed them so fucking much.

He missed the solidarity he and Zeldron had over the course of the war and the fact that not only did Zeldron notice that something was wrong in his last years on the IR side of the border but also cared enough to ask, even when it was likely that Steirdrar could not tell him anything substantial. He missed the smell of whatever tea Ialthia would happen to bring with her the few times they were able to meet up in person and the conversations about the environments they had been in. He missed the moments of normalcy while talking with his parents where he was not a bloodied intelligence officer but just their son stationed far from home. He missed the photos Mom would share with him and the jokes — both the awfully punny and the actually funny ones — Dad liked to tell when he least expected them.

Another deep, shuddering breath. And another. And another. And another.

A tiny hysterical laugh escaped Steirdrar’s chest when he thanked all the torture resistance training that helped him keep himself from bawling his eyes out. He really should have gone into the army like he had originally planned instead of accepting the offer to join the IRS training. Then he would not be in this mess.

(Statistically, he would probably be dead by now, which would be so much worse for everyone, but at least he would not be in this specific mess now either way.)

He forced himself to put the photos away and the container back into the chest pocket he kept it in. He had had his moment of missing his family; now he had work to do.

(If only that work did not keep him so separate from them…)

No. Work time. He had to focus now. No more letting homesickness get to him until his shift was over and he was alone again.

Steirdrar nodded to himself, satisfied that he had managed to convince himself (for now anyway), and left his quarters as soon as he had his boots on again.