Work Text:
Day 1
Sung’s saying something again… Phobos thinks to himself as he drags himself to his bedroom door, opening it before Sung can.
“Lord Phobos!” Sung exclaims, only using that title when he’s about to make some ridiculous request.
“Doctor Sung,” Phobos plays along, stifling an ill-placed, afternoon yawn.
“Would you be interested in accompanying me on a road trip?”
A road trip? All of a sudden? He really couldn’t be too surprised, considering it’s Sung after all and that it’s two in the afternoon on a Sunday- an honestly reasonable time to make this sort of request. Plus there was no real difference in the days they weren’t on tour.
But he’s not really feeling it. He’s never really feeling it. And if he suddenly acquired all the “feeling-it” in the world, he’d still be wary about an impromptu road trip to an unknown destination, for an indefinite amount of time, possibly with the whole band.
“What did Meouch and Havve say?” he asks, stopping mid-sentence to rub the bridge of his nose, blocking out the telepathic communication.
“Meouch is gonna pass this time and Havve’s wrapped up in something or other, so it’ll just be us! Or well, just me if you’re not down.”
He seems set on me coming regardless of what I say, Phobos laughs to himself but feels a bit bad, knowing Sung loves company, especially company on a road trip, in the first few birth days of summer.
“Sure, Sung. Give me enough time to shower and I’ll be good to go.”
Sung’s smile is obnoxiously bright and it hurts Phobos who’s still waking up. He pulls his long hair around his neck and over his shoulder, fiddling with the split ends. His lower two eyes scan the length of it, considering a braid, as the top set closes to get a few more seconds of rest. Sung’s already making a horrible racket packing his things, even from the other side of the house.
★
He scales the RV by the small dents in its side from usage and the larger, natural indents of the metal. No fun getting up there with the ladder, he thinks as he pulls himself up to the roof and flops down onto his back.
It was a similarly stupid thing though he didn’t like the comparison of it to Sung’s level of spontaneity. Phobos himself was… weirder and he certainly picked more dangerous things to do but he still, surprisingly, used his brain a bit more than the other. He knocks his heels against the metal and curls his fingers around the small roof rack behind the elevated space for the cab bed, pulling as if he’s testing the safety. As if he’d really care.
It’s a medium sized thing- not enough proper room for more than two people but enough space to sleep on the couch, crawl into the overhead bed above the dash, unfold the table into a bed, or stretch the length of the floor. It rattled like all RVs do- full of piping and metal and hard plastic plates- but thankfully less so than it would were it any larger.
Sung had explained that because it wasn’t hooked up properly, they had no water and couldn’t use the fridge but at least had A/C. Phobos was content with that, wanting to see the insides of every half-abandoned rest stop and fine with washing his hair with cold water in the sink.
He moved off the roof to the hood, a more acceptable spot to perch safety-wise, and waited for Sung. He wondered if Sung would think it funny were he to lay himself out on the ground like he’d fallen, something he’s done perching exactly like this, but overly excited and preoccupied with playing guitar, not just balancing on the balls of his feet, staring into the sky.
He didn’t get the chance, and decided against it at the same time, as Sung exits the gas station, arms full of food. Phobos leapt off the hood, slammed the fuel cap shut with his foot, and circled back around to join Sung inside.
Sung tossed the food at him rapid-fire, burying him in bags of chips (ketchup, pickle, beer and cheese, salt and vinegar, and jalapeno) but thankfully didn’t hurl the five pound tub of Neapolitan ice cream at him as well.
They turned onto the side road that lead directly to the full highway, Phobos trying to find space for all the chips while Sung struggled to open a box of popsicles that he intended to consume within the day, regardless of the fact that they had no working fridge and no ice.
Is this… is this entire thing for me then? Phobos wonders, almost horrified, the tub of ice cream dripping condensation onto both his jeans and the floor. He peels the lid back and dips a pickle chip in the strawberry side before reaching over and placing it in front of Sung’s mouth. Sung manages to get it in his mouth without accidentally, or purposely, licking his bandmate and hands Phobos a popsicle in return.
“I can’t eat that and the ice cream- Sung we don’t even have a fridge.” Sung stares back at him blankly.
“...”
“...”
“I may have overlooked that.”
Phobos splutters, really more entertained than mad, but Sung speaks before he can say it.
“I’ll get ice later, just start eating-”
“With what? My hands?”
Sung only shrugs at him, having also forgotten spoons, smiling with his mouth open in a laugh before it gets too funny and he snorts it shut.
Phobos moves his legs so they’re wrapped around the tub and takes off his sweatshirt to stop it from completely soaking his legs. Realistically they could wait, let it melt, then refreeze it whenever they stop, but instead Phobos is scooping out vanilla ice cream with salt and vinegar chips for himself and handing Sung beer and cheese chips covered in chocolate.
He’s laughing too- echoing in both of their heads just over the sound of Sung laughing aloud. And though he isn’t really speaking, it’s as if his brain is interrupted by food; the half-formed commands for Sung to eat like his life depends on it, incomprehensible noise, and laughter all overwhelming as Sung seriously starts a timer on his phone.
Day 2
Meouch counts his blessings, thanks the stars, that he didn’t get dragged on that road trip and that everytime Gooby needed to go out, Havve jumped at the opportunity to go running with the dog. The house was nearly empty and he took full advantage of the solitude, stretching out in the sunny patches speckling the living room and ordering days worth of food at a time with Sung’s unattended money, left crumpled in piles by his bedside.
Gooby was cute even though Meouch didn’t really know how to care for him and he guessed Havve was also cute in his own, buglike way, tilting his head towards any noise and easily entertained by TV static. He’d much rather risk a week with these two than with Sung and Phobos- hyperactive and with greater intentions than anyone in their group to act like it. Gooby and Havve could at least be sleepy, almost docile, and it gave him time to laze around, rather than trying to stop the others from injuring themselves or worse, dragging Meouch himself into it.
Maybe he was being too critical; the group as a whole is an impulsive mess, even when uninfluenced by one another’s individually wild natures. And considering Havve’s aggressive tendencies on top of that…
He was walking himself in circles trying to pin someone down as the worst bandmate but decided Phobos’ cat bothered him the most, screaming from behind the guitarist’s bedroom door for God knows what for God knows how long.
Dude, what does your fucking cat want? Does she have food in there? Meouch texts him after twenty minutes of confused cat mewling from down the hall (fifteen minutes of fighting the urge to mewl back).
Yes. And dude you’re a fucking cat, shouldn’t you know? Turn on the sink for her. Phobos snaps back immediately.
Meouch pushed the door open, stuck from a pile of clothes in the corner of an otherwise unsullied room, and closed it again. When they chose rooms, Phobos chose the one with a side bathroom so he didn’t need to open the door as often and risk his cat getting out, in addition to liking to keep mostly to himself. Besides, Sung had his heart set on the basement where it was cool, where the rain dripped into the plants strategically hung from the in-ground windows, Meouch on the upper floor with the glass sunroof, and Havve on some dark, featureless room at the end of the hall, among the unused guest rooms, so it worked out fine.
“Hi kitty,” Meouch said, having forgotten the cat’s name. The cat brrped back at him and banged her head against his shin, saying hello. He picked her up with both arms even under her belly, carrying her like a pile of logs, and put her on the edge of the sink. She moved to sit inside of the sink instead with the water running from her open mouth over her whiskers, eventually submerging her paws. It was odd (like pet like owner, he supposed) but Meouch left her to it, keeping the door to Phobos’ bedroom ajar but clicking the door to the hall shut.
“JESUS- don’t fucking sneak up on me like that...” Meouch yelled abruptly, Havve appearing from behind the door as soon as it was fully closed. He could hear Gooby drinking loudly from the kitchen and assumed it was for the same reason Havve held a whole gallon of water under his arm, though his was unopened. He wasn’t even panting from what, nearly two hours of running in hot weather?
A game controller was thrust into Meouch’s hands and when he looked up, Havve was already at the end of the hall, turning the corner into the living room and motioning for Meouch to follow.
★
They’d spent the day driving, barely civil about who got to choose the music but content to eat ice cream and chips up until around eight o’clock, deciding a real dinner at some point would be best.
Phobos stretches, up high with his wrists bent back then down low to crack his knees. The skin dimmed darkest there, over and behind his legs, and wherever else his body bent, as if collecting blood. Leading up to those blood pockets, raw again at the elbows and knuckles, was blue skin before mellowing out to a sallow white; the color bleeding away and leaving him unearthly at the edges. The rest of him was flecked with spots, both red and blue, and they seemed to imitate human freckles and birthmarks, at least when out of the sun.
Sung calls him over from the doorway of the only non fast-food restaurant around to let him know the place was almost completely empty.
“Anyone out now is trying to find a place to stay for the night, not looking for a meal.”
Phobos agreed and slunk down on one side of the booth they’d been given but was immediately distracted by what Sung had been similarly entranced by. It was only a small side section and dimly lit neon blue but there were three or four games to play with one shining the brightest, apparently the ceremonial centerpiece of the entire establishment. The two shared a look and decided quickly on six different appetizers before making their way over.
Phobos was able to half jam a quarter and a bobby pin into the pinball machine long enough to get a few tries in without paying. The screen flashed the initials LPB on the second lowest score and he decided that was enough, fishing the quarter out and storing it and the pin in his shoe. Sung had been messing around with the other two games almost simultaneously, not really getting anywhere worth mentioning, but dropped them completely once Phobos was done with his game, waiting to show off the last, brightest game to his friend.
“I’m gonna win this one,” he said giddily, confident for sure but so wildly excited it was hard to notice anything else.
Phobos huffed out a small laugh and flickered his attention to the small garnering of people behind them. It was probably just from the slamming of the pinball machine’s mechanics that drew the crowd but he always wondered if other people knew something was different about them. They never seemed to care how Havve and Meouch looked so he doubted a few blood freckles and a pair of extra eyes would set them off. But he knew he meant if he was too quiet, if Sung was too excited, amongst other things.
But Sung’s endearing, he thinks as Sung gears up to play the game. He declines to think more on himself.
The screen flashes words, not in English, but displays a person gripping a table and successfully flipping it over. Oh. That’s why he was so excited for this one…
Sung moves instinctively into a squat, places his hands underneath the fake table on the machine, and flips it so hard it rattles the equipment and by extension, the wall behind it. The group of onlookers laugh in surprise and clap before making their way back to their seats at the bar. Phobos watches Sung enter “SUN,” rather than “DRS” on the top, winning slot, across from a score Phobos is sure no one will ever beat. He makes his way back to his seat first.
Phobos eats silently, basking in Sung’s residual energy. He draws out a hangman board with a mystery word already chosen and slides it to Sung to start guessing. Sung guesses “S” but switches it up with a “Y” next and Phobos rolls his eyes as Sung is both unpredictable and stupid. Sung doesn’t manage to guess it but Phobos gives him extra tries as he always does, giving the hangman clothes and two shoes counted as their own separate tries.
Underneath the finally solved “BEEHIVE,” Sung begins sketching something out and Phobos assumes Sung’s doctorate is why that diagram and its accompanying words make absolutely no sense.
“Is there a reason you’re making a terrible, hand-drawn map and not using the GPS?” Phobos asks, not looking for a serious answer. He drinks over his own thoughts, straw to mouth taking precedence over telepathy.
“Because it’s fun and I’m difficult,” Sung states matter-of-factly as he folds the paper and slides it into his pocket.
Phobos hunches over, spitting his drink back into his glass, as Sung cackles, drawing the attention of the bar crowd again.
Day 3
They were back on the road before the world woke up, driving on an empty stretch of highway with the sun somewhere among the trees. Phobos too was just waking up and laid, sprawled out, in a stupor above the cab. He had a murky view of the road through the thin, rectangular window and it’d be nice to stay there dreaming, watching the gray, half-made tree shapes melt and reform with the rising sun, if the top bed didn’t shake the worst out of any spot in the RV. He mouths for Sung to slow down, words read out in both their brains, before jumping down frog-like and reclaiming his spot in the passenger seat.
He eyes that map again, still as shoddily drawn as it was the night before, but is more concerned with the cafe they’re soon hitting up, faster than he can process properly, now more focused on peeling away the plastic covering the cake he’s about to eat as they sit outside of the cafe, no one else around before breakfast time.
Sung takes a spare chair from another table and puts his legs up, having stretched poorly before beginning the morning drive. He downs his cup of coffee quickly and goes for another one before Phobos has even begun eating. Phobos knows Sung will get him a drink too, to add to the one he already has, and he sighs, unsure why, forgoing eating to stare at the sky.
He takes out a piece of paper, low-quality and as thin as dead skin. By the time Sung returns, with more food and drink than anticipated, Phobos has scribbled out a square of blue with little black lines for the telephone wires. He eats his cake, picking out the strawberries, best for last, and alternates between his first drink, a black coffee, and the two Sung has given him, green tea with fruit boba and a cafe au lait with syrup splashed around the inside of the mug.
Sung tries to drink his black coffee and iced tea at the same time and Phobos fights the urge to laugh-spit his drink onto the table, again.
In the parking lot, he retraces his drawing with his nails. The lines were even and maybe it was that odd, impulsive streak in him that made him stick his drawing to the window, wet with dew, but the colors were pretty when they bled. He left it there, pinned down underneath the windshield wipers, and slung himself back into the passenger’s seat.
They soon move underneath an underpass and into a tunnel, any path would do it seems as Sung’s avoiding the signs entirely and just wants to move.
Phobos’ skin dips down to pink around the elbows, rather than that hard red, and the freckles over his nose shimmer aquamarine, the darkness and the A/C making him cold. His blood had been flowing fast just a moment prior but he wasn’t moving much now, nodding off just before noon.
When he awoke, two hours asleep after three hours awake, his own jacket joined by a heavy one of Sung’s and a spare blanket kept in the back, he was disoriented and alone. Phobos spies a note from Sung, stating where he’s gone, but he still wonders exactly what the hell Sung’s dragged him out here for.
★
Meouch awoke from where he’d fallen asleep just a few hours prior, curled into a ball on the couch next to Havve who, despite being absent now, had gone into rest mode with his eyes off for just a little while too.
His back was a bit stiff but he wasn’t as tired as he thought he’d be, having stayed up all night playing and finishing two side-scrollers and their bonus content. It’s only two in the afternoon, not too bad, Meouch thought as he stood and stretched up to full height.
Gooby was napping on the adjacent couch so Havve must’ve already walked him but Havve himself was nowhere to be seen, having neatened up the living room slightly from the previous night’s antics but leaving no note to indicate where he’d gone. A clang from down the hall signaled that he was in his room and Meouch went to let him know he was going out for food.
He instinctively lifted his foot an extra inch to avoid tripping on the wires coming from the game systems but tripped when he realized they weren’t there. An odd thing to put away but Meouch didn’t overthink it.
“Havve, I’m gonna get something to eat, you want anything?” he called from down the hall while sliding on his shoes in the kitchen. He heard a few thuds, like Havve had dropped either his phone or part of his outer armor, but saw the robot peek out, armor intact, from behind his bedroom door to shake his head “no.”
“Suit yourself, buddy,” Meouch replied, passing that cracked open door on his way upstairs to grab his wallet (full of Sung’s money). A flicker of gold, too early in the day to be sunset light, caught his eye and he swore he saw that old computer monitor Sung replaced laid flat in the corner of the room but something shook him out of it- a thin stream of water lapping at his feet.
He nearly rammed himself through Phobos’ bedroom door in a panic but managed to open it despite the water built up behind it. Thankfully the sink, still on from last night, hadn’t flooded the entire room, touched any equipment, or harmed the cat- just soaked the clothes and carpet nearest the doors. Meouch rested his hands on his knees, head down and eyes closed, after turning the faucet off, opening his eyes only when the cat bumped itself on his legs again, having just woken up from a nice nap on her dad’s bed.
★
He really should've brought his guitar. He’s already torn his nails short and picked at the surrounding skin for something to do. The sky had spit rain on and off for the remainder of the day so they hadn’t made much headway since noon though Phobos, having no idea where they were or where they were going, wouldn’t know.
Perhaps they called it a night too early, he thought, accidentally tearing into living skin, not tired enough to sleep yet.
“Hey, sorry. I figured we did well enough today so why not pack it in early,” Sung says as he re-enters the RV, having stretched and checked his parking.
“No problem. Besides, I know you don't like driving at night.”
After all, it’s difficult to rely on just one eye and injuring anything or endangering those dear to him, whether or not he actually caused it, would crush him. Christ even now he was clearing the news articles on his phone, opening up ones on summer fashion and cole slaw to reset his news preferences away from anything remotely upsetting. He was always a bit sensitive in that way and Phobos poked at his earlobe to break him out of his thoughts.
“Any plans for tonight? It'd be a shame to just sit here.”
Sung perked up at this and moved towards the kitchen, taking a paper bag out of the top cabinet and emptying its contents on the counter next to the sink.
“Sweet potatoes?”
“Think we could roast them outside?” Sung asked smiling, already set on an answer.
The rest stop was another state liquor store- red and barn shaped and the only landmark aside from the accompanying "scenic spot" exposing water and sand from the highway’s unending onslaught of trees. The two stumble down the small incline from the parking lot towards the beach, picking up rocks to line the fire pit and stones to skip across the water’s surface as they go.
Sung sparks a fire almost immediately, equal parts skillful and lucky, and Phobos helps him wrap the potatoes in foil. They both end up sitting down rather than squatting, Sung rambling on about Japan’s habit of roasting sweet potatoes in leaves, Phobos tossing a few small rocks into the shoreline, not intending to skip them.
Suddenly he’s trying to tell Sung something, forcing an open palm at the other’s knee to shake him then directing a few fingers somewhere in the distance once he’s caught Sung’s attention. They sit in silence until a total of two fireflies has them back on their feet and making excited noises, still pointing to nondescript places in the sky.
They eat in almost complete darkness because the parking lot lighting is obscured by the trees and the fire is already weak. Phobos hisses out smoke and can only tell where Sung is from that same stream of heat, mouth left ajar because the food’s too hot. Sung points out the fireflies whenever they reappear and Phobos lays down to watch them better, the bugs drifting off into the night sky with the fire’s ashes. Phobos almost dozes off, unsocked feet half buried in the sand, to the sound of Sung skipping stones successfully, the end plunk so quiet it could be worlds away.
Hours later, the kindling hisses underneath a splash of water and Sung offers to carry Phobos home. He sleepily declines but still accepts the help getting up off the beach.
Day 4
Calling it a night so early on now felt like a cold-sweated, gutting mistake. Phobos woke soundlessly but with a start- mind already with thoughts and their conclusions, as if he’d been lucid for hours. It’s raining. We won’t drive today.
Sung had been awake for a while but even with the sky clouded over, he knew it was truly early morning, still stuck to night. Phobos was quiet by nature even without the vow (that he broke often when alone or with his cat or onstage where no one could hear him even if he yelled), and only ever got flashy when it fit within something set up for him; he wasn’t one to overtake songs or conversation. He was stubborn, he wouldn’t cave, but knew waiting for someone else to make a move made silence a monster. The longer it sat untouched or unresolved, the easier it crept behind him, daring him to roll over and see something frightening and wrong leering back at him through the ladder bars keeping him from falling out of bed at night.
He knew his own head too well and it didn’t suit Sung to brood like that. He dangled himself over the edge of the bed, leaving his head limp, limbs like branches and hair like leaves, before staring at his bandmate who’d pushed himself to the window edge of the dining table. Phobos slinks down and realizes he’d fallen asleep in yesterday's clothes when he’s freed from the blankets, fabric flecked with ash and heavy with smoke, but heads out of the RV before Sung can interrupt him.
He realizes his mistake as he's sprinting towards the rest stop in the pouring rain, having underestimated the storm by how quiet it sounded cascading off the roof. Thankfully the store inside is generally empty and he's able to stalk the aisles in peace, adding a deck of cards and a case of ginger ale to his cart without speaking to anyone.
When he gets back, Sung is a bit more alert, possibly feeling responsible for Phobos leaving so abruptly and while he was the reason why, Phobos didn't leave out of anger and had to get that across to Sung somehow.
He lights the stove and empties out the last gallon of spring water they have before adding a few tablespoons of coffee grounds to it, probably a bit too much for the low liquid content. He tosses the pack of cards to Sung and tells him to shuffle.
He doesn’t want his coffee black this morning, the jitters no good with nothing to bleed that energy into, and his hands are already enough of a mess of a chewed nails and friction burn calluses; he doesn’t want to make it worse. He fishes out the ice cream tub from an ocean of melted ice stored in the sink and pours the rest of it into his mug: pretty before the coffee turns it to sludge.
Sung slides the deck to Phobos, assuming he’ll play solitaire, but Phobos deals him a hand, not letting him get away with being moody and self-sacrificial this morning at least.
“You’re not surprised I’m dealing- you just didn’t want to get your hopes up to then have me not include you.” It’s uncomfortable once that sentence ends but Phobos doesn’t let the sting settle.
“Got any 3s?”
After a few rounds, he knows Sung is feeling better when he suggests his friend’s least favorite game.
Normally he'd fight tooth and nail not to play this one but Sung was in a mood and always got him with his pushy, sunny attitude anyways. War was a horrendous game, speaking clearly on the actual unending nature of violence and its tendency to beget more violence as the game took an hour, at least, and almost always devolved into legitimate anger. The deck was split and the two began flipping their cards one by one, Sung pulling in the first pair as his card was higher.
From the get go, Phobos wanted to lose. He'd already thrown two games of Go Fish on purpose and lost one more for real; besides, there were never winners in the game of War, save for those, like Sung, who enjoyed the anticipation before even playing the game.
As soon as Sung seemed to be winning enough to continue the streak to complete victory, Phobos flipped a King, an Ace, a ten, and even a five, successfully winning back a full pile of cards.
He flicked his half of the deck at the seat beside Sung and downed the rest of his coffee in exasperation. When Phobos felt up to taking his head out from between his hands, the two were restless again, nearly hanging from the cabinets searching for something else to do. There was a half finished book of crosswords underneath the passenger seat, a broken pencil in the knife drawer, and a slip of paper folded between the couch cushions detailing the scores of a completed game of dominos: Havve in first and Meouch in fourth.
He heard something being shaken up and turned to see Sung dump a puzzle out onto the kitchen table, pieces falling also onto his lap and the floor. Phobos rolled his top eyes but the bottom ones narrowed in a laugh as he went to help his bandmate pick up the puzzle from the floor, both of them managing to slam their heads on the underside of the table, more pieces rattling off the edge in the process.
After dealing with (whining about) their respective head injuries, the two began sorting the pieces, Sung for some reason doing it by color.
“I like them in piles and if they're from the right place, I can put them together in sections first.”
“I'll do the edges then.” A much more reasonable choice but Phobos regretted it because it was expected and boring. Like picking the same letters first in hangman every time- much less fun.
Fifteen minutes in, they’d used all their allotted brain power for the day, not counting the rationalization lost from banging into the table, and were stuck.
“Why is there ocean here?”
“That's a pond.”
“Why make it the exact shade as the sky? And do you have the other side of Eeyore's face? He's the only one even half-formed.”
“The sky pieces generally have clouds though- Phobos this puzzle is for children.”
“Says the man who just slid me a bunch of pieces I didn’t ask for. We're going to be here forever.”
“You just don't like to put up with things for long,” Sung said whilst laughing. Laughing was good! Really good! But he'd passed his moodiness to Phobos like a disease, outlining what sourness was already there like a hospital blacklight.
Why did everything feel like a chore? Was everything an affront to him if it wasn't something that he already knew he enjoyed?
Thunder shakes the world from the ground up and Phobos is glad the RV lights won’t go out in a power outage, otherwise Sung would notice how cold his bandmate’s blood has gone, white in his veins like ice.
Day 5
Phobos scratches at where the longer, leftover strands of his hair curl up towards his cheekbones. He cut it with the bad scissors and it left the ends choppy but he likes it. It’s a hot mess but doesn’t feel... bad. Nothing feels particularly bad aside from the heat, making him long just a bit for a buzz cut but not enough to actually do it.
While he’s stretching his legs for the third time with no luck, cracking his ankles by the inlet to the hillside, he cuts a long strand of bangs off, letting the sides rest at his mouth rather than underneath his chin.
He knows this trip is momentary, a flicker of time outside of the routine things he does, to give himself some variety and to appease Sung’s eventual wanderlust in some way, but something about leaving his hair here forces something from underneath that apathy. Makes him reconsider if it’s too significant to leave something behind in this passing place, especially considering he didn’t care about any of this in the first place.
This was Sung’s trip, Sung’s impromptu, unexplained thing. He tagged along solely to give himself something to do. Something to break up the oncoming summer heat and the singularity of JuneJulyAugust. Once they got back, he’d lapse back into his annual summer hibernation of flicking his phone screen on and off every half minute. Lying in the grass with his guitar only when the night cooled off enough. And that’s alright.
Right?
Sung remembered every ladybug he’d ever seen. Chose his meals like each one really mattered and he’d been alive before anything else had been properly created… shouldn’t he be just as disinterested as Phobos? Hyper-fixated on only a few things, rather than every single damn thing as if it all actually stood out in his mind?
A car door slamming close by in the parking lot jerked him out of thought and only served to irritate him more, everything suddenly too loud and chaotic. He didn’t have time to mull over if all this would change him permanently. Make him want to do high kicks and consume coffee grounds straight.
That level of idiocy made him cringe (momentarily disregarding his own, constant inclination to dance as Sung does, being the one to join him more often than not- he was NOT conceding, not now) but it was a welcome change from whatever he’d just worked himself through. Not a good or bad feeling just... a lot of odds and ends, all at once.
He climbs back into the RV and waits for Sung, not taking his eyes off of those chunks of hair, off the shoe marks on the dry asphalt not yet hit by rain.
Sung returns and clumsily passes him a drink, the plastic clacking against Phobos’ bitten nails. Phobos is too fixated on his hair, curling rain-heavy over the leaves, to notice Sung also avoiding making eye contact, uncharacteristically nervous that the first words slung at him from his friend’s mind will be “where the hell are we even going, Sung?”
Instead Phobos chimes back a “sorry. distracted.” and rifles through the shopping bag for something to eat. He welcomes this silence as he’s spent the last fifteen minutes working himself towards a migraine but it rubs him the wrong way to hear Sung silent again, in a heavier way than yesterday’s gloom.
He’s thankful for his own manic episode as Sung double-takes from Phobos to the road to Phobos again.
“Looks good!” he beams, motioning underneath his own ear in a straight line to imitate where the bob was cut.
“Thanks,’ Phobos chimes back, grateful for words.
★
If he were any less stubborn, this is when Meouch would decide, set in stone, to never let himself deal with Havve alone.
But he’s not any less stubborn and certainly not any smarter so he doesn’t count his chickens before they hatch, even as he’s chasing Havve through a parking lot long past dusk.
Havve has the head of the grocery store’s robot tucked under his arm like a football and is moving faster than Meouch has ever seen him, plowing through the trees at the edge of the lot towards the woods.
“At least he’s not heading towards the street!” Meouch yells to Gooby who is also outrunning him and like Havve, is just loving this night adventure.
Meouch finds Havve bent at the knees, crouched over a hellish mass of wiring and screens, mostly from the band’s half-broken electronics but also phones with cases he doesn’t recognize and what he’s sure is half the register monitor from the coffee shop down the street. He would honestly scream, seemingly trapped in a Mary Shelley-esque nightmare, if Havve hadn’t turned around and given him the most forceful, confident thumbs up he’s ever received.
He wonders if he’s supposed to know what the fuck that means as Havve scoops up his newly finished companion, complete with the screen he knew he’d seen at home and the missing game system wiring, presumably (both hopefully and unfortunately) to carry it home.
Day 6
Phobos distresses a pair of jeans on the dining table at midnight, knowing that Sung’s eclectic, spur of the moment way of doing things had been spreading like a fever in such a confined space. Everything he touched lit another fire, drew him away from one busy thing to start another. Always smothered but still dangerously lit.
Sung was fine with half remembering, coming back to anything at any time. Stacking projects like firewood, to set them all ablaze at once. To die, be reborn, and still never run out of things to do. Emotions to have. Days to appreciate.
Phobos finished tearing chunks out of his jeans, finished his and Sung’s leftovers from the past few days, and settled down to bed when day broke, Sung just starting to weasel himself out of sleep. He caught a rare moment of rest, Sung overtaken by nothing else but that singular need, but forced his eyes shut as Sung shot up suddenly, Phobos refusing to let himself be caught still awake.
He wakes again after one to faint whistling, knowing it means Sung’s on edge. Phobos lets him choose the music, lets him shuffle through fast French songs and slow Japanese ones, channels of fuzz and half words, then nothing at all.
Phobos is almost irritated. “I finally let you pick the music and you turn it off,” he side-eyes but turns up the side of his face Sung can see in a tired smirk.
“Hey. I’m sorry.”
He scrunches his brows. “Hey,” he shoots back. “I don’t mind. I just woke up anyhow.”
“I mean for dragging you out here.” Phobos cocks his head to the road, urging Sung to keep his eyes forward. That kind of sudden eye contact Sung does nearly every time he speaks can be too much, especially when he’s serious. Hearing him say sorry was just as bad, as he rarely apologized.
But silence followed, the two too stubborn to speak first, both inclined to twist the conversation into something else, something positive or right or necessary- not this. Regardless, Phobos lets the lump in his throat form into words, mouthing them at Sung’s brain.
“Kinda late for that, huh? We’re what? Almost a week into this road trip?”
“Sorry for keeping you up so late, sorry for getting us lost-”
“So we are lost-”
“Were! But yeah,” he says abruptly, almost comically, punctuating it by looking away from the road again. Phobos reaches over and turns Sung’s head forward but huffs out a laugh, embarrassed by this string of apologies. By Sung’s childlike honesty.
But he respected that he wasn’t apologizing because he thought he’d get scolded if he didn’t say something. Or that Phobos would subject him to silence in retaliation. Silence and by extension, little licks of boredom. Etched into the skin like pins and needles. Ticked individually like seconds on a clock.
He wanted earnestly for this to be fun, genuinely thought he failed, and felt it deeply. Every mistake would eventually be okay, but god if letting someone down didn’t always ache the same.
“Sung.” A low noise. Rare and audibly laughed out.
That was the singular sound in the universe then and the only feeling there could be in the moments after, overriding the RV’s skidding stop and the unending rambling of Sung’s mind, unable to be projected out.
Sung would say all kinds of things and always meant them but in enough of a way to make it all seem like a joke or at least something to quickly, unaffectedly, overlook. But this was different and Phobos prayed Sung wouldn’t say anything to make him face that honesty with words.
A vibration made the whole dash shake as a third voice spoke in their stead.
“You will reach your destination in five minutes.”
Something clicked telepathically between them both, no words this time. Sudden and spontaneously done, just as humans do.
They get out and run through a cloudburst flash-flood, the rain licking Sung’s lashes nearly closed over his good eye and picking out the last long strands of Phobos’ cut hair. The sun comes out for the final stretch, bleeding itself dry into the horizon. They jump the guardrail and slide down on their backs, soaking themselves doubly with rain.
The empty field extends long into the darkness, no headlights or streetlights, houses or people to interrupt this endless, infinite thing. Were it not for the blue mystery spots, nestled in groups like bird’s eggs and dyeing the entire length of the land in neon, Phobos would’ve lost it, Sung having apparently dragged him out on a weeklong excursion to find the most un-scenic stretch of land they’ve seen so far.
Sung’s already scooped up enough to fill his arms before Phobos can even get a clear look at the things. He picks up a baseball sized rock, nearly weightless and pocketed with holes.
“Meteorites?”
“Yeah!” Sung jumps and Phobos laughs, a hum in the base of his throat.
You dragged me out here for a bunch of rocks, he thinks, smiling wearily, exhausted as he watches Sung juggle two or three too many not to drop them.
“I…” a rare stutter from Sung and the unsureness scares Phobos more than his honesty did earlier. He marks it up to being breathless, Sung trying to juggle and talk at the same time, and Phobos stands up straight to listen.
“I saw an article about a meteor shower a week or so ago and I wasn’t sure if they’d come from anywhere we know but it never hurts to check.”
Phobos nearly drops the thing as he looks straight at Sung, yelling nonsense through the eyes, cut straight through the dark, so surprised he’s close to anger. God, he wants to fucking whip the rock right at Sung’s head as its the only response he thinks he can muster but he just laughs, so airy its lost completely to the breeze.
He sits down and reclines back on the hill beneath the guard rail, content to squeeze the one asteroid he wants tight within his palm. It leaves little crater marks on his hand and he feels utterly changed by it, wherever it’d come from, like he’d been watching the neon skies back home, glued to sunsets that would imprint behind his eyes for weeks.
Once, he’d slid down into a pit full of gemstones, tripped accidentally while watching the sun and its smaller planets burn themselves into the rock. The view from inside was stunning, nearly blinding, but he’d torn his knee open falling into it and dug divots into his hands climbing back out.
That scar, seared blue behind his right, upper eye whenever it closed, the diamond gash pinned thinly over the skin of his right leg, and the splattering of blood baked permanently into the ground with the sunset heat were some of the only fragments of home life he wanted to carry with him. Some of the only things that didn’t cut like glass when he dreamt of home, despite the sting he could feel ghosting over his knee again, as if he’d skinned it just yesterday.
Of course Sung would be the one to remember Phobos’ home planet most.
Thinking back for too long ached no matter what so he looked again to Sung, collecting rocks to research, rocks to put in the yard, rocks just to hang out with, and Phobos rubbed all four of his eyes as just watching the other man jump around like that exhausted him.
Phobos noticed then that the side of his mouth felt different than he’d remembered it. He didn’t necessarily remember it in vivid detail but could tell just as well as anyone else when something on his body changed. He was mid-smile when he noticed it but didn’t feel that crease fade when the smile did. There was a little indented line like a dimple coming from his cheek that hadn’t been there before- hadn’t been there in his mind’s eye when he envisioned what he looked like when he’d left home, the last time he’d bothered to really check.
He felt at the back of his head and tangled his fingers in the messiest part of how now short hair. He was changing in all kinds of ways on this earth and these new scars functioned the same as the ones from his former home- the same star map that indented itself in this field in meteorites and space ash.
He pressed his fingers hard into the side of his face when he heard Sung trip, smiling all teeth as he heard the other man cough-laugh in the distance.
Day 7
He was exhausted in general but nothing hit him harder than the trip home.
He kept himself flush to the edge of dozing off, tracing his pinky toe around the circumference of a hole long worn in the side of his left shoe, trying to keep himself somewhat awake. His thoughts weren’t yet mashed together into nonsense but they were repeating without him trying to rethink them, banging gently against the insides of his head. Try out that buzz cut. Play guitar laid out on the rooftop when the heat’s high… to genuinely, softly, change something. Something only he himself might notice
He held his fingers tight to the inside of his palm and it kept him the most awake- plotting out where he’d leave this iridescent stone, one he’d scratched dirt off of, found half concealed in the mud. Sparkling white, just like Sung’s core.
If all that blue was for him, than this little speckled thing he hoped was enough for Sung to think back fondly to where he himself had come from.
Despite the slight, perfect heat really lulling him to sleep, Phobos was jostled awake by Sung’s clumsy parking, the RV bumping off the edge of the sidewalk and into the driveway at a poor angle. What gives? he thinks after his head clunks against the glass but before he can ask, they’re thrown into park and Sung’s already climbed out.
Phobos is immediately drawn to the mass of screens sat on the porch in a reclining chair like a person. It’s tied together with colored string lights, all on and blinking, and has a pair of Meouch’s shades over where its eyes might be. He’s too dazed to truly appreciate the humor but unseals the passenger door to speak to Sung.
“Sung is- is that part of the robot thing from down the street? Are we gonna get in trouble for that?” but that half-amused worry is cut short and rapidly replaced by another one as he tumbles out of the RV in a similar manner as Sung, sprinting towards the backyard, sparing only a second to consider how animatedly, almost excitedly he’s moving, before joining Meouch and Sung in trying to get both Gooby and Havve off the neighbor’s roof.