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Lord Phobos, as a general rule, tried to avoid hate. In his experience, it was a venomous emotion, serving no purpose but to poison and drive people mad, spreading like a plague from one person to another until the hatred was all-consuming and destructive. He had almost fallen victim to it himself, many years ago.
Like all emotions, hate did not stand alone. Hate stood united with fear and ignorance—two things Phobos also disliked. Learning leads to knowledge. Knowledge leads to understanding. Understanding leads to compassion. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but one that he carried with him every day. He tried to live his life with compassion, keeping hate out of his heart.
However.
Some things in life can’t be explained. Some things can’t be resolved with compassion, or knowledge, or reaching a mutual understanding. Sometimes, there were hairy little fuckers with eight legs and eight eyes that seemed to exist solely to torment Phobos during his time on Earth: a planet he loved dearly, but gods damn—Phobos hated spiders.
He knew, logically, that most of them couldn’t hurt him. As Danny oh-so-helpfully said once, they were probably more scared of him than he was of them. That didn’t stop him from freezing at the sight of them, blood running colder than the vacuum of space, hyperventilating until his head spun, calling for someone to save him.
Usually, that someone was one of his bandmates. They all knew how much he hated spiders, and despite it sometimes being inconvenient, they always took care of them for him. He did his part, always thanking them profusely, and he kept the house as clean as possible, free of any and all bugs that could possibly entice spiders to come into HIS house.
But that didn’t stop all of them, which led Phobos to his current predicament.
He was home alone, enjoying the time to himself. He could barely see through the steam when he stepped out of the shower, skin tingling from the hot water. He had transformed the bathroom into a sauna, and he was feeling fantastic. Hot as fuck shower, candle burning, music blasting loud enough to give him a headache. He danced around the bathroom, toweling off and braiding his hair so it would be wavy later. He slid around on the tile floor in his fuzzy socks, and was just about ready to call it a day when he froze.
...Really? On the doorknob?
He groaned, running a hand over his face. Of course. That was just his luck, wasn’t it? He grabbed his phone and sat down with a sigh.
Shred Lord sent a message to NECROMANCER CONVENTION
13:48 - Shred Lord: What time will you guys be home?
13:49 - Murderbot: idk
13:55 - SlapChop™: We still have a few errands to run, Sung says we’ll probably be a little bit still. Why
13:56 - Shred Lord: Just curious.
Phobos sat down with a sigh, ready to scroll aimlessly through the internet while he waited for the spider to kindly fuck off. Instagram was down again, and by the time he was done scrolling through Twitter, only ten minutes had passed. No Pokémon had spawned in or near the house, and he still had to wait another four hours before his lives restored on Candy Crush. He stared at the spider, willing it to move with his mind. Move, you bastard. Fuck off.
The spider gave zero shits about what he wanted.
An hour and 56 minutes later, Phobos had cleared nearly 400 lines of Tetris when his phone buzzed.
Ranchsicle sent a message to NECROMANCER CONVENTION
16:02 - Ranchsicle: We’re on our way home Phobos
16:02 - Ranchsicle: Everything okay?
16:03 - Shred Lord: I’m trapped in the bathroom.
16:03 - Murderbot: get rekt
16:03 - SlapChop™: Why
16:03 - Ranchsicle: Are you okay?
16:03 - Ranchsicle: Are you hurt?
16:03 - Ranchsicle: Sick?
16:04 - Shred Lord: I’m trapped in here by my worst enemy.
16:04 - Ranchsicle: WE’RE FLOORING IT WE’LL BE THERE SOON HOW MANY HATERS ARE THERE FUCK
16:04 - Shred Lord: Sung...
16:04 - Shred Lord: It’s a spider.
16:05 - Murderbot: jfc
16:05 - SlapChop™: Is that why you wanted to know when we’d be home
16:05 - Shred Lord: Yup.
16:05 - Ranchsicle: f in the chat
16:05 - SlapChop™: f
16:05 - Murderbot: no
16:06 - Shred Lord: F.
16:06 - Ranchsicle: Danny says we’ll be home in like ten minutes, hang in there buddy
16:06 - Shred Lord: Thanks.
Ten minutes later, Sung was knocking on the door, wielding a box of tissues and a cup. He coaxed the spider off of the doorknob in remarkable speed, trapping it almost immediately. Phobos thanked Sung profusely and disappeared into his room, venting all of his frustration and anxiety in the form of killer guitar licks.
Given the choice, Phobos called on Meouch as a last resort.
Phobos wasn’t sure if Meouch was just an asshole, if it was a weird cat thing, or what, but he always took his dear sweet time getting rid of spiders. He liked to look at them for a while, giving them names and backstories. He’d tease them, seeing how close he could get before they would scurry away. Sometimes he would try to “drive” them. It drove Phobos crazy. Finally, after fucking around with them for a bit, he’d pounce.
One of the following outcomes would occur:
One: he’d squash the damn thing, which in itself wasn’t inherently bad. The problem was what happened after the squash. 1A: the spider would be nice enough to plaster its guts onto whatever surface it was on, making it easy to clean up. A simple swipe or two with a tissue, and boom, done. Sometimes, however, 1B would occur: the spider, upon getting squashed, wouldn’t stick. Instead it fell and got lost in the carpet, or amongst strewn sheets of music, or behind a bookshelf.
The worst was the time it fell onto his bed. He damn near cried. Sung had to wash his sheets for him while Phobos cleaned his room like a madman, and for once Meouch had seemed legitimately apologetic.
Two: Meouch would get the spider to crawl onto his hand (which disgusted Phobos), or a piece of paper, or whatever. The problem was 2A: when as Meouch began to escort it out of Phobos’ life forever, he WOULD DROP IT. That meant Phobos would have to clean his entire room, going back and forth between hoping he would find the spider so he could evict it from the world of the living and hoping he wouldn’t find it.
Three: About one in every ten spider encounters, Meouch would chase it into an air vent or something, and the fucker would get away, and got to see another day. Meaning it could come back to taunt Phobos again.
Based on all of his encounters with spiders, Meouch only had a 44% success rate, which placed him at the bottom of Phobos’s SpiderSWAT team.
It was two in the morning when Phobos saw it, right by his door, lurking by the light switch. It was moving around a lot, which Phobos did not like. He hated the rambunctious ones. He glanced at the clock, and groaned. That late at night meant Havve was recharging and would not want to be disturbed, Sung would be up to gods know what, and Meouch… was apparently playing his bass. Phobos could hear it softly from down the hall. Meouch would have to be his savior tonight.
Guitar Man sent a message to Bass Man
02:04 - Guitar Man: Hey, Meouch?
02:06 - Bass Man: h’suh
02:06 - Guitar Man: There’s a spider.
02:10 - Bass Man: Ah, Geoffrey. Haven’t seen him in a while. He’s a business major, he’s got a big exam tomorrow. Where is he?
02:10 - Guitar Man: By the light switch next to my door.
02:11 - Bass Man: Be right there
A few seconds later, there was a light knock on his door before it creaked open. Meouch gave half a wave before turning to assess the situation. “Well, hello, Geoffrey. Fancy seeing you here. How’s the wife, how’s the kids? Also, the fuck you doing here, up so late when you have an exam tomorrow?”
Phobos sighed.
“Will you be alright long enough for me to get a cup?”
Phobos had a lukewarm cup of lemonade on his nightstand, which he drained and held out to Meouch.
“Alright then. Is this paper on your desk important?” Phobos shook his head. “Sweet. C’mon, Geoffrey, library’s closing. Let’s get you outta here.”
Miraculously, he caught it on the first try, and escorted Geoffrey to the backyard. He chucked the Solo cup onto the patio with a soft “Yeet!” By the time he got there to pick it up, Geoffrey was long gone, on his way home to get some sleep before his big exam.
Bass Man sent a message to Guitar Man
02:18 - Bass Man: you want anything while I’m down here?
02:18 - Guitar Man: Just some water, please. In a different cup.
02:19 - Bass Man: Dude,,,,,
02:19 - Bass Man: DIS COST TING!
02:19 - Guitar Man: I just wanted to be sure! I never know with you.
A few minutes later, Meouch was knocking on his door again, with a fresh cup of water. Phobos met him halfway. Thank you, he signed.
“Anytime, my dude. Sleep well.”
You, too.
Make that a 45% success rate.
Phobos almost always got first dibs on the shower after a show, because he could be in and out of the bathroom in less than ten minutes. He was easily the quickest out of all of them, and the guys all agreed there was no reason to make him wait forever. Plus, it gave them time to get settled in while he was showering.
Phobos loved touring, even though it exhausted him. The cyclical nature of anticipation, then the adrenaline rush during the show, and the crash that followed, while taxing, was priceless. There was, of course, the added bonus of getting to travel all over the earth, and getting the chance to be a stereotypical tourist.
They had just finished a show in Atlanta, which was a blast despite the heat wave and the stupid humidity. By the time they left the venue and got back to the hotel, it was nearly 12:30 AM. While his friends were getting settled into the room, Phobos poked his head in the shower to check on the toiletry situation.
He froze when he saw it: the biggest, hairiest, ugliest godsdamn spider he had ever seen. It was an absolute monstrosity, an abomination the size of a dinner plate, terrifying and disgusting, his nightmares made real. He was staring at it, starting to hyperventilate, when it darted across the shower without warning.
Phobos screamed.
He couldn’t help it, he couldn’t stop it as it erupted from his lungs. He scrambled away as fast as he could, flinging the door open and barreling out of the bathroom. He ran straight into Sung, who clapped a hand over his mouth.
“Phobos. What the fuck?” he asked. “It’s, like, 12:45 in the morning, you can’t scream like that, and even if it wasn’t we’re in a hotel so—okay, Phobos, you gotta slow down your breathing bud. Hey.”
He tried closing his eyes, but all he could see was the damn spider. Sung ran his hand up and down Phobos’s arm, guiding him into a more natural breathing pattern, and he finally started to calm down.
“What the fuck happened?” Meouch asked.
Spider.
Meouch looked like he was ten thousand percent done in that moment. “Dude, it can’t be that bad.”
Phobos huffed indignantly. Go look in there, and then judge me.
Barely concealing an eyeroll—and earning a glare from Sung as a result—Meouch did as he was asked. “Yo, what the fuck?!” he yelped. “Doc, you gotta see this fuckin’ thing.”
“Jesus, is it that bad?”
Yes.
Sung poked his head in the bathroom. “Holy shit!” He pulled his phone out, probably to snap pictures of the monstrosity so he could torment their fans on social media.
“Will you shut the fuck up? We’re not at home,” Havve said.
“Havve, look at this fucking thing,” Sung said, eye wide.
Please take care of it. Please? Phobos signed. He knew he would. Havve, the resident murderbot, had a 100% success rate.
Havve grabbed his elbow and led him over to the bed, motioning for Phobos to sit down. Phobos put his head in his hands, trying to recover from his near-death experience. Havve grabbed the plastic bag used as a liner for the garbage can, and went into the bathroom. He positioned Sung and Meouch so they stood blocking Phobos’s view of the door.
He jumped when there was a forceful thud, and then a few more. There was some rustling and soft swearing, and Havve left the room with the bag and the corpse. He came back a few minutes later, returning to the scene of the crime, and turned the water on. Phobos was extremely confused, but let him be. After a few minutes, Havve exited the bathroom with a towel suspiciously balled up in his hand. He nodded at Phobos, turned on his heel, and left the room again.
“Alright, you should be good now, Phobos,” Sung said.
He carefully made his way back to the bathroom, holding his pajamas close to his chest. He scoped out the whole room before stepping in completely. He noticed the complimentary shampoo bottle was only halfway full. He looked at the wall of the shower, and saw that it was absolutely pristine: no blood, no guts, no spider hairs, nothing. It was cleaner than it was when they checked in. He smiled.
Six minutes later, Phobos was towel drying his hair when he heard Sung say “Honestly, I’m shocked we didn’t get the front desk called on us.”
“We did,” Havve said. “I showed them what was in the bag and they shut the fuck up and let us be.”
Phobos couldn’t help but laugh.
Phobos liked to watch the sunrise.
He found the way the sun warmed up the sky, stars bleeding into the melting darkness, replaced with reds and oranges stunningly beautiful. It reminded him of his first home in a way that didn’t hurt his heart.
Most of all, he liked how it seemed like the world was so quiet, he was the only one awake. Just Phobos and the stars and the colors.
Sung knew Phobos enjoyed that serenity, and made an effort to be quiet whenever he was up at a time that overlapped Phobos’s sunrise—something Phobos deeply appreciated. Occasionally, Phobos would invite Sung to sit with him, either as a sort of thank you for every other morning, or just for some company, or just because. Sung would immediately disregard whatever plans he had to sit with Phobos. He knew those rare mornings meant a lot to Sung.
It was shaping up to be one of those mornings. Phobos had recently been hit with another bout of insomnia. He had tossed and turned for hours over the past few days, and last night, he had finally managed to drift off only to wake up in a cold sweat from a deeply disturbing dream not long after. He was able to calm himself down, but knew he wouldn’t relax enough to go back to sleep. He stared into the darkness of his room, the void a mirror of his thoughts.
He rolled over and checked the clock on his nightstand: 5:15 AM. The sun would be rising soon. Accepting his lack of sleep, he got out of bed and carefully tiptoed to the kitchen. He could hear Sung talking to himself downstairs, with the occasional light thumping and beeping. He smiled. Whatever it was, he was sure Sung couldn’t wait to show it off.
He opened the fridge, staring inside for five minutes before deciding he wasn’t actually hungry enough to eat anything. But tea, on the other hand… tea sounded lovely. He was only half-aware of his actions as he filled the electric kettle with water and waited for it to boil. He liked it because it was quiet, keeping the illusion of solitude intact. He grabbed a mug from the cabinet and wandered over to the pantry. Huh… was that spot on the wood always there?
NO. NO IT WAS NOT. BECAUSE IT MOVED.
He dropped his mug, barely managing to catch it before it shattered on the floor. His hand had been so close to the spider, missing only by a few inches. He leapt away, leaning against the counter with a hand on his chest, trying to catch his breath. The little fucker meandered around on the pantry door, taunting him.
As if on cue, a thud downstairs reminded Phobos that Sung was awake. Sung had a 94% success rate. He grabbed another mug from the cabinet, setting it down beside his. This was a Sung morning.
He went downstairs, and knocked on the door in his pattern. “Come in!” Sung called from the other side. “Good morning, Phobos!”
Good morning, Sung.
“Sleep well?”
Not at all.
He frowned. “Damn, I’m sorry Phobos.”
He shrugged. Thanks.
“What’s up? Am I being too loud?”
There’s a spider.
“Ah,” he said, standing up and stretching. Vertebrae popped in his back, making Phobos grit his teeth. He really, really did not like that sound. “Let’s go take care of it, shall we? Where is it?”
Pantry door.
He nodded, and Phobos followed him upstairs. He stood at the entrance to the kitchen, keeping his distance as he watched Sung trap the spider. Sung carefully made his way to the front door, and let it go at the foot of the driveway.
The water was done boiling. Phobos grabbed two packets of tea from the recently spider-free pantry: lemongrass for Sung and hibiscus for himself. He heard Sung come back inside, and Phobos handed Sung his mug. He nodded his head towards the back door, raising an eyebrow.
Sung nodded, taking the mug. “Sure thing. Thanks, bud.”
No, thank you.
They sat on the patio couch together, watching as the colors slowly woke up in the sky, sipping their tea. After a while, Phobos tapped Sung’s shoulder. Thank you for earlier. And for sitting here with me. And for being my friend. I really appreciate you.
Sung smiled, setting down his mug. Thank you for the kind words, Phobos. I appreciate them, and I appreciate you, too. I’m so glad you’re in my life. He wrapped an arm around Phobos, pulling him closer. Phobos rested his head on Sung’s shoulder, and after a few moments, felt Sung’s head on his.
This was nice. Really nice. Maybe they could just… stay like this for a while…
Phobos didn’t realize he had fallen asleep until Sung nudged him awake several hours later, having fallen asleep as well. They had aching backs, stiff necks, lukewarm tea, and odd sunburns, but they didn’t mind. They didn’t mind at all.