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Here’s the thing: once you reached past the 2-metre mark, you barely even notice when your legs hurt. It’s been like that since puberty and it never seemed to go away, but the pain was never more than the mildest of annoyances, so you just had to live with it — and you forgot about it after a while anyway.
Though Doc had spent most of his teenage years unable to sleep from physical pain, he certainly didn’t expect to lose sleep over the same reason multiple years later, the same routine of tosses and turns and spreading out and curling up. Hell. It’s not even like he’s been doing anything extreme. Seventy-seven push-ups in a row had always been his default.
Rarer than it was for Doc to lose sleep over physical pain, was for Bdubs to lose sleep at all. Everyone knew Bdubs — the Sleep Master, or King, whatever you’d like to call it. Always tucked in bed by nine, to wake up all fresh and gorgeous with the brightest smile by six when nearly everyone else were groggy or half-alive.
But dang the stupid Goat and their stupid breakup and his stupid unexplained disappearance only to return as an opponent at the stupid war! Bdubs huffed. He did an exaggerated toss on his bed, the silk duvet coming off the mattress, not used to having its owner move so often in one night.
Stupid Doc. See, Bdubs was a smart guy. He knew for a fact that Doc wasn’t to blame — the lack of sleep was on him. When one person annoyingly occupied one’s mind for no goddamned reason at three AM, however, it got frustrating. And blaming Doc for no reason helped Bdubs calm down, so he would do just that.
Doc nearly screamed. Another surge of pain hit his knees and ankles; a rather different one from everything he’d smugly claimed he’s used to — it wasn’t like growth spurt at all. It hurt and for a split second his mind started forming speculations no one in a properly awake mind would come up with: hypochondriac speculations about being paralysed and dying and all the lot. Truthfully, it honestly felt like being paralysed for a split second. To be pinned down with a nonexistent force, unable to move a muscle.
What was wrong with his body? If anyone had never found any physical health issue between twenty-four Hermits, it had always been Doc. He could hike for miles and do workout for hours, for all he cared. Always so unstoppable and strong — except now, when even wiggling a toe made him gasp for air and reach for a nonexistent grasp.
Three loops of a white strip, with little grey flowers inside each one. Followed by five cyan leaves and one magenta bird before returning to the loops. Bdubs had memorised the pattern on his duvet by now. It was the one Tango gave him; the silk covers and the weighted blanket and the fluffy feather pillows, all of the best quality — but he really couldn’t bring himself to sleep.
He failed to recall what went wrong between him and Doc. Outsiders may know their relationship for what it seemed at the surface: him blowing up Doc’s Goat statue and a truce through him rebuilding it, only for Doc to disappear for months; but it had always been so much more than that.
Him and Doc... they’ve always been complicated. And what people failed to understand was that they liked it. Doc liked being all smug and prideful and annoying with his teases and Bdubs liked screaming and cursing at Doc’s every action. Expressions of love were different for everyone, and despite Bdubs and Doc’s unconventional ones, they knew they were meant for each other.
Doc gingerly stood up, gritting his teeth at how his feet screamed in absolute refusal to be his body’s stepping stone. Just one drink. That’s literally all he was trying to get, just one drink yet no joint nor bone nor muscle in his body managed to cooperate.
He crashed to the nearest chair, not even succeeding his objective of getting a drink. Oh well. Maybe it’s best for him to not move at all. He’ll text Xisuma tomorrow; if anyone’s around to help surely it’s him.
Bdubs shut his eyes, so tight that water started forming on the corners for no reason. Two words lingered in his mind, unchanging: stupid Doc. Stupid Doc and their stupid relationship that crashed and burned and, oh, Bdubs’s stupid little heart that still longed for Doc after all this goddamned time no matter what, resulting in his lack of sleep tonight. Dang it.
Oh, the joys of having a soulmate.