Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Well, even if they don’t, as long as I have what I truly care about… I don’t give a piss.”

Scott nigh immediately fell back-first onto the grass. It was a slow, stumbling motion that none of his friends made any effort to stop. One that hurt far more than the fall from hundreds of thousands of miles they’d all just experienced. At least with that and most other extreme injuries he could spit up some blood or crack a bone back into place and feel better instantly. No, he had the most trouble with the smaller stuff. Blunt objects to the face, waterboarding, and stumbles he wasn’t expecting to take. Into the hard ground or otherwise.

Speaking of which.

“OWWWWWW-!”

They crowded around to help him. At least he assumed they did - the sun momentarily getting blocked from his view - there wasn’t much they could do before Rex grabbed a hold of him and lifted him up by the armpits. It made him feel like a feral cat, and in any other circumstance he would’ve acted the part, but he felt so drained from everything that had happened today he allowed himself to go limp, his feet just barely touching the ground. He forced his head down, not wanting to keep squinting at the setting sun. He felt like he was in serious danger of getting thrown over Rex’s shoulder, but from past experience, he knew that trying to fight something like that would only make it worse for him.

“Me and Scott are gonna head back home.” Rex shook him a little. “He hasn’t bitched Luigi in at least half an hour. It can’t be good for him.”

“Wait, so that’s really it?” Target asked.

“Yeah,” Jeb said. “We saved the world. Are we not even getting, like, a celebration dinner?”

Scott imagined that Jeb wanted to get his fill of all the non-vegan cuisine he’d been missing out on for however long. Or, rather, to do so without any guilt. He chuckled at the thought and then winced at how sore his throat felt. Probably from screaming his lungs out at…

Right.

He actually had nearly forgotten, despite just going through it. Despite willingly taking it on; despite how even the smallest of sensations now (and during his whole life, he supposed) differed from that brief moment he couldn’t see it at all. It was all subtle, though, he didn’t think he could effectively play spot the difference if some asked him to. That is if he wasn’t allowed to mention the obvious 4 centimeters at the edge of his vision being obscured.

His nose felt stuffier, he guessed, but he could easily chalk that up to the change in atmosphere - space did a number on the sinuses. He sniffled a bit. It didn’t do anything to help.

“So next Thursday then?”

“I’ll see if I can take off!”

“A regular Team F*cked gettogether.”

“Mhm!”

“Arright, see ya.”

Scott smiled a little fondly. Through everything that had happened, it was pretty nostalgic to hear a name he came up with when he was alone and trying to distract himself from the fact everyone wanted him dead being used by another person - one of his friends - sincerely. Honestly, he couldn’t be completely sure none of these guys weren’t out to get him at the time. Eh, it was the pre-apocalypse. Bygones and all that.

And then Rex tossed him over his shoulder like nothing. Scott tried his best to keep being limp, not wanting to hurt himself, but the surprise of it made him flail awkwardly. At least Rex had the decency to make him face forward - he could turn to look at the guy if he wanted to, albeit at a sort of uncomfortable angle - which he was thankful for. It made him feel less like unprecious cargo. It wasn’t so much that Scott was afraid of being dropped, he was afraid of being manhandled like a sack of dry rice in a way where his body couldn’t recover.

“Okay, so what were you guys talking about?” Scott asked. He could tell that they were heading home and they were close too, but something about his mode of transport and Rex remaining quiet after they’d parted ways with the rest of the group put him a little on edge. “I felt strangely left out of the whole Us Post-Saving The World From The Blue Border That, Oh Yeah! Was My Fault conversation.”

Dammit, well, he’s noticing it again. Crystal clear, despite his glasses being noticeably askew. He can already tell that’s gonna be annoying. He made a move to adjust them.

“Oh.” Rex shifted Scott up a bit, readjusting him. “The dinner.”

Scott scrunched his face up. He half expected Rex to call him out for not even paying attention, or for keeping his head down and not talking. At least then he could make a smart-ass comment back at him.

“Huh?”

“Or, it started out with the whole celebration dinner thing.” Rex sniffed. He gestured with his free hand as he talked. “And then we thought that’d be dumb after- y’know. So it turned into a half-regular hangout, half-party, half-dinner at our place.”

“Yeah, it’s probably not a good idea for us to hold any more dinner parties…” Scott did a double-take. “Wait, my place- why are we having it at my place?”

“Where else are we gonna have our group-wide hangouts?”

“Gw-? Anywhere else! There’s an Arby’s literally three blocks away, what are we too good for that now?”

“C’mon. Don’t you wanna make us all play Mario Party 4 or something?”

Scott grumbled sheepishly. “...Yeah.” He thrashed a little before realizing that was useless, pointing at Rex. “But don’t think that means I’m not still mad! It’s still three years before my first party’s supposed to happen. You’re just lucky I’ll take any excuse to talk Mario Party 4.”

“Mhm. And you can do it on Thursday.”

And then Rex dropped Scott off ass first on his desk. Scott was barely aware they had made it into the apartment, let alone his room, so the sudden drop made him scramble and knock nearly everything off. Upon getting his bearings, Scott tried to arrange his shelves and miscellaneous garbage back the way it was, far more concerned with that than his back and tailbone aching.

Rex began walking out, probably heading back to the room Scott had kept the bed in. He was surprised he was still living with him after last Christmas, but even more surprised that he felt he hardly saw the guy any more than the rest of his friends. Only on special occasions, or when he called everyone together, or when cereal he bought was completely destroyed not even a day later was he aware Rex still had a presence in his life.

He was still a friend, though. Wasn’t he? He couldn’t imagine going to space and risking death for someone he didn’t care at least a little about. But maybe that was just him.

“Hey, Rex?” Scott asked, stopping Rex before he slapped the top of his door frame and left. Rex turned to look at him but kept his hand up. “Do you think I’m a f*cking idiot?”

“Yeah.” Rex took a moment to actually hit the top of the door frame before properly turning his attention back to Scott. “For what?”

Scott dangled his legs off the edge of the desk, thinking if he should just outright say it. Despite making the decision himself it still felt like such an intangible thing, like it didn’t have to be true if he didn’t say it. And outside of that, there were so many steps along the way where he felt like an asshole, or an insane person, or, well, a f*cking idiot that he couldn’t neatly pick out one for Rex to weigh in on.

Scott clicked his tongue. “Putting you guys through my blue square bullsh*t, and then… and then taking it back and planning to keep it with me. Forever.”

Rex twisted his face up. He was probably under the assumption that Scott was secure in his choice, that he really did think it was the only correct option and that’s why he did it.

Not that that wasn't true, or that he didn't think that. But it never hurt to field second opinions.

“Ehhh,” Rex said. Helpful. “I mean, I personally wouldn’t’ve done it. But you had your reasons.”

“Yeah, it- It probably would’ve ended up latching onto someone else with not nearly enough willpower.” Scott scratched the back of his neck absentmindedly, before putting on one of his stupid grins. “You know, by taking this thing on and protecting everyone, it’s almost like I’m chaperoning the whole planet!”

Rex smiled. Not a big beaming smile he usually wore before cheering and whooping and clapping like a madman like Scott was expecting, but something softer. It was weird. He didn’t think Rex was capable of acting outside of extremes.

“Yeah-heah!!” Rex exclaimed. There we go. He raised his hand up for a high five that Scott didn’t expect, making him awkwardly raise his own hand in turn. They had almost whiffed it completely. “See, don’t feel like going back on your decision even if any of us think you’re f*cking stupid for it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott conceded, before snapping to attention. “I wasn’t. By the way. Going back on it.” He had left out that it’d be too late to do so anyway. It was implied, and saying so would make it seem like he was doubting himself even harder. He could hold his tongue when it benefitted him. Sometimes.

“Right,” Rex said, stretching it out like he was in on a joke Scott wasn’t making. He did a little peace sign/wave combo before heading out of the room proper.

Scott was left to fix his desk by himself but he didn’t mind that much. After such a hectic day, he needed something low-stakes, solitary, and just for him. It took much longer than any of the other times he had to rearrange or set his things back up - and it was obvious it was mostly due to his peripherals being completely obscured, but he tried to convince himself that readjusting to Earth’s gravity had something to do with it, however little sense it made - but he felt accomplished seeing it all put together again. It was nice and, weirdly enough, nostalgic.

He felt… content.

That’s what it was. He felt at peace knowing that, even though he went on some big adventure and almost doomed the entire world right before saving it, he was still the same Scott he was this morning. And he had all the same Scott-Things to do and look forward to.

Sure, he had the blue border to worry about now - it felt like every time he drew his attention to it it would pulsate like a heartbeat, as if it were saying "Hi! Hope you didn't forget!" every single time - but he had ignored it for almost 24 years. It wouldn’t be that hard to just ignore it if he kept doing what he was doing, it worked fine before.

He sat in his chair, not realizing how tired he’d been. He had almost completely slumped over, keeping himself steady at the last minute to avoid rolling back into his desk and ruining his hard work.

His camera was still set up. He was thankful that all his friends knew about his whole VHS Tape Habit at this point, he could only imagine how annoying it’d be to have to explain it on top of trying to figure out how to get rid of the border. He was a little sad he wasn’t able to get most of what had happened on tape, it’d be nice to have it on hand if he needed to show it to another person or remind himself of that time he went to space. But maybe it was for the best. He wasn’t sure it could fit on one tape, and he’d make sure to put himself in a coma before he let himself go through the trouble of splitting one recording session into multiple tapes.

If he remembered correctly, the camera had only picked up his Stupid Nintendo Games Talk - well, that was usually the case - and his breakdown at the end of it. Thinking about it, he could edit it later, surely, cut it together into something that’d be more pleasant to watch. It’d give him a distraction for the next couple of days at least.

Scott sat straight up and made himself smile while looking directly at the camera. He felt that same weird sense of pride and nostalgia from seeing his desk put together when he opened his mouth and started to ramble about nothing. Eventually, he'd edit it down to where it’d be a proper send-off, something that actually fit with the tone of the beginning of the recording, but for now, he deserved a break. He needed to fall back on what he did best. What he knew inside and out.

It was good to be back.

Chapter Text

Scott had been getting into an honest-to-God groove for the past week. Waking up, taking something off the shelf, rattling on and on about it for hours; and repeat, only stopping to sleep (and eat, if he really needed it). He was quick about it too. Most of the time, he felt like he sat on his hands for too long about what to say about a particular topic, either taking so long he’d talk himself out of it or forget he wanted to ramble about it entirely. But now- Jesus, he didn’t think he’d been on such a streak in his entire life.

Honestly, he had felt a little worried that he would run out of things to talk about sooner or later - once he talked about every Lego Indiana Jones game, what more was there to say? - an anxiety he hadn’t considered was even a possibility.

Sure, if nothing on his shelves spoke to him, he could always look at the calendar or between his couch cushions to see if something did. But, come on! He was the guy who talked about dork sh*t of the video game variety! Who would he be if he ran out of dork sh*t to say? He didn’t want to sit around waiting for inspiration to possibly strike, he wanted something he knew he could spend anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour talking about and he wanted it now.

And that’s where retail therapy came in!

He’d have been just happy scrolling through eBay - that was usually enough to get some kind of creative juice flowing, seeing all the lots of garbage games and the occasional one in a million find he’d have to sell another kidney to afford - but he wanted to prolong this video-making stretch for as long as humanly possible, and that called for drastic measures.

Which was to say, buying copies of MLB: The Show 20 and old Loot Crates in bulk.

Normally he’d want to get out of the apartment whenever possible to get any completely necessary additions to his collection. Various game store traumas notwithstanding, he just preferred confirming his games and gaming paraphernalia were as advertised before buying them. But he figured the whole process would’ve been a miserable slog: remembering where he parked the car, driving to the store, having to brute force his way through an awkward conversation where he might not even be able to take home anything of value, and then go back home to maybe b*tch and whine. Whereas here… sure it took much longer, he was prone to wasting even more of his money, he was more likely to get scammed, people had a tendency to price gouge way more often…

Maybe he should’ve just manned up and gone to a game store, but that was valuable sitting around and talking to himself time he would’ve been wasting. And, honestly, he was skeptical if he had the energy to go outside and interact full stop, let alone do all that to be disappointed.

Eh, it wasn’t all bad. Ebay or not, he was always happy to pad out his collection with stuff he wanted, stuff he didn't know he needed, and stuff that nobody wanted or needed.

Case in point:

“-This was the cheap alternative to buying a real man’s handheld. The Tiger Electronics’s LCD games took the full name and branding of arcade and console games and made calculators out of them-”

Now, did seeing a bunch of LCD handhelds online mean he needed to buy a small county’s worth of them and a bunch of garbage demakes of varying legitimacy? No, and the day he found a good enough reason for that would be a day he ended up on the news. But he loved stupid bullsh*t like this! And there were so many directions he could take it in, so many tangents to go on. It just made sense for him to talk about it. It was him being economical.

With his video topics. Not with his money, obviously.

“-Well, I’d rather play this than the Gameboy version, which, that’s its own league of demake. The portable variant of a game was almost always lesser in every way. But just like Street Fighter on the Master System, it could be worse-”

He wasn’t even worried about running out of money, or at least not as much as he was worried about running out of things to talk about, things to do. If worse came to worst, he’d do another charity event, learn a lesson about respecting his fellow man, and cure his bankruptcy for another two years or so. And while he preferred sitting and talking to himself, he’d take it over having nothing to do.

“-Mighty Final Fight is its own thing and isn’t bogged down by the limitations of the console it’s on. Rather, Capcom used the limitations to their advantage while creating this thing. This is how you do a demake and it might not even qualify as one!-”

He didn’t think he would get around to putting this one on a tape - or the other fifteen videos he made in the past couple of weeks - for a while. After he had cut down the Stupid Nintendo Games rant from the day he went into space (and almost subjected everyone on planet Earth to a giant Blue Border that he had to kill and then chose to host forever - oh, God d*mmit, not again. The entire reason he started thinking about it as the day he went into space was so that he wouldn’t remind himself of that thing.), he didn’t get the itch to sit still and refine any of his projects.

“-Sometimes developers have to make these calls. Should they demake the game for lesser hardware or create something more suited for it? Because even if they work on lesser hardware, I think I alongside many others care more about seeing it just exist, not necessarily if it’s just as good or better than the source material-”

Well, it wasn’t that pressing. If anything, he was probably better off having a bunch of different projects on the backlog, instead of a miserable slog where he focused on one aspect of one video at one time. Even now, it felt like his brain was buzzing about stuff he could immediately jump to after he finished recording this one. Honestly, his brain was buzzing about stuff he could jump to now as he worked on his current project, but he held off. Not for lack of ability - there were enough game boxes, power cords, and peripherals in various states of use strewn about the floor to let anyone who walked in know that he was in the middle of five different things - but more that he felt like he was really on a roll and didn’t want to halt his momentum now. If he was lucky, he might’ve been able to wrap up what he wanted to say in this one sitting.

“-Yes, Hyrule Warriors Legends. It runs. This is disgusting, I have no idea how anybody played this game legitimately on 3DS. Of course it runs better on New 3DS models, but so would molasses, doesn’t make it fast. I don’t care, to me this game just doesn’t belong here. This gives off Lion King NES vibes, just a sense of this… not belonging. Everything feels off-”

Or, well, he could, if he didn’t get interrupted again. He was thankful that wasn’t happening during this particular run, but he couldn’t keep track of how many texts and phone calls and random knocks on his room’s door distracted him over the last couple of days. While he usually loved a call to action and would jump at the opportunity to go on a ten-minute-tops mundane adventure with his friends, he wasn’t feeling it. Maybe it was for the same reason he couldn’t suck it up and go to a Gamestop or something, maybe he was Adventure With His Friends’d out, maybe he was saving all that hanging out for their big Not-Party Mario Party Dinner Party get-together, but he declined every time. They understood - probably, at least he assumed they did - it was a lot for the end of May. They had never even hung out that much to begin with, so it wasn’t like he was hurting for more Team F*cked Time. He couldn’t imagine they were either.

“Regardless of if these are good versions of the games, demakes are amazing. They may not be more fun to play, they may just be f*cking putrid, but they’re so damn interesting to analyze, every last one of ‘em-”

But, y’know, that was when he bothered to respond to them at all. He was the one to blame for the Blue Border - God, well, okay, there he was looking at it again - almost closing in on the whole Earth and… he wasn’t sure what its plan was exactly beyond being annoying, but it was still possibly very dangerous! That and he made a fool of himself on local TV - though it wasn’t the first time that happened - and if he went out and some random schmuck clocked him as either of those or if that aforementioned schmuck got ahold of his phone number or address…

Well, he had his fill of people hunting him down for stupid reasons. His friends probably assumed he was undergoing some self-imposed witness protection process anyway - he often did even when he wasn’t responsible for the planet’s impending demise, he could never be too safe - they’d understand if he was a little apprehensive about picking up the phone or answering the door at all. Maybe he should’ve just told them to knock it off, at least for another month or so. He could only take Rex (and, usually some accomplice) breaking through his door so many times before he lost it. He could’ve done with asking him to stop that, regardless. Or at least replace the d*mn thing, there were way too many holes in it now for Scott’s liking. And honestly, would it have killed him to just reach through one of them to open the door instead of making new ones? Or even straight-up knocking would’ve…

Oh. He was done with the video. That was everything he wanted to say. He hadn’t realized until he felt himself start to trail off awkwardly - usually, he could produce… something to say about a game he found interesting if he thought about it consciously. He put down his copies of Rayman Rush and Rayman Arena and stretched. Okay, another topic down, and now-

Woah, Christ, he was lightheaded. Or, well, to be fair he was hunched over his carpet for nearly twenty minutes, of course he’d be lightheaded. He put his palm to his temple, tensing a little as his head throbbed. Despite migraines and the like falling under “smaller injuries”, he was quite used to dealing with them - having hobbies mostly consisting of staring at screens required one to find a reliable way of treating headaches pretty fast. They were annoying, but he’d manage.

Similarly, he could already tell his foot was asleep, and he braced himself for the horrible agony he would have to endure upon getting up. He grabbed the side of his desk to give himself some leverage. He leaned towards it, standing up ever so slightly and reconfiguring his legs in a way that would send the least amount of pins and needles into him; right before realizing that the side he was leaning towards was the one with the makeshift, taped together leg, and that he probably shouldn’t have been putting all of his weight on it. Which was, of course, right before the leg gave way, sending Scott, his desk, and everything on it plummeting to the ground. He was surprised this fell under the category of “smaller injuries” - seeing that he wasn’t spitting up blood or anything - because it hurt like a b*tch.

“F*CK-!! D*MMIT-!” Scott screamed, which was to be expected.

He was just surprised something like this didn’t happen sooner. He’d spent nearly two years sleeping on that thing, and the second he didn't perfectly distribute his weight on it, that's when it broke. Of course, it probably also had something to do with the beating it had taken over the course of those two years, up to and including Rex throwing him haphazardly onto it a couple of weeks ago. But he supposed he couldn’t be too mad about it. Not because he wasn’t still upset - because he was - but because he wasn’t sure he could rightfully vocalize a complaint to anyone, let alone someone who could actually fix the d*mn thing. He just saw the guy but it’s not like he could get a better desk or fix this one by taking it up with Vince, or for that matter-

Wait.

Scott sat straight up.

What what what what.

“F*ck! Sh*t!” Scott tested. “D*mmit!”

Ah… What?

Scott panicked, “D*mmit! Uh, uh… B*tch! …Hell?”

Okay, thank God, not all was lost.

But… Uhm, what?

Scott quickly slapped his hand over his mouth. He looked to his bedroom door - still filled with holes, so, regrettably, not as soundproof as it usually was - and tried to scramble to his feet, slapping away bits of desk debris and various trinkets. His side ached, but that was the least of his worries. That he could deal with. And he could deal with the desk easily enough too: retape it together and not worry about it for another two years.

With this, he didn’t know where to start. He didn’t know what the precedent for it was. He didn’t even fully understand what was happening.

“D*mn… D*mn d*mn d*mn,” Scott muttered under his breath. He didn’t chide himself for not having more intelligent commentary. What else was he supposed to do? God, it just sounded wrong tumbling out of his mouth. It hurt, even - though he wasn’t sure how much of that was from his throat being raw from talking for hours straight.

In all honesty, he didn’t know what caused some words to be bleeped and others to not, and he assumed no one else did - or, that everyone already did, and he’d be weird for bringing it up - because he hadn’t heard anyone comment on it… ever, in 24 years. But in those 24 years, he had never heard so much as a… a “d*mn” or a “b*tch”. It was unnatural, freakish! He might’ve been the first person this had ever happened to! God, what if it spread to more words? Non-curse words? What if one day he opened his mouth and it was a constant droning censor bleep? What if he couldn’t speak to another person ever again?!

“Scott?”

“AH-!”

Scott snapped his head back to the door. He saw Rex and Jeb peek through one of the holes. He was so skittish about the whole situation he barely had time to question why Jeb was there. By the time he had thought to, Rex had punched another hole in his door to reach for the doorknob.

“We heard a crash-” Jeb said, stepping inside. The door pushed up against some of Scott’s garbage trinkets, and they saw the damage that’d been done - both from the desk crash and the preceding weeks-long video-making stretch. “Whaaaat… What happened here?”

“Oh,” Rex said. “He’s been in a mood since space.”

“I have not,” Scott said. Not one as bad or worthy of concern as Rex’s tone was suggesting, anyway. “It was my desk, the d*-”

F*ck… Okay, alright. They couldn’t know about… his whole situation. Usually, Scott would waste no time dragging his friends - especially Rex and Jeb - into whatever drama overtook him at any given moment. However, the last time he roped all his friends into his garbage, he ended up nearly dooming them and the entire planet. It was too soon after that mess. He couldn’t risk whatever affliction he had spreading to them, especially if he wasn’t even going to end up solving the actual problem like last time.

Well, he shouldn’t think like that. He had solved it. No one but him was hurting anymore, and he was barely even hurting! He had made his choice, and quite noblely too, he would add. He might not have “solved” anything, but that was a part of the whole character growth thing he was undergoing. He didn’t need to solve anything, he just needed an attitude adjustment and a little lesson in self-sacrifice. Of which, he got in spares.

Still, the whole situation would be really annoying to deal with again not even a month after handling an identical one. No telling the guys about this, no d*mns and b*tchs until further notice. All he had to do was watch his mouth. Easy.

“It twas the desk,” Scott said, annunciating every word equally like an insane person.

“Oh,” Jeb said. “Well, it was bound to happen eventually.”

“Yeah, you know what?” Rex piped up, absentmindedly kicking a Game Boy box a little too aggressively for Scott’s liking. “I never liked this new desk anyway. Too stable”

“Hey, it was not-” Scott stopped, not even sure what he was going to be defensive about. “It was a perfectly fine desk!”

“Obviously not,” Jeb said.

“Ok, did you guys have a reason for coming in or are you gonna keep taking potshots at a man clearly grieving his adequately stable and desk-y desk?”

“Well, me and Rex were gonna play some Gex-” Obviously. Honestly, why did Scott even ask at this point? “-and we know you’ve been, uh, busy the last couple of times we’ve asked, but Rex wanted to check if you wanted to sit in this time.”

“Just Rex?”

“Yeah, I don’t really give a sh*t either way.”

Scott thought for a moment. They had asked him to come to a proper Gex Night almost every day for the past… however many days. He hadn’t paid it much mind, shuffling it in with the other attempts his friends made to reach out to him. Now that he was out of his b*tching (eugh…) mood, though, he did feel a little bad about repeatedly declining. He might’ve even actually said yes to them after all of that - with his schedule now clear and him having run out of things to talk about - but with his current affliction, it was just too risky. He still had no idea how it worked, if anyone else could hear it, or if it was dangerous. As much as it pained him to decline, he couldn’t handle being around people on top of all of this.

“Yyyyeah, I’m not really feeling it tonight guys I, uh-” Scott paused and looked down at the desk debris still surrounding all of them. “I gotta… clean all this up y’know? Gotta have the collection up to snuff.”

“...Right.”

“Worth a shot.” Rex chimed in again, still kicking around Street Fighter II for Game Boy like the world’s sh*ttiest most one-sided game of soccer. He gave one final kick (that thing better not have been dented or Scott would have stopped feeling bad about declining so much) before swooping down to pick up a copy of NBA Jam - today’s Gex, Scott assumed.

“Good luck with your clean sweep.” Rex gave a short little wave before walking out, Gex in tow.

Scott sighed, tension still heavy on his shoulders. He really did have to clean all this up before anything.

He craned his neck to see where Street Fighter II went and realized that Jeb hadn’t followed Rex out. He stared at him oddly - accusatorily, Scott would say if he didn’t know any better.

“You sure everything’s okay?” Jeb asked. He wasn’t entirely sure what Jeb was getting at, but the question made Scott more self-conscious than being stared at like a freak. No one asked him about his feelings, let alone Jeb!

“What?” Scott scoffed. “No, yeah, completely fine! I mean, not really, I have all this garbage to clean up, but after that, I’ll probably be back on my feet.” He bent down quickly to reach for Street Fighter II and snapped back up, smiling at Jeb completely convincingly.

The box was dented. Scott kept his eye from twitching.

Jeb’s expression shifted, less accusatory more… annoyed? Fed up? Totally-thinks-something-is-actually-wrong-when-it-isn’t-and’ll-tell-everyone-or-do-something-horrible-to-him? Scott was never the best at reading facial expressions. His smile faltered. He hoped Jeb was worse at reading people than him.

“Well, I’m just wondering because this-” Jeb gestured aimlessly at the entire room. “-this is a lot. This is way more than your usual bitching moods.”

Scott scoffed again, “I mean, sure, but… you know me!”

“I guess I do.” Jeb shrugged.

“...Why, you really think this is too much?”

“You tell me, you’re the you expert!”

“No, like-” Scott tapped his finger on the Game Boy box for a second, choosing his words carefully. “Like is this weird? Like… do you hate getting tapes in the mail or having to watch sh*t on Game Boy Advance video with me or… or-”

“Scott, if you're really doing fine, you can do whatever you want! I’m not gonna care, Rex isn’t gonna care, no one is. You’re allowed to do your own thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, like-” Jeb leaned against the wall. “I’m doing my own thing without Terry. He doesn’t care, why should he? Even if he’s thinking I'm a traitorous meat eater who shouldn't be trusted around animals and that Rex is a bad influence, he’s keeping it to himself because we’re all civil adults.”

“So… nothing I do matters?”

“I mean if you’re actually doing alright then sure,” Jeb reiterated. “I never claimed to understand why someone would dedicate their entire life to all video games when there’s only three that matter to me, but I know this is your whole thing.”

Jeb paused. “And you are doing alright, right?”

“Huh?” Scott blinked. “Oh, yeah! Yeah, yeah, I mean this’ll be a b- uh, a bit much to clean up, but I can deal with it while you guys Gex.”

“Mm, what about the whole, uh-” Jeb trailed off, clicking his tongue and figuring out what he wanted to say. He drew a box in the air with his finger, like Scott would get that message. Ah.

Scott threw a smile back on. “No, yeah! That is… also alright. It's also something I’m dealing with. It’s not spreading or anything, right, you can’t see it?”

“Nnnnope.” Jeb looked around and then shook his head. “Not right now”

“Good! Then, yes, everything’s fine! Now… go on, don’t let me keep you from Gex.” Scott shooed him away halfheartedly.

“Right.” Jeb gave a small wave before heading to the door. “See ya on Thursday.”

Scott exhaled the loudest he might have ever exhaled as soon as Jeb left the room. He could hear Rex working his way through the Wii menu and into NBA Jam, and then being joined by Jeb. Despite this, presumably, being the fourth or fifth Jeb and Rex Only Gex Night under his roof in the last week, the sound of banter in his living room that he wasn’t a part of or the subject of was strange. Unfamiliar. Had he really been so distracted that he hadn't gotten used to it? Or, did the door being almost completely off its hinges unmuffle the sound so much that it sounded weird to him now? He didn’t wanna think about it - it wasn’t distracting him, but it made him feel tense and uneasy for whatever reason. He started piling up the Wii and original Xbox cases littered on the floor, slotting as many as he could in his shelves before returning to the clutter and repeating.

He had to look on the bright side. That was, by all accounts, a good social interaction! He had successfully avoided dragging Jeb or Rex into his unexplainable problem of the week, evaded Jeb’s weird line of questioning, and saved himself from hanging out with them for the rest of the night.

Not that Scott didn’t like hanging out with them, of course. He just needed some time alone. Sure, with the door all busted up anyone could hear what he’d be saying, and it wasn't like he’d want to record now - having video evidence of… whatever this thing happening to him was didn’t seem smart if he didn’t want it spreading - at least not without heavily and literally censoring himself; so he couldn’t exactly pick up where he left off even after cleaning up. But, for the first time in days, that wasn’t his main priority.

All he needed to do, right behind finding out what was happening to him and how to stop him, was to avoid cluing anyone into what was happening. The only way to not risk it spreading to anyone else, or getting worse was to… not be around anyone. It sounded simple enough. Sure, he had a close call with Rex and Jeb, and no doubt his friends would check up on him now and then, but if he had gotten through that last conversation without them suspecting anything, he could give them the slip in the future - at least until he fixed the issue. Then he’d make up for ghosting them by doing as much stupid bullsh*t as they wanted together. It wasn’t like he had anything planned in the near to immediate future that required him to hang out with all his friends for an extended period while acting as a good, courteous, and talkative host for-

SH*T. THURSDAY. THE PARTY.

Scott banged his shin on the wreckage of his desk. He crumpled, clasping a hand over his mouth - dropping the stack of games he had - and gave a strangled, cut-off scream. He didn’t want Rex and Jeb to be able to hear him - censor bleep or not - and come running to help, but God that stung like a b*tch. He needed to stop being so d*mn accident prone before it ended up killing him. He stood up straight, careful not to put too much pressure on his right leg, while also making sure that he didn’t damage anything, his desk or the games he had just dropped.

He winced in pain. He could already tell he’d be getting a horrible bruise from this, probably joined by the rest he would be getting from when he took a tumble with the desk. He thought, somewhat sardonically, that the thing was more trouble than it was worth, right before feeling… strange. Like it was a mean, careless, shameful thing to be saying about something that had stuck with him for so long. He couldn’t place it, but, in general, felt it wise to disregard such weird, indescribable, strong emotions about inanimate objects.

Besides the ones he had dedicated his life to, of course.

Okay, wait, FOCUS.

Scott had completely forgotten about Team F*cked’s Not-Party Mario Party Dinner Party. It was the only social interaction he had to go to, it was planned in advance, and it was a mere two days away. If he canceled or didn’t show up it would definitely look suspicious - it was practically asking them all to get into some kind of hijinks - and, regardless, it was in his apartment. There was nowhere for him to escape or hide.

Scott began pacing, groaning every time he stepped with his right leg and flinching whenever he heard Jeb and Rex yell from the living room. It was a painful, weirdly mechanical maneuver that made him feel like the most functionally useless automated machine, but it calmed him down. Or he assumed it was supposed to, anyway.

Okay, he couldn’t cancel and he couldn’t hide in his room. The only alternative would be to act like everything was normal and that nothing was wrong and carefully choose his words to not out himself, which - and Scott was being honest thinking this - he had absolutely zero faith in himself to do. He had barely kept it together with two people in his room for five minutes. How was he supposed to remain happy, cheerful, and unsuspicious for hours in front of his entire social circle?

If he came up with a good enough excuse - he reasoned as he heard Rex get a three-pointer - they’d have to leave him alone, surely. Something that would raise no follow-up questions and get all of them to leave him alone, at least for that night. He paced faster like it would help him think of one.

He could say he had to help someone with an emergency, but they knew he wouldn’t go out of his way to do that, and all the people he reasonably would do that for would be at that party. He could say he urgently had something to talk about at his desk and have that take up the night, but they might end up waiting for him and he was unsure what, if anything, he could talk about for two hours straight, while also choosing his words just so.

He could say his uncle died - for the sympathy vote? No. He could say Jeb’s uncle died again? No. That he needed to pick something up immediately and it would take all night? No. That he was horribly allergic to parties? That he was horribly allergic to friendship?

That… That… That…?