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“Were there always, um, dandelions on you?” Z calls out suddenly, just as they’re sitting on the somewhat-couch of theirs after another weird adventure. Regect tenses, looking down to where Z also points his head to. There are a bunch of little flowers clinging to the lower part of its leg. Not flowers.
“Why do you ask?” It starts, its voice unusually serious. Nervous, even. Z doesn’t pick his head up to look it in the eye, after all, he’d just be staring at air. He shrugs.
“Because I haven’t noticed those before. Did you– dang, did you glue those on you?” A long pause occurs between them, awkward for Z and just.. baffling for Regect.
“And why would I glue them there, dumbass?” It scoffs at him, irritated much too quickly from one stupid question.
“Because normal people don’t have flowers on their fucking ankle? Jeez man!” He defends himself. Another pause. But, at least it’s awkward for both this time.
“..Not flowers. Weeds.” Regect corrects him out of the blue, he’s about to perk up to accuse it of being a smartass, but it continues talking. So, Z just has to swallow whatever comments he has.
“They’re annoying. Persistent. They get on you and you humor them, only once, and then suddenly they, um– they cling to you like a–” The annoyed mutters cut off, Regect goes quiet again.
“A parasite.” Its torso turns to the side subtly, Z concludes that the head it’d hypothetically have is turned away fully. The conversation turns a little less tense and more melancholic, somewhat.
“So you don’t like them?” The sentence goes without a second thought, he’s mentally preparing to withstand a couple thousand insults from the entity. Contradictory, it just stays quiet, like it’s contemplating. Or like it’s about to cry. God, he’ll feel so bad if he offends it that much, when it’s vulnerable.
Z desperately wishes Moe hadn’t gone to hang out with the two guys they had over for Christmas and whose names he didn’t remember. She’d ease it. She always eased Regect, and him too. Regect speaks up again before he can think about missing Moe any longer.
“..No, I guess. No,” Its theoretical head remains turned to the side, though the tone softens as it seems to calm down from the angry ranting.
“Dandelions crave life. They perk up from the ground, all so suddenly, because they want to.. live. To see the sun. To grow, to thrive, to then scatter all around. And wither.”
Regect talks much clearer than it ever does, the words flow like a read-through script.
Clear, intentional, nostalgic of something Z can’t pinpoint. It isn’t talking about flowers, or weeds, and it’s obvious at this point. It’s unspoken thoughts about not dandelions but something, someone else, formed long ago and only spilling now.
A silence, once more. Like grieving, or longing, like a tribute to that someone Regect is talking about. Quiet, yet it got across much more than either could express.
“This bunch never grew up, you know. Still so young and bright yellow.” It looks down, pitifully, softly, like it was consoling the little weeds rather than informing him.
“Yet they still withered.”