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Mapic rests in the nook carved out of tree branches, staring at an array of cherry-red clouds that only deepen in viscosity as the sun crawls lower and lower in preparation for the moon. Grapefruit light paints his face. His pale skin transforms into beautiful radiance, and that dark red hoodie he seems so attached to practically glows in the rays. His black hair shifts into a vibrant orange. He’s pretty.
Spoke knows all this because he and Mapic are shoulder-to-shoulder, nestled in the shelter of a tree, watching the sun set over an undisturbed flower field.
He rolls the cornflower between his fingers, threading petals through rich, dark skin, and dusting his fingertips with pollen. Words simmer in his thoughts. If he were any less comfortable, he might talk the other party’s ear off with sentences and topics that mean nothing, useless distraction that kills and discards time. Here with Mapic, however, he doesn’t feel the need to. The silence keeps enough importance in its arms.
“I’m tired, bro.” Still, Mapic speaks, stretching akin to a cat in the nook. Spoke scoffs.
“Cause you don’t sleep,” he says.
Mapic huffs and sits up, and Spoke, despite keeping his face buried in the cornflower, can hear the grin splitting his lips. “No time to sleep for the ultimate demon, bruh. I got too much to do. I’m too important.”
Spoke rolls his eyes but doesn’t try to stop his own smile from spreading across his features. “Keep telling yourself that.”
They fall back into silence. Again, Spoke doesn’t mind. They did enough talking getting here, away from Jamato’s homestead and the flower garden. He had framed it as wanting some air, some time alone with his best friend without other noise surrounding them. So, Mapic relaxes, draping himself all across a tree and letting his eyes slip closed. Spoke lets his gaze linger more on him than he does the sunset. It’s a weird feeling, and most likely Mapic has noticed and scrutinized him, but his thoughts are rampant, and he can only keep his sentences when the subject of those thoughts is in his direct line of sight.
Recently, he hasn’t been able to silence his thoughts. They are very, very loud, consuming his waking hours and tormenting him when he sneaks sleep in. They scream at him. They scream at him profanities and demands and needs and they are far too overwhelming for him to handle at the same time, alone. It was why the scare of permanently losing Mapic put him so over the edge. Then, he was truly alone, and no one was there to snuff out his voice. Then, he couldn’t act straight. The kamikaze was an aftereffect of his mind rotting him from the inside out. Nothing else.
(He remembers how far his heart sank into the earth when Mapic was ripped out of his own stasis, how panicked he sounded when he told Spoke to get out of here, bro, we need to go. He remembers the devastation. Never in his life has he felt such a raw tearing of the throat (besides one time, when he was young, way young, that he neglects to even think about anymore), and it kills him. It kills him, because he thought he had truly lost Mapic this time, this was it, he fucked up, there was no going back. The world took Mapic from him, and now he was alone. He remembers thinking that if the world took Mapic from him, he would show them the pain they put him through.
(He remembers bright, colorful plumage, a gentle voice, and being eased away from the edge. He remembers sitting on the balcony of the political office building, powerless as he choked on his own sobs and felt his tears stain his sweater. He remembers feeling so, so hopeless. He remembers feeling weak.
(Spoke bites his tongue with intentional force. He does not need to remember anymore.)
Mapic slides a hand over Spoke’s wrist, tugging slightly and diverting his attention away from the cornflower. A faint layer of genuine worry coats his features. “You good?”
“Yeah,” Spoke says, taking his hand out of Mapic’s grasp and rubbing it on the back of his neck. “Just… tired, I guess. I really wanna settle down and stop running.”
Mapic sighs through his nose. “I dunno about the last part. You committed a crime, dude. And now with both BAT and LAW on your back, all you can really do is run, until someone with more power takes it down.” He pauses, shrugging. “But hey; you dismantled the Mafia. So I’m sure whatever you want to do will work out for you.”
“Thanks for the glaze.” Levity. Spoke curls into a familiar embrace.
“Oh, shut up,” Mapic scoffs, already laughing. Spoke joins him. “I’m not glazing you. Actually, I take what I said back. You’re, like, worthless, or whatever.”
And Spoke knows. Spoke knows that the words mean nothing and it’s all frivolous, fruitless banter. But his heart still drops to his gut and a cold sweat ghosts over his skin, and he thinks that maybe, one day Mapic will mean this, and he will have nothing else for him here. The fear has pricked at him ever since he met Mapic, way back then; one day, Mapic will no longer need him, and that’ll be it.
He laughs. He laughs, because if Mapic were to leave, he thinks he’d never stop following him.
(But, really — he doesn’t need Mapic. He’s never needed Mapic; it’s always been the vice versa, that Mapic needs him, else he loses all functionality. It keeps Spoke in a comfortable equilibrium where he doesn’t depend on anyone and only has to support those who depend on him. Having people who need him cocoons him in safety, in warmth, where he is protected by love and devotion, necessity and desire. He doesn’t know how to explain it, if he were ever probed. He simply feels more comfortable when people depend on him.
(What he’s doing, what he’s thinking, is entirely independent of anyone. Spoke doesn’t need anyone. He can want, sure — he can thrash in his binds and shout demands he’s sure will be answered — but he never needs. He never depends on anyone. He only depends on himself, and it’s been this way since the server started. There are no plans to change.)
He stops thinking.
This happens often; he has a thought, which bleeds into another, and then he spirals down, down, down, until he forgets his directions and keeps descending when he means to climb out. It even happens when he’s around his people, unfortunately. The one balm is usually talking, but he and Mapic have exhausted themselves escaping Jamato’s graveyard, and there’s nothing to say. It’s fine, though; it has to be. Spoke shifts on the branch until he and Mapic are touching, and then he curls in on himself, tucking himself into Mapic’s side and involuntarily sighing as an arm is draped around his shoulders.
Mapic understands. He holds Spoke like there is nothing wrong in the world, and he understands.
Spoke drops the cornflower and watches it float with the wind down to the grass.
It’s nice here. The sun is setting; Mapic is sitting in the tree with Spoke and has his back turned and his guard down and is putting his life in Spoke’s hands, is delicately holding Spoke’s own with one arm. Spoke cradles his heart, afraid of letting it slip, and he crosses his arms over his chest. Mapic doesn’t seem to notice how his life is now forever safe in his best friend’s grasp.