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When Rudo wakes up after fighting the traffickers, his first thought is that the ceiling looks strange.
The ceiling of his room was more concrete than any actual ceiling material, but the one above him is metal. He's clearly not at home, so where is he?
He groans, rubbing at his eyes. Slowly, he turns to his side and ignores the screaming of his body as he does. The sight of blonde hair makes him freeze, realization crashing over him like a bucket of ice-cold water.
Oh.
Oh, that's right.
They threw him away.
Chiwa believed them.
Regto is…
He's…
He's going to be sick.
Rudo sits up quickly, only to wince at the pain that shoots through him. It's this that makes him notice the unusual absence of pressure on his torso. Worse, he feels the lack of something holding his chest down. His breath catches as he inches a hand toward his chest to check.
He tenses at the presence of a curve that should not be there and his breathing falters. He's still for one moment… then two… then-
He brings his hands to the side of his head and pulls at his hair, shaking his head viciously and scrabbling to any sense of where he is and why he's not wearing his-
"Woah kid, chill." A voice drawls from next to him. It's not… familiar, but it's not completely foreign either. He stops suddenly, slowly turning to face the guy with the nasty blonde hair he caught a glimpse of earlier.
Said man is perched on a bench across the room from him. Across the room is an exaggeration, really, considering the room is so small he's only really a step away. Still, Rudo instinctively crosses his arms over his chest and tries his best to make it look intimidating rather than a sucky attempt at protection.
He clenches his jaw, his breaths remaining uneven as he process his surroundings — the truth of his new reality sinking in. He doesn't like this. He doesn't want to be here. He wants to go back — home — even if it means facing everyone who treated him like he's worthless. His throat burns, he wants-
He wants Regto.
He wants his dad.
A pair of fingers snap in his face, bringing him back to the present. "Hey, kid. Stop that. Stop thinking too hard." The guy commands.
Rudo looks up from where his gaze had drifted to his hands and clenches them resolutely. "Where's-"
The guy reaches behind him slowly, as though he's trying not to spook a scared animal, and brings out exactly what Rudo's looking for. "Right here. 'Doc took it off when she needed to patch you up."
He scrambles to snatch it out of the mans hands, clutching it to his chest protectively.
It's another thing Regto had given him. After he'd turned 13, his temper had gotten even worse. There was a discomfort starting to crawl in his skin that hadn't been there before, it needed a way out and he had no clue what it was or why it was there. As far as he knew, no one else felt like this. He knew some people were self conscious of their bodies, yes, but this feeling of being out of place?
He tried to ignore them like he always did. He had tried so hard that day, but one of the boys had looked at him with something cutting in his eyes, like he knew exactly what to say to get Rudo riled up this time, and started talking about a rumor he had heard and-
He came home with a black eye and his skin crawling worse than ever. It's bad enough that Rudo himself knows about it, other people knowing about it — other people talking about it — is devastating.
Regto had greeted him from across the house. At the following silence, the man had popped out of the shadows and frowned, a sorrowful look overtaking his face.
He placed a hand on Rudo's head, a gentle scratch crossing his scalp until the man pulled him forward. Rudo desperately rushed in to meet him halfway, clutching to his shirt as his body was wracked with the intensity of his sobs. His emotions felt so much bigger than him, fighting their way out as hands wrapped around his body.
The man had let him cry as long as he needed to, eventually guiding him to the couch when the energy quickly draining out of Rudo made it clear that the boy couldn't stand for much longer. Even as his crying subsided, he couldn't help the tears welling in his eyes as Regto began patching up his injuries.
Blubbering, he'd let out a whine that sounded somewhat like an "I'm sorry."
Regto's face softened, warm and comforting in the way it always was. Rudo didn't know how he could look at him like that, knowing what he was. "I know you are, Rudo, and I know you tried."
"It's not fair."
"It's not," Regto shook his head, wiping at the stubborn wet under the boys eyes with his thumb.
"Why- why am I like this? Why are they like this? Why is this happening?" He gestured to his body at the last part, voice laced with despair. Regto's eyes had widened ever so slightly, quickly returning to their softness only a moment later.
"I won't always be here to give you answers, you know?" He had chuckled.
Rudo bit his lip, a premature grief welling in his stomach. Regto sighed.
"Let's get some food in you." He'd said, picking the boy up and off his lap so they were both standing.
A week later, Regto had returned home late to find Rudo on the couch, trying his best to stay awake while waiting for Regto to come home. He'd presented the boy with a small garment made from worn out fiber, and said he'd commissioned it from the local tailor in hopes that it might help Rudo.
It was made for him, customized to his measurements.
Rudo had never had something made for him before, and that alone had him crying. He'd cried even more when he'd tried the thing on, a soft weight reassuring him with the flatness on his chest that made him feel right.
Now, in the small Ground Doctors Office, he rubs his thumbs over the worn fabric with care. The blonde guy's lips quirk.
"That's special to you, huh?"
Rudo hestitates, and then nods.
He places his hands behind his head and leans back, his legs resting on the edge of the bed Rudo's sitting on. "Well it's a good thing I didn't sell it then."
Rudo stiffens, bringing the fabric impossibly closer to him.
"You can put it back on while I talk to the doc. Are you feeling better otherwise?"
He licks his lips. His mouth is dry, but everything else… feels a lot better than when he'd landed in the wasteland. The sharp pains are numbed down, and he's not obviously bleeding anywhere. "Yeah."
"Hm. That's good."
As soon as he's gone, Rudo turns his head to make sure no one else is around before he rips the — new? — shirt he's wearing off and twists into the binder. He huffs out a testing breath, and smiles at the small amount of tension it creates between his chest and the fabric.
He's going to get back to the sphere, some way or another. They're going to regret what they did to him — to Regto. Finding himself again, however, is a good first step.
(It's not until later that he realizes this is a thing. That there's other people like him, in more ways than one. Zanka has scars in the same places Rudo wants them on his own body, and the man tells him they were scars he chose to get. Rudo tries to hold back the excitement he feels at the realization that he could feel comfortable in his body without needing to wear this every day, that it's possible to not feel the unease that hits him every time he needs to take it off to sleep.)