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It was surprisingly easy to become invisible at a place as small as Robert’s. It had become a lot homier since the last time Herm had been there, a bit more furniture to fill the space as well as pictures to cover the walls: of his father, of the team, of people he used to know but no longer did. Herm hadn’t asked, though he’d very much wanted to.
Point being: now that it wasn’t just bare walls and cardboard boxes, Herm blended into the background quite nicely, nestled into a pile on the far end of the sofa while everyone else was moving around the heart of the living room, a dizzying blur of dancing bodies, out of costume for the occasion but just as colourful. Just as loud.
Herm felt bad for being a downer on Robert’s birthday, sitting in the corner like a sulking child, but then again, it wasn’t like anyone had noticed.
Yet, he told himself. He was part of the team now, with a contract and everything, and he got along with the others fine. There were laughs. There were shared successes, claps on the back followed by comments about how he was but skin and bone. There were shared failures, and nobody would blame him for a mission gone wrong if it wasn’t genuinely his fault.
Still, Herm couldn’t help the nagging, penetrating thought that he’d been invited purely because he’d have found out about the party afterward, and because no one wanted to make him sad. Robert especially, with his heart of gold beneath the hardened exterior, who’d been nothing but kind to him from the very beginning. He wouldn’t have excluded anyone, no matter who they were, and it should’ve been a comforting thought, knowing that none of his faults could possibly matter now that he was a part of this little family, and maybe it was the beers Prism had coaxed him into drinking, but as he watched life go on without him, a dozen people enjoying themselves without ever wondering where he’d gone, he couldn’t help but feel like it really had been politeness that’d made Robert extend an invitation to him.
He was, after all, the youngest addition to the team, and he lacked one crucial aspect that connected them all: he had never been a villain. He lacked the stomach for it, paling at the sight of blood, grown into powers that ensured no one would take him seriously. Even now that he was earning his title as hero, the appearance remained: a towering twig of a man, dripping from every pore, stuttering his way through the simplest of words.
The others had killed. Not all of them, maybe, but a great many of them, and the ones that hadn’t had certainly tried, maiming and extorting and stealing and all sorts of other ways to hurt someone without ending their life. They were phoenixes, reborn from their old ways but carrying the ashes as history regardless, and Herm simply couldn’t share that. There was nothing that tied him to the others save for circumstance, the forced proximity of their work, and Herm was caught somewhere between glowering at Beef where he was sitting in his lap and bursting into tears.
He wasn’t like them. He was an emergency addition turned permanent, and while he was grateful for it on most other days, today was different. Something about the noise. Something about the laughter he wasn’t a part of, the stories told over blaring music that he couldn’t relate to. Something in the whirling lights chasing across the room, doing little to lift Herm’s spirits, serving only in blinding him whenever a beam hit him right in the face.
Beef walked up across his chest where he was slumped back, and it was all Herm could do to open his arms for him and let him lick along his cheek. He didn’t mind the moisture, it seemed—liked it, even, if the way he ran into puddles was anything to go by. Herm would watch him sometimes, when he and Robert left the building at the same time.
He wondered if Robert was uncomfortable in those moments, if, after a long day of bearing responsibility, he was annoyed that Herm wouldn’t take a hint and allow him to go home.
He almost missed the time when everyone was mean to him. That way, he wouldn’t have to wonder where he stood, looking for meaning in the nuances. That way, he would’ve been at home right now, eating his grandma’s casserole while she nodded her head to her vinyls. She was easier company, carrying her heart on her tongue, expressing her concern about his work whenever he came home scraped and bruised, pressing kisses to his forehead no matter how old he got.
Just as he considered whether going home would be kinder to them all, Herm startled at a shift next to him, a dip of the cushion that he only felt because it came with quite the momentum. Punch Up had come jogging at the sofa and flung himself up onto it, landing with a huff and a strand of hair loose from the gel-slick rest.
“You alright there, lad?” he asked, getting comfortable. With his feet sticking out past the cushions, he gave off the impression that he had every intention of staying here for a little while. It made it harder to feel like he’d come here out of courtesy, stopping by for a brief moment before getting back to people who were more fun.
Herm pulled away from Beef, giving his ears a gentle scratch. Beef melted into his touch, a hind leg twitching against Herm’s stomach. “My grandma’s cats don’t like me,” he said. He realised as soon as it left his mouth that it made no sense, spoken out of context like that, but he also didn’t know what else would have made sense. “They don’t like my—you know.” He gestured with his hand, gloveless for the evening, shiny with dampness.
“Aye,” said Punch Up. “I bet they don’t.”
It wasn’t the sort of response Herm had expected. He wasn’t sure he’d expected anything, really, rather than the tense silence of someone who regretted talking to him, but as he glanced over, Punch Up didn’t seem bothered at all. He was just tall enough to lay his arm across the back of the sofa without straining, and he met Herm’s eye without a hint of annoyance.
“I tried to give me aunt’s a bath when I was a wee lad,” he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “Scratched me to Hell and back, she did. Even got the scars to prove it.” He searched his forearm for a moment, scanning the gaps between tattoos and deeper scars, ones that Herm wasn’t sure were recent enough to have been earned during hero work. “Ah, there she is. She was a wicked one.”
Herm followed his pointed finger to a cluster of lines along Punch Up’s arm, gone pale with age. It was difficult to see amidst the swirling lights, but he could just make out the pattern of them, climbing all along his arm to disappear under the sleeve of his shirt, as if the cat had skittered all up his body in an attempt to escape.
“Took it personal for ages,” Punch Up went on. “I imagine she did, too. Can’t say I blame her.” He let that ring, as if he’d just shared some great wisdom. Maybe there was some meaning Herm was meant to pick up on—maybe the implication was that this cat and Punch Up had learned to make up eventually, trust rebuilt after fracture. But Herm had never hurt anyone on purpose. He couldn’t help the moisture, and by the time he’d thought to wear gloves while petting his grandma’s cats, they’d already learned to fear his touch.
Something must have shown on his face, then. Punch Up shuffled closer, nudging him lightly. “But you’re not cowering back here ‘cause of your cats, are ya, kid?”
“No,” Herm said, startling even himself with how easily he said it, how effortless it was to be honest. Maybe his brain had just accepted that it would be difficult to make things any worse. “I’m just…”
He paused. Punch Up looked less severe in the warm light, disheveled by booze and movement. Herm had the distinct feeling that he would not be laughed at, but he found there were no words to begin with. Nothing coherent, anyway, nothing that wasn’t just a string of rambles spat at Punch Up’s feet, and all of them sounding terribly like accusations. Herm wanted to throw accusations, sometimes, when sleep did not come easy or he was worn down after a hard day’s work. He didn’t shrink so easily then, and beneath the stuttering and the aching need for approval was something that longed to break things, to shout at the very world in demand for answers.
Were he to put it all into words, it wouldn’t come out right. It wasn’t rage that’d taken hold of him tonight. Where others became invigorated when alcohol was involved, Herm wanted nothing more than to sink into the fibres of the sofa with Beef and forget he’d ever existed at all.
“I don’t know,” he said, just to say something.
And strangely enough, Punch Up made a sound like he somehow knew exactly what he meant.
“I get that way on wine,” he said, reaching out to give Beef a pat. “Keep hearing it’ll make ya feel all fancy and wise. Fuck me, I just end up thinking ‘bout Coop.”
New though he was, Herm felt the weight of that. When the thrill of victory had worn off after Shroud, Punch Up had seemed—smaller, somehow. For as long as Herm had known him, he’d carried his height with pride, filling out his skin to the brim, his strength bursting forth even from his shortened frame. But knowing Coupé was behind bars, knowing he’d likely never see her again, had visibly messed with him, even when they’d broken up before that. Herm hadn’t known how to approach it—had been sure it wouldn’t have been welcome, in any case—but he’d felt the impact it’d had on Punch Up.
He’d gotten better by the looks of it, blooming anew, grieving in bite-sized pieces. Herm wasn’t sure he liked the thought that it could all come back to him with only wine as a catalyst, things he’d thought he’d processed and gotten over hitting him in full force, as if no time at all had passed.
It sure sounded like Herm. All the joy of the past few months seemed like a distant dream, like he’d been naive to think it was real, like he was only now seeing the truth of things. Like this was all there was: the bitterness, the malaise, the hollow cracks for ideas to sink into and fester, grown from nothing and nothing at all.
“Tell ya what,” said Punch Up, and he shoved himself back to his feet to stand in front of him. “You and me, we’re gonna sober up. Come on.”
He held out his hand like he meant to help Herm up. Beef turned his head to look back at him, ever curious, and Herm considered for a long moment, weighing his exhaustion against the prospect of a friendly face, a hand outstretched to him when no one had been paying him any mind before.
Beef made a small sound of disappointment when Herm lifted him off of him, starved for love despite getting plenty of it. Herm gave him a final pet between the ears before beginning the long journey back to a vertical position, pulled gently along by Punch Up.
“Easy, lad,” said Punch Up when he tilted, steadying him by the shoulder. His hands were warm, and he didn’t seem to mind the dampness. “Fuck, how many have you had?”
Herm blinked down at their joint hands, willing his head to stop spinning. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Prism gave them to me. I think she might’ve filmed me.”
“Fuck’s sake.” Punch Up shook his head, looking back briefly to find Prism in the crowd, holding a shot glass between her teeth and clinking it together with the one in Flambae’s mouth. “Never understood what people get out of that.” He looked back at Herm, and Herm could not help the smile on his face. Punch Up, too, had a long list of crimes to his name, but peer pressuring others into drinking was apparently where he drew the line. “Well, at least the stutter’s gone. Come on, kid, easy does it now.”
It wasn’t the greatest support, seeing as Herm had to bend down a little to keep a hold of Punch Up’s hand, but he did feel a bit more stable as he brought himself to his feet. There was a moment where he thought a rubber band had snapped around his head, an even ache all across his skull, but it settled after a moment.
“Let me know if you’re gonna puke,” Punch Up said, and Herm shook his head.
“No.” He took a look around, reorienting himself in this new perspective, no longer looking up at the world from below. A little dizzying, but otherwise manageable. “I think I’m good.”
It felt like minutes that the two of them made their way through the throng to find the kitchen, where they drank a silent toast with water from the fancy whiskey glasses that Punch Up himself had gifted Robert just earlier today. Herm was surprised that no one had bumped into him back when he’d been on the sofa, seeing as it felt near impossible now to move around the apartment without brushing against someone. As Herm tipped his head back to down his water, the back of his head bumped into the upper arm of Royd, who didn’t even seem to notice. He was shaking a metal container in his hands, and Herm watched him pour the contents of it into a tall glass, orange and pink swirling together, before he handed it to Malevola, who wrapped her tail around the glass and managed to make her way back to the others without spilling a drop.
“You know how I used to spend Friday nights back home when I was your age?” asked Punch Up, shouting over the music. The sofa had allowed for some amount of distance from the speaker, but Herm could feel its vibrations in the floor now, reverberating from the black box nestled against the counter between Royd’s feet. Punch Up cocked his head, gesturing behind him, to the space between the kitchen and the door. “Me dad used to own a pub,” he said, and Herm took his empty glass from him to put them both in the sink before following him to that empty spot, free of people if only for a few feet. “Used to help out a few times a week, just to have something to do. And every night before closing up, he’d have the band pick it up one more time, and it’d get those drunk fucks right back to dancing again. Think he prevented a few fights that way, too.”
Something in his posture shifted, then. His broad stance narrowed, his feet closer together, and he held out his hand to Herm once more, grinning up at him from under thick eyebrows. “Music’s less than ideal,” he said, “but it’ll do.”
Maybe it was the alcohol, then, that made Herm process this without tripping over the absurdity of it. Stranger things had happened, he supposed: he’d met his childhood heroes, become a hero himself, been invited to Mecha Man’s place only to wallow on his sofa for the better part of the night, and been dragged off that same sofa by someone who definitely had better things to do and better people to talk to, but had, for some reason, chosen him as company.
Were Herm to go home, he’d probably just drop into bed right after, and he’d consider himself lucky in the morning if he’d remembered to brush his teeth.
There was nothing else to do tonight, and something about Punch Up was warm and encouraging, wrapping around the laid-bare nerves he’d been nursing half an hour ago and plucking the ache from them like it wasn’t at all as heavy as it’d felt. Something within Herm felt just a little less desperate, a little less like he was straining well past capacity just to be a person.
“Attaboy,” said Punch Up when Herm took his hand, letting himself be arranged however Punch Up needed him. “Alright, so you start like this.”
And so, Herm channelled his focus solely into his feet, making sure they would keep his balance as he followed Punch Up’s lead. The music was vibrant, a fast-paced pound of bass to set the beat, and Herm did feel a little silly there at the edge of the room, hidden away in a whole separate world, but no one was watching. All the others were in their own world, too—the world where the music fit the setting, where the night was still young and ripe for the taking, where Robert was the shining centre of his tiny apartment, celebrated for all he was worth. Herm might’ve liked to be part of that, too. Maybe he still could.
But right now, Punch Up was guiding him back and forth in a criss-cross sort of pattern, and Herm found himself smiling against all odds, against everything in him that did not feel like smiling. Where his mind dragged its feet like a comet’s tail, his body felt light and pleasantly warm, and his long limbs didn’t bother him so much when they fit so nicely in with Punch Up’s. The steps bore simple, cheerful shapes, little jumps followed by quick swipes of his feet, all while Punch Up held him steady through it, leading him this way and that across this little hallway of Robert’s, one step and one light tug of his hand at a time.
“You’re a natural, lad,” he told Herm, and Herm gave a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a scoff. If anything, it was Punch Up who was a natural, such an unexpected lightness in his step despite his stature, like he was not the strength of ten men combined into one. He kicked his feet back like his calves were not as thick as Herm’s head, like his boots could not have crushed bones, and he steered Herm like they were not polar opposites both in size and demeanour, grinning up at him with genuine joy.
Herm was dizzy with it. With the spinning, perhaps, and the speed he had to keep up with, arranging his feet into fluttering shapes—or maybe with the whiplash of his quickly things had changed, how quickly his misery had retreated from him. Herm was damp across his hairline, sweat and water both, and his legs were starting to ache already, accustomed to running and climbing and carrying things, but not this.
Still, he let Punch Up steer him across that little space they’d carved out, where the floor still creaked with newness every so often and Herm had to make sure not to trip over the uneven tiling. His breath was coming quicker now, catching on the occasional laugh whenever he looked up from his own feet and caught Punch Up’s eye, and he felt miles away from the person who’d slouched against a bunch of cushions, hardly feeling alive at all.
“Hey,” he called over the music. He could hardly hear himself, but Punch Up did. “Thank you.”
He might still go home after this; unlike all the others, he was not used to staying up this late, especially not after work. He might still feel a little awkward while trying to get Robert’s attention, intruding on whatever conversation he’d been having to say goodbye for the night. There might still be comments about how no one had even noticed he was there, and the implication would hang unspoken in the air: that no one would mind him leaving.
But strangely enough, it only occurred to him now that he would not mind leaving, either. His ears were beginning to ring with the sheer volume being blasted through the speaker, and he hoped he’d gather up the courage to say no the next time someone tried to get him to drink. Of course people had forgotten he was there—he was as out of place at a party like this as a person could be. He’d have much preferred a quieter night of games and conversation, but it wasn’t his birthday. It was Robert’s, and Robert could spend it however he liked.
If Herm’s invitation had been an act of politeness and nothing more, perhaps it was only because Robert had known that it wasn’t Herm’s sort of scene.
What a strange feeling, that. Knowing he wouldn’t have wanted something either way, but feeling hurt at being left out regardless. Maybe that was something to work on.
“Course, lad,” said Punch Up, as though he could see this thought process happening on his face. He came to a gradual stop, and the world spun around the two of them for a few moments longer. He gave Herm’s hand a squeeze, the calluses of his palms pressing into Herm’s fingers, four little points of pressure where his warmth came through the most. “You’re family.”
And this time, more so than all the other times he’d heard it, it got through. Something warm and pleasant settled in Herm’s chest, and he still wanted to cry a bit, some lingering hurt that felt real no matter how many times he turned it over in his hands, but it was smaller, now. No longer all-consuming, no longer grinding him to dust between its molars.
Herm pressed his back against the wall, catching his breath with a loose-lipped smile. Flambae shot them a questioning look as he passed them, but for the first time ever, there was a quiet joy in not being understood, because this time, there was someone next to him who did.
Maybe it was about finding the right things to do with the right people. Herm looked down at the man next to him, near twice his age and deeply passionate under all that hard-packed muscle. He thought of his grandma and the friends he used to have before he moved to California. He thought of his mother and her inherent understanding of him, and his father, who’d tried his best despite the hurdles.
Maybe he could live with that. Maybe there was less worth than he’d thought in the approval of people he didn’t click with in the first place.
Maybe he could make an unlikely friend in a place he was less than comfortable with, and maybe family didn’t always mean being alike in all things.