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“What the fuck are you doing?”
Regect jumps, turning to quickly look at the quite irritated owner of the voice. “Uh.”
Ze squares up, “What, uh, what are you doing by the hole, Regect?”
“I was just – I was looking at it. Y’know, trying, to, uh, figure it out.”
“Yeah? Well, I mean, you can figure it out from here, right.”
Ze gives a sharp little smile. Regect looks at the hole, recalls his plan, and stays planted firmly next to the edge.
“Regect.”
“I, uh, have a better view from here.”
“Regect,” Ze all but growls, “Get the fuck over here. Now.”
Regect grits his teeth. The Hole is so very close, and if he can just-
He’s yanked away from it by Ze, who keeps a painfully tight grip on his arm. It all goes by way too quickly for Regect to react to it.
“What about stay close did you not fucking understand? Here-” Ze tries to find Regect’s hand. It takes him a moment, and Regect tries not to help him. The grip is, once again, deathly tight, and Regect has to be careful to not catch his claws on Ze’s skin. “If you can’t fucking listen, then I guess I’ll just have to do it for you.”
With that, Ze trudges on. Regect follows lest his arm get ripped out of its socket – something he didn’t think possible but if anyone could manage it, it would be Ze. He can see the displeasure oozing from Ze, but, well, he never does know how to back down.
He tries to wriggle free, but Ze is, maybe, if one squints under the right glare of the sun, stronger than him. “Uh, what are you – what are you doing man?”
Ze just glares at him. There’s a slight bump in the ground that allows Regect a second of air to breath and he almost lunges back to the Hole – he has to fix this, he can’t lose anyone else, can’t wait and watch another person leave and then not return and have to wait and wait and wait while the rain never stops and the chasm inside him grows deeper and deeper until he’s just the same as the hole – but Ze’s too fast for him, and he just ends up with an armful of an angry gun-owning maniac.
“Listen right fucking here, you stupid shit! You are going to hold my fucking hand like you’re a kid and we’re crossing the road – no, no, shut the fuck up – and you’re not going to go anywhere with a stupid fucking hole. If you get more than five fucking steps away from me, I am making a collar and so help me God, I will shove it on you even if you bite all of my fucking limbs off.”
Regect considers biting Ze now, running as fast as he can and fixing this once and for all, but Ze’s grip is unrelenting, and he doesn’t think he could seriously hurt the other man either way. And Ze is faster than him. And he really doesn’t want a collar. Well, actually – no, nope, not going down that route, stopping that line of thinking right away.
For a moment, Ze’s expression shifts, softens, teeth dulled. It’s begging – what exactly, Regect can’t tell, but there’s desperation there, fear. A sort of whining.
Regect – relents. He can’t go against Ze this overtly, has found himself giving in more often than not after all the things that happened, a quiet way of begging Ze not to leave again, a promise that he’ll be better. He can’t refuse this, can’t say that the way concern cascades over Ze is anything but torturous. They’ll find another way, he concedes, one where he doesn’t have to hurt Ze.
There’s no way to put all that he feels into words, no way to express just how much power Ze has over him. So, he puts his walls up, finds humour already reaching out with solution, “A collar?” He says, verbally emphasising the smirk Ze can’t see, “Kinky.”
He gets shoved to the side, but Ze doesn’t let go of him so he’s just yanked back and forth.
“Shut the fuck up, dude, it’s not – shut up,” Ze’s cheeks redden, and Regect gets hit again, “I’m not fucking joking – no Hole.”
“...Okay, sure, no Hole.”
There’s a moment, then Ze’s on the move again, so Regect’s on the move again.
“Why... Why would you even go down there?” Ze asks quietly, almost silent, “Why - we said we’d do it together.”
That’s the problem, really. Regect doesn’t want to do this with Ze, doesn’t want him to be in any more danger, has a horrible feeling that all this is his fault. If Regect hadn’t gone to Ze at the start of all this, so very long ago, Ze wouldn’t be in this scenario, wouldn’t still be struggling to sleep every night, waking every few hours, new nightmare on his lips. He wanted to take care of it all for Ze, so he wouldn’t have to be scared again, so Regect would be the brave on for once.
Regect doesn’t know how to say all that, doesn’t know how to put it in a way that won’t make Ze falter, stumble, pull away, especially now, when he needs comfort so much.
“I was just,” he murmurs, “Just - thinking. Talk to whatever's down there. Entity to entity, you know?”
“I don’t want you going down there. It’s not – I don’t. It’s not... Not good. It won’t listen.”
Regect leans into Ze, bumping against his shoulder, a pale imitation of comfort but it’s all he can muster at the moment. Ze’s starting to shut down.
“Okay. It won’t listen. We’ll figure something else out.”
Ze’s grip on his hand loosens, but Regect doesn’t let him pull away. “We’ll figure something else out. Go to Wakafante. He’ll probably know something.”
It doesn’t work – Ze still goes to that place he goes to sometimes, now. Regect can’t reach him in there, can only look and wait and try to read Ze’s non-existent facial cues enough to tell he’s being a help rather than a hindrance. Regect just shifts, presses closer, plans a path to getting Ze to the closest bed, where he can get some good food, how he can kindly ask Wakafante to keep in down in his own home until Ze comes back.
“I’m fine,” Ze mutters, but his eyes are still blank, “I’m just – I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Regect says immediately, but Ze can’t hear him. “Do you want to make a plan? We’ll plan it all out perfect and then follow it and then everything will be fine, right?”
Ze blinks at him. “Plan?”
“Yeah, we’re on step one right now, yeah? Like, uh, going to the Wizard, asking him for help, yeah? Then, then step two, which is making more steps, and then, uh, well, I’ve ran out of steps, but we’ll think of something.”
Ze squeezes Regect’s hand, “We’ll make a plan?”
“Yeah,” he says softly, “The best plan. And no one will go into the Hole alone – no one will go into the Hole at all.”
Ze’s slowly coming back, faster than the first few times, and Regect hopes that means he’s getting better.
“Promise?”
He nods, “Promise.”
There’s more walking in silence, and, gradually, Ze leans away, stops putting all his weight on Regect, starts walking by himself.
“I’ll - we’ll make a plan later. It’ll be a good one.”
Regect hums agreeably.
“Regect?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks - thanks for taking care of me.”
Regect tries not to showcase his smile too much. “Eh, someone has to do it, you’d lose your fucking head otherwise.”
The moments broken, they continue on, but the moment existed. Even if for a moment, that fragile softness around them took shape, a form that was tangible, that could fray and burn but also sparkle in radiance. Regect doesn’t want to break it, doesn’t want it to collapse under the weight of two emotionally constipated assholes, but it exists, he has proof that he exists in those six words. Thanks for taking care of me. As if Regect would do anything else. As if he’d want to be anywhere else.
Thanks for taking care of me.
As if Regect didn’t love him enough to make it instinctive.