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It’s getting bad again.
Wrench is alone. He cannot think, cannot feel, cannot fight, good for nothing at all as he sits in his bed and rots in his solitude. He’s barely left his room in six days. He hasn’t eaten in two. The pangs of hunger in his stomach are ignored, just like the texts on his phone, like the empty water bottles and wrappers on his nightstand, like the absolute emptiness that washes over him and swallows him whole.
How long has it been since he was last like this, decaying, unable to stand from his bed? Days? Years? How much longer until he’d get off his ass and sign up for another fight? Do his damn job?
Even if the answer were in reach, he’s too tired to think of it. He sits instead.
His laptop is between his legs, his fingers hovering over the trackpad as he mindlessly scrolls. (Scroll. Scroll had sent him a message the other day, asking if he was okay. Asking if he’d be up for a friendly match soon. He still couldn’t muster up an answer.) Social media posts fly by at one flick of his hand as he barely bothers to read them. Reading is too much effort. How pathetic could one person be?
All of a sudden, the screen flashes with an empty battery symbol, before turning black as it powers off.
It takes Wrench a short while to process it before he grumbles and slams the lid shut. He had just charged the damn thing! He’d only been on it for a couple of hours now, right?
…The alarm clock on his desk reads 6:07 A.M.. Twelve hours, then.
He stands up. Just as he’s about to plug the laptop in, there’s a knock at his door, and he freezes in the middle of his room.
“Wrench?” Splodey’s voice carries inside. “Can I come in? I’ve barely seen you this week, I miss you.”
I miss you.
Wrench doesn’t speak a word, can’t speak a word, his throat closing up and his mind drawing a blank despite its now-racing thoughts. For one terrifying moment, his heart is all he can feel, its beat following a crescendo as it pounds in his head — his head which had been numb just a minute ago. He waits. He prays to a God he doesn’t believe in for them to leave.
A second later, they continue: “I know you’re awake, silly. I heard you just a second ago.”
He shouldn’t be so scared. Why is he so scared? They’re just checking in on him!
They’re going to see him at his worst.
“...I’m gonna come in, okay?”
They’re going to see him like this.
“If you don’t want me in there, just, uh…”
They’re going to be disgusted, they’re going to hate him, they’re going to tell everyone how much of a slob he is, how he can’t pick up after himself, how he does nothing but look at Twitter all day, how he’s too lazy to even feed himself, then leaves a mess everywhere when he does…
“Just say the word, okay? Shout no! or something.”
But he doesn’t.
He stands there, unblinking and still, like an idiot.
The door opens, revealing Splodey’s face on the other side, and their warm face brings attention to the slowly-coming sunrise. They appear with a nervous smile that puts their dimples on display. Wrench fails to smile back.
“Hey man,” they greet him, their tone as soft as a hug. He could really use one of those right now. “What’cha been up to?”
With another person in the room, Wrench curls in on himself, suddenly very conscious of the sweat and grease clinging to his body. He leaves his laptop on his desk and sits back in bed (like the sluggard of a “person” he is). “Uhm. Not much.”
His heart refuses to settle. He frowns at himself.
“Yeah? Me neither, honestly, there’s a good couple of weeks until my next match and everyone else is so busy training, I’ve just been thinking about you a lot…”
Wrench nods along, but it’s difficult to truly listen. His chest feels tight and hollow, his leg shakes against the ground, his hair itches and sticks to his skin, and he feels well and truly abhorrent. Repulsive. Gross. His fist closes around his mussed, dirty sheets. He needs something to dig his nails into.
“...sorry. I’m not here to ramble.” As Wrench tunes back in, Splodey gestures to the empty space on his bed. “Can I sit?”
He nods.
They settle next to him, looking down at their hands as the mattress creaks. It’s another long moment before their eyes fall on him again.
“I’ve missed sitting next to you in the bleachers every morning,” they say. “Lazer comes with me, and Axe, and Crossbow. And it’s only been a few days since you last came! It’s just different without you. I’ve missed your voice, I’ve barely even seen you around the kitchen or the lounge or anything. I’m worried about you.”
Wrench can’t be brought to meet their gaze. He stares through the floor instead, sweat clamming up his palms.
“You don’t have to tell me you’re okay. I know you’re-”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t realize he was speaking until he’d finished. His breath shakes, hollow, and he feels it’s not him speaking as he goes on: “Really. I’m just… tired, Splodey. You’re reading too much into this. I needed a break from all the fighting stuff, I guess.”
“You guess?”
Their tone isn’t accusatory, but he flinches anyways. “Sure.”
Splodey pauses. Their hands dig into the bedsheets, similar to how he does, and he can see their uneven fingernails through the corner of his eye. “You’ve hardly even answered your phone in days.”
“I told you, I’m tired.”
The air between them feels thick. Silence follows his voice, enough to where he can hear them swallow, and he turns his head away.
Wrench doesn’t like to be scared. He has not once admitted fear to his friends — during horror movies, he sits stock-still, not even daring to breathe during the jumpscares. He skips out on haunted houses and amusement parks because he refuses to let anyone see him shiver. Being seen as weak, as lesser than, is a thought enough to make his eyes wet and his muscles tense. Yet here he is, his heart in his throat as his dearest friend watches him.
It was a mistake making friends to begin with.
“Tired… of us?”
He doesn’t answer. Perhaps it’s a trick of his ear, but he thinks he can hear them sniffle.
He resists the urge to look.
“I thought maybe you needed some time alone,” Splodey says. “I mean, I didn’t know if- I didn’t think anything had happened, but everyone needs to recharge sometimes, right? And you’d just lost the Battle Royale thing with Katana, so I let you be, but it’s been like, a week, and I’ve done this before, Wren!” Their voice hiccups, and Wrench wants to cry. “I’ve sat alone for days, weeks, months, I’ve been depressed out of my mind, isolating myself and waiting to see how long it’d be before someone checked, and no one ever checked, and I just…”
Splodey’s hands ball into fists. “If you’re tired of us, or of me, you can tell me, okay? I get it. I’m- I’m a lot to be around. I just don’t want you to be miserable and alone like I was, I don’t want you to feel like you have nothing. You have me. I want to be here for you. I can’t live without you, Wren.”
“So now I have to?”
He doesn’t think before he says it; the moment he does, his heart falls to his stomach. They both go quiet. His head whips back to them, and their eyes are wide, welling with tears that’d spent far too long suppressed. The room falls silent again.
They get up off the bed.
They leave.
The door closes with a sickening little click, and Wrench can’t keep himself together. He falls back onto his pillow as his body wreaks itself with a sob.
Why the fuck did he say that? How could someone be so incredibly stupid? What the hell is wrong with him? His jaw chatters and he could swear he’s about to throw up with how sick he feels, swallowed entirely by a pit of dread, his chest and limbs and hands shaking shaking shaking, unable to breathe. His head is hotter than fire. (Hotter than a bomb lighting up against his skin.)
That’s it. He fucked up, worse than he’s ever fucked up before. Splodey was just trying to check on him and now he has nothing. Nothing at all. He might as well quit Weapon Balls. Maybe kill himself while he’s at it. He couldn’t stand seeing Splodey’s face every day, knowing he could’ve seen them smile, knowing he could’ve heard them call his name, knowing he lost them for a couple of words he didn’t even mean to say. He didn’t mean it. Why did he say that?!
The slight echo of his crying is the ugliest thing he’s ever heard.
Across the room, his door opens again, and he curls into himself until he physically can’t anymore. He doesn’t want to know who’s here to watch him sob.
“Wrench.”
He whimpers. He sounds like a kicked dog.
The bed creaks, the weight of another person settling upon it. A soft hand rests on his back. “Wrench. Wrench, buddy, look at me.”
He does as he’s told, and is met with Splodey’s face, tears streaming down their cheeks. His heart beats in his throat. “Why are you still here?”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No!” Wrench can’t help how he shouts, his aching voice reverberating against the walls. “No, no, no, I don’t, I didn’t mean… I never did, never-”
“Okay, it’s okay,” they hush him. Their hand moves, setting something on the ground, then reaches for him again. It cups around his face. “I’m sorry, I thought you wanted me out, I just came back ‘cause I-” they sniffle- “I wanted to help you clean up in here, I’m not judging you but it’s a bit of a mess, I just…”
He looks down at the floor. A black garbage bag sits against the bed.
“...I love you, Wren,” Splodey continues. “And I’m not used to- to feeling loved back. Even though sometimes I question if you do,” they laugh sadly. “You’re everything to me. I want you to be happy. I want you here, okay? Even if you don’t want me.”
Wrench frowns. “I do.”
“Then I’ll be here,” they tell him, not missing a beat. Their thumb brushes his cheek.
“I don’t know why I said that.” He murmurs the words, more careful as he chooses them now. “I wanted… just…”
He looks down to his lap. It’s difficult, vulnerability — he’s not used to being open about things, to talking about emotions or wants or needs. He can’t remember a time he ever had been.
Splodey is patient. They don’t speak over his silence, giving him as much time as he needs.
“I don’t know why I get like this. I don’t want you to see me like this,” he explains. “I don’t want you to know how disgusting I am. I don’t. I can be better than this.”
They give him what might be the world’s saddest smile. “You don’t have to be.”
He breaks again.
Splodey leans close, taking his head against their shoulder and pulling him into a tight hug. He sobs, loud and open, for what might be the first time since he was a child. One hand rests against his back while the other runs through his oily hair. The fact they can even stand to touch him in a state like this makes him cry even harder.
“If you’ve been through this before,” Splodey says, “it means you got through it to get here. You made it. You don’t have to be strong all the time to be capable.”
A hiccup shakes his body. He wraps his arms tight around them, afraid to let go, afraid to lose them.
“You’re allowed to be exhausted, to be sad, to be miserable, to take as long as you need until you’re ready to face the world again. I will make sure you’re allowed to have that time, okay? It doesn’t make you any lesser than everyone else. Ever.”
“I don’t want to be weak,” Wrench mumbles. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You aren’t.” The way the words fall so easily from their mouth makes him want to believe them.
He decides he will.
The two stay like that for a while, Splodey gently rocking them both back and forth. The mattress creaks with them. It’s as if time has paused just for this moment, the air still, everything quiet but for the soft hum and shush of Splodey’s voice. Wrench isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to get up. He wants to stay like this forever, drowned with his sorrow, underneath someone who cares enough to protect him. It’s a brand new feeling and he’s hanging on to every last bit of it.
When he shakes, there are hands here to hold him. When he sobs, there is a voice here to lull him.
It’s a comfort he’s not sure he ever knew he craved.
Eventually, noises rise outside the bedroom. It’s morning. The early birds are getting out of bed to start their day, making their breakfast or coffee and chattering in the lounge. Someone in the next room grumbles about going back to sleep. Lights slowly turn on, one by one. He can faintly hear sizzling and rustling.
The thought of food draws a low rumble from Wrench’s stomach, and he groans, pushing himself closer to Splodey. He’d almost forgotten about his hunger.
“Hey,” they whisper. The sound is as sweet as honey. “Why don’t we get some breakfast, ‘kay? Whatever you wanna eat. Then we can get you back in bed to sleep.” Their hand falls from his hair to his shoulders. “We’ve had a long night.”
“Okay,” Wrench agrees, nodding and raising his head weakly. “Okay.”
When he looks back up, the sun is shining warm and golden through his window. The rays filter through his blinds and capture the dust in the air.
For once, he knows he is safe.