Chapter Text
Even in between the chaos of living with the Mafia or the Empire or whatever new threat that poked into Spoke’s life, he always found it a thrill.
Especially, he found, with Mapicc at his side.
Spoke certainly never expected him to become a constant companion— after all, this was just a guy Spoke had found smelting kelp in some tiny base, somehow willing to tag along on a random mission. The first of many, and he had a feeling they both knew it at the time.
Because Mapicc always had his back in a fight, caught his jokes easily, and somehow always knew when Spoke was low on rockets. They shared gear and a base and a lot more memories than Spoke would have ever guessed possible.
Even during the most chaotic of moments, they got to know each other so well in parallel— more than a hired hand to raid a base with or a lackey to order around. They were equals. Friends. And that was a label Spoke had been hesitant to use considering what happened the last time he let himself enjoy companionship.
His early days with Jamato, though, seemed very distant. Because Mapicc never doubted, never left his side, never prodded at his morality.
——
It was during one late afternoon that the Mafia had attacked them, particularly relentlessly.
Even when caught off-guard, they fought off the Mafia with little resistance and no help except for some potions. After a clattering of swords and a white firework, half of their voiceless attackers retreated and the other half had long fallen lifeless among the grass. Spoke huffed a laugh as he watched the survivors fly out over the horizon, out of sight.
“Not bad!” Spoke exclaimed with a grin. He glanced over at Mapicc, who was no doubt catching his breath, same as Spoke. Truth be told, he stayed oddly silent and was instead staring down at the ground, all littered with dropped gear.
“Ooh, good thinking,” Spoke said. “Any good loot?”
He got to work crouching down near the downed figure of an unlucky Mafia member. Mapicc didn’t give a reply, too busy sizing up the gear. Probably.
With a hum, Spoke returned his attention to poking at the disarmed corpse’s armor. Diamond trim— it seemed they were starting to send out their better soldiers.
“These guys always show up loaded.” Then Spoke called over his shoulder, “Hey, Mapicc, you need a new helmet?”
Mapicc’s pauses were starting to unease Spoke. He turned around and saw Mapicc wavering in place, hand still stuck at his side.
“Uh,” came Mapicc’s voice, sounding oddly frail. “Spoke?”
He was up on his feet and at Mapicc’s side in a heartbeat. “Woah. Mapicc. Mape, you’re good, right?”
When he didn’t reply, Spoke followed his eyes and tugged Mapicc’s palm away, enough to catch a glimpse of red blooming across his lower abdomen.
Spoke froze, then immediately pressed his own hand to the wound. “That— Did you get hit? Why didn’t you tell me, idiot?”
“Potion wore off just now,” he said weakly.
Of course that’d be the case. Spoke almost wanted to scold him to be more careful with those stupid potions, but what shut him up was Mapicc’s pained expression. He was starting to double over.
“Okay, okay. That’s okay,” Spoke muttered, mostly to himself as he tried to shape his thoughts into something helpful. “You’re fine. We’ll, uh— go back home right now, and I’ll patch you up. Come on.”
Standing was starting to take a toll on Mapicc, so Spoke set his arm along his shoulder and mentally plotted out the way back home.
They got a total of three steps before Mapicc slumped further into a pained position, and slipped from Spoke’s supporting hold. “Ow,” he mumbled, and it sent nothing but panic into Spoke’s chest.
“Mapicc, Mapicc,” he said, kneeling down to better speak to him. “You’ve gotta help me out here, man.”
His friend mumbled something in reply, it might have been his name or a plea about the pain.
Spoke almost wanted to start digging in his pack for another potion, but knew he’d find nothing. He was ashamed to admit he didn’t know what to do or say for an entire, terrifying second.
Blood, a lot of it, was spreading too fast for comfort, visible even against Mapicc’s red clothes. Spoke rushed to press his own hand more firmly against the wound, applying however much pressure his shaky hand could manage.
“Mapicc, dude, come on,” he coaxed, and didn’t care how the panic leaked into his voice. “We’ve got to get home. You can stand, right?”
Mapicc nodded unconvincingly and straightened.
“Our base isn’t far,” Spoke lied.
After catching his breath, they were back on the move. They walked, painstakingly slow, all the way back to their base. The distance seemed enormous when Spoke was half-carrying his bloodied friend.
And every time Mapicc winced and made them stop to take a break, Spoke just held his breath.
—
All the way back home— and while he carefully set a pained Mapicc somewhere warm in their base— Spoke had tried to sharpen his panicky thoughts into focus. Surely he remembered how to administer proper first aid.
Clean the wound. Yes, that was the first step he remembered being taught to him. Spoke thought of Jamato’s voice teaching him the basics, and upon the old memory he realized his shoulders had tensed.
“Stay,” he said to Mapicc, who was lying on a padded bench, and all at once realized that was a stupid thing to ask of someone stabbed in the gut.
His eyeroll of a reply, as tired as it seemed, was a comfort to them both. Mapicc was doing marginally better with the health potion he’d managed to choke down upon getting home.
Spoke grabbed a rag on the way out of the room and— not without a deep breath to steel himself— went to soak it in water, wincing at the burn. He tried to hold the wet rag in as few places as possible, but the sting on his palms remained nonetheless.
The water was cold— he could still feel that much— but his skin still pricked and went numb in the spots he’d made the mistake of touching the water directly.
With the rag in one hand and a meager health kit in the other, Spoke hurried back to Mapicc’s side.
He got to work on the routine that seemed right, cleaning the blood and ignoring the uncomfortable burn already on the pads of his own hands. Funny how the same thing that meant nothing but pain for Spoke was the remedy for Mapicc.
However bad it looked, he tried his best to keep his expression reactionless.
“Sorry,” Spoke said to him in advance as he pulled out the long threads of stitching.
His hands shook rather badly, and the pads of his fingers were starting to blister. Nonetheless, he bit his lip and soldiered on, keeping the lines as neat and even as possible.
Mapicc mostly stared at the ceiling or shut his eyes entirely. Spoke wanted to tease him for being blood-queasy but numbly realized it wasn’t the time.
While Spoke was tying off the last stitch, Mapicc, no doubt trying to distract himself, asked Spoke, “Where’d you learn all this?”
“Taught myself,” he lied.
——
After a few hours more of Spoke’s half-decent medical care, Mapicc drifted asleep (which sent Spoke into a momentary panic) and he could finally let himself breathe. He still hovered close to keep an eye on him, and to clean off Mapicc’s blood from.. pretty much everything.
Mapicc slept a lot, but as the hours went by, it became clear he’d heal just fine. Health potions were a wonder. He woke up once to gawk at his stitches (his first Mafia battle scar!) and to trudge back to his room, where he promptly fell asleep again. He seemed in much better spirits.
That left Spoke alone to pick at the ugly flakes of burned skin on his hands. He decided not to waste any gauze on wrapping them up.
Soon enough, daylight passed and night fell upon their quiet base. Spoke felt exhaustion start to weigh upon his eyes.
He ended up in Mapicc’s room and, without another thought, curled into bed right beside him.
He should’ve known nothing would get past Mapicc, who shifted slightly and rolled onto his back. He sighed. No amount of dry snark could’ve hid his genuine question: “Okay. What’s wrong?”
Spoke didn’t say anything.
“Dude, don’t pretend to be asleep. Spoke.”
Spoke shut his eyes tight.
“Are… you okay?” Mapicc asked.
“I hate you,” was Spoke’s lie of a reply, because for whatever reason, his tongue wouldn’t let him, under any circumstance, tell the truth directly. The truth that earlier today, he had been terrified.
It was as if Mapicc had plucked the worried thought from Spoke’s mind directly. “I’m fine, Spoke. I’ve come back from worse, anyway.”
“You’ve got to be more careful,” Spoke muttered.
Mapicc let out a tiny laugh. “Look who’s talking. You do stupid stuff all the time.”
“So you admit it was stupid.”
“Calculated risk,” Mapicc corrected. “But this is why we’re teamed, right? One of us goes down and the other drags us home and patches us up. That’s, like, how it works.”
That didn’t make it any better. Mapicc had gotten hurt— badly— and had been entirely at the mercy of Spoke and his burned palms and shaky fingers. “We’ll get back at them for this.”
“Ooh,” Mapicc mused, “Real scary. What you should get is lessons in first aid. Your stitches suck.”
At that comment, Spoke propped himself up on the elbows, peeking over at Mapicc more properly. “Does something hurt?”
“What? No. I’m kidding.”
Spoke blinked, then laid back down wordlessly. Silence overtook them, and something dried Spoke’s mouth and gnawed at his thoughts. He didn’t like this feeling of worry— it was something he hadn’t felt in a long while, mostly overrun by the adrenaline of a recent fight or the excitement of an upcoming one.
Quiet moments were not his strong suit, and the thoughts that popped up in the silence made that obvious. He was never very good at calming himself.
It was then that Mapicc sighed. “Sorry,” he said, apologetic tone poking through the quiet. “I really was just joking. You did great, you know, with— helping me.”
Spoke didn’t exactly believe that. He then heard Mapicc shift around— which Spoke almost scolded him for, he could rip his stitches— before a spare pillow was tossed at his head.
“Ow?” Spoke said, puzzled.
“Take it. And stop acting all sad. You’re freaking me out.”
Spoke was too tired to do anything but oblige, arranging the pillow under his head and parallel to Mapicc’s. It was definitely better than lying straight on the mattress like a bedbug.
“Did you even take any of the Mafia loot?” Mapicc asked him.
“What? Dude, you were bleeding out.”
Mapicc sighed. “Ugh. Seriously? So, you didn’t?”
“No! You were bleeding out!”
“You could’ve fit something in your pockets,” he fake-grumbled.
“You’re ridiculous,” Spoke mumbled through a smile. He felt tiredness creep back upon him and, after a while, asked Mapicc genuinely, “Can I stay?”
“I literally just gave you a pillow.”
Spoke laughed for the first time in a while, and shut his eyes. “I still hate you, by the way.”
—-
One look in Mapicc and Spoke’s gear chests made it obvious whose stuff was who’s.
Mapicc loved his blindingly-red clothes, armor trimmed with devil horns, shield decorated with fire. There wasn’t a day that Spoke didn’t find it funny– he never found Mapicc even the slightest bit intimidating.
Case in point: Mapicc was currently fishing, and not catching much. He looked mildly ridiculous; his usual sword replaced with a fishing rod, a determined furrow to his brows as he watched his bobber in the lake, as if this were the fight of his life.
Against all reasonable logic, Spoke had tagged along. Not to fish, of course– that was a whole wet, scaley, burning mess he’d prefer to avoid– but because ever since taking down the Mafia, he was always down to laze around while Mapicc did whatever.
The riverbank was where they ended up. Spoke was lying in the grass, hands folded over his chest, facing the sky and listening to Mapicc cuss under his breath whenever he got too impatient for bites on his cast.
“I can hear your line getting tangled from here,” Spoke commented aloud at some point.
Mapicc mused back, “You better stay quiet before I throw you in the river.”
It suddenly occurred to Spoke that he never told Mapicc about his issue regarding water. Hm.
“Don’t,” said Spoke, feigning coolness. “I’m trying to nap.”
“Come over here,” he offered. “Fish with me.”
Spoke smothered a grimace at the idea of descaling fish, or hooking bait, or… whatever fish-related activity Mapicc would make him do. “Nah. I’m good.”
“Buzzkill. I bet you suck, that’s why.” There was the sound of Mapicc swinging a fresh line into the water. “You’d get jealous of me.”
“Not true.”
“I bet it’s hard having a best friend who’s better than you at, like, everything.”
“Right,” said Spoke sarcastically, mostly trying to wrap his head around the fact that Mapicc had just— for the first time— called him his best friend.
Spoke remembered his first best friend. It had ended so bitterly that Spoke thought he’d wince at the term for the rest of his life. This time, though, Mapicc said it as easily as taking a breath.
And Spoke realized he couldn’t see himself sticking any other label on their friendship. He guessed that was the accidental growth that came with being in Mapicc’s life. Or maybe it was Mapicc who was in Spoke’s life. Or— maybe it was all the same thing.
The sound of Mapicc casting another line broke him out of his sentimental thoughts.
“Spoke,” he called, voice a little quieter, “You’re not actually falling asleep over there, right?”
“What?” he said, snapping to attention. “No. I’m just thinking of stuff I can do better than you.”
Spoke swore he could hear Mapicc’s smirk from here. “Got anything yet?”
“Oh, shut up. I beat you at so much stuff. Like– like, uh, redstone.”
“I guess.”
“And farming.”
“That’s a lie. You hate water.”
“I do not.”
“Sure you do. Because you know what else you suck at? Keeping secrets.”
This time, Spoke opened his eyes, confused. “Uh, what?”
“You could’ve just told me it burns you,” he said casually. “I mean, you think I wouldn’t connect the dots?”
Spoke said nothing. He knew Mapicc was pretty observant, but he still always liked to think he did a good job at keeping that embarrassing tidbit a secret. Guess that wasn’t the case.
From over by the riverbank, Mapicc turned around to face Spoke, who shut his eyes just as fast.
Mapicc let out a huff. “Stop pretending to be asleep.”
“Fine, fine, whatever. You got me,” Spoke said. “Water burns. So what?”
No reply came. The next time Spoke opened his eyes, Mapicc was standing above him, fishing rod at his side.
“You should’ve told me,” he said to Spoke, staring down his friend with an unamused look.
Spoke shrugged, folding his hands behind his head. “Maybe. You figured it out yourself, though.”
“Yeah, but… you couldn’t have told me? I feel like that’s something I’ve got to know. Like— Dude. What if I threw you a surprise pool party because I didn’t know?”
Spoke considered that. “I guess that would suck.”
“No more secrets,” Mapicc said more firmly, getting to work re-hooking his bait. “We’re teamed, remember?”
“I… guess.” Feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable, Spoke scrambled to change the topic. “Can you swim, Mapicc?”
A long pause preceded his reply. “Yes…?” he admitted, still with some hesitation. “Please don’t push me into the river, dude.”
“Pfft. I’m not.” Although, yeah, that was a good idea. “What’s it like?”
Mapicc only replied after a second. He looked up at Spoke. “What, swimming?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s… uh, well. Hmm. Like moving yourself through something thicker than air. But you float. Er, usually you have to learn to do that.”
At Spoke’s hum, he continued on. Mapicc was never really a very good storyteller, but the details fell into place all the same. Spoke listened on as his friend fished and described the things he would never get to know.
Mapicc explained the feeling of swimming in rivers and the way you could feel the current under your legs, how the sun fell through water and marbled your reflection, how rainwater collected in your eyelashes or wet your hair into a darker color.
At one point, Mapicc cut himself off mid-sentence while explaining how to skip stones.
“Honestly, bro, I don’t know how it works and—“ He paused. “Hey, wait, wait, I think I got one!”
Spoke sat himself up as he watched Mapicc frantically tug at his fishing rod, something very obviously biting down on his line. About time. With one final pull, he yanked up a fish. Spoke was about to cheer his catch when the fish fell from the hook.
Mapicc yelped as the fish flopped and spluttered onto the grass, flipping every which way. With wide eyes, Mapicc scrambled to try and scoop it up, almost slipped, and got laughed at by Spoke.
He managed to get a grip on it at some point, but the fish slipped out of his hands and back into the river with a small splash.
Spoke was still smothering the last of his laughter as Mapicc dried his hands on his hoodie with a tiny scowl. “Dude, would it have killed you to help me?”
Spoke stared down at the wet splotches on the grass. “Yeah.”
“Oh. Right.”
Mapicc re-hooked his bait and had cast out into the river again, but clearly still hadn’t let go of their previous subject. “Huh, you know, this has got me thinking,” he said after some silence, “So, you can’t swim?”
Spoke replied, “Nope.”
“Never been caught in the rain?”
“I try to avoid it.”
“Hmm,” thought Mapicc. “What about when you cry?”
Spoke almost made a joke, then realized he was being serious. “What?”
“You know— your own tears. I’m just wondering if that would burn you.”
Spoke scoffed at the genuine tone that Mapicc’s voice had taken on. “I don’t cry.”
That probably earned him an eyeroll. Still, Mapicc said nothing. There was the sound of his fishing rod landing in the water again; another attempt.
After a little while longer of Mapicc’s failed fishing attempts, Spoke yawned. “Bro, I’m bored. Can we go home?”
“Dude, did you not see the fish I almost got? No way. Not yet.”
Some time later— and a couple more failed nap attempts from Spoke— Mapicc’s excited voice rang out. This time, the fish he pulled up didn’t fall from the hook, which warranted a cheer from Spoke.
Although he couldn’t help with preparing it, Spoke quietly watched how each red scale caught the sunlight while Mapicc got to work unhooking his catch from the line.
“It’s kinda cute.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re getting attached,” Mapicc grumbled.
“So what if I am?” Spoke had stood up at this point, keeping a step from the wet mess of a fish but looking it over curiously. “Can we keep it?”
Mapicc sighed but the look on his face made it easy to tell— the answer was a yes.
——
A loud crack of thunder was what jolted Spoke out of the fitful sleep he’d managed to fall into one night.
Before his eyes had even opened, Spoke practically tumbled out of bed, hands scrambling in the dark for a sword, acting on pure reflex.
Rainwater was landing hard against the windowpanes, falling so close together that it just sounded like a rough hum. The storm must have brewed during the night.
Another clap of lightning lit up the dark sky and the room, the rumbling sound tapering out into the rest of the heavy rain. Only then did Spoke realize he had, at some point, grabbed up a sword and had it pointed shakily at the window.
Well, this was pathetic.
Over from the bed that Spoke had basically leapt out of, the blankets shifted, and Mapicc rolled over to huff out, in a voice both musing and groggy, “You’re stupid.”
Spoke glanced over at him and just narrowed his eyes.
“It’s just thunder,” Mapicc added sleepily. He then bundled the blanket further around himself. “Better pick up that mess, by the way.”
“Well, no way can I go back to bed with this—“ Spoke gestured at the window— “going on.”
Mapicc peeked a skeptical eye from his mound of blankets. “Huh? You kidding? This is perfect sleeping weather.”
Another thunderbolt, the sound muffled by the walls but loud nonetheless. Spoke despised how much it sent his heart racing. “Yeah, well, maybe for you.”
Spoke turned and got to work picking up the things he’d knocked off the chest, still tired but— paradoxically enough— with his mind racing. He tried to pin his uneasiness on something more tactical. Loud rain meant he couldn’t discern footsteps, possible intruders. Yes, that was a solid line of reasoning that didn’t point toward anything as childish as fear of rain.
Mapicc was still awake and, evidently, giving Spoke’s last sentence some thought. “Oh. I get it,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “‘Cuz you can’t… your thing with water, right?”
Spoke didn’t exactly like how easily he read into that. Still, he scoffed. “You’re making it sound like I’m afraid of… of rain.”
“Well, we’re fine in here, bro. Not even a leak.”
Trying to shut down this embarrassing conversation, Spoke shot back, “I said I’m not.”
“I’m scared of skeletons,” Mapicc offered. “Like, not even the ones that attack you, but the fact that we got those things inside of us. Ew. Ew, bro.”
Spoke ran a hand down his face. “Dude, I know. Go back to sleep already.”
“Just saying.”
Another thunderbolt struck the sky. Spoke was beyond puzzled as to how Mapicc was not jolted even a little bit. Somehow, it seemed he was already half asleep again.
Either way, Spoke eventually crawled back into bed and shut his eyes, trying to shut up his racing heart. He really tried to understand how to find the rain soothing, or comforting, but every attempt failed. He turned over to face Mapicc, who, in a feat miraculous to Spoke, was so deep asleep he was starting to snore.
Another crack of lighting boomed outside. Spoke huffed in frustration, finally abandoning his attempts at sleep. He pulled the blankets off of himself and stood, glowering at the window as if a stern look would stop the storm.
Mapicc mumbled, face half in his pillow, “Where are y’going?”
“I dunno, I’ll— Bro. I don’t know. Just go back to sleep.”
With just that crappy explanation, he started toward the door.
-
Spoke found himself in their storage room.
With little else to do, he got to work reorganizing their scrap-junk chests. Outside the windows, the storm raged on. The little bits of metal or redstone set his imagination to work with the occasional idea, which was a much needed distraction. Somewhere nearby, George Junior swirled restlessly around in the bucket every time the thunder struck. It seemed they both didn’t like the storm.
Spoke had gotten distracted by the contents of the most recent chest he’d been digging through. He heard footsteps behind him. He didn’t have to look to know who it was.
“You good?” came Mapicc’s voice.
Spoke turned around and shot him a glare. But Mapicc always had funny-looking bedhead, so he couldn’t really put his heart into it.
“Go back to bed,” he said, but Mapicc ignored him and went on, stepping further into the room.
“I’d be scared, too. It’s only natural, I think. Like, I’m trying to imagine if it were raining lava. Dude, I’d be terrified half to death.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Right,” he agreed, unconvincingly. “Sure, sure.”
He sat down cross-legged near Spoke, watching as he fiddled with the chest contents absently. It seemed like he was planning on staying up with him: Spoke could appreciate the sentiment.
“I didn’t think you were afraid of anything,” he said to Mapicc.
He yawned. “Dude, I’m scared of a lot. Like… I’m scared of breaking my armor mid-fight. I’m scared of getting lost, of waking up broke.”
“Of skeletons,” Spoke added.
“Yeah. Skeletons.”
He sounded more tired than before. Spoke glanced up and found that Mapicc was falling asleep sitting up, chin propped up on his hand. His eyes had drooped shut.
And maybe Spoke should’ve shooed him off to bed, but he knew Mapicc would’ve insisted otherwise. He was always stubborn like that.