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Branzy has been kept caged inside for a long time, he could admit that. He could. He would.
Wouldn't hide from the things Clown — no, Jester — did to him. So he would admit that it had been imprisonement, despite how his heart clenched with guilt at the mere thought.
(Sometimes, Branzy felt disgusted with himself. How could he love a man so dearly who tore apart Branzy's entire life? Love him dearly enough to never fight back as he was hurt and hurt again, love Clown dearly enough to hurt his best friend?)
But... Had Branzy really been gone for so long that he forgot how the world worked?
The sun bit at his eyes in a way Branzy was sure it never used to, the rain chilled him to his very bones and the lightest winds mad ehim stumble.
Despite this, Branzy was sure that the earth hadn't used to shake. It hadn't yesterday, certainly. Or had it? Branzy wasn't sure of anything these days. Clown had liked it. Rekrap, it made terribly sad. Rekrap was sad about a lot of things. Branzy was pretty sure that hadn't always been the case.
Part of him wished Rekrap had never gotten him — rescued him — from the End. That part of Branzy disgusted even himself. It was the part that thought back to the darkness, the shock collars, the starving, the— that thought back to Clown and grew fond. That missed it. That raged at Rek and wanted to smash his head in for being the reason Clown woukd never take Branzy back.
"Rekrap?", Branzy called, then flinched. Despite living together for a few weeks—
(22 days and almost 8 hours, Branzy counted in his head, on three seperate blocks and a white sock, after the terrible relativeness of time in the End; habits that Rekrap obliged with happily, seemingly just content with helping Branzy at all)
—he hadn't yet grown used to speaking up. "Yes, Branzy?", Rekrap replied. Rek didn't even look up at him, another thing Rek had simply just... picked up on Branzy disliking.
When the ugly part of his brain reared its head, Branzy wondered how he deserved Rekrap. Rekrap had killed for him, would have died for him, had shown evidence that he was willing to be killed by Branzy.
Their second night together, Branzy had grabbed a kitchen knife and snuck up on Rekrap, who slept on the coach, having given up his bed.
Brnazy held the knife to Rekrap's neck, the cool blade pressing agaisnt its fragile kin. Branzy still remembered how his hands shook enough to slice a few milimeters long cut right above Rek's larynx. He had flinched then, realising what he was about to do. The knive had clattered onto the floor and Rek held Brnazy's hand, grip light enough to easily break.
He'd smiled, a few drops of blood running down his neck and staining the collae of his pajama shirt. "It's alright, Branzy. I'm not mad, I promise."
And then he'd gave Branzy a knife without ever carrying a weapon himself.
So logically, Branzy knew that Rekrap wasn't going to start ripping him apart now, of all times, but logic seemed something impossibly far away these days.
"Did the ground always shake?", Branzy finally asked, after his thoughts found their right tracks again, three and a half minutes later, as both the click on the wall and the one around Branzy's wrist said.
"No", Rek replied. That was good. Brnazy wasn't wrong in that case, at least. "It's an earthquake."
Ah. Yes. Branzy remembered that.
Rekrap continued, still looking down at the bandaged torso he was re-wrapping. Another thing for Branzy to feel guilty about.
"Do you want to know more?", Rekrap asked. He liked to do that. Giving Branzy options. He let Branzy decide what they ate for dinner, what they did the whole day, what movies to watch. It was in each and every way the opposite of the End, where everything Brnazy did was controlled to the tinest detail. If he ever did anything at all. Some days, these differences were the only things keeping Brnazy grounded in reality, that kept him from thinking it was all a hallucination Cl— Jester played to torture Brnazy further.
"... Yes", Branzy answered after a long pause. Two minutes, his wristwatch said and the clock hanging on the wall agreed.
"Earthquake's are vibrations in the ground from the shifting of tectonic plates", Rekrap recited, sounding rehearsed. Rehearsed as if it was an act— Rehearsed like he had memorised an article to tell Branzy about about it. Brnazy was still getting used to contextualising things differently with Rek.
"Which are basically large islands housing the continents that swim on top of the molten earth core. They happen when the tectonic plates collide and are fairly common and differently bad. This one should be fairly minor. So we're safe in here, okay? I think."
The uncertainty Rekrap displayed was another difference between Clown— Jester and him.
Branzy hummed and went back to his crayons. The internet listed painting as a good coping mechanism, according to their collaborative research. According to the same, Brnazy needed more of those.
So Rek and him had taken up painitng together a few days ago. Already, the walls of Rek's apartment were plastered eith paintings and the red and black crayons were used up.
Branzy wasn't completely sure it was helping but maybe at least a little bit sure that it was.
If nothing else, putting his nightmares to paper helped him put them out of his mind and allowed him to sleep. The bags beneath Branzy's eyes had reduced by a lot and his sickly face had gotten more colour. Branzy could almost stand looking at himself again.
So it was probably helping. It probably wasn't amking anything worse.
"If you say so", Branzy smiled. It was only that he said it with true and completely honesty, that Branzy, wholehearted and genuinely— "I trust you, Rek."