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In this world, there are two core factors. To living, to death, to everything and in everything ever to happen across existence.
There are truths and there are lies.
There are ones and there are zeros.
Blinking lines of code throughout the universe, who watches over with kindness, because an unkind universe would be a very terrible world indeed.
No one ever seemed to quite comprehend that, though.
Even Mapicc, whom Spoke had tried telling before and failed, much to his dismay.
Perhaps it had been because he had been bleeding out when he had told Mapicc about how the universe loved him whilst his dearest friend was wrapping his injury with that single minded focus placed only on Spoke.
And what an honour that was.
For gentle, calloused, bloody hands to tend his wounds knowing there was nothing that could ever be done for the gaping hole left in his mind from reaching too far into what he shouldn’t have. Not that Spoke had the thought to regret it. He had been on top of the world for just a little bit, and it had been extraordinary.
Point being, Mapicc was far too kind to him.
And the Universe was not kind enough to Mapicc.
Surely not, for the universe had placed him with Spoke, who knew his place was as a lie and liar and still pushed and pulled and took and took and took-
Spoke recalls having a nightmare just a few nights ago. He remembers screaming through a soundless throat, reaching for something that wasn’t quite there, and crying for someone, anyone, to get him out of the heavy abyss pressed up against his shoulders even though he knew he was beyond help or saving. Even though he knew he didn’t deserve it. The very world was falling apart into static before his eyes. Fragments of reality had scattered all around him, reflections of his best friend’s face shattered into millions of pieces beyond repair. And it had been Spoke’s fault. He didn’t know how, or why, or when, but it had been his fault that his friend was broken and he had sat there and silently wailed until there was a different weight on his shoulders. One that carried stability. One that grounded him. One that shook him until he awoke, and held him in the nook of his arms while he cried and babbled about creation and sorrow and ones and zeros and dreaming and how he just needed to wake up.
Mapicc’s face at that comment had been indecipherable, but they hadn’t spoken on it since.
The cracks spreading up his arms had gotten wider recently. More reaching. Hungry. Spoke’s hands absently traced the edges, feeling the slight sting that always came with it. The same slight sting he felt from the exploits he’d created. The same sting from his chestplate. The same sting from the time he took everything too far.
Because that’s what he did. What made up his core. Who he was.
He was Spoke, and he took what didn’t belong to him, and he ran as far as he could, taking everything he could down with him.
Spoke was the zero. The lie. The emptiness created by the universe to counterbalance the sheer amount of fullness the world around Spoke had.
Mapicc was the one. The truth. The light for the universe to allow itself to experience its very own code, for Spoke to soak up and steal in his own void.
Ironic, considering Spoke was laying under a tree, avoiding the only other source of light he knew of as it glared down from its taunting position in the sky. Did tnt explosions count as light?
Spoke was broken from his musings when a figure came to sit beside him, a small puff of air slipping from the newcomer's mouth as he lowered himself to the ground.
Mapicc, the one, the truth, poked Spoke in the cheek with a small smile and a mischievous glint in his eyes.
Spoke, the zero, the lie, let a smile play onto his face as well, pretending to go to bite Mapicc on the hand for even daring to poke him on such a relaxing afternoon laying in the grass. Spirals notwithstanding.
Spoke’s best friend merely laughed at the attempt and got comfortable sitting against the tree, Spoke shifting so he could put his head in Mapicc’s lap whilst laying on his back. Mapicc also pulled some items from his inventory to repair his gear while they rested. It was one of the ways the pair were similar. Never quite sitting entirely still. For Mapicc, this meant always having something to do in his hands, whether it be sharpening his sword or fidgeting with Spoke’s headband. Spoke, however, never let his mind still. He doesn’t think it quite could, but why would he want to? Sure, it got loud and messy and unfixable, but it was better than the alternative.
Better than sinking in an ocean of nothingness.
Always stay distracted. Always stay thinking about something grand. The next big thing, idea, plan, exploit-
Spoke’s hands were back on the ridges in his arms, the ones slowly crawling up to his neck and face, the ones he’d have to figure out how to conceal better when it comes to that. He didn’t hide around Mapicc, though. Not as much as others. Mapicc had seen them, knew them, the first time out of sheer necessity due to a nasty run in with some group or another while they had been traveling. Spoke had attempted his signature smooth talking and had gotten attacked for his efforts, and then Mapicc was there, rolling gauze over wounds and cracks with bloody hands and hadn’t even asked about them until he had finished.
“Spoke?” His best friend has asked. “What are these?”
And Spoke had just replied simply, “a story.”
Mapicc hadn’t asked much more after that.
Just if they hurt(sometimes) and if they were healing(quite the opposite, really).
Hands landed in Spoke’s hair, sectioning tiny bits into three parts each, the jolt to the present not unwelcome. Spoke opened his eyes he hadn’t realized he had closed to stare at Mapicc the best he could whilst laying in the dirt.
He knew his gaze was uncanny to most, as a great many had told him so, but Mapicc had never seemed to care about the odd white light that softly emitted from Spoke’s eyes.
He’d once said it was like looking at a prism, the whole rainbow visible in just a glance. How ironic. The void in the world holding every colour available.
Mapicc didn’t even look up, just acknowledged the gaze with a hum while a look of focus overtook his face to complete the patterns in Spoke’s hair.
Honour honour honour.
“You remember the stuff I told you before?” Spoke said, disrupting the silence and potentially the calm of the atmosphere. What a cosmic horror that would be. To disturb this moment. But as said before, Spoke takes and he doesn’t stop. Even now.
Mapicc didn’t seem to mind this criminal offense that had now started chipping at Spoke’s mind, simply carrying on with the tens of tiny braids he was now putting into Spoke’s hair. “You’re gonna have to be more specific, bro.”
Silence filled the air once more while Spoke thought about what to say.
“Ya know.” He said vaguely. “The stuff about the universe and how it's kind and loving because the player is love and you are the player and-”
The hands in his hair paused briefly before continuing like nothing happened. It wasn’t enough to make Spoke back down(nothing was enough to do that), but it was enough for Spoke to register it and start to muse further. How does one explain to their friend that they had seen something they shouldn’t have whilst breaking and splicing the world in between their fingers and learned something that was never meant to be shared?
And that he was trying to share it anyways?
Spoke was sure Mapicc already knew, on some level. But Mapicc’s calloused hands that were currently in his hair, tantalizingly near his damaged mind, had never reached into the very fabric of what made the world they lived in what it was and yanked.
Never had the world yank right back.
Quite frankly, Spoke was both overjoyed and selfishly heartbroken that he hadn’t. His friend wouldn’t ever know the truths beyond what Spoke told him, which was horrifyingly ironic.
The one, truth, received word from the zero, the lie.
What an odd little combo they were.
Maybe that’s what made them such a good team.
Maybe that was what was going to ruin them in the end.
And Spoke was selfish, he knew that. He knew that. But he could never let go of Mapicc. There was too much trust. Too much shared. Too much of everything had happened for Spoke to ever push Mapicc away.
Permanently, at least.
Spoke always came rushing back when he made the mistake of leaving, it was in his character, his being, his code, to find the person that makes him feel safe and stay.
Be forgiven, even when he did the unforgivable.
And Mapicc had always taken him back. Forgiven him with that undeserved kindness. Played a joke or two to show that yes, everything is actually okay, and that they’re a team again, and that nothing has to change.
That Mapicc isn’t leaving.
A one and a zero floating around in a massive world of sharpened code.
On and off.
Day and night.
Truth and lie.
Spoke felt a dull flick on his forehead and looked up to his friend, a grin forming on his lips as he prepared his retaliation, only to stop at the look on Mapicc’s face.
His best friend’s hands were out of his hair and grabbing Spoke’s own, which was quite confusing until he followed Mapicc’s gaze to his own arms and bit his tongue at the damage.
Spoke had been picking a bit at the cracks.
By no means was it bad. Just faint marks left behind from mindless self-soothing. But Mapicc seemed to care. And Spoke trusted Mapicc. So Spoke decided it was worth it to care more than he usually did when this happened, too.
The pair stared in silence at one another, Spoke making confident but slowly decreasing eye contact trying to communicate that he was okay(as okay as he ever could be) while Mapicc searched for something in his face.
Whatever he was looking for, he found it, and gently released Spoke’s hands and put his own back into Spoke’s hair, this time pulling a bit firmer on the braids. Not enough to hurt, but just enough for the gentle pressure to soothe the constantness of Spoke’s racing mind. Like being wrapped in a fluffy blanket while a storm raged outside.
It helped.
It helped so much more than Spoke could ever be forced to admit.
Spoke’s own hands stayed twiddling grass, eventually trying his own attempt at braiding with flower stems, handing the messy bundles to Mapicc, who took them with a slightly teasing quiet upturn of his lips and added them into Spoke’s hair.
He stayed grounded, right there in the meadow, gentle tugs every so often keeping him afloat and in place in the hurricane of the sea that is his own thoughts.
A small smile naturally found its way to Spoke’s face. He could tell Mapicc saw, because his friend’s hands had pulled at his hair ever so slightly. Maybe it was odd that Spoke noticed small details like that, but small details were the saving grace.
The sun Spoke had been avoiding chose that moment to filter through the leaves as a breeze blew through them, lighting up the pair at the base of the tree. Spoke’s eyes slipped shut once more, thoughts slowing down just enough to breathe.
He thinks it’d be quite nice to lie in this field forever. Let the grass and dirt and nature reclaim him while Mapicc stands guard at his side till the very end. It would be a nice way to go, flowers growing over the void inside him with his best friend close.
He’d let Mapicc bury him if it meant he could see his friend’s light one last time.
The sun was warming his mind and body, letting sleep sink its claws into him, and Spoke lets it take him.
For what nightmares could harm him here, held together by the truth to his lie?
And he dreams of sunlight glittering through the clouds and lighting up the one person who was a sun all on their own, and the person who was still trying to make their own light while they ran together, play fighting in the flower fields.
Making their own dream.
Their own universe.
Waking up.