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Spoke knew he was a product of his worst mistakes. He knew that the second he agreed to any of the bullshit Jamato roped him into, he knew that the second Mapicc glared at him for the first time, he knew that the second he breathed on this god forsaken earth. He is nothing if not a horrible person.
Consequences of his actions.
Everything was a consequence, a punishment which he wished didn’t fit the crime. The universe dictated and declared karma which he had no say in. No way to wiggle his way out, no way to ensure that he remains in control.
Maybe that’s why he hated destiny. To claim all his power to a higher being, to watch all his efforts be credited to an omniscient figure who never helped out. Spoke did nothing but try to help, that’s all he ever wanted to do.
Perhaps it’s his own laziness which led to his downfall. The sin of sloth or greed or pride or any other one would fit him just fine. They would fit better than he did with any group. His friends hated him, he’s the one who ruined their lives. The one who spread those rumours- even if he did it only to vent- at the end of the day, he still decided to open his big fat fucking mouth.
His father disliked him, he could tell by the apathetic glances, Minute wasn’t ever supposed to be so cold. Spoke was the cold one, the ice had his heart wrapped in a vice, where ventricles had icicles hanging of it. He breathed freezing air and it condensed into all the cruelty which he spat out onto unsuspecting innocents.
He had no one, he deserved no one, and that was the way universe made him.
Perhaps that’s why he’s laying on his bed; adorned with books, jackets and pens. That’s the reason his eyes remain fixed on a specific hook on the ceiling, the one that initially hung a princess net. Spoke was excited when Minute got that for him, but Spoke was never the princess, he was the dragon. The one that other’s had to attack.
He shouldn’t hang himself; it would tarnish the memory. Spoke held his memories to the upmost regard. His memory, no matter how flawed and skewed by nostalgia, was the only thing that kept him together. The memory of the way his friends used to be, the memory of his happy family- before his brother left, before his father hated him.
Spoke missed before.
Perhaps that’s why Spoke is making is way to the table, the area where knife should’ve sat. It got confiscated long back, any sharp object that even had the potential of harming was taken away, locked in a drawer by a key Spoke hadn’t ever even seen. There was no point in trying to search for it, he would simply have to try finding something else.
A comb. The bristles white but sharp-ish to the touch. They scaped along his finger tips quite nicely and if he were to saw it back and forth against his skin, he was sure that it would break through the sensitive barrier.
Was he obsessed? Should he tell someone? Would anyone listen?
Questions surrounded his mind but they all went away where he made the first move. The pieces fell into place and Spoke finally felt like the king.
The comb rubbed his skin raw, it swelled around the cut, it didn’t seem very deep but it stung like it was. The first one was refreshing; a breath of fresh air and all Spoke could smell was metal.
Metals are electropositive in a nature, the don’t take in electrons, instead give them away. How selfish of metals? They have all this negative energy, they’re the ones who have all this cruelty and horridness in their orbit, how dare they release negativity into the world and bare no consequences? How is that fair?
Maybe it’s fair because the non-metals want the electrons. The non-metals are willing to take in the bad and produce something new, they allow for the metals to turn a new leaf, they allow the metals to become better.
Spoke never had his own non-metal.
So, he continued trying to slice his skin with a comb, it worked in a pinch. The burn woke him up so he did it again, and again and again. Three gaping cuts on his forearm and another three on his thigh.
He went back to his bed, the comb still in his hand. He shivered in the cold of the room while enjoying the warmth of the blood seeping down his legs. “I should clean-up” He though distantly, his thoughts taken away by the electrons that made him up. Like shit is supposed to repel but Spoke was always the exception.
He wondered if he should text his friends, ask them for help. What help would they give once the deed is done?
Asking for an accomplice after the murder is committed seems stupid and all it really does is place guilt on another individual. Which he was anyways used to doing, so was it really that big of a difference?
His friends won’t notice tomorrow, his friends hate him, even if they did notice, Spoke is pretty sure they wouldn’t do anything. Minute might care but that’s less to do with genuine concern and more to do with parental obligations.
His phone buzzed, a notification from Duolingo reminding him to do his daily Spanish probably. He ignored and turned to the side; it hurt more when he did that. His thigh throbbing against the mattress. Spoke really liked this mattress, it was comfy and it felt like he could melt against it. He wondered if his casket would be made of this, he really wanted it to. But do selfish people really deserve comfortable caskets?
His phone rang this time around, and Spoke had absolutely no will power to pick it up. But left with no choice, he lifted himself up. His forearms screamed in pain as he put a jacket on and looked at the phone.
His eyes were much too bleary to see the contact so his just pressed the green blob and put the device next to his ear.
“Spoke, it’s time for dinner” Minute exclaimed, his voice relatively more cheerful than normal. “Coming” Spoke croaked out.
“Also, there’s a special surprise for you so come quick!” Minute said and promptly cut the call. Spoke groaned, throwing his head back. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with any surprises, especially not when lint was mixing in with the cuts on his arm.
He pulled the sleaves down and went downstairs, each step heavier than the last. Heavy with his sins, heavy with his regrets and heavy will all the guilt which remained trapped in his gut.
At the end of the staircase stood a man. His purple hair tied up into a messy bun, hair sticking out but in a cool- I-don’t-care- type of way. His hands were crossed and Spoke knew they were adorned with rings he bought from thrift shops or got from Egg. His mouth was split into a blinding smile, even more blinding because of the silver lip rings. He wore a sweat shirt; the sweatshirt Spoke bought for him, and a pair of jeans.
“Hi Spoke!” Wemmbu said really happily and Spoke didn’t want to rain down on his brother’s parade. “Hi Wemmbu” He replied, trying to match Wemmbu’s excitement. Minute joined in, watching the scene unfold from behind Wemmbu. “Boys, let’s go eat now?” Wemmbu nodded and followed Minute.
Spoke didn’t move.
His stomach was riddled with knots; he let out a shaky exhale before following the duo. He didn’t want to eat; he didn’t deserve to. With all the acid his spit out, his stomach must be overflowing with Hydrochloric acid. Corroding everything it touched. Wasn’t that familiar?
Spoke sat at the dinner table, a chandelier hanging above their heads as they ate. Spoke felt the wall glare at him, the paint chipping off. It yelled and screamed at him, begging for him to re-paint it but Spoke sat their ignoring the burning shame which slowly built up.
“The food’s good” Wemmbu commented, twirling the pasta around his fork. Minute smiled softly and started making small talk with Wemmbu. Spoke tuned out whatever they said, he could care less. Did that make him a bad son? A bad brother? A bad person?
The only thing is the way his gut clenched when he looked at his untouched plate of food. It smelt delicious, so that meant Minute put a shit ton of effort into making a warm, home-cooked meal for them. And Spoke can’t even touch it.
Spoke snapped out of his head when Wemmbu asked him a question. “Are you going to eat anything?”
Spoke didn’t know what to say, lie? A liar by nature and the flowers which grew within him were always destined to rot. “Yes, I just had a really big lunch so I’m not the hungriest right now” Spoke let out an awkward chuckle which Minute reciprocated, probably out of pity. Wemmbu’s gaze wouldn’t leave him plate for the rest of the dinner and Spoke noticed.
He was forced to take a bite under the impression that if he didn’t Wemmbu would ask some questions Spoke dreaded to answer.
An unspoken tension washed over the dining table. Spoke looked at a window, it had a crack. Covered with a sticker, but a crack nonetheless. It peaked out and though it was insignificant that’s all he could look at.
The crack no one wants. You try to cover it up, try to fix it yet somehow always fail because it’s still there. It’s still glaring at you with a fiery rage no other crack could handle because you tried to fix something meant to be broken, try to glue together two puzzle pieces which were never meant to fix.
Minute cleared his throat from the other side of the table, attempting to redirect the conversation before it became something neither brother could elude, and he began talking about the dinner itself with the exaggerated enthusiasm. “I tried something different with the curry this time,” Minute explained brightly, gesturing toward the serving bowl with one hand while the other rested beside his plate, and Spoke immediately recognised the performance because his father had always been good actor, his stage was pristine. Got cleaned every day, a standing ovation after every act. Spoke’s stage wasn’t like that at all, it was dirty and the props were falling apart and Spoke himself couldn’t remember the script, all he could remember is the red of the curtain which draped from the ceiling, the red which dripped from his arm
“There’s a little more spice than usual, but I thought you boys might like it,” Minute continued, his smile lingering despite the fact that neither of them seemed particularly interested in the food anymore.
Wemmbu began talking about something that had happened earlier that afternoon, describing it with increasingly animated gestures while Minute laughed at the appropriate moments and Spoke listened from behind the strange fog that seemed to have settled over his thoughts, because the conversation sounded distant despite occurring only a few feet away from him.
Wemmbu’s smile was still the same. His canines poking out from the side of his mouth and a dimple which only decorated one side of his cheek. Spoke tried to remember the last time he saw that smile.
Spoke’s a liar, he knew exactly what happened that day; a vanilla cake baked a little too salty. The saline stuck to his tongue like how the sweat stuck to his skin that humid day. His brother giggled at his expression, “You should put sprinkles on it! that will make it sweeter”
Spoke looked at him with disgust but begrudgingly put the sprinkles on the cake, it somehow made the cake taste worse but Spoke lied and said it tasted amazing. The look of pride on Wemmbu’s face was enough for bitter flavour to go away.
Spoke didn’t have moment’s like that anymore. Where he enjoyed giving himself away, perhaps Spoke traded to many of his bones to the wolves in exchange for warmth, he’s spineless now, why would the wolved give him warmth now? Why would they provide him with the comfort he yearned for when he had nothing to give back?
“You really should eat something,” Minute said gently, his voice considerably quieter than before as he looked between Spoke and the food, and Spoke immediately felt his shoulders tense because any publicity was bad publicity. If anyone got a trace of what he hid under his sleeves, he would be cooked.
“I said I’m fine,” Spoke answered, his voice becoming sharper despite his attempts to keep it controlled, and Minute's expression changed almost imperceptibly, as though the words had landed somewhere deeper than Spoke intended. “I know what you said,” Minute replied patiently, his voice remaining calm even as his eyes became more serious, “but I’m asking you because I’m worried about you, and I would rather you be annoyed with me than you… pretending that it’s okay- that… is the reason I called Wemmbu here”
Spoke stared at him for several seconds without answering, because there were too many possible responses and every single one seemed dangerous in a different way.
“There’s nothing wrong,” Spoke finally said, his voice almost inaudible beneath the hum of the refrigerator in the adjoining kitchen, and Wemmbu immediately looked down at his plate.
He looked at the dessert in the centre of the table and remembered being younger, remembered Minute buying pizza after exams, remembered Wemmbu stealing pieces before anyone had finished serving it, remembered laughing so hard that the Pepsi came out of his nose once and spending the rest of the evening furious because everyone refused to stop talking about it.
“I think I’m done,” Spoke said abruptly, his voice strained as he pushed his chair backward and the wooden legs scraped harshly against the floor, and both Minute and Wemmbu looked up at once because the movement had been so sudden that neither of them had time to disguise their concern.
“You haven’t eaten,” Wemmbu pointed out, his voice cautious as he watched Spoke rise from the chair, and Spoke forced himself to straighten despite the exhaustion pressing through every part of him. “I know,” Spoke answered quietly, his voice deliberately flat as he stepped away from the table, “but I’m not hungry, and I think I just need to go upstairs for a while.”
Minute started to stand as well, his expression tightening with worry as he spoke in a gentle but unmistakably firm tone, “Spoke, wait a second, please,” but Spoke was already turning away because staying another minute meant eventually breaking apart in front of them, and he could not bear the thought of becoming another problem they had to solve.
“Goodnight,” he murmured, barely loud enough for either of them to hear, before walking toward the staircase without looking back, leaving the food untouched behind him and the three chairs around the table suddenly feeling much larger than they had before.
He stormed into his room, and like the cloud that followed him, he began to cry. Sobbing cool furious tears onto his pillow. He caused so much unnecessary worry to his family. Maybe he should just kill himself.
No one would care.
He continued sobbing like a child, like a fucking kid who didn’t know any better. Like a baby who lost his toy and is throwing a fit. A tantrum, just being a nuisance to everyone. He rolled up against his blanket and squeezed his eyes shut.
Wemmbu came in without knocking. Wemmbu had a bad habit of not knocking but it was a thousand times worse this time because the comb was still left bloodied on his table.
Guns and bullets, blood and bruises, Spoke and fucking up. Universal constants like the speed of light or some shit that their physics teacher taught when Spoke joked around with Mapicc.
Wemmbu was there awestruck. Spoke assumed he saw the universe, he saw what was wrong in the world and he saw Spoke in all his truth and all his lies and everything that ever was, is and will be of Spoke.
He wordlessly sat on the bed, the mattress dipping with his weight. “Are you okay?” Wemmbu asked. And Spoke had the choice to obscure the truth but for once in his entire selfish life, he chose not to.
Wemmbu did not say anything when Spoke shook his head, because sometimes words were the least useful thing a person could offer when somebody had finally run out of them, and instead he simply leaned forward and wrapped both arms around his brother, pulling him close with the sort of desperate gentleness that made Spoke's chest ache because it reminded him that Wemmbu had always been there, even during the years when Spoke had convinced himself that everyone had left.
Spoke went rigid at first, every muscle in his body seemingly determined to reject the kindness being offered to him, but then something inside him gave way and he folded into Wemmbu's shoulder, clutching the back of his sweatshirt with shaking fingers while the sobs he had been desperately trying to swallow finally escaped, ugly and uneven and completely devoid of the dignity he had spent years trying to maintain.
“Hey, hey, I’ve got you,” Wemmbu whispered, his voice trembling despite his attempts to keep it steady, one hand resting carefully against the back of Spoke's head while the other remained around his shoulders, and there was no judgement in the words, no accusation or anger or demand for an explanation, only the quiet certainty that he was not going anywhere. Spoke hated how much that made him cry.
He hated that Wemmbu could still make him feel like a child who had scraped his knee and needed somebody to convince him that the world had not ended, because he was supposed to be older now, supposed to know better, supposed to be capable of carrying his own consequences without dragging everyone else into them. “I’m sorry,” Spoke choked out eventually, his voice muffled against Wemmbu's shoulder as the apology came out fractured and barely understandable, and Wemmbu immediately shook his head even though Spoke could not see it. “Don’t apologise for crying,” Wemmbu answered softly, his voice becoming firmer as he held him closer.
Spoke pulled away just enough to wipe his face with his sleeve, but Wemmbu caught his wrist gently before he could hide himself again, his expression changing when he noticed what Spoke had been trying so desperately to conceal, and for several seconds neither brother said anything because there were moments when language became too small for what was happening in front of them.
Wemmbu looked frightened. Not disgusted, not disappointed, not angry, just frightened in a way Spoke had never seen before, and somehow that was enough to make Spoke look away.
“I didn’t know,” Wemmbu whispered, his voice barely carrying across the room, and Spoke stared at the floor as though the carpet might offer him an answer that he could not find anywhere else. “I didn’t want you to know,” Spoke admitted quietly, his words falling apart between breaths, “because then you’d have to worry, and everyone already has enough reasons to hate me.” Wemmbu's expression hardened immediately, though his voice remained remarkably gentle when he answered.
“I don’t hate you,” he said firmly, “and you don’t get to decide that I would rather lose you than worry about you.” The sentence struck Spoke harder than anything else had that evening, because somewhere in his mind he had constructed an entire universe where his absence would be an inconvenience at worst, a tragedy that eventually became a story people stopped telling, and Wemmbu had just reached into that universe and torn one of its central assumptions apart.
“You scared me,” Wemmbu admitted after a long silence, his voice cracking slightly as he looked down at his hands, “and I’m angry that you were hurting this badly while I was downstairs talking about stupid things like cake and school and whatever else I was saying, but I’m not angry at you for needing help.”
Spoke's mouth trembled as he looked toward the desk, where the object that had brought him here still remained, and Wemmbu followed his gaze before deliberately looking away again. “We’re not dealing with that alone,” Wemmbu continued quietly, his tone carrying the finality of someone who had made a decision and would not allow Spoke to negotiate his way around it, “and I’m not leaving you by yourself tonight.” Spoke immediately shook his head, panic beginning to creep into his expression as he whispered, “Please don’t tell Dad.” Wemmbu hesitated, and that hesitation was enough for Spoke to understand the answer before he even heard it.
“I have to,” Wemmbu said gently, his voice almost apologetic, “because I love you more than I care about whether you’re angry with me tomorrow.” Spoke squeezed his eyes shut, fresh tears slipping down his cheeks as he whispered that he did not want to be a problem, and Wemmbu answered without hesitation that needing someone was not the same thing as being a problem.
Wemmbu left to call Minute and then the door opened quietly several minutes later, and Minute stood in the doorway with an expression Spoke had never seen on his father's face before, because the usual distance had disappeared completely and what remained underneath it was simply fear, raw and unmistakable, the kind that made a person look suddenly older than they had been five minutes earlier.
“Can I come in?” Minute asked softly, his voice careful as though the room itself might shatter if he spoke too loudly, and Spoke nodded without looking at him. Minute crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, leaving enough space for Spoke to decide whether he wanted him closer, and for a moment the three of them remained there in an awkward triangle of grief and exhaustion, surrounded by books and clothes and all the ordinary pieces of Spoke's life that suddenly looked painfully fragile.
“I’m not disappointed in you,” Minute said eventually, his voice quiet but steady, “I’m scared because I love you, and I wish you had told me sooner, but I am not going to punish you for being in pain.”
Spoke finally looked at him, and whatever remained of his composure disappeared because Minute's face did not contain the disgust Spoke had been expecting, nor the coldness he had spent so long convincing himself was there, but something much simpler and much harder to fight against. Love. Imperfect, clumsy, frightened love, the sort that did not arrive with perfect speeches or miraculous solutions but instead sat beside you at the worst possible hour and refused to leave.
“I thought you hated me,” Spoke whispered, his voice so small that Minute nearly missed it, and Minute's face crumpled for half a second before he carefully composed himself again.
“Spoke,” he said quietly, reaching over and resting his hand against his son's shoulder, “I could be angry with you, I could misunderstand you, I could make mistakes as your father, but none of those things are the same as hating you.”
Spoke stared at him through swollen eyes, trying desperately to reconcile those words with every memory he had twisted into evidence against himself, and for once he could not find an argument that worked.
Minute eventually asked if he could hold him, and Spoke nodded, so his father pulled him into an embrace while Wemmbu remained beside them, and Spoke found himself caught between the two people he had spent so long believing he had already lost.
Nobody tried to make him promise that everything would suddenly be fine, because everyone in the room understood that healing was not a switch somebody could flick simply because the right people had finally arrived, and nobody told him that tomorrow would magically be better either.
Instead, Minute promised that tomorrow they would find proper help together, Wemmbu promised that he would sit with him tonight for as long as necessary, and Spoke finally allowed himself to believe that perhaps he did not have to solve the entire rest of his life before morning.
He still felt terrible. He still felt ashamed. The thoughts had not vanished simply because two people loved him enough to stay, and the darkness inside his head had not suddenly become harmless, but for the first time that evening it was no longer a room he occupied alone.
Maybe he did not deserve forgiveness yet.
Maybe he did not even know how to forgive himself.
But perhaps, he wasn't a product of his worst mistakes.