damagedSword

it’s also on ao3

-> Be DAVE STRIDER

Dave: Think about Bro

You sit on the couch alone, you'd say it was a rare moment where he wasn't home, but he hasn't been around in a while.

Y'know after he died n all

Yet sometimes you still find yourself acting like he could jump out at any time

Like any second you're going to see one of those fucked up scribbled notes demanding you bring cal

Despite his absence for years now you still find yourself living with the after effects of how he thought children should be raised

Or maybe just what he though you deserved being raised with

You're still not entirely sure what you think of it all

Like everything he did was wrapped in so many layers of irony with a stone cold expression you can't even tell what he thought of it if you really think about it

Regardless it was pretty fucked up

But sometimes you still catch yourself denying it

Maybe its all the years of him trying to convince you it was cool

It made you cool

Or trying to convince your friends you don't need help, it's just levels of irony they can't understand in their uncool nerd brains

Or trying to convince cops he didn't really do anything because you know every damn camera he's hidden for his fucked up puppet porn will pick up every word

And that never really went in your favor

As others pass through the living room into wherever they may be going you cant help but feel that familiar jump in your heart rate and the way your blood feels it runs so cold you start to shake

Despite knowing it's not him approaching for some fucked up sneak attack, you cant help the way your nervous system reacts from years of it ALWAYS being him

The familiar feeling of adrenaline washes over you and makes you feel the need to hurl all your breakfast out

Which is another old habit, you can't help but do your best to keep it down

Not only because puking all over the shared rug would be pretty embarrassing and uncool

But also because you're not sure when you'll next have food

Not that food is really limited here, but you're fresh out of bedroom snacks

And that normally meant going hungry for a while

Obviously you don't physically react to any of this, you'd been trained out of that by the time you were 8, jumping is pussy shit

You'd gotten pretty good at holding a neutral face by now, the hardest part is breaking it when you actually want to express something

You always speak so fucking monotone

It's pretty impressive, you'd say so anyway

But it does make it pretty hard to have a genuine relationship with everyone around you, despite how proud he'd be if he was around to see you

You can't help but wrap everything genuine in layers of irony

You'd never genuinely told your friends you care

Or told your boyfriend you love him

Maybe that's because you don't know how

Expressing your feelings and showing affection wasn't something you were taught

You just kind of assumed you'd develop that when you grew up like everyone else

But lately it feels like your running out of time to learn these things you'd thought everyone did naturally at some age

It doesn't help that every time you try you can hear his mocking voice in the back of your mind

It takes you back to when you still lived with him

You'd told him you loved him once and watched his nose cringle in some kind of cringing disgusted face every so slightly

You couldn't really tell if he was uncomfortable in the same way you get about it now or just genuinely disgusted you'd say such a thing to him

Or maybe something else entirely

You never really knew with him

You just knew you'd probably get relentlessly bullied about it and then probably get your ass handed to you not long after

You're suddenly aware of how the couch cushions are pressed against your back and hips

It makes your nose twitch every so slightly as you shiver at such a familiar yet foreign feeling against your body

It makes you feel like you can't breathe as tears well up and burn your eyes behind your shades

You'd always been thankful for them in moments like this

As much as you'd like to get up and run away from the feeling (as uncool as it may be) you feel stuck

Like you're glued to that spot, like if you move if may somehow become aware you're there and somehow make this situation worse than it already feels

It's not like you're going to actually cry anyway, You're painfully aware of all the people passing by around you

You hadn't been able to cry in front of anyone for a while now, you don't think you could if you tried

It'd been drilled into you how stupid that made you look, so you'd grown out of crying around people a while ago

Crying was so unfamiliar to you now it felt practically painful

Like your tears were made of acid as they burned against your face

And the sobs were physically suffocating you as you heaved and hyperventilated against them in a desperate attempt to breathe

You can't even say you remember the feeling it had been so long

You hate the feeling of things against your back, or even people behind you, you'd honestly surprised yourself by not immediately jumping up from this situation

You'd usually feel the need to face everything in the room, even if it cornered you like a pathetic caged animal

At least then you could see it coming, but you don't really know if it made it better or not

You always kind of felt like a weird caged animal

Like when you couldn't leave the house because he claimed he felt better with you home

Though you're not entirely sure it wasn't just to feature you in his next video on his shitty website

Even though it was pretty awesome, knowing you were on there forever made you anxious

You'd always been to afraid to check exactly what he'd caught you doing though

Despite how stressed it made you to fight, you still find its your first instinct when you feel threatened or cornered

One time your boyfriend had leaned in for a kiss and you'd bit him so hard he cried

Obviously you hadn't intended to do that, it was honestly incredibly embarrassing

But you'd still freaked out in that moment, and physical reactions is all you really know

Kissing just made you feel dirty, like as much as you love him, even if you initiated it, it just felt disgusting and wrong

You're not really sure what you're supposed to do about that but at least you'd grown past attacking him every time

You still go stiff the second your friends hug you though

But you'll probably grow out of that eventually

Despite all that, you still find yourself thinking about how cool your Bro was

Yeah maybe he made you so anxious that picking up a sword again made your arms feel like they were made of lead

And hurt you so bad you still feel your knee dislocate or your shoulder pop on occasion

But he was pretty awesome

He was just training you to be able to protect yourself and your friends, he really did help you in that regard

I mean sure maybe some things he did made you pretty uncomfortable

And you'd spent most of your childhood detaching yourself and dissociating

But it was all a joke, looking back on it he was pretty funny with all his pranks

Even if nobody else got them

It was an inside joke between you guys

And the training wasn't even that bad

You might still walk with a limp you try desperately to hide after he made fun of you for it

Not to mention the countless concussions that left you with a lazy eye and photosensitivity, despite the fact none of that mattered with your awesome shades anyway

But what person hasn't fought their siblings

He was just a bit older so it made sense his ass got beat a little harder

Really it made him stronger as a person in the end, that's what the point was right?

Plus he has a super high pain tolerance now, that's pretty cool, even if most of it is consumed by the chronic aches and pains from all the past strifes anyway

It was kind of worth it in the end if you really think about it

And honestly you feel a little bad for your bro

It couldn't have been easy to do all that just to make him stronger

I mean no happy person can enact that much cruelty on a person, let alone a child

So he must have pretty heavy guilt about it all

Or was just cripplingly mentally ill

Either way he was probably struggling with a huge mental load

Way more than whatever you think you're suffering just because some things he did made you feel a little uncomfortable and pathetic

It was for your benefit so you should really be more grateful he cared that much to do that for you

He taught you all the awesome shit, like how to be cool and strong and everything

Like Jade had literally a dog so you should realistically stop complaining

As cringe as it is you think you miss him

And yeah he'd make fun of you for that if you ever said it

So you wont

But you do miss him

Maybe thinking about it makes bile rise in your throat because the pit in your stomach feels so large it pushed everything else out

But the pain he brought you ached so comfortably

Every bruise and scab reminds you of your childhood

You wouldn't quite call it a simpler time as you never really knew what your bro was thinking

Or what he was planning to do to you

But it was your childhood

Getting hurt now feels like be wrapped in your baby blanket again

Though you're not certain you even have a baby blanket

You haven't seen it anyway, and it's not really like your bro to talk about that kind of thing anyway

He didn't talk about much, that might be why you find it so hard to talk to anyone now

Even when you're struggling, or at least thing you are, and you know your friends would be happy to listen and even help

You just can't bring yourself to do it

Everything has to be some elaborate bit or joke with you

Maybe its because deep down you think everything you feel is stupid, well you know its stupid, he told you that a lot

And really you're being dramatic about a lot of it

He was just joking, if you can't handle his irony that's kind of your problem, its not his fault him training you to be cool didn't make you HIS level of cool

You shouldn't really tarnish his name with things like that just because you couldn't handle it

Especially since he can't really defend himself anymore

And you know how bad it sucks when you're trapped somewhere you can't defend yourself from

You wouldn't do that to him, he's still your bro, your bro who you care about and you're almost certain he about you cared too

Once the adrenaline of everything that just happened in your head wares off you feel hungry

You always did after a strife

Just hungry and exhausted and aching

But you kind of like feeling hungry

I mean yeah sometimes you get so hungry it hurts

But its almost comforting, its so familiar, it almost makes you feel like you're back with him

As emotionally conflicted as that makes you feel

You miss the feeling of room temperature juice sliding down into your empty stomach

Felling every drop of it go down because it's probably the first thing you'd ingested in a while, or at least that day

It's uncomfortably comforting to think about

It's at this moment you realize you've been sat on the couch staring into space with nothing but silence playing through your headphone

And you realize how weird that probably looks

So you decide to pack yourself up and head back to your room

Putting off your hunger

You'll look for something to eat later

Scrounging around for food is pretty embarrassing

It's not like you ever really learned to cook since gas station food doesn't really need much prep

You'll just eat another time when there's less eyes on you

It was pretty embarrassing to eat in front of people since you had to break it into small bites to eat anything

All those broken teeth he gave you and never took you to get repaired really fuck up your eating

Though you never actually got taken to the doctor for anything

Even when you really could've done with an ER trip after a bad strife

As you walk away it feels like every pair of eyes in that room is burning holes into you

You know that's probably just paranoia

You've always been pretty paranoid about being watched since you first found out about the cameras

Even in the bathroom

As gross as that is you'd often find yourself putting off showering or pissing because you were so anxious about being recorded in those moments

I mean it wasn't completely paranoia

You were pretty sure there was a camera in there

But you'd never found it

And it's not like you ever had the balls to check his gayass puppet website for longer than a few seconds to see

Once you reach your room you find yourself curling up under the covers like a baby

Its not like anyone can see how seriously uncool you're being in here anyway

You think back to the time he was crossfaded on the couch, which wasn't exactly out of the ordinary

It was one of the rare moments he actually spoke to you

Even bonded with you

He'd vent about his life struggles and all that shit

But still keeping his cold and detached expression

Not even his voice would change

Despite how heavy the shit he'd pile on you was

He was always better at keeping his cool persona than you

Even if now you find you can't remove yours even if you tried

Until you think about all this shit and it crumbles away

And you end up a sobbing mess like a pathetic newborn baby

Maybe that's another reason you cant bring yourself to talk to other people

Anyway

He used to lay a lot of heavy life shit on you when he was in that state

And even then he wouldn't react to any of it

It made you feel a little guilty every time

Even though you were like 12 and there probably wasn't much you could do to help

Or anyone that wasn't a licensed psychiatrist could do to help

Maybe if he didn't have to take care of you that'd at least lift some of the weight off all his shitty problems

Or maybe it was better you were there

You don't really want to imagine how he would've been if it was just him and lil cal

Though the last time you'd that that kind of conversation with him he'd told you he regrets the way he raised you

And you'd just sat there

He was looking at you expecting you to say something

Maybe some fucked up sort of comfort even though you're not really good at that

Or literally anything

But you'd just sat there

Blank face, staring back at him with that cold detached front he'd raised you to have

And it almost made you laugh, the amount of times he'd done the same to you as a kid

It was funny seeing the roles reversed, pretty ironic

But the more you thought about it you felt angry

You were pissed actually

Why would he even say that?

What is the point?

What were you even supposed to say to that?

He only steps up and takes responsibility for all the shit he put you through once you'd grown up enough to be self sufficient

He only admits he was an ass once it's not really his responsibility to take care of me anymore

It makes sense for him if you really think about it

With everything he did you can't say you're surprised

But regardless you were still angry

You could've sworn you saw a flash of guilt in his eyes from behind his shades

But you'd never really be sure

He even admitted he'd cried about you

About what he'd done to you

You aren't sure if he meant it since he was out of his mind

He always was around this kind of conversation

You could never really tell if he was being honest about this shit or if it was another fucked up bit

I mean he never cried in front of you, and you never heard him crying, but he could aways hear you cry just to use it against you later

Despite this you had to hold back a physical cringe

Not that you found it cringey when you're friends cried or anything

But being around him just made the idea of feelings seem seriously uncool

You almost felt bad for him

You caused him to be so upset and guilty that he broke is cool cold persona

And even admitted it to you

But the longer you think about it you realize you're still angry

He deserves to feel guilty

You'd hoped he'd feel that shitty about it for the rest of his life

He ruined yours the least he could do was let the guilt ruin his

You can' even talk to your friends like a normal person because of him

Whenever they express affection you just go quiet, which makes you look like an ass

Or when they hug you, you freeze up instead of hugging back, you cant help but feel you're just like him in those moments

You can't even behave like a normal person because of everything he put you through

You don't even know how to be a functional person anymore

You can't even imagine what he'd look like crying

Is he even being honest or just trying to make you feel worse about existing?

Why could he admit to crying? When you did he'd make fun of you, maybe even call you and cal to the roof to give you something to cry about and tell you to walk it off after like you weren't actively bleeding out

Not like he would've taken you to the hospital anyway, you didnt even have a dentist for all those broken teeth he gave you You can't even really find it in yourself to feel guilty anymore

You have no pity left for him

You don't think he deserves the comfort of you reassuring him anyway

Or the closure of you lashing out

He doesn't deserve to know how you feel about it

Maybe that makes you just as bad as him

But you don't really care anymore

He can deal with talking to a stone wall expression like you have your whole life

And you hope when the maggots got to his heart all they could taste was the overwhelming guilt he feels for what he put you through

also on ao3 when are they not

pretty heavy stuff this time so

-> Be DAVE STRIDER

Dave: Rearrange your room

This day you'd found yourself pushing your furniture around you room like a weird real life tetris, as long as you'd been here your room had never really felt like yours. Yeah it had all your stuff inside, and it's where you spend most of your time, you'd always been a 'bedroom kid' you pretty much only left when you HAD to, then immediately retreat back at the first opportunity. But it didn't have any of your weird comfort quirks you liked it to have, so naturally you were fixing it, make yourself at home, right?

By this point you'd already moved most of your furniture in preparation for this last step, moving the bed against the wall. The spot for your bed was carefully selected, it put you in such a way you'd cornered yourself in the very furthest corner of your room, having both the window and door visible to you from this angle, not that it was going to matter, but it was habit at this point, like second nature to be painfully aware of your surroundings at all times.

Back at home you'd had a habit of pushing yourself under the mattress or down the side of the bed, smushed up between the wall and your creaky metal bed frame. You don't really know why, but you couldn't really help it either, if the wall wasn't there to catch you, you'd usually wake up to throwing yourself on the floor out of your bed, leaving with more injuries from sleeping than you'd like to admit.

Once your bed was in place, you started picking up some extra blankets out of your closet, you only knew they were there as your closet was another hiding place you subconsciously gravitated to. You're, once again, not entirely sure why you felt the need to hide in there, but it was comfortable, secure, and quiet, you mostly used it as a space to decompress from anything stressful that day, it's not like anyone would assume THE Dave Strider is hiding in his closet at your grown age if they came looking for you anyway.

You started to pin the blankets up to the wall, covering your bed like a makeshift curtain, it looked a little silly, but it wasn't often you even allowed other people in here anyway, and who doesn't like a totally awesome and ironic pillow fort anyway?

After you'd finished making your weird childish fort, despite it being the middle of the day, you climbed in, getting all cosy and wrapped up in the safety of this weird cage you'd put yourself in. You don't question your choice of words to describe it, you often found yourself feeling like a scared animal in a cage anyway.

You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding, relaxing into the warmth and safety you'd had to provide for yourself. You'd slept like this for as long as you can remember at home, another odd habit you'd picked up after years of whatever your bro was doing in that apartment.

Thinking back on it, you realize how fucked up it was that this is the only way you felt safe in your own bed, despite being completely alone in it.

You also probably looked pretty weird to anyone on the outside.

You start to think back to where all this weird shit had started, you'd always liked hiding as a kid for as long as you could remember, but you'd only really started hiding from the inside of your bed once your bro had started drinking more. Often times you'd fall asleep alone but wake up to find him in your bed pressed up against you, reeking of cheap beer and cigarettes, the smell alone almost had you choking if you hadn't completely frozen in those moments. One time you'd even found him kissing all up your arm, it was uncoordinated and sloppy, clearly still drunk, and your heart had jumped to your throat, pounding so hard if the smell wasn't choking you that definitely was. You felt yourself start to shake as a cold sweat washed over you, you weren't sure how you were sweating as all of your blood felt like it was running ice cold in that moment, covering you in goosebumps and chills. You'd of thought you'd freak out, yell, push him out, but you honestly just froze, hoping maybe if you pretended to sleep he'd forget you were there and leave you alone, maybe if you slept extra hard you'd wake up and it was all a fucked up dream, or you could at least sleep through whatever the fuck was going on. Eventually he did get up, being quiet as he left as to not wake you up, not knowing you'd already been kept awake by the adrenaline that moment filled you with. Despite his absence, you stayed frozen, not sure how to react to what had just happened, you'd been still for hours trying to process it.

You were sure he'd just been so drunk he'd mistaken you for some chick he'd usually bring home, or another weird bit, or maybe he was just in your bed as some fucked up bonding, it's not really uncommon for family to share a bed and cuddle, right?

Yeah, you're really making a mountain out of a mole hill here, reading too far into it, he obviously wasn't a weirdo like that, he was your bro, and he'd never do anything to actually harm you, not even the strifes, they were just to make you stronger as a person, you knew that, and you needed to stop being so dramatic. You can't believe you'd even question your bro like that, you knew he wasn't a bad guy, just tarnishing his reputation over nothing because you made it weird in your fucked up perverse little head and got uncomfortable. At the end of the day, you let it happen. You didn't stop him, you didn't move him, you just lay there frozen, you let him do that, maybe you wanted him to do that to you? That's pretty disgusting, your face cringes at the thought, crinkling into some look of disgust at your own grossness. Man, you were pretty fucking disgusting.

Your skin suddenly felt gross on your body, subconsciously scratching at your arms in an attempt to scrape the filth off, though you felt it ran deeper than your skin, every part of you was contaminated in some gross, perverse, disgusting part of that experience. But you'd let it happen, maybe that made you the most disgusting part of it all?

You just felt nasty, you would've showered in any attempt to feel clean again, but even the act of undressing or showering made you feel perverted, like you were putting on a show for eyes you knew were watching but could never find, no matter how much you tried to cover yourself.

You'd sank further into your mess of blankets and pillows you call a bed, hoping it may just swallow you up into nothingness like you'd never existed, though that moment never came. You wedged yourself so close to the wall that your skinny and malnourished frame almost immediately slipped down between the mattress and the wall anyway. The feeling of the wall pressed against your back almost made you start hyperventilating, but it still felt like the safer option, at least you knew it was just a wall. You did your best to even out your breathing, hip already becoming sore from resting against the metal bars of your bed. You really did feel like a pathetic little caged animal, scared and cornering yourself yet again.

You just lay there staring into nothing, almost as if the nothingness you were looking for could consume you and take you clean out of existence if you dissociated hard enough into it, not that it had ever worked before any other time you'd wished for that.

You do your best to calm yourself to some kind of sleepy state, hoping to sleep this horrible and gross feeling off, but the feeling of that memory still feels like its really happening to you, his sloppy half conscious actions burn against your arm, his tight grip around it feeling like it could crush your bones at any moment if you even so much as flinched.

You eventually gave up on the idea of sleep, your hear was pounding to hard to allow such a thing, instead you just stared at you blankets until the room went dark, you're not sure how much time had passed, or when exactly you'd let consciousness slip and eventually fell into sleep, you never really dreamed much anymore to tell. You just know you woke up with you body pressed to the metal that held up your mattress, limbs tangled in the bars and each other, screaming in pain, as much as it hurt you felt safe, and that's all that really mattered to you, even if you were just as exhausted as you felt before you'd fallen asleep. As much as this whole thing trapped you in, leaving no escape option, it still felt safer than whatever you thought the alternative was. You know nobody was forcing you back into this cage, there was nobody around to, but the comfort of it aches so familiarly on your bones. You knew it was the ache of safety.

also on ao3 not rlly as heavy as the last one but irl is boring and mundane anyway

-> Be DAVE STRIDER

Dave: Realize how hungry you are

As you finally decide to drag yourself out of bed that day despite being awake for hours, it hits you how hungry you are, like the kind of hungry that genuinely feels like it might be a medical issue if you weren't used to it by now.

Or if you actually ever went to the hospital for any medical concern.

You huff as you pick yourself up into a sitting position, the strife from yesterday still has your body feeling like lead, though it is pretty hard to recover your energy when you have no nutrition to help you. Despite how tired you still are, you stand from the edge of your bed, suddenly aware of the pain shooting down your leg, even though you're aware you're alone, you still mask a wince out of habit. You try to be as quiet as possible as you practically tiptoe your way to the kitchen as best you can with your barely concealed limp.

Once you arrive at said kitchen, you immediately skip over the fridge as an option, you already know its full of various weaponry that will either kill you upon opening or completely blow your whole sneaking plan up immediately, you break out in a cold sweat at the thought of either.

You decide to scavenge around my cupboards for anything that seems remotely edible in this barely functional kitchen, settling on some rice cakes with peanut butter, a pretty pathetic meal, but you doubt its anything bro would notice missing, and its not like anyone's watching you eat it.

After creating your very sad and probably not even worth it meal, you do your best to escape back to your room as quietly as you'd left it, though your comically baggy hand-me-down pants scraping across the floor aren't as quiet as you'd hoped as you hear a familiar voice croak out in your direction.

"kid?"

Your bro, you almost feel like your heart stopped in that moment, though you wouldn't like to admit he startled you, the wave of anxiety he just brought you is undeniable. Well, he knows your here now, you don't really know what else you expected with his weird ninja senses but it's nice to have hope sometimes.

"uh.. yeah?"

You sort of hesitantly reply, you cant really tell by his tone where this is going, and his face is turned away from you, not that his expression would help at all, it always stayed the same. Either way, you find yourself subconsciously adjusting the way your clothes sit on you, regardless of whether he's looking at you or not.

"what you doing?"

Your bro always does this, questioning every day shit just to make you think twice about it, unfortunately for you eating is necessary for survival, so you can exactly avoid this one.

"just grabbing food"

You keep your replies short since you're still not entirely sure what he's thinking, you never really are.

"just making food? okay"

And with that his waves his hand, your sign you're dismissed from having to stand there any longer on whatever injury is causing your leg so much pain. What was even the point in that? The longer you dwell on it you find yourself becoming more frustrated looking for the answer. You should be used to his weird questioning by now, he claims its to keep you on your toes, make you think about everything you do, but honestly you're not really sure what to make of it, you don't really believe him, but you can't really come up with another explanation for it. Maybe some weird bonding attempt? You don't really know.

Regardless, you leave the situation feeling mildly uncomfortable, hiding yourself back in your room.

Once you feel you're back in the safety(?) of your own room, you at your desk with your tragic excuse of a meal, suddenly inspired to make more of your 'shitty gay-ass comic', might as well do something other than sit around.

You boot up your computer and stare at it blankly for a little, trying to come up with literally anything to create with your sudden inspiration and need for distraction. As you take your first bite of your very sad rice cakes, you find they're already stale, which is unsurprising news to you, pretty much everything in this house is, but you still find yourself even further disappointed by this pathetic snack. Despite this fact, you eat them anyway, slowly but surely around your broken teeth you never got fixed. Its difficult and awkward to eat, given the crunchy texture of the peanut butter that keeps getting stuck in the gaps where teeth should be.

You enjoy the fact your stomach doesn't feel as agonizing as before, though the lack of distraction with this pain brings you to discover your leg pain is a lot worse than you thought. You shift uncomfortably in your chair at this realization, trying pretty much every position you can to somewhat even attempt to alleviate the pain, which just leaves it feeling worse than you started, deciding to turn your efforts into your pointless comic instead.

After some time drawing and redrawing because it needs to be the perfect level of shitty and ironic, you give up, your random burst of inspiration all for nothing, you can't even come up with a half decent idea, which makes you feel even shittier than you started the day feeling. Eventually you just roll out of your chair, kind of hurting yourself on impact, but you don't really care anymore, you just lay there staring at the ceiling, feeling unsatisfied from everything that day, you start to wonder what the point even is, you're not sure what 'point' you're even really questioning, but somehow you find yourself asking it anyway.

Eventually you find yourself wrapped in your blanket in your bed, you would've propped your leg up if it didn't feel as embarrassing as it looked, you just kind of writhe around in bed for a little bit until you find you've exhausted yourself enough to attempt to sleep it off. Despite your exhaustion, you find yourself waking up every so often from this mysterious strife injury, you just hope its gone by the morning since you're not really sure how long your bro is going to wait between strifes, though somehow, between your thinking, you realize you're watching the sun rise, you couldn't even get a satisfying sleep that day, was there even really a point anymore?

You once again drag yourself up just to sit on your floor, you don't really have much to do in this apartment anymore, but bro insists you stay home, you're once again not sure how to feel about that. Speaking of, he cracks your door open ever so slightly, though when he finds you looking back at him he seems a little stunned, not that you can tell by his reaction, though you'd assume he thought you were still asleep, you know he checks on you sometimes when he thinks you're asleep, its one of those weird moments that leave you slightly uncomfortable, but also comforted, you take it as a sign he cares even if you have no proof of that. You're mostly surprised you didn't hear him coming, your bro has always been pretty light on his feet, but you have quite the talent for picking up on peoples footsteps.

"dude you stink"

Is all he says after a short while of just staring back at each other, which makes you suddenly aware of how long ago your last shower was, you tend to avoid the shower a lot, or just the bathroom in general.

"okay..?"

Is all you can really think of to say, you stare at each other for another short while before he closes your door again, disappearing to do whatever he does all day, you can only assume more weird shit for his freaky puppet business. You half expected him to tell you off for being gross, but you were painfully reminded that he's not the kind to really parent you about anything, you were more so friends inhabiting the same space than any kind of familial relationship now you thought about it.

You consider actually being responsible for yourself and getting a shower, even though being seen as gross kind of makes you feel secure in some weird way, you're not really sure why that is and you don't really want to think too hard about it. Though you eventually decide showering is for the best if you actually want your bro to let you out into the public anytime soon, despite all the anxiety you feel about the bathroom in general.

And you're painfully reminded of it the second you walk in there, everything about your bathroom makes you stressed to the point you feel genuine adrenaline almost override you decision to shower, but you'd look like a pretty big loser if you turned back now, I mean who is scared of a bathroom other than like toddlers hallucinating Freddy Fazbear in there in the middle of the night.

You move the weird marionette thing out of the way, not because you're scared of your bros totally awesome and ironic puppet thing, or because you're paranoid about some weird webcam being in it, but because you know your bro would be pretty pissed if it got like moldy or something, though just to be sure you cover it with a towel anyway.

Before you get in, you realize you need to piss pretty bad, another thing you subconsciously avoid doing, or even thinking about, you know there are some pretty bad risks to holding it that you definitely wouldn't be taken to the hospital for, but that somehow feels better than whatever your subconscious thinks the alternative is.

After dealing with whatever needs you have and turning the shower, on you start undressing and immediately feel disgusting, like grosser than you already felt after bro pointed out your pretty nasty smell. You don't really know why but you always sort of feel pretty gross about undressing, it makes you feel kind of perverse every time, but you don't really want to think too hard on it.

Stepping into the shower feels pretty good, but you catch yourself constantly looking over your shoulder for something you know you'll never see.

Looking down at your leg you notice it's pretty purple and bruised, it looks pretty nasty but there's not really much you can do about it, bleeding you can treat but you never really learned what to do about bruises, and you're almost certain there's another underlying injury that's making it look like that anyway. You choose to ignore it and just finish up your shower as quickly as possible, the paranoia of feeling constantly watched is starting to really get to you, you subconsciously try to cover yourself with your arms while washing, but you're not even sure where you think you're being watched from to do so very well.

After turning the water off you practically jump into your towel, using it to cover as much of you as possible rather than really drying yourself, it's at this point you realize you forgot your clean clothes, so you just throw the dirty ones back on and decide to change in your room, you've always been quite shy about walking around in just a towel, which doesn't really make much sense to you as your bro has never really been weird about that stuff himself, he has no trouble walking around in a towel or even lounging around on the couch in one, you'll admit there's been times you'd seen more of him than you'd ever like to in your life, but the discomfort you feel after makes you feel like a pervert really. If he's not being weird about it why are you making it weird? Like your weird dramatic mind is making you uncomfortable, he's literally your bro you shouldn't even be looking in that direction anyway, realistically it's your fault so you shouldn't really blame him.

You quickly jump out of that mental spiral before you dwell on it more than you'd like to, though you probably already have, heading back to your room before you feel your dirty clothes have made you gross again. After closing the door and changing you find yourself lay on your floor again just staring up at the ceiling, painfully bored yet nothing around you seems interesting at all, you're not even sure you have the energy to do your usual hobbies anyway. It feels like there's not really a point to anything anyway, so you just lay there staring, not looking at anything in particular, just staring.