#haylle

"...I want to live. But, I don't. I don't know. I just kind of expect that I'm going to die at any point. And it turns out I'm kinda okay with that."

"Yeah?" Haylle replied prompting him further.

"...This isn't about that. Sorta. My question is... How do you want to live. Like, really want to. Not just..."

"Survive?" Haylle finished, and a soft hum from the other end told her that was suitable word. "I'm going to be honest, Niro." She continued. "You need to eat more."

Niro gave an exasperated sigh and Haylle pressed onwards. "I'm fucking serious, jackass. If you feel like shit twenty-four-seven it's gonna be hard to want to keep going. Eat when you're hungry. Sleep when you're tired. Trolls have been living like that for millennia. I know- You've survived off less. But if you want to live instead of survive, you need to take care of yourself."

"It's fucking..."

"Expensive, I know." Haylle cut him off, knowing full well the argument he was about to make.

Niro's drawn-out groan turned into a long growl.

"You've got all that money saved up. Use some of it. Eat three meals a night, big ones. Meat, grains, veggies, fruit, dairy, the works. Sleep eight hours a day. Consecutively."

"Ugh."

"And do that every night."

"Ughhhhh...."

"Yeah, I know. But you won't know if it'll help 'til you try. And I know it'll help. How 'bout for this half-sweep, okay?"

"I'm not going to have time to do fucking anything else. I'll be bleeding money."

"Everyone else more or less manages it, Niro. C'mon now."

"I'm not like everyone else. I need to do all this shit just to stay afloat, everyone else gets fucking money from the fucking Empire, or..."

Haylle cut him off. "I stopped getting money from the Empire sweeps ago! I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, but yeah, if you spread yourself too thin you're gonna fucking break, man. This isn't about toughing it out until you make it somehow. This is about feeling better and wanting to live, right?"

"...Right."

"It's not easy. Especially not for someone like you who's spent every night of his life scraping his shit together to survive. It's really not easy. But you gotta try something, okay?"

Niro gave a deep sigh, and said nothing.

"You're gonna do it, right?" Haylle pressed.

"Three meals a night..."

"Meat, dairy, grains, fruit, and veggies. And eight hours of sleep."

Niro groaned.

"Yeah?" Haylle prompted him again, and Niro sighed again.

"Yeah, fine. I'll figure out how much it'll cost." He grumbled.

"Fine, here. I'll pay out a percentage. Deal?"

"Like hell--"

"I'll make sure I can afford it! I might just send you food too. But if you're doing all this shit on my behalf I might as well pull my weight. Pay me back when you win big at the races."

".......If-"

"When. Because you're a damn good racer, Niro, and so is Remus, you just need to take care of yourself."