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The room is quiet except for the faint dripping of water outside, where rain beads off the roof and pools in uneven patches of mud—murky blotches that they both will complain about later when one of them steps a foot too fast, too uncaring, into the soiled earth. One of them would probably laugh it off, calling the latter an idiot; while the other would grumble unpleasantries as they head back inside to flee from the dirtiness and in search of another clean pair.
But now, it is peaceful—too peaceful—save for the low hiss of breath through gritted teeth. The water clashed on the wooden ceiling in a dull rhythm, faint but constant, seeping through the cracks of the old woodwork.
Somewhere far away, thunder rolls, a slow growl swallowed by the distance. Lightning streaks strong enough to pierce through stone and cut through spruce, but under the protection of a lightning rod that took too much annoyance to install, that danger doesn’t reach this place. At least not inside of Mane’s abandoned treehouse, the outside is—up to debate.
Wemmbu sits slumped against the wall, his form dreadfully remains a battlefield even long after the fight has ended. Cuts slash across his arms and torso, purple bruises bloom where fists and parried blades meet him. His body is but a canvas, blood paints a crude map of where he’s been hit hardest, a visceral display of what his once untainted frame was. He feels like a walking corpse, with lacerations and lesions open for the waking. Maybe that’s the point, to make himself look like a cadaver, welcome for autopsy, because this is the only way he’ll let the world examine him.
His grin lingers even now, faint but stubborn, something carved out of sheer will. Pain radiates through him, hot and sharp, yet instead of shrinking from it he leans into it, lets it coil around him.
He knows what it means. It means he’s alive.
Every sting, every throb, every drip of blood down his skin is proof of something. He can’t count on much in this world—not people, not promises, not safety. But pain is honest and never once lied. It burns in his muscles, claws through his cartilage, keeps him tethered to the here and now. When blood runs, it’s the clearest reminder he hasn’t been knocked down yet, that he can still fight.
Egg kneels at his side, quiet as always, hands moving with care. His cloth presses into Wemmbu’s ribs, and the sting draws a hiss from his teeth, but he doesn’t flinch away. Anyone else, he’d shove back, with a flash of weapon or a glare that says he’s not done, he’s fine, and then he’d get up, walk away, like the chunks of flesh bleeding on his flanks don’t exist.
Hell will be let loose before he allows just anyone to touch the wounds. Those are his ledger, his marks of survival, a tattered declaration that manifests out of sheer defiance against death itself. But Egg is allowed; he has always been allowed.
“You look like hell,” Egg says at last. His tone is easy, borderline teasing, but the sound of it lands soft, too careful to be mockery. His hands are even softer, though, it's tender as ever when he eases the torn edge of Wemmbu’s shirt with a practiced caution, letting the pads of his fingers brush against the feverish skin beneath. The cloth in his grasp is already pinked from the last rinse, trembling faintly in the thunder light as he scrunches it out again.
Egg had tossed his gloves aside a while ago. Too much trouble to keep them from soaking through, too much of a nuisance to clean the wound with. Besides, Wemmbu thinks Egg wants to know, needs to confirm with himself that he is alive—with fingers that brush over his skin, warm with adrenaline and heat despite the carcass his counterpart has reduced himself into.
“No, actually, you should’ve died three times over.” Egg sighs through his nose, voice quiet, the kind that’s meant to sound annoyed but ends up sounding worried. There's a bleached hope that his concern doesn’t flicker over, but it’s Wemmbu he’s talking to, he knows it’s fruitless to hide. "This is just insane, brother."
Wemmbu laughs, or tries to when he notices, because he always does. But it comes out as a broken sound, cracked and ragged, scraped bare on the way up. The noise sticks to the back of his throat like gravel, almost in the way long-standing smoker's lungs are. But he doesn’t smoke cigarettes, he smokes thrills, smokes battle brims, exhales the drive and chases relief through stained blood, not flavored smogs.
His head leans itself back against the stripped wall afterwards, with eyes half-lidded, and a mouth that's twitching into something too close to a laugh in spite of everything. “Some credits would be nice, bro. I’m harder to kill than this, y’know.”
Egg gives him a scoff. "You're so corny, dude."
Wemmbu agrees with a disgruntled face. “No, yeah. That’s corny, fair enough. Shoot me the next time I say something like that.”
Egg huffs, clearly unimpressed. “I might actually take you up on that.”
But, Egg doesn't humor him any further. Instead, he dips the cloth into the basin, wrings it out, and lets the red drip back into the water until the bowl clouds a dark crimson, swirling like a memory that refuses to settle. His movements are calm, unhurried. He’s done this enough times that the rhythm feels ritualistic, and the silence that stretches long between them is part of the offering, broken only by the sound of blotchy droplets dribbling back into the bowl.
“You’re, like, the only guy I know who takes blood as reassurance,” Egg mutters finally, pressing the folded fabric back down. His touch is deliberate, gentle, moving gingerly with every dab and wipe, solid enough to clean but light enough not to tear the wound open further. “Everyone else takes it as a warning.”
“Warnings are for people who can afford them, dude.” Wemmbu’s voice is rough, but firm as he clatters back. His words slip out with the kind of certainty only he could carry, arrogant even in his weathered state.
Egg gives him a look. Not sharp, not even disappointed—just something. Something along the lines of that familiar mix of understanding and exasperation that always makes Wemmbu look away first, unwillingly.
He doesn't want to think about that, not now. So he just shrugs in response, or rather, tries to, because his ribs protest with a fresh jolt of fire when he does. Egg catches him before he can make it worse, and promptly shovels his arms back down with a frown when he notices the origin. Then, there's a firm hand against his chest, and then, there's a warning. "Stop moving."
Wemmbu snorts, but complies, lets a beat pass and allows arms to lower with a small, resuming mutter. “You know we don’t have that."
Another pause. And his voice dips, quieter, more elaborative. “We don’t have that luxury anymore. I’d rather take the hit and get it over with one way or another.”
And he means it. Wemmbu’s built his whole survival on that truth. Every reckless charge, every fight picked, every bruise and scar layered over the last—it all adds up to the same equation: he is alive because he refuses not to be. The world has tried to strip him bare, betray him, cook him down to nothing. Zam’s betrayal still gnaws at the back of his mind, the reminder that trust can snap like a bone, ugly and permanent.
Unlike them, blood doesn’t betray, and pain doesn’t walk away.
But Egg is still here.
Egg’s presence complicates the ledger, because Wemmbu can’t fit him neatly into the equation. Egg doesn’t lie. Egg doesn’t leave. He should’ve, by all rights. He hates fighting, hates gore, hates every mess Wemmbu runs headlong into. And yet, when the dust clears, Egg is always at his side, scrunching out the cloth, binding the wounds, never scolding louder than necessary. He throws jokes like a waiver, claims he doesn’t take anything seriously, but Wemmbu knows better. Egg takes loyalty seriously. Deadly so. Wemmbu would call it his greatest flaw, but Egg wields it in such a way that he can’t help but falter in criticism.
Maybe that’s what separates the two of them. Egg throws himself into an ocean of devotion, ties his trust deep in the matching rings they share. Wemmbu throws himself into the blazing flames of battle, slams himself into walls to see if they crack. Some do, but when they don’t, Egg is always by his side, nudging him in the shoulder and proposing that they dunk on it together. Because, “‘We’re a duo, dude.’ Egg says like it’s a fact, ‘I’m in this with you, as much as you’re in it with me.’”
A strange stillness settles in his spine as he mulls over the memory, twisting and turning his stomach in ways a sword never did before. He doesn’t know if that’s better or worse. His mouth clearly does, however, as it opens and spills his internal organs out faster than the words he can hold.
“You don’t have to keep doing this,” Wemmbu says after a long pause. The words slip out unevenly, caught between jest and something closer to a confession—a plea of some woes he doesn’t even know himself. “Don’t have to patch me up every time I get myself cut into pieces. You could’ve left ages ago, why bother?”
Egg doesn’t look up right away. He just keeps the cloth pressed against the cut until the bleeding slows, thumb dragging absently along the edge of the bandage like he’s smoothing out a crease that isn’t there. “And where would I go, exactly?” he asks. "Every place worth going to is worse than this.”
Wemmbu huffs, though it sounds more like a cut-off laugh. “Yeah, but at least it wouldn’t have me in it.”
That earns him a glance. Egg’s brows lift just slightly as he turns to finally look up at him, really looks at him. “And that’s supposed to make it better?”
Wemmbu looks away. “Bro, you hate fighting,” he pipes out. It’s low and dry, spoken with a mouth that’s lacking more moisture than it does sentiments after eating air and wind charges with every mace hit.
Egg pauses, his hands clasp motionless against Wemmbu’s torn skin. There’s a thump of silence as the sentence settles, for a second, only the trickling of water dripping from the cloth back into the bowl cuts through it.
“You hate all this blood and mess.” Wemmbu continues for them, adding in with a thinning voice that teeters at the edges. “The blood, the noise. You’d probably be happier somewhere quiet. With a fishing rod, maybe, and nobody bleeding at your feet.”
“Probably.” Egg agrees easily, though, there's a faintest smile tugging at his lips that betrays his assent. He dips the cloth again, wrings it out, and goes back to his work. “But I’d rather fish knowing you’re still breathing. Who else would I compare my loots with, bro?”
Wemmbu is quiet at that, his grin fading into something else—an almost vulnerable poignancy. Pain thrums through his body, every nerve screaming, and yet in that silence it feels quieter. Egg’s words cut deeper than any blade. Not because they hurt, but because they hold, they anchor.
“You’re insane,” Wemmbu mutters, though his voice carries none of its usual bite. “Devoted beyond reason. Stupid loyal.”
“Yeah,” Egg replies simply. No hesitation, no attempt to dress it up. Just that single word, easy and absolute, and it’s the kind of answer that doesn’t need elaboration.
That's all it takes, all it really needs. Because the you're my day one is already there, loitering even without the vocalization of it, humming through the unspoken serene between them. There isn't a need to call it out when it reminds them of its presence everyday: in nudges, in tugs and pulls, in assurances, and in moments where they just orbit around each other even when the world burns down around their feet. Because, ultimately, it doesn’t need to be said aloud so long as they're together; it never has.
Wemmbu just exhales, mulling the thought away. He doesn't bother to fix his tempo when his chest rattles with the effort. Instead, he closes his eyes, lets the sting of the cloth, the ache of his body, settle into him. He meant what he said before—the hurt is proof. Each cut, each bruise, each bleeding scrape is a reminder that he hasn’t lost yet. He’s survived. It’s his signature. Written in flesh instead of ink. Signed through viscera rather than quill.
Yet, Wemmbu can bleed for all of eternity, he can spend all of the world’s time in purgatory, shedding gashes after gashes, punctures organs after tissues, but never will he understand why Egg would linger after everything, remains despite all the odds, speaks to him in songs of promises, lyrics of allegiance.
For all his arrogance, all his swagger, Wemmbu doesn’t know what to do with words like that. He’s used to loyalty as a transaction—leverage, survival, give-and-take. Though, for whatever wicked reason, Egg stays through it all, stays for reasons that make no sense, reasons Wemmbu can’t twist into strategy.
Silence falls again, broken only by the soft scrape of cloth against skin, the quiet rattle of rain. Wemmbu closes his eyes, lets the throb hum through him, and thinks. He doesn’t like thinking. Thinking breeds hesitation, hesitation breeds death; but right now he can’t help it.
Pain, he knows, is proof of life. But Egg is proof of something else. Proof that maybe—just maybe—he isn’t surviving alone. That loyalty can exist without leverage. That someone can stay, not because they’re forced to, but because they want to.
It scares him more than any blade.
Wemmbu sighs, and shifts a little more to Egg’s side. His lips part with no intention, open with no syllables. Even so, something unintentional creeps through the cracked crevice.
“Do you—” The words slip out before he can stop them, quiet and unguarded, eyes fluttering open when he realizes he caught himself too late. But, he doesn’t deny them, he lets it hang, warrants the leer to drop, because well, he knows he’s already pledged to this path the moment Egg affirms his stupid bluff.
That only evinces itself more when he sees Egg looking up at him, narrow his eyes in a way that motions for him to continue. Wemmbu forces his eyes to a different direction. A weird lump forms in the back of his throat, but he wills it away—contumaciously, just like everything else. He’s too far gone to run, too deep down the street to swerve back. So, he talks.
“It's whatever, I was just thinking about stuff. About like, this whole ordeal.” Wemmbu dismisses, voice slurred with exhaustion but edged with a rare sincerity. His lofty tone fades, replaced by something rawer. "It doesn't matter anymore, though.”
It’s stupid to think that maybe, ever so slightly, behind his own will and hardened need to survive and desire to push through everything, chasing the ride that is vengeance until he’s even again, stands a thought. A strange idea of how maybe he’s not just doing it for himself, but for someone, too; that he’s not just fighting for himself, but also for the person next to him.
As if on cue, Egg pauses for a moment, then gives him a shrug. Cloth still pressed against Wemmbu’s skin with one hand, the other holding an antiseptic solution he pulled out of the kit just a bit ago. He lifts his gaze, windless but sharp, eyes catching the dim light. “I guess it is whatever,” he huffs softly.
Wemmbu swallows, throat tight. He wants to laugh it off, make a joke, taunt Egg into lightening the moment. But he doesn’t. He can’t. Because deep down, buried beneath bravado and arrogance and the exigency to prevail at any cost, he knows it’s true. Egg isn’t just his ally, or his patch-up hand, or his one weak spot. Egg is the reason the bloodshed means anything at all.
He once said it proves he’s living. And stupidly enough, Wemmbu thinks Egg proves it’s worth being.
Scoffing at the thought before it drags on further, his head slants and leans impossibly further back against the wall. He's exhausted, body burning, but strangely enough, there's an odd calm that worms its way into his chest despite it all. One he never expects to come back, not after everything he did, not after everything that happened; regardless, he finds himself lulling into it better than the stab he’s relished in these past few months.
He lets Egg work in silence, binding the wounds, with sterile and stitches and steady hands that he wouldn’t mind falling back into every now and then. Because now, he knows they’re as permanent as ever, now he knows they will hold onto him, not to rip him apart with betrayal, but to piece him together with faith.
And. Just this once, Wemmbu doesn’t let his instincts win, doesn’t shuffle away from fighting it.
He doesn’t mock, doesn’t scoop up another meaningless sneer, doesn’t push the moment away. He just breathes, and lets the silence between them speak louder than any ache ever could.
Maybe he’s grown soft. But, in the storm’s shadow, in the hush of rain and blood, a truth settles into him like a brand: he will bleed, he will fight, he will burn himself down until there’s nothing but ash—and nevertheless, Egg will still be there, tending the wounds, making sure the proof doesn’t fade.
Wemmbu bleeds to know he’s alive. And he thinks Egg stays to make sure he keeps wanting to be.