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You are laying back on your bed staring up at the ceiling. You are covered in a fine, sticky layer of sweat and your body feels bad. You woke up several hours ago, but stayed in your bed, barely bothering to kick the blankets off of your overheated legs. Your eyes hurt from staring at your phone, your muscles are getting twitchy from disuse. You have to roll over every now and again to keep your arms from falling asleep. Your stomach hurts with hunger and your head feels a little cloudy, either because you haven't eaten or drank anything, or just from the half asleep barely thinking state you've kept yourself in since you’ve woken up. You feel disgusting, you haven't brushed your teeth, you haven’t even moved. You know it's just going to get worse if you stay here. At this point you’ve gotten enough sleep, every nap you take is going to make you feel worse. You need food. You know that as soon as you eat something you’ll feel human again, your head will clear and you’ll forget it was ever foggy like this. The longer you wait the worse a state you’ll be in when you finally get up. You don’t want to be dizzy and stumbling. You can’t afford to be off your game.
And that's it. That's the catch that keeps you stuck to your bed. You’re going to have to get out eventually, at the very least to pee. You ran out of packets of chips in your stash, a stupid mistake, but you had gotten a couple of days off of school without warning. A pipe had burst and apparently they couldn't keep kids in a building for eight hours a day without running water. It threw off your system. You’d fix it, add some extra bags to your emergency stash as soon as you could. It was a stupid mistake, an oversight. You’d always worried about keeping it too full. You didn’t want to seem worried or needy or anything. Like having some snacks in your room for when the urge hits is all good and well, but you didn’t want to seem like you were worried about it. Your Bro fed you all the time! He would order you guys take out at least once or twice a week. The issue was that with the fridge otherwise occupied the takeout would only last a day or two, if it even lasted past a meal, and there really wasn't any other food in the house.
You’d been on a video call with John once when he’d gone to grab a snack from his kitchen. He’d gone into his ‘pantry’ and it was jaw dropping, like a whole miniature grocery store in there, boxed mac and cheese, canned foods, and bags of rice and stuff. You’d roasted him at the time, he got defensive and said that it was better that way since they didn’t have to get groceries all the time if they had ‘staples’ on hand. It was a bunch of nerd shit, but it had kind of inspired your closet hoard. You kept some chips and cereal and stuff in there and when you couldn’t get school food, and Bro wasn’t in the mood to order anything or was away or something, you could eat that. It was a really good system, you had been doing a lot better in school and even your strifes. Honestly it was probably fine even if Bro knew about it, it was your super cool guy snack hoard, but you still weren’t super into him finding out. Honestly the idea of adding more to it was stressing you out even if you knew you needed to. For one you’d have to source more snacks and that was always hard. If you had cash on you you could get stuff from vending machines or the corner store on your way home, but cash was a little hard to come by. You weren’t poor by any means. Bro always seemed to have money coming in from one of his hustles, he didn’t DJ too often, so you assume he’s either really good at it or the smuppet porn is incredibly lucrative, or you guess he could be doing something else, he was gone pretty often without his DJ gear, but it wasn’t like you were going to ask. Being worried about that kind of shit wasn’t cool. There always seemed to be money for whatever kind of shit either of you wanted, that was the thing, if there was something you wanted all you really had to do was ask. If it was cool or ironic enough then he'd get it for you, or if it wasn’t apparent how cool and ironic it was then you’d have to do well in a strife to show him it was cool, otherwise you wouldn’t get it. If it was lame enough you’d have to strife him and still wouldn’t get it. That always sucked. What you could get was completely divorced from price. Your turntables were several thousand dollars, and your photography equipment wasn’t cheap either, but it took little to no convincing to get it. You’d asked for snow boots one winter and ended up walking to school the next day with cold feet and bruised to shit for asking. But yeah, this system meant that you had all the coolest shit and little to no cash. Any time you needed money for a school thing you’d just leave a note on the counter and when you got to class the teacher would let you know that the balance was paid. Sometimes it almost seemed like he didn’t want you to have money but that was silly. If anything he just didn’t want you spending money on lame shit. You wonder a bit whether or not food falls under lame shit.
You’d considered getting a job but it didn’t really seem like an option. You didn’t super know how to go about doing that, and you also weren’t sure what kind of job you could get that would be cool enough for a strider. You were pretty sure that any of those retail jobs with the dumb little uniforms would be grounds for a major roasting, probably some strifing too. There was also the issue that you weren't really allowed to leave the house. It wasn’t like Bro had told you that, it's just that whenever you were gone for very long Bro got weird about it. If you took too long coming home from school or went out for very long on weekends it would be unpleasant. Sometimes you would get a cryptic text from Bro asking where you were or telling you to come home. More often you wouldn't hear anything from him, but the vibe would be off when you got home and you’d have an especially rough strife, or there would be more booby traps than there were when you left. Sometimes he wouldn’t be home and nothing would happen, but Bro didn’t exactly keep a schedule you could plan around. So no job.
Otherwise you would just use snacks you had gotten at school, a bag of chips here, some dudes veggie chips he didn’t want there. Picky eaters with health conscious moms were your biggest suppliers. Occasionally, if you were really desperate you would lift something from a gas station or a convenience store. The issue with this was there was too much risk. You couldn’t afford to get banned from the one near your house, and you really couldn’t get caught. Your Bro had always been cagey about stuff with the law, and you really didn’t want to explain to him that you were stealing yourself food. You were terrified that he would find out about what you had been doing and decide that you could fend for yourself. You could barely keep up the system you had. Actually, you lol your head to the side to look at your empty closet, you couldn’t keep up this system. You had no idea what would happen if he decided he didn’t need to buy you food anymore, or worse he didn’t need to care for you at all. It wasn’t like you wanted to mooch off of him all the time, but with school and strifes and the weird job thing you really didn’t want to risk what you had going on. He’d done it a few times before, decided that you didn’t need help anymore and it always sucked.
You have vague memories of him deciding you didn’t need help with the bath anymore and scalding yourself on hot water. You had trouble climbing out of the overly hot bath and had slipped and hit your head pretty bad. You lied on the cold bathroom tile shivering and in pain for a while before he opened the door. He didn’t say anything, just looked at you lying there and shook his head before disappearing, leaving an equally disapproving lil’ Cal in his place. You still took cold showers. You also remember when he decided you were old enough to wash your own clothes. You had thought you knew what you were doing with that one until your third grade teacher had called your brother and asked him about the smell. You had one of the worst strifes of your life that night and then he sat you at his computer and made you watch a YouTube tutorial on how to do laundry. You had figured out the machine alright, but hadn’t realized you needed to add soap. It was best to avoid Bro deciding you were ready to be independent. You weren’t confident about your chances if it came down to sinking or swimming. You had never learned how to swim. A little voice in the back of your head that sounds a lot like Rose whispers that you’ve never been taught.
You need to get up, but you really don’t want to. There hasn’t been a strife in a while, and that usually means a particularly rough one is coming. You really aren’t in the mood today. You need food though, and to piss. It’s 3pm now and the urge has come and went and is now coming back with a vengeance. Piss 2 back 4 blood. If you can get out of bed you have a couple of bucks on hand that you can get some food with, a guy in his class had dared you to eat a mixture of various cafeteria foods topped in chocolate milk and bet $5 that you wouldn’t and five more that you’d throw up if you did. You had happily separated him from his cash. You’d already spent some of it on the snacks you had cleared out this week. There was enough left to feed you until you got back to school, but building back up your supply was going to be hard.
You lay there, trying desperately to listen for any sounds of life. Maybe he’s gone and this will be easy, you can just relax and take a piss and brush your teeth. Get something microwavable from the corner store and have a hot meal. In the quiet your heartbeat sounds like footsteps and it's almost funny. Your Bro would never walk that loudly. You close your eyes and gather your strength. Whatever happens is going to happen anyway. Staying in your room isn’t going to make a strife magically not happen. You’re not a baby, hiding under the covers isn’t going to make the monster go away. You scrunch up your eyebrows. That's a weird thought. Your Bro isn’t a monster. Strifing is cool, you’re super lucky your Bro is cool and lets you use swords. John is super jealous. You have the best life. You’re just tired right now. And hungry.
You need to get up, you can do this. You heave yourself up and stumble a little. You waited too long and your head is spinning. This sucks. You wobble to your door, leaning a little too hard into it when you get there. God, you're making a lot of noise. It’s not like that's a problem, you’ve never gotten in trouble for being noisy, you've never really gotten in trouble for anything, just got roasted when you deserved it which is not the same thing. You’re a cool guy not a baby who gets scolded, like John. It's just that cool guys are quiet and it feels so weird to move around so loudly in an apartment that is so quiet. Sure there's some neighbor noises, but Bro is only ever heard when he wants to be. You’re not anxious, that would be lame. You are just trying to be the coolest guy you can be. And cool guys are quiet. Your trip to the bathroom is uneventful, even if you're a little off balance you can still dodge the usual puppet and weapon traps, though you nick your hand a little of a hybrid one. You were betrayed by a plush rump concealing a sharp blade. While you’re in the bathroom you piss, clean off the little cut on your hand, brush your teeth and inspect yourself. You slept in sweatpants and a t-shirt so you really just need to put on shoes before you go. It’s too hot to sleep in pants, but you really don’t like wearing shorts. You’ve hit a growth spurt and your awkward gangly scarred up legs make you feel weird to look at. You’re taller than John now, but still shorter than Jade and Rose. You’ve got a pair of rainbow dash crocs that your brother got for you by the door. You didn’t ask for them, they were an unexpected gift. You think they might be custom made. It’s not really your thing, but they are definitely super cool and it's awesome that your Bro wanted to give you something.
You venture out of the bathroom. So far you’ve been left alone. You start to think that he’s not home and you sit in your bed worrying about nothing until you enter the kitchen and he’s right there, sitting at the kitchen table. A small space has been cleared off and there are a couple of foil containers sitting there. It smells amazing.
“Look who’s up. And just in time, little man. I got us pasta for breakfast.” You do not mention that it is much closer to dinner time than to breakfast. “It looks like we both have the day off, let's eat and then we can watch a movie and play a game or something. It’ll be dope.”
It’s a good day. You were worrying for nothing. God you are such an anxious loser. Bro is the coolest. You give him a cool guy nod, not too excited, to let him know that you are down for his plan. You sit down and grab your pasta. It’s hot, and that should slow you down but it doesn’t. You burn your tongue and can barely taste anything after the first couple of bites, but you’re too hungry to care. There’s bread too and you shove that in your mouth. You feel eyes on you and realize that Bro is looking at you. Your face is covered in sauce and you know you've been eating like no one has fed you in days (the voice, the same smug, Rose sounding one from earlier tells you that they haven’t). God dammit. This was going to be a good day and you’ve ruined it by being super uncool. Fuck. Shit. FUuuuuuuuck. You look back at Bro’s impassive face, ready for a snide remark, for him to tell you to leave the food and go back to your room, for him to disappear and leave behind Lil’ Cal and a note telling you to meet you on the roof. Instead he lets out a noise you can only describe as a chuckle as impossible as it seems.
“I forgot how much food it takes to keep a little man running,” he sounds pleased, and you’ve never felt happier, you’d eat a cake with your hands like a baby at one of those birthday parties where everybody watches a baby rub its grubby little face all up in a cake. Do they buy a separate cake for the baby to smash? Or do they just all eat baby cake? Or do they just not eat cake? You can’t imagine you would be super hungry for cake after watching up close and personal as a baby violates a pastry, but no matter how disgusting an act it might be you’d do that if it meant you’d get to hear your Bro talk about you like this.
“You’ve gotten taller, haven’t you?” he asks. You nod your head in response, still not done chewing the large mouthful of food you have and not willing to risk choking on it, lest you ruin the good mood you guys have going in here. “Guess you’ve gotta get that mass from somewhere if you’re gonna get big like me.” You want nothing more than to be like him. Any weird thoughts you were having earlier are gone. You love your Bro, he’s so cool. You were just hungry. You’d happily be hungry sometimes, or bruised, or cut up, or a little anxious if it means you get to live here with the coolest Bro you could ever ask for.