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Pac finds him first.
Of course he does. It's like he has a sixth sense for finding him, like he's got some sort of Fit-tracker built into his brain. Sure, it takes a minute, but Pac always finds him first.
Fit is crammed into a corner far behind the villager pit and further from the overwhelmingly loud visuals of the Blue base. He's doing a pretty good job of not freaking out, he thinks. His breathing is still not great, and he could be doing better at not up and running away, but he's still there. He's not punching himself in the leg or head. He's not biting or yelling, so he's fine .
He watches Pac hop over the steep wall and he doesn't wince at the clink noise that his running blade makes when it hits the stone. The stone, which is too cold, but it is quieter and pretty visually consistent, so it's better than nothing.
Pac stops for a second, and like he's approaching a cornered animal, he steps closer, slowly, footfalls lighter like he's noticed , because of course he has. Pac is very good at noticing .
He sits near Fit, but not right next to him. Just sort of in front of him, a couple feet away. He pulls his knee up to his chest, lets his prosthetic leg lay straight. And he just sits there.
He doesn't look directly at Fit, which Fit is grateful for. Instead, he pulls out a roll of bandages and starts redressing the wound on his shoulder. It doesn't need redressing, not so soon, but Fit knows Pac isn't good at sitting still. The effort is something that blows his mind. No one has cared as much as Pac has, aside from Phil and Ramón.
(But Phil is the enemy right now, and Ramón isn't here right now.)
Fit doesn't want to close his eyes, even if everything is just visually too much right now, because closing his eyes means he dies. Probably. It means he can't see what's happening, and if he can't see what's happening, he dies. That's how it goes. But Pac is here, and Pac would at least yell if something happens.
It takes a few tries, but Fit lets himself close his eyes. And then he's squeezing them shut like his life depends on it. His back is numb from being pushed into the wall. His legs ache from the effort of it. His arms are crossed over his knees and he kind of wants to cover his ears too, but that's a horrible idea, even if everything is screaming at him to cover cover cover quiet get quiet too loud —
He exhales sharply and bites down on the inside of his cheek. He doesn't make any noise, because the only noise he could make right now would make him sound stupid , and he's already embarrassing himself enough right now, with Pac sitting right there. He knows Pac doesn't care, but still .
He doesn't like being vulnerable. He hates it more when people see him like this. He's so good at hiding it on a regular day. He knows he doesn't have to, but old habits die hard, if they ever die at all.
Pac's voice comes in a mumble, because somehow he knows that whispering is too sharp of a sound. Everything is too much of a sound, but a whisper would be worse than a mumble right now.
“I have– I have headphones, if you uh, if you want.” He says. “And I'll stay right here so– so no one bothers. Or, or sees.”
Fit can't make himself respond, which is the worst part about these things. Everything sucks and is too much all at once, and to top it all off, he can't even fucking communicate . It's like his entire body just stops agreeing with him. This is better than when he ends up actually crying or hurting himself or just leaving altogether, but that doesn't mean he likes it at all.
He hears Pac move, hears the slow caution, and hears him shuffle over on his knees until he's next to him instead of across from him. He hears something get pulled out of a bag, hears the clack of headphones popping against each other, Pac’s quiet curse and apology, and then there's just breathing.
“I am going to, to put the headphones on you now, okay? No touching, no touching, I promise. I promise.”
It takes a moment, like Pac is letting the words sink in, and then there's soft pressure around his ears and the world is blessedly muted. Not completely silent, but quieter. Fit feels at least two thin layers of stress melt away. There's still about sixty thousand left. But two is nice. It helps.
He hears, quietly, how Pac scoots back. He stays like that for a while. It could be minutes, but it's probably closer to hours.
At some point, Fit opens his eyes. The world is blurry and he knows it's a combination of having had his eyes shut so tight for so long and the fact that his glasses broke on day one. He hasn't been able to figure out how to fix them.
He doesn't look at anything anyway. He just stares at the dark stone walls, which blur into a soothing gray color. Consistent. Calm. He can breathe again.
The headphones are pushing his hearing aids uncomfortably into the side of his head. He doesn't want to take them off, but it's starting to hurt. He sighs. It feels too loud, but not like, horrifically awfully loud. Not like before.
He sees Pac shift in his peripheral vision. He's putting his leg back on, and it occurs to Fit for the first time that he's been out of commission for long enough that Pac could take his leg off, clean it of any blood and sand and dirt, and put it back on. He has time to adjust it and everything.
Fit feels like shit. He can't be doing this here. He can't. He doesn't know how much time he just wasted, and to make it worse, he's made Pac stay down here, too.
(A little voice tells him he didn't make anyone do anything. He tries to ignore it.)
He drops his head down into his arms heavily. He hates this.
“Fit?” It is another graceful mumble from Pac, slightly louder to be heard over the headphones, but not too loud. Never too loud.
He lifts his head up a little, just enough to peek over his arms at Pac.
“Hi,” Pac waves a little, smiles a little, “Are you, are you okay?”
Fit wants to answer. He really, really does. He wants to force the words out of his mouth and just fucking speak like a normal person, but he can't. He frowns, lets his head fall back down, and nods. He's fine . Never been better.
Pac sighs a sigh of his own. “It's- it's— it's fine if you are not. You know? It's a lot. Today.”
It is a lot today.
“You cannot uh, you can't speak now, right? That's okay.”
It's not okay. Fit groans.
“Yes it is.” Fit can't see it, but he can feel Pac cross his arms. “It is okay. Because– because it happens sometimes. It happens. It is okay.”
Fit looks up enough to make a face. It's not much of a face, because he doesn't have the energy to make a face for real, but he tries. Pac grins back at him.
“We're staying here, I think,” Pac continues, “Too much to uh, too much to go back to the big area. Too much to see, too. I know. And, and also my leg hurts. So I am not moving here.”
Pac scoots to sit with his back to the wall, next to Fit, still a foot away.
“I uh, I messaged Tubbo. To bring, to bring the pillows and blankets. Because it is, it is, it is cold here, yes? It is cold. But I told him to not, not come until later. He will be here soon. So you know.”
Fit nods slowly. He really doesn't want anyone to see him like this ever, at all, but the Morning Crew is alright. He guesses. It is kinda cold down here.
It takes Tubbo around five minutes to clamber over the ledge. Somehow, he's quiet. Not that Tubbo is incapable of being quiet, just that he usually isn't, so it's appreciated. He bounds over on barely-clacking hooves, arms overflowing with blankets and thick furs and pillows.
“Hey kings, got your message.” He drops the stack into a pile on the floor. “Fit, touch these. I got what I could, and I didn't steal anything from BadBoyHalo, but I mean, he's got the softest shit and he never uses it, so if I did, it doesn't matter anyway. Textures and all.”
He plops himself down across from Pac and Fit and starts separating everything one by one and holding them up like some sort of salesman as he talks. Pac snickers when he spots Bad’s blanket, which has definitely been stolen.
Fit doesn't know what to do with this. He's not good at being cared for. He sucks at it, even. He stares at the blankets and doesn't really do anything. He doesn't know what to do.
Tubbo looks at Pac. Pac shrugs. Tubbo looks back at Fit.
“Too much?”
Fit shrugs.
“No problem.” Tubbo looks at Fit with an analyzing squint, then runs his hands through each blanket and fur. He grabs several of them and lays them out on the ground, then chooses a specific one to lay on top of those. He tosses the pillows on top of them, and then drags three remaining blankets and one fur over away from them.
“Okay, the bad ones should be on the bottom, and the really good ones are on top so no one freezes. Everyone in, go go go, come on.” Tubbo waves his hands at Fit and Pac toward the pile. Pac crawls over and takes his leg off again.
His face lights up, “This is really good!” He says. He pats the blankets next to him, “Come on Fit. No, uh, no touching, promise.” He tacks the last part on at the end quickly.
“Yep, no contact here.” Tubbo nods. He sits on the other side of Pac.
Fit takes a deep breath and forces himself to move. He makes it to the nest of a pile and all but collapses onto it. He's just tired. He hates everything that just happened, and it's exhausting.
Tubbo throws the last three blankets on top of all of them, and then the fur on top of that.
“Kick it off if it gets hot,” He says, and then he burrows down and rolls over.
Pac, in the middle of all three of them, lays with his back to Tubbo and lifts the blankets just a bit to readjust. He looks at Fit.
“The, the headphones are not too, uh, too comfortable to sleep with. On.”
Fit gets the message. He uses one hand to tug the headphones off, and he's surprised that the room is almost exactly as quiet without them. The background noise is just that now— background noise. It's getting better. He puts them next to himself, just in case. Pac smiles at him.
He holds an arm up, and Fit hesitates for a minute before scooting closer. Pac wraps his arms around Fit and hugs him loosely. He almost immediately remembers the promise that there would be no contact, and he goes to let go, but Fit… doesn't think it's bad. So when Pac lifts his arms again, Fit doesn't move. Pac looks at him with a worried glance, but when he doesn't get a bad reaction, he slowly hugs Fit again.
It's nice.
“You should know that I am being so mature right now,” Tubbo says over his shoulder, “You two are so gross, but I'm being nice about it. Because I am a good leader and your best friend.”
Pac snickers, and Fit smiles.
A shrill beep cuts through the air, and Fit kind of wants to die, actually, because it's so loud and the worst and it's sharp and– Tubbo springs up at the speed of light, reaches over, and plucks the hearing aids out of Fit's ears. In a blink, he takes the batteries out and the beeping stops.
Everything is silent for a moment, no one breathes, and Fit screws his eyes shut again. Pac slowly puts his hands on the sides of Fit's head and guides his head to rest firmly against his chest. He feels more than hears the beating of his heart, and after a few breaths he'd rather die than admit to having been guided through, he feels less like dying again.
There's a rumble, and he can hear a bit of Pac talking, but not much. He pauses, so Fit guesses Tubbo responds, and then he feels the rumble again. He doesn't know what they're talking about, and that should be more terrifying than it is. Pac nods once, and then he feels everything shuffle back to a comfortable position.
They stay like that until Fit is nearly asleep. He's blinking slowly when Pac pulls back, just a little, and taps Fit on the shoulder.
Fit looks at him blearily, and Pac shuffles an arm out to point at Fit's metal arm. He uses his free hand to rub at his own arm a little. He's right. Metal gets colder here in the caves at night. He should probably take it off so he doesn't get frostbite. It would suck to lose more of an arm he already doesn't have, and the medical supplies on this island are the worst.
So Fit sighs, rolls onto his back, and undoes the several clasps keeping his arm in place, and unceremoniously yanks it off. He places it by the headphones, and now that he sees them, he sees that Tubbo's put his hearing aids there too. The batteries are in a little bag next to them.
He doesn't deserve these friends. He's glad he has them, though.
Pac pulls him back into a warm hug, and Fit puts his head back on Pac's chest. He tells himself it's so that he can feel the heartbeat, know if it speeds up, if they're in danger. He knows it's because he just likes being close to Pac.
He shouldn't, but he does. And he lets himself sleep.
He can try again tomorrow.
(He wakes up wedged under Pac, with Tubbo laying sideways, starfished across the both of them. He thinks that this is okay. It will be okay.)