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The stale air of the end shouldn’t have been as calming as it was to Wemmbu, but after constantly hiding his identity, stressing over being found out, and always fighting, anything familiar brought him some semblance of comfort.
Wemmbu didn’t plan on staying for long, just enough to catch Egg up on recent events and warn him that someone was trying to impersonate him. Just enough time to get stuff done, then he had to be on the move again.
The thought of that, for some reason, filled Wemmbu with something close to dread. Like his body was trying to tell him not to keep going for whatever reason. Maybe he just needed to eat something.
Walking down the stairs into the base Egg and Minute shared, Wemmbu dully noted that Minute was still missing. The place was still abandoned and ransacked, not a person in sight. Well, not yet at least.
Mining into a particular spot in the wall, Wemmbu revealed Egg, sitting in the torchlight with a book open on his lap and a quill in his right hand. “Hey bro,” Wemmbu greeted, though he didn’t appreciate the way his voice came out scratchy, even with the voice changer. He decided to take it off for the time being since it was just Egg, but that didn’t make the scratchyness dissipate at all.
Egg jumped a bit, seeming to break out of the focus he had on his writing. “Oh, you scared me bro.” He looked Wemmbu up and down, eyes squinting like he was trying to see through the invis. “Welcome back.”
Wemmbu nodded and took a step back, giving Egg room to stand up and leave his hole in the wall. He watched as Egg stretched his arms over his head and yawned, stretching his wings out in the process as well. They were honestly huge, and Wemmbu had always liked looking at them in all their glory. They were impeccably clean too, as Egg had always been particular about taking care of them. Even when they were in genuinely terrible situations, sometimes Wemmbu would look over and find Egg combing loose leaves or twigs out of his wings.
“So I’m guessing you came here for a reason?” Egg asked after a few seconds of silence, bringing Wemmbu back to reality. He’d zoned out somewhat by accident.
“Uh, right,” Wemmbu blinked, trying to remember what he’d come here for. To stall while his brain caught up, he led Egg farther into the base. It would reduce the chances of anyone hearing them anyways. “Uh, has anyone come here recently? Anyone that happens to look like me?”
Egg tilted his head, something behind his eyes shifting at Wemmbu’s tone. “I don’t think so bro. I mean, aside from random new players that pass by. But I don’t really leave the wall, so I dunno if they look like you or not bro.” he shrugged.
Wemmbu shook his head. “No, like, they would be looking for you, so you would know.” It was nice to know that they hadn’t made it here then. It might have been a small weight lifted off his shoulders. If that even made a difference. “There’s been this guy going around pretending to be me, and if he came to you and you didn’t realize then that could have been bad.”
“I see…” Egg hummed, looking at Wemmbu carefully, and when Wemmbu saw his hand out of the corner of his eye, he realized it was because his invis ran out. “They’re trying to steal your aura bro, that’s messed up,” Egg spoke as he began walking in some random direction.
Without much else to do, and in order to keep the conversation going, Wemmbu followed behind Egg, making sure to reapply his invis while he was walking. “Yeah so, in order to not, like, accidentally give out my identity to some random guy, we should probably find a way that you can verify it’s me when I come here.”
Egg barely acknowledged Wemmbu’s words as he seemed to be laser-focused on leading them down some narrow hallway further into the base. He did nod though, and after like a minute he added, “Like a codeword or something?”
Wemmbu had to speedwalk to keep up with Egg by this point, but he just went with it, too tired to particularly care if Egg wanted to go on a walk while they were talking. “Yeah, that would probably work. We’d have to find something we can slip into a regular conversation without the average person being able to guess it.”
The hallway they were walking in finally seemed to come to an end as Egg stopped abruptly, turning to a closed door that was on the right. Wemmbu nearly ran into him in the process, but he barely caught himself in time.
Egg opened the door and led the two of them inside, and the first thing that Wemmbu noticed was that it didn’t seem to be raided, unlike the rest of the base. The second thing was that it was a bedroom.
“We could have, like, hostage be our codeword bro,” Egg continued casually as he closed the door behind them. “Because people don’t say that word often, and I’m always being taken hostage y’know?”
Wemmbu nodded slowly, looking around the room apprehensively. “Uh yeah, that works bro but uh… are you about to genuinely kill me or something? What are we doing in here?” The minute Egg closed the door, alarm bells began to ring in Wemmbu’s head. He knew Egg would never do anything, nor could he, but he still didn’t like being in a closed space without knowing why.
Egg blinked at him slowly before moving away from the door and over to one of the dressers next to the bed. “Oh right, this is the bedroom Minute said I could use when I first came here,” he replied as if that answered anything. “It’s really deep into the base and pretty hidden, so it’s untouched. I come here sometimes when I need to sleep.”
Taking a step farther into the room, Wemmbu hummed, unimpressed. “Uh huh, that’s great bro. Are you planning on taking a nap right now or something?” If that was the case, why did he drag Wemmbu with him? “Do you need me in here to do that?”
“Don’t be an idiot bro,” Egg rolled his eyes as he pocketed the item he’d just grabbed and walked back over to Wemmbu and began pushing him towards the bed in the middle of the room. “How much longer do you have on your invis?”
Now Wemmbu was really getting concerned, and he dug his heels into the ground to stop Egg from pushing him any farther. “Bro what is going on? What are you doing?” A million possibilities began to pass through Wemmbu’s head. Was someone forcing Egg to do this in order to get Wemmbu’s identity? Was someone impersonating Egg somehow too? What if Egg was-
A sigh broke Wemmbu out of his thoughts, and turning around, he found Egg standing there, now holding a milk bucket with both of his hands. He looked… lost. “Bro like…” he started, not meeting Wemmbu’s eyes, “when your invis ran out earlier, you looked kinda… bad. And like, if you go back out there like that, you’re probably gonna slip up and get your identity revealed.”
Wemmbu just stared at Egg, letting what he’d said sink in. He looked bad? How was that possible? Yeah, he was invisible, so he didn’t put as much thought into his appearance, but it wasn’t like he’d neglected it entirely? He was still clean and all that.
But what struck him even more than that was how concerned Egg sounded. The two of them were never the type to really care like that, outwardly at least, so it was a bit jarring to see Egg so upset over something like this. It was enough to make Wemmbu take things a bit more seriously instead of just brushing it off like he normally would.
Egg pushed the milk bucket forward. “We’re really secluded, and nobody's found this place before, so you should be fine if you’re not invis for a bit.” He finally met Wemmbu’s eyes, and it was like a personal attack against him. Like, now he couldn’t refuse.
So, averting his eyes because he couldn’t look into Egg’s pathetic ones anymore, Wemmbu accepted the milk and drank it, feeling the invisibility fade from his skin. “Are you happy bro?” he asked, still not entirely sure what Egg wanted from him.
He did notice earlier though, that there was a mirror near the closet, and since he was curious, and also wanting to avoid the visible frown that spawned on Egg’s face after seeing him un-invis, Wemmbu walked over and stood in front of it.
“Bro, what do you mean I look ‘bad’?” Wemmbu blurted out upon seeing himself. He looked fine? He wasn’t, like, unwashed or anything. His clothes were clean and put together too. The most he could understand was his hair—it was admittedly pretty messy. It was hard to keep his long ass hair from getting tangled when he was constantly in fights. Especially when it came to using his mace. Going up in the air and back down constantly was basically asking for his hair to get knotted.
Egg came up behind him, looking into the mirror as well. “Brother, do you see yourself? You look like you haven’t slept in days, and when you first came here you were spacing out. You didn’t even realize your invis had run out for a good ten seconds.”
“Huh?” Wemmbu thought he’d caught the invis right away, and he hadn’t been zoning out, had he? He was just… thinking. But if Egg was right, then it would be dangerous for Wemmbu to go back out into the server. If he somehow lost track of his invis in front of anyone, everything would be over.
“Plus, your hair is a mess,” Egg added, grabbing a strand between his fingers and inspecting it. He seemed to deem it unsuitable as he let go of it and let it join back with the other messy strands.
Wemmbu huffed and angled his head away slightly, not appreciating the judgement he was receiving. “Well there’s nothing I can really do about that bro, it’s always gonna be knotted from fights.” He pushed his hair off his shoulders so it was behind him and he didn’t have to see it. “And no one’s even seeing it right now, so it’s fine.”
“Uh, hello bro? I’m standing right here, and I’m seeing it?” Egg tilted his head far enough so Wemmbu was forced to look into at least one of his eyes. “Do I not count bro?”
And Wemmbu was really starting to hate looking into Egg’s eyes because every time he did, he just felt so guilty and he didn’t even know why. It wasn’t Egg’s fault, it was probably Wemmbu’s honestly, but he still wanted nothing more than to look away.
So, the only way to combat having actual emotions was to cover them with annoyance. “Bro, like, what do you want from me?” he asked, and he had to rip his eyes away from Egg because seeing his reaction would only make things worse. “You dragged me here to make me un-invis and then tell me I look bad. I don’t really have the time to just talk bro, so if that’s all then I need to get going.”
True to his word, although reluctant, Wemmbu began walking back toward the door to leave. Egg didn’t chase after him, but he did sigh, and that was enough to get Wemmbu to stop walking mometarily. It probably shouldn’t have been, and if he were any stronger, he would have just ignored it. But he wasn’t. He may have been the strongest on the server, but he wasn’t the strongest when it came to dealing with Egg.
“Bro, at least like, stay here for a little bit,” Egg pleaded, voice surprisingly even despite how Wemmbu had just spoken to him. “If you go out how you are now, you’re basically asking to die. Which is dumb. There’s no point in doing that bro.”
Wemmbu let out a groan and turned around. Not because Egg was being stupid, but because he was right. Wemmbu may have been desperate to stay on his feet and keep looking for his impersonator, but he was also aware enough to know that he was barely functioning. He wasn’t the type to typically take breaks since there was almost always something happening, but if he didn’t want Egg, or himself, to be put in any danger, then staying here with him might not be too bad. If he twisted it, he could even believe that staying here was actually helping things, and thus technically not taking a break.
That always helped to ease his mind.
“So you just want me to sit here then?” Wemmbu asked skeptically, still not letting Egg completely win just yet. “Or like, do you wanna play cards or something?”
Egg perked up and jumped onto the bed, situating himself in the middle of it. “Come sit bro,” he urged, patting the space in front of him. “I have something in mind.”
Wemmbu tilted his head but complied anyway, too tired to really care what nonsense Egg was up to. He had a feeling that sitting down would be a bad idea, no less sitting on a bed, because he might not want to get back up, but that was a problem for his future self because he practically melted into the bed as he sat on it.
He didn’t make any indication of that though, lest Egg find out he was actually comfortable.
But the concept of being so relieved just from sitting down really made him wonder when the last time was that he sat on something other than a rock or the ground. And even then, that wasn’t very often; usually just after a fight when he needed to organize his inventory or something.
As he was thinking about all that, Wemmbu could hear Egg shuffling behind him, and he was curious, but not curious enough to actually look back and see what was going on. He was perfectly content to sit here and stare at a wall if that was what Egg wanted them to do.
That was, until Wemmbu felt a hand in his hair.
“What the hell are you doing bro?” Wemmbu asked, turning around and away from Egg’s hand. And upon looking back, he found Egg holding a hairbrush, with various sized hair ties and hair clips next to him. And by that point, Wemmbu could infer what was going on but he still waited to hear Egg’s reply.
“Bro, I already told you your hair looked bad, and since we’re gonna be in here, I don’t wanna have to see it like this,” he said before looking Wemmbu up and down. “Plus, if someone does end up seeing you when you go back out there, would it not be better if you actually looked like a functioning member of society?”
Wemmbu opened his mouth to defend himself, not appreciating Egg’s sudden attitude, but Egg cut him off and continued, “Also, it makes me look bad too, y’know? Like we’re obviously associated with each other and if people start to think I let you walk around with your hair all messy then what will they think of me?” He fluffed his wings out behind him like he was trying to prove a point. “I can’t let my reputation of having perfectly maintained wings go down the drain.”
“What reputation? Nobody cares about your wings, bro,” Wemmbu rolled his eyes as he turned back around. He wasn’t going to say anything else, partially because he didn’t have the energy to defend himself, and partially because Egg was kinda right. But his silence alone was confirmation enough to Egg that he could continue. They’d done this before, and it usually went about the same each time.
So, Wemmbu tried to let himself relax as Egg undid his hair and began parting it into sections to work on it. Egg was always careful, he’d learned over their years of being friends how to brush hair as perfectly and as painlessly as possible, which Wemmbu appreciated. He could stand the pull of a hairbrush, especially when he was doing his own hair and he didn’t care how much it hurt as long as it was brushed as fast as possible, but he definitely enjoyed the extra gentleness. He’s dealt with enough pain in all the fights he gets himself into, so it was nice to not have to deal with any on top of that.
Egg slowly worked his way through the knots in Wemmbu’s hair, letting the two of them sit peacefully in the silence. And the longer Wemmbu sat there, feeling the brush pass along his scalp, the more relaxed he felt himself getting. It was like his limbs each weighed a thousand pounds suddenly, and he wanted nothing more than to sink farther into the bed.
Which, he had half the mind to recognize was probably bad. He wasn’t supposed to be here for a long time, and the more comfortable he let himself get, the harder it would be to leave later. But Egg had wanted him to take a break, and how could he fully do that if he didn’t let himself relax?
So Wemmbu did just that, letting the built up tension from the past few weeks (maybe even the past few months if he thought about it) slowly leave him as Egg worked through the tangles with ease.
It was a while, and Wemmbu genuinely had zero concept of how much time could have passed as he was partially zoned out most of the time, but eventually Egg stopped working in sections and was able to run the brush through all of Wemmbu’s hair without any resistance.
It felt nice to feel the brush against his scalp and the slight pull on his hair, really nice actually. But the knowledge that Egg was done ruined the mood a bit. Because if he was done, then that meant Wemmbu had to leave and go back to the main server. Which, he was realizing, he really didn’t want to do.
Plus, he didn’t know if he could at this point, his body felt so heavy that he feared he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to get up even if he tried.
But just as Egg put the brush down and Wemmbu decided that he should at least attempt to move, Egg’s hands were back in his hair again, going back to parting it.
Wemmbu wanted to ask what he was doing, but he was too scared that Egg would stop if he said anything, so he stayed silent, content to let Egg do whatever he wanted as long as it meant Wemmbu could keep being comfortable for longer.
Egg however, seemed to be able to read Wemmbu’s mind somehow, as he spoke up for the first time and answered his question. “If your hair’s braided then it won’t keep getting knotted or messy during fights bro. And since you’re invisible you can’t complain about losing any aura from having your hair braided.”
Wemmbu hummed at that, not having enough energy to actually reply out loud. He probably wouldn’t have complained if Egg just put his hair in a regular braid, since he’d done so before, but given that Egg had a pile of hair clips next to him, Wemmbu had a feeling Egg was planning on using them, which was probably why he thought he’d complain.
And, normally, he probably would have. He wanted people to take him seriously as the strongest on the server, so having a bunch of cute pins and clips would probably do the opposite. But Egg was right. Wemmbu was indeed invisible, so he didn’t really need to care about any of that at the moment.
Also, he would rather die than stop Egg right now, so he didn’t have much of a choice.
So Egg continued running his fingers through Wemmbu’s hair, pulling it into a nice braid. Or at least, one that Wemmbu could only assume was nice since he couldn’t see it. And as more time passed, Wemmbu began to feel his eyelids getting heavy.
He knew, too, that that was insanely bad. He obviously couldn’t fall asleep right now when he still had things to do. But a bigger part of his brain, one that was incredibly sleepy, was starting to take over and make him believe it actually didn’t matter. And how was he not supposed to fall asleep when his scalp was being pulled so nicely?
He did try to fight it a little bit, but the minute he started leaning back against Egg, he knew he was done for.
The last thing he registered as he began using Egg as a pillow to drift off, was Egg humming happily as he moved Wemmbu so he was under the covers and properly resting now.