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Today was not a good day.
Well, it was supposed to be a good day. III had the house to himself for the afternoon, after all. II and IV were out on a date (something about visiting a flower garden and farmer’s market; III didn’t remember the details, but the shorter pair had been giggly about it over dinner last night, the anticipatory emotions spreading through the meal like food coloring in warm water), and Vessel was out doing personal errands.
With how fucked up his sleep schedule was as of late, III wasn’t set to wake up until close to noon. Which was fine, seeing how he retained faint, drowsy memories of someone’s calloused hands running through his hair, whispered “See you later”s and an adjustment of blankets.
What was not fine was how his brain didn’t get the memo.
First, III’s phone didn’t end up charging properly. Between being sandwiched amidst the pillow and mattress and the cord being kinked in a way that bent the greening wire in a weird manner, the phone didn’t end up receiving any charge and had remained at a dangerous five percent all night.
“Whatever,” the bassist grumbled as he plugged it in. “‘Snot like anyone’s gonna be texting me right now.”
Now, here was the thing about words: III was not the best at them. They backfired at the worst moments and he constantly stumbled over them, even before he shot up like a tree. Sometimes, he’d make the others speak for him when it came to delicate situations, the proper things to say often failing to arrive properly if at all. On stage, where everything was simultaneously a performance and not, he screamed the first things that came to his mind, the filters temporarily gone.
So at that statement, those words in that order in that tone of voice spoken aloud and brought to life, something shifted in III’s brain.
Naturally, the rest of the afternoon arrived in a shit show.
By the time the bassist checked the clock and realized that Vessel would be coming home soon (oh, he’s got plenty of time, he lied to himself), the house looked as if someone had attempted to rob it before he had made a valiant attempt to fight off the intruder and win. That was the optimistic thought, which entered and fled from III’s mind as soon as the more realistic thought manifested and caged him in: That he had made it his personal mission to ruin the house — the organized house, the house they all lived in, their home — because no one was there to stop him from doing so.
Sometimes, he wondered how he would ever function properly if he had lived alone.
Laundry was strewn about in what looked like a half-hearted attempt to throw them in the wash, but wasn’t he supposed to separate colors, or was it the lights and the darks? Both probably. III ended up with a few piles before he found one of his checkered socks that had gone missing for a month now. He could throw it in with his clean sock, but he should probably wash the other one too, just so they both smelled good. A fresh, clean pair, united once again!
Of course, he ended up stubbing his toe in the triumphant process of making the socks a pair again, curses flying out of his mouth and golden adornments curling up in pain.
Stupid.
Socks temporarily forgotten, he stuffed them into his sweatpants pocket when he remembered that he left his dishes to soak in some soapy water to make it easier to clean. Yeah, he could do dishes. At least, he thought he could do dishes. Maybe he used too much soap, or maybe he was distracted (honestly, he was getting better, but today was not his day), but his ceramic cup slipped out of his hands and ended up breaking.
It wasn’t a simple break, where only the handle was rendered unusable. It also wasn’t the break where only a small part chipped off, creating an uneven base or a sharp edge that he shouldn’t sip from. No, it was a full-on breakage, the kind where the cup needed to be replaced completely because even with glue, the cup would never hold liquid again without leaking. III hissed as he tried to swipe up a few small fragments of his mug from the bottom of the sink, the edges scraping against the sink and making a sound akin to nails on a chalkboard: grating, slicing up his eardrums and forcing him to have to stop trying to pick up a few particularly stubborn pieces.
Dishes… oh fuck, the laundry. Socks. He had socks in his pocket, checkered socks. He also needed to restring his bass. The current strings were rusting and sounded duller when he practiced. Did he have strings? He had strings.
“I lied, I don’t have my fucking strings,” III muttered as he searched not only his room, but the basement where they practiced. “I swear I bought strings, where the fuck are they?” He found so many picks, he found drumsticks, he found some of Vessel’s notes strewn about and only held together by a paperclip, he found strings for IV’s guitars, but where he did put his strings?
III bit the inside of his cheek when he stubbed the same toe on the same damn corner, iron and something slightly bitter flooding the inside of his mouth.
He broke his mug.
He couldn’t find his bass strings to restring his instrument.
He had one clean sock and one month-old dirty sock in his pockets.
He had laundry to do.
And he still had to wipe the dishes and put them away.
The time kept ticking, taunting him by removing each solid thought every time he passed through a doorway. No one was going to text him. They were busy and had no time to worry about what he was going to be up to.
He needed to clean up the house before they got home.
The door opened. “III!” Vessel called out. “I’m home!”
The singer was going to see the mess.
III couldn’t move to fix it.
“III?”
The bassist’s muscles suddenly kicked into high gear as he was suddenly set into motion to make up some excuse, some joke. Something to redirect away from how horribly distracted he was, how he wasted the afternoon gifted to him and got nothing done and somehow made more mess in the process.
III managed see Vessel’s gaze move towards him, like a shy moth to a frazzled flame. He inhaled, ready to redirect—
Instead, he stubbed his fucking toe. Again.
A sharp cry quickly escaped his mouth and all at once Vessel was there, hovering around his space but not quite touching. Not yet. How respectful of him.
“III?” he repeated.
The bassist inhaled. Redirect. Make a joke. Wave his limbs around to distract. “I gotta wash my socks,” was what ended up coming out. “I gotta– My socks. And strings. Shit, my mug broke too, I gotta —”
Heavy hands on his shoulders. A squeeze. III could feel the gaze of six eyes on him. They weren’t heavy (he knew that they weren’t), but he still couldn’t make himself meet them. He turned his head to the side, fingers tapping against his thighs in order to release some sort of pent up energy that begged him to run.
Run away like some cornered animal that was caught in a trap.
“The house is a mess, I know. I’ll fix it,” he sharply exhaled. “After I throw my socks into the laundry and– Oh fuck, I just left the laundry out there. I need to put them into the wash. We have detergent, I’ll —”
“III,” Vessel said.
The bassist’s fingers curled into a fist.
“III,” the singer repeated. Softly. Gently. “Leave it be for now.”
“Huh? No, I made the mess, I should —” III paused. He looked at Vessel and shook his head. “What? Leave it be? Vessel, it’s a mess. The house did not look this way when everyone left.”
“It’s okay. We can clean it up later. Two pairs of hands are better than one pair.” Vessel firmly dragged his hands down from III’s shoulders until they were holding his balled hands.
“It’s a mess,” III reiterated.
“It’s not your fault,” Vessel lowly murmured, rubbing his thumbs over the bassist’s knuckles until III’s fists unclenched and he let the singer squeeze his hands. “Your mind’s a mess too, but we make do.”
“The house —”
“Can wait for now.” Vessel leaned up — a funny thing that was, watching their singer who was so tall among everyone else until III enters the picture, look up at someone — and gave him a quick kiss over the golden veil of his face. “I won’t ever say that this is your fault, sugar.”
Suddenly, III was back on stage in their early days, listening to Vessel sing ‘Sugar’ while straddling him. The bassist had no words to say for that, just speechless pantomiming to get his ideas across. Words. They were an elusive creature.
III wrapped his arms around Vessel and buried his face in the crook of the singer’s neck, quiet for a long while before he murmured, “I can’t find my bass strings.”
“We’ll find them,” Vessel said.
“Okay. Okay, sugar.”
The laugh at the almost sickeningly sweet pet name washed over III, leaving behind warmth with no bitter aftertaste. Sugar. He liked that.