Swimming With the Stars

Four - Necessities

Tw - mentions of animal death

May 9th 2023

It was weird.

After dealing with two months of this shit, Pezzy developed a new sixth sense of memorizing everything familiar. Every sound, every object, Droid himself. If anything was out of the ordinary, he was on alert instantly.

He was already used to his own quiet thumps and Droid's own slightly more dense, careful footsteps along the forest's floor. But it was now accompanied by a third pair of small, soft sounding ones. And he couldn't focus. Trying to keep an ear out for any other sounds was harder as he tried to ignore it, even after traveling from the shack they'd stayed in days ago.

Especially how the person that the pair of small footsteps belonged to kept talking.

Even worse, it wasn't even her that started the conversations. It was Droid, who walked a few paces behind with Rosie.

She had laid off on the questions about her mother. Which was... interesting. Seemingly more focused on adapting to the change of being with people she's never met. Yet seemed to be loving it. Well, Droid at least. She didn't lack showing the distance she kept from Pezzy.

Food and water were running low in both their backpacks, forcing them to abandon the shack and explore. Just like the treehouse, the shack was long behind them. Pezzy had had the split second thought of leaving Rosie there with it.

It's not like she had done anything to him, but the feeling still sat with him.

It was in the way of his plans, his thoughts, Droid-

Pezzy shook his head from the thought. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish.

A leaf fell in front of him, letting the light breeze carry its journey down to add to the others that littered the ground.

He knew Droid was trying to convince him, during days and nights, to be a part of the conversation or games he and Rosie came up with to play. Hand gestures and little head tilts, signaling him to join them. But Pezzy waved him off each time, either stuffing himself in ink-filled words and paper, his ocean of thoughts, and maybe, just maybe, even the polaroid picture when he thought Droid wasn't looking. When the eeri quiet of the night would've been deafening and completely lonely if it weren't for the soft snores of his best friend and light breaths of a young child.

He wouldn't call it jealousy, because how the fuck would he be jealous of a child? More of an... inconvenience, that he couldn't seem to adapt to, like it seemed that Droid had. A change in pace. A reason for recalculation and strategy. But the thoughts went both ways, just opposite. Apparently Droid didn't think like him either.

Does Droid not understand that she's just going to slow them down? - He stepped over a root of a tree that had made its way up from the soil - Does he not understand that she could quite literally get them killed? - He listened as Droid and Rosie had followed his movements and done the same, their chatting only reached his ears as unintelligible murmurs from behind - Does he not understand that she could be tricking them, getting close only to rip their lives to shreds when they least expected it...?

Well okay, maybe that last one was a little far-fetched, but Pezzy couldn't help it. It was every little possible detail that swarmed around his brain. It was the reason for the nearly sleepless nights, where he feared that Droid would eventually turn on him. Leave him for dead if it comes down to it. Or just leave him for the hell of it cause he's done dealing with Pezzy's bullshit.

So not only did Pezzy deal with the fear that came with staying alive. But he feared abandonment. By the only one that was keeping him alive.

He zoned back in fully, subconsciously listening in on Droid and Rosie's conversation as he left his own inside his fucked up mind.