Honeyphos: Count the Years

You could say Honeydew was lonely.

And he told himself it didn’t matter, that the work was simpler and the stress greatly reduced when everything was in his own callused hands. Fingers that held wires and cables and tempered with metals and ores. Palms that had built great things for good and for bad. These could make or break him as easily as they could break someone else. But he didn’t want to do that at all. Friends, company, laughter; it would never happen. Xephos was always so preoccupied with management and the day Lalna stepped away from his scientific excursions was one to be written in record books. For now, all Honeydew had was the constant shuttering of the machines buzzing in his ears like irritated bees.

The Batbox had failed and if he didn’t manage to fix it, there would be a mess. And he hated messes, even if the majority of the time he was at fault. There was a single florescent light glaring above his head, the only one he needed. It cast eerie shadows off the equipment and sent bony fingers along the bare marble walls. Perspiration clung to his fiery red brow and threatened to dive towards the exposed cords if he wasn’t extremely careful. With a gloved fist, he wiped it away and returned himself to his work. The dwarf’s touch was rough and shaky; he really wasn’t suited for this type of job. Maybe it he took a break to eat, it would help. A couple pieces of roast pork would do him well.

No. No, no, no. Finishing this was a top priority. If Honeydew let his mind run, it would never slow down. Clipping a bit of the cut connection and blinking rapidly as he brought his tongs up, there was no simple answer to what had caused the lacerated bit of line. Rats were the most plausible, but he wouldn’t put it above Sips Co. to do something so obnoxious. Constant back and forth between the two companies and still no resolution. A shame.

“You could have gotten me to do this,” came a voice, modulated in tone. Honeydew knew who it was; there was no denying it. Warm digits lay monotonously on his shoulder, dull and boring but strong and true. All at once, feelings cascaded over him and he was conflicted on pummeling the spaceman to death or hugging him into the hard floor. To him, Xephos was like summer; piquant, charred. He’s all sweat and musk and hiding in shadows to no safety from the temperature. He’s spending nights wearing nothing but a gleam and spending days wearing nothing but grime that refuses to budge. Like the intolerant summer sun he’s fierce and he’ll leave marks on your skin if you stand in his way, but you can’t deny that he’s good for your bones. And the dwarf loved him, but not a soul knew.

Honeydew shook his head, “No, I couldn’t. You weren’t around to, you’re never around.” Everything about his speech was brittle and on the verge of tears. Where had his friend gone? Where were the adventures? Killing mobs and tossing each other a steak and basking in the blood of a billion dead enemies and chuckling in the mist of it all. Where had it gone? Was it the business, the pursuit of power that corrupted and severely changed anyone who dare take a leap at it? Where had it all gone?

The spaceman got down on his knees, though he still towered over the dwarf even now, and sighed deeply. “Yeah, I get it. I’m a terrible friend to you, really. Sometimes I think this was all a bad idea. Truthfully, the last thing I feel like doing is settling down. Maybe the money is good and the beds are soft, but at the end of the day,” Xephos tentatively took Honeydew’s beaten and bruised palm in the valley of his hand, “all I really want is to slaughter a bloody spider. With you.”

And everything he had felt before was replaced with what he felt now; tranquility. This was where they stood, under a bright bulb with a look of promise in their eyes and baited breath. Stickiness devoured the tangle of fingers but they didn’t care. All the words he had been too scared to say Xephos had done. Done with sincerity and truth and surprise, but it was the good kind. The very good kind. Christmas mornings past couldn’t even come close to the power of this experience.

After they’d mustered the courage to accept the flush of each other’s cheeks, everything began to slow for them, time faltering when they found security alone. They’d come to realize, hastily, that the little gaping cavities in their chests, the ones that had been with them for so long, the ones they just couldn’t fill up no matter how hard they tried, had now been replete, and that all this time the cure had been each other.
“I love you, old friend,” the spaceman murmured as he kissed the frigid iron horns that jolted from the dwarf’s helmet.

“All the same,” and that was the only thing Honeydew could muster.