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…
The building they were assigned to was not meant for rest.
It had once been a relay station — one of many abandoned structures clinging to the underside of the Ground like forgotten barnacles. Its walls were thick with layered grime, old wiring exposed like veins, and the windows had long since been boarded up with mismatched metal plates.
Whatever warmth it might have held in the past had leached away decades ago, leaving only a faint, lingering chill that crept through the soles of one’s boots.
They were meant to stay the night. Enjin had said it casually — “It’s not worth heading back this late” — before veering off on some unrelated errand, leaving the younger Team Akuta to fend for themselves with a half-functional shelter and the lingering aftermath of a job that had gone far rougher than anticipated.
Trash beasts, in numbers. Rudo had underestimated them, again. Maybe pushed himself and overused his powers, wore himself out. Zanka noticed, and so did Riyo, but they kept quiet.
The younger boy's punches were filled with a quiet rage they couldn't quite describe — each strike stronger and more emotional than the last. They knew where Rudo came from, that floating sphere — knew of his tendencies. Enjin had even sat his team down personally in private, within the sterile walls of the infirmary away from the youngest boy. All to explain Rudo's habits and ask them to give him an extended patience — as if he was some sort of special case. Admittedly, he was, but it wasn't to alienate him or make him feel worse. If anything, they wanted Rudo to feel more included. He was a Sphereite — not some criminal, not a person they recruited from the Ground, not a Raider, not even a case like any of theirs at all. But he was also a Cleaner, and each Cleaner would be valued regardless.
Enjin knew of Rudo's traumas. Not the entirety. Only the times that Rudo deemed it ‘okay’ enough or necessary to open up. Usually during his anger or outbursts. Especially during his outbursts — the ones he couldn't explain that were controlled by wrath more than himself. Or the stillness, not sadness, the heavy feeling that hung in his chest even if nothing particularly bad happened. And Enjin wanted to understand it all, wanted the rest to understand Rudo as much as he wanted to comprehend the boy. It was some work, dealing with an unfamiliar type if person. But Rudo was a good kid, Enjin knew that much, he'd fight someone over it, too. A good kid that was stripped of his childhood, stripped of his grieving. Could not even mourn the death of his own father because he was too busy chasing revenge. The older Giver would later on be unsettled to find Rudo awake at unholy hours staring at nothing, explaining his nasty moods and lack of sleep. Sometimes, out of the blue, he'd bang his head on the wall trying to feel something, and Enjin had once physically stopped him from doing so because he started bleeding from the bruise. Rudo would act as if in a trance, like he wasn't even awake the entire time. And when he did come to his senses, he'd blame it on a persistent 'anger' that he struggled to control, apologized briefly and went on with his night. Enjin even asked Semiu's insight on it, and only referred to the quiet rage she saw in Rudo hefore. They grew worried for their young member.
Now, the station was quiet. Too quiet, in the way places became after violence had passed through them and left the air unsettled. Riyo had already claimed a corner of the main room, humming to herself as she dug through their packs, spreading things out with the careless comfort of someone who never quite felt unsafe anywhere.
Zanka leaned against a wall near the door, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded. He had removed his outer Cleaner's jacket and draped it over a chair, now just wearing a fitted, compression turtleneck he usually wore under those layers. Methodically wiping grime from his Lovely Assistaff with a random piece of cloth that had seen better years. His movements were precise, economical — unhurried.
Only one thing disrupted the rhythm of the evening. Rudo was still in the bathroom.
The small adjoining washroom was little more than a converted storage closet: cracked sink, rusted pipes, a flickering overhead light that buzzed faintly. He’d gone in there nearly half an hour ago.
Zanka clicked his tongue softly.
“Oi,” he called, voice carrying easily down the narrow corridor. “Are ya plannin’ to take a bath in there or what?”
“Fuck off, turdface!” A shaky voice from inside the bathroom yelled, nastily.
Zanka, annoyed, yelled back, “Watch yer tone, scuzzball! The fuck are ya soundin’ so pissed ‘bout?”
No answer.
Zanka waited a few seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
“…Rudo? Oi, I asked what's wrong.”
Twenty seconds pass. Still nothing.
Riyo glanced up from where she was kneeling, eyebrow lifting, softly speaking, “Huh. That is long, even for him.”
Zanka pushed off the wall, irritation prickling — not sharp, not angry, just the low-grade annoyance of someone who disliked inefficiency. He strode toward the bathroom door and knocked once, firm but not aggressive.
“Hey,” he said. “We’re not at the Headquarters. Hurry it up.”
Silence. Then — barely audible, but unmistakable — came a sound that did not belong in a simple delay.
A sharp inhale and a hitch. And then something wetter. Slightly askew.
Zanka froze, then he knocked again, slower this time. “Rudo,” he said, voice lowering. “Answer me.”
From inside came a muffled sob.
It wasn’t loud, it sure wasn’t dramatic. It was the kind of sound someone made when they were trying desperately not to cry — and failing anyway. Zanka’s irritation vanished instantly, replaced by something colder, steadier.
“...I’m goin' inside,” he said clearly. “Alright?”
He waited just long enough to hear a faint, panicked shuffle — too fast, too clumsy to be reassurance — before he opened the door.
The sight that greeted him made his chest tighten.
Rudo was crouched on the floor beside the sink, shoulders hunched inward like he was trying to fold himself smaller. His gloves lay in the crusted basin, soaked through and streaked with dark red that bled into the water no matter how much he scrubbed. The sink itself was splattered — rust-colored droplets drying along the porcelain.
Rudo’s hands were bare and bleeding. Long, blood-soaked, thin black sleeves rolled up to reveal the injuries on his hands.
His knuckles were split, skin torn raw where he’d forced friction against fabric already stiff with filth and gunky residue. One of his palms bore a shallow gash that had clearly reopened, blood slipping down his wrist in thin, trembling lines. But other than those wounds, his arms were already covered in what looked like old burns, as well the black and brown scabs that were peeling around the edges, revealing pink irritated flesh.
His breath came unevenly, hiccupping as he dragged his sleeve across his face in a futile attempt to wipe away tears. Zanka's expression immediately softened up to something fragile, to match the vulnerability of the scene before him.
He looked up when Zanka entered, eyes wide with alarm, like a kid caught doing something forbidden.
“I — I’m sorry,” Rudo blurted out immediately, voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean to cuss or take so long, I just — they won’t come clean and I have to — I have to —”
The ash blonde sighed — not disappointedly, but worriedly. “Rudo, that’s enough.”
Zanka closed the door behind him, not turning away from Rudo, with deliberate care to not make a sound.
He crossed the small space in two steps and slowly crouched down in front of Rudo, lowering himself until they were eye-level. His expression was unreadable — calm to the point of unnerving, but not cold.
“Stop,” he repeated, more gently this time. “Yer bleedin' bad.”
Rudo looked down at his hands like he’d forgotten they were there. Now that Zanka's mentioned it, they started aching like crazy. His hands trembled. He had previously ignored the pain, just for the sake of cleaning up his dear gloves. He couldn't afford to not take care of them, they were the only things he had left of his father.
“I didn’t notice,” he muttered, though the sting must have been unbearable.
Zanka huffed, almost sounding offended, “How could ya not notice? Yer red all over?”
“...My arms have always been red all over, for as long as I could remember.”
Zanka exhaled slowly through his nose. He’d seen wounds like this slashes and stabs before. In battle, by someone else, or self-inflicted, not out of intent, but out of desperation. Out of necessity. Out of someone believing pain was secondary to function. But the burns, the charred skin, the grotesque, peeling scabs spanning his fingers up to his elbows? That was surely from a different sort of abuse he's sure Rudo would rather not talk about.
He reached out — not touching yet — and turned one of Rudo’s hands palm-up, inspecting the damage with an almost professional focus.
“You used water?” Zanka asked.
Rudo nodded weakly.
“No disinfectant,” Zanka observed.
“It's not like we have any.”
Zanka’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
Before he could respond, the bathroom door creaked open just enough for a familiar face to peek in.
“Oooh,” Riyo began cheerfully — then stopped dead.
She took in the scene in one glance: Rudo on the floor, blood, the gloves, Zanka’s posture. Her smile dropped instantly into something a bit scarier.
“…Ah,” she said quietly. “I’ll be right back.”
She vanished before either of them could respond.
Zanka shifted his attention back to Rudo. “Can ya move yer fingers? Ya feelin’ well?”
Rudo hesitated to answer and lie for a split moment. He stared at Zanka earnestly, and the older Giver stared back. Intimidated, Rudo shuddered and then slowly shook his head.
“Alright,” Zanka said. “Then we’ll do this here.”
He rolled up his black sleeves up to his elbows. With practiced ease, he tore a strip from his middle loin cloth and gently wrapped it around Rudo’s bleeding palm, applying pressure just firm enough to stop the flow without causing more pain.
Rudo flinched but didn’t pull away. His heart buzzed at the scene of Zanka ruining his own Cleaner's uniform to treat his wounds. It was odd to see someone who was so meticulous and particular with their appearance, pick a piece from their clothes to aid someone else like it was second nature.
“...Ya fight like ya don’t care if ya get hurt,” Zanka said quietly. “But ya do. That’s the problem.”
Rudo swallowed. “I was just cleaning them. This would usually be nothing, I could handle it I... I just… if I can’t use my gloves, I can’t fight. I can only throw a few punches then I'm gone. And if I can’t fight —”
“Ya don’t stop existing,” Zanka interrupted.
Rudo’s breath caught. It was odd to hear things like that coming from the older boy's mouth.
It was hypocritical in a sense, for Zanka to calm Rudo from a spiral of self-doubt and self-loathe, when he himself struggled with inferiority.
Before he could respond, Riyo returned, arms laden with supplies: bandages, disinfectant spray, gauze, even a small bottle of painkiller solution she must have scavenged from one of their kits.
She knelt beside Zanka and set everything down between them.
“Okay,” she said briskly, then lowered her voice. “What are we dealing with?”
“Split knuckles, reopened palm wound. Old scabs and burns that got all moist,” Zanka replied without looking up. “Needs cleanin’, properly.”
Riyo grimaced. “Ouch.”
She glanced at Rudo, offering him a small, reassuring grin. “You okay?”
Rudo nodded, though his eyes were still glassy. Zanka reached for the rubbing alcohol and another strip of his cloth.
“Wait,” Riyo said, placing a hand over his wrist. “That one stings like hell. Use this first.”
She held up a milder solution.
Zanka frowned slightly. “That won’t be enough.”
“It will if you don’t drown him in it,” Riyo countered, whispering. “You want him passing out?”
Zanka paused. Then — reluctantly — nodded.
“…Fine.” Riyo smirked, victorious.
They worked together in silence for a moment, broken only by Rudo’s sharp inhales as the antiseptic touched raw skin. Riyo distracted him by talking — about nothing, about how Enjin would definitely complain if he saw the state of the sink, about how trash beasts always knew when it was inconvenient to swarm. About what food they'd eat when they arrived back at the Headquarters.
Zanka wrapped the bandages with meticulous care, fingers steady and sure.
When they were done, Rudo’s hands were clean, bandaged, and no longer bleeding excessively. Only then did Zanka stand.
“I’ll take care of the gloves,” he said.
Rudo looked up sharply. “What — no, I can —”
“Sit,” Zanka ordered gently.
He turned to the sink, drained the stained water, and began again — this time properly. He used soap, the same rubbing alcohol, scrubbing with controlled strength instead of frantic desperation. The blood slowly faded, rinsed away in pink streams until the gloves were merely worn-out, not ruined.
Rudo watched the entire process with rapt attention, hands clenched in his lap, shoulders slowly relaxing as the tension drained from him. Riyo moved behind him, draping a disposable towel around his shoulders and carefully blotting the remaining moisture from his hair and face.
“There,” she said softly. “Much better.”
Rudo let out a shaky laugh. “…Thank you.”
Zanka finished, wrung the gloves on an unoccupied towel rack and hung them to dry.
When he turned back, Rudo was watching him with an expression that was too earnest, too raw.
“...Thank you,” Rudo said quietly. “Didn't mean to bother you guys.”
Zanka blinked. Riyo smiled.
“Don't be spewin’ nonsense, Rudo. We all saw each other injured and down at some point. It's a given that we should help each other out.” Zanka said too firmly, but the other two knew of the genuinity that laced his words.
Riyo shut her eyes and gave Rudo a bright smile. “No such thing as being a bother! That's what our team is for, no?”
His hair was promptly ruffled up by Riyo, detangling any preexisting strands. Zanka gave him a pat as well, hoping to ease out whatever Rudo was feeling now.
Something fuzzy wormed its way into Rudo's chest that night. Unfamiliar, albeit welcomed.
And in that broken-down station, far from anywhere that had ever felt like home, the words settled deep — warm, and real, and earned
…
The station settled into quiet the way old places always did — slowly, reluctantly, as if the walls themselves needed time to remember what rest felt like.The lights had been dimmed to a low amber, enough to keep the corridors from becoming teeth-dark but soft enough that shadows blurred at the edges. Somewhere far off, pipes ticked and sighed. The building breathed.
Rudo lay between them, that had been the plan. Zanka had claimed the left side without ceremony, folding one arm behind his head and the other loosely draped near Rudo’s shoulder, as if he were simply there by coincidence. Riyo took the right, close enough that her knee pressed lightly against Rudo’s thigh, her presence warm and solid and impossible to ignore. They hadn’t said much about it — only a few offhand comments, half-jokes about keeping him from wandering, from bolting awake and trying to disappear into the night.
But Rudo knew better, they had flanked him like guards, almost like family. At first, it worked.
Sleep came in pieces, thin and fragile. He'd shut his eyes, finally fall unconscious, but then jolt up awake after. Rudo drifted in and out, his mind snagging on half-memories that didn’t yet sharpen into fear. The weight of two bodies beside him kept him grounded, every shift of the mattress reminding him where he was.
Not the Sphere, not alone. But then the dreams found him anyway.
They came without warning — images slamming together too fast to parse. Metal scraping stone. The sound of laughter echoing from too far away. Hands reaching, always reaching, never helping. His chest tightened, breath turning shallow as if the air itself had thickened. The last straw was Regto's dead body before him, bleeding, red like his eyes.
Rudo woke with a sharp inhale he bit down on immediately.
Don’t wake them.
He squeezed his eyes shut, fists curling into the blanket. His heart raced, hammering against his ribs like it was trying to escape. The instinct was familiar: get up, move, run. Find the gloves. Put them on. Make it stop.
But Zanka’s arm was heavy across his shoulder, and Riyo shifted faintly in her sleep, murmuring something under her breath. They’d planned this too well.
Rudo lay there, trembling silently, staring into the dim. The pain came next — not sudden, but creeping. A deep, aching throb along his arms, radiating from old injuries that hadn’t finished healing. It spread slowly, like cold water seeping through fabric, until his fingers felt stiff and wrong. He clenched them harder, a horrible idea.
A sharp pulse of pain shot up his forearms, and this time he couldn’t stop the sound entirely — a small, broken hitch of breath. Panic followed immediately, hot and dizzying. His thoughts collapsed into a single, frantic loop.
Gloves. Need the gloves. So he tried to roll onto his side.
Zanka shifted, mumbling, arm tightening instinctively. Rudo froze, breath caught painfully in his throat. His muscles screamed at the sudden stillness, and he squeezed his eyes shut, vision swimming.
He couldn’t stay there.
With slow, shaking effort, Rudo wriggled downward, inch by inch, until the edge of the mattress pressed into his ribs. He slid off awkwardly, landing on the floor with a muted thump he prayed hadn’t been loud. The cold bit immediately. His legs folded under him, and he curled in on himself without thinking, arms drawn tight to his chest. The pain spiked again, sharper now, overwhelming enough that it blurred his thoughts entirely. He rocked slightly, teeth sinking into his lip to keep from crying out.
Gloves. Gloves. Gloves.
He tried to push himself up. His arms gave out.
The motion sent another wave of pain through him, white-hot and nauseating. He sucked in a breath that shook all the way down to his spine, vision tunneling. The world narrowed to the floor beneath him and the frantic beat of his heart.
He didn’t realize he was making noise until — “Rudo?”
Riyo’s voice was thick with sleep, confused and soft. He flinched.
The mattress creaked as she sat up, then again as her feet hit the floor. A second later, warm hands were on his shoulders, careful but firm, anchoring him.
“Hey — hey, it’s okay,” she whispered, instantly awake now. “I’ve got you.”
Rudo shook his head weakly, words tangled and useless in his throat. He couldn’t explain. Could barely breathe. His fingers twitched uselessly against his sleeves, grasping for something that wasn’t there.
Zanka stirred then, a sharp inhale pulling him out of sleep. He took in the scene in a heartbeat — Rudo curled on the floor, Riyo crouched beside him, her expression tight with concern.
“Shit,” Zanka muttered, already moving. He knelt on Rudo’s other side, one hand bracing the boy’s back, the other hovering near his wrists, careful not to touch too suddenly.
“Rudo,” he said quietly, steady as stone. “Hey. Look at me.”
Rudo’s eyes flickered, unfocused. Gl —” His voice cracked completely. He swallowed hard, chest heaving. “Gloves.”
That was all it took. Zanka was on his feet in an instant, crossing the room in long, silent strides. He grabbed the gloves from where they’d been set carefully aside to dry, returning just as fast.
He knelt again, slower this time, deliberate.
“I’ve got them,” he said. “Yer okay. I’ve got them.”
He eased the gloves onto Rudo’s hands, guiding his fingers gently, methodically, like it was a ritual he’d done a hundred times before. The moment the fabric settled into place, Rudo’s breathing stuttered — and then, gradually, began to slow. Riyo had been petting his hair, gently untangling the strangs to soothe him, cooing every now and then.
The pain didn’t vanish, but it dulled to a tolerable amount.
Riyo exhaled shakily, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Rudo’s head, fingers threading softly through his hair. “You scared me,” she murmured, half-scolding, half-relieved. “Idiot.”
Rudo let out something between a laugh and a sob.
Zanka huffed quietly. “Yer stuck with us, ya know that, right? Have some consideration!” The older Giver joked.
They guided him back onto the mattress together, settling him between them once more. This time, Riyo kept a hand in his hair, slow and rhythmic, while Zanka stayed close, shoulder pressed solidly against his back.
The nightmares lingered in Rudo’s mind, shadows refusing to fully recede. So he talked.
In halting pieces at first, then more steadily —describing the places he’d seen, the things he’d run from, the fear that never quite let go. Zanka listened without interruption, unfazed by the darkness of it, offering only the occasional quiet response to let Rudo know he was still there.
Riyo’s breathing evened out somewhere along the way, sleep taking her again, but her hand never left Rudo’s hair.
Eventually, the words ran out.
Rudo lay awake for a long time after that, staring into the dim, feeling the weight of two people who had chosen to lay next to him — to those who stayed.
When sleep finally came, it was deep and dreamless. For once in a while, it didn’t hurt.
...