Worth it

Godspeed Sucrose

Ronaldo found himself checking his phone for the third time that morning, wondering if Lars had since responded to his invitation of seeing the special feature of the whole Galaxy Wars saga at the theater that evening, and wanted somewhat of a quick response so he could plan ahead on hiding snacks for the theater.

Granted, considering it was mid morning, it was possible Lars was just busy at the Big Donut, though he doubted he would be so busy he wouldn't check his phone. Ronaldo knew as well as anyone how much that guy slacked off at work, and was usually texting or napping.

He could just very well be asleep, either at work, or in bed, not hearing his alarm going off at him, that was another possibility. He was the type of person to oversleep.

He was about to dial the number of the Big Donut when he received an incoming text message from Lars, and huffed, "Finally," and opened it, expecting a short yes or no.

Sugar is dead.

Ronaldo's breath stopped a second as he stared at the message in shock, feeling a sense of dread going up his spine as he instantly sensed the mood behind the text, and the reason for such the silence.

"Oh no," he groaned softly under his breath, knowing how dearly Lars cared about his pet snake, how devastated he was whenever she was sick, lost, or stolen by bullies, and he could only imagine the emotional turmoil happening right now.

I'll be right over, Ronaldo had texted without much thought. If it were anything else, he might have allowed Lars a little more space to grieve, but this was Sugar he was talking about. He'd been there when Lars had adopted her, and he figured it would only be fair to say farewell. The movies could wait.

Taking a well paced walk from the lighthouse to his friend's house, he found the door was unlocked, and invited himself in, knowing Lars' family was usually never home. Heading up the stairs, it was eerily quiet. He'd expected to at least hear some sniffling.

Lars' door was open, and Ronaldo peeked in, seeing his friend sat upright on his bed, staring at the wall ahead of him, strangely calm. When he turned his head to look at Ronaldo, the teen could see the drained emotion in Lars' eyes. Lars didn't say anything, and went back to staring at the wall after a second.

"Um...", Ronaldo began, and glanced over, seeing a bath towel was draped over Sugar's tank, covering it completely.

"I didn't want to look at her," Lars mumbled, voice cracked in his throat, "I just-"

"Can I look?" Ronaldo asked. Granted, it was probably a rude question, but after a short expression of confusion, Lars just rolled his shoulders, giving a consenting hum, averting his gaze completely away from the tank.

Ronaldo lifted the towel, seeing the white snake laying in her tank like he would normally see her. She wasn't moving at all, but she didn't look dead. If anything, it looked nothing different than if she were to be asleep or sunning. It was only really obvious when he saw her eyes, and the lack of life in them, and the complete absence of her tongue flickering excitably like she always did.

Poor Lars must have found her like that this morning, not suspecting a thing.

"I'm...sure she didn't suffer-" Ronaldo began.

"I dunno," Lars spoke quietly, sounding empty, "She stopped eating. Guess she was sick or something." He then lay on the bed, curling on his side, facing away from the tank.

"You're not insinuating that you think it's your fault, are you?", Ronaldo looked at him.

"I don't know," Lars murmured, not even turning to look back.