Regiphobia

The Nest

Goda had woken up the next morning surprisingly early. Gabe was just leaving the room, and he didn't seem to notice Goda was awake. When he was alone in the room, Goda sat up and looked out the window, just like always. Clouds covered the sun before shifting out of the way as wind pushed them around. He scooted to the edge of the bed, grabbed his crutches, and stood up.

He made his way through his morning routine. Clean up, get dressed, sit on the edge of his bed and try and work up the courage to face the day, brush his teeth and hair. All that nice stuff. He eventually got up and left the room, making his way down to grab breakfast. But first, he wanted to do something.

He had tucked a note into his sleeve, as usual. He made it down to the basement and dropped off a note in Juan's box while pretending to just want to chat with some of the mail workers while he was bored. He did want to chat with them, but it gave him a good excuse. He then went back upstairs to the dining hall. 

He picked up a small meal, taking it up with him to his room again. He preferred to eat alone rather than sitting silently at that table of what felt like a hundred people. He sat back down on his bed, just picking at his food and thinking. It was nice to have some time to himself, but he also felt so alone. No matter how many people surrounded him, it never felt like enough unless it was one of them. The best and worst things that had ever happened to him. He just couldn't decide which was which sometimes. 

Part of him knew the choice would, could, SHOULD, by all means, be obvious. But then Gabe smiled at him and told him he was the one, he was his everything, he was amazing, he was his, he was perfect. But then Juan held him and kissed his pain away and protected him and made him feel so safe, so happy, so- so-

He set his barely-touched food off to the side, putting his face in his hands and taking a deep breath. His mind felt like it was buzzing. Like there was a nest of hornets slowly growing in his skull, like he couldn't think straight without running into and through them and getting himself stung, but he was already running and no one had ever taught him how to stop. He just had to hope they would move before he got there.

He took another deep breath. He tried not to think about the conflict he'd made in his own head or the choice he would have to make eventually. A choice that would only get harder to make as time ticked on. The buzzing grew as he approached the hornets nest. He would have to pick one of them, wouldn't he? He couldn't stay like this forever, one of them would find out about the other and everything would fall apart at his feet and life would end up a thousand times worse.

He was started out of the buzzing by a knock at his door. He stood and walked to it, pulling open the door and looking at... the lawyer from the trial.

"Ah, you're here. We need to speak about one of the rulings of the judge on the twenty-fifth," Moto said, adjusting his glasses as he spoke, "Do you have somewhere you'd prefer to speak about this?"

"Oh- Um, yeah, th-the-" Goda started. He was about the say the Queen's Sitting Room again, but then the image of his dad towering over him, grabbing his arm, throwing him against the table and he could hear the tell-tale sound of hitting his ribs, that would bruise, and-

"My study works f-fine," he said as his memory went from a moment by moment flashback to so fuzzy he couldn't remember anything. Like the hornets were back, this time stopping him from seeing beyond them without going through the pain of pushing through them.

"Alright. Lead the way, Your Highness," Moto nodded, stepping out of the way. Goda started towards the elevator, trailed by the lawyer. They only had to go up one floor, but Goda didn't have the energy to take the stairs. He just stood still, not saying anything as they traveled up. He lead Moto out to his study, pulling open the door and making his way inside. He set his crutches down, taking a seat across from where Moto was moving to sit.