The Starverse Hermits

Pretending

Zed was kinda a mess this evening. He had run into the wall, and had nearly fell up stairs. And just now had run into an open cupboard door(A/N: I have done this more times than I would like to mention). "Oh sorry babe!" Tango said, closing the door. "It's all good Tango." Zed said, with a smile on his face, "I've been like this all day. I'm gonna go lie down on the couch for awhile." "Okay Zed." 

As soon as Zed crashed on the couch, after walking into the side table, he woke up in darkness. "Zedaph, you are a really good liar, did you know that?" Zed turned to see Fos sitting there. "Oh hey Fos. What's up?" "You and your lying." "I don't know what your talking about!" "I might not but your best freind does." Zed looked away from the spirit. "Jack wasn't trying to hurt you, now was he?" "I... I... I don't actually know." "I can tell you. He wasn't. He was trying to open your eyes to the truth!" "About what?!" "Your ex." Zed froze. "Let's see how he saw that perfect little relationship." 

Zed's eyes went wide as the room changed, and he saw himself from the days of Moonlight, but he saw Jack's reflection in the water below instead of his own. Fos started to sing softly, "In this masquerade, you can't feel the pain. Cover up your heart, with a little paint, while he's pulling out a flask, to hide it all away. There's nothing left to say." Zed saw the light bruises on his arms and neck. 

"He knows that they're drowning." It changed to his ex, holding Zed's arms in a tight grip. "You hopes that there's still something left. Let go now cause he's leaving." Zed didn't want to watch anymore.

"But you'd be fine pretending." The sound of glass shattering made him look up. "Things were alright, even while its ending keep it inside." Zed saw his own body on the ground, he was out cold, broken glass all around him, and his ex had the rest of a bottle in his hand. "You can feel it bending. All their love is pending so what are you defending?" The next scene was Jack getting his broken body to the ER. "Even when you say you'll open your eyes." Zed watched as Jack was the one holding him not his ex. "All your words are empty when you deny. But you can feel it bending. All his love is pending so what are you defending?"

"But you'd be fine prete (eh) (you'd be fine)" Zed watched as the scene changed to that day. The day he had ended it all with his ex. 

"Step into the light, to look him in the eye. Feeling so exposed, you tried to stay composed. But every little fight and every little lie is impossible to hide." Zed watched as his past self ran away from that man and to Jack. 

"He knows that they're drowning. You hoped that there's still something left. Let go now cause he's leaving." Fos sang. 

"But you'd be fine pretending, things were alright, even while its ending keep it inside. You can feel it bending. All their love is pending so what are you defending?" Zed looked at the ground, even years later, he felt like he needed to go back to him. "Even when you say you'll open your eyes, all your words are empty when you deny. But you can feel it bending. All his love is pending so what are you defending? But you'd be fine prete (eh) (you'd be fine)" Fos looked down at Zed. "You need to let go of him, and tell the two people you fully care about, about him."

Zed's eyes snapped open. He heard crying coming from the kitchen. He slowly got up and glanced in. What he saw broke his heart. Tango was crying in Impulse's arms. "I hate to watch him hurt, I know it isn't right." Zed heard Tango brokenly mumble, "But he can't find the courage to leave it all behind. I wish I had I the words to help him realize, that there is just no way to bring this back to life." Zed took off to their room, Impulse glancing up as he heard him. 

Zed shut the door behind him, and slid down the door, his head going onto his knees, and his arms wrapping around his body."I know that, we're drowning. But I'd was fine pretending things were alright. Even while it was ending kept it inside. I could feel him bending, all my love was pending, so what was I defending?" Zed sang softly, tears running down his face. "Even when I said I'll open my eyes, all my words were empty when I denied. But I could feel it bending, all his love was pending so what was I defending? But I'd be fine prete (eh) I'd be fine." Zed's body shook as he sobbed. 

Impulse walked down the hall, Tango was still upset, but he was stable enough for Imp to go check on Zed. He heard the crying through the door. He gently knocked. "Zed, hon, can I come in?" He twisted the knob and slowly opened the door. Zed was still kinda in a ball, but was a sobbing mess. "Oh honey." Impulse said, crawling next to him, pulling him into his arms. "I'm sorry." Zed whispered. "Shh. Shh. You are okay. No reason to apologize." Impulse said, running a hand through Zed's hair to calm him down. "I made him cry." "He's stressed, making his hormones go kinda crazy. You didn't make him cry. Why would you think you did that?" Zed fell quiet. "Zed? Are you okay?" "No." "What's wrong?" "Bad memories." Impulse pulled him closer. He hadn't told Zed yet, but Jack had told him about Zed's last relationship, if you could even call it that. "Do you wanna talk about it?" "Not yet." "Okay. How about this? You curl up in bed, I'll go get Tango, and we cuddle while watching AFV?" Zed nodded. 

As soon as Tango started to head down to their room, Impulse called Ninja. "Hey Ninja? Can you watch Trixe overnight tonight, both Zed and Tango are kinda out of it." Impulse laughed at Ninja's response. "Alright, I'll pick her up tomorrow around noon. Okay?" "Okay, bye." Impulse hung up, and wandered down to their room, to find Tango and Zed in pj's and sittting on the bed, waiting for him. "Hurry up Impy." Tango whined. "All right, all right. Go ahead and turn the show on. I'll get changed and get the lights." 

4 or 5 episodes later, Tango and Impulse were still up, while Zed was out like a light. 

Zed opened his eyes to see Fos smiling at him. "Well, Impulse and Tango will protect you from him." "Right." A bright light appeared and flew into Zed's chest. "That light will be important one day, I promise."