The Misery Scale
It was another four months before he acknowledged the thneed's presence with more than just a glance. And even then, it wasn't his idea.
Up until that day, or better yet, until the moment he first cracked his eyes open that morning to feel the usual scratchy sensation at the back of his mouth persist past clearing his throat, the Once-ler had hardly noticed how monotonous his existence had become. Oh, he functioned. Ate, slept, breathed and all that, but there was nothing that could lift the heaviness in his limbs or the dullness from his eyes or the ever-present thought of you did this that hung like a gray haze over his mind. Not one thing, except possibly the seed growing, but that was another problem all on its own.
Perhaps it was fitting. No doubt, it was more than deserved for him to deteriorate into something as bleak and colorless as the world around him, right? At least he could say he was a part of what he'd created, that way. At least there was a sense of poetry to it. Nature itself seemed to have forgotten such thing as changing the weather or seasons, and he forgot about making pancakes just so he could have something to slather warm butter on and how to play his favorite riff on the guitar (which he hardly had the money to re-string, anyway). It was a pitiful, tragic thing they had between them, but both were nothing if not consistent.
Or so he'd thought.
Waking up with a scratchy throat was not the problem. The Once-ler learned a long time ago that the kind of smoke the factories had produced had a way of making your breath catch in your lungs and a whole lot of other things. More than once, he'd sent a... "representative" down to keep local journalists and news stations from covering the numerous, unheeded complaints his PR suits had shredded, how many people had started experiencing headaches, the facts on just what he was pumping into the sky. But there was something about that air that people got used to, at least when it wasn't that bad.
This, on the other hand, was not because of the air.
Well, it was, kind of, but this time it was more temperature than quality. Cold breezes had been slipping through the wood nailed over nearby window the whole night, like Nature had suddenly woken up and remembered it could do such a thing. And now the Once-ler was sick.
So much for consistency.
He closed his eyes.
"You really shouldn't sleep in just boxers, you know. Well, not anymore. Remember pajamas? Pajamas were nice."
The Once-ler frowned, lips twitching in effort as he did his best to keep himself quiet. He was not going to reply, or acknowledge, or move (because something down inside told him moving would hurt and was definitely not worth it).
He was not doing this today.
"You don't really believe that. We do this every day!" A cool hand pressed to the Once-ler's face, half on his forehead, half over his eyes, and his counterpart said nothing for a little while, letting him pretend like he wasn't leaning into the touch.
The Once-ler forgot where the mug of hot water in his hands came from pretty quickly, whether he got up and made it himself or if it was his counterpart's doing. Not that it mattered, or anything.
(It was probably the latter.)
The cold had set in expected like they'd expected it to. Clogged nose, wet coughs, headache, stuffy ears, the works. Just sitting up in bed so he could drink made his shoulders ache and his skin prickle from the cool slipping in from outside.
And, of course, even after blowing on it, the first sip of the water burned his tongue. Icing on the cake.
"Do you remember that one time? It was... nine, ten years ago? You were ten or eleven, or something." His younger self, guitar in hand, sat on the floor next to the foot of his bed, playing an aimless tune in D minor. "It was getting close to New Years, right? Scratch that, it might have been New Years. It was some holiday, and you wanted to invent a machine that could set off fireworks in a sequence. Chett and Brett had those two old bikes from when they were five out back, remember? The ones with the gears that were perfect for it and they hadn't even used them in ten years. Mom had even said she was going to let Uncle take them out to the dump that week; nobody wanted them. So while the twins were in detention that week, you took the bikes out and disassembled them."
The Once-ler blinked at him blearily, half in confusion (seriously, why this memory?) and half to make the itchiness in his eyes go away. The young man still picked at his guitar as he spoke, providing his own background music, and there was a fondness to his smile that made would make anyone jealous, or so his older self would have liked to think. Still, mulling over how a person could possibly sweat and shiver at the same time - even when covered by a blanket - was the more miserable alternative, so sitting back and listening was all the Once-ler could do for now. At least until the story ended or he coughed up a lung. Whichever came first.
"It took maybe... three weeks? A month? And it was in secret, too, since you wanted it to be a surprise for everyone. And you used that money you'd been saving to buy fireworks, and you made up a song specifically for it on your old guitar. The little acoustic one, with the superhero stickers on it."
He leaned back against the stiff bed post behind him, still playing in a daze, only to hit a sour note when the Once-ler lapsed into a coughing fit. Concerned, the young man set his guitar beside him and made to get up, but reluctantly sat back down at being dismissed with a jerky hand wave.
Still eying at the Once-ler warily, he continued without his instrument.
"So... um, you had it all set up. The song that you put on that one blank CD, the fireworks, the machine to set them off at the right moment. It was perfect, and even better, it worked," he breathed. "Well, the test drives did, anyway. I- sorry, you did them in the vacant lot on the far end of town so not many people would notice, right? Then, Christmas came and went, and you got socks as usual, but it didn't even matter because that thing was going to fix everything." He turned his eyes to the ceiling, smiling again like the fireworks were going off right above his head. The Once-ler looked at him for a moment, then away.
Sure enough, his counterpart went silent for a short while. His smile faded.
"But Chett and Brett found out. They must have, right, even though it wasn't obvious at first since they didn't immediately hunt you down and break your nose. Might as well have, though. I mean, that and being strung up by your briefs on a fence outside of school and having your invention somehow end up in the middle of the street for cars to run over are kind of equal? Like, on the same level of the misery scale. And then..." he trailed off, tilting his head. "You just..."
"I think that might be it."
At least his younger self had the decency to look sheepish, at that.
"Yeah, well, I dunno. Not a very happy ending. It's just... that was the first thing the rain reminded me of."
The Once-ler stopped short, then slowly placed his mug on his little nightstand, staring cautiously at the other all the while.
"Rain..."
"Yep! On New Years, it ended up raining, so you wouldn't have been able do it anyway. You didn't notice that it's raining? I mean, it's not very loud, but-"
The rest of his words went unheard; the Once-ler was already out of the door, grabbing his suit and snatching up the seed as he went, struggling towards the outside with the aching steps of a man not well.
Their next encounter happened way too fast.
The Once-ler's counterpart was waiting for him when he staggered back into his bedroom, scrubbing at his already puffy eyes with his arm because of course nothing had happened, and the sheer number of things they could have said to each other then was more than enough to keep them both quiet at first. Not even telling his older self that only a child would be stubborn enough to waltz out into the rain when half-dying seemed worth it, thought the man in gray. They both were like children, really. In a way.
Or at least it felt like it, at the moment, as the Once-ler stood clutching the door frame with the seed in his hand, eyes darting between it and the ghost still sitting at the food of his bed like he didn't know which one to murder first. Said ghost's eyes widened for a second, but then he steeled himself, holding his hands up cautiously.
"Hey, what are you- no!"
The young man jumped up, crossed the room, caught the man in green's raised arm before he could throw the dormant seed and clamped his free hand over the other's mouth before any yell could escape.
"Listen. Just listen, and look at me. Trust me, I know. I really, really know, but I don't think you really want to do this," he said. Shaking from the cold and more than that, the Once-ler coughed and breathed hard into his palm, looking for all the world like he was about to pull away and go break something else. The young man knew he couldn't, in the state he was in, but damn if the look in his eyes wasn't enough to scare him.
So he did the best thing he could possibly do at that moment - smiled. Or tried to smile.
"I won't lie. Telling you it's okay would be a lie right now. It's just... we don't need to make it worse, alright? And I'm sure we can make it a little okay for a while if you don't get yourself sicker. You just need... um..."
He looked to the side.
"You need that thneed over there."
Eyes widening, his older self shoved him away so hard that he fell, and they had only one fleeting second to stare each other straight in the eyes before the Once-ler doubled over, dropped to his knees, and vomited.
Over the next hour, the rain got worse and so did the Once-ler, to the point where even lying still hurt. Balled up at the head of his bed, its stiff blanket and the worn thneed wrapped tight around him, it seemed like he couldn't go thirty seconds without deciding his current position was too uncomfortable and needed to be changed. The young man watched from his own spot on the mattress, perched on the edge of it with his guitar at his side.
"Do you remember... ah, never mind," he sighed. The oversized lump in front of him muttered and coughed in response, shivering even harder when the other reached out to touch his burning forehead. "At least the thneed will keep you from freezing to death."
And that was all either of them could really ask for, right now. Everything else could wait until later.
So when he edged closer to his companion and heard a hushed, muffled sound not unlike a sob, the young man kept quiet, lay down so he could curl his lanky arms around the other's shoulders, and closed his eyes.
Outside, nature raged and howled against them both, beat against the walls and rattled the doors of their home, doing what it could to punish and avenge before the usual smog returned the next day.
