The night started off normally, he went with Octavius on a ride around the museum in their little toy car and played with Rexy for a little while, they also watched some cat videos on the computer which gave Jed a chance to take a look closely at his friend.
There was something wrong with Octavius, his shoulders are visibly slumped, his face is drawn and devoid of the smile, that usually rests there. It's pretty alarming, Octavius is rarely this sad, most of the time only when he gets reminded of something from his past life but that doesn't happen really often. Jed tries to think if one of those memories could've been triggered tonight, but there isn't anything that he can come up with.
"Jed?"
Guess this thinking showed on his face more than he thought. Jed focused on his friend's confused face. "Yeah?" Octavius eyed him weirdly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?" he has to save himself somehow. "Like there is something on my face. Yours is all scrunched up." he doesn't like this frown on the Romans' face at all. Sadness doesn't look good on Octavius overall, he is too pretty for that. Jed's eyes widened, pretty? Did he just described Octavius as pretty, Octavius the Roman general, his best friend, the only one he fully trusts, the-
It's getting way too far.
"Jed!"
Jedediah visibly jumped "Why are ya screamin' for?" , he focused on Octavius again, and oh no the frown is even more deepened, that's even worse, "I called your name a few times and you didn't answer, it seemed that you needed something more attention-grabbing than regular volumed voice." he answered tilting his head along the way as he explained. "Oh, really? Didn't hear ya, sorry"
"Obviously" the Roman murmured, looking back at the top of the desk, eyes full of salty liquid that he barely stopped from spilling down his cheeks. "Hey, what's wrong? You have been really quiet for the whole night and thinking about it now, you have been off for a few nights now."
Octavius tensed at that, "N-nothing is wrong, everything is fine!" he nervously laughed it off, like Jed couldn't see the trembling in his hands or the way his eyes darted between Jeds face and the wall, also as if the stuttering didn't give the Roman general right away. Octavius never stutters unless there is something really bothering him, but even then he won't give anything away if both of them aren't alone, he is a general of the Roman army, covering that kind of stuff comes with the job description.
The fact that Octavius trusts him so much that he doesn't cover up instinctively will never stop the warm feeling that spreads through his heart. "Are you tryin' to bullshit me or yourself?" Jedediah challenged, he wasn't fooled.
Jed could see the shift in Octavius's expression, he wasn't speaking to Octavius the friend anymore, now sitting there was Octavius the General, in the place of nervousness was a mask of calmness that covered everything that was there before. He couldn't really see it, but Jed knew that it was terribly forced. "You don't need to worry about me, my friend. Everything is ok, even if it wasn't, I would be able to deal with it on my own," he replied with an easy smile like he wasn't almost crying, like a minute ago.
"But that's the thing, you don't have to deal with it alone! You can talk to me, or Larry, or Teddy, or Wea, or Ahk, or, I don't know, anyone from your army! There has to be someone there who you can talk to!" Jedediah exclaimed.
The mask of fake calmness, as good as it was, was crumbling down piece by piece, it showed more on the Romans body than his face. The hands that were clenched so hard that Jed feared they will start to bleed, the tensed shoulders and the clenched jaw, but Octavius's expression didn't waver. "Please, talk to me Tavi" Jed whispered sincerely, brows furrowed.
It happened so fast, Octavius's eyes welled up and spilled over, sending rivers of tears over his cheeks in seconds, he clasped his hand over his mouth, so the sob that he was holding in doesn't escape but nonetheless, the sob still escaped, more muffled than it would have been though. "I'm sorry" he whimpered brokenly.
All Jedediah could do was watch as Octavius got up and ran to the edge, trying to get down from the desk as fast as possible.
Well, that escalated quickly.
He doesn't know how long he was driving around the museum, but he couldn't find Octavius anywhere and it was dangerously close to sunrise. There was no other place that Jed could think of where Octavius would be, with resignation the cowboy turned the car around and drove it to the Hall of Miniatures.
After he hid the car, there wasn't much time left to check if Octavius was in his place in Roman diorama. He barely made it to his spot, when the first rays of sun began to shine through the window.
"Jed, do you know where Octavius is?"
That's what he woke up to, Larry's voice. "What?"
Larry looked at him worriedly and repeat the question. "He wasn't in his diorama?" Jed could feel the cold fear that gripped his heart when the night guard shooked his head.
"I hoped that you knew where he is" Larry murmured looking at the floor with hands on his hips and furrowed brow. "Ok, we are going to look for him, come on" the night guard offered his hand so Jed could climb on it, he was put in his jacket pocket and they started to look for the missing Roman general.
After a while they found him, it turned out he wasn't really that far away from the office. He was between the wall and a glass case, the only reason they found him there, was the fact that Jedediah noticed the helmet that was carelessly thrown on the ground in front of the entrance to the little crack between the wall and the case. Due to the small space of the crack, Jed was the only one able to get inside. As he stood at the entrance, he could see a faint outline of the roman sitting with his back turned to Jed, leaning against the back of the glass case with his left shoulder. The cowboy frowned worriedly, his friend wasn't moving. "Octavius?" Jed called out moving closer, eying now visible sword, lying beside Octavius. Still no reaction, he moved closer and stopped dead in tracks. The sword was red, it was lying in a pool of red liquid. Jedediah paled as the metallic scent hit him.
"Octavius?" No reaction, "Octavius?!" Jed screamed reaching with his hand to turn the roman around to face him, he could barely see anything in the darkness of the small space and the blurry vision caused by tears streaming down his face as he feared the worst. When his hand made contact with Octavius's shoulder he was relieved that he was still in fact, warm and breathing, but his relief was cut short when he finally turned his friend around and saw his arms. Jed could barely see any part of the skin that wasn't ripped open, the Romans' arms were a mess of crisscrossed cuts, that were still lazily bleeding.
He quickly snapped his gaze up to look at Octaviu's face, his face was blank with a faraway look, it's like he wasn't entirely there. Jedediah hastily kneeled in front of the general and took his face into his hands. "Hey, Octavius look at me, come on, please" he begged lightly slapping his cheek. That got little reaction from his friend but Jed could see a little spark of life back in Romans' brown eyes, better this than nothing. "Come on, please come back to me. Larry! Get Wea! Or Teddy! Or anyone who knows what to do with the mass of open wounds!" he spared a quick glance in the direction of the entrance.
"What?! What the hell happened?!" was all he got in the answer. "All I have now is assumptions, Gigantor, we don't have time for that now! Go get someone now, goddammit!" Jed could hear the night guard running to get someone relieved he quickly turned back to look at Octavius, whose eyes were dropping, "Oh no no no no no, you are not going to sleep, ya hear! You are going to hang on until Gigantor gets someone and then me and you are going to have a long chat about whatever the fuck is going on in this head of yours, you hear me?!" Jed shooked him a little until Octavius's eyes weren't dropping and he seemed a little more alert.
"Jed?" he heard a weak whisper and quickly looked up from where he was trying to tie the wounds up with his bandana, to meet a little unfocused eyes of his friend, "Yeah?" he whispered back, feeling like a higher volume of his voice would straight up kill the already weak roman.
"Please let me die."
Jedediah always thought that there won't be a memory worse than his death, but he was so wrong. Because those words hurt ten times more than that and they would hunt him forever. Before he could say anything, he heard numerous footsteps, and then both of them were swapped into someone's hand.
He was sitting in front of Octavius, eying the bandages around his Romans' arms. Those last few nights were filled with bandage changes, worried glances of Larry, Teddy, Wea, Ahk, and others. For the first two nights, none of them knew if he will even make it, they didn't know if the tablet's magic would be enough to bring the roman general from the brink of death.
Fortunately, it did, and now Jeds sitting in front of his friend, about to start the long-overdue conversation. They sat in silence for a few minutes and it seemed like Jeds the one who needed to throw the first words, "Why." Octavius's head snapped up to meet Jedediah's gaze from where he was staring at his hands. He was meet with silence, so he asked again, more forcefully.
"Why."
Octavius turned back to stare at his hands, "Because I was tired of it.", Jed scrunched his face up at that, looking confused "Tired of what.", he watched as Octavius curled up, putting his head on his knees, grabbing his hair and pulling so hard that his knuckles turned white, he was shaking "Of the voice in my head" he got a whispered answer. "What voice," Jed asked gently. Octavius stopped shaking, he slowly raised his head, hands still tightly clutching his hair. He meet Jed's eyes "The one that doesn't stop talking, that doesn't stop telling me that I'm useless, that I'm worthless, that everyone is better off without me, that I'm the worst general the Roman Empire ever had, that yOU COULD NEVER LOVE ME-" he suddenly stopped, eyes widening. Jedediah sat there, shocked until he wasn't broken out of it by Octavius' hyperventilating. "Hey, hey it's ok, come on breath" he quickly got up and hugged his friend. "Come on match my breath" he whispered, rocking both of them from side to side, after a few minutes the roman was calm enough to talk again.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he murmured, crying silently, and clenching Jed's shirt between his fingers. "It's alright, you know why?" he quietly asked running his hand through Octavius's hair, he could feel his head shake as a response 'no'.
"Because I love you too"
He felt Octavius' breath stop for a second, "Really?" the quiet question reached his ears. "Yeah, really," Jed whispered, softly smiling, with silent tears streaming down his face. He could feel Octavius hugging him harder, crying again but this time those were happy tears.
Both of them didn't notice Teddy smiling in the doorway as he closed the door, leaving both men alone.
I hope you liked it! I'm sorry about any mistakes in grammar or anything. Please let me know what you think about it in the comments!
(The title is taken from the song "All the things she said" by t.A.T.u just with a twist)