A/N: UGH I need to learn to update quicker, super sorry! Here's the next one, and don't worry, I'll be using my cruel power as author to push our favorite Lego couple closer together soon, tee hee. ENJOY!
July 27th
"Well, that's everything." Unikitty let her weak legs buckle beneath her, and she fell to the parched, victimized grass. The lawn had certainly taken a beating that day: first, the searing sun had dried and whipped down on it, then, Unikitty, Batman, and Sweet had moved all of Emmet's things onto the lawn, all before loading it into a truck for his apartment.
Emmet chuckled. He eyed the massive, mint truck before him, covered in mud splotches and dents, marveling that everything he owned was inside that truck. "I never realized how much stuff I had until I had to move it all out!"
"What do you mean 'you' moved it out?" Unikitty snorted, nudging her best friend playfully. "We did all the work!"
"Hey, I tried to help, but I have these things. They're actually kind of fun." Emmet shifted on his crutches and offered Unikitty a small, hopeful smile that only he could harbor. "I've always wanted to try these." He began walking in tight circles around Unikitty as she giggled.
She would miss him.
Her smile faltered, and he stepped in front of her. "You'll visit, right?" She needed his response. The last few weeks had been hard, the toughest that Unikitty had ever gone through. Disaster ripped out her whole support system, her two best friends, even her home out from under her, and she had to stand up on a wobbly cliff and wait for help.
"Of course, Unikitty." Emmet motioned to his leg, guarded by a dense, thick cast, covered with various signatures in vivid marker. "As long as this thing doesn't get in my way, I'll be here very day. Provided Luc…Wyldstyle isn't here."
The smile, a falsehood of his recovery, faltered and he forced Unikitty to look at his depressed, hopeless, one-day-at-a-time grimace. He and Lucy had not said one word to each other in the past few weeks, which practically starved Emmet for affection. "It'll be ok." Unikitty nuzzled her head into Emmet's side. "I promise." While the words burned her tongue and left a bad taste in her mouth, she tried to refocus, instead making sure he wasn't too broken up.
Emmet smiled. "I'll be ok. It's not like Lucy is gone forever, I mean, maybe we'll be friends again."
Going along with his brief spark of optimism, Unikitty nodded. "Yeah! And don't forget, she could always get her memory back."
"Well, that's everything." Batman shoved an immense, weighted box into the moving truck before cracking his back. "Emmet, you know, you can get books online now, right?"
Emmet chuckled. "Lucy and I always loved hard cov–" As if the situation had slapped Emmet across the face, his statement fell to silence. "Uh, well, I better get going, right?"
The hurricane covered Unikitty's mind again, and Emmet forced her hand into wondering if everything would ever be awesome again. Wasn't that his job? He was supposed to be optimistic all the time! He was the happy one.
She and Emmet had always been the strong ones. Not in the same respect as Lucy, but they were the ones who could not be beaten down. They could always find something happy, a bright side, some 'good thing' in every situation.
Now, as his head drooped and he wiped a tear away from his face, Unikitty wondered if Lucy was the only friend she had lost.
"Oh, don't worry, Emmet! I'll come and visit you all the time." She hugged him tightly, more for her own comfort than his, and he gently held her back.
"We'll come by tomorrow to see how you're doing, ok?" Sweet walked over to the group, a hopeful, encouraging smile on her face. "It's going to be fine."
Looking around, Emmet said his silent thanks that he had so many good, supportive friends around him, even if his special best friend avoided him like a hazardous animal. "I hope so." He stepped over the grass, onto the curb, and fingered the door of his car as a nervous fidget. He needed something for his hands to do. "Hey, uh, Unikitty?"
"Yeah?"
Emmet sighed and looked over her shoulder towards the house. "Say goodbye to Wyldstyle for me, alright?"
No, no, no. Not good. "Wait, you don't want to say good bye yourself?" A growing panic pierced Unikitty's voice, yet Emmet ignored it, hopped into his car and let his frown hang.
Shrugging, he leaned back in his car. "It wouldn't matter. I'll see her some other time." The monotone lack of effort in his voice sent a numb shiver down Unikitty's spine. "Bye, guys." She hardly heard his last words before the car sputtered, revved up, and carried him into the city, away from his home, Lucy, Unikitty, and everything he cared about, the truck bobbing along behind him.
Unikitty collapsed to the grass. "I'm going to sleep, wake me when life is nice again."
Batman and Sweet agreed, and both looked out the street once more. It was no use, the blinding, searing sunset had already taken him in.
"I'm worried about him." Sweet sat next to Unikitty, pulled her legs in and rested her head on her knees. "He's never looked so…depressed."
"Heck, I've never seen Emmet down for more than five minutes." Batman looked over to the house, possibly the only remnant of the relationship, a cruel, mocking reminder of what his two friends had lost. "Hey, where is Wyldstyle, anyway?"
"Hey, I'm back." Lucy, as If summoned, hopped off her new motorcycle. She had bought the sleek, garnet, smoking bike a few days prior, matching it with a ruby helmet Unikitty could hardly hold without her arms falling numb.
Unikitty winced as the engine thundered a few paces off. It threw up smoke, grass, and dirt into her face, and she only narrowly avoided choking on the smell. "Wonderful, I've missed you," Unikitty said, her words snappy and bitter. Lower, and somewhat rebelliously, she muttered, "And I see you've brought the mid-life crisis hotrod."
Unikitty heard Batman snort beneath his breath, and she smirked. Well, maybe one good thing happened today.
Lucy kicked herself off her motorcycle and yanked off her helmet. "What did you say?" Beneath her crimson headgear, where everyone expected sky blue and taffy locks, lay a head full of ebony ruins, contrasted by two streaks of neon. She whipped her hair around, almost showing it off, as she hung her helmet on the leather handle of her motorcycle. The whiplash broke her friends' necks.
"Lucy, wh-what happened to your hair?" Sweet, a newer one to the group, harbored the bravery to blatantly accuse Lucy of her actions. "What did you do?"
Her careless shrug, tossed in their direction through the sweltering air, called out on the Lucy of three weeks ago like a child that stole candy. "I changed my hair back, whet's wrong with that?"
Unikitty stood up with a huff, shot a hard glare at Lucy, and marched into the house, the only sound that of the door slamming in everyone's faces.
Lucy looked to the others. "Was it something I said?"
#
Emmet's masterful foot work, a feat to behold, managed to gently pry physics to prod the door open, push a singular box from the hallway wood to the apartment carpet, and avoid losing his balance like a precious gem. His weary eyes, blurred like water had spilled over his vision, climbed up to look around the room. Dust. He saw more dust than furniture. From the dresser knobs to the chair edges and from the TV screen to the kitchen counter lay a thick, caky layer of dust.
The room caved in around him as he tried to look for some sign of past life. A footprint, an old soap bottle, even a tissue would have put his mind at ease. To his left sat a large couch, covered in plastic and dust, centered behind a decade-old television. A single bedroom sat across from him and mocked his predicament. To his right, a kitchen stood, weary, as if it had lost too many battles.
He was alone.
The foreign concept of 'alone' frightened him. It marveled him how quickly one became accustomed to human interaction. He had spent a good portion of his life 'alone' and, for the first time, he had lived with someone for years in adulthood. Not to mention that 'someone' had been a higher level of clingy than most assumed. While most did not peg Lucy as the dependent one, and he was one of those people, she had grown attached to him and his presence. He sometimes longed to ask her, when she lived in a weak moment and clung to him, why she needed him near her at all times. Insecurity? Fear? Buried jealousy? He had never learned the answer.
His unharmed leg, nearly numb, finally gave in under the pressure, letting his body slide against the grainy, chipped, slate paint. He eyed the shabby box before him. It contained his essentials; a fleece blanket, one pillow, his phone, headphones, Planty, and a picture of him, Lucy, and Unikitty. It was practically all he needed for the night.
Actually, he amended that, as he spotted the TV remote, huddled and cold at the bottom of the cardboard box. TV. Yes, he need TV. Possibly desperately.
He found the TV as if no one had touched it in decades. He sucked a deep breath, the smell of age nearly choking him, and set to work. The dust-coated cords tickled his nose several times, a few sparks of electricity threatened his life, and he regarded his broken leg with some hostility as it clunked in his way during his fight with the wires.
Finally, only after an immense struggle, did the TV flick on to basic cable. Not his favorite, but TV was TV, and it was his best and closest friend in the moment. The canned laughter vibrated in his ears. The familiar sound contrasted everything around him that seemed new. The rain, unlike the city's usual sunshine, creeped into his skin, and he shuddered without consent.
The old apartment seemed something out of a childhood nightmare. Like a horror house, he knew there was nothing to fear. All the oddities, the fears, the curiosities, none of them could cause him harm, yet they crawled around him like spiders, just waiting to pounce on his feet when he least expected it.
A crack of thunder slammed against the building, and Emmet jumped, his hand tightening around the remote. He was alone, and the depression lifted, revealing pure fright. The rain battered against the window, punching and banging like it needed shelter from the horrors of the outside world as much as he did.
The couch, and the TV. Those two things were safe. Like a child wandering in the kitchen late at night, Emmet dashed to the box, grabbed his necessities, sprinted to the couch and collapsed under his blanket. The TV offered him Where are my pants? and he took it.
Several quivering breaths passed through and out his lungs. He bit on his lip to keep it from quaking. The tower shook with that thunder clap, didn't it? Could the building stand it? Could he?
He huddled deeper under his blankets, shuddering. The snap of lightning illuminated a tear sliding down his face, and the most miserable thought he had ever had shot through his mind like an arrow.
Was this how Rex felt?