Why am I lying here?
It's the first time you've really thought about it in a while, having somewhat convinced yourself that you do actually need sleep, and a bed, and a normal apartment like everyone else. Of course, it brings up further questions of why you would possibly need an alarm clock and why you have a plug in the back of your neck, but you tend to ignore that stuff in favour of your less complicated imaginary life. So you lie there, in bed, waiting for the morning alarm to go off and staring at the ceiling, your recharge completing about an hour ago.
It's been so long, but today's the day.
Five years. Five years since The Aquabats lost everything – first Crash, then the Battletram… And with their friend and ride gone, the friendship and the respect left too, replaced by menial day jobs and the odd awkward text message. For the most part, you only have a vague idea of what the remaining Aquabats are doing any more, only aware of Ricky and the Commander's new jobs, and with no clue as to what happened to Eaglebones.
Click.
Ah, there he is.
"Good morning, this is your wake-up call…"
When the radio switches on for your 6:00am start, you're just in time to catch the beginning of your favourite show. The music isn't really your thing, but you leave it on all morning anyway, making your apartment feel more alive and less like an empty living space. It does help that the daily sound of his voice reassures you, not only because it makes everything feel like it used to, but because hearing the Commander lets you know he's still doing okay, even in his new career. It's routine at this point, but today's totally different - if you'd have known a one-word text could've brought your best friends back together again, you would've sent it years ago. You drag yourself out of bed, listening to your old leader babble on with a new caller, and check your cell to make sure you didn't imagine the whole thing.
"Reunion?"
Nope, still there. That one, stupid text message, with one reply of only a meeting place, date, and time. Everything is going ahead as planned. No work today – the first time you've taken a day off sick in your entire life – rejecting the notion of another day stuck behind a desk making spread sheets or stuck under one repairing someone else's computer. Of course, you have no idea what to wear to meet the Commander off the train when he's finished with his morning, staring at a wardrobe full of cotton shirts and silk ties and longing for the chance to wear an incredibly tight, warm, uncomfortable piece of neoprene again. If only it were that simple. But you put on your normal, boring clothes, ignore your normal, boring briefcase, and sit on your bed, covering your silver metallic hands with latex, skin-coloured gloves to hide your true self behind a veil of humanity.
"Well, that's a great song request," chatters the Commander from your nightstand. "But first, I'm gonna play something a little different this morning… Because today seems like it's gonna be one of those days."
And as the radio segues into the first song of the morning, you just sit there and stare at your own reflection, a sinking feeling in your stomach making you feel like you just want to crawl back under the sheets again as "Super Rad!" blares from next to your pillow.

Leaving the house today, you walk past 3 cases near the door, one of them clearly used but cared for, one of them battered around the edges, and one of them covered in dust. The briefcase stays where it was placed last night, and the saxophone case stays where it was placed days ago. As for the other case… It hasn't been shifted in an excruciatingly long time. But you're ignoring all three, heading out and getting the train in your suit and tie, while most of the businessmen around you start to don coats and hats as the weather gets harsher. As always, the train is full of all types of commuters, and you still don't get a seat despite catching it later today. You did have one, but you gave it to a little kid instead, smiling awkwardly when he gives you an enormous grin, telling you all about how he's going to school for the first time on his own. It's a nice distraction from the growing feeling of dread and nervousness, and you entertain him and all of his questions before he gets off. Tapping your foot increasingly fast, you're now left alone with your thoughts in the train carriage, ignoring the people around you - the distance between you and your best friend getting smaller as your anxiety grows ever larger.

You feel bad that your first thought is about how he looks older, especially considering he's definitely lost some weight and had a haircut. It's not a bad thing that he looks older, that's for sure. The smile lines that crease up on his face when his expressions change show off a history of looking a lot happier than he does right now, and you wish in a way that you looked older, too. It makes you feel worse that you look exactly the same as you did 5 years previous, something that he's already commented on by the time you've sat down in the train station café for coffee.
"I dunno," he mumbles, a volume level that you didn't know existed for someone who used to be so loud and boisterous. "I dunno what happened to Ricky, man. I'm pretty sure Hollywood ate him."
He zips up his hoodie further, tapping a somewhat familiar tune on the side of his paper cup, and stares at you expectantly. It takes you a minute of just gawking at his face before you actually respond, thinking about how different he looks without a mask… Or a moustache.
"Oh, sorry," you choke, trying to apologise for being lost in your own little world. "Yeah, he's… Not doing too badly for himself, I guess? I heard he became a personal trainer, but I didn't hear about the… Hollywood stuff."
"Well, he's got a buttload of money 'cause he's working with all these celebrities. Started his own gym, or somethin'."
The Commander rolls his eyes, and for a moment you see his old self bubbling to the top as he smirks derisively. He lifts his cup to his mouth, and there's another awkward silence between you, the whole area seemingly stifled by your nervousness despite how busy the station is. But now he's holding your gaze as you look at him with a stare more mournful than you intended.
"I missed seeing you," he says at last, with a small downward twitch of his eyebrows as he taps the cup back down to the table. There seems to be relief in his voice, as if he needed to get it off his chest. "Might as well say it now. I missed you."
You're not sure how to feel about this. He never used to be one for voicing his opinions – any positive ones about you, anyway. Of course, he also used to yell everything he wanted to say and had no concept of personal space, so the man sitting before you now is more than a little different from the one you once knew. But it's refreshing, albeit shocking.
"I missed you too," you reply, extremely quietly, and he's already speaking again by the time you've got the last syllable out. It's a lot louder this time as he leans forward, his forehead resting against his hand as he stares into the coffee cup.
"I miss Crash. Like…"
You can hear a crack in his voice, and when he looks up at you, you can see the cracks in this visage of a confident and chatty radio DJ, too. From this angle, the bags under his eyes are a lot more prominent – he looks exhausted as he tells you about how much he blames himself.
"It's not your—"
"For Pete's sake, Jimmy!" he barks, leaning back in the chair and pulling away from you. "It is my fault. I just… I need to accept that. If I'd not annoyed him so much…"
You slam your hands down in frustration on the flimsy plastic table with a loud thud, the metal not as muffled as you'd expected it to be through your latex hands. He looks up at you, wide-eyed in shock, as do several of the other people around you as you glare back at him.
"You had no idea that him growing like that when he got mad would affect his health so much. None of us did, Commander. My scans didn't even say anything about it, how were you going to know?!"
It's starting to seem like a bad idea - you guys meeting up again - you think. You're already snapping at each other about things that were not only out of your control, but that you've already yelled at each other enough to warrant barely talking for half a decade. But now your old friend is grinning - the sort of sly, mischievous grin that you've secretly been missing, despite it having a history of worrying you for all the right reasons.
"I've not been called 'Commander' in way too long," he confesses, getting up out of his seat and expecting you to follow: which, naturally, you do. "I'm starting to think this was a good idea."
That smile shows no sign of dwindling as the pair of you head out onto the street, the human's cheeks and nose tinged red from the cold, and his smile lines showing off just how they got there.
"Come on. Let's go get Eaglebones, he's expecting us."