overworked and under-informed

gone before i've got you

𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖌𝖌𝖊𝖗 𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖎𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖔𝖕𝖊𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗

✬˖༄ ♡ ࿐*✬

sapnap steps out of the bathroom, his attention drawing towards the sound of laughter downstairs. he pauses there for a minute, listening to the happy sounds and feeling his heart skip a long beat.

he shakes off the thoughts in his head, bypassing the stairs and heading straight back into his bedroom. it's the same room from his childhood but, as he had aged throughout the years, everything that made it his had slowly disappeared. it was mainly during the peak of the bullying in high school, when his response had been to throw away all of the things that meant something to him. it was stupid, and he regrets it now, but he can't take it back.

he closes the door behind himself with a sigh and crosses to sit down at his old desk. it's too small for him to work comfortably now, but he's found himself up here more often when karl is around and working. to start with, he would just ask karl to take benji out of the way so he could work in peace, but now he's starting to realise that benji appreciates the space to play more than he appreciates the space to work.

sapnap notices his phone fading to black and reaches for it, brows furrowed slightly as he goes to check what notification he may have missed. he's anxious to see a missed call from his mom, and is quick to call her back without even a blink of contemplation.

clearly already on her phone, she answers almost immediately. "hey, my sweet."

"hi mom," he replies, hoping she doesn't hear his tense swallow as he tries to stomach the nerves that tense up through him. "is everything okay?"

"yeah, i just wanted to call with updates," she tells him. jenny sounds like she's smiling, which is promising. "they've cleared me to have a surgery, just a minor one, which means things should get better quickly and i'll be home in no time."

her words pull his feelings in six different directions. the idea of his mother going in for a surgery, no matter how small, terrifies him, but the idea that she will soon be well enough to come home blooms hope in his chest. this means, fingers crossed, that it won't be long until he can go home, to his friends, to his company.

with that thought comes a stab of dread that he never could've predicted.

"that's great, mom, how much longer do you think it'll be now? the house is falling apart without you," he jokes, and the playful words make him think back to the night he and karl took benji out for dinner. it had been so easy. a second later, he's met with memories of the night prior, but those thoughts are not something to contemplate with his mother on call.

"well, the surgery should either be tomorrow or the day after, and then i'll need a handful of days for recovery and checkups, and then all of this should be over with. the chrons will still be there, of course, but not in the same way it is now."

"amazing," sapnap smiles. his laptop pings, and he presses his phone between his cheek and shoulder as he navigates his way to his messages to check what just came through. "are you worried or scared or anything?"

"me? scared? who do you think you're talking to?" she asks playfully, and sapnap can't help but roll his eyes as he opens the message he just received from sam. his eyes widen at what he reads, and he sends a quick message back saying he's going to call the brunette.