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Bob’s awake.
Helmut had been wondering for about the past, oh, three hours or so. More power to him, if he was. The last thing they need is for Bob to be more strung out than he already is. He’s held it together in front of the group—in front of the UN meetings, which Helmut can’t believe actually happened—but Helmut married the guy. He knows what a panicked Bob looks like, and Bob has been panicking. Bob has brought up every reason in the book that they shouldn’t go to Grulovia, without actually saying they shouldn’t go to Grulovia.
Which, Helmut gets. He even agrees with some of the reasons. It was extremely bizarre to have a general covered in medals tell him that the Psychonauts need to save the world.
Unfortunately, Bob looks like he’s getting about as much sleep as Helmut. Every move for the past three hours has been slow, precise, and calculated. The motions of a sweet husband who doesn’t want to wake his spouse.
Might as well save that strain, if nothing else.
“You awake, Bobby?”
He hears Bob’s voice catch. “Sh—did I wake you? I’m sorry, honeybear.”
“No, no. I wasn’t, uh…” Helmut forces a chuckle. “Pre-performance jitters.”
At least the chuckle he gets from Bob sounds genuine. “Is that what we’re calling it? If you say so. I just…”
The words trickle into the darkness, but Helmut gets it. The voyage to Grulovia tomorrow. Taking down Maligula—Maligula, Maligula, Maligula is what all the reports say. Surviving the ordeal. They haven’t done anything like this, nowhere near. They’re not an elite fighting team. Powerful psychics, sure, but Helmut is the walking definition of lover, not a fighter.
Fighting. Ugh. The nerves are getting to him again. He rolls onto his back. “Tell me about it,” he jokes. And then, after a short pause: “Seriously, tell me about it. What’s freaking you out?”
Whatever fears going through his brain right now, he knows that Bob has it about ten times worse. He’s a gloomy, grumpy pessimist who constantly swirls down the drain. Helmut is at least looking forward to the statues that will be made of them. Bob is probably trying to think of the scariest thing.
Helmut thinks it might be the skydiving. Honestly, that part sounds kind of thrilling. He’s never skydived before, certainly not into a war-torn country, but he’s always kind of wanted to jump out of a plane. The sights up there must be unimaginable. Clear, pure air, perfect shades of blue. Bob, on the other hand, doesn’t really like being in the air. Maybe he’ll hold Bob’s hand when they go down. Is that allowed? He hopes it’s allowed. It sounds romantic.
That short pause becomes a long, long pause. Helmut’s about two seconds away from bringing up skydiving before Bob answers, haltingly, “We, uh. We don’t have wills.”
Helmut nearly chokes. “Wills? Why would we need wills?”
“Well, uh. You know. In case we…”
Of course he was aware of wills as a sort of nebulous concept. To say that Helmut had ever seriously considered the topic was a stretch. If pressed, he might even suggest that the NDA they signed upon arrival was a sort-of will, surely. Both were signing your souls away.
(He might’ve said the same about a marriage certificate, once upon a time. But, well. Bobby.)
“We’re not going to die, Bobby,” he reassures. In the darkness, he fumbles under the sheets for his husband’s hand. It’s unusually sweaty. "“It’s Lucy. You know? And, and there’s six of us. One of her. We’ll be able to take her down, no problem.”
Why on Earth does Bob think they might die doing this? Sure, he’s a man of habit and this is far outside their wheelhouse. Maybe the United Nations spooked him. That’s probably it. Bob’s been reading too many news reports of Maligula. While Helmut feels for the people who died, they were just regular people. They’ve got psychic powers.
No, Helmut has nerves, but they’ve got nothing to do about death. They have everything to do with the idea that they might not bring Lucy back. That Lucy, dear friend Lulu, might be gone forever.
And maybe a little bit the skydiving.
Bob doesn’t answer. Right next to him, it’s hard to tell whether he’s even breathing.
Maybe not the best track, that. He doesn't really do well with being told his fears are irrational. Honestly, when Helmut's anxiety spikes again, that sort of thing helps him. Bobby is the most grounded, realistic man that he knows. To be told how the world operates is kind of soothing. Helmut brings up their interlocked hands, lets Bob’s knuckles (and his wedding ring) brush against his lips.
“So, the wills,” he says. “What do you want out of a will, anyway?”
In Helmut’s understanding, all a will says is who-gets-what when somebody dies. For one thing, neither Helmut nor Bob have ever sat on a mound of riches. All they have is stored away, here-and-there. The stipend for being a Psychonaut is admittedly small, but the whole life-mission thing cancels it out. For everything else… well, he doubts anyone on the team is going to wrestle anything away from Bob. Boole isn’t going to take his PSI King helm.
“I… I don’t know. You know anything I have is yours,” Bob mumbles. Helmut feels a weight against his shoulder. “My greenhouse, my plants. My heart.”
He twists his head to the side, kisses the top of Bob’s. “You’re going to be fine.”
“I know, but—you never know, do you? Okay, put aside Lucy for a second. You never really know. Sometimes someone is here one day, and then they’re not, and I just think—I just think we should talk about it. That’s all. We should've talked about it before all this.” A frustrated vein twists in Bob’s words, the kind when he faces any sort of social difficulty.
He guesses they’re both thinking of Tia Zanotto. Helmut’s instinctive defense melts away. Hell, this situation would put anyone in a morbid mood. Bob’s mind likes to roll over old stones when he’s sad; his mother is one of the oldest stones he has. When he first heard the story, his heart broke for Bob. Now that Bob’s older—almost the age his father was when he died—Helmut suspects he thinks of her more often. Helmut couldn’t even imagine.
Some of his mother’s old subjects still live in the greenhouse, thriving and verdant. The ivy sprawls all over one side, arterial against the glass. It’s a nice tribute for a complicated situation.
He wonders if Bob’s father ever talked with his mother about death. He wonders if Bob’s mother ever talked with Bob about death.
“Then let’s talk about it,” Helmut says with confidence. “If you die. If I die. What happens then?”
The moment he utters the words, he really thinks about it. If they came back from Grulovia without Bobby…
Oh.
Helmut suddenly feels very, very cold. The only hint of warmth is Bob’s head on his shoulder and his sweaty hand in his own. He, he…
He doesn’t want to think about this, actually. He doesn’t want to consider a world without Bob. His world might not just be confined to Bob, but Bob is the ground beneath his feet. His steady force, his constant partner. Bob makes Helmut feel like singing every single day, lights up his soul with incredible frequency. He’s broadened his horizons: things that Helmut can touch, hear, see, smell, and taste that he never considered before. Everything is so much more electric with Bob in his life. To go without all of that? To not be able to talk with Bob in the dark?
“A-Actually, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he says suddenly, drops Bob’s hand, and turns away.
That might be the cowardly thing to do. Definitely not the behavior of someone sent by the UN to take down Maligula. Helmut would much rather think of anything else but losing his husband, because he has never been a great believer about having thoughts that make you sad. Unless it’s poetically sad, creatively sad, productively sad.
The thought of losing Bob is just—
It’s just sad.
He’d never be able to write that sadness down.
After a moment, Bob’s arms come around him from behind. His husband gives him a squeeze. They’re currently squished into the back of the Feelmobile. While they have an actual cabin to stay in, they sometimes retreat to the Feelmobile when they want somewhere a little cozier. Now, Helmut is half-regretting they don’t have a sofa he can go sleep on instead.
“I know you don’t think about this stuff the way I do,” Bob murmurs. “I know it doesn’t… help you to think about it. I know.”
Stop stop stop stop stop stop stop.
“You know me. I worry. Way too much. And I just…”
He has to resist the urge to cover his ears with both hands.
“I guess I just wanted to say, if something happens, you know how much I love you. And, and that I wanted you to be happy. Again, someday. I… I’d want you to sing, and perform, and… I don’t know! Find someone else, fall in love, get married. You make a great husband,” Bob teases. “It’d be a shame to take you off the market forever.”
When Helmut feels things too keenly, his organs feel like they might disintegrate. Crumple like tissue paper, collapse like rubble. Right then, he can’t feel his smashed lungs, and he certainly can’t take in a breath.
How Bob can be so calm about this, he doesn’t know. Bob has been around more death than he has. His mother, sure, but Bob can also serenely listen to the last dying thoughts of a plant. Regularly does, actually. They’ve held a few funerals for old special friends, he and Bob.
Helmut experiences a feeling that he hasn’t had for a very long time.
The sense that he isn’t built for this. That he’s a wannabe artist overgrown manchild who can’t have adult conversations, who can’t have a full enriching life. He has stories to tell, but before Bob, he never had any roots to put down. Never thought too far into the future, as that was dark and uncertain. Being with Bob has changed that a little—he thought—or, now, maybe not.
“I don’t—”
His voice is weak. Helmut doesn’t realize how close he is to crying until the tears fall. He grits his teeth, tries not to raise his voice. “I don’t want to talk about this, Bobby. We’re going to be fine.”
Bob has to be disappointed in him. Helmut understands, he gets it, but he just—couldn’t they talk about this anytime else? Not when Bob has put the idea in his head, not when they have the biggest fight of their lives tomorrow. Not when they’ve barely had any time together. Save the death talks for when they’re both old, wrinkled, gray-haired men.
Maybe Bob should insist upon it. There have been a few conversations he’s insisted upon, a few conversations that Helmut would’ve otherwise pushed off together. Bob is good at that kind of thing. Hell, maybe Bob needs to hear that Helmut feels the same—that he wants Bob to be happy after his death, that he wants him to live a full and rich life, that his second husband has his blessing. All that.
He just—
“Okay, honeybear,” Bob croons behind him. “We don’t have to.”
The surprise makes Helmut turn around in Bob’s arms. There, Bob looks at him with a sad, exhausted smile. Not the smile of a man with a lot of fight in him. Eek, now Helmut feels immature and guilty. “I’m sure you’re right,” Bob finishes. “We’re going to be just fine.”
Helmut considers powering through. If it means so much to Bob, if it puts Bob at ease, if it lets Bob sleep… then maybe it’s his duty, as a husband. As a partner, as a friend. He already knows he won’t be getting any sleep tonight, after all. Why inflict the same on Bob, if it’s clearly weighing on him?
And yet, no words come. He raises his hand to cup Bob’s cheek, and Bob leans into the caress.
We have to be fine, Helmut finds himself thinking. He leans in to kiss Bob’s forehead, his eyes sliding shut. We have to be fine. I can’t lose Bob yet. We’ve barely had any time together, and—and, next week, this is all going to be a bad, bad memory.
***
You know, asking the fatal question in Nick Johnsmith’s body made it easier. Then, he was simply inhabiting a role with a very enhanced costume. Helmut Fullbear would be terrified to ask the question, and he had already had a very terrifying day. Nick Johnsmith, though? He had less emotional attachment to the issue.
So, Agent Intern Raz. How is Bobby doing?
Oh! The kid had immediately looked to the side, clenched his hands together. Uh, you know. He’s doing… so great, actually. Last I heard, um. Like, really happy and everything. A lot of friends. So many friends. In the Psychonauts and out. They all really, really, really love him. So. You don’t need to worry about him at all. Before I head out, could you help me into the clerk’s office, Agent Fullbear? Once I pull Ford Cruller together, I’ll totally take you to meet him. But, llike I said, you don’t have to worry or anything, because he’s super okay.
Suffice to say that while the disguise did work for the question, it didn’t do shit for the answer.
Okay. Okay. He nearly kissed the ground at Raz’s feet. Bob was okay, thank god. Twenty years—Helmut had been imagining the worst. All of those twenty years probably hadn’t been okay, but he was so relieved to know he was okay. With friends who loved him! That was a great thing. Helmut, after all, had once been a friend who loved him.
He lets Raz into the clerk’s office without complaint. Only when the child leaves, his bag thumping against his leg, that Helmut begins to suspect.
It starts out small: I don’t think Razputin was telling me the entire truth. But what was it?
Hours later, when he receives a note from Raz that tells him to come to Green Needle Gulch, that wriggling little question has blossomed. Transformed. Mutated. By the time that Nick Johnsmith crests the hill into that old place, Helmut Fullbear is certain of one thing.
Bob has absolutely gotten remarried, and Raz was too scared to tell him.
He doesn’t have any time to adjust to that fact. It still stings as if it were a betrayal. Like death, adultery was also something Helmut never seriously considered with Bob. In their small crew, who was even an option? No offense, but Ford Cruller didn't recruit anyone for their looks. The fact that Bob was hot seemed a happy coincidence. And now—
It isn’t that. It isn’t an affair. It is twenty years, and Bob deserves to be happy, and Helmut has to be alright with that.
Helmut isn’t alright with that, nor does he really have the mental bandwidth to make him be alright with that. But the alternative is not going to see Bob Zanotto, and after twenty years, Helmut is not going to avoid him. He’ll just—
He’ll just be polite, civil, helpful, relieved. The second he is alone, he will collapse.
Helmut rounds the Heptadome towards the old amphitheater. Even now, he feels twinges of resentment that he’ll have to meet his husband—well, he guesses his ex-husband—
The thought is so painful that Helmut Fullbear stops in his tracks. He has to catch his breath against the side of the Heptadome. Ex-husband is impossible to say, to even think. How does he think he’ll be able to do this? One little prefix steals his breath away, and now he’s meant to go see the love of his life be with someone else?
Eventually, Helmut pulls himself together again, though not by much. He baby-steps around the perimeter of the Heptadome, goes down the path, and…
And oh, god. God. Okay. Out of all the things he expected, they decided to bring Bobby’s new husband to their reunion? Where even is Bobby?
An unfamiliar figure waits onstage. He’s short—oh god I was always worried about being too tall for Bobby, guess I was right—and though bald on top, he sports a long gray beard and fringe—he always said he liked men with long hair, god damn it. His back is to him, which means that he’s facing the old rusted Feel Mobile. Looks like it hasn’t been moved in twenty years.
That, unto itself, would be enough to shatter Helmut’s heart. Bob has been tending his mother’s ivy since her death, and he didn’t even care about tending to the former home of his dead husband? In his attempts to restrain his emotions, though, he’s crested a strangely psychedelic phase. The only thought he has on the matter is: oh, what. You stole my husband and now you’re going to take my van away from me, too?
He can’t do this. He can’t do this. He can’t force his feet to move. What’s worse, there’s no Bobby Zanotto in sight, just this old fart of a husband. Maybe Bob didn’t want to meet him. Maybe he couldn’t be bothered. Maybe he thought Helmut would try and make a move on him, despite being re-married. The last thing Helmut wants is to speak with the second husband. All he wants is Bob.
No, no. If Bobby won’t show—then Helmut won’t show. He’ll go and have a panic attack in the woods, then force so many of his emotions inside a box that his brain will tear a lobe afterwards. Only then will he hold it together enough to save the world.
And then what? His mind taunts him. You have no family, no husband, no van. You don’t even have a body. You might as well go back in the Brainframe for all you can—
The figure turns around.
Oh.
Oh, that is his Bobby.
For all of his talk about forcing himself, Helmut reacts without thought. He sprints towards the amphitheater, down the stairs. When he hits the base, he takes a grand leap onto the stage—and despite his reduced size, still manages to land with an impressive slam against the rotten wood floorboards.
Bob startles, stares up at him.
This close… whew, Bob smells like a moldy mushroom. The stark discoloration in his limbs—Helmut’s been in the concert circuit before, he knows what that’s a symptom of. All of Bob looks bedraggled, beaten down, chewed up, and—and—
White-hot fury boils up in Helmut, a deeply violent anger. He hadn’t even realized he was giving the new husband the benefit of the doubt about treating Bobby well, and now! Now, Helmut lavishes in hating the man he’s never met. What does he have to say about Bob’s condition? Does he care? If it were Helmut, he would be—well, he would be—this fellow should be ashamed—
Helmut takes up both of Bob’s hands in his own. They’re very cold.
“If you’re not happy, Bob—” It isn’t his voice, and isn’t the inflection that he wants, and this Nick Johnsmith fellow needs to breathe from the diaphragm more. But, it’ll do. “Then say the word, and we’ll run off together. We’ll elope. We’ll have a second wedding. I’ll take care of you.”
Bob blinks owlishly up at him. One lens is completely missing from his glasses; the other cracked irreparably.
“Uh,” he mumbles. Helmut gets a burst of moldy mushroom for his troubles. “I… I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be saving the world here. Or, something. Uh—sorry—” He takes away his hands. “I think I might’ve gotten, um, crossed signals here. Do you, by any chance—I mean, Mr. Johnsmith, is it your brai—”
“Bobby, it’s me,” he insists. His heart threatens to shatter. “It’s your PSI King. It’s your honeybear. It’s me.”
For a three terrifying seconds, all he receives is a wide-eyed stare.
And then—
It’s an almost innocent, childish look. It is ultimately the look of a man who has not experienced hope in a very long time.
“Helmut?”
Helmut hugs him.
It’s not exactly the all-encompassing, sweeping embrace that he hopes for—and it’s a reminder that this isn’t really his body, so he should mind what he does with it. Even as different as he feels, and even as terrible as Bob smells, Helmut nearly bursts into tears when he feels Bob’s hands around his back.
Bob shakes like a leaf. Helmut shakes like a leaf. He doesn’t know how long they stand there, shaking against one another. A few times, the emotion threatens to tip over the line again, to spiral him into that terrible, overstimulating horror show—but his brain has been overwrought already. It simply doesn’t have the energy to push him again.
“Helmut?” Bob eventually asks in a cracked, thick voice.
“I’m not letting go. So don’t ask. We’re going to stay right here until—” An almost hysterical giggle bursts through his mouth. “Until we turn into trees. So don’t ask.”
Bob doesn’t sound particularly upset about that turn of events. “Okay,” he agrees. “But, uh. You know we can’t run off together, right? We still have a job to do? And… I mean, eloping is a nice idea, but…”
Right. Okay. It’s a no. It’s a no, because Bob has re-married, and he loves his useless second husband. For whatever reason. And it’s a no. And while Helmut wants to stay like this forever, Bobby in his arms, it is probably going to get a little weird if they start talking about Bob’s second husband soon.
And so, he takes a step back from Bob’s arms.
“No. No, I know,” he answers flatly. “You’re busy and you’re married.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Well, I am.” Maybe it’s the whiny voice on Nick Johnsmith, but he is starting to sound like a brat. Helmut heaves a sigh and sounds even more like a brat. “Look, I’m sure he’s very cute and very short and tries his hardest to make you very happy.” He lowers his voice, and adds under his breath, “Even if it’s clearly not very much.”
Helmut expects that to start a fight. They’ve had quite a few little snits that start with someone mumbling under their breath. What he doesn’t expect is for Bob to stare up at him, somewhat agog.
“What are you talking about?”
“Wh—who else? Your husband.” He heaves a beleagured sigh, when Bobby’s face doesn’t clear. “Your second husband.”
Nothing. This is starting to get silly. Helmut taps his foot against the ground, and snaps, “That little Raz told me that you’d gotten a second husb—well, he implied it. That husband, Bobby.”
Finally, Bob gathers up enough of his wits to ask a question. “You… think I got remarried?”
“Yes! And I just wanted to say that obviously I’m so fine with it. I’m glad that you weren’t alone, because I know how you get it, and I’d be so sad if my death ruined your life forever. Because you’re a nice person, Bobby, and the world is darker without your light in it, and you deserve the best in the world. So there.”
He thinks he might not like this Nick character’s voice. It’s fairly incapable of not sounding sarcastic. And while Helmut is prickling with irritation, he finds about halfway through his speech that—well—he means it.
It worries him, that Bob’s in this state, and he worries what Bob’s second husband is doing about it. He worries that Bob’s second husband isn’t doing anything at all about it.
However. He isn't going to throw a tantrum and demand that Bob get a divorce.
Bob steps forward, and pulls one of Helmut’s hands away from his chest. He takes it. Slowly, like he suspects he’s misunderstanding the situation, he tells him, “Helmut, I never got remarried after you died. You’re still my husband. That’s why we don’t need to elope.”
Oh.
Oh. Oh, that—
Oh.
Helmut blinks.
He’s starting to feel like he memorized the wrong set of lines.
“It’s flattering that you think I’d get remarried, but…” Bob’s smile is soft, and warm, and understanding, and forgiving. No matter how much time has passed, it will never not set Helmut at ease. Though warm-faced, he starts to relax. “But I’m pretty sure it was a stroke of luck the first time.”
“Good,” he answers. “Well, not… not good. But. I was going to start a fight with your new husband, Bobby.”
It doesn’t come off as a joke, like he intends. Instead, Bob looks down at himself—at the whole of himself—and winces.
Reality begins to set in. The fact that Bob didn’t re-marry, the fact that Bob has seemingly set up shop in the Green Needle Gulch. The fact that Bob looks like he’s spent all of his time curled up with his plants and a bottle.
Oh, Bobby. Oh, hon.
“Yeah, I’m… I’m sure this isn’t what you…” Bob has started speaking very slowly. He chooses his words after a full second of thinking. “I, I just… I thought you were… I mean, everyone thought you were…”
It is so dangerously close to an apology. Helmut won’t stand for that.
He interlaces their fingers together, gives it a firm squeeze. No, it doesn’t feel like Bobby from twenty years ago, but that’s still his Bobby. “Bob, I almost had a panic attack over by the Heptadome at the thought of meeting your second husband.”
“Oh.” Bob looks toward the building, like he might be able to see a psychic impression of his misery.
“I’m just—I’m just so glad to see you.” The words tumble out of his mouth like river rocks.
He isn’t sure what else to say. Everything’s just so much. There’s so many words inside of him, and he just can’t…
I thought about you all the time. I thought you were dead, then I forgot you altogether. I thought you had moved on. I think we might need to have that conversation about death now.
“I love you so much,” he says, instead, and he hopes that’s good enough for now.
When Bob looks up at him again, there’s tears in his eyes. Helmut can only imagine what he’s been through. Once, Bob confided to him that his worst fear was dying alone in the greenhouse, like his mother. How dangerously close they’d come.
As close as he is to falling apart, he sees the hurt written over Bobby. With Bob, Helmut thinks he can force himself to be alright for a little while longer. That might partially be his acting ability, but hey, that carried him pretty far before.
His husband needs him.
“But you smell a little like rotten mushrooms,” he finishes, with a loving grin. “Let’s—Let’s find a place to relax, and then I want to hear everything, Bobby.”