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It may not seem that way on the surface, but the two bathrooms are probably the loudest rooms in the entire house.
You can’t step foot in the downstairs bathroom without being assaulted by Jean-Loo and Johnny Splash’s personal concerts, Sinclair’s bizarre yapping, and Hector whirring up a storm. It isn’t that much better in the upstairs bathroom either. All day, Bathsheba and Rebel’s gossiping bounce all over the smooth tiles, and Barry always finds a reason to stop any passer-by willing to hear about his latest makeup knowledge.
Amir is lucky to have his own mirror in the bedroom. Sometimes, when the bathrooms become too much, he’ll enjoy the peace and quiet it can bring him and preen himself uninterrupted.
It doesn’t mean he dislikes the bathroom objects, of course. Even with a gun to his head, he can’t bring himself to truly dislike anyone in this house (anyone who’s an object, at least). No matter how many times they may irritate him (which is frequently) Amir wouldn’t change a thing. His purpose is to see the beauty in everything, after all. And when he hears the chatter echoing from those rooms, he knows his friends are delighting in each other and themselves.
So when he arrives in the upstairs bathroom to thick, tense silence, he knows that something is wrong.
His brows furrow as he takes in the scene before him.
Bathsheba is sulking in her tub. Her knees are drawn to her chest, and she doesn’t acknowledge her shower head streaming water down her hair. Tyrell is sitting on his towel rack. He’s frustratedly fumbling his Towel Buddy into a new shape, his mind seemingly elsewhere. Jean-Loo, Rebel, Sinclair and Barry aren’t even here. Even if nobody’s around, though, it’s a genuine surprise that Bathsheba can keep herself quiet at all.
“Did something happen in here? Where is everybody?” he asks, stepping into the room. The bathtub huffs loudly, her shoulders bouncing.
“Probably avoiding that jerk of a human.” she spits, not bothering to look at him, “Nobody can stand to be in the same room as them. And they had the gall to call me the unlikable one!”
She places her perfectly shiny hand over her chest and scoffs in Amir’s direction.
“Can you imagine that? Me? Unlikable? The absolute nerve!”
Tyrell nods in agreement with Bathsheba.
“I don’t really blame the others for leaving.” he says, twisting one of his loose threads around his finger, “I’m only here to keep a lookout for spills. I’m not a fan of the human, but I won’t let that stop me from doing my job.”
His eyes flick down to the small towel in his lap as he holds it closer to his face.
“Now now, Towel Buddy,” he chides gently, “Let’s not stoop down to their level. We’re better than that.”
Amir feels his chest tighten. He wishes he could say this came out of nowhere, but he unfortunately isn’t safe from the human either.
When they first got the Dateviators, Amir was one of the first objects they decided to interact with. He was excited at first - finally, he could put his thoughts to words and express how breathtakingly beautiful he thought they were. But very quickly, he learned that their appearance was where their beauty ended. Every time Amir spoke, he was shut down and insulted. The human thought the worst of him, and they were very adamant about verbalising this.
They aren’t on speaking terms now, and as the days go by, he knows he isn’t the only one. Diana had a breakdown because of them, Timothy allotted space in his schedule for angrily ranting about them, and Betty would sit and stare blankly at the wall whenever the human wakes up in the morning.
Amir supposes he should have anticipated this outcome. If the human had hurt him without a shred of remorse, then it wouldn’t have been far-reaching to believe they’d do the same to the other objects.
“Ey vây, that’s awful!” he sighs, “I don’t know what that human’s problem is.”
“I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about them around the house.” Tyrell says. He places Towel Buddy - now in the shape of a butterfly - on his shoulder and crosses his arms.
“I overheard the Hanks saying they take the fun out of their stunts, and Lyric told me they ruined his writing career.” He shakes his head in dismay, “And that’s not to mention what happened with Barry…”
Amir snaps his gaze towards Tyrell, alarm surging through him.
“Barry? What’s wrong with Barry?” he asks.
Barry Styles is the absolute highlight of the upstairs bathroom. When Amir steps in the room, the little bundle of beauty supplies is always among the first to greet him. He’s lost count of the times they sat together and helped apply each other’s makeup, all while Barry chattered away about the latest fact he just learned - along with a bunch of other facts he already told Amir. He could be a lot sometimes, but he is never without that bright, confident smile of his. If the human had done something to diminish it in any way…
“What did the human do?”
Bathsheba folds her arms on the edge of the tub and rests her chin on top of them.
“Don’t ask me. Believe me, I’ve asked him many times and he just walked off without a word!”
“He hasn’t been himself since yesterday morning.” Tyrell interjects, “He skipped his makeup routine for the first time in years, and he looked really tired.”
“He didn’t even say anything about combs or foundation compacts or whatever he’s obsessed with these days.” Bathsheba adds.
Tyrell sighs sympathetically and aims a sad frown at the empty countertop that Barry usually resides.
“I wonder what the human said that made him so upset…”
Amir clenches his fists so hard that he fears they may crack. His mind races as he takes in Tyrell’s words. Now that he mentions it, he can’t recall Barry doing his makeup in front of the mirror yesterday morning, or this morning either.
He hadn’t questioned that lapse in routine. He was more focussed on his own problems at the time. Why didn’t he suspect that something was wrong? Why didn’t he do something?
He takes a deep breath to quell the heat inside of him. As much as he wants to scream at the human until Wyndolyn shatters, he knows it won’t do much to help Barry. He needs to direct this anger into finding his friend.
“Do you know where he is now?” he asks Tyrell, who shakes his head.
“No idea, sorry. He could be anywhere.” he says.
Amir sighs and nods.
“That’s okay. I’ll go look for him.”
A gruff voice speaks up from behind him.
“I might know, actually.”
Amir looks over his shoulder to see Dorian, his tall and stocky build eclipsing the doorway. His usual stern expression is tinged with concern this time around.
Amir faces him pleadingly.
“Khāhesh mikonam, tell me where he is.” he says.
Dorian steps into the bathroom and comes to a stop in front of Amir.
“Saw ‘im sneaking into the office crawlspace earlier,” he explains, “He looked like he wanted to be left alone, so I didn’t speak to ‘im. Poor lad looked like he hadn’t been sleeping.”
A hand clenches around Amir’s glass heart. Barry has always loved being around other objects, so if he’s locked himself up in the crawlspace to be alone, then whatever the human said to him must have cut deep.
“Thank you, Dorian.” he says, “I will go talk to him.”
The tall man steps aside to let him pass, and Amir wastes no time in walking through the bedroom and down the stairs. His heart is pounding as he rounds the corner and heads into the office.
Inside, Dasha is leaning against the wall and anxiously bouncing her foot. When she hears footsteps, she turns her attention to Amir with a nervous smile.
“Ah, Amir.” she greets, “I assume you are here for Barry?”
As she says this, she tilts her head in the direction of the office’s utility closet. Amir politely smiles back at her.
“Yes. I’m here to talk to him. I’m guessing you’ve seen him?” he asks. Dasha sighs sadly, her feeble smile dropping off her face.
“I have.” she says, “He said he needed to use crawlspace for a while, and he has not left for hours. I have been thinking of speaking to him, but he needs delicate touch that I simply do not have.”
Her gaze drifts to the utility closet, then returns to Amir.
“I am glad you are here. You know him better than I, so maybe you can figure out what is wrong.”
Amir runs apprehensive fingers through his hair and stares at the closet door. He desperately hopes that to be true. He likes to think he knows Barry more than most, but the events of today have jostled that belief. He has no idea what could have upset his friend to this degree. There could be a whole other side to Barry that he never considered.
“I will do my best.” He says, “Thank you, Dasha.”
“That is alright.” the woman replies, “Just let him know I’m worried about him, da?”
“I will.”
Amir makes his way over to the closet and opens the door. It reveals Winnifred standing over a closed trap door. Her forehead is creased with uncertainty, and she doesn’t say a word as the mirror walks into the stuffy closet. When she looks up at him, her features soften, as if she guessed the reason for him being here. She takes a step back to give him some room, and she nods in reassurance.
Amir swallows thickly, and he crouches down in front of the trap door. He gently raps his knuckles against the dark wood, awaiting some sort of response. He gets none.
Gingerly, he wraps his fingers around the handle and opens it up a crack.
“Barry?” he asks, softly projecting his voice into the darkness, “It’s me, Amir. May I come in, azizam?”
His words are met with several long seconds of stifling silence, until…
“Okay…”
The one word is barely audible, closer to a whisper than anything. It sounds like a Herculean effort just to say it.
Sympathy flooding his chest, Amir fully opens the trap door and steadies his foot on the creaking ladder. He carefully descends the rungs and closes the trap door behind him, trusting that Dorian would prevent any bystanders from looking in. When his feet reach the ground, he looks around while squinting in the darkness.
Through the dusty gloom, Amir can just make out the outlines of the support beams and Winnifred’s pipes running along the concrete walls. On the other side of the ladder, someone sits against the wall, curled into a ball with his face hidden in his knees. His hair - normally standing pin-straight with the help of his strongest hairspray - is drooping like a dehydrated plant.
Amir rounds the ladder and approaches Barry as one would approach a frightened inanimal.
“There you are, azizam,” he says in a low, subdued voice, “May I join you?”
There’s another pause, then Barry’s hair bounces a few times as he nods. Amir crouches beside him, and he clears away some rocks and dirt before he too sits down. He remains mindful of his friend’s compact lenses, which he had removed and left sitting on the floor beside him.
He says nothing at first as he takes in the man before him. Barry is an embodiment of makeup, something created to help you stand out. And yet here he is, hiding away in the dark and making himself as small and as quiet as possible.
Amir opens his mouth to say something, but Barry beats him to it.
“I’m sorry…” he murmurs, a slight tremble playing at the edge of his voice.
The mirror frowns. It’s not unlike Barry to apologise for the smallest things, but this time it feels different. There’s a certain weight to this apology, as if it were a dam holding back so much more.
“Whatever for?” He asks, “You haven’t done anything.”
Barry squeezes his legs closer to his chest and lets out a shuddered breath.
“Exactly. I haven’t done anything to improve or- or to be less of a nuisance. I tried.” his breath hitches, and his voice drops to a whisper again, “I promise I tried…”
Amir feels something inside him break.
Barry’s crying. That monster of a human had hurt this sweet man enough to make him cry. And what’s this about him being a nuisance, or about him trying? What was he trying to do?
Amir places a steady hand on his friend’s shoulder. He tenses up at the touch, but he doesn’t move to get rid of it.
“Barry, what did the human say to you?”
He feels a flinch under his hand, followed by shaking that only increases in intensity.
Barry allows his eyes to peer over his knees. In the dim light, Amir can see his eyelids smudged with three-day-old mascara, and he stares exhaustedly at the far wall.
“Nothing that wasn’t true.”
Amir squeezes his shoulder, his concern mounting.
“What did they say?” he repeats.
Barry wipes his eyes, smearing makeup all over his hand. His face is contorted into something agonising- his teeth pressed together and his eyes barely open. He lets out a sob, alongside a longer sound akin to a whimper.
“I’m sorry for being too much,” he wails, squeezing his eyes shut, “I-I’m sorry I can’t remember shit and— and for going on about things nobody cares about. I-“
He’s cut off by another sob, and he buries his face in his knees.
“I don’t know how to fix it!”
He’s openly weeping now, and it’s enough to shatter Amir completely. He moves the hand on Barry’s shoulder and wraps his arm around him instead.
“No, no, eshgham, you love talking about things. It makes you happy.” he coos.
Barry shakes his head.
“It bores everyone.”
“It doesn’t bore me.”
Amir places his other hand on the nape of Barry’s neck and gently guides his head towards his shoulder. Barry doesn’t resist, and he leans into his side. Amir rubs the back of his neck with his thumb, and he holds him closer with his other arm.
“Whatever the human said to you, it wasn’t true,” he says, “They just want to hurt everyone, whether for their own amusement or because of something unresolved inside of them. Whatever the reason, you didn’t deserve any of it.”
Barry tries to respond, but whatever he wanted to say only comes out as a messy croak. Amir shushes him and brushes a tear from his face. He feels wet, powdery foundation come off and onto his hand.
“You may think you deserve it, but you don’t.” he continues, “You don’t deserve to be miserable for being you.”
“But my mind’s a mess!”Barry weeps, “I forget all the important things and I let everyone down! Nothing I try works!”
“Then we’ll keep trying until something else works.” Amir says, “You’re not broken.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Barry raises his hand and grabs hold of Amir’s back. The touch is desperate, searching for the reassurance that he’s okay. That there’s hope for him.
Amir wipes the man’s face again, then delicately presses his cheek against his forehead.
“My entire purpose is to reflect the truth.” he says, “And I see you, eshgham. I see that you’re worthy of so many beautiful things.”
He holds him even closer to emphasise his point. Barry continues to cry, but he doesn’t try to say anything else. Instead, he leans further into Amir’s touch, the grip on his back become a lot more sure.
He lets out an almost inaudible croak that sounds close to a ‘thank you’. Then, he moves his face from Amir’s shoulder to bury it in his chest.
The mirror’s upper body is smudged with foundation, and he might have to use the glass cleaner on it later. But he doesn’t mind one bit. If Amir can show Barry how loved he is, then he doesn’t mind a little mess.
As the pair sits together in the dark, gloomy crawlspace, Amir stroking and consoling a devastated Barry, his mind drifts hatefully towards the human who started this mess. They have cause so much pain already, and he suspects that it will only get worse from here.
He could handle the human hurting him. He had hoped, perhaps even believed, that they would one day take a good long look in the mirror and see what they have become. But that was before he saw the true extent of their cruelty.
Now, he will never let their actions slide again.