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Howard was shit with feelings—let's just put that out there on the table where everybody could see it. He barely had a handle on his own, so it should've been a no-brainer to anyone with a functioning brain that you should never come to him if you needed to sort out your emotions like a normal fucking human.
And yet—
"Cunningham, it's okay," he muttered, hand practically clenching down on his phone in a vise-like grip. "I'm okay."
"But you weren't," Randy hissed on the other side of the line. "The Tengu, it...I...I had to—"
"Save me from being a honkin' bird demon's glorified meat puppet?" Howard cut him off. "Yeah, dude, I know. And I'm glad you did."
A breath, shallow and shaky.
"Are you sure you're okay? I-I mean, you were the one that got possessed."
"But I'm not that's getting nightmares about it, am I?"
That was a lie, that was a fucking lie. Once you get a centuries-old bird demon shoved up your ass and ingrained in your mind like a goddamn parasite, "normal" felt more like a distant past life than a state of being you'd return to once everything was said and done. He could still feel the Tengu's talons on him, hear it screech garbled Japanese into his ears till his mind went blank. But Howard couldn't tell Randy that. Not now, at least.
Or ever, really.
"Howard—"
"Cunningham, I'm okay." He shifted in his bed, rolling over onto his back so that his eyes were on the ceiling and not on the shadows that filled his room. "I'm always gonna be okay, as long as I got you."
A pause, quiet and lengthy.
"Even when I wonk things up?" Randy asked, his voice softer than anything Howard's heard before.
"Even when you wonk things up."
Another pause, this one longer than the last. It lingered between them, minutes blurring into one another. Howard's eyelids were already halfway closed when the other line came to life again.
"Thanks, Howard. For, uh, ya know. This."
"I'm your best friend, dude," he said with a barely audible laugh laced into his tone. "I'm legally obligated to counsel you like goddamn therapist when shit gets real and you need someone to vent at."
Randy chuckled. "You'd be a terrible therapist."
"Hell no. I'd be the terrible therapist." Howard fluttered his eyes shut, his words becoming nothing more than a slur of mumbles and murmurs just barely above audible. "The honkin' golden poster child of shitty psychologists everywhere."
"Will you get a certificate for your shittiness?"
He scoffed. "Fuck yeah I will. I'll get three of 'em. An associates' in dogshit, a bachelor's in horseshit, and a masters' in bullshit."
If you could grab and feel sound, Randy's laugh would be like a cup of hot chocolate after trudging through a mile's worth of snow. Or jumping into the pool on the hottest day of the year. It eased the tension out of Howard's limbs, making him sink into his mattress.
"Good night, Professor Weinerman."
"Night, Cunningham."