Wels hurts. The kind of pain that permeates every muscle and feels like it’s bruised every bone. Growing up, everyone told him pain was normal, that it would just get worse as he got older, and he’d learn to tough it out.
It took Cub and Scar sitting him down and running him through the concept of chronic pain for it to start sinking in.
It’s harder to ignore now, but did he ever really ignore it? Was he never not complaining about the pain, or not had times where he hesitated to get up because he had to keep up appearances?
It hit him afterwards. The exhaustion. The years and years and years of pushing himself too hard and his body trying to keep up. He basically slept through the end of S6, the fatigue like a too-heavy blanket he didn’t have the strength to crawl out from under. The hermits would come check on him, make sure he ate and took care of himself, but it’s hard to jump servers in that state.
And devs, Wels was useless, wasn’t he? All those years as the strong and strapping knight, and here he was rotting in bed on an empty server because he was too tired to ever properly wake up. Why was he doing this? What had gone wrong in his brain that he couldn’t make it up and down the stairs properly? He had to be faking it, but why?
(…Is it any wonder the shadowy clone who stepped out of hell, just as Wels was finally back on his feet, saw Wels as so weak?)
Wels can manage now. He’s not great at it, but he’s better. He doesn’t push himself as hard for nearly as long, but he’ll still get so excited by the occasional bursts of energy that he runs himself into the ground. He has days where the pain makes him nauseous, when it feels like he’s ripped a joint from its socket, when his muscles burn like he fought a battle. He’ll still spend weeks in bed, beating himself up, wondering why he isn’t strong enough to get up…
Ooo connecting Hels to Wels have chronic pain? Delicious.