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1.
Norman realized his feelings during a trip to the zoo.
He’d gone on the trip with Ray and Emma one sunny day in the middle of July, deciding to do something other than collapse on the couch all day, trying not to overheat. Plus, Emma really wanted to see the giraffes again, despite having gone just the other month, and Ray decided that pictures of some of the animals would be a good addition to a photography project he’d tasked himself to do. It was during a brief moment after finishing some soft serve ice cream they’d gotten from a small stand in a corner of the zoo, in which Emma was laughing about all the ice cream she’d spilt on herself and Ray was exasperatedly berating her on the mess she’d made; ice cream dribbling down her face and staining her shirt, Ray lightly shoved her in the direction of the bathrooms nearby, Emma laughing all the while. Norman watched the two of them with an amused expression on his face, holding in the bubbly laughter that threatened to slip out. It was moments like these that had made their past worth living, and what seemed to brighten his days in their present.
As Emma jogged over to the bathrooms, Ray must have glanced back at Norman and noticed him tracking her movements, leading to him giving Norman a knowing smirk and slinging an arm around his shoulder.
“Y’know…” Ray started in a patronizing tone. “You should tell her.”
Typically seeing Ray smile would be enough to put Norman in a good mood, but now it just put him on edge. Norman knew what he was talking about but decided to play dumb. “Tell her what?”
Ray sighed, shaking his head with a shit-eating grin on his face. “You’ve been pining over her since we were little. Just tell her already.”
Before Norman could open his mouth to respond, Emma came dashing out of the bathroom, running back toward them. Ray turned back toward him, giving him a wink. “I’ll stay out of your way, don’t worry~” With that, Ray slipped his arm off his shoulder and trailed slightly behind where Norman and Emma were walking in the front. Despite the hot summer weather, Norman suddenly felt colder, missing Ray’s warmth.
Now Norman just felt conflicted. Ray wasn’t wrong when he said he’d been pining after Emma since they were little. But it made him more uncomfortable that Ray wasn’t standing with them in the front, the three of them together as they always were. Ray had been getting better lately at not cutting himself out of the family, at being present in everyone’s lives as he finally learned to value his own… but when it came to this? Poof, slipping right out of the narrative like gasoline pouring out of a container. Norman didn’t know how to tell him to come back, to be a part of the three of them. Ray, don’t hide. Don’t cut yourself out of our lives. Let’s be the three of us again.
Let’s all be together.
It was that moment when it hit him: Norman was in love with both of his best friends.
Hit with the realization, and noting how obvious it was in hindsight, Norman suddenly let out a loud peal of laughter, cutting off Emma rambling about sea creatures. Emma and Ray then turned to him, confused. “What’s so funny?” Emma asked with a giggle.
Looking at both of them now, Emma giving the image of a sunrise against the bright blue of the sky, and Ray, his now nearly chin-length hair being whipped about in the breeze, Norman thought he could say it. Three simple words to describe what he was feeling.
But it wasn’t just his feelings at stake here.
Ever since the three were reunited back in the demon world, he could see the change in the way the other two interacted. The secret conversations in just a glance or gesture, the near constant hand holding, their smiles… they had something new between them. Something strong. Norman didn’t want to get in the way of that. Because despite how much Ray was trying to push him to be with Emma, Norman knew that seeing the two of them together would break his heart. Because Ray also loved Emma, and Emma loved Ray. And neither of them could possibly love Norman in that way, after what he put everyone through before fleeing to the human world.
So staring back at their expectant faces illuminated by the sunset, Norman just smiled. “I’ll tell you later.”
===
2.
Emma realized her feelings during a game of chess.
It wasn’t really her game of chess; rather, she was watching Norman and Ray play a game of chess from the other side of the living room. She and Gilda were watching their favorite show together, a Thursday evening tradition. Or, they were watching their show together, but lately Emma found that watching the other two play their little games was more entertaining than most other things. It was something in the little furrow of Ray’s brows as he concentrated on the pieces laid out before him, the slight smirk Norman donned when he could sense he was winning and thought no one was looking. Watching the two of them was fascinating .
“Uh, Earth to Emma?” Gilda called out, waving her hand in front of Emma’s face.
She snapped out of her thoughts and turned back to Gilda, an apologetic smile on her face. “Heh, sorry…”
Typically Gilda would offer her a kind smile in return, asking if she wanted to rewind the show by a minute or two so she doesn’t miss out on any important plot points—Emma was usually more into the show than Gilda was. Typically Emma would just brush off her moment of staring at her two best friends as some fixation that she could lock away and ignore. But today, Gilda followed the way Emma’s eyes would dart back to the two boys across the room from them, and gave her a sly smile. “If it’s too distracting here we could move to a different room,” she began, her smile shifting into a smirk.
Emma tensed with a nervous smile plastered to her face, sensing Gilda was onto something. “Why would it be distracting here?”
“ Because ,” Gilda began with a sparkle of mischief in her eye, “you spend more time ogling at your best friends than paying attention to what is supposed to be your favorite show.”
Heart beating fast, Emma glanced back to the table the other two were seated at. It was probably embarrassing to admit, but she hadn’t really deciphered what the feeling she’d had for the past few years actually was, brushing it off any time she questioned it, but now it felt like she was seeing it in a new light. Did she constantly think they were cute? Yes. Did she get the urge to hold their hands forever? Also yes.
It was that moment that she realized: she was helplessly in love with her two best friends.
Gilda had resumed their show—whether it was because she knew of Emma’s internal screaming or not, who knew. They were at the part of the show where the protagonist confessed to their love interest, and Emma realized that that was probably what she should be doing, too. All romance stories ended with a confession. And the two of them were right there. It would be easy. She could get up right now and just stroll over to the other two; Norman would glance at her and give her a questioning smile, while Ray would continue staring at the board with narrow eyes for another moment, finally looking up at her through his fringe after making another move. Hey guys, she would say, I’m in love with both of you. And then….
Well, what happened next would be the problem. They would either accept, or she’d be rejected. The latter was the tricky part.
Emma has no doubt that if the her from all those years ago, just learning of the secret of their world, was the one in this position, she would’ve immediately gotten up and played out that exact scenario without even thinking it through. Now she was much better at thinking things through, and noticed the obvious pitfall. She remembered an awkward rejection between two of the goldy pond kids she didn’t know as well who weren’t a part of the rebellion; it was awkward for weeks, and the two had grown apart. Emma didn’t want that. Norman and Ray were the most important people to her, her rocks chaining her down to reality, comfort and warmth after a long day. To lose that… she couldn’t even imagine how bleak her days would be if she couldn’t spend the rest of them with Norman and Ray.
So now she was stuck in a dilemma; risk her closest friendships, or suffer in silence? To her, the answer was clear, and as Norman checkmated Ray, Emma turned back to the TV, trying to focus on the show and not on the playful bickering behind her.
===
3.
Ray realized his feelings many, many years ago.
He hadn’t exactly known what the feelings were for a while, but he’d known from a young age that he was willing to risk everything in his life and even his life itself just to save them, to give them a chance to live. They were also his main reason to live, almost like they were tethering him to light itself, a world separate from reality. So he’d always known that he held a strong love for them, albeit one that was twisted at its ends, warped by his desire to leave this world.
But as the years went by, the love only got stronger. It probably sounded stupid, but he didn’t actually fully realize just how much he loved them until two years after escaping, after he’d almost lost both of them forever countless times. He’d always known that their safety and happiness had been his ultimate goal, and still was one of his main drives in life, but at first he thought of it as more of a fact than a feeling. They’re important to him; they’re the key to his happiness; they’re the reason he didn’t accept his fate so easily. But spending most of your time plotting your demise didn’t leave much room for analyzing those warm feelings in his heart, and so he hadn’t realized just how much time he spent thinking about the two of them and what that meant, like two gears spinning his brain without an end.
He hadn’t told them, though, despite knowing for so many years. First of all, there was the whole situation of escaping from being some monster’s dinner, then there was the demonic hunting ground, and also that one time where they traveled to a metaphysical death realm to talk to god, etc.; so he really didn’t have the time for this.
And yeah, it’s been a while now since they crossed into the safety of the human world, but they’re still not familiar with how this new world works, and while they’re done with demons, they’ll still need someone who keeps his head focused on learning how to keep out of danger in this realm.
He knows he’s just grasping at straws now, but he refuses to admit that all his excuses are just that; empty excuses that dissolve into pure meaninglessness the second you think about it too hard. Though that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t thought about coming clean in moments of weakness, when he has the audacity to think he could be worthy of them.
They were watching a movie together, fond of their movie nights. They never planned when they would happen, only that on quiet evenings when no one else was in the living room one of them would put on a movie of their choice and the other two would sit beside them on the couch, typically a bowl of popcorn beside them. This was one such night, the trio watching some documentary—despite Norman being the only one actually finding documentaries interesting. Usually documentaries ended up boring Emma and Ray to the brink of sleep. And even this time Norman was slowly drifting off, having spent the past several hours writing a paper for school.
The other two leaning against him, their comforting warmth encasing Ray like a fluffy blanket and bringing a light dusting of pink to his face, he thought he could do it. He thought back to the early years they spent together, these two shining beacons next to his pile of ashes. The way they would smile at him reassuringly, as if they knew what he was doing and urged him to continue forward for their sake, despite them not even knowing for the better part of 5 years. Emma’s steadfast presence at his side in Norman’s absence, and vice versa two years later. Seeing his two precious people lean against him and thinking back to all the moments they’ve spent together, Ray smiled, feeling his feelings bubble up soar.
“I love you,” he whispered.
He didn’t register what he had said, or anything else around him besides those two really, until Norman tilted his head a little. “What was that?” He asked, voice groggy from being half asleep.
Ray suddenly felt a spike of panic. Norman was a light sleeper; make practically any noise around him at any volume, and unless he was just trampled by a horse the other day or awake for more than 24 hours (which unfortunately was pretty often), he would snap right awake. Being faced with the idea of his feelings being exposed, of his thoughts about them being laid bare just for them to stare in disgust at, he felt small. A lifetime of conditioning yourself to think that you aren’t worth it and that your feelings don’t matter doesn’t end overnight, or even after just a few years. And it wasn’t like they’d actually like him back even if he stuck to what he said; as aforementioned, Emma and Norman were like beacons of light compared to his melancholy shadows, their light contrasting with his dark. Why would they even want him in the first place?
So instead he just patted Norman on the head. “It’s nothing, go back to sleep,” he whispered.
Norman mumbled something and leaned back into Ray’s side, his breaths immediately slowing. After staring at both of their faces to make sure they were both sleeping, among other things, Ray sighed and turned the TV off, staring at their smudged reflection left in the screen.
===
4.
Norman attempted to confess on Valentine’s Day.
The community of escapees always loved to go all out on whatever holiday was approaching. It was their way of making sure that they never let life get too gloomy, throwing big parties or social events between them solely because they can . Norman especially was fond of this ideology—after all the suffering this group had gone through, they should be allowed to indulge a little in unwinding a little more than they probably had to.
It was possibly because of this love for planning out the perfect occasion while also adding a little flair that made him think of this. In front of him on the desk in his room, rather than a few papers from school and his laptop, he instead had two letters and envelopes, along with wax and a stamp to add to the flair. Norman figured that secretly placing the elaborate love letters in the other two’s rooms would be the perfect way to impress both Ray and Emma—Ray wouldn’t like a huge scene and would appreciate him confessing in a more private manner, and meanwhile Emma wouldn’t want the confession to be boring and would enjoy the creativity and pizzazz that Norman believed these letters possessed. Of course, their enjoyment would probably be dampened a bit by having to reject their best friend, but Norman had decided that he’d been hopelessly pining for long enough and just wanted to get it out of his system. And what better way than some fancy letters slipped underneath their doors, so he could hide in his room and not see the disappointment on their faces when they read them?
As he went about sealing the letters in the envelopes, he heard distant shouts from children playing in the yard. Moving to open the window, he saw Emma leading the kids in a game of freeze tag—their latest tag obsession—and Ray sitting on a bench nearby, snapping pictures of them as they played. He stared down at them in appreciation, happy for his family, and happy for his two favorite people, and he was so content to stare down at them that he didn’t notice the breeze starting to pick up, or how loose he was holding the letters…
…until the wind yanked the letters from his hand, and they fluttered down to the scene below.
Oh shit.
Norman only saw Ray take notice of the letters falling down directly to him before he took off sprinting out of his room and down a flight of stairs and burst through the screen doors onto the porch, where Ray was picking up the letters off the ground.
“Oh, hey Norma-“
“DON’T OPEN- gimme those,” Norman fought to control his emotions; the more he acted like he cared about the letters, the more suspicious he’d be.
Ray clearly was already suspicious, making no move to return the letter and instead raising an eyebrow. “What’s in the letter?”
“Oh, just, junk mail, nothing important~“ Norman tried to reach out and grab the letters, but before he could, Emma came running over to the two of them, giving them her brightest smile.
“Hey Norman, come to join us?”
“Well, no-“
Emma then noticed the letters Ray was holding in his hands. “Ooh, what are those? They look fancy,” and with that she snatched them out of his hands and turned them around in her grasp.
“It’s nothing,” Norman stammered, cursing the world for inventing wind.
Emma started frowning as she turned the letter over. “Why is the wax shaped like a heart?” She gasped. “Are these love letters?!”
Ray suddenly looked upset too. “Who are you writing love letters to?”
Norman wanted to stab himself. Or the letters. Or both. But before he could do anything he’d have to get the letters back from them, so he abandoned all manners and plans of seeming Normal and snatched them back from Emma. “I didn’t write them! They were just… found in the mailbox! I was just on my way to go burn them before they got blown out of the window. Sorry about that,” he said with a laugh and an apologetic smile. He’s a pretty good liar on the spot but not when he’s having a heart attack like this.
Emma seemed relieved at this, but Ray still seemed skeptical. “Why do the envelopes and seals look exactly the same? It looks more like one person making letters for two people than two people making letters for one person…”
“They probably just both used the same supplies, whoever they are! Anyways, gotta go, nice talking, see you later!” Norman briskly speedwalked away, doing his best to keep from breaking into a full on sprint.
“…Wait, who is writing you love letters-!” He heard Emma shout before he slid the sliding door shut behind him and sprinted back up to his room, out of breath. At least he hadn’t written their names on the letters yet. Though after this disaster, all he did with the letters was hide them in a drawer on his desk, and promise to himself that he’d never do this again.
===
5.
Emma attempted to confess a few days after the beginning of spring.
It was the first real spring day, to be precise. Though it had been half a week since the season had technically started, Emma had been bemoaning about how despite being spring it was still hovering around freezing temperatures. Until finally, it was a perfect sunny day, with a perfect breeze in the air and a perfect temperature. The perfect day to enact her plan.
It was simple. She had asked Ray and Norman if they’d want to go on a picnic together—just the three of them, she stressed—and the other two enthusiastically agreed on going the first day that the weather warmed up. Emma had planned ahead and knew the perfect picnic location: a hill not too far away, overlooking a small field and the outskirts of a nearby town. The sunsets from that vantage point were phenomenal, and so Emma planned to bring them to the picnic later in the day, and try to keep the three of them there until evening when the bright streaks of orange and pink would paint the sky. Then, she would confess, the pink skies setting the mood. And at this point she no longer cared about being rejected. She realized that their bond was strong enough to withstand a temporary inconvenience such as her feelings.
There was no way anything could go wrong.
As the three trekked up the hill, Emma could not stifle her excitement. The three of them had all prepped food for each other, but all kept theirs a surprise—though Emma had been able to smell something heavenly from the kitchen when Ray was cooking. Norman had also brought some playing cards and a board game for them to play while they were up there, while Emma had brought a frisbee.
The afternoon went perfectly; the food was great, the games were fun, and best of all, Emma got to spend it with her two most beloved people. Finally, the evening was beginning to approach, as she noticed the sun begin to dip below the distant buildings and the sky began to cast an orange hue. She took a shaky breath, and turned to the other two, who were currently debating whether a hotdog counted as a sandwich. “Hey, can I tell you guys something?”
“Sure, Emma,” Norman said with a smile as Ray turned toward her, packing said hotdog back into a container.
“I-“
Before Emma could finish her sentence, a large boom interrupted her, followed by a few light droplets of water falling on her face.
“What was that?” Emma asked, blinking water from her eyes.
Ray turned around and looked in the direction of the Ratri mansion. “Looks like a storm. A large one.”
“ What?” Emma shouted. She had been watching the sky for a hint of sunset for the past few moments; she would’ve noticed if a huge storm cloud was descending upon them. But as she turned around, she realized that the gray skies were coming from behind them, the opposite direction than she had been paying attention to.
Norman nervously laughed, attempting to shield the games and cards with his body as the rain started to pick up and lightning flashed in the distance. “Did either of you happen to bring a raincoat or something…?”
The worried frowns on the others’ faces answered his question for him as the small sprinkles of water turned to heavier pelting raindrops, another peal of thunder echoing overhead.
Emma’s face brightened after a moment. “Last one home has to do laundry!” she shouted, and took off, frisbee and picnic basket in hand.
“You can’t just randomly say that!” Ray shouted after her indignantly, but he pelted after her as well, holding his own food containers.
Norman started running at some point too, as the rain started coming down in heavy sheets, trying to balance running as fast as possible while also keeping the board games out of the rain as much as possible underneath him.
Emma looked back over her shoulder to see Ray shortly behind her and Norman further behind, right at the moment when Norman slipped in a patch of mud and fell face first into the ground. It felt like she was watching it in slow motion, the way his foot slipped from under him and the board games flew from his grasp.
After another minute or two of running, Emma and Ray barreled into the mansion one after the other, panting and laughing.
“Emma! Ray! What are you doing,” Violet screeched when they noticed the mud the other two tracked into the house and how they were dripping like wet cats.
Emma tried to speak but couldn’t through her pants and laughter. “We didn’t notice the weather,” Ray said awkwardly, as shouts could be heard from behind him.
“Wait for me, don’t close the door yet!”
Norman finally ran in, himself and the games fully caked in mud, causing Emma to erupt in another round of laughter while Gilda, who had become quite the clean freak as of late in trying to manage the younger kids in the mansion, was giving his completely mud-stained clothes a death glare.
“The games are ruined, in case you couldn’t figure that out,” he said, placing the games on a towel laid out by one of the kids. He looked down, noticing how he could barely be seen under a layer of mud. “And so are my clothes.”
“Great,” drawled Ray, “you can solve that later when you do the laundry.”
Norman snapped his head toward him. “You’re still holding me to that bet?!” He panicked.
“Yep!” Emma said with a smile.
“ I fell!”
Ray cackled nearby Norman. “Should’ve been faster.”
Norman frowned for a moment, then grabbed a handful of mud sliding down his shirt and threw it at Ray, nailing him in the center of his chest.
“ Guys- “
“You’re going to wash my shirt too anyways!” Ray retorted with a shit-eating grin.
As the other two along with Gilda and Violet got into an argument about the ethics of forcing Norman to do the laundry in this scenario, Emma could only laugh. She might not have gotten her confession, and at least one of them—probably Norman—would most likely be sick by tomorrow, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to care at the moment as she laughed on.
===
+1
The things that stood out the most in the shadowy haze were those two glowering amethysts, their violet hue seemingly piercing only him, trapped back in his eleven-year-old body.
He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
At first it was because of the fear the woman in front of him was inflicting upon him, as what happened every time he had to go into that blasted room to give another fucking report. The fear coiled around him, like serpents sizing up their prey, ready to devour him whole.
Then, feeling a pain in his side that didn’t add up, he finally tore his eyes away and looked down, and noticed the thorny vines that had somehow wrapped themselves around him. He hadn’t noticed before but in the dark void he seemed to be in, the entire floor was made only of loops upon loops of twisted vines, snaking on top of and around each other. He struggled, but couldn’t do much without either causing the vines to loop even tighter around him or have more of their thorns tug at his white shirt—already with small holes in it from the sharp thorns—as the vines continued to snake upwards.
But the moment of true horror was when the vines all started sprouting flowers. Red flowers, those that only bloomed when they took a life. They bloomed all around him, coating the sickly green of the vines in hideous, glowing red, and when he looked back up the apparition of his mother had been replaced with a demon, with large, bony arms and long, spindly fingers, its hands grasped around the corpses of two very familiar children, the demon opening its gaping maw and-
Ray bolted upright, breathing hard, his eyes frantically scanning the room around him. The inky blackness from the dream—he sighed in relief because, it was just a dream —melted away to reveal the dimly lit room around him, though the sharp purple of the image of his mother’s eyes didn’t fade from his mind for a while. Leaning back against the bed frame, he closed his eyes, grounding himself.
“Ray?”
He nearly jumped out of his skin from how startled his friend’s voice made him. Then he remembered: their movie nights lately had shifted into movie sleepovers, due to each of them being too tired to carry whichever one fell asleep back to their own bed after the movie ended, and the other two enjoyed cuddling with each other during the movie. Ray did too, but lately any physical contact between them made him feel like he was going to explode.
The movie must have finished after he fell asleep, since he didn’t remember the transition from leaning on one of Norman’s shoulders while being semi-interested in the romcom Emma chose, to waking up from being wrapped in his embrace with his luminous blue eyes now staring at him in concern, Emma sitting up from Norman’s other side with a matching expression of worry.
Ray sighed; they shouldn’t have to deal with his problems anymore. They were out of the demon realm and now spending their time leisurely making their way through school, plotting possible ways to start a company to shrug off the Ratri’s hold on their future rather than plotting escape plans from bloodthirsty demons who wanted to kill them. But of course, it didn’t matter what was happening now. It would never matter. The nightmares stuck with all of them, even now. Usually his friends’ presence made him feel secure enough to not wake up in a cold sweat instinctively reaching for a gun that was no longer kept by his bedside, but he supposed there were always exceptions. Like now.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing,” Ray huffed, awkwardly laying back down and trying to ignore the stares of his very worried and very pretty friends beside him.
Norman didn’t budge, his eyes searing the side of Ray’s face. “It’s not nothing . You nearly bolted out of the room the second you woke up.”
“It was just a nightmare.”
Emma pouted from Norman’s other side, sitting up against the bed frame. “And you’re upset.”
Ray turned around, facing away from them. “I’m fine.”
He felt vibrations on the bed, then felt Emma clamber over him and lay down opposite him, balancing on the edge of the bed.
“What are you doing.”
She gave him that smile, the one she always had when she was determined to prove him wrong. “Comforting you!”
Ray sighed. “You’re gonna fall off the bed, idiot.”
“Then make room for me~”
“Absolutely not! Go back to your own side, I don’t need to be pitied.”
Norman chuckled beside them. “Bickering like little kids again? I can just move over y’know.”
“Yeah!” Emma cheered, and Ray only gave a hmph of annoyance as Emma pushed him into the middle of the bed and wrapped her arms around him, Norman doing the same on his side.
“…You don’t need to strangle me,” Ray weakly protested. Really he was too focused on how warm they felt beside him, but he wouldn’t let them get the satisfaction of knowing that.
Norman hummed beside him. “It’s a hug, stupid Ray,” he said with a laugh.
“Idiot Norman.”
“Dumbass Ray.”
“Shhh,” Emma theatrically whispered while managing to be louder than both their remarks. “Ray needs to sleep!”
Ray frowned. “So do you two.”
“Well, we’re not going to sleep until you do,” Norman said with a mischievous grin.
“ What,” Ray groaned.
Emma laughed with a matching smile. “We’re here to ensure that you get a good night’s worth of rest!”
Ray raised an eyebrow at her. “You do remember that it takes me a while to fall asleep, right?”
Back when they were on the run, he and Emma would sometimes share a sleeping bag during the coldest days of winter, conserving body heat. While she would be out like a light the moment her head hit the ground, years of staying up at night to craft prototypes of the tracker disabling gadget kept him awake much longer than her, eventually being lulled to sleep nearly an hour later by Emma’s rhythmic breathing.
While probably being barraged by the same memories as he was, Emma only smiled wider at him. “I’m always up for a challenge!”
“Sorry, Ray, but we love you too much to not force you to sleep,” Norman said sleepily from his left.
Ray opened his mouth to reply, but no sound came out. He still wasn’t used to being constantly told—from both of them—that he was loved. He wasn’t used to the affectionate gazes the two were giving him right now.
And call him selfish, but he found that he didn’t want it to end.
Blinking back tears, he gave them a small smile of his own. “I love you guys,” he said with a voice more wobbly than he would’ve liked.
Judging by the way Emma smiled even brighter—was that even possible?—and nuzzled into his shoulder, and Norman gave him a kiss on the cheek, he figured that they didn’t want it to end either.