Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The days continue on as normal for Heartslabyul, except they don’t.

It’s normal on the outside—if there’s one thing Night Raven College students understand, it’s maintaining appearances. 

They’re planning another unbirthday party for next Tuesday, in fact, and it’s all going wonderfully smoothly: Trey already has most of the food done, Cater has painted most of the roses with not a single white petal out of place, and Riddle is keeping everything in check. Everybody else is hard at work keeping up their grades or taking it easy with a round of Spelldrive, and things are marching on.

But a corpse is still a corpse, no matter how perfectly preserved it might be.

Heartslabyul have breakfast and dinner together as a group in their absurdly large dining room, and not a single person is allowed to be late. Since the dorm is always at maximum capacity, the table, too, has all its chairs regularly filled, and it’s difficult to eat without bumping elbows with the people sitting right next to you.

So, when two chairs go empty for four days, everyone notices.

But if they make even the slightest indication they do, it results in an immediate beheading without preamble or fanfare.

One day, someone finally snaps. When they all walk in that evening, the two vacant chairs are gone, but the chairs were arranged so there aren’t any noticeable gaps. A stranger might’ve assumed the table and chairs had always looked that way. It would honestly be impressive how seamless it looks, if not for one little caveat:

Riddle is absolutely furious. 

He goes on a complete screaming tirade before breaking down into a sad little puddle of tears, before Trey and Cater carry him to another room to cool down.

Nobody says a word.

Not even when one of them finds one of Cater’s uniform buttons on the complete opposite side of where he sits.

Riddle feels as if his whole world has been reduced to lying here on his bed, curled up into a pitiful little ball. He feels as if he does nothing but lie here, look up at the ceiling, eat, sleep, and use the bathroom. But his grades are still in the 99th percentile, so he still goes to class and does his homework—he must do, even if it certainly doesn’t feel like it.

His mother would be disgusted at how little he actually does anymore, but just like everything else, he can’t really bring himself to care.

He’s hypersensitive to every knock at the door, with hope alighting every single nerve in his body that maybe it’s Trey or Cater here to tell him they found them, or maybe Ace and Deuce back to apologize for being gone for so long, or maybe— maybe…

…but of course, it never is.

Kalim relieved him of his tutoring duties at the last Housewarden meeting with a hug. He’d held Riddle’s hands, looked him right in the eyes and said, “It’s going to be okay, Riddle. They’re strong. They can handle anything.”

That one vote of confidence from the person who should know it the least meant the world to him.

Trey is worried about Cater.

Common law and pattern dictates he should be more worried about Riddle, and he is. He’s more worried about Riddle in some ways, and more worried about Cater in others. It’s a tough balancing act that makes his head spin, because through it all, he still has plenty of room left to worry about the two people he can’t physically check on.

So, to keep himself from going completely insane, he prefers to tackle his concerns one at a time.

Anyway, back to Cater.

To be honest, it’s probably their fault he’s like this.

With Ace and Deuce gone, Riddle and Trey have subconsciously started clinging to Cater more—trying to get out of one person what they used to get out of three. Cater, as he always does, reads their emotions like a comic book, no matter how much Trey tries to keep his own under lock and key.

And, as always, Cater changes himself to fit the role he knows they want.

Cater plays up his smart mouth more often, makes more of those little mistakes Trey has to come clean up. He gets a bit more amateurish, a bit more ditzy, a bit more incompetent practically overnight, forcing people to help him with even the most basic tasks.

He asks for Riddle’s help with homework a lot more, knowing full-well he doesn’t need it. 

Some days he’ll work like the Queen of Hearts herself is whipping at his heels, and some days he’ll completely avoid it just so Riddle can come scold him like he used to do with…

Trey can’t describe it. It’s still Cater—obsessed with Magicam and always taking selfies—but it’s… different. And it’s not just because Cater’s words are hollower and his laughter is a bit more forced, though Trey knows it's definitely still an issue. He's pretending nothing's wrong so Trey and Riddle can silently despair over it, and still manage to put themselves back together long enough to resemble functioning human beings.

Trey knows it’s a problem. 

But for the first time since Riddle’s overblot, he can’t do anything about it.

Because the root of their problem isn’t Cater or even them.

Trey just wishes he knew where it was.

Cater doesn’t consider himself egotistical, but he thinks it would be a fair argument to say he’s done the most out of everybody in Heartslabyul.

Unlike Trey and Riddle, he knows all of Ace and Deuce’s activities, who they’ve spoken to, where they go and when. That’s the nice thing about being the “cool” upperclassman—while people are more likely to go to Trey when it comes to personal problems, Riddle when it comes to school problems, they aren’t afraid to go to him when it comes to not-problems.

So, Cater’s the only one who knows they went to get a movie when Deuce texted him: “Do you know any good films we could watch?”

Cater recommended something popular but he’d never actually seen before and left it there. He completely forgot about it the next morning.

Cater was glad it happened, though.

So, for the past few days, Cater’s been hitting up every single movie rental place and movie theater on Sage Island to see if they’ve seen a boy with a heart on his face or his spade friend. Riddle and Trey don’t know he’s been doing it—the last thing he needs is either of them dragging themselves to an early grave. They’ve already had to replace Riddle’s boots after he literally ran himself ragged running all over Night Raven College looking, looking, looking.

He’s going to get in serious trouble if it gets out he left campus without doing the proper paperwork, and he’s not actually supposed to be doing anything until Thursday, but frankly, he doesn’t give a damn.

Even if nobody appreciates it, he’s been holding Heartslabyul together by a thread and he’s not going to let it go to waste.

He’s tired of begging Trey to eat something, just a little something, please, or of feeling Riddle’s tears seep into his shirt, burning into him in a way poison and acids never would. He’s tired of keeping these two stupid chairs in his room, of hearing laughter down the hall only to realize his mind is playing tricks on him again.

He’ll bring those two back.

He’ll do it, even if it kills him.

(That's the horrible thing about getting attached to people, Cater thinks. When they eventually leave, it's like they've taken away a piece of your heart you can never get back.)

Chapter Text

The worst part is this: when nobody sees Jack on Monday, without even speaking a word to one another, they all collectively assume he ran away. Nobody knows he’s at a sleepover with his friends. They don’t even realize he had any friends at all. 

Runaways aren’t uncommon in Savanaclaw. In fact, running away with your tail between your legs to lick your wounds is the expected behavior. But the difference is Jack isn’t like that, and he doesn’t come back looking for a rematch.  He doesn’t come back, period.

Deep down, students of Savanaclaw tend to be very simpleminded creatures with few exceptions. Being strong is the only thing that matters, and if you aren't, you just don’t belong. It might seem twisted, but there’s a certain beauty in its sheer simplicity.

Jack was weak. He couldn’t take it. So now he’s gone.

But the real worst part is this: even with years of history and culture and survival of the fittest rooted into this dorm, nobody can bring themselves to blame him for wanting to leave.

(That is how much Leona sucked as a housewarden, he thinks. 

Maybe all the people who thought he’d always be second-best to Falena had a point.)

There are few things in this world keeping Leona up at night.

The state of Sunset Savanna, for one; his brother, who he doesn’t even call anymore; his nephew, whether the little hairball is actually there or not; Ruggie, after his overblot; a few other minor worries Leona used to worry about when he was younger but now thinks: what does it matter?

As Leona’s clock strikes midnight on a Thursday (or, well, technically Friday) , he pulls the pillow off his face with a growl and mentally adds one more item to the list.

Jack Howl.

The freshman. 

The wolf. 

The traitor.

The person who didn’t think it was necessary to take five minutes to write a note explaining he was going off to play footsies with his little friends, which meant Leona was basically chasing his own tail for two days until Ruggie told him. 

And the more he thinks about it, the more sleep he loses. 

(Leona really hates thinking, sometimes. It's the one thing he both loves and hates about himself, and it all depends on if he can control it.

This is not one of those times.)

When Leona was around seven or eight, he used to think about running away. A lot. Perhaps more than most children his age ought to have, but enough to still be able to track his thought process, even to this day.

Leona used to reason to himself he would run away at night, where his dark mane would make it hard for the guards to see him. He’d have to do it quickly, too, so obviously, he wouldn’t have time to leave a note.

Based on how neat Jack’s room looked—with books on his shelves being deliberately picked out and the remaining ones straightened, and the tidiness of his bed—that clearly wasn’t true in the slightest.

Leona would tell himself he’d only pack the essentials while on the run—so no pencils and no pens. So, logically, he wouldn’t have the means to write a note, even if he wanted to.

But one look in Jack’s drawers proved he’d taken all of his pencils, all of his erasers, and even his pencil sharpener with him. Plus, his magic pen wasn’t just for channeling magic, either, so it couldn’t be that, even if he had left all of his belongings behind.

Which left only one probability.

When Leona was around seven or eight, he used to think about running away. A lot. Perhaps more than most children his age ought to have.

There was only one reason he didn’t. One little, dense, pathetic reason.

Falena would be sad. 

Even if he left a note explaining why, even if Falena understood by some miracle, it wouldn’t change the fact Leona left, and Falena would still be sad. The image of his brother, sitting somberly on his bed as he stared at the window never failed to make Leona feel white-hot shame for even thinking of leaving.

So he didn’t. He stayed. Even when it only ever got worse in the palace, he stayed.

Even these days, no matter how much he wants to stay away, he always comes back, because he knows Falena would be sad if he never came to visit. What makes it worse these days is now he has a nephew who always wants him to come back home, and the thought of making Cheka sad makes his stomach tie itself up in knots, twisting and turning until it finally snaps. 

But Jack is not Leona. Even if he didn't run away, he still left. And he still didn’t leave a note.

Because he didn't think one was important.

Because he didn't think anybody would see it.

Because he thought nobody would—

(At 1 AM sharp, Leona heads to his bathroom to hurl.

He really hates thinking, sometimes.)

“Community (psychology) — noun — a feeling of camaraderie and familiarity, received from being surrounded by people who are similar to yourself.” 

At least, that’s how one of the people living next door to Ruggie used to describe it. She was a Linguistics teacher, before she found out the hard way being a teacher in the Sunset Savanna slums pays practically nothing when nobody around you has any money, either. She moved out a few summers ago and Ruggie hasn’t seen her since.

Ruggie wishes he would’ve listened to her more.

He worked back-breaking jobs where nobody appreciated him for his community. He haggled the prices on food for hours with merchants in the main square to give the kids something better to eat than roasted ants and slugs. He came to this fancy mage academy, brushed up against a literal apex predator so he could have all the benefits of working for him—including tutoring sessions—all so he could get a nice, well-paying job to get his neighbors sinks that didn’t leak.

That was “community”.

“Community (ecology) — noun — a group of different, interdependent species living together." That was the other definition she gave him. To this day, Ruggie still thinks he would've understood it better if she just came out and said it was basically the "Circle of Life Theory", but she'd never been a fan of theoretical science—or science in general, honestly.

And as any kid growing up reading takes about the King of Beasts knows, the supposed "Circle of Life" is delicate. Like, "unstable-ladder" sort of delicate. Take one part off, and the whole thing falls apart.

That's the difference between "community" and "community", he thinks.

People die in the slums. Every kid who didn't have two coins to rub together learned this lesson, and more often than not, they learned the hard way. 

His grandmother didn't mince words about where his mother was and where his father probably was, when he asked her. But even though they were dead, she still kept going. 

His more senior neighbors would croon about how nice his mother was, how polite, how helpful, just like you, and oh, how they missed her—but the community was still around, even without her. 

One year, a drought hit Sunset Savanna, and it hit hard. That year, Ruggie went to more funerals than birthday parties. That year, he recognized most of the faces in the coffins. But he still kept going, because what else was he supposed to do?

It's no different when Jack vanishes. Even when Monday comes, and Ruggie assumes Jack just doesn't want to come back, he doesn't let the hollow feeling of wrong in his chest to bog him down.

Even when Tuesday comes, and Professor Trein pulls him aside and asks where Jack is, then berates him for not paying more attention to his underclassmen when he responds, quick and honest, "I don't know." Frankly, it scares him just as much to say it as it probably did for Professor Trein to hear it.

Even when Wednesday comes, and Jack doesn't return any of his voicemails or texts, or come back to take care of his cacti, or study, or get his weights, or eat in the cafeteria, or go to Sam's shop, or do anything at all.

Even when Thursday comes, the police kick down Ramshackle's dorm, find his bag and everything else but nothing that could lead them to him, and his cellphone disconnects, and Leona isn't helping, and Ruggie has no way to slow down for a second, even if he wanted to.

Ruggie keeps on going, just as he always has.

(Even though he's not sure himself how he does it.)

Chapter Text

“Hey, what do you think would be the worst way to die?” Ace asks.

Jamil snorts before taking a drink from his water bottle. He wipes his mouth with the collar of his basketball uniform as he thinks about it, because Ace probably isn’t going to let it go, and unlike Floyd, appeasing him at least shuts him up for a bit.

“Poisoning,” he says, just because it’s the first thing that comes to mind.

Ace puts his chin on his knees as he stares at the rest of their classmates fumbling around with the ball. “Aren’t some poisons, like, fast-acting and painless?”

Jamil rolls his shoulders back. “I wouldn’t know.”

Ace, thankfully, doesn’t read too much into Jamil’s reply as he whines, “Come oooooon, dude, take this seriously.”

The Scarabian student sighs as he mulls over the question again. He’s only glad Floyd isn’t here to spout off nonsensical answers that leave his head spinning—he can only take so much of it from Kalim in one history tutoring session. “Strangulation good enough for you?”

“Ooh…” Ace hisses. “That’s, like, one of my worst nightmares. Just the thought of slowly losing air while your murderer just sits there is…” He shudders and his face goes pale.

Pseudodysphagia, Jamil thinks, though it doesn’t sound quite right. Pnigophobia, maybe.

“To be honest, though,” Ace continues, running a hand through his hair as the color returns to his face, “I think I have to go with being stabbed, then have my body stuffed into a bag, then thrown into a river where nobody’s going to find me, and even if they do, they’re not gonna know who I am, so my family’s never going to know what happened to me.”

Monatophobia, then, with a hint of pungophobia.

Jamil raises an eyebrow. “You should’ve specified you wanted me to include the aftereffects. And that is highly particular, besides.”

“Yeah, maybe a little.” Ace laughs. “I can’t help it! I saw this murder mystery documentary on an unidentified dead person when I was a kid and completely freaked out.”

Jamil rolls his eyes. Of course he did.

Just then, Floyd comes rushing back into the court announcing he feels like playing again—a mood that will probably only last for 20 minutes at best, but still.

Ace gets up, stretches, and jogs back onto the court. Jamil screws the lid back onto his water bottle and follows suit.

Jamil doesn’t think much about this conversation in the coming months.

But he remembers it.

Jamil’s not certain if this next one actually happened.

He has it after his overblot in the midst of recovering in the infirmary. He’s drifting in and out of consciousness from the pills Azul foraged from the shelves for him, so the whole thing could’ve been one big illusion. But pitifully, the uncertainty weighs on his mind when he lets it.

All he remembers is waking up with Ace sitting on a chair next to his bedside, reading some kind of book with no title. 

Ace looks up to see Jamil’s bleary eyes staring at him, and he sets the book down on the bedside table with a smirk.

“Hey Jamil,” he says, voice soft, “feeling better?”

Jamil blinks. He opens his mouth, but the horrible dryness of his throat makes it click back shut.

Ace laughs, and the sound echoes around the empty infirmary room. “Guess not.” He reaches over to the table to pick up a glass of water—which Jamil swears wasn’t there before—and cranes it down to Jamil’s mouth. “Here. Azul says this’ll help.”

Jamil sees the water pouring down his throat, but he doesn't feel anything going down it. It’s as if someone had put padding around the interior of his gullet. And when Ace puts the empty glass back onto the table, his mouth is still painfully dry.

“So,” Ace leans back in his chair with a shit-eating grin, “tried to kill your housewarden, didja?”

The words spear through Jamil like icicles, falling off a frozen roof.

Jamil’s tongue finally decides to cooperate as he croaks out, "Wh—"

Ace seems unbothered by his own apathy as he shakes his head disappointedly. “Man. Of all the people I expected to snap and try to kill someone, I didn’t think it would be you.”

“You didn’t really know me.” Does that reply come from Jamil? He thinks it does.

Ace’s head lolls to the left at an unnatural angle, like a doll whose neck had been cut. He smiles. “You’re not trying to say you would’ve tried to kill me, too, right?”

Ace laughs at Jamil’s wide eyes and hanging jaw. It sounds more like Jamil’s laugh than any sort of noise Ace would make. 

Even throughout the years of poisonings and kidnappings and evading certain death, he’s never wanted to scream more than he does now.

“I’m just kidding , senpai.” he says. And then, because he’s a little bitch, he smiles and adds, “Get your mind out of the river.”

Ace sighs and leans his head back over his chair. “Maybe I should’ve taken a page out of Azul’s book. Really can’t trust anybody around here with anything, huh?”

“I wouldn’t do that.” Jamil says numbly, because what else was he supposed to say?

The redhead scoffs as blackness starts creeping over his vision.

“In case you haven’t noticed, you just did.”

“I’m going to Ramshackle this weekend.”

Jamil hums. “Really?”

Ace tosses the basketball, groaning to himself as it caught nothing but air. He sighed. “Yes, really. It’s going to be an all-weekend mini-vacation. Friday to Sunday. So don't call me for any weekend practice, okay?”

“And you’re going to be at Ramshackle the entire time? That seems excessive.”

“Yeah, well, we need the break.”

“From what?” Jamil asks, as he lands a perfect basket. “School has been pretty nonchalant lately. Professor Crewel hasn’t even assigned any crazy homework assignments lately, especially not for the first-years.”

“We’re going to have a study session for exams.” Ace shrugs as he picks up his ball as it rolls back to him. “And also, I’m lonely and I miss them, so there’s that.”

The last sentence, added on so quickly it sounds like an afterthought, gives Jamil pause. “You’re… lonely?” The words feel foreign in his mouth, especially when he’s applying it to Ace. Does Ace even have time to be lonely?

Jamil furrows his brows. “You’re with Deuce every single day.”

Unaware of Jamil’s confusion, Ace shoots his ball, and it hits the rim and ricochets back at him. Ace, luckily, catches it just in time. “Yeah, but “overexposure” is a thing, y’know.” Ace’s smile falters as he looks back at Jamil. “Figured you would know that better than I do, Jamil.”

“What about the Ramshackle prefect, then?” Jamil asks, uncertain why he’s so hung up on the problems of an irritating little freshman.

“Busy, busy, busy.” Ace shakes his head. “You know how the headmage gets.”

“What about your seniors? Do you not like spending time with them?”

Jamil doesn’t miss the way Ace’s fingers dig into the ball before he forces them to relax.  Then, because he’s a little bitch, he shoots a grin Jamil’s way and replies, “I dunno. You ever wonder why Kalim started freaking out just from being alone in a room with you?”

(Jamil both admires and abhors Ace’s ability to steer a conversation away from its original point.)

Jamil feels his muscles tensing and he narrows his eyes. “Low blow, Trappola.”

Ace snickers. “You almost killed the prefect. I think I deserve to be a little bitter on their behalf.”

Jamil wishes he had a retort to that, but he doesn’t, so he falls back on a sigh. “Fair enough, I suppose. Just don't do anything stupid while you’re there.”

Ace raised one hand up in mock defense. “I make no promises.”

Chapter Text

Written by

Vil Schoenheit

EXT. NIGHT RAVEN COLLEGE — COURTYARD — AFTERNOON

VIL is sitting on one of the benches reading a history textbook with a solemn look on his face. ROOK is sitting on the tree branches above VIL’s head. ROOK looks down at VIL with a smile, but his expression is otherwise unreadable.

ROOK H.

(conversationally) So Epel is going off to frolic in the fields with his first-year friends, is he?

VIL turns a few pages and lands on a section titled “The Many Wayward Ladies of the Shaftlands”.

VIL S.

(nonchalantly) Yes, this weekend. He’s going to be there from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening. I think it’s quite the ludicrous amount of time, but they’ve been planning this for quite a while, apparently. I can appreciate that sort of dedication.

ROOK hums as he scans the area looking for something. After a few minutes, he looks back down at VIL.

ROOK H.

I don’t wish to doubt them, but do you truthfully think our petite first-years can handle themselves for two whole days?

[Yes.]

[No.]

[I don’t know.]

VIL S.

(scoffs) They better, else I will have some choice words for them all. And besides, I trust Jack to keep them all in check.

[Don’t put all of the responsibility on somebody who is no older than Epel.]

ROOK H.

(playfully) Would you… like me to follow them?

VIL S.

(laughing slightly) No, no, Rook. That’s alright. Just… leave them be for now. Leave them be.

[The one thing you did right.]

END OF SCENE 1

EXT. POMEFIORE — ENTRANCE — AFTERNOON

VIL and EPEL are standing outside the Pomefiore door. VIL is standing in front of EPEL, arms crossed and brows furrowed as he looks down at him. EPEL is holding a large duffle bag in his hands. He looks down at the ground to avoid VIL’s gaze.

[Why did you look at him like that? He’s going to a sleepover with his friends, not a modeling audition.]

VIL S.

Do you have your toothbrush?

EPEL’s eyes twitch, indicating he’s fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

EPEL F.

In my bag. I checked.

VIL S.

Your makeup kit?

[That makeup kit is going to be EXTRAORDINARILY helpful when he’s all alone in a building with no defenses.]

EPEL F.

(nods) Mm-hmm.

VIL S.

Your pre-packed lunches?

EPEL fidgets with his hands.

EPEL F.

(slightly embarrassed) You… really didn’t have to make those for me, Vil.

VIL S.

(huffs) Nonsense. Of course I did. Who knows what Yuu has in their fridge? It could be months old for all you know.

EPEL F.

…Thanks, Vil.

VIL’s shoulders loosen as he gives EPEL a small smile.

VIL S.

You're welcome. Now go on, have fun.

EPEL breaks out into a big smile and gives a stumbling yet practiced curtsey before running off to the mirror hall.

[So many things off-script that’ll be left unsaid. “Kill your darlings”, indeed.] 

END OF SCENE 2

INT. POMEFIORE — VIL’S ROOM — EVENING

It’s raining hard outside.

VIL is sitting at his desk with his history textbook laid out in front of him. It’s flipped to the section titled “The Many Wayward Ladies of the Shaftlands”. He’s clearly not paying attention to it, though, as he’s straightening out things on his desk and even his uniform that don’t need fixing.

[Why are you just… sitting here? Doing nothing?]

He startles when he hears something bang open. The camera pans to the window where ROOK is sliding through the window frame with a grave expression and wet clothes.

VIL rushes over and helps ROOK inside.

VIL S.

So? Did you find him? He’s at Ramshackle, isn’t he? Right? He’s alright? What about Jack, is he okay? And the rest—

VIL looks down at ROOK’s boots and his eyes widen. They’ve been torn to shreds and the soles are peeling off.

VIL S.

Rook! Your boots—

ROOK shakes his head somberly.

ROOK H.

I’m afraid to say I couldn’t find Monsieur Cherry Apple or any of the others inside. I considered breaking a window for further investigation, but, ah… I’m afraid the police won’t take too kindly to that, should they come here.

VIL S.

(frustratedly) Who cares about the window?! The first-years are missing! They could be concussed or knocked out or… or who knows what!

ROOK H.

(sighs heavily) Beautiful Vil, I know you’re worried, but this isn’t like the time you and the others were taken to the Isle of Woe. We can’t simply storm an island, hoping they will be there. Because the truth is that we don’t even know if they are on any sort of island at all.

ROOK moves to put two hands on VIL’s shoulders.

ROOK H.

And until we do, we must remain calm. We can’t narrow down our list of options with a clouded mind.

VIL stills. He takes a few deep breaths and his whole body sags. He covers his eyes with a hand and slowly moves to sit down onto the edge of his bed, where he buries his face in his hands. ROOK follows VIL’s movements with his eyes.

VIL S.

(muffled) I just don’t understand where we went wrong, Rook…

[You lost them.]

ROOK slowly takes his hat off and puts it to his chest.

ROOK H.

(mournfully) I really do hate to see you like this, Roi du Poison, but I’m afraid I must go now to continue my hunt.

ROOK’s words startle VIL out of his sulk.

VIL S. 

(incredulously) What? But you just got back. Don’t you think you should dry off a little first?

He looks down at ROOK’s feet and grimaces.

VIL S.

And we most certainly need to get you new boots. You can’t honestly expect to run around wearing those.  They look as if they're going to fall apart at any second.

ROOK laughs before putting his hat back on and beings walking towards the window. VIL stands up.

VIL S.

(sternly) Rook, I’m serious. You did nothing but look for them all day. Leona said you even missed all of your classes. Don’t you think you should stop?

ROOK is already halfway out the window. He turns back and smiles sadly at VIL.

ROOK H.

I would've looked for you to the very ends of the Twisted Wonderland if I had to, Vil, and I shall not falter here. I promise I will attend classes when I find them, and if I don't, I shall look into getting new boots. You have my word.

ROOK jumps down and disappears into the darkness of the night.

[This is all your fault.]

END OF SCENE 3

Chapter Text

Azul is burning the metaphorical candle at both ends when he gets the phone call. 

It’s 10 PM, he’s studying for that exam next week, has to make a singing potion for someone who filled out their score card, pull double-duty when it comes to tutoring Kalim after Riddle was let go, do all of his housewarden duties on top of that, and so when he picks up his ringing phone, it’s initially to hurl it across the room.

Then he sees the name of the contact.

The world falls out from under him.

“Ortho?” he says softly, as if saying it any louder will make it untrue. “Is— Is that you?”

“Hi, Azul!” Ortho replies brightly. “How are you?”

Right off the bat, Azul is incensed. Ortho goes missing for a week, throwing all of Night Raven College into complete chaos, and Ortho’s first words are “How are you”?

Azul, of course, does not voice any of this as he puts on his best businessman voice. “I’m alright, Ortho. How are you ?”

“Mm… I could be better ,” he responds innocently, and Azul's eyes widen when he hears the noises in the background.

It sounds a lot like… like… actually, Azul’s not completely sure. Carnival music? Shattering glass? Fire crackling? Some unholy cacophony of all three?

And, more importantly, where has he heard all of this before…?

“Ortho,” Azul says carefully, smiling even though Ortho isn’t here to see him, “where are you calling from, exactly?”

“Right, I need to talk to you about that. Um… I was wondering if you could… come get us?” Ortho asks bashfully, like a child who was just caught with his hand halfway into the cookie jar before dinner.

Azul narrows his eyes. “Are the other first-years there with you?”

“Mm-hmm! Yuu, Deuce, Epel… All six!”

“Do they have their phones?”

“Uh…” Ortho trails off. “No.”

The lack of elaboration throws Azul off a little. Ortho’s regularly a very honest individual, so the fact that he’s being unusually cagey doesn’t sit right with him. “Ortho, why did you call me about this and not somebody else? Surely you must know none of my students are a part of your little group.”

“They didn’t want me to call somebody else,” he explains simply. There’s an implication there that Azul doesn’t desire to read into right now.  “I was going to call Idia, but he has so much technology in his room… they might be able to find out I’m making a phone call. I really didn’t want to call you, but I know you have a VPN software.”

Azul does. He installed it in the Octavinelle server a few months ago after someone stole some private information off of three of his employees’ laptops. It turned out to be prudent, but Azul wasn’t taking any chances just in case someone tried to do the same thing to him.

Then, the first part of Ortho’s sentence catches up to Azul. “Wait, what? Why didn't you want to call me?”

“I thought you might ask for something,” Ortho says casually, as if he’s simply commenting on the weather. “I think you’re really nice, Azul, and you’re a great friend to Idia… but the chances of you not asking for a favor in return is only 0.07%, according to my calculations. So I didn’t want to call you unless I absolutely had to.”

And Azul…

Azul shakes his head. “If you want me to come get you, you need to tell me where you are.”

Silence.

Azul slams his hand on the table and stands up so abruptly, his chair falls to the ground with a loud crash. “Ortho. Where. Are. You.”

Another beat of silence. Another loud crash in the background. 

Ortho’s voice gets impossibly quieter—so quiet Azul has to turn his volume up all the way just to hear him.

“Do you know those isekai movies? The ones that are usually impossible to get?” Azul nods, then wants to slap himself in the face because he knows Ortho can’t see it. “We found one in the library with Vil in it.”

Azul shudders with Ortho’s calm and collected delivery on his last sentence. It sounds like the opening line to a horror movie, especially the ones Jade and Floyd always drag him kicking and screaming to go see. Clearly, Vil taught him well.

…

Vil…

Isekai…

Horror movie…

Oh— Oh no.

“Ortho— GYA!” 

Azul yelps as he trips over his chair and drops his phone. He gets up onto his feet in record time and doesn’t even bother stopping to retrieve his magic pen as he rushes out the door. 

“Ortho, where did you watch the movie?!”

“Why do you ask?”

“In order to get you out, I need to discharge the disk, so where did you watch the movie?!”

“In Mr Wolly’s…”

Ortho trails off.

“Ortho?!” Azul inquires, with more panic in his voice than he was anticipating. “Ortho, are you alright?!”

“Nevermind, Azul!” Ortho says, suddenly back to “chipper” mode. “I think the movie’s ending. I’m really sorry for bothering you. I’ll bring you the movie so you can pawn it off later as an apOloGY—”

“ORTHO—”

Beep.

“Shit.” Azul curses, before angrily swiping to his contact list and pressing on a number. When the person on the other end picks up, it's already three rings too late to save Azul's patience. “Officer, I need you to go to Room 1967. Yes, the janitor's closet. I have it on good authority you’ll find something very interesting when you get there.”

Chapter Text

“Good morning, Silver,” Sebek says as he pours himself a bowl of cereal. “I see you finally decided to wake up early this morning.”

His hair is down for once, but brushed aside in a way that doesn’t cover his eyes. Even on weekends, Sebek usually prefers to wear his dorm uniform, but right now he’s put on the mint green pajamas and crocodile-themed socks his father sent him for his birthday. He’s always looked more like his father than his mother, and this entire get-up only accentuates it.

Sebek must know this—he’s always hated it when people saw him with his hair down—but he doesn’t seem too bothered this morning, casually walking around the Diasomnia dining hall like he’s always been his father’s son. Silver wishes he could say he didn’t know why, but he would be lying to himself.

Sebek looks so peaceful and so happy, and it’s because of his friends. It has nothing to do with anything Silver has tried over the past few years. Because it was never enough.

Silver was never enough.

It stings. It always has.

But today, there’s something else that trumps all of it.

Sebek is here.

In this room.

Eating cereal.

Reeking of the familiar smell of burn cream, blood, and mint-condition bandages.

Without a care in the world.

Silver falls asleep.

“Really, Silver?” is the first thing Silver hears when he comes to. “Only you would fall asleep right after you’d just woken up.”

Once he regathers his bearings, he looks around to see he’s been sat in one of the chairs. 

And Sebek is sitting next to him, eating his cereal.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” Sebek scoffs, once he sees Silver’s incredulous eyes on him.

And the thing that’s been holding him together this whole time inside Silver… not breaks . That’s too soft of a word for it.

It utterly disintegrates.

“What—”

He throws his arms around Sebek’s stomach.

“Silver—”

Lays his head down on Sebek’s chest— Seven, he almost forgot how soft he was.

“CEASE THIS AT ONCE!”

And exhales the shuddering breath he’s been holding in for a week.

When was the last time he hugged Sebek? It must’ve been forever ago, back when the 10 month-difference between them felt so inescapably wide. It still does, sometimes. And even though Sebek is taller than him and much larger than him, he can’t help but think of him as the little crocodile hatchling who used to follow him around and let Silver carry him on his back.

(A memory:

“Silver!” Sebek called out with a toothy grin. “Let’s spar!”

Silver chuckled as he knelt down and pat Sebek on the head. “Maybe when you’re older, Sebek.”)

Tears sting in his eyes as Silver snuggles up to him.

“You came back.” he says, his voice cracking. "You came back to me."

Sebek hesitates before putting his hands on Silver’s back. “Of course I came back to you, stupid Silver,” Sebek snorts softly. "Where would I go without you?" He says it so matter-of-factly, as if it was always going to happen, and for a second, Silver believes him.

But just for a second.

“How was I supposed to know that?” he spat, voice still creaking even with the venom on his tongue.

Sebek’s eyes widen. “S-Silver?”

Silver doesn’t know what expression he’s making, but it probably isn’t good.

"You- You disappeared for a week, and nobody knew where you were. There were no trails, no clues…" He gulps.

Silver was there at Ramshackle when the police first broke in to investigate. It was as if a fire had blazed inside, destroying any evidence anyone had ever been there, but sparing the furniture and all of their belongings.

Silver shakes his head and drinks in Sebek’s appearance. If he weren’t so elated at seeing Sebek, he would be horrified at seeing all of Sebek’s injuries. “Sebek, where have you been?”

Sebek purses his lips as he shuffles on his chair uncomfortably. “It’s a little… embarrassing, I admit. I’d… rather not talk about it.”

“Wrong answer.”

Silver startles as he whips his head to look behind him, only to see Malleus hovering over the two of them. 

“M-My liege?!”

“There is a lot I can put up with, Sebek, but this is not one of them,” he says, scowling, “where were you?”

“Malleus, please—” Father sighs as he traverses down the stairs. “—you’re scaring the poor boy.”

“M-M-Master Lilia…” Sebek stammers, shrinking into his seat even further. “I…”

Sebek fiddles with the ends of his hair, and Silver sees the tell-tale beginnings of self-consciousness creeping onto his face. 

“I’m… I apologize, I didn’t think…” Sebek sighs. His shoulders sag as he looks away and mutters, “I apologize for my transgression. It won’t happen again.”

“Sebek,” Father says gently. He puts a hand on Sebek’s shoulder, only to rip it away when Sebek hisses. “That’s not what we’re asking. Could you please tell us where you’ve been all this time?”

Sebek takes in a spoonful of cereal. “...We went to go see a movie.”

“...A movie.”

Sebek takes in a deep breath, and lets it all out in one long exhale. “Yes. A movie.”

“A movie that lasted precisely one week?” Father deadpans.

 “I’m sure a week is nothing to people like you and Malleus.

“It is when one of your children goes missing,” Father mutters.

Sebek splutters. “I-I’m not sure what else you want me to say,” Sebek says, with a dash of confusion in his voice. “I’m sorry I missed out on my duties, but I trusted Silver to take care of them for me… I’m terribly sorry if my disappearance inconvenienced any of you, but I was so certain—”

Malleus slams his hand down onto the table, causing everyone to flinch. His pupils turn into tiny slits and green flames come out the side of his mouth with every heavy breath he takes.

“Sebek, for all we knew, you were probably rotting somewhere in a ditch.” he snarls. “I was fully prepared to raze the whole island to find you, and now that you’re finally here, it— it is honestly insulting you’re not taking this seriously!”

A look of horrible, horrible hurt flashes across Sebek’s face. “I-I am taking this seriously!”

(A memory:

“Sebek,” Malleus said, with a laugh nestled in the back of his throat and his lips curled upwards, “you stepped on a snake and ran screaming in the other direction… even though you knew it was dead?”

Sebek whined and crossed his arms. “Master Malleus, you’re not taking this seriously!”)

“He has a point, Sebek,” Father says quietly. “This past week has been… one of the most stressful of my entire life.”

“But Master Lilia, you’re over 600 years old.”

“Exactly, Sebek,” Father sighs, exhaustion setting down upon his shoulders. “Cater has been an absolute mess, Savanaclaw students have their tempers on hair-triggers now, no one except from Vil has heard from Rook in days, I had to keep Silver from breaking school rules to go look for you, nobody could concentrate on anything anymore, Malleus was surely going to kill anybody who put so much as a scratch on you… and me?”

Sebek lets Father put his forehead down onto his shoulder. “I was really starting to think the worst had happened. I didn’t know what to do, I didn't know what was going on…” Father looks up at Sebek, his face a mix between a relieved expression and a glare. “And now you’re finally here, and you’re treating this as if all of it were a minor disruption.”

(A memory:

“I’m sorry I wasn’t at practice, Master Lilia…” Sebek sniffled. “I’ll be there next time, I promise!”

Father laughed, his eyes crinkling with amusement. “You were only gone for a week, Sebek. That’s not enough to undue months of progress.”)

Sebek foesn't respond. He quickly turns to Silver, pleading eyes fixed onto him. “Silver, I know I promised you I’d spar with you, but I suddenly don’t feel very well.” Despite his best efforts, Sebek’s eyes flick up to Malleus, Father, then back at Silver. “I think I ought to take it easy today.”

(A memory:

“I’ll have to pass, human,” Sebek said rigidly. Sebek’s name died on Silver’s tongue as he saw Sebek was talking to Ace. “I told Silver I’d practice our swordsmanship with him.”

Ace groaned and rolled his eyes. He threw an arm around Sebek’s shoulder. Sebek scowled but didn’t shove him off. “Just tell him you don’t feel well or something. Come on, man, you should take it easy today.”)

When Sebek accidentally broke one of the Queen’s vases with a ball, Silver claimed it was his fault. 

When Sebek tripped and cut his arm open after playing with one of Father’s swords, Silver told Father he pushed him into the blades by accident.

When Sebek cried, just as he always does—just the way he did when a group of fairies cut into his ears with sticks, or when Silver got deathly ill and nobody knew enough about humans to help him, or when they went to the town square and everyone just kept staring at them—Silver, just as he always does, does whatever he can to shield him.

Silver puts a hand on Sebek’s. “You can go." he says, despite Father and Malleus' pointed looks at him.

Sebek breathes a sigh of relief. "Thank—"

"But..."  Silver interrupts, putting a finger in the air. "Only if you got to the infirmary."

“...It’s not that horrible.”

“You clearly haven’t looked yourself in the mirror this morning.”

“I’ll have you know I brush my teeth everyday!”

“Sebek.”

Sebek hesitates. Then he sighs. “...Okay, Silver. If that’s what you want… then okay.”

(A memory:

"Sebek," Silver croaked out, his throat sore despite all of the resting he'd been doing. He was starting to think what he came down with wasn't just a fever. "Could you get some water?"

Sebek pouted mightily. "NO! Master Lilia said I stay here with you at all times! What if you get worse?!"

Silver turned towards him and put a shaking hand on Sebek's face. "Please? My throat is... really dry."

Sebek hesitated, shifting around in his spot nervously. He dug one of his fangs into his bottom lip as he tossed a look back at Silver's closed door. He put both hands on Silver's trembling one and set it back down onto the bed. " ...Okay, Silver. If that's what you want... then okay.")

“Sebek?” Silver asks in bewilderment. “I… thought you said you weren’t coming to practice today.”

Sebek looks at Silver in bewilderment. “Isn’t that why you asked me to go to the infirmary? So I could heal up enough to duel with you?”

“That’s… not what I meant.”

He puts a hand on his hip. “Then what was the reason?”

Silver tosses a look behind his shoulder just to make sure Malleus or Father isn’t watching them. “I just wanted you to get better, that’s all.”

“Yes,” Sebek says, raising an impatient eyebrow, “but what did you want me to get better for?”

Sebek's hair has been swept back again like it usually is, and he’s donned his dorm uniform. Any trace of the Sebek from this morning has disappeared in an instant, and while Silver is much more used to this Sebek, he’s not certain if that’s a good thing.

“Stop staring at me like that,” Sebek remarks suddenly.

Silver blinks, breaking out of his reverie. “Staring at you like what?”

Sebek’s self-consciousness from before blasts to the forefront, and he subconsciously runs his fingers through his hair. “Like I… said something wrong.”

(A memory:

“Silver?”

Silver scrunched his face in, as he continued fighting the battle to open his eyes or even move his mouth. His illness was making it extremely difficult to stay awake, but the small hand against his own kept him grounded in the land of the waking.

“Please wake up.” Sebek sniffled. “You've been sleeping for almost a week. You're always sleeping, stupid Silver."

A little bit more of Silver’s heart broke, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Then, Silver felt something small and warm press against his forehead, and tiny fingers brushing through his hair.

And a breath.

“I... love you.”

Silver’s eyes opened for the first time in three days.)

Chapter Text

Kalim is usually the last person to know things in Night Raven College.

At first, he assumed it was a “wrong place, wrong time” sort of thing, but no. Kalim’s done a lot of thinking in the weeks after Jamil’s overblot, and he’s starting to realize that pretty much everyone at Night Raven College thinks he’s a “thoughtless, sloppy, idiotic, clumsy, ludicrously oblivious, arrogant, indelicate, pampered little rich boy”, and are much too happy to keep him in the dark about a lot of things.

(Correction: most things.)

When Monday comes along, even he can sense that something is wrong, but nobody wants to tell him anything. “It has nothing to do with Scarabia,” some say. “It’s being handled,” others still.

In fact, he doesn’t actually figure it out until the housewarden meeting on Tuesday, when he sees Riddle standing in his usual spot, hands folded behind his back, making that “I’m-a-big-boy” face a lot of his younger brothers do when they’re desperately trying not to cry. And a  bawling Riddle Rosehearts is not a very nice way to find out that the Ramshackle prefect and their six friends completely vanished on Friday. It was also not very nice to find out from Azul that apparently Jamil knew about this, and just didn’t want to tell him.

(JAMIL LESSON #1: Cram the awful bitterness he feels down into a small pill and swallow it down. No matter what. Jamil does it all the time, so Kalim can, too.)

So, he’s not in a very sunshine-y mood when he bumps into Ruggie in the hallway right before his history class on Wednesday. Usually, Ruggie would only stumble a little and keep on going, but today, he trips over Kalim’s shoe and falls face first onto the ground like he has no dexterity.

“Watch where you’re going!” Ruggie snaps, as he picks himself up, then picks up the books he dropped on the ground.

Kalim turns back to apologize when he catches a look at Ruggie’s face, and frankly, Kalim was honest-to-the-Seven worried he’d accidentally killed him. 

Ruggie’s eyes are sunken in and he trembles more with every book he picks up. Kalim’s only ever seen those symptoms on Jamil, in those horrible two-weeks he was in a coma, and even afterwards.

Needless to say, he gathers the rest of Ruggie’s books before he can think better of it.

“Here,” Kalim says, reaching a hand out, “let me carry the rest of those. Where are you heading?”

Ruggie shies away from Kalim and folds his ears back. “I can carry these by myself.”

“No,” Kalim says, unthinkingly. Even after all this time, he still doesn’t know how to build up a filter. “You can’t, and you know it.”

Ruggie grits his teeth. “Yes, I can. I should.”

“You can carry some of them, but those books look heavy,” Kalim says, feeling the weight of the few books he is carrying burning down onto his arms. “Why do you have so many, anyway?”

Ruggie snarls. “Riddle paid me to grab them from the library. I don’t know why, and I don’t care, now can you give them back to me?”

Kalim steps back and shakes his head. “Don’t you think you should sit down?”

“I’m fine.”

Kalim has heard that exact phrase from Jamil too many times to believe that, and he’s honestly offended if Ruggie thought he would. He glares. “Why does everybody in this school lie to me?"

“I’m not lying to you."

“Yes, you are!” Kalim blurts. He takes one defiant step forward, and Ruggie takes one step back as his ears splay backwards. “Nobody tells me anything because they think I’m too stupid to understand! And I’m sick of it! You hear me?! Sick!”

“And why should I care about the feelings of a pampered little rich kid who—!”

Ruggie abruptly cuts himself off. His eyes widen before he crumples against the wall with a loud thump.

Any feelings of anger Kalim felt dissipate instantly as he gasps. He rushes over to Ruggie’s side and starts shaking him by the shoulders. 

“R-Ruggie? Ruggie, are you okay?” he babbles. “I’m really, really, really, really sorry I yelled at you!”

And like a miracle, Ruggie’s eyes flutter open again, and he startles upright. He looks around in a daze, drunkenly swinging his head back and forth.

“What the…” he mutters. “What am I doing here?”

He turns to look at Kalim and his eyes widen. “Kalim, what… Wait, why are you here? Why am I on the floor… Why are all these books over the…”

Ruggie trails off as he puts a hand to his temple. “Oh King of Beasts, I don’t remember.” Ruggie shrivels back up into a ball as his breathing gets faster. “H-How did I get here, where was I going? Where’s— Where’s Leona, I—”

“R-Ruggie,” Kalim interjects, and Ruggie flinches. “Calm down. It’s okay.”

(JAMIL LESSON #2: The greatest lies are built on a foundation of truth.)

Kalim gulps, as he tries to carve a believable story out of the frozen mass of his brain. “Riddle asked me to bring some heavy books back to the library for him, and I paid you to help me. I didn’t know you were so tired, though, so you fainted on the way. I’m…” Kalim takes a deep breath. “...really, really sorry, Ruggie.” Well, that part’s true at least.

Ruggie looks at him with an unreadable expression, and for a moment, a fleeting panic grips him. It disappears when Ruggie sighs and his shoulder slump.

“Kalim, I botched a job you paid me to do all on my own—you don’t have to apologize for that,” he says, putting a hand over his eyes. “Things have just been goin’ to shit lately ever since Jack… I just can’t sit still anymore, and I guess it finally caught up to me.”

The hyena laughs mirthlessly. “Probably shouldn’t have been tryin’ to lift things with this arm of mine, either.”

“Oh.” Kalim says lamely. Now he feels even worse for snapping at Ruggie. He picks up the rest of the books that were on the ground and stands up. “Well, I’m definitely not letting you carry these now. The library’s not too far away. You should go back to Savanaclaw and go see what Leona needs.”

Thankfully, Ruggie’s still too out-of-it to argue. “Yeah.” Ruggie starts walking in the direction of the mirror hall. “Yeah.”

Kalim watches as Ruggie slowly walks away and vanishes around the corner.

And that’s when it hit Kalim that the whole conversation was never about books.

Two weeks after the first-years vanished, he and Yuu are at Scarabia, washing the dishes. Kalim washes the dishes himself nowadays—it’s pretty much the only thing he can do—but it’s always nice to have company. And as a nice bonus, Yuu washes the dishes way better than Kalim ever could.

“Hey, Kalim, you’re not too old for sleepovers when you’re 17, right?” Yuu asks, seemingly at random.

Kalim shoots Yuu a smile. “I like to think you can have sleepovers at any age! That’s what marriage is, isn’t it? A 24/7/365 sleepover?”

Yuu laughs. He remembered hearing Riddle say once that Yuu doesn’t laugh too often, which didn’t make much sense to Kalim—in his personal experience, Yuu laughed a lot. 

(JAMIL LESSON #3: Kalim has a bad habit of engineering "facts" that aren’t true, so now he doubts everything he thinks is right.)

“I guess so,” they say, a light smile on their face. It falters as they put another dish in the drying rack. “Do you, uh… have a lot of sleepovers?”

Kalim contorts his incoming grimace into an appeasing smile, a little trick he picked up from Azul. “Well, I used to with Jamil when we were kids, but that was forever ago.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I kind of miss them, though,” Kalim says wistfully. He conveniently leaves out the: “I miss him,” but he’s sure Yuu hears it, anyway. “Just me, Jamil, having fun, without any worries about tomorrow. Never got much better than that.”

Yuu hums. “What was your favorite part?”

“Would it be cheating if I said ‘everything’?”

“By that token, everything was also your least favorite.”

“Okay, okay.” Kalim laughs. “I guess it was just the fact that Jamil was there. We could’ve been playing the world’s most boring board game and it would’ve been fine. He just made me feel…” He looks up at nothing in particular as he cycles through the words. “...safe, I guess. Which was always hard to feel back in those days, to be honest.”

Yuu doesn’t react in shock like Kalim expects. Instead, they simply nod in what looks like understanding. “Yeah. That’s my favorite part, too.”

Kalim turns to them. “You have a lot of sleepovers, too, right?”

Yuu nods, somewhat somberly. “Not lately. The rest of the guys are still on house arrest, so…”

Oh yeah. That’s right.

Kalim wishes he could preach about the injustice of it all, but he can’t talk about injustice, can he?

They go back to washing dishes, the sounds of clinking glass and squeezing sponges filling the silence. Kalim can see there’s more that Yuu wants to say, but he doesn’t try to push the answer out of them.

(JAMIL LESSON #4: Pushing people is only fun when you’re bartering, not when you're with your friends.)

“Do, uh… you still want to have sleepovers?” they ask unsurely. Yuu’s expression is carefully guarded as ever, but their voice has already given them away.

Kalim tilts his head. “Do you want to sleep over tonight, Yuu?”

Their eyes glaze over and they drop the plate they’re scrubbing into the sink water.

“Yes, please.” they choke out.

(JAMIL LESSON #5: Kalim’s not allowed to idly chitchat with Jamil anymore.)

“So, the Prefect and Grim just live here now?” Jamil pipes up at dinner in Kalim’s room.

Kalim startles. “I… I guess? It’s been five days and they still haven’t returned to Ramshackle.”

Jamil sighs and massages his temple. “We should send them back.”

Kalim opens his mouth to agree, only to realize that his heart doesn’t. “Why? They’re not doing any harm.”

“Kalim,” Jamil sighs again, “Grim set your bed on fire in the middle of the night. The only reason you aren’t dead is because of your signature spell.”

(JAMIL LESSON #6: Jamil may have lied to Kalim for 17 years, but Kalim will always tell Jamil his deepest, darkest thoughts, no matter how many betrayals he endures.)

“Jamil,” Kalim says, before he can think about the consequences, “you threw me out to the very edge of the desert in the middle of the night. The only reason I’m not dead is because of my signature spell, and you’re still here.”

The worst part is that there’s no malice in Kalim’s voice; there isn’t much of any kind of emotion. He’s not complaining, only stating a fact. So Kalim can take no satisfaction in the way Jamil tenses and his teeth clench.

“And anyway,” Kalim continues, in the most “let’s-change-the-subject-pretty-please” voice imaginable, “Yuu trusts me, y’know? I’m not just going to kick them out when they’re clearly struggling.”

Jamil turns back to his curry—made by Kalim, hands shaking all the while. “Anybody else would’ve,” he mutters. 

Even though Kalim suspects Jamil is talking mainly to himself, Kalim still replies. “Maybe that’s the reason they trust me. I’m trying to be a good upperclassman and a better person.”

“I know you are.” Jamil says, leaning his head on the palm of his hand. “Probably the only one who is.”

Kalim blinks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jamil sighs again, but in the “it’s-really-obvious-Kalim” way. “I threw you out to the very edge of the desert in the middle of the night. The only reason you’re not dead is because of your signature spell…”

Jamil locks eyes with Kalim. He knows deep down he ought to look away just in case, but the thought barely crosses his mind. 

“...and I’m still here. What does that say about you?”

Kalim blinks again. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

Kalim half-expects Jamil to sigh again, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just nods. “Out of everyone here, they have the least reason to hate you. That's all I'm saying."

Unfortunately, Kalim still doesn’t understand.

They never talk about it again.

Chapter Text

Ace sighed irritably as he and Deuce walked back to Heartslabyul in the cold night air.

The predicament he and his friends had finally gotten themselves out of had been incredibly fucked up on multiple levels. It tended to be like that on islands where wrecking shit, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and beating each other to bloody pulps is the norm.  And they’d apparently been in there so long , a week had passed without their knowledge. The police used some technical terms to describe the time distortion, but frankly, it was all going in one ear and out the other for Ace, since he was dead tired. And the police made it very clear Ace and Deuce would have to be interviewed as soon as possible, which Ace wasn’t looking forward to at all.

When he and Deuce reached the front of the Heartslabyul door, Ace patted himself down for the key. When he couldn’t feel anything, he turned to Deuce, who also patted all over his person. When all he came up with was a few dust bunnies, Ace groaned.

He took his trusty card deck out of the pocket of his pajama pants and flicked it open. 

Deuce watched, perplexed, as Ace began rifling through the cards with a finger, and startled back when Ace abruptly stopped on a jack-of-all-trades. The card was just like all of the others in the deck, except Ace had doodled wolf ears onto it with thick black marker. If it was meant to be some sort of homage, Deuce didn’t get it.

Ace gingerly plucked off the hairpin taped to the front of the card. He leaned down, and inserted the pin inside. After some jiggling, Deuce heard the signature sound of the door unlocking. With no further explanation, Ace put the pin and the cards back into his pocket.

(Deuce made a mental note to find a more secure lock for all of his stuff.)

Carefully, oh so carefully, Ace opened the front door. He stumbled through the dark room, and in a happy accident, tripped over the couch and onto its cushions with the coordination skills of a carrot. He groaned as he straightened out his still-sore spine, smoothing out the aches and pains in his body as he stood up.

Deuce followed suit, slowly closing the door shut…

…and resisted the urge to jump out the window when he heard the sound of the lights clicking on, and Trey’s stern voice cutting through the air.

“Ace. Deuce.”

Ace froze.

Yeah.

It was official.

Fate definitely had it out for them.

That smooth, velvet-clad tone was hard as steel, and over the months, the card soldier had learned it usually meant only one thing. 

He slowly turned onto his side to see Trey staring down at him with a highly disappointed air about him.

“T-Trey?” Ace cursed the way his voice suddenly got higher. “What are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” Trey said, lifting a small cup filled with scorching hot tea to his mouth. Despite his clearly foul mood, a small smirk made its way to Ace’s lips regardless.

Trey’s eyes carefully raked over Ace’s body, and he vaguely recognized he was scanning for injuries.

(He wouldn’t find any—they were all hidden under the fabric of his clothes.)

Ace turned his small smile into a sycophantic grin. “Yeah, disappearing on you guys for a week without an explanation was a dick move.” He casually shrugged his shoulders back. “Buuuut we washed the dishes before we left so… you can’t be too mad at us, right?”

Trey’s ensuing stare made him realize his attempt to lighten the mood was neither warranted nor appreciated. With a dour grumble, Trey gently shook the tea cup.

“How…” Deuce gulped down the lump in his throat. “How did you know we were coming back today?”

Trey raised an eyebrow incredulously. Whatever freaky, latent, younger sibling powers he had were kicking in, and Deuce suddenly knew Trey was, at the very least, aware he was stalling. 

“Coincidence.” was the flat response he got, but it wasn't from Trey. 

Deuce snapped his head to the right.

Cater was standing at the base of the stairs, looking at his phone. He hadn’t even looked up at either of them when he monotonously added his input—but if he had, he would’ve seen Ace had broken into a cold sweat.

Ace didn’t know a lot of people who could read Cater’s expressions, but after knowing him for so long, he learned to pick up on subtle cues in his voice rather than relying on his face for clues.

And what he picked up was that Cater was…

Well, he wasn’t mad. Or disappointed.

He was… numb.

Trey’s sigh broke Ace out of his reverie. “What he means is—”

Deuce cut him off with a scream as a crimson blur rushed right at him and tackled him. He cringed as his whole body slammed into the floor, and his brain rattled against his skull as his head hit the ground.

“Oh, Seven…” Ace breathed, as he got off the couch. “Riddle?!”

Deuce looked down to see the former rose-red tyrant buried into his chest. Though, he didn’t look much like a tyrant now.

Unlike Trey and Cater, who both had their dorm uniforms on, Riddle sported a baggy, short-sleeved shirt, and shorts reaching to just above his knees.

“Housewarden…?” Deuce sat up.

Riddle sniffled.

Deuce’s chest constricted .

Cater sighed wearily.

“Riddle here passed out in the middle of lunch today, so he’s been in bed for most of the day.” Cater loosely gestured towards Riddle, looking at his shaking figure with a sympathetic expression—an expression that quickly turned disdainful when his focus shifted back to Deuce. 

“But obviously , you wouldn’t know that, because you were too busy doing…” Cater threw his hands up. “... whatever you two have been doing for the past week.”

Deuce bit his bottom lip so hard he could taste blood. Riddle was practically boneless as he lifted him up and carried him over to the couch. 

The second he tried to let go, though, Riddle desperately grabbed onto him in a tight hug. Deuce choked as his arms pressed against his neck, and he sent a plea for help Ace’s way. With a sigh, Ace slowly pried Riddle off of him, and surprisingly, the housewarden relented rather easily once he realized Ace was there, too.

The red-head quickly readjusted himself—he laid his head down on his chest as Ace cautiously put an arm around him. He was shaking so much, Ace genuinely thought any more pressure would break him like glass.

Deuce sat down on Riddle’s other side. Trey propped himself up on one of the arms of the couch, with Cater peering down from the back of it.

Ace cursed under his breath, as he began to stroke Riddle’s hair. Riddle’s constant shaking had dulled down a bit, though he was still holding onto him for dear life.

“Where have you been?” Riddle mumbled, his voice wet with tears. “I looked everywhere…”

Ace faltered. “Housewarden, I…”

Riddle snapped his head up abruptly just to glare at him.

“Everywhere, Ace.” he choked. “The gymnasium, the cafeteria, the library… At some point I started wondering if… if you'd gone somewhere nobody could follow.”

That sentence knocks the wind out of Ace as his heart cracks right down the middle. “Oh. Oh— Riddle… Seven, we—”

“Where were you?” Riddle asked angrily, whipping his head around to face Deuce. It was unclear if the red splotches in his cheeks were because he was crying, or because he was genuinely furious with them—neither of which were appealing prospects.

Deuce exhaled softly. “That’s… sort of a touchy subject, Housewarden.”

“Long story short: we borrowed a movie from the library, didn’t realize it was one of those isekai ones until it was too late, and because of technical bullshit I guess, we thought we were only in there for an hour when it was really one week.” Ace explained, all in one breath.

Cater took a few moments to download the infodump, before he made a very Idia-reminiscent "T" with his hands. “Time out… What was the movie called?”

“Um…” Deuce mulled it over for a second. “ Pleasure Island, I think? It was based off of that one fairytale with boys who turned into donkeys, that’s all I remember.”

The name didn’t seem to register with either Trey or Riddle, as they looked at each other with confused expressions.

Cater’s phone, however, clattered to the ground.

“You two…” the ginger started slowly, a haunted look crossing his features. “Babes, you do realize that movie has a warning label for extreme violence against minors, right? I mean, you guys look fine, but still…”

“Uh…” Ace looked back at Cater as he subconsciously fiddled with the end of his shirt, which was currently hiding the bruises dancing up and down his ribcage. “Our bad, I guess?”

Deuce looked at Ace in a way that could only be described as “dude, what the hell?”

In fact, everyone was looking at Ace that way.

“That’s it?” Cater spat.

Ace backed up, feeling very cornered all of the sudden. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Trey’s eyes slanted. “That can’t possibly be it.”

“Why didn’t you call?” Riddle cried out in disbelief, threading a hand in his hair. “Your phones didn’t disconnect until Thursday. If you called right away, we could’ve gotten you out of there!”

Deuce shrugged uncomfortably. “Same reason we always keep things from you, I guess. We didn’t want to get in trouble… again.”

Ace rolled his eyes. “And yet Deuce insisted on telling you guys, anyway, after everything we went through for it.”

“I didn’t want that on my conscience!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait…” Trey pinched the bridge of his nose. “Are you two saying you willingly decided not to tell us?”

Deuce froze in place. 

“ And you apparently keep secrets from us alot?” he continued.

“I-I-I wouldn’t say secrets!” Deuce countered, waving his arms around wildly. “They’re just, um… things we don’t want to tell you guys?”

“Please shut up, Deuce.”

“You said everything we went through for it... ” Trey mumbled. “What did you mean by that?”

Ace shifted uncomfortably in his position on the couch, feeling sweat beginning to soak into his pajamas. He looked down at his feet to avoid the stares of his upperclassmen. “So, when I got Riddle’s first voicemail, I…” He squeezed his eyes shut and looked away. “Ithrewmyphoneatthewallanditbrokesorry!”

“WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!” Cater screeched, his pitch so shrill, Ace was certain he heard a window shatter somewhere in the building.

“I panicked!” Ace whined. “I heard the housewarden going full teapot tyrant on me over the phone, and the next thing I knew, my phone was lying in a scrap on the ground!” Ace scrubbed his hair with his fingers. "I don't even know what it was about, but it sent me straight into fight-or-flight mode."

“But—” Trey spluttered. “What about your phone, Deuce?”

“Ah…” Deuce sheepishly fiddled with the end of his pajama shirt. “When Riddle started calling me after Ace broke his phone, I… did the same thing? Well, I crushed mine with a baseball bat, so I guess it wasn’t really the same thing…”

Cater groaned. “That’s not any better…”

“Why…”

Ace and Deuce snapped their heads at Riddle as he finally spoke up again. The red-head looked up at Deuce. “Why would you do that?”

Ace blinked. “Housewarden?”

Riddle started trembling again. “I don’t… understand. Why— Why didn’t you just pick up? I wasn’t asking for too much, I…” He looked up at Deuce with teary eyes. “Did you expect us to leave you in there? Did you just not trust us?”

“H-Housewarden, it’s not like that!” Ace shook his head furiously. “We just… well, you guys don’t really call us, so I thought we screwed something up real bad and you were going to make us leave our sleepover early.”

It was a moment of truth, brought on by a moment of hysteria. What Ace had let leave his mouth, though, turned out to be the absolute wrong thing to say as Cater slapped a hand over his mouth, Trey sucked in a sharp breath through his clenched teeth, and Riddle reared back as if he’d been slapped.

Cater’s next words came out muffled as he said, “Do you… honestly think the only reason we’d ever call you is to tell you you did something wrong?”

“We know how important your friends are to you,” Trey remarked, adjusting his glasses. “Even if you had done something, we would have at least waited until the weekend was over. Didn’t you know that?”

“We did— I mean, we do!” Deuce blurted out. “What we meant was… well, we weren’t sure if you’d believe us even if we did tell you what was going on, which makes sense, so… um…”

Deuce made a little noise of discomfort as the horror on their faces only intensified.

“You…” Riddle struggled to let the words come out of his mouth. “You didn’t think I’d believe you?”

Ace sighed deeply, brows furrowing. “Housewarden, no offense, but you guys didn’t exactly send us to the infirmary, guns blazing, when we told you about the monster back at Vargas’ dumb camp, remember?” Ace leaned against the back of the couch and looked up at the ceiling light. “Why would you ever believe we accidentally obtained an age-restricted movie from the school library?”

Deuce interlocked his fingers and remorsefully looked down at the ground. “I… was the one who told everyone you’d all probably call the police on us if you ever found out. That’s… That’s why nobody else tried to get into contact with you, either.”

Trey’s lips pressed together into a hard line as he saw Deuce wipe away tears from his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “I’m… I’m sorry. We’re just making things worse.”

Ace laughed, and the very sound of it was filled with pity. “We’re the first-years, Juice. Making things worse is kind of our thing, y’know?”

Cater bristled. “Guys, that’s not—”

“Now you guys know everything, huh?” Ace smiled, even as he looked utterly burnt-out. “I guess this is our comeuppance for being nosey ‘bout Riddle’s tragic backstory back in September.”

Riddle flinched.

Ace slowly got up from the couch and stretched, letting his bones pop pleasantly. “Welp. We’ll get out of your hair now. I need to take a nap before the cops come to interview us.”

“You can use my room.” Trey commented.

Ace’s eyes fluttered open. “Hm?”

Trey cleared his throat. “You… probably don’t want your roommates to know you’re back yet, so you can take a nap in my room.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time…” Cater murmured.

Ace nodded. “Thanks, Trey-senpai. Come on, Deuce. You know how grumpy you get when you don’t get your little nappy time in.”

Deuce let out a choked laugh, smiling for the first time since he walked through the front door. “I’m not a baby, Ace.”

Ace smirked and grabbed Deuce by the wrist. His smile faltered as he nodded politely to his upperclassmen, before taking them both upstairs.

Silence reigned over the three left in their wake. The only sound remaining was the clock, soldiering on its neverending ticking.

Then, Cater raised his hand, emotional fatigue wringing his words dry of any life. “All in favor of this being our fault, raise your hand and say aye.”

Chapter Text

“That boy could be a problem. You want me to take care of him?”

“No. Don’t. Even if he goes and blabs it all to Crowley, he ain’t got a shred of proof. And besides, that’d be a terrible waste of talent.”

Jack always thought words were things that could never hurt him if he didn’t let them. His mother would always tell him and his siblings the same phrase every morning before they went to school, and for the longest time, he believed her. He believed her until his first year at Night Raven College, and he was told someone wanted to hurt him, just like they had so many others. All of a sudden, so many puzzle pieces fit into place, creating a picture he didn’t want to believe.

They couldn’t, he’d thought. They wouldn’t.

(They could. They would.

They… had.)

Jack had never felt cold terror the same way he did when he heard that small exchange a mere five seconds after he left—as if they wanted him to hear it and be afraid.

It worked.

By the Seven, it worked.

Jack never considered himself delusional, but there were moments when he could still feel t the papery taste of sand on his tongue. He doesn’t trust any smile he sees around Savanaclaw now. Whenever he hears Leona growl or Ruggie laugh, he flinches. He makes whatever excuses he has to to keep himself either shut up in his room or away from Savanaclaw entirely, and it’s starting to severely affect his schedule. But all of it is entirely his own fault; Leona and Ruggie cannot be blamed for his own thoughts and actions, and he refuses to do as such.

It’s not fair to think of lazy Leona or rakish Ruggie as monsters under his bed. They’ve done good things for him, too. Even if it was just something that kept them from sending him tumbling down a flight of stairs, even if it was more of a backhanded compliment, they called him talented. Maybe it’s not much, maybe not enough to justify himself defending them, but it’s good enough.

(It had to be, right? Or else why would he keep sleeping in a dorm he’s never felt safe in?)

As far as Jack Howl was concerned, Leona Kingscholar and Ruggie Bucchi would never know just how much those words meant to him. 

Until they did.

Even if he doesn’t know what difference it makes, Jack doesn’t kick up much of a fuss when the police tell him he has to return to Savanaclaw.

Ace and Epel certainly do—whether because they don’t want to make the long journey from Ramshackle to their dorms, or because they have the same issues he does when it comes to sleeping in their designated rooms, he doesn’t know. But the police shut them down, and make it clear there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Jack, of course, pretends he’s fine with it just to avoid any confrontation this late at night, and they send them on their way.

Ortho—who is still halfway delirious and not completely there—gives Jack one last hug before they part. Jack is slightly ashamed to admit he lets himself hold onto it longer than he usually would, finding one last bit of comfort in the warm radiation of Ortho’s heated metal plating.

Jack is all alone when he comes back to Savanaclaw.

No Ace to break the tension with a joke, no Deuce to fight by his side, no Epel to stand up for him, no Sebek to yank him back to his feet, no Yuu to lean on, and no small, little Ortho to hug and tell him it’s going to be okay, even when it seems like “okay” is impossible.

No pack left to protect him if something goes wrong. No safe place to go except right back out the mirror he came from. 

He pretends like the thought doesn’t make his fur stand on end as he walks into the Savanaclaw lounge.

The beginning of the end comes in the morning.

Jack is leaving Savanaclaw to go to… well, anywhere that’s not Savanaclaw.He's a little miffed he had to be here at all just for the sake of an interview, but there's nothing to be done about it now. The police told him to stay in Savanaclaw "until further notice", whatever that was supposed to mean, but what they didn't know wouldn't kill them. And really, what was the worst that could happen? He'd get murdered in the hallways?

Still, he considers leaving a note, just to let the police know where he was going if ever they needed him again—unlikely, but it would cover his bases. He ultimately decides against it, because when did anyone ever need Jack Howl for anything?

He didn't even get to take one step outside before he heard, "What the fuck?"

Alarm bells went off in Jack's head at the sudden intrusion, and he whipped his head around, growling, already prepared for a fight.

Then he saw Ruggie staring at him with wide eyes and a disbelieving smile.

Jack blinks. He doesn't relax, not quite, but he lets some of the tension leave his body. "Oh. Hey, Ruggie. Why are you up so early?"

It's only then Jack realizes how… wrung-out Ruggie looks, for lack of a better term. His eyes are sunken in, and he looks sickeningly pale. He sways, even as he stands, and Jack is pretty certain a strong enough breeze could topple him right over. And frankly, Ruggie was always thin, but it has reached a very concerning level. 

Jack's ears flatten. "Ruggie, are you… okay?"

It's a stupid question, because of course he's not. That fact is only compounded when Ruggie breaks out into frightened, hysterical laughter, even as his expression changes not a inch.

Jack instinctively takes a step backward. Glances over his shoulder and mentally calculates how far he would have to run to get out of range of Ruggie's signature spell. He could make it in five seconds, if he really pushed.

"Oh Great Sevens," Ruggie wheezes out, tears collecting in his eyes, "I'm actually losing it!"

Jack flinches and turns back to the hyena, now crumpled onto the ground. "R-Ruggie?"

"First I think I hear your voice, then I think I see your big ears in the crowd…" A joyless laugh breaks out of him,  and he wipes away his tears with an arm. "But this— this has to be the worst. This is just cruel."

Jack is fighting every single nerve telling him to just book it for the mirror already. He's not just going to leave Ruggie when he's like… this. Even if Jack isn’t certain what “this” is.

Come on, Howl, he thinks gruffly. Time to grow a spine.

Jack cautiously walks forward, both hands raised defensively. 

Eventually, Jack gets close enough to Ruggie, he could simply pick him up bridal style, and he does just that when it’s clear Ruggie’s not going to get up on his own. Ruggie fusses, of course, and hits Jack in the shoulder a few times, but otherwise, he’s surprisingly compliant as Jack carries him back to his room.

(That was weird, is the only thought passing through Jack’s mind as he steps through the Savanaclaw mirror and into the mirror hall.)

“I saw Jack.” Ruggie says absentmindedly.

Leona pauses as he’s folding his clothes, and turns back to see Ruggie has snuck his way into his room, and is now sitting on the edge of his bed with a faraway look in his eyes.

Leona internally sighs. “Go to sleep, Ruggie.”

“I did.” he says with uncharacteristic passiveness. “I did.”

“Mhm,” Leona replies.

Leona doesn’t need to look behind him again to know Ruggie has his eyes pinned to him, and he knows what the second-year is going to say a split-second before he actually says it; “I can fold those for you, you know.”

And, like clockwork, Leona shakes his head and mumbles, “Get a full 5-hours of sleep at night, stop telling me you see Jack ‘cause we both know it’s not true, and then maybe we’ll talk about it.”

Ruggie grumbles, and Leona hears his head fall back down onto the mattress.

Leona can feel the growing hollowness in his chest starting to build already.

When Leona’s finally done doing all of his chores, he heads over to the botanical garden. He hops up onto his favorite sunrock, with plans to stay there until the sun starts to set.

Without Ruggie around to nag him to go do this or that, or Rook to stalk him or cause yet another mess with his Science Club fellows, the garden is eerily quiet, save for the typical sounds of the few birds flying about. In fact, it’s the only place he gets any peace and quiet these days, with all the hustle and bustle of Night Raven College these days.

Which, of course, means his peace and quiet is immediately interrupted by an overeager rabbit police officer running towards him. 

He groans internally and turns away from him. “Unless it’s news about Jack, I don’t wanna hear it.”

Officer Jumps skids to a stop, with the flecks of grass he kicks up hopping onto Leona’s back annoyingly enough. He’d have to wash his vest again, which he was not looking forward to in the slightest.

“This will be really quick, I promise,” he says, out of breath. Leona can hear him jumping from foot to foot on the dewy grass, prepared to bolt at the next available moment. “I just wanted to know where Jack was. I couldn’t find him in his dorm.”

Leona snaps his head around and lets out a guttural growl. “Gee, officer, let me just call him really quick. I’m sure he’ll pick up this time.”

Officer Jumps stops his in-place hopping, one of his ears folding downwards in a sign of confusion. “No need to be so aggressive, Your Majesty. I have something to give him, so I need to know where he is.”

“Isn’t finding out supposed to be your job?”

Officer Jumps puffs his cheeks out. “And keeping him in the dorm was supposed to be your job!”

Leona rears his head back. He’s fully ready and willing to snap his neck for such a blatant insult, before he lets higher functions take control and he takes a second to process.

The second prince of Sunset Savannah is no fool, and he knows the only bunny officer of the Sage Island PD definitely isn’t, either. Even if he’s too energetic for his tastes, he knows how to get a job done in whatever ways he has to.

Leona narrows his eyes and reaches straight into the heart of the matter. “Why are you talking like Jack is back at Night Raven College?”

Officer Jumps’ eyes turn impossibly wide. “Why are you talking like he isn’t?” Then the rabbit looks to the ground, thumping his left foot as he thinks. His ears droop and he takes on a worried expression as he seems to realize something.“Oh. That’s why.”

Leona gets up into a sitting position, already extremely irritated with Jumps’ beating around the bush responses. “What does?”

The police officer shakes his head, suddenly back to hopping from one foot to the other even more wildly than before. “Nothing! Sorry, gotta dash!”

And the bunny rabbit leaps away before Leona can get even a word in. A piece of folded paper flitters out of his pocket in his haste to get out of the botanical garden as soon as possible, and it lands on the stone-brick pathway. The drafts that float through the garden’s glass domes aren’t strong enough to pull it away and out of his sight, so it sits there as a blemish on the ground.

In a daze, Leona gets up from the sunrock and walks over to it. He bends down and unwraps it to see what it is.

He freezes.

It’s around 9 o’clock in the evening, and Jack is in the middle of doing the makeup homework he picked up from Professor Crewel when Leona comes for him. 

“Jack?”

Jack jumps in his chair, ears splaying back as he instinctively pats around his desk for his magestone pen.

“Jack?” Leona repeats again, much quieter this time. “Can I come in?”

Admittedly, Jack’s brows furrow in confusion. Usually, Leona just barges into people’s rooms whenever he needs something from anybody. The fact he’s not doing that now is… troubling.

On top of that, Leona sounds soft—softer than Jack had ever heard him, save for whenever Cheka came to visit. Almost like he’s trying to talk down a wild animal, though Jack shakes the metaphor from his head as soon as it comes into it. Against his better judgment, Jack gets up from his chair and walks toward the door. He turns the knob and cracks it open ever so slightly.

Sure enough, Leona is standing right there in the darkness, hands in the pockets of his jeans. His posture isn’t the listless yet proud stance he’s so used to seeing. Leona’s not even looking at him, really.

“Hey, Housewarden,” Jack says unsurely. “Sure, come on in.”

Leona nods politely and comes through the door. Jack looks back at his desk chair, before opting to sit down on the left-hand corner of his bed instead. 

Leona closes the door behind him, and sits down on Jack’s right, a motion that causes Jack’s muscles to tense involuntarily. He’s not liking this already. “So, uh… did you need something?”

The wolf’s ears twitch at the sound of crumpling paper, and he looks down at Leona’s hands, only to see the housewarden smoothing out a piece of folded paper with his fingers. The smell of brand new ink makes itself known to Jack’s nose as he unfolds it and hands it to him.

Jack takes it warily, the blood in his system rapidly turning to ice as he guessed what it was, even as he silently pleaded it wasn’t.

“[JACK HOWL — POLICE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT]”

The first-year’s breath freezes in his throat.

“Y-You…” Jack gulps. “You didn’t read it, did you?”

Leona raises an eyebrow. “Whaddya think?”

Jack doesn’t know what to say. Should he tell him he didn’t mean anything he said? Leona knows Jack can’t lie for shit, so that’s not going to fly at all. But this is a scenario Jack had hoped he’d never have to face. He’s not really in the business of talking about his feelings, much less with the proprietor of said feelings.

But from the third-year’s resigned demeanor, Jack already knows it’s too late.

Leona leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “I already knew, Jack.”

Jack blinks and snaps his head toward his housewarden. “What?”

“I knew about… this.” He loosely gestures toward the paper in Jack’s hands. “I’ve known ever since my overblot. I thought it would be easier if I gave you time, like exposure therapy, but…” Leona closes his eyes and rubs his fingers over his eyelids. “...it clearly hasn’t. To be frank, reading your interview just made me realize it’s only gotten worse.”

“Housewarden, I—”

Leona growls. “Don’t call me that right now.”

Jack unconsciously flinches. “Sorry.”

The lion languidly shakes his head and softly blows a strand of hair out of his face. “Don’t hafta apologize, pup.”

“...Sorry.”

Leona leans over and rakes his eyes over Jack’s whole body. Jack, in turn, looks away, cursing himself for his own inability to look his own dorm leader in the eyes.

“All those times you went off to Ramshackle, I always knew you weren’t running from Savanaclaw.” Leona says quietly. “You were running from us.”

The amount of honesty packed into that one sentence throws Jack completely off-kilter. His eyes widen and his ears flatten against his skull. He crumples the paper in his hand into a tight ball, and he wishes, more than he’s ever had before, that one of his friends were here. They wouldn’t know what to do at all, but they’d make him feel better just for being.

His heart picks up in speed until it painfully pounds against his ribcage.

He’s not ready for this conversation. Not alone, anyway.

But this is Savanaclaw.

He’s always alone in Savanaclaw.

“Pup. Look at me.”

Jack slowly cranes his head towards his upperclassman, eyes still flickering this way and that to avoid Leona’s piercing gaze. Leona slowly moves away from Jack—likely in an effort to try and give him more space—and puts his hands on his thighs.

Jack’s vision finally settles on his dorm leader. His expression is stern, yet painfully soft. 

“I know I don’t always act like it, or at least not as much as you needed me to, but I’m your housewarden. I have a responsibility to you.” Leona slowly inhales. “Since you were unaccounted from the dorm for more than three days, dorm policy says I have to put you under house arrest. You’re officially not allowed to leave Savanaclaw for a month unless it’s for a medical reason.”

Jack inhales sharply. Reminds himself that it makes sense he’s being punished. Reminds himself that Leona is not cruel.

“But…” Leona continues, putting a finger in the air. “If you really want to leave, I’ll call the other housewardens and make sure there’s nobody to stop you. If they know what’s good for them and their dorm members, they’ll leave you alone.”

Jack opens his mouth to say something— anything —only to find that his tongue refuses to cooperate. It’s dry, but it’s not because of phantom sand this time. He wonders if he should be grateful for that.

Leona nods and gets up from Jack’s bed with a grunt. He walks over to the door and opens it, but just before he’s about to leave, he looks over the little wolf one last time.

“Take care, pup.” he mutters, with something Jack dares to assume is care.

The door shuts behind him with a click.

Chapter Text

When Ace Trappola finally comes back to school, Floyd Leech is happy. 

More accurately, when he hears Crabby is coming back, he's happy. Sea Snake is fun to mess with and all, and Goldfish is always entertaining whenever Floyd needs a good boredom-break, but Crabby just strikes the perfect balance—he can snap back with something witty unlike Goldfish, and his facial reactions are way more enjoyable to watch than Sea Snake's typical look of complete apathy or mild irritation.

He was a little miffed when Jamil told him Ace was on house arrest for a month, and he wouldn't even be able to come to basketball practice just yet. Being gone from school without any notice wasn't cool, but he doesn't understand why they had to make it worse by keeping him from school for another month.

(Floyd posed Goldfish with this very conundrum when they were in the library together, a few days after Crabby and his school of friends came back.

He hadn't expected him to start crying so hard, the book he was trying to read became an indecipherable mess of smeared ink.

He didn't like how that made him feel at all, so he decided to leave him alone for a while after that.)

But even though Floyd is still a little bummed, he's not too upset, all things considered. Because Ace will come back, just like Floyd always knew he would. Frankly, he doesn't understand why people have been talking about him for the past week as if he was dead, or why Jamil would try to throw a basketball at his head every time he tried to bring it up. Floyd knows Ace, and he’s a fighter—but he guesses Jamil probably wouldn't know that as well as he did. 

So, for a while, Floyd is happy. 

Until three weeks pass, not even the full month the housewardens promised, and Ace is suddenly back on the court. 

He's smiling and laughing as walks into the gym, as if nothing has changed at all. He brushes off Andrew's concerns with a joke, greets Dodge with a fistbump, and tosses a loose ball back to Pail. He raises a hand in greeting when he sees Jamil and Floyd standing near the three-point line, separated from the rest of the crowd.

"Heya, Jamil-senpai, Floyd-senpai." Ace says, with a mock salute. "What's goin' on?"

Floyd really, truly, honestly thought he'd be happy when Ace came back. He was happy when he heard he'd be coming back a full week early. 

But now, seeing him standing just a few feet away from him, smiling and looking just as he always did like an untouched painting, Floyd knew one thing for certain.

Without any thought put into the motion, he rips Jamil’s basketball away from his hands and shoots it right at Ace’s face.

Floyd visits Ace in the infirmary with Jamil later that day.

Ace is sitting on one of the beds when they see him. He’s obviously none-too pleased to see either of them, with the way he glares and childishly sticks his tongue out when they walk through the door. He doesn’t look too banged up, all things considered—his face is the same as ever, except now there’s a bandage over his left cheek, presumably from friction burn caused by the basketball, but Floyd doesn't feel too bad about it overall.

"What, are you here to apologize for hurting your poor, unfortunate underclassman?" He taunts with a smug grin, and Floyd unthinkingly breaks out into a large smile— that's the Crabby he knows.

Jamil snorts. "You wish. Floyd doesn't apologize unless he feels like it… which is never.”

Ace starts laughing, but then winces as he puts a hand on his ribcage. "Sorry," he wheezes out, voice choked. "Hit the ground pretty hard back there."

Jamil is taken aback by the sudden attack of pain at first, but quickly recuperates. "Sure." he says simply, giving nothing away in his voice as per usual.

Floyd strides over to his bedside, tilts his head, and experimentally pokes him in the side. 

He yelps and his hands fly over his ribcage again. “Dude!” he hisses. “Don’t do that!”

“Crabby’s softer than usual.” Floyd muses out loud.

Ace pouts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It usually takes more than a basketball for you to go down like that.”

Ace doesn't quip back—in fact, he just sort of stares at Floyd with an unreadable expression for a few moments. He's had a bad habit of doing that ever since Azul’s overblot, seemingly at random, but Floyd’s never given it much thought before. Ace recovers quickly, turning on his side and melodramatically laying an arm over his eyes. “That’s gonna haunt me for the rest of my years. I just know it.”

Jamil rolls his eyes, but Floyd can see the telltale signs of suspicion creeping up in his gray irises. “You’re not that important, Ace, get off your high horse.”

And once again, Ace abruptly falls silent—not for a particularly long time, but long enough for it to register in Floyd’s brain as uncomfortable. Jamil seems to think so, too, as he puts a bent finger to his chin, which he normally does when he’s thinking.

"Floyd has a point, though," the Scarabian continues. "I honestly thought you would catch that."

Ace sits up slowly. "Yeah, well, I'm a little rusty."

"And all it took was a basketball to the face and you felt right down…" Jamil says, suspicion crawling over his face. "You performed right through Vil's overblot, so I'm honestly kind of shocked a basketball made you fall down so easily."

Ace shifts around uncomfortably. "Huh." is all he says in response as he looks away.

Floyd whines and rubs the back of his head. "Man, I was sooooo happy you were coming back, and now you're gonna spend all your time in here."

"I wouldn't be here if you hadn't thrown a ball at me." Ace mutters, as he starts twisting the sleeves of the jacket around his waist, in what Floyd has learned to read as a nervous tick. "What was that even about?"

"Eh. Dunno." Floyd shrugs lazily. "I guess I was just mad you were lookin' so happy."

"I was a little annoyed, too, honestly," Jamil sighs. "For a second, you reminded me too much of Kalim."

"How?" Ace asks, looking affronted, as if being compared to Sea Otter were a personal offense.

"Just the way you act like everything is normal when it's not." Jamil says. “One time, when we were seven, Kalim went outside unsupervised to play in the fountain and got kidnapped, and nobody could find him. When his parents paid the ransom and he finally came back a week later, you know what the first thing he said to me was?"

Ace stares back with a startled expression at Jamil’s sudden aggression. “Uh… did he say hi?”

In a mocking, high-pitched voice that was clearly supposed to be a sarcastic impression of the Scarabian housewarden, Jamil says, "'Hey, Mimi! I’m gonna go outside and play in the fountain! Don’t tell our parents, though, ha ha!"

Floyd barks out a laugh. "Ha! Man, Sea Otter is shameless!"

“So is your little crab, it seems.”

Ace splutters indignantly, waving his hands around. “I didn’t think we were gonna like… hug and cry and shit. How else did you want me to act?”

“Anything but that. It was like you were downplaying how much we sufferin’ without you. I missed my little kani-chan~” Floyd starts rubbing his hands all over Ace’s face. He lifts his hands as if he was about to stop him, but didn’t actually do anything.

“Suuuuure you did.” he deadpans from between squished cheeks. “I bet you completely forgot I was missing after, like, the first day.”

Floyd’s smile falls. “But I didn’t.”

“Mhm.”

The eel narrows his eyes. “I didn’t.”

“Dude, drop the act.” Ace rolls his eyes. “Your moods change like, what, every ten minutes? You can’t expect me to believe you were moping around over me of all people for a month.”

“No, no, Floyd’s telling the truth.” Jamil pipes up. “He absolutely refused to play basketball or go to class until you were back on the court. It was… quite infuriating, actually.”

But Ace merely waves him off, in a way that basically told him he was being overdramatic. “Get real, Jamil. His mood probably soured because of a lot of other things. I guess I can kinda see him getting like that over Riddle or Azul or his twin, but me? He might be upset for a minute, maybe two, but not a whole month.” Ace glances at Jamil and his mouth curves up into a shiteating smirk. “To be honest, I was honestly expecting you to be upset when I came back, Jamil-senpai.”

The redhead was probably hoping Jamil would give one of his many amused snorts, but instead, he slanted his gray eyes and crossed his arms. “Ace, what are you saying?”

“Look, you get mad at Kalim for doing some pretty dumb stuff, right?” Ace says, wringing out the sleeves of his jacket, and completely ignorant at the way the Scarabian tenses at the syllables of Kalim’s name. “And I’m not nearly as nice as Kalim. I know you get plenty mad at me—who doesn’t? Why do you think the housewarden is always so mad at me? ”

Jamil bristles. “Just because Kalim can be incredibly inconsiderate and I sometimes get extremely frustrated with him doesn’t mean I don’t care about him.”

“Ehhh?” Floyd leans over, befuddlement taking over his brain. “But you tried to get him kicked out of Scarabia, and then you almost let him freeze to death at the edge of Scarabia. Azul cares about me, and he gets really mad at me, and he hasn’t tried to kick me out yet. And he definitely hasn’t dropped me in the middle of a desert, either.”

He snaps his eyes towards the Leech twin, grey eyes flashing with a red-hot emotion Floyd couldn’t name. “That was an error in judgment.”

“Come to think of it, you almost killed lil’ Shrimpy and tried to hypnotize Azul, too,” Floyd ponders, tapping a finger against his chin as he looks up at nothing in particular. “Man, you’re not good with people you care about, are you? Makes me wonder how your sister is still alive…”

“You—!”

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty! Let’s not fight, my ribs are already killing me enough as it is!” As if to make a point, the first-yearstarts rubbing up and down his side with a pained expression. “And come on, Floyd-senpai, you literally helped Azul put me into indentured servitude, you don’t get a say.”

Floyd can feel his face drop. “I… forgot that happened.”

“Of course you did.” He blows a strand of hair out of his face. “And you probably forgot about me , too.”

Floyd growls. “Stop saying that, kani-chan. I’m getting sick of you talking like I’m not here.”

“Can we just drop it?” Ace finally cracks, shooting into an upright position. “If you aren’t going to apologize, you can just go! Why are you guys even here?”

“‘Cause we missed you, how many times do I have to—”

“Oh please, I disproved that ten seconds ago.” the freshman snaps back, charging his whole upper body forward, even as he stays seated to his spot, causing the whole bed to squeak. “If you really cared about me, you would’ve told me about Azul’s scheme. If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t have tried to sabotage us at the museum!”

Jamil’s eyes widen. “Ace, I… I think you need to calm down a little—”

“Says the guy who freaked out and nearly KILLED MY BEST FRIEND!” Ace screams, gripping the bed sheet so hard, Floyd is genuinely concerned it might tear. Three birds who were sitting on one of the infirmary windowsills all flew away at the sudden noise. “You guys clearly have nothing insightful to say to me, so if you could just leave— GYAH!”

“CRABBY!”

“ACE!”

All of Ace’s movements cause him to fall off the side of the bed and hit the ground side first. Instead of getting up immediately and dusting himself off as he normally does whenever he falls down on the court, his eyes squeeze shut and he curls up into a ball like an armadillo, his face contorted in pain.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow…” he hisses under his breath.

Floyd blinks, and the next thing he knows, he and Jamil are at his side.

“Ace? Ace, what’s wrong?” Jamil asks, a hint of hysteria entering his voice. “Can you stand?”

Ace weakly tries to bat them both away. “Yeah— Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Don’t give me that, Trappola.” Jamil says quietly, as he and Floyd props Ace into a sitting position. “There’s clearly something you’re not telling us."

When Jamil says that, a thought strikes Floyd like a lightning bolt. Or rather, a memory.

“Crabby, lift up your shirt.”

Silence.

Ace laughs awkwardly. “W-What?”

“Lift up your shirt.”

Ace is silent for a few seconds, as if expecting Floyd to take it back at any moment. When he doesn’t, Ace is so stunned, he actually complies and slowly starts to take his shirt off. Right before he can completely strip, though, Jamil puts a hand out.

“Stop.” Jamil points at the dark marks on Ace’s ribcage. “What are those?”

Ace stills, as if just realizing what Floyd was really asking about. “It’s… not what it looks like?”

“No, it’s exactly what it looks like,” Floyd grumbles. “Azul used to hide these from me and Jade all the time when we were guppies.”

“Were you seriously planning on playing basketball with bruised ribs?”

Ace drops his shirt back down and starts fidgeting with his waist-jacket again. The simple motion is all the answer they get, but really, it’s all the answer they need.

“Waah, Crabby! You know that’s not good for you!”

“Jamil and I did just fine dancing at the VDC after Vil’s overblot.” he mumbles.

“Kalim called his most trusted doctor to Night Raven College to treat the both of us after our performance.” Jamil says, shaking his head. “You’re not seriously telling me you didn’t at least go to the infirmary after VDC, are you?”

“I did!”

“Yes, but only after the Ferrymen came to get Vil and I. Yuu told me. But that just so happened to be two days after Vil’s overblot. You didn’t even go of your own free will.”

“It still counts.”

“You wouldn’t have gone to the infirmary today if I didn’t make you after Floyd threw a ball at your face. And since these aren’t covered up yet, I’m willing to bet you weren’t going to have them treated even when you were in the infirmary.” Jamil sighs. “Which makes me very concerned about you did after the last overblots you were a part of.”

“Crabby probably just walked those off, too, Sea Snake.”

“That’s what scares me.”

“Oi. I’m right here.”

"Where did you even get these?" Jamil finally asks exasperatedly. "Why is your basketball club the first people to see this?"

Ace rolls his shoulders back. "You're not the first people to see this..."

"Ace. Answer the first question."

"Didja get these when you were gone for a week? I know Goldfishie wouldn't have let you get these in Heartslabyul."

The first-year sighs. "If you really wanna know so bad, ask Riddle. I'm tired of repeating myself like a broken record."

"So Riddle does about this?"

"I didn't say that."

Jamil groans at Ace's non-answer, and he and Floyd pick their underclassman up and hoist him back onto the bed. Ace doesn't resist, but he indignantly mutters to himself all the while. They rest him down on the mattress, and Jamil pulls the blanket over him.

“Ace, you are officially banned from the court until you allow the nurse to let you look at these.” Jamil glares, in a way that ensures there will be no further argument. “Do I make myself clear?”

Ace glares right back, clearly still pissed at the two of them. After a few seconds of their mini staring contest, the freshman relents. He turns onto his side and away from them. and he folds his pillow over his ears as he curls up again.

“Crystal.” he mumbles.

And that’s that.

When Ace Trappola finally comes back to school, Floyd Leech is not happy.

Chapter Text

If there’s one thing Epel Felmier has to respect about Pomefiore, it’s that no student there ever takes the easy way out. They don’t run and hide from a problem until it goes away. They don’t even know what it means to sit around and do nothing. No, they do their makeup, fix up their hair, and sprint full-speed at a problem until it has the good sense to get the hell out of their way.

Hiding out with one of your best friends in his room is definitely… not doing that.

Look, Epel really was planning on heading straight back to Pomefiore—he wasn’t too keen on letting Vil stew in his anger and irritation with him after being gone a whole week, and maybe getting back as soon as possible would lessen Epel’s punishment a little. So, he wasn’t just walking back to Pomefiore, he was running like the Lord of the Underworld himself was chasing him down, eyes fixed on the silhouette of his dorm against the starry night sky. 

He shuddered as he imagined what could be waiting for him at the end. Maybe Vil would make him clean the entire dorm again, and all Epel could do was hope it was the inside and not the outside. Or maybe Vil would cut off his water supply and force him to get water from the nearby well out in the forest. His shoulders were still aching from carrying that bucket…

And this was an unfortunate yet normal scenario. Whenever Epel sprained his ankle in Spelldrive Club or accidentally caused his alchemy project to blow up in his face, he’d rush back and hope he got there before Vil heard, and just pray his incoming penalty was lenient. But like it or not, Epel was a Pomefiore student, so he always faced whatever came next head on.

But not this time. 

He can’t explain what it is.

He got this close from knocking on the door. This close to walking inside. This. Close.

But before he could close the gap, it suddenly felt as if he had been doused in ice cold water as soon as he turned the doorknob.

(Epel slammed the bucket into the ground, all of the soapy water in it spilling onto the dirt below.

“THAT’S IT!” he screeched. “Ah’m not doing yer damn dirty work anymore! If ya want yer shit-stained stores to be clean, then clean ‘em yerself!”

He turned around to look at him. Before Epel could even react, someone from behind him dumped ocean water over his head. Icicles pierced themselves into his skin like arrows, so cold it burned. And in his pajamas, it was as if all of his nerves had frozen in place, too, and everything was cold, cold, cold, so cold—

“That’s what you get for treating our water supply like garbage.” he sighed.)

And so here he was, hiding out in Ortho’s newly-built personal room in Ignihyde. The little guy was still in his charging station, and with how hard he pushed his battery power, he likely wouldn’t be able to come out for another couple of days or so. But he wasn’t online right this instant, so Epel felt no shame in leaning up against him and absorbing the heat radiating off of his iron plating.

Good, Epel thought to himself. Ah’ll just stick ‘round here for a few more minutes, than ah’ll be right as rain again.

He’s not looking forward to it at all.

But really, what’s new?

“You need to go back to Pomefiore,” Idia says, after about an hour.

Epel shuffles around on Ortho’s bed (purely put there for the first-years’ convenience, since Ortho doesn’t need a bed). He stays silent as he looks down at his socks which are still caked in crimson.

The Ignihyde housewarden sighs as he leans against Ortho’s doorway. “Look, IDK what you guys went through, but I think Vil and Rook would both like to know you’re back at spawn ASAP. This has been a pretty rough playthrough for them, NGL.”

Epel can imagine that. He tends to cause a lot of problems for Vil and Rook, whether he means to or not. The smart thing to do would be to own up to it, but for the first time, Epel feels his gut screaming at him that going back to Pomefiore is a bad idea. He doesn’t know why he’s so against it—really, he doesn’t—but his desire to stay as far away from Pomefiore as possible is so visceral, it makes him want to throw up. “Can’t I just… stay here a little longer?”

“I don’t mess with family, Epel.” Idia shakes his head. “You’ll have to face them eventually.”

A Pomefiore student always faces things head on.

It’s a requirement for every Pomefiore student to read the last-known recipe of one of the Fairest Queen’s famous disguises. Epel himself doesn’t know why it’s so important, but he assumes the hope is for a member of Pomefiore to finally be the one to replicate it.

While the recipe for her poison apple has been lost to time, the recipe for one of her disguises has been preserved and later translated to modern terms, though nobody really knows what it does, since all the ingredients are incredibly rare.

It goes as follows:

• Five ounces of mummy dust from the southwestern side of the Scalding Sands.

(Epel’s mouth felt unbearably dusty as he continued to hit his pickaxe against the cold stone wall. He wasn’t sure himself what he was doing—he’d never picked up a pickaxe in his life—but he was apparently looking for salt?

A bucketful, they’d said, before throwing the bucket at him and dropping him off in the mines. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the place wasn’t filled with braying donkeys—that part kind of confused him, but he knew better than to talk back to his captors.

The last time he tried that , he swung a pickaxe to Epel's ribcage.)

• Four milligrams of the night sky of the Shaftlands.

(It was never bright on Pleasure Island. The whole place was covered with some sort of tarp that blocked out the rest of the sky, so Epel never knew when the sun was rising or setting—or if there even was a sun. There were plenty of clocks, sure, but everytime he got his hands on one, it was always too dark to read it, and too risky to take it with him.

The first time he tried, he had found him and said, "You just insist on causing trouble for us, don't you?"

He ripped the clock out of his hands and struck him in the back of the head with it, so hard the clock shattered.

It was like one long extended night that refused to end, just a single stream of steadily worsening pains all over his body.)

• Nine cubic feet of an old hag’s cackle.

(He thought he was a girl at first. That’s why he made his crew remove him from the island of “naughty, roughhousing little boys” and taken straight to the salt mines—he couldn’t be allowed to stay, but he had already seen too much. 

When he snapped at them he was a boy, they looked at him, then at each other, and they laughed .)

• Four cubic feet of a scream of fright. Best found in Briar Valley.

(By the time his friends finally found him, his feet and hands were covered in bleeding blisters, and his socks were dirtied a sickening red from walking around on them for what felt like five weeks straight, even though it was really more like a couple of hours. His hair was a mess, covered in dust, soot, and whatever else was in those accursed salt mines. His pajamas hadn’t been ripped too badly, but they had still snagged on rocks and been beaten with a whip, so they were still in awful condition.

The worst of it, though, was the horrified looks his friends gave him. He had been thrown onto the ground earlier—could've been for anything, really—and his legs still refused to cooperate with him. He tried to assure them it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked, but Yuu beat him to it.

They screamed.

Nothing, nothing, that had happened this past week had hurt Epel nearly as much as that shrill sound.)

• A gust of wind, with a speed of at least 154 kilometers per hour. Best found in the Shaftlands.

(They still had a few more minutes left before the movie ended, so they sat on a broken bus bench on the empty island, biding their time. Nobody had come to get them, it seemed—they were far too busy herding their new droves of donkeys to the salt mines and circuses and wherever else they pleased.

A strong wind blew in from the East and Epel shivered. Ortho drunkenly fell onto his shoulder as his battery started to run out, and his electric warmth was a welcome diversion to the cold that chilled Epel’s bones.) 

• A thunder bolt of at least 1,000 watts.

(When they made it out of the mirror, Epel was pleasantly surprised to see most of his worst injuries had healed. His clothes no longer looked as if he'd rubbed them in the dirt, and his hair smelled like his usual apple-scented shampoo instead of cave water. He still had bruises dancing on his ribcage and blade marks on his face, but that could be easily fixed with a bit of foundation.

His feet were still intensely sore, though, and he cringed with every step, as if he were walking bare-foot on cobblestone. Sebek offered to carry him back to Pomefiore, but Epel declined.

Once, Vil tried to teach Epel how to wear heels, and much like everything else his housewarden made him do, the whole experience was horribly uncomfortable. They were his exact measurements— exact— which meant they had little to no wiggle room. It was nice being taller, but Epel didn’t feel too great about walking 10 centimeters off the ground, and he ended up tripping a lot.

Also, they were heels. Enough said.

Everytime Epel complained about how much wearing them hurt, though, Vil would tell him that pain was just the price one paid to get anywhere in life. You had to work through a bit of pain to get what you really wanted most of all.

If Vil could handle wearing heels at everyday, Epel could withstand a fifteen-minute walk back to Pomefiore.

Then the police burst into the closet.)

The recipe was nonsensical, but Epel still thought about it a lot. The Queen could turn into whoever she wanted just by mixing the right ingredients together. And of course, Epel would fantasize to himself, sometimes, about being able to make a potion that could give him a taller, more muscular body.

Epel’s thinking about it even now, as he slowly walks back to Pomefiore, his feet aching with every step. He’s thinking about becoming someone— anyone— else. Anything that would make this bubbling dread in his stomach leave him be.

If any potion in the world could make all those memories and feelings and sensations from never being, then Epel would tear out all the night skies he could.

Epel only gets three hours of actual sleep before he has to get up because the rabbit officer wants to interview him. 

Honestly, Epel can’t be bothered to remember his name with how sleep-deprived he is. He has half a mind to tell him to fuck off when he opens the door for him, but Vil would definitely get on his case about that, so he reluctantly welcomes him in.

He would like to say the interview goes off without a hitch, but it doesn’t. It goes off with a pretty big hitch, in fact. 

The officer is deathly serious when he leans over and asks, “Do you get… hurt a lot? In this dorm?”

Epel won't lie; it catches him off guard. Gets his goat. Knocks the wind out of his sails. Other metaphors for "I don't know what the Underworld just happened, and I hate it".

"Do ah…" His accent slips as he's trying to process what he's being asked. It takes a lot longer than Epel is willing to admit to shake his head and blurt, "No. No, no, Seven, no, it's—"

Epel subconsciously reaches down and massages his foot.

"—it's not like that. It ain’t anythin’ like that.”

Maybe if he says it enough, he’ll remember it’s true, and he won’t feel his nerves crack the longer he stays in this dorm.

“—need to say something to him, Rook.”

Epel wakes up to the sound of Vil’s voice drifting through his bedroom door.

(“Get up. We’re still not done with you, yet.”)

“I know.” Rook’s voice follows, low and soft. “But I don’t think it’s good to rush him. We don’t know where he’s been this past week.”

Epel wonders how they even know he’s in here, but then he remembers that it’s almost impossible to hide anything in Pomefiore. With Rook being Rook and Vil being Vil and whatnot. Honestly, he’s just glad they let him sleep.

(“Don't be lazy now.”)

With a deep breath, Epel gets up from his bed. His feet are still a bit sore, but he’s got brand-new socks on, at least. Before Vil and Rook can get any further into the sort-of argument they’re having, Epel opens the door. Better to rip the band-aid off now.

Vil and Rook both freeze and turn towards him as the first-year steps out into the hallway, still in his pajamas.

Epel takes in a shaky inhale and straightens his back. 

“Hi, Vil.” he says to his housewarden, before turning to his vice. “Rook.”

For a few seconds—minutes? Epel’s not sure—the two of them do nothing except stare at him.

Vil then takes one step forward, and Epel squares his shoulders and lifts his chin to meet his gaze. He ignores the prickling feeling of terror going up his back as Vil languidly reaches out to him with a hand. And when Vil runs the back of his fingers over Epel’s face in an achingly soft motion, Epel staunchly reminds himself he’s not trying to break his teeth in.

(“Clean yourself up. I won’t have you running around with a bloody mouth.”)

“Epel,” he whispers. “Did we wake you?”

Epel shrugs. “I was already awake.”

Lies.

Vil makes a choked noise, and Epel lets Vil draw him into a hug. He’s concentrating so hard on keeping his face neutral, he forgets to reciprocate.

“Vil,” Rook pipes up quietly, putting a hand on Vil’s shoulder without once breaking eye contact with Epel. “Perhaps you should give the boy some space. He seems to have been through a lot.”

(“I really hate to do this, but you just make me so angry.”)

Epel silently thanks Rook, and then wonders if he should feel guilty for needing the assistance in the first place.

House arrest.

They put him on house arrest.

When Epel hears those words, suddenly it feels as if he’s floating.

Not physically, though he wishes he could. He wishes he could just break out his broom and go into the sky where nothing and nobody can touch him, but he’s afraid if he does that, he won’t be able to convince himself to come back down.

Epel is always on his guard in Pomefiore. He has to watch his accent, his tone of voice, how big his bites were when he ate, straighten his back if he was slouching, who he spoke to and how he spoke to them, and a million different other things he has to keep in mind just to live. He does about the same thing with his friends, but it’s… it’s different when it’s them. They won’t out him to Vil if he messes up, and they help them feel more like rules his Ma makes him follow rather than the bars of a prison cell.

It’s even worse now since he can’t leave. And his phone is completely wrecked so he can’t contact them, either. He’s been completely cut off from them, and it feels as if he’s stranded in the middle of a tundra with no way home.

(“You’re not going to be needing this phone anytime soon. Your friends will come get you when they get you.”)

But the worst times are when he’ll just be talking to someone, and he’ll accidentally let his accent slip. He’s always been forced to be hyperaware of it, but everytime it happens now, he’ll forget the sentence he was stringing together as his ears ring, and his vision grows fuzzy, and his mind is sent reeling.

(“What did you just say to me?”)

(“Epel, how many times have I told you to avoid improper contractions and double negatives? How are you supposed to get anywhere if you break character any time your emotions grow heated? You'll never be a bright red poison apple at this rate.”)

“Epel?” Lyric asks, waving a hand in front of his face.

“I…” Epel shook his head, hitting the side of his head with a hand as if he could simply knock his brain back into place. “I have to go. I… I have ballet lessons.”

It’s Epel’s fault. He shouldn’t have been running through the halls.

But he was, and he couldn’t take it back, and now the vase sitting happily on its table near the window is miserably lying on the floor. He knocked it down in his haste because he was running, and he was running because he was late for ballet practice, and he was late because— because—

(“What is this?”)

The point was, he wasn’t supposed to have been running through the halls, much less knocking things over like some untamed animal. And now, it lay in pieces before him, and there’s no taking it back. He’d fallen to his knees at some point, trying to pick up all the pieces. He can’t rebuild it, but at the very least he can lessen his punishment by cleaning up after himself.

…He hopes.

Swift footsteps came, louder and louder, and Epel flinches. He can already feel a warm liquid running down his face, as if the fact he’s literally sitting next to the scene of the crime wasn’t bad enough.

Stop it, Epel hissed to himself. You’re a man, you’re stronger than this—

“Monsieur Cherry Apple?”

(“You. Boy.”)

Epel is about ready to jump out of his skin, but his mind recognizes the voice as Rook in the nick of time.

“Great Seven, Epel,” Rook breathes out. Wasting no time, the vice housewarden slides down to the ground and onto his knees. He reaches for Epel’s hands first, turning them over and over in his palms, and running over them with his thumbs. “Are you hurt? What happened? Do you have cuts anywhere?”

It doesn’t matter, Epel wants to say. Instead, what comes out is a faint whisper of “He’s going to kill me.”

(“You know the penalty if you fail.”)

Rook snaps his head up, his ministrations coming to a halt. “What?”

“Vil…” he trails off, gulping down a sob that threatens to force its way out of his throat. There’s nothing to be done for the tears, however. “He’s going to kill me.”

Rook furrows his brow incredulously. “He’s not going to kill you over a vase, Monsieur Cherry Apple.”

“He will.”

(“You’ll be taking ballet lessons alone until I say otherwise.”)

“It’s just a vase. ” Rook says the word “vase” so harshly, it nearly sounds like a curse. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

Vil never understands, Epel wants to say.

(“Unbelievable. Most of us grow out of temper tantrums by the time we're three.”)

“Epel?” Rook looks at him, troubled. “Are you alright?”

No. he wants to say. I’m not alright.

Help me, Epel wants to say.

I wish my friends were here, Epel wants to say.

Epel bites his tongue and says nothing at all.

The breaking point comes at dinner on Thursday.

Epel finishes his meal—flavorless chicken, as always—as quickly and as daintily as possible. Dinner is always too quiet for his tastes, and whenever there is some light chit-chat, it’s usually about commercials or magazines or fashion trends or some other trite thing Epel has no interest in.

Epel gets up to go wash his plate. All Pomefiore students have to wash their own dishes to promote self-sufficiency and responsibility, which is something Epel can get behind.

Then, because of fucking course, he trips over his own feet and comes crashing to the ground. His plate breaks against the floor and shatters into a thousand different pieces.

“Epel!” Vil and Rook are by his side in an instant, trying to help him up.

But the second Vil puts a hand on his shoulder, the world comes crumbling down.

Before Epel knows what he’s doing—

(“That’s what you get for treating our water supply like garbage.”)

—he grabs a piece of the plate—

(“Clean yourself up. I won’t have you running around with a bloody mouth.”)

—grips it so hard his palm starts to fucking bleed—

(“What did you just say to me?”)

—and slashes at Vil's face—

(“For I am Vil Schoenheit, its housewarden. If you come under my domain... I will tolerate none of the behavior you exhibited today. Remember that.”)

—with it.

Vil, with his crazy reflexes, dodges, and all he ends up doing is cutting off a strand of his hair.

But there is no doubting what Epel just tried to do, as everyone stares at him with wide eyes. Epel doesn’t know when he started breathing so hard, or why he can’t seem to get any oxygen into his lungs despite it. 

As if on cue, the invisible bells in his ears start to ring maddeningly, and the world around him begins to blur. Everything is coming in and out of focus—first the blood, then the shard, then Rook and Vil, whose faces are a mess of confusion, shock, and hurt.

Epel feels hurt, too—that same hurt he’s spent all this time running from, only for it to be thrown back in his face because of a movie. Whatever pretense he held onto that the movie was “fun” and “not that bad” vanishes in an instant.

The first-year drops the shard.

He holds his bleeding hand together with the other one and runs out of the dining hall.

Chapter Text

WED, 12:19 AM

SUNSHINE BOI uwu (DNI)

Idia

Idia

Idia

Idia I know you’re there

I know you don’t like talking to me but I really need your halp

*help

Kalim wadr wtf? 

Its 12 am

Im on my third cup of coffee and im this close to snapping

Wat r u still doing up

Everything.

What

Cater and Lilia came to me today and asked me to pretty-please fill out Riddle and Malleus’ paperwork because yknow but I just realized I don’t know how to do any of it and I don’t know who else to ask

I don’t wanna ask Jamil

Azul would make me sign a deal I don’t have time for

The teachers would just tell me to figure it out 

And Leona and Vil scare me

Can you halp me?

*help

U do realize Im missing a freshie too right???

I know and I know this is really insensitive

But I’ve been at this for hours, they’re all due by tomorrow, I’m desperate. 

Please 

I’ll never ask for anything ever again.

Ok ok chill out

Ig i can walk you through the tutorial

BUT

U have to do my paperwork too

And im not going to scarabia. Jamil lowkey kinda scares me

If i run into him, i would literally despawn right then and there

Deal.

But how are you going to help me if you’re not coming? It would take a lot of time for me to bring all this paperwork to Ignihyde, and we still have school tomorrow.

Do u gots a laptop?

Yes.

Ok, there should be an option to download an app called “boom” in ur settings. Ita video chat software.

Ohhhh okay.

You’re really smart Idia 🙂

Thank you so so so so so sos o s o much.

Watever

WED, 2:07 AM

Sorry about that Idia

Uggghh that was so embarrassing 🙁

Is cool ig

Sometimes u just need to ugly cry in a video chat right

Between u and me azul ugly cries a lot too

Really???????

But he’s so cool and smart and suave and nice and stuff

Being cool and smart and suave and nice and stuff doesnt mean hes safe from having * ~emotions~* 

Especially when hes playin any game with a dice or a spinner wheel involved lol

That’s funny 😆

And also ur under alot of pressure rn

Everyone is tbh

igi

I bet you are, too.

I mean, I know I’d freak out if one of my younger siblings went missing.

I definitely freaked out when Jamil got snatched right out of Ramshockle.

*Ramshackle

Oh

Fuck

Sry

It’s okay

I’m more worried about Ortho and the others right now, thoh

*though

Orthos systems are still online so hes not like dead

But it is weird his systems arent picking any of my texts or calls up

And he can still call ME but hes not fsr

Maybe he doesnt want to?

Y not

Well, one time, my little sister Asma got stuck on the roof.

I could’ve easily gotten her down with my magic

But my other siblings decided not to tell me because they didn’t want to worry me.

Good thing one of them cracked and told me anyway.

So ur sayin he doesnt want to worry me?

Uh he does realize not calling is only making me worry more right

Ortho’s a first-year and a robot and really smart

But he’s still a little kid.

And he’s “self-aware” now, or however he puts it

He’s going to make little mistakes like that. 

It’s part of growing up, y’know?

Ig

Anyway, I should probably let you go back to…

Whatever you were doing.

Sorry for bothering you Idia

Sfine.

U did my paperwork that i was just gonna put off until tomorrow so its all good

Okay then. Good night, Idia! 😄

Gn.

THU, 2:17 AM

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

Idia, why are you texting me?

What’s wrong?

Everything

What?

Orthos backup communication systems just shut off

That doesn’t sound good.

Its not

It means his body is destroyed

Or hes at 15% battery but thats not good either

Can’t he just transport himself into a new body?

Not if hes not on campus

Which hes not or else riddle or rook or whoever else wouldve found him by now

Well what can we do?

Nothing. Thats what sux

We have to do something!

Ikkkkkkkkk

Can’t you like… track him down? He told me once that he had  “technosignature” or something?

He does but i only have access to it if he lets me

Which hes not right now

Letting me, that is

Okay well that’s really really really bad.

U think???

I wish I could help you but I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know how to do anything

Hey im already self-deprecating as much as it is

I dont need you doing it too

Sorry.

Wait, why didn’t you text someone else? Or one of the teachers?

I’m not exactly on the same boat with you when it comes to missing a first-year.

I needed someone to freak out to

I don’t wanna ask malleus or riddle

Azul would make me sign a deal i dont have time for

The teachers would just tell me to figure it out 

And leona and vil scare me

Reason enough for u????

Oh.

FRI, 3:45 AM

I know you’re probably not awake right now Idia

But I was in the treasury earlier and I found an amulet I got as a present when my family and I went to the Kingdom of the Sun last summer

And it looked nice so I put it on

But then I forgot to take it back off when I went to bed

Then I had a really, really, really weird dream.

I can’t remember all the details

But Ortho was in it and he was putting in some kind of DVD into a television?

I don’t know, this is all probably really dumb

But I have weird feeling about today

FRI, 6:01 AM

Don’t even joke about that.

SAT, 1:42 AM

We need to stop texting each other so late lolz

It’s fine. I couldn’t sleep, anyway.

You sound happier today.

Yea. Ortho came back.

Wait, really??

What about the other first-years?!?

I just kicked Epel out of the dorm so i think theyre all here

Thank the Seven.

I was really starting to worry!

I wouldnt celebrate yet iiwy.

Idk wat happened to them in the past week, but it was somethin srsly fucked up

Epel looked rly bad ngl

The second he sat down on ortho’s bed he physically cringed and started rubbing his side

Also hes got a limp now that im pretty sure wasnt there before

Oh

Oh that’s not good

I’m… sure Vil will take care of it?

Hey remember when u told me that story about ur sister on the roof??

Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?

Nvm

Well… Is Ortho okay?

Orthos got the most sophisticated technomantic combat system around hehehehe. 

Hes fine. Got a few scrapes but nothing too bad.

Mentally, im not sure

If hes anythin like his big bro its probably a mess up there lol

Don’t say that!

If I can’t self-dipricate myself in this space then neither can you.

*self-doprecate

*self-depecrate

*self-deprecate

If I can’t self-deprecate myself in this space then neither can you.

Lol sry sry sry

I’m glad Ortho and the others are back, though. 🙂

Yea

Me too.

MON, 11:36

Idia, where’s Ortho? I haven’t seen him all day.

I thought you said he came back?

Oh yea i had to put him on house arrest

What?

Why?!?!?!

Hold on, lemme pull up the 326724 page doc riddle sent me

If a student goes missing for three days 

yadda yadda yadda 

They gotta go on house arrest for a month

Might as well bring out the french guillotine too

yknow while we're at it

Chop chop chop

Oh… Well, that’s too bad. I miss him.

He’ll be doing online lessons so he wont be missing any school

But i know its dragging on him.

I hate to do this to my own lil bro, but it is what it is

If i break the policy, mr-impossible-to-please is gonna have my hide

“Mr-Impossible-To-Please”?

Are you talking about Vil?

Riddle

But i could be talking about vil too

Sometimes i can’t tell the difference lol

Tho between u and me orthos been really depressed about it

He probably just misses his friends.

Going from seeing someone everyday to having it cut off so suddenly…

It’s hard.

Ok backing away from your obvious trauma button

But also running towards it because

Damn u think thats why hes been lying on his bed all day sighing?

You should probably take him off of house arrest soon.

It’s not going to be great for his moral.

*morale

Y not?

Im basically on house arrest everyday and im fine

Well, unlike you, Ortho actually likes seeing people.

Ok 

like 

damn

Savage Sunshine ™.

Didn’t have to go for my throat like that

Uncool

smh

THURS, 3:22

Hey kalim

Can i ask

Like

A big favor

Hi Idia! Of course, what is it?

So yknow how orthos been really down in the dumps

Yes?

I finally found out what was wrong today

And u were right

Lil bro craves social interaction just like big bro craves social isolation

And being stuck at Ignihyde just isn’t doing it for him

Oh no…

So i was wonderin if you could maybe give him a peptalk tomorrow

Think he'll talk to u more than hes talkin to me

and while you're at it, could u ask him where hes been

on the one hand i dont wanna pressure him

on the other hand im lowkey concerned

Okay, I'll do what I can.

But I don't understand why he doesn't want to talk to you! You're a great listener!

why would u think that?

I mean, you've listened to me this whole time, haven't you?

i dont really think reading your text messages count as listening.

It just feels like I'm being heard, you know?

And even if you were a horrible listener, you're still his big brother.

yea.

thing is, though

i'm starting to think that being his big bro is the reason why he won't talk to me.

Huh?

lil sis on the roof, kalim

lil sis on the roof

Is that a song title...?

FRI, 1:29 AM

Kalim Al-Asim, this is Ortho Shroud. Idia insisted I speak with you.

Hi there, Ortho!

It’s really nice to hear from you again!

How have you been?

I’ve been fine, thank you for asking.

Are you sure? Idia says you’ve been really down lately.

My serotonin levels have dropped significantly recently, yes. I’m sure they will return to acceptable levels when I finish my house arrest.

Ortho, that’s a really long time away.

I’m talking about the “Now”.

Do you wanna talk about it?

Not really.

Okay, okay. That’s fine, too.

So what have you been doing lately?

I’ve been rewatching anime with Idia and playing a few RPGs. It’s nothing crazy.

It sounds fun. It’s nice that you’re so close to your brother.

I know.

SAT, 4:37 AM

It’s weird to think that it’s been two weeks since you all went missing.

Feels just like yesterday, y’know?

Where did you even go off to???

Nowhere special.

Well, it must’ve been PRETTY special if it kept you guys away for a week.

You could make that argument, yes.

Ortho. I’m series.

*serious

Where did you go?

I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that.

Why not???

I promised myself and my friends that I wouldn’t tell.

Yourself AND your friends?

What happened??

Bad things. 

You promised not to tell about THAT either?

Yes.

Ortho, you can’t keep these things bottled up.

If you bottle up your bad feelings, you’ll explode like a soda bottle.

I don’t want to discuss this with you.

Jamil’s overblot was a combination of a lot of things.

Even though I claimed that he was my “best friend”

The truth was I didn’t know him at all.

I didn’t want to look beyond the surface level.

And even though I knew something was wrong

I didn’t stop to think about what it was

This went on for years and he suffered for it

I’m not making that mistake again.

I know something is wrong, and I want you to tell me.

Okay.

Ortho?

Are you there?

SAT, 9:23 AM

If you're reading this, Ortho, I'm really sorry for pressuring you.

You don't have to talk if you don't want to.

he didnt wanna talk to you, either, huh?

this is a code red if ive ever seen one

SAT, 2:23 AM

It’s Ortho again. I thought about what you said. I think I’m ready to talk about it now.

Really?

Huh. After a week passed with no response, I started worrying I’d scared you off somehow.

I’m really glad you want to open up to me, though.

But you have to promise not to say a word of this to the other housewardens. My friends deserve to explain in their own time. I am deleting this chat after I’m finished so Idia can’t see them, either. I don’t want him to worry.

Ortho?

Promise.

Ortho, you’re scaring me.

What happened?

SUN, 12:19 AM

Ramshackle Prefect (aka, Yuu! 😀)

Hey, Yuu!

I’m making microwave mac-and-cheese for dinner.

Do you and Grim wanna come to Scarabia and eat with me?

Hi Kalim.

We’d love to, but…

I mean, not to be rude, but this is kind of coming from out of nowhere.

Why do you want us to come?

No reason.

I just want to see you, that’s all!

Chapter Text

(“Ortho? Ortho can you hear me?!”

“I think his battery’s running out.”

“Wh— How?!”

“He used too much magic, and his call to Azul kind of just used the rest of it up, I think.”

“Foolish little robot! He should know how to pace himself better!”

“Hey, lay off him. He just saved us from falling off a cliff to our deaths.”

“Why did we think that would work?!”

“We had to get off this island somehow!”

“Ortho, sweetie, don’t sit up. We’re going to get you out of this place, okay?”

“Guys, shouldn’t we just wait for Azul to come get us?”

“Yeah, right! Who knows what’s going to happen by the time he gets here?! We need to get out of here no w.” )

“Ortho?”

“Yes, Idia?” 

“I know you’re bummed about staying at the dorm, but you know I can’t break the rules or else a certain someone is going to have my head. So I did something that should probably work out for everyone involved.”

“Hm?”

“I can apparently send you to another dorm to do your house arrest in, as long as it’s approved by the housewarden. So I talked to Kalim, and he said you can take the mirror to stay at his dorm if you want.”

“Really?”

“I don’t think staying at Ignihyde so much is good for you, and Scarabia’s full of happy normies you’ll hopefully like being around better, so— Woah!”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you Idia! You’re the best big brother ever!”

“...Heh. No problem, Ortho.”

( “Right here, boys, right here! Get your cake, pie, dill pickles and ice cream!”

Jack folded his ears down to prevent the loud screaming of the other boys rushing past them from disrupting his eardrums. He wished he’d brought those noise canceling earbuds Ortho had made him, but in his defense, he didn’t think he’d literally be sucked into a movie today.

“Dill pickles?” Yuu said, disbelievingly, as they and the rest of the freshmen walked off the boat, avoiding all the children rushing down the wooden boardwalk. “The rest I get, but dill pickles? What?”

“They were really popular in the Shaftlands a few years back!” Ortho commented brightly, and Jack was left to wonder what kinds of things Ortho is looking up to know that…

“I have a bad feeling about this, guys…” Deuce remarked, anxiously rubbing his hands together. “Maybe we should call someone to get us out of here?”

“Oh yeah?” Ace snorted, putting both of his hands behind his head. “Like who?”

Ruggie was Jack’s first thought, but he quickly dismissed it. He was probably busy right now, and the last thing he wanted to do was bother him.

“Riddle?” Upon the derisive glare Ace gave him, Deuce immediately backpedaled. “I-I mean, Vil?”

“I don’t think I want him to know I couldn’t even read a simple isekai label…” Epel sighed, which quickly turned into a stifled shout as someone grabbed him by the arm.The first-years all turned around, and saw a large, burly man standing right behind them. How not even Jack managed to hear him sneak up behind them, they didn’t know.

They could see Epel fighting the urge to roundhouse kick the man in the stomach, letting out the world’s most annoyed-sounding, “Can I help you?”

“You.” he said, voice gravelly as if he’d smoked two packs of cigarettes. He yanked Epel backwards roughly by the arm. “Come with me.”

“Hey,” Jack bristled, forcing himself to keep his voice level, even as flashes of Ruggie’s arm crumbling away to sand pervade his mind. “If he’s going, we’re going, too.”

The man shook his head. “No need. The boss only wants this one.”

Epel turned to the rest of the first-years and nodded his head. “I can handle it,” he says.

The rest of them glanced at each other, but they weren’t in the business of doubting the poison apple of the Felmier family.

But even after they left, Jack didn’t stop thinking about it. Not really.

And afterwards, the moment was given a special place in his nightmares beside nearly being crushed underneath a phantom’s giant paw, and being almost laid to rest in an underwater graveyard.)

“Jack?” 

Jack’s ears fold downwards like a dog that knows it’s done something wrong, but he doesn’t look up from the spot he’s been stubbornly scrubbing at for the ten minutes Vil’s been here. His bucket of soap has to be nearly empty by now, and still, Jack continues to clean like the Fairest Queen’s stepdaughter.

The housewarden clears his throat. “I appreciate you helping out, but you’ve been cleaning this exact hallway for three hours.”

Jack twists the towel he’s using over the bucket to squeeze the excess water out. “Gum is sticky stuff.” he mumbles simply.

“Bubblegum is strictly forbidden in Pomefiore. You know that.” Vil asserts sharply, and the empty hallway echoes in his disapproval. He can’t even remember what they use this hallway for—there is a total of one room here, and it’s reserved for a piano nobody knows how to play. When Vil was a freshman, not even he spent this much time mopping it down. “And even if it wasn’t, I don’t believe gum takes this long to scrape off the floor.”

“Mm.” Jack says in the most noncommittal tone possible, and just continues scrubbing the tile floor with the towel.

Vil knows Jack is stubborn—always has been, likely always be—but this is a bit ridiculous, even for him. It seems the only way to get anywhere is to grab the bull by the horns.

He clears his throat again. While Jack’s head doesn’t turn, his ears swivel in Vil’s direction. 

“Jack,” Vil starts, trying to keep his tone light, “I’m very glad you decided to visit, but it is a bit discourteous not to call first to let me know, don’t you think?”

Despite his efforts to keep his voice away from uncritical territory, Jack’s ears fold downwards once again and his shoulders slump. Finally, he puts the towel into the bucket, but he doesn’t look at Vil. He’s been avoiding looking at Vil the entire time he’s been here, and Vil’s not used to not being looked at. 

“I know it was rude of me to barge in like this, Vil, it’s just…” Jack growls in frustration and rubs the back of his head. “Agh, I don’t know how to say it.”

Vil shakes his head. “If I didn’t know you any better, I would assume you came here to run away.”

Jack’s fur noticeably stands on end.

Vil furrows his perfectly tweezed eyebrows, alarmed. “Jack, are you… avoiding something?”

Frankly, he can’t wrap his head around it. Jack is… Jack. He doesn’t avoid things just because he finds them unpleasant. That goes against practically everything Vil knows about him.

But when Jack looks back at him, and his piercing amber eyes land on Vil, he doesn’t see the Jack he’s known all his life. 

He doesn’t know what Jack sees when he looks at him, but for the smallest split second, Vil sees the plate shatter on the ground, feels the shard barely missing his skin, and hears Epel’s frantic shriek echoing around the dining hall.

His stomach drops, but he doesn’t let Jack catch onto how sick he feels all of the sudden.  Grace, dignity, restraint, he reminds himself. Stiff upper lip, and all that. Jack needs one of them to be the stable one, and for once, Vil knows it’s not going to be the little wolf pup from all those years ago.

“Well,” Vil sighs, pretending to change the subject, “if you insist on being here, you’re going to have to stay in Epel’s room. I can’t have questions about why a Savanaclaw student is wandering the dorm and obsessively cleaning our halls.”

At the mention of Epel’s name, Jack’s ears perk up. “Y-Yeah! Of course!” Upon realizing he sounds too excited, he coughs into his fist, and tries to school his voice into its usual stoicism. “Yeah, okay. I will.”

Even as Jack picks the bucket up and walks to the nearest utility closet, his tail is wagging. He’s clearly very happy, no matter what attempts he makes to hide it.

Vil wants to throw up. The only reason he doesn’t is because it would be horrible and unsightly, and Jack has truly spent too much time cleaning this floor.

(“Can I help you?”

“You. Come with me.”

Before Epel could even make a decision about whether to give into his instincts just this once and kick this man where the sun don’t shine, he heard someone stepping forward. “Hey,” Jack says, with an odd tightness in his voice, “If he’s going, we’re going, too.”

Epel looked up at Jack, and the Savanaclaw student looked… scared.nWhich was stupid, because he couldn’t remember the last time Jack was ever scared. But he was now, scared for Epel, and Epel hated it.

Even if he didn’t want to admit it to save face, Epel did want his friends to come with him—he didn't know what it was about this movie, but it was birthing butterflies in his stomach—but at the same time, he didn't want them to be afraid. It’s a stupid, naive, and thankless feeling, to want to protect them as much as he does. But after his moment with Deuce on the beach, screaming out into the ocean, it was a feeling that never quite left him.

And Jack?

Epel nodded his head at them. “I can handle it.” he said firmly, forcing the shakiness in his throat down where it can't exist.

And of course, being the good friends they are, they respected his wishes.

Epel let the man drag him off to who-knows-where.)

The first day the freshmen are allowed back onto school campus, Epel is right there at Spelldrive club. It’s one of the rare times when Leona is actually attending, and the lion does his damndest not to stare at the kid too much. He’s not here to be coddled—he’s here to play. Except he doesn’t actually end up doing much playing in the end, honestly. Maybe like 20 minutes, but that’s about it.

They’re flying in the air when it happens—it’s a passing comment, a bit of constructive criticism after a good pass. Leona swears on the very ground the kingdom of Sunset Savannah stands on that that’s all it was.

“Hey, Epel,” Leona says, and the Pomefiore student turns towards the lion at the sound of his name, “that was a nice throw, but try not to lean over so much when you do it. Don’t want you falling off your broom.”

It was like Epel had been carrying a knotted rope in his hands, twisting and turning it over and over to keep the knot in place for as long as possible, and nobody noticed. At least, not until Leona spoke, and the rope finally snapped.

And by that, Leona means Epel fell off his broom. Ironic.

“Epel, what was that?” Leona asks, even though he really, really doesn’t want to have another heart-to-heart right now. It’s only been three or so weeks since the one he had with Jack, and he's still emotionally drained from it.

But he takes one look at Epel's sky blue eyes, and he knows he can’t afford not to care this time.

Epel shrugs, his legs swaying back and forth on the bench he’s sitting on. “I don’t know.” he says, in the most noncommittal way possible.

Leona pinches the bridge of his nose. This is exactly why he didn’t like dealing with children… “Epel, you have the best grades in Flight out of all of the first-years. So mething obviously went wrong.”

The first-year undoes his ponytail. “It’s nothing. Can I get back on my broom now?”

The housewarden looks down at the bandage on his right hand that definitely hadn’t been there a month earlier, and then back up at him. “Epel, are you sure nothing’s going on you want to tell me about?”

Because you’re looking a lot like Jack does around me, he thinks grimly. It's a comparison he hates to make, but it's the only one he has. If Savanaclaw is the thunderstorm hanging over Jack's head, then something is being the rope around Epel's neck.

Then, a thought comes to him. He wants to call it an epiphany, but that’s not what it feels like.

It's more like… a memory. 

(Why didn't Jack leave a note? Leona could think of only one reason.)

“Hey Epel,” Leona says, and Epel flinches. The beastman gives him a second to realize Leona’s not about to criticize him again—and Leona won’t deny the reaction sort of concerns him—before continuing. “I just remembered Jack needs help with his potionology homework. I’m not gonna do it, so do you think you can come over to Savanaclaw for a bit and help a guy out?”

It’s technically not a lie. Jack was grumbling something under his breath about it when Leona walked by his room earlier, and Leona knows most Pomefiore students are pretty handy with potions, but he had been more than content to let Jack sort it out himself… until now.

Epel looks up at him suspiciously. “Really?”

Leona nods, face stoic. “Really.”

Epel looks at the field, up at the sky, down at his feet, and finally he says, “Okay.”

It’s such a simple thing, such a simple word, from the boy who usually looks up at him with nothing but pure admiration. But the simple agreement makes Leona feel as if he’s walked miles to get it.

If I have another conversation like this with a freshman, it’ll be too soon.

(“What even is this place?!” Yuu screamed.

“I think it’s for dumb little kids to fight in… I don’t know!” Ace screamed back, unable to hear his own voice over the sounds of little boys hitting each other with baseball bats, hockey sticks, and whatever else happened to be on the ground.

Yuu whined. “We need to get out of here before—”

Ace’s eyes widened before he shoved Yuu out of the way of an incoming rock.

When Ace came to, his head was lying on Yuu’s shoulder, and their tears were burning into his shirt.)

“Ace,” Yuu sighs, “how did this happen?”

Ace stretches his legs out, which had gone numb from sitting on the infirmary bed too long. “Ask Floyd, not me. He’s the one who decided to throw a basketball at my face for no reason.”

“One month, Ace,” they say, putting their textbook down onto Ace’s bedside table as they massage their temple, “one month without getting yourself in a stupid amount of danger. That’s all I ask.”

Ace whistles low. “I dunno if I can do that, Yuu. Can’t I just buy your dinner and we can call it even?”

“You and I both know you don’t have the money for that.”

“True.”

Yuu puts the end of their pencil into their mouth, before scribbling some more notes down in the margins of their notebook.

“Yuu?”

“Hm?”

“Do you mind if I sleep over at Ramshackle tonight?”

“Why?”

“Y’know.” he shifts around. “Just because.” Because I can't stand being in Heartslabyul any longer than I already have.

Yuu stops scribbling and looks up at him. Ace can’t describe how it feels when Yuu looks at him with that expression—it’s like they’re peering into his soul, seeing things not even he does. It’s what they always do, regardless of context. They just seem to know things about other people Ace doesn’t, and he has to admit, it’s a little scary to be around someone who can understand you, your motivations, how you think and what you think in a matter of moments, only to then dig into your soul in just the right way. Just enough to make it sting.

(“So I guess let’s all just get expelled then.”)

(“You can’t just use rules to do whatever you please!”)

(“Do you really think you can accomplish anything by yourself?”)

“Sure.” Yuu says, after what feels like hours. 

They go back to writing.

(“S-Sebek?! Sebek, what happened?!”

Sebek stumbled into Deuce’s arms and coughed some soot out of his lungs. Deuce gently lowered the both of them onto the dirt ground below. “Some idiots had the bright idea to set fire to one of the tents, and now—!”

Sebek coughed again.

“I—” he choked. “—can’t—” he wheezed. “—breathe—” Another cough.

“S-S-SEBEK!” Deuce started rapidly hitting Sebek in the back in an attempt to loosen the ash from his chest, completely panicked. “ Please please please please please please don’t die!”

“I’m—” Sebek took a deep breath. “I’m fine. You can stop— OW!”

Deuce winced. “Sorry, sorry!”

“Ugh…” Sebek shook his head. “You and your emotions…”

Even as he said this, he gathered Deuce into a hug and laid Deuce’s head down on his shoulder. The card soldier sniffed and gingerly put his arms around his waist, careful not to disturb whatever burns Sebek probably had on him. Deuce sighed and nuzzled Sebek’s neck—Sebek just held him even closer to him.

“This is getting out of hand…” Deuce mumbled miserably. “We— We need to get someone to get us out of here.”

Deuce drew back from the hug and wiped his eyes. “Sebek, do you still have your phone?”

He shook his head regrettably. “No. I lost it whilst I was escaping the inferno…” he growled, embarrassed.

Tears threatened Deuce’s eyes. “That’s… That’s too bad. I was thinking you could call Malleus to come and get us—”

“NO!” Sebek shrieked, flinching backwards as if the very notion was inconceivable.

“S-Sebek?! Did I say something wrong?!”

“I-I couldn’t possibly disturb the Young Master at a time like this; he’s studying for an Alchemy test on Monday!”

Deuce wished he could say he was surprised, but he wasn’t. A small part of him wanted to say “Who cares?”, but the other, bigger part of him knew Sebek did. And Deuce was his friend—if it bothered Sebek, then it bothered him, too.

“Okay, then. What about Lilia?”

Sebek huffed. “All of the third-years are taking the alchemy test. No matter how skilled Master Lilia is, he still needs to study.”

“Uh… Silver, then?”

“That idiot’s probably asleep,” Sebek groaned. “And even if he isn’t, he told me he’d be studying with Kalim all weekend for a history test next week. For someone as spacey as him, he’s going to need all the preparatory time he can get.”

“O…kay.” 

Deuce bit his bottom lip. He wasn’t going to say it out loud, but it seemed Sebek was more worried about Diasomnia failing a stupid test than he was about nearly being burned alive.)

“Spade, I require your assistance.”

Malleus had said this exact phrase no less than twenty times, and yet, the Heartslabyul student still freezes up whenever he does. It doesn’t matter they’re currently surrounded by at least a dozen other people in the busy hallway, and Malleus couldn’t try anything if he wanted to—Sebek would likely prefer running a sword through his chest than let anything happen to Spade. It’s a little disheartening to see one of Sebek’s dear friends still mildly frightened by him, but he supposes there’s not much he can do about it.

“Y-Yes?!” Spade blurts out as he whips his whole body around to face him.

Malleus rummages in his pocket and retrieves his Roaring Drago tamagotchi from his pocket. “I was in the Botanical Garden when the sprinkler system went off again. I was hoping you could perform the same trick you used to fix it the last time.”

Spade clears his throat and squares his shoulders, in a paltry attempt to look brave. “Okay. I actually have a screwdriver on me right now, so this should be fast.”

Malleus puts the device in Spade’s hand and watches him unscrew the back plating. Without another word, Malleus performs a gentle wind spell to dry off the inside. 

After a few moments, Spade nods, signaling him to stop. He turns on the device, and the pet inside starts chirping its little digital song. 

“I think that’s it.” Spade declares, and Malleus catches a hint of satisfaction in his voice. “Alright, sir, here’s your toy— I-I mean, your precious item back.”

“Much gratitude and many thanks, Spade,” Malleus says, smiling.

“You’re welcome,” he replies awkwardly. 

Malleus turns on his heel and is about to walk away when Deuce boldly grabs the end of his school uniform to halt him. “W-Wait, sir!”

Malleus looks down at him, tilting his head to the side curiously. Spade seems to realize that he’s impulsively fisting the fae’s shirt in his hand, and he yanks it away as if the fabric were toxic… but he doesn’t run. He stands his ground and stares up at him with a determined look superimposed onto his features.

“Do you want a reward this time, Spade?” he asks.

“No!” He shakes his head and hands back and forth, eyes wide and wild. “No, I…!”

Spade trails off, then lets out a long exhale. “Well… I guess that is what this is.” He shoves his hands behind his back and bows his head down. “...I-If you don’t mind.”

Spade dares to peer up at the Diasomnian prefect, and it reminds him of Sebek from a time he barely remembers anymore. He still finds it odd just how small Sebek can be, sometimes, and then, like a slap to the face, he’s reminded that all of Sebek’s little friends are even smaller.

“This wouldn’t happen to be about Sebek, would it?”

Spade hesitates for a second before nodding. “I was just wondering if I could come check on him. We don’t have any classes together, so I haven’t seen him very much, and…” He pauses. “S-Sorry, this is probably all sounding really dumb, m-maybe I should just—”

Malleus gently puts a hand on Spade’s head. His hair is soft. He wonders if Sebek lent Spade some of his shampoo. “Rise, Spade. You do me many a great services, and even if you didn’t, you do not need my permission to visit Diasomnia.”

The first-year straightens his back as his eyes light up— just like Sebek, Malleus thinks again. “T-Thank you, sir! Thank you very much!”

Malleus doesn’t know why, but the two of them linger in the hallway for another minute or so. Maybe Deuce knows Malleus has a request of his own, or maybe Malleus doesn’t feel right simply letting him walk off. Looking into his sapphire blue irises, Malleus is suddenly brought back to the first, last, and only time he hurt Sebek’s feelings, and watched the little 6-year-old hatchling crumple into a ball on the floor, teary-eyed and looking so dreadfully lost.

Spade doesn’t look sad, far from it, but Malleus knows right away something happened in the three weeks he was banned from coming to school. If he lets him go now without saying anything, would he be any better than a monarch who sends his soldiers to die in battle?

(— dramatic, a voice in his head says; one that suspiciously sounds like Lilia. It’s not dramatic to care about people, Malleus.)

“Spade,” he says, before he can think better of it, “would you like to ‘crash’, as it were, at Diasomnia?”

And just like that, Spade goes from the boy who stared the Prince of Briar Valley in the face and didn’t flinch like so many before, to being as small as Sebek was all those years ago. As small as he is now. Perhaps even smaller. 

And then Spade is bowing again—probably something Sebek taught him to do, now that he thinks about it.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you—” he rambles, as if Malleus has given him something much greater than an invitation.

(Sebek remembered the fairy tale of Pleasure Island from Lilia’s stories. It was a place where naughty little boys went to… well, be naughty, cause mischief and mayhem, and do whatever they liked with nobody to stop them. Every night and day passed just like the one before, but the only reason you would even know it was day or night was if you looked at the clocks every so often.

On night four, Sebek found Deuce lying in a puddle of his own blood.

“Deuce?!”

A responsive, muffled gurgle proved Deuce was most certainly still alive—Sebek would’ve razed every last thing to the ground if he hadn’t been—but he didn’t look to be in the best condition.

Sebek ran over to his side and turned him over so his head was lying on his lap.

Deuce didn’t look that bad, all things considered, but there was a fountain of blood emanating from his mouth, and it looked as if some of his back teeth had been knocked out.

“What happened?!”

Deuce coughed. “I… I think I made someone mad, and they…”

“Why didn’t you stop them?!” he fumed.

He didn’t need the answer to that. He already knew. It didn't make him any less frustrated, though.

“You can’t just let people hurt you because you don’t want to hit them back!” Sebek shouts, in direct contrast to the hand he was running through Deuce’s hair. 

Deuce puts one hand on his own and leans into his touch as much as physically possible. Even though he’s broken and bruised and bloody, he smiles just a little. “I know.”)

Sebek is little more than a shadow the first few weeks after he’s allowed back on campus.

He barely speaks to anyone, but ironically, his lack of noise only causes him to garner more attention from the other students. He doesn’t pay their whispers any mind, though—merely walks through the halls with his head down, lips set into a hard line. The one time Sebek was late to the Equestria Club, Riddle found him sitting in his classroom, with his head lying on the desk and buried in his arms.

It’s gotten to the point where Sebek will make any excuse he can not to go back to Diasomnia after the Equestria Club is finished packing up. He’s gained a habit of taking up everyone’s cleaning shifts just so he can stay at the stables a little bit longer. And when he has no other choice, Riddle doesn’t miss the way Silver has to insistently tug him along by the hand to force his feet into a forward motion.

Except for this one time.

Silver is out sick, and Riddle is the one dragging Sebek to Diasomnia. Or rather, Sebek willingly followed him after Riddle offered to accompany him. Perhaps he’s just more stubborn around Silver simply because he knows he can get away with it.

Riddle shakes his head. Diasomnia spoils him far too much.

“Alright,” Riddle says, “I think this is where we part ways. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sebek.”

“Of course,” Sebek says, softly. His eyes are fixed onto the Diasomnia mirror, and Riddle can see him take a deep breath, as if trying to screw up the last reserves of his courage. “I’ll… see you tomorrow.”

But he doesn’t leave. He stands there, staring at the mirror, like he’s waiting for something.

Riddle has no idea what to say, or even if he should say anything. He’s barely getting along with his own freshmen as it is. Keeping them inside, cut off from any contact with their friends, had been a atrocious decision—he can’t imagine what it must have been like for someone in Diasomnia, where everything is dark, gloomy, most of the people you know have to go to school for most of the day, and you don’t see a spot of sunshine for weeks on end. He imagines such a thing would drag on anyone, even for someone who loves Diasomnia as much as Sebek.

Riddle purses his lips.

Remember, Riddle, a gentle voice coos in the back of his head. You were in his position once.

Perhaps it’s not exact—Riddle doesn’t know Malleus all that well, but he knows enough to know he isn’t a tyrant —but the familiarity of it all crawls on his skin like a spider. Except unlike Trey and Che’nya all those years ago, Riddle has the wisdom and the opportunity to do something about it.

“Trey’s making chocolate chip cookies.” he blurts.

Sebek turns toward him with confusion written all over his face. “That’s… nice?”

Riddle pieces together the words he wants to use into coherent sentences in his brain before he speaks again. 

“Trey’s making chocolate chip cookies,” he repeats. “I… wanted to know if you would like to come over to have some.”

Sebek blinks, one eyebrow raised incredulously.

Riddle can sense him about to refuse, so he adds a strategically placed: “I’m sure Ace and Deuce would like to see you, as well. I know you don’t get a lot of opportunities in school.”

It works.

Sebek’s eyes widen slowly, his reptilian pupils narrowing. “Oh,” he says simply. For a few seconds he stands there, unblinking, unmoving, and thoughts run rampant through Riddle’s head as he wonders if he’d done something wrong.

Then, he coughs into his fist as a blush comes over his face. “W-Well, if Ace and Deuce truly want me to visit, it would be rude of me to refuse!”

It’s awkward. Incredibly so. But Riddle can’t help the relief that washes over him, as Sebek returns to normal for the first time since he’s returned to school.

“Alright,” he says gently, a smile tugging at his lips as he starts walking towards the mirror to Heartslabyul. “Come on then. While they’re still hot.”

Chapter Text

THU, 4:55 PM

SUNSHINE BOI uwu

Thx for lettin ortho stay over

No problem!

Ye

But listen

We gotta set up some rules

Huh?

Orthos has a digestion function

But dont let him eat anythin spicy

Okay.

Hes got a portable charging station

So make sure hes sleepin in a room with plenty of outlets

Alright,

And i really hate to do you like this

But if anything happens to him

And i mean ANYTHING

Sry for bein dramatic

But hes kinda all i got

Yk?

If i lose him i might as well delete my life fr

Please don’t joke about that.

But that sounds fair.

U think Im a bit too overprotective sometimes?

Well

In this case, I think it's completely justified.

But in other cases...

Kind of.

“Vil and I are takin’ a walk,” Leona says, dragging Vil upwards by the wrist and marching them both outside. 

It’s not a question. It’s not even a request. It’s just a statement of fact, and Leona says it with such a palpable air of authority, even a room full of housewardens in the middle of a meeting don’t try to stop him. Vil himself doesn't even try to protest—he just stands up, back straight and expression cold, and walks out of the Mirror Chamber with Leona. 

Vil wants to be indignant about the whole thing, but it’s also obvious that Leona is one wrong breath away from losing his cool, and the only reason the whole room hasn’t turned to sand yet is because Leona is holding onto his patience by the skin of his teeth.

Leona takes them to an empty hallway where they won’t be heard, and only once they both know there are no witnesses does the lion turn to look at him. “Jack’s staying at Pomefiore tonight.”

Vil narrows his eyes, feeling the venom in his stomach starting to bubble. “Yes. I trust that isn’t a problem. Unless you prefer to have your dorm members on leashes?”

“It ain’t me who keeps people on leashes.” he snarls.

“I do hope you’re not talking about who I think you’re talking about.”

Leona shakes his head, shoving his hands into his pocket. “Look, I could care less what Jack does over there. But whatever it is, just don’t make it worse for him.”

“Quite an assumption that I would.”

 “He’s been through enough. That’s all I’m sayin’.” 

Vil raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow. His serene face hides the scream building in his throat. “Because of you?”

Leona falters. “ Don’t, Schoenheit.”

The conversation dies, though the tension only seems to get thicker. The temperature of the hallway rises a few degrees, and Vil tosses his hair with a hand to get some of the sweat out. 

“I still haven’t forgiven you for what you did during the Spelldrive tournament, you know,” Vil says. “Some of my best players couldn’t walk for two weeks because of you.”

Leona, at the very least, has the conscience to look guilty. Though, Vil suspects it’s not about the players he indirectly caused to take a fatal tumble down the stairs. “I just wanted to win.”

I just wanted to win, he says. Like Vil hasn’t been repeating a variation of it in his head for the past 18 years.

He wanted to win so badly, and look where that’s got him.

Vil reaches up to his mouth and wipes away a bit of blot that seeps out of his mouth. “And I just want my childhood friend to not be so jumpy all the time, but I suppose we can’t all have what we want.”

Leona scrunches his nose in. “Vil, are you…?”

Vil coughs into his fist, cursing the black splatter that comes out. “I’m fine.”

The lion steps forward, hand outstretched. “Vil, did— did something happen?”

Shattering glass.

“No.” Vil chokes.

Frightened blue eyes.

“Vil, come on, we made a pact."

Footsteps rushing down the hall.

“I don’t wish to talk about this with you.”

(“It's another mean villain.”)

“Vil— Seven, here," Leona shoves a black cloth in Vil's face, and Vil accepts it with some reluctance. "do you need to go the infirmary?”

(“Why do I keep getting picked to play the bad guy? Do I really look that mean?”)

Vil shoves Leona's cloth into his chest. “Good day, Leona.”

Grace, dignity, restraint.

No matter what.

“Monsieur Dandelion,” Rook says, voice smooth. “Epel’s staying over at Savanaclaw tonight, as I understand it. Is that right?

Ruggie smiles at him and shrugs. “Well, ya took good care of Jackie-boy when he was with you glitzy peacocks. It’s only fair we look after Epel, right?”

Rook laughs, as if Ruggie meant it to be funny.

The other Octavinelle students are looking at them warily out of the corners of their eyes. They’re used to Ruggie being here, but Rook is right there alongside him, helping them wash the dishes. He’s not even on the payroll. He just showed up in the kitchen, and nobody was brave or stupid enough to try and kick him out. Rook can definitely be random, but he doesn’t do anything just because.

Ruggie has never worried that Rook might smother him in his sleep one day—Rook might be a creep, but he’s not psychotic. But right then, right there, that possibility becomes threateningly real.

Rook bends over a little. He starts speaking in a low voice—so low, only Ruggie’s beastman hearing could be capable of hearing his voice.

“I don’t like you, and I don’t trust you.” he whispers. An unpleasant feeling crawls up Ruggie’s spine, but Ruggie keeps the same slimy grin on his face all the same. “I know how Savanaclaw works. And I don’t want you pulling the same… trickery on Epel that you pull on Jack.”

Ruggie looks at him with a smile—all fangs, no sympathy. “Oh. So now you want to be the dutiful upperclassman who looks out for his freshies against a housewarden.”

“That’s right. I don’t care how late I’m doing this.” he replies stiffly. “Better than someone who never tries at all, don’t you think?”

It's almost a step too far. It's almost crossing a line. It's almost pressing on a wound so hard it gets infected. But still not quite.

“Shishishishi~!” he snickers. “Yeah, yeah, and they won’t find my body at the bottom of the ocean. I get it.”

Rook laughs, and they go back to washing the dishes.

They don’t talk about it again.

“Hey, Lils? You got a minute?”

Lilia turns around and smiles as he sees Cater speedily walking down the hall towards him, phone in hand. “Of course, Cater. What is it?”

Cater smiles so wide, Lilia can see the tiny fang in the back of his mouth. He’s always been so insecure about it, but he, for one, thinks it’s rather charming. “I heard Deucey’s sleepin’ over at Diasomnia! I was wondering if you could tell him to snap a couple pics of the dorm for me?”

Lilia chuckles. “This is for your new “aesthetics board”, I presume.”

“Eeyup!” Cater then takes on the expression of a conniving fox as he plays with the ends of his hair. “And, while he’s at it, maybe he could have a quick photo op with Malleus?”

That sends the fae veteran into a laughing fit. “Cater!”

Cater, surprisingly, doesn’t laugh with him. His smile falls, and he shoves his phone into his pocket. 

And the air around them shifts.

Lilia stops laughing. “...Cater?”

Suddenly, it’s like the war had never stopped all those years ago, as Cater stares at him like he’s a knight with a silver sword, facing down a fire-breathing dragon. He bends down, hands on his knees, as he traps Lilia in eye contact. 

Cater’s always been hiding underneath a facade—Lilia knows that. It usually takes so much to wipe all the layers away.

But… not this time.

“Seems simple, doesn’t it?” Cater mutters, his volume dangerously low for someone who loves attention. “But it’d be very hard to catch me, with my signature spell and all. I’d even say impossible.”

Lilia resists the urge to whip his pen out and blast Cater with a fire spell then and there, as the walls of Night Raven College turn into the darkness of the forest. He raises two wary hands and takes three steps back. “Cater…?”

“You all love to pretend Malleus is invincible.” The ginger muses. “But let’s be honest: if Heartslabyul hadn’t solved the case in time, we both know Malleus would’ve been trampled over back at the Spelldrive tournament.”

“And sure, let’s say he could’ve teleported away in time.” Cater jabs a finger into Lilia’s chest, and the fae can’t help but flinch. “Doesn’t change the fact that Diasomnia still owes me. And after what happened at Heartslabyul, you better give Deucey the time of his goddamn life.”

Cater languidly rises back to his full height. He sighs as he presses his hands against his spine in an effort to straighten himself out.

Funny. Lilia never really let himself think about how short he was until just now.

Then, like a light switch, the mask is back on. Cater smiles and winks at him, doing his signature peace-sign salute. “I think you #getthepicture! See you at club!”

And just like that, Cater walks away, as if he didn’t just give Lilia a heart attack.

“Rosehearts?”

Riddle almost lost his handle on his cellphone with the shock of Malleus calling him. He didn’t even know the Diasomnian housewarden owned a phone. “Malleus. Do you need something?”

“Sebek just told me he’s staying at Heartslabyul for the night.”

“Ah.” Riddle nods, even though there’s nobody around to see him. “Yes, that’s right. What about it?”

The silence over the other end of the phone is enough of an answer. 

It’s really a testament to how intimidating Malleus is that Riddle feels shivers going down his spine despite him not being here.

Where was this concern when Sebek was hiding out in the stalls to avoid going home? Riddle thinks, somewhat bitterly. Irrationally, he hopes Malleus can’t read the thoughts on his face over the phone, but he can’t bring himself to regret it.

“Understood.” Riddle says simply. “Is there anything else?”

“No."

Beep.

Well, good evening to you, too.

Chapter Text

You are Malleus Draconia; the crown prince of Briar Valley, proud gargoyle and grote enthusiast, and a student of Night Raven College. Though, frankly, none of that is important right now.

On the night before Sebek leaves for his “sleepover” at Ramshackle dorm—and a few days before one of the worst weeks of your life—Sebek comes knocking on your bedroom door. It’s not uncommon for him to check up on you this late, but it is rare on nights when he knows you have a test, or an exam, or something of that flavor on Monday.

Then again, Sebek’s been quite inconsiderate about that sort of thing for a while now. Must be the influence of those friends of his.

When you answer the door, you see him standing there, hands behind his back and head up. You notice very quickly that he’s sweating a little bit, and his pupils are constricted into slits.

He’s nervous.

“Greetings Sebek,” you say politely, “do you need something?”

“Good evening, Malleus. I was…” He tosses a look behind his shoulder warily. “...wondering if you knew where Lilia keeps his book on fae biology.”

You tilt your head, one eyebrow raised. “Why would you need a book like that?”

Sebek clears his throat. “I fear I may be experiencing some… changes. Physically speaking. In certain areas.”

…

You snort.

Sebek’s face flares up into a tomato-red blush, and tears start pricking at the corners of his eyes. He starts making that face he always does whenever he is trying desperately not to cry, and it almost makes you laugh.

You wave your hand, trying not to break out into laughter you won’t be able to stop. “He wants to know why I keep throwing up when I eat his cooking, so he keeps them on the top shelf in the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” he says stiffly, before pouting and turning heel and walking down the darkened hallway.

You chuckle and close the door.

You are Silver; a swordsman who suffers from random attacks of sleepiness. You don’t have a last name, but that doesn’t stop you from writing the ghost of it on the palm of your hand when you’re alone.

A few days after one of the worst weeks of your life, you finally decide that you and Sebek need to talk. 

You don’t want to do this in front of Malleus and Lilia, so you strategically wait until you and Sebek are sorting books and cleaning in the Diasomnia library alone. Sebek’s quiet as he dusts off the spines of the fairytale anthology section, but he’s been rather quiet in general ever since the start of his house arrest.

Well, barring the first night, when he politely excused himself after dinner to go outside.

(His blood-curdling scream shattered the sky and seared itself into your brain.)

You clear your throat. “Sebek?”

“Yes, Silver?” he replies, without turning to look at you.

“We need to talk.”

A beat of silence passes, before Sebek lets out an indignant scoff. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Sebek, this isn’t the time for this.”

“Time for what?”

You sigh. “The movie, Sebek. The one you still adamantly refuse to talk about.”

Sebek glares at you as he’s shelving a book on homunculus. “That’s because there’s nothing to say.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

“Why do you even care so much?! It’s in the past now—over and done with.”

“Just because it’s in the past doesn’t mean it’s not still happening.”

Sebek turns away with a huff. “Well, I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to!”

You sigh again, feeling a growing migraine in your temple. “If this is about your friends, you should know that they’re likely only getting hurt more the longer you keep this a secret.”

Sebek flinches at the word “friends”, and you can’t help but feel a little guilty. But luckily, he recovers in a timely fashion. He clears his throat and continues shelving books without responding.

You look at him wearily. “So you’re not going to tell me no matter what, is that it?”

Sebek pauses, book in hand and halfway onto the shelf. He turns to look at you with a surprisingly sober expression, and you’re suddenly reminded of when you picked up Sebek from detention a couple of months ago. According to the report, Ace had apparently fallen off of his broom, and in an overly reckless move, Sebek jumped after him.

Needless to say, you were not very happy with him when you went to pick him up at 6 PM.

(“What were you thinking?” you asked, feeling more frustrated than anything else.

Sebek looked over at you, his face perfectly serene, and said—)

“I’d die for them. You know that.”

You are Lilia Vanrouge; a 700-something-year-old war veteran, and the proud father of two. You’d say “three”, but the other one already has a father, and a good one, at that.

But right now, you’re trying to play doctor to that “other one”, despite the fact you have no idea what you’re doing.

“Hmmm…” you hum, leaning back and inspecting Sebek’s guilty expression. “So you simply woke up this morning, and now you can’t talk?”

Sebek’s shoulder slump. He shakes his head as he stares down at the floor of his bedroom.

Here’s the tricky thing about treating a half-human half-fae hybrid: you honestly never know until you know. Fae can’t get fevers, but they can contract some nonsensical illnesses that range from hiccuping bubbles to uncontrollable laughter. On the other hand, humans are susceptible to all kinds of sickness, but typical fae treatments tend not to work against their biology.

And with his mixed background, Sebek tends to be a wildcard in all departments.

That’s what makes Sebek’s sudden silence so difficult to diagnose.

It could be a simple case of a lost voice. But then again…

You’re shaken out of your thoughts at the sound of Sebek scribbling something down on the notepad you gave him. When he’s done, he rips out one of the sheets and hands it to you.

You frown, displeased. “Yes, you can go now. But I’ll have this figured out soon, I promise.”

Sebek nods, but the very action is tinged with resignation. Sebek gets up from your bed, and trudges to your door with heavy limbs, one hand subconsciously going to cover his mouth.

For a moment, you get the impression that Sebek already knows what’s wrong. He's just also deciding not to tell you.  

But that’s… ridiculous, isn’t it?

You are Sebek Zigvolt; above all else, you are someone who is proudly loyal to everyone you love.

…Most of the time. Now that you’re older, you’re starting to realize that total loyalty is a complete impossibility for you. It’s a bitter yet familiar pill to swallow—in order to keep one half of yourself, you have to betray the other.

It starts with a lie: a white lie of omission, done for a good cause, but a lie all the same.

We go back to the beginning, right after you walked away from Malleus’ room after a humiliating conversation. This conversation is not the lie—you had been going through some changes, but perhaps not the changes Malleus assumed you were.

Lilia’s book from the top shelf of the kitchen only confirmed your suspicions.

Then, “Pleasure Island”.

No—not “Pleasure Island” exactly, but what came after it.

The first thing Epel does when the tape finally ejects you all out is blurt out a harsh; “Nobody can find out about this.”

Yuu turns to him and tilts their head. Lets out a breathy “What?”

“Vil was in there,” Epel says, running a hand through his hair. When you all stare at him uncomprehendingly, he groans and says, “He can’t know anythin’ about what happened!"

You prop Ortho’s limp form on one of the benches in Mr Wolly’s closet. “Hmph. I’d think he’d deserve to know more than anyone—”

“NO!” Epel shouts, angry tears of frustration starting to prick at the corners of his eyes. “No, you don’t understand! This will break him!”

Jack puts a hesitant hand on Epel’s shoulder. “If he ever finds out what movie we watched, I think he’s going to figure it out, anyway. Vil’s pretty smart.”

Epel brushes his hand off and makes an angry noise from the back of his throat. “I know that. But if he ever finds out that he—” Epel makes a bunch of vague gestures with his hands, none of which are decipherable. “—you know, to me, he will literally jump off a building.”

Perhaps you don’t know what Epel’s talking about—Vil will be very concerned once he figures out the truth, but you don’t think he’s going to take it that far—but clearly, everyone else does as their eyes widen. You can actually see the puzzle pieces clicking in their brains as they all turn to each other.

“Oh.” Ace licks his lips, but the lackadaisical action is betrayed by his plate-wide eyes. “Well, crap.”

“I-It’s not like we can just not tell anyone…” Deuce says nervously, rubbing his hands together in an anxious fashion. “It’s game over if they find a way to bring out Jade or Jamil.”

“Epel’s right, though,” Jack grunts, rubbing the back of his head, “Vil’s always had a… complex about that kind of thing. If he finds out, breaking him is just the first thing that'll happen."

You really don’t know what they’re talking about at this point, but you can tell that they’re upset. And if there’s one thing you don’t like, it’s your friends being upset.

“If it makes you all feel better…” You flinch when everyone snaps their head towards you, and for a moment, you feel you just intruded on something personal. But still, you gulp and march on— “I know a way to ensure nobody ever finds out.”

“You do?” Yuu asks. Based on the inquisitive look in their eyes, you can tell they already know what you’re about to say—they’re just giving you the opening to say it. As expected from Malleus Draconia’s friend, you suppose.

“Fae have the power to inflict curses,” you say slowly, “and recently, I found out that I, too, have this magic flowing inside of me.”

Ace raises an eyebrow. “We’re… happy for you? But what does that have to do anything?”

Should you be doing this? Should you be saying this?

You look into Epel's pleading blue eyes.

And you do.

"I can conjure a curse that ensures none of us will be able to say a word of any of this," you explain, forcing your voice into a neutral tone, "except for Ortho, for obvious reasons. But I'm sure he'll keep it a secret."

Ortho breaks out into hysterically glitched laughter, and Jack puts a hand on his shoulder to get him to calm down. 

You all take that as a "yes".

Deuce looks a little hesitant. "A… curse? Won't someone be able to undo it?"

"They may alter it, perhaps, but no one can undo it completely."

"What about you?" Jack asks.

You huff. "Of course I can. But only if I have you all here at the same time again."

"We're together pretty much all the time," Epel remarks with a wobbly smile. "Won't be a problem."

"Are you sure, Sebek? You said you just got this power." Yuu, ever the concerned one, asks. "We don't need you to push yourself."

You feel your resolve harden into steel, as you narrow your eyes. "I'm sure."

"Okay!" Ace claps his hands together with a grin of fake bravado. "Just tell us what we need to do."

"Alright, first we all need to hold hands—"

"What."

"—then I'll recite the curse."

Everyone glances at each other, before they all awkwardly do as they're instructed. Jack's hand is clammy in yours, and Epel's is sort of rough, but you push through.

You clear your throat.

And you betray your family.

Chapter Text

Fixing yourself is hard.

Deuce knows this every time he looks in the mirror, and remembers every part of himself he ripped off to make a man his mother could be proud of. Yet he can still see the markings of the wrong template he started from; the bruises on his knuckles, the friction burns on his kneecaps, and the scar behind his left ear. And he's brought back to the shadowy headspace of cigarette smoke and gore, as he wonders to himself why he's trying so hard. It felt like getting surgery, sometimes—all the bad stuff was removed, but that didn't mean good stuff was ever going to grow in its place.

But he keeps going, even when he feels like getting a knife to carve his head open to see what's wrong with his brain. He keeps going, because his heart burns with the memory of his mother's tears, and it still burns. He keeps going, not for himself, but because he loves her too much to stop.

And that's his fatal flaw, isn't it?

There was nobody to blame but himself in the end. With love comes loyalty, and with loyalty comes some stupid decision-making. Like smashing your phone with a baseball bat. Or convincing all your friends to jump off a cliff to escape that island hellhole without wondering if it would actually work. Or agreeing to let one of your friends put a curse on you to keep yourself from talking too much and ruining everything, because that's apparently the only thing you know how to do.

But of course, everytime he tries to do something right, it turns out to be a mistake. It seems Deuce Spade is only good at making mistakes, no matter what he does.

Oh, that delinquent Spade, the old ladies of his neighborhood used to tut. I feel so bad for his poor mother, to have a child like that.

And Deuce, tragically, understood.

When Riddle announces the house arrest, with a gentle voice and his gloves cradling Deuce's face, he wants to be mad.

But Deuce takes one look into Riddle’s big gray eyes, and he realizes rather swiftly; he can’t.

Riddle Rosehearts does not show fear very easily. For someone so incredibly expressive, it was the one emotion that didn’t fit anywhere in his repertoire. Deuce supposes you don’t really need to be scared of anything, when you have the perfect spell for almost every situation.

But right here, right now, although he’s too dumb to read people’s feelings unless he catches them slumped over the kitchen table, crying to their mother on the phone, he knows the housewarden is scared.

Has been for one, long week. 

All because of Deuce’s stupid choices.

Why didn’t I pick up the phone? he thinks, trying to keep tears at bay.

(Why couldn’t I have been a better son? He thinks, crumbling down against the hallway wall, as he listens to his mom weep.)

Deuce wouldn’t say he cares a whole lot about the housewarden. He doesn’t feel the endless devotion that dragged Epel to the beach with him, or made him take bus, bike, and boat to reach Yuu in the dead of winter, or convinced him to overhaul his entire personality.

But he cares about Riddle enough. Enough to know it’s not just “care” he felt when he overheard the assholes who wanted to see Riddle cry. 

And Deuce knows Riddle cares about him and Ace, even if it’s not nearly as much, not enough not to lock them in a prison and throw away the key. But even if it’s only a fraction, a tiny sliver, it’s enough.

Enough to make a silent promise to himself, as he smooshes his face against the crook of Riddle’s neck.

I’ll be better, he thinks. I promise.

But can he really, though?

“This fucking sucks.” Ace mumbles crudely under his breath for the 1045th time today. The words are quiet, but in the emptiness of the Heartslabyul lounge, it comes out vividly all the same.

Deuce sighs roughly. In the midst of trying to will the alchemy problem on the table before him to make sense, Ace’s constant complaining is not appreciated. “Maybe it’d suck less if you stopped saying it sucked.”

“We missed a week of school without knowing.” Ace groans. “Why do we have to do so much makeup work? Don’t we deserve a bit of slack?”

“We missed a week of school, so now we have to make it up. That’s how it is, Ace.”

The redhead grumbles. “They could’ve at least let us do it with the others. Jack knows alchemy better than the both of us combined.”

At the mention of the “others”, Deuce flinches, causing his pencil to snap off the page, creating an ugly gray line in its wake.

Ace pauses as he watches Deuce frantically try to erase it. In a low voice, he says, “Sorry."

Deuce waves a hand at him dismissively. “It’s okay. Not your fault.”

Ace falls speechless. For a moment, the only sound Deuce can hear is the squeaking of his pencil eraser going back and forth, back and forth.

Ace speaks up again, voice low and resigned and chock-full of mock humor. “The ironic thing is we’d probably be able to call them if we hadn’t broken our phones.”

“Don’t remind me.:"

“I’m kinda glad, though. Means we don’t have to confront… everything that happened, y’know?”

Deuce is starting to wonder if letting Sebek put a curse on them was a good idea. It seemed like one at the time, if only to give Epel and Jack some piece of mind. Frankly, Deuce doesn’t care much for Vil, especially having to witness every ugly part of how he treats Epel, but he knows they definitely care.

And Deuce care about them. End of story.

Even when he really, really wishes he didn’t.

“What do you think we would be doing,” Ace starts, knocking him out of his reverie, “if they were here?”

Deuce looks down at his worksheet. “Doing alchemy, I guess.”

Ace huffs. “C’mon, dude, don’t be such a joykill. Think of something fun.”

“Fun?” Deuce twirls his pencil around. “I guess we would be going around Sage Island, then. Visiting that one arcade Ortho likes, or maybe just eating at a restaurant? And I guess if it were a really nice day, we’d be having a sleepover at Ramshackle.”

Deuce looks at Ace unsurely. “Or something.”

Ace’s face is blank, and Deuce wonders if he’s said something wrong.

Before he can apologize, though, Ace speaks up. “You know, that was supposed to make me feel better. But I think that actually made me feel even more like shit.”

Deuce’s mouth goes dry. He swallows hard and looks away. “I’m sorry.”

(I feel so bad for his poor mother, to have a child like that.)

As if he can read the thoughts on his face—and he probably can—Ace gently grabs Deuce’s shoulder and pulls him into a side hug. “‘S okay. Not your fault.”

Yuu visits them once. 

Only once.

Ace is taking a nap in their room, while Deuce has taken it upon himself to make ramen for him when he wakes up. With everyone gone, he and Ace have to make lunch by themselves. Trey usually preps a meal for them in the fridge, ready to be microwaved, but on the off-chance he forgets, Cater told him about his emergency supply of ramen underneath one of the kitchen tiles.

That’s when he hears a knock at the door. 

When he opens it, there stands Yuu, an uneasy smile on their face.

“Hi, Deuce.” they greet gently. “Can I come in?”

“Oh,” Deuce replies, somewhat dumbfounded Yuu is even here. “Y-Yeah, of course!”

Yuu's smile becomes a little wider as they walk inside. Deuce closes the door behind them, and a question forms in his mind. Several, actually.

Deuce turns to them. “You didn’t get put on house arrest, Yuu?”

They shake their head as they look around the insanely crimson lounge. “The rule doesn’t apply to housewardens, apparently.”

Oh. Duh. “Why aren’t you at school, then?”

“I was.” they say. Deuce waits, but they don’t elaborate, instead commenting, “It smells like ramen in here.”

Deuce picks at his nails. “So how is it?”

“Hm?”

“School.”

Yuu’s smile falters, and for a brief moment, Deuce sees the cracks in their gentle armor. Yuu’s very good at hiding their core underneath layers of metal, but unlike everybody else Deuce has ever known, that metal’s not made of pride and false bravado. 

And, when Yuu is around the other freshmen, their defenses tend to splinter.

At the beginning, Deuce mistook it as Yuu just not being as happy around them as they were otherwise. His mind would flash back to his mother’s strained smile when introducing him to people from work, and their eyebrows would pinch, and venom would line their words as they said, “I think my child knows him from school.”

Deuce knows better now, but it doesn’t make those feelings of doubt go away.

“It’s alright,” they say noncommittally—but then again, Yuu says that all the time.

Deuce locks his fingers together anxiously. “Did something happen?”

Yuu hastily puts their smile back together as they sit down on the couch. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Got into a little fight, that’s all.”

And at first, Deuce’s shoulders slump in relief. Getting into a fight isn’t great, but at Night Raven College, he’s learned to expect one at every corner. Learning to anticipate fights makes you better at avoiding them, and after so long, he likes to think he’s good at magic duels.

And right there, right as he thinks of the word “magic”, an awful epiphany strikes him.

Yuu is... magicless, aren’t they? And even with Grim by their side, they’re still not very powerful. Deuce never thought about it before because Yuu was always so, so strong against impossible odds. Overblot after overblot, they never ran away like others might. And when faced with your everyday bully, he and Ace were always there to protect them, but now…

Deuce isn’t smart—like, at all. He’s only ever gotten one 100 in his life, and that was in physical education back in elementary school. He can’t make obvious connections, and sometimes even phrases a teenager like him should know fly over his head.

But even he can put all the pieces together when they’re so neatly laid out before him.

“Yuu?” he drawls, trying (and failing) to keep the growing horror out of his voice. He curses himself for how much he feels like a little kid hiding under the covers from the shadows.

Yuu hums in acknowledgement and turns to look at him. Their phony smile finally collapses into a tired frown when they see the expression on his face. 

“It’s not a big deal.” they reassure.

“Not-a-big-deal” is Yuu’s reflex response when it comes to anything unpleasant.

My sink broke and I don’t have enough money to get it fixed.

It’s not a big deal.

Headmaster Crowley still hasn’t found me a way home and I think my parents assume I’m dead.

Not a big deal.

I was physically tortured for three days through no fault of my own, and you were just a bit too late to help me during another overblot.

No big fucking deal.

“It is a big deal, Yuu.”

Yuu purses their lips. “It’s fine.”

Deuce can’t stand seeing the sympathetic look in their eyes when they’re the one who is hurt, and he tears his own eyes away. “It’s not,” he says. “It’s not, I should’ve been there, I—”

“There’s nothing you could’ve done.” They shake their head. “We made this bed, and now we have to lie in it.”

“But you were hurt.”

“And I’ll get better. I always do.”

Deuce hears distant dripping echoing in his ears, but he ignores it as hate bubbles in his chest. “You shouldn’t have to.”

“It’s fine.” they insist. “Really. It’s fine.”

He looks up at them again. “Stop saying that.”

Drip.

“Deuce?”

“You— You needed me.” His voice was shattering by the second. “You needed me, and I couldn’t be there for you.”

Drip.

He wraps his arms around himself in a hug he desperately needs, but would never ask for. “I was so sure I was going to be better this year.”

Drip.

“I can be better. I know I can! Right?”

Drip, drip.

“I mess things up, I always mess things up.”

Drip, drip, drip.

He squeezes his eyes shut as they start to sting. “I’ll never be able to help Ace, or Epel, or Riddle or Trey or Cater or you—”

“Deuce,” Yuu says again, tender as ever, “like I said, it’s okay—”

“STOP SAYING THAT!”

CRASH!

A wave of power is pushed out from underneath his feet in a sweeping motion, like a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in. It’s overwhelming, all-consuming, and he hears the sound of several objects around the room shattering, cracking, breaking.

(Magic is possible without a pen. He used to show off all the time before he came to Night Raven College.

It's just that it's also a lot more uncontrollable.)

Deuce’s eyes snap back open.

He slowly removes his hands from his ears to reveal the horrid silence.

He looks around. The once perfectly-kept lounge is tarnished—there are cracks in the wall, the furniture has been ripped, and the mirror, windows, and clocks have devastating slits running through them.

And Yuu has been knocked onto their back on the ground. They’re staring up at him, a line of blood slicing against their cheek. 

But when gets him is their eyes. Their walls are metallic and diamond-hard, but their eyes are always so damn soft. Unlike when they were facing down Riddle, Leona, Azul, Vil— everyone, there's no fear in their eyes.

Only a sad, sad comprehension.

Deuce’s mouth falls open slightly and he feels sick, sick, sick.

(—his mother’s strained smile when introducing him to people from work, and their eyebrows would pinch, and venom would line their words as they said, “I think my child knows him from school”—)

He swallows. “I think— I think you should go now.”

Yuu hurriedly gets up and onto their feet, hand outstretched and ready to comfort him, and it breaks his heart all over again. “Deuce—”

“Please, Yuu.” he pleads, feeling broken down and drained. “Please.”

And Yuu, being the amazing friend they are, undeserving of this horrible school and all the horrible people in it, takes a step back. They hesitate, as if trying to find the right words to say, only to realize what Deuce already has: there aren’t any.

“Alright.” they say softly. Not angry, but agonizingly understanding as always. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll go.”

That’s not at all what Deuce wants, but it’s what Yuu needs. He doesn’t think he could live with himself, knowing he’s a hazard to his best friend’s life.

…Except he’s already a hazard to his best friend’s life, and he doesn’t even know why.

When the door closes behind Yuu with a click, he takes in a deep breath as he wipes his eyes free of any tears. He doesn't understand why he's so damn sensitive these days.

Luckily, they have duplicate replacements of just about everything in the storage closet, so when Riddle, Trey, Cater and the others return, the lounge looks just like it did when they left.

Even though Deuce is irreparably damaged.

Deuce really doesn’t mean to lash out at Ace when he tries to wake him up in the morning. 

He really, really doesn’t mean to.

Ace and Deuce have barely been making eye contact these past few days, staring down at their hands and feet instead of at each other. Deuce thinks it has something to do with what happened with Yuu, though he’s not sure how Ace would know about it when he was upstairs sleeping the whole time.

The sudden withdrawal in the warmth and emotion and overconfidence that normally radiates off of him has been putting Deuce off-kilter. He’s always half-expecting a good-natured punch to the shoulder that hits hard enough to hurt, or a laugh at his own joke that’s not funny, but nothing happens.

(Deuce wonders if this is how Trey felt about Riddle once.)

All Ace had done was try to wake her up when she overslept, grumbling to himself as he tried to shake him awake when calling his name hadn’t worked, but Deuce hasn’t had a moment of restful sleep ever since that day, and Ace is just a little too close, and—

Before Deuce is even fully awake, his eyes shoot open, and he flails his fist upwards as magic flares out from his knuckles. 

Ace just barely manages to dodge it, gunning straight towards the floor, hands covering his head in a vague attempt to shield himself. 

It’s a shorter wave than last time, so nothing is broken save for a few splinters on Deuce’s headboard and some tears in the wallpaper. But a ball of imminent fear clenches in his chest, and breathing is a lot more difficult than normal.

Ace clutches onto Deuce’s bedsheets and uses it as leverage to pull himself upwards. His eyes are wide with shock. 

“How…” Ace looks over at a particularly bad tear in the heart-patterned wallpaper. “How did you do that?”

Deuce gulps, and without another word, rises from the bed and walks to the bathroom, brushing past Ace without so much as a “hello”.

He doesn’t think he can take seeing so much trust in someone else’s eyes.

Trust is for people like Jack and Sebek, who are strong and steadfast and loyal. Trust is for people like Yuu and Ortho; kind, selfless, and so, so loving. Trust is for people like Epel and Ace, who are smart and know how to get what they want. Trust is for people who are deserving, and Deuce is—

Seven, he wishes they were here. They would know what to do. They would know what to say.

Or maybe they wouldn’t, but they’d make him feel better. Less like a delinquent, no-good fuck-up.

But then again, they wouldn’t be in this situation if he wasn’t.

Cater begins to see the problems during the second week of the house arrest. 

Ace can bluff his way out of confronting hard truths, mold himself into what people want to see, if only through gritted teeth. He can bury parts of himself people won’t like if he has to. He can create parts people might like. He can prune himself until he is what someone wants to see, he just chooses not to. Cater knows, because he does the exact same thing everyday.

Deuce, however, is more like Riddle. He doesn’t try to keep himself under lock and key, and honestly, Cater’s a bit envious of his innate ability to cope with the awful hand the world’s given him.

But then the cracks start showing.

The first few days of his house arrest, Deuce starts getting into the habit of going radio silent.

He’d hole himself up in his room until someone went to get him. Or Cater would spot him in the hallway and wave, and he would blankly stare at him before turning away. When Deuce needed their attention, he would lazily tap them on the shoulder, and once they turned towards him, he would fumble with his words before eventually giving up altogether.

Other times, the freshman would spring back into form. He’d bite the inside of his cheek as Riddle walked him through math problems, offer to help Trey cook even when he turned out to be exceptionally bad at it, and he’d shyly ask Cater about a meme he saw on the internet.

Once, after an impromptu shopping excursion with the Pop Music Club to help Lilia relax after the stress-inducing week they had, Cater got Deuce a potted blue rose he saw in a window shop. 

Cater handed it to him with a sharp smile, and Deuce bashfully accepted it with a smile of his own.

A few days later, Cater goes into his room to drag him to dinner, and he sees Deuce kneeling on the ground, head buried in his arms, body propped up on the windowsill. Sitting pretty right next to him is the potted rose.

Or… what’s left of it.

“Deuce?” Cater picks at the shriveled petals. “What happened?”

Deuce closes his eyes. “I haven’t watered in four days.”

His voice is so flat, so utterly devoid of its usual nervous bounce, it takes Cater a few seconds to truly process what he said.

“What—” Cater shakes his head vigorously. “Why? That’s, like, plant care 101!”

“It would’ve died even if I had watered it.”

“What?” the third-year repeats. “Why?”

He shrugs helplessly. “I’m me. That’s just what happens.”

Call Cater crazy, but he’s pretty sure this isn’t just about a flower.

“Hey, hey,” Cater says, instantly switching into “perfect upperclassman” mode. He admits he’s a little unused to it—it didn’t even exist a couple of months ago—but dammit, if he didn’t owe it to Deuce to at least try. “Who told you that?”

“Myself.” Deuce mumbles, and shit, if that isn’t a mood. But now’s not the time to spiral. 

Cater gets down onto his knees beside him. He leans his head over and brushes a hand through Deuce’s bangs. “You don’t ruin everything, Deucey. That couldn’t be more untrue if you tried.”

He sniffs. “Then why am I so—”

“Hey.” Cater says sternly, because he knows exactly where this is going. “Don’t even start. You’re strong, resilient, and absolutely gorgeous.”

Deuce slowly lifts his head up to look at Cater. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, and the sunlight outside reflects against the dried rivers on his face.

Cater slowly reaches out, and Deuce lets him cradle his face with a hand. “You’re an amazing person, you hear me? Amazing."

Better than me.

Deuce closes his eyes and breathes in deep, before squishing his face into Cater’s chest. The ginger is a little dumbfounded for a few moments, but he reminds himself this isn’t about him. He carefully wraps his arms around his little underclassman, and looks out the window.

“It’s okay,” he says, more to himself than anything else. “You’re okay.”

Cater’s not an idiot. He knows what it’s like to be shunned by the people who are supposed to have your back. His sisters have been getting better at that, at standing up to their mother for him and letting him hide in their rooms when she gets into the wine cellar again, but it doesn’t fully erase all the times they stood by and did nothing .

And when Ace and Deuce came back—fractured and weary but still present—Cater realized he’d fallen into the same trap. He was scared, and they paid the price.

Cater can only imagine how Deuce felt, being rejected by the same people he went in admiring, who were supposed to protect him.

Cater holds him a little closer, squeezing a choked sob from him.

Never again, he thinks.

Never, ever again.

“Hey, Andrew?” Trey inquires. “Have you seen Deuce? He was supposed to be moving the tables.”

Andrew waves to him with a smile, and continues setting up the plates and silverware without missing a beat. “Yeah, I’ve seen him. He’s on the roof.”

Trey adjusts his glasses. “The roof?”

Andrew turns to point to the top of the Heartslabyul dorm building. “Up there. See?”

Trey follows Andrew’s finger to see where he’s pointing, only to see a tiny figure dressed in blue, black, red, and white sitting on the roof’s ledge, legs dangling off the edge.

Trey thanks Andrew, before slowly making his way through the dorm and up the stairwell to the roof.

“Hey Ace,” the first-year says, without turning around.

The wind on the rooftop is so strong, Trey has to hold his hat in place to ensure it doesn’t fly off his head.

He chuckles. “I’m not Ace, Deuce.”

The correction gets him zero acknowledgement other than a slight ‘ahhh’ sound. “Hi Trey. How’s unbirthday-party-planning going?”

Trey slowly walks over to him. “I was wondering where you were, actually. I thought you were moving the tables.”

“I was supposed to be doing that, wasn’t I?” Deuce muses. “Sorry, Trey. I forgot.”

The half-hearted apology grates on Trey’s nerves. Not because it’s completely half-assed, but because it’s completely not-Deuce.

“Trey?” Deuce inquires.

“Yeah?"

“Will you miss me when I die?”

Trey's blood freezes. It’s such a random, off-the wall question, Trey lets go of his hat and lets it float away in the wind. But it’s also so horrifying, Trey can’t bring himself to be bothered by anything else around him, much less the wind.

Trey walks closer despite himself, until he’s standing right next to Deuce. “What?”

“When I die, will you be there?”

Trey gets down and sits right next to Deuce on the ledge, suddenly thankful he doesn’t have a fear of heights. “Deuce, is this about what happened while… you were gone?”

Deuce pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “I think.”

“You… think?”

“I don’t know.” Deuce chokes on an exhale. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

Trey puts a hand on Deuce’s shoulder, only for him to flinch away.

He frowns and fiddles with the rim of his glasses. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The spade looked down at everyone preparing the festivities below, watching them like they were little ants in a colony. 

Deuce sniffs. He opens his mouth slightly, looking like he’s about to say something, and Trey’s heart skips a hopeful beat. For a second, he thinks he may have just gotten through to him, after days of silently begging.

Deuce closes his eyes and inhales sharply…

…

…before slapping a hand over his mouth. 

Deuce’s eyes fly open in shock and panic. Trey watches as he lets out a muffled squeak, then tries to pry his hand off of his mouth with the other, with increasingly vocal noises of distress. Panicked, Trey puts both hands on Deuce’s shoulders, and that successfully gets Deuce to freeze in place.

Deuce tentatively turns toward him with those big, sapphire eyes. Trey puts a hand over his own mouth, then gradually lowers it. 

A beat passes before Deuce gently repeats the movement.

“Alright then.” Trey says cautiously. “Are we good?”

Deuce nods slowly. 

But then a hiccup escapes his throat, and— oh.

He’s crying.

“I tried really hard,” Deuce says, breath hitching, “ so hard to convince myself I was just being dramatic. Making a big deal out of nothing. Other people have been hurt so much more than me, so why can’t I just tell myself to stop feeling like this?”

“Deuce, I—”

“And now Yuu can’t come and see me, Ace won’t talk to me, my magic’s out of control, I burned myself trying to make lunch yesterday, and— and—!”

“Deuce,” Trey interrupts, as carefully as possible, “what is this all about?”

“Will you miss me when I die?” Deuce asks, a note of desperation in his words. “Will you think of me, at least? Please tell me you’ll think of me.”

Images of Deuce bleeding out on a grassy field pervade his mind like the reel of a horror film—the images he tried to keep at bay for a whole week straight, and they’re shooting through at the most inopportune moment.

Trey shakes his head free of the thoughts. “Deuce, what’s wrong?”

Deuce wraps his arms around himself, trembling in a way that has nothing to do with the frigid wind. 

Globs of black ink are torn away by the wind.

“I’m scared.” he hiccups.

(Trey feels like he’s slipping back into his second-year, back to when Riddle first came to Night Raven College. Like a fish out of water that can do nothing but flop around and hope someone else fixes the problem. Stuck playing card soldier to a dictatorial crimson-clad ruler, because being his friend doesn’t make you safe. It just makes him slightly less likely to collar you.

Powerless, hopeless Trey Clover who can’t even help his best friend. 

Can’t even help himself.

And he was stupid to think that would ever change.)

Riddle doesn’t actually see the overblot. Nobody does except for Ace.

Riddle doesn’t know the entire time he’s sitting at the library table, writing away at his potionology report, tapping his foot and checking the clock periodically, Deuce is crying rivers of ink, destroying everything in sight in indigo waves, while Ace is holding onto his own life by a thread.

So, Riddle doesn’t see the overblot.

All he sees is the aftermath.

After Professor Crewel unceremoniously calls in sick, Riddle is abruptly released from school an hour early. And thank the Seven, too.

The second he steps through the mirror, the first thing he processes is the (unfortunately familiar) scent of burning roses.

The main garden is completely wrecked, with flowers torn off trees, trees torn out of the ground, and the grass covered with ash, dust, and flickers of fire.   The main dorm building looks fine, save for a few minor cracks in the windows, but the bushes of the rose maze have been severed clean in half—not enough that Riddle can simply jump over them, but enough for him to see that their tops have been painted an ashy black.

A dark, dusty part of Riddle he thought he locked away for good pulls at his very soul, pulling him towards more of their… kin.

Riddle goes at lightning speeds, taking every little shortcut he knows, refusing to listen to his legs screaming at him to stop, and finally, finally, he makes it to a clearing near the center of the maze.

And there, lying near the remains of what used to be a stone fountain, is Ace cradling Deuce in his arms. Ace's dorm uniform is all-but ripped to shreds, and his hands are soot-stained, but he looks abnormally calm.

“Ace?” he utters, before he can stop himself, and it instantly feels like an invasion of privacy.

But Ace doesn’t hesitate in looking up at him—face half-neutral, half-scared, and all-exhausted.

(Secretly, a part of Riddle is impressed Ace managed to deal with an overblot with a sorry excuse for a magestone all by himself.)

“Housewarden,” Ace greets, contorting his face into a smile, “what’s up?”

“Do not ‘what’s up’ me, Trappola,” Riddle snaps. 

Ace’s smile falls. He turns back to Deuce, whispers something to him, before carefully laying his head down onto the soft grass below. If it weren’t for the small twitches of Deuce’s hands, Riddle might’ve assumed he was unconscious.

Ace gets up, pointlessly wipes off the ash and grime on his dorm uniform, and walks up to Riddle, expression grave.

Then, completely unexpectedly, Ace gets down onto his knees and starts prostrating before him.

(Rule #296: If you wish to ask for the impossible, then you must throw away your pride in the face of the Queen.)

Riddle takes a step back and splutters. “A-Ace, what is the meaning of—?!”

His forehead brushes against the grass, and his arms are outstretched, like a card soldier begging the Queen of Hearts for forgiveness for painting the roses red, because he accidentally planted white ones instead.

“Housewarden,” he repeats, voice shaky yet oh-so determined, “I know it’s only been three weeks, but I’d like— I beg you to remove Deuce’s house arrest.”

“W-Wait, Ace—” Riddle snaps his head towards the sound of Deuce’s voice, as the owner is now propped up onto his elbows, whatever tiredness he must’ve felt vanishing in that moment. “What about you?”

Ace turns toward him. “What about me,” he echoes mockingly. “In case you haven’t noticed, dude, you’re the one who almost got himself killed.”

That shuts him up, at least for the moment.

Riddle’s mouth gapes open. “Ace, you can’t—”

“I know I’m in no position to ask,” Ace starts up again, seamlessly switching back into being uncharacteristically submissive, as he looks up at Riddle with pleading red eyes, “but I pray you’ll have mercy. If you have any love in your heart for either of us, you’ll at least consider it.”

…

…

…

“So this is what you really think of me.” Riddle murmurs.

Ace blinks, clearly not having expected that response. “Um… what?”

Riddle gets down onto his knees, dry grass crunching beneath him, and draws Ace into a hug. Ace turns rigid as cardboard, spine ramrod straight and arms mannequin-like.

“Of course I love you,” Riddle claims, before he can think better of the implications, and Ace gets impossibly stiffer. It's perhaps an overexaggeration of the truth, as Ace's specific wording was likely dramatized for added effect, but it's still the honest truth. If not love, then care, and really, that's all it needs to be for Riddle's heart to want to tear itself out of his chest and seeing just how horribly things have gone.

(Isn't it funny? For the head of a dorm that prides itself on keeping to the very last detail to not be able to account for something that's happened seven times now?)

Riddle gently removes himself in short order, before standing up and walking towards Deuce. Deuce’s look of confusion morphs into one of slight horror, and Riddle’s heart feels like it’s going to collapse in on itself.

He kneels down and withdraws his pen from his coat pocket, before starting on a simple healing spell for Deuce’s injuries. Sensing what’s happening, Deuce swiftly goes to move himself into a sitting position, but Riddle holds out a hand to stop him.

Once he’s satisfied he’s done all he can do, Riddle puts his pen down before gathering Deuce into an embrace, balancing Deuce's chin on top of his shoulder.

Deuce is just as shell-shocked as Ace, but he gets over it much quicker, as he melts into Riddle's arms. Deuce wraps his arms around Riddle's thin frame, shaky and sturdy all at once, and digs the side of head against Riddle's neck. He makes a couple of indecipherable, half-formed words that Riddle quickly shushes. He runs a hand through Deuce's hair, and Deuce lets out a shuddering sigh as he holds him even closer, holding him as if he never wanted to let go.

Deuce eventually lifts his head up to sniffle and rub at the black residue still running down his cheeks. “I’m really, really, really sorry, house—”

“You don’t have to say you're sorry, Deuce,” Riddle says sincerely. “Really. You don’t ever have to say you're sorry.”

Riddle easily covers up the incident. He grows back the hedges of the rose maze with ease, and replants the trees. Whatever else was broken during Deuce's overblot was quickly replaced by the copies in the storage closet. As far as everybody else is concerned, the one broken window Riddle forgot to fix came from a wayward game of croquet.

Riddle calls the other housewardens, and without revealing the 'why' of it all, he manages to get house arrest lifted a week early.

I would like to say that nobody knows about the incident to this day.

But we both know that's a lie.

Chapter Text

(Vil slanted his eyes and said, “What did you do with your hair? It looks like a tornado ripped through it. If you’re trying for the messy hair look, I’ll be the first to say you should stop while you’re ahead.”

Vil walked off then, and Lyric was left with nothing but an empty feeling in his chest.)

Lyric isn’t friends with Epel Felmier, per se.

That’s an understatement; he knows next-to-nothing about him other than he’s Vil personal apprentice, and he’s a little stuck-up. He doesn’t talk to any of them, and when he does, he avoids eye contact like the plague, which makes Lyric want to roll his own. He doesn’t care how rich the Felmiers might be, or how expensive their carpets are—he can’t stand how snooty this one is.

Yes, they’re both freshmen, but that doesn’t quite lend itself nto acquaintanceship territory. If anything, freshmen in Pomefiore are dangerously competitive, vying to be declared the fairest of their grade.

The gap is made even larger by the simple fact that Epel is almost never seen without Vil around, and… well, having your appearance criticized day in and day out by your housewarden gets exhausting after a while.

As a result, Lyric doesn’t think much when Epel disappears for a full week. He assumes it’s just a stunt for attention. He’s not going to pretend anybody in this dorm is above it.

When he finally hears of his return, Lyric will think it’s a pity they don’t know each other better. Especially when Lyric desperately wants to know what perfume Epel is using to get that lovely apple smell.

Ironic, then, that when Lyric finally does get to talk to Epel, beauty is the absolute last thing on his mind.

(Back in September, Vil brought them all to a river to practice their balance, by going across a rickety old log overlaying a river. Lyric did alright for the first few steps, but he quickly slipped off and fell into the rushing water below.

Vil looked down at him from above and said something to the effect of, “My, if you like it so much down there, you can get all your water here if you’d like.”

Lyric felt his bottom lip wobbling, and a familiar itching at the back of his eyes. 

Vil must’ve noticed, because he scoffed and said, “Oh, don’t cry. A Pomefiore student gets up and improves, not wastes time with idle frivolity.”

Whatever function in his brain was telling him to sob, Lyric quickly told it to shut up.)

Everyday after ballet practice, Vil orders them to stand in a line so he can inspect them. Something about the way their shoulders move, or the amount of sweat on their forehead, or a million other things Lyric always does wrong, without fail.

It’s tiring. Always trying to improve yet always missing a step on the way.

Twenty minutes in, Vil is about fifteen people away from Lyric, chastising a red-head for being too heavy with his steps, when Lyric’s attention is swiftly ripped away by the sound of a starkly sharp inhale.

Lyric looks over to his left to see Epel curled into himself, shivering violently.

Vil’s feet click closer to them as he moves on to the next person, and Epel grits his teeth and starts furiously scratching at his hands so hard, the skin turns red. His eyes are wild, crazy, like a Savanaclaw student about to lose his temper, tears forming as he stares daggers into the ground.

The housewarden gets a little bit closer, and Epel’s hands fly over his mouth to muffle a retching noise. It successfully quiets the squeaks and pained grumbles that come afterwards, if nothing else.

Lyric nervously looks back at Vil, who is currently trying to force a ravenette to stand straighter.

One thought shoots through Lyric’s head, like a screaming arrow:

Epel’s going to get caught.

Lyric curses quietly as he roughly shakes Epel by the shoulder. “What are you doing?!” he whispers harshly. “Vil is right there!”

Epel’s eyes fly open instantly and his breath catches in his throat. Their eyes meet. Epel’s gaze is filled with fear and confusion and self-loathing and… and something else.

Taken aback, but still starkly aware of Vil trying to comb out someone’s hair with his fingers only a few feet away, Lyric pushes down a hard lump in his throat. 

Epel’s eyes relax and his shoulders slump. His hands shakily unclasp from each other—one falls limply by his side, while the other is raised over his chest, as if he’s trying to find where his heart is.

Within a few moments, Epel finally settles enough to look over at Lyric, who stares Epel in the eyes—vibrant green meeting striking blue—as he makes a show of straightening himself up and putting on a stoic mask. 

Don’t let him see it, he mouths.

When Vil gets to Lyric, they’re both standing upright, hands behind their back, normal in every way.

Vil clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he remarks, “You need to work on looking less like a frightened deer in headlights when you dance.”

“Yes sir,” Lyric responds.

That’s the end of that.

(“He sounds mean.” Lyric’s four-year-old sister says over the phone. Lyric can imagine her sticking her tongue out in displeasure, and he wonders why he insists on calling her every night if she’s going to be a baby about every little thing he tells her.

Lyric rolls his eyes. “Yes, but everything he does, he does for a reason.”

“He yells at you.” she points out frankly. “What’s the reason for that?”

“To help me remember.”

“Do you want Mama and Papa to yell at you more, then?”

“No, of course not.”

A beat of silence. 

“I don’t understand.”)

For as soft and meek as Epel is, Lyric thought it impressive he could take the worst Vil had to throw at him with nothing more than a quiet sigh and some light mumbling. 

That’s clearly not the case anymore. Now, even the thought of Vil criticizing him seems to send Epel into a panic so complete, it paralyzes him.

For the next week of Epel’s newly-instated house arrest, Lyric starts making every excuse in the book to get Epel out of the room before Vil’s examination—Can you go get my water bottle? You should grab a towel, you’re sweating buckets. I think the macaroni I left in the microwave caught on fire, can you help me put it out?

It starts bleeding into the outside, too. Everyone has chores to do in Pomefiore, and every week, Vil writes up a list and pins it to the bulletin board in the lounge. They’re all graded at the end of the week about how well they do their task. Without much ground to stand on, everybody has begrudgingly accepted this, and the grueling labor that comes as a consequence.

…Except Lyric has found himself completely altering it to give Epel less risky assignments, shoving the harder tasks onto other people. Assignments that will, hopefully, lead to less encounters with Vil. When you’re someone who’s used to being paid to touch up other people’s Magicam posts, and doctoring documents to get you plastic surgeries you’re not legally old enough for, forging someone’s handwriting is a piece of cake.

He wouldn’t call it “care”. But he knows what it’s like to be a fresh new face in Pomefiore, blissfully unaware of how every second will now be spent on pursuing a perfection you’ll never reach, or how you’ll grasp for any scrap of self-esteem you can gather when the upperclassmen just love to point out how incompetent you are.

That’s as good an excuse as any, he thinks.

(An excerpt from Lyric’s student bio:

Lyric’s favorite food are cheeseburgers, embarrassed as he is to admit it. His grandfather used to make them before he passed, and now eating them helps remind him of his crinkling smile. But those were rapidly cut out of his diet the second the Dark Mirror flashed violet. He hasn’t seen one in over eight months.

Lyric’s hobby is wrestling. He abhors the way it ruins his hair, and he can never put on makeup beforehand, but something about the thrill of the fight is electrifying to him—but no self-respecting Pomefiore student would say something like that. And with how busy Vil keeps them with their constant etiquette lessons, ballet practice, yoga exercises, he wouldn’t have time even if he did find someone willing to wrestle him.

And his main pet peeve is makeup. He hates putting it on. It’s too complicated, he had an allergic reaction the first time he tried to put on blush, and it’s too high-maintenance. 

Hates, hates, hates, hates.

Lyric truly does love being in Pomefiore, he does. The elegance and glamor is truly a sight to behold, and being pushed to become better everyday by the people around him is an enlightening experience.

But sometimes, Lyric just wants to stand on the rooftop and scream his guts out, or at least whatever’s squirming around in his guts.

Even though he can’t.

Because he’s a Pomefiore student, and that’s horribly unbecoming.)

“Why?”

Just because Lyric’s found himself doing utterly suicidal things for him doesn’t mean he actually has to talk to Epel. Frankly, it’s only been a few seconds, and it’s already proving to be taxing.

 “ ‘Why’ what?”

Epel curls his lip frustratedly. “Why are you doing this?”

Lyric attempts a haughty hair flip. He hopes it looks as fluid as it did in his head. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Don’t be fancy with me!” Epel suddenly shouts, eyes flaring. “Nobody ‘round here does anythin’ without a reason, and ya know it jus’ as well as ah do!”

Lyric blinks, as the sudden torrent of whatever that was is thrown in his face. He has no time to unpack what he just said, because all he can think is…

“What happened to your voice?” he breathes out into the empty hallway.

Epel recoils, as if Lyric had punched him in the stomach. His eyes stretch themselves as far as they’ll go, pupils dilating into pinpricks. All of the color in his already snow-pale complexion drains from his face, and his breathing devolves into now-familiar stuttering rhythm.

Cautiously, Lyric waves a hand in front of Epel’s face. “Epel?”

“I…” Epel shakes his head, before slamming his hand into the side of it with such force, it compels him to stagger backwards. “I have to go. I… I have ballet lessons.”

“Epel, wait—!”

Epel gulps. “Sorry, Lyric,” he mumbles, before turning sharply on his heel and sprinting down the hall so fast, the rug below him folds up like window blinds.

And Lyric is left standing there, dumbfounded.

“...We don’t have ballet practice today.”

(Over seven months at Night Raven College, and Lyric has yet to make a single friend.

He'd like to say he doesn't know why, but that would be a lie. He knows why.

It doesn't matter how lithe his figure is or how flexible he gets, he'll never be able to pull off a dress as effortlessly as the housewarden can. No matter how hard he pours over dusty potionology textbooks, he'll always be second in class to Vil's favorite poison apple who gets the privilege of private lessons. Even if he is the son of one of the richest families in the world, it's not enough to catch the attention of the natural blonde who fucking models for a living. He's not asking for much—just a little bit of attention that isn't just useless pieces of advice given under the guise of an insult.

And bluntly speaking, Lyric doesn't have too many interests outside of alcohol (which most of his peers can't drink), beauty (hard to talk beauty with other dorms, or even to his own), and other things he'd rather die than say out loud.

Lyric doesn't have any friends, and it's honestly just as well.)

On Thursday, before dinner, Lyric is mentally preparing himself for another unsatisfying meal. He knows it’s necessary to keep their lithe figures, but honestly, a snack every once in a while wouldn’t kill anyone.

Then, he feels a light tap on his shoulder.

When he turns around, he sees Epel standing there with a blank face and a picnic basket in his hand. Lyric doesn’t even get to let out a “What do you want” before Epel unceremoniously shoves the basket into his chest.

“Wh—”

“See you at dinner.” Epel says as he brushes past.

Rude, Lyric thinks, miffed.

He looks down at the basket, and notices a sticky note on top of it that says: “Got this from Rook. Don’t tell Vil.”

Still a bit annoyed but now a bit curious too, he flips open one of the flaps, and the first thing that hits him is the smell of grilled meat.

(Lyric watched as Epel ran out the door, a trail of blood droplets behind him.

Lyric hastily stood up, and before anybody could stop him, he ran after him with the sort of speed he didn’t know he had. He doesn’t even know where Epel’s bedroom is, but his legs are going faster than his mind can, so he winds up going down hallways and turning corners with no clear direction, hoping to find something, anything.

And he does, when he finds Epel sitting in the hallway nobody ever goes down, knees drawn up to his face.

The rest of it, admittedly, is a bit of a blur. What he can remember with any sincerity is giving Epel his handkerchief and watching him wipe his face with it.

“I’m not a baby,” he grumbles, voice still raw with adrenaline. “You don’t need to take care of me.”

“Since when have I ever had an obligation to anybody?” Lyric scoffs. The very thought of it is utterly ridiculous; he's lied, cheated, and stole to make his way to the top. Doing something out of the goodness of his heart is a laughable notion. “

Epel glares at him. "Then why?"

Lyric glares right back. "I do it because I want to, idiot.”)

It comes in the mail on a Saturday.

Epel might be able to do it in front of Vil, but if it’s just the other freshmen, his tracks become less… hidden. 

He circles pictures in magazines with a thick black marker. Spends a preposterous amount of time sitting outside and staring up at the sky. Once, and only once, Lyric caught him smiling to himself as he stared out the window while mopping the hallway. 

Lyric doesn’t quite expect the portrait that’s being painted here, especially not from someone as frail-looking as Epel, but who is he to judge?

Being the son of an alcoholic retail empire in the Shaftlands makes it smooth to get whatever one wants if one knows who to ask, and you better believe he’s going to abuse the system for all it’s worth. After a few days, Lyric has the best broom on the market in his hands.

Its head is made out of the silky petals of the sundrop flower all the way in the Queendom of Roses, the handle was carved from only the sturdiest trees of the Shaftlands, and it was all put together by Father’s most trusted craftsman from Sunset Savannah.

…Lyric would probably be more impressed if he was a Spelldrive person himself.

He tries to leave it in Epel’s bedroom discreetly, but it doesn’t work out as well as he’d hoped.

“Lyric?” Epel’s incredulous voice pierces the once-silent room. “What are you doing here? What is… that?”

Dammit.

Lyric turns around sharply with a sigh. “Well, I was going to leave this in your room and make my way to my online flute lessons, but this sort of ruins all my plans, doesn’t it?”

The point is moot—Lyric knows the second he turns around that Epel’s not paying attention. His eyes are wide as he stares down at the broom in Lyric’s hand, and all of a sudden, Lyric feels awfully insecure.

Lyric huffs and drops the broom onto Epel’s bed. “Don’t think too hard about it."

Head held high to hide his uncertainty, Lyric briskly walks past Epel’s shell-shocked figure.

(The last time Lyric can remember being happy was back in September, when he and a Savanaclaw student got trapped in a game of cat and mouse. Lyric made a back-handed remark on his appearance, and now here they were, blazing trails through the hallways. 

It’s a great distraction for the both of them, who don’t really want to go back to their dorms right away for reasons that are wildly different, and yet far too similar: Savanaclaw hasn’t been a nice place to been in after the disaster of the Spelldrive tournament, and returning to Pomefiore is akin to returning to monochrome photographs.

It’s an understood thing between the two of them, even if they haven’t stopped to speak about it. It, perhaps, wouldn’t be a good look to see them running around Night Raven College, laughing like madmen and indulging in such a childish flight of fancy. 

But right now, to the two of them, none of it matters. As they laugh and continue to run despite the exhaustion that’s beginning to set in, the only thing that concerns them is which one of them will be the first to trip, give up, or surrender.

It’s April now.

Lyric hasn’t seen a drop of color in months.)

When Epel said he had something to show him, this wasn’t what Lyric had in mind.

“EPEL GET ME OFF OF THIS DEATH MACHINE RIGHT NOW!” Lyric screeched hysterically, as the broom whizzed past the trees around Pomefiore with such force, some of the leaves were sheared clean off.

Epel, for his part, is laughing maniacally at Lyric’s misery. “What?! Ya don’t like the weather up here?!”

Lyric seethes as best he can through the tears welling up in his eyes through sheer force of power. “I HATE YOU!”

Epel cackles, as they soar through the sky like a drunken bird.

And although Lyric is several meters in the air—one slip-up away from certain death, filled with fear and terror, with his stomach churning and threatening to expel what he ate for breakfast—he feels something warm, something comforting.

Like a splatter of paint against a blank canvas.

Chapter Text

Welcome home, me—and Grim, too, if you’re there. If you forgot to stop by Sam’s to buy groceries, Epel gave you some apples. They’re in the fridge on the bottom shelf.

Grim, wipe your paws on the doormat when you come in, please. I got it for a reason. And to any of you ghosts, stop stealing random junk you find unless you know for a fact that nobody owns it. Last evening, my friends and I had to tussle with a bunch of cat beastmen you apparently stole from. 

That—and cleaning Grim’s muddy paw prints off the floor—kind of put a damper on our night.

By the time you realize I’ve slipped this note into your back pocket, you’ll already be getting ready to shower, so there’s no point coming back to return this.

Dude, I love you. I do. But we have to do something about your casual racism. None of that can be good for your self-esteem.

Stop cheating at Uno. Please. I did not teach you how to play this game just so you could abuse it.

Hey, do you mind if I borrow your potionology textbook? I can’t afford one right now, and I know Vil gave you the most up-to-date one available on the market (I know you don’t see it, but that guy loves to spoil you).

Just leave it on my doorstep when you’re ready and the ghosts will pick it up. Chances are I’ll still be busy working my shift at “The Glass Slipper”.

Buy eggs.

Forget the last note. You just got fired; can’t afford eggs. Like it’s my fault my shower broke…

Forget the last note. Sebek just bought you enough food to last you and Grim more than three weeks, even if you overindulge. And I thought Malleus overdid it with his sugar daddy habits.

(Apparently being a dentist in Briar Valley pays really well… Possible career option, if I can convince Trey to take me under his wing.)

Yes, you can iron my clothes for me, Ortho.

Sorry, Ortho. Literally cannot talk right now. Grim fell asleep in the forest without telling me he was even leaving, the little bastard, so I screamed my voice out trying to look for him.

Anyway, how was your day?

Dear Professor Crewel,

I hope you’re doing well this week! I know Wednesdays tend to bog you down, so I hope you’re not too exhausted.

I was wondering if I could have an extension on my alchemy assignment. I wouldn’t normally ask for something like this, but Crowley got himself into debt with a shady crowd, and you know whose job it is to bail him out.

Sorry I can’t do this in person, but I have to be quick if I don’t want to have to bring Crowley back in a box.

Praying for my own personal safety,

Yuu

Good show yesterday, Ortho! You’re really improving. I could tell Vil was impressed, too.

The stars calm me. They look exactly like the stars back home—I can even see the North Star some nights. They probably have another name for it in Twisted Wonderland, though.

Dad used to tell me that if I was ever lost, I should follow the North Star. He said it would bring me back home.

If you ever feel sad, go look up at it. 

In a way, it can bring you back home.

You can’t run from them forever.

I’m not saying don’t be scared of them. You have every right to be. But you should at least find some middle ground. I’m sick of getting calls from Coach Vargas telling me to drag your sorry tail off the track because you refuse to go back to Savanaclaw.

Sebek, when I said that you might need a bit of distance from Diasomnia, I didn’t mean leave the dorm and start camping out on school grounds. It’s making me miserable, it’s making the other students miserable, it’s making the teachers miserable, and it’s making Diasomnia miserable.

(Seriously. I visited yesterday, and it has not stopped raining. Malleus has been giving me the puppy eyes.)

I think you’re kind of missing the point of going back. It’s not that Malleus needs you to be there or anything. He just wants you there.

What do you mean “it’s one in the same”?

It’s really not.

Sebek, you

nosey librarian saw us passin notes whoops gotta run

Dear Professor Trein,

I hope this note finds you well. I was wondering if I could sleep in your office tonight? I lost my key and Grim can’t unlock the door from the inside with those paws of his.

Don’t worry; I’m not allergic to cat hair.

Salutations,

Yuu

Dear Professor Vargas,

I hope you’re having a good day. I have a bit of a favor to ask, if you don’t mind.

Could Jack and I sleep in your office tonight? And before you ask: Heartslabyul has zero room, we wouldn’t be allowed into Pomefiore without taking a thorough shower first, Diasomnia would want to pick a fight with him, the Ignihyde students would probably just chase us back out of fear, and I don’t have a second bed.

But Jack doesn’t really wanna go back to Savanaclaw right now (for a reason he’s not telling me), and I don’t want him to be alone. I also know you have the biggest office out of anybody on campus, so it’s the only one that could possibly fit two freshmen in it.

No pressure, but… it would mean the world to me.

Best wishes,

Yuu

Deuce, for the love of God, stop picking fights with your upperclassmen! Ace and I can handle a bit of name-calling, y’know, but we can’t handle carrying the people you beat up all the way to the infirmary!

You’ve seemed kind of down lately.

Do you want to talk about it? I can be over to Savanaclaw before curfew.

I thought about what you said yesterday. You should probably talk to them about it, but I know that’s probably easier said than done.

If you want, we can call a sleepover next weekend. But not, like, a regular one. It’ll last all weekend, from Friday to Sunday. Just you, us, and whatever we want to do for three days. You won’t have to go back to Savanaclaw for two whole nights. We can figure out a game plan between then and now.

Does that sound good?

Dear Professor Trein,

You’re probably busy right now, so I figured I’d slide a letter under your door.

I just wanted to let you know that I’m taking some recreational time this weekend. If Headmage Crowley inquires about me, just tell him I’m busy with my new job at “Timothy’s Palace”.

See you soon,

Yuu

Hey, I know you don’t want to talk about this in front of the others, so I thought I’d just slip you a note.

Are you sure you’re okay? I’ve never seen your hands shake so much.

What do you mean you didn’t tell Leona you were leaving?

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T TELL RUGGIE

Okay, just because he probably knew where you were going anyway doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have not said anything.

We’ll talk about this later.

Help

I’m worried. We first-years haven’t learned how to do curses yet. And Malleus told me fae aren’t actually supposed to start doing serious ones until they’re, what, eighteen? Something about it being too dangerous in the hands of a child—I don’t know.

I hope you know what you’re doing.

Stay safe, alright?

Clean your blood off the floor in the morning. Hydrogen peroxide is in its usual spot.

I love you, Deuce, no matter what happens. Remember that.

I’m sorry I can’t visit, Epel. Something happened with Deuce and You’re better off without me.

Jack, staying inside of Savanaclaw even when Leona let you leave is not the solution to your problems. This is just self-flagellation. 

You weren’t the reason we got hurt everything happened. Don’t you dare think that for a second.

Thanks for the meal, Kalim! Sorry, I couldn't stay long. Got a new job.

Sorry, Ortho. I have to go. I can’t keep taking advantage of Kalim like this. I have to face my problems head on if I want to get anywhere.

I hope you’ll understand.

Love you, too, Ortho. I love you so much it hurts.

I know this is a bit insensitive, but can you go visit Epel for me? If he's anything like Deuce, he’s probably not doing so well. It'll get you out of the dorm, at least.

Professor Crewel, could I sleep in your office tonight?

I want to tell you, Professor. I really, really do, but I can’t. Even just the thought of writing it out for you to read makes me want to

I'm sorry. Please don’t kick me out. I don’t want to be alone anymore.

I don't feel like writing anymore. Sorry.

Ace told me what happened.

I am so, so, so sorry, Deuce. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you when you needed me.

Ace, by the time you’re reading this, I’m probably already at work at my new job. If you want breakfast but are too lazy to go to the cafeteria (I know you, don’t lie to me), I think I have some leftover apples in the fridge on the bottom shelf.

Listen, I didn’t know how else to bring this up, but there’s something I’ve been concerned about.

You’ve been keeping this curse up for more than three weeks at this point, but you just got that power recently. The curse hasn’t backfired yet, but it might. That scares me.

I know faes have greater magic reserves than the rest of us, but you’re not quite a full-on fae, dude. I don’t know if it works differently with you or not. Professor Trein says that regular humans can’t conjure up curses unless it’s part of their signature spell. Even just trying can lead to anything from losing your voice to making you laugh uncontrollably and even to making things combust by accident.

I’m… worried.

I could be totally wrong about this and worrying about nothing, but I can’t help it. If you notice anything weird happening with you, please tell Malleus. Preferably Malleus—he could probably do something about it unlike me

Epel,

Sorry about the letter. I wish I could tell you in person, but I'm just so tired right now and my phone's not charged. I figured you'd want to hear this from somebody like me and not somebody else, though.

By the time this letter gets to you (which will hopefully be soon—the speed of Sage Island's mail service is honestly incredibly), you'll probably already have come back from Spelldrive Club, only to realize that Pomefiore is weirdly quiet. And people will be refusing to tell you—very specifically you—anything. And also by the time this letter gets to you, you'll probably have noticed that someone's trying to keep you distracted all evening for some reason.

(His name's Lyric, in case you forgot to ask. When I asked if someone wanted to do it, he was weirdly insistent on it. Nice guy.)

I was having a hard time thinking about what I should write, but I guess I should just be blunt about it. I know you appreciate it more when people are just upfront with you.

Vil asked me earlier today—as in, the day that I'm writing this—if I could come over for a bit. He said that it was about you. So I went over to Pomefiore for a bit.

And I don't know why or how, but I guess I must've said something weird, because Vil started coughing up blot.

A lot of it.

I panicked, got Rook, and he told me to call the ambulance and Idia. I called the Maxbay hospital, then I called Idia, and they both came at around the same time, so we all just got into the ambulance. I know Idia doesn't do well in public spaces at all, but he really came into clutch today. Tell Ortho I said "thanks" when you see him next, by the way.

Idia got his blot levels down to some more acceptable levels, and the doctors decided to keep him in one of the rooms until they knew for sure he wasn't going to start hacking up his lungs again. By that point, it was getting really late, and now Rook, Idia, and I are staying in a cheap motel right next to the hospital, and I'm fighting to keep awake long enough to write this.

Which brings me to the "why" of it all.

I know you and Vil have been having a ton of problems lately for pretty obvious reasons, but trust me when I say that Vil's been really worried about you. Vil and Rook both, actually.

I'm not trying to force you to do anything you don't want to do—I know you have issues with seeing Vil right now, and that's totally valid. But if you could just write him a letter, I think it'd make his entire day.

Please don't feel guilty over this. It's honestly nobody's fault at the end of the day.

As per usual, drink some water, eat a well-balanced meal, and get some rest. Vil wouldn't want you to lose sleep over this. I wouldn't want you to lose sleep over this.

I love you.

Buy eggs.