Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Marius threw his hand onto the phone screen to turn off the alarm. He opened his eyes.

Why was he so tired ? He went to sleep early enough, that much he could remember. He’d learned by now that he had to keep as good a sleeping schedule as possible for the long run.

The fingers on his right hand spasmed painfully.

Marius grunted, sitting up to rub at his right hand, when his left grabbed onto– well, nothing. He rubbed at his eyes to wake himself up a bit, then looked down.

Right. His… His right hand was gone. The spasms were phantom pain. This was also the most likely reason for why he hadn’t slept well.

He rolled his eyes. Of course . And right as his workload was growing, what with every class in full swing now and demanding assignments.

Take a breath. Close your eyes. Massage the stump.

Marius knew he had proper documentation for extended deadlines because of his situation, but he always felt guilty on the rare occasions when he did actually end up using the extension. Besides, it always meant more work for later, and “more work for later” was really only a codeword for “disaster”. If he had to write three papers now, what good would having to write five later, instead, do?

Don’t think about having to write five papers at the same time. Don’t think about it. You’re fine. It’s only three, and you’re almost done with the first, with plenty of time till the deadline. Calm down. You are okay.

When was this first paper due, again? Next Tuesday, right? That meant he had… what, five days still left? Five days to finish up the conclusion, polish the introduction, and check the whole paper through. That was enough time.

That would have been enough time, had he not also have had to start writing the main body for the second paper and make a draft from the sources he’d managed to compile so far for the third paper if he wanted to stay on top of everything.

He groaned and slumped back into a lying position.

Five days… It was Thursday, right? Right.

… It was Thursday ! He had morning lessons on Thursdays!

“Shit!” he breathed as he rolled out of bed, suddenly alert.

He was breathing hard, standing in front of his bed, his non-existent hand still hurting. Where was his phone? What was the time ?!

He scrambled for his nightstand, picking up his phone, turning it around –

Oh. Only three minutes have passed since his first alarm had gone off.

The sudden relief made him almost a bit dizzy, and he sat back down onto the bed, staring at the screen, daring it to switch to a completely different time.

But no. It was still very early.

… Right, he had to take his meds.

When the clock on the phone went up only to the next minute and not the next hour, Marius carefully set the device back down. He pushed his fingers through his hair, yawning.

Yeah, he really hadn’t slept well.

He sighed, then looked at the pill and glass of water that he’d already prepared the night before. Opening the drawer, he eyed the box of pain meds that was in there, popped out a pill. He took both medications, then layed back down.

Staring at the ceiling, there was just that one last itch he needed to scratch.

He checked his phone again, just to make sure that the alarm was on in a little under half an hour, turned around in bed and tried to go back to sleep for a bit longer.

“You could’ve stayed home, you know?” Raph asked him as they were speed walking to his building.

The pain meds had worked surprisingly well, and Marius had apparently ended up sleeping through his alarm because of the sudden absence of phantom pain. Now he was late to class. And of course he was still tired.

He sighed, “We have an exam next week, Raph. This is the last lesson before then, and I have some questions for the professor.”

“Couldn’t you have just written an email?” Ivy asked.

“Emails make me anxious,” Marius admitted. “I can never get the tone of the text quite right, and there’s the back-and-forth when I don’t ask the question clearly enough on the first try, and the waiting when I don’t know if the message got through or not is just hell , and–”

“ Okay , okay,” Raph interrupted, lifting her hands in a placating position, face somewhat worried. “Deep breath.”

Was he going off? He was breathing a bit fast, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t because of the walking tempo.

“Sorry,” he said, looking at the ground. “When I don’t sleep well, my anxiety also gets worse. Which in turn also makes me not sleep well. Bit of a cycle, really,” he ended with an awkward chuckle.

“You can hang out with the two of us in the library if you want?” Ivy offered. “Raphaella still has an hour before her labs start and I really mostly just work whenever I want, so we can keep you company until the end of the lesson, and you can catch the professor then.”

Marius gave it a moment’s thought. Then he shook his head, “No thanks. I’d probably just spend the whole time thinking whether or not we finished the class on time or earlier .”

“Fair enough,” Raph reluctantly nodded as the trio stopped in front of the auditorium entrance. “If you need us, though, you know where to find us.”

She hugged him, and Ivy gave him an encouraging “you can get through this” smile. Then the two of them were off, and Marius was left in front of the door, alone.

He took a deep breath, pushed the door open.

The professor was mid-lecture, the auditorium relatively full. Marius decided to just sit in the back row instead of walking down to the front like he would have, had he come at the right time.

He really hoped he wasn’t disturbing the person sitting in front of him.

Marius awkwardly took off his backpack while still sitting down, and automatically put it onto the empty seat beside him. He undid the clasp as quietly as possible, then pulled out his notebook and rattling pencil case.

The person in front of him moved then, and Marius froze. But instead of turning to shush him, the person just continued listening to the lesson, and… doodling?

Marius’ eyes were drawn to the few patches that were now visible on the laptop bag on the desk next to the person. A little smiling sun, peeking from behind the ocean, a waving non-binary flag, and a little frog with a party hat.

Adorable. Also, familiar?

Not really paying attention, Marius opened the pencil case a bit too quickly, and one of the pens rolled over the edge of the desk and fell onto the floor a row lower. The person sitting in front of Marius looked down at the sound.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck please don’t be mad pleeease

They bent over, picked up the pen, and offered it back to Marius with a small smile.

“I– er, thanks,” Marius stumbled. “And–and sorry.”

“No problem,” they answered, smiling properly to reassure him.

They were so goddamn pretty. Was Marius staring? He was probably staring. Shiiit .

“E-erm, hi,” he said, hoping that he came across as friendly and not overly pushy. “I’m Marius. I… don’t think I’ve seen you around much until just now?”

“Lyf,” they introduced themself. “And, that would probably be because I only moved here this year. Also, I usually sit back here, and you’re usually way down there ,” they chuckled.

“You–... You know where I sit?” Marius asked, incredulous.

This beautiful person – Lyf, their name was Lyf – knew that Marius existed before he knew that they did?

Lyf grimaced, “Sorry, that… probably came off a bit creepy. I’m, erm. I promise I’m not creepy?”

Marius huffed out a small laugh.

“I study art here,” Lyf explained, looking down at the doodles all over their notes. “I tend to try and memorise small details that I like, and, well, I… Your neckerchiefs are really fun.”

Marius looked down at the piece of clothing. He’d chosen the black one with golden skull outlines today.

“Thanks,” he said, unable to look back up at Lyf, as he was certain that he was completely red in the face.

He just hoped the dim lighting of the back of the auditorium hid the tint.

“... And that will be all for today,” the professor said. “We’ll be finishing up a bit early. If anyone has any questions about next week’s exam, I’ll be down here for the next couple of minutes – after that, you know what my office hours are.”

“Yes, and they’re impossible ,” Marius mumbled, quickly packing up everything. “Oh, erm, Lyf?”

“Hm?”

“Could I maybe ask you for today’s notes in a bit? I really have to talk to the professor first, though.”

“Oh, er, sure,” Lyf nodded.

“Thank you!” Marius called out, already running down the stairs.

There was already a small group forming around the professor, making Marius sigh in frustration. He pulled his phone out, and scrolled through the list of his own questions, making a last call about any of them being too stupid to ask, keeping one ear out in case anyone else already asked any of his own questions.

Marius had a little rule about throwing out at most one third of the questions during any check-through, though. Raph had convinced him to do that, because he apparently tended to “throw out a lot of good questions”. He’d take her word for it, even if he felt like he should just skip out on any questions at the moment.

It took fifteen minutes for him to get his turn, and almost half of his questions were already posed by his coursemates, but in the end, he got all the answers he was looking for. Looking back up towards the back wall of the auditorium, he noticed that Lyf wasn’t there anymore.

Marius sighed. Of course it had just been wishful thinking that they would wait that long.

He slowly made his way back up the stairs, just to check if he’d forgotten to pack anything up in his haste. He’d hate to start the day off with losing any of his belongings, especially when he still had three more classes to go before he could go home.

When he got to the desk he’d sat at, he found a small piece of paper, looking like it was torn out of a notebook. An edge, maybe?

Had to run, text me :) - Lyf

Under the note, there was a number.

Chapter Text

What was he supposed to write as an introduction for this paper?!

Marius stared, exasperated, at the document on his laptop. He looked down at his notebooks. Maybe he had something helpful written there. Flipping through the pages, he realised there was one very specific title missing.

Oh, right. He’d brought the wrong notebook to that class. A notebook which he’d left at home, so he could focus on the project at hand.

… Great.

Marius thought about just packing things up and going back home – he’d been on campus for quite some time now, working on this paper.

He’d only finished the last paper the day before (a day before the due date), and then realised that this paper was in fact due not till Thursday, but till Wednesday – tomorrow. His housemates had all been in good spirits in the morning and he’d been too distracted by some of their activities, so he’d come to campus to work on the project.

It’s too nice a day for me to be working on this , he thought, looking up at the blue sky, the sun making the chilly autumn day quite bearable. It was what had drawn him to work outside instead of in the library in the first place.

He picked his phone up from the table he was sat at to check when the next subway would leave, when he remembered that he’d taken a picture of the exact material he was missing for a classmate. Maybe… maybe , if he hadn’t deleted the pictures yet, he might actually have the material with him!

He unlocked the phone, checked the notifications for anything urgent in the house group chat, then went straight to the gallery.

A sunset view from the kitchen window, Jonny napping on the couch with drawn-on moustaches and Theo posing next to him, Lyf’s Classic History notes, Raph making an unholy concoction of milk and orange juice in the kitchen,  Ashes’ latest burnt wood project –

Lyf.

It had been five days since he’d last seen them, four days since he’d last talked to them over text.

Okay, talk was an overstatement. He’d asked them for the course material, and they’d sent it to him, and that was… mostly it? They’d asked him to ignore the margin doodles, and Marius had complimented their neat handwriting, and then the conversation had mostly died out. He hadn’t talked to them since, hadn’t seen them around campus, either.

Although that last part may have been just him being distracted by his essays and his friends.

There was a tap on his shoulder. Marius blinked in surprise, locked his phone, and looked up, taking out his left earbud.

Fuck. Don’t embarrass yourself now.

“Hi,” Lyf smiled. “Got a moment?”

“H-hi, Lyf,” he said, likely with a smile of his own.

(He wasn’t actually completely sure if he was smiling or doing something else entirely. His face was feeling weird again.)

And, oh . Marius didn’t realise last week just how tall Lyf was. They looked to be almost a head taller than Marius if his sense of height was any bit of useful while seated.

“Er, yeah. Sure, I have some time. What is it?”

He didn’t have any ideas about what Lyf might want to talk to him about, but he wasn’t going to turn them down just because of an assignment . He was in a bit of a time crunch, but, well… Lyf .

“Well, erm,” Lyf started, “I hope this isn’t too weird, but… Could I take a picture of you?”

Marius tried to figure out what Lyf had really said, but his brain kept coming back to take a picture of you .

“I’m sorry, what?”

“It’s okay if you say no,” Lyf backtracked, awkwardly looking away. “I just– we got an assignment about, erm, sketching poses? And this whole scene – with you here under the tree and everything – looked pretty cool, but I thought I should probably ask you first if you were okay with me taking a photo?”

Marius was fairly certain he was still staring at Lyf. He’d actually heard the question correctly?

“Like I said, it’s fine if you don’t want to–”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Marius finally got his mouth to cooperate. “You can– you can take the picture.”

“Yeah?” the smile returned to Lyf’s face and they looked back at Marius.

Marius chuckled, “Yeah, go ahead.”

Lyf beamed, “Thanks!”

They took a few steps backwards, pulling their phone out.

“Now, if you could just, erm, do what you were doing earlier?”

Marius turned to face forward again, slumping a bit on the bench (when had he sat up straight?), setting his left elbow on the table and resting his chin over his fist.

“Like this?”

Lyf nodded, “Yeah, I think it was something like that. Just try to relax and pretend you’re still studying.”

“Relax and study, huh?” Marius chuckled. “Not sure how those two go together, but…”

“Oh, you know what I mean,” Lyf laughed, lowering their phone as Marius was still setting up.

Marius looked back down at his books and laptop. There was no shutter sound or the audio a phone makes when a picture gets taken. He couldn’t hear Lyf moving, either. Had he just imagined this whole interaction?

He was tempted to turn, just to check, but if Lyf was indeed there, then that would ruin the shot.

He looked at the paper that he had up on his laptop. His eyes landed on a typo in the main body of the text. He leaned the slightest bit closer and tipped his head so he could figure out what he had been trying to write, and–

Click

“That was perfect!” Lyf called out. “Thanks!”

Marius turned to his side. He hadn’t made it up. Lyf was actually there and talking to him , and they were the one who’d come up to him and not the other way around!

And now they were coming back closer to the table.

“You’ve got a pretty cosy spot here,” they said as they put their phone away. “D’you mind sharing?”

“The table?” Marius asked.

And they wanted to stay for a little while?!

“There’s space, yeah. I can make some more, if you need it?”

“Oh, no, thanks, this should be enough,” Lyf said as they sat down opposite Marius. “I just need space for my sketchbook and pencil case.”

Marius chanced a quick glance at his right hand, just to make sure the sleeve was still properly reaching over the end of the woolen glove (it was), before a colourful box caught his eyes.

The pencil case Lyf pulled out from a compartment of their laptop bag seemed to have an original forest print with painted-on… Pokémon?

Adorable.

Marius tilted his head in question, “Don’t artists usually have, like, giant stations with their supplies?”

“I mean, some do?” Lyf opened the sketchbook to a fresh page. “It’s not a prerequisite for having fun with art, though. Or for doing class assignments, apparently. I’ve got a little travel pack here with me, because I’m usually not in the mood for lugging a lot of things around.”

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense,” Marius nodded, still not turning to his laptop.

“I hope I’m not being a bother?” Lyf asked with a cautious smile. “Please don’t feel pressured into having to talk to me just because I’m sitting here. You can work on your own thing, whatever that is, and we can talk when you take a break or something?”

“Oh, er, right,” Marius chuckled.

He looked back at his laptop screen. They were right, he still had a lot of things to do, even if he’d much rather spend his time talking to Lyf.

The yellow highlighted INTRODUCTION was starting to look more than a little judgemental, though, sitting above empty lines, and the highlighted CONCLUSION would probably look quite the same, were it not hiding a few pages lower, under the (thankfully) mostly-finished main content.

Why wasn’t this essay going as smoothly as the last one?!

Reading through the paper one more time (and not thinking only about Lyf) and checking the class notes that were still in his phone gallery, he tried to write down the main points of what the essay was about into one of his “doodle” notebooks, but everything seemed to be overlapping in his brain, and Marius wasn’t really sure when that had started.

He looked at the time.

“Oh, damn ,” he said out loud, making Lyf look up, “I’ve been at it for almost four hours straight .” He pulled his left palm down over his face. “That would explain why my brain is feeling like mush,” he mumbled.

“Take a break, then, maybe?” Lyf suggested, looking both amused and somewhat concerned at the same time.

Marius completely slumped over the table, arms lying crossed between his face and his notebooks.

“Yeah. Break time.”

He could hear Lyf’s chuckle. Then gentle scratching of a pencil against paper, soft rustling of paper and clothes every few seconds as Lyf’s hand changed angles.

Wait, was… was Lyf maybe drawing him right now?

Marius turned his head so he could overtly check with one eye, but from his position he couldn’t really see what was on the paper. It… wasn’t really too big a bother, though.

Lyf looked so utterly beautiful then.

… Maybe Marius should ask to take a picture of his own.

Okay, no. That would be kinda weird. They hadn’t known each other for long enough for him to just randomly ask for one, and Marius didn’t have the convenient art background that Lyf did.

Maybe he could switch to an arts course and use that as an excu– nope. No. That was worse. And creepy as hell.

“You okay there?” Lyf asked with a chuckle as they caught his gaze.

“Yeah, er,” Marius stumbled, sitting back up, trying to think of something to say. “Just… just watching how masterfully you’re wielding the pencil.”

And, well, among other things, he was . Lyf’s control of the utensil was amazingly good.

“ Masterfully wielding the… it’s a pencil ,” Lyf laughed, stopping his work to look at Marius.

“It is a weapon of mass construction,” Marius sat back up and shook his head dramatically, “and I, apparently, am not worthy of its blessings.”

Lyf was mostly keeping their mouth in a straight line, but Marius didn’t miss the little huffs of laughter they were letting out. Were they holding back a laugh?

Their brows were high in expectation, and Marius decided to deliver by turning around one of his notebooks.

“Example A,” he said, pointing at his handwriting.

He’d only become left-handed less than three years ago, and it showed.

“I mean,” Lyf started, clearly trying not to say anything too bad, “I’ve seen worse?”

Marius finally burst into laughter, which made Lyf drop their faux composure as well. Their good time was interrupted by a familiar chime, once from Marius’ phone, and once from Lyf’s.

“Oh no,” Lyf whispered, clearly not very happy to hear the sound.

“What do you mean, oh no ?” Marius asked, concerned. “That was just the college mail.”

“Yeah, and we both got it at the same time,” Lyf nodded. “Which is either a coincidence or this is about the Classic History exam.”

“You think the results are already out ?”

It really was an “oh, no” if that was the case.

“We only had the exam yesterday ,” Marius pointed out, trying to calm both himself and Lyf (mostly himself, apparently, since Lyf seemed more surprised than actually worried about the results), “and there’s a really large number of people taking this course. The assistant would be crazy to have the results ready this quickly.”

Lyf shrugged, “Maybe this was just a coincidence, then.”

They then unlocked their phone on the table, and opened up the notification. As the mail app was opening, Marius leaned over the table, trying to also see what was on the screen, and Lyf leaned in closer as well. (Oh. They were really close now.) Lyf even turned the phone a bit so Marius could see the screen more easily.

Marius wasn’t ready for the results. He was sure they wouldn’t be out for at least another few days or so –

“Yup,” Lyf nodded. “It’s the results.”

The world blurred in front of Marius, as his brain buzzed. His chest felt warm, and there was no air for him to breathe– and then the wave washed over, and Marius started preparing for the next one.

“Okay, let’s see…” Lyf said, taking a deep breath.

Fuck. Marius wasn’t alone here. There was someone else right fucking there . And not just “someone”, it was Lyf of all people. He had to keep it together. He couldn’t let them see him like this.

He took a deep breath, just like Lyf had. It didn’t help much with the buzzing in his brain, but he could feel air in his lungs, and the world was a tiny bit less blurry.

“And?” he pushed out, hoping something smile-adjacent was on his face.

“You did really well,” Lyf smiled up at him.

Their gaze lingered on him, and Marius knew he’d fucked up. He didn’t have it together. It didn’t matter if he did really well on the exam, if his brain was apparently stuck in a fight-or-flight state over some goddamn early exam results , and all of that right in front of Lyf .

“What about you?” Marius asked, trying to get Lyf’s attention off him.

Lyf took another moment looking at Marius, before apparently deciding to humor him, their eyes very suddenly moving to their phone screen.

They scrolled over the sheet, “Not all that well, really…”

“Erm, I’m… sorry?” Marius tried, not really knowing what else to say.

“No, it’s fine,” Lyf shrugged with a sigh. “I’ve got a passing grade, so I’m not really complaining, I just kind of… thought I did better? Doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, though. It’s just Classic History – as in, not from my branch of arts studies.”

“That’s a really positive way of looking at it,” Marius complimented them.

Maybe he should take a lesson out of their book. This wasn’t one of Marius’ required courses, either.

“Yeah? Er, thanks,” Lyf said, glancing up at him again. After a moment they scrolled back to Marius’ score, “Still, erm, you did really well. Mind sharing some study tips?”

What? Was Lyf asking him for help?

“I–” Marius started, his tongue twisting, “s-sure.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Lyf said. “I really wouldn’t want to be too big of a bother.”

“No, no,” Marius shook his head. “It’s fine, really. I just… wasn’t expecting it, I guess.”

“Oh,” Lyf chuckled. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine ,” Marius told them, one more time (he needed them to know that he liked them being there with him). “I’ve got an essay to finish before tomorrow evening, though, so I’m kind of swamped till then? Would Thursday afternoon work for you?”

Lyf blinked.

Oh shit. Oh fuck . They probably meant sometime closer to the actual exam!

“Thursday afternoon works for me, yeah,” they nodded with a small smile, though.

Marius gave a smile of his own, “Thursday it is, then.”

A moment of silence passed between them, as apparently neither of them knew what to say next.

Lyf looked away first, down at their sketchbook.

“Sounds like you’re in a bit of a rush with the essay,” they pointed out. “Are you sure it’s fine if I do my classwork here?”

It was more than fine. Marius hoped they could stay for a long while. He still had time to polish his essay the next day, so maybe they could talk a bit when he’s written down a simple introduction and conclusion? Lyf could talk while they were drawing, right?

“Yeah,” Marius chuckled. “Yeah, it-it’s fine.”

Chapter Text

The lecture was over, and Marius was packing up his things. He was sure he’d chosen a pretty good title for the final essay, out of the ones that were available. And taking into account the fact that he had a whole month to write the thing, he was fairly certain he could do quite well on it.

On his way out of the auditorium, he passed a group of loud students. From their conversations, Marius had so far gathered that they were all getting degrees in various fields of sports, so he had no idea why any of them had chosen the psychology course that wasn’t even mandatory for Marius .

Maybe they thought it would be an easy way to get credits? The students here did only have to write three practice essays and one actually graded essay.

“No old meat here, though,” one of them laughed. “Whatcha gonna do now?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” another responded lightly. “I think I can find a new chew toy.”

Marius had no clue what the conversation was about, and he quite honestly didn’t care. He’d heard enough of their conversations (they were very loud) to know that every single student in this group came from a rich family and that they very much liked to make everyone else very aware of it.

Starting down the hallway, Marius heard someone hurrying after him. He turned, expecting Raph or maybe Ivy or maybe even Lyf , but instead, there stood one of the rich students.

“Hi, hello, I don’t think we’ve met,” the other greeted with a smile.

Okay, maybe Marius had been a bit too harsh on the group. This guy didn’t seem that bad.

“Hi,” Marius responded with a small smile of his own.

“I’m Edwin Cole,” the guy, Edwin, introduced himself, “at your service. Or, well, you at mine, I suppose.”

Yeah, okay, no. This guy was an arsehole.

“Nice to meet you, Edwin, but I really have to be going,” Marius said as a way of getting out of the conversation without anyone getting too frustrated, just in case Edwin just didn’t know how to talk to other people .

“Oh, and I really would like to talk to you,” Edwin said, throwing an arm over Marius’ shoulders 

From the outside, the guy screamed “friendly”, but Marius’ instincts told him that something was off . Nonetheless, he decided to let himself be guided down the hallway.

“So,” Edwin started. “You know this whole final essay thing?”

“I’ve heard about it, yes,” Marius answered conversationally.

“Well, I thought – and hear me out, here – I thought we could help each other a bit.” He pulled Marius closer. “Hellen said we can work together, after all.”

“It’s Professor Walsh .”

“That’s what I said, yeah. So what do you say?”

Marius’ brain was screaming at him to get away.

“Look,” he said, still trying to be nice. Just in case , if his brain was overreacting. It had happened in the past. “I really have to be going. But you should be able to find me online, and you can message me?”

Marius tried to pull away from Edwin, but the guy held on.

Yeah, this wasn’t going to end well.

“I don’t think you understand what I’m offering,” Edwin said, the smile on his face turning visibly predatory, and Marius realised with dread that they were alone in the hallway. “You help me by writing my essay, and I help you by making sure your name stays in the college registry, yeah?”

What?

“My family gives a lot of money to this college, has for generations, really. I have a lot of influence here, so I can make sure that your name is safely in the system – if you help me out here.”

“Wait, you’re getting me expelled if I don’t write your essay for you?” Marius asked, heart racing.

“Oh, is that what it’s called?” Edwin laughed.

There was a long moment of silence between them, Edwin all but sneering at Marius’ face. With all the adrenaline in his system and the quiet of the hallway, Marius could clearly hear his blood pumping.

“I–” Marius started. “I’m not looking for trouble here. I just want to get my degree so I can help people–”

“Then help. Me .”

If this guy had the power to get Marius expelled, then… Well, then Marius couldn’t even go to the dean with this, could he? The man was likely to be involved as well. Maybe some of the professors, even.

Marius hung his head.

“I don’t really have a choice here, do I?”

“Sure you do!” Edwin said cheerfully. “Option one: write my final essay for me. Option two: what did you call it again? Right. Get expelled .”

Marius sighed, closed his eyes, and walked away from Edwin’s now loose grip. The guy had the gall to walk after him, catching up in only a few strides. He put a hand on Marius’ left shoulder, halting him again.

“I’d just like to hear you say it before we part ways,” he all but purred into Marius’ ear.

“I’ll write your fucking essay!” Marius yelled, looking directly into the other student’s eyes. “Now get your hands the fuck off me.”

Edwin, not backing away from Marius’ glare, only smiled wider, and gripped Marius’ shoulder tighter.

“Glad to hear what you decided on. I’ll text you my title in a bit. You said I should be able to find you somewhere online, right?”

The slimy aura of superiority that was oozing off the guy made Marius turn his head away. Only then did Edwin finally let go. The guy gave a few antagonizing pats to the shoulder he’d been gripping, before moving past Marius and leisurely walking off down the hallway, like he hadn’t just threatened a fellow student with expulsion.

Marius stared at the ground until he couldn’t hear any footsteps anymore. He then closed his eyes and took a few calming breaths.

What was done was done. Nothing he could do about it now, really.

He sighed.

Damn. He should have run when he’d had the chance.

His brain was annoyingly all over the place, and he was having trouble focusing on the shelves around him. Luckily, he’d been in the library often enough to know more or less exactly where he could find the book he was looking for.

Standing in front of the correct shelf, he waited for the words on the book covers to start making sense again, before giving up and picking out something with a familiarly blue spine. It looked vaguely similar to the picture he remembered from his earlier quick internet search.

He took a step away from the shelf. If he were more self-conscious at the moment, he might have weaved his way back to his study room through the maze of the shelves. As it was, he just hoped he could find the goddamn room by walking along the outer wall.

He let out a sigh. There was no way he was getting any work done in the state he was in.

He still considered himself lucky, since he was fairly certain this was just a bit of an emotional crash, and not the beginning of an actual episode. Fuck , he hoped he wasn’t wrong about this.

He also hoped the rich fuck tripped down the stairs.

“Marius?”

Marius looked up, a tiny bit of his brain sounding alarms at the possibility of him manifesting Edwin out of thin air, but this voice seemed genuinely friendly.

Did Edwin even know Marius’ name? He wasn’t sure whether he’d introduced himself or not…

After having blatantly stared at the person for a good two seconds, though, this was very obviously not Edwin, but rather Lyf.

“Oh, hey,” Marius greeted, putting his all into not looking as numb as he felt.

It was good seeing them for the first time in almost a whole week. Their study session the previous week had gone great, and they’d gotten through a lot of the new material. Marius had really wanted to invite Lyf to a café afterwards, but Lyf had another class soon after, so Marius kind of… hadn’t even tried asking.

Anxiety 1, Marius 0.

Right now, though, Lyf was standing right at the entrance to the bookshelf aisle Marius was in, a cup of some beverage in their right hand, under their left arm a very big… hm. Folder?

Marius crossed the distance between them, walking out into the open space of the library.

“Did you by any chance see any free desks around here?” Lyf asked, an awkward smile on their face. “I think I’ve been around the whole floor and haven’t really found any place where I could settle down.”

“Oh, erm,” Marius started, trying to remember how to properly word whole sentences.

Lyf’s brow furrowed, “Are you okay?”

“Hm? Yeah, yeah, I… Just a bit tired,” Marius lied. “Had a morning class, been on campus the whole day.”

“Damn, that would make anyone tired,” they chuckled sympathetically.

They looked down at their hands.

“You can have some of my coffee, if you want?” Lyf offered. “It’s iced, though. I don’t really like the hot stuff. Or we can go get you your own cup if we don’t find any space to study here?”

“Oh, no, thanks,” Marius shook his head. “I’m on some meds that force me to be a bit careful with caffeine, and I’ve already had a small cup in the morning.”

“And that’s your daily limit?” Lyf asked, their brows now high in amused awe. “Congratulations, honestly. This is my third cup, and I’ll probably have one more once I get home.”

Marius tried to give a normal-sounding chuckle, “Thanks, I guess?”

Then his brain finally caught up to what Lyf was asking about in the first place.

“Also, er, study space?” he said, moving the conversation back on-topic. “One of my friends works here in the library, so I’ve got access to the private study rooms.”

“The ones students need to book in advance?”

Marius shook his head with a less forced small smile, “It’s one of the staff only ones, actually.”

“And a student is using it? How scandalous ,” Lyf laughed.

“I’ve got permission,” Marius pointed out. “I’m… also offering to share the study room.”

Marius was likely to soon be very embarrassed about inviting his crush (because that was what Lyf was , and Marius had to live with it) to study with him, but at the moment, he was just happy that what he was saying was making sense .

“Oh,” Lyf blinked, processing Marius’ words, then smiled again, “thanks!”

Marius huffed another small smile, then started walking, praying to whatever might be listening out there that Lyf knew how to get to the private study rooms, as Marius was very disoriented.

Thankfully, Lyf did know where the private study rooms were, and the two were soon making themselves comfortable inside. Marius set down the book next to his notebooks, which were still sitting closed on the table. Lyf set their coffee onto the other side of the desk, placing the giant folder and then their laptop bag onto the floor, so the two items were leaning against one leg of the desk.

Marius was just about to remind them not to leave things on the floor where Tim might trip over them, when his sluggish brain caught up with the fact that he wasn’t at home and that Lyf could leave their things wherever they wanted.

Opening up their laptop bag, Lyf pulled out a smaller sketchbook and opened it up to an empty page. They looked something up on their phone, set the device face up next to the sketchbook, and started sketching down some funky-looking shapes.

Marius leaned forward, crossed his arms on the desk, and set his chin down on them. Okay, maybe he was also physically tired. The morning classes he’d mentioned to Lyf hadn’t been a lie.

“That also for a class assignment?” he asked them.

“Hm?” Lyf looked up. “Oh, no. I wanted to relax a bit while I finish the coffee. This is, erm, it’s a rough sketch for a commission?”

“Cool,” Marius plainly said, and it really was.

He may have been having some trouble putting his energy into properly portraying emotions at the moment.

“A couple of my housemates started with those,” he said instead, trying to convey that he was actually interested in the conversation, even if his tone of voice might have been saying otherwise. “They’re all making a living off their crafts now.”

“That’s… honestly encouraging,” Lyf said. “I’m not making nearly enough yet. I mean, I have only started taking commissions about a month–”

Fwiiii

Marius and Lyf both looked towards the one window of the study room.

CRACKKKkkkk

Marius flinched. In the far distance, there was a shout to find cover, but Marius was stunned into watching as the– the… colours fell across the sky?

“The holidays don’t start for another week,” Lyf mumbled. “Sure the fireworks are pretty, but why set them off so soon?”

Fireworks. They were just fireworks.

Marius kept staring out through the window as every last ember of the explosive died out and the sky became dark again. Just in case they hadn’t been fireworks.

When it was clear that there was going to be no… what? Airstrike? Enemy platoon charging over the horizon? … When he was sure it was over, Marius took a moment for a quick check-in with his body.

His heart was beating a bit too fast, but it wasn’t too concerning. His breathing was relatively steady, and his hand was more minutely trembling rather than actively shaking.

That all seemed quite good. A quick thought shot through Marius’ head about the Hallway Situation being a blessing in disguise, since it made him way less reactive, and thus likely prevented an episode, but Marius pushed it aside as soon as he’d processed it.

Edwin was an arsehole, plain and simple.

BOOM!

Marius flinched violently. For a moment, the ceiling light resembled sun rays falling through a dense canopy, the chair a well-worn tree trunk hideout, in his hand a –

“Marius?”

That wasn’t his commanding officer. It wasn’t one of his comrades, either. But the uniform… wasn’t even really… a uniform at all?

“Marius?” Lyf tried again, and –

Oh. It was Lyf.

The image in front of Marius cleared, and he was back in the study room.

“Yeah?” he managed to push through somewhat shaky breaths.

“Oh, good, you’re back with me,” Lyf sighed in relief. “You zoned out a bit for a moment there, and your face kinda lost all colour? I thought something might be wrong…”

Lyf had been worried for him? Marius didn’t know whether to be flattered or terrified. He wasn’t a big fan of dissociating in front of other people, even for short moments like just now.

Oh fuck , he hoped it had just been a short moment.

“I’m– I’m fine,” Marius responded semi-automatically. “Just…”

“Not a fan of firecrackers?” Lyf guessed. “Because neither am I, to be honest.”

“Not a fan of sudden loud noises in general, really,” Marius confessed.

Lyf looked almost like they were lost in thought for a moment.

Oh, fuck. Had Marius said too much? Would Lyf figure out what exactly Marius had meant with that?

“Do you have any earplugs at home? Or maybe noise-cancelling headphones?” Lyf ended up asking. “What with the holidays coming up and everything, I mean.”

What?

“Erm, no, not– not really,” Marius told them. “I, er, I still like to enjoy some music or conversation while I’m home, so I’m not really a fan of just completely cutting off sounds. And the normal ANC tech doesn’t really do away with the sudden noises, just the repetitive lower-frequency stuff.”

“What if…” Lyf started. “Okay, so. I recently ordered some new earbuds. When they arrived, I got two pairs, because it was apparently a buy one get one free thing that I’d missed. Except, what the company had missed was that one pair wasn’t what I’d ordered?”

Marius wasn’t really following what Lyf’s point was supposed to be.

“Can’t you send them back and get the right ones?” he asked.

“That was the plan, but .”

Lyf rummaged through the outside pocket of their laptop bag, pulling out an unopened clear packaging with earbuds inside.

“I think this could be exactly what you might be looking for.”

Marius paused, then, “What?”

“Yeah, I looked up what these earbuds were, because the model name on them wasn’t the same as on my ANC ones, and it turns out that this is electronic hearing protection? They’re most often used by hunters, because they cut off really loud and sudden noises, like gunshots, and they optionally amplify really soft noises, like footsteps.”

Marius looked at the earbuds Lyf held in their hand. This had never crossed his mind.

Electronic hearing protection, huh?

“Where did you say you got this from?” he asked.

“Oh, erm, I can send you the link if you’d like, but I’m, erm,” they looked away, “you can take them, if you’d like?”

“What? Just… take them? Not even buy them off?”

“Well, they were free,” Lyf chuckled. “And like I said, I really was only intent on buying one pair, so it’s not like I’d make a fuss over the ‘get one free’ part that I’d missed in the first place, anyway.”

Marius stared at Lyf’s face, while the other was still looking away.

“I-I mean,” Marius stumbled, “if you’re– if you’re sure?”

Lyf looked up.

“Yeah,” they responded so easily.

Oh, Marius was falling for them hard .

“D’you wanna try them on right now?” Lyf asked. “I mean, in case those firecrackers weren’t the last thing in… whatever it is that’s going on there.”

“I–” Marius started, “y-yeah. That’s a good idea, actually, thanks. And if these end up working as well as you said they should, I’ll probably be ordering them for two of my housemates as well, express shipping and all.”

“They also not fans of sudden loud noises?”

“One of them’s got heart problems, so he tends to steer away from startling situations, and the other… erm, has a bit of a history with fireworks.”

“Ouch,” Lyf grimaced. “I really hope these work, then. For all three of you.”

Marius gave a small smile, “Thanks.”

Marius tried to set up the new earbuds, while Lyf left him to it, focusing instead on their sketchbook. It took a little longer than Marius would have liked, but he got them working, in the end.

He put the earbuds in, and looked down at the book he’d brought from the shelf. Maybe he could try to do some work? Mark a few pages, perhaps? Talking to another person had cleared his head a bit, and he felt like he might actually be able to make out some shorter words.

Bing

Marius blinked. The fuck was that sound? It almost sounded like someone flicked a rubber band right at the desk next to him, except it was much less rubbery, and –

“Those firecrackers are so annoying,” Lyf huffed.

Marius looked up just to see them turn from the window back to their sketchbook. Their eyes met with Marius’, though, and they gave a hopeful smile.

“Do they work?” they asked, hopeful. “The earbuds, I mean.”

Marius smiled and nodded, “They’re great, yeah. I didn’t even realise those were firecrackers, honestly.”

“Great to hear that,” Lyf grinned. “Er. Pun… not intended.”

Marius chuckled anyway.

Marius stepped into the house, locking the door behind him. During the calm hangout with Lyf, he’d managed to slowly build himself back up. Now he was looking forward to unwinding in his room.

He took off his backpack, took off his jacket, and– was there someone in the kitchen?

Coco walked up to him, distracting him by winding herself around Marius’ legs. Marius crouched down and gave her a few pats on the head before she decided she’d had enough and walked away. Marius chuckled and took off his shoes, grabbing his backpack as he went on his way.

He walked over to the kitchen doorway.

“Jonny?” he called to the man sitting at the table, leaning forward, head resting on crossed-over arms. “You alright?”

Jonny’s eyes opened and found Marius. He sat up.

“Hey,” Jonny said. “Yeah, I’m fine. Bit tired, but that’s about it. I just came home, too.”

Marius remembered, getting excited, “Wait, you had your first therapy session today, right? How was it?”

“A bit tiring, honestly,” Jonny chuckled, and Marius nodded in sympathy. “Not used to actually talking about shit.” He took a breath. “Thanks for the recommendation, by the way. The guy was really nice about everything.”

“Oh, no problem,” Marius smiled.

“He one of your professors, too?”

“No, but he likely will be next year,” Marius laughed. “So be ready for me complaining about him every week.”

“Speaking of your courses,” Jonny said, leaning forward somewhat conspiratorially, “I hear you’ve been hanging out with someone new for a little while now?”

Marius’ face went red, but he laughed anyway, “Where did you hear that ?”

“Oh, it’s been going around the house,” Jonny grinned, sitting back, crossing his arms. “So?”

“Alright, you know what? Fine,” Marius conceded, a smile still sitting on his face. “You did something really big today, so you’re getting some gossip. As a treat.”

“ Yesss ,” Jonny celebrated.

“I heard the word gossip ,” came Tim’s voice, as the man walked down the hall. “Guess I decided to come get something to drink at just the right moment.”

He rounded the corner, one hand lightly following the wall. His hand brushed over the countertops as he made his way to the fridge.

“Hey, no,” Jonny pouted. “My gossip.”

“Didn’t hear you calling dibs.”

“Boys,” Marius playfully placated. “You can share the gossip.”

Jonny huffed, and Tim just laughed.

“Okay, what if… Tim promises that you get to tell the others, Jonny?” Marius tried.

“I’m…” Tim started as he stopped in front of the fridge, “willing to make such an offer, yes.”

Jonny pouted, “ Fine . But bring some snacks here while you’re up.”

Tim poured himself a little over half a glass of milk by ear, then took out some chocolate from the fridge and a pack of crisps from a cupboard. He carried everything to the table, dumping the chocolate and crisps, then carefully feeling for the table and gently setting down his milk glass.

“Good enough?” Tim asked.

“I’ll live,” Jonny jokingly answered. “Thanks.”

“Okay, now,” Marius started, “if you two are all settled?”

Tim nodded and Jonny hummed in agreement.

“Alright, so. Their name is Lyf, and they study art…”

Chapter Text

Marius

Hey, are you here over the holidays?
If yes, do you have some time tomorrow?
I’m kind of missing some of the routine rn, you wanna study together for a bit?
On campus, I mean

I’m here, yeah, and sure :)
Would 9-ish work for you?
Also, library?

9 is good
Library, yeah

Cool, see ya tomorrow :3

Yeah, see ya :)

Lyf was late. Well, technically the subway line had a different schedule during the holidays, so they were actually still early for the meet-up with Marius , but they were late for the subway , and if they missed this subway, then they would also be late for the meet-up with Marius.

And that just wasn’t right.

Because Marius was such a sweet person. He was so nice all the time, and his neckerchiefs were so adorable, and he was so smart, and–

And Lyf was just generally fucked.

Why? Well, there was no way that someone as amazing as Marius would ever want to date them, and they had been aching to be closer to him for a while now. They weren’t completely sure when it had started, but it was definitely before Marius had even first spoken to them.

They would have sighed, were they not running down the subway stairs at the moment.

... Yeah, okay. Maybe they should focus on not breaking their neck while running.

Getting through the ticket gates and barrelling to the right platform, they only barely caught the subway; just as they sat down in a reasonably empty car, the vehicle started moving. Cool. Now they had time to zone out for a bit, and–

Wait, why was the subway going west? Were they on the wrong train? No, they were pretty sure they got the platform right and everything. Then they noticed a newsline on the text screen of the car.

There was a detour because of track maintenance.

Of course. Lyf had to leave early , just so they’d end up late to a thing that they’d asked Marius for.

Now they sighed.

Oh, shit. They should probably tell Marius they’d be a bit late. Opening up the app, they realised that Marius had texted them once while they’d been running.

Marius

Hi
*Apparently* subways have different schedules during the holidays?
So I’m kinda running down to the station atm?
Let you know if I make the train or not
Also I am *not* in my pyjamas, but it was a close call xD

Oh, I thought you knew, sorry :’)
Woulda told you otherwise
Also no worries :)

Well. Yes worries. Because there was another delay now because of the detour.

Oh, right. They were going to tell Marius they’d made it onto the subway, at least.

Marius

Okay, so I *am* on the train atm 🎉🎉
But, er

Apparently there’s track maintenance going on or smth, so I might be somewhat late to campus anyway?

Lyf kept looking at the phone screen, waiting for Marius to reply, but the status remained at delivered .

They locked the phone and looked up at the ceiling. They hadn’t even gotten their morning coffee yet, fuck .

Their phone pinged, and they flinched so hard it almost flew right out of their hands. Barely catching it before it could tumble to the floor, they checked the messaging app.

Marius

Cool np :)
I’ll just take the next train so I’m not super early then

He was too good for Lyf, goddamnit.

The two didn’t text much after that. Marius only let Lyf know when he was on the subway, too, and that was just about it.

The whole ride was actually shorter than Lyf expected, but still longer than they would’ve hoped. And the train stopped at a different station, so they had to get off a bit farther away from campus than they would’ve liked.

At least they’d arrived , though.

And now they’d finally get to see Marius again, and– Okay. Chill. No need for Marius to know about the massive crush Lyf had going on. They needed to play it cool.

They reached the campus library and beelined straight to the specific private study room the two agreed to meet at. They checked the time on their phone.

9:16

Okay, not too bad, accounting for weird holiday subway schedules.

They patted down their coat to make it look less rumpled (they really should borrow an iron from someone and iron the thing sometime soon), and checked that they hadn’t lost anything in the rush.

They hadn’t. Good.

They pushed on the doorknob to enter the room, and–

Locked.

Fuck .

Did Marius grow bored while waiting for them? Did he think they were a no-show? They were standing in front of the right study room, right?

Fuck fuck dritt helvete–

“Good morning,” came a familiar light-hearted voice from behind Lyf.

They spun around with a smile (keep it cool, goddamnit), “Morning, Marius!” They pointed at the door. “I… just got here, sorry.”

“Yeah, I said it wasn’t a problem,” Marius chuckled.

He seemed to be wearing his usual combination of long sleeved white shirt, vest-hoodie-thing (grey today), and dark grey button-down jacket, one normal and one fingerless black glove notwithstanding. There was a new addition, though – a lime green scarf. Damn, it looked so soft.

“Cool scarf,” Lyf said when Marius reached the door.

“Oh, er, thanks,” Marius smiled. “A housemate made it for me as a Christmas gift.”

“Handmade? That’s honestly impressive,” Lyf nodded. “I’m not all that good with sewing.”

“This was knitted , apparently,” Marius said. He then chuckled, “And, I’m not too great with the different needlecrafts, either, to be honest.”

Since this was more of a leisurely meet-up, Lyf wondered if this getup was Marius' "campus wear" or if these kinds of half-fancy clothes were something that Marius just always wore. They could ask him about it sometime.

“Here, hold this, please,” Marius said, as he handed off a cup holder with two to-go cups.

Lyf took the beverages, and Marius unlocked the study room now that his hands were free. Did Lyf smell cinnamon and caramel? Whatever it was, it smelled good.

The two walked into the room, and Lyf set the beverages down onto the desk.

“Just curious, what is this?” they asked, pointing at the beverages as they were setting down their laptop bag and taking off their coat.

“Oh, er, I got us coffee?” Marius said. “You’ve mentioned before that you have coffee every morning, but you also texted that you almost ran out in your pyjamas today, so I guessed you haven’t had time for it yet? And I recognised the to-go cup you usually carry around in the mornings, because we actually have the same chain café close to my house, so I took a bit of a detour when you texted you’d be late.”

Marius got them coffee? Could he not be so nice ? Lyf was trying really hard to hide their crush, goddamnit.

“How much was it?” Lyf asked, already looking through their pockets for their wallet.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Marius smiled. “You can pay for mine next time?”

Next time? Absolutely. They’d pay for coffee every time, if Marius was there to share it with them.

“Yeah, sure,” Lyf nodded. “Thanks.”

Marius set his backpack onto the chair next to the one he was probably going to sit on. Just like last time , Lyf noticed. It was easier to reach things that were a bit higher up than right down on the floor , though, so Lyf thought Marius might have been on to something there.

“They’re both iced,” Marius told him, pointing at the coffees, “and I got the one with cinnamon for me and the one with caramel for you." He paused. "I… didn’t really know what your usual order is, but you mentioned last time that you really like caramel, so… Yeah. You can totally get the cinnamon one, though, if you’d prefer that.”

Lyf blinked.

“I…” they started, “I usually just get a normal cappuccino iced, but… A caramel topping sounds amazing actually. I don’t know why I haven’t tried that before…”

Marius looked at them, “I… hope it tastes as good as you’re hoping it does?”

“One way to find out,” Lyf laughed.

They picked up one cup at random and lifted it up so they could smell the topping. Caramel. Okay, that was theirs, then.

They took a sip, and–

“Oh, damn, this is really good,” they said, surprised, immediately taking another sip. “I may have to leave the comfort zone of my usual order, if this is what awaits.”

Marius chuckled as he took off his jacket, “Glad to hear you like it.”

“Oh, speaking of hearing,” Lyf remembered, “how'd the earbuds turn out? You texted me that you did end up ordering them for your two housemates, right?”

“I did, yeah,” Marius nodded with a smile. “And the package came right before Christmas, and the two of them were really happy with the early half of their presents,” he chuckled, taking off his scarf.

And there it was. The fun neckerchief - today a vibrant red with thin white lines tracing almost floral-looking patterns. Lyf didn’t think they’d seen this one yet.

Oh, it might’ve been a Christmas present. The colour scheme did look Christmas-y, now that they thought about it.

“Is that a new neckerchief?” they asked, trying to go for a casual tone, something that didn't say they'd memorised all the neckerchiefs already.

(Which, they hadn't. It was a close thing, though.)

“It is, yeah,” Marius smiled. “Another handmade Christmas gift, actually.”

“Same housemate?” Lyf guessed.

Marius chuckled, “Not really. I’ve got two housemates who are handy with cloth and yarn and stuff.”

Lyf thought back to some of the other conversations they'd had with Marius in these past few weeks.

They were sure that Marius had mentioned something once about being housemates with the two women Lyf would often see him with around campus. Ivy and… Raph? But last time, he mentioned a male housemate with heart problems and someone who had a bad history with fireworks, and now there were two more people, who were good with needlework.

They tilted their head in question, “How many housemates do you have? Because you’ve mentioned quite a lot of things about your housemates so far, and I honestly cannot tell if they’re all about the same people or not.”

“Oh,” Marius chuckled, “erm.”

He looked like he was mentally counting them on the fingers of his left hand.

“Nine," he said, looking back up. "I’ve got nine housemates, so there’s ten of us living under the same roof.”

“Nine– Damn , that’s a lot,” Lyf pointed out.

“Eh,” Marius shrugged, “you get used to it. And it’s a big house, so it doesn’t even feel cramped or anything. Also, it’s quite nice in my opinion, since there’s always something going on in the shared living spaces. Whether that’s calm conversations, yelling at video games, someone doing their nails, or people pranking each other, well. You never know till you poke your head into the room,” he laughed.

Okay, yeah. That did sound quite fun. Even if Lyf's more introverted nature wasn't too amused by the prospect.

“Are they college students, too?” Lyf asked.

“Not really,” Marius answered. “Only Raph and I are enrolled here, and Ivy works in this library – it’s why I have access to these study rooms. The rest of my housemates are either self-employed, or are working somewhere close-by or at least mostly from home. We are all about the same ages, though. As in, early twenties.”

“Huh, it’s kind of funny to me how I see you around all the time, but I only catch glimpses of Raph and Ivy with you when I see the three of you walking around campus,” Lyf pointed out.

“We mostly hang out here, in the library,” Marius chuckled. “So it makes total sense that you wouldn’t see the three of us together a whole lot.”

It probably also had something to do with Lyf always having an eye out for Marius while they were on campus.

They noticed Marius' pause.

“You could, er,” the other started somewhat slowly (cautiously?), “hang out with all three of us some time, if you’d like? Like, maybe grab lunch with us, or something?”

“I– Yeah,” Lyf nodded. “Yeah, sounds fun.”

They pulled out their sketch pad, trying to keep Marius from seeing just how giddy the invitation had made them.

“And, er,” Lyf went with, “are the other housemates also here during the holidays, or is the house just like a workweek thing for them?”

“Erm, we’re all here, all the time?” Marius gave as an answer. “I mean, none of us are visiting family every weekend, if that’s what you’re asking. Are you living with anyone here, Lyf?”

“No, not really,” Lyf said, shaking their head. “I’ve got a little flat all to myself. It’s quite nice actually. No helicopter parents and everything,” they chuckled at the end.

“Free of helicopter parents, huh?” Marius smiled. “Bet you’ve had an eventful couple of days during the holidays now, if that’s the case.”

“I’ve…” Lyf started. How could they say this without sounding deranged? “I’ve been drawing a lot? And-and listening to some music?”

“You mean drawing more than usual, or was it just a day like any other?” Marius asked, leaning forward onto the desk, sipping away at his coffee, his backpack still sitting closed on the seat next to him.

Yeah, the two of them weren’t gonna get much studying done, were they?

… Not like Lyf was complaining. Marius was so easy to talk to.

“It... It was more than usual,” Lyf admitted. “There’s a, erm, there’s this musical? It’s coming out gradually, a few songs at a time, and a new batch of songs – a new saga – just got released this Christmas. And it’s been making me want to draw. About the story and the characters.”

Marius hummed, “That… sounds familiar, but I can’t exactly tell why… Tell me more?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” Lyf chuckled.

“One way to find out,” Marius smiled, and damn him for using Lyf’s own words against them.

“I will infodump,” Lyf warned.

“Go on, then.”

Lyf hadn’t been able to talk to anyone about Epic in person yet, and now Marius of all people wanted to hear them talk about it? Wow. That was… genuinely amazing.

“Alright,” Lyf cleared their voice, excited that they got to talk about their favourite topic with their favourite person. “So there’s this Greek epic, called the Odyssey. Heard of it?”

“That’s one of those two stories, where one’s about the Trojan War, and one’s like a long journey home, right?”

Lyf nodded, “It’s the latter. The first one’s the Iliad, because another name for the city of Troy is Ilium, so the epic is quite literally named ‘a story of Troy’. The other one follows a man named Odysseus on his way back home from said war – the Odyssey.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Marius nodded.

“Well,” Lyf continued, “this guy, Jorge Rivera-Herrans, had the idea to make the Odyssey into a musical, and he’s documenting the whole journey, too, and everything.”

“Documenting it?”

“Yeah, he’s posting little snippets of songs and, like, behind the scenes stuff on various social media sites,” Lyf nodded.

Marius’ head tilted, “What do you mean by ‘behind the scenes’? Didn’t you say the musical’s still in development?”

“It is, yeah,” Lyf said. “Some of the early songs have already been released, but a lot of them are still in the works. Aside from snippets from upcoming sagas, Jorge’s mostly posting little explanatory videos about how he chose some instruments, or how some of the songs are thematically connected through melodies, how he made some of the voices, what he’s looking for when he’s holding auditions, stuff like that. Because, er, he’s still filling some roles, since the musical isn’t even halfway released yet.

“And the ‘different instruments representing different people’ thing is just so cool to me,” Lyf went on. “Like, the main character, Odysseus, is represented by a guitar, and Athena, the goddess of wisdom, is represented by a piano, and Eurylochus, who’s Odysseus’ right hand man, is usually accompanied by the choir of the crew to kind of represent that he’s not usually only speaking for himself but for the crew as well, and Polites – another crewmember – has a really, like, bright and happy song early on, so he’s accompanied by a marimba, and so on.

“And then there’s the musical motifs, so you can for example still see how a dead person is affecting Odysseus, because Odysseus is singing something with the same melody that the dead person sung before their death, and things like that. Or like, every time Athena shows up to help Odysseus, there’s this kind of skidding melody to show that his mind is speeding up and thus everything around him is slowing down, and– I’ve been talking for a little while non-stop, now, haven’t I?”

Lyf looked down.

“Sorry.”

Marius sat up from where he’d made himself comfortable, lying on his crossed hands, slumped over the desk.

“No, no,” he said with a smile, “go on! It sounds really interesting.”

“It… does?”

Marius nodded, “I’m a musician, too, actually, so this is all right up my alley.”

Marius was a musician? That sounded really cool.

“I thought you studied psychology, though?” Lyf asked.

“Oh, I do. I… meant outside of college,” Marius chuckled.

“Oh, sorry, of course,” Lyf chuckled as well. “What do you play?”

“The fiddle,” Marius said with a big smile.

Fiddle? Lyf wasn’t really sure what that was. Drawing on their knowledge of musical theatre, though…

“Is that a… string instrument?” they tried. “Something like a violin?”

“It is, yeah!” Marius said, and he sounded really happy for some reason. “It’s essentially the very same instrument, and in most cases the only difference is in what kinds of melodies you want to draw from it. If the music is more akin to the classical genre, then the instrument is a violin. If it’s more jazzy or folk or some similar blues-y or brighter styles, then it’s a fiddle.”

“That seems somewhat overcomplicated,” Lyf laughed.

“It’s got historical roots, I believe,” Marius shrugged, not put off by the comment. “It’s kind of like comparing a percussion section in a marching band to a rock band drummer. Technically, you’re talking about the same instruments, but the whole thing has a very different vibe.”

Lyf nodded, “Okay, that’s fair, yeah. So you’re into folk music, then? Jazz, maybe?”

“I quite like folk, yeah, but I’m into whatever, really,” Marius said. “For me, there’s no ‘one good music’. What I do especially love, is when the music is tied into a story or a performance.” He chuckled, “So yeah, this musical you were talking about sounds really epic.”

Lyf laughed.

“What?” Marius asked.

“Sorry, that’s what it’s called,” Lyf said. Marius didn’t seem to understand what they were trying to tell him, so they clarified, “The musical is called Epic. As in, the literary form in which a lot of stories from the Greek mythos are written down in.”

“Ohhh,” Marius said, now laughing as well. “Okay, I get it.”

“But yes, I am also of the opinion that it’s very epic,” Lyf said.

“And you mentioned it’s been making you draw?” Marius asked, pointing at Lyf’s sketch pad.

Lyf smiled and turned the thing over. They started flipping through it from the back.

“Some people are making animatics for the songs, and every single one I’ve seen so far looked so cool, and I kinda really wanna make an animatic for a certain one of these most recent songs?”

They found the sketches they were looking for, and slid the sketch pad closer to Marius.

“Er, spoilers?” they quickly added.

“It’s a couple thousand years old story,” Marius chuckled. “I think you’re fine.”

Lyf laughed, “Yeah, okay. Good point. So. This is a song featuring the Greek god–”

“Poseidon?” Marius guessed. “The horses are his thing, right?”

And he knew details about Greek mythology? Lyf was going to marry this man.

“Y-yeah,” they said, trying not to look too affected. “Yes, they’re his thing, and yes, Poseidon is in here.”

They pointed to the little sketched snapshots as they were explaining.

“So, Odysseus and his men are sailing the seas, when the tides start quite literally running rampant – in horse form – and this humongous body starts forming out of water right in front of their fleet, and it forms into Poseidon, the formidable foe of any sailor who’s managed to anger him. And anger him, Odysseus and his crew did,” Lyf said.

Lyf turned the page.

“Poseidon then threatens them a bit through raw displays of power – casually splashing the ships and easily making barrels and stuff violently fly all around. Odysseus tries to make his plea, and he walks right up to the bow of the ship, hoping to appease the angered god. But Poseidon,” they turned the page again, “is having none of it, and just absolutely decimates almost the whole of Odysseus’ crew, leaving only one ship, Odysseus’ ship, just to hear the captain’s last words.”

Last page.

“Luckily for the survivors, though, Odysseus has a secret weapon; a bag that can release a giant storm of Poseidon’s. He opens it, and the ship is flung off into safety. And here in this last panel, in the distance, Odysseus still sees the shadow of Poseidon, a clear sign that their story isn’t quite finished yet.”

Lyf sat back. They looked up at Marius.

The man was staring at the storyboard, jaw lax, eyes wide in fascination.

“This is so fucking cool,” he simply said.

“Thanks,” Lyf blushed.

(They prayed to every deity that Marius wouldn’t choose that very second to look up at them.)

“I somehow managed to skip the whole point of the song, though,” they chuckled. “After Odysseus tried embracing a dead friend’s view of greeting the world with open arms, Poseidon is now trying to teach Odysseus that the world, in fact, is not deserving of that. That’s the main point of this song. And since this whole interaction – as in, specifically Odysseus meeting Poseidon in person – isn’t in the original text, I’m guessing this song, or-or theme even, could be quite important for the rest of the story," Lyf told Marius. "It’s just a guess, though.”

Marius reached out towards the sketchpad.

“May I?” he asked.

“Er, yeah,” Lyf said.

They’ve been trying to put their art out into the world more, instead of keeping it only to themself. Yes, art was still an outlet for them and them alone , but if they wanted to some day make money off it, then they’d have to get used to other people seeing it.

And, well, Marius didn’t seem to hate it, so that helped boost their ego a bit, too.

Marius turned the pages across the storyboard, looking closely at each sketch, awe in his eyes.

Lyf blushed again. This man was going to be the death of them, damnit.

“Oh, er, don’t look at that Poseidon too closely,” they said when Marius got to a shot of Odysseus looking up at the god. “I was struggling with the perspective a bit.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Marius commented.

Fucking– Could he stop being so nice, please . Lyf was trying very hard not to blush in front of him. They’d already failed at that once during these last ten minutes.

“The figure’s all wonky,” they told him, pointing at the various body parts. “I’m not used to drawing the worm’s-eye view.”

“Worm’s-eye view?”

“Yeah, you know,” Lyf said, “like the bird’s-eye view? Bird for ‘from above’, and worm for ‘from below’.”

“Oh,” Marius blinked. “That makes sense. I’ve never heard of a worm’s-eye view before, though.”

“Yeah, it’s not quite as common in everyday conversations, I think. Although it just means, for example, you’re viewing something right from the ground, like a worm,” Lyf explained. “Like if you were to stand up and I were to sit down on the– actually,” they paused. “Do you mind doing me a favour?”

Marius tilted his head, “Er, sure? What is it?”

“D’you mind just standing up next to your chair and putting your hands on your hips like you’re kind of impatient? And I’ll just sit down on the ground, just about, erm, here .”

They sat down with their sketchpad and a pencil not too far from where Marius had just stood himself.

And Marius did as he was told, putting his fists onto his hips, putting his weight a bit more on his left leg and tipping his head slightly back.

“Something like this?”

“Yeah,” Lyf nodded, excited, “yeah, that’s perfect.”

Marius’ body language was so clear, wow. He’d make a great actor or a model if he ever wanted to go into that field, Lyf just knew it.

If he wanted to go into that field. He didn’t seem to want to stand around for too long at the moment.

“Sorry, I’ll be quick,” Lyf said.

“I’m not actually impatient,” Marius quickly clarified, then chuckled, “it’s just the pose.”

Oh. Of course. Idiot.

“Well you’re posing really well, then,” Lyf chuckled. “Still, I should be practicing my quick sketches, anyway.”

“Well… If you have any more poses in mind we could put a stopwatch on at the next one?” Marius offered, and–

What?

Lyf’s hand stopped on its own.

“You’d be up for that?” they asked, locking eyes with the other.

“I mean, yeah? Sure?” Marius smiled.

Okay. Yeah. No. There was no way that Marius wasn’t some kind of actual fucking deity or magical creature. Because Lyf felt absolutely bewitched , looking at that man and his beautiful smile.

Lyf very much hoped their stupid face was pulling into something akin to a grin.

“Alright,” they said. “Guess we’ll do that, then.”

Chapter Text

Walking from the auditorium to the library, Marius was honestly feeling quite tired.

It was the first day of classes after New Year’s, and Marius was starting to feel the pressure of the final essays and exams looming closer. He hadn’t slept well the night before, tossing and turning, and thinking about all the things he was supposed to have done during the holidays but hadn’t.

The arm that draped over his shoulders caught him completely off-guard.

“Hello, von Raum,” Edwin greeted, faux friendliness dripping from the three simple words. “How’s that essay going?”

Fuck.

The two stood in the middle of the hallway, students and staff walking around them, seemingly not paying attention to their conversation.

“I… haven’t started it yet,” Marius answered truthfully, and even he wasn’t sure why.

“Haven’t started it?” Edwin laughed. “You do know the due date’s in just over two weeks, right?”

“Do you know there are other assignments that have earlier due dates?”

Edwin lifted both palms, a mockery of an apologetic smile joining the act.

“Just looking out for you. Wouldn’t want you to miss a deadline.”

“I won’t,” Marius pushed through gritted teeth, staring directly at the other student.

“Glad to hear it,” the fucker chirped, then pat Marius on the shoulder. “Have a good one.”

With a mock salute, he joined the crowds.

Marius was angry. Angry at Edwin for roping him into this, angry at himself for just going along with it.

If this got out…

If Marius told anyone and it travelled up to the dean, then surely the dean would tell Edwin’s family, and they would sweep it all under the rug, getting Marius expelled and probably shut him up with some kind of fucked up contract.

… Marius couldn’t let anyone know.

Fuck, had any of the passing people listened to their conversation? Had any of them been filming for a vlog? Or sending videos to friends? He couldn’t let any of those videos get out.

Were… were people staring at him?

He didn’t dare look up. Everyone was most certainly staring at him. He was standing completely still, right in the middle of the hallway, like some sort of freak . Everyone was staring.

Everyone. Was staring. At him.

He couldn’t breathe. He needed air. He needed people to stop staring at him, and he needed fresh air, and he –

He needed to get out of that godforsaken hallway.

Without lifting his eyes off the floor, Marius managed to find the restrooms, and quickly locked himself into a stall. He put the toilet cover down and sat on top of it.

Deep breath in. Then out. In. Out. Just like that.

Okay. Gameplan.

His slow breaths were breaking up into smaller huffs again, and Marius put a hand over his mouth, just in case he wasn’t alone.

Gameplan? He could… There was no way he was going back into that crowd again. He was only one floor from the ground, maybe he could climb out?

With one shaking hand? Good one.

He probably wouldn’t break too many bones if he jumped, though. He hadn’t yet forgotten how to break a fall.

And then?

Then he could drop out. Probably change his name, move away. That way Edwin couldn’t hurt him, and he wouldn’t get in trouble with the dean, and Edwin’s family wouldn’t find him, and Marius’ friends wouldn’t hate him. If he could just disappear out of the story, that would solve everything .

That sounded reasonable, right?

… No.

No, that sounded like a, like a possible anxiety attack?

It also sounded like the only solution at the moment.

Oh, fuck , he couldn’t breathe .

Yeah, he was definitely in the middle of an anxiety attack.

Deep breaths. Slow down.

And of course it was happening right in the middle of the day. He still had classes in the afternoon for fuck’s sake! And his friends were–

Deep breaths.

His friends were waiting for him.

His breath hitched.

Ivy and Raph were waiting for him in the library. He… couldn’t face them. Not right now, and especially not if things got out.

They’d be so disappointed, and angry, and Marius couldn’t take that. He had to run. He had to get out of there. He had to disappear . He had to –

He had to take deep breaths , and –

No, he had to take his meds. There was no way he could slow down his breathing on his own, so he had to take his medication, and trust that it would make things better.

It didn’t feel like they could make things better, though.

Running away would.

No.

Trust , he told himself. That’s the keyword.

Before his mind could start running rampant again, Marius quickly took off his backpack, pulled open the clasp, and rummaged through the inner side pocket where he kept all his to-go meds. He found what looked like the correct packaging, checked the label from up close, then quickly popped out one pill out and swallowed it dry.

He coughed. Yeah, maybe he could’ve taken two more seconds to open his water bottle.

Didn’t matter now. He’d taken the pill. Now he just had to wait for it to kick in. He hadn’t had a big breakfast, and even that was hours ago, so it likely wouldn’t take longer than half an hour to start working. In the meantime…

Marius pulled out his earbuds. Not the ones Lyf had given him, but he had those with him, too.

Fuck, Lyf was also waiting in the library.

No, no . Don’t think about that. He just had to put on some music, preferably loud enough so that he wouldn’t be able to hear his own thoughts, and then just focus on breathing so as not to pass out and on not crying because then everyone really would know that something was wrong.

Or maybe he could just stay in the stall, that could work, too. He could stay there for the rest of the school day. Until the night, maybe? Maybe he could just move into the vents, stay here forever. This building was connected to the cafeteria, so he wouldn’t even be short on food…

No, no, no, no ! Shut up. Music.

“Hey guys,” Marius greeted as he entered the private study room. “Sorry for being late.”

Please let them just think I’m tired. Nothing’s wrong. Please.

He walked over to the desk, took off his backpack, took the empty seat next to Lyf, and placed his backpack onto his lap, hugging it close.

He leaned his chin on it, “I really had to use the restroom. It took a bit longer than I woulda liked. Hope you three got along?”

Lying by omission is still lying , shot through his head, but he didn’t have the energy to feel guilty. Not getting enough sleep paired with the benzos he’d just taken… It would be a miracle if the other three didn’t notice something being off, honestly.

“Yeah, we’ve done the introductions, and have just been chatting a bit now,” Raph told him. Her tone got more sympathetic, “Just glad you got it out of your system, though, whatever it was.”

Boy, was that on the spot.

Ivy watched him closely for a moment.

“You look super tired,” she concluded.

“You really do,” Lyf added, a hint of concern in their voice.

Marius shrugged, “I had an extra morning class. We were a bit behind, and the professor wanted to get through all the material before classes end.”

“Classes aren’t over for another week, though,” Raph pointed out. “Surely the professor could squeeze in a few extra pages today and a few more next week during the regular lectures?”

“If it were only a few extra pages,” Marius sighed. “We had a whole two hours of extra lessons today, and we have another extra hour next week.”

“Sounds exciting,” Lyf said sarcastically.

Marius just nodded.

“Was everything fine here?” he asked. “Sorry I missed the introductions. Hope it wasn’t too awkward.”

“Nah, your housemates are fun to hang out with, honestly,” Lyf said with a small smile.

“Aww, Lyf!” Raph laughed. “You’re not so bad yourself!”

“The two of them hadn’t even started studying,” Ivy told Marius conspiratorially. “Raph’s too nosey.“

“Hey, I’m always nosey, though,” the woman laughed. “It’s part of my,” she threw her hair back, “ charm .”

“Glad to hear it,” Marius smiled, closing his eyes. “Honestly, guys, I don’t think I’m up for studying right now, either…”

Everything got quiet at the desk. Marius wasn’t used to his friends being this quiet.

He blinked his eyes open, and caught a few worried glances passed around between the three.

Marius sat up properly, “Is anyone hungry? I think I could use an early lunch.”

Marius saw Lyf look at the two women at the other side of the desk. Fucking hell, were the three of them having a silent conversation? Marius had to step up his game if he wanted to convince anyone that he was fine.

Lyf turned back to Marius, smiled, “Sure.”

Everyone packed up their things, and Ivy locked up the study room behind them. Just as they left the library building, another person walked up to the group.

“Leaving already, Ms. Alexandria?” the guy said, giving Ivy a smile that Marius didn’t particularly like.

Was this the guy that had been trying to chat up Ivy for a while now?

“ Please get lost, Hercules,” Ivy said, rolling her eyes.

Yeah, this was probably him. Apparently, the guy hadn’t picked up that Ivy wasn’t interested, and had been getting quite annoying lately.

“Oh, I already get lost whenever I look your way,” the guy grinned.

Marius walked up to stand between the two. Hercules was towering over him, but Marius just looked up, locking eyes with him.

“And what do you want, shorty?” Hercules all but growled, obviously agitated by the opposition.

“Did you not hear what she said?” Marius asked plainly, not at all intimidated. “She doesn’t want you here.”

Hercules crossed his arms, his biceps visibly flexing even under the extra layers of clothes.

Marius wasn’t impressed.

“And I don’t want you here,” Hercules said. “Get lost.”

Marius just raised an eyebrow, finding it hilarious that Hercules used Ivy’s words against him.

“Marius, leave it alone,” Ivy said. “It’s fine.”

“Listen to the lady, little guy,” Hercules sneered.

“What, like you did?” Marius shot back.

Hercules huffed in frustration, “Move.”

When Marius didn’t immediately dive out of the way, or whatever it was the guy was expecting, Hercules grabbed him by the front of his jacket.

Great, now it’s rumpled, thanks.

“I will rip your fucking head off, pipsqueak,” Hercules threatened. “Now move .”

“I don’t think I will,” Marius shrugged.

“ Marius ,” Ivy called, sounding distressed.

“Suit yourself,” Hercules huffed. “Any last words?”

Wait.

Shit.

Marius wasn’t supposed to be fighting on school grounds.

Fuck.

… Oh. He’d just gotten an idea.

“Hang on,” Marius said, keeping his cool and making Hercules pause in confusion. “What’s your bench PR? I’d guess just somewhere above 225 pounds.”

Hercules blinked, then proudly grinned, “It’s 235.”

“Yeah, I thought so,” Marius nodded. “I’ve got two things to say, then, if you’ll let me?”

Still confused, Hercules didn’t make a move.

“Alright,” Marius started, making sure to keep his face serious, “number one: throwing weight isn’t the same as throwing punches, so maybe don’t go around picking fights just because you’re big. And number two,” Marius paused, looking down at Hercules’ legs. “Your calves are comically small.”

“W-what?” Hercules blundered, losing his composure in a moment and letting go of Marius.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Marius placated, putting his left hand on Hercules’ shoulder. “Chicken legs don’t look nearly as bad as people say they do!” Then he very pointedly looked down again. “On most people, at least.”

“Don’t fucking– Stop looking at my legs!” Hercules shouted, shaking off Marius’ hand. “Fuck off!”

Glancing around – possibly to check that none of his buddies were anywhere close by to witness the exchange – the guy turned and ran away.

Marius sighed. Mission accomplished with the “not fighting” bit, but this had been disappointingly simple.

“Lunch?” he asked, looking behind at his friends.

Seeing three pale faces staring back, it clicked why his friends had stayed quiet during the entire exchange.

He’d walked into a Situation again.

He’d love to blame his calmness on the pills he’d taken to end the anxiety attack, but he knew that hadn’t been what had kept him from backing off – he needed to get it into his head that physical confrontation wasn’t a normal, everyday event, damnit.

He hadn’t been in a war zone in almost three years and hadn’t been in any proper kind of fistfight in over two, so why was this still so fucking hard to grasp?

Oh, no. Fuck. Had he just ruined his chances with Lyf? Would they stop hanging out with him for being too okay with random violence? He’d just gotten them to meet some of his closest friends, please no –

“That was so cool,” Lyf whispered, waking up from the stupor.

It was?

“While Lyf’s right about it being really cool, Marius,” Ivy admitted, “you could’ve gotten seriously hurt, were Hercules to actually throw a punch…”

Nah, he would’ve dodged it. Guys like Hercules valued looks over efficiency, so he would’ve telegraphed his movements hours before.

But that would have been the wrong answer.

“He didn’t though,” Marius pointed out, and that still wasn’t a good answer, but at least it was slightly better . “And now he won’t be bothering you again.”

“And if he starts bothering you ?” Ivy asked, concerned.

Marius shrugged, “He won’t. I hit one of his sore spots, and he won’t want to even see me if his gym bros are anywhere close – which, they usually are.”

“Calves, though?” Lyf laughed as the group finally started moving towards the cafeteria.

“You’d be surprised how self-conscious a lot of these ‘macho’ gym rats are about it,” Marius nodded. “Especially these wannabe frat guys. Most people who go to the gym are actually really nice, though, so you don’t need to be avoiding everyone who’s got some muscle.”

“No need to tell me twice,” Lyf chuckled, and Marius offered a smile even if he didn’t really get the joke. They looked at Marius, “You seem to know a lot about all of this. Do you go to the gym?”

“Not anymore,” Marius answered, trying to go for something that wasn’t too far from the truth. “I used to be a regular a couple years back, though.”

“Cool,” Lyf nodded, looking impressed.

Lyf crisis averted, then?

The group walked in silence for a bit, before Raph spoke up.

“Marius, did you know Lyf here has never eaten at the campus cafeteria?”

Marius turned towards Lyf, “Really?”

“Well, I’ve only been here a couple of months,” they said, looking away.

“But– I’ve seen you around campus at basically every hour of the school day,” Marius pointed out. “Do you bring your own lunch then?”

“No, I…” they started, “I kind of, maybe, forget to have lunch? Most of the time?”

“Lyf!”

“Well–” they defended, “I have breakfast and dinner at home – most days, at least – and I usually just have a lot of things to do during the day…?”

Marius snuck his left hand around Lyf’s elbow, “You’re definitely coming to lunch with us more often, then.”

Why did he put a hand around Lyf’s elbow? Lyf wasn’t going to flee or anything, and even if they wanted to, they would have had every right to do so. Especially with Marius being weird like this.

The adrenaline from standing up to Hercules was sure making itself known.

Wait. Fuck. Was this their first physical contact? Fuuuuu–

Lyf put their left hand over Marius’, “That’s not such a bad idea, honestly.”

Holy shit holy shit holy shit –

Lyf was going along with this! Marius felt like his head might explode. From the corner of his eye, he could see Raph giggling behind her hand, though, so he pulled away and walked normally beside Lyf.

“I might just take a pastry or something most of the time, though,” Lyf said before clearing their throat. “I’m not really used to having three big meals a day at the moment.”

“That’s fine,” Ivy nodded.

“Except today,” Lyf went on. “Today I think I’ll get the whole menu.”

“We’ve explained to them how the food system works at the cafeteria,” Raph told Marius. She then turned to Lyf, “Wait, why today, though? You don’t have to get the whole menu just because we’re getting the whole menu. Just saying.”

“I may have… slept in a bit, and… and didn’t have breakfast?”

They hadn’t eaten anything that day yet?

“Okay, yeah, I’m going to start bringing snacks to campus, just for you,” Marius promised, making a mental note to start putting snacks into his backpack when he was preparing it in the evenings.

Lyf laughed, “Thanks.”

They entered the building and stopped.

“Okay, that’s a long line,” Raph sighed.

“I can go order for us while you three find us a free table?” Marius offered. “If you already know what you’re having, I mean.”

“Good idea,” Raph said. “I’d like the number two menu, and I’ll just have the usual drink.”

Ivy nodded, “Me too. Number two and the usual drink order.”

“I’m thinking of number three, and I… may not have made up my mind yet about my drink order?” Lyf said, looking at the menu.

Marius chuckled, “Alright, Lyf and I can go order for us while you two find us a free table, then?”

“That works, too,” Raph nodded as Ivy was already looking around, trying to spot any free seats.

The two women walked away.

“What happened to your classic cappuccino iced?” Marius asked.

“Oh, er,” Lyf started, “you got the caramel topping for me last time, and it was really good? So now I’m… trying out some different flavours?”

Lyf really had thought that coffee to be good! It had been a week since their holiday hangout, but Marius was still silently second-guessing whether or not Lyf had just gone along with it because they hadn’t wanted to say anything bad…

But! They’d actually liked it!

Marius smiled, “Well, you’ve got quite some time to decide, I think.”

The two of them placed themselves at the end of the waiting line. Six long minutes later, they were finally nearing the ordering station.

Marius’ phone pinged. He pulled it out to find an image of an empty table in the campus group chat.

The Studious Three ✨✨

Archivist Alexandria
We found an empty table. See above.

Doctor von Raum
Great :)
This is the corner one, right?

Doctor la Cognizi
Yup
They’re really sweet btw

Doctor von Raum
?

Doctor la Cognizi
Lyf

Doctor von Raum
Raphhhh
Stoppppp

Archivist Alexandria
They are.

Doctor von Raum
Not you too Ivyyyy
Also they’re right fucking here!!
They could look down and see the chat at any moment

Doctor la Cognizi
Then stop being on your phone and talk to them <3

Doctor von Raum
>:P

Doctor la Cognizi
;*

Marius put the phone back into his pocket.

“Raph and Ivy found a little cozy table right in the corner,” he told Lyf.

“The one right next to those adorable little cacti?” Lyf asked, excited.

Marius couldn’t help but give a huff of laughter, “Exactly the one, yeah.”

“Hey, don’t laugh!” Lyf pouted. “Those cacti are really cute.”

“I didn’t say they weren’t,” Marius chuckled. “Oh, we’re up next.”

“Hello,” the person at the counter said in a monotone voice. “What would you like to order?”

“We’d like to order four lunch menus,” Marius said with a smile. “Two number twos, a number three, and a number five. Oh, and two slices of that famous chocolate cake of yours, please.”

“That’s not in the lunch menu, so it’ll be extra,” the worker informed him.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Marius nodded.

“Any drinks with that?”

“Yes, and all of these iced, please. We’d like a dark roast with cinnamon and with vanilla sprinkles, a matcha latte without toppings, a regular decaf latte with whipped cream and almond bits with cinnamon on top, and a…?” Marius posed the question towards Lyf.

Lyf finally pulled their eyes away from the menu, “A macchiato with whipped cream, strawberry syrup, and coconut sprinkles, please. Also iced.”

Fun choice. Marius might ask them for a sip.

… Yeah, no. He wasn’t daring enough to ask.

“Here or to-go?”

“We’re eating here, but could you package one cake slice to-go?” Marius asked.

“So one slice for here and one to-go?”

“Yes, please.”

“Alright, that’ll be £34.45, please.”

“I’ve got it,” Lyf said, pulling out their wallet.

“Oh, thanks,” Marius smiled. “We’ll pay you back.”

“No, Ivy and Raph are paying me back. I still owe you for the coffee from last time.”

The card went through.

“When this starts buzzing, your order’s ready for pick-up at the counter over there,” the worker said while handing over the buzzer. “Your order number is 23, if you’d like to follow along on the screen up above the pick-up counter. Have a nice day.”

“Thanks,” Marius smiled as Lyf took the buzzer. “You, too!”

The worker blinked, then finally gave a small tired smile, “Thank you.”

The screen above the pick-up counter said it would only take a few minutes for the order, so Marius texted Ivy that the order was in, and that he and Lyf were going to wait near the counter.

He checked his other notifications, answered a few classmates that were asking about due-dates, then compared his own phone calendar to the course website info again to make sure that he had the right dates.

He did. Okay.

“I’m paying you back for the cake, by the way, because it’s not for me,” Marius told Lyf when he put away his phone. “Also, you know this is coffee and lunch, right?”

“I think we should be even if you get me coffee again sometime,” Lyf said with an amused smile.

“You’d like me to get you coffee again?”

“Well, I don’t plan to stop drinking it any time soon.”

“Guess we’ll have to plan more study dates, then,” Marius laughed.

Shit, study dates ?

Before Marius could backtrack, though, Lyf nodded sagely, “Guess we have no other choice.”

Oh, thank fuck Lyf didn’t read too much into that.

The two stayed silent for a moment. Just then, the buzzer went off.

“Let’s go get our food,” Lyf said, walking off.

The lighting was weird where they’d been standing; for a moment, it almost looked to Marius like they were blushing.

He followed after Lyf, and each of them picked up one of the two plates. The corner was easy to navigate to, and they quickly found Raph and Ivy.

“Okay, so,” Marius said, giving out the food, “number two and matcha latte for Ivy, number two and dark roast for Raph, number three and macchiato for Lyf, and number five and regular latte for me.”

“Wait, who’s the cake for?” Lyf asked. “I forgot to ask earlier.”

“Cake?” Raph looked down at the plated slice.

“That’s for you, Raph,” Marius smiled. “I saw how much chocolate spread you put on your toast this morning, and guessed that your period cravings were kicking in. There’s also another slice packaged to-go, so you can have some more at home.”

Raph blinked in surprise.

“Did I… miss something?” Marius asked, unsure of whether or not to be worried.

“Nope, you just single-handedly restored my faith in people who don’t have periods just now,” Raph said.

“By getting you cake?”

“By being nice about my period.”

“That’s kind of a low bar, though, isn’t it?” Lyf asked, tone betraying their worry.

“Oh ho ho, no ,” Raph huffed. “The bar is being considerate .”

“I feel like there’s a story behind this,” Marius commented as everyone started eating.

“There is,” Raph said, and Ivy nodded along. “I’ve just vented to Ivy, though, so you’re getting the Cliff Notes version. Also, erm, food.

“ Basically , I had an appointment with my GP today, and before you ask, my gynecologist retired just a month ago, so GP it was. My periods have been really bad lately, and I just wanted to get some tests done, to check that nothing was actually wrong. And the guy – gosh, I can’t even – the guy – after casually coming into the practice two hours late! – wrote me off in two minutes with a ‘ periods are generally painful, yes ’.”

Lyf’s mouth dropped, “He did not actually say that.”

“He did! And he just sent me back out without even prescribing me any pain medication!”

“That’s just straight-up shitty of him,” Marius said, upset for his friend.

Raph took a calming breath.

“ Anyway ,” she started with a forced smile, “does anyone have anything more upbeat to share? Unless you’d like to vent as well. You can totally vent if you want. Not trying to hoard the venting mic here.”

“Not really a full vent,” Lyf said, “but you did remind me that I need to schedule an appointment with a GP here.”

“Something wrong?” Marius asked immediately.

“No, no,” Lyf assured everyone. “Apparently the college board demands a health check-up for every student?”

“That goes for exchange students, too?” Ivy asked. “Didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, apparently,” Lyf shrugged. “Apparently, I need to do it if I want to get the course credits.”

“And, just out of curiosity,” Raph started, “how do general check-ups work with, erm… You are amab, right, Lyf? Otherwise this question’s gonna be for Marius only.”

“Oh, er,” Lyf stumbled, looking down at the table, “yes, I-I am.”

“Sorry,” Raph apologized immediately. “Was that too personal? I-I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable or anything, I’m sorry.”

“No,” Lyf chuckled, “no, it’s fine. I’m… kind of happy that you still felt the need to ask, I guess? Means I’m doing something right.”

Oh, they were . And they were so fucking stylish about it. Marius knew it probably wasn’t, but it looked effortless .

They looked back up, “Also, er, what was the question?”

“Well, I was just wondering, how does a regular check-up go for you? And is part of it a specialized check-up for, erm, down there ?”

“You have a gynecology check-up as part of your regular check-ups?” Marius asked.

“It’s not a part of the general check-up, but we do have separate regular check-up appointments,” Ivy explained. “Kind of like with dentists.”

“Well, there are , like, prostate specialists and urologists,” Lyf said, “but we don’t really have regular appointments? It’s like going to a cardiovascular specialist or a neurologist or something – you don’t really go there unless there’s a problem.”

“That…” Raph started, “feels somewhat subpar.”

“I mean, people like Marius and me just do the do , and that’s it,” Lyf said. “After that, we’re just moral support. It’s you guys who physically carry the consequences, if it comes to that. It makes sense to me that you’d have regular appointments with specialised doctors.”

Marius blinked. Do the do ? Consequences? What did… oh.

Episode number 24601 of Marius forgetting that sex was a thing that people usually did, everyone!

… And Lyf was the one who’d brought it up.

Marius didn’t– he didn’t know how to feel about that. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, anyway. That Lyf would be ace like him? Yeah, good luck.

Out of every person he’d gotten to know in the UK, he knew only four of them to be ace, with one of them also being aro. Sure he’d seen a few more flags at the last Pride, but there were still maybe only about twenty or thirty of aces there.

There was a good chance that Lyf wouldn’t have a problem with Marius being ace, even if Marius’ wildest dreams came true and the two started dating, though. A lot of allo-ace couples allegedly made it work.

But what if they did have a problem with it?

Some allos just weren’t compatible with some aces because of it; Marius had heard that through first– and second–hand stories from his ace friends.

He would never want any of his partners to feel like they’d been led on, but Marius also couldn’t change his sexuality or the way he felt about sex in general. And the whole problem got even more complicated when Marius started thinking about his missing hand, the nub out for the world to see during the, well, act .

When this had come up once at home, Nastya and Brian had told him that they’d had similar concerns not all that long ago.

Brian had been concerned about finding a partner who’d be able to see through all the scarring on his body, but had – in the years following his accident – managed to get his confidence back. He’d said that the first few times with any of the few partners he’d had over the years had been very nerve-wracking.

Nastya, on the other hand, had apparently thought that maybe Aurora wouldn’t want to be with her anymore, once it became obvious that Nastya was trans, and she’d even admitted to Marius to have chickened out right before their first time on more than just a few occasions. In the end, though, everything was fine with the two of them.

Marius could only hope to someday find a partner who would be that good to him.

Lyf’s phone buzzed in their hands, where they must have been showing something to Ivy and Raph. They turned the screen towards themself to read the notification.

“Oh, shit,” they said around a mouthful of food, “I need to be on the other side of the campus in 15 minutes.”

“Oh, here,” Ivy said, pulling an empty food container from her tote bag. “You can borrow this for what you’ve got left. I always have one with me, just in case.”

“Thank you!” Lyf grinned. “Are you sure you won’t need it, though?”

“I won’t, thanks,” she smiled and pointed at her almost finished plate. “I was really hungry actually.”

“You should really start packing up,” Raph urged. “Wouldn’t want you to be late for class.”

“Eh, wouldn’t be the first time,” Lyf shrugged, but started packing up the food anyway.

They quickly emptied the plate into the container, and put the cover on.

Lyf grabbed the tray with one hand, then started looking around, “Where do I…”

“We’ll take care of it, don’t worry,” Marius assured them.

“Alright, thanks,” they beamed. “See you tomorrow for Classic History, Marius?”

Marius nodded with a small smile, “Yeah, see ya.”

“Bye guys! It was nice getting to know you two!”

As Lyf all but ran off, Raph turned her eyes to Marius.

“Okay, you don’t want to talk about what’s wrong,” she said. “And that’s fine, I get it. We can talk about it when we’re all home and cozy and I’ll convince Brian to make you some of that special hot chocolate that you like.”

Marius let out a small frustrated huff. So Raph and Ivy hadn’t bought his bluff. He appreciated them being considerate enough not to point it out with Lyf still there, though.

Also, it did usually help him to talk his problems through with someone, but he wasn’t about to tell anyone about Edwin, and he was really probably just blowing the ace thing out of proportions. He could vent about his workload and the extra classes, though.

And Raph had just promised him the really good hot chocolate.

He smiled. He really loved his friends.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, “that works.”

“Alright,” Raph nodded, self-accomplished. “The second topic by order of importance is Lyf, though, so–”

Marius gave a sigh so deep he almost faceplanted into his remaining lunch.

He hated his friends.

Chapter Text

Lyf was trying very hard not to smile. Thankfully they could partially hide behind the chocolate chip cookie they were currently munching on.

(They hadn’t expected Marius to mean it when he’d said he’d start bringing snacks just for Lyf. This had been quite a pleasant surprise, if Lyf was being honest.)

The cookie wasn’t what was making them smile, though.

… Okay, it wasn’t the only thing making them smile.

At the opposite side of the desk, Marius was… doing something ? for an… assignment? Okay, Lyf wasn’t sure exactly what Marius was doing, but the man was letting out little frustrated huffs, and it was, quite frankly, adorable .

They were also frustrated huffs, though, and Lyf was not having that.

“Marius,” Lyf called.

The other looked up, “Hm?”

“You sound like you’ve hit a bit of a wall, there,” they tried to gently point out. “ And you’ve been going at it non-stop since the four of us have come back from lunch.”

That had been three hours ago.

Raphaella had already needed to leave for her afternoon class, and Ivy left soon afterwards to do her librarian duties (Lyf still wasn’t sure what those were, and they made a mental note to ask Ivy about it sometime).

Somehow, Marius was still looking at them like he didn’t quite get what they were trying to convey.

“I’m suggesting you take a little break,” Lyf clarified.

Marius blinked. He kept looking at them for another few seconds, seemingly confused at the notion. Like the idea hadn’t even occurred to him.

He looked down at his laptop, his brow scrunching low.

“But I’ve got assignments due and the exam season starts next week, and–”

“And you’ll do great ,” Lyf interrupted gently, fully confident in Marius’ skill to ace any and all of his exams and complete his assignments on time. “But you need to take breaks, too.”

Marius glanced up at them, still unsure.

"I'll… set up a timer?" Lyf offered.

That seemed to help a bit.

Marius looked down at his laptop. He sighed, nodded, reached out to press some keys (to save a document, perhaps?), then closed the machine.

Lyf grabbed their phone from the desk and set up an alarm in half an hour. That would hopefully be enough time for Marius to have a bit of a break while at the same time not stressing him out too much about “wasting study time”.

The man kept somewhat absently staring at the desk and his notebooks, though.

Was he okay?

Marius had seemed in a bit of a slump last Wednesday, but he seemed to have been doing somewhat better in the following days. Not completely better, though.

Was the upcoming exam season affecting him this much, or was there something else completely going on?

Lyf was just about to check in with Marius, just to make sure there weren’t any other underlying issues, when the man looked up at them.

“Hey, er,” he started, glancing away like he was… shy? “You know how, erm, last time, well, not last time, but, er, not too long ago, we, er…” He took a deep breath. “Do you need any more help with pose references? That was… fun, that time.”

Lyf felt robbed of their words.

Marius was asking them for this?! He… he’d really enjoyed it?

“I-I mean, we don’t have to,” Marius backtracked, “if-if you’re busy, or… something.”

“No no!” Lyf quickly waved their hands. “I’ve definitely got more sketches I’d like help with!”

“Yeah?” Marius asked, looking directly at Lyf now.

“Yeah,” Lyf nodded, a smile climbing onto their face.

Marius gave a small smile as well.

“Alright,” he said, standing up, “what would you like me to do?”

“Hm, let’s start with you standing over there,” Lyf directed Marius to a spot just a step away from the desk, subtly trying to close the browser tab with reference pictures they’d had open on their laptop before Marius could see it.

“Alright, this last one had a bit of a different vibe,” Marius chuckled as he sat down next to Lyf. “Is it a commission?”

Lyf nodded, “I’m fairly certain it’s a DnD character.”

Lyf looked at the very rough sketch, only the most important features in the pose lightly marked. They looked through their pencil case, pulling out a softer pencil, so they could draw in the non-human parts, like pointy ears, and clawed fingers on one hand.

“How have the commissions been going?” Marius asked.

“It’s been… interesting , to say the least,” Lyf chuckled. “Some people are much more creative than they should be.”

The amount of 18+ works they’d had to turn down because they were just too wild…

“It’s money, though,” they went on, “and it’s helping me get a bit out of my comfort zone.”

“Is it something you could see yourself doing long-term?”

Huh. Good question.

“I… don’t think so?” they started. “I didn’t really have a clear plan for my future when I decided to study art, and I imagine that’s quite often the case. I think… I think the commissions are something that’s setting a good path for me, but it’s not quite what I think I’d like to someday do professionally. No clue what I would like to be doing, exactly, but, yeah.”

They unlocked their phone, and opened up the latest batch of reference photos they received from the client.

“Wuzzat?” Marius leaned closer, seemingly very interested.

So. Close.

“Er, these are,” Lyf started, “they’re the approximate clothes that the character is supposed to be wearing. I usually just like to quickly add them in before I start on the details.”

They took an even softer pencil still, and started with a bit of detail over the sketch. They’d been doing commissions for a little while now, and this back and forth about character creation with the client had been part of the process on quite a few occasions, but Lyf still felt like they had to deliver a good drawing, even if this character was still in the “rough design” phase.

Also, Marius was watching.

They drew the pulled-up sleeve on the right bicep, shaping the bare arm, about two thirds of the way down to the wrist. There, they erased the rest of the forearm and hand, then properly drew the end of the character’s residual limb with the pencil.

Lyf saw in the corner of their eye how Marius gingerly pulled away. They looked at him, and found wide eyes staring at the drawing.

There was no more excitement there, though.

“What’s up?” they asked.

Lyf didn’t think they’d seen Marius like this before, so they weren’t really sure what was going on. Whatever it was, though, Marius absolutely didn’t seem happy.

The man in question blinked, looked away from the desk.

“Nothing.”

Marius crossed his arms over his chest, and– was it just Lyf’s imagination, or was Marius gripping his right arm just below the elbow?

… Was this about the character missing a hand? Was that what was making him uncomfortable?

Lyf really didn’t want to assume anything bad, though.

“If you have any pointers on the drawing you can tell me,” Lyf tried, hoping for at least some kind of a reaction on Marius’ end.

And a reaction they got.

Marius looked up, directly locking eyes with them, face unreadable. He stared at them for all of two seconds, before turning his head away.

“No,” he bit out. “I don’t.”

Why the sudden cold shoulder? Lyf was so lost.

One moment, the two of them were having fun, and the next… Well, this .

Was Marius really bothered by a missing hand on a fictional character? Surely not. Lyf had been hanging out with him for two months now, and Marius had seemed like such a sweet person.

Oh, no. Was this Amalie all over again? The two of them had been dating for almost a year, back in upper secondary, and she’d been very supportive of Lyf trying out her makeup and such, when she suddenly decided to take offense in Lyf embracing their less masculine features.

Was Lyf giving Marius too much credit, like they’d done with Amalie?

They hoped they were just misunderstanding the situation. It still hurt, though, in the moment.

Lyf set down their pencil and bodily turned on their chair towards Marius.

“Are you sure ?” they asked. “Because it looks to me like you’ve got something to say here.”

Please, Marius.

The man took a quick breath in.

“I–”

But he didn’t go on.

His voice trembled with that one word, though, and now Lyf was starting to make out what exactly it was that was sitting on Marius’ face. It was… Oh, they’d seen that before. On two separate occasions, actually. When Marius was waiting for Lyf to tell him his Classic History test results, and a week later, when Lyf ran into him in the library, before they went to the private study room for the first time.

Marius wasn’t trying to push down anger or disgust – he was distressed . And Lyf was certain there were bits of fear and shame flashing through the mask of indifference Marius was trying to put up.

Lyf felt elated that they were wrong about Marius possibly starting up a fight over a missing hand, but they knew this wasn’t the time. They needed to sort this out, fast, or risk losing Marius for real.

Shit.

“Marius?” Lyf called out, tone much softer than just moments earlier.

The man finally looked at Lyf again, and it was so obvious now.

“Marius, can we just… Can we just talk?” Lyf asked, gentle. “I feel like we’re… not quite on the same page, here.”

Marius looked down at his lap, but didn’t protest. Lyf took that as a careful yes.

They looked down at the drawing.

“Okay. Right after I drew the arm of the character, I saw you pull away and close off. I thought you may have had a problem with the character not having a hand. That you disapproved of… people being disabled, I guess, and getting representation.” They turned back to Marius, “Was I right in that assumption?”

Marius’ eyes flew back up to Lyf, wider than before, and he anxiously shook his head, “N-no…”

“That’s… really good to know, actually,” Lyf sighed.

Marius was still staring at them, but now Lyf could see a hint of disbelief in his eyes.

“I mean it,” Lyf told him. “I would have started one hell of an argument if you’d had something against people with disabilities being treated like proper human beings. Well, this character is technically not human but rather from some fantasy race, but… you know what I mean.”

At this, Marius seemed almost like he was tearing up.

“Er,” Lyf panicked, deciding to backtrack a bit, “I’m sorry, did-did I say something wrong?”

Marius looked down at his lap, his arms still crossed over his chest.

He shook his head, “... No.”

Lyf slowly nodded, “Okay. Alright. Can you tell me what you thought was going on?”

Marius remained quiet for a moment longer.

Then, “I thought–” Deep breath. “When you drew the nub, I–”

He took another couple of breaths, very obviously trying to calm himself down.

“I panicked,” he finally said, looking directly at Lyf once more. “I… I immediately thought that everyone knew , and that I was rubbish at hiding it. I–” Deep breath, and, yeah, Marius was definitely tearing up now. “That’s… That’s not really something I’d want to see happen. Everyone knowing , I mean.”

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t follow,” Lyf gently tried. “Knowing what?”

A moment of hesitation. Then, Marius looked around, like he was checking that there wasn’t anyone close by to listen to the conversation, even though the two of them were alone in the private study room. His gaze landed on the drawing again.

Deep breath.

“My, erm,” Marius started. Paused. Then, “My hand’s the same.”

Lyf looked down at Marius’ still crossed arms, then at the drawing.

What? Hand…

“Oh!” Back at Marius. “Your hand’s–”

“Yeah,” Marius cut them off with what was almost a whisper. “Prosthetic.”

That… made a lot of sense for this whole interaction, actually. And for some of the things Lyf’s picked up on Marius doing a bit differently, over these past two months.

(Lyf had honestly just assumed that those differences had come to be because Marius, a left-handed person, was living in a world curated to right-handed people. Marius having a prosthetic hand had never even crossed their mind.)

“Is that why you wear gloves even indoors? And long sleeves?” Lyf asked, voice softer than a moment before, following Marius’ lead, even if there was no one there to overhear the conversation.

Marius nodded, looking away again.

“Well–” he started, “ that , but I also do get cold faster than most people here. I’m not originally from the UK, and it’s… noticeable.”

Maybe Lyf was reading a bit too much into it, but had that just now been a bit of a misdirection?

It’d make sense, Lyf supposed. Marius likely wasn’t very fond of this subject, seeing he didn’t even want people knowing about his hand in the first place.

“Do you want to talk about this?” Lyf asked directly, not wanting to beat around the bush again. “Your hand, I mean. It’s fine if you don’t.”

“I… No?”

“Alright,” Lyf nodded.

“... Alright?” Marius looked up at them, surprised.

“Mhm,” Lyf nodded again, not quite getting what Marius was surprised about. “Alright.”

Marius stared.

“Just like that?” he asked. “Do you not have… questions, at the very least?”

“Of course I do,” Lyf shrugged, because they did have questions. “But you don’t really look very comfortable talking about it right now, and you quite literally just said that you don’t want to talk about it.”

Marius looked down at the desk.

“Besides,” Lyf went on, “I remember how pissed my mom got every time someone bothered her with questions about her prosthetic eye - at one point she just started wearing an eyepatch in the hopes of scaring people into not asking questions at all. But yeah, you don’t want to talk about it, so we won’t talk about it.”

Marius kept quiet for a moment. Then the corners of his lips started turning up. His lower lip started trembling. His head hung down, and he pressed his left fist, closed, against his mouth.

“Marius?” Lyf called, concerned, reaching a hand out to his shoulder.

Oh no. Oh shit. Did they actually fuck up now?

When their hand made contact, Marius looked up, one single tear making its way down his cheek.

Marius gave them the biggest smile, “Thank you.”

Lyf’s smile was much softer, “Of course.”

The moment seemed to stretch in a very comfortable way, and–

Oh no. Was Lyf being too obvious with their crush?

Marius broke the silence first, though, rubbing at his eyes and clearing his throat.

“So, erm,” he started. “You mentioned your mother, just now. Are you going back home after we’re done with exams, before the next semester starts?”

Ouch. That was… An interesting topic. One Lyf had been avoiding for a little while now.

Lyf pulled their hand back and tried to make themself comfortable in their seat. This wasn’t going to be fun.

“I… I was planning to visit her, yes. But…”

Marius’ brow scrunched low, his full attention now very much on the new topic, “But?”

“I’m not–” Lyf started, not looking at Marius.

Just get it over with. Like ripping off a band-aid. A really really really painful band-aid.

“I’m not sure whether or not I’m coming back next semester.”

“... What?”

Lyf hated how small Marius sounded with that one word. They knew this wouldn’t have been easy, but it was turning out to be even harder than they’d thought it would be.

“It kind of… depends on my mother?” Lyf sighed. “She’s a bit controlling, and it was pretty difficult to convince her for this one semester, already.”

“You’re… not a minor, though,” Marius pointed out. “She can’t just keep you home if that’s not what you want.”

“I’m still heavily leaning on her financially,” Lyf admitted. “If she decides she won’t pay for another semester, well… I don’t really have that kind of money yet. Commissions are a good income, but it’s not really a job job. Not yet, at least.”

Marius looked down, deep in thought. He seemed to come to a conclusion.

“What if someone else pays?”

Lyf shook their head, “No, I… I couldn’t let you do that. I’d be indebted for…”

“It’s not a problem, really–”

“Marius, no.”

A moment of silence stretched between the two of them.

“Also, I’m kind of nervous about the trip back home itself,” Lyf admitted.

“Helicopter parent,” Marius nodded, remembering the conversation from some time ago.

“Not just that,” Lyf sighed. “I’m not… out? To her? About either of the cis and het labels.”

Marius’ face turned sad with sympathy, “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Which is kind of funny,” Lyf went on with a hollow chuckle, “because she even met the guy I used to date about a year ago.”

Mikkel had actually been the one who’d made Lyf feel safe enough to explore their gender identity and expression again after the whole shitshow with Amalie, and later even came up with the idea of them applying for a student exchange programme to get some time away from their mother. The relationship hadn’t really worked out in the end, but the two remained good friends, which Lyf was really happy about.

“Thing was,” Lyf continued, “he was a trans man, and quite early on in his transition, so when he met my mother, she just thought him to be a tomboy or something, and… Well, neither of us felt too comfortable correcting her.

“And the whole situation is actually even more absurd, because one of my older siblings is trans, and she’s been out for as long as I can remember, so you’d think I should know what our mother’s stance is on that, right? But no , because out of my two siblings, Lira’s always been our mother’s least favourite twin, so the two of them have been at each other’s throats basically since the dawn of time.”

Lyf huffed.

“Since Tal and Lira moved out about eight years ago – they’re much older than me, so it wasn’t like a teenage runaway thing, by the way – well, any and all expectations our mother had… they all fell on me. And I… It’s not just about the money, or my chosen profession, or my gender, or sexual orientation, it’s– She’s my mother, you know? I don’t want to lose her.”

Aaaand Lyf was pretty sure they were going to start crying.

Great.

Not to mention that Marius was the first person in the UK that Lyf had opened up about this to. And even back home only Mikkel knew the whole story.

They felt a hand on their shoulder. Looking up, they found Marius in a state similar to their own – eyes wet, shoulders heavy – empathy and worry and sadness and care all shining through his face and body language.

They wanted to tell Marius so much more. They wanted to tell him how much they enjoyed his company. They wanted to tell him how good an idea the new coffee toppings were. They wanted to tell him how his neckerchiefs always made their day.

They wanted to tell him just how exactly they felt about him.

Lyf just opened their mouth to say something, when the study break alarm went off, and they felt a pang of pain in their chest.

They were out of time.

Chapter Text

Marius set the violin and bow onto the stand, and sat down on the floor, rubbing at where his nub met the prosthesis. His fucking nonexistent hand was giving him hell again.

“I’m sorry, guys.”

Jonny came over and kneeled down next to him.

“Hey,” he said, putting a reassuring hand on Marius’ shoulder, “what did we say about apologising for symptoms?”

Marius looked away, “Not to.”

“Exactly. Now,” Jonny sat down next to him, “is there anything you need?”

Raph took a step closer, too, “A break from the prosthesis, maybe?”

“A break from everything, honestly,” Marius sighed.

“We could’ve rescheduled the group rehearsals, Marius,” Brian said gently. “Our schedules aren’t that busy.”

Marius nodded, angry at himself, “I know. I just thought it would be fine.”

He’d actually been looking forward to the group rehearsals. The Mechanisms didn’t have any gigs coming up for a little while yet, so the rehearsals weren’t needed , per se, but it was a nice way for everyone to spend some time together and be creative.

And now Marius had ruined it all.

“Yeah,” Jonny decided, “we’re postponing this. You’re clearly not feeling well.”

“I’ll be fine, I just–,” Marius started, but the look from Jonny stopped him from saying more. Instead, Marius decided on, “You guys can still do your thing while I go take care of this.”

It wouldn’t be the first time that someone needed to leave rehearsals. That thought was the only thing making Marius even consider walking away.

Aurora stood up from her cozy corner of the band room and walked over, offering Marius a hand.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the hand to get up from the floor. “You can stay with the others, though. I’ve got this.”

Aurora looked at him for a second longer, before looking down and nodding.

“Still, thank you for the offer,” Marius said to her as he was taking off his special prosthesis with the detachable wrists.

Aurora gave him a gentle smile. Marius didn’t really look at anyone else.

When the prosthesis was properly stored in its padded case, Marius, eyes kept on the floor, made his way out of the room.

He hurried up the stairs and into his room. After just having closed the door, he paused.

He turned around, now facing the room proper.

There was so much stuff on his desk. His notebooks, books from the library, there were writing utensils everywhere, and even his laptop was still open, though the screen had turned off on its own due to inactivity. His phone was lying on top of one of the notebooks, connected to a charger.

He didn’t want to see the damn thing.

The very last time he’d looked at it, there was a notification waiting for him from Edwin, saying that he needed a really good grade on the essay.

Probably to lift his average, the spoiled fuck.

Marius hadn’t actually opened the app, so the notification was probably still there.

He closed his eyes. The deadline was in only three days. The essay was almost finished, but now Marius would have to go through it again, to see if he could make anything better.

If this essay got anything below a top mark, Marius was likely done for.

His own essay was waiting for him, still in a brainstorm-list format, in one of the notebooks. There were two other assignments that were already half-written, both of them overdue. And there was also another assignment he hadn’t even started yet that was due in a week.

The study plan he’d made about a month ago and taped to the wall above the desk was staring at him, barely more than half of the rows crossed out. The exams were starting the very next week, and Marius was so behind.

Looking at the desk, though, he just wanted to go to bed. He was so tired, and, while he couldn’t quite explain it, it had been kind of hard to think, lately.

And the most frustrating part was that he had no idea why it was happening.

Sure, his hand had been somewhat acting up lately, either with phantom pain or with his nub getting sore, like he’d been wearing his prostheses for too long, but he’d been taking pain medication, and it was helping, somewhat. Aside from that, his anxiety had been spiking a lot in these past few weeks, but he just needed to get through the next three to four weeks and he surely had enough anxiety meds to get him through till then, right?

Speaking of anxiety, he really should be studying right now, if he wasn’t down at rehearsals – there was still too much material for him to get through, so he couldn’t be wasting time. Also, he couldn’t let himself not get a positive mark on all of the upcoming exams if he wanted to see Lyf off for their already booked flight.

And just– Fuck .

Lyf was leaving. In a week– no. Less than a week now. Six days.

Marius had six days left to spend with Lyf.

And he should be studying.

His breath was shaking. His chest was heaving. His hand still hurt , and–

And he should be studying .

He needed three passing grades the very next week, and he was nowhere near through the course material. He had to send Edwin his finished essay in the next three days, and he couldn’t think. He wanted to chat with Lyf, even if it was over the phone, but Lyf was currently studying for their own exams, and they were probably already packing up their stuff, and they were leaving.

He wanted– he needed to be able to take a fucking breath .

Why was he just standing there? He was skipping on quality time with his housemates, he wasn’t talking to Lyf, his laptop screen was still off and thus useless for writing Edwin’s essay, the exams were getting closer by the second – so why? Why wasn’t he doing anything useful ?

His chest hurt. His hand still did, too, so.

He had to do something . He should be able to do something.

He took a shaky step towards his desk.

… Oh for fuck’s sake, what was he doing? He was in no state to do his fucking assignments. Logically, he knew that.

But… looking at his desk –

No.

Just, no .

He couldn’t stay in his room.

He needed to get out. Go somewhere else – anywhere else.

He lunged for the door, bolting out into the hallway, one singular thought going towards “please, let the hallway be empty”, before he stopped just outside his room.

Where was he supposed to go?

His room used to be his safe space. With that apparently gone, what was left?

He clutched at his shirt with his hand. It was too tight. It wasn’t allowing his lungs to expand, and he could breathe, he couldn’t–

Bathroom, maybe?

He walked over to the door, pausing right in front of it, trying to keep his heaving breaths as quiet as possible so as not to alarm his housemates.

He could lock himself inside, have a bit of a cry until this passed through (or he passed out, whichever came first, really – maybe then he could at least get some sleep), and then… And then what?

Without even reaching for the handle, he leaned his forehead onto the door. Turning slightly, he slumped the right side of his body against it, then slid down into a crouch.

He just wanted to be able to fucking breathe .

Losing his balance for a moment, he jerked and his knees hit the ground.

Ouch.

At least he was a bit more stable now. Physically.

He put his hand over his face. He felt the sudden but not unfamiliar urge to cram himself into a tight corner, feeling much too exposed out there in the middle of the hallway.

Snap, snap

He opened his eyes (when had he closed them?), looked up to find what had made the sound.

Aurora.

Aurora was kneeling before him, just out of reach, her hands up, seemingly going for something between placating and showing she didn’t mean any harm.

No. No no no no .

The last thing Marius wanted was for one of his housemates to see this. His vision was blurring with tears now, his chest ached with the breaths that still weren’t coming in , and he was shaking from head to toe.

She was going to be so angry. She was going to be disappointed in him for being unable to handle looking at books . She was going to be furious with him for holding up the bathroom when he wasn’t even using it, and–

And he was fully crying now. He wasn’t usually ashamed of crying in front of other people, not when he had a good reason for it. This, though? This wasn’t a very good reason. And Marius could feel his face flushing red.

He looked down at the ground, unable to keep the sobs from bubbling up his throat.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do –

A hand on his shoulder.

He forced himself to glance halfway up. It was Aurora’s hand. He chanced to look directly at her, now sitting down much closer to him, just to gauge exactly how angry she was, and… And she wasn’t .

How wasn’t she angry?

She looked worried, on the verge of tears herself. She lifted her other hand slightly, moved it a bit closer to him, palm open, her face questioning.

Marius didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know what to do.

The woman leaned closer, keeping her watchful gaze on his every movement. Then her arms slid around him, and she gently pulled the two of them together.

What was she…? Oh.

Aurora was hugging him.

Marius still couldn’t quite breathe, and the sobbing wasn’t really helping, but it was good to know that Aurora really wasn’t angry.

She started carefully rubbing his back.

The contact helped. It really did.

But Marius physically could not relax into her hold. Not right then.

Instead, he put his own arms around her, buried his face into her shoulder, and trusted her to keep him safe while he cried.

“Alright,” Doctor Beeley said gently, “here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to try to take more breaks.”

Marius looked down at his lap.

After he’d had a complete breakdown in the hallway not quite yet a full day ago, Jonny of all people had managed to convince Marius not to wait for his monthly appointment, which he’d had scheduled for the following week. So, in the morning, Marius had called Doctor Beeley, and immediately got a slot for the afternoon.

“I know it seems counterintuitive,” the woman said, “but it’ll help ground you. Let’s aim for… say half an hour each day, okay?”

Marius nodded at the floor. It seemed so stupid . He had shit to do, and a lot of it, and his therapist – his professor – wanted him to not do it?

“No schoolwork,” she continued. “Do something you haven’t done in a while. Spend time with your housemates, or with that friend you mentioned. Even if they’re moving away soon – right now, they’re still here.”

Marius had ended up spilling his guts about Lyf, too, not just about his workload. At least he had the common sense not to tell Doctor Beeley about Edwin – either she’d be on Edwin’s side, or she wouldn’t have been able to do anything anyway, due to doctor-patient confidentiality.

Marius nodded, “It does sound like nonsense.”

“It will help,” Doctor Beeley interjected. “Based on everything you’ve told me, I’d say you’re already in the early stages of burnout, Marius. And keeping in mind everything else that’s also going on right now, my guess is that if we don’t do something about it right now , then it likely won’t stop at the end of the exam period, and it’ll be even harder to get back from it.

“Taking breaks is crucial right now. I understand that you feel like you’re missing out on study time, but it’s important to let your brain rest, especially when you’ve got a lot to deal with. Your brain has been working overtime lately, which is why you’re having trouble thinking and sleeping – and that, in turn, is exacerbating your other conditions. It’s like you’re in a marathon, but you’re trying to take each street separately as a sprint – it’s not something that will get you to the finish line.”

She had a point. She always did. She’d helped him out on countless occasions now, so Marius definitely would do his “homework” as per her instructions, even if he didn’t necessarily feel like actually taking the advice.

“So no schoolwork for a half hour each day,” he said in the end.

“And meals and sleeping don’t count towards this.”

Marius gave a hollow chuckle, “What if I’m currently doing schoolwork during meals?”

Doctor Beeley carefully didn’t sigh.

“Do you do that?” she asked instead.

“Sometimes, yeah,” he answered. He frowned, “Often, actually. Recently, at least.”

“Proper schoolwork, or just planning ahead?”

“Bit of both. Mostly the first.”

Doctor Beeley nodded, “Let’s try to limit that to just planning for now, okay?”

He was so tired. Crying his brain out always had that effect. He just hoped his face wasn’t too puffy. He wouldn’t want his housemates to worry even more, once he got home.

Marius sighed, “I’ll try.”

“That’s all you have to do,” Doctor Beeley said with a small smile. “Try.”

Marius felt another wave of tears coming on at that, but he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, managing to keep them at bay. He nodded.

“You mentioned one of your housemates is picking you up?” Doctor Beeley asked.

Opening his eyes but still not making eye contact with her, he nodded again.

“Is the hour up already?” he asked.

He had no idea. His sense of time hadn’t been working properly for days now. Maybe even a week or two, actually? … Maybe longer?

Was that another symptom of burnout?

“We’ve passed the hour mark a little while ago already,” Doctor Beeley smiled gently.

“Oh, erm, sorry,” Marius said, quickly standing up from the couch.

“It’s fine, Marius,” she told him calmly. “I have the rest of the day free, and you needed this.”

She stood up and walked over to him.

“Contact your friend,” she said. “Try for a proper half hour break each day, and no actual schoolwork during meals. And I’ll send the refill order through now, so you can already pick up your refill today. Tell me again what the rules are here?”

“No more than three pills per week and not on three consecutive days,” Marius dutifully recited. “Not more than eight per month.”

He was already at seven for this month, and not even three weeks of January had passed yet. He needed to be careful.

Last thing he needed right now was an opioid addiction.

“And I’ll be seeing you next week for our regularly scheduled appointment, correct?” Doctor Beeley asked.

Marius nodded. Another session the following week sounded like something he’d probably need.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

Ashes had been waiting for him in front of the office, and after gently shutting down any and all of his apologies for the tardiness, they calmly walked to the subway with him.

Right after the two found empty seats in the car, Marius somehow managed to promptly fall asleep on Ashes’ shoulder. He felt guilty because of it the whole walk back from the station, but whenever he brought it up, Ashes just smiled at him and told him not to worry about it.

“I think there might be people in the living room,” they said as they were fishing through their pockets for their front door key.

Marius could now hear some commotion through the window as well.

Ashes found the key, but they paused before making another move, “Are you up for company right now, or would you rather a moment to yourself?”

Marius wanted to say that he’d like to spend time with his housemates. He wanted to say he’d like to play some video games or board games with everyone. He really wanted to say he’d love it if everyone could just pile up on the couch and watch a movie together.

… But at the moment, he just felt tired. He felt tired, and raw , and very much not up to socialising.

Ashes unlocked the door, and the two stepped in.

“I think,” Marius started quietly, not really looking up at his friend, “I think I’d just like to go to my room for a bit, if that’s okay.”

Ashes gave a gentle smile, “Yeah, course. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them you’re resting upstairs, that okay?”

Marius nodded, “Thanks.”

The two of them took off their jackets and shoes. Ashes went into the kitchen, possibly to fetch a drink or a quick snack before dinner.

Marius started up the stairs. He really needed to catch up with his workload. The first thing he should be getting at would probably be–

No. No, he needed to rest for a bit.

He stopped in the middle of the staircase.

He was both physically and mentally tired, and thus in no way to study (not that it’d stopped him before, though).

Deep breath.

Ashes walked out of the kitchen, and spotted him on the stairs.

“Need anything?” they asked.

Marius looked down at them. He had to take a break.

“Would you mind, er,” he started, “maybe calling Theo up? If-if he has time, of course.”

Ashes smiled and nodded, “I’ll send him up.”

Marius sighed.

He managed a small smile, “Thank you.”

He continued on up the stairs. He had a certain box to find.

Stepping into his room, he made an effort not to look at his desk, and instead veered right towards his wardrobe. Opening the doors, he spotted the box on the top shelf.

The box wasn’t really heavy, or very big, for that matter, so by the time Theo came knocking on his open door, Marius was already sitting on his little couch, box on the low table in front of him, prosthesis properly stored in its spot on the cupboard next to his desk, which he was still refusing to look at.

“Ashes said you asked for me?” Theo said with a calm smile.

Marius stood up, but didn’t move away from the couch. It was mostly nerves, really.

“Y-yeah,” he nodded. “I was just wondering if, erm,” he started, “if you maybe had any simple embroidery projects I could try?” He looked down at the box. “I’ve got all the stuff we were using back when you first showed me how to do it, now I just… need something to work on?”

When Marius looked back up at Theo, the man was absolutely beaming .

“Of course I’ve got a few simple ideas sketched out!” Theo grinned. He then continued in a more reserved tone, “Would you mind it if I brought my own work-in-progress here, and we worked together?”

That… sounded quite nice, actually. Not to mention that having Theo there beside him would likely stop Marius from just getting up five minutes into the thing to go back to studying.

“I’d… like that, yeah,” Marius nodded.

“Alright,” Theo turned around, calling back as he already started down the hallway, “I’ll be back in a moment with my idea book and my own supplies!”

Marius looked at the now empty doorway. He turned his gaze down towards the box.

He couldn’t help but give a small smile.

“Morning,” Brian greeted as he entered the kitchen.

“Morning,” Marius greeted back without looking up from his laptop.

After spending a bit of the afternoon doing embroidery with Theo, Marius had decided to tell his housemates about his “half hour off” therapy homework, in the hopes of them keeping him accountable (and maybe joining him with some leisurely activities like Theo had). In turn, his housemates had asked him to spend more time in the common areas or to keep his room door open, so they could keep an eye on him and offer help and comfort when needed.

And so, this morning, he’d grabbed his laptop and his notebooks and his utensils, and he walked right down to the kitchen. It had been a little after five in the morning when no one was really awake, but he had come to the kitchen.

“Is it okay with you if I cook while you’re studying?” Brian asked. “My hand’s finally decided to stop bitching for two minutes.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Marius said. “I’m just starting with a break right now, anyway.” He then looked up at Brian, “Glad to hear about the hand, though. It’s been bothering you for, what, almost a whole week straight, now?”

Brian huffed and rubbed the back of his left hand and forearm.

“A bit on and off, yeah. I’ve been itching to do stuff, but I’m not nearly as capable of doing things one handed as you are, so I’ve decided to make breakfast for everyone today before my hand remembers to start being a nuisance again.”

Brian paused, looking at something on the table.

“What’s the timer for?” he asked.

Marius looked down at his phone, counting down from thirty minutes, now at twenty-six and thirty-four seconds.

“Oh, I, er, I had some trouble sleeping, so I’ve been up for a while?” Marius said. “I’ve been going over some assignments for about an hour and a half now, and I just hit a bit of a dead end with something, so I thought it best to take a break now while I’m not right in the middle of something.”

“And the timer’s for your break?”

Marius nodded, “Therapist said thirty minutes.”

Brian’s head tilted, “Why d’you have everything still open, then? Your notebooks,” he leaned closer to the laptop, “course material and deadlines split on your screen,” looked back at Marius, “everything?”

“I’m… planning for what I should be doing next?” Marius said, and it was the truth.

If he wasn’t being productive, he might as well figure out which steps he should be taking moving forward with his assignments and study sessions, right? Not to mention he still had to polish up Edwin’s essay, the prick.

Brian didn’t seem to think the same, if his scrunched brow was anything to go by.

“Marius,” the man said, concern in his voice, “correct me if I’m wrong, but the way I see it, you’re just trying to cross the thirty minutes off your to-do list. That’s… not really how breaks work.”

But… he wasn’t working through course material or working on assignments. That surely counted as a break, right?

Was Marius doing this all wrong? Was that why he still hadn’t slept well last night? Okay, the first few hours he could understand, since he’d fallen asleep at his desk, but then he did move to his bed! And he’d still woken up at four in the morning, unable to fall back asleep, and finally decided to get up after an hour of staring into nothing.

“Marius?” Brian called.

Marius blinked back into the moment. His cheek was wet. Why was his cheek wet? And why was his vision blurry?

“Marius,” Brian tried again, and Marius realised Brian had a hand on his shoulder.

Marius sniffled.

Oh, he was crying again. Great. What was up with that recently?

“You back with me?” Brian asked.

Marius wiped his cheek with his hand, then wiped at his eyes. He nodded.

“Okay, good,” Brian sighed, sounding… relieved?

“I’m sorry,” Marius murmured.

“Hey, no, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” Brian said gently. “ I’m sorry. My words probably came across a bit harsher than I intended.” He pulled Marius into a hug. “You’re doing great, Marius. You decided – without an outside prompt – to take a break. I’m proud of you. I need you to know that.”

Brian was… proud of him?

Marius sniffled again, this time into Brian’s shoulder.

“We’re all very proud of you that you’re making an effort in trying to deal with everything that’s going on,” Brian continued, and he hugged Marius the tiniest bit closer. “We are all so very proud of you. All I wanted to say earlier was that maybe you could step away from your materials while you’re on a break? Just to really let your brain know that it doesn’t need to be working at that moment. That was all.”

That… sounded sensible, actually.

Marius stayed in Brian’s embrace for a few moments longer. He then pulled back a bit, neither of them really letting go. He turned to the desk, reached out with his left hand, finger hovering above the timer.

Deep breath. No need to cry over this again. Brian was right – trying to plan ahead and worrying about deadlines and exam dates wasn’t really giving his brain any kind of break.

Deep… breath.

He paused the timer. Closed the app. Locked his phone.

“Doing great,” Brian said, and Marius could hear the smile in the man’s voice.

A yawn came from down the hallway.

“Mmmorning, Brian,” Tim greeted, stretching his arms when he paused in the doorway.

“You’re up early,” Brian noted, but he didn’t move away from Marius.

Marius thought it was probably a bit selfish, but he appreciated that Brian stayed close.

“Bed was cold,” Tim pouted.

Right. The two of them had gotten together sometime during the holidays. With everything else going on, Marius had almost completely forgotten about it.

“Can I help with breakfast?” Tim asked, walking along the counters, stopping a little ways away from the stove, then jumping to sit atop the counter.

“Sure,” Brian chuckled. He then turned to Marius, “Would you like to help as well, Marius?”

“Oh,” Tim said, caught somewhat off-guard, “sorry. Good morning to you, too, Marius.”

“Morning,” Marius got out, and that one tired word was enough for Tim to frown.

“Not a good one, eh? Sorry to hear that.”

“We’re working on it,” Brian said. “So, Marius, would you like to help out, or would you rather just hang around a bit?”

Making breakfast with Brian and Tim definitely sounded like a Good break. Right?

“I’ll…” Marius started. “I’ll help, if you tell me what to do?”

“Tim has told me on far more than one occasion that he’s been craving pancakes,” Brain said. “How does that sound for breakfast?”

Marius frowned, “Maybe a bit too sweet, but… I wouldn’t really mind pancakes right now.”

“Dibs on mixing!” Tim said, raising one hand.

“Just as long as you don’t get flour everywhere like last time,” Brian laughed.

The kitchen had been a mess that one time.

“I told you,” Tim crossed his arms, “that mixer had a problem with me and me specifically .”

Brian laughed again.

“Marius,” he said, “the two of us will be measuring out the ingredients first.”

Marius nodded, “Okay.”

“After Tim gets the batter ready, though…” Brian went on. “Have you ever tried to flip a pancake just by flicking the pan?”

“As in, in the air?” Marius asked. “Not really.”

“Would you like to try?”

“The kitchen can’t really get worse than when I got flour everywhere,” Tim stage-whispered, “so you’ll be fine.”

That made Marius let out a small airy chuckle.

“Sure,” Marius decided on. “I’ll try it.”

Chapter Text

“That… was brutal,” Lyf sighed as they sat down next to Marius on the bench just outside the auditorium.

This had been the last exam Lyf had had to take, and it just so happened to be Classic History – the course that Marius was also taking. And now… they had just something over two hours to get onto their plane.

They looked down at their lap. They really didn’t want to leave.

They still had a few last things to pack up, and they needed to get to the airport and go through the way too long process of actually boarding a plane, so they were bordering on being in a hurry, but…

Marius.

Lyf looked over at the man.

His eyes were downcast, his whole posture somewhat slumped. In the current lighting, the bags under his eyes seemed somehow more pronounced.

(Lyf had first noticed them about a week – maybe two? – ago, during one of their study sessions, and they hadn’t gotten any better in the days since, which had honestly been making Lyf increasingly more worried about Marius.)

Lyf didn’t want to assume that all of this was because of them going back to Norway, but they had a feeling that at least some of it likely was. The two of them had grown closer since the start of the semester, after all. Even if Marius didn’t quite share Lyf’s romantic inclination, the man was still (possibly!) losing a close friend. Lyf would be sad, too.

In fact, they were . There was no use denying it. Not now.

“When’s your flight again?” Marius asked, still looking down at the ground.

Lyf faced forward, leaning the back of their head against the wall behind them.

“At 12:14.”

“I…” Marius started, “I think there should be enough time for me to take my backpack home and then meet you on the subway? Or I can just bring the backpack with me, if you’re in a hurry. It’s not heavy or anything so it really wouldn’t be a problem–”

“Marius,” Lyf gently interrupted.

They turned their head towards Marius, and the two finally locked eyes. For the first time that day, maybe?

Lyf couldn’t handle everything showing through on Marius’ face, so they looked back down at their lap.

“I appreciate it that you’d like to come to the airport with me,” they said. “I really do.”

They were afraid they might change their mind about leaving at all , were Marius to come with them, though, but they weren’t in a position where they could afford something like that.

“But I’d much rather have you at home and resting,” they said instead, because that was also a concern of theirs, and one that they did feel like sharing with Marius. “You look like you could fall asleep standing, and I’ve got a few things I still need to pack up anyways…”

They couldn’t even bear looking at Marius even here at campus without wanting to cry. What would having to say goodbye right at the airport do to them?

“Then…” Marius said, sounding about as excited about parting ways as Lyf felt, “coffee? For the way?”

Lyf’s mouth formed a small smile against their will.

“Yeah, sure.”

The two of them got up and made their way over to the campus cafeteria one last time.

With it being both the exam season and a sort of weird time between breakfast and lunch, the cafeteria was mostly empty, and even the students who’d come for drinks had seemingly mostly chosen to take their beverages elsewhere.

Marius and Lyf walked almost right up to the counter, only one person in front of them in the line.

“Guess you gotta hurry up with choosing your drink order,” Marius chuckled.

Lyf smiled, “I think I’ve actually got a favourite after all these months of trying new combos.”

“Oh?”

It was their turn.

“Hello,” the person behind the counter greeted, “what would you like to order?”

“Hi, I’d like an iced cappuccino with a caramel topping, please,” Lyf said.

Was this the same order that Marius had got for them all those months ago when he’d first brought them coffee? Yes. But it was totally a pure coincidence.

(Okay, maybe Marius’ involvement had tipped the scales the slightest bit.)

“And for you?” the person behind the counter asked.

From the corner of their vision, Lyf could see Marius staring at them.

“Sorry, erm,” Marius chuckled awkwardly, “iced cappuccino with powdered cocoa and cinnamon, please.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, thank you,” Lyf said.

“Together or separate?”

“Se-” Lyf started, their heart unreasonably heavy for such a simple word, but Marius beat them to it.

“Together. And card, please.”

Lyf stayed quiet.

Marius paid, and the two moved over to the pickup counter.

“I think I’ve got enough change in my wallet,” Lyf told Marius.

The man shook his head, “You’ll just have to get me coffee next time we see each other.”

“Marius…”

“I didn’t say it had to be in the next semester,” Marius hurried. “And I didn’t say it had to be here. I just… I’d like to see you again sometime.”

Lyf felt their throat closing up.

“Yeah,” they said, “okay. I’ll get you coffee next time we see each other.”

It felt like a promise. One that Lyf would try their damned hardest to keep.

When their number was called, the two picked up their coffees.

“Can I… walk you down to your subway station, at least?” Marius asked.

This man.

Lyf didn’t want to part, either, though.

“So long as you go straight to bed afterwards,” they chuckled.

Marius nodded, and the two started towards the station. Most of the way was spent in silence, neither of them really in the mood for talking.

Selfishly, Lyf was grateful for this. Otherwise they might have said something without being able to take it back, and they just couldn’t do that to Marius. Not when they were about to leave, and possibly forever.

They’d regret not saying anything, too, they knew that. But at least that way they wouldn’t be involving Marius in the pain, so the choice wasn’t even really a choice.

Making their way down to the tracks, Lyf realised with dread that their train was just pulling into the station.

They sighed.

“Have a safe trip,” Marius said, giving Lyf the bravest smile he seemed to be able to muster.

“Thanks,” Lyf nodded. “And you have a good nap.”

The train stopped. The doors opened.

Lyf wanted to hug Marius. They wanted to hug him and never let go. Instead they bumped their two coffee cups together.

“See ya,” they said, looking up at Marius and giving him one last smile.

“Yeah,” the other whispered, his voice gone. “See ya.”

Lyf stepped into the car and found a seat. They looked out the window and saw Marius still standing there. He gave them a small wave, and they waved back.

Then the car door closed, and the train started moving.

Once they couldn’t see Marius anymore, Lyf finally took off their laptop bag, and hugged it close to their chest.

Damn.

They had really tried not to hoard things, knowing they would have to empty out the whole apartment into their luggage once they’d be leaving, but… guess the plan hadn’t really worked all that well. They would definitely need to pay more for their luggage now than on their flight from Norway to the UK, and they hadn’t even started thinking about possible differences in luggage weight pricing.

But – everything seemed to be packed up now. They’d called for a cab a little while ago, and their phone was telling them it would be arriving soon, so they should probably slowly start their journey down the stairs with the first round of luggage to meet with the driver.

Just before they grabbed the first bag, though, their phone chirped with a notification.

Marius

Am in bed rn, as per your wishes
Living room couch, but close enough

Lyf couldn’t help but smile at the screen. Marius’ text was devoid of any emojis that might be showing his mood, but Lyf supposed that that in itself already spoke volumes.

Marius

Have a good rest

I’ll try, thanks

Lyf put down their phone to put the duffle bag onto their shoulder, when it chirped again with another notification. They set the strap of the duffle bag properly on their shoulder, then opened up the conversation again.

Marius

Tell me when you get to Norway?

Of course

They had a feeling they’d be talking to Marius a lot , once they got back home.

They grabbed one suitcase from the side and lifted it up, trying to use their knees more than their back, then exited their apartment and started the careful descent down the stairs.

In the end, they had come to the airport fairly quickly, still having quite some time to spare even after going through security and the rest of the process. The plane had also only had a ten minute delay, which had been great.

What hadn’t been great, though, was the fact that Lyf had apparently forgotten to charge their phone during the short time they’d been in the apartment, and they’d apparently put their charging cable into the luggage that they didn’t have access to before picking it back up in Norway.

That had made the almost 5-hour flight somewhat… less enjoyable. Lyf had actually had a book in their carry-on backpack, but their brain had been much too loud for a leisurely stroll into a fantastical adventure. In the end, they’d spent most of their flight going over different possibilities of what they could say to their mother to convince her to let Lyf go back to the UK for at least another semester (hopefully then they’d have enough money to finance their own travels and education, and they wouldn’t have to fight with their mother over it).

They’d thought to maybe contact their siblings after landing, to let the two of them know they were back, if nothing else. Then they could invite the two of them over for a family reunion, and the three of them could then totally peacefully convince their mother to let Lyf leave again. Maybe the two of them could even help Lyf come out to their mother.

Lyf had been so distracted by everything going on in their mind that they’d almost missed the landing.

Getting off the plane had felt almost surreal. They’d been in the UK for so long now, that they’d got used to everything being in English. Walking through the airport now, and seeing Norwegian popping up more and more almost felt… weird. Not a bad weird, just… something they’d have to get used to again.

Following said signs, they managed to make their way to the area where they could finally pick up their luggage.

According to the info screen above the conveyor belt, Lyf still had a few more minutes before all the suitcases and whatnot would start circling around the small isle. They knew they still had fifteen minutes before the bus that would take them from the airport to their hometown, but that really wasn’t that much time, so they couldn’t be certain about getting to charge their phone anywhere before getting home.

Lyf decided to message Marius while they still had some battery left. They pulled out their phone and opened up the chat.

Marius

Landed :)

They waited to see Marius’ response. Nothing came, but the message was delivered, at least.

Marius is likely sleeping, then, Lyf reasoned. At least he’s getting some rest.

They looked back down at their phone to maybe message their siblings, and– it was pitch black.

They must have had much less battery than they’d thought, then. Great.

The first few pieces of luggage started coming down the conveyor belt, so Lyf quickly popped their phone into their jacket pocket, freeing up their hands for the search of their stuff.

They supposed they’d just have to take care of their phone when they got home.

Chapter Text

Lyf

Good morning :)
Got anything exciting planned for today since you haven’t been home in a while?

Marius was lying on the little couch in his room, reading through the list of books he’d have to acquire for the second semester. He was surprised to see that he already owned a few of them.

“Break time?” Raph said as she stopped by his room.

“Er, sort of?” Marius said, looking up from the phone. “I’m currently trying to figure out the reading material I’ll need for my new subjects.”

Raphaella raised an eyebrow.

“I mean,” she started, “it’s good to be prepared, that much I agree, but like, the next semester doesn’t start for another two and a half weeks.”

“I know,” Marius shrugged. “My workload’s kinda gone way down, though, now that the exams are done, and I’m, erm, itching to do something?”

Raph stared at him.

“It sounds weird, I know–”

“No no,” she stopped him, “you told us how you’ve been feeling about your schoolwork lately. It seems completely normal to me that you can’t just change your whole perspective overnight. And… only itching to do stuff certainly sounds like an improvement from two weeks ago.”

Marius looked down, “Certainly doesn’t feel like an improvement. I mean, I’m not bordering on panic attacks about it all anymore, but that’s just about it.”

“And you wouldn’t call that improvement?”

Marius sighed.

“Look,” Raph said, “if you really want to do something study-related, then maybe you can help me study? I’ve still got two more orals during this last week, and I am so over it.”

“ Over it as in…?”

“As in, I don’t want anything to do with those subjects again, ever. I could use some company, at the very least.”

Marius sighed, “Yeah, I feel ya.”

He got up.

“Where are you studying?”

Raph grinned, “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, sure,” Marius shrugged. “I told you, I need to do something, and you’d like some company and/or help. Win-win, I’d say.”

The two of them walked down the hall, and Marius let Raph lead him to her room.

“So you actually have nothing else left to do for the first semester?” she asked. “Not even, like, orals? I thought most courses had those.”

“I’ve got a few reports that I got extended deadlines with, and Doc Beeley suggested I don’t rush them. Same with orals – I’ve been advised not to do them just yet, but to rather do them sometime later.” He paused. “I… a couple days ago, I made a schedule for how much I need to do each day to be done with each project two days before each deadline. And I’ve kinda… done my quota for the day.”

Raph sat down on her bed, “It’s not even ten in the morning, though?”

“Hence the need for activities,” Marius sighed, sitting down at her desk. “Because I quite honestly feel like I could get at least one of the reports done by 2 AM tonight, and I’m fairly certain I should not be doing that. Either for sleep reasons or for the ‘taking things slow’ reason.”

Raph handed him the few flashcards she’d apparently already made.

“Good choice,” she said. “Draw them at random?”

Marius nodded.

Looking down, he spread the cards over Raph’s desk and shuffled them around a bit. He reached out towards the far left corner, picking up one card.

That was… decidedly not Classic History.

Marius almost facepalmed. Of course it wasn’t. Why would it be? Raph didn’t even take that course, Lyf did.

He cleared his throat, “For different alcohol chains, describe properties of intra- and intermolecular bonds and their macroscopic effects.”

“Okay, that one’s easy,” Raph grinned. “Right, so…”

Lyf

Hey, I saw that you didn’t quite make the second Classic History exam
First, sorry :(

Second, does that mean you *have* to come back to redo it or can you do it from Norway, or how does that work?

Marius was helping Brian measure out some flour in the kitchen, among other ingredients.

Actual cooking often made Marius surprisingly nervous, but helping with the process? That was apparently completely fine. And so, Marius had spent most of the afternoon trying not to step on a very hyperactive Blaze, who was for some reason currently running all around the apartment. He was also helping Brian bake chocolate chip cookies.

Batches upon batches of chocolate chip cookies, to be specific.

Raph had already passed one of her two remaining exams, Tim had got a new role for a video game character, Ashes had got in a big order, and Theo had sold his 500th plushie at the shop, so Brian had insisted that everyone took some time to celebrate.

(Brian had also insisted that Marius sticking to his easygoing essay writing schedule for a whole week now was also something to be celebrated, but Marius couldn’t really get excited about being late with projects. He was still happy for the others, though.)

Suddenly, very loud footsteps sounded from the stairs.

“I know no one wants to hear anything more about this,” Jonny shouted, “but the next Epic saga comes out in exactly two weeks!”

“Fucking shut up about that thing for two fucking seconds!” Brian yelled back.

“Never!”

Loud footsteps, running upstairs this time, likely Jonny retreating back into his room. Then a very loud sigh from right next to Marius, starting out annoyed, then mellowing out into fond.

Brian chuckled, then quietly continued, “He’s so excited about this that it’s hard to actually get mad at him, though.”

Marius gave a chuckle of his own, although he couldn’t quite bring himself to be as casual about the topic as Brian was.

The next Epic saga, huh?

Lyf

I hear that new Epic songs are soon coming out, you excited?

Having just finished writing the day’s segment of the paper he was currently working on, Marius’ fingers were simply itching to keep on typing.

“Ughhhhhh!” he cried out instead, throwing his head backwards.

Just then, Ashes came past his room.

“You good?” they said as they paused mid-step.

“Yeah,” Marius huffed. “I’m not allowed to do any more work on this paper, but I am so close to finishing it!”

“Right, Raph mentioned something about this,” Ashes said, now leaning onto the doorframe leading into Marius’ room. “What exactly are you supposed to be doing again?”

Marius pushed his chair back from the table and crossed his arms over his chest.

“In short, my therapist proposed that I don’t rush the projects I’m still working on,” he said. “The generally lower workload of this late-ish time in the exam period is apparently the perfect time for me to practice how to take proper breaks.”

“So you’re only allowed to do bits of the projects each day, then?” Ashes asked.

Marius nodded, “And the rest of the time I’m supposed to be stepping away from my work.”

“... And you’re done with your work right now?”

“I am, yeah.” He paused, then, “Why?”

“Did ya have any plans for the break, or do you have some time to lend me a hand downstairs?”

Ooh, was Marius getting a chance to go into Ashes’ workshop? He really liked that place. It always smelled like a Good forest, and there were usually many fun projects in different stages of production lying around.

Ashes didn’t really like the others snooping around in there, because there were many dangerous machines and chemicals there, so Marius didn’t get to be there very often.

The invitation… did lift his mood substantially.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, getting up from his chair.

“Cool,” Ashes smiled, leading Marius into the part of the garage that had been turned into their woodworking shop.

There were a bunch of new projects lying around that Marius hadn’t seen before. Some of them seemed to be in some transitional state of getting carved into something else, some had pencil sketches with the patterns Ashes was likely going to burn into the wood, and some seemed to only be waiting for the last coating.

A drawing caught Marius’ eye.

“What’s that?”

“Hm? Oh, a friend did a little doodle a while back, and I found it really cool,” Ashes explained. “I’m planning to make it into a little wood piece of its own. I’ve got their permission and everything.”

The style of the drawing resembled Lyf’s so much.

… And there went his mood again.

As Marius helped Ashes move a few chunkier pieces around (they said they’d been trying to tidy up the place a bit), he had to force himself not to look at the drawing. He only lasted fifteen minutes before he had to excuse himself to go take a breather in his room.

Lyf

I saw you haven’t posted any new pieces in a while… creative art block?

“How tricky do you think it is to get onto a plane with a prosthesis?”

Raph turned to look at him from her spot on the living room couch, contemplating. The two of them were downstairs because Raph had said she’d needed a break, and she’d dragged Marius – who’d been helping her review the material for her last remaining exam – along with her.

With nothing to actually do down here but laze in the corner of the couch, Marius had possibly… started overthinking a bit.

Just a bit, though. A teeny tiny bit. Not a lot. Definitely not a lot.

“I don’t actually know, but I’ve heard it can be anything from ‘just a bit of a longer wait through security’ to ‘very tricky’,” she said. Her head tilted, “Why, though?”

“Oh, er, no special reason,” he lied.

It was a special reason. Or a special person , at least.

… And Raph immediately caught on.

“Marius,” she sighed, “it’s only been two weeks since the two of you’ve last seen each other.”

“I know!” Marius responded much too defensively, surprising even himself. “... Sorry.”

Raph shuffled a bit farther away, then laid down with her head on Marius’ lap, looking up at him.

“Talk me through it,” she said.

“Talk you through… what?”

She shrugged, “What’s the situation with Lyf, what’s going through your head, et cetera. You pick. You and I haven’t had much time to just chat , lately.”

Marius looked up at the ceiling to allow himself a moment to try and formulate his thoughts into proper words.

“After… their flight,” he decided to start with, “Lyf texted me that they’d just landed in Norway. I saw that text when I woke up from my, erm, impromptu afternoon nap, and I replied with something along the lines of ‘good to hear’ and ‘how cold is it?’ or something. And, well… That’s kinda it?”

Raph blinked, “What, you two haven’t texted at all after that? I woulda thought you’d both be on your phones all the time.”

Marius awkwardly chuckled, “Well, er, I’ve been sending messages, but… they’ve… kinda… all got left on delivered ?”

“Hold on, so you’ve been texting them for two weeks, and they haven’t opened up the conversation since that last text of theirs?”

“... Yes?”

Marius could clearly see that Raph was reaching some kind of conclusion that he wouldn’t like.

He looked away. The wall wasn’t nearly as interesting as Raph to look at, but it also wasn’t about to say something devastating.

(He knew what she was going to say, anyway. That maybe this all had been a “have fun while you’re there” situation for Lyf, and now that they were back home they didn’t have to deal with Marius’ shit anymore.)

“Marius,” Raph started carefully, “in a situation like this, two weeks is actually a pretty long time... Have you maybe considered–”

“I’m home!” Jonny called out from the front door which Marius hadn’t really heard unlocking. He went on in a normal tone, chuckling, “Honestly I still don’t know how Eric managed to get half his popcorn bucket onto the floor…”

“Like, yeah, the movie was funny, but not that funny,” Sam – at least Marius was fairly certain it was them and not someone else – laughed. “Glad he got a new bucket for half the price.”

Marius wasn’t too close with most of his housemates’ friends, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that he wasn’t comfortable showing his nub to just anyone. But Sam wasn’t only Jonny’s friend – Marius found out not too long ago that they apparently often hung out with Nastya and Ashes, and sometimes even Theo – so Marius saw them around the house relatively often.

(Which, accounting for Marius often staying in his room when there were people over, more or less meant he’d maybe run into them about once a month.)

The two arrivals entered the living room facing each other, Jonny walking backwards with his hands on Sam’s hips, Sam’s own hands around Jonny’s shoulders.

Marius could just about barely see Sam’s right wrist without actually needing to sit up properly on the couch, and… Sam was wearing her pink bracelet, okay.

“Well I’m just glad he offered to help clean it all up, afterwards,” Jonny said. “I woulda dragged him back myself if he hadn’t.”

The man leaned in for a kiss. Raph sat up with a forced cough.

“Oh, er, sorry,” Jonny immediately stopped, turning his head around to look at his housemates. “Thought the room was empty. You… didn’t say anything when we came in.” He pointed at the hallway, “We’ll just, er, go entertain ourselves elsewhere.”

“You can join us in the living room, if you’d like,” Marius said, desperate enough to get out of the conversation Raph and he were having that he ignored the anxiety he could feel in his belly about Sam seeing him without a hand.

(Besides, Sam’s seen him without a hand before. It just… it was different when he was Baron Marius von Raum, immortal space pirate, and when he was just, well, himself.)

Jonny gave an awkward smile, not quite turning his whole body towards Marius and Raph, “Oh, erm… Maybe in a bit?”

“For fucks’ sake,” Raph rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me you were going to have sex in the living room.”

Oh. Of course.

“No,” Jonny quickly saved himself, “there was only going to be a bit of making out before we went to my room.” He turned to Sam, “Guess we’ll just go to my room straight away, then?”

Sam chuckled, “Yeah, sure.”

“Just to make sure,” Raph said, before the pair could leave, “you haven’t ever had sex in the common spaces, right ?”

“Nope, I’ve only done it in my room,” Jonny bowed. “I’m a good boy. You’re welcome.”

Sam pursed her lips before getting a hand under Jonny’s elbow and leading him away.

Just before Jonny’s door closed, there came a quiet, “You have been a good boy, you know…”

… Well.

Even after living with sexually active people for about two years now, that whole exchange still felt… unusual to see. Not even disturbing, or icky, just… unusual. Kind of surreal, almost.

He still had trouble believing that people weren’t just acting during these moments, but rather acting on their very real needs.

… Would Lyf ever want something like this?

Was that why they weren’t responding to Marius’ messages? Had they picked up Marius’ lack of excitement during the few campus conversations that had led to this topic? Had they maybe tried to look up Marius somewhere on the internet and found the ace pride flag on any of his accounts? Or maybe they’d seen his comments on any of the countless ace-themed posts Marius had interacted with, or –

No, wait. If that would have been the reason for Lyf not wanting to talk to him, then Lyf would probably need to like like him first, or else it likely wouldn’t be bothering them that much, right? And that wasn’t the case.

“Marius,” Raph called, likely wanting to start up the conversation again, and Marius just couldn’t .

“No,” he interrupted, then more softly, “please. I… I don’t want to talk about this. Not right now.”

He could feel Raph’s gaze still on him.

Please, Raph.

She looked away, “Okay. Just… don’t do anything rash. Please.”

Marius nodded, “I won’t. I promise.”

Lyf

In a surprising turn of events, we’re getting snow in early February
What about you guys?

Marius had agreed to go to campus with Raph as moral support on the day of her last exam. It was the last workday before the next semester, so he’d also hoped to get the reading materials from the campus library during the exam itself.

In the library, he chatted with Ivy for a bit, before she had to return to her proper duties. Apparently the library was quite busy at the end of exam seasons because of students either returning books they’d needed during the first semester or getting books they’d need for the second one. Marius was doing both of those things that day, and yet the explanation still managed to surprise him.

(Just like at the end of every exam season, to be honest.)

On his way to meet back up with Raph, he made a wide turn around the cafeteria, not really looking to go down memory lane quite yet. That decision proved to be a very good one, timing-wise, because Raph exited the classroom right as he’d turned the corner into the hallway.

She’d passed the exam, just like Marius was certain she would have.

“Anything new with Lyf?” Raph asked when the two of them sat down in the subway car.

It had been two days since that last conversation he and Raph had had about them.

“I woulda told you if there was,” Marius sighed.

He could see Raph turning around to check there weren’t other people in their car. He appreciated that she took his need for privacy into account, but he still didn’t really want to talk about the subject.

“Marius,” she started gently, “I wouldn’t want to be talking about this either –”

“Then let’s not.”

“– But.”

Marius groaned. He hated when sentences started like that. Raph likely had either something very smart or something very dumb to say, and Marius knew she wasn’t dumb.

“If Lyf shows up at campus on Monday,” she started, “or even if they don’t, really, you need to know what you want to do.”

Marius looked up at her, confused, “What?”

“You are so very smitten with them still,” Raph said, then went on before Marius could interject in any sort of way, “so I’d bet anything that Monday is going to be a very emotional day for you.”

Oh yeah. It was going to be bad either way. She was completely right about that.

“You don’t need to talk to me about this if you don’t want to,” Raph went on, “you don’t need to talk to anyone about it, as far as I’m concerned, but please, please , make at least some kind of general plan beforehand, while you’re still able to at least somewhat properly think things through.”

“What kind of plan?” Marius frowned.

“Whatever you think you might need,” Raph shrugged. “You can make a month-long ‘how to get over them’ plan, or just a quick ‘first thing I want to do when I see them’ for the very day. Anything you think would be better thought through now rather than then .”

That… wasn’t a bad idea, really. He was likely going to be a mess, so it made sense to make a game plan now when his brain was still the thing driving his actions.

“And if you need any of us,” Raph added, “either for coming up with ideas or for implementing said ideas come Monday, then please don’t hesitate to ask, okay?”

Marius gave her a small smile.

“Okay. Thank you.”

For the rest of the subway ride, both Raph and Marius were quiet. Marius’ brain, on the other hand, was working hard .

If Lyf wasn’t coming back, then Marius may need to actually consider giving up. He really didn’t want to do that, because, well, he couldn’t really lie to himself about still being completely head over heels about them. Which meant that this would hurt . It would hurt so much.

Marius had actually gone through one breakup before already, but… The breakup had really been a mutual decision. Both Marius and Dominic had agreed they were better off as friends, so the change didn’t really hurt all that much, and Marius still saw Dominic on campus almost every day, and they still sent each other memes and everything. The closest he’d come to heartbreak had been when he’d asked out Camie and she’d declined, somewhat awkwardly telling him she was a lesbian (Marius had completely missed all the signs because he’d just thought her style was really cool).

All of that just meant that Marius really didn’t know what he should be preparing himself for.

Maybe he should just add Doctor Beeley to his speed dial and hope for the best? Maybe ask her in advance whether he could camp in her office on Monday for a bit, in case everything just got too much?

Okay, that wasn’t too bad an idea, but he might need to workshop it a bit.

The other way this could turn out, though…

If Lyf did show up at campus on Monday? Then… Then Marius needed to know why . He needed to know why they hadn’t been texting him, why they hadn’t even been opening the goddamn app.

One explanation – the one that Marius much preferred – was that they were busy. Maybe everything had gone over really well with their mother, and they’d got to see their siblings, and they were having a giant month-long reunion, and Lyf had just… forgotten. Marius would take that. He wanted Lyf to be happy, and if that had prevented them from talking to Marius for a bit, then sure, yeah, fine by him.

Because if that wasn’t the case… If things hadn’t gone over well with their mother and Lyf wasn’t on their phone…

Had their mother taken their phone? Had they lost it, perhaps?

No, Lyf still had a laptop. They’d certainly message Marius over social media.

Then… What could have happened?

Marius’ train of thought jerked to a sudden stop.

Had… Had something actually happened? Something bad?

That would explain the whole situation, and it was by far the most likely explanation by Occam’s razor. It was also the explanation that Marius was certain he liked the least .

… And it was soon to be the explanation that first made Marius cry if he didn’t stop thinking about it soon.

Breathe.

“Marius?” Raph called out to him.

She was standing. Why was she standing?

“We’re getting off now,” she told him gently, likely easily seeing on his face that he was distressed.

He managed not to trip while getting up, nor while the two of them were walking that last stretch of the way back home. Marius had decided to keep himself busy by counting grey and red cars, separately, so he wouldn’t start thinking about… the stuff he’d been thinking of before.

It had worked, mostly.

Now the two of them were back in the house, jackets and shoes put away where they belonged. Marius made a few steps into the hallway, towards the savoury smell coming from the kitchen, and –

Right at the end of the table sat Tim, his eyes closed and a soft smile on his lips, as Brian gently braided his hair.

Lyf almost always had their hair braided in some way.

Marius turned right around on his heels, bumping into Raph in the hallway, just out of view of the kitchen. He just wrapped his hands around her and started crying into her shoulder.

Lyf

Lyf, please just say something

I need to know you’re okay

Chapter Text

The walk from the subway station to the campus was a quiet one, even Raph and Ivy’s chatter dying down the closer the trio got.

It had been three weeks now since Marius had last properly spoken with Lyf. Three weeks of Lyf not answering Marius’ texts, of them not even checking what Marius had written to them.

And this morning had been… stressful, to say the least.

Marius had insisted that the trio leave home earlier than usual, because he hadn’t really wanted to talk to his other housemates. The moment the three of them left the house, he’d also made it clear to Raph and Ivy that he didn’t want to be talking about Lyf.

He needed to keep it together.

Raph and Ivy walked with him to the auditorium where he had his first class of the day.

The three of them paused in front of the door. No one was inside yet, what with them being a whole half hour early, but Marius had asked to be alone, so this was perfect, really.

Raph was looking down at the ground, clutching the strap of her messenger bag with both hands.

“Marius…” she started.

Marius knew what Raph’s stance on the subject was. She had a history with toxic partners, which had made her very protective of her friends, when they were in similar situations.

Marius appreciated the sentiment, but he just… couldn’t believe that that would be Lyf’s play. After all, he’d got to know them quite well, in his own humble opinion, and Lyf didn’t seem like that kind of person.

(“Yeah, that’s how they get ya,” Raph had sighed, seemingly stuck in a memory.)

Ivy, on the other hand, had been very quiet about the subject. Marius could tell that she only wanted what was best for him, but neither she nor Marius knew exactly what this “best scenario” was, at the moment.

“Marius,” Raph started again. She hugged him, “I’m not sure what your whole plan is, but  just… keep us in the loop, please?”

He nodded into her shoulder.

She let him go, then promptly turned around and walked away without another word.

He watched her leave.

“She’s worried,” Ivy said, looking in Raph’s direction. “We all are.” She paused. “Meet you in the library in the afternoon?”

Marius nodded, “Yeah.”

“Alright. Text us if you get there sooner or something.”

She looked at him. She seemed to contemplate giving him a small smile, but ultimately decided against it, which Marius was grateful for.

In the end, Ivy just nodded to him, then walked after Raph.

Marius waited until the both of them turned the corner before entering the auditorium. He walked down to the very first row. Took off his backpack and unpacked his notebooks and utensils.

He sighed and finally sat down.

Now, he thought, time to check the Arts course schedule one more time.

Raph had advised him to make a plan, and make a plan Marius had.

Without missing any of his own classes, he had decided to check every possible Arts course lesson room that he could get to. That was the only way for him to say with complete certainty whether or not Lyf was back.

(His chances were small, he knew that. He couldn’t give up, though. Something inside him wasn’t letting him do that quite yet.)

Then, if he ran into Lyf, he would ask them to talk to him, because he desperately needed answers. If he didn’t run into Lyf before the last obligatory Arts class of the day was over, though…

Plan A: get himself to the library and have Ivy and Raph watch after him during the highly probable breakdown. Depending on the severity of said breakdown, he might not be going to classes for a day or two.

Plan B: if he was feeling worse , he was going to try to at least get himself to Professor Beeley’s office. He’d already written to her, and she’d answered that he was welcome in her office even in the following days if he needed a safe space.

Plan C: if he felt like he was somehow not going to be falling apart at the seams in the following hour or so, he would try to get himself home early, then sleep the rest of the day away.

Now he just had to get through this two hour lecture, and then he could start looking around.

The Studious Three ✨✨

Doctor von Raum
Could either of you come pick me up from Doc Beeley’s?
I’m feeling a bit better rn but I’d kinda rather not walk around on my own quite yet…

Doctor la Cognizi
Shit
*Sure
That^^ too tho :(

Doctor von Raum
Thx

Doctor la Cognizi
Course <3

He ran through the thick foliage, his comrades right on his heels, the smell of fire and burning flesh permeating the air around them.

The trio reached a small clearing, a dirt road dividing it into two parts. Just off one side of the road, an overturned vehicle.

He ran to crouch behind the open-roof car, one of his comrades just making it there as well, the other still running when one single shot brought them down.

He watched the faceless body of his comrade grow lifeless.

The site of the bullet wound gave him an approximate idea of where the enemy soldier could be, though. He leaned just slightly out of cover, and in only a few seconds spotted the enemy poorly hiding behind a tree trunk.

He lifted the rifle to aim it, but the enemy stood to strike, and he hid behind the car again. His still living comrade was looking around the vehicle on the other side.

He tried to take aim once more, and realised with cautious optimism that the enemy soldier hadn’t seen him yet. The enemy took a shot, and he heard his comrade hiss in pain, before he pressed down on his own trigger.

The enemy soldier fell, never to get up again.

He then turned to check on his comrade, but there was no one there, a trail of blood leading further down the path being the only proof that he hadn’t always been alone.

A barrage of bullets from the other side of the vehicle drew his attention back to the direction he’d just run from. He gripped his rifle closer and closed his eyes with his back to the vehicle.

An explosion rocked the ground somewhere not too far off, and the attack stopped for just a moment. He took the event in stride, opening his eyes and immediately running off to take cover among the trees and to follow the blood spatters.

His ears rang in the momentary silence as he ran, and another explosion went off somewhere to his right, but he couldn’t stop. If he stopped, he would die, and the shells flying past him seemed to almost buzz with bloodlust, somehow supercharging the air around the whole area.

The ground suddenly sloped downwards and his foot slipped, but he rolled into the short decline and was up and running again immediately after.

For a moment, he was sure he’d lost the blood trail, but he could feel it calling to him. He trusted his gut and took a sharp right, almost running into a figure, barely stopping right in front of them.

Platinum blond hair now dyed red, he stared up at this barely conscious person. Their normally dark skin seemed almost translucent, and they stood deathly still, staring into mid-air.

Suddenly, blood bubbled from their mouth, and they started coughing, buckling over as their body finally succumbed to gravity.

He grabbed them and held them close, letting his rifle hang off his shoulder. He couldn’t let them die. He knew something inside him would break if he saw them die.

The ground shook with the power of a heavy landmine going off, and his own legs gave way, too, and the pair fell to the ground, when another explosion ripped through the ground right underneath them, enveloping him in fire and pain, and –

He screamed. Sitting up, he scrambled to find them, where were they, where were they?!

They couldn’t have been killed by the blast. They couldn’t have!

But they weren’t in his arms anymore, and the leaves were weaved tightly together, making it harder for him to look for them. He had to find them.

He had to find them. They were important .

Turning to look at another corner of this weirdly shaped dirt mound, he spotted another person right in front of him.

He scrambled back, his right hand slipping on something, landing him on his elbow. He pressed himself against the soft texture of the dirt and covered his head with his left hand, wanting to make his amends, and realising he couldn’t remember a single soul to think about.

He waited, and the enemy soldier was saying something, but he couldn’t make out the words. The shot didn’t come, though, and the soldier… wasn’t shouting, like he would’ve expected them to.

Deciding to open his eyes to reassess the situation, he was greeted with not a soldier, but a civilian. He lowered his left hand and subconsciously reached for the strap his rifle hung from.

The strap wasn’t there.

Shit.

That meant his rifle wasn’t there, either. He looked down, and realised that not only was he not carrying any weapons, he wasn’t even wearing any protective gear.

… He was gripping a goddamn blanket of all things.

And his right hand slipping only moments ago hadn’t actually been a case of his hand slipping, but rather a case of his hand just not fucking existing .

“Marius?”

And, oh, that he did recognise. That was his name.

He looked up at the civilian and her worried features, the features that looked so familiar, and safe , and…

Raph. This was Raph.

She was keeping her arms close to herself, clearly visible, palms facing him so as to show she wasn’t a threat.

His eyes slipped off her and onto the other two people in the room, Jonny and Theo both wearing a mixture of fear and concern on their faces. Jonny turned to the door and tried to wave someone off, and Marius just barely caught Brian’s retreating form in the hallway.

Fuck, he was still breathing heavily. He needed to calm the fuck down.

Deep fucking breaths. Come on.

Marius looked around the room again. He was on the couch in the living room, his prosthesis and backpack lying on one end of the table, right where he’d left them after coming home. Raph was sitting on the couch at the other end of the table, Jonny and Theo sitting on the floor next to her. Brian must have been in the hallway only seconds ago.

Marius’ face went hot with shame. He’d just had a short episode in front of everyone. He looked down at his lap, hugged the blanket closer, and tried to cram himself further into the corner of the couch, pulling his knees as close as he could.

That was so fucking embarrassing.

At least he hadn’t wet himself this time. That would have been utterly mortifying .

~ ~ ~

The room remained quiet for another few moments, before Raphaella moved slightly on the couch.

“Marius?” she tried again.

Marius looked up at her, but quickly glanced away, not quite managing to keep eye contact after the bloodshed he’d just dreamt of (remembered?) partaking in. He kept his head facing her to show he was still listening.

“What do you need?” she asked.

What did he need? … He didn’t have a clue.

He shrugged.

“Okay,” Raph said gently. “Okay, that’s fine. Would you like us to stay here or to give you some space?”

His eyes flew up to her, and his chest tightened with panic –

“Okay, we’ll stay,” she quickly said. Then slower and more clearly, “We’ll stay here with you.”

That helped ease the pain in his chest somewhat. He hung his head once more.

… Damn.

He’d been sure that his anxiety would be spiking, but a fucking flashback? He honestly hadn’t been expecting his PTSD to be acting up, too.

“Would you like a glass of water?” Jonny asked.

Was he thirsty? He couldn’t tell.

He tried to swallow, and – oh wow , his throat was really dry. He nodded.

“Alright, I’ll just go over to the kitchen then, and I’ll be right back, yeah?” Jonny said, slowly standing up from his spot on the floor.

Marius nodded.

Theo, spurned into action by Jonny’s movement, started neatly packing up the seemingly unopened nail polish bottles. Marius must have just stopped the three of them from unwinding, then.

Great.

Marius quickly sat up and waved his hand, hoping to get Theo’s attention.

Theo looked up at him, “What is it?”

He didn’t want the three of them to stop what they were doing just because of him (also, watching his housemates do regular things always helped calm him down), so he pointed down at the bottles of nail polish and waved in a “go on” motion.

“Oh, it’s alright,” Theo smiled gently. “We can do it later.”

Marius shook his head.

A few tongue clicks could be heard from the hallway.

Marius turned his head directly towards Theo, and signed, ‘Please.’

“Please?” Jonny read the sign just as he walked back into the room.

In one hand, he was holding a glass of water, in the other, Coco.

“Here you go,” he said as he handed Marius the glass, then deposited Coco on the backrest of the couch, near Marius. “Please what?”

“I think Marius wants us to do our nails like we’d planned to,” Theo told the man.

“Marius?” Jonny asked.

The man walked around and sat back onto the floor, between the couch and Theo.

Marius just nodded, head still down.

“Alright,” Jonny said, then helped Theo take back out the few nail polish bottles that the younger had already put away.

Marius decided not to drink too much at once, just in case , then leaned forward to set the not yet empty glass onto the table. Once he was settled back against the backrest, he reached his hand out towards Coco, and she happily accepted the invitation, jumping onto his lap and making herself comfortable there. Marius gently petted her behind one ear, and she soon started purring.

“I see you’ve got your hands full at the moment, but would you like your nails painted, too?” Jonny asked.

Marius gave a small tired smile and shook his head. He signed a quick ‘Thank you.’ then continued gently scratching the top of Coco’s head.

“Hey, no problem. If you change your mind, we’ll be right here.”

Marius nodded, grateful.

Grateful for what, exactly? He wasn’t entirely sure, but it probably had something to do with his housemates sticking around even though he’d just had a fucking episode, short as it had been.

Looking down at Coco to try and keep himself at least somewhat grounded, he thought back to the already fading memory of the dream. He’d likely screamed out loud, seeing how worried everyone had been when he properly came to. Why had he screamed? The whole thing was disappearing fast, and everything was already blurry, but–

His hand froze.

Lyf . He’d dreamt of Lyf. Of them coughing up blood, collapsing into his arms, then exploding into nothing.

Thanks for the imagery, brain , he thought. Just what I needed.

Coco butted her head into his palm, demanding attention. Marius took a breath and continued petting her.

It wasn’t the first time he’d dreamt of finding someone he knew in that godforsaken forest, but the current situation with Lyf made everything different. Since they’d reached Norway, there had only been radio silence on their end, and Marius’ chest ached with the weight of the “what if”s.

Many people would say he was just overthinking the situation, that everything was probably fine. And maybe he was just overthinking, except…

Except Marius had seen the ugly side of humanity first-hand. Partook in it, even, without getting the option not to. Even if he didn’t remember most of his past, he could feel that his bubble of perceived personal safety had been broken years ago.

Anything could happen.

Coco stood up and stretched her front legs up over Marius’ chest, her paws hanging over his shoulder. She suddenly stood rod-straight and turned her head to the hallway, her ears twitching. Blaze was probably making trouble somewhere in the house. Coco must have decided she didn’t care enough, though, and she laid back down, her head and front legs now resting over Marius’ chest.

Marius continued to pet her, and with this new position, her purr reverberated through his own chest in some warm kind of way. He lazily continued scratching her as his eyes slipped over to the table.

He’d been smelling the nail polish for a little while now, and Jonny seemed to just be finishing up the first layer of it for Theo, Raph already sitting very still with her fingers splayed out.

Jonny then set his chin onto one fist and stared at the nail polish bottles.

“Tough choice, huh?” Raph asked with a small chuckle.

“Well, I don’t wanna do the black and red thing, cuz that’s Jonny ‘the immortal space pirate’ d’Ville pattern. And you two aren’t really helping either, you still going with a Winter theme and Theo already in Spring.”

“Purple!” Tim called out from the hallway, likely just having walked out of his recording booth, used to Jonny’s indecision with nail polish.

“Huh,” Jonny blinked.

Grand idea?

“That’s genius actually,” Jonny murmured.

“I heard that!” Tim laughed, walking to the living room to give a small bow. “And you’re welcome.”

“Exit, stage right,” Jonny huffed. “Unless you’d like your nails painted, too? I’ve got some time till the second layer for these two.”

“Mind shortening them a bit as well?” Tim asked, walking over to the couch, then feeling his way around the side of it, sitting down next to Raph.

“This isn’t a fucking spa, Tim,” Jonny said, already looking through the little box the trio had apparently brought down from the upstairs bathroom. “Which hand first?”

Tim stuck out his left hand, and Jonny took hold of it, starting to shorten and shape the nail on the little finger.

“Thanks,” Tim said softly.

“Yeah, no problem,” Jonny chuckled. “You know I like working with nails.”

“Maybe you should turn a part of the shop into a nail salon, then,” Raph pointed out.

“Nah,” Jonny shook his head. “Theo and I are already swamped as is, and it would be a bureaucratic nightmare. Besides, this is just for the fam.”

“Aww!” Theo beamed. “You called us your family!”

“No, I–” Jonny stumbled, going red in the face. “I said fam , not family , Theo.”

“That’s Jonny-speak for family, though,” Tim pointed out.

“Hush.”

Tim grinned, “No.”

“I’ll paint your nails neon orange and you won’t even know it.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad, though.”

“Damn,” Jonny sighed, “can’t threaten people with fun nail colours anymore.”

“Also, I’m not sure if it even counts as a threat against me when it’s an eyesore for literally everyone but me,” Tim laughed.

Jonny snickered, “Damn, good point.”

Marius watched as he continued working on Tim’s nails.

“D’you actually want them neon orange, though?” Jonny asked. “Cuz I went shopping with Marius a little while back, and he always, without fail , manages to find new nail polish colours. So we, er… actually have neon orange now.”

“You found neon orange ?” Theo asked, excitedly turning towards Marius.

Marius gave him a small smile, and nodded.

Theo turned to the nail polish container and reached out towards it–

“Oi,” Jonny stopped him, “wait till your nails are dry.”

Theo quickly put his hands back down onto the table. He nodded dutifully.

“It’s over with the yellows, though, when you’ll be looking for it.”

The following stretch of time was filled with chatter, Jonny doing his own and the other three’s nails, and Coco changing the way she was lying on Marius from time to time. Even Ivy came down from her room, joining Marius on the couch, sitting near him and reading a book.

Marius felt warm, surrounded by many of his closest friends. Coco’s purring and cuddling had helped him ground himself back into his own body, and everyone’s bright yet peaceful presence had slowly eased his mind back into something resembling calm.

Raph turned to Ivy and him to show the two of them her finished (“They’re not dry yet, Raphaella, be careful!”) nails. All of them were only painted white, except for her right ring finger, which was baby blue with a white hand-drawn snowflake, and her left middle finger, which was white but had little black and orange accents that made it look like a little snowman.

“Pretty,” Marius mumbled, the first thing he’d said since waking up.

Raph’s smile grew wider then, “I know, right!”

Theo then showed his nails as well, grinning. His nails were interchangeably yellow and lime green with his right thumb orange, the colours showing through cracked black polish on top.

“Oh, that’s cute,” Ivy commented.

“Ivy, you came in later, right? What colour are my nails?” Tim asked.

“Erm, they’re… bright orange?”

“Are you doubting me?” Jonny scoffed.

“Mmmayhaps. You didn’t tell me what you did with your own nails, though.”

“Oh,” Jonny sat back and admired his own hands, “nothing big, really. Just did purple on all of them, then added some little flakes of yellow and pink over the purple. It’s similar to the colour scheme of the album art for the next Epic saga that’s coming out next week.”

Right, Jonny liked Epic.

Just like Lyf.

“Of course it is,” Tim laughed.

“Oi, don’t laugh! I’ll set the nail polish remover loose on you!”

Marius looked down at Coco, laying in his lap without a care in the world.

“Lyf wasn’t on campus today,” he decided to share.

The room quieted down.

“Shit,” Tim said, sounding genuinely upset for Marius.

“I’m so sorry,” Theo opted for, and Marius knew it was sincere.

“I’ll get through it,” Marius told them. “That’s not something I’m worried about right now.”

“You’re worried about why they’re not here,” Ivy guessed. “Have they contacted you yet? At all?”

Marius shook his head.

“Was that what the, erm, earlier was about?” Raph asked, clearly unsure of how much she should tip-toe around the matter.

Marius remained quiet for a few seconds.

“They were… a part of it,” he said, opting not to share further.

He hadn’t told his friends much about what exactly was happening in his nightmares and flashbacks. He’d mentioned that it more often than not had something to do with his service and that sometimes his brain threw in people he was close to now , but he’d otherwise tried to remain vague, for their own peace of mind.

Not like that helped much; he could see how they reacted to his flashbacks. They were all trying to be very nice about the whole thing, but it was clear to Marius that even witnessing little parts of his episodes would often scare them.

(He wasn’t yet entirely sure whether they were scared for him or of him. It was one of the things that sometimes kept him up at night.)

“Maybe they just didn’t have classes today?” Theo tried, always optimistic enough for the rest of the group.

“Their course had two obligatory classes today,” Marius said, shaking his head. “And I… may have waited in front of the door to see if they’d come out of the auditorium. After both of those classes.”

“We coulda stayed with you, Marius,” Raph said gently. “Or we could’ve stayed close, at least, if you’d really wanted to do it on your own.”

Marius shook his head, “You had classes and Ivy had work to do.”

“We would’ve come with you anyway,” Ivy told him.

She bookmarked the book she’d been reading, and set it down on the table. Carefully manoeuvring around a napping Coco, she moved closer to Marius, then paused to make sure he would be comfortable with the contact. When he didn’t pull away, she put her arms around him and pulled him into a hug.

“We’re here for you,” Ivy said. “Just call us next time, yeah?”

Marius kept his hand on Coco’s soft fur, but he leaned his head onto Ivy’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

“Okay, so,” Raph started. “If you need anything – and I mean anything – call Ivy. If she doesn’t pick up, call me. If I don’t pick up either, go to Doc Beeley’s office and camp there. We’ll come get you as soon as we physically can, after that.”

“That’s the plan,” Marius nodded.

“You can write in the group chat, too, if you don’t feel like talking out loud, or just text either of us separately,” Ivy picked up.

“Will do.”

Raph huffed worriedly.

“Are you sure you want to be alone right now?” she asked. “We will leave you alone if you say yes, I just… I just wanna check one more time.”

Marius looked down at the ground.

The three of them were back at the campus. Day two of no Lyf, and no explanations, and no –

“Yeah,” he said. “I need to sort through my thoughts a bit. I don’t think I’ll be able to follow the lecture if I don’t. Even if said lecture is still a couple hours away.”

“Okay,” Raph nodded. “Alright. Just… keep in touch, yeah?”

“I will.”

“And please don’t have your phone on silent if at all possible,” she said. “Just in case we’d like to call to check in on you or something, and –”

“Marius?”

Marius’ thoughts skidded to a stop. That had been Lyf’s voice.

He turned around. Only a few steps away, Lyf’s pace came to a sudden stop as well, surprise and a wide smile on their face.

Okay. Alright. Marius had been certain he wouldn’t need to be skipping a day of class, but clearly his brain was still playing tricks on him. Lyf hadn’t been at their compulsory classes the day before, so there was no way that–

“Lyf?” Raph stared towards the same spot where Marius thought he was seeing Lyf.

What? No. If Raph saw them, too, then…

Were they actually there?

Marius slowly crossed the last few steps of the distance, then stopped right in front of Lyf. He was looking up, directly at their eyes, and they were looking back, their relief(?) growing into worry as Marius stayed silent.

“... Marius?” they tried again, sounding unsure.

Marius freed his right hand from the jacket pocket, then snuck both arms around Lyf’s chest and slumped forward, pressing his forehead into Lyf’s shoulder.

He didn’t topple over. Lyf was there .

They tensed in his arms at first, but they quickly relaxed and wrapped their own arms around him.

They chuckled quietly, “Hi.”

“It’s good to see you,” was the only thing Marius could say.

A pause.

“It’s good to see you, too.”

Chapter Text

The two pulled apart from the hug.

As Lyf took the man in, Marius seemed almost on the verge of tears, not quite happy , but close to it, at least. It was a muted kind of happy, though, one Lyf wasn’t really used to seeing on him.

Standing behind him, Raphaella and Ivy seemed far less excited. Raphaella specifically looked like she might start a fight, were Lyf to say one thing wrong.

And, okay. Lyf knew how it looked from their perspective. They’d gone away and seemingly didn’t contact anyone for a whole month. They’d be angry too.

They did want to explain everything, really. Thing was, the story was complicated and very personal, and they also really didn’t feel like spilling their guts to all three of them.

“Marius,” Lyf said, “I… Could we talk in private?”

Marius blinked, seemingly caught off-guard by the question. Raphaella’s brow only drew lower.

“I’m–” Marius started, looked at the floor, “y-yeah. Yeah.”

“Marius,” Raphaella called out to him.

“I’ll… text you two later, okay?” Marius said without turning to look at his housemates.

There was a moment of silence, where Lyf had no clue what might happen next. Then, Ivy sighed. She took Raphaella by the elbow, and started leading her away.

“Don’t be a stranger, Marius,” Ivy called over her shoulder.

“Yeah,” he replied, much too quiet for Lyf’s liking.

Shit. Lyf had really hoped that Marius wouldn’t be quite this affected by the whole thing.

(Lyf themself had been devastated by the lost connection. It had got only slightly better, when Lira had got them a new phone while they were in town together.)

“Can we…” Lyf started, “go sit down somewhere? I’d like to explain, but… a lot’s happened, so.”

Marius nodded, and started walking.

“Cafeteria should be quite empty at this time,” he said, still not looking at Lyf. “And I think you owe me coffee.”

They tried for a small smile but ultimately failed, “That I do.”

Lyf took a deep breath and let it out.

“So,” they started, looking up at Marius, who was still refusing eye contact.

“So.”

Silence.

Marius played with the napkin that was sitting on the table.

“Can you just,” he started, “tell me in one sentence how your trip was?”

“In one sentence?”

“Humour me.”

Marius was… surprisingly hard to read at the moment. Still, there was really only one thing Lyf could say.

They sighed, “It was a disaster, mostly.”

Marius’ hand paused. He nodded. Then he continued fumbling with the napkin.

“From the top now, if you don’t mind?” he asked. “I’m guessing that’s why you asked to talk to me in private.”

Lyf nodded, “That is the reason for it, yes.”

The few seconds of silence when Lyf was gathering their thoughts felt strained unlike ever before when they’d hung out with Marius.

“The flight itself was fine,” they decided to start with, “if relatively nerve-wracking for me. My mother had never been the most supportive of my chosen profession, I think I’ve mentioned that before. Aside from that, it felt… weird having to wear my old clothes.

“When I got off the plane, I checked my bus connection one more time, and then I messaged you that we’d landed. And then my phone died, and I knew I didn’t have the time to charge it at the airport, so I just threw it into my backpack. I got my luggage, got onto the bus.”

They sighed.

“It was supposed to be an hour-long ride, but there was roadwork, so we took an extra twenty minutes. Doesn’t sound much, I know, but with my phone out of battery, I couldn’t tell my mother that I’d be late. It was… not a great start for the evening.”

Lyf finally stopped at the door to their house. They took a deep breath. A quick search through their backpack brought out the right keys, and they made their way inside.

“Hi, mum! I’m back!”

Their mother nearly stormed out of the kitchen.

“Where have you been?”

“Sorry,” they said, coming closer. “There was roadwork, and my phone’s dead so I wasn’t able to call you.”

“Ran out of battery,” she huffed. “Where have I heard that before?”

Did she seem… more tense than usual? Maybe Lyf had just forgotten how intense she could be sometimes.

They stood before her. Hug? No?

“Well, I’m back now,” they smiled, hoping to ease her nerves.

It didn’t help much.

Their mother motioned to the stairway with her head, “Go put away your things, dinner’s ready.”

Okay, maybe she was just hangry. Maybe they’d get a “welcome home” hug later.

“Will do.”

“It wasn’t too bad, though,” they said. “She’d cooked dinner, and I’m weak for home cooked meals,” they chuckled, even though they didn’t really feel like laughing.

They looked at their new (second-hand) laptop bag. No patches, nothing.

“She started asking about the exchange, which I had actually been expecting.”

“So, how was it?”

Lyf looked up, “The exchange?” They smiled. “It was really good. I made a lot of friends, and–”

“And I hope you learned things, too? You weren’t just messing around all the time?”

Why had that sounded so accusatory? Had their mother always been like this? They honestly weren’t sure.

“Yes,” Lyf said. “I learned a lot. The courses were really great, and most of the professors were really nice and encouraging–”

“So they filled your head with even more nonsense,” their mother muttered. “Great.”

Lyf’s stomach dropped. Yeah, this feeling they could remember. Their mother had always been like this.

“Dear,” she started, and Lyf knew exactly where this was going, “tell me again what you plan to do with that degree you’re pursuing.”

“I’ll be making art,” Lyf said.

It wouldn’t be enough for her. And to a certain extent, they could understand – it wasn’t a concrete goal, it wasn’t a certain job. But even if they’d become an engineer or gone into finance or whatever it was that their mother had wanted, that wouldn’t have guaranteed them a job either! And it was an ever more vague goal, since Lyf had no clue what those jobs even entailed.

They kept their mouth shut, though. They hadn’t been taught to talk back. Confrontation had always been Lira’s thing.

Their mother sighed, “I think we’ve gone over this enough times that I don’t really need to start this conversation again.”

Lyf looked away, “No. You don’t.”

“And yet you’re hellbent on making your life miserable?” she laughed, but it was an ugly sound.

She took a sip of her drink, keeping her hand on the glass even as she put it back onto the table. She stared at the thing, swirling the liquid inside.

Lyf didn’t want to guess at what she was drinking.

“Three sons –”

“Children.”

“– and not one of them can make sensible choices. One son decided to just run away and do exactly the opposite of what I advised. Another son –”

“Daughter, mum.”

Their mother looked at them, face stern, “– daughter , decided to move into the middle of nowhere to live in his little fantasy world –”

“Her,” Lyf huffed. “Lira’s a woman , mum.”

“And now my youngest son is telling me what I can and can’t say?”

“I’m not–!”

Lyf stopped themself, but it was too late.

Their mother’s eyes narrowed, “You’re not what?”

“I was happy talking about my time here, but she started the whole ‘arts won’t get you anywhere in life’ thing again. She brought up how all three of her children were turning out screw-ups, and she misgendered Lira, and I corrected her, and she misgendered Lira again, so I corrected her again, and then she misgendered me, and–”

Lyf took a deep breath.

“Looking back, that… may not have been the best time to have come out to her.”

“I’m…” Lyf started softly, then got even quieter, “not a man, either.”

Their mother scoffed, “You’re just like him, then?!”

“Her!” Lyf yelled back, their feelings overwhelming. “Hell, mum, and you still don’t get why you weren’t invited to her wedding?”

Their mother stilled.

And, oh, fuck. Lyf had crossed a line.

“Get out,” she said.

“... What?”

“If you want to be like her so bad, you can get out of my house, just like she did!”

“Mum, I–”

“Out!” she shouted, and threw the glass with her beverage at the table.

Lyf flinched as they’d never seen their mother go ballistic like this. Sure she’d been controlling, but this was on a whole different level.

“I said,” she started again, grabbing them by the shoulders and dragging them up from the chair, “out!”

“She got angry, or– I don’t even know,” they sighed. “She threw me out of the house. Almost physically. I… She didn’t let me go anywhere but straight towards the door, and it was less than a minute before the house door locked, with me outside and without a key.”

Lyf took a breather. That still stung.

“Fuck,” Marius quietly commented.

They looked up at him. The man was still looking down at the napkin, but his face was considerably more concerned.

… That had only been the start of it, though.

Lyf looked down at their own hands again, “I just started walking down the road, not really knowing what to do. It had been such a sudden thing that I hadn’t even noticed I was outside in the evening in early spring in my fucking slippers and a T-shirt. Under a lamp, I noticed that the T-shirt was bloody, and I quickly found that I got a nasty cut from a glass my mother had shattered during that whole scene.

“I just pressed my left hand over the cut on my right forearm, and in my daze decided to simply hop onto the town bus to go to the hospital. When I got to the A&E, the doctors started cleaning up the wound, and I was told I’d be needing stitches, and they started asking about personal information and what had happened, and I… I think that’s when it all started sinking in?”

“Is anyone coming to pick you up?” the nurse asked. “You mentioned you came here by bus, I believe.”

Lyf paused, then, “I… don’t think so?”

“Maybe we can call your emergency contact?”

“No–!” Lyf huffed before they could stop themself. “I… No, please.”

They looked down at the ground. The waiting room really had an echo. And it was cold there, damn.

“I’m sorry,” they said to the man. “I didn’t mean to yell. Would you… still be up for calling someone for me?”

The nurse gave them a tired smile, “Of course.”

Lyf pulled out their wallet – only thing they still had on them, really – and found the RSVP card from Lira’s wedding invitation. The wedding had been almost two years ago, but this phone number was the only one Lyf had with them at the moment.

“I really hope this goes through,” they told the nurse.

The nurse accepted the small piece of paper, but before he walked away, he eyed them, concern on his face.

“You didn’t forget your jacket back where they fixed up your arm, did you?”

“Oh, er…” What could they say, really? “I… don’t have one with me.”

The nurse’s brow came down lower.

“No wonder you’re trembling, then,” he said. “I thought it was just adrenaline… Let me see if I can get you a blanket for the wait, okay?”

Lyf was going to cry again.

Their lower lip wobbly, they nodded, “Thank you.”

“I asked if they could call Lira for me.”

Lyf looked up, seeing someone coming up to the front desk. The nurse pointed in Lyf’s direction, and the person looked over.

Lira.

Their big sister was here , hurrying over to them.

“Lyf?” she asked, surprised. “Damn, I’ve been cursing the whole drive here, because I thought I’d be picking up Tal from a bar fight or something. They said ‘brother’ over the phone, and I didn’t even think…”

She sat down in the seat next to theirs and pulled them into a tight hug.

“What happened, Lyf?”

They wanted to tell her everything, but they couldn’t choke out even one proper word through the sobs that broke through without their permission.

Lira sighed and hugged them closer.

“This reunion fucking sucks,” Lira said, and it sounded like she was on the verge of tears herself. “You need a place to crash?”

Lyf hiccoughed. That hadn’t even occurred to them.

Risking the blanket falling off their shoulders, they finally put their own arms around Lira and cried into her shoulder.

“It’s okay, Lyf,” Lira said gently. “I’ll make sure that everything’s going to be okay.”

“She drove me all the way back to her house,” Lyf said. “She lives in an almost cottage-looking place with her wife. Real cozy. Zero reception, though.”

They sighed.

Chancing a glance up at Marius, they found him listening intently.

“I stayed with the two of them this whole time. One day, when I woke up, I found Lira cursing in the kitchen, Syle – that’s her wife – with her head in her hands.”

“I cannot fucking believe her!”

“Calm down, Lira, this isn’t helping anyone.”

“You know what isn’t helping anyone?! Her fucking gall to pull something like this–”

“Lira.”

Lyf found Syle’s gaze on them.

“What?!” Lira turned around, exasperated. “Oh. Lyf,” she quieted down. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

Lyf shook their head, “No, I… What’s going on?”

“Turns out Lira had gone back to our mother’s house. Not as much to talk some sense into our mother as she just wanted to get my stuff back for me.”

Lyf looked away. They just hoped they could refrain from crying right then and there. They still had classes to attend in the afternoon, and they hated how their face looked when it was all puffy.

“Apparently our mother had completely snapped in the few days I’d been gone,” they said. “She’d… got rid of my stuff.”

“Got rid of it?” Marius asked.

Lyf nodded, feeling their eyes grow wet.

“Sold what she could, burnt what she couldn’t.” They paused. “Lira said my room had been completely bare.”

“I’m so sorry,” Marius immediately breathed out.

Lyf nodded somberly.

“Remember how I said my phone died and I threw it into the luggage?” they asked. “Gone. My laptop that I was using for college courses and for my private stuff? Gone. All my notes, my drawing pad, my clothes, stuff from when I was younger, everything – just… gone .

“I didn’t know whether to be angry or sad or disappointed or something else entirely. I was honestly quite a bit of a mess the following few days. Can’t really remember much. I just know that Lira and Syla did all they could to help me out.”

They looked down at their right hand. They hadn’t taken their jacket off, yet.

“I… The cut I got on my forearm – the one I got stitches for? It had started scarring up by then, and I… I really didn’t like looking at it.”

Marius looked down at his own right hand, “Yeah. I get that.”

Right. Lyf kinda kept forgetting about Marius’ prosthesis in moments like these, when Marius wasn’t using his hands.

… They felt really bad about that.

“I’ve never really liked long sleeves all that much, and it was nice and warm in the house, anyway,” Lyf went on before their negative thoughts could catch up, “so I kept trying to find a more long-term solution. And, erm… Apparently Lira had one done in retaliation when she’d moved out, and I quite liked the idea.”

They slowly pulled up the right sleeve of the jacket, showing Marius their very new tattoo.

It was a colourful ribbon, spanning from the back of their palm, around their forearm, over the scar, and all the way up to the elbow. The colours flowed into one another, and at the beginning and end resembled the non-binary and the pansexual pride flags. Here and there next to the ribbon, there were little groups of dots and small stars, done in an almost white hue of yellow.

“This is half of why I got back to the UK a few days later than intended,” Lyf said, then lifted their gaze to see what the other’s reaction might be. “I… didn’t know you weren’t supposed to travel for a few days. Also, it still needs to heal up a bit, so it looks worse now than how it’s going to look in a couple weeks.”

Marius was looking at the tattoo, brows high, mouth slightly agape. The corners of his lips started turning up.

“Lyf, it’s… It looks amazing,” he said, giving a proper smile.

Then his lower lip started wobbling, and the smile slipped off his face. Marius looked down at his lap, closed his eyes, and took a deep – if shaky – breath.

A few seconds passed when Lyf didn’t know what to expect, before Marius opened his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just… I got your text? About the plane landing? And then there was just nothing , and I knew that some of my housemates didn’t quite share the sentiment, but I was worried .”

He still didn’t look up at Lyf.

“I… know what it’s like, losing things that are close or-or familiar to you.” He took a breath. “And I’m so sorry that you had to go through all of that. If… Do you need a place to stay, here?”

He finally looked at them, and Lyf could somehow just tell that Marius was indeed deeply acquainted with this kind of situation.

Lyf shook their head, “Thank you, but no. Lira managed to find the number of my old landlord online, and, while the apartment had apparently already been given to someone else for the semester, the old lady recommended trying with one of her friends, who was also a landowner – this was the other half of me coming back later than intended. But, yeah, I do have an apartment here. A different one now, but an apartment nonetheless, so I’m still grateful for that.”

Marius nodded, “Small wins.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“Wait,” Marius said, “what about your college courses, then? The whole bureaucratic part, I mean. Did you at least have the documents somewhere in your emails?”

Lyf sighed, “I did, but… I’m not really too good with keeping track of passwords, so I had a really good password management app on my phone, and – well.”

“You don’t have access to your school email anymore?” Marius asked, sitting back.

“School email, private email, all my internet accounts,” Lyf shrugged half-heartedly. “All of it’s gone, yeah. That’s also why I couldn’t reach out to you even when I got reception, at the tattoo shop.”

“Fuck,” was all Marius managed.

“I… did try to message you from a few new accounts I’d made on different apps, though?” Lyf said. “Although, your accounts are locked everywhere, so you probably didn’t receive push notifications for messages from a random user.”

Marius blinked, “What?”

He immediately pulled out his phone, frantically swiping, and –

“Damn,” he said, staring at his phone. “I-I didn’t… I didn’t see the message requests…”

“They’re only a few days old,” Lyf tried, “so it’s not like it would have helped all that much.”

Marius kept staring at his phone, looking like he couldn’t quite fathom what it was that was sitting on his screen. He then locked the phone and set it down onto the desk.

Once again, there was silence, but this time, it was much more comfortable than at the beginning of the conversation.

“I’m glad you’re here, right now,” Marius told Lyf.

“I’ll do you one better,” Lyf said back, a small smile climbing onto their face. “I’ve talked it over thoroughly with Lira, and… I’m staying here.”

Marius’ brows shot up high.

“You’re not going back to Norway after this second semester?”

Lyf huffed out a laugh, “No. I feel like I’ve lived so much more here in these past few months than I ever did back home. And besides, my mother’s definitely not waiting for me, and my siblings are leading their own lives. So, yeah. I’m staying in the UK for good.”

Also, Marius was here. That had certainly swayed the final decision a certain way.

Slowly, a small smile formed on the man’s face.

“Really?”

Lyf smiled back, “Really.”

Chapter Text

Marius closed the course book with a huff. He’d tried to go over the materials they’d covered in the past week, but he was having trouble concentrating on it.

… The chat with Lyf that he had open on his phone may have contributed to that a bit, though.

He sighed.

Lyf.

Raph had wanted to know everything. Ivy too, but she wasn’t as pushy. Marius, on the other hand, had made a promise to Lyf that he would keep his mouth shut about it.

So, Marius had asked Raph and Ivy (and his other housemates once they’d heard about Lyf being back) to trust him that Lyf’s story wasn’t one of malice, but rather of tragedy. Marius’ friends hadn’t argued with him about it, but it still took a few days for this change to start sinking back in.

Raph’s cautious resentment had slowly died down over the next few times she’d hung out with Lyf, and Ivy was seemingly just happy that Marius was out of the slump he’d been in since Lyf’s departure.

And now? Now it was the first weekend of Lyf being back in the UK (and being back for good!), and the two of them had been texting for the past half hour.

Apparently, Lyf hadn’t had lunch yet, even though it was well into the afternoon, and Marius was helping them decide on what they could eat.

Lyf

I mean
I’ve got a bunch of desserts that Syle was stress-baking before I left?

Marius laughed out loud.

Lyf

Lyf no xD
You cannot only have desserts for lunch

Why not :(( /lh

They were so adorable, holy shit.

Lyf

Noodles then?

I think you’ve said that already xD

But
But then I’m outta stuff

Quick trip to the store maybe?

I don’t wanna go to the store :( /gen

Yeah, Marius had kinda noticed Lyf’s aversion to more crowded places. He wasn’t sure if Lyf was avoiding the people or the noise, or maybe something else entirely, but Marius could certainly relate.

Lyf

What if you choose something at home and just really quickly go pick it up?
You mentioned there’s a little shop pretty close to your apartment right?

I’d still need to go out tho :(
And the street’s really busy rn :((

Maybe you can put on some music? That usually helps me

I’ve just started charging my headphones
They… might last a really short trip tho

Marius looked around his room. He noticed he was shaking his leg.

Lyf

Tell ya what

What

In solidarity, I too will go outside
And I’ll tell you how many puppies I saw if you tell me what you picked out for lunch
And I’ll send you pics of the cutest ones if the owners will let me

,,,,,,,,, Okay
I guess I’m going to the store then

I believe in you :)
Hope it goes well

Thanks /gen

Marius closed the chat and put the phone down. He had to get ready for his jog.

Also, he needed to find lots of cute puppies to make Lyf’s day better.

It was a surprisingly nice day for a jog. The sun was still out and there weren’t many clouds so it wasn’t all that chilly, and there was even very little traffic. There were quite a lot of people out on a walk, though, and he got to take pictures with four puppies in the first mile alone.

(Of course he sent them to Lyf immediately without waiting for Lyf to tell him what they’d chosen to eat.)

Going outside had been a good idea in general, though.

Marius could feel his body unwinding from all the silent stressors he’d accumulated throughout the day. Exercise usually had that effect for him, jogging especially. It was a quick way to reset his brain when he was feeling tense – which, he honestly hadn’t even realised had been the case that day.

His nose, though, wasn’t too happy with taking in the chilly air, but Marius was fairly certain he just hadn’t drunk enough water that day. Maybe he could cut his run a bit short, just do two miles instead of the usual three, and go to that corner store that was right by the bus stop to get something to drink. Then he could stretch a bit while waiting for the bus, and ride it back home.

Yeah, that sounded great.

Oh, there was the store already. Was he already wrapping up the second mile? Sure didn’t feel like it… Maybe he’d been a bit more stressed than he’d thought.

He passed the last bench on the side of the gravel pathway and gradually slowed down into a walk. Stepping onto the concrete street that intersected the path, he rolled his right shoulder, hoping to relax the muscles that got somewhat wound up during the jog.

The shop didn’t seem too busy from the outside. That was good, he could be in and out in a minute, and he was pretty sure the bus would be coming soon, what with the amount of people already waiting at the bus stop.

He walked into the shop, and beelined directly to where he knew the drinks to be. He grabbed a bottle of peach-flavoured water, and started walking away, when someone turned into the aisle, looking at frozen foods.

Marius stopped.

“Lyf?”

They couldn’t hear him through their headphones, though, so Marius walked closer. He stopped at the edge of their vision, hoping not to scare them, and gave a little wave.

Lyf looked up, and their face quickly went from confusion to surprise.

“Marius,” they said fondly. Then confusion returned, “What– what are you doing here?”

“I told you I was going out, too,” he chuckled. “Wait, is this the shop you’ve mentioned? The one close to your place?”

“Er, yeah,” Lyf nodded. “Oh, do you live close by, too?”

Marius huffed a small laugh, “Close is, er, relative, but I live about two miles west from here, yeah.”

Lyf’s brow scrunched. They checked their phone.

“Two miles in thirty minutes?”

“Slow fifteen,” Marius shrugged. “I still had to change and all that.”

Lyf blinked, “Fifteen minutes is not a slow–” They paused, smiled, “You know what, nevermind. It’s good to see you.”

Marius grinned, “Likewise.”

He watched Lyf eye the frozen section again.

“Pizza?” he asked.

“Thinking about lasagna, actually,” Lyf said, opening up the freezer and taking out two packages.

They paused, then took out another package and closed the freezer.

“So I don’t need to think about two more meals,” they explained awkwardly, and Marius chuckled.

“Fair.”

Marius let Lyf go first at the check-out. They picked a small packaging of gum at the last moment, and placed it next to the frozen lasagna packages.

The teenager working the register didn’t seem too interested in small talk, but she did work quickly, so Marius and Lyf were soon out of the store. Lyf pulled a reusable bag from their coat pocket and put the frozen lasagna inside, the package of gum going straight into a trouser pocket. Marius took the time to open his bottle and down a few gulps.

Okay, maybe he was actually thirsty, too.

“Hey, er,” Lyf said, “would you like to come over? I’ve got those desserts from Syle that I will not be able to eat on my own,” they chuckled.

“Oh, erm, sure,” Marius nodded, surprised but happy at the invitation.

Lyf smiled, and started leading the way down the street.

“So…” they started. “Puppies?”

Marius laughed.

“I’ve already sent you all the pictures,” he told Lyf.

“You have?” they asked, scrambling to get their phone out of their pocket. “Ohmytheyaresocutethankyousomuch!”

Marius watched how they happily scrolled through the few pictures he’d been able to send, taking another sip from his drink.

Yep. Cute.

Lyf looked back towards Marius.

“... How do you not look winded?” they asked.

“Hm?”

“You said it took you fifteen minutes for two miles, and you were stopping to take these pictures?” Lyf said. “That’s pretty fast. Were you an athlete in highschool or something like that?”

That… somehow brought Marius’ mood down surprisingly quickly.

Aside from not remembering his younger years, he was fairly certain he didn’t even get to go to highschool. Apparently there wasn’t any existing paperwork of him finishing it, at least.

He hadn’t had to think about that in a while now.

Lyf paused mid-step, “I’m sorry.” They didn’t really look like they knew what had just happened, though. “I-I said something I shouldn’t have, right? I’m sorry.”

Marius tried for a smile, but he didn’t quite get there.

“It’s fine.”

Lyf didn’t start walking, though. And they seemed somewhat worried.

“You said your place is close?” Marius asked, trying to get them moving again.

Lyf seemed to get the message and started down the street once more.

“Yeah, I’m…” they pointed a bit further down the street. “Just above that ice cream shop.”

The walk continued in silence, and they soon reached the building. The pair walked up the stairs, Lyf unlocking the apartment and letting Marius inside. Both of them took off their shoes and Lyf took off their coat.

“I need to put this away first, but you can make yourself comfortable in the living room, over there,” they pointed down the hall. “There should be some Fyrstekake still on the table.”

“I’ll go to the bathroom real quick actually– wait. Frish– what?” Marius asked, standing in the hallway, not really knowing which door lead to the bathroom.

“Fyrstekake,” Lyf repeated from the kitchen. The freezer opened, “It’s a Norwegian desert.” Something was shoved inside and it closed, with Marius still standing in the hallway. “I’d call it a prince cake in English, but I promise no princes were harmed in the making,” they chuckled, walking out of the kitchen with two plates and dessert spoons in hand. “Bathroom, right, sorry. First door on the right. I’ll set this up?”

Marius nodded, “Cool, thanks.”

He closed the bathroom door behind him, pulling up the right sleeve of his running shirt. He took off his prosthesis, and quickly used some toilet paper to wipe the sweat off the lining cloth. Holding the prosthesis between his legs, he washed and dried his nub before putting the prosthesis back on. He pulled the sleeve back down, adjusted the glove, and left the bathroom.

The living room wasn’t very big, but it sure looked cozy. Lyf had set down two plates, one slice of the prince cake on each.

The cake looked like a mix between a pie and the usual spongy cake, and it looked delicious .

“Fyrstekake?” Lyf offered.

Marius nodded, and Lyf handed one plate along with a spoon off to Marius.

Marius took a bite.

“This is so good!” he said, a smile climbing onto his face.

“I know, right,” Lyf laughed. “And there’s a bunch more where that came from. Syle made a lot of food for me to take back here.”

Marius chuckled.

“Do you have any siblings, Marius?”

A pause. Marius’ face must have done something , because Lyf quickly looked down at their lap.

“Fuck. I’ve– I’ve done it again, haven’t I?” they sighed, sounding frustrated with themself. “Fuck. Sorry.”

“It’s really not your fault,” Marius immediately said. “I just…”

He sighed. He wanted to tell Lyf what was going on, but…

Huh. Well… why not?

He took a moment to check in with himself. The run had made him quite relaxed, and he was actually feeling very safe to talk in Lyf’s apartment. He likely wouldn’t get another chance like this any time soon.

“I don’t remember a lot of my past,” Marius told Lyf, before he could change his mind.

“Oh,” Lyf blinked in surprise. “I’m– I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Marius sighed. “I, erm… I’m not originally from the UK, I think I’ve mentioned that before. And there was a…” Short pause for a breath. “There was a war back in my country.”

Lyf winced in sympathy, “You had to flee?”

Marius set the plate with the cake onto the table. His gaze landed heavy on his lap.

“I had to fight.”

“Fight?” Lyf asked. “But you’re– You told me that you’re 21, like me. If this is your third year in college here, then…”

Marius nodded, still not looking back at Lyf.

“According to my dogtags, I served for two years, starting at 16,” Marius said. “Must’ve been an ‘all hands on deck’ situation. When I lost my hand, though, I got sent away for rehabilitation. I’m– I don’t know how I got to the UK, specifically, and I don’t know if the war’s still going on back there.” A pause. “No clue if I had any family, or if they’re still alive.”

He huffed a hollow laugh.

“I should get one of those T-shirts, you know? ‘I went to war, and all I got was this lousy prosthesis and PTSD’.”

Okay, why’d he say that? Lyf probably didn’t find it funny.

… Yeah, okay, he was nervous, that was why he’d said it.

(Would Lyf be angry with him for everything he’d done while in service?)

He glanced up.

Lyf was looking at him, tears in their eyes, sadness and worry and care evident on their face. They released a breath, set their own plate down on the table, then leaned closer to Marius and pulled him into a hug.

“I’m so sorry,” they mumbled into his shoulder, sniffling. “I’m sorry that all of that happened to you, and that you have to carry it around all the time.”

“It’s…” Marius started, wrapping his own arms around Lyf. “Well, it’s not fine , but it’s been a couple years since then, and I’m in therapy and everything, so… Yeah.”

He didn’t really know what else to say.

When he’d first told his housemates about it, he hadn’t known how they would react either, and… it had gone quite the same as with Lyf now, actually.

It hadn’t got all that much easier to talk about, though.

Lyf sniffled again and pulled Marius a tiny bit closer, “I’m glad that you’re here.”

Oh.

That somehow broke through the emotional numbness Marius always felt when talking about his past. From one second to the other, tears blurred his vision and a sob bubbled up his throat, and he was suddenly ugly crying into Lyf’s shirt.

Lyf hugged him even closer and cried with him.

“Hi, guys!” Marius greeted when he walked into the house.

Jonny walked out into the hallway, “Who was it?”

“What?” Marius asked as he was taking off his shoes.

“Who’d you run into?”

“Oh, er,” Marius chuckled, “Lyf.”

“I told you!” Jonny called out towards the living room.

“Oh, shut it!” Raph called back.

Jonny laughed, “Nuh-uh! You’re letting me dye your hair this evening!”

“Ugh, fine!”

Marius, now jacket-less and in his slippers, picked back up the bag he’d brought with him, walking after Jonny to the living room.

“Were you betting or something?”

“Yup,” Jonny nodded. “I bet it was Lyf, and Raph said that you do have other friends and that it could literally be any single one of them.”

“I mean, she’s not wrong,” Marius said as the two walked into the room.

“I know,” Jonny nodded, then grinned, “but it was Lyf, so now I get to dye her hair any way I like.”

“The plates are all out, like you asked,” Brian pointed at the table. “Spoons, too.”

Jonny found some space on the couch next to Nastya, and Marius sat down on the floor near Ivy and Theo.

“Whad’ya pick up?” Tim asked, excited for the promised dessert.

“I didn’t pick it up, so much as I just got it because Lyf had too much of it,” Marius chuckled as he pulled the food container from the bag and set it on the table.

Brian reached out to give everyone a slice.

“Oooo, homemade dessert?” Ivy’s eyes sparkled.

“Actually yes, but it was their sister-in-law who made it, back in Norway, and they brought it back here with them.”

That seemed to make Aurora happy, and she grinned wide. When she saw what Brian was putting on the plates, she clapped her hands excitedly, then quickly signed something towards Nastya.

Marius only caught ‘grandma’ .

“Aurora says her grandmother used to bake this every time they came to visit,” Nastya translated, then pulled a face. “Yeah, I have no clue how to pronounce that. Apparently it’s called prince’s cake in English, though.”

“Lyf called it fyrstekake, I think?” Marius tried, and Aurora nodded excitedly.

Brian and Ashes handed the plates and spoons around.

Theo was the first to take a bite.

“Oh, wow, this is delicious !” he beamed.

“Damn, so good,” Jonny mumbled around a mouthful.

“Mm, d’you think you could get me the recipe, Marius?” Brian asked.

Marius chuckled, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter Text

Lyf’s lecture was over, and they were on their way to where they usually met up with Marius, Ivy, and Raphaella for lunch.

The two women were already under the great oak in front of the cafeteria, but Marius was surprisingly nowhere to be seen.

“Hi,” Lyf greeted with a smile.

Ivy gave a nod, much too interested in the book she had in her hands.

Raphaella smiled, “Hey.”

“Is Marius still in class?” Lyf asked.

It wouldn’t have been the first time his professors had had terrible timing.

“Oh, er, no, actually,” Raphaella said. She nodded to herself, “Marius hasn’t mentioned it to you then.”

“Mentioned what?”

“It’s, er,” Raphaella started, but Ivy beat her to it.

“He’s got a doctor’s appointment.”

“Yeah! Doctor’s appointment,” Raphaella nodded. “That was the word I was looking for.”

“Oh,” Lyf blinked. “I hope nothing’s too wrong?”

Marius had stayed home on a couple of days since the two of them had started hanging out more often. Lyf really hoped this wasn’t a bigger problem, for Marius’ sake.

Now that they thought about it, though, could it be connected to his PTSD? Lyf had done some research on the topic, so as not to go into any conversation with Marius completely blind, and from what they could tell, if Marius had a bad enough episode, he would be completely right in staying home.

This was a doctor’s visit , though. They were glad that Marius was at a check-up, so he could find out if something else completely was wrong, at least.

“I don’t… think so?” Raphaella said, which got Ivy to look up from the book.

“He didn’t mention anything specific in the morning,” Ivy informed both of them. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, though.”

Lyf was worried, but they couldn’t help but give a small smile, “That’s the spirit.”

“That is the spirit, Lyf,” Raphaella grinned. “Marius is going to be just fine when we get back home.” She paused. “Lunch?”

Raphaella’s and Ivy’s attitudes somewhat helped with the worry, and they could feel their smile broadening into something more normal.

“Yeah. Lunch.”

“Ivy?”

“Mhm,” the other woman nodded, nose back in the book. “I’ll put this down in a moment, I just want to finish the chapter.”

Raphaella laughed as the three of them started towards the cafeteria.

Okay. So.

Marius was at a doctor’s appointment, but through a unanimous vote, the three of them had decided that he was going to be alright.

Lyf… still kind of wanted to see him, though. Right now, they were craving for familiarity, and while both Raphaella and Ivy were their friends, Lyf was admittedly the closest to Marius.

(And not just out of these three people. Upon seeing Marius for the first time since coming back, they’d realised he was probably their favourite person in the UK.)

The trio entered the cafeteria, and there was just enough of a line in front of them for Lyf to decide to strike up a conversation.

“Raphaella,” they started, “do you think Marius might be home when the two of you go back?”

“Er, probably?” she answered. “I don’t see why an appointment would take all that long. Why?”

“Oh, just…” Lyf looked down at the ground.

Don’t get cold feet now!

“Would you like to come over or something?” Raphaella asked before they could continue.

They looked up at her, bewildered. Were they that obvious?

“Er,” they said eloquently. “I mean… Yes?”

“I think that should be fine,” Raphaella nodded. She looked at Ivy, who had just closed the book, “Right, Ivy?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Lyf would like to come over,” Raphaella explained.

“Oh, yeah,” Ivy said. “That’s fine. Oh, since we’ll be here a bit late today, do you want to have dinner at our place?”

Dinner at Marius’ house? That sounded amazing, but…

“I wouldn’t want to be in the way,” Lyf said, shaking their head.

“You won’t be,” Raphaella laughed, “it’s a big house, and I promise all our housemates are really friendly.” She gave a softer smile then, “You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to. But if you’re really just worried about being in the way, then I can assure you that you’ll be just fine.”

They’d… actually had plans for a quiet evening in. A house with ten residents didn’t really sound like it would quite meet the basic criteria.

Oh, hell. This was a good opportunity to meet Marius’ housemates, though.

Decisions, decisions.

“Also,” Ivy piped up just as the three of them reached the ordering counter, “you’re not allergic to cats, are you?”

“If it gets too much,” Raphaella said as the three of them were approaching the house, “just tap my shoulder three times or something, okay? Ivy and I can totally make something up about you having a morning class tomorrow or something.”

“Yes,” Ivy smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Everyone’s really understanding when it comes to taking breaks, but if you don’t feel comfortable being obvious about it, then we can totally bail you out.”

“Thank you,” Lyf said awkwardly.

In the end, they decided to just be honest with the two of them about their thoughts on loud and crowded places. Ivy and Raphaella had been very nice about it, and it had given Lyf the courage to agree to staying for a bit. They’d been having second thoughts ever since getting off the subway, but with the two women assuring them that they could leave at any time, Lyf had been feeling the uncomfortable feeling in their stomach slowly dwindling down.

The three of them stopped in front of a big house. It looked fairly old, but in a very lovely way. There were also many beautiful flowers growing in front of it. Lyf guessed that a lot of work had gone into that.

“It’s really pretty here,” they said, just as Raphaella finally found the keys.

Ivy nodded, “I’ve always liked the vibe. The flowers weren’t here when I moved in, but the house itself still looked charming.”

“Are the flowers a recent addition?”

“Not really,” Ivy answered. “The guy who moved in after me, Brian, had to stay home for a long time. He turned this part into a flower garden, because it gave him something to do and, well, because the house looks even better now,” Ivy chuckled.

“That it does,” Lyf said in awe.

“You two coming in or not?” Raphaella called out from the inside.

Ivy sighed, “I’d recite something about the fleeting presence of nature, but I don’t really know any good quotes or poems on this matter.”

Lyf laughed.

Yeah, this was going to be just fine.

They followed inside after Ivy, and took off their shoes and jacket, keeping their laptop bag with them. They watched Ivy put her shoes away onto a special low shelf.

“Where should I…?”

“Oh, up here’s fine,” Ivy said, patting the top row of the shoe shelf. “Just make sure not to leave anything just lying somewhere on the ground.”

Lyf nodded, “Okay.”

“Would you like a pair of slippers?”

They looked down at their black socks with yellow polka dots.

“I’m fine, thank you– oh!”

Something dark red was twirling around their legs, the chime of the small bell clicking with Lyf a moment too late.

“That’s Blaze,” Ivy laughed. “He likes to… greet our guests.”

“He is also very energetic,” Raphaella said, popping out from a room on their left hand side.

Lyf kneeled down to pat Blaze on the head, but the cat was much too playful, opting instead to jump onto their shoulders.

“Er…”

“Sorry,” Raphaella laughed, coming over. “He also likes high places. Especially the ones he doesn’t know how to get down from.”

She took Blaze into her arms, and the cat went limp, flowing out of her hold like it was liquid, then gracefully dropped to the floor on all fours. He sat down, staring straight up at Raphaella.

Raphaella picked up a wand with ribbons on it from the very top of the shoe shelf and waved it in front of the cat, who jumped after the ribbons excitedly.

“Come on, Lyf,” Ivy beckoned towards the room where Raphaella had come from only moments ago.

Right. They were here to meet people , not pets.

Lyf walked into what seemed to be the living room, and woah. It looked almost as big as Lyf’s whole apartment.

Two people were on the couch, and ohanothercat!

One of the two people waved at them, so they rescheduled looking at the white ball of fluff and waved back.

“Hi,” they said, only now recognising the other person.

“Oh, hi,” Nastya smiled, surprised . “Er… sorry, what’s your name again?”

“Lyf,” Lyf chuckled. “And don’t worry about it.”

“Wait, you two know each other?” Raphaella asked from the hallway, leading Blaze into the living room to join the others.

“Er, yeah,” Lyf chuckled somewhat awkwardly. “Nastya and I met at one of the meetings down at the, er…”

“Those trans hangouts Ashes and I sometimes go to?” Nastya stepped in. “There.”

“Yeah, that.”

Oh, shit . That’s right.

Lyf tried not to panic.

The talking theme of the first hangout that both they and Nastya had been to had been Partners.

… And Lyf had totally spilled their guts about having a crush on a close friend.

Surely Nastya didn’t remember that one specific detail of some person she’d met only a handful of times, right? Or if she did, surely it hadn’t been that obvious who Lyf had been talking about, right?

Deciding to steer the conversation away from that possible topic, they looked at the person sitting next to Nastya.

“The two of us have not yet met, though, I believe,” they said. “Hi, I’m Lyf.”

“This is Aurora,” Nastya said, and Aurora gave another happy wave.

This jostled the cat on her lap just enough to look up at Lyf. They could just feel a smile climbing onto their face without permission.

“That’s Coconut,” Nastya said, “Coco for short. And we heard you met Blaze out in the hallway?” she added with a laugh.

“I have, yeah,” Lyf nodded, still smiling. “He’s charming.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that and mean it,” Raphaella laughed.

Lyf looked around, “Where… is he?”

Ivy shrugged, “Somewhere. He will make himself heard if he gets into trouble, don’t worry.”

Lyf saw Aurora signing something, but they had no idea what she’d said.

“Aurora’s asking if you’d like to pet Coco,” Nastya said. “Also, you can totally sit down. The couch doesn’t bite, I promise.”

Lyf was still standing. Because of course they were. That just happened way too often when they got distracted by anything, really.

Aurora scooted closer to Nastya, and patted the couch next to her. Lyf took off their laptop bag and set it onto the small table, then sat down at the offered spot. At their obvious excitement about the nearby cat, though, Aurora simply picked up Coco and set her into their lap, where said cat now made herself comfortable.

Lyf gently petted Coco’s head.

So soft!!

The front door opened and closed just then, and people started shedding their coats and changing their shoes for slippers.

“Theo and I are home!” someone shouted.

Then, the two people walked into the living room. One of them, again, Lyf could recognise.

“Oh, hello!” Mr. Sinclair greeted happily, apparently remembering Lyf, too.

“Hi,” Lyf smiled.

“Wait, you two know each other, too?!” Raph asked, sounding confused.

“Oh, yes! Mx. Eide’s bought a number of patches at the shop over the past couple of months,” Mr. Sinclair explained. “They even put in an order for a custom-made patch not that long ago!”

“And I have to say I loved them all so much, Mr. Sinclair,” Lyf said, giving a bit of a sadder smile than they’d like.

They’d lost all of those lovely patches. This wasn’t the time for them to be sad about it, though. They should do that back home.

“Oh, it’s Theo, please,” Mr. Sincl- Theo beamed.

“ You’re the person that ordered the Hermes All Star shoe patch?!” the other man asked, excited.

At the mention of the patch Lyf had picked up only days ago, Lyf couldn’t help but grin, though.

“Yes.”

“Hi, I’m Jonny,” the man said, jumping over the backrest of the couch to sit down right next to Lyf, Coco seemingly used to sudden actions like this one, as she didn’t even look up this time. “Just a quick question, have you heard of our lord and saviour Jorge Rivera-Herrans and his musical–”

“Epic?” Lyf interrupted, because there was no fucking way .

Jonny stood up on the couch.

“Alright, sorry not sorry to whoever brought them here,” Jonny said, looking around the whole room, “but I’m stealing your friend.”

“Well, if you’d been reading the chat, you’d know that it was Ivy and me who brought them here,” Raph said, “but you’d also be stealing Marius’ friend .”

“ Marius’ friend ?” Jonny asked her, then turned to Lyf. “Sorry, what’s your name? I forgot to ask just now.”

The man sat back down onto the couch, now facing Lyf with his whole body, one leg folded on the couch underneath the other.

“Lyf,” Lyf said. “Lyf Eide. And it’s totally understandable that you skipped proper introductions since you were trying to share the gospel of Epic,” they laughed.

“Lyf Eide, huh?”

Was it just Lyf’s imagination, or did Jonny’s whole demeanor change slightly? The man was looking at them almost like… he was trying to find something out? No, that wasn’t quite it.

Maybe their name sounded off to him?

“Yeah, I’m, erm, I’m an exchange stu– well. I’m from Norway.”

Starting with the new school year, they’d be properly enrolled at the college here in the UK. That still… felt weird.

They were happy with the choice, though. Especially with how much they enjoyed spending time with Marius. With Marius and his housemates , apparently.

Aurora started signing something.

“Aurora’s asking where from,” Nastya told them.

“Oh, er,” Lyf said, “I’m from waaay up North. Almost higher up than the tip of Sweden.”

Aurora smiled, already signing on.

“Aurora’s grandmother was also from Norway, but from the south of the peninsula,” Nastya translated the new signs.

“Snakker du norsk?” Lyf asked.

Jonny raised an eyebrow, “What?”

Aurora looked at her lap shyly and showed “a bit” with her fingers.

“That meant ‘do you speak Norwegian’,” Ivy explained, and Lyf nodded, somewhat excited that some people here still understood at least some of their mother tongue.

“Wait, since when do you know Norwegian?” Raphaella asked.

“I don’t,” Ivy shrugged. “I overheard Marius doing some Duolingo lessons a while back, and this was one of the exercises.”

Marius was learning Norwegian? Something about that made Lyf immeasurably happy.

“Aurora says she’d love to practice her Norwegian, though, if you’re interested, Lyf,” Nastya said.

“Oh, yes!” Lyf smiled. “Of course! And maybe you could teach me some sign language? Either British or Norwegian.”

Aurora grinned and nodded.

The front door opened again.

“Aight, food’s here!” the new person called out, and Lyf quickly connected the dots.

That was Ashes.

“I’ll come help you,” Ivy called out and walked into the hallway.

“I’ll go get Tim and Brian,” Raphaella offered.

“We’re preparing the plates and utensils, then,” Theo nodded.

Nastya stood up from the couch, “Come on, Lyf, we’ll eat in the kitchen.”

Lyf nodded, and watched as Coco got up and pranced towards the kitchen. Then they themself got up and followed after Nastya, Aurora, and Coco. The kitchen was quite spacious, a giant table sitting in the middle of it. The table had a really cool pattern on it, looking like it was… burnt into the wood maybe?

“Ashes made the table,” Nastya told Lyf when she noticed them staring at it.

Lyf blinked, “Really? They mentioned something about wood burning a while back, but this just looks so much more cool in person…”

“Yup! It does!” Theo nodded excitedly as he set down five plates, Jonny bringing five more.

“Oh, can I help?” Lyf asked.

“No, no, you just sit down, it’s alright,” Theo shook his head with a smile.

Lyf did as they were told, choosing the seat that was beckoning to them, and Nastya and Aurora brought out the utensils. Counting everything on the table, though…

“Ten sets? Aren’t there eleven of us if I’m here?” Lyf asked.

Ashes walked into the kitchen, arms loaded with take-out bags, “Marius just recently texted that he’ll still be out for a little while. We’ll keep his food packed so it hopefully stays warmer for longer.”

So Marius would still be a while. Lyf really hoped there wasn’t anything too wrong.

Ivy walked in after Ashes, hands also full, then behind her came Raphaella, who hurried to help the others set up the table.

As they set the bags on the table, Ashes finally properly looked at Lyf.

“Also, hi,” Ashes smiled. “Haven’t seen ya in a while.”

“Yeah, I’ve kinda been out of the country for the past month or so,” Lyf said apologetically. Then they chuckled, “Couldn’t really make it to the meetings like that.”

“Marius mentioned something about a friend leaving for home during exam season, yeah,” Ashes nodded. “Didn’t know he was talking about you , though.”

“How did you not–” Raphaella started, looking incredulous, but Ashes interrupted.

“Because I’m not as nosey as some of our other housemates.”

Marius had been telling his housemates about Lyf? That made them feel warm inside their chest.

“Also, that’s a cool-ass tattoo you got there,” Ashes said, pointedly looking at Lyf’s right forearm.

“Oh, thanks!”

Another two people could be heard coming down the hall, though they were walking a bit slower. A few fingers poked around the corner, and a man appeared in the doorway, his hand still lightly touching the wall.

“Hello, hello,” he said brightly, looking into the room, but at no one in particular. “I hear Raphaella and Ivy brought over a friend?”

Oh, this was probably the blind housemate, then. Tim, right?

For some reason, Lyf could suddenly feel Jonny’s gaze on them.

“Yeah, hi,” they said, “I’m Lyf.”

They were just about ready to get up, not really knowing what to do, when the man walked into the room, holding another man under the elbow and helping him into the room, getting the other to the nearest seat and sitting himself down on the chair next to it.

Okay, nevermind. Clearly the guy had everything under control.

Lyf almost facepalmed. Of course he had everything under control. Lyf generally knew how to get around their apartment even with the lights out, so it had been kind of stupid of them to assume that this man couldn’t navigate his own home.

“Hi, my name’s Tim,” the first man said (Lyf was happy they’d remembered his name correctly), then pointed in the general direction of the other, “and this is Brian. He’s a bit sleepy right now, just woke up from a nap and everything.”

The other man, Brian, who Tim had been helping walk, had a very interesting face. It seemed like his skin didn’t flow quite as nicely as skin usually did, and in quite a specific way that Lyf had only ever seen with scars or stitches. And maybe parts of his face were a slightly different hue?

He also seemed very tired. Poor guy must’ve had a rough day if he was still this tired after a nap.

“Hello, Brian,” Lyf said across the table with a smile.

“Hi,” he said back, sounding… not quite completely awake yet. “Sorry. Just… haven’t had the best day.”

“Do you feel up for dinner?” Jonny asked. “We can put it aside and you can have it later, too.”

“No, no, I’ll… I’ll eat now,” Brian said. “Probably not a lot, though.”

He put a hand over his face and rubbed at his eyes. The skin on his hand stood out a bit, too. Oh, was this the housemate who had a bad history with fireworks?

If so, ouch .

“Do you need us to turn the lights down a bit?” Ivy asked.

Their lights could dim? Cool.

“Hm? Oh, no, thanks,” Brian chuckled. “I’m just waking up, still. Tim wasn’t exaggerating about me quite literally only just having woken up.”

Raphaella sat down next to Lyf, opposite to Brian, “How are you feeling, though?”

“Much better than in the morning, thanks.” Brian turned to Lyf, “Sorry we’re meeting when I’m a bit out of it…”

“Not really your fault,” Lyf responded. “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day in the first place.”

Brian gave a tired chuckle, “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Also,” Lyf started, remembering the short talk with Ivy in front of the house, “are you the one who’s taking care of the flower garden in the front? Ivy mentioned something earlier.”

“Er,” Brian blinked, seeming like he very much was not expecting the question, “yeah?”

“It’s beautiful,” Lyf smiled.

Brian gave another pause, before giving a small smile himself, “Thanks.”

“Alright,” Ashes said, sitting down on Raphaella’s other side, at the edge of the table, “I think everything should be on the table. Dig in!”

Keys in a lock, the front door opening.

Was that Marius? Everyone else was home, so it seemed reasonable. He’d been out for quite a while, in the end, though. It was already dark outside, and his dinner had been moved into the refrigerator.

Raphaella perked up. She quickly got up from the table, making her way into the hall.

“Hi, guys!” Marius called out. “Oh, hi, Raph… Visit? Oh, erm, I’m not really up for hanging out right now. I’m kinda tired, to be honest– What?”

With the near silence that followed, Lyf guessed the two continued their conversation quietly.

Marius let out a short laugh.

“Yeah, no way– Ugh, fine , I’m coming,” and at this, Lyf could hear him coming closer, “but I swear, Raph, if you’re pulling my leg– oh.”

Marius was staring directly at Lyf, standing completely still, his backpack held up close to his chest.

“Okay, erm, first,” he started with a smile, “hi, Lyf. And second, er, Raph, I apologize.”

“No worries,” the woman grinned and walked over to the counter, hopping to sit up on it.

That left the seat to Lyf’s right free.

“Hi,” Lyf finally said back as Marius made his way around the table to sit next to him.

“Who won?” Marius asked, pointedly looking at the Monopoly figures and paper money, scattered forgotten across the table.

“Not Ashes, for once,” Ivy laughed.

“Yeah, because you all said I have to play the bank because I wouldn’t have taken pity on Lyf.”

“I’d honestly like to play against you sometime,” Lyf chuckled, “just to see what all the fuss is about.”

Ashes smirked, “Deal, consider it arranged.”

“Oh, we can bring Monopoly to the next hang-out downtown,” Nastya suggested. “I bet the others would have fun, too.”

Aurora waved at Marius, then pointed at Tim.

“Yeah, thanks for getting us back on track, Aurora,” Brian said, then turned to Marius, “Tim won.”

“Congrats,” Marius smiled. “What was the strategy?”

“Well, apparently you can get surprisingly far if you manage to get just the train stations,” Tim laughed.

“Huh, I haven’t tried that yet.” Marius then turned to Lyf directly, “I hope they haven’t bullied you too much?”

“Oh, no, they’ve all been great,” Lyf chuckled, and they meant it. “Besides, apparently I already knew about half of them,” they added with a laugh. “That aside, how was the doctor’s appointment?”

“Doctor’s…?” Marius asked, and Raphaella forced out a (quite obviously fake) cough.

“The doctor’s appointment you had today,” she said pointedly, like she was trying to tell him something without actually saying it, “you know?”

“They’re called a prosthetist,” Marius told her, confused, “they’re not actually a doctor of medicine, I think. Like with ophthalmologists and opticians – one makes a medical diagnosis and the other makes a prop.”

Raphaella looked at Marius like she was thinking something through.

“Wait,” she settled on, “do they know ?”

Lyf could feel Jonny’s intense gaze on them again, and they decided yet again not to look at the man.

“About my hand?” Marius asked, and oh , Lyf was now pretty sure they knew what was going on. “Yeah. They… they do. Have for a little while now, actually.”

“And Raphaella and Ivy didn’t know you’ve already told me,” Lyf spoke their conclusion out loud, “so they remained vague about it, and I instead thought you were ill. Okay.”

Marius looked back at Lyf, head tilted to the side.

“How come you came here, then? Not that– not that I’m not happy to see you here,” he hurriedly added, then looked away. “I– I am. Happy to see you here, I mean.”

“Well, I– erm,” Lyf stumbled. “I wanted to visit? To… see how you were doing? And the– the lecture notes from this afternoon. I brought those, too. My laptop bag’s in the living room.”

A small smile snuck onto Marius’ face, seemingly without his knowing.

“I’m– I’m doing fine, thanks,” he said, looking down at his lap, where he still held his backpack close. “Oh, erm, actually…”

He opened up the backpack.

“I was going to show this to all of you tomorrow,” he said, “but since we’re all here right now…”

Out of the backpack, he pulled something rigid, seemingly spanning practically the whole height of the backpack. The item wrapped in cloth, likely for padding.

He turned to smile at Aurora, who excitedly grinned back. She must have been the only one who knew what was inside, if the confusion on everyone else’s faces was anything to go by.

“Tim,” Ashes called from the chair on Marius’ other side, “come switch with me.”

“Oh, thanks,” the man smiled, getting up.

He walked around Brian, gently grazing his back as he walked by.

“Right here,” Ashes said, and Tim stopped right in front of them.

Keeping one hand on the table, he reached out for the chair and sat down, Ashes walking around to sit where Tim had sat before.

Lyf watched as Marius waited for Tim to get comfortable before starting to unwrap the item. For a moment, Lyf saw something white glint from between the layers of fabric. Then, something black and not quite metallic peeked out. The last layer was put away, and–

“Woah,” Jonny breathed. “That looks cool as fuck .”

And he wasn’t wrong. Lyf hadn’t actually ever seen the prosthesis that Marius was wearing at the moment, but this new one seemed much more advanced. It was completely white with black joints and fingertips, with a fancy button on the back of the hand.

It definitely would not blend in, unlike what Marius had been trying to do so far.

“Stop keeping me in suspense,” Tim whined with a pout, placing one hand down onto the table, palm up.

“It’s a new hand of mine,” Marius explained as he offered part of the prosthesis to Tim.

“Okay, yeah, I agree with Jonny,” the man said only a moment later. “This seems really cool. Also, is it just me or is it not covered by, like, fake skin?”

That was the important question here, yes. Because as long as Lyf had known him, Marius had never been comfortable with even talking about his prosthesis if there were people anywhere close by – sans his housemates, apparently.

Marius took a deep breath, “No. No, it’s not. And I’m not getting it covered, even if the possibility comes up.”

Lyf thought it was a good decision. They just wanted Marius to be comfortable in his own body, and if Marius thought he was ready to stop hiding his prosthesis, then Lyf could be nothing else but proud of how far he’d got.

Tim grinned, “That’s the spirit!”

“Good choice,” Brian smiled.

“I think I say this for all of us,” Theo chimed in, “Marius, you have our full support!”

Every single person in the room agreed with various motions and sounds.

“I won’t be wearing it outside much yet, though,” Marius chukled, his face flushing under the praise and confidence from the others. “General anxiety aside, I still need to practice the new movements.”

“New movements?” Nastya asked, eyes sparkling with curiosity.

Right, Nastya was an engineer, if Lyf remembered correctly.

“There’s a bunch more buttons inside,” Marius nodded. “Big upgrade from just two .”

“Show us?” she asked, leaning over the table excitedly.

Marius chuckled, and went to pull his right sleeve up higher. Then he stopped, just before the prosthesis he was currently wearing would peek out from underneath the end of the glove, and looked up at Lyf.

“Right, er, is it okay with you if I…? Erm.”

Again, Lyf could feel Jonny’s gaze centered on them. What was up with him?

“Hm?” Lyf blinked, needing a moment to figure out that Marius just meant taking off the prosthesis. “Oh, yeah, of course. Why…? Wait, do you not feel alright if I’m here while you’re switching your hands? I can leave the room for a bit if that makes you more comfortable.”

“What– no! I just…” Marius started, then awkwardly paused. “I’ve… heard that some people are a bit squeamish about these things? So, erm, just a… Just a warning, I guess?”

A warning?

“Marius,” Lyf said, trying to make sure that the other listened , “it’s just your arm . There is no need to give a warning .”

A moment of silence, where Marius stared at Lyf, speechless. From the corner of their eye, Lyf could see Jonny’s scrutinizing gaze finally soften into something more content.

“Alright,” Marius breathed out, his face… somewhat red?

He then looked down at his right hand, and huffed a smile, before pulling the sleeve higher up, getting it halfway up his upper arm. Marius reached for the end of the not-quite-skin-coloured prosthesis at his elbow to pull it off, but Lyf’s eyes slipped up a bit higher on their own.

Marius didn’t usually wear tight-fitting shirts, which made sense if he was trying to prevent people from knowing about his prosthetic hand. If Marius hadn’t mentioned that he used to be a regular at the gym a while back, Lyf never would have even guessed for him to have any kind of an above average build. Still, even the military conversation from the previous week apparently didn’t really prepare them for actually seeing any muscles, because damn –

They had to tear their eyes off the man’s bicep before their face had a chance to get flushed. Not the place, nor the time.

When they tuned back into what Marius was actually doing, they just caught the moment when the prosthesis came off. Marius had about half a forearm left, and there was a very faint scar at the end of his residual limb, which made sense, what with his hand having been amputated.

There was a brief glance from Marius, but Lyf just offered a small smile, and the man continued the process. He rubbed the residual limb for a bit with the same air of someone looking down at their phone for a long while and then rubbing their neck. Marius then took hold of the new prosthetic and pushed his forearm into the main hull. It took a few moments for him to be satisfied with how his limb sat inside, but then he smiled.

“Alright. Now,” he said, pressing and holding the button on the back of the hand.

To turn the prosthesis on, maybe? Fancy.

Marius huffed out a concentrating breath. There was complete silence.

“Okay, I’ve got the general grip function, like with the other prosthesis.”

He demonstrated by closing the fingers into a pinch-grip, opening the palm back up, then closing it once again.

“That part’s the same, and the buttons are in the same places, too, just a tad bit smaller,” he said. “ But , there’s something else I can do now.”

The whole room watched on in anticipation.

The ring finger twitched.

“Er, okay, that wasn’t the one I was going for,” Marius mumbled.

The thumb twitched, and Marius still didn’t look quite satisfied. Then the middle finger twitched.

“Eh, screw it,” he chuckled, “I’ll take that.”

The finger uncurled, only stopping when it was almost straight. A mix of excited gasps and chuckles went around the room.

“Woahhh,” Theo’s eyes widened in awe and he leaned forward.

Tim offered an open palm, and Marius placed the hand there, allowing Tim to feel what he’d done with the prosthesis.

“Are you–” the man started, before bursting into a laugh. “Oh, fuck , this hand is amazing! You’re flipping off the whole room!”

“It really is amazing,” Nastya said, unable to get her eyes away from the techy-looking addition, and Lyf could see appreciation in Brian’s face as well. “You can move every finger on its own with this prosthesis, that’s so cool.”

Brian suddenly lit up.

“Wait, Tim,” he called out, “how much time do we give him before we start teaching him riffs?”

Marius looked up at Brian, looking like he’d bluescreened. Tim gasped in excitement, and Lyf saw Marius blink in confusion.

“Erm. What?”

“Guitar riffs,” Tim smiled wide. “Or, well, mandolin riffs, since that’s currently your guitar-ish instrument of choice.”

“A couple months and we possibly can start with some easy stuff, right?” Brian asked brightly.

Suddenly, Marius sniffled, and his eyes teared up. His mouth pulled together, but he managed to push out a laugh.

“F-fuck,” he let out, covering his mouth with his left hand. “I didn’t… That didn’t even occur to me.”

Tim’s arm found its way around Marius’ shoulders and he pulled Marius into a side hug as the man continued to huff out soft sobs of laughter.

“Fucking hell,” Marius chuckled during the first calmer moment he got. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry over this.”

“A big thing just happened,” Ashes said. “Anyone would be crying right now. You’re fine.”

“You don’t know how many times Jonny cried over his pacemaker just properly doing its job back when we were younger,” Nastya told him.

“No I didn’t,” Jonny huffed, looking away.

“He did,” Ivy whispered. “It’s in my journal.”

“How do you know–”

“Okay, newsflash for everyone who needs to hear this – and you know who you are,” Ashes interrupted with a sigh, “the walls in this house aren’t completely soundproof.”

Jonny pouted, unimpressed.

“Question,” Brian started. “How well soundproofed is ‘not completely soundproof’? No specific reason for asking.”

“Not enough, I’m guessing,” Tim laughed awkwardly, his face going completely red.

“It’s really distracting when people are trying to sleep, you know,” Raphaella pouted, her glare switching between Tim and Brian.

Wait, what was distracting?

“Go to sleep early,” Marius chuckled, eyes still teary but bright. “Then you’ll sleep right through it. I only know they’re doing it because you all are talking about it.”

… Oh, did Tim and Brian have something going on?

“Jonny, stop looking so smug,” Nastya said, gently kicking his leg. “You’re no better.”

“Hey, at least I don’t always have sex here like some people,” Jonny protested, pointedly looking back at her. “Sometimes it’s much funnier if your flatmates and your partner’s flatmates aren’t the same people. More people to annoy.”

Okay, so many people had things going on.

“And sometimes it’s good to remember that we have a guest over right now,” Theo pointed out.

And just like that, all eyes were either pointed directly at Lyf or pointed directly away.

“Oh, er,” they chuckled awkwardly. “It’s fine. I’ve got older siblings who were, erm, a bit too descriptive growing up? So. Yeah. Not much I haven’t heard yet.”

“So you haven’t just been traumatised into never coming back again?” Marius asked, smiling awkwardly.

“No,” Lyf laughed, “I’ll definitely be back. If-if you’ll have me, of course,” they quickly backtracked, not really knowing if they were being rude by just inviting themself over like that.

“Don’t worry, someone’ll definitely have you,” Jonny grinned, which earned him an eyeroll from Nastya.

“Speaking of having ,” Marius stood up in a hurry, leaving the gloved prosthesis on the kitchen table. He walked all the way to the kitchen door, before turning back, “Lyf, I’ve got a book to return to you?”

“Oh, right!” Lyf realised, standing up as well.

They quickly went and fetched their laptop bag from the living room, then came back to the kitchen entrance where Marius was still standing. They thought they saw Marius flip someone off with his new right hand, but when they glanced back into the room to see who that had been for, no one was looking at the door.

Lyf chuckled to themself. What a fun bunch.

Marius led them upstairs, past many doors, and Lyf guessed those were the others’ rooms. Marius stopped in front of the second to last door on the right.

“This is me,” he chuckled somewhat awkwardly (nervously, maybe?), then opened up the door to let Lyf in.

Lyf walked inside, and couldn’t believe just how neat it all was. Sure, Lyf was a bit of a messy person by nature so they couldn’t really use themself as a comparison, but this was really orderly.

The bed was made, the pyjamas laid out on the pillow. The desk was clear of any clutter, every notebook and utensil and folder exactly where it was supposed to be. Even Marius’ bookshelf seemed somehow more organised than what someone might find in some libraries, and– oh. Hello.

On the edge of the bookshelf, Lyf could spot two pride flags. There was no reason for Marius to have these in his room out on display to no one but himself if they weren’t representing his identities, so that meant that Marius was pansexu- pan romantic . There was an ace flag next to the pan one.

So…

Lyf actually had a chance with him?

They were so relieved. They were fairly certain that Marius might not be straight given how many queer friends he had and, well, the general vibe Lyf got off him. But that still left the fear of Marius only liking men, and Lyf wasn’t one.

With Marius being panromantic, though, there was a nonzero chance of him saying yes, were Lyf to actually pull their shit together and ask him out some day!

Damn, “some day” sure sounded like “never in a million years”.

… No. Lyf would ask Marius out.

They were back in the UK for good now, so there was nothing standing in their way anymore.

There was a music festival opening in town in a couple of weeks, and Lyf had wanted to invite Marius to it, anyway. Now, they were going to invite him there on a date .

No running away anymore.

“Lyf?”

Lyf blinked back into the present.

“Hm?”

Marius was looking at them, looking somewhat concerned.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You zoned out for a moment, there.”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine,” Lyf nodded, then realised that Marius was holding their book in his, er, fleshy hand. “Oh, er, thanks.”

“No problem,” Marius smiled. “Thanks for lending it to me in the first place.”

“Y-yeah, of course.”

They took the book from him, then crouched down to put their laptop bag on the ground and put the book inside. When they looked up, they could see Marius still looking at them with some concern in his eyes.

He was so caring , goddamnit. Lyf couldn’t get over it.

“Was there anything else?” Marius asked, when Lyf stared at him for a moment too long.

Now. Do it.

“ Yes . I, er,” Lyf started, standing up and putting the laptop bag over their shoulder. “I was actually wondering…”

“Yeah?”

Come on. Let’s go.

“Would you, erm…” Their mouth was so fucking dry, fuck . “Would you go with me to the, er…”

“Down to the station?” Marius offered.

No, to the music festival in a couple of weeks. On a date .

“Y-yeah.” Coward. “The-the station, yeah.”

Marius smiled softly, “Yeah, sure.”

The two kept looking at each other for a moment longer, before Marius’ face scrunched up, and he gave a big yawn.

He blinked in confusion, apparently having surprised even himself. Then Lyf remembered that Marius had said he was tired when he’d come back home from the appointment.

And Lyf had just asked him out on a half our round trip of a stroll. Congratulations.

“Actually,” Lyf said, “you had a big day today–”

“I can still go to the station with you, it’s fine,” Marius offered, but Lyf decided to let Marius unwind, like he’d wanted to.

“No, Marius,” they said gently, “you can stay home. You’re very clearly very tired. But, thank you.”

Marius looked down for a moment (looking almost… disappointed?) before looking back up.

“See you for lunch tomorrow, then?” he tried and opened his arms out.

Oh, the hug a little over a week ago hadn’t been a one-time thing?

“Yeah,” Lyf nodded and happily pulled Marius into a hug.

Chapter Text

Lyf stared at the ceiling.

They’d been so close to asking Marius out. So close! And then they’d chickened out at the last moment.

“Ughhhh…”

They sat up on the bed and put their face in their hands.

That had been four days ago now, and yet! The only thing going through their head was how they’d got scared and immediately given in.

They set their hands down into their lap, and

Fuck–!

Oh, false alarm, everything was fine. It was just the tattoo.

It had been weeks now, and they still hadn’t got quite used to seeing it on their skin. They liked it and everything, but they couldn’t decide if these little jumpscares were hilarious or annoying.

Lyf chuckled to themself.

… Okay. Now. What were they going to do about Marius?

They should be seeing him on campus for lunch with the whole trio in a few hours, after they finish their 10 AM class… Could they maybe see him sooner? So they could talk? Just… the two of them?

If Lyf remembered correctly, Raphaella had an 8 AM class this morning, but Marius only started at 9 AM. Marius would likely come to campus at the same time as Raphaella, so maybe Lyf could ask him to hang out during this one hour gap?

Yeah, fuck it.

They reached out for their phone, unplugged it from the charger, and opened up the messaging app.

Marius

Morning :)
Are you coming to campus earlier than directly for 9am?
We could get some coffee, if you’re up for it?

Now all they had to do was wait. Marius was likely already up, anyway. From what Lyf had gathered from past conversations, Marius was quite an early riser.

Oh! The message just went from delivered to read !

Okay, now Marius was typing…

Marius

I’m so sorry, I probably won’t be coming to campus today :(

What?

Did something happen? Did he maybe have another appointment with his prosthetist like the previous week?

Marius

At all?

Yeah :(

I hope nothing’s wrong? /gen

… Kinda?
My prosthesis is malfunctioning a bit
Ashes is taking it to my prosthetist for me, to get it fixed

Shit :( sorry to hear that
You only got it a week ago tho?

Oh, no
The old one

Lyf paused.

Marius had a new prosthesis now, though. Sure it didn’t look like a “real” hand, but under long sleeves and a glove, no one would know, right?

Marius

What if you put on your new hand?

I’ve thought of that, yeah
But I’m
Er
Not quite sure I’ve got all the controls down yet?
So I’d kinda… rather not?

I think I’ll just be anxious about messing up some movement the whole day :(

That’s totally fair, yeah

So Marius was staying home the whole day? And probably for however long it would take to fix the prosthesis?

Lyf sighed.

They were looking forward to seeing him again.

Okay, yeah, the two of them had last hung out literally on Friday before the weekend (when they’d finally given Marius the lecture notes they’d brought over on Thursday but had been ultimately too distracted to remember actually giving them to Marius during the visit), but Lyf could somehow never have enough time with the man.

Wait.

What if they just… visited?

They’d been to the house the previous week, after all, and all of Marius’ housemates were really nice to them – even the ones Lyf hadn’t known from before!

They took a deep breath.

Marius

Would it be okay with you if I came over?
After classes, with Raphaella and Ivy, I mean

Er
Sure
/pos

Okay, see ya later then :)

Yeah see ya
:)

Okay. Good.

Now they just had to make it through a two hour class, wait for Ivy and Raphaella to finish up their stuff (possibly have lunch sometime in the middle of that), and then they could go see Marius.

Lyf was way too excited.

Raphaella walked out of the auditorium and towards the pair, just as Lyf was about to set down their laptop bag.

“Okay,” Raphaella smiled, “Brian says there should be enough food for the three of us to have lunch back at the house.”

Raphaella had been on her phone during the lecture?

Mood , Lyf thought.

“What about your afternoon lecture?” Ivy asked.

“Oh, don’t worry, the professor isn’t in today, so he cancelled the class,” Raphaella said, waving her hand.

Ivy raised an eyebrow, “Professor Gale? I’m fairly certain he was in the library just ten minutes ago.”

Raphaella pouted.

“Okay, you got me,” she said. “I… don’t really like this subject? And I’d much rather go home?”

Also mood.

“Even more so today, specifically,” she added.

Ivy sighed, “At least it’s an honest answer…”

Raphaella grinned, “Also, not to rush you, but the next subway leaves in 14 minutes.”

“Let’s go, then,” Lyf smiled, placing the strap of the laptop bag back onto their shoulder.

The three of them hurried down to the station, and just managed to catch the train. The ride wasn’t long per se, but it felt like it was taking forever. Lyf guessed it had something to do with them being excited about finally getting to see Marius after a busy weekend.

“We’re home!” Raphaella called out as the three of them walked into the house.

“Oh, great,” came Brian’s voice from the kitchen. He poked his head into the hallway, “Can you go get Aurora, Tim, and Marius? I think Marius is still in the booth with Tim.”

“I’ll go get Aurora,” Ivy offered.

“I’ll go get Tim and Marius, then,” Raphaella nodded. “You can wait in the kitchen Lyf, we won’t be long.”

Lyf did as they were told, and moved into the kitchen.

The smell was amazing .

“Wow, you really know how to cook,” Lyf commented as they sat down on the same chair as during their last visit.

“Well,” Brian shrugged, tending to one of the pans on the stove, “I like cooking and baking. And I guess you could say I know my way around the kitchen?”

“Oh, he’s just being modest,” Raphaella said, walking into the room, and sitting down next to Lyf. “His cooking’s delicious . Tim and Marius’ll be just a moment, by the way.”

“You mentioned a booth, Brian?” Lyf asked. “What is it exactly that Tim does?” They paused. “Also, what do you and Aurora do?”

They knew that Nastya was an engineer or a mechanic of some sort, and that Ashes worked with wood to make both furniture and art pieces. They knew that Jonny and Theo ran the clothing/needlework knick knack shop down the road. They knew that Ivy worked in the campus library, and that Raphaella and Marius were still pursuing their studies.

They had no idea what the other three did, though. Aurora and Ivy walked in just then, and sat down next to Raphaella and Lyf.

Brian smiled, reaching for the spice racket.

“Tim’s a voice actor,” Brian started. “He has a little recording booth here in the house, so he doesn’t need to commute all the way across town to the studio every day. It also helps keep his work hours much more flexible.

“Aurora works – sometimes from home and sometimes in the office – for a programming company. I’ve asked her on plenty of occasions what ‘programming solutions’ means, and I still don’t really know?” Aurora chuckled at that and gave a shrug of her own, likely meaning that it was actually difficult to explain. “That’s what she does, though.

“And I,” he paused to try something from the… taller pan? “Mm, yeah, that’ll do it. Sorry, I mainly mix audio clips. So, ensuring proper instrument levels for album songs for bands on a budget, soundscaping for podcasts and video games, things like that.”

“Bragging about how cool the stuff you make is again?” Tim asked, walking into the kitchen, Marius right behind him, looking… not too bad, actually.

Marius had seemed distressed in the morning, so Lyf hadn’t really known what to expect, mood-wise.

He was dressed in a yellow-and-brown checkered flannel shirt, the right sleeve pulled up to the elbow. He had his arms crossed over his chest, though, and it almost looked to Lyf like Marius was hiding his residual limb.

Was he maybe a bit shy about it? He had mentioned – on multiple occasions – that he wasn’t used to people looking at his residual limb. Currently, Lyf likely was people, since this was only their second time seeing Marius without the prosthesis. They honestly weren’t sure if the first time even counted properly, since Marius had only taken about half a minute to switch from the old hand to the new one.

Marius caught their gaze and sent them a small smile before looking away.

Yeah, he definitely didn’t look completely comfortable at the moment.

“ No , Lyf asked about what you, Aurora, and I do for a living,” Brian pouted.

“Honestly, though?” Tim smiled, walking closer, “you should be bragging.”

“I wasn’t bragging!” Brian laughed.

He took the two steps that were separating him from Tim, and placed a kiss on the other’s cheek.

“How was work?”

“Honestly, I was getting pretty annoyed with one part – kept getting my tongue twisted,” Tim chuckled. “Marius read through that part of the dialogue with me a bunch of times, though, and after that it kinda went great on the first try? Thanks for that, by the way,” he added, turning towards the man.

“Oh, yeah,” Marius, still standing in the doorway, chuckled, “no problem. I still don’t know what tongue twisting you’re talking about, though. Everything sounded fine to me the first bunch of times you recorded it already. Also, er,” he looked at Brian, “shouldn’t we be setting the table?”

Brian turned to the table and the four people sitting around it, blinking like the situation had surprised him.

“Oh, please do! I’m almost done here!”

Everyone got up from their seats, including Lyf. It didn’t feel right not to help out.

Among the six of them (with Brian still finishing up), the table was cleared out fairly quickly, the plates and utensils soon exactly where they should be. Lyf started wondering who the two extra plates were for, when Jonny and Theo came home. Brian carried the shallower pan over to the table, Marius getting up to get the pan with the higher edge.

“Just be careful,” Brian called to him, “the handles are hot.”

“Cool, thanks,” Marius said, reaching for the kitchen cloth.

Lyf was just about to get up to go help him, when Marius just… put one end of the cloth under the right handle, keeping it in place with his residual limb, then normally grabbed the left handle with the other end of the cloth, and casually brought the pan (pot?) over to the table.

No one blinked an eye, and yet Lyf couldn’t quite process the small moment.

When Marius wore his prosthesis, Lyf kept forgetting he even had one. It always just seemed like Marius was left handed, nothing more, nothing less. But now that Marius’ prosthesis was off? Now, Lyf’s brain kept going to “he needs help”, even though they knew that Marius had had years to get used to living with only one hand.

Lyf didn’t really think of themself as ableist, but… maybe they still had a few things to rethink.

“You okay?” Marius asked quietly, seeing they’d zoned out for a moment.

Lyf looked at him, and nodded, “Yeah. Just thinking about stuff.”

“You guys are not going to believe what happened in the shop today,” Jonny grinned just then, and leaned forward.

“Oh, yes!” Theo perked up.

“What was it?” Tim asked.

Theo and Jonny looked at each other excitedly.

“Jonny got his first order for wedding attire!” Theo blurted out.

“Wedding attire?” Raphaella perked up. “Tell us everything .”

After lunch, Jonny and Theo left to go back to their shop for the afternoon shift, Lyf and Ivy helped Brian with the cleaning up, and Tim and Aurora went back to continue their own work, while Raphaella kept Marius company at the table.

Soon after, Brian, Ivy, and Raphaella all excused themselves to go do their own things.

“You seem kind of tense,” Lyf noted once the two of them were alone in the kitchen, sitting back down next to Marius.

Marius looked down at his lap and sighed.

“Yeah, my, erm… My anxiety’s been up most of the day,” he said.

“Not because of my somewhat unexpected visit, I hope?”

“No! No. Erm,” Marius paused. “I just… can’t stop thinking about the possibility of not getting my hand back. I’ve had it for a long time, and I’ve got very attached to it.” He gave a small nervous laugh, “No pun intended.”

Lyf nodded in sympathy.

“I get it,” they said. “It’s familiar, so you don’t want to lose it.”

Marius remained quiet.

“I…” Lyf started, “usually try to research the problem? I guess it helps me feel more in control. You think that might help you?”

“Oh, no,” Marius said. “I know what’s wrong. My prosthetist’s messaged me about it already. Apparently it’s just a wire that popped out of its proper place somewhere?”

That gave Lyf pause.

“That… sounds like an easy enough fix,” they said carefully, not quite understanding why Marius was so worked up about it.

Sure, they could understand that the hand was very dear to Marius, and that he would be extra worried about it, but if he already knew that the hand would soon be back with him and in working order? Shouldn’t that make him happy?

Marius crossed his arms over his chest.

“I know,” he huffed, and it sounded… defensive?

Lyf had to admit, though, that they’d spent enough time with Marius, that they could tell that he was very worked up about the whole thing, even if it didn’t make sense to Lyf. And they knew just how much it sucked when people tried to tell them what they should and shouldn’t be feeling.

“While you’re waiting for the hand, though,” they started, needing to show Marius that they weren’t trying to dictate his feelings, “is there maybe something you can do to take your mind off the problem? Or would you maybe rather talk it out?”

This seemed to deflate some of the defensiveness in Marius’ pose.

“Generally, I like talking things out?” Marius said, his hand fidgeting with the sleeve pulled up on the right arm. “But right now I think I honestly might just spiral if I start talking about all the what ifs that are swimming around in my head. There’s enough of them as is, I really don’t want to be adding new ones.”

“Okay,” Lyf nodded. “An activity, then, maybe?”

“I’d usually go for a run, but, er, you know…”

“You’re not feeling like going outside without the prosthesis,” Lyf concluded.

“Yeah.”

Silence.

What else did Lyf do to calm themself down, usually? They’d get into comfortable clothes, something soft and cozy, and hug their blanket. Running their fingers over the seams and looping their current comfort song on their headphones would almost always get them to calm down.

That… sounded much too personal to offer to Marius, though. And their mother had always said it was annoying when they played one song non-stop for a long time.

What else?

Sometimes they could get their feelings out through art. Stop holding everything inside and just let it out onto the paper.

“What if,” they hummed, “you try doodling a bit? Or doing something else creative?”

That looked like it piqued Marius’ interest.

“I…” he said. “I did get back into embroidering for a bit, a month or so ago. It’s a pretty precise thing, too, so it would definitely help get my focus off the prosthesis…”

“There you go,” Lyf smiled gently.

“I, er. Do you…” Marius stumbled. “Were you planning to go home after lunch?”

Lyf thought about the question.

“Not… really?” they said. “I mean, I’ll leave if you’d rather spend some time alone or with just your housemates, but if you’re going to do some embroidery, I could… draw a bit in the meantime?”

They really wanted to spend more time with Marius. But if Marius didn’t feel like hanging out at the moment, then they would respect that.

“Okay, cool, great,” he said with a smile. “I’ve got my stuff up in my room. You cool with hanging out up there? I think my couch is a bit comfier than these chairs.”

Right, Marius had a couch in his room. Sure, it was a bit smaller than Lyf’s own, but it was in his bedroom . That was so cool.

Lyf smiled and got up from their chair, “Sure.”

Following Marius upstairs, Lyf quickly made sure no one was watching, then gave into the little happy shake of their hands that had been threatening to burst out towards the end of this conversation.

A proper hangout with Marius in his own home. This was exciting.

When the two of them got into the room, Marius motioned with his hand towards his yellow maybe-two-and-a-half-person couch.

Lyf walked over and made themself comfortable on the right side of it. They picked out their sketchpad and to-go pencil case from their laptop bag, and tried very hard to just trust that Marius had everything under control. They could remember Marius asking them for help on a few occasions in the past; if he needed help again, he would ask.

(They knew it wasn’t that simple of a fix for their way of thinking about Marius’ missing hand, but at least it was a start.)

Lyf watched Marius opening his wardrobe and pulling out a shoe box, holding it with his left hand on one side and assisting himself with his residual limb on the other. He brought the box over to the couch, setting the box down on the low table in front of it.

Marius sat down next to Lyf, and they couldn’t help but pay attention to the white fabric, stretched taut by a wooden circle, and different coloured yarn (thread? string?) Marius was taking out of the box. And then came a smaller box, roughly the size of Marius’ palm, which he opened to take out a needle from.

“Oh,” Lyf said, suddenly remembering and needing to share, “did you know that tattoo artists can use different types of needles even for a single project?”

Marius paused in his actions and looked at Lyf, “I did not know that, actually.”

He closed the smaller box and inspected the fabric that already held part of a picture. The drawn-on design and the already filled-in parts helped Lyf piece together that it was a smiling black cat that had octopus-like tentacles instead of legs. It looked familiar, but Lyf couldn’t quite place where they’d seen it before. Maybe at Theo and Jonny’s shop? It certainly had that vibe to it, and Marius and Theo did live in the same house, so Theo had probably shared some designs with him.

“Yeah, the tool that tattoo artists use has a lot of needles bunched together, to get the ink under the upper layer of skin,” Lyf went on. “And there can be more or fewer needles bunched closer together, depending on the line width you want, and you can even have fewer needles spaced slightly apart to get a faded effect, or, like, for colour transitions. And then the tool moves the needles back and forth really fast, so they puncture skin at anywhere between fifty times and thirty thousand times per second.”

Marius cut a relatively lengthy piece of thread, laid one end of it on his thigh, then carefully split it into two separate threads with his left hand, one strand seemingly still woven out of two strings and the other out of four.

“And that’s just the ‘higher-tech’ stuff. Some cultures used to have – and some still do have – really cool needles made of natural materials, like sharpened bamboo or bone, or even cactus needles or other plants’ thorns. You need to dip the needle into the ink manually like that, though, unlike with modern tools that work kind of like styluses in the way that the ink naturally flows from the source to the tip of the needle.”

“Huh, fun.”

Still holding the thinner thread with his thumb and index finger, Marius picked up the needle with his ring finger and little finger, and carefully got the thread through the eye of the needle.

“And today, tattoos are mostly viewed as an aesthetic thing, but back in the day it was used in all kinds of settings, like for rituals and sometimes even for medicine. What you just did with the needle and thread was really impressive, by the way.”

Marius looked up at them, and chuckled, “Oh, er, thanks?”

Lyf paused. Marius had actually been listening to all of that? People usually clocked out when Lyf went on a tangent like this.

“Also, what do you mean by ‘medical settings’?” Marius asked as he looked for a good spot to continue the embroidery with. “How does that work?”

And he wanted them to go on? That was… a first, really.

“Well, er,” Lyf started, “apparently it’s been used in similar ways to traditional Chinese acupuncture? The tattoos would be placed, like, around joints to treat rheumatism, or in other specific places to treat gastro-intestinal problems and stuff like that. The ink was sometimes even thought to help through additional mystical effects. And researchers have found thousands of years old mummies with these kinds of tattoos.”

“Thousands?” Marius asked.

His face scrunched up, and he turned to the side a bit, his back leaning onto Lyf.

“Sorry, is this okay?” he asked, turning slightly to look at Lyf. “Lighting’s a bit better like this, but I can go turn on the light if this bothers you–”

“No, no,” Lyf said, unsure if they were smiling or completely flushed in the face, “you’re fine.”

“Please tell me if your arm falls asleep or something, yeah?”

Lyf nodded, “Sure.”

Only then did Marius turn his head back towards his project, pull his knees up to more easily hold the embroidery loop steady with his right arm, and start working.

Meanwhile, Lyf was still processing that Marius was leaning against them.

They were never getting any work done like this. Not when Marius was being this open with his trust.

(He was also. Very close.)

This was a person who always needed to be in view of the door and as many windows as possible, just in case . Lyf hadn’t noticed it before Marius’ admission to having PTSD, but looking back, it should have been obvious that there was something going on. Marius would often glance towards possible exits when things got a bit too loud on campus. He would often fidget nervously when in a crowd, like in the cafeteria or in a full hallway.

Apparently, people who suffered from PTSD often had problems with a sense of safety. And yet…

And yet Marius was pressing himself into their side, his back left vulnerable to whatever Lyf might do.

Marius trusted them. Completely.

“Sorry, you mentioned old mummies?” Marius asked, tipping his head backwards onto Lyf’s shoulder to look up at them.

Fuck, he was so cute.

“Er, yeah,” they said, worried they might scare Marius off if they were too obvious. “Yeah. You know Ötzi the Iceman? The, like, five-thousand-something year old body that was found in the Alps a while back? Apparently he had these kinds of tattoos. The acupuncture-like ones, I mean.”

“And you learned all of this at the tattoo shop?” Marius asked, continuing with the embroidery.

“I, erm, was kind of nervous about the tattoo in the few days before my appointment?” Lyf chuckled. “So I did a lot of research about it.”

“Did it help? You mentioned info-gathering as a method of calming yourself down just earlier.”

“It did, yeah,” Lyf nodded. “It also gave me a lot to talk about with the artist. She was really friendly, and we kept talking about the techniques and everything. It… erm.”

Lyf paused. They’d had some time to think about all of it.

“I kind of,” they slowly said, “think I’d like to become a tattoo artist myself?”

Marius paused his work, then looked up at them with a smile, “Yeah?”

Lyf nodded, also smiling, “Mhm.”

“That sounds so cool,” Marius chuckled, still looking up at them with bright eyes.

It did?

Marius got comfortable against them again, returning his focus to his project.

Lyf looked down at the empty page of their sketchpad. They kind of really wanted to draw Marius, relaxed as he was, but if Marius turned around and saw the drawing? Now that would be… interesting to explain.

Instead, they opted for trying to draw a more realistic version of the octopus-cat that Marius was embroidering.

(They really needed to work on their animals. They didn’t want them to look medieval.)

“How exactly does tattooing work , though?” Marius asked just as Lyf started sketching. “You mentioned needles poking through the skin?”

Lyf smiled, “That is a great question. So…”

They explained to Marius how big of a role the body’s own immune system plays in the making and in the permanence of a tattoo, then went on about how different inks and aftercare through history produced very different effects in the way tattoos looked, then veered off into how tattoo artists had to account for different skin types when choosing their needles and ink colours even when doing the same design on different people, and all the while, Marius listened, and asked questions, and seemed generally happy about the fact that Lyf was still talking, even though it was a subject that he himself had nothing to do with.

As Marius put the last stitch in and made a knot on the backside of the cloth, he raised the embroidery up.

Lyf looked over. The lines were somewhat wonky at a few places, the threading not quite even throughout the whole thing. The kitten’s cartoonish face looked very happy, though, and the position of its tentacles made it clear that it was enjoying itself in whatever mischief it was up to.

“Whad’ya think?” he asked them, tipping his head backwards again to look up at them.

Even after all that rambling, Marius still wanted to hear what they had to say?

“It looks lovely,” they said, because it did.

Marius picked up his head to see the finished piece again. Lyf’s eyes fell from the embroidery down onto Marius. He looked so proud, and they quietly agreed that he should be.

Just then, with Marius all but snuggled up against them, a warm thought dawned on them.

This… thing they had for Marius went beyond just a simple crush.

They were absolutely in love with this man.

Chapter Text

“Okay, I don’t know if you can tell,” Lyf said, “but I’m a huge nerd when it comes to Greek mythology.”

“Oh, I can tell,” Marius laughed.

“ But ,” Lyf went on, “remind me again why we have to know this for an exam in Classic History? I’m shit at spelling all these anglicised names, and I’m fairly certain the professor’s taking points off for that.”

“You should learn the Greek alphabet,” Marius jokingly offered. “Maybe you’ll get extra points if you write the original original names.”

“Bold of you to assume I don’t already know the Greek alphabet.”

“Do you?”

“Actually yes,” Lyf smiled proudly. “One too many three AM rabbit holes, I guess?”

Marius laughed, and the tail end of it turned into a yawn.

“Okay, yeah,” Lyf said, “we’re wrapping this up.”

Already? Marius didn’t want Lyf to leave yet.

“We could at least finish the chapter?” he offered.

“I came here right after lunch,” Lyf pointed out, “I stayed for dinner , and now it’s getting dark outside. I think we’ve done enough studying for today.” They chuckled, “Besides, I don’t have the exam for another two weeks, so it’s not like I’m in a hurry.”