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• moth

• 24

• they/he

• english + (aprendiendo) español

Commissions: Currently taking mini-comms!

art tag | commission info | ko-fi

leon finds the tunnels first, but he’s alone when it happens— he wasn’t even really trying to, not seriously, anyways. ravi’s the one obsessed with looking for weird passages like this and mapping out the mall. he insists that it changes, somehow, and that the layout never makes any sense, but it has some way of stopping people from noticing. he’s sure there’s a pattern to it, though. it’s like a multi-state maze, he says, and he’s sure there’s a way to solve it, he feels like he’s getting close… but when he drags leon and quinn along to test out his latest solution, quinn makes them stop the second leon gets dizzy.

leon at least finds it interesting, though. interesting enough to try and absently re-trace the steps when he’s supposed to be waiting for milo to finish closing so he can drive the chronic passenger princess home. that’s when he finds the door, and blindly follows his curiosity through it— just to end up standing in the parking lot in the middle of the night, no idea where the last six hours went. he has half a dozen missed messages and two calls from milo, but when he texts him back apologizing, milo says it’s all fine. his sister picked him up, he just figured something came up with leon. doesn’t something always? maybe he should just try and get some rest.

so leon does. he lays low for a few days, trying to figure out what that was, how much was… was real. he avoids going back to the mall, at least until milo asks for a ride home from work again, and it’s not like leon can tell him no. he definitely owes him one. so he goes, although this time he just waits for him in the car, and all he can do is apologize weakly for last time. he can’t look milo in the eyes. he can’t tell him what happened, he knows what milo would think. which… might be why he doesn’t realize immediately, and why he takes even longer to drop his insistence that he’s imagining things, that whatever just got in the car with him. it definitely isn’t milo.

honestly i never gave the place a Real Name beyond “the tunnels,” or sometimes “the labyrinth” if i’m feeling fancy ToT i feel like that’s just how the mall guys would refer to it, y’know? they have no idea if it has an actual name, it’s not like it has a sign or anything

Idk if you've answered it before but I always think about the timeline as "Leon realizes something is off about Milo, Quinn barely knows Milo (at the point the story takes place) but cares about Leon so she tries to help, Leon and Ravi know eachother but not too well, he realizes they're investigating something and wants to help because he's been investigating the same thing for a bit and wants to discover everything that's going on"

Idk if I'm projecting his inspiration's personality onto him tho

- 🦷

haha, yeah no that all sounds about right!!

ravi’s already investigating the mall when leon meets him, because he’s a little freak who doesn’t have normal hobbies, and initially leon and quinn don’t,, really take his theories all that seriously? leon just tags along on his investigations because he’s trying to get laid, and quinn tags along because she goes wherever leon goes (and also maybe to prevent him from getting laid).

leon’s definitely more open to believing ravi than quinn is though, or the very least he finds the idea interesting. maybe even interesting enough to do some investigating of his own one night, after the mall has closed, while he’s supposed to be waiting for milo to clock out so he can drive him home. that’s when he finds the door, and when everything…. kind of starts to go wrong

when he tells quinn and ravi something happened, of course they both agree to help him get to the bottom of it. quinn is… hesitant, maybe even quietly skeptical, but she has to stick by leon, no matter what, while ravi is all in immediately, he was already on this path and now he has to see it through.

OH NO, WAIT, I TOTALLY REMEMBER GETTING THAT ASK OMG I’M SO SORRY I NEVER ANSWERED IT!! TToTT i do remember typing an answer, or at least starting to type one?? but i have this awful habit of not finishing my answers and just saving them as drafts, but remembering Vaguely that i typed Something and assuming ‘yeah i probably posted that’ when i. Absolutely Did Not.

ack, that is 100% my bad, jeez, okay, but, to Actually answer it this time— he does! i’ve always imagined the town they live in has a pretty decently sized spanish-speaking community? it’s still far from the majority there, but not at all uncommon, they’re an active and pretty tight-knit presence there. i don’t think i ever finalized it, but my original idea for how leon and nicky met was actually in their high school heritage-speakers spanish class, just being little haters together in the back row

i don’t think leon’s ever felt quite as connected to that community as he’s wanted to, though. he’s never felt that connected to any community, and i think it’s just one of the many things that makes it so easy to latch onto nicky, and so easy to think he’ll never find someone who gets him the same way, someone he has that much in common with