Eggy Dragon

them: 

- https://www.skincancer.org/prevention/skin-cancer-and-skin-of-color

Miss Piggy doesn’t have a subtle bone in her floppy felt body. There is no possible way she could ever make it look like an accident.

Happy birthday to Grian, I guess

Not quiet, not even a hum to make things feel a bit less… This. Bdubs sits there, jaw tense as he tends to Impulse's wounds, bloody cotton balls and gauze in a heap on the couch.

The couch Impulse is currently, probably, freakin' staining.

Bdubs risks a glance at Impulse's face. His expression is like stone— unreadable, unchanging, and a hair away from cold.

The silence stretches on.

And on.

And on.

Bdubs can't help it. Anger snap-crackles in his chest, a fire starting to grow.

"You're really not give me anything," He says at last. Bitterness clings to his words like tar. Impulse's eyes snap to meet his, "Does this look like a hospital to you? Just without the cost?"

Bdubs' lips twist, " 'Cuz you've got some nerve showing up here again, on my doorstep, bleedin' all over the couch—"

Impulse swallows, "Bdubs—"

"—Don't Bdubs me!" He snaps, fighting to keep his hands steady, his touches gentle. (He doesn't think he succeeds, but Impulse doesn't flinch.) "You— you can't just…"

A droplet of blood pools and soaks into freshly-wrapped gauze, a spot of crimson against pale skin. Something in Bdubs cracks, softens and crumbles because—

"You can't just make me do this again," Bdubs whispers, eyes downcast. "Not when you know I'll always let you in."

It's not fair.

Impulse's throat bobs. He blinks, once, then twice, his mouth a strained line.

" 'm sorry," He rasps out, and gods, he sounds a wreck. "I didn't— I'm sorry, Bdubs."

Impulse slumps forward onto his knees, the most exhausted Bdubs has ever seen him. It's a hell of a record to beat.

An immortal can make a mortal immortal if they fall in love with the mortal. There's one small problem. In order for the former mortal to lose their new immortality, the immortal has to fall out of love with them. Obviously, this has led to a lot of situations where the mortal falls out of love but is unable to move on cause the immortal hasn't.

Or in Impulse's case, the mortal was using him to get to someone else.

Around 500 years ago, Impy met Bdubs and was smitten. Bdubs didn't really care about the imp until he saw he was friends with Etho, Bdubs's crush. What he didn't know was Etho was with Impulse's brother and fellow immortal Skizz.

So Bdubs spent a few years buttering up the imp while trying to get to Etho. He even had a ring made.

Impulse found the ring, and was so overjoyed he decided right then and there to make Bdubs immortal. Days later, while Impy was doing chores around the house, he was skipping and just waiting for Bdubs to give him the ring. Instead, Bdubs threw him out of the house saying he has to make room for his actual lover, and called Impy a gullible little fool for thinking that ring was for him.

Impulse ran away and was never seen for 500 years.

At first, Bdubs didn't care. All he cared about was proposing to Etho. Etho rejected him and said he wanted to just be friends. And he took immortality from Skizz. Bdubs spent the next 500 years watching them be the most sickeningly sweet thing to ever exist, Skizz absolutely showering Etho in attention, and Etho giving Skizz a shoulder to cry on every time the pain of not finding his little brother got too great to bear alone.

For 500 years Bdubs thought Impulse did that on purpose to get back at him for breaking his heart. For 500 years Bdubs thought about killing the imp to make himself mortal again so he wouldn't have to deal with this.

Meanwhile, Impulse was trying his damndest to fall out of love with Bdubs. In the first 100 years, he considered going back to Hels and letting the knight unload on him about the irony of Impulse crawling back to the man he rejected after being rejected himself. In the first 100 years, he would have also taken Bdubs up on his plan to kill him(neither Impy nor Skizz knew if they were the type of immortal to shrug off murder attempts or not.) Now he's just trying to let time pull that love out of his heart.

related asks: 1 & 2

Impulse has hated his big heart ever since. He's kept it hidden away, too afraid of falling in love again. He messed up with Hels, he messed up with Bdubs. Clearly, he can't judge character.

Skizz was always so much better at that than him. He always tried to see the good in people, but he wasn't blind to the bad, either. Not like Impulse is. He hopes Etho and Skizz are happy. And, stupidly, he wishes Bdubs found happiness too. Because despite it all, he still loves the damn guy.

He knows Skizz must be worried about him. After running away for so long, he's too scared to face Skizz's love again. He hurt his brother. He doesn't deserve that forgiveness, not when Bdubs still has a place in his heart.

Impulse views the whole thing as his fault. He was the one who started the meaningless augment that started the fight that day. He was the one who set Bdubs off. He probably got Bdubs in a lot of trouble for that. He's feeling so much guilt over that day despite that almost being the day he died.

When he saw Bdubs again in college, he was obviously afraid, but he was also guilty especially after all Bdubs did to make him feel better. He never told Bdubs about his guilt out of fear of Bdubs reminding him he should feel guilty.

related ask

It worries him that Bdubs is taking risks and putting himself in danger, just to make Impulse more comfortable. He's seen how Bdubs doesn't really seem to have friends either, not a single person in the building knows him.

Impulse is still scared of him, but he's even more stressed worrying about Bdubs. Is he going to get back safe? Is he getting his work done?

Impulse decides on an in-between. He's... still a little afraid of talking to Bdubs face-to-face (he shouldn't be. He knows he shouldn't. But he remembers how sudden it all was, how an argument turned into something more so fast...)

So he sets up a whiteboard. This way they can leave notes for each other without even needing to talk. It starts out formal - timetables, dates coursework is due, talking about storage and maintenance for their room. But it gradually grows more casual, until it feels like it was before. Only this time it's about clubs and lectures. Still video games. That hasn't changed, though.