#blackteddybear

“Ted, dear… As much as I love having Black around… Don’t you think it’s about time we let him go to Madam Foster’s? You’re fourteen, and about to start high school this August… isn’t that a little too old for an Imaginary Friend?” his mother tries to address it while Theodore and Black are in the living room one night, resting after supper.

The brunet turns around, arm propped on the back of the sofa, and his face falls. “What? Why? I’m not too old! I see high school girls still with their Imaginary Friends! Besides, Black’s family,” he adds lowly.

His mother chews anxiously on her bottom lip for a moment. She sighs. “You’re right, dear. Sorry I brought it up.” And then she moves away, aiming to do the dishes.

Ted turns back to the television screen, but he’s no longer watching it. He folds his arms over his chest. “I can’t believe she even said such a thing. What’s she thinkin’?”

“Hell if I know,” Black relies, shrugging. “But you know, kiddo, me being around might bother her a little bit sometimes. I mean, after all. It’s no secret that I’m –”

“Shut up, I can’t hear the movie,” Ted cuts his Friend off, and Black grunts, kicking up his feet onto the ottoman.

He doesn’t say much more after that, and neither does Ted. For the time being, the topic’s dropped and left lying there, like roadkill to the side of the street.

--

“Teddyyy, rawrrr! I’m coming to get youu, Teeddyyy!”

  “Haha, come on, Bruce, cut it out! Ahahaha!”

  “Gonna rip ya open and nom on your insides, bro!”

  “Hahaha, haha, stop it, come on, I’m s-serious!”

  “Gonna eat ya up, little man! Nom nom nom!”

  Ted pitches side to side and tries to squirm away, but Bruce is relentless. He tickles and pokes and wrestles, and there are tears forming in Ted’s eyes, he’s laughing so hard. His chest aches and he’s heaving for breath, but can’t seem to catch it, only laugh more and more until his laughter gives way to breathless squeaks.

  Bruce chuckles and lets up when Ted is red-faced and hiccupping, picking him up by his ankles and swinging him upside-down until the hiccup stop, and then gentle plops him onto his bed.

  Ted is much calmer now, only huffing a few remaining giggles before sighing and settling down. Bruce tucks him in, kisses him on the forehead, and then turns and shuts out the light on his way out.

  “Hope you’re tuckered enough to fall straight asleep. I don’t want to see any flashlights on, y’hear? If I come in here and you’re up late reading again…” the sixteen-year-old warns.

  “I won’t, I won’t,” the seven-year-old promises. “Goodnight, Bruce.”

  “’Night, Teddy. Love you.”

  “Love you too!” Ted grins, and then rolls onto his side, snuggling up.

  Bruce smiles warmly, proud like a father might be, and then closes the door behind him.

  --

“So, you freaked about high school?” Black smirks as he walks alongside Ted to the bus stop. It’s the first day of his freshman year, and while he probably won’t have Black come with him every day – the school strongly suggests you leave Imaginary Friends at home, especially the more animal-like ones that are more like pets than Friends – but for today… Today’s good. He needs it today.

“A little, I guess,” Ted sighs. “Especially now that I’m going to be in the same school as Audrey. The first time since she was a fifth grader and I was a second-grader. D-do you think she will even still care? I mean, she’s my neighbor, so I’ve still seen her sometimes, but… She’s a senior, and I’m just a lowly freshman.”

“Hey, you’re mature for your age, Teddy. And anyway, don’t worry about the ladies so much, you know? Let them come to you. In the meantime, focus on your work and on gettin’ to know people and make friends. I better hear you goin’ to a sleepover by the end of the first quarter, got it?” Black encourages, dark head tilting downward and sharp teeth smirking, his horns catching the light, shimmering like black mica. 

Ted smiles and rolls his eyes. “Oh, yeah, I got it. I’ll make friends, you’ll see. A whole slew of them. Easy as cake.”

“Heh. ’Atta boy.”

--

“You can’t be afraid of falling, Ted. You gotta just keep pushing the pedals and don’t look back,” Bruce instructs as he balances his younger brother on his recently de-training-wheeled bike. “It’s easy as cake. You’ll be flyin’. And then, just remember to slowly back-pedal to brake, like you usually do. And after you get the hang of goin’ without falling, I’ll teach you how to push off on your own.”

  “Right. Okay,” Ted breathes deeply, nerves making his tummy squirm. “You’re not gonna let go right away, are you? You’re gonna run with me for a little while?”

  “Of course, kiddo. Now, you ready?”

  “Mhm,” Ted nods meekly.

  Bruce smiles. “Then here we go!”

  And then they’re off, running down their street, their house shrinking behind them as Bruce runs with the little brunet, the boy pedaling with all his might.

  Then Bruce let’s go of the back of Ted’s seat, and Ted’s on his own.

  He’s never felt such a dangerous, freeing sensation before.

  He’s giddy with it, heady and strong and scared; it’s like being on the kiddie-rollercoaster at the amusement park, and he goes over a manhole and feels the bumps, and he screams but laughs, and the wind is a rush around his helmet.

  The end of the street is coming up, and he can hear Bruce calling out to him some ways behind. He needs to turn, to follow the curve of the street… Or crash into the yard at the bend.

  Somehow, Ted manages to make the turn, and he keeps cycling his short legs, and he’s riding a two-wheeler, finally! At eight years old, he’s got the hang of it! All the bruises and scrapes on his knees and arms are finally worth the effort, because he can do this. He can.

  He makes another turn, flies down another small hill, and makes the final turn that will lead him back to his street, and to Bruce, and their house.

  Bruce is waiting at the end of it, smiling, and Ted dares to try to lift his white-knuckled right hand to wave.

  That’s his big mistake.

  Overconfidence is his downfall, quite literally; he wipes out on the bike, falling to his left, and Bruce’s smile falls instantly, and he yells, “Ted!” and comes racing to Ted’s side.

  “Heh, heh… whoops,” Ted mutters, tears pricking his eyes and his leg and arm and fingers stinging painfully. He winces repeatedly and yelps a few times as Bruce eases the bike off of him and helps him stand.

  “Can you walk, kiddo?” Bruce asks, gentle; it’s the side of him only his family ever sees.

  To everyone else, he’s a cocky asshole who flirts with just about anyone and doesn’t care about anyone’s feeling except those close to him. He gets average to below average grades, talks back to the teachers when he disagrees with them, and all-around is too blunt for his own good. To everyone else, Bruce is just an irresponsible, loud-mouthed jerk with a sailor’s tongue; but to those who know him, he’s considerate and soft-hearted and funny and honest, and he never swears around Ted, and he takes responsibility for their missing father, and he keeps his insecurities to himself, and instead shows nothing but the utmost self-confidence, for his little brother’s sake. In the eyes of those who know him well, Bruce is someone to be admired.

  And Ted looks up to him with his entire being. When he grows up, he aims to be just like Bruce. Still keep his grades, though, and not give any teacher lip (who doesn’t outright deserve it), and probably won’t be as flirtatious, but like Bruce in every other way. He strives for it, because he wants to continue making Bruce proud.

  “Yeah, I can walk,” Ted lies, but it hurts so much. Each step is agonizing, and Bruce eyes him warily before shaking his head.

  “Nope, you can’t. Gotta carry you, now.”

  “No, no!” Ted shrieks and giggles as Bruce hauls him up and drapes the boy over his shoulder. Ted thumps his fists half-heartedly on Bruce’s back and gives in, laughing.

  “How can you still pick me up? I’ve had a growth spurt this winter!”

  “Nah, you’re still a scrawny little chicken-boy,” Bruce grins, playfully drumming his nails on Ted’s lower back while he holds his bike in the other arm. “That’s why I can still pick you up. Besides, I bench more weight than you in gym class on a daily basis. Don’t test me.”

  The brunet rolls his eyes at his back-haired sibling and blows air out his mouth, resigned to putting his chin in his hand and letting the other arm dangle helplessly as the pain in his limbs dulls to a throb. “Fine, but I don’t trust you to fix my boo-boos. Mom can do that.”

  “Yeah, mom’s a better nurse than me. Remember when I gave you ice cream for your cold and soda for your chicken pox? Not smart, man. The ice cream made you all phlegmy and the soda made you hyper and fidgety, which made you wanna scratch more. My bad.”

  “Yup! You’re the worst nurse ever, so mom’s gotta do it. At least you got one thing right.”

  “And what was that?” Bruce raises a brow, nudging Ted in the hip with the side of his head.

  Ted laughs and reaches back to muss Bruce’s hair. “You gave me saltines and ginger ale when I had a tummyache and was throwin’ up on Christmas, remember? When I was six. You did that right.”

  “Huh,” Bruce murmurs. “Guess I did. I might make a decent nurse yet, what d’ya think?”

  “Hmm,” Ted ponders as they reach their driveway. “Maybe, with s’more practice.”

  Bruce chuckles as he sets the bike to lean against the garage door. He then walks up to the front door and opens it, stooping to sit Ted down on the stairs while he closes the door and takes off their shoes; first his own, then Ted’s.

  “Okay, kiddo,” the older sibling says, “Time to take you to Nurse Mum, and see what the diagnosis is.”

  Ted’s brave and doesn’t flinch when the hydrogen peroxide cleans his cuts and the water pours over it; and he keeps a blank face as the antibiotic ointment goes on, and the band-aids to follow.

  Bruce pats him on the head when it’s all done, and then says, “Hey, want a Popsicle?”

  Their mother frowns at her eldest son. “Brucie, it’s too close to suppertime!”

  “Come on, Ma, one Popsicle isn’t going to take away the kid’s appetite. ‘Specially not for a growing boy like Teddy here. Right, bro?”

  “Right!”

  Their mother chuckles and waves them out of the bathroom, closing up the medicine cabinet. “Fine, fine. But only one each, you hear?”

  “Thanks, Mom!” the boys reply in unison.

  --

  “Freak! Why do you still have an Imaginary Friend with you? And he’s creepy as fuck!”

“Mind saying that to my face, punk?” Black growls threateningly. “And shove off, plenty of people around here and Friends with them! Who gives a shit?”

“Weirdos,” they scoff instead, and then turn and walk away.

  “You hear that? They act like they’ve never had an Imaginary Friend. I know not every kid does, but come on. Most do, at some point. And when they do, they love their Friend, so who are they to judge?” Black scowls. He kicks at a few pen caps and crumpled pieces of paper to the sides of the hallway, and grumbles a few things under his breath, none of which are very polite.

Black is still seething by the next period, and Ted calms him with a hand to Black’s forearm. They sit down, Ted in a desk and Black on the floor beside it, and the brunet murmurs, “It’s okay, Black. It’s my fault for bringing you on the first day.”

“Tch. Is not. I wanted to come; high school sounded interesting. But now I see it’s just a bunch of dickwads in one place. Man, I don’t want you goin’ here every day without me if they’re going to be like this! I know you have to, by law and to get a decent job and stuff, but jeez.” He blows air out his mouth to release the lingering bit of anger, but the bitterness doesn’t entirely fade. “And anyway, you can’t let what they say get to you. They’re missing out on having the best confidant in the world, you know? Since Imaginary Friends are straight from their hearts ‘n’ minds.”

  Ted nods idly, doodling Black’s face in the margin of his paper; it’s pretty easy to do, since he’s just white eyes and teeth against black skin, hair, and horns. He fills it in messily with his pen, and Black smiles and peers up.

“Drawin’ me again?”

“Mhm. When I can’t decide what to doodle, I just draw you, ‘cause you’re easy.”

“Pfft. If my claws weren’t so chunky, I’d try my hand at drawin’ you, too. I’d only make you look like a gremlin out of love, I promise.”

Ted snorts at that, and peers down at Black, nudging him with his Converse. Black’s bare feet unfold a bit from his pretzeled legs and he ducks his head in response, to avoid another bump.

Then, “The teacher jus’ asked if you were here.”

“Huh?”

Black points to the front of the room, and there, the teacher calls his name again. “Theodore Wiggins?”

Ted stiffens in his seat and calls out hastily, “Present!” and the teacher sees him, sees Black, frowns slightly, and then seems to shrug it off as they mark him present.

Beside him, Black snickers a bit, and Ted nudges him again, harder this time.

--

  “Bruce? Are you working tonight?” Ted asks, yawning as he stands beside Bruce in the bathroom, the pair of them brushing their teeth.

  “Yup,” Bruce says, mouth full of foam. He spits it out in the sink, runs the water for a moment to clear it, and then goes about wiping his mouth and getting out the floss. Stringing it around his fingers, he flosses and explains, “Som’in’s gotta ‘ay ‘or my car insurance, ‘ell ‘one bill, ‘n’ gas mo’ey.”

  “Yeah, but… why do you have to work two jobs, then? Doesn’t one pay for everything, like Mom’s job?” Ted frowns, spiting into the sink and then brushing his tongue before spitting again. He sits down on the closed toilet seat and watches Bruce finish flossing, then rinsing out his mouth and tossing the used floss. Idly, he wiggles his loose tooth with his finger.

  Bruce ruffles Ted’s hair. “Ready to yank that sucker?” he asks, pointing to the loose bottom molar. “It’ll just pinch for a sec, and then you can be tooth-free! I can make the warm saltwater rinse lickety-split, if you’re willing.”

  Ted sighs, taking his finger from his mouth. “Guess so. It’s gonna fall out the next time I eat something, probably. It almost fell out when I was brushing.”

  “Then I’ll be right back,” Bruce says, and a moment later, there’s a cup of warm water with tablet salt dissolved into it in Ted’s hand, and he’s sitting with his mouth open and head back as Bruce ties floss around the base of Ted’s tooth. And then he yanks upward, fast, jerking the tooth loose, and suddenly it’s out and Ted’s bleeding, but it hardly hurt, and Ted takes a swig and swishes and gargles the saltwater, moving to spit it into the sink, repeating it over and over until it’s not bleeding anymore.

  “Awesome! Look at this bad boy. You’ll get a silver dollar for this one; it’s worth waaay more than a measly quarter.”

  “You really think so?!” Ted exclaims, beaming. “The tooth fairy will really give me a whole dollar?”

  “For sure!” Bruce agrees, chuckling as he places the tooth into Ted’s palm. “Especially with that little bit of your guts on the inside of it.”

  Ted giggles. “Those aren’t my guts! Jus’ some of my gums.”

  “As ever, kiddo, you’re too clever for me to trick you. Now then, I gotta leave for work; you hop straight into bed, y’hear?”

  “I hear,” Ted replies flippantly, more interested in his tooth.

  Bruce smiles. “’Atta boy.”

  --

“Black, uh… Can you walk me to school every day instead of me taking the bus? It’s not that far. We can be there in fifteen minutes, if we don’t walk slow. And It would be nice if, I dunno, you sit with me at lunch some days? Maybe the days I forget one, since that happens a lot,” Ted mutters, tapping the end of his pencil against his math notebook. High school isn’t like his middle and elementary schools; in high school, he already has homework within the first few days. They dive straight into the lessons, especially in mathematics. “You can even walk me home some says, too.”

“Huh? – Oh, sure thing, kiddo,” Black says around a video game. He pauses it and turns to look at Ted. “Definitely. We can hang out and people-watch and eat leftovers that totally own anything your school’s cafeteria will be sellin’. And are you kidding? We’ll walk home together every day.”

Ted smiles. “Great. Thanks, Black.”

“No problem, little man.”

--

“Happy ninth birthday, Teddy,” his mother says, planting a kiss on his cheek.

  “Yeah, happy ninth! One more year and you’ll be a whole decade. Man, you’re getting so old!”

  Ted snorts and gives Bruce a shove. “Shut up. You’re eighteen, Bruce. If anyone, you’re old. An old fart.”

  “hey, now, boys, then what does that make me?” theur mother butts in, raising a brow.

  In unison, the boys whistle. And then they say at nearly the same time, “No way, Mom! You’re so young!” “No way, Ma! You’re practically a teenager!” the latter coming from Bruce.

  Mrs. Wiggins chuckles and brings them both into a hug, one arm around each of her sons’ shoulders. “Thank you, boys. Now, Teddy, blow out your candle already!”

  “But hey, make a wish first!” Bruce adds.

  Ted wishes that he becomes a good boxer, like his brother. He already knows how to bandage his hands like how his brother does, although he can’t punch the bag in the garage without hurting himself, unlike Bruce, who can punch straight, fast, hard, and true. Bruce is only in boxing as a hobby and to keep in shape, but Ted thinks he could do it professionally, if he only made an effort to do so.

  Still, he makes the wish, and doesn’t tell it, and then sits and enjoys it as he and his brother have their tradition of watching Rockadoodle for his birthday film. They say some of the lines by heart, others they keep quiet to hear, and for the rest, they make jokes until Bruce has to leave for his second job.

  Ted doesn’t mind. He finishes the remaining ten minutes of the movie with his mother, and then puts away his cake plate.

  --

  “…I thought you put that picture away?” Black asks quietly, coming to sit on the side of Ted’s bed while Ted stares down at Bruce’s photograph. It was from one of his boxing championships. He won, and he’s holding the trophy and smiling. His cheek is swollen and his eye is turning purple, but he looks utterly thrilled.

  “I took it back out,” Ted murmurs, moving to set the framed photo onto his bedside table. “I’m not hurt or angry or sad about it anymore, and I haven’t been for about a year now, so I thought, you know… Might as well bring it back. It’s my favorite photo of him, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Black agrees, smiling minutely. “Mine too. He was a badass.”

“As badass as you?” Ted raises a brown, smirking.

Black shakes his head in a mock serious manner, and then scoffs, “Feh, ‘course not. Everyone knows I’m the most badass! I have horns. And fangs. And claws. And a freaking tail, like a whip. What’s more badass than that?”

  Ted laughs at that. “You’re so full of yourself.”

“Hey man, you made me this way. Do you want me to start singing the ever-elegant Lady Gaga? ‘Cause I will. I’m on the right tr—”

“Oh my God, stop right there. Please,” Ted nearly chokes on his laughter, because many things can be said about Black, but a good singing voice is not one of them. Bruce had decent vocals; Black, on the other hand, does not.

The Imaginary Friend grins broadly and shrugs. “Your loss. I’m a fantastic singer.”

Ted is laughing all over again. “Yeah, dogs love you! They howl for an encore when they hear you sing! And once, I think you even broke Mom’s wine glass! That’s impressive, all right.”

“…You wound me with your sasscasm, Ted. You wound me.”

  “Not my fault my sarcasm is so sassy. What was it you were saying? I’m on the right track, baby, I was born this—”

“Stop, stop! You’re even worse than me!”

“No way, you’re tone deaf! I sound great!”

  “…I am so done with you, you little brat.”

Ted snorts and shakes his head, smiling. “Love you, too, Black.”

  --

  “So’re you gonna go to college this year, Bruce?” Ted asks, sitting in the passenger seat, feeling grown-up, even though he’s still a bit short for it, and has to hold the chest strap down with his elbow a little. “I heard you talkin’ to Mom about it.”

  “Yeah… Yeah, I’m thinking about it. I was goin’ to wait a year and save up some money, then take out some student loans, but I don’t know. It might be best just to go right into it, come this fall. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Uh, I dunno, Bruce. I’m only a fourth-grader. High school’s five years away, and college’s nine. …Did I add that right?”

  “Hehe. Yes, kiddo, you added correctly. Sorry for asking you about this dumb teenager-y stuff; it’s just that a lot of my friends are going to wait a year or a semester before they start college, and others are diving right in, and I’m not sure which is best.”

  “Hmm,” Ted thinks this over while his brother stops at a red light. “Maybe… not one of them is ‘the best?’ Maybe you just need to pick the one that’s better for you.”

  Bruce glances at his brother for a moment, looking like he’s having a revelation. “…You know, Ted, I think you’re onto something. Yeah, thank you; that helps me a lot.” He smiles proudly. “You’re really bright for a kid your age, you know that?”

  “That’s what Mom keeps telling me,” the brunet shrugs, and Bruce chuckles.

  “Good, she ought to. ‘Cause it’s true,” he replies, and the light changes, and soon they are pulling into the corner supermarket, getting the short list of groceries their mother gave them for this week’s meals, until they can do their major grocery shopping on Friday, when she gets paid again. “Okay. Secret mission: you can pick out one candy bar when we’re in the checkout lane and have to eat it before we get home. Can I trust you with that, soldier?”

  “Yessir!” Ted salutes, and then beams. “Thanks, Bruce!”

  “No problem. Now, let’s get shopping.”

  --

  “It’s come to our attention that your son still has an Imaginary Friend, and that this Friend often comes to school with him, walks him home, and lingers around school property around lunch hour. Now, you have to understand, Mrs. Wiggins, why this is disconcerting for us. The Imaginary Friend isn’t too terribly a distraction, thank God; he only attended classes with Theodore for the first day, his teachers say, but it still begs the question: why? Why does he still have one, and why are they so inseparable?”

Mrs. Wiggins fidgets in her seat, playing with the wedding ring still on her hand, despite her husband’s death shortly after Ted’s birth. She sighs heavily and peers back up, looking between the principal, vice principal, and school psychologist. They called her earlier this week and asked for a scheduled appointment concerning her son. They reassured her that his grades are fine and so is his attitude in class; it was about something else, something that had to be discussed in person.

Now she knows what.

“You have to understand,” the concerned mother begins softly, “That before my son turned ten years old, he had an older brother. Marginally older; nine years, to be precise. I had my oldest son when I was young and foolish and unmarried, and with a man who isn’t Ted’s father. And Ted’s father, if you aren’t already aware, is deceased. A-and… Bruce, my eldest… he was killed in an accident nearly five years ago, when Ted was almost ten. He was walking home from his second job, which requires black shirts as a uniform. And I told him, repeatedly; I told him to bring a brighter shirt or a vest or biker’s jacket to make him visible to cars during the walk home in the wee hours, but he didn’t always remember. And this night… he forgot. And…”

She breathes slowly to gather her wits. They wait patiently for her to speak again. 

“A drunk driver was on the road, coming home from a bar at two in the morning. And he drifted, swerved, and hit my son. My son died on impact; the doctor said it wouldn’t have hurt for longer than a second.” She dabs at her face when the psychologist hands her a tissue. She sniffles and sighs. “Ted didn’t take it well. Bruce wasn’t just his older brother; he was his missing father figure and best friend as well. The two did everything together, when Bruce wasn’t busy. So to lose him so suddenly… I-it took a toll of both of us. But Ted… copes with it differently.”

“He made Black,” the psychologist replies, sighing. The principals glance at her, and she explains further, “It’s not uncommon for Imaginary Friends to be made to resemble friends who have moved away or been moved away from, or resemble siblings or parents or pets who have passed away or left in a divorce or something of the sort. Sometimes they take on the person’s personality traits, sometimes their voice; other times, certain physical features. What does Black have of Bruce’s?”

“His voice,” Mrs. Wiggins responds, barely audible. “And he looks like a monster that Bruce would dress up as when he played make-believe with Ted when Ted was much younger. The horns, tail, claws; they were a Halloween headband, black throw blanket, and black oven mitts. H-he would chase Ted, capture him, and tickle him. Sometimes I would join in, be a queen to save my son from the monster’s clutches. We played this game often, so it was probably embedded into Ted’s memories, even years later, when he created Black.”

“I see,” the psychologist replies with a nod. “This explains the attachment. I feared for his mental and social stability, but I see now that it isn’t as unhealthy as I initially thought. After all, he does have friends; three good ones, from what we can tell over the past semester. This is part of the grief process, not a sign of something possibly detrimental. That’s good news.”

Mrs. Wiggins nods unsurely, glancing down. “I hope so. I’ve worried about it, too. Sometimes I wonder what’s going through his head.”

“Talk to him. Or have him talk to one of us. In the teenage years, children often lose verbal contact with their parents, and sometimes all they need is a good conversation to revive the connection,” the school psychologist answers, and Ted’s mother nods.

“Thank you. I’ll try that.”

--

"Ted, honest, please--"

  “No. I won’t. It’s gross and weird and stupid. Why is it open-casket, anyway? He was hit by a car!”

  “No, sweetie, it’s not so bad. Only his lower body was a little damaged, and the back of his head got bumped. His face looks fine, like he’s sleeping. Come say goodbye, Teddy… it’ll help,” his aunt is trying to convince him, but Ted brushes her off angrily.

  “No! You’re all crazy! It’s just an empty shell now, he’s not even in there! If I want to see his face, if I want to say goodbye, I’ll say it to his damn photo! At least he’s alive in it!” Ted screams at them, and his mother gasps.

  “Ted, you swore…”

  “And I don’t freaking care! This is bullshit!” he roars, and then he’s turning and bolting out of the church, ignoring the sermon, the casket, the people; the whole lot of it.

  He runs out into the cemetery, past tomb stones of strangers with corpses rotting somewhere underground, and he finds a tree and punches it. He beats it until his knuckles split open and his entire hand is bloody, aching pain all the way up to his elbows, and he screams and cries and punches it weakly a few more times, thinking of boxing, of his brother, of drunk drivers, of second-shifts and college dreams and waste, all of it a waste and what for? What for?

  Why Bruce? Of all people for that drunkard to hit (if anyone; preferably no one, Ted thinks in retrospect), why did it have to be Bruce?

  Ted slides down the front of the tree and grips it tightly, nails collecting flakes of bark and dirt.

  Someone comes out to see him. He hears their shoes in the grass, crunching lightly underfoot from the recent summer drought.

  “Theodore,” comes a soft voice, and it’s his mother’s, and he doesn’t want to see her, either. She wounds congested from crying, and he doesn’t want to see her face, makeup-less and red, and he doesn’t want to talk. Not to anyone.

  “Go away,” he groans, and flinches when she touches his shoulder. “I said go AWAY, Mom!” he shouts, and she goes rigid and lays off, standing from her crouch and backing up a few steps. 

  “S-sorry, Teddy… I… I’ll leave you be.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he says after her, and she turns and looks, confusion and shock and sorrow in her eyes, and he seeks the ground instead. “He called me that most. So you don’t get to. No one gets to. It’s just ‘Ted’ now.”

  He mother doesn’t argue. She swallows a lump in her throat and nods. Then, shakily, she turns and walks slowly back to the church, drawing her black shawl tighter around her shoulders.

  Ted chokes on as sob and sinks to the ground. He wishes it would rain, hide his tears. He wishes Bruce were alive.

  He wishes a lot of things, and then thinks of his birthday wish earlier this year, and suddenly, he feels sick, and before he realizes what’s happening, he’s purging what little food he’s been forced to eat out onto the roots of the tree, and he’s shaking and clinging to himself as he rocks back and forth, trying to remain calm, trying to regroup.

  In the end, he shuts down, and he’s quiet and somber and blank-faced the entire ride home, later that afternoon.

  --

  “Hey, so. Here’s a question for you: hypothetically speaking, do you think there’s, like, a specific reason why it bothers everyone except you that I’m, like, the same height and build and have the same voice, supposedly, as your dead big bro?” Black asks a tad more than merely ‘anxiously’ as he tries to bring this up casually, following the day Mrs. Wiggins told her son about the meeting she had with his principals and school therapist.

Ted’s expression is, at first, a little suspicious at the word hypothetically,’ and then his face grows more and more into a frown with confusion and, finally, realization on his features.

“Whoa, hey, Black, what brought this on? Did you eavesdrop on me and my mom?”

“Uhhm, er, no…?”

“That sounds like a question, Black.”

“Er… yeah, okay, so I did, but it was on accident! And then I kinda just… stayed to listen. So it became on purpose. Sorry,” the Friend sighs, rubbing the back of his head. “Anyway, uh. Can you just… answer it? Please? – Look, I’m even using polite words, here.”

Ted sighs with weight behind it, setting aside his novel for English class and pinches the bridge of his nose before responding. “It doesn’t bother me because I’ve accepted my brother’s death. It took a few years, but I became okay with it sometime in middle school, I think.”

“…How?” Black wants to know.

Ted shrugs. “At first, it was because I had you to kind of be his shadow, to be honest. But then, I don’t know, you kind of became your own person, and we got our own brotherhood going, so that’s why I forgot about you being meant to be like him. I realized it wasn’t his fault for dying, and not your fault for being a reminder, and then, I don’t know… You’re not a replacement like my mom sometimes must think. No one can replace Bruce. But I like having you around just as much as I did him. You’re my brother, now, too. Just a different one. And…”

“That’s why you won’t let me get put into Imaginary Friend foster care. You don’t want to lose another brother, not again,” Black murmurs, finishing Ted’s thought for him.

Ted smiles warmly. “Yes, exactly. Losing you would be just as bad as losing him all over again, but different, since you two aren’t the same. But I love and care about you the same, so it would hurt too much to just give you up. Sorry,” he laughs a little, but it sounds tragic, “You’re stuck with me.”

Black comes over and gives Ted a noogie, then turns it into a hug. “That’s what brothers are for, right?”

“Right.”

--

They are all gathered around the fireplace. It’s a chilly winter evening in early December. Everyone he remotely cares about is present; Gold, Paint, Left and Right, Kink, Ted, Nega. People he associates with on a regular basis, people who will miss him is he disappears.

Gold, Paint, Left, and Ted are crying. Gold and Ted display it openly; Paint hides his face. Left keeps wiping his eyes and looking away. Kink is oddly stony-faced, swallowing often to prevent his throat from closing up entirely and bursting into tears. Right doesn’t seem to care. Nega is unreadable, but his hands clenched over his knees tells Black enough.

“C-can’t we ask someone with magic to make it permanent? T-to give him a body forever? Until he ages and dies like everyone else?” Ted hiccups and weeps, stuttering around his jagged sobs, his fists balled up and gripping the edge of his seat cushion. No one answers him. No one has a clue how to fix this.

“I’m not even sure you will return to my mind, or vanish entirely now that you’ve been expelled from me,” Gold-ler murmurs quietly, tears flowing down his face at an even rate. He doesn’t bother to lift a gloved hand to wipe them away. He and Paint hold each other, Paint’s head on Gold’s shoulder and their hands overlapped atop their laps where their legs touch, arms linked, but Paint’s eyes are on Black, and he looks miserable.

“Why does this have to happen?” Paint whispers, blinking his baby blues though his tears. “I feel like I was just getting to know you… and starting to become your friend… And now…” He turns his face into Gold’s shoulder and chokes on a sob. “Now you might never see us again… I can’t handle this… No…”

Gold rubs Paint’s arm soothingly, kisses his hair. “I know, love. I know. I feel like I am losing my brother. And not one of the ones who pushed me into the street, either; a true brother.” No one needs to ask what he means. Even Ted understands, and Black doesn’t feel the mood to poke fun at it, or call Gold-ler ‘mushy.’ Instead, he feels like crying. He doesn’t. The businessman goes on, “This… th-this is unacceptable, and regrettable, but what can we do? We have no power. We never had the power to give him a body to begin with, let alone maintain it.” And he sounds bitter about it, scowling to himself.

Black becomes less and less tangible by the second. He feels panic settle over him, flickering his appearance. His hands are dry on his lap. He feels numb, apart from the spikes of fear. He looks between everyone’s faces, and feels conflicted about their presences; part of him wishes he could vanish in solitude. Part of him is eternally grateful that they are all here for him, all care about his well-being. 

“There must be a way,” Negathneed speaks up, his voice low and too serious to be his own. It catches BlackGold off guard, and he turns his attention to the masked man. “Isn’t there?” and his voice breaks, and ah, there is the Negs Black knows so well.

He sighs. “I don’t think so.” He was never meant to exist like the lot of the, anyhow. He’s part of a curse. He’s an emotion-based entity. He’s nothing worth saving.

Ted gets to his feet, and Black looks at the young boy, feeling awful that he has to go through this at such a sensitive age (or what Black has learned is a sensitive age; prepubescents are impressionable, he’s heard). The boy crosses the room and stands in front of Black, staring him down.

“I won’t let you disappear. You’re going to keep existing, Black, one way or another.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, kiddo, but I don’t think –” Black tries to say, his voice flat and stained, but Ted shuts him up with a shout.

“No! We’re not just going to sit here and wait for something to happen, for you to return to Gold, dormant forever, or vanish entirely! I won’t let that happen, okay? I refuse. You’re one of my best friends and I’m not going to let you… l-let you…”

Die.

The unspoken word rings throughout the room. Silence falls, not so much as a sniffle from a crying member of the group, and only the light crackling of the fire can be heard.

Ted steps forward again, until his knees nearly touch Black’s fading ones. He lifts his arms and opens them. “If Gold’s subconscious won’t take you back because you aren’t technically part of it anymore or something, then… then use mine, okay? I offer my head. You can hitch a ride there, all right? I’ve been possessed before. It was… pretty scary… but this should be different. Better. Because you’re my friend and I know you won’t hurt me, and I need you to stick around, okay?”

“What?” Black exclaims, but his voice is fading, too; the sound is like a distant yell. “No! I can’t do that to you, Teddy, I won’t –”

“I’m not giving you a choice!” he counters sharply, fresh tears in his eyes, and his voice rings throughout the mansion. No one dares breathe for a lingering second.

Everyone is staring at the brave young boy, and with a vague pat to Paint, Gold stands from the sofa and moves to locate himself near Ted, touching his shoulder. “Ted, I appreciate your courage, but this is out of our hands. And I am more than willing to accept BlackGold back into my consciousness, so you don’t need to –”

“No, you aren’t,” Ted utters, peering up at the man. He stands his ground, sneakers rooted to the tile floor, but his bottom lip quivers, a dead giveaway. “You say you are, but you don’t actually want it to happen. Don’t try to lie. You like Blackie, I know, but not enough to want him part of you again, able to take control when you go into a rage, usually protecting Paint-ler, and sometimes as a voice in the back of your mind. I know you hate it, and you were relieved when he was able to be separate from you, because, as you like to remind us all the time, he isn’t you.”

Gold backs up a couple steps, the words cutting him to the quick. He swallows and deflects in a mumble no one can hear, and then he returns to his seat beside his boyfriend, unable to argue when so much of it is, sadly, true.

Ted doesn’t even retort with a sour, ‘I knew it.’ Instead, he returns his attention to Black, and he doesn’t hesitate to move forward and wrap his arms roughly around where Black’s shoulders are supposed to be as Black becomes dimmer and dimmer.

“Meld consciousnesses with me, okay? Don’t disappear, whatever you do. Please,” Ted whispers, and suddenly, Black is gone.

--

Everyone states that, in the instant Ted hugged Black and accepted him into him, there was a blink of darkness that shrouded the room, blocking out even the fireplace, and they all felt like they slept for hours before they could see again without white spots hovering in their vision like ghostly orbs of light.

When they all looked to little Theodore Wiggins, he was unconscious on the floor in front of Black’s seat, and Black was nowhere to be found. Gold and Kink were the first to rush forward, followed shortly by Paint, while Nega and Two-headed sat, gaping, puzzled, still dazed and trying to grasp what has just transpired, what they think they just witnessed.

It wasn’t meant to be a perfect merge. They all know that. It’s dangerous, after all; a foreign consciousness into such a young, moldable mind.

But it worked.

Even though it took three days for Ted to regain consciousness, technically… it still worked.

--

When Black comes to, he feels groggier than he normally does when first waking. Everything feels… distant. Sounds echo, sensations are hazy, fragmented; he feels dizzy, cloudy-headed.

He sits up in his bed, swaying a little, and presses a palm to his forehead. Or, rather… Ted’s forehead.

Something warm and wet slicks his skin, he’s faintly aware. He retracts his hand and squints down at it. It’s Ted’s small hand, his nails long and pointed, and oil is seeping through the skin of his palms.

“Shit.”

He hears a sleepy voice stir in his head, and suddenly feels guilty for cursing, and hopes Ted didn’t hear him. It’s strange; the thoughts are as clear as if he’s thinking them himself. But they are in Ted’s pitch and sound, not his own voice.

Ted comes to and asks weakly, Hmm…? Black? Are you there…? Did it, you know… work? I don’t… feel right… And I don’t feel… awake? But I sort of feel my body moving. It’s weird.

  “Um. Uh, well… good news and bad news time, I guess.”

  What’s the good news?

  “Good news? Well, the merge worked, Teddy. I’m lookin’ down at your body right now.”

  That’s great! Now you won’t vanish!

  “Uh, yeah, but…”

  But?

  “Bad news is, there are, uh… a few changes… to your body. Sorry about that.”

  There’s a mental sigh, and Ted doesn’t have to be in control of his eyes to see it to know what Black means. …I have claws, don’t I.

  “Yeah, kinda.”

  And… I can make oil now?

  “…Yeah.”

  Oh.

  “’S not so bad. I can teach ya how to bandage your hands. Shouldn’t secrete oil when you are in control, though; never did for Goldy. But yeah, you might wanna keep them on all the time anyway, because I don’t know how this is gonna work. With Gold, I showed up when he got really pissed. But with you… I’m awake now. Why?”

  I don’t know… I mean, I was pretty angry with everyone for just sitting around all sad and useless about you becoming transparent and nonexistent. Could be leftover from that, maybe? Ted suggests anxiously. Or…

Icy tendrils of dread prickle at Black’s/Ted’s skin. They both feel it and shiver. The thought is still complete, drifting in between their united mind.

“Or you’re never going to be in control, and I just stole your body.”

  …I didn’t want to say it, but… yeah, that’s possible, too.

  “Pardon my French, kid, but… fuck.”

  It’s… okay. That sentiment is pretty much mutual.

  “I can’t let that happen, you know. There’s no way in hell I’m sticking around with my own skin by hijacking someone else’s body. That’s wrong and crosses a boundary even I don’t feel comfortable with, especially because it’s yours! Like, crap, Teddy, I don’t want to take your life from you! You have so much left to do in yours, you’re so young, and I don’t…”He feels hot in the face and reaches up, realizing he’s made Ted’s tear ducts act up, and now he’s crying. He can’t even wipe the tears away, or he’ll smudge Ted’s eyes with oil and burn them.

Black, hey, hey… It’s okay, don’t… don’t cry, dude…

  “I’m not crying. You must be.” He sniffles and looks toward the window. The blinds were drawn so he could rest and adjust when he woke. “It’s just not fair, Ted. It’s not what I wanted at all. Not for you.”

  I’ll be fine, Ted reassures. He struggles to gain control of his arms, at the very least, and Black jerks, startled, when he feels the urge to wrap his arms around himself. He gives into the thought, and hears Ted murmur in his head, I’m just glad you’re still here. We’ll figure out how to make this work later. For now, just alert everyone that we’re awake, and okay, and see how long we’ve been out of sorts. And I – we – whatever – probably need to eat. And pee or something.

  Black makes a face. “Eating sounds great, but my – er, our – bladder is full, but, like… there’s no way I’m doing that.” Horror strikes him. “Oh, my God. Please, please let me be able to be asleep and in the back of your head when you shower or use the bathroom or, God forbid, start to learn what lust does to your body as you grow into that age soon. We didn’t think this through at all; I don’t want to be here for those things. Euhg.”

  Ted feels a flood of embarrassment. Black must feel it, too, because Ted’s cheeks flare pink. Unfortunately, Ted isn’t so innocent that he doesn’t realize what Black is referring to with the last bit, and he feels awful, because anything remotely sexual that happens to either of them will be extremely awkward, considering their age gap and casual relationship. After all, Black is still a grown man inside, will still think things when he sees people he’s attracted to, will still have urges; and Ted is coming into a similar thing as puberty starts to take hold, which means it’s bound to happen sooner or later.

I’ll try not to let you be around for that stuff, but what’s the big deal? You’re a boy, too. And it’s not like I can stop puberty.

  “No, you will stop puberty. You will stop having puberty right now. Theirs is a big deal here, okay? It’s… way to weird. So no. Stop. Cease and desists, Ted.”

  How can I do that when I’m a human being who’s meant to grow up? You aren’t making any sense, Black! Just deal with it, okay? We share a body now. Things are gonna be awkward sometimes, and we’re just gonna have to live with it.

  “…No. I refuse.”

This is going to take quite a while to adjust to.

--

Black heads downstairs, forgoing the bathroom for a little while. He’s annoyed when he finds Gold-ler and Paint-ler in the kitchen, having morning coffee and their breakfasts, and they tower over him when they leap to their feet to check on him.

“Ted! You’re up! And…” Gold exclaims, but he loses his surprise and enthusiasm when he notices Ted’s sharp teeth behind his parted lips, his black tooth, his dripping hands and pointed nails. “…And you’re not Ted, are you?” He gets down on one knee and peers up into Ted’s face, but Ted’s eyes have darks rings around them are aren’t their usual honey brown; they’re dark as coal. “You’re… BlackGold?” He swallows and looks Ted over, his hands on Ted’s shoulders. “Are you really in there, Black?”

  “Yeah, I am. Quit being such a mother-hen, Gold, jeez. And paws off,” he mutters, shrugging off Gold’s worry, even though it secretly comforts him. He looks away and scratches his now freckled cheek. “And Ted is here, too. It’s weird, Goldilocks; not like how we were when we were bonded. He’s awake and semi-in-control sometimes, like he can direct me a little with, I don’t know, these thoughts to do stuff? Like hinting at me to move his arms or stand or something. But other than that… I’m pretty much the one driving right now, and I don’t know why.”

  “Hmm, that’s worth a look into,” Gold puzzles, standing and glancing at Ted’s face, the mess on his shirt from Black’s hands. “Regardless, you’re both probably hungry, right? And you could use from bandages for your hands.”

“That’d be great, thanks.”

--

“Okay, I’ve mainly been you for the past five days. What’s up with this, kiddo? If we don’t find a way to get you back to the steering wheel, I’m gonna wind up being you for the rest of your life, and that doesn’t sit well with me.”

  It’s fine, Black. Really. I… I’m letting you do it. Honest. I don’t like how Gold-ler used to keep you locked up so much in his head, so I’m giving you freer reign. It’s still my body; I can take full control whenever I want. I have a few times, after you went to sleep, and I was still awake. It’s no biggie.

  “N-no big… Teddy. That’s pretty big, actually. You mean you’ve just be letting me adjust to this and do what I want because you, what, don’t want to keep me on a leash like Gold used to? That’s… You’re way too generous, kid,” Black murmurs, awed, and his chest feels warm with a pleasant sense of serenity. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t mind it.

Then he gets a bit suspicious, his skepticism about someone liking and caring about him enough to sacrifice like that rising off the charts.

  “Hey, wait. You’re not just saying that to make me feel better are you? Spreading a white lie to keep me from feeling guilty or something?”

  What? No! Don’t be stupid.

  “All right, then prove it. Take control right now.”

Ted rolls their eyes and shrugs their shoulders, and lifts a hand to punch Black, retreating back to the subconscious area in time for Black to rub and feel the pain in his stomach from the hit without Ted feeling it, too.

“Little brat,” he mutters, but he concedes, “But okay, so, fine, you weren’t lying. You can take control whenever you want. But then… why try so hard to not be like Gold? I’m still borrowing your body, Ted. I don’t…” He sighs, “I don’t deserve ‘free reign,’ all right? So just take over again for a while and go do something, whatever you normally did before we merged, and… and stop being so generous with me. It’s freaking me out.”

  Why? Because I actually care about you? Man, you have some low self-esteem. If you’re going to be in my body, we need to fix that.

  Black growls, but soon finds himself laughing with Ted’s voice. He puts their face in their hands and shakes their head. “You’re awesome. Okay? Never stop being the brat you are, Teddy.”

  Pfft, as if I would trade this level of brattiness for the world! You’ve got a lot to learn, Blackie. We both do, I guess; about each other, and about how to work out the way we’re going to live now. I just know that it’s gonna be pretty nice, growing up with you.

  “Yeah, you’re stuck with me now, squirt. But please hurry up and get taller, would ya? I hate seeing Brushstroke and Goldilocks tower over me. It’s the most annoying thing about this situation, apart from, you know, bring unable to flirt. Suddenly I miss being me, ‘cause as you, I can’t, like, grab a date or anything.”

  And with you in my head, I really don’t fancy the idea of pursuing Audrey anymore. So I guess we’re both a bit limited there, unless we meet someone later who we both like, and, I dunno, won’t mind if we sit there and argue amongst ourselves sometimes?

  “Heh, yeah, right! Good luck finding somebody who won’t give two shi– I mean, give a lick if you’re, like, a schizophrenic, or that I’m an older guy inside a kid’s body. That’s totally hot. Everyone will be falling at our feet to sleep with us; er, once you, you know, are over eighteen, I mean. But, uh… yeah, no. Not gonna happen. We’ll have to settle for being forever alone.”

God, Black, you’re such a ball of sunshine.

  “Heheh. Thank you.”

  --

They grow into the name: Theo Black. It’s catchier than Ted Wiggins, at least, and far more mysterious, and it’s more defining than BlackGold. They learn to trade-off roles; during the day, while Ted attends (or does, up until a point) school, Ted is in control, and Black rests. When Ted needs to take care of personal business for his body, he takes control. However, for the remainder of each day, Black takes over and does as he pleases.

He talks to friends, idles his time with books or movies or games, and eventually, gets a job and breaks away from Gold-ler and his money, and he and Ted start making their own way in the world.

No one really questions them if they know the situation; and for those who don’t, they merely think Theo Black is a guy with a hot temper and witty, cursing mouth, but otherwise a good guy everyone wants to get to know.

At one point, they are so routine and so comfortable with each other’s passing thoughts and subtle actions that it no longer matters who’s the one conducting personal business or chatting up a girl or a guy, and it’s easy for them to agree or disagree on something and move right along to the next subject of interest.

[12:59:51 PM] Oddmod: Yeah, Black is going back. [1:00:00 PM] Oddmod: But... [1:00:06 PM] Oddmod: He won't talk through Gold anymore [1:00:50 PM] Oddmod: He's a tired, worn out figment, and he just wants to rest and disappear [1:02:17 PM] Oddmod: No... [1:02:36 PM] Oddmod: The thing is... [1:02:37 PM] Oddmod: ... [1:02:43 PM] Oddmod: None of you know if I'm lying or not. [1:03:16 PM] Oddmod: Calm down. [1:03:28 PM] Oddmod: He's not going back into Gold's head. [1:03:31 PM] Oddmod: Or is he? [1:03:55 PM] Oddmod: Maybe I'll drag out his decision to disappear. [1:04:22 PM] Oddmod: Maybe he'll just be gone. Out like a flame. [1:04:34 PM] Oddmod: And you still don't know if I'm currently lying.

And yeah, I just shared that and Oddmod can kill me for it later because you know what? She said she could be lying or telling the truth, so that means she’s still debating on it and planning it out to do it or not, so that means it isn’t a real spoiler, so I am going to post it, dammit. Plus, it’s what sparked this fic, so haha fuck you Oddmod. <3

----

  Something in the atmosphere is amiss.

Ted knows this, he’s well aware of the sensation, but he doesn’t understand it, and it doesn’t really concern him, anyhow. He’s just here to visit a friend. One of his best friends going right now, as a matter of fact. One of the only people he actually enjoys associating himself with: BlackGold.

Because despite being somewhat violent and an asshole to many people, Black is a good guy deep down, and he’s playful and caring with the people who he considers his close friends, the people he chooses to lower his guard around. Ted is fortunate because he is one of those people in Black’s special circle of friends. And yeah, it might partially be because he’s still a kid in Black’s eyes – oddly, Black loved children, he’s good with them, surprisingly patient, even if he doesn’t know what the fuck to do when a kid is upset – but he likes to think it’s because they have fun together, too.

So Ted walks up to the mansion and is permitted inside by one of the maids – Muriel – and asks her if she knows where Black is.

Suddenly, her small smile fades and she looks down, shaking her head slowly. She points up the stairs, and with a frown, Ted ascends them.

They stairs feel like they take an eternity to pace up. Each step weighs him down a little more, like ounces of led being added atop his sneakers and shoulders, until Ted feels as though he must literally drag himself up the final few steps, pulling at his heavily legs and stretching with his short arms.

When he is at last at the top stair, Ted stares down the long hallway and starts to run, his legs no longer heavy, his body so light that he’s gliding over the carpet, and he pumps his arms and feels his heart pound in his breast as he propels himself toward Black’s bedroom. The feeling of something being wrong returns, much less subtle than before, and sinking, icy fears drains his body.

He stops in front of Black door and it looms overhead, the space at this end of the hall dimly lit. Too dimly lit; it’s nighttime, it’s so dark, and it unnerves Ted to the highest degree.

He’s terrified of what he will find. There have been nothing but haunting omens since he arrived. He feels it all, hyper-sensitive, and he isn’t sure if it’s because of all the ghostly things he has gone through, or what it is, but warning sirens are still sounding off in his lizard brain and it all comes down to this: his hand on the doorknob.

“Black…?” Ted calls out timidly, the door slowly creaking open with a dry whine as he shakily paces into the room.

It’s dark. Nearly impossible to see, but half of a black curtain on the main window, stained in oil from mornings of soaked bandages sliding it aside, is drawn open, and letting in a beam of light, silhouetting a figure that can only be the man Ted seeks.

“Black, hey… quite being so creepy,” Ted strains to smile, “Halloween’s been over for a while now, so cut it out. I’m not scared, you know.”

“Teddy… you came,” Black utters in a tone that makes Ted’s skin crawl. It’s so polar-opposite Black’s usually warm, cocky, endearing, playful tone. It’s as grave and raspy as smogulous-smog, and as garbled and thick with misery as schloppity-schlopp. The tone makes Ted feel nauseous, and he sways on his feet.

“O-of course I came. We were… gonna hang out today… remember?” he venture cautiously, swallowing in the middle of it. He brings his hands up to lace together in front of him, pads of his thumbs, forefingers, and middle fingers overlapping, pinching the nails atop one another, squeezing off and on again as he tries not to tremble.

Except it isn’t BlackGold he’s afraid of; in fact, he’s scared for Black. Something is wrong. Something crushingly painful is hanging in the air, as sharp and foreboding as the blade of a guillotine. And Black’s head is the one through the hole, his neck feet below the beheading machine.

“Not today,” Black replies. His back is still to Ted, facing the light, Ted in Black’s shadow. “Never again, in fact. I’m tired.”

“Oh, well, okay… I can let you rest, and we can hang out tomorrow or someth–”

“I’m tired,” Black repeats, sighing deeply to emphasize the word. “Exhausted. I’ve been here too long. I’m so tired. I want to give up, don’t you get it? I’m sick of everyone around this mansion; I’m apathetic about everything they do and say. I hate Gold and Paint and the love they share; I hate the maids, the butlers, the chauffeurs, the chefs, the whole lot of them. I hate myself. I’m worn out. I’m just a fragment of Gold’s emotions, just a born entity, not real person, never a real person, even with this body, because in the end, all I will ever be is a consciousness that is a figment of Gold’s imagination.”

  “Wh-what…? No, Black, no, you’re not…” Ted frantically searches his head for what to say, how to express what he feels. “You’re a real person, and you’re very different from Gold-ler! Y-you’re my friend, and… and I know you’re real. You just need to hold on, okay? People get depressed sometimes and want to give up, but you can’t, okay? You just… you can’t, not when there are people who want you to stay.” Tears prickle and drip down without his consent, but he lets himself cry because Black is too important to him to lose.

“I want to cease existing, Teddy. If I disappear, if I blink out like a light, all of this will end. And I will be gone, so I won’t feel anything or care. And all of you can forget a hiccup in nature like me ever was around, and all of you will be better off. I’m pointless. I shouldn’t even be here to begin with. I see that now,” Black answers, his voice frozen in that monotone that reminds Ted of everything dreary and tragic and ugly in the world outside of his borrowed lerkim.

“H-huh? N-no! How can you say that? You have so much meaning, especially to me, and even if they don’t say it out loud, I know you mean a lot to Gold-ler and Paint-ler, too… we’re your friends, and we can’t ever forget you. But i-if you really can’t stand it here anymore because they’re annoying you, wh-why don’t you just… come live with me, in the lerkim? I know it’s small, but it can fit both of us in it… And I would try to stay out of your way if you wanted me to.” He fists his shirttail and bows his head. “Just s-stop saying these things, okay? It… it hurts.”

“Too late, Teddy,” Black whispers, and something wet seeps through Ted’s canvas sneakers. He opens his tear-clouded eyes and peers down at his feet. He’s standing in a puddle of black oil. It’s wetting his shoes and it keeps flowing, soaking down to his socks.

Glancing up, Ted sees that it’s coming from BlackGold. He’s getting shorts and shorter, dripping and pouring out oil from his nose and eyes and mouth and ears, crying and vomiting and bleeding runny, greasy oil.

“B-Black!” Ted shrieks, and where is everyone? Why can’t they hear his panicked breathing and hoarse yells as he races forward and grabs Black as the man starts to pitch forward? Why is no one coming to help him? “Black? Black! What’s going on? Y… you’re melting! Black!” he sobs, and BlackGold leans against him, but his weight is vastly diminishing.

The man’s feet and legs are dissolving into oil. It’s bubbling and creeping up his body, his clothes disintegrating into thicker oil to meld with the watery stuff coming from his face and dripping down his claw tips. “Let me go, Teddy… Let me go. Let me disappear. Let me die.”

Ted shakes his head vigorously and weeps against Black’s neck and hair, one of Black’s arms around his tiny shoulders, oil dripping down the back of Ted’s shirt and pants, and he is almost drowning in it. “No… never… I won’t, okay? I don’t want you to leave me! You a-aren’t allowed, okay? You can’t disappear on me… I need you here; you’re one of the only friends I have… P-please, Black, stay with me… Don’t go!”

But it’s too late. Black’s head droops and all at once, the dissolving process completes, and he collapses to the floor in a flood of black liquid, splashing up onto Ted’s clothes and face, his hands suddenly empty, without Black’s warmth or presence, and Ted’s eyes widen in horror as a chilling breeze rushes in through the open window, blowing back the curtains to reveal the room in full color.

He looks down at his hands.

It’s not oil. It’s not black liquid at all. All of it is crimson, and it’s in Ted’s hair and spattered on his cheeks and pooled in his hands.

It’s blood.

He screams.

As the scream dies out, he drops to his knees, hands limp at his sides. He can’t even cry. He feels dead and cold inside, kneeling in BlackGold’s life and essence and former being.

He feels numb and sick. Ted drops his elbows to the carpet and curls in on himself, knees bunched up to his chin. His arms cover his head, nails digging into his scalp as he claws at his hair, weeping and heaving heavy breaths without tears. He shudders and hiccups and everything about him aches.

“You’re better off without me, short stop,” he can almost hear Black whisper against his ear, sorrowful and regretful and broken, and Ted screams and rocks back and forth on his knees and buries his face in the mucky carpet, oil or blood – he isn’t sure anymore, can’t be positive of anything but his internal pain – smearing his nose, saliva leaking from his trembling lip as he shouts and doesn’t stop shouting because BlackGold is gonegonegone, and he’s never coming back.

No one seems to hear him. No one else in the mansion rushes to his aid.

His screams echo in the room as it grows dim again, wind howling down to nothing but dead silence, a ring in Ted’s ears, and the curtain falls back into place, shrouding him in darkness.

--

Ted is awoken by the sound of someone screaming.

It isn’t until he’s sitting up in his bed in the middle of the night, soaked in a cold sweat and shaking like a leaf, his throat sore and his nose stuffy and his face hot and streaked with cooling tears that he realizes the screams are his own.

Ted curls up on himself, knees drawn to his chest, and he buries his face in his arms, forehead pressed to his legs. He stiffens to cease the shakes, hands clenching the fabric of his pajama bottoms are hard as he can without feeling like his fists will burst.

That was, single-handedly, the worst nightmare Ted has ever experienced.

He wails to himself, blubbering and letting it all out, because it’s the only way to confirm that this is real and that of course BlackGold won’t combust into a gush of oily blood, of course it was a dream because there is no way going up a flight of stairs and running down a long hallway to a randomly dark doorway is plausible. Of course. It felt realistic at the time he was dreaming, of course, but now he’s awake and now it all seems rather foolish, logically.

But he can’t dismiss the sense of loneliness and terror that coats his bones in ice and makes his insides feel weak. Ted can’t rationalize the illness he feels, can’t set aside the fact that ever since he discovered where Black came from – stemmed from Gold and magicked a body of his own that has no specific time to how long it will last – he’s been dreading day in and day out, “What if this is the last time I ever see Black? What if these are our last moments as friends? What if I lose him?”

He’s thought about it repeatedly, and tonight, it seems, the fear has crept up on him and built up to the point where it had to free itself by inducing the most horrifying image Ted has seen in his life thus far.

He’s still crying about it even after he uncoils and lays back down, closing his eyes and trying to count his now-steady heartbeats to help him drift off to sleep once more.

--

He doesn’t sleep. Not again that night, and not for the next two days. He nods off – micronaps – here and there, as his body demands, forcing him to shut down, but otherwise, Ted doesn’t sleep.

He’s too afraid he will have the nightmare, or one similar to it.

--

BlackGold visits on Ted’s full third day of insomnia. When Ted answers the door to the lerkim, he has dark purple rings under his eyes, making his young face appear far too old, his cheeks a bit gaunt as he hasn’t eaten, either, but has gone on many, many long walks through the grey valley.

“Whoa, Teddy, buddy… Are you okay? You look – well, like crap,” Black greets, trying to flash one of his toothy smiles, but Ted shakes his head.

He mutters with a deadpan expression and a somber tone, “Come in,” and turns on his heel and walks into the lerkim.

“Um… okay?” Black frowns, lost, and steps into the tiny shack. He shuts the door behind himself and folds his arms over his chest as he and Ted stop walking at roughly the same time. Ted is a few feet away, back turned, and Black tries to puzzle it out. “Mind telling me what’s with the act? Your face is as haggard as Righty’s, and it really doesn’t suit you. And what’s with that glum voice? Sounds like someone stole the last slice of cheesecake before you could get any.”

He laughs at his own teasing and takes a step forward, reaching out with a bandages hand to grasp Ted’s shoulder gently. Ted flinches away.

“Hey, what’s going on? Seriously.”

Ted’s fists are clenched and he bunches his shoulders up next to his ears. “Black… are you… A-are you tired of living?”

“What? That’s a weird thing to ask, little man. And I’d make a joke, but you seem pretty out of it, so I’ll just answer bluntly: No, I’m not. Why do you ask?” BlackGold pries, trying to turn Ted around to see his face.

The twelve-year-old says nothing. Instead, his shoulders relax, and without warning or hesitation, he spins around and grips Black tightly, arms wrapping around Black’s torso and his face hiding in Black’s stomach, his fists wrinkling the back of Black’s shirt as he sobs loudly, tears wetting Black’s clothes as he clings to him, the man solid and real and not going anywhere.

“Whoa, hey,” Black says in shock, awkwardly patting Ted’s shoulders and upper back, idly stroking his hair. “Okay, I don’t get what this is all about, and it’s kind of uncomfortable ‘cause I have no idea why you’re hugging me, but if you makes you feel good enough to help me play a prank on Goldilocks later, then by all means, cry it up. I don’t care.”

Ted’s grateful for that, because in this moment, he doesn’t think he would let go even if Black kicked him off. He clings and rubs his face against Black’s unkempt shirt and feels the numbness fade away, the relief settling in, and slowly, slowly, his face unscrunches and his tears stop flowing, and his heart calms down along with his breathing, and he sighs and falls easily asleep, hands slipping down from the man’s back.

Black catches the boy before he falls backward and hits his head on the floor. “Whoa! Are you asleep, kiddo? Hey, wake up… this isn’t funny.”

But Ted can’t hear him. He’s too busy finally succumbing to a long overdue rest.

--

When he wakes again, his back is warm. He’s in the small cot in the lerkim, his back resting against someone else’s. He peers back over his shoulder and finds BlackGold curled up on his side, breathing evenly in and out, utterly asleep.

Ted smiles and turns around, snuggling up against Black’s broad back and closing his eyes once more.

Grabbing a shirt and yanking it over his head, Ted shuffles out into the hallway. The hamper full of his clothes is gone, and when he descends the stairs, his shoes aren’t by the door any longer.

He enters the smaller kitchen on the lower level of the mansion and finds Alice, one of Gold’s ever-faithful servants, there. She’s soundlessly using a hair dryer to dry Ted’s Converse, a bit of muddy water leftover from washing them splattered around the rubber soles.

She peers up at him when she shuts off the dryer and hears him clear his throat. “Morning,” she greets flatly, calmly, and turns, her bushy, curly hair bouncing as she does so. “Muriel has your clothes. Rachel cleaned up the entryway. If you wait, one of the cooks will be arriving in about an hour to make breakfast.”

“No, that’s fine; I can pick something up along the way,” Theo shrugs, smiling apologetically. “You guys have done enough for me. I’m just going to shower and change and clean up my bike, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

“You aren’t even going to see Master Gold?” she inquires, eyeing him.

“Well… I guess it would be rude not to, but it was rude enough using his house like a free hotel, so I feel kind of bad approaching him about it. Like, ‘Hi, yeah, haven’t seen you in years, but I hope you don’t mind that I used your shower and guest bed for the night?’ No way,” he shakes his head. He sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I owe him a lot for this, but I honestly don’t know how to approach it. It’s not like I carry cash around with me. Only Truffula seeds.”

“Master Gold wouldn’t want your money anyhow,” she returns brusquely. She hands him his shoes, and he thanks her under his breath. She continues, “But he won’t be put off by a surprise guest like yourself, you needn’t worry. He has spoken of you multiple times over the years, he and Master Paint both. They have missed you.”

“So Black wasn’t lying about that,” Ted jokes, but it’s lost on her since she clearly wasn’t present when the moment he’s referencing transpired. She frowns, shrugs, and waves him off.

“Go get your clothes from Muriel and then come down for coffee with Master Gold. He will be happy to see you,” she tells him, and he sighs, giving in.

“Yeah, all right. Thanks again,” he adds, and then he leaves the kitchen.

Back in his allotted room, his clothes are already folded and waiting for him on the freshly made bed. He takes them and heads for the bathroom again, intent on washing off the grime of sweating through a fever during the night.

When he emerges, still drying his ears and toweling off his hair, his own clothes on and his bare socked feet padding down the hall, he bumps into Paint-ler.

Paint jumps back, started, staring, eyes narrowing at him. Then he’s grinning broadly and his eyes light up warmly. “Teddy! Is that really you? What are you doing here?” and he’s gesturing excitedly, the glint of a gold ring on his finger. So they really are married, huh? That’s sweet. They’re perfect together.

Ted smiles affectionately and pats Paint’s head; he’s taller than the artist, now, and it’s kind of amusing seeing Paint look up to him. “Hey, Paint-ler. Long time no see; I’m just here ‘cause the rain was so bad last night, and you guys were conveniently on the way. Thought I’d stop by and say hi, and, you know, take advantage of Gold’s hospitality. Or, um, yours, too; I see you two tied the knot, huh?” and he points to Paint’s ring. “That’s so great, man. Congrats.”

Paint flushes and twists the ring idly with his opposite hand. “Heh, yeah… It was really romantic, actually… Gold proposed to me the same way he showed me that his curse would no longer work on me; in the gardens, in a booth and table set up there, over a three-course dinner. He took out a box, removed his glove, and turned a wooden ring gold, saying that I make his dull life bright, and he wants me to be with him forever, and just… yeah,” he explains, rambling, shaking his head. “Sorry, probably more than you wanted to hear, actually… But it was one of the happiest moments of my life, and even five years later, it still makes me smile.”

The smiling feeling is mutual. “That really is romantic, and it suits you two. I’m so happy for you guys,” he replies genuinely. He looks around. “Speaking of which, where is your hubby? I need to thank him for having such open doors, you know?”

“He went downstairs already,” Paint yawns, rubbing at one eye. “I was just heading there myself, to join him. It always takes me longer to get out of bed than it does him,” he chuckles. “I’m… kind of lazy that way…”

“Nah, he’s just accustomed to years of waking up early and going to work. You’re an artist; it’s not like you have to clock into your studio,” Ted reassures, and Paint laughs.

“Yeah, yeah; that’s true…” he peers over at Theo as they walk together down the stairs. “It’s so weird, seeing you all grown up like this! Last I remember you, you were having troubles with Magic Anons and ghosts and stuff and… you were, uh, kind of a lot shorter.”

Ted laughs heartily at that and runs a hair through his shower-damp spikes. “Yeah, well… time changes a lot of things, I guess. Although you’re pretty much the exact same! If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a vampire or something; like, forever young!”

Paint smiles and shakes his head at that. “Heh, no… I have some worry lines starting to show, even if I’m only in my late twenties. I keep getting into messes, even now. I don’t know how Goldy puts up with it.”

“Because he loves you, silly,” Ted replies with a roll of his eyes. He looks off to the side as they reach the bottom of the stairs and start down the foyer, toward the kitchen again. “Wish I had someone like that. I don’t need protection or anything – I can handle myself – but I’m starting to want someone who cares about me that much. It seems nice.”

“It is nice. –Uh, n-not to rub it in or anything! I just mean… well… I don’t know what I would do without Gold. I never really felt too lonely before – I was always focused on my artwork – but after meeting him, and befriending him, and falling in love with him… I can’t think of life without him. Which is, of course,” he smiles shyly, “Why I said ‘yes’ when he proposed. I didn’t even need to think about it for a second, it was so automatic. I was shocked and breathless and a little scared, since he was still asking it even after he found out about all my secrets, but even that didn’t stop me from saying yes so fast, haha…” He clears his throat at they enter the kitchen, and Gold spies them both. “Anyway, you’ll find somebody Teddy. You’re still really young, so it’s bound to happen sooner or later.”

Ted watches as Paint walks up to Gold and wraps his arms around his neck and greets him ‘good morning,’ around little kisses. Then Gold peers past his husband, one hand still around Paint-ler, the other coping a steaming mug, and he asks, “Who is this? You look familiar, stranger.”

“Don’t play around, Gold! I know you recognize him,” Paint giggles, pulling away just enough to turn around to face the same way. He holds Gold’s hand on his hip and rubs a thumb over Gold’s knuckles as he says, “Can’t you tell? It’s Teddy. Ted Wiggins.”

Gold’s face breaks into a smile. “Ah, Ted. I thought it might be you, but I wasn’t sure. You have grown a great deal, my boy.”

“Yeah, I know; that’s what everyone keeps saying to me,” Ted huffs a laugh and rubs the back of his neck. He points to the coffee maker behind Gold. “Mind if I have some of that while I tell you why I’m here?”

“Not at all. In fact, I insist you do,” Gold replies. He gestures to the sitting room through an archway and down the hall a ways. “Let’s all have a sit and chat a while. There’s no rush this morning; it’s Sunday, after all.”

“Thanks,” Ted smiles, and he makes himself a cup and follows the couple to the sitting room, the pair sitting together on the loveseat while Ted takes the sofa. Ted sips at the hot beverage, nearly burning his tongue, then decides to speak first. “So, uh. I was coming back from a town in desperate need of Truffula trees when it started to downpour; like, really badly. And I rode for hours – still a bit sore in the legs for it, to tell you the truth – and I realized I was coming up on your mansion, and I thought, ‘Okay, I need a place to stay, and Gold-ler’s an old friend… maybe he’ll let me in for the night.’ And so I ride up and buzz in, and the maids let me in, and that’s that, really. I hope you don’t mind? I feel kinda bad, just singing by after years of absence, but…”

“No, not at all! It’s fine, Ted, it really is. It’s brilliant, seeing you again, and it’s just the thing to pick us up. Things have been a little hectic and a bit worse for wear as of late, so this is splendid, it really is,” Gold-ler reassures speedily, bright smile in place, his gold tooth winking Ted’s way.

“Oh, okay. Good. That’s a relief. I’m not even staying long; I’ll be out of your way before noon.” He sips at his coffee. “And it’s Theo, by the way. I don’t really go by ‘Ted’ anymore; it’s been years since I’ve used it.”

“Theo, then,” Gold smiles. “But that won’t do, you leaving so soon; not seeing you for years is precisely why you should stay, and not ‘get out of the way.’ Like I said, we could use the uplifting distraction. Plus, I think Black would like it if you stayed at least a week.”

“Black?” Ted coughs into his mug and pounds his chest, coffee going down the wrong pipe. He glances up, teary-eyed from the sudden constriction in his throat. He struggles to swallow without coughing, and wipes at his eyes as the pain of nearly choking subsides. “Did you talk to him or something?”

“Yes, briefly, before you and Paint entered the kitchen,” the businessman answers smoothly, taking a delicate slurp pf his coffee, as if he knows something. “He mentioned that he saw you at a biker bar last week, and then went on to say that I might see you again soon. He sounded quite cryptic; now I know why. He knew you were already here. And it’s odd, the look he got on his face; sometimes I forget how fond he was of you. He might never admit it, but I think he’s happy you’re here.”

“…What makes you say that?” Theo mutters as he looks away and drinks more coffee.

“Oh, BlackGold and I have an emotional tie to one another that has never faded – only become easier to ignore, I think – since he obtained his own body. I think it stems from the fact that he was spawned from my negative emotions in the first place, but that’s beside the point. The point is,” he explains, “I know what he’s feeling at intervals of intense emotion, and it’s useful to know when he’s lying or not, or what sort of mood he’s in when I want to confront him. And he has been feeling rather down lately – worst out of all of us – but a week ago I felt the tug that his spirits were lifting, and this morning he was acting grumpy outwardly, but the joyful glow I was feeling radiating off of him from inside told me otherwise.”

“…And you think that’s my doing? Feh,” Ted scoffs, his ears burning with a blush he’s grateful the other two can’t see, “Sorry, Gold-ler, but I’m calling your bluff. Black’s not like that, especially not about me. I’ll still take you up on the offer of sticking around for a few days, though. Before, I wanted to jam as soon as I could, but sitting here with you guys… I missed it.”

--

After coffee and some easygoing, reuniting conversation with the artist and the businessman, Theo leaves his mug near the kitchen sink and heads out around font, putting on his sneakers before walking out the front door, hands in his pockets, jacket draped over his shoulders, sleeves limp at his sides.

He finds Black out there, looking over his bike. It’s muddy and speckled with the dry circles of rain, and there is still a bit of dew lingering on the shadowed side by the hedges.

“You really need to clean this thing. You trashed it,” BlackGold remarks as he hears Theo approach him. “What were you doing, riding through a junkyard? Because that’s where it’ll end up if you’re not careful with it; you’re gonna break it if you keep roughing it up like this.”

“Nah, that bike’s been through Hell and back. I think it’ll be just fine after a little washing, and maybe a checkup on a few bolts that need tightening around the back wheel ‘n’ axle. But other than that, trust me, it’s fine. She gets beat up worse than I do half the time, yet soldiers on.” He steps forward, beside Black, and reaches out to pat the small headlight between the handles of the motorbike. “Me and Audrey II here have been through a lot together, so I know just how to handle her. Don’t judge me, man.”

“Audrey II? Really?” Black snorts. He turns and the gravel under his heels crunch. “You know what, I’m not even gonna dignify that with a retort. Have fun cleanin’ your bike, kiddo. See you around sometime.”

  “That’s gonna be sooner than you think,” Theo replies casually as he kneels onto one knee and brushes off some of the dried, caked mud with a fingerless-gloved hand. “Because you were right, Gold does want me to stay a while. And I agreed to it. He offered a week, which is a bit much, so I think I’ll only be around for about five days, but hey, that’s plenty of time for us to catch up more, don’t you think, Blackie?” and he glances up over his shoulder, Black halted in his tracks.

“That so? Huh. I knew it. Couldn’t resist seeing me again, could ya?” he asks, shifting to smirk down at Ted.

“Pff, what makes you think you’re so special? I’m here for Gold and Paint, and maybe to say hello to whoever drops by to visit them, and maybe get into a scrap or two with some Anons for old times’ sake. You have nothing to do with it, sorry,” he lies, grinning, and Black pretends to look hurt.

“You little runt,” Black twitches a sneer a second later. “I’m getting you back for that comment. Better watch your back.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” he counters effortlessly, and Black sends him one last smile before retreating back into the house.

--

It’s just to fuck with him. That’s all it is. That’s why he bothers Ted about an hour later, while the young man is still vigilantly cleaning and fixing up his bike after its harsh ride through the rain last night.

Black picks up the gardening hose on the ground near Ted and squirts it at the biker’s back, causing him to leap to his feet and glare at the older man. “What the hell was that for?”

“What, you didn’t want me to hose you? I’m so sorry, I was misled by the convenient placing of the hose at my feet and my promise of payback on you earlier this morning,” BlackGold replies with mock innocence, but every word is dripping with playful sarcasm.

“Har har,” Ted rolls his eyes, wiping water from his chin as it drips down from the back of his neck. He stands and grins. “For ruining my ‘do, I should bust you up. Wonder if I can take you in a wrestling match now, old man.”

“Old man?! Them’s fightin’ words, pal. Hope that smudge of dirt you call a soul patch on your chin isn’t proof of your manly strength, ‘cause if it is, you’re in for a sore losin’.”

Theo tugs on his gloves to make sure they are securely in place. Black does the same with his bandages, tightening them around his palms. The biker challenges, “Heh. You won’t be saying that when you look up at me from the flat of your back, Oily.”

“Bring it, Mohawk.”

  He charges at the dark-haired man, throwing a punch that Black blocks smoothly as he takes a step back on one leg to steady himself, then he throws a blow of his own that Ted deflects to one side.

“Hey, you’re pretty good. Get in a lot of scraps, do ya?” Black says in between licks and punches that he either dodges or throws, and no hits are landing, only the collision of forearm to shin to block a flying limb.

“Yeah. You learn to protect yourself when you’re in and out of biker bars on the road and a lot of people don’t want you to plant trees without their consent to better the environment,” Theo responds also choppily, between more quick punches and kicks, but they are evenly matched in one way or another, causing a decent stalemate in their sparring.

In the end, They are leaning with their hands on their knees and laughing together, breathlessly at first, then stumbling over to the circle of grass in the center of the curved path in the front yard, collapsing into the green blades comfortably, their bodies angles slightly toward one another.

“Ha, that was fun. Gold doesn’t go fisticuffs with me anymore. Kind of wish he would have beat each other up more, though. I mean, I’m stronger than you, clearly, but you’re super fast, kid. Hardly could black you fast enough. It was crazy. And awesome.” And he glances over at Theo, grinning. He fists a handful of grass between his claws and tears it out, chucking it Theo’s way.

“How is it you’re thirty-something, and yet still a huge fucking dork, when it boils down to it?” the rebel youth snorts, ripping up some grass into his own hand and propping himself up on one elbow, sprinkling the grass over Black’s oil-stained shirt, watching a few blades fall beneath his shirt collar and land on his clavicle, his throat. He drops his hand to the ground, then, eyes locked with BlackGold’s. His smile fades.

There’s a fraction of a second (one Ted blames, in retrospect, because he can be a bit analytical at times, on the adrenaline of their harmonized roughhousing) during which Ted damn near leans down and snatches up a kiss from Black on impulse. It’s followed by a fraction of a second that he swears Black is about to lean up and do the same thing for a similar reason, but the moment is shattered when Paint-ler’s voice reaches their ears.

“Heeey! Black, Theo!”

Theo jerks into full sitting position, legs folding automatically into a pretzel-shape, and Black puts his arms up under his head and slides a leg to bend at the knee as he pretends to look up at the clouds.

“There you two are!” Paint smiles and comes up to them, plopping down in his ever-fashionable overalls, fresh paint on his hands, as well as near his nose and forehead, where he must have gone to scratch an itch and forgot he was covered in paint. “I was wondering where you guys went off to. Sometimes I lose track of time when I start painting, haha…”

“I was just out here fixing up my girl, when this asshole decided to spray me with the hose,” Ted accuses, pretending to glare to his left, where Black is looking suspiciously flabbergasted.

“What? Come on, I would never do that. He’s a filthy liar. Don’t listen to him.” Then he’s chuckling deeply and sitting up, pushing himself to his feet and dusting his clothes of grass. “I’m going to… go force a maid to refresh my bandages for me. The oil’s starting to seep through.” And he’s gone, heading back into the mansion.

“Yeah, you do that, Slick,” Theo calls after him, then stands and offers his hand to help Paint-ler up. He slips his hands into his pockets and nods at Paint’s messy attire. “Did you come out here to show us what you painted?”

“Oh! Yes, actually; haha, I nearly forgot…” Paint replies with a smile. He points back at the house. “It’s something I’ve been working on for the past week, and I finally finished it, I think! I want anyone’s opinion I can get, though.”

“Yeah, I get it. Show me,” Theo smiles easily, following the artist inside. “I bet whatever it is, it’s great. And I can’t wait to see what improvement you’ve made after all these years.”

“Oh, it isn’t much, really…” Paint replies humbly, and they continue talking as they make their way up to Paint’s studio.

When it’s silent, and he has a thought to himself, Theo has to actively try not to think about BlackGold. He also doesn’t want to linger on why the man is suddenly on his mind, the thoughts annoyingly zealous and outrageously impudent.

He scowls at himself when Paint-ler isn’t looking. He says nothing but positive (truthful) things regarding the masterpiece, and then makes his exit.

--

That little runt won’t get out of his head.

It’s really fucking obnoxious, because everything was chill and fine and he had a routine, and then it gets all screwed up because he went and flirted with (and tried to pick up) the same stupid kid he knew years ago, but without realizing it until the brat piped up.

And it’s absurd, like really insane, because it’s the fact that he was instantly attracted to Ted that makes this so annoying. It would be fine, no big deal at all, if he chatted up (and slept with) anyone else, even if they were the same age. Because then there isn’t history in the way to make the attraction feel awkward; and then there isn’t a chance he will see that person again. And as soon.

Part of him is glad to see little Teddy again, of course; as a prepubescent and early-pubescent kid, he was like the younger brother Black (and Gold and Paint) never had, and he was cute and fun to joke about with and they had some days of just sitting and reading together or playing at being critics of a film with one another, and it was great.

But age changed them both; they drifted apart. Even now they are technically in different parts of their lives, even though Black doesn’t act like it. BlackGold still acts very much like he’s in his twenties, and Gold disapproves of it, calling him immature at times, because all Black tends to do is sleep around with people and hang out in bars and bother whoever will stand to be in his presence.

Black is a nuisance and he knows it, and sometimes he revels in it, and other times it makes him feel like the loneliest person on the planet, because he purposely pushes people away, but in the same token, wishes they would accept his nature and grow closer to him. It’s a contradiction and a game, and Black is slowly getting tired of playing it; yet it’s his own fucking game, so go figure.

BlackGold sighs and leans against the wall in his bedroom. Since Ted showed up again, he’s felt so much better. Because even with all their antics, Ted kind of was the only person who never knew him as, ‘the guy who showed up when Gold was in a rage’; Ted never saw him as, ‘the monster who hurt people without remorse’; Ted didn’t even think of Black once as merely a fragment or consciousness without a heart or soul; instead, Ted only ever saw the good in BlackGold, the part of him that was a majority of him: a human being who could laugh, who could be short-tempered, who could enjoy simple pleasures, who could cry and blush and be wounded and had thoughts and feelings and aspirations and desires.

Teddy was a good friend, one of Black’s few real ones apart from the (reluctant, but secretly appreciated) bond he already had with Gold (and Paint, but association). And this is all why it feels so strange to suddenly be pacing his bedroom floor, rubbing his lips raw against the edges of his teeth as he attempts to shove down the sensations bubbling up.

He keeps thinking how he was so close to kissing Ted a few times already – at the bar, in the grass – and the latter even while he knew exactly whom he wanted to kiss. That’s never happened before, really; he’s never sat there and hesitated, and he’s never before thought about Teddy in such a way, and it kind of unnerves him.

Because before, Ted was just a kid. That’s all. Things were simple. He wasn’t interested then.

But now… Ted is older, a man, and he’s fucking hot and everything about him – even down to his damn road rash scars – is fucking sexy and Black has never much been the one to have a moral conflict with himself, has never honestly vacillated in pursuing someone he was interested in (unless they were dating someone else; he respected that much, like with Negathneed, even if it hurt a little), and yet it’s happening.

Black growls and punches the wall, satisfied by the thud produced. His mind races as he tried to think about what to do with this. Most problems, he has learned, really will disappear if they are ignored long enough. And Ted – Theo, he corrects, because it suddenly feels out of place to use the same name as he called the boy in the past; it’s like mixing something innocent with something corrupt, and it feels so wrong – will only be here a few days, and if BlackGold is lucky, he can wait out these bizarre-o feelings and let them blow over after a while.

Still, it might not hurt to talk to someone about this. Who wouldn’t judge him?

He snaps his claws. Kink-ler, of course; he (she, at the time; magically changed by an anonymous sorcerer) was the first person Black had said with, and Kink’s a good pal and someone who’s seen all the ways of the world, for the most part, and is perfect for advice about anything remotely sexual.

So, picking up the phone in his room, Black dials Kink-ler’s place and waits for the rings. It only takes two.

“Hello?”

“Kink, hey,” Black greets casually. He becomes gradually more anxious about it, however. “Got a question for you.”

“Oh? And here I thought you were done with sleeping with me, baby. Did you change your mind~?” Kink teases into the phone, and the slight crackling noise over the line tells Black that the other man is twirling his phone cord around his finger, like he often does.

“Huh? No, it’s not… I’m not propositioning you for sex, Kink. I have a legitimate question to ask you, all right? Like… I need advice, or whatever,” he sighs and mutters under his breath, begrudgingly giving up the information. He hates admitting that he needs help, but in this case, he really can’t proceed without a second opinion, because his own head is too stuffed up with inconsistencies.

“…Really? You need my advice? Black, honey, that is way too delicious. You never ask for help. So please, by all means, go right ahead! Ask away! I am more than delighted to assist you, darling,” Kink-ler persists, his tone so infuriatingly enthusiastic that Black starts to lose his cool.

“Look, you know what, this was a dumbass idea. I should just leave it be. It’s really none of your business, now that I think about it,” he growls, and he’s about to hang up when Kink interrupts him with an outburst.

“Wait a second! Black, dear, what’s wrong? You’re more agitated that usual… What sort of problem is this that it has you all worked up?” Kink prods with heavy concern in his tone.

“It’s stupid, okay? It’s…” Black sighs deeply and switches ears with the phone as he notices his palm getting sweatier and oilier than usual, starting to seep through his recently changed bandages. He doubles up on the wrap on that hand and continues talking, phone pinned to his shoulder with his head as he wraps more cloth around his hand. “What’s the biggest age gap between you and someone you were, uh, interested in?”

“Interested in how? Sexually?”

“…Duh. I wouldn’t be talking to you if it was all fluff and romance. I could just bother Gold about that, since the guy is a hopeless romantic; always has been, always will be. I mean, come on! He’s only ever been with one guy. Lost his V-card to the same person he married. Guy’s all about romance, you know? And me, I just like to fuck. But this time is… unique,” Black replies. His tone is condescending and mocking at first, but as he carries on, that feeling starts to peter out, and he’s left searching for the right word as his mind is brought back to the point.

“Because you and this new person you’re interested in is… what, older than you? Younger than you? It should hardly matter if they are older; you are over halfway to forty now, sweetheart. No way around it, either, even thought you still act like you did ten years ago. Still, if they are younger than you… that does pose as more of a problem. Hmm,” Kink puzzles, “Thinking on it, I believe the most of a gap between me and one of my clients was approximately nine, ten years? Something like that. They were older than me.”

“Yeah, okay, so… what if, hypothetically, the age gap was more like… I dunno, sixteen years?”

“…You naughty boy!” Kink giggles after a short bout of silence. The way he says the next line makes Black imagine the suggestively dressed man shaking his head at him. “That is a bit dangerous. Not for them; they would still be legal, of course, and it would be fine for a one-night stand, but something tells me you want to have sex repeatedly with this person, and that could build a relationship, dear, whether you want one or not, and there might be too many differences between the two of you, considering you are technically middle-aged while they are still fresh and young.”

“Thanks, Kink, you’re making me feel loads better about this whole situation. I see now that I am a deranged fuck and shouldn’t bother with this, because it’s morally indecent and can only turn sour,” Black snorts, and he grips the phone tightly, wishing to crush it. But he needs to end this conversation first.

“What? Come now, don’t put words in my mouth! I don’t think that at all. –In fact, I think, if you want my advice, I say go for it, because if they want you enough in return, none of it will matter! Honestly, as long as they are legal and willing, I see nothing wrong with it. Personally, I could care less what the age difference is between two people; as long as they are compatible otherwise – especially in bed~ – then I say, live and let live!”

“Wait. Let me get this straight. You… really see nothing wrong with this?”

“No, but I find it adorable that you are having a moral dilemma over it! I didn’t think you got those, since you hit on anything that moves that you find attractive, and tend not to bat an eyelash when you throw a punch. You must really like this person to stop and wonder about whether or not you should pursue them! Makes me kind of jealous for our old flame; I’m not sure you ever felt that way about me…” and his pout is evident even over the phone, but the air about it is still light and playful, so Black doesn’t take it to heart too much.

“So, what, you’re basically saying I have a crush and that I should pursue this guy even though he’s way younger than me?” Black retorts, a little taken aback, and he hates the way his blood vessels betray him by flooding his cheeks. “I don’t have a fucking crush! And how do I even tell if he’ll be all for it? He doesn’t really act any different than he used to around me…”

“Whoa, whoa, wait. Slow down there, tiger. First of all, it’s a ‘he’? All right, good, we’re getting more to the specifics, but it’s also someone you know? Well, someone you used to know, anyway? –Now I’m afraid you’re going to have to elaborate,” Kink scolds airily, and waits patiently for an answer.

Black grinds his teeth together, tearing up the skin inside his cheeks, but he could care less if he gets a canker sore or something. He faintly tastes blood, and he hisses back, “Yes, all right? Yes. He’s a guy I used be acquainted with, but I haven’t seen him in a few years.”

“But he’s only twenty now, you said so yourself he’s sixteen years your junior. And you haven’t really known many minors, except for maybe –” and Kink cuts himself off with a gasp. “Ooh, Blackie, how scandalous! It isn’t Teddy, is it? Don’t tell me now what he’s all grown up, he’s become sexy enough that you want to disregard your old relationship with him and get into his pants?”

“N-no, if course I – Sh-shut up! Uhg! I am done talking to you!” Black snaps, but oddly, he doesn’t hang up yet. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t. He merely changes ears again and makes an effort to swallow.

“…Hot damn. He is sexy enough, then, huh? Interesting… Maybe I should see for myself~,” Kink purrs, and Black’s immediately reaction is a shrill sound that makes Kink pull the receiver away from his ear.

  “You better not!”

“Temper, temper! I was only kidding, Black! Goodness… you are touchier than usual today. Are you sure you don’t want to take a break from this and come see me anyway? Just for coffee or cocoa or something, to calm you down. Would you like that? I think we should talk this over a bit more,” Kink-ler offers kindly.

Black sighs loudly and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You know what? Yeah, I think I will. Tomorrow. I need a break away from him for a while. He’s staying in the mansion right now.”

“So it really is dear old Teddy, isn’t it? You never confirmed it; I jumped to a conclusion, but apparently a correct one. Oh, my. It must be so odd for you, I’m sorry. Still, I can’t say I blame you. I’m sure he grew up well; he always was a good kid, and he had nice bone structure, so I figured he would be attractive one day. I find it intriguing, though… How did this even come about?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you tomorrow when I come over. Is noon fine?”

“Yes, that’s perfectly well. Gives me time to sleep in and still get ready. See you then, sweetie. Goodbye.”

“Yeah, bye.” And he lowers the phone, about to hang up, when he hears Kink say something else. He raises it to his ear again to listen.

“Oh, and BlackGold?”

Black rolls his eyes. “What?”

There is a soft smile in his voice. “I’m glad you called. I was afraid we drifted apart too much at one point, so it’s comforting to know we’re still friends.”

  “You were my first fuck, Kink. That kind of makes you permanently my friend, I think. By my standards, anyway.”

Kink-ler laughs at that one. “I will take that as a compliment, I think. Anyway, g’bye.”

--

Theo rides through the night, rain still heavy even in this part of the valley. He starts coming across remnants of civilization after a whole, riding past places, looking for somewhere to stay the night and clean himself up before he catches a cold. He passes by a couple sleazy, run-down motels near abandoned gas stations, and sometimes he camps out in those, but he could use a hot shower and a bed, thanks.

That’s when it dawns on him that he has been, somewhat subconsciously, heading for Gold-ler’s mansion.

He attributes it to the fact that he recently met Black again, and therefore has been reminded of his old friend with the Midas touch, and is hopeful (and almost certain) that Gold won’t turn him down if he shows up, muddy and tired and wet, in the middle of the night.

He pulls up to the front gates and buzzes in. The voice of a maid answers him. “Who is it? It’s such a late hour for visitors…” he hears her add in a mumble under her breath.

He presses the pager and replies into the speaker over the whoosh of rain, “Theo– Uh, Ted Wiggins! Can I come in? Please?”

There’s a pause of thought, and then, “Oh! I remember you, Master Ted!” the woman replies cheerfully. “Yes, yes; one moment, please. It’s been so long…” she adds, once again, to herself, but he can hear her.

The golden gates swing open and he revs his bike, half-walking it as he coasts down the path and parks it off ot he side of the main doors, near some bushes. He puts up the kickstand and walks under the awning, removing his helmet and fiddling with the goggles around his neck.

A maid – Rachel, by the look of her, if he remembers names and faces correctly – answers the door and greets him with a smile. She hastily put her work apron on over her nightgown, and she flushes a bit under the shadow of her fringe as she looks him up and down. “Oh! You’re soaked…”

“Yeah. Sorry for the mess I’ll make; I’ll help you clean it later, if you want. I’ll leave me shoes outside on the stoop, and maybe you can bring me a towel now so I don’t drip too much on the rugs?” Theo apologizes and looks at her hopefully.

“Yes! Um, right away, Master Theodore,” she mumbles, and then Muriel meets her halfway in the foyer, glancing past her at Ted, waving quietly, and also looking like she was disturbed out of bed. He feels bad about that – it’s after midnight, he believes, judging by what he can see of one of the grandfather clocks across the way form him in the entrance hall – but he’s grateful they let him in at all.

“We’ll have to inform Master Gold-ler in the morning,” one maid says to the other, “It’s best not to disturb his rest now. He was so tired today…”

Moments later, Ted has a towel on either side of him, the maids insisting on rubbing him down for him, and he tries not to giggle, but it tickles a little, especially when they dry under his chin and over his ribs through his slinging shirt.

Theo lowers their towels with his hands and waves them off gently. “I think I’m good enough to go upstairs now. But I’ll, um, need some fresh clothes…”

“Master Gold keeps spare clothes in the guest room, ones that… should fit you, actually,” Rachel replies. “Your shoulders aren’t as broad as Master Gold’s, but you are… certainly tall enough to fit his extra clothes.”

Ted huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I’m… I had quite the growth spurt since the lot of you last saw me years ago. I’m a little over six feet tall, now. Six-two, actually.” And he shrugs, because with all his dressing up and the teasing he got when he was younger, he wound up growing to Once-ler-like height after all.

They show him to the guest bedroom and where the general bathroom is, in case he has forgotten. They instruct him to leave his dirty clothes in an empty hamper and to leave it outside of the bathroom door for them to pikc up in half an hour or so, when he’s finished bathing. Then they bow and leave him, returning to the servants’ quarters downstairs.

The biker grabs some towels out of the closet in the bathroom and spreads one on the floor to step out onto, then hands one near the shower. He shivers at the cold as he peels off his muddy and wet clothing, putting them in a hamper the maids told him to use, leaving it by the door, inside, to put out when he’s done.

Ted welcomes the warm shower water pouring down over him like the arms of an old flame, sighing gratefully under the spray as he turns up the heat and rinses the mud and rain from his hair and skin. He lathers up with a fresh bar of soap he found under the sink, and he borrows whatever shampoo and conditioner is in the shower stall; they are tiny bottles, actually, like a hotel, and he scoffs mentally at it, because of course, being rich, Gold can do that.

Ted scrubs himself clean and shivers a few times under the heat, his clammy bodying trying to readjust. The rain was non-stop and bracing and cold, and it doesn’t help that he often goes a bit too fast on his bike, the wind making it all the worse. Still, it’s soothing, and when he finally steps out, he feels cozy in the hanging steam in the air, and after toweling himself perfectly dry, he looks around.

Shit. He forgot to grab the spare clothes. Fuck…

Well, no one is awake at one a.m., he supposes, so it should be fine if he simply gets a fresh towel to tie around his waist and trek back to his room that way.

So Ted drapes his hair towel around his shoulders and folds one around his hips, gooseflesh rising as he shuts off the bathroom light and opens the door to the cooler air of the hallway, steam rushing out above him.

He puts the hamper out where he was told to leave it, then starts to walk down the dimly lit hall, the only light coming from a couple windows and open doors here and there.

There’s a figure at the end of the hall, emerging from a room and walking toward him. Ted inhales stiffly through his nose; so much for not being seen. But the figure doesn’t have the flow of a dress or skirt, so it’s not one of the maids, at least.

In fact, it’s male, although too tall to be Paint-ler. Ted steps closer to get a better look, and hopefully turn into his room before he has to confront the person.

BlackGold stops dead in the middle of the corridor, his eyes narrowing in the dark. Then he inches closer, skeptical, and Ted slows his pace to meet the man halfway. “…What are you doing here?”

Theo acts aloof, lifting a shoulder and cocking his head slightly in a shrug. He runs his hand through his wet, mussed hair, pushing it back from his face. Internally, he wishes it were anyone but BlackGold that he came across tonight. “It was raining. I needed a place with a hot shower and a bed for the night, so I didn’t catch a cold, and could get some sleep. This was in the right direction, so I stopped by. I thought Gold probably wouldn’t mind – he’s generous with people in need, and I miss him and Paint-ler; seeing you earlier this week reminded me how much – and so… here I am.”

Black raises a brow, whispering to prevent anyone from waking up, “How’d you get in?”

“The maids let me in, duh. Who else? –What, you think I broke in, crashed the place? I know I look a little rough now, but you know me; that isn’t me,” Ted answers, equally quiet, rolling his eyes and securing his towel with one hand. “Rachel’s been making sure I have what I need. In the morning, after all my stuff is cleaned and ready to go, we’re going to break it to Gold that I was here, but then I’ll be gone again by the time he has his morning cup of joe, so it really doesn’t matter.”

“He won’t stand for that, you know,” Black snorts, crossing his arms over his chest. He sounds amused. “He’ll be all gentlemanly and whatever, and ask you to stay for a few days.”

The biker grins and aims to taunt the older man. “Aw, will he, or is that simply your way of asking me to stick around longer, Blackie?”

BlackGold opens his mouth to say something, then scowls, clearly deciding against it. He counters instead, “Depends. Is that your way of saying you hope that I want you to stay? –You want me to say that I missed you or some shit, right? Well, it ain’t gonna happen. You were a cool kid and all, and we had some good times, but that doesn’t mean I missed you. And I won’t again.”

“You break my heart, Black,” Theo feigns a pout as he puts a hand to his bare chest. “Because even though I didn’t stay in contact with all of you for a while, that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about you from time to time and miss you guys. But if I wasn’t missed in return…”

The older man looks away, irritated. “Tch. Don’t be a brat. Of course they missed you.”

“But not you, huh? Damn. And here you were the one I missed the most,” Ted replies, and he isn’t lying to play it up. It’s actually true. Out of all the people he knew, he was the closest with two of three of them; and one of those select few was Black. Even at the time, it didn’t seem like it, but they had a bond of some sort, one Ted couldn’t ignore existed.

“Yeah, sure.”

  “Come on. I mean it.”

Black raises a brow and glances back at Ted’s face, his eyes flickering up and down Ted’s body for a fraction of a second before he poses, “Wait, really? This isn’t some reverse-psychology mumbo-jumbo payback for hitting on you at the bar?”

“I cross my heart,” Ted smirks as he traces his pinkie finger’s nail in an ‘X’ over his sternum. Black’s eyes follow the action and he idly licks his lips before looking back at Ted’s face to answer.

“Okay, so you meant it, then. Whatever,” he shrugs it off, but in the back of his mind, he’s asking himself why. He doesn’t really deserve to be missed by anyone like that; he’s less of a dick than someone like, say, Right-ler, but he still is enough of one not to have earned someone’s care like that. He never thought he meant that much to Teddy; he always annoyed the kid and roped him into shit, so he figured, when the boy didn’t keep in contact with him over the years, he wasn’t valued enough to be missed at all.

He clears his throat, shuffling on his feet, and Ted has to ask, “Why are you awake this late, anyhow?”

“Was gonna go take a piss. Actually, I still need to, kind of urgently, so you should get to bed, runt. I’m tired of looking at your naked, scrawny body, anyway.”

“Rude,” Theo sniffs, “And such a lie, man. Just earlier this week you were prepared to fuck it.”

Black nearly jumps, and he thanks the powers that be that nighttime means the younger man can’t see the slight bit of heat rising to his face in his reminder of that embarrassment. “I don’t care if you’re twenty or fifty; good kid like you shouldn’t cuss like that.”

  “You do. Frequently. And you’re not too terribly much older than me, Black. We’re both adults.”

“Y-yeah, but—! It’s different when I do it, okay? And I never swore like that around you, so where to you get off using that against me, huh?” Black retorts, his voice raising a hair in octave.

“Point, point,” Ted nods, agreeing, “Counterpoint, if I may: I don’t care if you disapprove, because you have no authority over me. Now go pee before your bladder explodes, and leave me to get dressed. It’s chilly in the hallway.”

“Pff, I can tell. Your nip–” And he cuts himself off, mouth clamping shut as soon as he realizes what he’s saying. He growls agitatedly and pushes past Ted, headed for the bathroom. “Never mind. I really gotta go.”

Pretending he isn’t blushing at that would-be remark, the young man heads for his room and shuts the door behind himself, flicking on the light as he does so. The curtains are open, so he draws them shut before rifling through the dresser in the room, searching for something comfortable to wear to bed, as well as some underwear.

No such luck with the underwear, but he does find a pair of cotton shorts, as well as lounge pants and some t-shirts, and they work just as well when layered together. But once he puts on the shirt, Ted feels too hot to sleep in it, so he foregoes it entirely, re-folding it and stuffing it back into the drawer.

It’s a little warm in this room as a whole, to be frank. So, naturally, he returns to the door to open it back up, maintaining the air flow.

That’s when, of course, Black is heading back from the bathroom. He gives a start when he passes Ted’s door and it suddenly swings open, light spilling into the otherwise empty corridor. “Christ!” Black gasps, then stops and glares the other’s way. “Do you have to keep doing that? And where’s your shirt?”

“Too hot for it. And I didn’t think I’d have company again so soon,” Theo retorts. He shuts off the light and turns around, headed for bed. But BlackGold peruses him.

“Hey, that doesn’t mean you have a fever or something, does it? Let me check. If you’re sick, that means you’ll be stuck here for a few days after all, and I don’t think you want that. You sounded pretty keen on getting out of doge tomorrow morning,” he mutters, trying to put reasoning behind it, but in reality, he’s kind of upset by the idea that Ted could be ill. Until he got his own body, he only vaguely remembered the misery of being ill from what Gold experienced, but until he experienced it himself, he never knew how awful it is.

Ted sighs and turns around. “What are you gonna do, smudge up my forehead with your hands as you check my temperature? No thanks. I feel fine, anyway. It’s just a little warm in here. Can’t you feel it?”

“No. Which is why I am going to check; and I’m using the back of my hand, anyway, and most of the oil comes from my palms, all right? So don’t sweat it,” Black grumbles. He removes a bandage on one hand and touches the flat side to Ted’s forehead, even as Ted rolls his eyes. “…You’re burning up, man. Sorry to break it to you, but you really are stuck here at least for another twenty-four hours.”

The biker smiles at the hilarity of it all; BlackGold really cares. It’s funny. “What, are you a doctor now?”

“Shut up! I’m just saying, you were probably out in the rain too long, and fevers last about a day if they’re mild, right? Which this one seems to be, since you don’t feel sick otherwise.” He removes his hands quickly as if scorched by Ted’s mild fever, and backs up a step. That’s when he notices the scars. “Hey, what… You’re lookin’ pretty scarred up there, kid. What the hell happened?”

  Theo glances at his shoulder and pivots a foot on his toes to shoe more of his right shoulderblade and down one arm. “Oh, this? Eh, it wasn’t anything. A few years back I thought I could wear one of those ‘wife beater’ tank-tops and some jeans and be all right to hit the road on my bike. I like riding fast, pushing the speed limits and breaking what would be safe speeds entirely on unmarked roads, and I fell off and skid a ways and rolled, and got road rash. It never really healed up right, so I have some scar tissue. No big deal.” He smiles. “But I learned after that to get a cool leather jacket and wear it whenever I ride, now.”

“Cool? You don’t mean the one with the cheesy embroidered flames on it that you were wearing at the bar, right?” Black mocks. “‘Cause you can’t possible think that one is cool.”

He opts to forget that statement. His jacket is way cool, and Black just doesn’t have good taste. “How sweet, you remember what I was wearing after only seeing me once,” Ted says as he yawns and stretches his arms up. He doesn’t give BlackGold a chance for a rebuttal. “Anyway, I’m beat. I’d like to sleep now. So if you’re done badgering me…”

“Yeah, I’m through here. Later, loser,” he mutters, turning and exiting the room.

Shaking his head, the biker smiles to himself as he yanks back the sheets and slips in between them. They feel cool and inviting, and he gladly shimmies down and rests his head on the fluffy guest pillows, rolling onto his tummy to sleep.