#brit squad

Y'all knew this was coming

-Any chocolate eggs are ordered well, far and away in advance to make sure that they'll get shipped over in time. Kit makes sure of this. They also make sure that there's all the chocolate that Caddy could ever want or need.

-The Thursday afternoon after class before it's needed, there is the common coalition expedition to get the food necessary for thier Easter meal. Obviously, this means that they commandeer the shopping trolley again, that snacks (Ayu) go in the trolley, Shane goes under the trolley (or occasionally in the trolley if it's shinripetals), Caddy captains it and Kit steers it.

-The brit squad gets the obvious like a bird for roasting, an unholy amount of eggs, some vegetables, the ingredients for hot cross buns, ect.

-On good Friday, Kit and Ayu buddy up on making hot cross buns! Naturally, this leaves Shane and Caddy to work together, and whilst Shane tries to make them? Caddy still isn't over how Shane put Minneon Gummies into his stack of pancakes on pancake day. So Caddy upends a bottle of ketchup into Shane's batch.

-Thankfully, Kit and Ayu are able to make enough between them. The following day, Caddy and Shane are asked to please vacate themselves if they plan on doing such antics again because they have to prepare the hard boiled eggs.

-Caddy decides to "educate" everyone on why Easter is so important to western audiences. Being a giant troll, Caddy decides that the best way to do this is to treat Jesus like a hero from a superhero comic series and teach anyone a new version of history where "Jesus got into a fist fight with a giant rabbit that attacked him with crosses, called upon his chicken army and almost killed everyone but Jesus, in a move of great self sacrifice, died for the rabbit's sins and ended the apocalypse. Which is why Easter is important."

-With a mighty sigh Shane calls on Fife to help him teach what Easter is actually about because damnit, Caddy. Just because you don't take things seriously doesn't mean his friends don't.

-Caddy ends up meekly apologising to Fife over it, having forgotten that someone of the Christian faith attended the school. He ended up turning his wild and crazy, unrestrained energy instead to his toilet duck comics.

-The whole while, Kit and Ayu have been hardboiling the eggs (an effort to prevent the chaos of eggs being smashed tomorrow) and painting them different colours and patterns. It takes them a couple of hours, but they're able to make all the eggs look cute in the end.

-Easter Sunday, Kit gets up mega early to organise the Easter egg hunt. It's decided well ahead of time that as Easter isn't a strictly British holiday, any other Western students (Like Nate, Avery, Mads, Shawna and Fife) are allowed to join in on the fesitivities.

-This leads to Nate excitedly hopping from one foot to the other because he found the hidden egg that Ayu had painted with him in mind that had a shark on it.

-At late lunchtime they host the roast dinner. Everyone's only requested to eat as much as they actually want to, there's not a whole lot of pressure on Ayu to eat a lot and he does eat. A small amount. Kit pats him on the back and smiles.

-But when it comes to chocolate eggs Kit finally surrenders the one brain cell that they'd been holding onto.

Now with bonus angst!

I've been considering making this a thing for a few days, and @shinrijeu said it was okay to tag them so yay

***

Kit and Shane would have likely been "a thing" for a good little while, officially or not, before Kit realised what aromanticism was.

And it's not until they're all back in England and post graduation that Kit makes the realisation of "Oh. Oh shit. Oh no. Oh no."

The coalition is still a thing. Despite the fact that they're all still in England right now and deciding what they want to do with thier lives now that they've graduated. The four of them keep in regular contact. It's a bit harder to meet up but they're all regularly calling and chatting. It's good to still keep people within reach.

Kit and Shane have been spending most of that time either together. Or in the same basic proximity of each other. They've been... close for a long time. Its nice to just be able to spend time together.

But Kit knows, once they've made this realisation, that it's not fair to try and keep it from Shane.

They try and talk it over with him...

It does not go well. At all. In the slightest.

Shane gets quick to anger, feels betrayed. He doesn't understand and his feelings and mouth act before his brain

Kit just about holds it together enough to pack thier stuff together and leave. In the cab out of there, they have a freaking breakdown.

Because they do love Shane at this point. He's important to them, and theyve hurt him, and he's hurt them, and everything is horrible.

They call either Mads or Nate and ask to visit. Possibly long term. Because things just went south with Shane and they quite possibly need to be away from him now.

I mean. What else is there even tying them to England anymore?

But whoever it was they contacted wasn't thick. They knew that as much as Kit wanted to run, there were things to confront. They contact Ayu and fill him in on what they know. They get a spare room ready in case Kit does make it, but they secretly pray they won't.

Ayu leaps into action

Something up with Shane? An argument? Arguments used to be commonplace between the two, but now? This sounded. Serious.

Really freakin serious.

He grabs Caddy, says there's trouble amongst the coalition and the two of them are together and driving off to Shane- the only one of the two they can actually locate right now- because someone needs to explain what the fuck is happening.

It's also Ayu who's finally able to get some sense out of him.

And it's Ayu who makes sense of it and puts him in his place.

Shane had somehow gotten the term confused with "liar", "heartless", "emotionless" and most confusingly of all... some kind of yandere?? As though his brain had jumped to the conclusion that he'd simply found another 'main character'. That one he'd quickly worked out on his own was some kind of vast overreaction as well.

But Ayu made it clear to him that Kit was, in fact, none of those things.

They had never once lied when they said "I love you" - they'd been sincere, but just meant it slightly differently.

Of course they weren't heartless; would a heartless person be as warm or loving of the people close to them?

And Shane filled in the blanks on emotionless himself.

He'd watched Kit experience every emotion of the rainbow.

Happiness when a coalition stunt had gone well, laughter whilst watching Rustle Bowhard, heartbreak when confronting thier family, sadness at being misgendered...

Blind rage at the intruder that had threatened to abduct him, after meeting with his ex. Grabbing the first objects they could and just hitting them in an attempt to make them leave.

And the quiet reassurance that had followed once the intruder left. The concern, the care in thier eyes-

Almost as ridiculous as the yandere accusations. He also didn't need Ayu to tell him that.

It'd be up to conversation between the two as for if there was any kind of relationship that they wanted to salvage or not, but Caddy would not let him ruin the coalition like this.

According to messages from the friend that Kit had contacted, they'd been hinting that. They didn't want to come back to England again. How bad had the arguments been??

And they were due to get a flight from Heathrow the following morning.

Well. That would kick the coalition into action.

Caddy bundled everyone else into his car and drove the three of them. Overnight. Ayu riding shotgun, Shane in the back.

The three of them separated at the airport to look for Kit. Shane was naturally quite tense over the thought of having to be the one to convince them to stay.

So maybe it was just as well that it was Ayu who found them at the terminals. It did throw them off some with the whole "you were going to leave without saying goodbye?"

But it was Caddy who was able to hold them back by being blunt.

"you're going to run away from the problem again? start over until you find something else that hurts?"

It does throw them significantly off-kilter, especially when they spot Shane standing back a few feet away.

It looked like it was going to lead to another argument.

But Shane started saying that he was wrong and shouldn't have said what he did.

So Kit started repeating some of the things he'd said to them. And Shane confirmed each of them was wrong, flinching at a couple of statements.

And Kit clearly looked to be. At the end of thier tether. They excused themself to the ladies for five minutes.

They could hear the coughing from outside.

Kit reemerged a few minutes later, not looking a whole lot different asides from perhaps slightly less blotchy eyes. They said that they had until the time of the same flight tomorrow to change thier mind.

But Shane hadn't been paying attention to that.

He rubbed this thumb over the edge of thier lip to remove a few flecks of blood. He knew what it meant, in context.

And pulled them into a hug, mumbling an apology only they could hear.

Kit didn't... quite know how to respond? As they were still naturally kinda upset but also PDA wasn't normally his thing? At all? For a while Shane had been the only one Kit wouldn't hug because they learned he wasn't a fan.

But they did relax a little when both Caddy, and then Ayu joined the group hug.

Shane was again bundled into the back seats, this time with Kit and a couple of thier bags that hadn't fitted in the boot.

It was on the drive back to his place that Caddy made the comment to Ayu,

"you know what we need" "what" "a shopping trolley"

The excuse was made that they'd need to get something for dinner. He pulled into the Desco supermarket and got one of the largest trolleys they had.

Shane was put in the trolley basket first. Amidst a string of protests and "what are you doing pUT ME DOWN CADDY PUT ME DOWN"

They were placed in Shane's lap in the basket.

And Ayu was instructed to hang on to the end.

The journey into the supermarket naturally wasn't immediate. Racing around the car park and down a couple of hills first.

Not to mention some of Caddy's general tomfoolery with said shopping trolley.

And even once they were inside, they still had to contend with his general "destroy all minneons" antics, as well as him almost losing it in the magazine aisle when he found one dedicated to Pippa Pig.

The plan appeared to be making a full English breakfast for dinner.

Both Kit and Shane individually volunteered to cook. Caddy said that was fine, they could work together, as he and Ayu had something more important to do.

The "important" thing was naturally destroying the Pippa Pig magazine.

The two of them were able to work largely as a team, as they used to, as per Caddy's plan.

It likely wasn't Caddy's plan to find minneon gummies in his pile of bacon.

Shane rustled the packet in his pocket, Kit caught a glance of him doing that, and actually looked like they were trying not to laugh.

It was Kit who made replacement food though, when Caddy immediately set the plate on fire in retaliation.

The evening was spent watching old English VHS cartoons. Nobody made it to an actual bed that night, the coalition simply passed out wrapped up in blankets in different spots of Caddy's living room.

The following morning though, Shane had somehow ended up wrapped around Kit. Which indeed felt strange, because Kit normally found themself being jet pack.

Conversations took place over the next few days about what reconciliation would mean for the two of them.

Because ultimately? Shane found himself not wanting to let go? Happy with whatever they could offer, even if it wasn't the stereotypical relationship.

Because with Kit, the relationship wasn't stereotypical. They didn't use a typical term - 'datemate' - because it felt more comfortable. And they weren't your average typical person.

They had half a shaved head with green hair and coughed up feathers when they were stressed. Neither of these were generally considered "typical" things.

But he was happy with them.

He felt happier around them.

And if they couldn't love him back in the same way he loved them? Well. It'd be enough.

Because there was something oddly reassuring knowing that the face pressed into the back of your shoulder was willing to scream and wake everyone up to notify of an intruder or the arms wrapped around you would be content to use thier prized copy of Dungeons & Dragons 5E: The Player's Handbook as an improvised weapon to bash them over the head.

And sure. It would mean more learning, more understanding, more adapting and changing.

Because after all.

-They definitely would qualify for a dorm in petunia house?? (@blue-bismuth 's creation) And who knows that might even be where they go in thier last year once Mads graduates?? But like. They've had multiple roommate changes and tbh they like having a roommate? And being in primrose isnt such a big deal honestly, if they went into petunia then word might spread to thier grandparents, and that'd make things messy and things would get. Complicated.

-it's ultimately easier to stay in the familiar primrose. Also: roommate, which on lonely days is definitely a benefit and prevents them isolating themself.

-and most of the time they feel fine wearing the uniform-mandated skirts! They go swish-swish when they turn and its really satisfying like that. They just pair it with leggings so that they don't feel so. Exposed?

-the cravat, though? That can go to hell. Ties feel far more comfortable and gender-affirming.

-but they do have days where. Everything is gross. Dysphoria is a thing and thier chest is too large and even if they wear trousers and attempt to present in a more neutral way. Everyone uninformed always takes a look at them as either ""male"" or ""female"". And it's just a disgusting feeling because how are you meant to be perceived as neither, when most of the world doesn't think "neither" is an option.

-And Kit prays on those days that nobody accidentally misgenders them. Even a simple "miss" or "she" from a store owner or stranger just knocks them over like a stray leaf in the breeze and they're left trying not to sob incoherently in public.

-On those days Kit will pick a headstrong friend to attach themself to. Nate, Caddy, Fife, Mads, Ian? Honestly depends on the day, what anyone is doing, and how easily they'll just just be able to subtly glue themself to thier side.

-If they don't yet have a jacket of thier own (or don't get one?) in the cases of spacefeathers, yungfeathers or completionkit? Off comes thier partners jacket so that they can temporarily be drowned in a familiar nice sensation and smell. They love the feeling of big baggy clothes because they help hide curves and also it confy. And smells nice.

-Certainly Wallid, maybe Nate and Jeff make the point of. "well a lot of people call it a joke right now but Lowertale's protagonist?? Is kind of?? Nonbinary??" because it doesn't matter if you pick a hyper masculine male or female name, you can still wear skirts and boys clothes and it's kind of kept. Deliberately vague. Lowertale becomes a comfort game.

-Another comfort game is Journies. "its boring, Kit" Caddy complains, but there's no bite in his words. His friend is happy. The game is in fact beautiful and Kit can run around in a genderless cloak figure with a mile long pretty scarf and play in the sand. It's nice.

-on Kit's roughest days? Everyone accepts Kit's pronoun choice for thier favourite nokemon character, Enn. Kit's sad? Bring up Enn, refer to Enn with they/them. They'll always look slightly brighter, even if only a little, as it's a personal choice and far from official.

-Mads is very much one of those hyper-defensive people of thier pronouns, sticking on a film or a game in a blanket fort when they look miserable. But is also full of those motivational things like "nokemon can lack gender and so can you". Mads is 10/10 #1 defender of thier roommates presentation and identity.

-in the case of didyouknowfeathers especially, Shane makes a point in his comic that the genderfluid "Kitty" is never referred to by any gendered pronouns. "Kitty" is always referred to as "they/them" or swiftly corrected by one of the other super brit bros. Most often Cade, but Alec and Shin have both corrected reporters as well. On one rather memorable occasion, Shin drew a giant croquet mallet into existence, swung it at the antagonist that had been mocking Kitty's pronouns and presentation with a simple "please shut up". After this fight, Shin then puts his jacket over Kitty's shoulders. The moment is never explained by Shane.

- 8/10 whe Kit actually asks a fully vetted friend to carry them/ give them a piggyback? It's because gender feels disgusting and gross and don't want to move today, feels bad™. Most of the time they ask Nate, very occasionally Caddy. Because of the rarity of the ask, they are never turned down. It means Kit really wants a hug but knows rotting inside isn't the way forward.

-Although if it is Caddy, he'll shoot whoever Kit's crush or partner is a text telling them to meet up please with them please Kit needs some affection rn.