#colawrites

Trey thinks of all the times you’ve called him a pushover (affectionate). As if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black. How could you look him in the eye for four years and tell him to be more open, when you’ve been allowing an entire campus call you by the wrong name? Is he really the laid back one in this relationship here? God it’s ‘the girl with the green ribbon’ story all over again. When was he going to find out, when you’re both senile in a nursing home?

“Your name is … nice?" He adjusts his glasses slightly, if not a bit awkward. "I don’t know how I’m supposed to react in this situation. Just give me a second. Maybe sixty.”

Deuce is stuck remembering all the times he’s doodled your name in the margines of his notebook. He feels a bit slighted, did you not trust him? Did you think he wouldn’t believe you if you told him the truth? What’s he going to tell his mom? It already took a hour to convince her that ‘Yuu’ was your actual name and not some sick joke. You made him a liar! Dylla is not going to let him live this down. It’s 100% being mentioned to every party guest at your wedding and in her speech too.

“I already told my mom your name was Yuu!" He groans loudly, genuinely distressed "Do you know how hard that was to explain? Stop — stop laughing damn it! She is never going to forget this!”

Ace. Who doesn’t care. You’re ‘Yuu’. It’s what he’s called you these past four years and what he’ll keep calling you until the day you die. If you had a problem with it, you should’ve correct him before. Sorry, not sorry (secretly a bit miffed). Jokes aside — he takes absolutely no time getting over it and just mashes the names together into a nickname that sounds new levels of wrong. That becomes your permanent title.

“You just let me look stupid all this time, huh?” He clicks his tongue. “That’s messed up. So…do I get to pick now, or are we pitching names in magnets on the fridge like you’re a newborn? ‘Cause I’m cool with either.”

Leona is drifting through every thought he has ever had about you for the past for years. Your name spoken in his dreams, stuck on his tongue each time he watched you walk away. Etched in his eyelids and written in the red glow when sun blinds him awake in the morning. Spoken from his chest during moments of binding intimacy. All those moments now tainted by that damned Crow. He’s pissed you never once corrected him. Out of spite, you lose name privileges for an entire day. That old title of ‘herbivore’ coming back after a three year drought. In truth, he’s just buying a bit of time to figure himself out. Even though you’re the one who let him, calling you by the wrong name is a disrespect he cannot believe you allowed an entire campus get away with.

“Tch. So all this time, you let everyone get your name wrong and just sat there. If it bothered you, you should’ve said something.” He clicks his tongue, looking away. “You know what? Fine. Don’t make me out as the idiot for taking you at your word, herbivore.”

Ruggie writes your name on a piece of notebook paper and clips it to your collar. Makes sure to do it in the biggest red marker he can find too, so people know exactly what they’re seeing. He’s got secrets, yeah. Sure. Not from you though. Did you seriously expect him to take one look at that file and let it go? Do you have any idea how important it is to have your documents right (or at least convincing forgeries)? Never-mind that you’ve had him write home to his Grandma about you with the wrong name. For four years. She’s actually going to kill him for this. You are aware that hyena households are matriarchal, right?

“You know how hard it is to keep paperwork straight?” He taps the file against your head like it is obvious. “If you were gonna be all mysterious, you could’ve picked a better time. Sheesh. Gran's gonna have my tail for this...”

Jack can’t stop staring. His whole body went stiff and he forgot that it was just supposed to be a subtle glance over your shoulder. Now there’s this hunk of meat breathing down your neck, looming there like the words will change if he stares hard enough — because how. How do you go four years with someone and not tell them your real name? He feels even worse once you tell him the reason why you let everyone call you ‘Yuu’.

“…Oh.” His ears twitch, and his terse expression softens when you explain why you didn’t correct anyone. “So that’s why, huh.” A pause. “I get why you did it, but I wish you’d trusted me enough to tell me sooner. We could've set the record straight together. as a team.”

Azul dumps all your name-tags out on his desk for prime viewing. Mostro Lounge. Sams. Student ID. Newspaper Club ID. He does the same for all your old documentations. Train tickets, movie stubs, class schedules, etc. Don’t ask why he has these. Definitely not because they’re the only proof that you exist. Anyways. What do they all say? Oh, ‘Yuu’? And what is your name? Ha. Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Never-mind that you could’ve used this to cheese him out of a contract. He can’t believe you’ve held such an Ace up your sleeve and did not use it once.

“Fascinating. You had the perfect loophole and chose not to exploit it.” He exhales, somewhere between impressed and irritated. “I don’t know whether to applaud your restraint or question your judgment.”

Jade just found out your dirty little secret. He always had an inkling that you were hiding something from him. Yet the sense he got was unlike that of debtors intentionally fabricating stories. To him, a name is but a string of letters. Although this is good to know for when binding matters are concerned.

“I had wondered what you were withholding.” Jade chuckles into his closed fist. “But I must admit, I did not expect it to be something so straightforward.”

Floyd gets your last name and then instantly forgets it. Kidding! Does it really matter, when your last name is going to be ‘Leech’ anyway? For a long time he assumed you didn’t have one and was already content with sharing. Your first name is interesting. He thinks Crowley sucks for making an entire campus call you by somethin’ you’re not…but to Floyd, you’re always going to be ‘Shrimpy’. (He uses your given name often later on. Azul is Azul. Jade is Jade. When the time comes, you will be yourself too.)

“Hehe, that’s so weird. I thought you just didn’t have one, like a stray or somethin’.” Floyd grins, leaning closer. “Your last name’s gonna be Leech soon anyway, so who cares?”

Kalim feels guilty. Like the kind of guilt that gets passed down six generations. Despite his large family, he's made an effort to learn the names of all his siblings and cousins. Yet he's been addressing the literal love of his life as a pronoun?! You might think it's hilarious but this sweet summer child has an existential crisis. Naturally he'll laugh it off if you do, but it's like he's 16 again and there are important things about the people he cares about flying over his head. For the next week, expect him to overuse your name. Although, he is a bit sad. He's called you 'Yuu' for so long and he can't exactly forget how much love was poured into each time he spoke it. He still calls you Yuu sometimes out of habit, catches himself, then laughs it off, switching back and forth without much care.

“Wait—so I’ve just been calling you the wrong name this whole time?!” He laughs, a little too loud to sound natural. “No way — say it again, we can start over! Hi, I'm Kalim 'Al Asim. It's nice to meet you!”

Jamil is wondering how you've managed to survive this long. He knows for a fact that you've been to the doctor. Mainly because it was his butt seated in the waiting room with the same six shoddy pop-songs stuck on loop for two hours. Pure torture but necessary since you apparently had to be forced there. So just...why didn't you correct him when filling out forms back then? Better yet, why didn't you correct him at literally any point in time? It's been four years. Even if you were apprehensive at first for very valid reasons....seriously? This is how he finds out? He's honestly impressed you can keep a secret, considering you text him about eggshells in your cake or when someone sneezed a fart during class. Someone...help him.

“Four years.” He exhales sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’ll tell me every minor detail of your life, but this is what you decide to keep to yourself?”

Epel does a spit take. You’ll need to request a new, laminated copy, alongside a change of shirt. This one’s been drenched in apple juice and crumpled from when he all but snatched the papers from your hands. Subtly be damned — you mean to tell him he’s been simpering and whimpering over the wrong name for four long years? What if he got it tattooed on his blastcycle?! Or carved into a ring box, huh?! Ah. No. He wasn’t going to do that. Forget everything he just said! Hells…if he wasn’t close to graduating too, he’d take the detention just to tell Crowley off. How the heck could you let this sort of thing go!

“What do you mean that ain’t your real name?!” He coughs, then wipes at the mess on his shirt with a horrified look. “Hells, I knew Crowley was negligent, but this is ridiculous. You’re lucky I’m tryin’ not to get detention, else I ought to go have a word with 'im myself."

Rook cannot believe there was something about you that he did not know. He resigned the knowledge of your last name to time and convenience — but to mistake your first? The revelation is both a thrilling miracle and an utter travesty! The mere thought that you haven’t spoken your own name in four years? Oh, you know his heart is shattered when not a word of purple prose escapes him. Yet he cannot sulk. No. The name ‘Yuu’ is still so special. It is the name that dots every love letter, every thought, every passion that has consumed him for four years. He welcomes your birth name as the dawn of a new era, seeing you as a vibrant blossom finally in bloom within Twisted Wonderland.

"Je te vois, mon cher, and yet there was still a part of you I had not known.” He closes his eyes for a moment, almost savoring the revelation. “A secret so intimate, so tenderly kept, and now at last revealed to the one who adores every facet of you.”

Vil loses his decorum for a brief moment. The documents are plucked from your hands, his unoccupied one grasps your bicep so that you don’t just run off on him. He points to the nearest chair and makes you sit while he skims through all of NRC’s paperwork. Your personal details are not his business and Vil is all for privacy…but he honestly has no idea what you were thinking. You do understand that you have the right to stand up for yourself, yes? Even if you wished to keep being called ‘Yuu’ — which based on your story, he assumes is false, did you not think to tell your lover? It seems a discussion about confidence is due…and an aspirin. Maybe two.

“Even if you tolerated it, why would you not correct me?” His eyes narrow slightly. “Confidence is not optional, especially when it concerns your own identity.”

Idia short circuits. His palms are moister than they get after a 24hr code jam. Not even the time crunch of a same-day deadline can get him like this. He really is the worst boyfriend in existence. Not only did it take years for you to receive proper documentation — y’know, proof of your existence so you can’t just go ‘poof’ on him someday? But to be called something like ‘Yuu’ which he is realizing in real time is just ‘You’. Wow. That’s so messed up. Why are you with him? Why didn’t you correct him? Why didn’t he think to check your stats before? Holy shit. Keyboard smash in his chest and everything.

“W-Wait—so ‘Yuu’ is literally just… ‘you’?” He stares at you like his brain just blue-screened. “How did I not catch that? I’ve min-maxed entire RPGs but couldn’t fact-check my own relationship? — god, what is wrong with me?!”

Malleus wanes as if his entire world has been flipped upside down. You were his first friend. His first and last love. Yet he cannot be remiss with you for holding your name close to your heart. He did the same when you first met, after all. Except Malleus’ ruse lasted some months while yours has held strong this entire relationship. Malleus cannot believe he’s been completely in the dark for four years. What bothers him most is that you may have gone forever without sharing this with him. Names are bonding for fae. Did you intend to bind yourself to his one day, but not allow him to do the same? Don’t bother checking the weather forecast. A monsoon is on the way with three days of heavy rain.

“Ah… I see.” He studies you with a look steady, almost aching. “Your name is not a small thing, child of man. It is a part of you, and I wish I had been worthy of cherishing it sooner.. You need not fear giving it to me now. Whether you are called by the name this world gave you or the one you were born with, I will always know exactly who stands before me.”

Lilia plays it in good fun. Anytime someone asks after ‘Yuu’, he plays dumb. Even if you’re right there. One of his little students asks about his partner? Oh, sorry dearie. They’re not around anymore but have you met my new sweetheart? Then he introduces you by your given name, and suddenly you have to explain to a class of five year olds that their teacher is a jerk who will not be getting the lunch you’ve come to drop off. Lilia’s another one who doesn’t hold himself too harshly for not knowing. Names hold power, yes. Although he’s begun to accept that one such as ‘Vanrouge’ can be desired, even though it is stained in unfathomable amounts of blood. He is just waiting for you to accept it.

“If it makes you feel better, I shall pretend to be scandalized for your sake.” He grins, utterly delighted. “But between us, dearie? I rather like that I can get to know you all over again.”

Sebek deems this as a betrayal. You could point out to him that for the first year you both spent together, he hardly used your name at all. You corrected him for calling you ‘human’ countless times back then and yet he never listened until reality slapped him in the face. Even now he still relapses on occasion, to which he apologizes. Except that reminder would only serve to upset him further. Sebek expects you to hold him at the highest regard. Even if the entire world calls you ‘Yuu’ and you were okay with it, as your partner it is his responsibility to ensure you are not just satisfied, but comfortable. Uplifted. Your name is your legacy. Wear it with pride.

“You should have corrected everyone immediately!” He’s already halfway to pacing. “No, do not look at me like that. This is a matter of honor, as your true name is part of your dignity. You will not be forced to wear a name that is not yours if I have anything to say about it."

Silver is overcome with a deep sense of melancholy. For most of his life, he went without a last name. Which is why seeing ‘Vanrougue’ written next to his person is still an adjustment. A fond one, but an adjustment nonetheless. Yet this overwhelming sensation is actually attributed to the fact that with the name ‘Vanrouge,’ it was like the world finally recognized him. He wonders how you must have felt to be given a new name in a new place and thrust into this new life. ‘Yuu’ is just one piece of who you are. He wants to know the person behind your true name. To see all of you.

You carry a shadow that is towering, one that swamps your own in broad daylight. 

Physically, Jade is not clingy in the traditional sense. He is not hanging off your shoulder or demanding affection in public. In fact, he is oddly respectful of your space…which somehow makes him more overbearing? He simply has eyes in the walls. You grow accustomed to the sense of being watched over with time, as he is worse than a helicopter mom at disney world.  

A hand on the small of your back while walking through crowds. Casually steering you away from danger like you are a shopping cart with a broken wheel. If someone becomes too loud or aggressive near you, Jade inserts himself into the situation before you can speak. 

And seven help the sad sack who touches you without permission. 

Jade does not explode like Floyd or bark threats like Leona. No. He politely dismantles people with a shark-took grin. One warning is spoken with that overly pleasant customer service voice and suddenly the entire room feels humid. 

“Oh dear. I’m afraid you seem to have mistaken my partner for someone interested in your attention. How embarrassing for you.” 

People at Mostro Lounge learn very quickly that your name is not one to use carelessly in conversation, unless they want Jade’s attention - and trust me, that is not a fun prize. Gossip in his domain? Unless he thinks it is relatively harmless and might yield a cute reaction from you…nuh-uh-uh. 

Jade understands social warfare better than nearly anyone at NRC. He knows secrets. Everybody has secrets. Azul collects contracts but Jade collects information, and if someone threatens your reputation? Congratulations. They have just volunteered for psychological warfare against a man who enjoys sampling poisonous mushrooms in his free time. Very Mao-Mao from ‘Apothecary Diaries’ core. 

If someone DOES spread rumors about you? They tend to disappear before they gain traction. It is almost magical. One moment there is gossip circulating around NRC and the next the students involved are apologizing to you with sweat dripping down their backs while Jade stands nearby smiling like a proud parent at a piano recital. 

You never find out what he did to make it happen. Snitches get stitches, you can ask whomever you like. No one is about to get on a Leech’s bad side. Especially anyone from the Coral Sea…they like having their gills intact, thank you very much. 

In fact…your social circle seems to thin out. No one you’d miss, certainly. Anyone worth keeping around is already known by you before Jade’s fancy was stuck, after all. He just has a ‘quality’ that keeps bottom feeders away. 

Jade is significantly more possessive than he pretends to be. He acts amused when people flirt with you. Smiles. Tilt his head. You’d think him entirely unbothered, if not for the slight twitch of his lower eyelid. 

Meanwhile he’s mentally ranking the best burial locations on his usual mountain trails. He won’t do it. Just…let him tinker. He can only tolerate so much audacity from these people after all. 

Unlike Floyd’s explosive jealousy, Jade’s comes in the form of increased politeness. That’s how you know he is upset. The sweeter he sounds, the worse the situation is. If someone is heavily flirting with you, Jade becomes attached to your side for the rest of the day. He won’t intrude unless you explicitly ask – discounting the times you’re unaware of his presence – but he does expect you to shrug the plebs off. Make an effort or his ire might have you backed up against a wall later that night. 

Make no comment when he casually mentions your relationship status every three sentences either. Subtly, as he watches the offender making a move on you crumple like the trash they are and evaporate from his sight. Yet…if it continues beyond flirtations? If someone dares to make a vulgar comment at you?

His terrariums gain new fertilizer. 

No, because seriously. There is no situation where he’d let any sort of objectification or crude remark slide. Not interesting. Not funny. The only tolerable admiration is watching bottomfeeders deflate as they realize he’s already got the best pickings of the land. He can and will cut their tongues out. 

“My, what a vulgar thing to say. I do hope for your sake that you simply misspoke…though judging by your expression, I suspect not. How unfortunate. Shall we continue this conversation somewhere private? People do become rather forgetful when they are trying to impress someone who is already spoken for, don’t they? ” 

Jamil Viper 

7/10

Jamil does not WANT to be protective.

That is important to understand first and foremost. 

He already has enough responsibilities. Enough people depending on him. Enough stress. The last thing he needs is another person to worry over and yet somehow…there you are. Sitting comfortably in the center of his thoughts like you pay rent there. Mm. 

Annoying.

Very annoying.

He’s a bit of his own worst nightmare. Jamil finds a partner who is competent insanely attractive. Nothing gets him going like a show of power…but his brain doesn’t have an ‘off’ switch. So he naturally tries to take charge in most situations and has a terrible time letting his guard down. 

Because now he has to think about things like whether you ate today. Whether you got enough sleep. Whether Ace and Grim dragged you into another near death experience. He catches himself scanning crowds for your face automatically and gets irritated every single time he realizes he is doing it.

Just his luck that he’s fallen for the person with the self-preservation skills of a mosquito…ha..haha..hahaha.

Physically, Jamil is surprisingly attentive. Not overbearing, but hyperaware. He notices exhaustion before you say anything. Notices when your social battery dies. Notices when you are forcing yourself to smile through discomfort. He’s used to reading people. 

He is the type to silently pull you away from overwhelming situations under the guise of something casual.

“Come help me with this for a second.”

Suddenly you are outside getting fresh air while he pretends to sweep the outer courtyard. .

Jamil is not loud about protecting you because loud attention is dangerous in his mind. He prefers subtle control over situations. Strategic positioning. Standing between you and someone sketchy without making a scene. Steering conversations away from topics that upset you. Making sure you get back to Ramshackle safely even if he acts like it is an inconvenience.

And yes. He absolutely keeps track of where you are. Give him your phone so he can add you to Life360. Just do it. 

Not in a creepy way. In a “if something happens to you I will have a stress-induced migraine” way. He gets pissed when Grim takes your phone though. The headmaster seriously has you both sharing one? Just…look, take his old one. Don’t tell Kalim either. He’ll 100%% get you the newest model with an unlimited data plan, but Jamil isn’t about to have someone else doing what he can do for you just fine. Especially Kalim.

He especially hates when you wander around NRC late at night alone. This school has entirely too many weirdos, overblot incidents, and students with magical superiority complexes. The moment he finds out you went somewhere dangerous by yourself he is giving you ‘That Look’.

You know the one.

Socially, Jamil is vicious in the pettiest ways possible.

He does not have the authority of someone like Riddle nor the intimidation factor of Leona, so instead he weaponizes competence. If someone is rude to you publicly? Congratulations. Jamil is about to make them look stupid in front of everyone.

Not directly, of course. That would be messy.

But suddenly they are fumbling their words during class presentations because Jamil “helpfully” pointed out inconsistencies in their work. Suddenly they are losing arguments they thought they could win. Suddenly every flaw they have becomes painfully obvious because Jamil knows exactly how to press people until they crack.

He has years of experience surviving court politics. Some random teenager is light work.

The thing is, Jamil gets especially protective over your image because he understands what it feels like to have people make assumptions about you. So rumors? Harassment? People trying to paint you negatively? He…is guilty of doing that to others. 

So he is able to detect the early signs of someone scheming. No one’s ripping at your confidence. He’ll end them.

Not only because he cares about you, but because he genuinely cannot stand unfairness directed toward someone he loves. You become one of the very few people he allows himself to prioritize emotionally and he takes that seriously.

Now jealousy?

…Yeah. Yeah Jamil has issues.

Not outwardly at first. He tries SO hard to play it cool. He tells himself he is being irrational. That you can handle yourself. That he trusts you.

Then he sees someone flirting with you too comfortably and suddenly his eye is twitching.

Jamil’s jealousy manifests through hovering and passive aggression. He starts inserting himself into conversations uninvited. Interrupting. Pulling you away under flimsy excuses. Offering to do things for you before someone else can. Oh, he is burning. That ego he tries to keep under a tarp is coming out at full force. 

And the sass?

Unmatched.

“Oh? You suddenly developed interest in my partner after ignoring them for months? What a fascinating coincidence…sorry, what’s your name again?”

The worst part is that Jamil absolutely notices when people are attracted to you before they even realize it themselves. One lingering glance and he is already annoyed.

He also DESPISES overly touchy people around you. No one gets a pass. Kalim really pisses him off, but he has to bite it down. At least there’s the comfort of knowing it’s strictly platonic but still. 

Your little first-year group? He has so much beef with Ace it isn’t funny. That ******* knows exactly what he’s doing whenever he slings an arm over your shoulder. Floyd? Every basketball practice is one where Jamil is tempted to spike the ball at the back of his head. He tolerates Grim, knowing that the menace is going to be there until the day you both die. 

And if someone thinks to pass a vulgar comment? A cat-call? Mm. Patience isn’t always a virtue. 

Jamil’s entire expression flattens like someone turned his emotions off manually. He gets cold in a way that makes people instinctively backpedal. Unlike some of the others, he is less likely to threaten violence and more likely to verbally flay someone alive with frightening precision.

He knows exactly what insecurities to target too. Doesn’t matter who it is. He can pick them apart in a few short moments. 

“You know, confidence is attractive in moderation. Unfortunately for you, this is just embarrassing.”

Rook Hunt 8.5/10

Dating Rook is like accidentally befriending a very affectionate cryptid.

One day you are minding your business and the next you hear rustling in the trees followed by an enthusiastic Frenchman praising the way sunlight reflects off your hair. There is no such thing as privacy anymore. Not because Rook wishes to control you, but because he genuinely enjoys your existence so much that he cannot help orbiting around you constantly.

He is EVERYWHERE.

The scary thing? Half the time you do not even notice him until he speaks.

“Ah! Trickster! The way you leap away in surprise reminds me of a startled doe. Magnifique!”

Cardiac arrest. Immediate cardiac arrest. He ceases for the rest of the day but then is right back at it the next. 

At first his protectiveness does not even register because Rook treats everything with fascination. He watches everyone. Compliments everyone. Appears out of nowhere for everyone. So naturally, you assume his attention toward you is just part of his personality.

Then you realize he has been tailing you across campus for three hours because you mentioned feeling unsafe walking alone after dark.

Romantic.

Terrifying, but romantic.

This man has the instincts of a hunting dog and the perception of a military drone.

You are never unsafe around him.

Ever.

Physically, Rook is actually extremely protective. Far more than people expect. Underneath all the theatrics and poetry is someone with terrifying awareness of his surroundings. Rook notices danger instantly. The shift in someone’s body language. A suspicious movement in the crowd. The subtle signs someone intends harm.

A student reaching for their pen? He sees it. Someone following you through the halls? Already aware. Suspicious noises outside Ramshackle at night? He is perched somewhere nearby like a Victorian gargoyle with a bow in hand. Sorry Malleus. This one is not fit for your club to study…unless?

Ahem. You genuinely cannot sneak up on this man.

And because of that? Nobody sneaks up on you either.

The issue is that Rook treats protecting you like an act of devotion. He enjoys it. Not in a creepy controlling way but in a “the hunter safeguards what he treasures most” way. 

And unlike some of the others, Rook is willing to get physical FAST if he thinks you are genuinely threatened. People forget that beneath the dramatic monologues and layers of concealer is a man who hunts for fun.

For FUN.

One second someone is getting too aggressive with you. The next Rook is suddenly behind them smiling with their wrist pinned up against their back.

“Ah ah~ I would reconsider your actions, mon trésor’s comfort is far more important to me than your pride.”

The thing about Rook is that he rarely ‘sounds threatening. Which somehow makes him infinitely worse. He says horrifying things with the same tone someone would use to compliment flowers.

And LORD help the poor soul that genuinely hurts you somehow.

Rook becomes the physical manifestation of “I know where you live.” 

His little ‘Oo la la~’ pitch that carries in the wind like fallen leaves suddenly turns into Krampus incarnate. Deep, guttural, and spoken directly into the perpetrator’s ear with a promise for something much worse than a beating with a straw broom and some coal in their stocking. 

“Aha. No. We are not looking at mon coheur in such a manner. You may apologize now, or I will be forced to consider alternative persuasion. Un, deux, toi –” 

Socially, Rook is extreamly supportive rather than controlling. He absolutely hypes you up constantly. Shamelessly….it’s very much the ‘Wear whatever you want, my darling. I know how to fight’ dynamic amped to maximum overdrive. 

He will praise you in front of literally anyone with zero shame. Your intelligence, your beauty, your habits, the way your eyes crinkle when you laugh—nothing is safe from his admiration. At first people think it is exaggeration because surely no one can speak this poetically about their partner twenty-four hours a day.

No. He means every word.

The issue is that this also means he becomes deeply offended when others speak poorly of you. Rook values beauty in all forms and to insult someone he treasures? Mon dieu. The audacity.

Rook does not argue normally. He psychoanalyzes people like he is peeling an orange. Someone makes fun of you once and suddenly Rook is smiling thoughtfully while pointing out all the hidden insecurities fueling their behavior.

In front of everyone.

“Oh? Such cruelty toward someone so radiant…could it be envy, perhaps? How unfortunate. To possess eyes capable of witnessing beauty and yet remain unable to appreciate it.”

Murder. Actual murder.

And because Rook is naturally charismatic, people listen to him. He can spin social situations terrifyingly fast. One minute someone is mocking you and the next they are being publicly pitied by half the room while Rook comforts you dramatically like the star actor of a tragedy play.

But jealousy? Hah! Listen. 

Rook is a strange creature because he simultaneously understands why people are attracted to you while also wanting to put them in the ground for acting on it.

He appreciates beauty. Of course others admire you! How could they not? To him your existence is practically artwork.

So when others pursue you, he does not see them as something to dismiss. No. No. He will acknowledge their challenge…and you will find no one more competitive. He wants to win. 

Which means the flirting somehow becomes worse. He is a peacock spreading its feathers while aiming a shotgun with its beak. 

You think one person complimenting you is bad? Congratulations. Rook is now reciting poetry while kissing your hand in front of them with enough intensity to make bystanders uncomfortable.

He becomes unbelievably touchy too. Draping himself over your shoulders. Holding your waist. Tilting your chin toward him while maintaining eye contact with whoever dared flirt with you. If they want you, then they’ll have to offer you better than what he can provide. Which is impossible, because Rook spares no effort in ensuring you have everything you could ever want. 

And if someone says something vulgar about you? 

…they have a ten second head start. 

Rook does not mind admiration, he encourages all beauty to be appreciated, but crude lust disgusts him. In his eyes it reduces something precious into something cheap and tawdry. He takes it personally, like someone smeared mud over a painting. 

He merely teases the brim of his hat, ducks his chin low, and fixes the offender with sharp eyes and the terrifying realization that this man could absolutely hit a bullseye through their skull from fifty yards away.

“You speak of them so carelessly…how terribly sad. To witness something so precious and reduce it to vulgarity. I highly suggest you choose your next words with greater care, monsieur. ”

Lilia Vanrouge

6.5/10

At first glance, Lilia does not seem protective at all.

If anything, he encourages chaos.

Go explore dangerous places! Fight strong opponents! Experience life! Make reckless memories! Half the time it feels like he is actively encouraging your bad decisions while Sebek is somewhere nearby having a stress-induced aneurysm over it.

Lilia is not controlling. Not even remotely. Rather than stop you from pursuing danger, he’s walking into it at your side. 

He does not hover over your shoulder monitoring who you speak to or where you go. He will not cage you up “for your safety” because frankly? That sounds dreadfully boring to him. Lilia fell in love with YOU. Your spirit. Your freedom. Your ability to live fully despite fear.

Why would he take that away?

No, if you are with Lilia then you are expected to spread your wings and enjoy life to its fullest. He wants stories. Excitement. Late night walks, spontaneous adventures, troublemaking, dancing on rooftops because “the moon looks lovely tonight.”

He treats love like something alive. Something meant to grow unrestrained instead of being locked away. He’s waited seven-hundred years for this chance and will not waste a second of it. 

Which honestly makes people underestimate him terribly.

Because while Lilia is not overprotective in everyday situations…

He IS an elder fae. Even those of lower status are raised not to take matters of the heart lightly. Your soul is an extension of his own. 

The man could probably locate you in a foreign country with nothing but a vague description and a prayer. You will be halfway across campus thinking you're alone only to hear his voice from a tree branch.

"My, my. Fancy seeing you here."

He truly is an extension of your person now. While not tethered for centuries, he is quite fond of being a phantom limb of yours. 

Which becomes obvious the moment someone truly threatens you. He does not mince his words or offer mercy to those who threaten his family. Kingscholar was very fortunate to be spared after targeting Malleus during the spelldrive tournament during your first year in wonderland. Remember how brutal Lilia’s words struck. 

There is a massive difference between Lilia finding your recklessness amusing and someone else harming you intentionally. One earns laughter. The other earns silence.

And silence from Lilia Vanrouge is one of the most terrifying things a person can experience.

Because Lilia does not posture.

He does not threaten.

He does not growl warnings or puff out his chest.

He simply decides that someone is dangerous.

Then acts accordingly.

People often forget that beneath the jokes, the gaming addiction, and the culinary war crimes is a former general. A man who spent hundreds of years protecting a royal family through actual conflict. Lilia has survived war. Buried friends. He knows exactly how far he is willing to go for the people he loves. 

Which is as far as his body can take him. Lilia would die for you without hesitation. 

Not in the romanticized “I’d take a bullet for you” way either. In the very literal, non-negotiable sense that he has already accepted the possibility long ago. Loyalty is woven into Lilia so deeply that protecting his loved ones is practically instinctual. 

Which is why anyone who thinks otherwise, dares to even tinker with the thought of harming you, is scheduling an audience with General Vanrouge. 

Socially, Lilia is surprisingly relaxed. He has lived too long to care about petty gossip (although he does enjoy hearing it). Rumors roll off him like water because honestly? Most students at NRC are children to him mentally. Why would he value their opinions over yours?

That being said, he DOES care if the rumors genuinely hurt you.

Not because your reputation reflects on him, but because he cannot stand seeing someone he loves feel isolated or targeted. Lilia knows what loneliness feels like better than most people ever will. He still will not intervene though, not beyond offering a distraction to make you smile. 

Honestly? He finds caring about that sort of thing silly. With time you’ll understand and think the same, of that he’s certain. 

If someone dislikes you, they dislike you.

If someone talks badly about you, then they are showing their own character.

Most of the time he laughs it off. "Mhmm. Are they finished? Goodness, they seem to think about you more than I do."

Now jealousy?

Pshh. Manageable. A dime in a dozen. 

Lilia feels secure in your relationship. He does not panic over every passing flirtation because he trusts you and frankly finds some situations funny. Watching younger students awkwardly attempt to woo you while he sits nearby smiling into his tea is genuinely entertaining to him.

He especially enjoys making them nervous. “Oh? Trying to court my darling? My my, how brave~”

Although he is not against blipping in if harmless flirtations progress to crude vulgarity or a breach of boundaries. Which is unfortunately common with youth that possess egos with more concentrated power than the sun. The moment someone dares to say something genuinely degrading about your person, he eases in with the air of someone far superior and reminds the offender to view a specific chapter in their history textbook. He normally isn’t fond of his pictures in those books, but surely they have their uses. 

Alright. The ONE day Leona decides to attend class and it's the beginning of what one might consider his worst nightmare.

Mm. Just -

Trein, you are NOT doing a good job of convincing him to attend regularly. He's only present because the garden was booked for some seminar on Entomology. If Leona wanted to learn more about annoying insects and cowardly decomposers, he'd play 20 questions with the Ignihyde freshman.

Although an hour-long soul sucking lecture is starting to look damn preferable when pitted against a week of utter inconvenience.

Trein - the predictive bastard he is - plucked a hair from Leona's mane before the lesson began and dared to use it as the demonstrative piece. As if he knew that the second Leona caught sight of those soulless dolls, that he would sooner jump out the window (fifth story, no joke) than hand over a single skin cell's worth of DNA.

The predictive bastard is nicknamed as such with purpose. He would be right.

Leona feels his patience thinning out and interweaving with six different indescribable emotions all at once. The instruction manual? Tossed right in the trash. Gloved knuckles crack in his fists when Trein holds a mockery cub for Leona to take.

He doesn't need this. Even if he failed the project, he could pass the class by acing everything else. Leona would rather attend every lecture for the rest of the semester than take the swaddled doll back to his room for a week of glorified babysitting.

Then it's eyes open - piercing, heavy-lidded emerald windows - and its thin tail slips out to dangle through a gap in its swaddle.

An hour later, Leona's laying flat on his back in the botanical gardens. Sun in his face, that damn entomology lecture somehow still running, and a weight no heaver than his lunch draped on his chest. Ruggie came around with his lunch but had tact enough not to linger. Not when Leona didn't stir, but a messy mop of thick, sandy-brown tufts popped up when it caught a whiff of grilled meat in the wind.

For how annoyed he was - he had to laugh. The predator instincts were there even though it wasn't capable of eating anything but formula or mashed foods.

It's a good thing press can't enter Night Raven. They'd sure have a field day with this one - Leona's got to give it to STYX...the 'doll' is the spitting image of a KingScholar cub. Olive toned skin, tiny fangs that are just barely growing past nubs, pointy ears that are still mostly weak cartilage that droop, and when he pushes its hair back? The roots are blackened near the scalp, thick for a baby but not unlike when he was that age. Pictures for reference, of course.

When Ruggie drops the bag and its eyes dart back, looking up at Leona from his chest and obviously gauging if his chin is safe to bite? The bigger clicks his tongue, accepting his fate and swearing off this class once the week is over.

Damn realistic enchantments. Damn new requirements. Damn it all - he thinks, and catches the baby's chubby cheek in hand right before it sinks fangs to Leona's flesh. As if it could hurt him - hah.

Contrary to the doubts people have in him - Leona's not keen on being a dick to children. He's just not fond of them. There is a different.

It helps that this is an infant that can't talk his ear off about why strawberry icecream is the best for two hours straight. His routine is hardly disrupted. Not like those other students that can't tell a binky nib from a bottle's head. For the entire week, Leona behaves no differently aside from griping about Trein's audacity to every available ear. Not the kid, but Trein. He'd be a bit less miffed if this was an actual kid and not going to disappear into data. Then his effort would at least be worth something.

Rule of thumb - when the kid does something, so do you. The baby is constantly tucked into on arm and rarely ever in its swaddle. Damn things never felt good on his tail as a kid and he knows that'll make it cry. When he naps? It's on his chest, and it stays there. Curled with one heavy palm pressed over its back, sleeping without a care in the world. The same at night. Leona's not about to get up and check a bassinet every few hours. So it's either in one arm or in a nest of pillows next to him.

Leona's not a baby-talker, but he does reassure it like he would Cheka when the runt was little. Short commands that demand attention and confirmations that he's there. An easy, "Relax," or "Yeah, yeah. I hear you." when the kid's fussy. Which is rare, because Leona knows what'll set a cub off before anything happens. Usually loud environments or not getting enough play/tummy time.

Maybe he just has a way with kids - or maybe it's because his voice is soothingly low and his temperature is on the warm side. They just like him, and while it can't 'feel' anything? He's at least able to win the favoritism of this little doll just by being there. It's...definitely an 'emotion' for Leona. Especially when he hears how others are really struggling.

Having a cub rely directly on him is different than it was with his nephew. Even when the 'doll' kicks up a fuss, crying when the spelldrive team's voices booms too loud across the field, or getting daring enough to swipe at Leona's forearms when he wouldn't wake up - he gets annoyed, but never enough that he doesn't bounce back after a moment or two.

Trein gives him a C+ in the end. He tossed the handbook, did not fill out the proper logs, and did not attend any classes during the week. Leona doesn't care. He was too pissed to attend and could care for the kid on instinct rather than some book.

And as he knew from the very start, the spell wanes and the cub that tugged his braids on the walk there became a blank slate for the next class. Leona takes it as his cue to find his usual spot, lay flat on an open slab, feel the sun on his face and doze off with a different weight in his chest, rather than on it.

You’ve learned, over the course of this week, that approaching Leona directly is a mistake. Trying to schedule a meetup time with him is like trying to sell bagged air. Possible, but requires far too much skill.

So you don’t.

Savanaclaw’s waterfalls are loud enough to drown out most things—voices, stray thoughts, even the distant clang of Magift practice and the recurrent fight between roommates. The mist hangs in the air, cool against your skin as you follow the familiar stone path toward the flat slab of rock your target's claimed as his own. You don’t bother announcing yourself. If he really didn’t want to be found, you wouldn’t find him.

You spot the tail first.

It sways lazily through the air in a slow, deliberate arc, casting a thin shadow over a small bundle of sandy-brown tucked against Leona’s side. The rest of him is exactly how you’d expect — stretched out on his back, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting heavy and loose near the baby. A book is propped open against his chest, pages shifting faintly in the waterfall breeze.

He’s positioned closer to the edge of the rock, his broad body forming an unmistakable barrier between the infant and the rushing water below. The cub is laid on the opposite side, facing the falls. From here, you can see its tiny ears twitch at the sound, still soft and mostly cartilage, drooping slightly at the tips. Its thin tail peeks free of a discarded blanket, flicking clumsily in imitation of the one hovering above it.

Leona doesn’t look up when you step closer.

“Oi,” he drawls, voice low and lazy. “If you’re gonna stare, at least bring something useful. Like food.”

You huff a quiet laugh and move around to the safer side of the rock, crouching down near the baby instead of him. “Good evening to you too.”

One emerald eye cracks open, unimpressed. “Didn’t say it wasn’t.”

For Leona, that's as much of a welcome as you're going to get. So you settle in at a safe distance to make friends with the more adorable of the two. Up close, the cub is even more unbelievable.

Olive-toned skin, just a shade lighter than Leona’s. A messy mop of sandy-brown hair that's already thick for something barely a week old, darker at the roots near the scalp. Although you'd surmise this kid to be more like a 12 month old than a newborn given its size and motor skills. When it yawns—wide and dramatic—you catch the faintest glint of tiny fangs pushing past the gumline. Its gaze is heavy-lidded and bright green, tracking the movement of Leona’s tail overhead with sharp focus.

The tail dips lower. The cub swipes at it with both hands and misses.

Leona flicks it just out of reach.

“You’re terrible,” you murmur, pushing down a laugh.

“For what?” he replies without looking at you. “It’s enrichment.”

Without giving him attention, you know he's smirking. It's the heavy ego dragging down his tone.

The cub lets out a small, indignant huff. Not a cry—just a sound of effort—and tries again. This time it catches a tuft of dark fur between its fingers. In the corner of your vision, its elder winces.

Leona clicks his tongue. “Don’t pull.”

The cub freezes.

Then its eyes dart—not to the tail, not to the water—but up at him. At Leona.

He hasn’t moved. Not notably. But there’s something different in the set of his shoulders. Something alert and commanding beneath his relaxed posture, but that's as far as it goes.

“Relax,” he adds, quieter.

The cub’s grip loosens.

You don’t miss the way Leona's tail adjusts its rhythm after that, lowering just enough to keep the baby engaged without letting it yank too hard. It’s absentminded. An effortless adjustment that passes between them and you're just the fortunate onlooker.

“You’re good at this,” you feel compelled to tell him.

He snorts. “At lying down?”

“At knowing what it needs to grow without preparation.”

For the first time, you give his laid-back approach a new name. Adaptability. Patience.

That gets a faint twitch of his ear.

“It’s not complicated,” he mutters, returning to his book yet clearly not progressing. “Swaddles feel like crap on a lion's tail. Loud noise pisses it off. If it’s staring at something too long, it’s bored. You just…pay attention. Tiresome but doesn't take a genius.”

Other students would beg to differ. Many of them. Although sharing what you've learned in other check-ins feels ill opportune. For the sake of this moment and to not give Leona's ego any extra fuel.

You think about the first day of the assignment—how furious he’d been. The way he’d thrown the handbook away with a force that rattled the bin. The way he grumbled about Trein’s nerve to anyone within range. Even though he isn't the type to initiate unnecessary conversations. And yet here he is, positioned deliberately between a waterfall and something that weighs less than his arm.

The cub shifts, attention finally drifting from the tail to you.

It stares past your smile, and you hold still.

Its nose wrinkles slightly, as if scenting the air. Then, with surprising determination, it rolls—awkward and wobbly—onto its side and reaches a small hand toward you.

When you don't instantly understand what it wants, it whines and that hand flexes in a grabbing motion for your brain to measure up.

Leona’s eyes open fully out of their heavy squint and follow.

“Don’t drop it,” he says flatly, but with no hostility. Just the same tone he gave when the cub tugged his tail.

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You slide your hands beneath the cub carefully, lifting it just enough to settle against your crossed legs. It’s warm—warmer than you expected but beastfolk are supposed to run at higher temperatures. Solid too. Real in a way that still feels unsettling if you think about it too long.

It doesn’t fuss.

Instead, it studies you with those catty pupils and presses its nose to your stomach.

Its gaze flicks from your face to Leona, then back again, as if cross-referencing something. Tiny fingers then curl into the fabric of your shirt with a content smile.

Leona watches the whole exchange with quiet scrutiny. You'd be able to fully appreciate the view if he wasn't burning holes in your side.

“Huh,” he grunts after a moment.

You instinctively feel defensive, “What?”

“It doesn’t usually go for people.”

There's a judgement hanging in his tone that you're wary of, but it's Leona so you taper back that insecurity.

You raise a brow before patting the baby's back. “Maybe I’m special.”

“Maybe it’s got decent instincts," he shrugs, turning on his side in full and settling his weight on one arm.

There’s no bite to the comment. No elaboration either, and maybe you're just as bad as him, because you want to know. Unlike whatever silent communication he shares with this cub, your pride won't accept less than words.

His gaze sharpens overhead, trying to pull your attention, but then softens by a fraction.

“Lion cubs are good judges of character,” he says casually.

You huff, as if you didn’t already know. “Oh? Is that what this is?”

He rolls his eyes. “If it didn’t like you, it’d let you know.”

The cub shifts again, tiny claws catching briefly before relaxing. It leans into your hand when you brush your thumb gently over its cheek. Earning a small, pleased sound. A purr more in vibration against your fingers than in volume.

Leona exhales through his nose, something almost amused there.

“Pack mentality,” he says after a beat. “If it decides you’re safe, that’s that.”

“Decides based on what?”

Another lazy flick of his tail. “Based on me.”

It's the same as a child watching their parent eat something unfamiliar before giving it a try. The analogy is strange even as you think of it, but not untrue.

Your chest warms at that, though you try not to show it.

The cub’s tail gives a faint wiggle, mirroring the larger one overhead. It glances back at Leona again, just to check.

He meets its eyes and juts his chin in your direction.

“Yeah,” he says simply. “They’re fine.”

That seems to settle it. The cub relaxes fully against you, attention drifting back to the waterfall. Mist beads faintly along its lashes. You pull stray, damp hairs from its face and sleek them back. The moisture in the air holding them without a tie.

You glance over at him. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

Leona smirks, and his tail arcs over your head now. You're tempted tug it down.

“Doing what.” It's not even a question.

“Showing off.”

His lips curve faintly, sharp to show a hint of fang and subtle. “If I wanted to show off, you’d know.”

Still, he shifts slightly closer to you—not enough to crowd, just enough that the space feels… intentional. Protective. His arm stretches out behind you, resting on the rock like an unspoken boundary. Not touching but if you leaned back enough of your own accord, there'd be a happy accident.

You look back at the falls. The cub watches the water with quiet fascination, utterly at ease between you.

“You didn’t have to take this so seriously,” you say softly.

Leona hums.

“Wasn’t about serious.” His voice dips lower, quieter beneath the rush of water. “I’m not leaving something that looks like me to fend for itself. Fake or not.”

You glance down at the cub—at the familiar green eyes, the sandy hair, the faint shadow of future strength in its tiny frame. Even if it shared no resemblance, you doubt he'd do this any differently.

Trein was right in that Leona would've never willingly took the assignment. Yet he was wrong thinking that Leona is irresponsible.

“Could’ve dumped it on Ruggie,” you tease, moving to pinch the cub's cheek. It nips your finger in retaliation but is clearly in playful spirits.

He scoffs to smother a laugh. “Trust a hyena with a lion cub? You’ve got to get better jokes.”

The cub startles slightly at the change in tone. Instantly—before it can escalate and squirm from you—Leona’s hand comes down, heavy and warm, resting over its small back where it sits .

It calms immediately.

You feel it through your palms, the way its breathing evens out beneath his touch. A moment later and it's off in dream town with dancing sheep fluttering overhead.

Leona doesn’t even look at it.

Just picks his book back up, but only to use the pages as a blindfold to block out the sun.

“You’re protective,” you murmur.

He waits. “I’m practical.”

“Right," you smile.

The three of you sit like that until the sun dims. Water roaring. Mist cooling your skin. His tail continuing its lazy rhythm above you both. The cub eventually awakens and abandons watching the falls in favor of reaching for your fingers, babbling softly in curiosity rather than fussing.

When it leans too far toward the edge of your lap, Leona shifts again—subtle but immediate—closing the gap with his body so there’s no chance of slipping toward the water.

A living barricade.

You glance at him.

He’s pretending not to watch.

But he is.

Always.

“You know,” you test his patience, “for someone who hates this assignment, you’re making it look easy.”

He closes his book with a quiet snap and finally turns his head fully toward you. In the brief second between when its in his hands before being thrown off with more force than needed, you catch the title.

Emerald eyes meet yours—steady, unreadable, but not cold. Daring you to comment that he seemingly dug Trein's manual out of the trash.

“It is easy,” he diverts. “When you don’t panic.”

The cub makes a small noise, patting at your sleeve again. You laugh softly, indulging it.

Leona studies the two of you for a long moment. Something in his expression shifts—not softer, exactly. Just… settled, and you think it means that your time in their company is well past its expiration. Somehow a thirty minute check-in turned into three hours and missed dinner.

So you go to exchange the warm cub for cold savannah air, and while it doesn't protest, a tail does catch your wrist. Just not the one you expected.

“Stay,” Leona says after a beat, like it’s an afterthought. “Kid's quieter when you’re here.”

You pretend not to hear the honesty buried in that, but don't move other than to pull your phone from your back pocket. The cub eyes it with brief interest while you swipe through contacts, looking for that familiar card to cash in a favor or two.

“Only because I don’t yell at you like Ruggie does.”

“That’s debatable.”

But he shifts again, making more room on the rock without ever explicitly inviting you closer.

The cub squirms, then settles between you both, half in your lap and half against his side—perfectly relaxed.

And for the first time all week, Leona looks almost… at ease.

Ruggie's first impression of this kid is that it is scrappy. He snorts when Trein passes it over, pushing out a low whistle through his two front teeth and their meeting is just a mutual understanding that shit's about to get real right. He doesn't say hello or coo some sweet greeting to show the kid it's in good hands.

"Seriously? It made ya scrawny too?" <- Trein is not impressed. It's obvious that Ruggie didn't so much as glance at the issued handbook. Why should he? It's not like he hasn't taken care of a brat or six in his day.

What he does readily accept is all the caretaking materials. Bassinette, blankets, formula, diapers, clothes - shit, this kid's starting out better than most back home and it isn't even real. Back in his village, they used reusable cloth diapers and these fake pups are about to waste weeks worth of disposable goods. For what, an assignment? The thought makes him a bit miffed and he makes a mental note to ask Trein at the end of the semester if there are any leftover materials the school doesn't want anymore. He'll happily take it back home.

Ruggie isn't intimidated by this assignment in the slightest . I might be one of the easiest A's he's ever gotten on campus - and there's nothing customers in a restaurant love more than seeing a 'single father' busting his tail to support his kid. This project is about to make him big bucks in tips at his part time jobs.

He's had two ankle biters on his feet and a drooling sasquatch slung on his back while helping Gran clean the streets from litter. Does Trein think he'll break a sweat caring for one baby in a school packed with distractions and resources? He's raised kids for way longer than a week, knows how to stretch what he was provided, knows how to check if it's breathing, knows how to make do - this isn't knew.

What is new? Having enough.

Back in his dorm room on the first night - while he's counting his madols and doing a few coin tricks to draw the infant's eye - all Ruggie can think of is how he has enough.

How this isn't the 'realistic' experience everyone's raving about. It isn't what his Gran went through raising him, not what folks back home do, and the whole thing is just as fake as those downturned honey brown eyes that are full of energy for something so small.

Ruggie's 'doll' is the most realistic thing of the project, and he hates that too. Kid's tiny by miles compared to the others. The doll shrunk half a size in the enchantment. A thin little frame, cheeks that are soft but not plump. When it goes to yawn, two baby fangs snag on its lower lip. They're too big for its mouth but hungry all the same. The same goes for its ears - large satellites that circle round at the slightest noise.

What's on the mark though is that scraggly mop of chocolate brown hair on its head. No one guessed that Ruggie used to be a brunette, not even other beastfolk. Hyenas were segregated so it wasn't common knowledge that their coats change as they age.

This spell got it on the mark though. Even with that stump over its ass, a poor excuse for a tail that the kid will never get the chance to grow into.

As much as Ruggie can't stand the assignment - he cant bring himself to be distant from his 'doll'. Not just because of the grade...it's pride, and he isn't known to have much of it. Ruggie won't pretend he's perfect but you'd have to be a real asshole to look a baby in the eye and leave it to fend for itself.

Curse every thing - because as he's jokingly prodding the kid's sharp fangs - all he sees his himself. He sees a little thing that doesn't realize how shit the world is, and it's looking at him like how he looked at his dad. So for the week, he'll joke around and treat this kid like he does the ones back home. It's temporary but the doll doesn't know that.

Moving on - Ruggie's efficient. Formula's measured precisely - no waste, but if the kid's stomach so much as growls then he's prepping more. Diaper duty is a world-record pace. He even takes over for some of his more squeamish classmates - for a fee. If Trein wasn't such a hardass, he'd probably try to run a daycare for the other groups and make a quick madol. But noooo. It's 'cheating' and Trein will burn his tail off if he tries -

A bit paranoid about temperature despite NRC being controlled. He keeps the kid in a swaddle over his stomach the whole day, using his bandanna to block the light if it wants to nap.

Basically - even though the baby doesn't need this type of devout attention, he treats every moment like it matters. To Ruggie, it does. He learned early on that crying doesn't always mean someone can help. Taught it to his youngers. Since this is temporary, he allows himself to dote a bit. Do what he wishes he could do back home.

He's real good at improvising entertainment. Whistling a tune to get himself a laugh, passing it frozen rags to chew on, playing airplane while going between classes, etc.

He does struggle when moving isn't an option. If the kid's asleep on him or burps up its lunch when he needs to be on the go? He's itching, feeling unproductive, and then rammed with guilt if those tiny hands cling to his vest. He forgets that kids are clingy once they find somewhere safe. Leona has to have him bench-warm during spell drive for the week and he takes the win.

On the first night, it was whimpering in the bassinet until he pulled it next to the bed. He gripes about spoiling it but knows what it's like to wake up alone.

In the end? Ruggie has a solid B+. He lost the A for not following the handbook and giving in to the kid's desires too much. Also for interfering with other students projects and trying (key word. trying) to set up that daycare.

He's not sentimental when his scrappy little thing turns back into what it always was - metal and a dream. All the good things in his life are temporary. He rolls his shoulder like nothing happened, and chalks 'Scrappy' up as a job well done.

You should’ve known better than to look for Ruggie in Savanaclaw.

Or in class.

Or anywhere remotely convenient. Not with the way he's somehow everywhere across campus all at once. Are we certain that his UM and Cater's aren't switched?

It takes three wrong turns, one confused first-year, and a pointed “Try the Lounge” from Sam before you finally spot him weaving through the tables at the Mostro Lounge with a tray balanced on one hand and—

Ah.

Of course.

Of course he brought the baby to work.

The bassinet is nowhere in sight. Instead, the infant is secured to his chest in a snug wrap, little hyena ears poking out from the fabric, wide honey-brown eyes taking in the glittering lounge lights like it’s front row at a stage show. Customers 'ooh' and 'ahh' - their attention magnetic to the little employee who's name isn't on the payroll but is surely bringing in big bucks for Mostro's head honcho. Azul probably saw nothing but dollar bill signs strapped to Ruggie's shift tag tonight.

You bid said merman a brief introduction at the entrance and make waves past a beaming Floyd that was moments away from stealing your time. You sadly didn't have an evening to spare for tricks and the occasional bite. It's a good thing he's on kitchen duty so you can escape to the main floor.

Ruggie doesn’t notice you at first. Or maybe he does but is stuck mid-performance.

“Two sea-salt caramel teas, one grilled octo-dog—careful, it’s hot—and if ya need a refill, just give me a wave, yeah?”

He spins on his heel, nearly checking your side and on instinct cover's the baby's head with his palm. A bitten 'watch it' is on his tongue but is wrestled down since he's on shift. Practiced grin already in the making.

“Well if it isn’t NRC’s most dedicated single father.” You snicker over his shoulder.

And just like that, he startles. Two sets of identical rounded ears swivel your way and his bite is back. Ruggie grins wide enough to show fang.

“Oi! Prefect!” His pitch climbs. “You stalking me now?”

“Hardly," you deny flatly, "I just had to follow the trail of unpaid labor.”

Ruggie spares a moment to fake offense, but tugs you to the side as other waiters make quick footwork towards their tables. A bit guilty for possibly getting them with Azul, you follow along without a fuss. It helps with adorable, quizzical little eyes watching your every step.

“Hey!” He feigns a scoff. “This is paid labor. Big difference.”

"Monetizing your a baby for extra shifts and tricking customers isn't that much better"

The baby shifts at the sound of your voice, head tilting slightly. Its gaze flicks between the two of you — curious, alert, not the least bit hostile as you were expecting from all the stories he's told you about hyena kids. This one is just… interested.

You lean closer and wiggle your fingers with a silent prayer for them not to be nipped off.

“Hi there, lil dude.” You poke its nose, smiling until your cheeks stretched.

Ruggie snorts. “Don’t encourage it.”

The baby’s eyes track your hand with intense focus. One small fist reaches out, grabbing at your sleeve with surprising strength.

You blink. “Wow. Strong grip.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ruggie mutters. “Tiny little ankle-biter.”

But there’s pride tucked in the edges of his tone. The insult lingers fondly under his breath and is probably a more tame version of what he's thinking.

You glance at the tray still balanced on his palm and ask a question you already know the answer to. “How long’s left on your shift?”

“‘Bout an hour.” He shifts the tray to his other hand and rolls the shoulder with the baby's sling. A little head bounces up and down with it. “Why?”

You cross your arms. “I’m here for your check-in, genius. But I’m not chasing you around the Lounge for sixty minutes.”

He narrows his eyes playfully. “You offering to clock in?”

As much as you'd love to be Azul's unpaid slave for the next hour, that fortune can remain with his debtors. An animated wave towards the knot aching his trapezes alludes to a much sweeter job.

“I’ll hold the baby.”

That gets his attention, even if it should've been obvious.

His teasing grin fades into something more assessing — not distrustful, just instinctively weighing options. Shifting his attention between you and Jade not-so-secretly looming over by the host's podium. The clock on this short break ticking.

The baby makes a soft chirping sound and tugs on his vest, loosening the top buttons which were already on a thread.

Ruggie sighs. “You sure? It’s not exactly light.”

“I’ve carried Grim,” you deadpan.

“Fair point.”

He crouches slightly, carefully loosening the wrap and transferring the baby into your arms with practiced ease. His hands linger a second longer than necessary, adjusting the fabric around its shoulders and hovering to make sure your confidence wasn't a ruse.

“Formula’s in the back fridge behind the bar,” he rattles off automatically. “Three scoops, level, warm water — not hot. It gulps too fast if it’s too warm.”

You arch a brow but listen tentatively. “Relax. I can follow instructions.”

“Wasn’t worried ‘bout that.” He smirks, and shoots you a wink.

But you notice he glances back once before heading toward the kitchen, just to jut his head towards an empty table in his section and adjust those messy buttons. You take the hint and park it where he needs you.

The baby settles against your chest easily. No fussing. No tension. Just wide-eyed curiosity that occasionally pulls when a stray customer waves while passing. It's taken to chewing on your lapels and considering this is better than it being fussy for an hour? You can wash the coat later.

Up close, you can really see the resemblance. Magic is truly fascinating and honestly a bit scary sometimes. It's the only thought you have while counting the freckles dotting its nose, tracing them like constellations just to hear it giggle. You've often imagined doing the same to the person it inherited them from, although Ruggie might not look this adorable or smiley about it.

There would be a close tie though.

This scraggly chocolate-brown hair. The oversized ears swiveling at every clink of glass. Those two tiny fangs peeking out when it yawns.

You tap one gently, unthinking. “Oh, you definitely got his bite.”

The baby grabs your finger and attempts to gum it immediately. Your mistake, really.

“Yep. Confirmed.”

For the next hour, you occupy that corner booth like an unofficial daycare station. Azul eyes you suspiciously when he sweeps the grounds before closing but says nothing — likely calculating whether it's worth it to toss you out of his domain this late. Maybe he isn't entirely heartless, because when those ears perk in his direction it's like he changed paths on instinct.

A rare kindness - or afraid of children. Likely the latter in all truths. Especially with one so fearless and ready to explore every nook and cranny.

When Ruggie darts past your table with plates stacked up to his chin, the baby’s head swivels so fast its ears nearly flap.

It tracks him until he disappears into the kitchen.

Then it waits.

Not anxious.

Just expectant.

When he re-emerges, its whole demeanor perks.

You notice that happens often over one measly hour, and file it away with other needless yet precious information.

By the time his shift ends, Ruggie collapses into the booth across from you with theatrical exhaustion.

“You owe me,” he declares, one eye open to fix you a look.

“I owe you? I just provided free childcare.”

He grins cheekily. “Yeah, but now I gotta buy you a soda to keep my reputation intact.”

“You have a reputation?”

“Hey.” He warns, "Don't slander a guy in front of his kid."

Disregarding that he's childless and underaged at that, you make the decision to let him have a victory just this once. Ruggie leans back into the booth with ease, melting into supple leather as that tentative coil that was puppeteering him across the lounge finally starts to wind down.

Glass clinks on the table as a poor busser sets two bubbling sodas in passing. The two gents exchange finger guns before you can say thanks. The lounge sobers as the kitchen staff roll out to clean and waiters turn in their checkbooks for the night. You feel sleepy under the ambiance of it all, pulling the baby close so it doesn't hit the table when you lean back.

Ruggie passes you a fizzy drink. His fingers lingering in you sight and curl for a wordless exchange. You pass the baby back to him and curl your hands around the cup instead. You sip the straw and it's your usual favorite.

The transfer is seamless. The doll taking to him easily, as if it was waiting for Ruggie to finally relax, one small hand fisting into his undone necktie.

Ruggie pretends not to notice. You do.

“Alright,” he says, stretching those pesky knots from his shoulders. “Report. How’d Scrappy behave?”

“Curious. Tried to eat my hand.”

“Sounds about right.”

You both laugh at that. Clearly Ruggie's been a pin cushion for those sharp fangs over and over. When he reaches for his own glass, his sleeve cuffs upwards just enough for a few healing dots to present themselves on his wrists. There are bandages on his index fingers and one on his left pinky too. You can only imagine how his days have carried out. An hour has offered a glimpse, however.

You lean forward on your elbows, eager to share. “It watches you, you know.”

One gulp and he's downed half the glass, swirling it as ice clinks together.

“Yeah? So?” he sniffs. Brain freeze.

“So it’s obvious.”

He snorts. “Obvious what?”

“That you’re its favorite, duh.”

Another long sip and the glass is now left one-third full. You're not sure if he's dehydrated or trying to deflect. That, or preparing to chew on ice chips.

He rolls his eyes. “It’s a spell, Prefect.”

“Mm-hmm," his nose wrinkles when the straw squeaks empty. You smile into yours. "And yet every time you walked by, it tracked you like you were the main event.”

He shrugs, but his fingers absentmindedly adjust the baby’s swaddle. You wait a beat and watch as he digs into the glass for ice cubes. The lounge was fancy, having sticks and chips instead of basic crushed.

Ruggie pops one stick in his mouth and it crunches, you expect a second to follow but he brings it to the baby's mouth. The little kid is happy to suck on the ice and seems almost relieved to lodge its fangs against something.

“Good on their gums. If I'm holding it, he won't choke. Quit worryin' so much."

You want to argue that you haven't said anything yet - that Ruggie's the one worrying.

Instead, you chew on the tip of your straw and study them both. You already filled out the observation sheet Trein supplied earlier, but what Ruggie doesn't know won't hurt him.

Side by side. Same shade of honey eyes, same sharp fangs, same mischievous tilt to their head when it glances up at him. Ruggie's nose crinkles with a childe for it to slow down, and you want to trace patterns over his freckles.

“You two look ridiculously alike,” you say, straw still stuck between your teeth.

“Oi.”

He's not appreciative of your analysis, but you'll make him come around. “I’m serious. It’s like someone hit copy and paste.”

Ruggie dismisses you quickly, although there’s visible heat creeping up his neck. It dusts a roguish backdrop for those constellations on his cheeks. He pops another ice stick in his mouth. It'll take more than one to cool him off though.

“Spell got lucky, that’s all.” He pouts.

The baby reaches up and grabs his chin. You have to admit that the grip on this one is strong for something so tiny - and hyena beastfolk are considered weak?

Did the NRC library even have books detailing the differences between species? It sounds like something everyone here just knows. Except you.

Ruggie startles and rips that thought spiral from it's roots. The baby's begun tugging at his nape hairs, climbing from his arms to cling against his shoulders. Laughter bubbles up with your soda and Ruggie does not look impressed with you. Not one bit.

“Hey— don’t yank.”

He tries to ease it off before some hairs come loose, but also doesn’t forcefully pry the hand away.

You watch the interaction carefully, because once again, you realize how different this is compared to the stories you've pulled from Ruggie on a good day. The baby isn't afraid when Ruggie bears his fangs back or pretends to nibble at its arm in retaliation. It doesn't look reluctant to cry or tug at him.

It’s not being raised to distrust the world, like Ruggie learned and how he said every kid should. He's so warm with it, gentle and you realize that this must be what utopia would look like for Ruggie if he was this kid.

The thought is as touching as it burns the back of your eyelids.

You blink quickly before gesturing toward the bottle station behind the bar counter. “Hungry?”

If Ruggie notices you were staring, or that your soda's gone flat and to waste - he doesn't say it. He pushes a finger into the baby's palm, gently but effectively freeing his hair from risk.

Ruggie jostles the swaddle when it whines, then nods. “Yeah. It’s about time anyway.”

You both quietly head to the end counter. Jade's finished wiping it down and warns Ruggie to clean up once he's finished. On his way past, he checks your shoulder with a promise that Floyd would be looking to hang out the next day. Considering he was too 'busy' in the kitchen tonight to give you a 'proper' greeting.

No amount of assurances that you don't mind will dissuade your excitable friend. All you can do is accept your fate, and once you reluctantly do, Jade is gone. That impish twinkle too before you can smack it off his face.

Ruggie's a man on a mission and you were the perfect distraction - it seems.

He measures the formula powder with practiced precision, leveling each scoop with a quick tap.

“No waste,” he mutters, flicking his eyes to you to make sure you're watching him.

Your hip bumps the lower drawer as you lean in “Of course not.”

While you don't laugh, he mistakes this awed attention for amusement.

“You laugh, but this stuff back home?” He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t last a day.”

Correcting him feels pointless when he's already back to snickering alone, plucking a bottle from a bag hidden below and handing it to you. Once it's rinsed clean he takes it back with a half-uttered 'thanks'.

The baby seems to know this pattern by now. Its eyes practically glimmer while watching him move. This actually does make you laugh, reaching to prod its cheek.

“You said kids in your village are raised communally, right?”

“Yeah.” He twists the bottle cap on. “Gran watched me. I watched the younger ones. Everyone watches everyone.”

“That sounds… nice.”

You mean it. Hopefully he senses the genuinely and doesn't mistake it for pandering. For a moment you're worried when Ruggie goes quiet, but then it's like he remembers who he's talking to and relaxes.

He shrugs his non-dominant shoulder. “It’s practical. Can’t afford not to.”

The baby squirms slightly, impatient. As if you both could make time go quicker if it tried to nip Ruggie's wrists. After the timer on his phone dings - when did he set that? - he tests the bottle on his wrist. Waists five more and then hands it over.

'Scrappy' as Ruggie called him earlier, latches on like his life depends on it. Which, to be fair, it does.

Ruggie watches with quiet intensity, making sure it doesn't eat too quick but also that it isn't left unsatisfied.

You nudge his calf with your foot, a shit-eating grin pushing the fat on your cheeks. “You’re really good at this, you know.”

Because credit is owed where it is due. Received happily too, if his ears flattening on his crown have anything to say.

He huffs, as if he's heard it twenty times over. Probably has from customers. “Told ya. Easiest B I’ll ever earn.”

Although you highly doubt any of them made Ruggie duck into his collar. That's a pleasure you hope is for VIP patrons. Ones who got to hold the baby instead of coo at it from a distance.

“You lost the A already, didn’t you?”

He grimaces. “Handbook technicalities.”

Someone apparently forgot that this isn't just a social visit, and that someone wasn't just you. Ruggie daggers a miffed glare at you from his spot. You know he's itching to see your report, but sadly that's all tucked away.

You grin, already aware. “Tried to run a daycare?”

“Allegedly," he corrects, "Trein has no proof! I'm being unfairly docked."

He's not wrong but the undertone confirmation is enough for your stomach to clench with hysterics. You wheeze and nearly pitch into his side, and 'Scrappy' stops to look between you both.

Then — unbelievably — it makes a small, pleased noise. Bottle forgotten.

Ruggie freezes.

“…You hear that?”

“Yeah.”

He looks down at it like it just sprouted wings. You don't understand why. The sound is adorable but it's been laughing all night. Yet Ruggie's moved by one little giggle and you want to know. You do.

“Huh.” He whispers to himself.

Then the baby resumes drinking, perfectly content.

You soften your tone, ask if he's tired, where he's planning to go, if he wants you to take off or help tidy up.

He doesn’t respond right away.

Instead, he adjusts the bottle slightly when it gulps too fast. Something hits your calve and Ruggie's foot is boxed between your two when you look down.

“It’s weird,” he admits finally. “All this controlled stuff. Perfect schedules. That ain’t real.”

When the bottle comes empty, he tugs it back to gauge Scrappy's reaction. He goes to burp it, another move that looks like muscle memory. You both give a small cheer to egg it on, and laugh once a belch hits the lounge walls. Another success.

It gives a satisfied little sigh and closes its eyes, and doesn't give Ruggie or the formula a second glance.

He sets the bottle down quietly, but doesn't say more.

Yet you understand. If it was back home, no kid would be full enough to willingly stop. Even if they were, they'd take more out of fear that there wouldn't be a next time.

You didn't think about how this assignment might impact the students beyond a bit of temporary stress. You didn't know, Trein maybe spared a thought but judged this worthwhile regardless.

And there isn't a promise or assurance you can give that will make what Ruggie's feeling any less cumbersome.

So you don't, and instead you set a hand on top of his with a silent promise to wrap those little bites before parting ways.

“No, it's not real” you agree, “But the way you care is.”

He clicks his tongue against his front teeth, except there’s no bite to it. Since you have no doubt that he's just as good to the real ones back home as he's been to a 'fake' that thankfully will never know anything beyond this one good week.

“You’re laying it on thick tonight, Prefect.” A weak laugh hisses past his teeth as he nudges your shoulder.

“Just making observations.. It's kind of my thing.”

The typical jazz that guides customers at ease flicks off, as do most of the lights aside from the low headers. All your points about Ruggie are proven when he tugs the spare keys from his pocket an twirls them on his finger. He's closing, so no - you're not locked in or about to be in a game of cat and mouse with the Leech twins.

Scrappy yawns, fangs snagging briefly on its lip. Ruggie gently frees it with his thumb, a gesture so careful that it contradicts every joke he's made tonight. The same when he steps out from behind you and waits, making sure you don't get stuck in the dark.

“You know,” you grab your back and meet at his hip, “if you ever did run that daycare, I’d invest.”

His eyes gleam. “Oh yeah? What’s your cut?”

“Fifty percent.”

“Forty.”

“Forty-five.”

He pretends to consider it.

“Deal.”

From the first moment Trein passes the 'doll' over - Jack is disturbed. The swaddle is small in his arms. Bigger than the others around the room, but wolf-beastmen tend to weigh heavier than the average child at birth.

Not that this 'thing' was born. Trein plucked a hair from Jack's tail before he could finish reviewing the assignments instructions over.

Jack was expecting an old toy with some baseline features.

Not this.

Warm - familiar 99.4 degree baseline for his kind - smelling faintly of milk and talcum powder. So distinctly alive with a tiny heartbeat to be felt against the palm on its back.

With thick ash-blond hair, soft to the touch and little pointed ears that flick up and assess its surroundings. Big amber eyes that hook Jack's breath, a strong grip that latches onto his finger and drags up memories of holding his little sister for the first time.

It looks healthy and aware. When Jack leaves the room, there's a stream of denials in his head.

'It's just a spell. Not real. I'm holding something that costs more than my house. Just a flashy toy.' - He can remind himself every morning, but Jack never fully believes it.

In the back of his mind, he can't view this as a project. All Jack sees is a dependent, something small that's counting on him for protection, and he can't fight whatever instinct weaves through his veins that this is too realistic to be fake. Jack knows he'll get hurt from it but he lets attachment happen.

Around half-way through the week though, he considers if passing is worth it.

Jack's absurdly gentle - taking the 'doll' everywhere and not once letting it from his sights. If any of his club-mates complain that he's checking the bench too often, he gives zero cares. It's not like he's the only member with one of these dolls interrupting their practice. He's just the only one responsible enough to check it.

Other students in his home-ec class learn to steer clear because Jack isn't above lecturing them if they're not as dedicated as he. Seven forbid if he catches one abandoned 'doll' on campus. He will march to Trein personally and toss his classmates under the bus.

Its blankets are kept fresh, a space in Jack's gym bag dedicated to its belongings. Jack follows the feeding schedule to a T, and compulsively checks over its needs after every class. Although he has a sixth-sense by the end of day three where he just knows if something's amiss.

For someone who holds a strict bedtime at 9:00 PM, Jack lets his routine slip by the second day with his grade as a weak excuse. The baby struggles to sleep alone and Jack lasts exactly two nights before its sharing his bed, close enough to cover in a second if there's an emergency. He sleeps lighter, waking up every two hours just to press its stomach and check if it's 'alive'.

Shockingly enough, Jack's 'doll' sleeps through each night with ease. Any sleep deprivation is that nagging paranoia's fault. Other students aren't so lucky...

Around day four, the 'doll' starts laughing when a vine of Jack's potted peperomia drops into its bassinet. He's quick to lift it out but the 'doll' bats happily with those tiny hands. Its small tuft - a pathetic excuse for a tail - wags as Jack starts to swing the vine like a pendulum.

Something in Jack's chest shifts permanently, and its screaming at him to drop the plant. Yet he can't, because the baby would cry and even if it doesn't really recognize who Jack is - he can't bring himself to do it.

The trial ends with an east A+, along with extra credit for helping his peers care for their 'dolls'. When the spell dismisses, gone is the little wolf Jack wrecked his routine for. The enchantment ends and the doll returns to its baseline state made up of metal and polyvinyl chloride. All materials go back to Trein and Jack is more than ready to go exercise without stopping between sets to check his 'homework'.

That night, however, he wakes up every other hour. Like clockwork. Just to pat an empty space and flip back over on the opposite side. He doesn't talk about the project much, not because he was inconvenienced, but because part of him wanted it to last.

The first thing you notice when you step into Savanaclaw isn’t the baby.

It’s how quiet it is.

Not empty. Not lazy.

Intentional.

The hallway outside Jack’s room usually carries the low hum of voices, the scrape of boots, the occasional bark of laughter from the upperclassmen. Tonight, it feels… softened. As if the dorm itself has adjusted its volume around something small and sleeping.

Your chest tightens before you even reach his door.

You don’t announce yourself. You’ve learned that you don’t have to. The door is cracked open, a strip of warm golden light cutting across the darker hall. You lift your hand and knock gently against the wood anyway—more habit than necessity—before pushing it open the rest of the way.

The room smells faintly of clean linen and damp soil.

Jack stands near the window, hoodie sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows. The fading light of evening spills across his shoulders, catching in the pale strands of his hair and outlining the sharp line of his back when he stretches. There’s something grounding about the way he moves - with purpose yet unwound. Like seeds scattering in the wind.

He’s trimming a yellowing leaf from one of his potted plants. You can't recall its name, but remember he purchased it not too long ago in foothill town. You were there that day, stuck in line at a new sandwich shop Grim wanted to try. Jack took a detour to look for a new cactus while you waited for your order but came home with this one.

You pause just inside the doorway, not wanting to interrupt.

He rotates another pot a few inches so it catches the last of the sun, fingers brushing loose dirt from the rim. His touch is careful, almost doting for something that can't possibly know it's Jack minding its care.

This is a side of Jack that you'll never tire of watching.

And then you see the bassinet.

It’s positioned beside his bed, angled slightly toward the window but not too close to the draft. The blanket tucked around the edge is neat. Thoughtful. Inside, swaddled in pale fabric, a baby sleeps. Your view isn't fit for ogling at this angle, but only a blind person would miss those two big dorito-ears poking over the rim.

Not that you haven't looked your fill already. In your imagination, a sweet face with big amber eyes comes to mind. It met your watch once while tucked over Jack's shoulder, and you swore that it giggled because of you.

You’ve been watching Jack all week.

Not in a way that would embarrass him. Just…admiring. Wanting to catch those rare glimpses of someone not placing an act for a good grade. Not that you believed Jack would be dishonorable.

No. This was just a rare opportunity, and you wanted to selfishly hold onto it while you could.

The way he carries the baby tucked high against his chest between classes, one broad hand braced securely at its back. The way he automatically positions himself between it and any crowd. The way his golden eyes flick up at sudden noises before anyone else even registers them.

You didn’t come tonight to check on the baby.

You came because you’ve been worrying about him. About Jack.

He hasn’t acknowledged you yet.

Maybe he truly didn’t hear you.

Or maybe—because this is Jack—he did, and he’s giving you a second to look without making it a thing. Somewhere in your twisted little heart, there's a hope that he wants you to watch him.

He finishes with the plant, sets the shears down, and brushes his palms together. Only then does he glance over his shoulder.

“Oh. Prefect.”

His ears flick outward once—subtle, restrained.

“Didn’t hear you come in.”

There’s no suspicion in his tone. Just a raw statement. Jack isn't one for lying. He simply isn't good at it. When his tail sways into a gentle rhythm, you made the decision not to call his bluff.

He heard, and he wanted you to see him. That random 'somewhere' in your heart is becoming easier to locate.

“You were busy,” you say softly and hang against the door pane.

A faint rustle interrupts the comfortable silence. It's so quiet that you think you imagined it, but Jack's head turns instantly towards the bassinet.

The baby hasn’t cried. Hasn’t whimpered. There’s no real sound -just the smallest tightening of its limbs, a slight shift beneath the swaddle. Like sheets being rubbed together.

Jack is already moving, and you're too curious to wait for a formal invite. The brick walls and warm hanging hearth are inviting enough.

Three long steps carry him across the room. Jack kneels beside the bassinet without hesitation, one knee pressing into the floor as he hovers over it. His brow furrows, not in panic but in assessment. He overlooks the child like a puzzle to be solved and you wait for an answer, heart thudding unexpectedly hard in your chest.

The swaddle looks fine to you. Snug. Even. Textbook approved.

Jack slides two fingers beneath the fabric near the baby’s shoulder and drops his alert demeanor.

“Too tight,” he murmurs under his breath.

You blink, ducking closer when his eyes send a swift reassurance with just a glance. If he minds you over his shoulder, Jack doesn't say.

He loosens the cloth just enough to give the baby room to flex, careful not to unravel the structure entirely. His movements are practiced, precise—like he’s already memorized the exact degree of tension it prefers.

The infant exhales in a soft little huff. Its tiny wolf ears twitch once. The tension leaves its limbs almost instantly, and that sound is gone. It no longer wants to leave its restraints so there's no need to tug the fabric.

"There you go. Not so bad," Jack mutters at a frequency you struggle to hear and yet bright golden eyes register with no trouble.

He catches your confusion and leans in, "Speak lower for now. Their ears are more sensitive than most."

You were already being quiet since it was sleeping, but Jack's warning has you reconsidering the decibel system. If there's any time for you to discover some telepathic abilities, let it be now so you don't bother this bundle of cuteness.

You both wait for it to settle, those sweet cheeks now covered in a bit of drool. Jack wipes it clear with the edge of its blanket and sighs.

You feel your throat tighten, lips locked with no words.

It didn’t cry. It didn’t even fully wake up. Not beyond a few blinks and a hint of trust.

“You didn’t wait for it to fuss,” you say quietly, leaning closer without thinking. Jack's ear twitches against your cheek but he doesn't ask you to move away. Be it so you can converse safely, or if he truly doesn't mind.

Jack shrugs minutely, but there’s no pride in it.

“It was starting to squirm,” he replies. “That’s what it does when it’s uncomfortable.”

You want to remind him that not everyone can pick up on such subtle shifts, but Jack's difficult to extend praise towards. Especially from you for some reason. Each compliment is met with mixed signals. A deep rouge over his cheeks but a sharp dismissal.

You kneel on the same side of the bassinet, peering down. Each time Jack shifts, his thigh bumps your waist. He doesn't apologize but steadies a hand when he forgets you're easy to knock over.

The baby’s cheeks are slightly flushed with warmth. Its little hands curl near its chin, claws no bigger than pinpricks. Its breathing evens out again like nothing ever happened.

“You caught that from across the room,” you murmur, trying again.

He doesn’t answer right away.

He smooths the blanket with the flat of his palm, adjusting it by instinct. His fingers linger there a second longer than necessary, hovering.

“It’s routine,” he says finally. “You notice patterns.”

Routine.

You almost laugh at that. Jack does love his regimens but the thing with babies is that they're as unpredictable as they come.

Routine doesn’t explain the way his body stays angled toward the bassinet even after the baby settles. Routine doesn’t explain how his shoulders remain braced, like he’s expecting something to happen at any second. The way his spine forms a quiet shield between the bassinet and the rest of the room.

The way one knee is still planted on the floor, even though it's been minutes and his schedule is waiting. Not that you're Jack's keeper, but you give attention to those with pieces of your heart. Any other week and he would be out running extra laps in the Magift stadium at this hour. Yet he's tending to his plants, which is a morning ritual.

“You’ve been doing more than just noticing patterns,” you keep it light.

His tail brushes your back - then stops abruptly. You take it as a sign to stand and perch on the edge of his work desk.

“I’ve been watching you all week, Jack.”

That gets him to look at you. Your heart picks up and berates your brain for admitting something so vulnerable. Although you've already dug the grave and he's not throwing you to the door.

Jack would never. You're still grateful. The subtle wide-eyed look isn't defensive. Just...cautious. Dare you think flustered.

“You walk on the outside of the hallways even though it's harder to cross through,” you continue anxiously. “You've checked out more books than Trein assigned. You haven’t slept through the night once.”

He opens his mouth.

Closes it.

Because he knows you’re right. The evidence is stacked right behind you if you turned around.

You swallow a thick seed of bravery, “You don’t even wait for it to cry. No one else is that mindful without a second thought.”

Most of your class isn't taking the assignment as seriously as they should. One reason you waited until the end to visit Jack was because you knew he'd be great. Not just because your attention called to him every time he was visible.

Call it a gut instinct.

Silence stretches between you, thick but not uncomfortable.

“You’re a natural,” you say with conviction. A large helping of pride mixed in from beginning to end.

The words leave your mouth before you can overthink them. Eeven if he was just going to brush it off like always, his ego deserved to know.

You wait for him to scoff. To flush and busy himself with his plants again. Then you could idle about, fill out Trein's form, discuss the weekly musings and bid both sweet wolves a good night.

Instead, something new flickers across his expression. That's never been there before.

His jaw tightens, that one neck vein bulging out. The same one that strained when he decided it was a good idea for you to sit on his back while he did push ups.

The baby shifts again, stretching one leg within the loosened swaddle. Jack’s hand hovers automatically over its tiny torso, not touching, just ready. Even though there's nothing in this room that could possibly harm it.

Like he’s anticipating a fall that hasn’t happened yet.

“A natural,” he repeats, quieter.

“At being a dad,” you clarify. Stupid. He knew that. Yet your tongue was growing heavier by the second.

And the room was growing smaller. It wasn't physically possible, but you swore he was drawing closer.

Or were you leaning in? Not sure why you wanted him to understand so much, but emotions are weird like that sometimes.

Jack rises slowly to his full height. He fills the space without trying. Solid, steady, grounded. But his ears angle back just slightly, betraying something fragile underneath. He takes a step back from the bassinet, and then another, and another - until his calves hit the edge of his bed and he sits.

“It’s just an assignment,” he says.

The words are strict. Meant for himself rather than you.

You’ve heard them before. Various tones across classmates. Worried. Bored. Joyful. By the second day they all conjoined to focused and part of a new norm everyone was sharing for a week.

But these sound rehearsed. Like they're just sitting at the back of Jack's mind and taunting him.

You kick off his desk, stopping just at the edge of his space. Knees almost touching, his head at level with your ribs. It's not often you get to be the taller one but now's not the time to tease.

You're close enough to feel the warmth radiating off him. Close enough that you’re sharing the quiet, saudade that Jack's been beating himself with since the start of this experience.

“Is that what it feels like?” you ask.

His gaze drops to the bassinet, and he deflates. Because Jack's an awful liar.

And he knows it, "No."

The baby’s chest rises and falls in slow, even breaths.

“It feels…” He exhales slowly through his nose, shoulders lowering a fraction. “It feels like something’s depending on me.”

He doesn't hate it. Not in the slightest, you realize.

Jack enjoys being dependable and trusted. The way he watches his mini is nothing short of devoted, but for someone who's structured around protecting what's worth keeping safe?

What about his own heart?

Ah.

“I can’t ignore that,” he continues, a few words missing but they're there in his clenched fists. “Even if it’s temporary.”

Your heart aches in a way you weren’t prepared for on the way here. You expected cute aggression and to embarrass yourself terribly with the image of Jack stuck in your brain for the rest of the day.

You got the second part, because this isn't a conversation you'll ever forget. Not today, tomorrow, next week, or even in the next decade.

He runs a hand through his hair, then lets it fall back to his side on the mattress.

“It reacts to me,” he says, exasperated. “It sleeps better when I’m here. It quiets down when I talk.”

You think about every time you’ve seen him murmur something low and steady, voice rumbling under the cafeteria chatter until the baby settles.

“I keep having to remind myself it’s not real,” he admits. “That it disappears at the end of the week.”

Jack's golden eyes flick toward you, up and with a vulnerability you'd never seen before. Strong, callused hands hover in the air by your sides. He's looking for an answer that he knows you're unable to give.

“But my brain doesn't care about any of that," heavy hands settle over your hips and he leans in. Jack's forehead burns hot even through your uniform button-down, and he hides there.

Your hands settle, laced in his nape and offer the comfort you came here to give. Even if there weren't any words or answers to make the truth any blurred.

He must have known with that perceptiveness of his. You wouldn't stop by just for some paperwork. Not when you see him every day without trying.

Not to check the swaddle.

Not to admire how attentive he is.

You came because you knew this would cost him something more than a bad grade or a few sleepless nights.

“You’re allowed to care,” you say softly. He presses further into you as a response. Barely so, because you were still just friends but also something else now. His hands hold you securely, but he's holding back.

“I know.”

The way he says it sounds like he doesn’t know how to do anything else, because he's tried.

The baby makes a tiny puffing noise in its sleep. Jack’s dominant hand moves without conscious thought, brushing against the bassinet and tugging it towards the bed's edge. His cheek presses against your stomach, one eye opening to watch. He reaches forward to pull the baby's leg completely free.

It was a restless sleeper apparently. Blanket bindings be damned.

“You’re going to be okay when this ends?” you ask, barely above a whisper.

He doesn’t answer right away.

“It’s not real,” he repeats and draws his hand back to the rim. His grip is knuckle-white, a stark contrast in strength to the other which is still holding you.

But the words sound lighter now.

“Being a natural doesn’t mean it won’t hurt,” you say gently.

His gaze snaps to yours. Chin poking against your middle and eyes narrowed under hoods. It's hard to accept pain, you realize. A lesson in itself. Maybe Trein isn't so crazy with this assignment after all.

You don’t look away, and push his bangs back between his ears with your palm.

“It just means you’re doing it right.”

Something in him softens.

You see it happen. The white grip turn back to its normal chestnut color. Along with it is a look in his eye - the one he lingers with after a good practice or when he gets a call from home. Or on the first day of a new semester, where he comes back to campus and you give the key back to his room. All plants accounted and cared for.

His gaze returns to the baby, and for a moment the firmness drains away. What’s left is quiet devotion. Fierce and steady and heartbreakingly tender.

“I just don’t want it to feel alone,” he admits.

This was never about grades.It was never about proving he could handle responsibility.

It was about making sure something small and vulnerable never felt as it was. No matter its origins. It was about caring for something even though it had nothing to give in return and permanence nonexistent.

“It doesn’t,” you thumb the height of his cheek. “Not with you.”

He goes still under your touch.

“I get wet at the thought of you // Being a responsible guy // Treating me like you’re supposed to do // Tears run down my thighs” - Tears, Sabrina Carpenter

Everyone assumes Trey is safe. Dependable. The calm one with gentle hands and patient smiles, the boy who cleans up everyone else’s messes before they even notice they’ve made one. And he lets them believe it, because it’s easier that way. But you know better. You notice the amusement hidden behind his half-lidded gaze, the way he enjoys watching people squirm just a little under his attention. Trey likes being reliable because it gives him control — it means people trust him enough to let their guard down. Especially you.

Trey knows how much power there is in being the one person you never doublt.

“What? You’re looking at me like that again… careful, sweetheart. You make it awfully tempting to bend the rules.”

“All the pills that you take // Violet, blue, green, red - to keep me at arms length don’t work //You try to push me out, but I just find my way back in // Violet, blue, green, red - to keep me out. I win.” - Cinnamon Girl, Lana Del Rey

Cater has spent so long making himself easy to consume. Smiles, selfies, jokes, perfectly curated pieces of himself handed out to everyone around him — enough to keep people entertained, but never enough to let them truly touch him. And then you come along and ruin the balance entirely. You notice the cracks beneath the filters, the moments where his grin strains at the edges, the loneliness he buries under endless distractions. He keeps trying to redirect you back to the surface, laughing things off whenever you get too close, pretending vulnerability is just another joke. But every time you slip past his defenses anyway, there’s a part of him that feels relieved.

Cater pushes because he’s terrified of being known too well and abandoned for it after, yet he can’t stop leaving the door unlocked for you. Maybe that’s why he self-sabotages so often — because if you leave after seeing the real him, at least he can say he expected it. But if you stay? Then maybe, for once, someone chose him and not the version he performs for everyone else.

“You know you’d have an easier time if you just gave up on me already… so why do you keep coming back?”

“How can we go back to be being friends, when we just shared a bed.” - back to friends,sombr

Ace tells himself it just sort of happened. That somewhere between all the bickering, the late-night walks back to Ramshackle, the dumb arguments and easy laughter, things got complicated. But lying awake beside you, close enough to feel the warmth of your body beneath the blankets, he realizes that isn’t true at all. It was never just friendship for him. Maybe he knew it from the first day he decided to get under your skin for no reason other than wanting your attention fixed on him. Maybe that’s why he kept coming back, even when he could’ve walked away a hundred times over. Ace doesn’t really understand when wanting to make you laugh turned into needing to be the person you looked for first, or when teasing you started feeling dangerously close to flirting.

All he knows is that sharing a bed with you — hearing your breathing in the dark, watching you shift sleepily closer without thinking — makes pretending impossible now. Because friends aren’t supposed to want like this. They aren’t supposed to feel their chest ache at the thought of going back to “normal.” And the worst part is that Ace doesn’t think there is a normal to return to. He’s always wanted you. He just finally ran out of ways to joke around it.

“…You ever think maybe I was doomed the second I met you?”

“I’d give you the sun if you asked me. You could have all of the time. You could have the stars and the trees. When dividin’ up the universe. You could have mine.” - J’s Lullaby, Delaney Bailey

Loving you feels almost holy to Deuce. Before you, he spent so much of his life convinced he was inherently wrong somehow — too rough around the edges, too angry, too reckless to ever truly become the kind of person he wanted to be. Everyone told him changing was difficult, that redemption had to be earned piece by piece, but you looked at him like he was already worth believing in. And that changes everything. Because once Deuce lets someone into his heart, he loves with his entire body and soul. There is nothing careful about it. He would give and give until there was nothing left of him if it meant keeping you safe, happy, smiling beside him.

The frightening thing is how easy it feels. One soft glance from you and suddenly every impossible task becomes manageable, every burden worth carrying. He’d hand you the stars without hesitation if you asked, not because he thinks you’d demand it, but because loving you makes him want to offer the universe itself. Somewhere along the way, you became proof that he could be good — not because you fixed him, but because you saw goodness in him before he could see it himself. And now Deuce clings to that faith with everything he has, terrified and grateful all at once, like losing you would mean losing the person he’s trying so hard to become.

“I don’t care how hard it is… if it’s for you, I’ll do it. I swear I will.”

“Pulling your face close, wanting the inmost. // Show me I’m not afraid of you now, I’m not afraid of you now. // Villain and violent. Infant and innocent. // Baby, both arms cradle you now. Both arms cradle you now.” - forwards beckon rebound, adrianne lenker

Leona cannot remember the last time someone touched him gently without wanting something in return. Most people approach him with caution or ambition — fearful of his temper, respectful of his status, eager to gain from his favor. But you touch him like none of those things matter. Your fingers brush over the scar beneath his eye without hesitation, comb lazily through his hair while he rests beside you, trace the sharp lines of his face like you’re memorizing something precious instead of dangerous. And it undoes him more thoroughly than he’ll ever admit aloud. Because beneath all his teeth and claws, beneath the bitterness and exhaustion and violence simmering under his skin, there is a part of him still aching from years of being treated like something second-best. Something too much. Too difficult to hold carefully.

Yet you cradle every fractured piece of him with impossible tenderness, and suddenly Leona finds himself wanting — selfishly, desperately — to keep it. To keep you. He isn’t afraid of you hurting him physically; he knows he could protect himself from almost anyone. What terrifies him is how easily you’ve slipped past every defense he had, how devastating it would be if you decided one day to take your warmth back. So he holds you close in quiet moments, heavy arms wrapped around you possessively, silently promising something you haven’t fully realized yet: no matter how vicious the world becomes, you are safe with him. Always.

“C’mere… quit lookin’ at me like that unless you plan on stayin’. I don’t think I could let you go now even if I tried.”

Bonus because I was torn :p ::

“A little respect for women can get you very very far // Remembering how to use your phone gets me // Oh so, Oh so, Oh so hot!” Tears, Sabrina Carpenter

No one ever disrespects you in his presence. Fiercely protective. One fucking word, one wrong look, and he isn’t fighting but he damn well will put people in their place with a mere glance.

“And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like I love you.” — Somethin' Stupid, Frank and Nancy Sinatra

Ruggie has always survived by knowing exactly where the line is. Don’t get attached. Don’t depend on people more than necessary. Don’t want things you can’t afford to lose. It’s practical, really — the kind of mindset you develop when life has spent years proving that stability is fragile and love doesn’t put food on the table. So whatever this thing between you was supposed to be, it definitely wasn’t meant to become serious. Just easy company. A little flirting. Someone warm to sit beside after a long day. But somewhere along the way, you stopped feeling temporary. And that’s the problem. Because now every laugh you give him feels dangerous, every soft touch settling somewhere deep in his chest where he can’t pry it back out again.

Ruggie hates how badly he wants things from you he has no right asking for — your time, your affection, a future he can barely provide for himself let alone someone else. He knows what he has to offer isn’t glamorous. It’s scraps and side jobs and exhaustion and a life built on barely scraping by. Yet none of that stops him from loving you with a fierceness that catches him off guard every time it slips loose. And maybe that’s why he jokes so much, why he grins and laughs things off before they get too serious — because if he says it plainly, if he admits how deeply he’s fallen, then suddenly there’s something precious enough to lose.

“Shaha… forget I said all that, okay? …Unless you were gonna say it back.”

“A stranger light comes on slowly. // A stranger’s heart without a home. // You put your hands into your head. // And then its smiles cover your heart” - Fade into you, Mazzy Star

For Jack, love is not casual. It never could be. Beastfolk understand instinctively what it means to belong to someone — not in ownership, but in trust, in loyalty, in the quiet certainty that no matter how harsh the world becomes, your pack will return to you at the end of the day. Jack always understood that in theory. He understood duty, protection, commitment. But you make him understand it emotionally for the first time. Slowly, almost without realizing it, you become home to him.

The feeling sneaks up on him in small moments: the way his body relaxes the instant he hears your voice, the instinctive urge to stand between you and anything threatening, the overwhelming calm he feels when you run your fingers through his hair and trace over the scarred, guarded parts of him without fear. There’s something unbearably tender in the way you handle him, like you see the strength in him without being intimidated by it. And in return, Jack holds your heart with almost frightening care. Because wolves do not love halfway. Once someone is considered theirs, they are protected with teeth and soul alike.

“…You don’t have to hold back around me. I’ve got you. I always will.”

“When I saw you I knew you were mine. If you leave, I’ll kill you. But, oh dear, I fear, you’ll kill me first.” - May You Never Forget Me, Temachii

Azul knew loving you would ruin him almost immediately. It was there the moment he first looked at you — that sharp, sinking certainty that you would become dangerous to him in ways no contract or deal could ever protect against. Attraction has never frightened Azul before. Desire is manageable. Predictable. Something he can leverage, contain, twist neatly into his favor. But you slip beneath his defenses too quickly, bypassing every carefully constructed wall he spent years building around himself. And the worst part is that he sees it happening in real time.

He notices how possessive he becomes over your attention, how his smile tightens whenever someone else stands too close to you, how every interaction starts feeling like starvation followed by indulgence. It’s humiliating. Terrifying. Because Azul knows exactly what it means to hand another person the power to destroy you. He spent his childhood learning what cruelty looks like when people discover your weak points. Yet despite all his intelligence, all his caution, he cannot stop himself from reaching for you anyway.

You make him greedy. Not for wealth or influence, but for softer things he has no idea how to ask for properly. Your time. Your affection. Your reassurance. He wants every piece of you tucked safely into his grasp where nobody else can touch it. And beneath that obsession lies something even uglier: fear. Fear that one day you’ll realize how desperate he truly is beneath the polished confidence and silver tongue. Fear that you’ll pull away after he’s already become too dependent on your warmth to survive losing it cleanly. But even knowing that, Azul cannot bring himself to loosen his grip. Because if loving you is fatal, then perhaps he’s already accepted the sentence.

"Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me? If you asked for my heart, I’d hand it over willingly...and resent you for how easily you could crush it afterward.”

"Every gesture // Every move that she makes // Makes me feel like never before // Why do I have // This growing need to be beside her" - Strangers Like Me, Phil Collins

Jade has always believed people become predictable eventually. Given enough time, every person reveals their habits, their weaknesses, the exact shape of their desires. It’s one of the reasons he enjoys observing others so much — the slow unraveling fascinates him. But you are different in a way he cannot quite dissect, and that alone is enough to capture his full attention. Every small gesture you make seems to uncover something new inside him, something unfamiliar and strangely exhilarating.

Jade notices all of it. And instead of the usual satisfaction that comes with understanding someone completely, he finds himself wanting more. More conversations. More walks beside you. More mundane little moments strung together until they become something precious. It bewilders him, this growing need to remain close to you even when nothing particularly exciting is happening. Especially then, perhaps. Because for the first time, Jade discovers that intimacy is not merely intrigue or amusement; it is the startling realization that even silence can feel endlessly engaging when shared with the right person.

“How curious… no matter how much time I spend with you, I still find myself wanting more.”

“Two Lovers // Forbidden From One Another// A War Divides Their People // Built A Path To Be Together // Yeah, uh, I forgot the next couple of lines but, uh, then it goes // SECRET TUNNELLLL // SECRET TUNNELLLLL/ THROUGH THE MOUNTAINSSSS // SECRET SECRET SECRET - Jeremy Zuckerman, ATLA

C’mon. Ding, ding, ding - is this thing turned on? *knocking on your brain*. You’re from some weird other world and he’s a eel just swimming in the trenches until you came and he gobbled you right up. He might have a secret tunnel dug under your dorm. You don’t know what he did those three days you were gone. And honestly? Floyd doesn’t really care whether the attachment makes sense or not. He likes you. A lot. Enough that being separated from you too long makes something restless and sharp coil inside him.

He’s spent his whole life bored of people once he figured them out, but you? You’re like a mystery box he keeps digging through, finding new things every time he thinks he’s reached the end. He doesn’t really care that you “shouldn’t” fit together — if anything, that makes it more fun. You became his favorite person in the entire world, and Floyd has never been good at letting go of things he likes.

“Shrimpyyyy, if you disappear on me again, I’m seriously gonna lose it. Maybe I should just keep ya with me forever instead, huh?”

“Kiss me out of the bearded barley. Nightly beside the green, green grass. // Swing, swing, swing the spinning step. // You wear those shoes and I will wear that dress.” - Kiss Me, Sixpence None The Richer

Kalim has spent his entire life surrounded by expectations heavy enough to crush a person. He was born into responsibility before he was ever allowed to simply be a child, raised constantly aware that his life would never fully belong to him. Every meal tasted for poison, every decision watched carefully, every future plan laid out long before he had a say in it. Yet somehow, when he’s with you, all of that fades into the background noise of the world. Loving you feels wonderfully simple in a way nothing else in his life ever has. You don’t look at him and see status or obligation or the heir of the Al-Asim family — you just see Kalim. Loud, affectionate, overly excitable Kalim, who wants to dance with you under lantern light and laugh until his stomach hurts and experience every beautiful thing the world has to offer with your hand in his.

There’s a kind of freedom in that which feels almost miraculous to him. For perhaps the first time, the future doesn’t feel like a plan someone else drafted; it feels like something he might actually get to choose for himself. And if he gets to choose, then he wants you.

“C’mon, dance with me! I wanna make so many happy memories with you that we’ll never be able to count them all.”

“Where did you learn what it means to reciprocate? // And how much can I be expected to tolerate? // So I started to think 'bout the plans I made. The debt unpaid. // And you can't just call a spade a spade. // I watch the moon. Let it run my mood. Can’t stop thinking of you.” - Tek It, Cafune

Jamil has always understood restraint. Not as virtue, but as survival. Every emotion, every desire, every private impulse has had to be measured, trimmed, redirected into something acceptable, something useful. He is used to giving without being given anything equal in return — used to the quiet mathematics of obligation where reciprocation is never guaranteed. So when you enter his life and begin to give without asking for permission, without keeping score, something in him becomes unsettled in a way he cannot easily correct.

It follows him into silence, into duty, into the rare moments he finally has alone beneath the night sky. And there, staring at the moon from his window, he finds himself thinking of you in loops he cannot break out of — not because he wants to lose control, but because part of him has already started to. You become both comfort and complication: the only place his thoughts soften, and the only place they spiral. He tells himself to step back, to maintain distance, to preserve the order he has spent his entire life building… and yet he cannot stop returning to you in his mind.

Love, for Jamil, is not gentle. It is cyclical. It is consuming. It is the unbearable awareness that even freedom from you still feels like belonging to you in some quieter, more dangerous way.

"You’re becoming a problem I don’t know how to solve. Get out of my head....please."

“I started running from the love that you gave me. // ‘Cause I was scared half to death. That all I was chasing. // Was perfect perfection. Thank god it was a lesson.“ - Her, JVKE

Vil has spent his entire life running toward perfection so relentlessly that he forgot what it feels like to simply be seen. Not evaluated. Not ranked. Not compared. Seen. So when you enter his life and look at him without the usual awe that edges into distance or fear, something in him shifts in a way he cannot immediately pinpoint.

At first, he tries to treat you like everything else in his world: something to refine, to understand, to perfect. But you resist that logic entirely. You do not fit into his carefully curated expectations, and worse… you make him question whether those expectations were ever meant to define him at all. Vil runs, not because he does not feel, but because he feels too much when he is with you.

Affection becomes vulnerability. Admiration becomes exposure. Yet even as he distances himself, even as he tells himself that love must be controlled or it becomes ruinous, he finds himself learning something unbearable in its simplicity...perfection was never the point. You are not flawless, and you do not need to be. And somehow, that makes you the most honest thing in his life. He begins to understand that what he was chasing was not perfection itself, but the illusion of being worthy of love through it

“If you can love me like this… then maybe...Mm. Nevermind. These thoughts are best saved for when time stands still long enough to reflect properly."

“We’ll laugh until we think we’ll die // Barefoot on a summer night // Nothing could be sweeter than with you” — Home, Matthew Hall

Epel spent most of his life feeling squeezed into shapes that never fit quite right. Too pretty to be taken seriously, too restrained to act the way he wanted, too trapped beneath everyone else’s expectations to figure out who he actually was underneath all of it.

Before you, Epel thought freedom was having people look at him like he had the power to carry any burden, proving he was tougher than everyone expected him to be. But with you, freedom becomes something he feels rather than what he carries. It’s running barefoot through the orchards back home with your laughter ringing through the summer air, dirt clinging to your ankles while the sunset paints gold across the apple trees. It’s being able to breathe without worrying how he’s being perceived for once. Around you, he doesn’t have to force himself into somebody else’s idea of strength or beauty; he can just be. And maybe that’s why loving you settles so deeply into his bones.

Epel always understood loyalty. He understood hard work, sacrifice, doing right by the people he cared about — but devotion is something entirely different and mature. Devotion is the way he catches himself planning futures with you without even realizing it, but doesn't bactrack. It’s wanting to drag you proudly through his hometown by the hand just so everyone can see the person who makes him happiest. The person who makes him feel whole in a way he didn’t realize he’d been missing.

Epel knows meeting you might’ve been the best thing that ever happened to him, even beyond all the opportunities Night Raven College gave him. You are proof that there was something waiting for him beyond Harveston's boarders he grew up stuck inside, something sweeter than the juciest honeycrisp. And now that he has you, Epel would do just about anything to keep the right to stand at your side.

“Quit smilin’ at me like that, dangit…c'mon, let's go grab supper at the diner before I get an apeitite for somethin' else."

“Starlight. I will be chasing a starlight./ / Until the end of my life. // My life. You electrify my life./ / Let’s conspire to ignite. All the souls that would die just to feel alive. // I’ll never let you go.” - Starlight, muse

To Rook, loving you is not gentle thing . It is all-consuming devotion sharpened into something reverent. He has spent his life admiring beauty from afar, studying it, chasing it, praising it in all its fleeting forms. But you are different from every masterpiece he has ever gazed upon before. You are not simply something to observe; you are something that changed him in return. Your existence ignites him down to the marrow, sets every nerve alight until even speaking your name feels like striking flint against stone. And Rook adores the ache of it. The yearning. The hunger. To him, love should burn. It should inspire madness and poetry and reckless acts of passion all at once.

He watches you grow beneath his attention with fascinated delight, nurturing your confidence, drawing reactions from you nobody else can, molding and encouraging parts of you the world might’ve left untouched otherwise. There is selfishness in it too — a possessive streak hidden beneath all his elegant praise. Because while others may admire you, may bask in your brilliance from afar, Rook alone knows the intimate details of your soul. He alone earns the privilege of touching the fire without being burned away by it. And he guards that privilege fiercely. You are his muse, his greatest hunt, the star he would chase until the end of his life without regret.

“Mon trésor… do you realize what you have done to me? One glance from you and suddenly the entire world pales in comparison.”

“Emotions, what are you doin’? // Oh, don’t you know. Don’t you know you’ll be my ruin? // Emotions, you get me upset // Why make me remember, what I want to forget // I’ve been lonely, lonely too long // Emotions leave me alone” - Emotions, Brenda Lee

Idia wishes desperately that he’d never fallen for you at all. It would’ve been easier if you’d stayed another distant person on a screen somewhere — someone he could admire quietly without ever having to confront the horrible, aching reality of wanting. Because loving you drags every ugly, vulnerable part of him to the surface no matter how hard he tries to bury it again.

But you kept getting closer anyway, slipping past every locked door and defensive joke until suddenly you’re everywhere in his life, woven into his routines and thoughts so deeply he can’t imagine tearing you back out again without losing something vital in the process. And gods, he hates it. Hates the possessiveness curling ugly and desperate inside his chest whenever someone else takes your attention for too long. Hates how badly he wants to keep you hidden away where nothing can touch you but him. Hates that his body reacts to your affection, so painfully human despite all the years he spent trying to detach himself from that kind of vulnerability.

Most of all, he hates what loving him would cost you. Because Idia knows exactly what he is — a cursed bloodline, cursed future, a life shadowed by grief and inevitability.

Choosing him wouldn’t just mean dating some awkward shut-in; it would mean stepping willingly into the orbit of someone fundamentally doomed. And despite how selfishly he craves you, there’s still a part of him horrified by the idea of dragging you down with him. You deserve sunlight and freedom and a life untouched by the rot clinging to the Shroud name. Yet every time he tries to pull away for your sake, you smile at him or say his name softly and all his resolve crumbles instantly. He's so pathetic it isn't a joke anymore. But that’s the cruelest part of all... if you ever looked him in the eyes and chose him anyway, Idia knows he wouldn’t be strong enough to refuse you. So he stays trapped between guilt and desire, clutching his feelings like a wound he can’t stop reopening.

“Y-you seriously need better taste, okay…? ‘Cause if you keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna start believing you actually want this. Want me...and you don't. Trust me, you don't."

“Weren’t we the stars in heaven? Weren’t we the salt in the sea? // Dragon in the new warm mountain. Didn’t you believe in me? // … I wanna kiss, kiss your eyes again. // Wanna witness your eyes looking.” - anything, adrianne lenker

To most people, Malleus is a title before he is a person. A prince, a prodigy, a creature powerful enough to inspire fear long before affection can ever take root. But you met him beneath moonlight without knowing any of that, and instead of recoiling, you smiled at him. Spoke to him. Laughed with him as though he were ordinary. Dared to demand a name from him. That memory settles inside Malleus like something sacred. Perhaps, at first, your ignorance of his identity fascinated him because it allowed him a fleeting taste of normalcy, but what truly captured his heart was the fact that you never changed after learning the truth. Your kindness did not lessen. Your eyes did not harden with fear. If anything, you only looked at him more warmly afterward, and Malleus — still young by Fae standards despite the weight of decades pressing against his shoulders — finds himself hopelessly undone by it.

With you, he feels less like an untouchable heir and more like a young man painfully, desperately in love for the first time. In a life marked constantly by distance and inevitability, you become a beacon calling him back from the loneliness waiting at the edges of his existence. He cherishes every glance you give him because your eyes always hold him gently, reflecting not the monster others expect to see, but someone worthy of companionship, devotion… and now, love. And if fate demanded he endure every lonely year of his life again just to arrive at the moment your hand reached for his, Malleus knows without hesitation that he would.

“My dearest child of man…I would cross every empty age again, just to stand before you once more. So please, continue to observe this world by my side.”

“But there never seems to be enough time // to do the things you want to do once you find them // I’ve looked around enough to know // That you’re the one want to go through time with” — Time in a Bottle, Jim Croce

Lilia has lived long enough to understand how fleeting happiness truly is. Centuries pass in blinks; people come and go like seasons, precious things slipping through his fingers no matter how tightly he tries to hold them. Yet somehow, loving you makes time feel unbearably short all over again. Suddenly every moment matters in ways it hasn’t for years.

He wants everything with you — every first experience you’ve yet to have, every quiet memory waiting to be made, every tiny insignificant moment other people might overlook. He wants to hear your laughter echo through unfamiliar places, wants to dance with you beneath festival lights, wants lazy afternoons and sleepless nights and a thousand years’ worth of stories tucked carefully away where he can revisit them in the afterlife.

And selfishly, he wants to reclaim parts of himself through you too. To redo old memories with your hand in his instead of ghosts. To experience wonder not as a warrior or a general or an ancient fae burdened by history, but simply as someone deeply, hopelessly in love. Lilia does not intend to waste a single second now that he’s found you. The world has taken enough from him already; he refuses to let time steal this too.

“Fufufu… stay with me a little longer this night, won’t you? There are still so many decades worth of memories I wish to make with you.”

“ Look up at the light // This could be a dream or it could be real // Dive into my mind // And don’t come up for air, you won’t need it here” - This could be a dream , Aurora

Silver has always drifted through life as if he were moving through a dream he could never quite remember upon waking. The world feels distant to him at times — blurred at the edges, softened by sleep, untethered from the urgency that seems to guide everyone else. But you make things clear. When you speak, when you smile, when your hand brushes his and anchors him back to the present, he feels something settle that nervous tick to be better.

He cannot breathe right when you are not near, though he would never say it so plainly; it is simply that your absence leaves the air too still, too empty, as though his body has forgotten how to keep going without the sound of you guiding him through it. If he could, he would let you look straight into his mind, past the silence and the sleepiness and the strange half-formed thoughts he rarely knows how to explain, because then you would understand how deeply he has come to rely on your presence. You are not a burden, not a distraction, not something fleeting to wake from — you are another gentle hand the world has placed in his path, and Silver is grateful for you in the quiet, unwavering way he is grateful for dawn.

“Stay with me a little longer… I feel most awake when I’m together with you.”

“Say I wouldn’t care if you walked away // But every time you’re there I’m begging you to stay // And when you come close, I just tremble // And every time, every time you go // It’s like a knife that cuts through my soul” - Only Love Can Hurt Like This, Paloma Faith

For a solider, love is a curse reserved for your worst enemy. It may bolster your resolve but heavens if it does not carve an achilles heel across every square inch of your heart. Your life is not your own. It is that of your Lord. Yet you dare to promise a piece to your love so selfishly. A piece that is not yours to give. Even if so, it is all you have. You can never promise to offer your whole self as they do.

Love is the most blissful wound. Sebek is stuck on an infinite loop, stabbed over and over and over. It hurts to deny you, it hurts to see you, it hurts to feel for you, it hurts to dismiss thoughts of you — it hurts. Love is the most blissful wound. Love is a curse Sebek has found himself struck by, like a mighty lightning bolt. Yet he is nothing if not a battery ready to be charged.

Well, most of his goals. The ones that don’t involve hauling you over his shoulder and back where you belong. His plan is to grab you by the scruff the first chance he gets, lay it all bare, and cast off the regret of letting you go without a word. 

He also plans to use this ‘opportunity’ to take advantage of his new liberties. No Felena on his back for a bit. Leona low-key wants to see as much of your world as he can. Study its politics from the view of the common man as well as the news. 

When everyone first landed - he took one look at the map and said ‘put me wherever,’ because he knew he wouldn’t stay in one place for long. 

Leona is also pessimist number one on the situation. He doesn’t have much hope of finding you just by travelling around. The odds of it? Close to nothing. They don’t even know for certain if this world is your home. Just a word from the lizard who pulled strings with a tracking spell no one had any idea existed. Leona’s letting the others figure it out. Not because he doesn’t  want to. No. Hah. He has WORDS for your dimension hopping ass the moment someone’s caught a lead. You will be hearing from him. Every grievance. 

He’s just…taking the opportunity to get a better grasp on where you’re from. 

Moving on – he covers plenty of land in a short period. Lion on a mission (not without help. Remember for later). The Madagascar, expanse of South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan. Algeria, Mali, Ghana – however long it takes, he keeps moving. Lives out of hostels. 

Isn’t it funny? This is the lifestyle that would give Ki’faji a heart attack. One of Leona’s few items is a decent quality camera along with a little leatherbound journal. He’ll have plenty of documentation to bring back home and implement. 

It helps that Africa’s general way of life (trade, climate, geography, class system, etc) is closest to the Sunset Savannah. He didn’t intend for the lineup. Guess he just got lucky, or the gods threw him a bone.

The luck continues, because people in hotter climates dress covered for protection from the weather. He won’t give up his chaps and jeans, but goes for a Galabeya (long sleeve, cotton, lightweight but full coverage). Just to be safe, he keeps to himself a lot and doesn’t mingle with locals beyond the necessities. Curls his tail around his thigh under the long shirt and uses his travel sack as a weight to keep it from blowing up. He wears the same sandals we know him to have back in Wonderland. High quality leather really lasts. 

Leona refuses to wear a hat to hide his ears. In daylight, he goes for a headscarf. When moving or at night, he pulls his hair up to help them blend in (sometimes will wrap his braids around them). You have to really look to see them. 

Although, because he’s on the go, his clothes get ruined easily. Again. He discards them and picks up whatever is common in the country he’s stopped in. Leona has no preference. 

It’s odd for him, being in a place so similar to home but not. He’ll order a serving of Mandazi on a whim when his stomach starts to gurgle, not knowing what it is but willing to take whatever’s being sold for a decent price. Then bites into it without looking and realizes he’s had it hundreds of times back at the palace. 

Or he’ll see a tour offered down the Nile River, and decide that a bit of tourism is better than looking at the same streetwares he’s been staring at for two hours. He doesn’t care too much until the guide starts talking about how its predictable flooding acts as a key factor in Egypt’s agriculture and civiliazation. 

Bane turned boon, his people could learn from how others in similar climates adapt. 

He goes through ‘Stone Town’ in Zanzibar, Tanzania - and revels in how Indian, Arabic, and other cultures have converged into this trade hub. He notes ways to help establish better trade within the Savannah, thinking of cities with less investment that sit on convergence points. Ways to mimic. 

The list goes on. For Leona, Life On Earth is an educational opportunity. A once in a lifetime chance to both see some of the lifeblood of where you come from, while also gaining insights on ideas neither his brother or any councilman has the ability to.  

He hasn’t forgotten his goal. Why is he here. Leona’s just a realist, and knows how to weigh his odds. Despite that little leatherbound book being filled with notes for his country, there are entries about a person that have no purpose beyond an outlet for a prince’s roaming heart. 

Location Cairo, Egypt (Starting Point) 

Occupation: Freelance // Side Gigs. 

Pessimist number two, and the main reason that pessimist number one is able to travel around without starving to death. Where else do you think Leona is getting the money to survive? 

Let’s get into the contract that’s sealing Ruggie’s future made of gold madol. 

Ruggie’s mentality is the same as Leona’s. The latter thought he’d go off somewhere cushy to spend his time here, maybe start building a small cushioning for when you’re found – but nah. Ruggie’s right there next to Leona when standing over the world map.

Get in, get out, get going. Leona can make whatever assumption he wants, but the reason Ruggie isn’t killing himself with side gigs is because your world’s money isn’t going to mean anything when they get back to Twisted Wonderland. Which he will be doing, because his grandma is waiting for him. 

Meanwhile – he hopes you realize what’s been put on pause just so he can drag your butt home. Will lecture you, number deux. The moment he realized you went home without letting him at least air out the mush you’ve made of his mind? Yeah. Rare hyena rage and initiative. 

No staying with him. He’s worked too hard to help pull his gran out of the pit to give up. Like Leona though, he plans to let the other ones do the heavy work. He’ll just swoop in once there’s a lead and take the spoils. 

A deal is made. In exchange for all the extra work he does in your world (helping Leona survive and do his research), the prince promises Ruggie a hefty bonus back home. Enough to feed the kids from his village for months, set his family up in a nice middle-class home, maybe get the good channels on cable TV. Basically every commission pay he makes is in Leona’s black book, logged and timed, and it’ll be tripled back to Ruggie in madol once they get back. He isn’t wasting a moment in this world because every second goes towards making life back home secure. 

In a twisted way, you abandoning him also opened the door for him to truly keep you. To want you. He’ll have the funds, the connections, the security – finally. He’ll have it all. 

The one who books hostels, bargains and barters, cooks and gets travel tickets – all of it. He takes gigs everywhere they stop. Washes dishes to pay for their meals, drives a taxi for the two months they stay in Uganda, pawns some of Leona’s neck jewelry at first to make their ends meet but his employer didn’t seem particularly attached. It got them the funds to rent the car and make it all back.

Although...he does need Leona more than he'll let go to the lion's head. Leona's the one who picks up languages like nothing and with all the travelling they do? Ruggie will buy (or swipe) the damn textbooks. Although most languages in your world align with those spoken in subsets of the Savannah. Good thing Leona knows most at an adept level.

Survival is in Ruggie's blood. All his knowledge comes to use while backpacking in a world that will chew you up and spit you out if you’re not careful. There are times when he's tempted to go join another group. If he asked Kalim, their fun-loving ‘friend’ would wire thousands in whatever currency they needed. Dude got rich quick…some guys are just lucky. 

Despite being an opportunist, Ruggie won’t do it. No matter how much Leona pisses him off when he forgets that they don’t carry weight here or makes an absurd request. It’s worth it this time to do it without any help. Ruggie doesn’t want to owe anyone ANYTHING once you’re found. He has plans, and no one is getting in the way of it. 

Although…he does lose focus when looking at all the reformation programs put in place across Africa. He sees the way local groups come together to help get underprivileged children proper education and what plans are put in place to aid the impoverished. Ruggie doesn’t give a shit about your world’s history, spoken bluntly. Yet Leona better be making notes on agriculture improvement and aid programs. He might take a glance at that book just to see what ideas are being stored away. 

Unlike his backpacking partner, Ruggie doesn’t try so hard to blend into the shadows. Doesn’t have to when he’s the face man. Keeps his clothing lightweight and modern. Full coverage with the headscarf as well, but sticks to clothes similar to what he’d wear in the slums. Ankle-length cotton pants, plain tunic, travel sack on his back, wallet strapped to his chest under his shirt, weaved moccasins – he keeps his colors in the beige and sage category at all times. Cheaper dyes and less attention. 

Also as the faceman, he’s the one making connections. Nothing long term. Just enough shmoozing to distract a saleswoman while pocketing an extra loaf of bread. Again. He doesn’t plan to stay. Ruggie is not above committing sleight-of-hand crimes while on Earth. It’s the same mentality he’s always had, just a different terrain. 

Overall, he doesn’t care. Not where they go, not who they see, not what they eat or what ‘excursions’ they take part in. All Ruggie wants is to get the call that someone has a lead. Next to his wallet, the only item he holds close to his chest is the phone Shroud gave everyone at the very start. He won’t ever pawn it, and keeps it strapped to his thigh under his pants at all times. 

Ruggie’s patient. He’s used to waiting, but that doesn’t make it any easier. When his feet ache and his thread is close to fraying – he just thinks ‘a little more’ because he’s invested too much from the first moment he made you smile to give up now. 

Location: Bundaberg, Australia 

The lone wolf. Jack doesn’t need anyone on his tail. Wherever no one else wants to be, he will go. The option to join his upperclassmen was there. He remembers Leona watching him with a quirked eyebrow when everyone chose their roles, a silent ‘you coming?’ spoken in a look. Jack appreciated the offer, but too many people in one spot does no one any good. 

And frankly, Jack would rather navigate your world with fresh eyes than do so under authority. This entire situation goes against his principles…and yet, here he is. Following you on yet another adventure. Possibly the magnum opus of it all. 

Pessimist three. It runs in the dorm. Walking around aimlessly is unproductive. He has no idea what the other ‘normal’ guys plan to do. Aka the non-extremeists. In Jack’s opinion, their best bets are those who can climb social spheres easily and put the ah - frankly, criminal - skills to use. The ones with a plan. He heard Riddle muttering about going straight for the western government, and knows Shroud won’t twiddle his thumbs when there’s an entire digital world to explore. Even someone like Cater or Vil. People who can draw a crowd, draw attention; people you know and will recognize on sight even if through a screen. 

To Jack, it doesn’t matter who finds you. Just that he gets the chance to see you again. Hear your voice and say everything that keeps him up past his bedtime. He won’t go home until he hears it straight from your mouth that you’re happy here…without him (with him? Would he stay? He can’t think of that just yet). 

That doesn’t mean he gives up. Jack travels plenty on his weekends. It’s where most of his spare money goes. 

Occupation: Retail Associate 

On the topic of money, Jack doesn’t need much. He works retail at a home improvement store. Think of the ‘Home Depot’. Not really into getting higher up or anything. He wakes up, ties his smock on like any hard working joe, and sets to help out whichever poor middle-aged woman that saunters up to the paint desk with twenty samples and no idea what her 14 year old daughter wants. He learned quickly that it’s usually the most eye-rotting shade of teal. 

He mainly took the job for work in the warmer seasons. It does his mind good to care for the plants or help carry bags of fertilizer for those planting a garden. His manager gets a bit too reliant with it, since no one on his shift ever works out as much as he does. Yet it’s all part of a day’s work. 

He lives in a one-bedroom apartment. Minimalistic style with plenty of plants. He’s not out here decorating to the nines, but Jack wants his house to feel like a home. In a way, he wants you to be proud of him when you finally meet again. If he can manage to make a life for himself in your world, just like you did in his, then it has to stand for something…right? 

Very much a homebody too. The one neighbors call to pant/pet sit or help move furniture. 

At first, he just chose Australia by proxy. He ends up oddly taken with it as the weeks pass by. He gets really into Rugby and as a big guy with a lot of pent up energy? Yeah. It’s not hard for him to find a spot on a local team. Occasionally he sends pictures from work, games, etc to the NRC group chat. That’s the most people hear from him though. 

Curses whatever fucking sadist invented vegimite. It’s the bane of his existence and he can smell it the second someone in the complex opens a jar. On the first day he moved in, a neighborly elderly couple treated him to breakfast. He couldn’t say no to their kindness, neither the steak, eggs, hash, and…vegimite toast. Especially when they saw he liked plants and gifted him some potted hydrangeas.

It…was hard to finish. Yet he managed. 

Jack loves the nature reserves and preserves across Australia. They’re usually where he travels to. His home is on the coast, but he tries to move inwards on long weekends to see all he can. He prefers spots outside big cities so he can go for scenic runs and take in sights.

Does not mess with the wildlife though. He isn’t a fool and wants no part of a thrill seekers lifestyle. Keeps to public trails and that’s it. 

Still a gym-body no matter where he goes. Dresses like he walked straight out of a Dick’s Sporting Goods most days. Cameo cargo pants, slim-fit t-shirts, the same knit cardigan he’s worn one hundred times over, a few good pairs of sneakers, and one tailored suit. Jack’s a quality over quantity kind of guy. He’ll invest in a good pair of Ariat boots for work and never have to buy another pair.

If more than a year passes without word of you…Jack commits. He asks himself if returning without you is an option, because time keeps ticking and he has to be reasonable. Life in Wonderland, or Life on Earth. His radio goes silent – more than usual – and it’s because he has to be the voice of reason after choosing to go at this alone. 

Oddly enough, it’s that elderly couple that convinces him. He takes one look at them from his window, walking hand-in-hand to wherever their destination lies,  and knows. 

Wonderland won’t be home without you, and he’s already made it this far. It isn’t a life without you in it, no matter where he goes. He’s known that all along. 

Sleeping on your side (Developed): Malleus requires a special pillow to sleep and it's one of those long ones that is positioned center of the bed. Most nights he rests like the dead, flat on his back so his horns don't tear the cloth. Laying on his side is a challenge, but he also wants to be touching you. It's one of those scenarios where once someone who's touch starved gets a taste, they can't go back. So most nights you'll sleep on one side (doesn't matter which) with either your head on his chest or your arms wrapped around one of his. Oh yeah - you get to keep one of those fancy pillows in Ramshackle. It's stored in a spare room but grim steals it quite a bit since the quality is high. The nights Malleus isn't around, you'll wake up with Grim smothered in your arms instead. Guess the whole 'can't go back' thing doesn't apply ONLY to Malleus here.

Luck (Inherited?): Fae blessings are a thing - we have confirmation within a 'discussion' during the main plot. I won't say when to avoid spoilers. Point is, the partner of Malleus Draconia most definitely has fae favorability cast upon them. You could make a HEFTY deal with Azul if he ever found out, so maybe keep the knowledge in your back pocket for a rainy day. Maybe offer to sit by him during a game of poker? Haha, no. You're actually 100% unaware. Only other fae can sense a blessing, and Lilia isn't a snitch. Expect your luck to turn around. Perhaps not entirely, but enough for the grey hairs to stop sprouting prematurely. It's difficult for other fae and supernatural to sense who placed a blessing, but they can recognize raw power. There is only one person on campus with enough magical potency to cast such a powerful charm. All thy need is two brain cells to connect the dots (some do lack this, unfortunately). You won't be sucked into any messes such as the Ghost Bride, etc. anymore, at the very least.

"Hm? I've little to no involvement with the others in my dorm, dearest. Yet, is it not a good happenstance that they treat you with the upmost respect? Do other dorms behave so uncouth that you are wary of proper manners? Diasomnia would welcome you, all you need do is ask." <- It is technically not a lie? He's not explicitly making anyone behave a certain way, but surely the strong aura acts as a deterrent for anyone with bad intentions. It just so happens that most fae-born students reside in Diasomnia. Not that he'd take kindly to any of his acting like anything but proper gentlemen towards you. This includes Sebek, by the way. The tonal whiplash with this one is insane the moment he recognizes Malleus' magic.

Gargoyles (Inherited): There is not much to say on this topic. Malleus is the sole member of Gargoyle Studies, and while he won't force you to join? It would make him very happy. You will become accustomed to travel and find comfort in desolate places. The dewy chill in deep ruins, nature's overgrowth from time's passing - certainly Malleus revisits places he once knew held life, and have been left to deteriorate. You can't truly feel the heavy nostalgia as Malleus can, but the appreciation is still shared.

"I once deeply enjoyed the solitude of ruins. The weathering of time somehow captured in architecture. Trapped in place as the world continued to live on. Yet I now find more joy in sharing them with you, rather than basking in their atmosphere alone. It perplexes me, and yet I find no problem with it." -> Malleus discovered the happiness that comes from simply being near someone you love. He just...doesn't realize it yet? It's a difficult feeling to characterize in words. Different than with his family, certainly. The entire point of going to a ruin was to enjoy the abandoned atmosphere. Malleus cares for his family yet there is a divide. Unspoken, and unable to be crossed. His world turns while he remains at a stand still. Yet whenever he discovers a new ruin, he couldn't find that tranquility he used to. Enjoying it alone is almost unthinkable - harrowing. He can't without you, or else it feels lacking. Even if you sit together in silence, he'd be happy. He just wants you there, your reactions, your company - it brings life back to the emptiness. Leaving the place more harmonious than he found it, coating it with pleasant memories for future visits. Hopefully ones where he is not alone.

Habits He Steals:

Artistry (Developed): Malleus has plenty of time to develop skills. The resources as well. He's fearful that one day your memory will become just that - a memory. One where he cannot picture your face in his mind. Where he's the only one left who recalls your existence. Be it because you pass on, or decide to leave him prematurely and return 'home'. Even if he firmly believes that there is nowhere more 'home' for you than in Twisted Wonderland. Regardless, he doesn't trust others enough. He needs to capture your likeness on his own. With his hands rather than magic - even if using magic to do so is child's play. He does not tell anyone of this budding desire or disquiet in his heart. Not even Lilia, who's likeness is forever immortalized in textbooks. The unspoken implications are too much for Malleus to confront.

People Watching (Inherited): It’s a work-in-progress, getting Malleus to see people as…well, ‘people’ and not subjects or those he’s obligated to protect. To cure his social awkwardness, there’s a need to get him ‘loosey-goosey’ and in touch with improv. What better way than to people watch? Except you don’t just sit there with him to observe. Malleus is thrown for a loop when you start making up backstories for everyone - based on their clothes, what they might be doing, or whatever else. None of it’s true. The ideas are all super embellished and with characterization holes…but it’s fun, and it gets him to think about how specific a person’s life can become, whether they live a lengthy life or not. Something utterly pointless to do, suddenly becomes one of Malleus’ favorite pass times.

Earth Slang (Inherited): It's a give and trade scenario. He improves your vocabulary, while you do Lilia proud by being the newest gremlin on Malleus' shoulder. Rather than teaching him Twisted Wonderland slang, it's much more entertaining for him to learn Earth lingo. Which is different. It's our metaphors, legends, and phrases like 'it's raining cats and dogs'. You're going to talk in SpongeBob quotes to him and he's going to believe it's philosophical. How novel, indeed. He gets to learn more about you as a person, and you get to have a bit of fun while also fostering a language shared only amongst the two of you? Like a secret code that friends have, or lovers? Huhu. It's not hard to crack at all but still fun.

"Hm? An 'updog'? Is this another saying or legend from your world? No, I have never heard of an 'updog' anywhere in Briar Valley. What is an 'updog'? A terror of some kind?" <- Heh.

Domestic Tasks (Inherited): Be still Sebek's heart, because bro might need to be resuscitated. Malleus wants to help you. Except he's found a situation where there isn't anything he can offer? Sure, he can offer coin and trinkets. Anyone can. It also is not his place to insert himself and solve your problems. You're an independent human and he isn't foolish enough to overstep that. So? Acts of service, even if said acts are 'beneath' him. This revolves back to him simply enjoying your presence, no matter what. Since you come with him to enjoy hobbies, it's only fair he does the same. Now he doesn't fully believe that you 'like' cleaning, but it's what you do most. So he'll help hang the sheets outside and then cast wind magic so they dry faster. He'll set up security charms outside Ramshackle, and enchant the paint brushes to freshen up your fence while you both share a pot of tea on the porch. You seem happy, and even a tad amused. So he'll relinquish some pride. If only for you to smile.

“Do all without magic need to take such…’extreme’ measures to clean windows? Please do not perch on the sill like this when I am not near. Else allow me this task, a simple water spell is far more proficient and safe” -> Man catches you ONE TIME, leaning out one of the second story windows to clean the outside glass and his heart skips a beat. Not that you wouldn’t make a lovely gargoyle on the roof, but spare him. He cannot fathom why one of the ghost residents can’t do it in your stead, but Malleus much prefers your feet planted on firm flooring (who’s going to tell him about all the holes and weak floorboards in Ramshackle?)

Nicknames (Developed): Malleus ceases calling you 'Child of Man'. There are many other children of men. It just so happens to be his default when you met. You are more. Much more. Which is why you cannot be his 'Child of Man'. Malleus actually takes to calling you your name more often than not. Names are meaningful, after all. Yet he dubs you 'Mooncalf' as well.

“Mooncalves are beautiful creatures that inspire. A name given to ‘those who dream’. That is what you do, is it not? Dream, and bring novel ideas that spark life in others.”

Strength (Developed): This is quite difficult. Controlling his strength when touching another is like trying to crack an eggshell with a power-saw. Yet the more you are together, the more he desires to touch you. So he has to learn. Since if he ever injured you, Malleus would never forgive himself. Often he hovers near, guiding you yet never making direct contact. His palm hovering near the small of your back as you walk, or taking extreme care when holding your arm. He's broken more teapots than you can count, and it takes months to share a bed. The fear of hitting you in his sleep caused insomnia for days...just, goodness. Don't even start on his tail. That thing has a mind of it's own.

"Fascinating...Hm?. No, no. I am by no means upset. Quite the contrary. Could I trouble you to humor my curiosity with examples? Oho, this is a wonderful evening indeed." <- Malleus showcases one of his pointed smiles - chin grasped between thumb and index as he listens intently to his juniors go in great detail about how you've begun to resemble him. The one other students will shy away from, but little do they know just how genuinely overjoyed he is. At first they showed mild distaste for the Ramshackle Prefect daring to go after someone like Malleus Draconia, yet all know better than to admit such a thing to his face. Else pity the fool. Yet nothing could dour his mood, their formal report reading like a lovestory in his mind. It is not that he is 'naive' to your mannerisms. You are always changing - as are many - and he would not dare to make any assumptions. Yet if others are noting these subtle changes as well? Malleus is...overwhelmed. Joy, appreciation, humor, and a bit unsettled if one asked for full honesty. If you are admiring him, including him in your person, as much as he is to you? It's an intimate commitment that comes once in a lifetime for his kind. He needs to think, but for now he will enjoy the 'implications' as much as he can.

Habits you steal:

Light Feet (Inherited): The king of jump-scares, ladies and gentlemen. Lilia is quite the cheeky fellow. He wades through corridors, skulking around like a bat on the walls. Both body and humor seem to ascend to new heights with this one - who without a moment's hesitation will drag you into his schemes. You may not be able to float, but that is no excuse to clomp about like an oaf! No, my doves, the greatest joys in life come from a good thrill. Others learn to keep a keen eye out for this bat's lover, as you slink about and appear at the most random moments.

"Oho!....my, my - your stealth is improving by the day. Don't get too cocky now, else I'll be forced to show you how a professional jump-scare is done!" <- Leona KingScholar himself has threatened to stick a bell collar on you, those from Savanaclaw taking a step back as you begin to resemble the more worrisome Diasomnia residents by the day. Dropping from treetops and banisters aplenty, the trickster ghosts at Ramshackle love their new fourth (and fifth, counting the ancient bat who haunts the halls just as much as they do).

Impish Glint (Inherited): Kehehehe~ it's physically impossible not to mimic that mischief laden smile of Lilia's! It's not as intimidating without the fangs and blood-red eyes, yet still oh-so charming. Why, the bat himself finds it positively adorable. It's one thing to have others call him cute - he now gets to witness the effect first-hand. The fact others can point your resemblance to him is just an added bonus. All you're missing now is the pink streak in your hair...can he? It would make such a lovely memory!

"Well aren't you just the most fetching gremlin this world has ever seen. Come along dear, I want to stir some youthful envy!"

Nose Picking (Inherited): Just kidding lol.

Historical Info-Dumping (Developed): One can only be corrected so many times before learning a topic inside-and-out. History lessons are a breeze with a personal dictionary at your disposal. Lilia is happy to help, but get ready for long stories with his bias weaved in-between. He never outright lies though, and it's a fine evening to sit with him by firelight and talk the night away over junk food. Treat it like hearing the story of an elder veteran. Except Lila has hundreds of stories to tell. There will come a day where your knowledge abut Twisted Wonderland extends far beyond what you ever knew of Earth - and you are the person people come to for notes. Even the studious Riddle Rosehearts trusts your word-of-mouth as much as his precious texts (only for history though, fair warning).

Speed Dial Takeout (Developed): This one is self-explanatory. Lilia's curiosity in the kitchen isn't something you want to deter him from. Let bro live his life, so long as it doesn't lead to the end of yours. It took months to find the TWST equivalent of speed-dial Chinese, yet a slip to Azul along with some recipes was enough to get the ol' ball and chain rolling. The food already exists, but you just had to plant some ideas to make sure that 3am last-second-craving availability was indeed an option.

"Don't look so glum now - once the oven is fixed I'll whip up a batch of Silver's favorite Mushroom Bisque! Ah - there's no need to cry. Now where did I put those takeout menus...." <- Now it's just Lils, Silver, and yourself chilling out at midnight with some egg rolls and moo-goo-gai pan after the fourth oven's been blown up in the past year. Thank Seven Malleus worked a plan with Azul set up a chain in Briar Valley, else y'all would starve.

Briaran (Inherited) : Briar Valley is indeed a land of tradition. You don’t need to learn their language to converse with fae. Most people in TWST are Bilingual - knowing common tongue and that of their homeland. Plus there are spells to help. Very few speak the ancient dialect from hundreds of years ago, which dwindled out after the war between man and fae with the ushering of a new generation. You already speak common tongue, but as for Lilia? Fluent in multiple languages. Ancient Briaran being one he slips in from time to time. You will undoubtably pick up many phrases of Briaran. Especially when he converses with Malleus, Silver, and on occasion Sebek. The third still a beginner to his personal chagrin. It’s like being a child in an immigrant household where your elders talk in their native tongue when they don’t want you to understand the conversation, so as a kid you gradually put together meanings through context. Y’know, as they go in between languages.

"I hadn't thought it possible to fall deeper in love - yet as always, you continue to surprise me." <- Lilia never asked you to learn, but nothing makes him melt faster than seeing you pick it up. You’re listening to him. He won’t ever jest over this, no matter how tempting, afraid it might deter you. He adores the way you mumble words under your breath, even if they’re mispronounced. He will only interfere if you ask, and be more than willing to teach. Ask him.

Habits He Steals:

Walking (Developed): Aside from when he's cheeky and looking to have some fun? Lilia will not float near you. He prefers to walk, feet firm on the ground, his hand in yours and enjoy the sweet serenity. There isn't a need to rush. Not anymore. Strolls with Malleus are a commonly discussed subject, but with Lilia? It's less like a sonnet in steps and more akin to walking the streets on a cold, winter night. Plenty of laughter as your linked arms swing between. Somehow slowing your steps on purpose, drawing out the time shared. Even if your lungs hurt a bit and joints are stiff. You don't have to. He could easily zip you both wherever need be, but the journey is part of the fun. He's gone his entire life at differing paces - and now Lilia is happy to match his final gait alongside yours.

Repeating Others (Developed): This goes hand-in-hand with you learning Briaran. Without prompting, Lilia will often repeat things his sons just said in common tongue. Sometimes dropping context clues so you can piece things easier. Not in a way that makes it obvious for you (sparing your feelings), but definitely noticeable to others in the Valley. It's an unspoken understanding not to ask 'why' he repeats himself two maybe three times tops.

"...eh? Scuzele mele. Ne vom întâlni în trei ore pentru antrenament. Da. Pentru practică. Asigurați-vă că nu vă zăboviți, altfel veți rata antrenamentul! - why that face, Sebek? Careful or your muscles will freeze like that khee hee!" <- Does it come unnatural? Maybe, but two out of three of his conversation partners can usually pick up when you're struggling to understand something. Sebek fails, but wouldn't dare question Lilia's speech and risk offending him. Translation: "My apologies. We'll meet in three hours for practice. Yes. For practice. Make sure you don't linger, or you'll miss practice!"

Intimacy (Inherited): Lilia is cheeky with most, but not touchy-feely. Not in the way that matters. He becomes clingy. It's odd being with someone actively seeking to be at his side all the time...and yet he does not mind. Which is unheard of for the loner - he spent 700 years of solo trips, wouldn't change a single one (okay, maybe a few. He could do without some scars), but the taste of a couple's vacation? A couple's intimacy? Romanic candle-lit dinners atop the castle ramparts, legs dangling over the edge as mindless talk comes and goes. Hiking through mountains hand-in-hand. Running raids online, shouting at each other from the next room? Sipping mimosas on a cruise ship - picking out souvenirs for your family an tasting cuisine. Even if it's places he's been before...with you? It's all new.

""You know...it was quite cruel of you to leave me behind. When? On that little journey to Fleur City, of course! Be it ten years ago or not - I understood at the time that it was a decision out of your hands, and yet you hadn't brought me any souvenirs...the hurt lingers to this very day and can only be healed through another vacation, won't you be my guide this time around?"

Normalcy (Developed): Lilia actively pushes the cute bit with others. Many portray his character as two sides of one coin: Lilia the General, and Lilia the Cheeky Prankster. What you get to see is...just Lilia. Not even Lilia The Father - because even with his kids, he has a part to play. Has to set a good example. Is it corny to say that he doesn't have to act cute for you, because he trusts you'll adore him? Isn't that what love is? To truly release your guard around him and not stress? It's like how on earth we all have our work mode, family mode, public mode, and then...well, us. The person we are when in a quiet room, alone, and simply being. That is the Lilia you, and only you, get to see. Lilia wouldn't get involved with someone that couldn't bring this side out of him. The one jamming out to metal while pretzeled on the ground, sifting through his wardrobe and eating burnt crisps out of a bag with chopsticks.

Time (Developed): In his last hundred years of life, with his magic dwindling, Lilia casts a glamour that lets him physically age with you. Not technically a habit, but also something he would never have spared the energy on without you as a deciding factor. Time comes for us all. He’d rather not emphasize this to his sons more than necessary…but they’ll watch you age. In an odd way, this is Lilia’s greatest ode to you. To them. To himself. You won’t have to age alone, watching him in a standstill as he’s been the past 700 years. This is his final thrilling experience, his final adventure- to grey and feel time in his blood beyond magic.

"You are as lovely as the day we first met, dear...surely I'm just as cute too, no?" <- No matter how quick you reply, he still is the same cheeky lil shit at 780 as he was at 700. Only with one heavy case of arthritis.

Nicknames (Developed): Lilia calls you ‘Dove’ for reasons best derived on your own rather than my telling. He will also be an ass and use teasing ones like 'shnookums' and 'poppet', but dove is for the softer times. On very rare occasions he will say ‘inima mea’ which is Romanian for My Heart, also known as Briaran in the world of TWST.

"Why, thank you! Kee hee hee, is it so obvious that I adore my little dove beyond comprehension? I've finally found my 'partner-in-crime' as you kids say, and my days have not been this lively in many years. Humor the musings of this old-timer, enjoy the blessings life offers while they are within your grasp." == Those who have lived as long as Lilia in Briar Valley are witnesses to his personality change. The general from hundreds of years ago is not the same bat flying about. He's a prime example for fae and humans alike that time changes us all - and so he doesn't mind popping in to humor gossiping soldiers. If anything, he hopes his open adoration serves as an example that it's never too late to welcome sweeter things in life. Family, friends, adventure, and even the once in a lifetime 'eternal love'.

Habits you steal:

Calling Lilia ‘Dad’ (Inherited?): Not Father. Just Dad. Daddio. Peepaw. Pops. Ye old man. So informal. So funny. Lilia loves it and Silver turns red every time. One? Because you’re already thinking of him and his Father as your family. Two? Please. Please, let him breathe. Flustered is the most consistent emotion he shows aside from that graceful little smile of his, and people are starting to notice. He’s not used to such bluntness and it’s killing him. You need to be more careful! Not everyone knows about his situation! Lilia is such cheeky as shit over it and teases his son every off moment. Welcome to the Vanrogue’s, my friend. It’s a clusterf*ck. You’re going to love it.

“…N-no, I haven’t seen father since lunch. Perhaps check over near the club rooms. I can escort you before my next lesson, come along and take my hand.” -> Silver will never get used to you asking ‘Hey, have you seen Dad anywhere?’. He bites back the warning for you to lower your volume. It’s turmoil - truly. He doesn’t want you to ‘stop’ per-say…but maybe keep it in private? He adores your energy but the rumors.

Compliments (Inherited): Silver gets plenty of compliments. He’s amazing, after all. This is a habit because his reactions are priceless. Why is it developed? Because the man in question is the most wholesome being to exist. He effortlessly drops one-liners out of thin air, and then has the gull to act confused when you clutch at your chest. Silver is brutally honest when it counts. His words and his reactions are genuine. Truly priceless. His confidence desperately needs that bolstering, so much that you never go a single visit without paying him a compliment. It’s only fair. You do it until he takes them with anything other than a pass off or a denial. Even after, because appreciating Silver is the best part of your day. Congrats. You’re a simp. Big Ol’ simp - side note, being so forward for his sake has turned you confident in other aspects of life as well. Congrats on being the social one.

"Your hands are unnaturally soft for a student. Perhaps I am used to callus' from training, but yours are warm enough to feel through my gloves. I heard once that you can tell a lot about a person by their hands. Yours must reflect a gentle personality, which is true - hm? What's wrong?" <-Wholesome. Fucking wholesome.

Animals (Inherited): How do you feel about woodland creatures? Would you consider raising bunnies, or leaving the window open in the mornings for songbirds to perch? The answer is yes. Always yes. Otherwise they will whack at the glass until you do. Silver is beloved by nature. Being around Silver means being around all the animals that perch at his side when he clocks out in random places. Eventually you'll be waiting with birdseed in your pocket, prepped to distract those that perch on his head. Ramshackle has multiple bird baths out in the gardens, and you've built shelters for the wildlife on campus to camp out in when they visit (always when Silver does. Coincidence? No).

Just Chilling (Developed): Not relationship-exclusive. Any time you find Silver clocked out, it’s instinctual to just drop everything and lay down next to him so it looks like you’re both chilling out. Doesn’t matter if he’s asleep for ten minutes or two hours - you don’t leave him. Not unless someone trustworthy comes to take your place.

Haircuts (Developed): A lil snip here, a chop there - and you're cutting his hair in the kitchen at 9:00pm with one of the old sheets tied loosely around his neck like a bib. All it took was one time for him to nick his ear while doing it himself, and you so graciously forced him in a chair. Now you cut both his and his father's hair. Since Lilia's a little turd, and if Silver gets a freebie than so should peepaw. Briar Valley could use another stylist, y'know. You already have two loyal clients!

"Thank you. My bangs can get in the way of my training, so I try to keep them short. Maybe I should adapt a cut similar to Kalim's?....Why are you looking at me like that?" <- Kalim's hair is adorable, but if Silver cuts off his shimmering silk-soft locks it will literally be a crime against cosmetology.

Alarms (Inherited): You sleep through alarms. There isn't much to say. Have you seen his bedroom? There's like - a dozen clocks in there. The only one that gets him up is you, usually whacking him with a pillow because no amount of love will ever make up for dealing with nonstop ringing every morning. You started off having a near heart attack on the first night. A few years down the road, and it takes about 2-4 of the clocks to go off before you're up.

The Way Of The Sword (Inherited and Developed?): Another one without much to elaborate. Silver insists on teaching you some swordsmanship. He does not play around either, and is a very stern teacher. Lilia engrained the danger of weaponry and battle into him from childhood.

"Steel your nerves. They will only impede your progress. Do not worry about anything other than my instruction while there is a blade in your hand. I am here for that." <-The sword exists to protect, but that does not mean you are invincible. He won't put you through a Knight's training - but as one of the few 'sane' people? Homie, you really need to learn some self defense. It isn't even about his feelings (although he does worry).You are a walking magnet for bad luck, and a firm understanding of defensive combat is necessary so you don't end up dead in a ditch.

Habits He Steals:

Wet Wipes (Developed) : It’s so tempting to draw on Silver when he’s complete zonked out in the ninth dimension. How he hasn’t woken up to any uh…hehe, ‘special’ and ‘totally not vulgar’ images all over him on a daily basis is an honest shock. Especially in a campus full of dudes. Some not so friendly with the whole dorm rivalry going on. Then again…maybe it’s his aura. Drawing a dick on Silver’s forehead feels like a crime punishable by Lilia’s homemade gazpacho.

"...I sense a disturbance." <- Regardless. It’s your civic duty to make him a work of art…much to Silver’s reluctant compliance. Some day’s it’s heartwarming. He’ll wake up and find little hearts on his cheeks, or a note on his collarbone. A lipstick kiss left smack center of his forehead…which takes endless scrubbing to get off before equestrian club. "Mngh...ah, you're here father? I could smell jasmine and oakwood and thought - wait, isn't that MC's pencil case?" <- Other days Silver wakes up covered in tic tac toe games with his father snickering over him and your form making a speedy guilt-ridden retreat off in the distance - and yes, Ramshackle smells of Jasmine and Oakwood. From repairs and the herbal cleanings.

You’ve Got Mail (Developed): Squirrels make good messengers. It helps that you live in a dilapidated dorm with a lovely forest not too far for them to skitter about. It would be troublesome if you lived somewhere like Heartslabyul…Riddle would never allow Silver’s animal friends to stay. Since you’re so open to suggestion, and skittering about yourself, he’s made a habit out of using the animals for communication.

"Please take this gift to them, would you? Today is a special day, I must take precautions not to forget." <- He’s not too big on phones since he might pass out and miss a call…or forget. So Silver likes to pen his notes when he can and trust his little buddies to make sure you get them. It especially helps with big events like anniversaries or days he cannot make it home.

Mints (Inherited): Someone get this man an Altoid, stat. Whatever curse is on his ass, crack open that tin and shove three strong peppermints between his teeth. They’ll spark more than just a crack of the great beyond in him. Giving Silver a tin of strong mints is like giving a Victorian child one singular sour patch kid. You carry the things around to punish Grim. Y’all know it’s bad if the living garbage disposal won’t even eat them….now if we could just somehow compress Lilia’s cooking into a pill form, we might be onto something bigger.

"This is a remedy from your world? Oh - it's candy? Maybe it will work then...thank you. I'll update you if there are any changes."

The Open End (Developed): Silver’s precautions extend to all matters, big or small. He’s trained to be Malleus’ guard since he was a little boy, going through strict training and beyond in order to match royal standards. Some might think him cold, but his father raised him to care deeply, truly, and so he is proactive in ensuring your comfort. When at the cinema, he sits in the inner seat. Both so he’s blocking you from strangers and so you can have the chair with two arm rests. He walks on the street side of the sidewalk, shares his umbrella but covers you fully at the cost of his sleeve, gives you more of the blanket at night and once gave you his shoes when yours were pinching your toes. If there are two cupcakes, he pushes you the one with more sprinkles, and he never forgets to ask how your day is.

"Are you happy today?...I see. That's good. I've been working hard to not disappoint you as a partner. It is nice to know my efforts have been yielding results." <- Ever the hard worker. Silver works on your relationship like it's training - but not in a bad way. He just doesn't want to reflect poorly on you, especially when this is new to him and tracking his performance in a relationship isn't the same as studies or physical training. He could do with some verbal affirmations, just saying.

Smelling Salts (Developed) : Silver does not want to sleep all the time. He is determined to overcome it - and you support him by suggesting method after method. Sometimes it takes an otherworldly person to bring in new ideas? Another cook in the kitchen, y'know. Can you believe that in all of Twisted Wonderland, with their fancy shmancy potions and charms, no one thought to get him military-grade smelling salts (or trigger his fight/flight by putting a bit of Lilia's pot roast in front of his nose)? His curse is potent, but it staves the episode off just enough for him to get to a bench or out of a clearing. I swear - magic spoiled these people. It's a blessing and a curse. It's no cure but he'll take anything at this point. Who knows what other ideas you might bring.

"Mm...thank you. I am lucky to have someone as wonderful as them in my life. I strive to be a good partner and influence. Your compliment makes me quite happy. I will be sure to pass on the message." <- Silver's expressions are typically difficult to read, they're so miniscule. Yet it would take a blind man to miss the way his disposition softens. One might mistake the far-away look in his eye for an incoming siesta, but no. He's merely in love and excited to tell you how appreciative he is to have you in his life. Whatever dreams he has that night, you're in them. As always.

Habits you steal:

Volume (Inherited) : Spoken like a true Queen. Literally. Sebek’s volume blasts your eardrums like a child’s screech plugged into an amplifier broadcasted over the Night Raven intercom. Mans has his vocals, there’s no doubt about it. The thing is that Sebek won’t stop until he’s been heard, so you have to get loud for him to listen. That can be hard to tone down when he’s not around, and you have to remind yourself that Epel will hear you just fine at a level 2 not 6.

"Disrespectful! My human can speak to their desire, apologize for suggesting otherwise this very instant. It is an honor to hear their voice!" <-Aye...sometimes your volume hits the frequency where people cover their ears, just as they do for him. He misinterprets this as a smite on your freedom of speech.

Gotta Keep Up (Developed): Get those legs moving prefect. Ya gotta go sonic fast. Sebek-y long legs over here moves in big strides. Big strides for his big personality. One of his steps is the equivalent to three of yours, no matter how tall or jittery you are. He will out jitter you with his Type-A pacing. You’d think he was on a mission and not on a date with how Sebek zooms through a shopping mall. Sebek, honey, we’re here to buy clothes, not race the evil sales clerk and save Malleus from the storage room.

Bookies (Inherited): You never know when you’ll be stuck waiting around or following Malleus with him. Sometimes it’s a sacrifice you have to make for some quality time together, and it’s not so bad. Malleus is cool with it, Silver’s good company, and Lilia is mildly stressful company. You could just go on your phone to pass the time, but Sebek limits your screen time. No IPad partners or brain rot on his watch. Read a book. Don’t make him quiz you, ‘cause he will.

"I have been thinking to start a book club, and you can be the first among many initiates! This week we will be reading My Liege's autobiography as sourced from the Royal Palace. I can think of no better introduction!" <- Dear god, he'll put in the request too. Stop him. You love Malleus to pieces but 600 pages on his birth alone is just destructive.

Prim and Proper (Developed): It’s a bit hilarious that he takes personal offense when you’re not groomed properly. Especially when near Malleus (of course). If you want to follow with the troupe, you need to look the part. He’d likely ask for a Diasomnia uniform on your behalf if it wasn’t against the school dress code. Secretly though? He enjoys fixing your tie, hair, etc. It makes him feel useful but that sweet emotion gets masked by a scolding.

"Tsk. It is an honor to wear this uniform. You should take precautions to ensure your appearance doesn't reflect on Lord Malleus. As his chosen friend and my partner, you are a representative of Briar Valley. Step forward and allow me to preform an inspection." <- Sebek has more than one jealous bones in his body. They’re all jealous bones. Make sure he’s the one to fix your tie and not Rosehearts, unless you want him to sulk.

Battery Pack (Developed): Lowkey? Sebek zaps you frequently. Think the electric buzz from pulling out a plug too quick. The sparkles come out when he gets very emotional - which is all the time. So…yeah, you might secretly carry ointment for that. Don’t tell him? He feels awful. Not awful enough to stay calm when you ask him to charge your phone. Jokes on him. The anger zap brought it to 100%.

Habits he steals:

Response (Developed): Sebek has this teensey-weensey annoying habit of answering on your behalf. He thinks it a way of proving his devotion. Partners are meant to know each other down to the tiniest detail, no? So when he responds correctly, it’s like he’s passing a test by knowing exactly what you’d want.

"They will do no such thing! Your childish antics will only reflect poorly on your dormitory. You will not taint them into participating in needlessly reckless activities!" <- While his intentions are pure, the act itself can be frustrating. Especially when he puts his values in your mouth when chatting with friends. It’s a work in progress, but he will still become overzealous to order your coffee or recall your schedule if asked.

Handkerchief (Developed): Exchanging handkerchief with one’s partner was a popular courting method in the past. Considering the handkerchief Sebek carries is meant for his lord, him offering it to you is a grand gesture. Especially since he does not replace it with one meant for Malleus, as this is something exclusive to lovers, and carries one from you instead. If you don’t have one? Well - expect to get one asap. Author’s authority dictates that you will not disappoint him.

"The embroidery on this handkerchief is exquisite. According to Master Lilia, it is the same style as lacework from my homeland's establishment...and it is yours. Please accept this as a token of my affections."

Portrait (Developed): Sebek keeps your picture hidden at NRC. There's one stuck between his mattress and the boxboard, one behind his ID card in his wallet, and a small portrait he keeps taped under his deckchair. He cannot properly display it like Malleus' - partially from not wanting to disrespect his Lord and partially from bein emotionally constipated. Expect the exact opposite when he is older though. Listen. Do not try to tell me this man wouldn't commission an extra-large oil painting of his spouse to hang up in his barracks room in the palace. He's literally the blueprint of a fanboy, and if there's no available merch then us nerds get to commissioning.

Escort (Developed): Sebek Zigvolt can and will sit in the husbands' chair while you try on clothes in the store. He will carry your bedazzled hot-pink purse with pride, guarding the thing like it's worth millions. You can leave your cup with this one when at a ball worry-free. You have somewhere to be and he isn't on duty? Sebek is hot on your heels. He has no shame. Better yet? He's the one shaming anyone unable to do such simple things.

Gotta Slow Down (Developed) : Pairs with 'Gotta Keep Up' as he tries to match your stubby legs. At first Sebek attributed your slow pace to a lack of stamina, but no. He's just a jitterbug. Obviously he can't tug you along or stop every other minute for you to catch up either. It's funny watching you both try and forget to consider the other. On loop, a never-ending cycle. NRC hasn't seen a pairing like this in centuries.

Chivalry is not dead (Inherited...just not from you) : Lilia fucks with him and you’re subjected to many, many odd courting attempts…some he unironically takes a liking to.

"What must I do for you to reciprocate my intentions?! I have bestowed pearls shucked with my own hands, invited you to dance under moonlight, hung dried thyme over every door and given earthly offerings to all your kin! I implore you for transparency this instant!" <- Oh...oh, His trust in your batty elder wanes for months after being tricked so cruelly. Only until you accept (out of pity?). Then he feels guilty for ever doubting Lilia and begs for forgiveness. At least life never gets boring? Haha...hah...ha...

‘My human’ (Developed) : Sebek gets hit hard with a crippling awareness for your mental well being. He defended your 'honor' once and had it thrown in his face that he calls you a human more than your own name. Old habits die hard, and he prostrates himself on the ground as an apology. He really didn’t realize it came off so derogatory. Especially considering your relationship. Felt awful. Apologized profusely. Only says it in an affectionate way or with pride now. Tacking in the ‘my’ makes it better somehow? It's a work in progress.

"An apology is in order. My actions until now were unbecoming, and I am truly repentant. I cannot begin to beg for forgiveness, knowing that my words have struck you. I was wrong. You are no mere human, you are my human. A very special one whom I could not have foreseen in this lifetime" <- You know it's bothering him when he takes a gentle tone, looking directly in your eyes with shame open on display. Responsible enough not to look away and face his wrongdoing in the face. Even after you forgive him, Sebek will carry this lesson with him forever.

Flower preference (Inherited): In the language of flowers, which means a great deal to fae kind, he goes for the one associated with your birth month. Carries a pressed one as a bookmark, changes his cologne, and places a vase of blooms by his bedside that never seem to wilt.

"It is an honor! I shall never cease striving to improve. It is only natural that my partner does the same. Your acknowledgement is noted and appreciated. Please continue to treat them well." == Insulting Sebek is a challenge. The comment could be made with the most nasty undertone, but he only hears that you're behaving like a model citizen. You must, if you are beginning to resemble him in so many ways. Hearing that you are a positive influence on him is nothing short of baseline knowledge. Of course you are? He picked you to be his partner? Honestly. If people have time to sit around and gossip, they could go do something more productive.

Habits you steal:

Acronyms (Inherited): Does this truly come as a shock? Big L on your part if so. C'mon, this is Idia we're talking about here. Bro cannot go two sentences without pullin' some quote out of his mental backlog. Since you're stuck in TWST, not watching their culturally founding shows and cartoons is a crime. You'll be speaking in pseudo-lingo like how Spongebob quotes make their own language around these parts.

"Whehehe way to debuff your charisma stat - you might want to craft some mimic gear before Professor Trein locks ya in detention....n-not that I care! It's just that I'll have to solo tonight's raid and you're the one with the rotation buffed character!" <- On one hand? You get all his jokes and are able to translate what he says to other people. That's good. Less work for Idia. On the other hand? You get all his jokes and are able to translate what he says to other people. They're totes going to make fun of you now and it'll be his fault. You'll get lingo-lashed by professors and feel burdened and - okay. He'll shut up now.

Evil Laugh Who? Villain Where? (Inherited): We all know Idia has two modes: nerdy and sofuckingarrogantheneedsacoldshower. You know exactly when he's feeling number two via his laugh. That over boisterous 'WHEE HEE HEE' which is way too high pitched to belong to a villain but perfect for when Idia's in the zone. It comes out when you're feeling especially ecstatic or embracing your inner gremlin. A bit more subdued than his, but you've seen him do it so many times that the adaptation is subconscious.

"Ah -?! What w-was?....No! NO I DIDNT SAY ANYTHING! Just hurry up before we gotta interact with more NPCS! Awahhh my blood pressure's already spiking back up..." <- He first caught it when you insisted on playing one of those cheap festival-games outside the main market in Fleur City. All he wanted was to grab a grape juice and get back to his group before they noticed he ditched, but you saw some handstitched plushies and just like in some mainstream otome, he just had to get it for you. It was easier than sitting there watching you get cheated by a sleaze. He was amidst convincing himself that he robbed you of the fun, handing the doll over while sucking down his second grape juice when he heard it - on one hand, is this what he sounds like to other people? Scratch that. No way he's this cute - wait. No. He didn't just think that -

Gatcha (Inherited): One of Idia's go-to hangouts is playing an MMO. The dude already gave you a console as a gift for what happened at S.T.Y.X. One inkling of interest towards one of his main games and he won't hesitate to build you a PC. He'll take care of the maintenance and even send over some matching accessories. Ortho will be the one to drop it off of course, but it'll already be set up with whatever games he thinks you'll want to tag-team in and some extra money to explore on your own....and thus, the addiction begins.

"Hey, press this button for me real quick. I need to test something. N-no! I'm not setting you up, uggh just do it would you?" <- Your pulls are better than his and Idia can't decide if lady luck is smiting or blessing him. On one hand? Ultra rare pulls are going to a beginner account. Yet you're more likely to keep playing this way....fate truly tests the Shroud name every day.

Night Owl (Inherited and Developed): Freedom...is powerful. As the Shrouds are responsible for Blot Control, you're left with little to do at S.T.Y.X. You can work anywhere in the facility. As a lab assistant, tech maintenance, heck even the kitchens if you want - but Idia's on that night-life and likes to work when most are asleep. So you match it. Maybe not to a T - going to bed at 6:00am and waking at 4:00pm like him - but time does get a bit disoriented in a place where the sky is simulated.

"Why're you still up? This isn't a 24hr stream, y'know. Even I'm not crazy enough to do multiple all-nighters in a row...well, I'm off for now. Wanna watch the PREMO concert from last week with me?"

Vitamins (Developed): You take them. Idia is taking them. No matter what bro says - he cannot live off the Ignihyde snack machine. Get him the kiddy gummies if you have to. You started taking vitamin D in preparation for moving to S.T.Y.X in the future. Surely they've got something better than the options at Sam's, but you won't be developing Seasonal Affective Disorder anytime soon.

Snacks (Developed): A very simple kindness. Idia uses deliveries as an excuse to get you to visit Ignihyde, and in the future that doesn't change. Expect calls to do deliveries around S.T.Y.X and run 'confidential' reports whenever he's antsy for a visit. We all know he won't explicitly ask...ah, it's reminiscent of all the bogus orders he'd put in at Sams so you'd stop by.

Habits he steals:

Financial 'Responsibility' (Inherited): You both are very bad with money - and by bad? I mean that Idia is a jerk who thinks he can solve everything with money. Minor red flag - something to address. Definitely the type to apologize by sending an unnecessarily gigantic stuffed bear or something akin since he's afraid of saying something that will make it worse. Then pray you don't say anything as he stews over a fight like 12hr simmering sauce.

"Please spare me your double-standards the next time you're shoving vitamin water in my snack stash. SRSLY, Headmaster's a worse deadbeat than I thought if you're living like this....uh, don't tell him I said that" <- On the flip side, he's also flippant with that Shroud inheritance and will buy stuff on your behalf all the time. He's the type to go 'Oh, I thought it was going to be more. You live like this?' when wiring you money for groceries (because Grim ate your allowance in tuna smh). As for how you're bad? You're just flat broke man, so he's responsibly irresponsible as a result.

Vitamins Again (Inherited): Bro. Bro, genetics are making you pale but that diet is what is making those eyebags so prominent despite having a decent skincare routine. You need Vitamin D but he needs the whole spectrum. His potassium is so low, that you'll be staring him down with a plate of cooked salmon in one hand and a bottle of vitamins in the other. Is it pushy? Sure, but you don't want him keeling over within the next decade. Eat the vitamins or it's time to raid his search history. Ortho, get them medical reports out stat.

RPG (Developed): Every chance he gets, Idia will model his MC after you in an RPG. A character customization screen HATES to see this man coming, because he will sit there for hours until it is as close to your image as the system allows. You won't even know since he plays these games solo and has photographic memory to recreate you without a reference. If caught, will deny it despite the evidence being right there. Flat out takes this to the grave.

Sour Candy (Inherited): Fun fact? Citric acid is the perfect stimulant to shock someone out of a panic attack. You find the sourest candy he can tolerate, and it does it's job. If anything it creates a placebo effect, where when Idia tastes it he'll make an association with being anything but anxious. One time he ran out while stuck in a work meeting, and Ortho had to swipe a lemon from the cafeteria.

"Eugh! Sour! Sour! My tongue's gonna shrivel up like a prune! I should have knew this was a prank -" <- Proceeds to forget why he was anxious. Stops himself mid-rant, face sours realizing that you were right, apologizes under his breath and doesn't question you again.

Protective (Developed): Idia teeters the yandere line, to be fair. He's highly protective of the things he considers worth caring about - scratch that, the things he allows himself to care about - which are few. Very, very few. His self-doubt both keep this protectiveness in line while also fueling it. He is quick to convince himself that he has little right over your person, and that it's only a matter of time before his role gets snubbed or written out. Yet the moment his position becomes threatened by something he considers inferior? He hates the thought of some noface coming along and making a muck of your life. It's not his fault if you don't realize Idia's doing just that - but he'll be damned if someone else puts their two cents in, pushing him towards a bad ending.

"Hey - so uh, totally unprompted question that you can just ignore in all honesty - but what's it like living with so many ghosts? They don't give you any trouble or anything - 'cause if they do we've got a few empty rooms over in Ignihyde....only if you wanna! I mean - we're a buncha shut ins but it's pretty quiet and stuff. Okay, fading into the background now." <- Do you remember the Ghostbride? Idia does. Vividly. He also remembers you were the only person aside from Ortho who actually wanted to help him and didn't need cohersion. Stupid move on your part but he's hyper aware of the paranormal now regardless.

Sharing a bed (Developed): Unheard of. Especially since he's stated how miserable he was sharing a dorm - Idia surprises himself with this one. Not a single person would believe just how clingy bro is - but he's only clingy because 'you're' clingy - or so Idia loves to say if anyone teases him for going back on his whole 'solo for life' rants. He goes from the whole 'eww normie love bleh bleh' to 'oh you normies just don't get it because you don't have it hwee hwee'. Look. You're the one matching his sleep schedule, making him used to sharing a bed and having something other than a pillow to curl around - he didn't want to get used to it, he was adamant that this lifestyle was an absolute no-no, but now he's ten years too deep and he's screwed.

Inner demons desperately want to delegate morning role call to his Vice, march himself into your dorm and take up whatever time he can before his role forces him to do otherwise.

To which Riddle's inner demons win each and every time, all on the reasoning that leaving an invitation behind is improper. That a proper courier must ensure a job complete with his own eyes.

Certainly not an excuse to cross your path before anyone else that day.

Another selfishness he lets slip through the cracks in his discipline.

Cracks that coincidentally began to arrive around the same time as you.

Three sharp knocks the main doorframe, one lace-trimmed envelope, and a free escort to breakfast make up in an all-exclusive Rosehearts mail service.

"Is there a reason I have to wear white?" your question hangs on a ribbon. The one wrapped tight across your chest, to be precise. One of Heartslabyul's second-years, a fellow in the most extravagant top hat you've ever seen, methodically wraps and lines measuring tape across your body.

Riddle looks up from his book, "Laws of Practical Magic in Medicinal Context," for nothing longer than a second.

"All members of the Queen's court must adorn themselves in the proper attire for ceremonies and gatherings. You are aware of this."

The hatted-student forces your arms up without a word. You jolt, startled, and he's too absorbed in his work to notice. Only muttering an apology when Riddle clicks his tongue.

"I'm still not a member of Heartslabyul - why does it matter now of all times?"

Another click of his tongue, this time for you.

"Tradition." He says, as if it's the most obvious answer.

"Tradition?" your brow crinkles, "I hadn't thought I was violating anything until now. Are there extended rules for outsiders?"

While not a member of the Queen's domain, you will forever remain part of his court. All receive invitations. All must attend in the proper attire, decked to the Queen's delight in red and white. He let it pass while you remained a friendly exception. Times have changed.

Riddle lets his book close, only when his underclassmen makes a hasty retreat with his collection of notes, fabrics, and measurements in tow. The hatter much too discourteous for Riddle's liking, but good at his job.

"I've been lenient up until now under the belief that your dorm would adopt an official uniform," Riddle sighs, albeit cracking a smile when you scamper off the tailor's perch to his side, "seeing as months have passed with no developments? I cannot excuse your attire any longer. You will wear white when at any Heartslabyul event from this moment onward."

"Don't you mean red and white?"

His thoughts halt, - "Again. Tradition dictates only white."

"Because I'm a guest?"

Riddle shakes his head, fingering the pages of his text to ignore the heat on his cheeks.

"No. Because you are the visiting Queen."

"Ramshackle needs something like this, don't you think?"

You sipped at a cup of lemon-chamomile, poured as a game of cricket began. Riddle's eye caught at your white gloves - they climbed from fingertips all to your bicep. The hatter did wonders with the roll of satin provided.

In a dorm of red, you were the sole dominator of white save for a rose brooch at the breast.

"Unbirthdays are tied to the Red Queen's rule," Riddle pulls himself from you, holding his attention on the game, "Ramshackle has no need for such things."

"That's not what I was eluding too - but thank you for the dismissal" you huff, and it's not the amused one he's learned to detect.

He allows himself a brief peek, just to catch you eyeing your reflection in the teacup. Your gaze nowhere near as enthused as his. Not at the black-heart over your lips, or shimmering silver crown sitting on your head.

"I want a tradition, Riddle. Something that makes my dorm special. Unique."

Something within him waivers at your admittance. For him these parties were routine - an obligation. Your presence made them more enjoyable, but he never cared too deeply.

Perhaps, he never allowed himself to care. Yearning for belonging. Home. That is an emotion he can empathize with.

Riddle is proud - no, he is positively delighted - to be one of the first to receive an invitation. His mailbox is forever cluttered with academic documents and professional communications. Yet he recognizes your writing on sight, and is pleased you'd not forgone a traditional physical invite. He handles it with delicate care, opening the seal like a single tear would be sacrilegious. You've settled on hosting for large holiday back in your world - one that you've mentioned a handful of times since snow began to fall.

Christmas, he recalls with ease.

Everything you say somehow stores in the main filing cabinet within his mind. For easy access, or perhaps he simply finds you far more interesting than leagues of text he's memorized.

You seem keen on twisting the original meaning of this holiday, bringing decorations, food, and everything in between to Ramshackle. Going so far as to place an appeal to the Headmaster, and with Riddle's aid, worming out a decently sized budget for dorm activities. Bless him for his way to move a room. Riddle might've preferred staying on the Headmaster's good wing, but couldn't turn down your request. Not when you are forthcoming so infrequently. In truth - Riddle has not been invited to a party before. Not as himself. Only formal gatherings that his mother arranged, hanging to her side as she paraded him like a prodigal trophy, or mandatory parties as Dormhead where preparations hung on his shoulders.

Riddle will honor your wishes; he'll selfishly relish in the fact that with a novel idea there is a lack of rules to maintain. Although your warming desire for tradition doesn't escape him, so he'll happily commission a new set of green and red to dress himself.

"You've done a wonderful job," Riddle sips at aclear flute glass, held proper at the stem between thumb and index, " I am thoroughly impressed that there is food to spare, considering Grim's gluttonous habits."

Riddle resists the urge to smirk, hiding his pleasure in another sip. He's used to others balking at his praise, yet it's different when you look at him so glowing. For once, he is not the one at table's the head seat, but you've well earned the highest spot for what he's witnessed this eve.

Ramshackle's main hall cleared for a long, expansive table decorated with broad cloth and long strands of cranberries. Candle light illuminates the hall in between platters befitting a feast. Garlands of red and green shimmered - all drawing attention to the brightly colored pine tree situated near the lounge hearth.

Riddle hadn't considered ornamenting a giant pine with twinkle strands and glass bulbs, yet its beauty stunned him nonetheless. Stockings hung on the walls, each with a student's name written in glue-glitter pen. Some messier than others, he noted. Grim's handwriting could do with work.

They'd been stuffed with little treats and ribbon - surely more that hid under their fluffy tops. Riddle wondered their purpose and how you managed to hang some well-beyond what a stool could help reach. He pictured you standing atop stacked boxes, tongue poking between teeth as you precariously leaned to hang those higher up.

For his sanity - Riddle dismissed the thought to the backends of his mind.

"Thank you -" your smile, eyes twinkling under candle-light "It surely wasn't easy getting the Headmaster's approval for all this - I'm grateful you were able to help, otherwise we might've all been eating instant noodles instead of turkey."

Riddle huffed, swirling his near-empty ice water "I didn't do much - regardless, I'm certain the evening would have turned out fine. This is a new tradition, one where you are in charge."

There's mirth in your eyes for a moment. A happy glint that he's proud to have brought back.

"I don't think Vil would've been happy eating canned tuna on the couch, but I'll take your word for it."

"Perhaps you have a point, yet it doesn't matter. Since we are not eating canned tuna and certainly not on a sunken couch." he hums, and watches closely as you pick up your glass to stand. Having postponed long enough with idle chatter, your spoon hovers near the glass rim, hesitant to clink for attention.

For reasons he is quite confident in - you look to him in a moment of hesitance, and he's prepared. As always.

Riddle nods when your eyes meet his, and then there's the familiar chime of a toast.

"Everyone! I'd like to thank you all for coming despite your busy schedules. This is the first ever event hosted by Ramshackle and I hope it's been as much fun for you as it has for me..." His attention is lost to your words, despite Riddle's attempts to nod along. It all fades out. His hearing. The feeling of his glass between his fingers, even as he rolls the stem between them. You glow.

It's nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, you've cleaned up for the evening - and he was not reserved enough to stay a compliment upon arriving. You had admired his suit in turn, fussing with his striped bow-tie even though it was already tied to perfection. He hadn't minded the slightest. Surely he'd taken ample time to admire you. What you've done to this shabby dormitory. How you are obviously trying to mimic his speech mannerisms from the countless he's given -

Yet it is not candlelight, fancy clothing or words that make you glow. It is something he cannot string words for, which is an oddity in itself.

Your earlier worry lingers, even if it is not worth dwelling on. Not with Schoeneheit here and clearly satisfied with the arrangements. He'd been the most critical about the building decor, after all. Although Riddle is certain he'd have made time to come regardless of what you arranged.

Vil is not the only one outside of Heartslabyul that you've managed to gather- Riddle notes. Students across all dormitories are here for this new tradition of yours. Ones he doesn't think to question, such as Epel of Pomefiore or Scarabia's party-hungry dorm leader. Others Riddle nearly balked at seeing, especially when Malleus Draconia of all people made an entrance just when seats were almost filled. For reasons unknown to Riddle, Malleus lingered long to admire his name-card and placemat. Even a prince was pleased with the bare minimum once entering this dormitory. Did you glow to them? He wonders. Unlike the Unbirthday parties - you've gathered these individuals out of desire. Not obligation. Ask him mere months prior and he'd think it impossible.

And yet.

Zing.

There's a yearning in your eyes - but this time not shrouded by a silver crown. It's a brilliant sparkle. An appreciation for what many would surely consider utter chaos - and he has no desire to scold you for stumbling over words or failing to follow his proper regimen for speeches.

You sit down, his ears still deaf but his sight not hindered to the adrenaline flush in your cheeks. To the tremble of your fingers as they tinker with your cutlery. How you smile for him, and he knows it's gratitude but Riddle's done nothing worthy of it this night.

As platters circle around, chatter rises - you watch, taking it all in. Not a bite taken from your plate despite minutes passing. Like you're somewhere unimaginable.

While it is considered impolite to ignore the person across you at a dinner table, Riddle is more interested in the one to his left. He understands that yearning. For friends. Family. Loved ones. To be as he wants, and accepted as he is.

Riddle reaches underneath the tablecloth, his hand finding yours in a subtle gesture. His fingers pry through one of your fists, lacing through yours like they'd been longing to the entire evening. "Relax," he whispers, soft enough that it surprises even himself, "This is the start of what is sure to be a wonderful tradition. I, for one, am immensely proud of you," he says your name with the highest reverence,praying his gaze is kind.

You glow.

Riddle squeezes your hand, striving to convey that this feeling you're experiencing is shared. His adoration might not be apparent to you just yet, but it is all consuming.

Trey is not one to snap easily or let his emotions guide his actions. He learned that he must think ahead at a young age, mediate, and it's carried him this far.

Yet this sense of control. This comfort. It is as much bane as much as it is a boon. And chaos is best experienced at a safe distance, he also figured out, like an active volcano. Enough to wow but not enough to burn. No matter what trouble comes across Trey's path, he will let it go in favor of finding a solution. Maybe he'll laugh about it later and enjoy the mischief in secret. Yet he always waits until it is safe. You are a volcano that never ceases erupting. Yet he lives on your island. Willingly. The warmth is worth each risked burn, yet he knows you'd harden yourself if he ever showed his skin. You'd turn from fiery magma into igneous rock.

You hadn't purposefully worked to agitate Riddle. No matter how much Heartslabyul's dorm-head was determined to atone for his childish behavior, change does not come overnight. Your mischief sometimes went overboard, earning a collar that had no use but to make a statement, yet it was always in good fun. Nothing a few days and proper apology could not fix. The dorm lightened up, there were upsides to these eruptions. Trey would be there to make you see.

You hadn't caused irreversible distress, like blowing up the kitchen or switching the sugar with salt right before he entered the culinary crucible. Even then, grime could be cleaned and he didn't care about winning anyways. What's a trophy when faced with your supposed 'revenge'. What for? He has no idea, but Trey knows you're capable of much worse and counts his blessings. A small dose of cortisol usually ended with a good laugh, and possibly some blackmail material that he would never get around to using.

So long as you were happy, healthy, and most importantly- present. Trey could ask for nothing else.

Yet even the most optimistic man alive couldn't remain so at all hours - and he wasn't an optimist. Merely an idealist, a mediator - a lover, in this case.

The things we do for love - he could make a list.

"Why aren't you mad at me?"

Trey busied himself scrubbing violet dye out of his forearms. On the off chance there was a cleansing tonic available, he doubts Professor Crewel would waste it on something that will fade with time. The problem more-so lies with Trey's uniform, which wouldn't be cleaned in time for the next lab showcase. He'd likely be docked points, even as a Vice Housewarden. It would be major annoyance, if nothing else.

Trey sighs, going in for the third round of deep scrubbing " - Because accidents happen. What? You want for me to scold you?"

You don't answer his teasing. Trey scrubs harder. His skin was beginning to burn and yet he continued with the futile effort. If anything to act like he's unbothered and keep you from touching what's contaminated in the sink. Protect your curiosity, dispel your guilt. "Listen to me -okay? This isn't worth getting upset over. So I'm a candied violet for a few days? It's definitely a conversation starter." Trey kept his tone light, even throwing a joke that would definitely fall flat -

"-but you should be mad. Professor Crewel is going to mark your point card -" Yes. He knows. You don't need to remind him, " - maybe we can get you a new uniform? Or...or I can come with you? We can tell him what happened together and maybe he'll show mercy?"

Mercy? At Night Raven? You're kidding.

He scrubs harder. Under the fingernails. Over his elbows. It does nothing to lighten the pigment.

"No, trust me on this. A few points off my card makes no difference to a senior," he sighs, rinsing yet again. This time with scalding water that burns his skin, "you have two more years in this lab. That's a long time to endure Professor Crewel's scrutiny - and believe me, he remembers everything. Let me talk it out with him."

A partial truth. Normal seniors couldn't afford missing marks. Trey has seniority as a member of the science club, and no past demerits. He'll have to write an accident report at best, and be on cleanup duty for the rest of the month at worst. It's easier to accept the punishment then have you be subjected to one of Crewel's lectures on lab conduct. He can practically hear the cogs in your head. They're mucking up, slowing to a chilling halt. His teeth grind together, trying to think up a reassurance but coming up flat.

He'll smooth things over with Riddle afterwards, make a strawberry tart, the one with chocolate cream you liked last week, invite you over once he's calmed down to show no harm done. It'll be fine.

"B-but that's not fair! What about your -"

Trey shut off the faucet.

"Enough already," he grit the words out, "You're not supposed to be in here after hours and Crewel isn't the sort of instructor to let transgressions go. Do you want to be barred from the lab indefinitely?"

There was not any yelling. If anything, he was too quiet. No directly hurtful words. Trey hadn't meant for his tone to come out so forceful, but the veins on his arms were starting to bulge under duress and you just weren't listening.

His skin was about to blister if he kept it under water much longer. Maybe he should have let it.

Trey will do whatever he can to keep you happy, safe - satisfied and exactly as he found you. His feelings aren't that of a wet doormat, but he's always gone the subtle route. Thought things through.

Damn it - you always made it hard to think things through.

Grabbing one of the hanging towels, Trey turns around with the tick in his neck hanging tight. Just waiting for you to go and leave him feeling strung. The lab always felt cold compared to the rest of Night Raven, you'd take your warmth but he wasn't doing a great job of protecting it regardless. His mind's already running the extra mile and looking for a way to fix this.

"I don't mind being banned if it's what's fair. You don't need to shelter me, Trey. I know when I've messed up, and I want to help if you'll just let me."

Zing.

You don't run out on him, leaving a mess behind. Leave him cold. Like when the oven turns off and the kitchen's aired out. There's no need for a step-by-step plan. His words stung - he knew by your fists bunched in the pockets of your lab coat. You dislike this as much as he does - and yet, unlike Trey, you don't run.

"Let me help. Please?"

Trey purses his lips together, taking a deep breath through his nose before letting it out in four counts. He finishes toweling his stained hands, sooths the sting, tosses the rag aside and steps into your space. Closer than needed but something he wanted.

His painted hand hovers over your head, his impulse to make light and ruffle your hair. Reign it all back in.

Except one look in your eyes stops him short, and he finds your cheek instead. His purpled thumb looks ridiculous against your reddening cheeks - utterly wrong yet you lean into him before he can change his mind.

"Alright," Trey relents, tone much softer, "You win. I'm annoyed- "

Trey pauses, his brows dipping. You wait.

" - and I'm sorry for just now."

You nod against his palm, "I am too. Let's...let's just take a bit. We don't have to tell Crewel together if you're sure, but I can at least help with Riddle. I've had plenty of practice."

That you did with the freshmen you hang around - and a success rate of zilch since they still walk away with collars more often than not.

You really couldn't protect Trey from Riddle's word, in truth. He'd scold the both of you without hesitance. Although maybe it won't be so bad, sharing a tart without the roundabout.

"That sounds good to me."

Cater Diamond calls maximum-level bullshit. Magic is definite. His split-card never fails to produce an exact replica of him down to the finest detail. The cowlick he combs over, right above his left ear. The slight downturn of his right eye - an unfortunate side effect of sleeping on his side, face scrunched tight between forearm and bicep. His freckle pattern is identical too, even the ones on his back! Every possible fluctuation of his voice, the slight lag in his gait, his superstitions about stepping on tile cracks - even as a duplicate, he won't risk that karma. Cater's unique magic was perfect. Which is why he calls bullshit when you claim to tell them apart.

No.

Tell him from them? All clones look exactly the same, act the same, but apparently they didn't replicate his 'aura'. Whatever that means.

The first time you were able to do it, he thought nothing. That maybe you were looking to feel special - especially when your only response to how was 'I can just tell'. Even though no one looked convinced, you weren't bothered.

Cater wasn't about to take it personally either. Not when you were a great source for magicam material, and one of the few people his dorm head seemed to tolerate. Definitely the cute underclassmen type his sisters would go crazy for, and he did owe you for...well, no need to keep tabs, right?

It's not like you were being rude about it either. If it was a slight against his magic ability, maybe he'd feel differently.

Except you did it again.

And again.

Again.

Oh? Another time too.

Enough times that he stops sending a copy to do his dirty work, because you'll know. Even if you don't rat him out, there's that way you try to bit down a smile that somehow gets his clones to have a looser lip.

Okay. Maybe he needed to work on that. Yet still. Risking everything on your whim just so he can cut class isn't worth the headache.

Yet he will not concede.

It's bullshit. You're bullshitting so far out that he'd sooner believe Trey skipped flossing for an entire week straight. No. A month.

But Cater can't cling to that simple, vulgar dismissal. Even if he's never said it out loud to your face. There has to be a reason. While he's not one to have it 'out' for his underclassmen, you have to be putting on some kind of front. He can't bring himself to be spiteful about it since 'Cay-Cay' doesn't exactly encompass all that makes Cater.

You have to be - because it's physically impossible for someone to be this ignorant. He can excuse your lack of Wonderland culture (and is working to remedy it) but social cues? No. You have to be doing something intentionally. Anything. To see more of him.

He respects the effort, but if you're so intent on seeing him? Well. He'd let you see all right. Just don't blame Cater if you regret losing 'cay-cay' in the process.

"Special delivery for you, Peepers. Curtesy of Heartslabyul's royal court!"

With a perfectly-wrapped gift basket on one arm, and his phone in the other's hand. Cater holds the front door to Ramshackle on his hip and outstretches the screen for your 'signature'. Aka. just for you to take some photo-evidence that he's done his duty so Riddle won't scold him for skimping.

"On god, are those my cookies? Did Trey actually do it?"

You happily take his precious phone and snap a quick picture. One of Cater on the front- stoop, and another with half your face in the bottom frame. Eyes squinted enough that anyone could tell you're smiling. He poses too on instinct, but once the classic *click* passes he's eagerly dropping the basket in your hands.

You open the wrapping and sniff the air. "It is! I could kiss that man. Just get me a step ladder and a bit of peer pressure."

Cater snorts.

"Over cookies? I admit, we do have the best baker on campus but don't make it too easy. We don't want lovesick boys raining down on Ramshackle..." he wiggles his brows with a cheeky smirk, "...or do we? So scandalous of you!"

No reward for the messenger? He almost wants to press for it, but you'd probably take him seriously.

Cater disregards the slight bitterness in his stomach, and pushes into your space to snag one of the 'special delivery' bites. He dangles the biscuit just over your head and holds it up to the sun.

You, of course, try to get it back. He relishes in the brief power imbalance.

"Aren't these just normal cookies? Wah - look how golden the edges are! Totally pic worthy, if you ask me," he jumps through the threshold and into the main hallway. The cookie just on his lips.

"Would be a shame if we just ate them all, right peeps?"

A bit of sugar is worth that expression. The front door slams on your heels as you make like a bull towards him.

"Annnnnnd that's my cue! Later, gator!"

He dips and spins at the last second, sweeping past for one action-packed getaway that leads straight out the door to the safe confines of Heartslabyul castle. Not with boisterous laughter, but his cheeks do feel extra stretched out. Cater isn't sure if he wants this feeling either.

Never mind before. That was a magicam worthy image. The 'harmless' Ramshackle prefect ready to commit murder over one cookie.

Eyeing his little prize, Cater takes a bite.

Still not a fan of sweets or chores...but he can admit that both the victory and visit are sweet.

"I have a question."

"LOL - is that why you look three-days constipated?"

"Do you always have to be such a - "

Dick?

"Yes," Cater flashed his teeth, tapping his phone against his cheek, "To you? Always."

Cater doesn't mind playing sitter for a bit. Not that you ever actually sat still. Nah. Kalim was all too eager for someone to come listen in on what the Pop Music Club was working on, and you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Now two-thirds of his club busied themselves fighting over if they'd sing a rock ballad, or some actual pop. Since they were technically the 'pop' music club, and their optimist leader wanted you to really catch the vibes.

Cater? Cater didn't mind all that much, but was real glad he chose today to attend in person. Not because you'd rat him out, but for these odd entertaining moments. It's not like he can poke all his little 'buds' this way.

He leaned against the back of Lilia's amp, attention flickering between your prattling and his doom scroll.

"Did you know I was coming today?"

Pretty steep lead-up for a lame question.

"Nah,' Cater shrugged, but caught your disbelieving look, "whaaa? Do you think I can keep tabs on all my cute underclassmen? Don't be such a spoiled goober, peeps."

You still remained doubtful. He tapped his phone to his chin, setting a line out for you to catch.

"Alright, I'll cast. Why are you so sure I knew, huh?"

You wince, sucking some air past your teeth. He recognized that look. It's the same one Ace had every time he admit to a crime. Dang. A-Deuce really has you clutched.

"You just...I noticed you kinda avoid using your unique magic with me around. Kalim said it's how you three can make music that needs more instruments, but -"

You pause, isn't he supposed to be the skeptic here?

"Well. You're you right now. So I just thought - not to sound accusatory, mind you - that it's because of me.."

Well that's new. Not the calling him out part. Cater's let that grudge go over time. You were just too fun to mess with, and he settled for playing the cards set up. It's not like you were going anywhere.

He just didn't expect his little one-sided rivalry to make it through that 'aura' barrier, or whatever it is you called it before. Neither for him to actually show his hand, especially when he could deny it so easily.

"You want me to lay it straight with you?" Cater asks, his smile too wide for blatant kindness.

Back out man. What are you doing?

You, doe-eyed no more, nod along.

"You're hella creepy. That's why I give you special attention."

Part of Cater relishes in the startled expression on your face. In the discomfort of being seen that he's dealt with since the moment you met. Even if the feelings changed an now coated with something sickeningly sweet. A feeling he didn't want, but came regardless.

He continues without prompt.

"Did you ever think about where the name 'peepers' comes from? Sure, you're cute like a little chick. ADeuce sure Shepard you like one, and I'm sure it'd be the same if you were in Heartslabyul with the rest of us - "

You say nothing. Although Cater's not really being cruel, just honest. He knows there are better words to use here. Can think of them, but he doesn't want to.

"- but you don't really know boundaries, do you? Which can totally get you on the off-side, just saying. At first I did it to make sure you couldn't twist my clones into admitting something totes embarrassing - but now? Hmm....dunno. Just having fun."

The uncomfortable silence that follows is not fun. Although he's good at flipping back to scrolling as if he didn't just get as real as it gets IRL.

You don't stick around for practice. Part of Cater feels guilty that Kalim came back to an empty room, but he's not much in the mood for singing anymore. With you gone, he left behind two doubles.

Later, in his room, he wonders if it was 'Cay-Cay' talking or 'Cater'. They're not mutually exclusive. Either way, he doubts you'd be willing to chat casually with either again. Problem mitigated.

You were a good, if not rattling, experience.

So why's he not happy?

“I want to apologize. If you’ll hear me out.”

Now that’s not what Cater was expecting. Not at all. Two weeks without a Ramshackle resident in sight. For a bit he thought you decided to hate him for setting boundaries of all things. Ace and Deuce were your besties, but they hadn’t breathed a word about whatever you felt to him.

Either you were better at holding secrets than anyone else on campus, or those two had enough tact to respect their upperclassmen. Most likely the former, given past events.

Cater’s more interested in the cup noodle in your hands. Not even the good kind either.

“Is that supposed to be an offering? Did Acey teach you how to pull a kettle out of thin air too?” He’s going to need some hot water after all.

What would normally get those noodles thrown at Cater’s head - maybe a half-baked insult about them resembling his hair too - doesn’t work. You set the styrofoam cup on his desk and sit next to it.

“I’m sorry you felt creeped out by my ‘sixth-sense’ or whatever it is that my shared braincell friends call it. All this time I thought you were hanging out with me because we were friends or -“

You stop. Surely you wouldn’t leave him hanging, but Cater knows you as well as you know him. Too well. Blood rushes to your ears, as does words to your lips.

“- or, uh, more. Like - you didn't use the doubles since you liked spending time with me. Which is a bit conceited to think, I guess. I didn’t realize you were forcing yourself to be something you’re not. In the beginning I really admired you. Maybe that’s why I can tell the clones apart? It's a dumb reason but really all I've got. You always caught my attention. I’m not special, or psychic, or anything - I just really liked you.”

Zing

It’s not as if no one’s ever confessed their feelings to Cater. He’s an online presence. Cay gets five confessions a day, at minimum. A dozen fawning comments at every meal.

Except he never stole their packages, or drove them up a wall trying to find a hidden dirty sock in their dorm.

He was still ‘Cay-Cay’. Blessedly cute, to his sister’s delight and his honed weaponry. Although if he could be what they all wanted, he’d be at RSA. Maybe in another life.

No use on what-ifs after all.

“Could you say that with a mouth full of uncooked noodles? Raw emotions should equate raw stomach pains to show your sincerity” Cater wiggled the styrofoam cup before bopping it on your nose.

In this life, he was a melody of sinful cuteness. Maybe you saw that, maybe you didn’t.

The want for that little ‘more’ definitely left him with ammo for what was about to come.

You could be bullshitting that too. The vulgar conclusion somehow still coming back up after all this time.

The diamond on his cheek crinkles with a cheeky grin, and one of his doubles walks in with a piping hot cup of water. Then another with two bowls and chopsticks.

“JK I won’t do that to you,” he lets them set up for some real noodles, slipping the ones you bought away for later. You don’t need to know everything.

He’ll let you in on this much though.

You were trouble. A bit annoying and oblivious.

But deep down, so was Cater. Maybe he was the one bullshitting himself this whole time.

“You’re real lucky that I’m into creepy these days….say, could we maybe do a horror collab at your place for our launch?”

Deuce often wonders where he'd be if he hadn't come home that night. Good parents try to hide their feelings for the sake of their kids, but what if he hadn't overheard that phone call? What if his mother still felt such sadness? The Insomnia is well earned - if you ask him. Shame that he'll carry for the rest of his life. Her sorrow is his greatest regret, but he'll carry it. To move forward.

Would he still be part of the gang? Likely. There's no way Night Raven College would want someone with bruised knuckles as the only trophy on their name. Who's only redeemable skill was swinging a bat while pumping a wheelie.

Or would they? Floyd Leech received a letter and wasn't turning over any shells to become less...Floyd-like.

Maybe Deuce wasn't special. Just lucky.

Perhaps Night Raven would be better off with the old him. That prideful jerk who didn't think twice before throwing a punch. Who's greatest pride was his blast-cycle and rarely spared a thought on the people who really mattered. An absolute moron stuck in the wrong crowd, in the wrong place always at the wrong time.

In an abyss of what-ifs, there is one certainty.

You would not be a friend to Deuce.

He preyed on the magic-less back then. It's so easy to picture you as those faceless kids that he taunted. He thought himself better than them. Made them preach his superiority, and if they refused? Made their life hell. As did the rest of his gang.

What might he have said to you? What would he have done?

Deuce wasn't necessarily thrilled to be thrown on thin-ice during his first week on campus. He wasn't outright cruel towards you, but Ace? Ace was an asshole. Deuce heard how your meeting went. How he preyed on your ignorance, even though you couldn't help it.

Deuce can't give your group's third shit for it either.

Not when a bit of teasing was mercy compared to the bullying he used to do.

Not when he'd have gone further than Ace could attempt, and not when you'd have taken it without knowing any better. Your trust that he now held so dearly, traded away for a bit of momentary cruelty.

He would have got high off your misery, and been none the wiser to what he was ruining.

This ache is how Deuce tames that abyss of what-ifs.

Any life where you are not a friend to Deuce, is a life that he refuses to see possible.

Deuce is not special. He is lucky.

Lucky enough that you came into his life when he embodied the dignity to learn, and sense appreciate someone so wonderful.

Just like with his mother, Deuce can't ignore the thoughts. They will come, and he faces them with an imaginative force.

At the start of this new life, Deuce set out to become better. To be honorable. Sharp. Strong. Diligent. His mother's pride and tears fueled those ambitions.

Except he forgot one important factor. When he thinks of himself in this image, the desire brightens with your face in his day-dreams amidst hard work.

Kind.

Deuce wants to be kind.

"Finished?"

You stretch lazily across the library table. In the wee hours of dawn, with the sun just barely poking in with it's grey-toned light, Deuce scratches away at one of the many 'guides' Riddle loaned him for practical magic studies.

The word 'guide' must be used loosely, since the notes require endless sifting through textbooks for proper context. Leave it to his Housewarden to give just enough for any student to learn, but they'd need to exhibit excessive effort.

Deuce felt like the village-idiot, or rather the stooge of his academic year. They did this sort of gimmick back in the gang. Every batch of new-comers would come with a dud, meant to fail during initiation as an example.

Hell even Ace passed the last exam. Even if he just brushed by with a 70, it was still miles better than Deuce's 42. At the rate Deuce is going he might as well sign his soul off to Azul agai -

No.

"Urhm...I think? Just need to read a bit more," the words blurred, was it is eyes or did he literally erase the ink off?

The packet disappears before his retinas refocus. You start skimming over the shoddy work without asking. Now he's feeling frustrated and embarrassed.

"Two's wrong," you flip the page, his fingers twitch over the table rim, "five, six, eight, twelve, and fourteen too. Nineteen's short answer is technically right? Not by Riddle's standards, but Trein would take it."

You slide the packet back towards him with minor corrections made. He shouldn't hate red, it's his dorm's pride. Although Deuce wishes that for once he could get a pristine white paper back.

Just once. A sign that all this work was paying off. That he's doing something right.

What's worse is that he's dragging you down with him. A yawn builds in the back of his throat and he shoves it so far down it meets his intestines. Tired? At a time like this? He can't be tired, not when you're giving up a precious Saturday morning so he doesn't resort to cheating like before.

He ducks low, hiding in red ink.

"Sorry, prefect. I'll - I'll just have to start over. You should go get some shut-eye before Grim needs you."

Sorry for wasting your time.

"Why would we do that? You did good."

Huh?

A red pen with the cap just barely holding on pokes the big 65 circled on his paper. It leads up to a lifted blazer cuff, which leads to a stretched arm, which leads to a knotted ribbon which barely passes as a bow.

All to you, in his space with your seat long abandoned with his determination.

All to kind eyes. Indiscriminatory, with patience.

"Good? I missed seven questions."

"Yeah, that's a 65."

Deuce strains his eyes, squinting at the mark with hatred.

"That's not good. It's not even passing."

"Yeah, duh." You sigh heavily. Not like there's a librarian or nerd on duty to hush.

The red cap thumps against his forehead.

"65 is 23 points better than a 42. C'mon, juice-box. Don't tell me we need to study maths next."

You hold the cap there until he looks up from his burial in papyrus. His deprecation - his lapse- meets you in battle and with that one look? You kick its ass to the moon and back.

No judgement. No exuberant praise. No false promises.

Just you and him against the world. Or in this case, a bad grade.

Zing.

One bad grade that he refuses to let set a precedent for his day.

There's a sting to his eyes. It must be the dust.

No. It's a heavenly glow. In this moment, you weren't a friend. You were like a saint sent down from the heavens or wherever it is you come from. It might as well be heaven to him, since he can't go there and it's sent him an angel.

He doesn't want to disappoint you. He doesn't want to spit in the face of that kindness. The hidden bitterness that a magicless student understood practical theory vanished in an instant, as did his desire to trade this pen in for a good sulk.

All he wants is for you to stay with him. To make you proud. He'll work without rest for as long as he has to, if it means he has your faith.

"D-don't call me that! If that nickname sticks then I'll never make it as a proper honor student!"

He swats the pen off him with flushed cheeks, but little strength. Your laugh invokes this newfound confidence and it's like six shots of espresso all at once.

You slip into the chair across him, snickering.

"Sure thing....if you can score 70 by noon. I believe in you, juice-box."

The heat is sweltering. What dorm doesn't have central air in the middle of summer? Ace already knows the answer, but complains anyways. The whines fall off his lips like greetings. More of an obligatory thing.

He could head back to Heartslabyul. Where it's a steady seventy-two degrees and hopefully some shaved ice in one of the freezers. He could sneak you in? Twist Riddle’s nickers even when the guy was across the sea.

Not just Riddle, but everyone else too. Ace hadn't seen another face on campus in nearly two weeks. Deuce was the last to leave, seeing as his 'new image' meant helping mommy dear out with a summer job.

There wasn’t anyone around this time of year. Just the upkeep staff. Needless to say that Night Raven morphed into one odd ghost town.

Oh. Let's not forget himself and the two lone residents of this dilapidated dormitory.

Zzzzz-

"It's not fair you always get the bed. What ever happened to basic hospitality?" he groaned, cheek pressed into the hard floorboards.

You scoff from where he can't see before going back to whatever it is you were rambling about. He wasn't fully paying attention. Something about this game franchise starring a pink gumball that eats things to get powers?

What a dumb idea. He'd say as much, if he wasn't becoming one with the ground. Banished to below after kicking you in the chin while laughing at his comics.

Sweaty, uncomfortable, clothes sticking to his skin and said comic too far out of reach. The pages spit every time the slightest gust of wind comes in from outside. Grim's knocked out-cold on the recliner, occasionally stirring awake to tell you both to shut up.

"Ace? Are you even listening anymore?"

You peer down over the bedside. Hair ready to host rats and a bit of cheese dust on your cheek. Beads of sweat smeared it into a junk food lipstick. Vil’ worst nightmare, honestly.

Zzzzzz-

Ace barely peels his body off the ground to smack his hand over your mouth. Your weight is nothing to stop him from climbing back over the crumpled duvet. That’s right. Scream under his sweaty grip. No one to save you now.

"Never was - now move over already before I become a puddle and melt all over your floor"

The bed is just as, if not more, sweltering and uncomfortable. Ace grins apathetically as you flail to escape his noogies. Only to give up and go back to rambling on. This time letting the heat suffocate you together rather than apart.

He could fall asleep like this. Will fall asleep like this. It’s his earned right for the entirety of summer. Whatever it is you’re on now, he doesn’t care. Not fully. Just keep talking and don’t get up.

Ace thinks the world doesn’t give him enough credit.

The sun, the sea, the sand - it’s all too perfect. A vacation away from endless classwork and his house-warden trying to rip him a new one? A dream.

That’s what this was.

A dream.

With you right at the center of it all. Again. This isn’t something he’s buried deep down. His mind’s eye didn’t need to work hard for his desires.

Ace knows what’s up. He knows that if he sits up on his elbows, reaches over to poke your ribs and taunts out a vengeful swat - that he’ll get more than just some sand in his eyes. He’ll be done for. He’ll be blinded.

He’ll fall into the sweetest nightmare.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz-

It’s buzzing in him. He’s walking such a fine, a dangerous line. This isn’t forever. He just wants you to be happy without the expense of his own. Is that so much to ask?

Where the hell are the adults? The professors? Why is he even in this position?

When will he wake up? How long until the fantasy is gone? He doesn’t want to give it attention.

Since he will wake up. You'll come for him. It's a matter of when, not if. If he gives in, then the fantasy will become just that until it's gone. He'll blink and it will all be gone.

Ace knows that the only way is for you to walk along in-between, but it’s impossible. Ace is well aware of the inevitable cracks better than anyone else. He doesn’t need convincing.

…

Fine.

Ace falls asleep willingly. He keeps his hands to himself, lays upon the shore, and lets the tide wet his feet.

Dreams are far more forgiving than reality, and the world can withhold its credit. He doesn’t want the knowledge.

“I thought I was changing your mind!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m in love with you, idiot!”

Ace felt his teeth crack together. He said it. It took months of trying. Months of pulling himself back as far as he could.

He said it. You heard it. He’s glad you heard it because it’s unfair that he’s the only one about to get his chest ripped out. It’s not fair.

“I’m in love with you,” he breathed out, “I’m in love with you and I want you to stay.”

It's not real. It can't be real. Since all he could see now was that person from the very beginning. The one he taunted on an off chance on his first day. He was such a dick back then. All he had to do was keep walking, but he was too cruel for that. He just had to go mess with the person who’s day was already at an all time low, stuck cleaning old statues while everyone else got on with their lives.

If he just kept walking. If he didn’t let his ego get the better of him. Then he never would have experienced any of this. He wouldn’t know you.

He wouldn’t love you.

Zzz-

And what burns the most, is that he wanted to love you. Even if it meant this frustration. This abandonment.

“I'm sorry."

I can’t do this.

“WAKE UP ALREADY -"

“Ace?“

He rest his forehead against your pulse. Nose nestled into your collar, body draped over your front like a blanket. His bones felt like pudding after running for so long.

The end of this nightmare wasn't close. Nowhere near. Even though he was ripped from one dream - no, a nightmare. A twisted, willing nightmare. It wouldn't be over until the dragon sung.

Even then. There were sill hidden cards within his deck. The ones Ace held close to his chest.

You came for him, because of course you did. He wants to say that he'd not do the same. That you're an utter dumbass for going against Malleus Draconia of all people. Except he'd be lying to himself.

"We need to get going," you tapped his shoulders urgently, "Ace? C'mon, you're freaking me out man...we need to help -"

"Just give me a minute."

He held you tighter. Not by much. His own subconscious drained life like Riddle at a party. His head was still buzzing. What was dream melted with what was reality.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" you asked, wary.

Idiot.

Ace held you at arm's length.

Zzzz-

"How much of that last part did you actually see?" he asked.

Your concern morphed into sympathy. Of course it did.

"Don't worry about any of us judging you, okay? Those dreams don't accurately reflect our hearts. If anything, more of a pleasant nightmare. Like our hearts giving us a weird case of Stockholm Syndrome with our desires"

That's not what he asked, but alright.

"So all of it," he concluded and clicked his tongue, "damn it....this is so not cool."

Whether you took his sulking as something to be pitied or not. It didn't matter. Twisted desire or not, it didn't matter.

He wouldn't let it matter. This card could hold until he made the dragon sing.

"C'mon," Ace pulled you forth to convene with the others. His head clear and the buzzing louder than ever. His fingers laced tightly with yours.

This is real. He can do this. He won't wait for another sweet nightmare or promise of power.

"You and I? We have words after this is over. I've been through seven layers of hell because of you, and there won't be an eighth."