Marion - Mar's Fault

Pure emotional repression. Mar is fairly open about his attraction, sure, he dwarfs Orion in that respect, but in almost every other category, almost every other way of showing his love outside of surface-level affection, he's barely providing anything. He's fully committed to his work as the team leader, often de-prioritising his own mental health in favour of attempting to caretake the rest of them, and when he isn't, he has long bouts of holing himself up in his room and refusing entry. None of these are dealbreakers in the slightest, Mar has been through hell and needs a lot of support to heal, but he doesn't truly allow Orion in to help. He wants Orion as a strong shoulder to occasionally lean on, but otherwise will only ever go to Friend for more professional and delicate consolation, or even Failboat or Bo for dumb fun. He doesn't trust Orion, at the end of the day, he doesn't want to be on the receiving end of anyone's judgement at this point and he understands Orion to be a blunt harsh critic at times. So, he never truly opens up to him. He'll make constant jokes about sacrificing himself to save Orion, or anyone else on the team, and that's the closest he gets to telling his partner about any of his deeper problems. Orion feels like he doesn't know him, outside of how he presents himself as a fragile blank slate who only wants him as a second blank slate to touch. Marion - Orion's Fault

Projection. Orion spent almost fifty years with the love of his life by his side, was just getting started on building the family they'd always wanted but couldn't make the time for, only for an incomprehensible force of nature to cruelly take her away from him. Cruelly, especially because she wasn't necessarily dead. She had never left his mind for a second, not when she was alive and not now that she's comatose, and the presence of a new partner in his life doesn't negate that. In fact, Mar is the closest thing he can get to reliving his life with her in her absence. Admiring her "understated passion" was one of the first compliments towards her, one of her favourites, and it applied to this man just as well, if in a different way - someone with just enough of a funny bone to ease tension, but not enough of a spine to make himself known. He is a reliable levity for Orion, an enjoyable night out at the bar with his friends mixed with the increasingly scarce intimate moments with his wife, personified. Mar wants to try out something new, another date location or going home earlier or ordering less alcohol, but Orion can't let him ruin the illusion. If he doesn't make these decisions, keep Mar exactly where he wants him, he can't picture his wife in his place.

Lanchi - Chi's Fault

Yandere. I hate to say it, but it's the obvious option. She doesn't let go of that after Lanc calls her out on taking the strategy too personally, she's found the first real personal connection her entire life and cannot tell fake from real when Lanc dances with the monsters. She knows everything that they talked about, that they're just mindless beasts holding real faces who need to be distracted and then killed, but all she sees is another face enjoying themselves around Lanc. Taking away the minute amount of attention she's ever received. She opens fire mercilessly, and if she could strike down the faces flying off the monsters, she would. She starts to, when they get a little too close to her science boy when "thanking the team for their efforts." Just light singes no-one can prove she caused, with sun flares all around. It's harder to deny when she strikes at Failboat for checking up on them in her room, or at Deko for trying to team-attack with him, or with those freak strangers in the basement for trying to draw him in. They have each other down here, they only need each other, she's got fire to keep them warm! And to boil anyone else who tries to cross their path and take her project away from her. Lanc is everything she's ever had, and their relationship is everything they will ever have. Lanchi - Lanc's Fault

"Friend-zoning", and losing touch. Quite arguably the tamest option in this collection, but still incredibly emotionally damaging for one Chin "Chi" Kid, for similar reasons as outlined above. She found a few other worthwhile friendships on the team, but Lanc inexorably occupied an entire section of her brain, the boy who saw her off-the-walls energy and tried his very best to bounce off of them with her. He treasured his time with her, someone who tried their absolute hardest to make light of their situation the entire way through, an unrelenting kindness in her heart even as she tore through monsters like a hardened warrior. No matter what, he could call on her to revitalise his childlike spirit, convince him to throw out all preconceptions of scientific method and splatter the town with mysterious chemicals to his heart's content. His heart was content with her, exactly that way, someone he could call up to goof off with, and jump in to protect in a time of need. He just... didn't want to spend his entire life with her. His feelings didn't extend in that direction, and besides, she'd probably get on his nerves if he spent every waking moment with her. No offence. Chi tried her absolute hardest to smile with gritted teeth through that conversation, but of course their calls became more and more infrequent until they collapsed into nothing. He didn't match her energy at all.

Eribo - Erica's Fault

Possessiveness, and borderline dehumanisation. What Erica wanted out of Bo from the beginning wasn't really her, it was just someone she could lean on without years of existing baggage. They could barely hold a conversation between themselves due to Bo's social anxiety and Erica's stubborn repression, but she didn't need that, she just needed someone who would never leave her. Someone who could never leave her, the one person who couldn't die on her. Not only that, she eventually realised, but someone so weak-willed and desperate to keep people on her good side that she would never want to upset her girlfriend, and thus, would never challenge her, always rely on her to be the pillar of strength between them, the force of will. If she did eventually turn on her, Erica was strong enough to keep her in line. Her arm now had an essentially immovable object it could cling to. A ghost is normally a fading presence, and a Vampire an unmistakable one, but the natural purpose of a Princess is to be guarded by her knights. The warriors who need someone to provide them relief after all they've been through, a pretty little thing they can call theirs. Eribo - Bo's Fault