#lauron

for context:

How does Garroth cradle Laurance in his arms after he escapes all the torture he endured in the Nether, running his hands through his hair and telling him everything’s gonna be okay. It’s about Aaron losing his wife and feeling so hopeless, so depressed and traumatized, lost and full of bleak, self-destructive self-loathing, believing wholeheartedly that no one could ever love him like that again, only for him to find not one, but three (maybe even more!) whole people who love him and marry him and bring out the light in him again, making him smile all over again. It’s about Aphmau trying to carry the entire world on her back, trying to do everything herself and fix every single person’s problems all by herself, so the other three boys come in and tell her “hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to expend yourself like that, let me help you carry the burden for a while. rest, sleep, take care of yourself and slow down. I’ll take care of the dangers for a while.” It’s about Aphmau coming into the world alone and coming out of it with a tight-knit community and a circle of love all around her, because she just holds that much overflowing love in her heart that she has to share it all. It’s about Laurance and Aphmau teaching Garroth to love himself and build up his self-confidence after his family tore it down. It’s about Garroth learning what true family means. It’s about Laurance and Aaron recovering together at the end of it all, healing from the time they both turned into monsters because of cruel, godly forces out of their control using them like puppets. It’s about Laurance bringing fun, light, life, and confidence into Aphmau, Garroth, and Aaron’s worlds, light they all desperately need. It’s about Garroth being a soft place to land to Aphmau, Laurance, and Aaron, because they all desperately need the comfort and the stability that he provides. It’s about Aaron finding home.

It’s about healing from past mistakes and ridding yourself of guilt. It’s about maintaining your humanity and your sanity through love and family and hope. It’s about them working together as a team, because they need, need, NEED each other so badly. It’s about the four of them all slowly dying and rotting while they’re on their own, away from their partners, fighting time and space and the gods and the cosmos above to come back to them.

It’s about Laurance dying first, so Garroth and Aphmau miss him dearly and desperately try to get him back. And then it’s about Garroth disappearing next, so Laurance and Aphmau and Aaron miss him dearly and do everything in their power to get their husband back. It’s about Aaron still holding on to his self-loathing enough that when he sees Garroth loving Laurance and Aphmau, he thinks he’s so much better at loving them and so much purer of a soul than Aaron has ever felt that he genuinely believes that Laurance and Aphmau would be better off with Garroth in his place. Then it’s about Aaron dying, and all three of them are horrified and grieving, and then Aaron comes back as The Shadow Lord, and they have to fight against time and space and the gods to prove to Aaron that they love him so damn much, that he breaks free from the mind control and fights to come back. It’s about undoing the scar that Shad and Irene’s relationship left behind. It’s about all three boys giving their life in self-sacrifice, each of thinking the others will be happier without them, and each being proven so damn wrong.