FOR YOU MY ANGEL!!!! 🪲🦊

It was the night of his fourth challenge, and PR1ZE wasn't moving. They had been discussing this for what felt like hours and PR1ZE hadn't even gotten upset with him.

"GODDAMMIT, PR1ZE!" Cicada nearly screamed. "I'm pointing a goddamn gun at your face and you aren't doing anything. Do something! Anything! Fight back! Don't just let me kill you. Have some fucking decency."

Logically, Cicada knew that the people they and PR1ZE share an apartment with could hear them. Emotionally, however, they wanted to scream at him until their throat gave out.

PR1ZE didn't move. "Bug, please, calm down. I wouldn't want to be killed by anyone else. It... it would be an honor to have you be the one to kill me."

"Fuck you. I hate you. And if you lie down and die here I'm never going to forgive you."

He would forgive PR1ZE for anything.

"Cicada, listen to me, please, just do it. It'll all be okay. I love you Bug. You... you know that, right? I love you. It'll be okay." And then he was smiling, actually smiling, as he was about to die.

Cicada decided that this was worse than what happened with Matt. That was painful and bloody but at least Mikey (she...?) had a reason, however small, to fight back, back then. Now Cicada was gunning the man they loved down while he proclaimed his love for wing.

"I love you too, Fox. I'm... I'm sorry." The words caught in wing's throat and bird had to spit them out.

"Don't apologize. It's... it's for the best, isn't it? I was always gonna be on borrowed time. I'm lucky to have spent so much of it with you. My Bug."

They wanted to tell him to not call him that but they didn't have the heart.

There was a pause.

"Can I kiss you?" Asked PR1ZE, startling them both. "I don't think I could live with myself if I died without kissing you at least once."

Another pause.

"There's something fucked up about the two of us. I'm about to fucking kill you and you're asking me to kiss. And I'm saying you can." He wanted this just as much as PR1ZE did. God, he was selfish.

PR1ZE stepped forward. His hands were shaking almost as bad as Cicada's own but there was a confident look in his eyes that Cicada hadn't seen much. He grabbed Cicada's face, tracing his thumb across her jaw. They stood there like that for a second.

"Thank you." And then he kissed her.

If Cicada was going to be honest with birdwingself, and bird was, it was everything they had ever hoped for. For a second, they forgot WOE.BEGONE, and the fourth challenge, and the fact that they were holding a gun, and everything else. For a second, both Mikey and Eli were quiet.

Cicada found themself wanting to wrap their arms around him before remembering there was indeed a gun in their hands. They had a job to do. PR1ZE broke the kiss.

He seemed more relaxed than he had in days, months, even. Since Cicada had started playing for sure. He was still smiling. God.

PR1ZE tucked a strand of hair out of their face before stepping back again.

"I love you so fucking much. Thank you, again. I wish..." he shook his head. "Well, it doesn't matter now. I love you."

"Everything you say matters, PR1ZE, I wish you knew that." Cicada could hear his own voice getting softer. He was crying harder now. He didn't know when he had started crying, only that he was crying harder.

She was really going to have to do this. She raised the gun to his head again, and PR1ZE held it there. Still smiling.

There was fear in his eyes she couldn't ignore.

"I love you, Fox, I'm sorry."

It was summer, which meant cicada season, which meant cicada shells. B0UNTY had been collecting them for weeks now. He held his newest art project in one hand, wrapped in paper, as he walked through the woods.

Eventually he reached his destination. A clearing in the woods that nobody ever went to except him. B0UNTY crouched down in front of a couple sticks stuck in the ground. He unwrapped the paper and set his artwork down in between the makeshift graves.

The artwork itself was a collection of cicada shells and flower petals arranged in patterns, carefully pinned down.

"Hey Bugs, I, uh, made this for you." B0UNTY cleared his throat, brought up the accent, and tried not to cry. "Ah know it ain't much, but you always got real excited when we found cicada shells, so..."

He always felt a little stupid, talking to Cicada. He only ever halfway believed in ghosts.

"Ah love you so fuckin' much, Cicada. Ah'll always love you."

...And shit, he was crying anyway. Seeing the graves always made him cry. He tried to tell himself that it was just sticks, but that felt disrespectful.

B0UNTY took the cowboy hat off his own head and put it on one of the sticks, causing it to sink further into the ground.

"Sorry ah haven't been back to visit in awhile, things at H1VE've been real messy. But we're ok. Things're gonna be ok, Bugbear."

"Ah love you. Always an' forever."