#theo stuff

This body was hell.

Mirrors didn’t arrive in D87 until he’d been transformed for three months. He had an idea of what he looked like, but he couldn’t see himself, and once mirrors showed up, he could hardly see, what with his awful eyesight and all. He had no clear vision of what his face really looked like - he knew his teeth were sharper than they used to be, and that was kind of the extent of it. His arms were long, and there were, quite notably, eight of them. His skin was grey.

This wasn’t his body, as far as he was concerned. Theodore, the true Theodore, didn’t look like this.

He was trapped, imprisoned, stuck. Everything had been taken from him, and the worst part to him was that this was a choice he had made. He could’ve gone back to living a normal life with Mary, but he made the decision to turn into this thing. This creature, this freakishly tall being. All he wanted was to help people, but now he was stuck wandering the world, constantly being run away from. What was even the point?

He’d seen what he thought was another guardian before. A moth, quite tall, but still two feet shorter than he was. A monochrome creature with bandages up and down their arms and wings that looked awfully familiar. However, it seemed they’d been avoiding him. Not that he blamed them, but things were getting awfully lonely. That was, really, the one thing keeping him going - that perhaps he had a friend awaiting him, if only he could speak to them.

He’d accepted that death wasn’t an option when he did this to himself anyway. Yes, he would live forever, or until this dimension fell apart, collapsed in on itself. When he was alive, he feared death more than anything - now, he so deeply wished he would’ve chosen it.

He idly wrapped a ribbon around his arm, twisting it around in a spiral before slowly unraveling it. At least the ribbons were convenient for his tendency to fidget.

He was flickering quickly - that was what he called it. For a split second, his form would shift back to his original one, then go back again in the blink of an eye. It would happen whenever he had a particularly strong feeling, if his thoughts got to be too much for him.

He stood from his spot on the ground in the centervoid and stepped out towards the door. The fireflies would be out soon enough, and he thought a little walk might do him good.

There was a slight breeze, shifting the polygonal leaves in their place settled on top of the trees. The fireflies were coming out one by one. It was quiet, save for the faked sound of birds chirping and the whispering of the wind, and a little cold. At his feet laid a red rose, perfectly cut and with a long stem. These mysterious roses would simply appear every once in a while, lying on the ground and looking as if they had been purchased from a flower shop. A beauty that was simply unnatural, as most things here were. From the artificial windows to the trees to the flowers, nature simply didn’t truly exist in this place.

As he walked, he started to hear a strange sound. He could’ve sworn nobody was out here, but he could hear a soft sniffling sound that got louder as he approached a specific corner.

Then, he saw them - the peculiar moth fellow he’d seen from a distance so many times before, standing over a particular spot in the grass, crying softly.

It was a rainy night. Daisy was still in the hospital.

Her "lovely friend" Mary was coming to visit her, as he said to their parents. He'd met Mary before, upon his own assistance - he needed to make sure she wouldn't hurt Daisy. Sure enough, Mary was a lovely woman who loved her girlfriend dearly, even knowing she was ill.

This had become a daily or almost-daily occurrence for Onyx, but this time would be different - Mary’s husband would be coming.

He remembered when Daisy told him about Mary. He was thrilled when he found out she’d found someone she loved, and didn’t quite understand when he found out a woman was the object of her affection, but he had nothing against it. The concern came in, though, when she told him Mary was married. Thankfully, she quickly explained their arrangement, and that everyone was aware and happy about what was going on - that Mary’s marriage was one of convenience between two best friends. He still wasn’t used to this after spending his childhood with his parents’ rigid rules and beliefs, but he didn’t truly take any issue with it.

When he entered the room, he spotted Mary, with her golden hair and a polka-dot dress, Daisy, in her hospital bed, looking paler than ever, and Theodore.

Theodore was a brown-haired, kind-looking fellow who was just a bit shorter than Onyx. He wore round, golden glasses and a black leather jacket.

"Hello!" Theo extended his hand. "Theodore. Mary’s, ahem…" He looked to Daisy. "He knows about our… arrangement, yes?"

Daisy nodded and gave a wave of her hand. "Yeah, I told him. Don't worry about it."

Theo breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." His bright smile suddenly seemed a little more genuine.

"Oh, uh, hi. Onyx." He spoke awkwardly, shaking Theo's hand with one hand and rubbing the back of his neck nervously with the other. He wasn't great at meeting new people.

"Oh, no need to be so shy."

Onyx blushed at his awkwardness being pointed out. "Sorry. I just, uh-"

"He's super shy," Daisy interrupted. "Don't worry. Theo's the best."

Theo chuckled softly. Onyx thought he had a nice smile. "Thank you, Miss Daisy."

The four of them spent the next hour or so talking. Onyx learned a lot about Theo - he was a journalist with a rocky relationship with his parents and was Mary’s best friend since childhood. Daisy still wasn't doing any better. He knew this would be the case already, but some part of him still had hope.

As they were leaving, Theo gave him a little side-hug. Onyx flushed.

"My condolences," he said softly. "And, by the way, that jacket really works on you."

Onyx had picked a polygonal flower from the grass. He’d forgotten what real flowers looked like by this point - all he knew were the simple angular shapes of the “King’s flower”, as he’d named it. He gave most of the different types of flowers their own names. The “castle lily” grew in the cracks in the concrete behind the White Castle, the “mystique rose” simply appeared on the ground, cut and long-stemmed, every once in a while, and the “King’s flower” was the most beautiful one, the one most deserving of what he was about to do.

Onyx slowly walked on his toes to the corner he’d dedicated to this little ritual of his. He would sit there for a moment and drop the flower in the grass. The next day, it would be gone thanks to the nightly resets. He liked to think it was going to Daisy, though logically it didn’t make any sense.

He set the flower in the grass carefully and looked down at it. Daisy would’ve liked this one, with its milk-white petals and perfectly round yellow center.

The sun had gone down and the fireflies were slowly coming out one by one. One of them landed on the surface of the flower petal before flittering away.

He started to sniffle. Daisy would’ve loved the cool weather.

It wasn’t fair. He shouldn’t be here right now at all. Daisy deserved to live her long, happy life, but the poor girl spent her last days bedridden in a hospital. And Onyx should have died years ago. Now he was a stupid moth-thing in this stupid hell of a world –

“Oh, dear, are you alright?”

Onyx’s head snapped back. He’d been too focused to even hear anyone approaching, and when he looked, he saw a figure he recognized.

Standing tall in a top hat, red bowtie, opera gloves and a rainbow trailing in wobbly lines down the jacket on their torso, he’d seen the figure in the shadows before. He’d thought them dangerous - how was he to know the intentions of some daunting thing with eight arms that’s always hiding in the shadows?

Their voice was deep and gentle, friendly in tone, as if the two already knew each other.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Their mouth, full of pointed teeth, didn’t move as they spoke. It simply flipped from a smile to a frown. “You seem upset. Is everything alright?”

Onyx wiped his eyes. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Thanks.” He cocked his head slightly, taking in the being’s appearance. Though their looks were a little intimidating, they seemed nice.

“Uh, hi. Onyx.” He found himself a little tongue-tied. Meeting new people still wasn’t his forte, especially not after not speaking to anyone for so long.

Suddenly, the spider-person in front of him gasped. “Oh, I knew I’d seen those wings before!” They crouched down to meet Onyx’s eye. Their mouth was moving with their speech now - and their form was… flickering. Onyx didn’t know the right word to use for it, but at the speed of a blink of an eye, every few seconds, the person’s form would change and revert back like nothing had happened. That other form was a human… and one that looked awfully familiar.

“Oh, Onyx, it’s Theodore! Remember? Mary’s husband?” He wrapped his eight thin arms around him. "It's wonderful to see you, my friend."

Onyx hugged him back, a little flustered, but happy to see him. "I thought you were dead. Well, you are dead, but I thought you were dead-dead."

"Not quite." They separated, but Theo still kept an arm around Onyx’s shoulder. Onyx hadn't felt touch from another physical being in years - he couldn't help but lean into it a little.

"If I'd known it was you… I wouldn't have been avoiding you this whole time."

"And I would've known what to call you while you were running away." He chuckled. His voice seemed significantly deeper than Onyx remembered. He had a milk-white flush on his face from excitement - apparently that was what rosy cheeks looked like on him. Maybe Onyx was just weird, or maybe he didn't look half bad.

"Would you like to… spend a bit of time together, every once in a while? It gets a little lonely here."