#unspecified-posts

"No, No hospitals," Crowley tells Ace when Deuce threw him into the chandelier.

"No, hospitals needed," he exclaims when Ace, Yuula, Yuuto, Grim, and Deuce get back from the dwarf mine.

"No hospitals," Ace chokes out when he has trouble breathing with Riddles color around his neck.

"No hospitals," Deuce grits out after his panic attack outside of Sam's store.

"No hospitals," Ace gurgles as Yuula and Deuce drag him away from riddle's overblot form.

"We don't know any hospitals," Yuula admits when Yuuto see's their scars and bruises.

"We don't need a hospital," Trey tells them when they ask if he's okay.

"It's not hospital worthy," Ace laughs, when the spelldrive game Leona challenged them to caused him to breathe heavy.

"I can't afford a hospital," they overhear Ruggie say to Jack.

"No hospitals," Yuuto jokes when Yuula sees his neck after the tournament.

"No hospitals," Ace laughs, their private little joke, when Yuula and Yuuto see his and Deuces head.

"No hospitals," Jack grunts when Jade and Floyd rough house him a little too hard.

"No hospitals," Yuuto laughs, forcing back coughs, when Jack and Yuula find him in the aftereffects of Jade and Floyd kicking them out of Ramshackle.

"We can't go to a hospital," Yuula admits when Jack caught her patching Yuuto up.

"Hospitals can't help," Jack wheezes after his potion stops working early.

"No hospital," Yuuto screeches when he won't stop shaking. Even after everything.

"The hospital can't fix this issue," Yuu snaps at Azul when he asks if she needs to see a doctor after Jamil throws her and the rest to the edge of the Scarabia dorm.

"No hospitals," Yuula and Yuuto laugh when thy see Ace, Jack and Deuce again.

"No Hospitals?" Grim asks, When he's sees Yuula's sunburns and Yuuto's purpling fingers.

"No hospitals," they agree.

"You aren't going to check that at a hospital?" Epel asks when he sees Ace's scars.

"No hospitals," Ace snickers.

"You aren't going to get that checked at a hospital?" Ace laughs when he and Epel end up frozen from Vil's magic.

"No hospitals," Epel jokes back when he has trouble stomaching food.

"No hospitals," Yuula agrees, when Yuuto drags her away after Vils overblot.

"No hospitals," Jack snorts nodding to Epel in acknowledgement.

"Hospitals won't save us now," Epel snarks when STYX drags away most of the dorm leaders and Jamil.

"A hospital can't fix a robot," Yuuto laughs when Epel asks if ortho is okay.

"A hospital would not be helpful for me." Ortho admits while patching Yuuto and Epel up.

"No Hospitals," Epel, Yuuto, and Ortho say in unison to a frazzled and worried Yuula.

"No Hospitals can help," They hear Lilia tell Malleus at his retirement party.

"No hospital," Yuuto jokes with Deuce when he sees him.

"No hospitals," Yuula wheezes out when Sebek has to carry her after Malleus's overblot form attacks her.

"No hospitals," Ace chokes out when he realizes they might all die inside a dream Malleus created.

"No Hospitals," Sebek whispers when Yuula catches sight of the gushing wound he's hiding.

"No Hospitals," Yuula agrees as she drags him over to Ortho to be checked on.

"Waka-Sama!" Sebek pleads, ignoring the twinge of fear he feels at addressing his liege for this. Even though he can't hear him, even though the prince is far off, concerned with far more important matters, Sebek still pleads, still calls for him.

At the moment it feels like all he can do.

"Malleus-Sama!" he tries for once, an old address he hadn't used in ages, not since he was far younger. It brings back a sense of wistfulness and bitterness with it that he is quick to bury. He can't be compromised right now.

Sebek grips the person in his arms tightly, holds Yuu with a delicacy she would abhor, had she been awake or aware.

The prince still doesn't come, and Sebek, feeling his chest tighten and his lungs narrow, tries again. "Yuu is hurt," he gasps out, holding his friend a little higher in his arms. "She needs help!"

Her arm had been broken in the shuffle, and at the time, she had barely screamed, only letting out a loose shudder and whimper, in far too much pain to do anything else.

The prince had flinched, just a little at the time, Sebek knew, knew this from the way the sky around them darkened just a little bit more, and his eyes had narrowed. Knew this in the way that Sebek knew he cared about Yuu, Silver, and Lillia. Malleus cared, it was why Yuu was asleep and not dead or in immeasurable pain.

"She's your friend, My liege, please," his voice cracks, and he coughs, trickles of coper lining the base of his throat, mixed with ink and the otherwise dryness of his throat.

He spares only a moment to drown, just a little in the feeling, before pushing it aside again.

but the feelings don't budge this time, instead blotting up within him like a curse, or overused spell. Yuu was hurt. And his prince had left her here, alone, with Sebek.

He felt immeasurably angry for the moment, for once, at his prince.

"Malleus!" He screamed, voice ripping through the emptiness. "Malleus, don't leave me here!" The silence offered him no answer, and Malleus didn't show. Not even at the disrespect of his retainer.

Sebek was alone, with no one but Yuu, and his failure.

"Don't leave me here," he whispered it quietly this time. He shuddered at the feeling of wetness dripping onto his face.

He hadn't cried in years.

Malleus was supposed to be Yuu's friend. It was what he said, what he claimed, for all the world listening. And yet, here Yuu was, alone with only Sebek to hold her as she died.

It wasn't fair, not to her.

Sebek shuddered again. He hoped Silver and Lilia were safe, in whatever dream they may be trapped in. He hoped the rest were at least okay.

He hoped Malleus would at least be happy.

I'm using the June of doom prompts to write some cool stuff about the twst First years if anyone is interested.

"We can't leave them," Sebek argues, aggravated at the readiness of these teenagers. "We can-" Ace Trappola turns to glare at him.

"Why not. They want to play pretend they can play." Sebek wished to snap at him, to bite back, however for once he knows that won't work. So he grits his teeth and explains.

"Malleus-Sama will die from the overblot, he will bring everyone else with him too.

"Is that so bad?" Deuce murmurs and Sebek wants to punch him. "They get to be happy and we get to be safe."

"SO your saying we should let them all die?" he asks incredulously.

"I'm saying that maybe they'd rather be happy than here." Deuce tells him, looking down guiltily. Sebek can't understand it. He just can't. Because Malleus was everything to him and leaving him behind would mean he would-

"No," Sebek argues, "I know you don't-"

"Know what!" Yuuto snaps, speaking up for once. "That were foolish and selfish humans with no loyalty." He glares at Sebek. "Well I don't care. I owe them nothing."

Sebek knows but he can't-

"That's not what I was trying to say," he cries out. "I just I know they doesn't mean anything to you but they means a lot to me!" Deuce looks away and for a moment Sebek feels guilt coming from them coming off in waves.

"Why do you care about them so much when they could hardly care at all for you," Yuuto asks him, no longer angry just defeated.

Ace looks at Yuuto then sighs. "We'll...We will help you Sebek, just don't come at us when it all goes wrong." Sebek slumps, just a little relived to have them on his side.

Over his shoulder he feels Yuula shift and he clutches her tighter for a moment.

"What will we do though?" Deuce asks. "Malleus is way stronger than any of us you know?"

Sebek, Yuuto, and Ace both consider this before Sebek looks at Ace and Ace looks back at Yuuto. They all look to Deuce.

His mother used to tell him he had a surgeon's smile. It was wistful and nostalgic in the way she brought it up, back when he was younger and less of an Ace, and more of a- well it didn't really matter.

She used to look at him, telling him to smile, and then break out into one of her own at the sight of his. Through bittersweet and breathless laughing she'd tell him, only if he asked, that his smile looked like a surgeons smile.

Or in this case, his grandfathers.

"It's just what surgeons and doctors look like when trying to smile for pictures", she used to reassure, never quite as sarcastic about it as his grandmother, always huffing about her husband's habits.

"You look like your uncle in this way." She'd admit, a little bit distant in tone. "It's not a bad thing, it just means you're a little bit awkward. When you're happy, your smile looks quite beautiful."

He never quite forgot about it, as the year went on. He had trained himself out of it eventually, though. He had learned to adapt a more open and suave, and asshole-ish smile, as his friends later told him.

He remembered practicing all those years ago. Trying to fix it and never being quite right with it. He still used to do it till his face burned. Desperate to not have that 'Surgeon smile'.

Never could really imitate the happiness. His aunt commented once that it was the eyes, far too dead-looking like his mother.

"Dead eyes huh?" his mom always laughed at that, it was never the pretty laughter though.

As the years went on, he realized the only people who could really see through it, see that the pleasure in his smile wasn't real, were his family. Everyone else bought it easily.

It made him feel a bit incredulous in a way. Annoyed too, at all the wasted practice, and teasing he endured at the hands of his brother.

"Your real smile looks beautiful," Yuula told him once, right after they had become real friends, her brother Yuuto had nodded, half absentmindedly but mostly sincere.

"True, you should smile more Ace."

"I do," he blurted out, somewhat annoyed. "All the time." They had look surprised then.

"I meant for real," Yuula corrected.

And Ace at the time had been even more annoyed, because why should she care about his smile.

He would realize later that Riddle had the same sentiment, if not in the opposite direction.

"Ace Trappola." Riddle's overblot form had been obsessed with him, just a little bit. Not enough that anyone else would notice really, just enough that Ace sometimes had nightmares about it.

It was in the way the collars were all aimed for him, that and the rosebushes.

"Off with your heads!" Like it was an execution. Really, Ace had to wonder what Riddle or his mom, were thinking when they named his unique magic.

It was on the nose, but still.

Not just that, but what if the collar was too small? Or it cut off more than the users magic? what then would the red rose tyrant do?

You can bring back magic, but you can't reattach a head.

"Why don't you back off housewarden?" he had smiled then, not his usual 'grin' or his supposedly amazing smile, but the surgeon's one. The exact one he knew didn't look happy at all.

"An execution smile more like," Yuuto had sneered, still too angry after everything, "Honestly, you smiled like you were going to die." An execution smile. What a funny thought.

Execution.

That's what that was supposed to be, wasn't it? The duel they had challenged Riddle to was meant to be an execution of Ace and deuce. Two foolish freshmen set to die in shame. A public execution for all to see.

"Ace Trappola?" He smiled, pushing his lips up till it burned, leaving enough annoyance showing to make it look believable. His neck itched and his hands shook as he turned to look at the red queen Rosehearts.

sometimes I sit and think about the fact that you is alone in a knock off replica of the world yuu came from.

No matter which side of the world they’re from, no matter what their home looks like, its gone. And the only thing that's left is a cheap knockoff, and sometimes it's even less than that.

Does yuu ever catch themselves saying a joke that only family or friends would know.

Talking about a childhood story that the friends are unable to understand or relate to.

do they ever hear childhood stories and cultural norms and just not understand.

Yuu is a living outlier, yuu knows nothing.

What is it like to slowly forget the faces and voices of the people you know? To slowly realize you can’t remember the lyrics to your favorite song. To know that in the end everything is just left of where its supposed to be, the words, the names, the cultures. It is and isn't home.

Does yuu ever catch themselves looking in the mirror and wondering if their family would recognize them. Does yuu ever look up carreers for magicless people just in case.

"It's really fine Grim, Yuula and Yuuto will be okay." next to Deuce Jack nods, a less than reassuring smile on his face. Deuce and him both actually seem to be grimacing more than anything.

Grim senses this and shrinks back, moving his face to hide in his paws.

They both notice the way he shakes and shivers and Ace feeling just a little bad for the creature goes and grabs his blanket.

"You didn't mean any of it Grim," Ace tells him again. "And your henchmen have probably already forgiven you." Yuuto might not have, but Yuula probably did by now.

Or...well. She might still hold a slight grudge from the allergy incident, Jack considers with a wince. It wouldn't be from this one but the allergy incident on the other hand.

"I bit my henchwoman," Grim whimpers, and from the corner of his eye Jack sees Ace twitch.

"She's okay though." Ace grunts out, draping a large blanket over the creature.

"Yuuto is upset." Grim murmurs, and Jack winces. Yuuto is surprisingly easy to upset considering his sister but Grim and Yuuto didn't fight often.

"Not everyone makes it out unhurt in these types of relationships Grim." Ace soothes, and Jack doesn't get how that can help.

"What do you mean," grim asks, just as confused as Jack is.

"When you care a lot about someone your bound to hurt them eventually." Ace clarifies. "It's just how life goes." Grim shuffles back with a whimper hiding under the blankets.

"Ii don't want to hurt my Henchmen."

"But you did," Ace tells him. "you hurt Yuula and you've upset Yuuto and now what's important is that you do your best to fix it."

Jack supposes he can see the validity in that argument. Ace is surprisingly good at this.

"Can I really do that?" Grim asks and it's then that Jack sees Ace pause whatever task he's doing.

"It'll take a lot of work Grim." is what Ace tells the cat. Jack shuffles back a little bit, the only one aside from Ace who's realized that wasn't a yes.

- -

"That was..." Jack doesn't know what to say when he and Ace can finally talk alone. He thinks he wants to just curse at him.

"Yuula had to do self-surgery because her brothers hands weren't steady enough, and the rest of us didn't know how to stich" is all Ace says. His eyes are blank and his posture relaxed. If Jack didn't know better he would have thought everything was fine.

"I..." he had almost forgotten about that with everything. He's feels guilty over it. Leaving her alone had been what she and her brother wanted, but all in all it wasn't very fair to do so. Yuula hated stitching up people, and although she was the only one with experience to do so because of NRC's lack of a nurse, it wasn't fair to make her do it on herself. Even Jack would have trouble doing that.