Aces Away

Edenridge

_{TIMESTAMP — Immediately After Changing Fate Behind Closed Doors
FT — Ducaleon "Duke" Booker and Dominic "Doc" Wells}

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“Oh,” Duke said softly as he turned his head to see the peaceful scene that now graced his rather sparse living room. For the first time since he laid eyes on her, Lorelai looked at peace, and as he was unwilling to disrupt it Duke stood quietly and locked the front door and then made his way over to the burner phone that their new charge had left on the counter. Opening it up, he copied the number into his own burner phone before setting the former down and sending off a short text to the mysterious Ms. Samantha with the latter.

Outgoing text:
She’s safe. Good Call.

He’d get more information later, and he’d make use of his Serpent siblings if needed, but right now he was looking forward to following Lala’s lead and taking a mid-day nap. He beckoned Dominic after him, motioning for him to stay silent, and once they’d both passed the threshold he closed and locked his bedroom door. At the same time, he closed the door on his thoughts of what excuse he could use if Lala catches them coming out of his bedroom together later. When they were laying down with Dom’s head on Duke’s chest and the younger man kissing apologies onto the pale man’s bruised temple, Duke let the shame for his actions take over again.

“I’m sorry I lied again,” Duke whispered, running his hand up and down Dom’s arm. He wasn’t fishing for any assurances from his boyfriend, and he didn’t want Dominic to kiss him and tell him it was okay. He wanted Dominic to be angry with him, because that would make sense. He would deserve that. Someone younger than him and having an actual life emergency was sleeping in his living room with no idea where she was going next, and he was in the next room warm and comfortable with a man he won’t call more than a family friend if there are any other living beings around.

Duke knew that what he told Lala was true; muscles aren’t what makes you strong. It can’t all be physical. He was a prime example of how weak a strong person could be. Duke didn’t want Dom to keep getting hurt waiting for him, the reserved middle child between the shadows of his siblings’ large personalities, the one that chose to get swept up under the Tide so his mama and sister didn’t have to. He was being selfish, keeping Dom hidden the way he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop. He wasn’t ready to face his demons tonight.

Dominic could hear it in his tone. He could feel it from the way Duke spoke to him. Even without saying it, he knew his boyfriend wanted him to lash out in some way. He knew Duke that well. He knew him so well that he didn’t require words to understand what his boyfriend was trying to say. As he sat up, breaking both of their hearts by breaking the comforting embrace, he was preparing himself for what was coming next as his heart palpitations increased the already high anxiety. He hated seeing Duke punish himself.

“Look at me, Ducaleon…” He grabbed his boyfriend’s hands, first running his fingers through each of Duke’s, he interlocked with them and squeezed gently. Knowing to make sure he didn’t speak too loudly, Dominic brought his head closer to Duke’s, pressing his forehead against his beloved’s. “There’s nothing you did today that requires any sort of apology. You helped make that girl feel safe enough to fall asleep in an apartment she has never been to. How can I possibly be mad at that?” Dominic kissed his boyfriend’s lips gently. “It doesn’t matter to me whether she or anyone else who wants to be privy to that information knows we are together together or if I’m just a family friend. What matters the most is I know what we have - us - together. That’s all I need. That’s all I want.” He kissed him again, still as gently as he could. “I love you so much, Ducaleon Booker. That will never change no matter what. I don’t care how long it is until we can be out in public. As long as I have you by my side, you’ll never have to go about it alone.” And he meant every single word. He meant it with his soul and with his heart.

Duke rested their foreheads back together again, closing his eyes and taking deep, shaky breaths while returning the tight pressure between their interlaced fingers. He wouldn’t cry. He knew he could if he wanted to- and god did he want to- without any judgment from Dom, but it didn’t feel right, even as the hot tears burned against his tightly shut eyelids. He loved Dom, he really loved Dom, so much that it hurt every time he locked his arms in place so he didn’t hug him in public, every time he hid the relationship he had with him. He was the one keeping it a secret, and he understood what Dom was telling him but it still felt like it was his fault and he couldn’t make that stop.

”Men don’t cry like little girls Ducaleon. You’re fifteen, grow the fuck up.”

He wouldn’t cry.

“You’re too good to me,” He finally replied, tilting his head to initiate the next kiss, desperate to show Dom the love he had for him. “I might never make it. I might not come out until dad dies. You’re too good to stay hiding in the dark with me,” He kissed Dom again and tasted salt, his next breath catching in his throat in panic as he realized he had started crying against his own wishes. “How can we know you won’t care a few years on? He might live to his nineties out of spite,” it was a hysterical statement, and idly Duke knew that his fears were coming out unfiltered, but there were days where even Dom’s unyielding understanding hurt because he refused to share it with the world because of a single person. The tears wouldn’t stop falling now that they’d started and he dropped his head to their combined hands, desperately trying to rub away the evidence of his weakness. “Why don’t you find someone strong like you? What is it about me? I don’t get it, how can this be enough for you? How can I be enough for you?”

Dominic felt a wildfire burning inside his chest. A fire that kept spreading the longer Duke spoke and the more words that came out of his mouth. This fire that was burning wasn't due to anything his boyfriend was saying -- not in any literal sense. He knew this wasn’t Duke talking. This wasn’t the man that he had known since he was a little kid, the boy that he’s been in love with most of his time on this earth. No, this was his father talking. This was Tiberius Booker’s bigoted views tainting Ducaleon’s imperfect perfect soul, making him feel so much shame. This is why Dominic loathed his boyfriend’s sperm donor. No real father would act like he does. No real man would feel shame or anything close to it just because they don’t abide by what he deemed “normal”.

If he were a fighter and Dominic sometimes wished that he was, he’d go to Tiberius’ home on Chestnut Street and wail at his face until he turned to ash. But he wasn’t that kind of fighter. He was a different breed of warrior. A warrior who believed in all the good the man whose hands he held in his own had in him. No amount of whatever damage that Tiberius did to him would ever change one key fact. “I have found someone strong, Ducaleon. You are strong. You make me strong. You have always made me strong. Ever since we were kids, you, Leone - both of you protected me, looked out for me in ways I couldn’t have dreamed. Your spirit, no matter what ever happened, gives me strength. I don’t need anyone else to know just how impeccable of a man you are.” He tightened his grip on Duke’s hands, stopping the man from roughly wiping his face while simultaneously giving some thought to what Duke asked.

When Duke asked him how he was sure he’d still care in a few years, the thought of it almost made his skin crawl. The doubt was fueling the fire of wrath that Dominic Wells held for Tiberius, but at the same time, it radiated with a light and warmth he has always held for Duke. “You ask how can I be sure I’ll care in a few years? It’s simple. I’ve loved you since we were kids, Duke. Long before either of us had any idea you would reciprocate my feelings. You know I’ve always known I was into guys. I didn’t try and hide it. It’s probably why some kids thought I was an easy target or something.” He chuckled, thinking back about everything he endured. “Being out at such a young age was such a dangerous thing, especially where we grew up. I was bullied almost every day. If it wasn’t for you and Leone, I doubt…” He choked up. He felt his throat tighten and his stomach, too. He took in a deep breath, looking at Duke for the strength that he always managed to get whenever he met those beautiful brown eyes of his. He squeezed his boyfriend’s hands even more as a single tear fell down his right eye. “You are more than enough for me. Every day I am reminded of this more and more and every day, I fall in love with you just as much.”

Duke tore his hands from Doc’s grasp only to throw his arms around the man before him, tears halting now as held firm onto his lover. Doc reminded Ducaleon of things he did, of strength he had, every time he started to doubt himself. Sometimes Duke wished he had the automotive genius’ steadfast ability to remember all the good things Duke has done in his life, but the unfortunate fact is that the the middle Booker sibling was taught to focus on the worst parts of himself and even years removed from his father’s home, the influence still invaded every aspect of his life. Dominic Wells had long been an opposing influence in his life, praising what Tiberius scorned as faults, inserting delightful counterpoints to his father’s words whenever they fell from Duke’s lips like gospel. Dominic taught him a new gospel. No disrespect to his mama, but Dominic would always be the person he loved to hear preach the most. He spoke with a passion and surety that Duke himself hadn’t been able to hold on to since his parents’ divorce, and when the other man focused those words on him Duke could actually start to believe the things he said. Believe that he was worthy.

The darker man pulled back from his intense bear hug and captured Dominic’s lips in a fervent kiss, as if he could swallow the beautiful speeches that came from that mouth and absorb them into his being. He pulled back for breath and cradled his lover’s reddening face in his large hands, taking the moment to wipe the tear track from Dom’s cheek with the pad of his thumb before surging forward to kiss him again. He shifted around on his knees until Dom’s back was facing the pillows and dropped his hands from his lover’s face to his shoulders, pushing him back slowly but firmly.

“I love you,” He whispered against the pale man’s lips once he’d settled him back completely on the pillows. “I love you,” he mouthed against his throat as he trailed his lips down in a scattered trail. “I love you,” he preached as he looked back up to the man who was looking down at him with his hair fanned across the pillow beneath him like a halo. This man had always been a saint in his eyes, the kind that really mattered to people like Duke and his older brother Leone, the one with patience and understanding that most people could only strive for. When Duke felt like a sinner, he looked into Dominic’s eyes to be saved, confessed into his lips and breathed in forgiveness when their mouths met. He drew himself back up to his boyfriend’s face, arms supporting himself on either side of Dom’s head, and confessed, “I love you so fucking much,” before capturing Dom’s lips once more.

With every kiss and every word of compassionate affirmation that left Duke’s lips, it brought Dom closer to a state of bliss. Even before he was guided on his back to lay back on his boyfriend’s bed, there was a moment before it all that made his heart swell with an unspeakable, too-complex to put into words kind of happiness. A joy that made him smile. And then to hear the words after every kiss. To feel it with everything that Duke had poured into him, he just looked up at his boyfriend. He tried to hide it, but the overflowing emotions poured out in a few more tears. He was overjoyed.

And he kissed Duke back, trying his best not to make any noise - which was a lot more difficult than he thought it was. Dominic, while mostly soft by all rights, was a passionate lover too. “Duke..I want you to take me. But we can be quiet about it, right?” At that moment, Dominic chuckled, understanding just what he was asking. With the girl sleeping in their living room, was it too risky? Perhaps, but Dom also didn’t want to stop. Not yet. “I want to show you how much I love you too, Duke…” He kissed his boyfriend tenderly, hands running down Duke’s back slowly.

Duke shivered at Dominic’s light touch, the other man’s fingers leaving trails of heat down his back. Dominic was right that they’d need to be quiet, but despite this being the closest they’ve ever come to risking getting caught, Duke couldn’t find it in himself to deny the wants of either of them right now. Pressing down on the man beneath him, Duke snuck his arm beneath his boyfriend and slid his hand down the back of his sweatpants, staking his claim by squeezing his butt and bringing Dom up to meet him.

“We can be quiet,” He agreed, voice heavy and eyes dark as they trailed down Dom’s naked and flushed form, the shrine he would forever worship at. “I really want to treat you so right you scream my name, but we can be quiet,” He captured Dom’s lips again and made quick work of relieving him of any other clothing that could get in the way, leaving his light touch everywhere he could. “Who am I to deny you, after all,” He grabbed both of Dom’s slender wrists with one hand and raised them above his head, devouring every part of his lover with his gaze and letting him see how much he was affecting him. Slowly leaning down until his lips were right near Dom’s left ear, he breathed out, “I never could tell you no, could I?”

Edenridge

_{TIMESTAMP — Tuesday, July 20th, 2021 | Mid-Afternoon || After Decky left Blue Hill
FT — Moredchai Boaz and Antoine Beauregard}

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After the frustrating and taxing conversation with Natalia had come to an end, the silence became less comfortable and more unbearably charged with tension. The music did little to help this so Mordechai was more than happy to peek out from under his beanie at one point and see the sign welcoming the car’s inhabitants back to Edenridge. After a moment’s thought over his plans for the rest of the day- he still had to pick up Allegra before he headed with her the meet Rey Rey at the Edge like he’d agreed to last night, he still had to visit Danny’s grave like Jade suggested- Mordechai felt an overwhelming grip around his heart at the realization that he was already starting up on life again, already living for himself. Blue Hill had been a needed experience for everyone who went, but now that he was back in Edenridge Mordechai was already missing the support system his angels and Auntie Adora had supplied. Taking Tama’s beanie off and running his hands through his hair to make it presentable, he quietly requested that Tal drop him off in front of the Cafe Rochambeau so that he could visit another pillar of support to him.

Walking into Beau’s cafe in the early evening, sober and not even swaying in the cool breeze that swept around him when he swung the door open, Mordechai felt a moment of pride for himself that he hoped the ex-english teacher would share. Beau had a special place in the hearts of most Edenites, but the slowly-mending man that approached the counter had needed a little more of the man’s unyielding patience and wisdom than the rest of his peers. In the small time between the Serpent Dorms and the Lancaster home, the Boaz brothers had spent their nights under the Beauregards' roof. Beau had always been there, and Mordechai hasn’t talked to him in the past month and a half any more than he’d talked to his southie brothers. It was damn near disrespectful, but it was worth it to be showing up with some muscle, color, and squared shoulders instead of pale, slouched and shaking, trying desperately not to scratch at his arms.

He couldn’t imagine starting up the next chapter of his life without sharing it with one Antoine Beauregard first.

“Hey Beau,” He greeted as he slid into place on the stool straight across from the man, smile bright and lacking any of the tenseness or negativity that tended to cast shadow over one of his attractive features. “I never said it, but thanks for the garage sleepover last month, we all really needed it.”

“Ain’t no thing.” Antoine had lived by those three words for most of his adult life. Ain’t no thing. When said by most, it wasn’t anything special. However when said by him, in his thick Louisiana drawl, big booming but warm voice, the words carried a weight. One knew that when the old man said it, he meant it. There wasn’t anything that he wouldn’t do for those he cared for and even those he didn’t. Be it the shirt from his back, a roof overhead or just a nice word, family or stranger, Antoine always had their back and it was never a big deal.

Beau had done much during his time as a teacher not to play favorites and for the most part he had stuck to that. Mordechai Boaz and his little brother Danny though? They held a special place in his heart. When Decky walked into his class six years ago for the first time, all black messy hair, a busted face and a strong smell of cigarettes, he knew that the boy would be a special case. Even when Mordechai threw everything back at him, Beau would never give up on the child and he never did. Seeing him now, with color in his cheeks and not so wearied look in his eye made the old man’s heart smile. “Colleen was just happy to see you again. I mean after she told me off, of course. You want something to drink?”

“If she didn’t tell you off first, would she be miss Colleen?” Mordechai replied to the warm man with a small laugh, already relaxed in his presence despite the fact that his back was facing the entrance and windows. He doesn’t have to keep his head on a swivel with Beau around. “I’ll just take a light roast with a shot and some cream, I still got a long day ahead of me,” He looked down at the counter a moment before thinking of who would be with him, realizing Allegra would kick his ass if he showed up without a drink for her. Knowing her order has changed since her time at the Diner in Brownsville, he questioned Beau. “Hey, the girl that’s been comin’ in here since I got back, Allegra- Latina, short as hell with short black hair and a New York accent- d’you remember what she usually gets?”

“You know me, I never forget a thing.” Beau replied as he picked up a to-go cup and stuck it beneath his machine. “Hazelnut white mocha, extra coffee shot right?” The older man with bear-like hands, picked up his handle and pressed it against the coffee grinder to get out his latest batch of fresh ground beans. He placed it down and tampered the grounds until flat and placed them in his machine. “Now I already know that you ain’t here just for a coffee or two.” As Beau pumped a few drops of white chocolate and hazelnut into the cup, he looked towards Decky with his big brown eyes edging over his glasses. “What’s on your mind son?”

“Never could get one past ya, could I,” he laughed while meeting Beau’s eyes, dark as night yet warm as a bright sunny day, and confessed, “I’m doin’ better and I wanted ta show ya, but I also wanted ta see ya before I headed to the Edge an put a little disappointment in your gaze,” he spread his arms out on either side of him rotating his torso a bit as if truly giving Beau a good look before dropping his forearms back down on the counter, face falling neutral as he said earnestly, “I’m goin’ back in, I miss ‘em all too much to be without ‘em any longer, but I’m not gonna be as ignorant about it before.”

Mordechai was loyal, despite everything, that was true. There were lines he wouldn’t cross- not many, but there nonetheless- but if he was loyal to you he would do damn near anything. Beau was there at thirteen Carlisle last month, he’d no doubt heard his and Rey Rey’s pathetic little confrontation where Mordechai was once again harmed by an adult he had put his trust, his faith, into. Beau would know just like Poppy and Jade knew just how much it meant for that to have happened, for him to have been called no more than a tool by the man he saw like an older brother, and Mordechai knew Beau would not like him returning under R2’s thumb.

“I’m goin’ back sober and with someone that’s real good at keepin’ me in check, but I’m also gonna be back at Phil’s part time so I got a legit income ta report. I got kids ta take care of now, can’t be all under the table.”

Of all the things that it could’ve been, Beau did not see that one coming. As the hissing of the coffee wand steaming the milk filled the silence, the ex police officer rallied through his memories and thoughts like an Olympic hurdler. He didn’t want Decky to go back into the life, the game. Antoine had spent years of trying and failing to get him out alive and he had failed every single time. And here he was again, failing because Mordechai had once again chosen the life that was going to take his.

Of course the boy was trying to sandwich the idea with two good ones, the Allegra girl seemed to do wonders for him and Beau had no doubt that she could keep him grounded but that didn’t matter, grounded would never be enough to keep him alive. Having a straight job at the garage? That wouldn’t either. He could tell by the look in Decky’s eyes that he hadn’t come to be convinced away from the Serpents and he didn’t come for a blessing. No words would change the boy's mind. Placing the cups down, Beau rubbed his beard and knew that, likely for the last time, he would say his peace to Mordechai.

“Son, I spent years trying to teach you right from wrong, good and evil. I tried to teach you that middle way, the grey way and that is the way you walk now. There ain’t a man on this planet that can knock you off of that path except yourself but I already know that’s not what you want.” Antoine called his fists and placed them down onto the counter. “You remember what Colleen always said? You cannot lose if you do not play. Now you ain’t been playing for a while but if you gonna start up again, you need to know, the rules change, they change so fast. There ain’t no winning.” He said emphatically. “Only surviving to the next round. The game is the game.”

He turned and finished up making Decky and Allegra’s drinks. He placed both cups into a holder and placed them to one side. “Whatever your role is, imma let you know now that I ain’t never gonna give up on you. You’re better than what you think you are. You deserve more than that life out there and I don’t wanna hear that you don’t. I’m an old man now, Mordechai. I don’t wanna outlive you.”

Mordechai sat silently as he listened to Beau’s words, advice that told you exactly how he felt without the judgment you expect from others, and absorbed everything the wise man told him. He knew he was disappointing Beau by returning to the Serpents, he knew his was breaking the man’s heart a little- he could see how Beau was frailer than he used to be, his skin a bit more papery and thin and the slightest tremor in his hand as he set down the carrier. He was breaking an old man’s heart. But however much he wanted to do what he knew Beau hoped for and live a life outside one of Eden’s whirlpool of danger and chaos, he didn’t know how.

Sure, Beau was right when he said Mordechai was out of the life for a while, but he was only partially right. The few short months after he’d left the Serpents and before Danny’s death, he’d been out, but since then Mordechai has made his way on hitchhiking, odd jobs and turning tricks, not by making a better life for himself outside Eden’s influence.

“You’re the best teacher I ever had, Beau, and one of the best people I know,” He told the man steadily. He was practically selfish with how he’d not shown Beau his gratitude all these years, left it unsaid under the excuse that it didn’t need to be and the reality of being afraid of showing that vulnerability despite everything the man had seen him through. Seen them through. “Ya helped me raise Danny, but ya also helped ta raise me, and I need ya ta understand how much that means ta me, and that I’m really aware of it now,” He thought back to the time that he had skipped his last classes of the day to go pick Danny up from middle school, the two brothers playing around in the highschool gym. Decky had been holding the basketball above his head and Danny had tackled him to get it. They had been laughing on the ground until the ball stopped rolling once it hit Beau’s feet, then both boys had gone extremely silent and anxious, expecting punishment. They’d flinched when his voice raised and he’d immediately changed tactics, sitting the boys on the bench and explaining his own disappointment and worry with an anecdote from his own past thrown in to show where he gained his wisdom.

Mordechai had seen the same look back then in Beau’s eyes, the exact worry the man had just expressed in current time unable to stay completely hidden. Mordechai knew Beau didn't want to survive any more of the young adults he considered his children, but he also knew that the day Beau died was going to be the day that many of the lost souls of Edenridge became orphans twice over. It would mean another gravestone for Mordechai to express his sorrows and regrets over. He didn’t even want to think about Beau’s death, but he realized that by returning to the Serpents, he was forcing his father figure to imagine his. He guessed it was only fair play to turn it around.

He wouldn’t disagree with Beau anymore like he used to about him deserving a better life. Whether he believed it or not, he knew it was true, but he had no idea how to manifest it yet and he needed something that he knew. He knew the Serpents, the job, and he knew it was a steady income. Maybe he would officially retire again some day, like most of the parents of his Serpent siblings, but right now he needed the foundation he’d built- the family- to stand solid until he could finally see the finish line. He would survive until then, but on the side he would actually start living too.

“I don’t know if I ever told ya this, but I really don’t wanna die,” He finally spoke up again, his voice rough with the emotion that conversations with Beau evokes. “Didn’t then and don’t now, I’m actually terrified of it despite how many times it’s already almost happened,” He looked into Beau’s eyes, trying to send the man all the appreciation he’s ever built up for him, trying to reinvigorate the strong line of his shoulders which had dropped into a defeated curve while he was steaming the milk for Allegra’s drink. “I’m tryin’a figure out how ta live right now, and you’ve opened up so many paths for me, but I’ve failed ‘em all so far. Ya know I never promise anythin’, but I’m tellin’ you I’m not gonna be takin’ as many risks as I did when I was younger, and I won’t be tweaked out the whole time either. But I did swear ta Pops that I would come back ta her no matter what, no matter how. I’m just makin’ my decisions and hopin’ that I’m better at it than I used ta be. I didn’t die before ‘cause I had Danny who needed me, now I’ve got my kids, and I’m not livin’ only for them but it’s a helluva lot of incentive ta keep as much life inside me as possible.”

He grabbed his drink from the carrier and took a sip, letting the hot drink clear his throat before rolling the cup between his hands while he continued. “I ain’t got blood here, Alana and Beni don’t count-” He bit out the names like he was trying to get poison off his tongue. His parents did more to ensure his death than they ever did to keep him alive. “-like remember how I couldn’t even do the lineage project ya assigned ‘til ya gave me alternate guidelines? Ya had me do a family tree, but a chosen family tree. I was too prideful ta do it at the time, but I had a branch with you and miss Colleen I ended up not gettin’ the balls ta add in. But it still showed me that I need family. You’re my family Beau, Pops and Jade, Mika, Legs and the kids. But also all my brothers and sisters in the Serpents. People I love. Everyone with that patch on their jacket, that ink on their skin? If somethin’...happens ta me, if I do die, that means Viva and Chai are taken care of even if they don’t know it. Bein’ a legacy creates just as much blessin’ as it can curses, but I’m hoping even if it ain’t the right choice, it ain’t the worst choice neither. I’m tryin’a be responsible too though, I’m gonna take some of that money out each earn and build ‘em a savin’s account. I’ve already repurposed the college fund I’d set aside for Danny into the start’a it.”

Beau couldn’t deny that even though he hated Decky’s plan, he was proud of the boy for thinking first about his family and friends. He knew then that at least some of the lessons he had tried to teach had sunk into the soil of the boy's being and taken root like a mighty oak. Antoine knew that none of the kids he taught, nor his own biological kids would ever be perfect. To each their own, their flaws and dreams. He wept for them in both sadness and joy. He loved them all with a fervent passion for them to be better than what society had deemed for them. Had Beau done his job? He wasn’t so sure but seeing the man that Mordechai Boaz was growing into, made it easier for him to believe so. “Be smart. Be hopeful. Do good, son.”

“You’re one’a the only people I know that actually practices what ya preach,” Mordechai praised in response. As he’s already said, he knew he was breaking this man’s heart, but he always was really good at breaking the hearts of the people he cared about even when he thought he was doing what was best. “I’ll do my damndest not ta die before ya, Beau. I’m not promisin’ nothin’ while we all live in this town but ya have my word that I’ll at the least be fightin’ ta live, not just survive. You’ll see me retired one day.”

“I better.” The guardian of Edenridge lifted the small hatch counter and took a step through it into the cafe where he stood before Decky. “A man must live by his word.” He placed his hand on the dark haired young man’s shoulder and smiled. “Wherever you go and whatever you do, I’ll always be proud of you, Mordechai. You and Danny will always be my boys.” Antoine couldn’t help but think of some of his failures, the children he couldn’t save. Charlie Decker, Cameron Hyde, the Grimm brothers. All consumed by a darkness that ate away at the very foundation of such a beautiful town and its people. Even his own children, Desmond, Delphine, Genevieve, Evangeline and Zara had all felt the black hand of Edenridge wrap its fingers around their throats. The soul of children dances on a pinhead, threading the needle between light and dark. If Decky were to fall, he hoped it would be one way and not the other. “Believe that.”

He did believe that, he really did. Suddenly, with those words, Beau’s hand didn’t feel like the only one on his shoulder. Beau was talking about both of them, Mordechai and Danny, and it was as if it had allowed his brother to join in on the moment from the other side so they could feel him there with them too. He could swear his brother was standing there, his one hand on Mordechai’s shoulder while the other held on to Beau’s like he was completing a circuit.

You and Danny will always be my boys.

He’d initially raised Danny himself despite his young age, but something Mordechai’s been too confused over to accept until recently is that Beau, Phil and the other mechanics, and all the Serpent parents had raised him as well as Danny. Mordechai and Danny managed to be orphans despite their parents living a street away, but they’d also gained a handful of adults through this that claimed them as their own while never requiring the same thing back. Never expecting the same thing back. He and Danny had lived in Beau’s house, learned manners from miss Colleen that no Serpent parent ever thought to teach. They’d slept under their roof and it was the most restful couple months of their lives. Mordechai had no blood in this town, but the amount of family he’d gained while being so stupidly blind to it was staggering.

Quickly- faster than his strike in the heat of a fight- Mordechai reached out and fisted his hand in the front of Beau’s shirt and pulled the larger man in, crashing their chests together and wrapping his arms around the man, shoving his face into his neck. For the first time, Mordechai Boaz initiated a hug with Antoine Beauregard, and he was holding him as if he never wanted to let go.

“Thank you,” He whispered to the heart of the town, words slightly muffled with his face still buried in Beau’s neck as he tried to stave off the tears burning at his closed eyelids. “For bein’ the father we needed even when we couldn’t see or accept it. I see it now, and I’m so fuckin’ grateful that ya gave us so much’a you.”

Beau could feel Decky trembling in his arms as the two men embraced. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened to his charge that day but something inside of Mordechai had changed or at the very least, a part of his soul had been unlocked and the floodgates opened. Antoine sincerely hoped that whatever was filling the young man’s spirit was enough to guide him out of the dark waters that he was wading through. The men were lost in each other's arms and the life they shared, ignoring the world around them as it fell quiet. For a few moments longer, Beau held the sobbing child before backing away and placing both hands on Decky’s shoulder, flashing him his massive toothy smile. “Ain’t no thing.”

"No," Mordechai countered as he smiled back, wiping tears away from his reddened eyes. ain’t no thing was how Beau felt about it. To the man with the heart of a saint and the actions of a hero, doing his best for everyone he knew was no big deal, but to the victims he’s saved and the lost souls he raised? Well, to them, "It's just everything."

Edenridge

_{TIMESTAMP — Afternoon, Tuesday, July 21st, 2021 || After Woman of Many Names
Featuring Mordechai Boaz and Mitena Strongbow
A @Brutalbx and @Aces Away Collab}

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Some chapters don’t always end when you think they will and Mitena found herself in just such a story

After her heart to heart with Penelope, the indigenous songstress believed that this unique and foundation shaking part of the story was over. She had spent time with each of the puzzle pieces that were the representatives of her late brother’s soul. Their arrival upon the dusty roads of Blue Hill was unexpected but not unwelcome. Tena had longed to understand Charlie more, to glimpse into the life of her spirit twin and understand why he made the choices he made. In her conversations with the Eden quartet, she had learned some but not all. It seemed that with Charlie, just when she thought she had all the answers, someone changed the questions.

She had said her goodbyes or at least she thought she had and was settling in at Silverheel when her Stargirl messaged her that the tale wasn’t over and that there was still something left unwritten; Mordechai wanted to meet with Mitena. The Serpent, her brother's comrade and close friend, a boy who lost his own blood due to the actions of the Raven. He had the most visceral and raw reaction when they held their earlier talks. If any one of them had words left unsaid, it was Decky and Tena wanted to give him as much time as he needed.

After hopping on her bike, the native beauty traversed the full length of the Blue Hill Reservation to reach Adora’s place. When she had arrived, she parked up next to the old tree where she remembered playing as a small child and stood next to it, her hands on her hips and her breathing heavy. She wasn’t sure what to expect from the next few minutes. Tena had learned that the Great Spirits plan during all of this was kind of haphazard and all over the place. She couldn’t predict it; she didn’t want to. She wanted to read on and see what came next.

Messy black hair greeted her as Mitena made her way to a bench to the west of the property which sat in the shadow of the hills. From a distance, she wondered if it could be Charlie but she knew better than that. She knew it was a part of him though, a part that was eating away at itself, a part that needed her. Tena took the seat next to Decky, crossing her legs towards him and staring up at the great green yonder. “You wrang?” She said in her best lurch impression. The next move was his.

The voice the native woman used prompted a small burst of laughter out of Mordechai. The serpent may not know much about Disney musicals or tv dramas, but the Addams Family was universal. It was actually a pretty good impression, too.

“I did, thanks for comin’ back ta Auntie’s so quick,” He began, eyes on the same tree she had parked next to as memories of climbing with Danny, Jokes, and Creed bubbled to the surface. Pure moments in his childhood were few and far between, but with Blue Hill being the first place the Boaz brothers ever went outside of Edenridge, removed from its influence and crushing grip, it was also the first place that the brothers actually acted like the young children they were at the time. Everyone that stayed around Adora seemed to understand that, and Mordechai remembered days where it wasn’t just the Southie boys climbing that tree, some of the rez kids also coming around to get to know the two boys who seemed to be adopted under the Diamondheart woman that was starting to build her home there. He absently wondered if at any point Tena was one of those children, like Forrest and Illara were.

“I’m sorry, for the way I responded earlier,” He finally continued once he’d collected his thoughts, looking into the deep brown eyes that seemed to try and read the hidden parts of his soul. “It wasn’t you. I was lookin’ for answers ta questions I should’a walked away from a while ago. I was actin’ like ya knew Charlie’s mind and reasons just ‘cause ya got letters from him, just ‘cause you’re his sister. Then ya said my nickname and I just-” He looked away, clenching his fists in his lap and taking a deep breath. “Danny gave me that name,” He smiled, and the action was full of sorrow and loss but it was a smile nonetheless, something he was slowly getting used to doing as he healed with each step he took. “He couldn’t pronounce my name when we were kids so that was all he could get out. It just became the runnin’ nickname because before I lost him I didn’t use my real name anywhere, so I was either Decky or Boa ta those close ta me,” He looked at her again as his smile lessened but didn’t disappear. “I just go by Mordechai now. Ya couldn’t have known any’a that, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to say sorry to me, for anything.” Mitena rested her hand on top of Decky’s quaking one and offered him a warm smile to carry with him. “I don’t know you, any of you. And you don’t know me. Everybody has lines and it’s only when we truly know someone that we learn that there’s space to colour outside of them.” Her deep doe eyes drifted to the same tree that her brother's soul sibling gazed upon and she let out a small little laugh. “I used to climb that tree as a kid. Fell on my ass, soooo many times.” She brushed some of her dark raven hair away from her face and returned her attention to him.

She wondered about his life and everything in it. She knew of the Decky in the book, the badass, the renegade. Tena read about his adventures and sat in awe. If anything, she may have had a little bit of a crush on the boy in the book. The man that sat with her was different. She could see in glimpses in his eyes that the boy who belonged in Neverland was still there but like her Charlie, he had been weighed down by hard times and harsh lives. Lacing her fingers with Mordechai’s, Mitena tried to capture his gaze. “So what do I call you then?”

Mordechai looked up from where he’d been looking at their joined hands in confusion. He hadn’t flinched when he reached out to him, hadn’t even twitched when she’d rested her hand on his and intertwined their fingers. Legs and his friends had done a wonderful job of reacclimating him to such gestures, normalizing them and reminding him that contact can be kind, but he still flinched more often than not before coming to Blue Hill. It was like his anxious, restless spirit were suddenly and finally settling beneath his skin. Trying to mirror the affection, learn her way of comforting, Mordechai squeezed her hand lightly like he had with Poppy earlier on the porch before responding to her, maintaining eye contact and letting her see him and the windows to his soul.

“Everyone’s got their own nickname for me,” He responded honestly. “Jade calls me Key, she shortened it from Grease Monkey after I started calling her Harley Head. Boa’s my Serpent name, someone I love calls me Mob. If ya want, we can just start with Mordechai and… and as we get ta know each other maybe somethin’ personal will come ta ya,” He reached up his free hand to scratch the back of his head in a tell of insecurity, and even in the moment he took the time to be proud he didn’t go for his track scars first. “I take on nicknames like Batman takes on family members.” He looked over at the tree once more, recalling her earlier comment.

“I’d been wonderin’ if we ever met before last night,” He admitted honestly, trying to search his faded memories for a face like hers. “I’ve been comin’ here since I was ten, stayin’ with Auntie Adora. Her sister Tama, her family would bring me and my lil’ brother here all the time. I think I actually sprained my ankle the first time I ate shit fallin’ from that tree.” It had freaked Adora out when he hadn’t cried at all, but of the adults and other kids staying with the young woman at the time, she was the only one that hadn’t seen Decky the night he and Sonny came to join the Serpents. A sprained ankle barely registers to him.

“Trust me, sweetie. You’d remember a face like this.” Tena teased with a wink. “Truth of the matter is, chances are I was working. After my mother passed I spent all my time on the farm helping out my Auntie Jay. So if we did pass, it was definitely as ships in the night.” Although she enjoyed joking with Mordechai, the young woman couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness. To hear that Decky and other Southies had spent some of their youth in the open ranges of Blue Hill and Charlie, who belonged there, never even visited as far as she knew, it was a dagger in the side.

“I hope you know that you’re always welcome here. You and the others.” Mitena tightened her grip slightly to match the southside man she held in her embrace. “Hell, maybe I’ll come to you. By the sounds of it I’m going to need to stop your friend Penelope off tomorrow morning. I think she likes it here.” A knowing smile crept upon her lips as she thought of the girl like a flower and the obvious and instant connection she had made with Tena’s cousin Forrest. “I’d like for us to be friends. What Charlie Jay did…I can’t undo that. I can’t forgive that. All I can do is offer you my heart in friendship and a home here whenever you need it. My brother described you once as the king of the lost boys. Maybe Blue Hill can be your neverland, Peter Pan.”

Mordechai’s heart twisted painfully at Mitena’s final words, and he fought the tears rising only because he refused to let melancholy take over the beautiful and important moment the two of them were creating together. King of the Lost Boys, the entirety behind the meaning was lost on him as he didn’t get the reference- not beyond knowing that Peter Pan was one of the books Charlie had had on his bookshelf from the first time Decky entered the other boy’s room to the bitter last- but the words alone seemed to peg Mordechai, or rather Decky, Boa down to a T. At ten years old he and Sonny had stumbled into the Serpents angry and broken, with no idea how to act with others. It was a wonder how Poppy, Charlie, and Jade had stayed around him before that; pure instinct and reaction, snapping at anyone too close to Danny or Sonny and no idea how to reciprocate friendship. They really put up with a lot when it came to him.

But then the Serpents had expanded his world beyond his locked down house and the school yard. He and Sonny had risen through the ranks like rockets shooting through the sky and by the time they were all getting tossed in Juvie, they’d become Captain and Lieutenant of the Carlisle Crew. He wasn’t stupid, all of them were lost somehow. Even the Legacies had their family traumas and histories. They were all lost, and they all understood each other. He thought back to the way the serpent den lit up when he’d returned last month, all his lost brothers seeming to lose some of the weight they’d just had on their shoulders.

He was important to them. Charlie saw that even when Mordechai himself couldn’t. Charlie always saw, just like his Angels did, and he shared what he saw with a sister he couldn’t see while Mordechai continued walking through his life blindly. He could only imagine how hard it was for Charlie, feeling so alone and so lost, to see Mordechai and Danny carrying each other through life and knowing he had someone out there he could feel that connection with. If only fate had dealt him a different hand.

“Thank you,” Mordechai whispered, lifting their joined hands up to his chest and dropping his head as if he were praying. With the light breeze carrying leaves and birdsong all around them, the moment truly felt like a spiritual experience. “For helpin’ us. Poppy, Jade, me…” Even Puff, He thought though didn’t say out loud. “You’ve sat there and played healer ta a bunch’a broken people. We all dropped so much on ya, but I know you’ve gotta be hurtin’ too. So thanks, for bein’ strong when we couldn’t, and understandin’ where we were confused. I’d love ta get ta know ya and see ya again,” He thought to her comment on Poppy and his own small smile took over his lips. He hadn’t missed her earlier mention of Resi at all- he’d just been far too confused by her bagel comment to register the rest of her words- and he knew what it meant when someone’s mere name made his Street Angel glow like that. Like she’d glowed around Charlie. Just like he’d known with Jade when she talked about Anya. He looked back up and steadied his gaze on hers once more. To show Mitena his appreciation, to open himself up to her as fully as she had to him and the other Edenites, Mordechai ended his schmaltz with, “If you’re gonna be comin’ inta town, maybe you’d…maybe you’d like ta meet my kids? I got a daughter, Viva, who I became a dad ta on accident,” He laughed, remembering his reaction the morning before when she’d introduced herself to Jade with his last name slapped on as well. “And a son, Chai. He ain’t even a year old yet.”

“I would love that.” Tena could feel the tears begin to well in her eyes to match Decky’s. In that moment she realised she could be a surrogate for her brother. She could enter the lives of these fractured people and be for them what Charlie could’ve been had he not given up on himself. She could be a friend, a healer, a lover and a soulmate. Reaching upwards, Mitena took a hold of Decky’s handsome face and kissed him. This was not to be misconstrued as a romantic moment, this was her thanking him. Thanking him for letting her in and letting her be what their Charlie could not. She pulled herself away and dried the tears in the Serpents eyes with a smile. “Thank you for letting me in.”

Wiping her own eyes, Tena leaned back against the bench and let out a great sign. “Well this has been a very emotional day. I am absolutely getting shitface drunk tonight…then maybe I’ll run myself a bath, play a little Boyz II Men and have a cry.” She laughed out loud at her own joke before glancing down at her wrist and Charlie’s leather brace. “Spirit, he’s such a dick.”

Mordechai had accepted the kiss for the thanks that it was and settled back down beside her, following her gaze to her brother’s bracelet. Mitena was an extremely openly affectionate person, she wore her emotions on her face even as she read those of her conversational partner like a book. Decky grew up using physical interaction to fill a void he didn’t understand, staring into an abyss that never stared back, it looked like Tena used it to traverse the abyss and discover new things, to share her knowledge and strength. She was someone that people like him and his angels, people like Natalia, deeply needed.

“Yeah, yeah maybe,” He replied with a small huff of laughter, his smile finally settling on his face. “In his own fucked up way though, he laid the foundation for us all ta meet. If he’d never reached out ta ya, if it weren’t for that assignment I couldn’t even do, ya never would’ve known about us before we got here, and shit could’a gone a lot worse. Ronnie wouldn’t’ve known ta send us here with that lil’ white lie’a hers. Those two were always lookin’ out for others more than themselves,” he closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the fresh air. “I’m sorry it took all this for us ta meet. It’s at the cost’a your energy and mind. I actually meant ta just say sorry an’ ask ta meet another time, but I guess Blue Hill still had plans for me. I’m not gonna tell ya or ask if you’re gonna be ok, that shit never works for me, and I don’t make promises. You can call me, though,” Mordechai brought his phone out and handed it over to the young rocker once he got to the contacts page. “I got a friend that always falls inta the roll’a Healer, and I know how taxin’ it can be. Don’t do it alone, please.”

Tena gently stroked Mordachai’s face. “I’m never alone.” She said as she raised her hand once again to show off her brother's brace. “Charlie Jay is always with me. Same as he’s with you and Penelope, Natalia and Jade. He’s a part of us. All of us.” She was hesitant to name which part because she didn’t know. Charlie had a lot about him and to fracture his soul into pieces for them all to carry? That sort of medicine was special. “Don’t worry about me.” She quickly typed her number into his phone and handed it back. “I’ll definitely call you. A lot sooner than you think.” Tena got up to her feet and dusted herself off, trying to discard any sadness into the wind.

“You better fly home soon, Peter Pan. There’s lost children waiting to be rescued.”

Edenridge

^{Timestamp: After Symphony of Colors _(JP/Rye)
& Unprepared for the Unexpected _{(Niles/Kianna)}
FT: Gavriel Phillips-Shomer & Niles Sinclair}

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In another deviation from the norm for the two lovers, after their fun they settled down to snuggle and JP finally found his path into dreamland whilst Rye lay wide awake. While he had been preparing the surprise dinner, he’d gotten a text from Carrie- or maybe Autumn, as they were still sharing a phone- asking him to make time for Niles today. Selfishly, he’d responded that he couldn’t at the time but he would make sure to get to him tonight. He’d then promptly shoved the moment into a box and hid it in the back of his mind to focus on making JP’s favorite dish with Nina. Once the emotions and passion of their dinner had calmed and Rye was left awake listening to the resting heartbeat of his soul’s desire, however, he had time to let his anxieties get a hold of him. He let the poison sink into his veins and set his muscles alight with static as though he deserved the internal onslaught for ignoring his friend.

What if this was like before, and he wasn’t there for Niles when he needed him? What if something bad happened? His own heart rate spiked, no longer in sync with its twin and chasing to catch up with his racing thoughts. He untangled himself as gently as his suddenly shaky limbs would let him. He would absolutely hate himself if he woke JP but he couldn’t leave Niles in the box any longer. Leaving their blanket behind to keep JP covered and grabbing a free one from their lover's nest to cover his own bare skin, Rye searched for his clothes while trying to keep the strangled noise of anxiety trapped in his throat where it was clawing to get out. Fumbling through the pockets of his discarded sweatpants once he found them, he grabbed his phone and headed quietly to the bedroom before closing the door behind him and pulling up Niles’ contact to press call. While the line rang, Rye did his best to go through his breathing exercises and focus on the fact that his next therapy session was tomorrow. Distantly, he wondered if an hour was going to be enough time this go around.

Niles was about to pull a second all nighter. He should be tired but after he picked up his bike at Phil’s he couldn’t get her out of his head. When he returned home, his sisters were there, having gotten off their shift at Daylight Delicacies both doing their summer reading. Carrie was reading the Joy Luck Club and Autumn was reading The Outsiders. The moment Niles stepped into the kitchen they both perked up from their seats in the living room, looking at him expectantly. He didn’t know why they were staring at him like that but he proceeded to look through the mail, finally having time to do so. He looked through mail mostly to organize it for his father seeing how at most he’d get a letter from his college but other than that, he didn’t get much mail. Not really.

When he did discover a letter addressed to him and a letter addressed to no one, he raised an eyebrow. They were already opened so immediately he knew why his sisters were just sitting, waiting and staring at him. They were waiting for his reaction. He decided to open the one addressed to him first assuming the unaddressed letter was likely for his father. With an expression of annoyance, like ‘what the fuck is this’, he read the contents. Carrie had placed her book down, scurrying to the kitchen just in case her brother needed support. Autumn went for their dad’s liquor cabinet. Placing a piece of leftover Banoffee pie for her brother, Carrie took her seat on a stool and anxiously watched. When Autie got back from the liquor cabinet, she came with a bottle of tequila. Uncapping it, she put it beside the pie.

Now they waited.

To keep herself busy, Autie went to the sink and started washing the dishes she and her sister made before leaving to work. A couple of bowls, cups, and silverware. Not too much. When she heard crumpling of paper and Niles pulling out the cabinet where the trash can was, she turned the faucet off and grabbed a towel to wipe her hands, “You okay?” She asked.

“Are you going to be okay?” Carrie swiftly added.

To their surprise, Niles smiled, brushing off the irritation and joked, “Yeah, I’m fine. A bit long winded for a breakup letter. She lost my attention after the first paragraph.” The twins couldn’t help but laugh in relief. Their brother was going to be okay. He took it well. While they didn’t know why Niles was so happy and relieved that the trash took itself out, they did know that whatever happened while he wasn’t home must’ve been something special because his eyes gleamed with purpose and excitement, something they hadn’t seen since they were kids.

Time passed and Niles found himself lying on his bed gazing up at the ceiling, the back of his head on his left hand. He listened to Your Hand In Mine by Explosions in the Sky. The song played out of his PC speakers. For a moment, he wondered if he should’ve been wounded with the things Caitlin said but all he could think of was her. While he did feel comfort knowing he was right, and that Cece was still in love with Mika, Niles knew they could’ve gone out on better terms. Then again, he did put her in a weird place where she was too scared to break up with him in person. Well, none of that mattered anymore and it was best for him not to waste his time or energy on her. What mattered now to Niles Sinclair was deep brown eyes, bouncy curls, and caramel skin. Her smile, that she tried so hard to prevent, found a home in his head, living rent free. A beautiful woman with a matching beautiful soul. A flower that makes others bloom. Kianna. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Kianna.

His thoughts were interrupted by his phone vibrating on his nightstand. He turned to his side and reached for it. When he saw the caller ID was Rye he picked it up and put it on speaker. Leaving the phone on his stand, he returned to his position and stared back up at the ceiling, not letting the thought of Kianna exit his mental space. He could see her with a flower crown, sitting on a bed of flowers with nothing… “What up, homie? You good?”

The breath he’d been holding rushed out of him as soon as he heard his friend’s voice. His tone was…weird but certainly wasn’t angry or distraught or empty like all those times that made him worry with every second. He didn’t give himself time to recover, not wanting Niles to realize just how close he had been to a complete meltdown by the simple thought of his best friend in a hospital bed again. “I’m good bro, just got a soft nudge from Autie and Carebear earlier but I’ve been tied up until now. Everything alright on your end?”

Ah. They must’ve contacted Rye before he got a chance to read the letter. Niles smiled to himself, amused at the fact the first and only time a girl ever dumped his ass was through a letter. Karma worked in mysterious ways. Karma chose to come in the form of a meek redhead. Karma was a little bitch that jumped from guy to guy instead of healing and getting her own self together. Once Niles read the second letter, he was able to put two and two together of Cece’s timeline from David to Mika to him to Mika again (likely this very day). He learned a lot in the course of a month, especially the day they went official, and it was all laughable that she was the one he decided to go public with. Natalia was right and he should’ve known better. “Do you want the spark notes version or the full story?”

“Usually when your sisters get ahold of me it’s something important, so tell me the whole thing if you want, or if you want to blow by it I can start cracking jokes at any second,” Rye replied, shifting the phone to his other ear and trapping the cell between there and his shoulder. This freed his hands and he instantly dropped them to his knees to tap out a rapid beat, the excess energy from his earlier anxiety sitting just beneath the surface and struggling for a way out now that the perceived crisis was averted. “No offense but the message had me expecting worse. Not that I’m not happy that you aren’t! Just, ah, yeah?”

“Oh if I wasn’t in a good headspace I probably would’ve taken today's events poorly,” he unintentionally chuckled, knowing well enough all the people in his life had every right to panic. “Well, yesterday I was moody. You know this. Got some coffee though, and Mr. Beau set me right. Because that’s what Mr. Beau does.” There was a brief pause before he continued the tale of his past two days. “I’m going home right? And then I see at a distance, Lexie Davies is dragging an unconscious Clayton Costigan. So yeah, I had to stop and help.” Sitting up, he reached for the phone and got off his bed to turn down the volume of his computer. “Let’s fast forward a bit, I get no sleep because it was monsoon weather last night and I’m worried about Clay. Turns out, he’s been on a case for the recent letters. It personally impacted him because it involved David and that whole bad period when the town turned against him and him accidentally drowning in the lake. You following?” Niles stopped for a second, changing the volume setting of his PC, wondering if he was telling too much or if he should keep going.

“I’m- yeah, I’m following,” Rye said, staring into the darkness of the sparse bedroom with both eyebrows making a mad dash for his hairline. That explains Clay’s temporary disappearance and the ripple effect it had in causing Avery worry on top of the events of this morning. He’d noticed the woman’s worried glances at her phone while they were together but he was more focused on keeping her grounded- while also pumping her up a bit- over the kiss with Jamie. After that it had been the talk about JP and his mind had been engulfed with ideas of what he could do for his lover for the rest of the day. Here he’s finding out the guy had been beat down and saved by Lex Davies and his best friend. He hadn’t even known Lex was back in town, hell the last time he’d seen her was Sunshine sneaking her into his dorm at a serpent party a week before she got sent away, but apparently she was back.

It was kind of ridiculous; all these people, including himself, coming back home recently just to fall headfirst back into the drama and insanity that had woven its way into the foundations of the town, scorching its very soul into a black abyss that could only drag its inhabitants closer to hell with each day that crawled by. He could easily find it in himself to hate this town as much as his darling JP adored it, but he chose to view it through his lover’s eyes as often as he could, knowing it was always better to see the people and their light than the shadows that hung off them all like cloaks of misery. It wasn’t an easy task, and on the hardest days he found himself completely enamored with the beauty that was JP’s heart, and his ability to have space in it for anyone. It scared him too, because he knew how easily one could get hurt like that.

Avery was like JP, and if Clay wasn’t alright then she definitely wouldn’t be, so the first thing he needed to ask for peace of mind was, “Before we go any further, is Clay ok? I know Avery was worried about him earlier and it’d be great to know she’s received some news since she left MSM.”

“Yeah he’s fine. I wasn’t there for the finale but I heard Kylee’s show and read the news articles. He should be at the hospital,” Niles reassured, going from his computer to his window to peer outside. Scott Street was a helluva place. Edenridge in general was a hellmouth and he was fortunate his recklessness hadn’t caught up with him and his family. He was a dumbass especially during his highschool years and he could only imagine how Charlie’s letters could harm those he loved dearly because of his bad choices and negative mindset. Darkness wasn’t on the edge of town. Edenrdige had far too many monsters to be anything beyond a voidless abyss.

Home is what Edenridge was, with so much dark it can swallow you whole. There were people like Rye who wanted to lift spirits up and heal others. Niles knew his best friend needed to reflect and focus on himself. This town sucks the life out of people who care too much and Gavriel Phillips-Shomers cares too much. He always had since the day he moved here. He could deny all he wanted to, even say JP’s heart was more gold than his, but Niles knew what separated him from his friend. One had empathy beyond belief, where it made him anxiety ridden, the other was as selfish as they come, only caring for himself and his own.

Simultaneously, Niles opened his phone and started with his Instagram, erasing Caitlin Cleary completely from his world, with no hesitation and no remorse, “Maybe call your mom? Just to make sure. That dude is stubborn as hell. He refused to go to the hospital until he figured things out. And he did. Thankfully, he did. It’s a doozy though.”

“This is what I get for not having socials or listening to podcasts,” Rye grumbled, stopping the rapid rhythm on his knees just long enough to shift his phone back to his other ear and shoulder before resuming his drumming. He hasn’t had any social media since highschool, content with JP showing him things occasionally off of his own and unwilling to fall back into the rabbit hole of performance and perfection that most of those platforms were built on. But this, this is what he got for being selfish and focusing on himself for the afternoon; he missed all notice of the events that took place while he was cooking and setting up his and JP’s little floor picnic and was once again behind. Now instead of comforting Niles on whatever the story was leading up to, he was focusing on the story itself and processing the information he was receiving. Real stand up human being, he was. “I’ll uh, I’ll call ma soon, check in. Gotta check in with Danny too while I’m at it,” another pause filled the silence before he continued, “So…what was it? The doozy.”

“Well, my ex,” Niles nonchalantly continued, “By the way, Caitlin broke up with me by leaving a letter in my mailbox. She tried to politely call me a piece of shit because I called her out on still having feelings for Mikhail.” He would need to work on repairing his pride. She wasn’t worth the energy to get bitter over. And yet, the more he was erasing Cece from his socials, now onto Facebook, he couldn’t help but think how despicable she was and how she gave grief a bad name, jumping from dick to dick because woe is me. Stupid bitch. “She was David’s girl. The letters were not from Charlie Decker’s journal. Jamie O’Hara had love letters Caitlin wrote David and wanted to call the town out for being judgemental pricks when there were more cases of our class fucking older kids. For once in her life, she gained the courage to speak on Kylee’s radio show to air out the past and tell the town to fuck off. You know what’s funny?”

Niles changed his relationship status to single and ranted, “I was always against people talking shit about David. I got into fights because people would say the dumbest shit about him. Who would’ve known I’d get with his girl years after? And the sad thing is, his name will forever be dragged into the mud even if it was Cece who had this kid crush on him. Bet she threw herself all over him to get what she wanted. That innocent game she plays? That’s a fucking lie.”

Ok, color him surprised, that was not a turn he was expecting this story to take. Sure, he'd been pushing for Niles to think first and break up with her in the first place, but his interest had laid in the mental health of both parties, much as it had when everything went down between Niles and Natalia. Niles sounded angry now, but still nowhere near the levels that would have Gavriel worried, so he let his friend vent and process in his own way while he spoke. Gavriel had no attachment to Caitlin Cleary, but to know that the whole situation had been surrounding one of his classmates and an upperclassman at the time…well, Rye wasn’t exactly one to judge sleeping with someone older than him in highschool, and there wasn’t even anything romantic between him and those flings. To know that it wasn't an absolute child like the rumors had made David’s crime out to be was as relieving as it was disheartening to know just how far from the truth word of mouth had gotten. Once again this town seemed to cause its own ghost story only to feed off the secrets chained in people’s closets until they were forced out into the light. Rye hated the drama of it all.

Rye knew Niles wasn’t completely innocent in the story he’d created together with Caitlin, but he also knew that he couldn’t have done it alone. One doesn’t just stay with Niles Sinclair because they think they can handle it, they had to prove that through numerous trials. Rye wasn’t an idiot, Niles was an asshole to most people. There was a reason that Rye understood so well the dynamics between Decky and Sonny Cernis. Some people only made sense to a select few, close ones strong enough to whether the storms as they battered against their strength of will. Some people were hard to understand, and even harder to love. That didn’t mean no one could love them, and it didn’t mean no one new would ever try.

He didn’t even know how to begin processing the still having feelings for Mikhail bit. Just how many Northies had secret relationships or encounters with Southies- and Serpents in particular- in this town? It’s not like he didn’t know it happened, of course it happened, but it seemed that everywhere you turned a new secret ‘taboo’ relationship was popping up and causing strife. Their lives were beginning to feel like a soap opera.

“Okay buddy,” Rye finally responded, fingers finally stilling as he reached up to secure his phone in his hand. “So the David letters are cleared up, Caitlin is eighty-six’d from your life, but you’re still doin’ good, you vibed through the breakup letter- which, seriously, a letter? Why? Whatever- because you were in a good mood,” He quirked an eyebrow up as he stared into the dark room. “Care to walk me through why? Sounds like there’s good news somewhere in this story.”

“Might be too early to tell you about this one, you’ll roll your eyes and say I’m jumping the gun,” Niles mused, having finished obliterating Cece from his socials. Returning to his bed, taking a seat, he was back to thinking about the good Mechanic girl working at Phil’s. He smiled to himself when he replayed their interaction and how there was a hint of blush on her cheeks when Miriam Darling interrupted them.

God, he had it bad and he barely knew the girl.

The meeting of their souls was random and unexpected but because of that, he didn’t take the Caitlin business as poorly as he could’ve. Instead, he had a silver lining in the dark cloud that constantly followed him wherever he went. Instead, he had hope, excitement, and a purpose beyond himself. Instead, he had someone he wanted to get to know. Someone he wanted to love. More so than he’s ever loved any ex before him. Someone he wanted to cherish. Someone he needed to be better for because the idea of not having her in his life made him feel… lost. Kianna looked at him, saw him, and his world shifted, never to be the same again. How could one girl hold so much power over him when all he was able to do was get a name and a I’ll-think-about-it response? “I don’t even understand it, if I’m being totally honest.”

“Well I’ll push it at a later date then,” Rye responded, rolling his eyes anyway. “Give you time to convince me that you’re not jumping the gun, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah. How about you? How’s your day been? I can’t be the only one with a dramatic life.” Niles asked, relieved that Rye didn’t press on about the special someone he met today. If he gets that coffee date, maybe he’ll tell Rye about her. Until then, he needed to be patient and wait until she was ready. “You and JP still going strong?”

"I've been…out of sync with him a lot lately," Rye admitted honestly, never one to claim perfection in areas that could use improvement. Not with those important to him. "Avery Kaine gave me some much needed insight earlier, and that's why I was tied up. We talked a lot earlier, and I definitely feel better about things than I did before. I know I take on a lot but I wanted to let JP know that I could still be there for him when he feels like he can't do it alone. I really love him, you know? And I just wanted to show him. And hey, I know how to make his favorite dish from scratch now, so bonus," he was relaxing again, the energy finally settling beneath his skin as he and his fellow doctors' child caught up on each other's lives. "I don't think you really want to hear about the rest of the night though, I always respect that boundary with you. Danny has no such privilege."

At least Rye was finally getting to a position of peace. Finding balance and moderating all things in their lives was neither of their strong suits. Niles was selfish and Rye was selfless. That meant Rye always gave too much and Niles took what was his. Then again, both were incredibly hard on themselves and rarely saw their own selves for what they were. No matter how much of an asshole Niles was, he could do the right thing. Today alone showed his potential of walking a path that was just and good. No matter how much of a helper Rye can be, he could also do the wrong thing. There was something innately selfish about feeding off others fulfillment and happiness, doing good deeds and healing the world, instead of yourself.

For their fortunate lives, they were never fully satisfied and that likely had to do with how they processed and moved forward. Their mindsets. Darkness transformed them in different ways. Darkness was their own abyss. One boy became ruthless, the other boy desperate. Yet somehow fate made them friends and regardless of their faults, they made each other better. They balanced each other. They were each other’s mirrors.

Relationships weren’t easy and even if on the surface, JP and Rye seemed to be stronger than most couples in the town of Edenridge, they still had their mountains to climb. They still had to work on their trust. “You can tell me as little or as much as you want, but if it’s about sex, I’m good. I know you two fuck like rabbits.”

There was rummaging in the fridge on Rye’s end, signaling that JP had woken up from his slumber. Not even a full hour or so. Maybe two if Rye was lucky. “Before I let you go — I just realized what time it is — my sisters are having a pool party this Saturday. I could really use some company. It’s going to fucking suck having to watch all these kids do dumb shit. I hate parties.”

Rye tilted his head and shifted himself away from the door in case JP tried to enter now that he'd woken up, a smirk on his face at Niles' comment on their sexual habits. He wasn't going to deny it either.

"Yeah, I can be there man, you don't have to face a bunch of rabid teens alone," he promised with a fond eye roll, leaning back on his hand now that he was facing the bedroom door. "I can't exactly play lifeguard well but I can hand out water and trick the ones that are too drunk to swim into going inside for food. I don't know when exactly I went from party slut to party mom but I'm here for it."

I'm here for you, went left unsaid, as Niles already knew Rye had his back no matter what. Given that they've only spent a combined like six hours together since Rye got back to town, it would be good to spend time with him again, even if there would be a swarm of drunk teens doing their damnedest to wear out the two older boy's first aid ability.

The door creaked open and Rye looked up as the light came streaking into the room before it was blocked by the silhouette of his lover. He smiled up at JP and sat forward, fixing the blanket around his waist and patting the fabric on his knee invitingly, offering entry to the insomniac as he finished up his phone call.

"Stay sane until Saturday bro, and I'm glad you're okay. I'll see you then."

Edenridge

_{TIMESTAMP: After Technicolor
FT: Jericho & Gavriel Phillips-Shomer}

____________________________________________________________________


____________________________________________________________________

Rye had not bothered the tired man while he’d sifted through the donations box, nor once he'd finished, but once JP had a free moment he returned to Rye himself and they conducted the mock interview with a sort of whimsical enthusiasm. There were still lines of tension in JP’s shoulders and brow, so when it was time for JP to care for another customer, Rye had packed up with his plan in mind. A quick message to Nina Belmonte had him showing up at Palermo after a trip up to My Darling Food Mart and working side by side with his best friend’s older sister to learn how to make JP’s favorite dish: Chicken Alfredo, something Nina could make in her sleep. He’d left the restaurant with a smile on his face and plenty of time to spare as he returned to the apartment with his meal and decorations.

He turned the oven on low and put the dish inside to keep it warm until JP got home, then he went on to set up the picnic blanket on the ground. Smoothing it out, he set out plates and utensils and the rose petals he’d gotten when he picked up the groceries, and he trailed electric tea lights out across the floor leading towards the blanket like a path of stars, willing to go full tilt into the surprise, even having borrowed a couple of wine glasses from Nina. He put pillows and blankets on the floor around the setup like a nest and settled back into it, waiting for his lover to appear and hoping this bit of spontaneity could be the start of adding color into JP’s life movie.

Within the next hour, there was the sound of unlocking, prompting Rye to jump up and grab the main dish from the oven before his boyfriend could open the door. Outside the apartment, Jericho had his earpieces in and a box being held in his arm and against his stomach, having gone to Kori Sweets on Carlisle Ave after his shift. He was listening to Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce. He had spent the rest of his shift keeping busy. Tuesdays were usually slow so he organized, reorganized, cleaned and entertained the few customers he did have.

When it was time to close shop, he first stopped at the drugstore to pick up meds for the old man. He proceeded to drive across the railroad to Kori Plaza to pick a couple of treats for his lover. Rye had a sweet tooth, which at times was concerning because of the amount he could eat, but it was an easy, quick gift if time was against him. Afterwards, he checked on his uncle Edd who was watching one of his shows, The Wire, and sending his best friends, Ed Quinn and Eddie Garnere, memes. Edd Campbell had shared the news of Sadie being in town, not knowing JP already knew, and that she was staying at Laura’s for the day. The old man grinned, knowing well enough his daughter would be pissed at him but he gave no fucks. He wanted his grandbaby home, where she belonged.

After all was said and done, he drove to Pleasantview and sluggishly made his way to his apartment. The downside of being an insomniac was sometimes the day passes in a blur. Today, however, he remembered vividly his exchange with Rye at MSM and how it almost led to another argument. He had to get his shit together. He didn’t know what was wrong with him but lately, he was losing a handle of himself. It wasn’t exhaustion. He was always exhausted. So what was it? He and Rye were making big moves as a couple. Committing to one another, moving in with each other, so why was he so short with his adorable and lovable boyfriend? He wasn’t insecure of their relationship. He knew Rye needed him and that would never change. He took in the lyrics of the song he was listening to and sighed. He really needed to get over this feeling. There was no way he’d add to Rye’s plate. Rye had Danny and Niles, who were already a handful, and if he found out Mordechai was in town? That was another person his sweetheart, his Sprinkle, would want to carry. Due to JP’s sleeping disorder, he had no recollection that he had already told Rye about Decky, a month ago, and that the anxious man was avoiding the other.

Opening the door, he shuffled in, closing it from behind and locking it with his free hand. He stopped in place, holding the box close, when he noticed the trail of tea lights and rose petals. Smiling, he pulled his earbuds out and shoved them in his pockets. Following the path that led to his heart, JP met Rye’s gaze and took in the whole set up, from the blanket-pillow picnic to the wine glasses, and even to the plates of alfredo. “What’s all this?” JP asked, bewildered but in a good way.

Rye looked up from where he had been doling out the last scoop of alfredo onto the plates and smiled. He stood up and walked around the food with the tray still in his oven mitt covered hands. Holding the hot dish away from their bodies when he got close to JP, Rye lifted himself onto his toes and gave JP a quick kiss before heading back to the oven to put the rest of the food back where it had been. Turning back around, he flailed his arms about the room and set up.

“You’ve been struggling too, lately, and I’ve seen it,” He responded honestly while holding Jericho’s eyes as they glistened with the lights from the fake candles. Safety first, no need for more fires in this town. “And I want you to know that I’ve seen it and we can keep playing pretend if you want but if you want to actually talk about things, I’m here. I appreciate you for everything you are Jericho, but I also see how it’s weighing on you,” He stepped forward to grab the taller man’s free hand in a gentle grasp. “I know I take a lot of other people’s problems on, but so do you, and I’m not saying to dump it all on me and that I’ll take it in, I’m saying,” He released the hand to tilt his boyfriend’s head down to connect their foreheads. “When you need to talk, I’ll be here, and when you feel like you can’t, I’ll be here for that too. Okay?”

This was all unexpected so much so that JP’s eyes, barely lit but still noticeable, were growing glossy. Instinctively, he used the box in his hand to put distance between him and his boyfriend to cover up the fact that Rye just hit him in a place that forced the lingering sadness in his chest to come to the surface, overwhelming him. “Fuck, okay. Here, your favorite. I’m… going to change.” When Rye grabbed the box from him, JP disappeared into the bedroom to get out of his jeans and put on sweats. When he was in a white shirt and black joggers, he sat on his bed. With his eyes closed, he focused on his breathing, playing out a few avenues he could take with this dinner. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t scared. He didn’t expect Rye to be the one to give him a safe space to talk and honestly? He didn’t know how to handle it. Still, he couldn’t let his man wait for too long, especially since waiting caused more anxiety. Deeply exhaling one last time, JP pushed himself off the bed and returned to the picnic. Taking a seat beside Rye, he chuckled, “Alfredo? Got this from Palermo?”

“Made it at Palermo,” Rye responded, allowing the proud tone to cover up his worry. He knew he came on strong, but it was intentional because JP couldn’t just shrug it off and pretend it was some trivial part of the conversation like he always does. With those strong comments out of the way, Rye could wait for JP to actually process his words and do with them what he may. He certainly hadn’t intended to cause the cornered animal look that had shot through the musical man’s eyes before he’d created distance between them, and he’d carefully sat back down with the box JP had shoved into his hands. He put it down in front of JP as the man settled, knowing that if he didn’t keep his favorite treat wrapped up and out of sight he would eat it before dinner and he was trying to be healthy in numerous ways. “Took a little lesson with Nina. She did save me from burning it though. Like three times. Thank you for the mousse by the way, I’m excited, but keep that away from me until I’ve had actual sustenance first please.”

Rolling his eyes, JP reached for the box and put it behind a pillow, even playfully going the extra mile to use one of the pillows to hide it from Rye’s eyes. “There. All gone.” Grabbing the bottle of Martinelli’s Sparkling Blush, the non-alcoholic version of Pink Moscato, Jericho poured them both a glass, handing the first one to Rye when he was done, “You had Nina teach you? Did I miss something? I’m proud of you, but what’s the occasion?” When JP put the bottle down, his phone was left in the bedroom so he could focus on his dinner with his love, he hesitantly asked, “Did October come out of nowhere and it’s our anniversary?”

“No, no you’re fine,” Rye laughed, accepting the glass and taking a sip of the sweet and fizzy drink. This was weird. Now that he’d basically had JP’s insecurities burned into his mind by one Avery Kaine, he could see so much more clearly all the little signs of anxiety the man was typically so good at suppressing. Being on the other side of things gave him an interesting glance into a lighter version of what JP went through with him on a daily basis. He did not begrudge his love’s burden. He grinned brightly and threw one arm out while staying aware of the drink in his other hand. “You got an apartment dude! We didn’t celebrate that. I know it wasn’t under the best circumstances but this is still a really big thing and you need to acknowledge that and do something you like, so I made something you like to start it off!”

With how sugary sweet Rye was being, JP’s own delicate sweetness appeared on his dimpled cheeks. He was incredibly lucky to have such an adorable, affectionate and alluring boyfriend. He always knew that Rye was his person. The moment they met at a Halloween party. Rye found him in a crowd and went all in with flirting. Even before Rye found him, JP caught sight of him from the other side of the room. He was surrounded by his friends dressed as Marty Mcfly from Back to the Future. A quick DIY costume he scrambled to make at the last minute. He saw at a distance, a cute, bouncy boy dressed as Elton John talking to a couple of southies. And then just like that, the boy that smelled of confetti sugar and lavender came to him and introduced himself. From that point on, his world was no longer completely his. It mostly belonged to this boy with tender eyes, a bright disposition, and a big smile. “Cheers then,” JP responded and gave a toast to commemorate the special dinner, “To our next chapter. To all the moments we will shake each other up, to the days we don’t have peace, where we test each other, question each other, and change our very reality. To our future. I wouldn’t want to walk this life with anyone else but you, Rye.”

Rye knocked his glass lightly against Jericho’s as his tears reflected the glowing lights scattered across the blanket. His smile outshined it all. Jericho knew what to say to play at his heartstrings as well as the man played a guitar, like it was second nature. “To our future, I can’t wait to write it together.”

“Good,” JP said matter-of-factly as he took a small sip of the sparkling cider. Placing it outside of their blanket area, not wanting it to be in the danger zone of getting kicked over, he started to eat and his face lit up. “This is really good, baby.” Rye’s face lit up in response to the praise. He spent the next minute or two in silence shoveling the pasta in his mouth. When he was done, he reached for his glass again and took a mouthful of drink. When he was satisfied with filling his stomach, and Rye caught up with him, he cleared the area, declaring it ‘rest stomach’ period before they got to the desserts. Laying down, resting his head on a pillow, he gestured for his lover to rest on him. When Rye did as he was instructed and they were in a comfortable cuddle position, he grabbed his hand and kissed his forehead. “So this is… different from our usual routine. Did something happen today? I know you said this is to celebrate our apartment but I can’t help but wonder if there’s more to it. Have I been that transparent?”

“I don’t think that’s it,” Rye looked adoringly up at his love, gripping his hand back as tightly as it was being held. “I just got a little more perspective is all. Perspective I’ve needed but more so wanted for a long time. Are- are you alright with talking on something heavy a bit? I don’t want to weigh things down if you’re not ready.”

Staying silent for a little bit, JP locked his eyes with Rye’s and saw how intensely the emotion was behind the veil. They say the eyes were the windows to the soul and he took pride in undressing Rye in all the ways you could for a person. Emotionally, spiritually, and of course, physically but that was neither here nor there. Tightening his hold on Rye, leaving no space between them, feeling his heartbeat through his throat, JP breathed, “What do you want to know? I’ll answer whatever you want but I can’t promise I’ll… I don’t know how I’ll react through this.”

“It’s not about what I want, and you don’t have to control your reactions,” Rye replied, hugging back tightly. “You don’t always have to be in control around me. I want you to know that,” he looked at the tea lights as they impersonated a flame flickering and changing the way the shadows played together around their little nest. “I’m not…I’m not going to try and fix you if you show me where you feel broken, I just want to be on your journey as you heal. You’ve spent a long time being strong for me, and before that you were always being strong for Momma Robbie and your sisters. When was there time for you to feel safe enough to be weak?”

That… was a hard question.

Jericho turned his stare to the ceiling, watching the moving reflection, shadows, and light from the candles Rye had bought. When was the first time he could openly express himself without fear of it backfiring? “A little before you moved to Edenridge, but not in a good way. I had this… unhealthy relationship with my father. Walter Phillips. That was his name. He and my mom connected through their love of music, he was a college professor at Boston U and she’s taught at Eden High for years. He taught mostly ethnomusicology. The study of music in different cultures.” Anxiously, JP traced his fingers on Rye’s arm as he focused in on one spot of the ceiling. “He wasn’t the best man but he was my father and at least for me, I wanted him to recognize me and be proud of me. He,” Clearing his throat, trying not to choke up from talking about this, he tried his best to formulate this piece of his past, “Used to just leave with me, like a bargain chip, and gaslight my mom. You’d get your baby boy when you give me what I want. At the time, I thought he just wanted time with me. His son. But really, he just wanted mom to give him something, like money, which he was awful at. Spent all our college savings. Gambled it and acted like someone committed theft on us.”

The tracing on Rye’s arm turned into tapping, like a drum. Tap, tap, tap, tap. “I told him everything because I thought that would make him love me more. I didn’t realize how fucked I was until he tried to…” JP’s voice was shaking. “He tried to hurt mom and I got in the middle so instead he threw me…” Closing his eyes, reliving these awful days, yet still missing his dad in a sad, sick kind of way, he whispered, “A month later, he died.” There was no room for growth or a change of heart, if his father was even capable of it. The child in him still wished his father before he unexpectedly died grew from his mistakes and became the man his mom believed he could be. The man she fell in love with in the first place. “I’m sorry, Rye… was that a good answer?”

“Hey, hey, I’m not trying to force anything out of you, and there’s no good or bad answers, just yours” Rye reassured, worried by the reaction. He had listened to the story with no small amount of horror and disgust racing through him, but he’s kept any reactions from surfacing on his features. He knew whatever JP’s choice of answer was was going to be dark, and he was perfectly able to control himself and keep from having dramatic reactions while his lover spoke. Apparently his lack of expression just made normally put together man even more anxious. He pulled back but didn’t leave JP’s arms, just made sure the man could see his face, his sincerity. He looked this man deep into his eyes and straight down to his beautiful and caring soul, and he kissed him breathless like he could be a balm for all the pain that he found there. To soothe it so JP could tend to it in a less irritated state and heal it himself. “You don’t owe me anything, you don’t have to tell me anything you aren’t ready to. I’ll always be getting to know you, and I can be patient despite what you’ve seen,” He smiled for a moment before continuing, “I’m gonna…I’m gonna give you something to listen to so you have the chance to sit there and find your center if you need. This isn’t me trying to overtake the conversation or compare situations, I just appreciate you and want to be open with you too,” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and steeled himself for his own admission. When he was ready, when Jericho’s eyes were on him, he began.

“My parents’ divorce was because of me. In like the most literal sense because what I did just really brought into light the way he was but just-” He stopped and shook his head lightly before restarting. ”I came out to them. My parents. A little after eighth grade started. There had already been signs that I should’ve followed that showed my dad wouldn’t’ve been cool with it; one time he came home and I’d been playing stylist with my mom, he flipped out when he saw the makeup on me and started scrubbing it off my face with a damp rag. I actually had a bit of friction burn on my cheek by the time ma had gotten him off me,” Rye laugh was hollow as the feeling his father had left behind. ”He started trying to sign me up for sports after that, and the car I used to love working on with him was suddenly a requirement instead of a hobby. He’d ask about girlfriends or crushes and get all cold and distant when I didn’t have anything to give him. Everything in me was screaming not to come out, but I couldn’t handle keeping it in. So I came out, and dad flipped his shit again and started screaming at me, and then he turned on ma because she got between us and he started yelling about how her coddling turned me into a ‘filthy fucking queer’,” Glassy eyes stared at JP as Rye dropped his hands from where he had been signing quotations. He tilted his head and shrugged as if to say, ’what can ya do, y’know?’ ”She cut him off by demanding divorce and while he was processing what she said she sent me to my room and told me to take my meds. I was basically dissociating to another planet by that point so I just did what she said and fell asleep to the sounds of them screaming at each other.”

He felt oddly still at this moment, aside from a head shake and tilt as well as a little shrug, he hadn’t really moved. No fingers tapping that would get tapped at with whatever tool or remote was in his dad’s hands at the time, no hands going ’in so many directions it makes me dizzy, Gavriel, should make you sit on them,’ and no leg shaking so much it had to be stilled by an iron grasp grinding his knee until it creaked from the pressure. He’d noticed it when talking about the events in therapy. Even years after he’d gotten out from under his father’s influence he still couldn’t even fidget when the thoughts of him in those later years cloud his mind. “When I woke up he was gone. Ma was in the kitchen drinking wine and all his clothes were gone, most of his other things were boxed up but he never came back. He sent ma an address and some money and she got it all moved to his new place. I’ve never seen him again and he’s never tried to reach out to me, so I’ve got massive issues surrounding the need to please others over my own needs so they don’t leave me. I have no doubt you empathize with that.”

“You know I would never leave you right?” Jericho shifted his body so he was facing Rye. He held onto the back of Rye’s head, holding onto the boy's curls. He leaned his face forward and once again their foreheads were united and touching. “I know I’m not good at this talking about my issues thing but leaving you? I would never, Gavriel.” For the first time, Jericho’s defenses were completely down and he was raw, vulnerable, and open. “I almost lost you once, I can’t lose you again, you understand? I fucking can’t.” The grief from a day both of them would rather leave in the past crept in his chest and shook him to his core. Being an outsider on the day of the shooting might have not been the same trauma as what those inside the school experienced but it was still trauma. It was scary enough to set JP back on his own personal growth journey and force a mirror in his face of how he couldn’t protect Rye. He wouldn’t always be there to save him. “I torture myself with what could’ve happened. I’m so deathly afraid of you dying. If you died, I would be losing my best friend, my soul mate, my smile, my everything. You make sense to me. You mean so fucking much to me.”

“And you, me,” Rye responded as tears finally broke free and made their way down his face. His forever love was so good with words that Rye treasured every golden drop from his lips, no matter how much pain comes with the beauty. “You were my last thought,” He expressed, keeping their foreheads pressed together as the fear from that day crept up his spine and tore at his shoulder like the constant reminder that his scar would always be. “I heard the sirens, little Danny was gone and Dekcy was passed out, me and Elisa had tended to who we could. I heard those ambulance sirens and I thought about how I wanted to get up and find you now that the real help had arrived. I remember getting up and Elisa yelling something and then it was just your face in the darkness and I felt so safe. And then I woke up in the hospital bed,” He laughed with the ghost of a feeling catching his breath halfway through. Swallowing roughly, he continued through the thick feeling in his throat. “You won’t lose me. I won’t steal you away and I won’t abandon you. But I’ll love you. I’ll go with you on your adventures as you learn how to paint your world with different brushstrokes, and I’ll develop some techniques alongside you,” Avery’s color metaphor may be getting away from him in the emotions of the moment, but JP was used to using context clues when it came to deciphering how Rye’s brain-to-mouth filter worked. “This won’t be Apollo and Hyacinthus. I want to be your technicolor.”

Okay. Rye lost him with the metaphors but he got the general gist. He didn’t know what else to say except, “I love you.” With the surging tide of warmth, Jericho drew the other man with his eyes, before laying his mouth on his. Rye’s sweet lips puckered and like medicine, JP let their kiss soothe his soul and combat all the dark that resided in him. They kissed passionately, fervently, and desperately, with shadows dancing around them. Lost in a bubble of time and space, JP made this moment more about him cherishing Rye than anything else, like him wanting to caress his lover’s thighs and fuck him. Rye’s light moans as their tongues swirled around one another only made his urge far more stronger. Still, as sexy as Rye was when he was being handled by him, JP wanted to keep this shared time PG-13. At least until they ate dessert. Pulling away, so they both could catch their breath, the musician brushed a curl behind Rye’s ear and inquired, “Before you get your mousse, answer me this — since tonight is a night of questions. What was the first thing you noticed about me? What made you think, yeah, I like this guy and want to see where things go?”

“It was your eyes,” Rye answered after a long moment of trying to gain his breath from JP’s sudden bout of passion. He didn’t even need the time to think about JP’s question. It was his favorite memory to dream because he got to relive one of the brightest moments of his life while he slept. “Those big dark eyes under that silly Marty McFly hat staring me down from across the room. I couldn’t hear anyone else around me because suddenly all I was focused on was you and then you were right in front of me when I hadn’t even realized I’d walked over to you and-” His gaze softened as he reached out to hold his forever’s face. “And they were so beautiful, but so full of pain. They were what my ma had always called healer’s eyes, and I knew I’d found someone that would understand the parts of me that others couldn’t, because you had parts like that too. I saw you from the start, Jericho Phillips-Shomer, I love you, and I can’t wait to see where you go.”

“I’m taking you with me, you know that right? Where I go, you go. There’s no other option,” JP brushed his nose against Rye’s to remind him of his presence and that because he knew him, he was changed for good. Not in a bad way either. Jericho would have never thought in a million years that he’d talk about his father with someone, especially not a lover because he thought love was a rare commodity. In came the Shomers and his world shifted. He no longer wanted to play sad songs because for the first time he found something, no, he found someone to call: his. Sure, at the start they both slept around and he knew Rye would always love Mordechai to some degree, but he also knew he had a place reserved just for him in Rye’s heart. A place to call his own. His home. Grabbing Rye’s hand, he placed it on his chest and whispered, “Yours.” This was the sappiest he’s been in some time with Rye and even if it was a little embarrassing, he hoped it made his Sprinkles feel incredibly loved and incredibly wanted. Just how Rye made him feel incredibly loved and incredibly wanted.

“Yours,” Rye parroted back while blushing, closing the hand over JP’s heart and grasping the shirt fabric beneath his fingertips as felt the man’s pulse quicken. He looked at JP so the man could see it, see that he wasn’t looking at his rock or his lighthouse anymore, but that he was looking at his world and his adventure and his ever unraveling story filled with messily scrawled footnotes in every margin. His love above all who keeps his soul’s flame burning bright. “‘Til the ends of this earth and into the stars.”

In good ol’ JP fashion, he wrapped his arms around his lover, burying Rye into his chest and softly sang the last part of the song he was listening to before he entered the apartment.

“If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them

I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go through time with.”

Once he was done singing, he held Rye in silence and let their silence speak for itself. He closed his eyes, absentmindedly running his hand through Rye’s hair. Who knows how much time passed but to ruin the moment, because they had been too sentimental this whole night, JP trailed his hand down Rye’s back and squeezed his butt, “Are you going to eat your dessert or am I going to eat it for you?”

Yelping in surprise at the action and jumping a bit in the bigger man’s grasp, Rye laughed and pulled back to say, “We could compromise and eat them together, how’s that sound for you?”

“I want something else,” Jericho flirtatiously squeezed Rye’s butt again before heavily sighing dramatically, “BUT I could wait.”

“Or,” Rye squeaked with a blush high on his cheeks before clearing his throat and pulling the man by his shirt into a feverish kiss, keeping his tight grasp of the fabric as he pulled back to whisper in his ear, “We could have the best of both worlds and you can eat it off of me.”

Well hot damn.

JP was quick to push Rye back and climb on top of him. He started with the neck, licking and sucking it before letting his tongue glide up Rye’s neck toward his face and to his ear. Nibbling on Rye’s earlobe, JP used his left hand to get ready and take his boyfriend’s shirt off, at first clamping on his waist. The same hand found a place under his lover’s shirt and his touch built tension and heat between the two of them.

He purred into his forever’s ear, “You don’t have to tell me twice.” With ease, he stripped Rye from head to toe. His tongue swept Rye’s mouth again and from there, the two boys got lost in time, lost in each other. Raw and without restraint, they expressed their deepest emotion, unburdened by disconnect. They merged and tangled, they loved and never let go. JP groaned Rye’s name over and over, continuously expressing his love. Wanting him, loving him. They had their whole lives to explore. That didn’t mean they couldn’t start tonight, exploring every part of each other until they both saw stars.

That’s what love was.

That’s what it meant to meet someone in the middle and finally come to a place of harmony.

Separately, they were in black and white. Together though? They were in a symphony of colors. A beautiful song that painted the other’s world. Their souls were prismatic and the world, their world, needed them.

Edenridge

_{TIMESTAMP: After Dream Girl
FT: Avery Kaine, Jericho & Gavriel Phillips-Shomer}

____________________________________________________________________



____________________________________________________________________

Once outside was cleaned from the coffee disaster, JP taking multiple trips with a cup of water to wash the liquid away from the front of Main Street Music, and Gavriel getting Ave’s water to drink, the three were sitting on a sofa by the instrument corner. They were surrounded by mostly guitars. JP sat on the arm, leaving the couch for his lover and his friend, and absentmindedly strummed his own guitar to Twin Flame by the Gallows, which was part of their unfinished album. Only five phantom tapes existed and he had one. He was a lucky boy.

The song was on the slower side, an acoustic-ballad, similar to the song Bushido from their first album. The story followed two people finding one another through happenstance, and because of that, their wicks ignite. Despite the darkness inside of them, the overwhelming loneliness, they replenish each other’s illumination, unafraid of the creeping shadow that follows them wherever they go. All thanks to the fact that they have one another.

JP believed this song was about Esther and Aponi, though one could easily see the platonic side of each chord, each note and each lyric. He let Aves drink her water in silence as he gently sang the words, hoping this helped her spirit, soul and mind. “You look familiar, have we met before? After many lives forevermore, connecting from under the skin, one light out of a magical twin. I found my dreams but the moon took me away… away from her, my soul flame…”

Holding the cup in between both hands, Avery watched JP play a song she had never heard before. “Did you write this?” She inquisitively asked. Listening to the chords made her think of a rainy day, meeting someone you were fated to deeply love. The person that was a true and honest reflection of who you were. Through space and time, one moment with this person makes anything and everything else pale in comparison. Every rule you’ve ever had before this one person, you knew deep down you’d break it because that was the feeling of inevitability. The feeling that without this person you would not exist. Together, you were home in a cosmic dance, bodies made of celestial light. Every cell in your body, on fire. A beautiful collision. “It’s really good.”

“Ha,” JP continued to strum his guitar, no longer singing the lyrics. He gave a handsome smile, the one his lover adored the most. The smile that told Rye he was at peace and that nothing mattered but this moment, an ever present smile. “I wish,” he chuckled to himself. “Nah, this is a Gallows song. They never got to record it in the studio, and I only got a rough sound bit from a jam session. I hope it does sound good because this is my best translation of what I heard.”

His attention, along with the song he was playing, was pulled away when he noticed Lamb. When did she come into the building? She stood out like a sore thumb. As much as she hated the Scott Street vibe, she always dressed like the Scott Street vibe. He wondered… would his cousin be able to handle herself?

Returning his gaze to the two on the sofa, he pushed his thoughts to the back burner and gave his guitar a pat. “Music aside, do you feel better?” Jericho inquired. His eyes went from Avery’s to Rye’s. His stare softened in clear adoration and then went back to strumming to his heart’s content. The only other people here right now were his cousin and Lamb. He knew his cousin wasn’t going to leave anytime soon so he didn’t have to worry and be an outstanding employee in this instant. With no immediate customers to assist, he chose to stay in his element, doing what he loved and did best. Playing music and making someone feel better. If Lamb needed him he was sure she’d get him, she wasn’t one to hesitate when she needed something especially when it came to buying music for her father.

“Oh wow, that’s neat,” Avery admitted, while subconsciously texting Clayton an update: Holyfuckingshit. I might be dead because Jamie, me, us… we kissed. I’m def ded. Glancing from her phone to the musical prodigy, she raised an eyebrow in intrigue. She didn’t realize there were secret remnants of gold from a timeless band. Short lived but not forgotten. Remnants that true die-hards would love to get their hands on. “And I’m getting there, I think. I still can’t believe that just happened honestly. She told me not to overthink it and how badly she wanted it, she wanted me. I can’t lie and say I didn’t want it. God, I still want it. I want her. But fuck guys, she’s married.” Avery internally scolded herself as she anxiously tapped her fingers on the plastic cup she was holding. “Avery Kaine, the woman that broke up a goddamn marriage.”

“Because as we all know: in Edenridge, adultery is the worst and most scandalous thing that can happen,” Rye replied with a raised eyebrow for the blonde, shifting to face her fully and putting his feet up between them as he rested his head on JP’s thigh. The vibrations from the guitar thrummed pleasantly in his skull and he closed his eyes for a short moment to just enjoy his lover’s talent before returning his attention to the blonde. “Sweet summer child, you’re talking to the legal step brothers that never stopped being lovers when their moms got married. And how do you know there wasn’t something that was breaking the marriage up already?” The younger man watched Avery’s face for her response, content to read her lips and expression while keeping his head where it was against JP behind his guitar.

“That doesn’t make what I did right,” Avery retorted, dreading the consequences of her actions. Her gaydar did think it was weird that Jamie married Russ of all people but she had no choice but to accept that’s what her dream girl wanted. It was also a marriage the Gossip moms would never look too deep into. A perfect cover up. Even with that being said, the Queen of Freaks & Geeks didn’t do anything crazy. She was a girl that worked at a comic book store and the most interesting thing about her life was the comics she read, sold, and exchanged, as well as all the people that found comfort and safety in her dad’s business. “Like I’ve never done something so irrational, so motivated by emotion before. All I could think of was: this could be my only chance to kiss Jamie and now that it’s over, I’m sitting in the aftermath and wondering where it’s going to go wrong.”

This was Edenridge, after all.

“You’re sounding a bit like me right now, and I’m a fan of having a monopoly on myself,” The curly haired man bantered while also giving her a concerned glance. “You weren’t exactly the aggressor, for lack of a better word, like she totally initiated that little session y’all had that fogged up MSM’s windows,” he feigned a slight swoon and fanned at his face. “Honestly I think somehow that caused some good karma ‘cause it sure lit up my day.”

As his lover and friend talked to one another, Jericho did look over his shoulder to search for Lamb, only to find Sadie at a distance mad dogging him. He rolled his eyes and told her non-verbally to just go up to her and be cool. It was clear his cousin needed approval to take this leap of faith. When she finally started making her way to Laura, he breathed out in relief and wished her good luck internally. Sadie was such a silly goose sometimes.

Smirking at Rye’s comments, Avery took a small sip of water. He was right. Jamie was the initiator which was great because that meant her feelings were reciprocated. It was also not great because it gave her hope when there might not be any. “You know what’s wild? I used to have game and be able to sleep with whatever girl I wanted. Bron basically threw herself on me last night and—”

“She did what?” JP stopped strumming his guitar, bringing himself back to the conversation happening around him. He was getting more and more invested by Avery’s life by the minute. Who knew Aves would get caught up with such scandalous drama. Certainly not him. “It’s on brand for Bron but I don’t remember you two being in the same circle. She was at Swerve?”

“Eeyupp,” Avery laughed to herself, the rim of the cup against her lips. She took a gulp this time. “Last night was weird, but basically we were playing games, she gave me a lap dance, and she had Katie recording it.”

“Yeah, and then what?” JP probed.

“Then they sent the video to Jamie and I DIED.” Aves exclaimed, the embarrassment no longer inside her from yesterday. She could tell these two were great at distracting. She should talk to them more often.

JP grinned from ear to ear. Sounds like Swerve Arcana had a party and he wasn’t invited. “That was enough to inspire Jamie, huh?” He teased, placing his guitar to the side, leaning it up against the table. Running his fingers through Rye’s hair, he observed the older woman (his senior when he was a sophomore) eagerly waiting for the tea.

After placing her cup back down, she ran her hand through her own hair and squinted her face, “Not necessarily.” This was getting good. She knew, because it happened to her. “Jamie came by randomly that day. Scared the shit out of me. So I’m being cool, right? Showing her around since she’s literally never been inside of Swerve, ever. She asks me to show her a story and I,” Avery paused momentarily. Leaning toward the two boys, like she was going in to tell them a secret, the suave geek continued, “I told her ‘Why don’t we make a story together?” To emphasize her pick up line, Aves jokingly wiggled her eyebrows.

“Oh man, I should’ve had you as my wingman during the game with my best friend in highschool,” Rye laughed, pushing into the pressure of his love’s fingers on his head. His curls were going to look ridiculous once JP was done playing with it, but it was always a habit of the older man’s and Rye never much cared when his curls frizzed out from being played with. He always longed for physical contact from those he loved, so some curls becoming uncoupled was a small price to pay for the attention he craved. “I feel like corny lines are the way to go, honestly. There’s something much more pure about that,” He said supportively. “Everyone says they hate cheesy jokes until they’re laughing at a pun you made right before you go down on them.”

“Hey it’s just how I be,” Avery commented, surveying JP as he played with his lover’s hair. “I must’ve did something right if it inspired Jamie to make a move.” Finally, she was able to leave the heated embrace with her dream girl as it was and not overthink the consequences that could occur because of it. It happened, she couldn’t take it back nor would she want to. Jamie kissed her and Jamie kissed her back. She’d take the moment for what it was, which was just that: a moment. “I hope this doesn’t mean things are going to be weird between us, but if it is, it is what it is. Now!” Aves clasped her hands together and changed the subject. She jested and asked, “Enough about me. How are you two? Things good in Loversville? Not staying up all night fucking are you? Sleep is important.”

Rye laughed and turned his face into JP’s thigh, enjoying Avery’s candor and abrupt turning of the tables. “I flipped my shit on him last night only to pass out wrapped around him like a koala. Didn’t get too much sleep,” He smirked at her, giving her the silent answer to the second part of her question. “I’m still crazy and anxious and no doubt there are more talks on the horizon, but ultimately I’m glad my dumb ass decided to schlep through a storm on the high of a panic attack.” He reached up and grabbed JP’s hand now that the man had stopped playing the guitar, gently running his thumb over the other’s knuckles and smiling up at him.

Jericho gazed down at his boyfriend. He looked deeply into the other man’s pretty and big brown eyes, warm and polished, like amber when the sun seeps into their window. JP knew Rye’s fears, what made him sad, what made him smile, what made him laugh. He’d like to think his Sprinkles knew the details about him, even through the silence, but he also knew there were some things he would never know unless he told him. Spoke it outloud.

An ongoing struggle was sharing the little things that made it seem like JP was not as put together as he liked to be. Briefly, the musician went into a daze, getting lost in the deep gaze of his lover, as they gently touched each other with their hands. He snapped out of it. It seemed like he didn’t realize he was staring for a moment too long. Continuing the conversation, like he wasn’t just lost in thought, JP sighed and earnestly expressed, “That was my fault.” Bringing his attention back to Aves, he continued while keeping his touch in contact with his soul flame, “I wasn’t clear with some things.”

Rye did his best not to frown as he noticed his lover’s loss of focus before he spoke up. He changed their grasp from him holding JP’s hand to twining their fingers together, tightening his grip both lovingly and to let the man know that he could see him. He knew that he’d been wrapped up in his own crazy since returning from taking care of his savta, and he knew that JP was his rock. He just wanted the older man to know that Rye could be his rock too, if he’d let him. This wasn’t his complex of picking up broken beings and trying to stave off their complete shattering by befriending them, this was a matter of the man he’d loved before he ever understood it not feeling like he could ‘add on’ to Rye’s emotional load. He had room for everybody. He had to.

“I mean I was definitely also to blame,” He countered, having managed to keep any tells off of his face when he returned his gaze to Avery. “I’m great at reading lips and faces, horrible at reading changes happening around me. Plus I overreacted like crazy and didn’t stop to… smell the flowers,” He grinned brightly up at JP, as proud of his little joke as he was sure it would make most lovers groan in dismay. His inability to see or smell his favorite flower as he entered the apartment was something that still left him a bit ashamed, given that it would have at least given him enough pause to not start hurling accusations and insecurities at the man who was just trying to do something sweet. “My Apollo was doing his best, and I wasn’t slowing down enough to see it.”

“You didn’t overreact. Your emotions are valid,” JP grumbled, furrowing his eyebrows. He stared at Rye, not really caring if Avery was about to witness a lovers’ quarrel. Main Street Music was a place he was more himself than his home. It was the place he spent the most time at. Aves would know because she had her own in Swerve Arcana. “I intentionally withheld information from you and it led to you thinking I abandoned you. All because I couldn’t say what was on my mind? That was a jackass thing for me to do.” JP couldn’t even enjoy Rye’s joke and the fact that he was trying to lighten the mood because deep down, he still wasn’t over last night. They put brakes on it and went straight to sex but there was still information that JP withheld. He wasn’t being completely honest and it irritated him that Rye was so forgiving when he was not in the wrong. JP was. “I wasn’t doing my best, and I think you know that.”

Rye shifted uncomfortably under his lover’s gaze, which had become a different shade of intense than they had been when looking down at him earlier. He avoided Avery’s eyes as his own found their way to his feet. He didn’t like being told what he knew, but JP also wasn’t wrong; he was hurt that the older man couldn’t have just said something, and finding his stuff gone or boxed up had been extremely triggering for the anxious man. It had reminded him of when Decky left and he got no closure. More crushingly, it had reminded him of the day he woke up in his house back in Cleveland, where he’d come out of his room and his mother was in the kitchen drinking a glass of wine and staring out at their family portrait on the living room wall by the front door. He had come out to his parents the night before and it had ended in his mother declaring to Yosef that they would be getting a divorce. He had never imagined that his father would spend all night packing just to leave before his son awoke while Gavriel himself had had to take his medication to get to sleep. It was the only reason he had slept through everything and missed the chance to see his father one last time. To think he had left so quickly just to avoid having to interact with Gavriel again. It hurt.

“You weren’t trying to hurt me,” He finally replied, dragging his eyes up to watch JP’s face. This is the man that holds Rye together when he thinks he's falling apart, how can he hold one misjudgement against him? “You weren’t trying to scare me or be cruel, a-at least I don’t think you were, and I can work through some of my own shit about why I reacted how I did. I’m not going to hold a grudge against you for not communicating fully or-or correctly or whatever, especially when I wasn’t either,” He doesn’t talk about his father. JP may know that Rye has abandonment issues, he may know that Rye doesn’t talk to his father, but the younger man had never actually told the story or circumstances behind it. How it was his fault. JP couldn’t have understood the level of pain he’d caused with his actions because Rye had never opened up on that particular matter.

And no matter what JP said, he knew he overreacted, and he knew he was a wreck, and that he could let his anxieties take over and rule his rational thought. He also knew that when he was adrift, getting tossed to and fro in the raging ocean of his anxieties, JP was the lighthouse he steered towards. When JP is the cause, rare as the circumstance may be, Rye feels like he’s drowning and can’t find shore until things are resolved. In times like these where the worst of it is over but things still aren’t fully resolved, it’s like he’s just keeping his head above water, searching for his lighthouse before the next wave crashes down and sends him back under. He swallowed back all of these feelings and thoughts as he declared, “You’re allowed to be human and fuck up sometimes too, you know.”

He was right. As much as JP wanted to argue Rye’s point, he knew his worst enemy was himself. It was hard to dismantle this part of him. There was a reason Rye didn’t talk about his father and there was a reason JP didn’t either. Their paternal figures were a sore spot for the both of them. The main difference was JP had hints and enough information from Gavriel to know why he had as many insecurities as he did, likely rooting back to his father. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to see Rye’s daddy issues. It impacted his love life and Decky suddenly leaving without a word set him back ten fold. He would know because JP had to pick up the pieces. Rye didn’t even have to say much for JP to understand what he wanted and needed. Communication was something Rye was always good at, even if sometimes he communicated too much. It was Rye who made the first move. As abrasive and impulsive as he can be, the younger man knew how to speak his mess into existence and let people know he was doing his best. And that’s all he could do. His best.

Jericho didn’t care that he didn’t know every little detail about his boyfriend. He sure as hell hadn’t told Rye everything. All he wanted was the man he saw a future with to be okay. That goal wasn’t the most unattainable when there were only things that Rye could resolve. Jericho didn’t like feeling useless but Rye was caught in a vicious cycle and he had no idea how to pull him out. Like Rye, he was doing his best but it sucked that he was the cause for his lover’s pain last night. He should’ve just opened up and told him. Sadly, JP was caught in his own vicious cycle. One that prevented him from speaking his mess into existence because he didn’t want to be seen as unreliable and weak. “You’re right,” JP forfeited the battle, trying to force a smile. He clearly had more on his mind than he’d ever like to admit. He opened his mouth to say something more.

“JP, yo! Register,” Sadie called out from the other side of MSM, distracting him from his thought process.

Leisurely, he tapped Rye to sit up and hopped up to his feet from the arm rest. “I’ll be back. Work calls me,” Jericho saluted Avery and Rye, walking backwards, away from the instrument corner. Turning on his heel, the prodigal music boy strolled away, his thumbs hooked in his pant’s pockets.

Avery observed the lovers’ quarrel unfold and then proceeded to see JP’s back get further and further away. She gazed into Rye’s brown eyes, seeking connection if that’s what he wanted and needed. “You okay?” She asked with a kind heart, a worried mind, and an empathetic soul. She didn’t expect the turn of events but if Rye needed her guidance, she would happily provide it. It was the least she could do for him, especially for his actions the past few minutes. Providing her a much needed distraction from Jamie.

Rye gave a hollow laugh and grabbed a pillow from the couch to wrap his arms around, meeting Avery’s eyes briefly before his gaze found his feet once more, this time planted firmly on the ground. “Am I ever?” He joked before clearing his throat and looking over to JP. “Sorry. No, not really. I’m not- not good, I mean. I want him to talk to me. I know I talk too much but I need him to talk more. I don’t think I’m like him…I can’t just look at someone and know what they want, I mean I’ve spent my whole life feeling like I’m playing a board game that everyone but myself has the rules for,” His gaze diverted to Avery once more before returning to the floor. “He always knows how to help me, but I don’t know how to help him. I think most of my ability to comfort people is just dumb luck, and it doesn’t apply with him at all,” the pillow was collapsing under his tight grasp, and he took a moment to just breathe and relax his white knuckled grip on the rough woven fabric. “Sorry. He’s just the best thing that ever happened to me and I can see him hurting, I’ve always seen him hurting but I’ve never been able to help, like he doesn’t open up and it leads to stupid misunderstandings like the one that fucked me up last night.”

Leaning forward, clasping her hands together, she glanced over to Gavriel who was seeking comfort and direction. He was hard on himself, just like JP was. He had daddy issues, just like JP did. He cared deeply, just like JP always has. Those two boys had more common threads than either probably knew. One simply showed his demons more openly and coped by speaking. The chaos that was in Rye’s mind likely wasn’t too different from the chaos in his soulmate’s mind but they grew up in different environments. Rye, an only child, only had to worry about himself and now is trying to be a change in people’s lives because of the loneliness he suffered as a kid. JP, the only boy out of four, had no choice but to worry about everyone but himself and now is stuck in a mentality that if he breaks, everything around him will fall apart. Two sides of the same coin, that complimented each other beautifully. They both simply needed to change their perspective.

“I’m going to give you a piece of advice, warranted or not,” Avery started, reflective and not shifting her position where her elbows rested on her thighs. “My parents are stupid for each other but they taught me a thing or two about having a strong, lasting marriage. Maybe that’s why I can’t get over Jamie,” the geek smiled, getting back to her true self, which wasn’t anxiety ridden. She was level headed, most of the time, with a goofy personality. Aves wasn’t known for letting the unknowns eat at her. She knew, even alone, she was content and happy. Having Jamie would make her life ten times better but she didn’t need Jamie. She desired her, she wanted to compliment her, she wanted to make her smile, but without Jamie? She would always be Avery Kaine, the token geek of Class of 2017.

“When you look at Jericho, I imagine you just know. He is your person. Whether he’s talked about his past or not, there’s more things that weave your souls together than you know. I won’t go too deep into his life, since I’m sure you want to hear it from his lips, and no, he didn’t tell me the details. Sable did. JP’s hand was forced and all he’s ever known is: I have to stand and carry. I have to soak your tears. If I don’t, what happens to me? Will I be okay? Will they leave me? Will I fail them so bad that they want nothing to do with me? I wish I could take their pain away. I wish I could carry it all. If they’re not okay, I’m not okay.” Unclasping her hands, she leaned back and locked her eyes with Rye and gave a kind smile, “Sound familiar?” She let the silence between them speak for itself.

In hopes that Rye would process all her words, she stayed quiet for a little bit longer before urging, “I want you to try your best to break the notion that you are his rock and he is yours. Or lighthouse or whatever cliche you probably got your mind wrapped around. A rock never moves. Neither does a lighthouse. We are organic beings, we’re always moving.”

Rye allowed himself a moment of open embarrassment as the usually fun and geeky girl gave him the gift of words and showed him that she could read in between his own. If he wasn’t aware of how golden what she was presenting to him was- JP’s anxieties he hides, his daily mental fights he keeps hidden from even those he loves most- he’d have joked about her being psychic or breaking the fourth wall as if they’re in a book or a show. But the truth was that it was just Avery, and she was fantastic at watching, listening, and absorbing. This town was damn lucky that she wasn’t an unbearable gossip.

Tapping her pointer finger on her right leg, she thought of her own personal journey and why she was so deeply and madly in love with Jamie after all these years. Why she couldn’t look away no matter how many times she tried. “To expect he will never move and follow that wanderlust you know he has is unfair, don’t you think? That’s forcing his hand and showing him that you, Gavriel, cannot be your own light. Your own rock. The thing about relationships is, we’re not rocks. We’re not inanimate objects. We’re films. We’re stories. We all have our own strengths, quirks, flaws, the whole nine yards. We start off as black and white, which back in the day was a phenomenon. The fact that we could even film? Amazing. But then you met him, you saw him for the first time, and things were never the same. JP brightened your life, brought a smile to your face, loved you for you and never asked for you to change. JP made your world better, but at the end of the day, that’s your world and he wants to make home in your heart, like you’ve made a home in his.”

Turning herself fully toward the sweet, younger boy, she gave a playful grin, “Gavriel, be his technicolor. Enhance and brighten. Color makes a movie so engaging, so rich, but he is still his own film. You don’t have personal power over him and he doesn’t over you. Bring him joy, intensity, and light. His movie will still be rolling but it’s ten times better with you in it. Be whole, be happy, and the rest will fall into place. Does this make sense?”

Removing his gaze now that he knew she was done talking, Rye looked over to his love at the register. His Apollo. The irony of that being the nickname Rye had adorned him with while carrying a love for the Hyacinth flower was not lost on him, especially in this moment. Hyacinthus had been a human who had caught the eye of the god Apollo, and the two had fallen rather hard for each other. A lover of sports, as many in his culture were, Hyacinthus had gone with Apollo to an open area to practice some discus. His lover and god had thrown the disc high into the sky with the intention of scattering the clouds and giving them more light to play under. The story tends to split here, falling into the two most popular iterations where either Hyacinthus dies trying to catch the returning disc and misses it, only for it to hit his head, or that the god of the west wind, Zephyrus, was also in love with Hyacinthus and in a fit of pettiness he changed the course of the disc to hit the mortal in the head, killing him. Apollo’s powers as a god of medicine could not heal him. The blood from his head sprouted a beautiful flower, which Apollo deemed the Hyacinth in memory of the mortal who had the sun chasing him.

Rye always felt like a mortal chasing a god because JP was so beyond him, so far out of reach yet willing to come down to earth and find mortal muses and love, to find him. He always knew that it wasn’t as drastic as his mind made it to be, and Avery blowing through his internal metaphors like the tornado from Wizard of Oz finally helped him settle away from that thought process. He’d told JP that the man was human and he was allowed to make mistakes, so it was time to stop seeing him as everything but human in his mind’s eye.

“Bring color to him, huh?” Rye asked quietly as he met her gaze once more and gave her a nervous smile. “Ok. Ok, no more rocks, no more lighthouses- and that’s freaky as shit that you knew what I was thinking by the way, but we’ll get to that another time- but instead brighter color, turn this shit into the infomercials of old where they talk about remastering the black and white into technicolor and shit. I gotchu. I can do that, right? I mean I could try at least and if I’m gonna be my own light then you need light to make colors in the first place-” he rambled quickly, losing focus as he took Avery’s words in and worked on convincing himself the rest of the way. He dropped the pillow as his hands began flying along with his words. “-I totally got this, just get me a glass prism ‘cause I’ll shine rainbow light all over this bitch!”

His enthusiasm was rewarded with laughter from the older woman. “Thank you, dude. This actually helped me too, believe it or not.” Avery nudged the side of him and looked at him with appreciation while he returned the gesture. Standing up, she grabbed her cup of water and turned to the younger man. She was his senior when he was a freshman. It was nice to feel of use by someone not of her usual anxiety ridden clientele (damn Midnighters). “Sometimes you have to speak out loud to understand what’s on your mind. Maybe that’s exactly what your boyfriend needs.” She winked at him, before glancing up and noticing the man of the hour. “Speaking of the devil,” she nodded at JP who had watched his cousin and Lamb take their leave, together. “Lamb made a new friend?”

“Something like that,” Jericho mused, knowing Lamb’s life was about to turn upside down.

“Okay cool. Well. As much as I’d love to stay, I have a job to do but this was awesome. We should totally do this more often. Maybe less bickering though,” she teased, sticking out her tongue. “Thanks, you two. Really. I do hope what happened today is a beginning, not an end. But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see! Until then, you know where to find me.” Aves took a dramatic bow, like a jester would for a royal court. Once she said her goodbyes, she dismissed herself.

As the geek queen walked away, JP reached for Rye’s hand and pulled his boyfriend to his feet. “We should do a trial interview before you see Beau tomorrow.” He briefly paused, searching in Rye’s big, brown eyes to find the emotions that were troubling him. “I need to go through our donation pile and see what’s sellable, we can go over some questions while I work? Would that be okay with you?” Oh and before he went too hard in planner boyfriend mode. He wrapped his arms around his boyfriend and gently bent back Rye’s head across his arm. Softly and with tenderness only meant for his lover, JP kissed him. There was a leisure progression in intensity, his insistent mouth parting Rye’s lips sensually. This was Jericho’s way of apologizing. He felt bad for the way he acted and the best way he could show how he felt was through a kiss. Pulling his head away from Rye, he whispered, “I’m sorry. Be patient with me please.”

“How could I ever be anything less,” Rye replied in a breathy whisper as he stared up into the dark eyes that reminded him of moonlight forest paths and polished gemstones. Rarity and beauty all found in the gaze of a man he’d never have found had he not started his journey by being true to himself. He’d followed that long path right into his forever’s arms and he never wanted to leave. “We can definitely do a mock interview, but if you’re tired and want to focus on the donations I’ve got no problem just working on the possible questions myself, homework style. I know you didn’t sleep much, and I can do some things on my own,” He kissed his love once more to show he was being light-hearted before returning to the couch to grab the journal he’d brought with him from the apartment. He opened it for JP to see the small list he’d started earlier this morning of possible questions that could come up in the interview, a few of them even having answers written below. “I know it’s not much, but I already started.”

“If that’s what you want,” JP ruffled his boyfriend’s hair. “I still want to do a mock trial before the day is over. I think it’ll be fun to act like Mr. Beau. Throw in some literature quote and it turns into a therapy session.” Jericho chuckled, thinking of his one of a kind English professor, always down to listen and provide wisdom when needed. A good man in a town full of darkness. “But for now, I’ll let you do your thing.” JP leaned down and gave another quick peck on Rye’s lips. “I won’t be too far if you need me,” he muttered before stepping back and putting distance between them.

“You never are,” Rye replied to the empty space that Jericho had previously inhabited, journal held tight to his chest. JP was still focused on what Rye wanted instead of what he wanted himself, but Rye had to admit that the idea of JP sounding like Mr. Beau put another smile on his face as he watched JP head to the donations, taking his own seat back on the couch and grabbing a pen off the table so he could return to the lined page before him. “And I think I always will.”

Edenridge

_{TIMESTAMP: Late Tuesday Morning
A @Venus & @Aces Away Collab
Featuring Mordechai Boaz & Introducing Adora Diamondheart}

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I made a wreck out of my hand
I put it through the wall
I made a fist and not a plan
Call me a reckless wrecking ball

The song Mika had shown him years ago filtered out of the tinny speaker of Mordechai’s battered old phone. The one he’d had when he left Edenridge had been wrecked within the first month, and when he met Allegra and the woman noticed he was without, one of her diner coworkers gave him an old Nokia 215 that she was switching out for a newer model. It’s the same phone he’s had ever since, and it has proven time and time again that despite its screen it still remains as unbreakable as the original Nokias. Granted, there were several scuffs and dents in the actual body of it, but it still worked and that’s honestly all Mordechai really needs in a phone.

He continued his routine of patching up the hole that his fist had made in the wall by his bedroom door, eyes bloodshot and nose and cheeks red from emotional exertion. He’d finished his crying and shaking and self loathing about five minutes prior, and after rubbing the tear tracks off of his face he had slowly gotten up and grabbed the patch kit and got started on fixing up his mess. As he was securing the mesh in place, there was a soft knock on his door before it was gently opened by the very woman whose wall he was fixing.

“Hey Auntie,” Mordechai spoke up with a scratchy voice, while the freshly showered Adora stood at the doorway. “How was your jog?”

I'm just a big ol' wrecking ball

God, that Russian jackass truly had the worst taste in music.

The first time Adora Diamondheart had laid eyes on Mordechai Boaz and his brother Danny was during the winter of 2011-- nearly ten years ago. Her older sister Tama, along with the members of her Serpent family, had visited the reservation to spend the holidays with her and her mother. As they all filed out of the SUV and went on with their affectionate, enthusiastic greetings, the then seventeen year-old Adora had noticed the two unknown boys nervously exit the vehicle and remain lingering beside it. The older boy’s hardened expression seemed out of place for his young age as he had a protective arm wrapped around the younger one, who clung to him looking scared as ever.

Their hesitation, and the way the older boy’s sharp eyes burned holes into the Native teenager all afternoon, raised questions about their origins. Sometime during that first night, Adora had discreetly approached Tama, eager to know more about the apprehensive, timid new additions to this year’s festivities. Their story had left the teenager in tears. No matter how hard she tried to process it, she couldn’t wrap her head around knowing there were people out there capable of damaging their children in such a cruel, heartless way. It made her angry, sick to her stomach, and determined to show them the way they should be treated.

From that point onward, Adora had taken the Boaz boys under her wing. She became one of their many new protectors-- taking turns in playing the role of mother, older sister and aunt whenever necessary. With patience, kindness, encouragement, sympathy, attention and a listening ear, she had won Mordechai’s and Danny’s trust and their love. They had been there for her after Tama’s passing, providing her with a love and comfort she didn't know she needed. She had mourned Danny’s death like she’d lost her own child. She had worried about Mordechai’s safety since the day he left; praying for his well-being even when she wasn’t a very religious person. She’d breathed a sigh of relief when she’d heard he was back, trying to better himself. And she’d cried tears of joy when they’d finally been reunited, knowing he was safe and back where he belonged.

Mordechai, Jonie and Maliq: three young men with the future at their fingertips… But forever Adora’s little boys.

“It was good,” came Adora’s soft response, accompanied by a gentle smile and choosing to overlook the activity he was performing. She had learned very early on that bringing attention to the consequences of Mordechai’s overstimulation would only serve to make the young man sink deeper into a negative headspace. Instead, she would do what she always did: display her availability if he wished to speak about what was bothering him and provide whatever support he needed. “Can I come in?”

“‘Course,” Mordechai replied with a bob of his head, starting on the first layer of wall compound and evening out the edges with his scraper. He refused to look her in the eye until he finished his little project, but as she passed him he visibly relaxed, shoulders dropping as the swipes of the scraper went from handyman quality to a painter with a canvas. “Ya pass any’a the girls on the way up here?”

“Nope. I came in through the back,” she replied with a wink, making reference to the French door in her bedroom that led to the side of the house near the backyard that was used whenever someone needed to make a discreet exit. The last thing Adora wanted was to interrupt any emotional conversations being had by her guests, so she chose to avoid the area altogether. Having received permission from Decky to enter the room, the sun-kissed woman stepped inside, closed the door behind them and settled in the middle of the ruffled bed, crossing her legs together. “How are you holding up?”

“‘Bout as well as the wall, I guess,” He laughed emptily while nodding at all the patch marks from years- and breakdowns- gone by. He set the bucket and scraper down, brushing his hands off on his pant legs before dropping down on the bed next to her and flopping onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “Still no answers for me, for Danny. Still fuckin’ up an’ hurtin’ everyone around me, but hey,” He gave the world’s most unenthusiastic fist pump before continuing with a sarcastically sung, “At least I’m sober~!”

Adora's response was instant. “Don’t you downplay that shit!” she hissed at him, grabbing a pillow from nearby and smacking Decky in the face with it. “Getting clean and staying sober isn't for the weak. Give yourself more credit than that."

“Thanks, Auntie,” Mordechai replied to the tough love, huffing and rolling his eyes when she removed the pillow from his face, knowing that there wasn’t any reason to deny her words nor the upcoming conversation, especially since he’s the one that essentially started it.

“You’re welcome.” Adora placed the pillow beside Decky's head and laid face up on the bed beside him, resting her head on the plush surface. "Now let's break it down and talk about the rest of it. What do you want to lead with: the lack of answers or how you say you're 'hurting everyone around' you?"

He turned his head to the side to stare at Adora’s profile, taking in the same look in her eyes that both he and Poppy carried, as well as TNT back home. The look that told of the loss of a sibling, and the fact that they were never far from the forefront of the survivors’ minds.

“I’m just sick of guessin’,” He started without any warning, returning his gaze to the ceiling to think about the past two years. “I always think I’ve finally figured out why he did it ‘til I’m thrown another curveball. I can say I know why but that’ll always be a lie. I treated Charlie like shit, y’know? But Danny, he always chewed me out for it, always stuck up for the guy when I decided ta get physical. I dunno how Hard Times felt about me in the end, but I know he didn’t hate Danny. I can live with all my unanswered questions ‘cept this one.” Because that was the root of it all, wasn't it? The fact that he was here and Danny never would be again? “I just can’t accept that my baby brother died ‘cause'a some fuckin’ mistake, or ‘cause Charlie was just so fuckin’ cracked that he ain’t even cared ‘bout who he shot,” Mordechai balled his hands into fists at his sides, fingers twisting the soft bedsheet beneath them with vice-like intensity as tears of frustration once again stung at his eyes. “It was Danny, he was goin’ places, he was gonna go ta college! I never planned ta survive past 18, never really even wanted ta, and if it comes down to me or Danny, I didn’t deserve ta. But he did. What kinda failure is the reason that his own kid got shot?”

There it was. His Kid. The real bottom of his emotional iceberg, the deepest part of him that he couldn’t even admit to himself until now, in the safety and warmth of Adora’s home and heart; Danny wasn’t just a little brother to Mordechai, he had been his first dependant. His first son. He’d raised Danny, he’d kept him alive and fed when their parents wouldn’t. Danny had been his entire reason for the emancipation, for living and fighting for another day. As much as he never would have said it to the younger Boaz, Mordechai had often dreamt of seeing him graduate highschool, and go off to college, to get out of this cursed fucking town and learn what true freedom felt like. He’d dream that Danny would grow up and have a spouse that made him happy, that he had forgotten all about his horrible past, and even his big brother and the horrible darkness that haunted his every step. Mordechai would always wake up from those dreams with tears drying on his face, but a smile on his lips, refusing to tell Danny what caused the strange reaction. They were some of the only times he felt hope for the future, even if it wasn’t his own.

Sobs filled the silence following his words until, tone strangled in grief and regret, the barely stable man finished by choking out, “I just want the one answer, Auntie, why my baby boy?”

Adora pursed her lips together for a moment, feeling her own mahogany eyes well up with tears even though she tried to remain the rock that Mordechai so desperately needed at the moment. When the news of the shooting at Edenridge High had reached her ears, the native woman’s stomach had dropped to the floor. Her two nephews had already graduated, but the Boaz boys and some of her reservation sisters were still enrolled at the school. The shooter was identified to be Charlie Decker, and her heart had gone out to Mitena at the feelings she was probably experiencing regarding her half-brother. But when the deceased list was revealed and Danny Boaz’s name had been on it, any sympathy Adora had felt had been thrown out the window.

The brunette had felt the same way Mordechai was expressing when she’d heard the news. She had been heartbroken. She had been sad. She had been mad. She was back once again back on that roller coaster of grief she’d experienced at the loss of Tama, Zeti and Quintel. Why would anyone want to cause harm to little Danny, of all people? Why had he, her sister and her lovers met their demise so soon in their young lives? Why had fate decided to play this cruel card on their loved ones like that? The questions had tortured Adora for what felt like forever. But eventually, after years of growth and introspection, she had come to the conclusion that some inquiries just didn’t have any logical answers. It was a harsh reality that she wished she could change, but couldn’t.

“I wish I had the answer for you, honey, I really do.” Adora said in earnest, gently running her fingers through Mordechai’s dark locks of hair while the sobbing man turned into her and hid his face in her chest like he’d done for years. After the Boaz brothers warmed up enough to her to allow physical contact, they’d spend hours curling up to her like kittens, allowing her to shower them with affection. She was glad she was able to provide him that same comfort even now. “Tama’s been gone for ten years now, and I still find myself asking that question from time to time. It took me years to come to peace with the fact that there are things that will always be a mystery to us. But what I can tell you, though, with absolute certainty, is that Danny wouldn’t have wanted to see you give up.”

She took a moment to kiss Decky’s forehead before continuing. “It doesn’t matter whether you weren’t planning to live for as long as you have or that you feel like you didn't deserve to. I felt like I didn’t deserve to, either. After Tama died and I went off the deep end, I used to look at myself in the mirror and imagine how disappointed she would be for the decisions I ended up making in my life. But as time went on, I realized that this was no way to live. This was no way to honor my sister’s life. Instead of focusing on the negatives and what I couldn’t change, I decided to focus on the positives and what I could change. For better or for worse, you are here. You’re alive, and you’re breathing, and you’re still fighting on. The best way you can honor Danny’s memory is by living your life to the fullest and taking advantage of every opportunity that comes your way, not by drowning yourself in regrets. I promise you that there are so many of us who feel grateful and lucky to have you in their lives. I don’t ever want to lose you, too.”

“I just feel so fucking selfish. I can’t regret leavin’, ‘cause I had ta, but it fucked with so many people just ‘cause I thought I ain’t had any impact on people’s lives,” Mordechai lifted his head up to look Adora in the eyes. “I come back and then Lanie left town before I could even really think’a talkin’ ta her, I wasn’t there for Jade and Poppy and my crew, or Rye. Shit, I left Sunshine behind, and someone that… I could have had somethin’ more with, too. ‘Cause let’s be honest: me and Lanie wouldn’t'a lasted outside’a highschool even if things did go right.” He scrubbed at his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing, “I left ‘cause it was what was best for me. The first time I ever did somethin’ just for myself, and I’m strugglin’ ta gather up all the consequences before I can even try and start healin’ 'em. I’m makin’ things up with Pops and J, but Christ do I have a ways ta go,” He finally let go of Adora and rolled back onto his back, the old twinkle lights strewn across the ceiling like mock stars drawing his gaze.

“You just said it, babe: you did what was best for you at the time,” she coincided with him, validating his decision even when she’d been one of the people it had indirectly. “I understand you feel guilty about how your leaving affected other people, but you had to do what you needed to save yourself. That was a time where you had to put yourself first.”

“Y’ever hear her, Auntie,” He asked after a moment of silence of pondering her words, his voice leveling out as the tears dried from his eyes. “When you’re doin somethin’ that y’know ya shouldn’t in the big picture but you’re all tunnel vision? I swear Danny’s ghost was yellin’ at me ta turn around before his body was even in the ground. I had more of a life in Edenridge than I was ever able ta see when I was there. I know I wouldn’t’a been able ta appreciate it or even see it if I never left, but my little mental Danny was givin’ me grief the whole two years. ‘Specially when I relapsed and left my kids.”

Adora shook her head. “I can’t say I’ve ever heard her voice. But I have dreamt about her sometimes, in moments that I’ve felt like I’m at my lowest or when I’ve felt like I could use some guidance,” the brunette admitted in a confession she’d only ever really voiced to Maliq and Jonie. “They’re always the same, too. They always start with Tam wrapping me up in her arms with the same love she showed me when she was still with us. Then we sit down by the river, and she braids my hair with red velvet ribbons while we discuss whatever’s on my mind. In the dreams, Tam’s never judgemental. She gives me the same words of wisdom and encouragement as she did before. It’s as if she knows exactly what I need to hear and when I need to hear it. I know it might sound odd to some people, but I’m sure you’re one of the few who would understand.”

Mordechai nodded in response as he thought back to a dream he’d had of Danny a bit after returning to Edenridge. Danny had returned to him as a ghost, and they had gone to the southie kids’ special spot in Lyon park to wait for Poppy to show up. They’d been lying in the grass talking and Danny had thrown a counterpoint at every self-deprecating thought that fell from Mordechai’s lips, including telling him that he’d left his mark on people just as much as Danny himself had. He’d wanted Mordechai to acknowledge that he mattered outside of his little brother, he’d wanted his older brother to say ‘I wanna live, it’s not all on my shoulders, your death wasn’t my fault,’ but even in the dream, his twisted guilt wouldn’t allow him to. So Danny had just asked him to instead think about what he said, and Mordechai had ceded to that request. Then he’d woken up hungover and in the midst of his withdrawals and he promptly forgot about everything he dreamed as he spent the day curled up on the bathroom floor.

But he remembered now, and what Adora had said about her dreams with Tama had unlocked the memory for him. He’d grown a lot since the dream, but he still carried so much guilt that if his brother appeared to him in another dream now he’d give him those big sad eyes that were just a brow furrow away from being disappointed. He wanted to show Danny he could move forward, and everytime he tried something pulled him back again and it was always his fau-

Oh.

“It wasn’t my fault,” He finally admitted in a hushed whisper as he stared at the twinkle lights through the lazily rotating ceiling fan blades, mentally blaming the strobing effect it caused for the fresh tears in his eyes. He could never say it before. Never believe it enough to say it. But Danny would never blame him for it. So he had to let it go. “Danny wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t control it, Auntie, I couldn’t control anythin’ that was happenin’. I loved him, love him still, and he would be so fuckin’ pissed if he knew I blamed myself. And he’d be pissed ‘cause he always knew that it wasn’t my fault,” He looked into her eyes, tears streaming down his face again but voice steady and somber. “I have ta prove ta him that I can live for myself,” the tone tightened with a trace of fear and hysteria. “But fuck, I’ve never really done that before.”

Noting the change in Decky's demeanor from acceptance to fear, Adora tenderly wiped away his tears and resumed her stroking of his hair. She could tell that the young man had reached a breakthrough, but that he needed that little push to step across the threshold. “I know it can take some time to fully process the idea of doing something we haven’t before. And it’s totally okay to feel scared about it, too. As long as you find reasons to keep fighting for, don’t lose hope and remind yourself that you’re not alone, you’ll be able to do anything you set your mind to. I mean, you’ve already started making a change when you decided to get sober-- and I bet at one point you thought that was something you’d never do again." She pointed out, hoping that this accomplishment would help put the rest of things into perspective for him. It was important for the native woman to show the young man how capable he was and how in control of his own destiny he could be. “You’re a warrior, Mordechai. You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. And when you need a little help keeping that in mind, there’s a lot of us out there ready to remind you of it.”

“Warrior,” Mordechai repeated while pulling his head back to pin her with a searching gaze, wiping the last of his tears away himself. What she said had struck a chord, and logically he knew being sober was a big thing for him, but that was still something he felt he did for others’ sakes first, so the ones he loved didn’t have such a pained look in their eyes whenever they saw fresh tracks. He let out a soft laugh and looked away. “That’s what my name means. Mordechai Oren roughly comes out as Warrior'a Ash. Makes me think Alana might’ve actually had a lil' bit’a hope when she first chose my name; by the time Danny came around, well, Daniel Amos means Bearer'a Burden and Judgement, kinda speaks for itself,” He looked back at her, face dry but eyes still a bit hazy and red as he spoke of his mother. “Makes me wonder exactly what she was on when she had both’a us. Then again, I’m always wonderin’ what she was on and what she was thinkin’ by not abortin’ if she already knew she ain’t want us.”

“Well, there’s another name I’d like to use for your mother that I’m sure fits her better than Alana, but I’ll bite my tongue out of respect for you,” Adora replied in a surprisingly sharp tone, the utter repugnance she felt for Mordechai’s mother oozing from her voice and eliciting a smile from the man she was comforting. The native woman wasn’t a hateful person by any means. Her compassionate heart held no room for grudges. That wasn’t to say, however, that there wasn’t a special place in her heart to hold a burning hatred for family members who harmed their children in any way. Those were people she would not hesitate to put her hands on if she ever came across them on the street. Alana and her equally repulsive husband were definitely on the list. “And there’s no use in torturing yourself thinking about whatever she was or wasn’t thinking about, either. If I were to guess, there probably wasn’t much thinking involved…” she trailed off, pausing for a moment to let Decky read between the lines before carrying on. “But with all of that being said, what actually matters right now is that you’re here, and you’re wanted by people that actually do care about you, who want you to be happy and who only want what's best for you. I don’t care how many times I have to say it or show it to you, but we do love you, Mordechai. We love you so very much, and we’re so glad you’re here with us.”

“Shit,” Mordechai huffed and threw his arm over his eyes and reddened face, voice choked up once more as he took in Adora’s words. “I think I’m finally startin’ ta believe it when y’all say shit like that."

“Good, because I’d rather you get sick of me saying it than ever let you forget it,” she declared, pulling Mordechai into another tight hug to ensure without a doubt that her point would be proven.

Edenridge

^{Timestamp: Tuesday, Late Morning
Introducing: Zion "Shy Boy" Yakovich & Lacey "Sharpie" Cernis
Collab also features: Sunshine Cernis & The Sinclair Twins}

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“Lacey there ain’t enough makeup in the fuckin’ world ta make ya look pretty, so stop hoggin’ the fuckin’ bathroom!” Sonny Cernis yelled to his older sister as he banged on the bathroom door. They only had one fucking bathroom in this apartment and this bitch decides she needs the mirror in there to put her face on for an hour. “Just put a fuckin’ bag over your head an’ get the fuck out!”

“Oh shuddup, bitch!” There was a snarly, unapologetic, and authoritative woman’s voice on the other side of the door.

“I’ll shut up when ya get your flabby ass out of the can!”

“Oyyy…” Came the tired groan from Zion’s side of the pullout couch in the living room. The three of them were packed into this tiny one bedroom apartment at Lost Souls like the Curtis boys from The Outsiders, Lacey having called the bedroom and Zion and Sonny sharing the queen sized pullout. None of them wanted to live alone, but Zion knew Sonny would never admit that it was mostly his fearfully tight grasp that kept them all from getting their own units. While Zion certainly didn’t get warm feelings at the thought of their inevitable separate living arrangements, not leaving Sonny alone with his own thoughts had the biggest gravitational pull on the trio. Thinking in silence just revved the younger Cernis up more and had him either climbing the walls or just plain yelling at them, and it only pissed him off more when the cracked paint didn’t respond. At least when they were all together Lacey yelled back and Sonny would shut up for a while once she’d cowed him. It seemed a bit less crazy that way… right? “What’s up? Why’re we screamin’ now?”

“Oh good mornin’ sleepin’ beauty! Took too many Xanny’s last night durin’ the storm, huh? Feelin’ groggy?” Sonny greeted with a quirk of his eyebrow, temporarily ceasing his knocking.

“Fuck off Sonny, y’know I hate storms,” Zion replied through a yawn before wiping at his eyes. Just to be petty, he took the foam bed divider that laid between their halves of the bed and tossed it onto Sonny’s neatly made side. His older brother flipped him off while he himself sent the other a shit-eating grin as he got out of bed and left his own side undone. He scratched at the back of his head and yawned again before heading to the fridge. Before he even bothered opening it he asked. “Anythin’ ta eat?”

“Yeah, totally!” Sonny called back to him with a sarcastic smile. “We found time between the storm and wakin' up this mornin’ ta head out for all the essentials!”

“Could’a just said no, jackass.”

“No, jackass,” Sonny deadpanned before he went back to banging on the bathroom door. “I’ve needed ta piss for half an hour ya bitch, come the fuck on!!”

“Who’s fault is that?!” Lacey growled, annoyed at her ill tempered brother. “You know when I get ready for work you twat. Next time get up when the sun fuckin’ rises or ev’n better since you got a dick: PEE OUTSIDE!” She let the damn idiot wait another two minutes, giving no fucks about his bladder. Once she was satisfied with his agony, she threw the door open glowering at him, “I ain't tryna’ look pretty, dumbass, that’s your job. Prissy ass jailbait motherfuckin’ lookin’ ass. Now fuck outta’ my way.” She shoulder-checked her brother and marched to the small dining room table to grab her purse. With a few heated curses, Sonny righted himself and slammed the bathroom door closed behind him.

Grumbling to herself, it was too early for Sonny to be a little bitch, but sadly, he was always a little bitch, she took out some cash for Zion. In between her fingers was a stack of tens. One hand waited for him to take the cash, the other hand dug in her bag to look for her phone. “Get yourself a sandwich and some ice cream, on me, and I needs you to get the essentials,” she instructed and soon after added, purposely yelling so the man in the bathroom could hear her, “Since Sunny D a LAZY MOFUCKA!”

“FUCK OFF! I’ve had a job since I was ten, the fuck is that lazy?!” Sonny's irritated response filtered through the bathroom walls.

“A’ight mama, thanks,” Zion cut in before another screaming match could start between the Cernis siblings, grabbing the cash from her and stuffing it in his pocket as he moved over to the kitchen counter. He grabbed her phone, which he’d put on the charger last night after she’d passed out, knowing it would have died before she woke otherwise. Tate always had a lot of jobs for her, and sometimes she was too tired when she got home to do more than drop her purse on the folding table in the kitchen and drop onto her bed. Sonny too, as the Carlisle crew captain, always forgot to charge his cell when he schlepped through the door, typically in the dark hours of the morning. Zion always made a point to check both Cernis siblings’ phones and put them on their chargers before he went to sleep himself. He could never sleep until he knew they were both home safe anyways. He handed the fully charged device over to Lacey and asked, “Need any more smokes?”

“Aw baby, what would I do without you?” Lacey’s demeanor changed when Zion was beside her with her charged phone in hand. Peeling it from his gentle grasp, she gave him a kiss on the forehead before going back to her purse to check how many cigarettes she had left. Half a pack. Quickly calculating the one hundred and thirty she gave him and what they needed, she shook her head, “Nah, I’m good. This should last me for two more days. Focus on toiletries and meats.”

While she did get paid fairly decent for a serpent, she chose to stash most of her money in the floorboard of her bedroom for emergencies and for Zion’s college savings, if he wanted to get a higher education. She probably should open a bank account for him but she hated walking into that ritzy place. At least here she knew where her money was, though there was still the risk of the apartment catching on fire or them being forcibly evicted. She could only hope nothing happened to them and their small home. She’d be so pissed if all her hard earned money went to waste. That was for her beloved Shy Boy. “Oh, and when you go, try to make a friend, you hear? You need more than just that Pang Pang big boobah girl.”

“Hey, there’s nothin’ wrong with Pangerz,” Zion defended his best friend lightly before laughing a little, knowing that Lacey meant nothing bad by it and taking no real offense. Likewise, she knew he wouldn’t be upset by her saying he needs more friends. He didn’t call her mama for nothing, and Lacey Cernis has made it very clear how she views Zion. And sometimes, like just then when she kissed his forehead, he could close his eyes and remember how it felt for his ma to do the same thing for him before she disappeared. Sometimes he wonders if his ma is still out there, or if she’s passed on to be with his late friends Conan and Danny. And yeah, one way he’d never respond to Lacey’s needling for him to get more friends is to mention that well he used to have more. “But I’ll do my best, just for you mama.”

“Gag me with a fuckin’ spoon!” Sonny’s voice called out through the thin walls before they heard him turn on the faucet.

Zion rolled his eyes and smiled at Lacey before hesitating for only a second. He caught her by surprise with a tight hug and a kiss to her cheek before he detached himself and disappeared out the apartment door with a quick, “Be back later!” thrown over his shoulder.

“Call me if you need me!” And as he walked out, Lacey was back to cheekily teasing and yelling at her dimwitted brother, “Sunny, haven’t you heard? Choking is my speciality! Don’t get my hopes up, prick!”

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Sitting on a chair by one of the pastel garden tables outside of the ice cream parlor, in a cutesy get up (hating it mind you), Autumn watched her ex’s Instagram story gritting her teeth. She still hadn’t told her dad she needed a new phone so she was using Carrie’s to stalk. Carrie advised against it, but of course, she was a sweetheart and knew if she didn’t give her phone up, Autumn was going to walk from the parlor to his pinned location on snapchat to key his car and choose violence instead of kindness. She chewed on some almonds, barely paying attention to her surroundings. Her daily stalking routine was interrupted by a phone call from her brother. Sighing to herself, she picked up the phone and answered, “What? You better make this quick. I only got five minutes left of my fifteen.” Leaning back in her chair, she watched a familiar face pass by her. “Might make it ten. Not like we’re busy right now. When are you coming home anyways? Dad’s worried.”

Zion walked up to the ice cream shop with grocery bags in his hand and shoved into his tattered backpack, having made sure this was his last stop so that the ice cream didn’t melt while he tried to shop. If he’d just been getting some for himself it wouldn’t matter, but he wanted to make sure to get Lacey and Sonny a pint each of their favorite while he was here. As he headed to the door, he took a moment to glance back at the scowling brunette at one of the picnic tables, running his eyes up and down her outfit and submitting the beautiful picture to his memory before he shouldered his way through the entrance only to land eyes on yet another beautiful face that he always loves another glimpse of.

Rocking her cute pink outfit, Caroline twirled on her heel when she heard the bell ring and pranced to the ice cream display. With bubbly enthusiasm, she beamed at their new guest and gave their token greeting in the most warm and welcoming of ways, “Welcome to Delicate Delicacies! Home of the sweetest little things, like me! How may I serve you?” Honestly, some of her favorite moments at work were when she was alone behind the counter because she could be her best winsome self without her boss, Vivian, outshining her and without grumpy Autumn being such a vibe killer. Thankfully, Autie was on break and Viv was in the back making fresh cookies and cream ice cream.

When she registered who had entered the parlor, her smile grew wider as she said her classmate’s name in her adorable sing-song voice, “Ziiiiiiionnnnnnnnn!” she let out a little giggle and chirped, “Long time no see. How’s your summer been? Oh you must try our peanut and butter jelly flavor. I insist! Guess what it tastes like?!” Carrie was already preparing a small sample for her peer to taste.

“‘S been fine, just been workin’. An’ I dunno, like a PB ‘n’ J?” Zion asked with a playful smile for the bubbly blonde, accepting the sample spoon from her. Her bright smile always seemed to pull one out of him as well, and he liked how such a simple action always seemed to light up the space around her. “Or were ya gonna say that it’s one’a the things here as sweet as you?” He quickly sampled the flavor and threw the small spoon into its designated trash bin before setting his groceries down at his feet.

“Oh shucks,” Carrie giggled and simpered at the compliment, “Flattery will get you free ice cream.” Her voice went from high to low real quick, as she cupped her hand around her lips like she was telling the boy a secret, “But I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.” There was an instant she glanced to the back room to make sure her boss was in her own world and jams. When the coast was clear, she was back smiling at her classmate, “I mean it. Pick a flavor and I’ll give you a pint for free.”

“Never say no ta free shit,” Zion replied, ever the southsider and former street kid, eyes going back to hers from where they had been watching her soft pink lips flirt while being half shielded by her dainty hand. Her bright blue eyes stuck out against the yellow eyeshadow, meticulously chosen to compliment her uniform. He leaned on the counter, getting a little closer to her face as he smirked. “Ya wouldn’t happen ta be one’a the flavors I can take home, would ya?”

There was a delicate sweetness that washed over the blonde Sinclair. Her smile never faded as her blushing flowered, her cheeks now the color of pink champagne. She didn’t want to lose any cool points even though this was unusual territory for her. All the boys flirted with Autumn, not her. Coyly brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, hiding her racing heart and inability to focus on anything other than the boy in front of her, Zion Yakovich, Carrie leaned forward, getting herself closer to his face. Resting herself on the counter, she batted her eyelashes flirtatiously and asked, “Depends. You free this Saturday?” Biting the bottom of her lip, getting lost in his green-light-in-a-dark-night eyes, Carrie saw him and only him.

"I can be persuaded," Zion encouraged, the smirk shifting into a flirtatious grin as he leaned against the counter to mirror her. He hid his surprise at Carrie's suddenly eager participation, considering he'd been flirting with her for a couple years now and she never seemed to reciprocate. He was honestly starting to think about shelving the flirting with her so she didn't feel harassed, and then here she goes asking him if he's free! He found himself straying from her eyes, blue as a clear sunny day on the north side, back down to her softly bitten lip and staying there for a moment before asking, "Why, got somethin' in mind for me?"

“Pool party,” an agitated voice appeared into the ice cream parlor, along with the resounding bell to make her presence known. With Autumn back inside, Carrie was quick to lean up, as if she didn’t just flirt hardcore with her classmate. “You should come. We don’t want to be pretentious asswipes and exclude Southies.” Returning behind the counter, the ornery soon-to-be Queen Clover put Carrie’s phone under the register. With a resting bitch face, she unintentionally glared at the boy as she headed to the bathroom to wash her hands before having to deal with ice cream.

Carrie pouted while she watched her twin come and go with a dark cloud over her head. “Sorry about Autumn. She just went through a bad break up. Derrick cheated on her which led to them fighting in his car, he left her stranded at the gas station and she almost got hurt by this sicko but three boys with unique nicknames helped her out! It’s all very raw especially since he’s acting like she meant nothing to him on social media. But she’ll be okay. That’s part of the reason I gave her the idea of the pool party. It’ll be a nice summer thing before school starts! Also Derrick can suck it and see how much fun she’s having.” Caroline nodded, hoping a little booze and some fun games could set her sister’s mind right.

"Yeah fuck Derrick! Also, that was nice'a ya, y’all must be close," the serpent replied, eyes on the bathroom door that covered the retreat of the hot-tempered Autumn. He knew she had been dating that jackass jockstrap Derrick Miller on and off since the end of sophomore year, but it had never stopped Zion from flirting with her every free chance he got. Both of these girls had a very special place in his heart already, but somewhere along the line his heart started to beat for them too. He was still staring at the door when the other part of Carrie's explanation filtered through, but when it did his head snapped back to her so fast he felt his neck crack. The Carlisle crew group chat flashed across his mind, having been very active last night as Ran and Tov explained their shenanigans early yesterday morning.

"Wait, Autumn's the one that TNT wrenched a fucker's face for?" This is where names would be nice in the boys' stories, but unfortunately they'd simply referred to the girl as 'the Doctor's daughter'- and later daughters when they got to the Doc's house- and Zion is content enough living his life without knowing every little thing about his classmates, so he hadn't even known that she was the Doc's daughter, or even that she had a sister. "Ran said she drives like a fuckin' demon!"

“Oh yes, that’s kind of her thing. Niles taught her everything she knows. People don’t believe it when we say Niles knows his cars and races for our uncle but one day, one day they’ll see,” Carrie talked as if everyone knew her brother, though truth be told if it wasn’t for his class, up until recently he would’ve been invisible. It was his whole courting period with Cece that inspired him to be active on social media suddenly and now locals realized that Hector’s son was hot. Carrie rolled her eyes at the thought before disclosing, “You know, and this is between you and me. He’d be so upset if I told you, but eh, I don’t care. Have you heard of Pink Slip? I don’t know how much you keep tabs on the racing scene.”

"Cars were always more'a Decky an’ Danny's thing," he answered honestly with a small shrug. His mother knew her way around a car, and she always raved that his father had been a genius with them. But aside from that and the toy Volvo V70 R his mom had given him as a child, saying his father drove one like it, he was not so sad to say he didn't have much clue. "Most time I spend in a car is on shifts at work. But if he's got a hard enough name ta be recognized by those in the know then I don't doubt his skills. But anyways, we're off track an’ I got groceries. There was talk of a party an’ a free pint of ice cream, both from a beautiful chick."

Carrie had almost forgotten to serve him. At her job! What poor customer service. “Oh whoospie, what flavor do you want? And as for the party—”

“We’ll drop you the deetz.” Once again, Autumn had abruptly made her appearance back in the main room and this time situated herself behind the register, officially back from her break. Crossing her arms, she scanned Zion up and down and firmly suggested, “You should come, it's going to be our first party—”

“Like ever! Since we’re finally seniors and can make our mark.”

“Yeah, and we want things to be… interesting,” Autumn challenged the southie boy, by not so subtly checking him out with her sharp eyes and smirking. Flipping her hair back, the cheer captain teased, putting her anger toward her ex on the back burner to focus on this boy in her class that she’s talked to but not really talked to, “You look fun. Are you?”

“Oh and ice cream????” Carrie excitedly asked, still needing to make his pint, unsure of what flavor.

“Ice cream. That too.”

"Oh I'm fuckin' barrels’a fun, just wait 'n' see," Zion challenged back, smirk firmly back in place and showing just a flash of teeth. The fucking luck he had to have both of these girls in front of him, finally interacting back and even inviting him to a party! He could probably die happy now. He shook his head slightly to get himself back on track, trying to be mindful of the perishables he had to get home. He also had to get to work soon, but if he could choose to, he would stay in this moment all day. "An’ I'm gettin' three, actually. Butter Pecan for my mama, Neapolitan for my brother and some Raspberry Chocolate Chip for me. How much?"

“Don’t worry about it, Zion!” Carrie exclaimed, starting to make his pints with the grace and speed of a girl who's been doing this for a couple years now. Too long for a girl who didn’t really need the job.

Autumn agreed, “Seriously, don’t.”

In unison, the twins said together, Carrie’s voice higher pitched than Autie’s but both complementing one another like a symphony: "It's on us."

When he leaves they’d make sure to pay for his pints so Vivian doesn’t have a conniption. It wasn't like this was a lot of money for them anyways. He was a friend after all. Helping Carrie bag the pints, the girls simultaneously reached over the counter to give Zion his bags with all the goodies.

“Sweet things for a sweet thang!”

“Really, Carrie?”

“Whattt? I thought it was cute because of our store greeting.” Carrie defended her honor and her dorky comment. There was no way Zion didn’t like it, especially not after their shared moment from earlier. “Anyways see you Saturday, maybe?”

“In a bathing suit, I hope,” Autumn candidly added.

Zion did his best to keep functioning at full capacity after the full blown fantasy that was created by the two of them talking in unison. While they always seemed to come as a pair, he hadn’t really thought of the possibility that his flirting with both of them might end in both of them returning the favor. He certainly hadn’t expected it to happen on the same day at the same time. Now his brain was giving him scenarios that he honestly didn’t have the time to start entertaining.

“Y’all are the best!” He finally said as he came back down to earth, accepting the bags from their hands and bending down to pick up his other groceries, as well as give himself a chance to take a deep breath and compose himself. When he had everything, he straightened back up and threw them both a thousand-watt grin. “I’ll be there Saturday, with some swim trunks. Until then, I have the memory of your beautiful faces,” he couldn’t resist one last flirtatious comment before he headed out the door to return home, calling out. “See ya later!”

And all Lacey had wanted was for him to try and make a friend. Wait until he tells her this!

Edenridge

^{Timestamp: Flashback, March 2018, After Great Expectations
FT: Gavriel Shomer & Decky Boaz}

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“Thanks for lookin’ after her,” Were the first words out of Decky’s mouth when Rye opened up the door of his and his mother’s apartment nearing the midnight hour. Rye shook his head to dismiss the comment and stepped out into the hallway before closing the door behind him so as not to wake the two slumbering insomniacs inside. Decky was sweating and breathing heavily, so that ten minute estimate must have been based on him booking it from wherever he was before this. “Ya said she was sad?”

“Yeah,” Rye answered blankly as he watched Decky’s chest rise and fall rapidly. “You shouldn’t be running with two fractured ribs you moron, she wasn’t going anywhere.”

Decky shrugged carelessly- which made him wince in pain, dumbass- and worked on regaining his breath while Rye sighed and resigned himself to cleaning and bandaging the reckless snake up twice in a twenty four hour period. With one headphone in his ear and one dangling, and nothing but Decky’s labored breathing and the harsh buzzing of the hall’s fluorescent lighting, the song from Rye’s headphones easily seeped into the quiet space between them.

Had a little spot where you been going through a lot
Wanna shove it to the bottom but a trouble gonna bubble to the top
Then the bubble gonna pop and the hustle never ever gonna stop
Cause you get up in the morning get ahead then get to bed and then you do it all again until the moment that you drop
You need a plot, what you wanna witness with this life you got
You kicked and fought tryin’a get up in your skin and pick this lock
That ticking clock lets you know that bitch you got these situations witchu
Issues someone fit to quick should sit you should down to talk

“Where’s Danny?”

“Passed out with Creed and Jokes in the dorms,” Decky answered easily now that his breathing had returned to normal. He ran his hand through his hair to get it all out of his sweaty face. “I had work.”

“As you said,” Rye replied, gaining a confused tilt of the head from Decky as the other Jew caught on to his tone. “You know that adults struggle really hard with a work-life balance every day, right?”

“Uhh, yes?” The Serpent replied with a surprised blink. Where the hell was Rye going with that line of thought? “What’s that-”

“So like I totally get that you’re busy and you got Danny to look after too. That’s a lot for one guy, especially with school and you working on your emancipation stuff, so I get that you’ve got a lot to do-”

“Rye?”

“And that with all that on your plate shit’s bound to slip through the cracks, and I’m like totally here just imposing on your guys’ friendship business and that’s kind of rude since I’m not a part of it-”

“Rye-” Decky tried again with a small sigh as he saw the boy’s anxiety begin to rev him up, only for the smaller boy to continue bulldozing through his words as he tried to get out what he wanted to say.

“Or even really talked to Poppy without you around before today. Jesus what the fuck am I even doing?” The curly haired boy’s eyes were tracking the flickering fluorescents all the way down the hall instead of meeting the gaze of the person in front of him. How stupid was he being, trying to be mister fix-it for these two people that have probably known each other since kindergarten. Was he really trying to look Decky in the eye and tell him he had to step up as a friend to the person on the Shomer’s couch when Rye couldn’t even stop his own from trying to leave this ever turning earth? “Fuck it, forget I said anything-”

“Gavrie-” Decky tried for a final time, using his thumb and forefinger to apply pressure to his brow and stave off the ramble-induced headache.

“I’m just being stupid and feeling all emotional from the movie, I shouldn’t have said anything and I shouldn’t hav- mmph!” The other boy pushed him back against his apartment door, finally stopping the self-deprecation falling from Rye’s lips by sealing them with his own and stealing the breath needed to say such things out loud. So starts Decky’s ritual of calming the anxious boy down before he rambles his way into an anxiety attack. The other boy’s eyes widened and then fell shut as his mind caught up with what was happening, the hands that had been flailing around pre-shove had found purchase on Decky’s chest as he felt the damp fabric that covered the taller boy’s overheated skin. Decky repositioned one of them to settle over his heart, and Rye felt himself leveling out as he felt a calm heartbeat and was led through his breathing by sharing another’s. He tried to follow the other boy’s lips as he retreated but Decky kept his own hand planted firmly over Rye’s rapidly beating chest, holding the boy against the door and keeping him grounded.

“Ya talk too much, Shomer,” The captain of the Carlisle crew finally said, removing his hand once he felt the other’s heartbeat finally level out.

“Sor-” The apology was cut off by a second kiss, more aggressive as Decky grasped the back of his neck and squeezed a bit in warning before pulling back again, keeping his hand on Rye’s neck.

“Apologize too much, too,” Decky rumbled lowly at the other boy, smirking as he saw the anxiety finally begin to cede in the curly haired boy’s dark brown eyes. They were only a few shades off from Decky’s, more of a warm oak than his own deep mahogany, but when Decky talked to him like this they practically darkened until it was like looking into a mirror. A funhouse mirror, but a mirror nonetheless.

“Don’t act like you like coming here for all my mishegaas,” Rye whispered with a roll of his eyes, tilting his head back against the door to stare up at Decky. “I never even got to the point.”

“Then get ta it,” Decky replied, going to shrug before Rye’s glare and hand on his shoulder stopped him, reminding him of his injured ribs. “I’m fine, I’m on so many pain killers right now I can’t even really feel ‘em.”

“That doesn’t exactly sound safe, Decky,” Rye responded with a frown, the worry deepening when he realized the hand Decky had against his apartment’s door frame was also there to keep him propped up.

“Oy fuckin’ vey Rye,” Decky groaned, dropping his head down onto the shorter boy’s shoulder and slump against him. Instead of buckling under the weight, Rye held him up steadily and began fumbling one hand back for the doorknob, only to pause at his next words. “Stop stallin’ and get ta what ya wanted ta talk ta me about so I can get Poppy home and get back ta work.”

“You need to fucking sleep,” Rye grumbled with a hint of irritation in his tone. “And fine, but after this you have to come in and let me check your bandages, deal?”

“Deal.”

“You need to pay more attention to your friends, or at the very least Poppy,” Rye said over Decky’s shoulder, the other still not having moved from his lean against his anxiety-ridden friend. He could feel the injured boy’s brow furrowing against his shoulder and soldiered on to his reasoning. “She thinks you guys are all moving on from here. You, Jade, Charlie, she said the first time you guys had all hung out together in a while was on Max’s anniversary,” He felt the serpent tense but now he was on the roll he needed to be on, and Decky could feel comfortable expressing his emotions safely into Rye’s shoulder as he processed them. “I get that people get busy, and that finding Max was traumatic for all of you, but you have to realize she needs you more than just the day of her anniversary, right? Like she will never have her sister to turn to again and now in her mind all of her friends are also falling from her grasp, only paying attention to her when it’s required. And that fucking sucks. No one wants to feel like that, dude.”

“She’s-”

“Terrified that the three of you are going to die like her sister did, and obviously none of you have done enough to assuage that-”

“‘Assuage’, huh, pullin’ out the big-”

“To assuage that worry,” Rye continued dutifully. “I’m just saying you need to carve like twenty minutes out of your schedule to watch an episode of something with her, show her that you’re always thinking about her even when she’s not around. Pass out on her bed every once in a while. Send a fucking text to check up on her eveery day, I don’t know man. You don’t have to change all at once Decks, just- something’s gotta change soon before her worries end up a reality.”

“...I hear ya, Rye,” Decky replied after a solid thirty seconds of nothing but their breathing between them. “Thanks.”

“That wasn’t exactly the well thought out response I wanted from you.”

“Sorry,” the other replied, his weight suddenly increasing on the smaller boy who wisely doubled his effort to get his door open. “Tired.”

“Jesus Christ you were supposed to be picking her up,” Rye huffed, finally succeeding in getting his door open and dragging the darker haired boy in after him. With little option left as he got heavier and heavier in Rye’s arms, the boy that was meant to be the comic relief took him to the couch and every so softly led the both of them down into the cushion Rye had vacated fifteen minutes before. With Decky now in Rye’s previous position already passed out against Poppy and his arm still wrapped around Rye’s shoulder, the final teen in the apartment was forced to join in on the rest and pass out on Decky’s shoulder. His last yawned words to fall on deaf ears were, “I’m still changin’ your band’ges b’fore you leave…”

And thus, the true first meeting of the Baggy Eyed Bed Heads club took place, with each of its members completely passed out with no chance of waking aunty time soon.

When Avigail arrived home from her shift at Sinclair Health at one in the morning, the last thing she expected was the group all asleep and cuddling on her couch. With a warm smile on her face, she set her purse and keys down before heading over to the closet, grabbing pillows and blankets from the hall closet and gently situating each teen into the most comfortable position with pillows beneath them and blankets laid across them as fully as possible. She kissed her son’s forehead, running her hand over his curls before heading to her bedroom with her phone, pulling up Hector’s contact.

She had some calls to make so no one worried about their children.

Edenridge

TIMESTAMP: AFTER "APONI & HER HEART", CONCCURENT WITH "MEETING THE STARGIRL"

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________
_{An @Aces Away & @BrutalBx Collaboration, with @LovelyComplex
Featuring Mordechai Boaz and ReyRey Gonzales}

While Mitena’s band had finished and Poppy had returned to their sides, Mordechai found himself staying stock still amongst the movement around him. Externally, his face was blank and he was calmly standing with his friends, but internally his thoughts had been swirling from the moment ReyRey first drew his gaze to the balcony, muting most of his surroundings as his heartbeat pulsed louder and louder in his ears. The memories of that night at 13 Carlisle that he had been shoving away while he got sober instead of dealing with swarmed his mind and overloaded his senses. When ReyRey had first held his gun on them, Mordechai had seen a flash of Charlie standing where the kingsnake had stood, gun held on him the same way. That night had reminded him about how after Charlie had beaten him down- when he was staring down the barrel- Charlie had been ready to pull the trigger and take Mordechai out of this world, but Danny’s scared cry had startled the both of them. After that, Charlie had just continued out the door while Mordechai and Rye almost bled out next to Danny’s corpse. That memory having swarmed his mind also had him realizing that Danny had only died because he had drawn Charlie’s attention off of his big brother. Charlie hadn’t planned on killing Danny at all, and if Mordechai had just stayed with him from the start instead of having Rye watch him, then his baby brother would have been here today, Rye wouldn’t have been hit. It was his fault. Danny had taken his place, and Rye had almost followed.

Before it became too much, before he started hyperventilating in public, Mordechai did what he’d been forced to do for the past month and a half and looked for his anchors, his grounding points. He tore his thoughts away from the shooting and ReyRey in order to look beside himself to Poppy, reaching out and taking her hand in his as he tried to change his focus. He thought of all the times that he'd seen her and Jade smile when they were younger, and about how he wished he could see those smiles more nowadays. They probably wished the same thing about him. Taking a few deep breaths as the presence of his friends- both physically and mentally- allowed him to settle down and calm. Mordechai kept them from following the flow of the crowd and asked them to hang back for a minute. He could see ReyRey still in the shadows of the longhouse balcony, leaning over the railing with with his eyes still locked onto the group, so he waited just a couple minutes before gently tugging Poppy just a little further away, just inside the doors of the longhouse, so he could talk to her privately.

“I know we came here for something else,” He prefaced with a nod in the direction that Mitena had gone. He was still on track, he knew their main job here, but he also knew ReyRey, even if it wasn't as well as he'd always thought. “But R2’s here and he’s seen us. He's gonna want answers," Mordechai paused for a moment for a fortifying breath, keeping an eye on anyone that walked by behind his smallest friend's back as he did so. When he was ready, he gave her a small smile, just cocky enough to tell her that he'll be ok. "And honestly Pops, I think I'm 'bout to do one'a those stupid things that I wanted ya ta be around for."

“I understand,” Penelope softly responded. There was no hesitation, no pause, and no holding him back. It was her turn to show him why she wasn’t someone who needed protecting. It was time to show him the Poppy that Charlie loved. The forever loving, forever supportive friend. The rock in their friend group. Everyone’s angel. “You sure you’re ready?” She turned toward him and grabbed both his hands, squeezing them. She didn’t care for her surroundings, what mattered now was her and him. Looking up with her deep green eyes, the kind of green that spoke to the soul, full of nature, full of an overflowing amount of love, full of hope, a reach for tomorrow, her gaze said it all. She knew he was as ready as he’ll ever be but she wanted to hear him say it. She wanted him to commit.

“I- I dunno Pops this kinda feels like one’a those now or never moments,” Mordechai replied, gripping her hands back just as tightly as he took solace in her trust. He couldn’t believe he’d kept her from half of his life for so long. Just telling her his intentions helped solidify it in his mind, and even as he questioned himself, the doubt disappeared under her green gaze, practically glowing in light of Aponi. Fuck, with his Street Angel truly at his back now, he feels more sure than he ever has. He smiled at her, strong and bright in his own way. “No, it is now or never. I’m sure, it needs ta be now, Angel.”

There was no time like the present. They both knew time was fleeting and if he wanted to feel whole again, truly, he needed his family. His whole family. “Then go, but before you leave me,” she took a step forward, releasing his hands. Playfully, she patted down the wrinkles in his black shirt like a mother hen would for her boy going to his first job interview. “Swear to me,” she insisted, bringing her left hand up and brushing his hair to one side with her fingers — tip toes and all. A glimpse of sadness glistened in her eyes as she pictured herself saying this to Charlie. “Swear to me, you won’t forget me.” There was a brief pause before she continued, “And you’ll come back. You’ll always come back.” To her, there was a difference between a promise and a vow. To her, if he vowed, she would know that even on the darkest and coldest of nights, what they had was real and that even if he lost his way, or she lost her’s, they’d always find their way back to each other. They’d always find their way back home.

That look was back in her eyes, the one that told him Charlie had resurfaced in her thoughts, and his heart ached a bit to be the current cause- and focus- of that look. He knew she didn’t expect him to speak as though he were their lost fourth, and that even if she was speaking to Charlie too, these words were for Mordechai. Charlie haunted all their gazes, all their steps, and all their choices since the day he died, just like all the other lost souls these unfortunate survivors always harbored in their hearts and minds. They all talked to ghosts alongside the living. It helped them each to keep living on themselves. He tilted his head towards her fingertips as she brushed his hair aside and kept his eyes locked on hers while he took in what she requested.

Promises broke too easily, it was why he never made them. He couldn’t promise her he’d survive, that his minimal luck in survival as a young Serpent would continue on now. He couldn’t promise a tomorrow, he could only work towards it. But to swear to her he’d always come back? That he’d never forget her? Well, Penelope James was unforgettable. And it may not be how she intended her words to be taken, but even if his body didn’t make it back, he’d join the ghosts pushing at her back for her to keep living, keep being the best of them. Nothing could keep him from coming back home to her, she was one of the only people that still felt like it.

“I swear by all we’ve lost, Street Angel, I never have and never will forget about ya. I swear I won’t leave ya behind or run ahead without ya,” He pulled her into a hug, wrapping his arms around her and settling a hand against the back of her head, keeping her secure in his hold. “I swear that no matter what happens I’ll come back; no matter what shape it’s in, I’ll come back ta ya.”

“Good,” was all she responded back as she rested her head against her friend’s chest, holding him close like he was holding her. She was grateful he returned to Edenridge. She was grateful he was still alive. She was grateful he was starting to see what he had all the time and that was, support and love from all corners of town. Support and love from his chosen family. Support and love from her. Penelope was grateful to call Mordechai her friend.

There was a moment of silence where they just took in each other’s presence. For the past month they found themselves caught in an embrace and lost in the moment more than either were used to. The fact of the matter was they still missed each other and they didn’t want to let go. Too much lost time already to want to let this slip from their fingertips. Poppy found herself distracted by his scent - old leather, smoke, with a sandalwood undertone from his deodorant - and the memories it brought by taking over her senses before she snapped out of the comfort and pulled away, “Okay, okay, we’re so goddamn mushy sometimes.” She playfully shooed her friend away. “Go get ‘em tiger! Make haste. It’s now or neverrrrrr.” She beamed a cheesy, wide smile to the man in front of her, giving him the green light to move forward into battle.

"Yeah, now or never," Mordechai mimicked, smiling at the dramatics. It was true that they were being mushy, that he was already showing ReyRey a bit of weakness when he held her in his arms for that extra moment of her warmth. It was also true that he didn’t care, because Allegra had been right: it’s time to stop trying to protect Poppy by smothering any harsh realities as if she couldn’t handle them. Besides, he was so happy to finally have her silly side directed at him again that he refused to regret any moment of their interaction being in the eyes of the kingsnake. "I'll catch up ta y'all soon."

With those last words and a fortifying breath, Mordechai stuffed his hands into his jean pockets and turned on his heel and made a beeline- not frantic or nervous, kept deliberately casual with the knowledge that he was an outsider here where most of the people might not even remember him as one of Adora’s adopted snakes- towards the stairs to get to ReyRey on the balcony. Before he was even within striking distance of the older man, he locked his calm gaze on him and began with, “I didn’t- we didn’t know ya were gonna be here, we ain’t tryin’a crash in on your downtime.”

For once, he had hoped that he didn’t have to be ReyRey. He wanted to go one night where he could just be Reynaldo and enjoy the company of a beautiful woman, good beer and good music but alas there he was, watching as one of the problematic snakes under his command strolled towards him in a place that he had no godly business being. R2 knew he had to remain calm. This wasn’t his house and he respected the rules of the Reservation. Beyond his dealings with Jadyn, the Kingsnake’s business was private, confidential and behind closed doors. Decky was a piece of business that had made his presence felt in public when he shouldn’t have.

ReyRey thought back to that night at the start of the summer, when he revealed to a bunch of Goonies what really happened the night that a sunflower wilted on Carlisle. His conversation with Mordechai that evening did not end well and their relationship had changed since that day. How fractured it was? Had yet to be fully uncovered. “You didn’t mean to but you did,” Rey began. “I am not working tonight, if this is business, you come see me at the Edge tomorrow night. Otherwise you got about ten seconds to give me a good reason before I break a promise to the people here and I shove my gun down your throat.”

“Then I’ll be seein’ ya at the Edge tomorrow,” Mordechai responded evenly, not reacting to ReyRey’s threats with anything other than calm. He took a moment to glance back at Jade and Poppy, then to the bathrooms where Natalia disappeared and then finally to where the stage was. To where Mitena had been when they’d walked in earlier that evening. Well, he’s already pissed ReyRey off by existing in the same area, and there was no way to make the explanation he had to give the older man any better. Sugar coating doesn’t work on ReyRey. You had to be the messenger and simply take the shot if he didn’t like your delivery. “Did ya know he had a sister? And the fucker doin’ all this letter shit threatened her?”

He tried not to tense up as he waited for the expected punch to the face from his former leader for even daring bring any part of Charlie up in his presence, simply kept a blank gaze on the kingsnake as the other processed his words.

“No I didn’t fucking know and I don’t fucking care.”

Why couldn’t he escape this damn Decker kid?

Why couldn’t he escape Allison?

Why couldn’t he just escape? Rey was haunted. Every time he turned around he was reminded of past transgressions or he was struck by pain of days long best forgotten. “We’ve been over this Boaz. I am not sending these letters and frankly I’m done with the whole thing. I’ve got my own shit I’m dealing with.” There were many shackles currently tying El Serpiente down. The letters and their contents were just one small part. He was feeling pressure from the Angels and the Gorta. Their uneasy truce dancing on a pinhead. The monster that destroyed his darling sister was free and roaming the streets, the damn Monteros were now in town and by all accounts here to stay. ReyRey was no fool and was now waiting for the moment where inevitably Uncle Esteban would try and usurp control of Big Rey’s empire.

Then there was Vivia and what she was going through. Every time he saw her now, Viv seemed more and more like a shell, a husk, barely human. The time was coming where he was going to have to try and get her help. Even though he struggled to say it aloud, R2 did love Viv, in his own way and he knew that she needed something he couldn’t give her.

“What is it you fucking want Boaz?”

"I didn't think it was you sendin' the letters," Mordechai replied, keeping the surprise at how much ReyRey has kept his hands to himself off of his face. He always said he respected Blue Hill and its people, but obviously it was a lot more than Mordechai even thought. God, did he ever really know how to read this guy? Was he just that fucking blind- or just fucked up- as a kid that he idolized ReyRey because of a few simple signs of affection early on, even though the man's violence always outweighed those moments of calm, those moments of what Mordechai had thought were connection. Being a stupid kid was one thing, but what made him feel stupid now at twenty years old was the fact that even with the cold demeanor ReyRey now addressed him with, even with the family that was already surrounding him, Mordechai still felt something in him settling, clicking into place in the same way it had when ReyRey had first embraced him upon his return to Edenridge. The man's presence, tainted as it has been since their last interaction, still felt like a piece of home to him. How broken was he, that even while he's being completely shut out in the cold, he's still trying to find some warmth in ReyReys eyes and body language? "And all I want right now since ya ain't hearin' any business tonight is ta get some closure for myself and my friends. We're here ta meet Hard Times' sis and figure out what ta do next. We really didn't mean to run into ya or get in your way, we came here for our own reasons. Anythin' else I gotta say t'ya probably's gotta wait until tomorrow night, yeah?"

He was challenging the older man a bit, daring him to demand more or end the conversation now. He did his duty, he reported to the kingsnake without even being a subordinate anymore. He gave ReyRey the respect of talking to him even though their journey had nothing to do with him. Anything more out of his mouth would lean towards serpent business and the other man had expressed well enough that it was time to stay mum on that subject. Jesus, even when he's testing the waters he's still waiting for ReyRey's lead.

ReyRey leaned back over the railing, tapping his fingers as he watched Jadyn emerge from the bathroom downstairs. She would be back soon and his two worlds would come crashing together. Exhaling through his nose, the Latino man turned his head and dark gaze towards his former subordinate. “You got two minutes to say what you gotta say, after that I don’t want sight nor sound of you anywhere near me whilst I’m here understand?”

Mordechai nodded and tried not to sigh at the man's change in decision, despite the fact that he was half expecting it anyway. Condense everything he had to say to the man in just two minutes? After the weeks he's been thinking of how to approach him and that very subject? Oh yeah, easy. Fucking simple. This sucked.

"Aight, look," Mordechai started after a breath to try and gather his thoughts, eyes on ReyRey. "You were right when ya said things have changed since I've been gone," he recalled from their initial reunion a month and a half ago. "And sorry I didn't come back the next day like I was supposed ta but I think we both know I would'a gotten killed fast as shit if I'd rejoined in the state I was in. Instead I spent the last month and change gettin' sober with help from Badger, the James', and my-" he choked on his words for a minute, needing R2 to understand but also struggling with what to call Allegra in front of him, let alone whether this was even a good time to mention his kids. If he said the wrong thing and Legs finally meets ReyRey it could all go to shit faster than a meteor hitting the earth, especially between the two's personalities. Best be safe with it then. "-some other family I picked up when I was gone. But I'm not gonna sit here and pretend I ain't missin' my brothers 'n' sisters that I grew up with. And I get that I misread shit with you, my place with you," Mordechai finally averted his eyes, staring off somewhere to the left of ReyRey's feet. He caught himself going to scratch at his forearm and quickly retracted his hand, shoving both fists in his pockets with a scowl and hoping ReyRey wouldn't notice the obvious tell of weakness while also knowing that the man watched too intently to have not seen it. "I can be a useful tool t'ya again, I don't care-" lies "-i just need ta be back."

Rey really didn’t have much time to think. Jadyn would be back and having to explain this entire situation to her seemed like a fruitless endeavour. Decky was a good earner, he had proved his loyalty to the gang ten fold but he had a streak in him and a very obvious weakness that R2 despised. Yet, with everything going on at the minute, all the moving parts and cogs turning in the machine, the Kingsnake knew that in the coming days he was going to need people he could trust and people he could count on. He also knew that having someone he could control and wield like a high powered tool wasn’t a bad idea either. Decky fell somewhere in between all of those categories.

“Ok” ReyRey rubbed his face with his ringed fingers before dropping them back onto the banister. “Here’s what we’ll do. You’re back, probationary but you gotta earn and you gotta earn for me fast” He darted a finger out and pointed it at the boy's heart. “Look at me!” He commanded his follower, immediately receiving the sharp gaze he demanded. “You screw me or I find out you’re back on the gear? I’ll bury you in the ground next to Decker” R2’s eyes fell upon Poppy and Decky’s other assorted family members that had followed him to the quiet little mountain town in which they now stood. “You keep them away from me or they’re next. Am I clear? Now get the fuck outta here. I expect you at the Edge tomorrow night and we’ll find a place for you”

Mordechai clenched his fist against the threat but otherwise remained blank-faced in his reaction to the man’s words, seeing that he had reached the end of ReyRey’s patience and anything else was not just unwelcome, but forbidden. He could tell him about Allegra and the kids tomorrow, when Mitena was fully met and safe. When he was actually truly ready to hear whatever the hell else ReyRey had to say to him. When the man wasn’t threatening him and his friends while staring at them so hard it was like he was trying to burn their faces into his memory before he disposed of them.

“See ya tomorrow,” he replied through clenched teeth, nodding to the man and making his way back down the stairs and towards the bar where he’d left his friends. He took a deep breath and tried to release the tension in his muscles as he came back up to Poppy and Jade, his sisters since childhood. With a small smile that had the ghost of his old confident smirk in it, the man made his announcement to the people that meant the most to him.

"Boa's back bitches!"