#We need more heartshackle angst

[delusionsofmid-daymoon]

For real, almost everyone is sleeping on the angst potential, i mean one of the bases of their friendship is literally trauma bonding

Since day one they are together and almost being killed, i would kill to see dinamic of "us vs the world", but like they really beliving it and not trusting anyone besides eachother, it's not dificult considering what happened and what kind of place nrc is

Plus there's a lot of times where they get separate and one almost dies,SPOILER OF EVENTS HERE like book 4 and 6, in endless halloween ace history is literally he being upset because he spent the night worried about his friends only to no one take the event seriously

In vargas camp deuce spent a whole day and night hidding from an overblot phantom with no food or water, using magic without a stone, he would have literally died there if they didn't come search him

Also the whole glorious masquerade chaos were ace was left behind in nrc, or playfuland where yuu and the others are captured one by one and almost sold to human traffic

END SPOILER

The separation anxiety basically writes itself at this point, especially ace's

I really want to see something like the upperclasmens seing how close they are and just thinking "aw how cute ^u^ usually you don't see that in nrc"

Then they have to separate the trio for a long period, maybe on some school trip with no phones, because the teachers say they cause too much trouble together

And the others watch they have a literall meltdown

Yuu and grim are warching over their shoulders all the time, waiting for something to go wrong ,for someone to try to drag them on their problems again, grim refuses to leave yuu for even a second and even hisses for anyone that looks suspicious to him, they don't feel safe without adeuce, almost resembling a cornered animal

deuce's temper gets worse and then he beats some guys into a pulp only to see what he has done and curl into a ball and cry, thinking he is such a failure, going back to his old self, ace and yuu join on fights sure but they usually stop him from going too far, they also reassure him that no he isn't a failure," those guys deserved it anyway, and you stopped right?" the poor boy doesn't know what to do without them, he doesn't trust himself

Ace tries to pretent but the constant worry is killing him, what if something happened again? what if they are in danger again? What if they are almost dying and he isn't there to help? It doesn't help he has to be around his upperclasmen all the time, it's not that he hates them but...after what they have done, knowing how they are...he just can't relax, he is snapping mean coments much more frequently and trying to avoid them the most he can, he could deal with it if others were here with him, but they aren't and he can't even know if they are okay and he is so anxious all the time he doesn't even notice the worried gazes he atracts

They are all stressed and paranoid, waking up screaming or having insomnia

And then the others discover that they didn't sleep in a cuddle pile only because they were super close friends, but because of the nightmares

And even if they try to hide, to put a tough facade, they are all so...afraid of everyone

That really shows the upperclasmen how they fucked up, and how these kids need therapy

i am physically incapable of writing ace and deuce as two separate entities when it comes to prefect!reader. in my mind they are three parts of a single whole. they do not come separately. take one away and the other two develop suicidal tendencies.