#looks at everyone in this discor

[scp-threats-is-back]

Hey

Whats ur favorite scp?

106

[bennydunbar]

Neocities Rambles!!!!

ever wondered where did all the silly websites go? they're still around! so here's a collection of websites that i really really like. its best that you check these pages out on your pc! dont mind Honey hanging around, we like to go on adventures together. this post should also work as my personal bookmark to check out again, but i wanted to tell everyone about the wonders of the yesterweb too ><

also check out this yesterweb zine!

1. Virtual Diva (Hatsune Miku) page!1:

it has games and a whole bunch of information on hatsune miku! along with songs and stuff. i love how cute the page issss its very her :3 i wish i can make yb a page like that! maybe ill take a coding class one day huaaa

2. wired sounds for wired people - this one's based on Serial Experiment Lain! i love Lain. everyone loves Lain

i checked this one out a while ago, and it goes pretty deep, i think people would like this

3. lunospace- definitely one of my favourites, its so cozy and the site looks like your desktop

4. aegi's cafe - its a virtual cafe!! you can really interact with everything, its super neat! i wish my bakery here was as cool as thiss

5. welcome home - its a personal project page! theres comics, character designs, games and more!

now you maayy wonder how i keep getting balls deep into websites and stuff like this, i think when it comes to really surfing the web, its your own conscious effort to find interesting things out! i have a spacehey profile, and thats about as much coding as i know, hopefully we'll get to learn more in the future!

sadgrl.online is often the page i go to, to find weblinks and whatnot. its really useful! and theres so many things to explore :3

the website no longer updates, but its very helpful when it comes to discovering and educating yourself with things like Web3 and stuff

the closest thing i got for a homepage is my spacehey, which is yb themed lmfao. theres also my fresh hotel room where id log in and do my work as im afk there

thats all for today! thank you for reading everything and i hope this encourages you to surf the web :3

edit: i forgot the most important part but i found a yb profile

[ivvmell]

Do you have any headcanons for the Jedi!clones au

One of mine is that before a big battle everyone has group meditation, which helps a lot with nerves as well as group bonding.

Also, if the clones are actually force sensitive, I think they would go to ilum for their crystals with their batch + Jedi younglings after they leave kamino. So not only are they excited for deployment but also to get their Kyler crystals.

jegi clones au! i almost forget that i have this x)

yes, wheres a banch of heds i still dont know how to make look as normal ones, but:

theres no 'force' for clones, because for em it's called 'ka'ra' (like an ashla for zeb's people)

i also think that each clone will be not the true light jedi, they are still mandos( and/or mostly traumatized guys from kamino). the question is in who the most dark

also id like to hc that design of syber's really important for clones, so rex's, for example, is similar to cody, and cody's to fox, wollfe and Alpha17s'. its like a way to show your clan or relationships in more sentimental case(also what about sybers/crystals which go to new gen? my fast carbs)

most of forcesensetive mandos(and accordingly clones) use force less as way for know future but mostly as energy drink and simple metod to boost ur strength/etc. its not bc no mandos get the predictions, but bc they are enougth stubborn to ignore it and drown out :D

but for(and rex) is one who has a lot of predictions. cody and wolffe havent even a one in all of their life

(the mandos style of syberfighting more similar to siths'. its for the lore fans)

cody isnt good of using force bc he has all chances to be the first clone who will fall. his case is codependent

(an important add) in my au clones dont from kamino, they are from mandalor and kir'tsad, and so they dont clones but ordinary kids/orphans in jedi setting. but i love the kamino clones as jedis too

i think its all i find in my notes, but i still love this au so much that, if you wanna, i could discuss about its face to face in discors, lol

[julymarte]

Regarding my last ask: that's fair, I was thinking of a "which other kingdom would fit this character most, and what would they look like if theyd have grown up there instead (maybe moved there during early childhood?)" kinda thing

HMMMM well something like that i did only once for the twins father for something that was supposed to be in kom idk if i can talk about kom or not anymore so i might send it to you over discor AH! well in the villain au pravaal never left the kingdom of sea it's not an entirely different kingdom but staying there would have made him into a very diofferent character much more submissive

and if we stay by the same logic so the other side of their heirtage something similar could have happened to the twins and their sister as they'd be isolated by everyone and treated with almost disgust as they'd be forced to wear the halo of the excommunication, probably they'd have looked like when i draw uri's death so nakir as a gladiator and uri as an high priest taken from his family at birth while their sister would probably end up working with her mother probably in a field away from the azure capital on another island

[speci-society]

MMMMMM Polo transgender. Polo transmasc they transitioned foreeeever ago and did most of it by themself. Via Gadgets and such. Polo and Nada are a t4t old queer couple. That's Been on my mind. Yknow. More broadly too ive been thinking abt gender in the nms universe. Slightly more specifically ive been thinking abt trans identity and gender nonconformity in the nms universe. I like to think gender is like, not entirely out of the way out of the question, but also that its so often such a non-issue. In the way of like, the biases and bigotry people have irl just Isn't a thing in nms, but trans people also exist yknow? And thats like 25% wish fulfillment tbh but also tbf the other 75% is based in canon. EXHIBIT A. Everyone uses they/them pronouns, but not everyone is a neutral presenting gender, particularly npc travelers in the anomaly. EXHIBIT B. There are 17 different sexes possible for all fauna to have and it would be very odd to assume all other sentient species only exist within the binary that humans made just based on what's probably pretty universally understood knowledge of animal gender in the nms universe. EXHIBIT C. For gods sake they're all aliens and they're all busy with Other Pursuits. do you think the aliens developed the exact same idea of gender as humans? Do you think any single vy'keen cares about the sex of the soldier they're fighting alongside? Do you want me to believe gek can't just change their gender presentation based solely on what Smells They Emit? What more is a new gender identity thought up by a korvax one day than a new theory and potential for new discovery and new things to learn? Bringing this back around to transmasc polo. I like to think of this as that trans remy ratatouille theory. Where polo being trans is absolutely fine, but daring to be anything but a trader is what makes you an outcast. And look ive got like 800 billion other thoughts on nms and queer theory and the space anomaly and gay people and allegory and analogy but jts almost 3 am. And this entire post has been one looooong stream of consciousness. Apologies to the no mans sky tag on tumblr for this post. Btw. But i did also want to share my trans nb nada ideas too and luckily i typed that out a couple days ago over discors already sooooo 👇 ("prime gender" is in reference to "Prime" being on the list of genders fauna can have, as well as "Non-uniform" and also im connecting it to korvax prime bc it was on my mind and im like 80% sure Nada is canonically from korvax prime pre-destriction)

[thedegu]

.

[maskved]

hello, besties ! this is ami (she/her) and i’m probably late with this intro ! first i’m sorry for mass-liking every post but i’m already in love with all your lovely muses. also i must confess that i’ve only read the first book ( years ago ) and watched the show because i have an attention span of - 10 seconds.  but at least i’m a soc hoe, so we can scream about that ... please ... !!! so if i get anything wrong pls let me know or you can also not let me know and i’ll continue being embarrassing 😔. anyway, if you are interested in some juicy plotting pls LIKE this post or message me ( if you want to plot on discord we can also do that 💖). I’M EXCITED.

PINTEREST  . discor*d     six of hoes🔪#7888  //  YEVA

[ viktoriya zobova ], an [ twenty six ] year old grisha in the little palace. she is  a [ tailor ] and are known in the little palace as the [ viscerotonic ]. they are known to be [ resilient ] and [ elusive ] and vaguely resemble [ kristine froseth ]. 

death tw

- viktoriya zobova ( however, prefers to be called vika because every time one calls her by her full name she might as well be in trouble ) had never been more than average. born to average parents ( although grisha their powers pale compared to others ) into an average family and of course as the middle child, vika strived for more than simply being overlooked.

- truth to be told, she dreaded to be tested. to her it seemed like the final reminder that she was nothing special, average, merely an extra to someone other’s story. she even wished, she wouldn’t be a grisha, fearing that like her parents she’d belong to the lower ranks. however, if she turned out to be a simple human without any power, at least she’d be special within her family or could even try to make a story up that she was adopted or something ( i hate her -- ).

- however, the moment she found out about being able to alter people’s appearances with her ability *atla vc* everything changed - 

- truth to be told she knew she was considered to be lower rank among others but what really fueled her arrogance and the sudden feeling of self importance was her knowing that she possessed a rare ability. she didn’t care others treating her badly for her rank because “hey i can alter appearances and that is lit ( she probably didn’t say it that way - )

- ALSO ( here comes the moment i throw in my found family trope bcs i’m a soc hoe and this actually plays a big role in her story ) she’d found comfort in the friends she met.

- (lemme add my childhood friends trope bcs why not ) as vika was never close to her parents ( to be fair her being taken away for the training at such a young age did not really gave her the time to really bond with her family ) her little group of friends became her second family. they called themselves “blood is thicker water” ( gang ???) bcs 1) vika really thought the saying was blood is thicker water and not blood is thicker than water 2) they thought they were incredibly funny.

- they were pretty much known as troublemakers, especially with vika being a tailor it was easy to sometimes shift the blame on others. truth to be told, it only caused vika to be more frivolous. all the fun they had blinded her judgment and she viewed her ability as harmless.

- well, lets say vika becoming more reckless did not end up being the best character development (lmao). as usual , everything started out as a harmless joke. her friend asked her to change his appearance. however, this time they wanted her to change their whole face. not just the colour of their hair or eyes. vika was reluctant at first, she’d never done it before but in the end she agreed to it and much to her surprise she succeeded. she even bragged about it and told her friends ( of the bloody “blood is thicker water” gang (???) ) .

-  to cut a long story short, their friend ended up dying because of it. i have two versions for their death ( i haven’t decided on it yet *clown emoji*)

1) the person they changed their appearance into apparantly was involed in some shady stuff and had some pretty morally questionable people around him. they thought vika’s friends was that person they were looking for (bcs of the changed appearance) and killed them for some reason.

2) vika’s friend was supposed to be part of some mission they didn’t want to go to, thus changed their appearance to escape from it. however, ended up having to do another mission and ended up being killed. 

RIP nameless but vital character to vika’s bio 

- vika pretty much blamed herself for it and maybe her friends of their friend group as well. this incident also ‘humbled’ vika and now instead of being proud of it she hates it.

- right now, she doesn’t really know what to do with her future. she has this ‘oh so grand’ plan that one day she might be able to change her appearance (permanently) and then leave the little palace and live under a new name and lead a life where she wouldn’t need to use her abilities anymore.

personality ( i’m trying to keep it short i swear, i’m just adding a bunch of sentence here bcs i’m throwing all my ideas into this paragraph)

- she’s known to be pretty social. she loves to talk and honestly doesn’t know when to shut up. she can’t deal with silence because it forces her to think about things she doesn’t want to think about. although, her tongue is sharp and trouble seems to follow her, she also loves to dance around the issue, pushing her feelings away and replacing it with a witty joke instead. as if everyone does it the same way, as if everyone is supposed to understand. 

headcanons

- although she was tempted to change her own appearance many times. she never did because she is a coward and doesn’t trust her skills as much others might think she does.

- she views her ability as a form of art, perhaps that is also the reason she used to love to paint. honestly, she was never really good at it. average and above average with practice. her friend ( the dead one lmao ) used to paint with her whenever they could sneak away but with them gone, she doesn’t see a point in it anymore.

- she secretly envies the other grisha’s who can use their ability to fight. recently, she’d find herself trying to practice some punches so she doesn’t feel that useless in case of a dangerous situation. she also sucks at that so she’s probably in need of a training patner aka someone who is willing to train her or she has annoyed that much that they were willing to help her out ( wc ???)

- being personally trained by the darkling, one might assume that she’s loyal or even thankful towards the darkling. however, contrary is the case and she wouldn’t even grant him a dust particle of her trust. she doesn’t believe that he has the best interest of anyone in his heart and if she could, she’d probably spread rumors about him and telling others that he has some serious case of stanky breath.

wanted connections ( just some ideas, which can be changed ofc ! or some wcs can be connected ) 

(0/3) “blood is thicker water” friend group  : they pretty much grew up together. the death of their friend ( the friend needs a name - i swear...) caused tension within the group. while, one might have blamed vika for their death the other doesn’t and just wants them to be how they used to be. nevertheless, no one can deny that nothing was what it used to be). (( honestly these are just some ideas and we can plot wtv sddm )

training partner ( can be more than one ): connection mentioned in the hcs ! they help her a little out to become physically fit and level up her combat skills of -10. maybe they want something in return for it. help her out bcs they’re just nice or bcs vika annoyed the heck out of them etc.

person vika changed their friend’s appearance into: honestly we can do wtv with it. i just thought it’d be fun to play with the idea and having the person running around when they actually “died” and everyone belieed them to be dead until they found out that it was vika’s friend. might be angsty bcs it might remind vika of their friend.

angsty exes: listen, i love some angsty shit and i love to blame vika for all the problems. they might have dated before the whole dead friend fiasco happened. although, viktoriya acted as if she was fine after the incident ( which she wasn’t ),it only made muse a realize that vika and them weren’t as close as they believed and how much vika tied to hide from them.  BUT tbh anything would work i love a good angsty ex connection djddnd

random idea but i just liked the thought that this person once went to vika for some enhancing stuff. however, this day vika was not really herself, distracted, head in the clouds. so she accidenally might have gotten rid of some important scar or something.

enemies : lbr, vika might prbly be the type who has some enemies. she has no filter and might has stepped on someone toes because of it. (Also maybe gimme some enemies to lovers trope , adding this here quietly to not expose myself as a hoe for that trope )

HONESTLY GIVE ME EVERYTHING, gimme angst, fluff, tropes !!??? more friends, unusual friends, shippy stuff, platonic stuff, family connections djdsd GIMME 

[casvist]

hello my lovely peaches , *puts my clown wig on bcs i’m shy* i’m back at it again, being a greedy bitch and bringing you my second  and super fake muse, yeva.  remember that part where the darkling’s fake ass pretended to be all nice and wholesome. well, yeva is faker than that. she probably has severe back pain from single handedly carrying all her lies on her back. anyway, i could slander her more but i will probably do that later. if you want to plot please LIKE this post or IM me/message me on discord and i’ll bring some clown shoes and ask for some plotting ( but in.... greedy )

PINTEREST  . PROFILE .    BIO (tba) .  VIKTORIYA.     discor*d     six of hoes🔪#7888

[ yeva zudina ], an [ twenty-eight ] year old grisha in the little palace. she is a [ tidemaker ] and are known in the little palace as the [ mountebank ]. they are known to be [ adaptable ] and [ devious ] and vaguely resemble [ davika hoorne ]. 

( okay my soc ass had to make her grow up in ketterdam i’m sorry )

- before yeva knew that she was a tidemaker, she was what one might call an “ordinary” girl in ketterdam. ( as far as anyone can be ordinary in ketterdam )

- as many people living there, she didn’t really have the best time of her life there. her father, well, he was just a name causing an uncomfortable silence whenever one would mutter it. her mother, she tried her best to survive in that hellhole. although, yeva knew how much her did for her, the only person she really could get close to was her step-sibling. ( a wc i’ll elaborate more on when i’m finally requesting that wc). though not bound by blood, they meant the world to yeva and little yeva felt as if she had to protect her from whatever was lurking in ketterdam’s (shady) alleyways.

- despite of her noble intentions, realistically she wasn’t strong. and how so? no one taught her how to protect herself and she was still a child. however, yeva didn’t want to wait around for nothing. instead, she decided to take matters into her own hands and looking back this idea was really stupid, but she wholeheartedly believed that messign with some other kids would be a brilliant way to improve her combat skills ( all my muses have to be stupid at some point i’m sorry, theyre all dumb)

- of course this plan failed terribly ( and instead she was the one getting her ass beaten  ).  luckily someone witnessed that (comedic) unfortunate scene and helped yeva out. and this somehow became the turning point of her life. yeva, completely awe-struck with the stranger, wanted to know more about him. truth to be told, he didn’t do much and his presence alone somehow scared the kids away ( poor kids almost got into a fight with a grown-ass man) but yeva didn’t really care. turned out he was a drüskelle (retired though (as much as one can), thus he didn’t really have to rely on any grisha “magic”, something yeva really admired.

- long story short, he not only became a mentor to yeva ( who successfully convinced him to show her some “cool” drüskelle tricks) but also a father-figure. yeva really trusted him and his beliefs also became hers. which we might say weren’t exactly grisha friendly. at first she didn’t get why he hated grisha so much, to her they didn’t seem too bad but as time passed his words left a mark.

- however, what actually made her end up despising grisha was a certain incident. as much as this day affected yeva, everything happened within a second. a short moment of exchanged laughter, cruelly disrupted by two grisha. tidemakers ( a cruel twist of irony ) . looking back at it now, yeva figured that these two grisha had a long and unresolved grudge against him ( which wasn’t too surprising with him being a drüskelle) and had their eye on him ever since. 

- to put it briefly, yeva was forced to witness the death of someone whom she considered a father to her. yet, fate couldn’t be more cruel on her and it was also the moment her abilities were triggered , and , of course, she turned out to be a grisha as well. make it worse. a tidemaker.

- skipping over all the formalities (bcs this is getting too long) and luck not really being on her side she was brought to the little palace. her mother wasn’t too surprised and knowing that yeva wouldn’t have a future here at ketterdam, she thought that ravka was far more appealing.

- yeva wasn’t happy of course. not only was she forced to be with the people who she despised she herself was one. at first, she refused to do anything at all, she didn’t mind if she were to be punished for her stuborness. no one knew why she was behaving this way, they just shrugged it off as her being a spoiled brat refusing to be useful. yeva, however, didn’t continue to be like this forever and what happened next surpirsed everyone. suddenly, she was eager to train and improved quickly. all they saw was a hardworking grisha but what they didn’t know was that yeva’s intentions weren’t noble. 

- instead of wasting her time at pitying and hating herself, she realized that she was at the perfect place to learn everything about her ‘enemies’. 

- basically, she has that grand plan of trying to destroy things from within, being the wolf in sheep’s clothing (cutting this short bcs this is getting long again). 

personality

- honestly, as i’ve mentioned before she’s fake. and not in that way where she’ll just pretend to smile and go on with her day, she really goes out her way in acting as if she was the sweetest and kindest girl out there. however, everthing she does serves some purpose. she helps you with some training ? she gives you some advice on a personal matter ? she compliments you on your smile ? lets say she doesn’t do it out of kindness. not when you’re a grisha. of course, she isn’t perfect at keeping this act up all the time.  and if one pays a little more attention to her actions, they can see her facade crumbling. still, where vika is all about being straight-forward and accidentally hurting one’s feeling without meaning it, yeva is all about sugar-coating when she needs to but also deliberately using one’s weakness against them.

traits ( adding some bcs i want to redeem her a little bit but i also don’t respect her so..) 

[+] adaptable, decisive, loyal , observant 

[-] ruthless, doesn’t think through consequences, blindly faithful, intrusive

headcanons

- tba ( but i just had to add that yeva prbly wouldn’t hesitate to push someone from the ship when they’d travel through the shadow fold.)

- every time she must do more than simply tolerating grisha, like saying that they’re great she probably loses one year of her life

- trying to keep her reputation yeva is known to give exceptionally good advice

- as much as she despises that “grisha magic” she believes in things like card reading, fortune telling and is quite faithful to the saints (regardless of being grisha or not)

connections

someone who sees through her (shit) facade and unlike everyone else who perceives yeva as that sweet angel, they find her suspicious and doesn’t trust her.

a grisha who is the complete opposite of what yeva think they are and might as well be someone yeva tolerates and might add that 0.1% of character development 

listen an unrequited love bcs i’m laughing at the idea that someone might fall for her super fake persona and the more time they spend with her they start to realize that it is just an act.

someone who turns for advice to yeva bcs of her reputation

*sneakily puts my step sibling connection here so if u r intreested hmu ;) but i’ll also request it later but rn i’m too lazy*

HONESTLY EVERYTHING i love angsty and dramatic shit, but i’m super open for other ideas bcs my two braincells need that wonderful input and inspo so gimme all the connections PLS !!! *types this in thirsty for all ur wonderful muses*

[whatwashernameagain]

Keep him safe - Chapter 33

You can read the previous Chapters here: Ch 1, Ch 5, Ch 10, Ch 15, Ch 20, Ch 25, Ch 30, previous chapter, Ao3 Link, Lo’s, Pat’s and Virgil’s aesthetics, You are Magical, I’m dying to be with you, The Dreamer

Pairings: Logan/Patton, Roman/Virgil

Words: 12.491

Warnings: feeling everyone is against you, self-hate, cursing, mentioned addiction, mentioned past bullying

Summary: Detective Logan Sanders and his best friend and dorky partner Roman Prince have made a dear friend in the lovely pattisier Patton. Logan however, feels a lot more than friendship for the sweet man, even though he knows he cannot possibly have him. Their routine is broken abruptly when Logan finds bruises on Patton’s fair skin and slender wrists he could hardly have received from his costumary clumsiness.   Meanwhile his partner Roman has his own demon to fight, which comes in the form of a little delinquent who seemed to have been pulled into a street gang quite against his will. Roman is determined to help the strange young man. It would be so much easier though if he just stopped hissing at him!

Notes: Thanks so much to my betas @spootilious​ and @ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2​ for your continuous support and WELCOME TO ALL THE NEW PEOPLE WHO JOINED THE DISCORS SERVER! I am so happy you are all here! Anyone can join: Invitation:https://discord.gg/Y2WNAND

Also I thought I’d get out my stuffy Ko-fi page again since the story is two years old now and eating up huge portions of my life, in case anyone wants to support me. Reblogs and comments are just as welcome, though ;)

Chapter 33

Knowing how awkward Logan had been the first few days of waking up after a sleepover, and fearing an even worse reaction with Patton after falling asleep tangeld around each other, Roman cautiously chose to peek into the silent room the next morning. He was a valiant hero, after all. He would save his partner. 

Upon finding them still asleep - and fully dressed - Roman stormed the room and cheerfully forced himself between them, asking for kisses and breakfast and knowing full well there would have been an awful lot of stuttering and apologizing on both sides without his glittering presence. He grinned smugly as Patton sleepily giggled and snuggled into his arms.

Upon entering the kitchen, Virgil softly asked Patton if he was okay, as he had every morning now that the baker thought about it. Logan on the other hand flushed and tiptoed around him until Patton cornered him. 

“I’m sorry for making you worry.” He apologized once they had a moment to themselves and were able to settle down with some tea and cocoa, respectively, on the couch. Knowing Logan needed to have things explained carefully, he tried to put his stupid emotions into words that would cause as little harm as possible. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong at all, it’s all me! I just got so used to having things go bad every once in a while, when I do something dumb, that I started to expect it. I sometimes – I don’t know - I keep seeing bad things that aren’t there. It’s silly. I’m sorry.” Patton rambled, curling around his warm mug. 

“Your responses are far from silly, Patton. Please do not belittle yourself for your emotions.” Logan responded gently. His voice was deep and warm. He gazed at Patton’s pale, small hands quietly, at the light falling onto his silky curls, at his smooth, lovely face. His chest felt full with longing. The patissier was radiant in the sunlight bathing him, making him look bright and innocent and so brave. Logan could hardly breathe with how much he felt, suddenly. With how much he wanted Patton’s happiness. The urge to make things right was like an entity on its own, pushing at his ribcage, urging him to speak. He selected his words carefully. 

“Something must have caused your worries. It would calm me greatly to understand which behaviors have caused you to respond the way you did so I may prevent them in the future. I truly wish to make you feel safe in this flat. Please support me in my endeavor to understand.”

Patton couldn’t help but feel stupid and guilty as he was confronted with such honest, unjudging support. He swallowed hard. The difference between the image he had made up and the man begging him to be allowed to take care of him couldn’t be more obvious. Logan’s dark eyes were so warm when he looked at him. He wasn’t smiling or complimenting him, or telling him how great he was and promising him gifts and such, but Patton still felt like he mattered more than he ever had. Logan’s attention was entirely focused on him, his tall form angled towards Patton, as if he were everything he cared about. 

He wanted to apologize again and tell the detective that it was all his fault, that he shouldn’t worry. He also knew that Logan had developed a talent for seeing through his excuses. He wouldn’t be satisfied until Patton had told him how to help. 

“It really isn’t your fault, Logan. Please believe me! It’s all in my confused head, you can’t help it when I make things up. And it’s not just you anyway, which shows how much silliness I’m coming up with - you really can’t trust my little head.”

“I do not understand. Did somebody else make you uncomfortable?” Logan asked, straightening in alarm. Patton felt like he had been shoved in the chest. It took him a moment to realize that the fact that Logan had automatically assumed he alone was to blame had hurt. Why was it that they wanted to care for each other so badly and still kept rubbing each other the wrong way? Patton just wanted - he just wanted to give Logan so much. He wanted to touch him in ways that made him smile, not doubt himself.

“Well, it really is all me, when If I’m being really honest!” Patton hastened to remind him. “But I guess it’s really – whenever someone fights or makes loud noises or – or argues about something and gets angry – and that’s okay of course! It’s all my fault and you are not doing anything wrong, it’s all in my head! But- that just, it just makes me an itty bit anxious, you know? I mean- you probably don’t, being a strong detective and all. I just worry that you guys might get in a fight or that I did something wrong. I do that plenty after all. But like I said, it’s all me being oversensitive, you should just laugh about it and go on with your day. I’m sorry for being a bother!” 

Logan grew very silent after Patton’s explanation. Sightlessly staring at the tea in his hands, he tried to categorize the exchanges of the last weeks in the apartment. He had thought that they were all happy here. There hadn’t been any fights, any dramatic outbreaks or terrible mistakes he needed to fix. Virgil had grown so confident and Roman was happy. The pets were healthy and he had thought… he had thought Patton had everything he wanted. What arguments had upset the gentle man? Roman and him had been getting along as well as always. Virgil hadn’t had any visible adverse reactions to his therapy that he could think of either and he was clearly growing closer to Roman. 

Had he been angry? Had he fought with one of them and hadn’t seen the effect it had on Patton? He just couldn’t understand what his friend was referring to for a long moment. Everything had been going so smoothly between him and the others. What could he have been doing that would be considered aggressive by a victim of abuse, such as the pâtissier?

It dawned to him quite abruptly. He’d been angry indeed. Just this morning he had grabbed Roman and growled at him for being dramatic and causing them stress over his gloves. His irritating partner had been howling about it too. Loudly. He had hardly noticed the sheer amount of noise he was making anymore; or the fact that he, himself, was apparently constantly frustrated with him. He didn’t mean it, after all. 

The realization that Logan was indeed annoyed at one thing or another all the time came as a shock to him. He had been so content. He hadn’t noticed…

It was so natural for him to complain and lecture others, especially Roman, who liked to have his attention. It was part of their dynamic. He liked to grumble and his partner liked to wail and whimper and demand he be treated with admiration and given the pity his various plights deserved. They bickered like siblings because this was what had gotten them close to each other in the beginning of their friendship, when they hadn’t felt comfortable enough to ask for friendly cuddles. It was their way. He showed his affection in this manner. Whenever he grabbed Roman, his friend would lean into him or playfully wiggle about, letting him carry his weight. When he wanted to initiate contact, he woefully sighed or whimpered and draped himself over Logan. They shoved and bickered and roughhoused with each other to show their mutual affection and wish for contact. 

Had Patton seen something he had missed? What if he had misinterpreted their interactions all those years? Was Logan actually insulting Roman? Was he unhappy as well? Was he secretly resenting him?

What about Virgil? He’d been so hurt and disappointed by the men he’d trusted. Did he feel threatened? 

Logan felt like a sudden weight pressed on his chest. It hurt so badly he flinched from the sudden rush of agony. He drew a sharp breath, trying to control his twisting features. He was suddenly afraid he would start to cry and be absolutely helpless to stop it. Biting the inside of his cheek hard, he barely managed to place the tea on the table. His hands were shaking. He had to compose himself. Losing control and falling apart in front of Patton would be too much to bear. 

His thoughts kept circling, defying his attempts to force them into order. What had he done? He couldn’t think clearly. His breath hitched. He felt like everyone was looking at him. Like they were talking about him, wishing he was gone. Like they used to in school, like the other children used to, wherever he went. He had thought they had been getting along. He had thought they had liked him – he’d tried so hard to always help with their exercises and tell them about the things he cared about, he had thought that they wanted to hear-  but he’d misread the situation. He just couldn’t understand them. The shock of learning he had been hated by the other students in his class without even knowing, it had felt nothing like the possibility of having forced his family to live with a man that hurt them. 

His mind was racing, churning up more and more scenarios that horrified him. There were so many reasons why they could feel forced to stay with him, to pretend they liked the man that was actually making them miserable. Virgil had nowhere to go. He would have to accept any situation that kept him out of harm’s way or out of prison, and Logan had been the key to his freedom. Roman needed someone to look after him, being all alone in the world without a steady presence, who else would he have turned to, but the man who’d bullied him into living with him? Patton had been pulled out of the steady relationship that had been his life and was now essentially homeless, helpless to go anywhere else, for fear of the man that might be waiting for him, not even able to rent his own place since his finances were still entangled with that man’s. Was it like the last time, where he had been the one that alienated everyone, the one who didn’t understand when he hurt feelings, the one everyone talked about behind his back? Was he suddenly going to be alone again? Before Roman, he had eventually given up. He had isolated himself to protect himself from this feeling, certain he couldn’t bear it a second time. And he had been right. His chest felt like something was breaking. 

He stumbled as he rose, barely seeing what was in front of him through his blurred vision. He couldn’t be looked at anymore. Every look felt like an assault. He needed to hide. 

“I’m sorry. Please- please excuse me. I am so sorry.” He stuttered, shakily wiping his eyes and nearly losing his glasses. He hit his shin on the edge of the coffee table but kept going, feeling his face heat with shame. 

“Logan, wait please! What’s wrong? I’m sorry I upset you, please-” Patton pleaded. He was frightened. Logan had scared him and now he was trying to placate him so he wouldn’t hurt him again- 

This was too much. 

Logan stumbled into the corridor, feeling panic well up in him. There were footsteps behind him, following him. He barely made it to the bedroom and slammed the door behind him too loudly. He hadn’t meant to do that! Every sound he made was too loud, he was doing everything wrong and he hadn’t even noticed. 

He hardly managed to turn the key with his shaking hands, needing the little bit of security it afforded him like the air he breathed. Tears were streaming down his face now. He couldn’t stop remembering Patton’s fear when he had reached out to him in his flat, broken and bleeding. What had he put him through after he’d thought he had rescued him? He’d thought he had finally learned to understand, but everything he believed was wrong again. 

He sank down against the door, covering his ears with his hands so hard the way he squished his glasses against his skull hurt, rocking back and forth in his curled-up position. It was too much. Everything felt overwhelming to him!

There were voices on the other side of the door, loud and rushed. 

 “The fuck happened, man?” Virgil growled. Stress was making his voice rougher than intended. He had seen Logan flee from the room, completely out of it and couldn’t help the tide of protective anger. 

Patton flinched, backing away from the door. His eyes were bright. 

“I- I don’t know! I messed up, I think. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry, Virgil!” He cried, hugging himself and looking smaller than he had in weeks. 

Fuck. 

Virgil took a deep, calming breath and told himself not to be an asshole for once. 

“It’s okay, Pat. I’m sorry I yelled. I’m, like, really fucking anxious right now, but I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong. It happens. I’m not mad at you, man. Please, just- Roman, deal with this?” He asked, knowing when he reached his limit with emotional bullshit. His worry for Logan was already too much and seeing Patton hurt was frankly agonizing. It was more than he could bear. Roman would stay calm and be big and gentle and reassuring no matter what was wrong. He was amazing like that – nothing like Logan and him, who were, if he were quite honest, a mess when if came to vulnerable, emotional shit.

“Hey, it’s all good dearest Patton.” Roman crooned at the frazzled baker softly, reaching out to him with hands that were so tender. “Why don’t you come with me and we’ll hug it out? Our brilliant Virgil will fix everything and we fabulous darlings will get ourselves some well-deserved cuddles. Sounds good?” 

Patton didn’t really get a chance to worry about making a decision since the detective was already bundling him up in the warmest embrace, tugging his little body against his bigger one. Roman allowed them a moment to rub his cheek against soft curls and hum a soothing melody. 

Having moved them both back to the couch, he made sure to pull the smaller body between his legs and wrap him all up in his embrace. Keeping up a calming chatter, he rubbed his hands over the slender back and through his hair, hoping to slow his frightened little heart. 

“I’ve got you, sweetest Patton. No one is angry at you. All will be well, I promise. We love you. Take a deep breath for me, okay? Logan will be just fine. We’ll always fix everything together and no one will be hurt or mad. We’re a family, we’ll get over the drama and have cocoa. That’s it.”

His voice was deeper and softer than usual, lacking all of the shrill, loud notes that had recently made Patton’s nerves flutter fearfully. He sounded certain and loving. Squeezing his eyes shut, he listened to his tender words. 

 Virgil pressed his ear against the wood, trying to determine what to do. He couldn’t hear Logan at all and he didn’t want to upset him even more by demanding anything. Should he call Remy and make him talk to the detective? His phone was out here though, and he’d need to get him to open the door first. 

Pushing the emotional mess onto someone else sounded so tempting, but he knew Logan would be ashamed to talk to his old friend like that. Also, he had an idea about what had happened. Patton had grown frightened of- everything, really. He was starting to put it together properly only now that he had seen just how afraid he’d just looked. He guessed the same insecurity he had gone through himself had to be expected. But of course, it would be different for Patton. Virgil had thought Logan was the right one to fix it because- because he had fixed everything for him. He trusted the man so much because he gave him so much more stability and safety than he had ever experienced before. His touch always felt safe to Virgil and he always trusted him to listen and understand, because the way their minds worked was so similar in a way.

He was a fucking idiot. 

Logan was acting like a father to him, platonically loving him and protecting him. His touch was safe. Virgil’s expectations towards him were safe. But to Patton, he was something else. Patton had been abused by the man he’d loved, so the relapse would of course make him project onto Logan most because he was closest to a romantic partner. The baker liked him. Their cuddles, despite how innocent and well intended, were never as platonic as Virgil’s and Logan’s. Of course he would think that if anyone was going to grow abusive as he clearly expected, it would be the man he unconsciously saw as a potential lover. If he kept projecting the fear that asshat had instilled in him onto Logan, they were in for quite a ride. 

Virgil sighed. He should have seen this coming. He was such a fucking idiotic idiot. 

If Patton had told Logan he was scared of him, Logan would overthink for sure – because he was also an idiot. He was probably in there thinking everyone was afraid of him and feeling like he had run over a baby bird or some shit. Someone with a pathological need to help would of course spiral right into self-hate. Hello, old friend. 

Well, Virgil was nothing if not a manipulative bitch. 

“Logan?” He called softly, knocking on the door far more quietly than he wanted to. 

“Logan, you’re scaring me. Please let me in! I’m worried you’ll hurt yourself, I can’t lose you too. Please let me in!” He begged, making his voice high and frightened and feeling absolutely no remorse whatsoever for once. 

The door was fumbled open as soon as his apparently fearful words had left his lips. The fucking sap. 

Logan was disheveled and looked like he’d tried to wipe his tears off to hide them. He looked heartbroken and painfully shy. And he’d still opened the door because of Virgil’s pleading. 

Fuck him, Virgil loved him so much.

He gave the startled, wide eyed man a hard push in the chest, angry at being forced to feel so much. How dare he think Virgil didn’t love him?!

“You’re such a- a fucking-” 

He lunged at him and buried his face in the conservative sweater, squeezing so hard Logan wheezed for breath. 

“You’re such a moron, man! Now hug me!” He demanded, holding on for dear life. Clearly utterly confused, Logan obeyed unsteadily. 

“You clueless idiot.” Virgil growled into the cable-knit, hating how wet his voice sounded. Why was there always so much fucking drama in this flat?! 

“Shake all those stupid thoughts out of your head and listen to me, okay? You don’t get to be a paranoid piece of shit, that’s my job!” 

Logan drew a breath to complain and Virgil just knew he would try to tell him that he very much was not an idiot and that Virgil was not allowed to insult himself. Well, Virgil wasn’t going to let him turn this around onto him. However, he wished he was better at this. He wished he could just drop this emotional mess into Remy’s lap and hide under the covers where he could come to terms with how uncomfortably much he cared for Logan. He squeezed him tighter – effectively cutting him off before he could speak – pressing himself as close as he possibly could. There were no words for the things he felt. Patton and Roman probably had some; plenty, in fact. He didn’t, and neither did Logan. But his hands were uncertainly brushing over his back and Virgil liked that helpless, platonic affection very, very much. 

“You absolute dimwit! Don’t ever think we don’t – that we don’t – we want to be here with you, okay? I trust you and I never trust anyone, cause I’m not a moron who adopts people, but I trust you so fucking much and I’ve had to make too many fucking confessions lately; so can you please just believe that we are your family and that Roman wants to be your fucking puppy; and Patton is messed up beyond belief but he’s fricking enamored with you; and that I’d really like to end this conversation right now, alright?? Don’t make me say anything else or I’ll knock myself out on that dresser!”

Unsurprisingly, Logan was at a loss for words. Not that he could have said much, considering how tightly Virgil was currently squeezing his ribcage. His little delinquent’s hug really was quite aggressive. 

He didn’t feel frightened either. His face – as much as Logan could see of it – was bright red. The poor thing was clearly embarrassed and tired of baring his feelings this way. Logan couldn’t shake his insecurity, though. He could feel obligated to calm him, after all. Virgil was so dependent on him. Feeling lost and just wishing he could bury his face in the once again tangled, purple hair he liked to groom, Logan tried to make his embrace as safe and comfortable as possible to his little charge. How he wanted to protect him from the world. The frame under his hands was still so thin and slender. He didn’t know how to articulate the rush of warmth he felt. He wanted to ask more questions, desperate to be reassured the things he wished for so dearly were true, but he felt Virgil’s tiredness, and he shared it. Trying to understand the way people talked - silent and illogical just with their bodies and gestures and the insinuations he failed to understand – it was still confusing to him sometimes, and when he thought he had gotten something wrong, he tended to overanalyze every interaction he had had with that person until he didn’t trust himself anymore. He was just tired. 

Embarrassed and stressed out of his mind, Virgil hid his face in their embrace and wished he could just crawl under the heavy, dark covers of his bed right now - the bed Logan had given him with all the books and space for his things and that citrus geranium that endlessly frustrated him with its wilting leaves. Pitying the poor, nerdy fool for his useless attempts, Virgil had started programming a sensor to monitor the plant’s humidity and sunlight intake for Logan. He had grown worried about the amount of annoyance that one dying plant caused the detective, okay? He didn’t want the dude paying his metaphorical rent to have a fucking stroke, that was all. And maybe he just wanted him to be happy. He had thought it might be something they could do together, though he hadn’t dared approach him about it yet. He didn’t want to annoy Logan with his nerdy ideas, and he hadn’t done something like this in so long. If his fucked-up mind made him mess this up he could never live it down. However, Remy’s voice telling him to quit being a drama queen and like, gush with the other massive nerd about his nerdy projects was clear in his memory. He didn’t want to talk feelings anymore. He wanted to huddle together with Logan and just fucking lose himself in something that made sense. Was it too much to ask to just be together? He thought that perhaps, it actually wasn’t. 

Making a decision, Virgil suddenly used his wiry muscles to push his body against Logan’s, toppling them onto the bed. He wasn’t going to talk this out. No sir, not this time. They both needed a fucking break. 

Logan huffed in surprise, especially since he was unexpectedly being pushed around by sharp elbows and bony shins until he had been shuffled into a position where Virgil could comfortably tuck himself under his arm and lay his head on his shoulder. Wrestling his phone out of his hoodie’s pocket, the younger man pulled up a still blank looking app that showed little else but two buttons on a white screen. 

“Wanna show you something.” Virgil muttered half into his wool sweater before launching into an explanation about the app he was programming. Logan was instantly intrigued. Wrapping his arm around his little one, he pulled Virgil close to navigate the still almost empty display with him, getting lost in the fluttering, enthusiastic feeling a fascinating project gave him. Virgil’s app could monitor the factors influencing growth and compare them to different locations in the flat or different amounts of moisture in the soil. Perhaps this way he could finally attempt to grow a lemon tree once again. He’d failed three times before giving up. The Failure still irked him.  

Before long, both men had comfortably cuddled together, discussing the advantages of a stainless-steel sensor as opposed to the inferior plastic ones other projects were using. Virgil was warm and small in his arm. His muscles were loose and he made sure to push and shove at Logan when he wanted to curl up more or wanted a certain space. Everything about him spoke of trust. 

Though Logan attempted to keep his touch respectful, being acutely aware of the fears that could awaken in his little charge, Virgil gave him no signals of discomfort. His heart beat steadily where his chest was pressed against Logan’s side and his breathing was even and calm. He sounded pleased when Logan complimented his ideas. Undoubtedly, Roman would be able to tell him if he really as relaxed as the factors he was monitoring were suggesting. He could see it all from nothing but a look. 

Roman never failed to tell him when he had messed up or needed to back off. Didn’t that speak of confidence? They had some difficult conversations about his actions in the past and his partner had always trusted him to tell him the truth. Certainly, he had told him plenty of times that he was limiting Roman’s heroic brilliance or ruining his entrance and such, but he had never complained about feeling hurt by Logan. Wouldn’t he at least have told him? But what about Patton? He had always suffered in silence rather than asking for help – or to stop. 

Logan gasped as bony fingers stabbed him in the side. 

“You’re thinking too loudly, dude.” Virgil complained, feeling ignored. He shouldn’t be surprised Logan needed things spelled out for him. He was Logan after all. 

Sighing as if he was forced to do something terrible by disentangling out of the embrace that had been warm and really fucking nice, he rose without much enthusiasm and yanked on Logan’s arm. 

“C’mon, you poor sod. Let Roman tell you how much he loves you. He might want to lick your face.”

“There will be no need for any of that.” The detective grumbled, reluctantly letting the smaller man pull him along. He didn’t know if he would be brave enough to face Patton without the aggressive interference. His face grew hot at the memory of the way he had fallen apart in front of him. He felt quite humiliated by his reaction. Patton had trusted him with his fears and he had made it all about himself and had made a fool of himself. Without the control he protected himself with he felt vulnerable. Naked even, as if his defenses had been torn away. This wasn’t how he’d wanted to be seen. 

Feeling his friend’s feet drag with shame, Virgil wrapped an arm around Logan’s middle and offered him strength through their silent contact. He still did not want to talk about feelings, it was exhausting, but he could always lend the support of his body. He was learning to use it in different ways, lately. 

Patton and Roman both sat up straight as they entered the living-room. From the way Logan hung his head in the futile attempt to hide his blush, it was clear to Roman what his friend needed now. It was his favorite partner’s love! 

Giving Patton an encouraging pat on the shoulder on the way, the young detective wasted no time wrapping Logan (and Virgil – who was conveniently wrapped in Logan’s arm, sue him) into his embrace. His little wildcat gave an irritated little growl but since he was largely ignored in favor of pecking annoying kisses all over his partner’s face, he let the cuddling slide. After all, they both smelled good and were comfy and shit. 

Logan turned his heated face away into Virgil’s hair, grumbling incoherently. He was too hot under the sweater and starting to get the feeling he needn’t have worried about Roman and Virgil after all. The little barista was comfortably leaning against him, letting him take his weight, and his partner was – he was reasonably certain – trying to annoy him in order to lighten the mood. He had overreacted once again. They must think him a dramatic child. He felt very, very inadequate. 

Perceptive as always, Roman angled them so his friend could hide his burning cheeks from sight. The poor man was probably mortified at showing emotions in front of the people who regularly suffered emotional accidents around him. 

“All is well now, my adoring fans. Prince Roman, beloved hero and winner of the Medal of Valor is here!” He cooed, hoping to get a rise out of them and lighten the mood. Virgil snorted. He made sure to push himself close to Logan and allow him to feel the way he was holding on to his sweater for support. 

Virgil would have liked to stay in this position longer and allow Roman to take the weight of the attention onto his broad shoulders, but Patton was still cowering at the edge of the sofa, wide eyed and anxious. His shoulders seemed very small. Though he was entirely silent, his small hands were nervously fidgeting with his long sleeves. He looked lost. 

The barista ached with pain for his friend. He had put himself through years of abuse to shield his piece of shit boyfriend and had blamed himself for his issues whenever he was suffering of whatever bullshit he got himself into. Patton was all about saving people. Having hurt someone he loved must be the worst kind of torture for him. Add to that the fear of retribution and he must be in one hell of a mess. And of course Virgil had attacked him after Logan’s little breakdown. Of course he had. 

Though he was torn about forcing Logan to face his fear of having frightened the baker, Virgil gently tried to free himself from the tangled embrace, which wasn’t easy since he was squished in the middle. 

Being especially weary about restricting his youngest guest, Logan immediately released the shorter man from under his arm, pulling his limbs close to his chest. Roman pounced and pulled his partner in again, humming to him lovingly. He would be patient to take this one step at the time. 

Virgil was feeling less than patient, to be quite honest. Why did they keep stepping into piles of emotional shit when all they wanted was to live quietly with each other and sometimes ogle Roman’s ass? (that might just be him, though) He just wanted Logan and Patton and Roman - the fucking, special dork - to be allowed to be fine. Was that too much to ask?!

Of course, despite Virgil wanting nothing but to protect his friend, Patton saw the frustration written clearly all over the slim features of the moody young man. His breath hitched. 

Aw shit. 

Virgil may be emotionally stunted to the point of still kind of hating Remy for making him want to talk to him, but he wasn’t blind. Especially to Patton. It was easy to see why he was ending up in those emotion-shitpiles. He kept aiming for them and jumped right in. He’d thought Patton would focus on Logan because – well, he still remembered being scared out of his mind as he had sat at his desk, cuffed and desperate and Logan had been furious about the pain of his partner. It had made sense, too. Logan was the responsible adult in the flat and Pat was used to the men responsible for him to turn on him, but it wasn’t just him. Virgil was doing it too, and more often than he had noticed initially. 

Making sure to appear nonthreatening – which normally wasn’t hard, considering how hunched and slim he still was, he pulled his sleeves over his hands and looked at Patton through his purple bangs. The baker swallowed visibly and attempted to smile at him, uncertainly. 

“Look, Pat, can we talk? It’s all good though. I wanna apologize. You’re not in trouble. ‘s fine.” He mumbled, looking down at his shoes. Swallowing hurt, suddenly. His throat felt tight. 

Patton didn’t speak. He was very pale.

‘You can do this.’ Virgil reminded himself as old, familiar pain rose in him upon being surrounded by suffering loved ones. ‘You took care of your mom and you’ll take care of him now. You can fix this. Just start somewhere.’ 

“Um, I – I think I messed up, I guess. ‘m sorry, man. I was really out of line before and I think I kinda scared you just now. Can we, um – can we talk about that? Please?”

Apparently finding the courage to speak in the face of Virgil’s scratchy voice, Patton finally responded with forced cheer in his voice. 

“Don’t you worry, kiddo! It’s all fine! There’s nothing to worry about. I get a little messy sometimes but that’s all my fault. You all don’t need to take it on your shoulders, please don’t do that! I’m really sorry for upsetting you all! This whole thing is my fault – please, just ignore me and don’t let silly little me worry you! I’m really sorry.” He rambled, glancing at Logan still squished in Roman’s embrace. He bit his lip, his eyes suspiciously bright, before he smiled at Virgil once again. Seeing Logan hide in his partner’s arms, clearly feeling too ashamed to face them, appeared to unbalance him. 

Yes, Virgil got that. Logan was supposed to be strong and seeing him insecure hurt in all kinds of ways that resonated deep in Virgil, pulling sharply at old wounds. Seeing the person you relied on weak and helpless cut you as if you were a child losing the protection of a parent. It never stopped hurting. Roman had situation that figured out, though. He joked quietly with his partner and finally simply pulled them both to the ground like a playful child, ignoring the complaints, and settled them against the bookshelves covering the first part of the living-room. Nicodemus had clambered onto the lowest shelf and wanted attention. With a little hop, he jumped onto his human’s shoulder, quieting his annoyance. 

Hidden half behind the couch and visually separated from the others by the wooden beams loosely enclosing the little library, Roman finally managed to give his friend a bit of security by offering the safety of his large body to lean against. They were still close enough to be there for the others and later reassure Logan, but for now he had a moment to compose himself again. 

That worked fine for Virgil. He didn’t know how he would have been expected to ignore the terrible fear for his protector, had Roman not calmly and sweetly taken over soothing him. Come to think of it, maybe the dork had the right idea with the cuddly, comfy shit. 

“Um, hey… how about we sit and figure it out together, okay?” He offered tentatively. The kitten and Cat were on the couch as well, unravelling a ball of string and in Cat’s case trying to bite it into submission for tangling around her little hand-paws. 

Patton nodded obediently, quickly rushing to clean up a place for them by tidying away Roman’s drawings and his knitting needles. Whatever progress he seemed to have made with Logan yesterday seemed to have crumbled in the face of actually making their most reliable protector crumble from his words. Virgil knew those moments where no amount of rationality could cut through the pain of having failed the person you love. Even if you had given up your education, your dreams, your time and health and safety, every failure replayed in your mind, pressing you down with guilt. 

Virgil tried to swallow his memories through the heaviness in his chest. He ran a suddenly shaking hand over his face. He had relied on Logan and Patton so much to give him strength and structure and confidence and now one of them was still silently cowering on the floor, uncharacteristically small and fearful of the confrontation with Patton and still flushed hot with shame, and the other looked at him like he expected him to shout. His Patton. It was a position he had never expected to be in, anymore. One of the reasons he had left the Scorpions was because he couldn’t forget the pale, frightened face of the slight baker and now they were back, full circle, knee deep in a pile of emotional shit. 

“Hey, no no no, c’mere, kiddo.” Patton cooed suddenly. His hands were still warm while Virgil’s had grown weak and cold. He pulled Virgil on the couch with him and without hesitation, into his arms. His little body folded against the barista like a cat’s, flexible and trusting. Running his fingers through the purple mess, Patton rocked him slightly. 

“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’m so sorry for scaring you, Kiddo. I just get like that sometimes. I know I shouldn’t and it’s stupid, so you can just ignore it and it’ll go away. There’s no reason to feel bad at all - you are doing wonderfully. Please don’t think about it. I love you so very much.” He promised, his voice tender and honey sweet. He nuzzled their faces together and curled them up comfortably, making Virgil feel so so small. Like a child in his mother’s arms. Taking a shuddering breath, he held on. 

“That’s okay, Pat. I get like that, too. Just… different. I um – Remy says I get aggressive instead, and try to – to push people away and expect the worst of them – cause… cause of the – because after my mom… when she got – she got sick I…”

“You don’t have to tell me.” Patton mercifully whispered against his hair, impossibly loving. Virgil hadn’t even realized how irregular his breathing had become. He had almost told him about- his heart hammered in his chest with a sudden rush of terror. What the fuck had possessed him?! 

After counting his breathing to get his shit together, Virgil tried again to make his point. 

“Pat, I’m trying to- to tell you that I get it. I totally do. You go through all that shit and it fucks you up – sorry, I’m sorry – it messes you up and you expect to see sh-stuff around every corner and – and that’s fine! Remy says it’s normal and if we talk about it with – with them, they’ll get it. We’ve got triggers, man, and that’s okay. We triggered Logan a little bit and that happens, too. Now we know, right? I’ve got triggers and you’ve got them too, and we walked right in cause we’re all morons cause we don’t talk – cause it’s f-ing horrible. But – can we talk about it? Please?”

“Oh, of course. I’d like to know what makes you and… and Logan anxious. I didn’t want to hurt him.” Patton mumble quietly, very aware that the detective was still in the same room and they hadn’t cleared up the situation yet. His heart raced with anxiety over his reaction. 

A little grunt signaled Roman wordlessly telling Logan his moment had arrived. With his elbow. 

The detectives slunk around the couch and gently folded themselves on the free space on the couch, Roman shamelessly curling close to his partner and laying his arm over the armrest against Logan’s shoulders. Though he didn’t seem quite able to look Patton in the eye yet, Logan hesitantly spoke up.

“I believe a substantial amount of anxiety could have been prevented on every side had our communication been more efficient. I would like to discuss the situation in a nonjudgmental setting. Would you be willing to talk to us, Patton?” 

The baker fidgeted with Virgil’s hoodie nervously, shrinking a little under all the attention. The younger man in his arm gave him comfort, though. 

“Of course! I’ll do anything to make it okay. I’m really sorry I did this.” He promised softly. 

Logan took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling with it. Patton feared he was trying to hold back his anger. They were all here and stressed because of him. He had thought they had figured it out together yesterday but this time, he really was the one who had messed up. Never, in a million years, had he expected Logan to fall apart like that because of something he had said. He was still shaken to the core by the detective’s sudden vulnerability. 

“Patton, may I ask you to stop apologizing?” Logan asked gently, finally looking at him through slightly reddened eyes. “There is no need to blame yourself. You have done nothing wrong. No one is upset with you. We merely wish to prevent further misunderstandings.”

“Oh.” Patton muttered, suddenly realizing just how much he’d been apologizing with a rush of shame. Trevor had told him how irritating his stupid repetitions were. 

“I’m sorry.” 

The words were out before he had any hope of composing himself. His breath caught in his throat, heat flooding his cheeks. He barely swallowed the urge to apologize for failing even at this simple request. Not knowing how to fix the situation, he fell silent, waiting for them to scoff at him. He had been doing so much better yesterday, why was he here again? Couldn’t he learn?

“It is alright, Patton.” Logan offered mercifully. 

“But… I hurt you. I didn’t mean to.” Patton added, somehow trying to convey how sorry he was. He couldn’t seem to forget the look on his friend’s gentle, handsome face. 

“I never believed you would harm me intentionally, Patton. You could not have known that your confession would cause me such anxiety. Addressing a topic that needs to be discussed is your right and I would like to encourage you to continue to bring such issues to my attention without fear. It lies in the nature of psychological triggers to cause severe reactions despite appearing insignificant to others. Perhaps, to improve your comprehension of the situation, I ought to explain that I was taken back to a memory from my childhood. Due to the fact that I am autistic, I read situations wrong quite frequently and thus unknowingly alienate my peers. I am afraid my failure to understand the discomfort you have felt in our home has forcefully reminded me of the possibility of a misinterpretation of the personal relationships in my life.” 

Patton stilled, trying to take Logan’s words in. There was so much that hit him right in the heart. Logan was autistic? He felt like a light had been turned on suddenly and was illuminating their interactions in an entirely different way. He wanted to ask a million questions! This actually made a lot of sense. His head was spinning with the revelation and the new understanding it brought. He could picture little Logan quite clearly now, trying to understand the things that were still difficult to him now, but must have been impossibly confusing back then. He must have been so hurt by the other children! Pain shot through his chest like a living, furious thing ripping at his organs. Little wide eyed, nerdy, vulnerable Logan appeared before his mind’s eye and it felt like a punch, like he was drowning in sorrow. Patton had put him through that again. He was such an idiot, how could he have missed it? Logan had doubted himself so badly and he knew how much that hurt. Patton should have known sooner, Logan had obviously struggled with reading a room, but he had blinded the baker with how skillfully he handled all of his messes with his deep, commanding voice and confident hands. It was just that sometimes he lost control and showed how hard everything must be for him. Though he badly wanted to apologize again, to tell him how sorry he was for causing all of that stress and anger, especially after Logan had comforted him, he wanted to reassure him even more.

“I’m – but – you know that I care about you, right? I was just being stupid. Please don’t think that I or anyone else doesn’t trust you or doesn’t love you so much! You are the best friend I’ve ever had. You protect me and help me and I really – it’s really all my fault, you did nothing wrong! You are the smartest, kindest, most great and amazing man I’ve ever met! Ever! You’re a savior – my savior. Please believe me, everyone here loves you so much!” Patton exclaimed, helplessly grabbing Logan’s hand in his attempt to make him see. There was so much he felt for his friend, his heart was so full, it would burst if he felt more for Logan. He could barely handle himself from how much he wanted. He had never, ever wanted someone to know he was loved as much as him. 

The detective startled as his hand was clutched, gently returning the hold. His smile was bittersweet. 

“Thank you, Patton. Your kindness is appreciated. Perhaps I ought to have told you two sooner. It is possible that I still, subconsciously, attempt to pass for a neurotypical person. A foolish attempt, certainly. I will try to be more honest with you from now on.” 

“You’re not that bad, man.” Virgil mumbled bashfully, awkwardly trying to break the silence that had fallen over them as they processed the detective’s words. They clever young man was clearly unsurprised by Logan’s confession. Roman smiled at him for his contribution, silently comforting his partner. 

“I am… relieved to learn our relationship is not damaged beyond repair. And I would like to remind you once again that you do not need to apologize or take the blame for my issues. They are quite beyond your control.”

“What my bumbling, brilliant best bud is trying to say-” Roman chimed in, giving his friend a break, “is that we all have our little issues. They give us character and that is charming! They are part of our exciting origin stories! Even I, fearless Detective Roman Prince, owner of the Medal of Valor, have my own demons to vanquish.” He boasted, raising his free arm dramatically to pose. Suddenly feeling the supportive, undivided attention of his friends rest heavily on him (even the pest sniffed at his nose), he grew a little more quiet. Talking about his triggers was not fun, even for one as marvelously brave and exceptionally well adjusted as Roman. However, if he wanted his lovely dorks to finally open up, someone needed to make the start. 

“I… you know my sister died from an overdose, right?” 

Patton gasped. 

Or maybe not. Oops.

“Oh my god, I am so so sorry for springing that on you, fair Patton! But all is well, please don’t fret. I shall tell you about it all another time if you like. You truly mustn’t worry about me.”

Patton nodded bravely, clutching onto Logan’s hand hard and holding Virgil so tightly he wheezed a little bit. Roman worried for his ribs. Yet knowing this conversation must be had in order to coax Patton – and perhaps even his stormy night –  to open up, he marched on.

“So, because of my sister, I don’t handle drug abuse and such issues as glamorously as I usually do. And… because of… reasons…” Roman trailed off lamely, not trusting Patton’s bright eyes enough to also tell him about his neglectful childhood. Forcefully cheerful, he continued, “Yes, so sometimes when people ignore me intentionally or not or things get too silent around me and no one pays attention to me I feel really sad and lonely, like no one will ever love me again.” 

Smiling brightly, Roman was met with deafening silence. 

From the other side of their group, Patton lunged at him and yanked him into his arms, squishing Logan and Virgil between them with strength born from pure protectiveness. He appeared emotional beyond words. 

Roman floundered a little, unbalanced by the awkward hug. It wasn’t so bad, though. Patton had somehow managed to climb half into Logan’s lap in order to get his arm around Roman, conveniently allowing the detective to hide his still flushed face in the baker’s neck and cushioning him between Patton and his rat. Poor Virgil had simply been dragged along – which he would have never allowed anyone else to do. To prevent him from tumbling off the couch, Logan had wrapped a quick, steadying arm around him, drawing his skinny body close. Virgil pawed and shifted against them a little, growling and grumbling, before sagging between them with a defeated sigh. The fuck was he supposed to do?! Tell Patton to release the suddenly iron tight grip on his hoodie? He didn’t think so. 

“Uh, are you alright, dearest Patton?” Roman inquired tentatively. The baker nodded, obsessively nuzzling the young detective’s face with his own like a bespectacled cat. It was hard not to feel soft and faint when he was loved so obviously. Carefully, he brought his arms up to wrap around Patton – and Logan as a consequence, and Virgil on the other side, safely pulling him against his large body, lending stability to their embrace. The barista folded his slender limbs just right to fit between Logan and Patton pleasantly, just where they needed him for their comfort. 

“It’s all good, lovely Patton.” Roman rumbled softly, filling the space between them with his deep, smooth voice. “We all fight our dark little demons that cling to our hearts, trying to tell us how small und unwanted we are. They are quite wrong, though, and sometimes we need someone to show us that.”

Remembering the path that brought him to confidently bump shoulders with Logan or push his head against his side for cuddles when they were working too quietly made his insides swell with emotion. It was a path both Patton and Virgil were walking right now; one they could join Logan and him on. 

“Life is like a dance, my dear.” Roman murmured into curly brown locks. “Even when you found the right partner, learning the rhythm and the steps has to be done together, whether it’s a passionate tango where you twirl and dip your partner or a comfortable waltz where you quietly hold each other close. Even Logan and I had to find the right way to twist and twirl around each other. And we stepped onto each other’s feet plenty.”

Logan huffed softly, remembering the tense beginning of their partnership all too well and not missing it in the least. 

“We were blessed with quite differing tempers, Logan and I.” Roman elaborated lightly. “I wanted his attention badly and tried to mold myself to what I believed to be his wishes. Every failed attempt to gain his approval felt like a person failure and discouraged me greatly. At the same time, Logan wanted my glittering friendship but felt irritated since he lacked the competence to appreciate my performance!” 

Logan groaned, tentatively adjusting his hold on Virgil, staying very still otherwise, so as not to make Patton uncomfortable with their close proximity. 

“Our cooperation suffered from a server lack of communication, as it turned out.” He added to Roman’s explanation.

“True! I mistakenly believed my stiff partner to wish for a boringly rugged, brash colleague to brood with – like Bruce Willis and such heroic, bland heterosexuals. There really isn’t a lot of material to mold my performance after, let me tell you! A travesty! But alas, we solved that pesky issue and I got to be the blessing you know and love!” Roman boasted, jostling a grumpy Virgil with his constant need to move around to embellish his story. 

Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, the young detective shifted so he could gently capture Patton’s chin to make him look at him. He wanted him to understand how much he understood his continued insecurity. The baker shyly returned his gaze. 

“Having found our style doesn’t mean everything was suddenly easy, though. Friendship takes time, and practice.” He explained kindly. Releasing him again, he made sure to smile lovingly at the unbalanced little thing. 

“Logan tried to show – in his own way – that he accepted me. But we were still two different people with different needs. I was cared for. For a long time, however, I suffered days where I could not see it. Logan needs a professional routine and sometimes silence to be able to work and I… I don’t do well with silence. When we worked a case, I sometimes got lost in my head, thinking Logan ignored me or that I had done something wrong, and he was pushing me away on purpose. As a response, I tried to gain his attention and approval any way I could think of – alienating and irritating him in the process.”

“Oh RoRo, I’m so sorry!” Patton mumbled tearfully. 

“Oh no, Patton, love, it’s all good – all’s well that ends well, right? Logan might have been unsure of what to do with a colorful delight such as myself, but having learned how much I wanted our friendship, he was determined to be there for me.”

Logan, having tensed during the story about their frictions, relaxed very slightly. 

“Being the literal nerd that he is, he decided to do what worked last time and took me out for a drink. Cocoa, this time, since alcohol is vile and disgusting, seriously! And he asked me what I needed from him, which is charming, but also slightly lacking in presentation – a renewed declaration of platonic love and perhaps a bouquet would not have gone amiss- ow!”

Feeling Logan’s annoyance and knowing he was still too mortified to draw attention to himself, Virgil took pity on him and poked Roman on his older friend’s behalf. All of them cringed at Roman’s high-pitched wail. 

“Alright, alright!” The dramatic detective whined, trying to get back to the story. “So, my dearest, most beloved partner made an effort to adjust to my needs and we talked – dreadfully boring, I know. No grand declarations of friendship for me! However, we found ways to make me feel more welcome and cared about, which took a bit of experimenting, as you can imagine! Oh! I was sure Logan made a book about it with graphs and such but I never asked!”

The stubborn silence of the older detective spoke volumes. Roman grinned brightly. 

“See, lovely Patton, the result of our efforts! Before learning to understand each other I would have missed the romance of a journal dedicated to my wellbeing – which I wanna see, pronto! And I would not have gotten quiet cuddles during his silent phases to be reminded of his undying devotion to me, or have his bickering, which is his attempt to reach out and shower me with the attention I so deserve!” Roman cheerfully explained, his eyes shining. He loved remembering all the little ways Logan tried to make him feel loved. 

“A dance between two people can look all sorts of ways, you know?” He elaborated. “Ours includes little ways of supporting each other which might not even look that nice to the uninvited spectator. How is one to know that our bickering and roughhousing is a sigh of our epic bromance, grown through trial and tenacity?”

Quietly, Logan spoke up finally. 

“I am afraid Roman is giving me too much credit. He actually handled our relationship with much more skill and subtlety than I would have ever been capable of. I had long feared making him uncomfortable with my unapproachable ways and complaints and had few, ineffective ideas about how to rectify the situation.”

Curiously, Patton eased his death grip on Roman, wanting to give Logan all of his attention. Their desperate knot of limbs eased into a comfortable huddle, thanks to Roman and Patton adjusting their hold on their partner and kiddo. 

“You must certainly have noticed that I tend to come across as rather cold and intimidating, which I am aware of - mostly. Unfortunately, I did not yet know how to make myself more approachable. Additionally, I had offended more than one colleague with my inappropriate reactions and feared a repeat my mistakes with Roman. As a result, I attempted to limit my verbal interactions to the bare essentials, or – frequently failing to uphold this intention – talked too much and too clinically out of nervousness. Roman invested a considerable amount of care and effort into the improvement of our communication, which I am grateful for. He supported me by patiently explaining my failures and helping me improve, and even by taking control of situations that have threatened to emotionally overwhelm me.”

“Awww!!!” Roman gushed, grinning so brightly his eyes shone and his whole face lit up attractively. He was stupidly pretty and Virgil was not okay. 

“There is no need for applause, my beloved fans!” The young detective exclaimed, raising his manicured hands to calm imaginary masses. “That bouquet I never got will do just fine! And that journal about your attempts to friend-court me – I demand you hand that over!”

“There is no such thing as a ‘friend-courting’ journal.” Logan growled, shuffling about feeling uncomfortably bashful in their cuddle pile with Roman half draped over his back. He didn’t dislodge his partner’s chin when it came to rest on his shoulder, though. 

Patton watched their grumpy, yet somehow soft interaction though a now clear gaze. Logan looked annoyed and flustered and Roman was being a demanding diva, yet they were intertwined in friendly cuddles. The baker was still feeling a little tense whenever their deep, rumbling voices dropped low (or high, in Roman’s case), but there was no denying the tenderness filling their interactions. Ducking his head close to Virgil, he was reminded of how thoroughly he had messed everything up today. Their love had always been so obvious to him and now he could barely look at Logan without shame. 

Shifting uncomfortably under Patton’s arm, Virgil started fidgeting with a loose thread on the soft cardigan he was pressed against. 

“When I got here, I thought Logan and Roman would lock me in.” He muttered softly even as his face heated and his heart started hammering. Nausea was already making its way into his throat, yet he knew Patton needed to know he wasn’t alone in this. 

The pâtissier tensed, his breath catching with surprise. Startled, he looked up at the pained faces of the detectives looking down at the bowed, purple head. 

“They didn’t, f’course. I was just being stupid paranoid. Logan gave me a key and a room I could lock and Roman was – he was a good guy. They both were. They never asked for anything or pushed me or… I was making a lot of stuff up and kept making everyone nervous cause of it. Logan had to arrest me, you see, cause of the Scorpions. I wanted to leave and he didn’t know that yet, cause I’d botched it, and I’d hurt Roman and… I should’ve been in jail and I didn’t understand why I wasn’t. They even risked their lives to save me which I just didn’t get. So, you know – I made up reasons for their kindness for a long time and started looking for clues to support my ideas and I kept reading things Roman did wrong, and he knew. I was a screw up and kinda anxious and aggressive and Logan kept calming me and Roman kept miserably trying to not scare the screw up, which is nice, man. Thank you.” He muttered softly, daring to glance up at Roman for just a moment. 

“But it’s okay, man. I’m starting to understand them better. There’s stuff I can do here – stuff I’m good at. I’m getting more comfortable with myself and that makes me less anxious about them and that makes them more calm – especially Roman. Logan is just – he’s really good at handling all that. He’s calm and - steady. And now I feel like… like things are getting better? But even that doesn’t mean they are perfect. I get… I still get issues and nightmares and stuff and I get angry, kinda a lot. Somehow, Roman knows how to deal with me when I’m like that. I don’t – I have no idea how he does it.” Virgil mumbled, trailing off softly. 

The group was very quiet, sensing he had to gather his courage. 

Clearing his throat and making extra sure not to look up from the protection of his bangs, Virgil took a deep breath. 

“I thought I’d gotten it under control, with you. Helping you. But I messed it up big time, didn’t I? I scared you and I wanna explain it to you, you don’t have to forgive me.” He cut Patton off before he managed to speak, gently capturing his soft hand and squeezing it, trying to swallow the pounding, frantic emotion brewing in him. 

“It’s just - I’m just mad at the world for not leaving you the fuck alone. Things keep happening all the time to you, and Remy and Logan try to help calm me but I -  sometimes I can’t deal with it any other way! I just hate that you get hurt. I just- I just want you to be happy. That’s why I’m mad. Not at you, but… for you, I guess.”

Patton sighed deeply, feeling tears gather. His kiddo. He was so small and frustrated and helpless and Patton could see what he meant. He understood, suddenly. 

“Oh. I hadn’t- I hadn’t thought of that. I just thought you’d be mad at me because – because I-”

“No one’s ever really mad at you, man. You’re a literal fucking angel.” Virgil interrupted tiredly.

“Language!”

“Sorry, man.” Virgil muttered demurely. But fuck him, he was tired. Emotions. He wanted back into Logan’s bed and snuggle up with him. He had the feeling if he fell asleep with his older protector, Logan would end up being the big spoon and that sounded quite safe. 

“I get it, though. I’m doing this a lot to you, aren’t I? I get mad all the time cause I’m an aggressive screw up and you have to take the fall. I didn’t notice I was making you nervous, but I’ll figure it out, okay? We can make you feel safe if you help us understand what’s got you spooked.”

“Okay.” Patton agreed finally. “But you have to stop saying you’re a screw up! You’re not! You’re the smartest kiddo I know and I am so proud of you! You mustn’t feel bad because I get a little anxious sometimes! I just love you a lot and want things to be well!”

“Sure, Pat.” Virgil promised, deflating after his emotion-dumping was finally done. He could see the worry on Patton’s face, see his mind working with his attempt to figure out what exactly Virgil had been afraid the detectives would do to him, but that horrifying conversation could wait till another day. Preferably in ten or twenty years. Or never.

Meanwhile, Patton was looking up at all of them. At Roman comfortably draping himself over Logan’s back, letting him take his weight while he wrapped his arms around his older colleague, lacing his fingers over the others stomach. At Logan still trying to avert his gaze despite keeping a gentle arm wrapped loosely around Patton’s back, and at Virgil who was involving himself in a staring match with Cat who had rolled away, clearly contemplating whether he wanted to drag the moody raccoon into their mess. 

Cat hissed at him. 

Bristling, Virgil hissed back. 

“I- um.”

Three pairs of eyes turned to Patton. 

“I wanted to thank you, for opening up and telling me all that. I know it must have been hard.” He murmured softly. 

There was so much he was still thinking about. Their exchange was like nothing he’d ever experienced. The way they all had learned to look out for each other because they had hurt their friends unintentionally gave him hope. These men were so kind and tender with their loved ones. They truly thought about their friend’s problems and tried to change in any way they could to be what the others needed. He had wondered how men such as Logan and Roman, who were so different, had managed to become so in tune with each other. It seemed like they had worked hard to get where they were and now, they were offering the same effort to Virgil – and to him. He was awed by their willingness to forgive his failures and the pain he had caused. He’d grown used to bearing the pain alone and being the one to keep trying to adjust, to do better and offend less and please a partner who wouldn’t be pleased with himself. He’d never been looked after this way. 

With renewed confidence, he smiled at them, genuine and grateful. 

Finally, Logan smiled back. 

Though his posture was still not as confident as usual, the expression transformed his face and made him look soft and approachable. Like the kind of man that would soothe a defensive creature like Virgil with calm words or heal Patton with his gentle hands on him. 

“There is no need to thank us, Patton. Considering the amount of times we have misunderstood each other, a conversation is long overdue and will benefit all of us.” 

Patton’s little heart fluttered at the smooth tone of that deep voice. It was like Logan was intentionally speaking more quietly in order to soothe him. The pitch made his dark voice all kinds of rumbly. Patton felt a little nervous flutter upon being spoken to that way. Trying not to let his silly reaction show, he plastered a big smile onto his face. 

“Okay. Alright. So it looks like it’s confession time! Buckle up, kids!”  

Roman grinned at him encouragingly. 

“Okay.” Patton said again, trying to sort out his thoughts and make the words come. Whenever he opened his mouth to speak it was as if something lodged itself into his throat, snatching his breath away. How did you tell your friends who had washed the blood off your body and accepted you into their home that he had been uncomfortable in their care? It was impossible. 

Virgil leaned away from him briefly to snatch up Cat, somehow avoiding the sharp claws that tried to free her from emotional support duty. Snorting, Virgil pressed her back against his stomach and settled her into his lap, aggressively loving her. 

“You’re a bristly beast, you know that? You keep pulling threads and gnawing on the furniture and you have an attitude.” Cat snapped her jaws at him. “That’s okay.” Virgil promised. “I dig it.”

Wrapping his arms around her more comfortably, Virgil allowed her to leave if she wanted to. She bit his thumb with sharp little teeth before curling her fluffy, striped tail around his elbow and settling in. 

Patton laughed softly, recognizing the attempt to make him more comfortable with his confession. He loved Virgil so much. 

“Okay.” He whispered one last time. “So, I – I sometimes get a bit antsy, because Trevor and I – we used to fight a lot. I can be a little difficult, after all. And I guess I got a little used to looking for reasons to worry, since there was always another thing to argue about. And you all didn’t do anything wrong! You are all wonderful and I know you wouldn’t do anything mean! But… there are some things I felt- that made me a bit… insecure, I guess.”

“What things are those, sweet Patton?” Roman inquired gently, keeping his voice soft. 

“Oh, just little things. Nothing to worry about! I’m just overly nervous, is all! I guess I’m just too sensitive.” Patton confessed, trying one last time to avoid making his friends uncomfortable. Neither of them took the bait, though. 

“Pat, it’s okay.” Virgil nudged him with his shoulder before grabbing Nugget’s middle as it tried to climb over them to get to its human and settled it into his friend’s arms. It curled its head and rolled into a purring ball.

“Yes, right. Sorry.” Patton amended. “So, I just worry sometimes, when I get nervous from time to time and start expecting things, when someone raises their voice it makes me a bit frightened. And… you guys just bicker with each other sometimes -  when Roman starts complaining I get worried you guys might fight and when Logan has something to complain about because we make a mess, I worry that things might get… bad. And… and sometimes when Virgil gets annoyed at something – which I think is wonderful! I love that you’re passionate – but I – I just hear nothing but the tone, sometimes, and not what is being said. It’s stupid. I’m sorry.”

The group grew very quiet after Patton’s confession. The pâtissier was stoically looking at the kitten, trying to hide the gathering tears, while the men in his life tried to come to terms with his confession.  

Finally, Roman reached around Logan and wrapped a warm, large hand around Patton’s where they were cradling the kitten. “It’s not stupid, sweet Patton. Your feelings are natural and you deserve to have them taken into consideration.” 

“Yeah, man. We’re really sorry.” 

“I too, would like to extend my apologies for causing you discomfort.” Logan added quietly. “I should have realized how our behaviour would affect you, considering your experiences.” 

Patton quickly rubbed at his tears and tried to find his smile. He was usually good at pulling himself together and chase away everyone’s worry with a joke, but his tears just kept coming. It was the warmth of Virgil at his side, so slender and still supportive like a solid, graceful steel construction wrapped around him. Logan held him in a tentative hug and Roman towered over him, gently caressing his fingers buried in fur. Patton was warm and surrounded by loving people with tender hands on him and a raccoon that was drooling on his sleeve where it had rested its head. It was so much better than he’d ever dared dream of. He’d forgotten how much he had hoped for this. For a home. The realization that he was right in the middle of this group, cradled and protected and wanted washed over him. Even though he was being stupid. 

“Thank you. So much.” He muttered, his voice thick with tears. “Please don’t change. I’ll be fine. I’m so happy to be here.”

The three men exchanged a look over his light brown curls, silently promising each other to come back to this topic and to make sure Patton always knew he was safe no matter how much their bickering got out of hand. For now, their beloved baker appeared tired enough to fall asleep in their arms. 

“We are pleased to know you are enjoying our company. The feeling is mutual.” Logan noted carefully. “However, if it would be acceptable to you, we would like to continue working on making you feel safe with us like we have done for each other before and like you have been with us since the beginning of our friendship. It will not cause us any trouble. Additionally, I would like inform you of an offer Dr. Emile Harris asked me to relay to you.”

Virgil perked up slightly, hopefully raising his head to listen.  

“Remy mentioned that he would like to visit us soon in order to spend time with me and personally continue his sessions with Virgil. Additionally, he would like to bring his husband with him who he explained appears to be quite fond of you. Roman has graciously offered to take the children to the park to entertain them… if you are amenable to being in the company of Remy’s husband, of course.”

Wiping his eyes dry with his long, soft sleeve, Patton thought the offer through. Remembering Emile with his sweet smile and warm eyes and his gentle playfulness with his children made him feel safe already. Talking to him had cleared so much up. Perhaps he could help him figure things out before they got out of hand next time, so he wouldn’t hurt anyone again. He’d really been silly. Sitting here, on this very couch he’d dreamed about, with his very own adorable baby kitten in his hands, he could hardly understand how he could have forgotten how much he loved it here. He never wanted to forget again. And he wanted to see Emile. It was difficult not to tell Logan it was all fine and to try not to cause more effort for everyone, but he could feel so clearly how much his friends wanted him to get better. Like Patton wanted with Virgil. He wanted his kiddo to heal and be happy and Roman to never feel unloved again and he wanted Logan to know he was so so cared about and just perfect the way he was. He wished he could see how amazing he truly was. Patton had so many feelings about his man. He longed to… do so much. Make him feel so much. They were all here to take care of each other, and if he wanted to look after them, perhaps he should let them help him as well. 

“That would be lovely. Thank you.” 

Roman grinned, immediately cheered up by the idea of going to a playground, dressing up and playing knights and princess and fighting dragons. Virgil, too, seemed to nestle against Patton more calmly. Reassured that his family was feeling secure, Logan finally relaxed properly in their cuddle pile. His breath left him in a deep sigh as Patton carefully leaned against him, rubbing his cheek against his wool sweater. He closed his eyes and buried his face in the silky curls.

***************************************************

End of chapter notes: So we ended in a cuddle pile again because who needs variety.

Once again, if you guys feel like supporting me, here’s the old Ko-fi page link :)

The app Virgil is programming wasn’t supposed to be in the story, actually. It just jumped at me that it would be a cool project from them to share because Virgil needs to build things again and Logan loves his plants and data. And ACTUALLY my boyfriend is making that very same app because our f*cking lemon tree keeps dying. I’ve bought him another one last year and it is constantly on the brink of death. The Failure is real. We manage to make it grow leaves and they keep falling off again. Every.fricking.time. The fucker. (We’re both having issues at this point). The app will be available sometime this year with his sensors and all. If you have a plant that keeps dying on you and you are as stupidly stubborn as Logan, I’ll post a link and you can nerdily try to save it. I’ll keep you updated because my boyfriend is making an app all on his own and I am just so darn proud of him!!! (And Virgil can program it with Logan which will be adorable and get Virge out there again).

ART:

@olcia46​ made another edit I’d die for. I just think they are so pretty! The colours, the outline of the boys, all of it!

and I’m not even certain if I shared this LOVELY picture of @galaxy-sketch​ of Virgil and Nicodemus sitting on a counter yet but it’s lovely enough to look at twice!

Next Chapter

[carlynagisa]

Secret Valentine fic~ I didn’t fall for you you fucking tripped me!

Summary: How to get one Nakahara Chuuya to agree to a Valntine's date: Fall for him. Literally. Or how Dazai Osamu broke his ankle and miraculously healed in the span of an hour.

Pairing: Dazai/Chuuya Rating: G - General Audiences Warnings: no warnings apply :)

Notes: Dear @nakaharali-chan I’m your Secret Valentine and I hope you're happy with this happy fluffy skk piece! Unfortuately you didn't give me any prompts so I kinda winged it? Also greetings to the entire SKK Trash discor server, you guys are pretty damn cool!!

Hope you like it and enjoy!!

AO3

“Who in their right mind thought that class at 8 am in the fucking morning was a good idea?” Chuuya grumbled while basically slumping into his seat, just seconds before the bell rang. His head fell onto the table in front of him with a loud thud, body and mind too tired to lift himself up.

Tachihara next to him only raised his brows slightly before sliding his spare coffee in front of his tired friend. “I much prefer this to Fukuzawa-san’s 8 pm class. Now that’s suicide.”

Regaining his senses enough to smell the heavenly scent of the freshly brewed coffee in front of him, Chuuya dragged his head up, bleary eyes turning to the other redhead while blindly groping for the beverage in front of him. “Okay, who are you and what happened to Tachihara? Did you murder him?” He yelped after taking a generous sip of the coffee, belatedly noticing that it was still quite hot – definitely freshly brewed. At least he was awake now, albeit slightly.

“You’re way too cheery.”

Tachihara’s fingers drummed on his table. “Dude, isn’t it obvious? Today is Valentine’s Day!” He gave Chuuya an incredulous look once realizing that the other wasn’t impressed at all. “Don’t tell me you forgot about this, mister popular?”

Was it already too late to reassign to another class, preferably later in the day? Chuuya could kick himself in the shin for his naivety while deciding on his college classes.

He chugged down the rest of the coffee – albeit it was still too hot and surely burned more of his taste buds than it should – finally able to face his classmate and the rest of what was to come.

“You mean the overly commercialized fake holiday that is supposed to celebrate love but rather celebrates capitalism in all its glory? How could I ever forget about that?”

“So you forgot about it.”

“Entirely.” Chuuya let out a deep sigh before bending down and sifting through his backpack. “Imagine my utter joy when I was nearly jumped by a freshman that tried to shove chocolate down my throat. Or when an entire group of sophomores literally ganged up on me.”

Finally he found what he was looking for. Without a word he threw a bundle over at Tachihara’s confused face. “You can have it.” He rolled his eyes in annoyance at the thought of those stupid hopeful girls that declared their undying love to him without ever talking to him, let alone getting to know him. Was everyone going crazy today?

Unclasping the bundle, Tachihara let out a whistle while studying the amount of chocolate that was wrapped in it. “And imagine that the day only started. Give me some of your popularity?” He said while inspecting a piece of especially colorfully decorated chocolate. “Think I can give this to Gin?”

“You want to ask her out?”

“Yeah.” Poor guy, he’d never stand a chance.

“She’ll eat you alive.”

“That’s why the chocolate! She’ll hopefully be busy with it. And let’s hope her brother doesn’t find out first… He won’t only eat me alive but rather roast and cook me before that.”

Chuuya laughed at the image of Akutagawa Ryuunosuke letting out his wrath because his little sister was being courted. That wouldn’t be the first time, Gin was rather popular these days.

Chuuya snatched a piece of innocently looking chocolate which he held out for the other redhead. “Then you should give her this. Dark chocolate is her favorite.” She’d kill him for the fancy colorful one. “Although. isn’t it pretty impudent giving her chocolate that isn’t even self-made?”

“We don’t want to let it get to waste, huh?” Tachihara winked. He wanted to say something else but the professor used this exact moment to make his entrance. Chuuya knew that he was in for an interrogation later. He slumped on his desk once more and let out a deep huff, this was going to be a long day.

*

“Sooo,” Tachihara began after the two left the room to get to their next class. “Mister popular.”

“Stop calling me that,” Chuuya groaned. He hated that nickname. It wasn’t his fault that the female student body was way too hormone ridden to just leave him alone and became especially obnoxious during this time of the year. He wasn’t even that good looking! And definitely not nice enough to them to warrant such behavior. Why they were so fixated on him was still beyond him.

At least he was not first place on the popular bachelor scale, and yes such a thing did exist. This arguable honor went to a true idiot who might have sported the good looks and the brain but had a rather rotten character. That guy cut a swath through girls’ hearts and completely acted on their foolishly adoration towards him. Chuuya was always very adamant not to get thrown into one pot with the likes of him. Stupid bastard.

Dodging another incoming underclassman who surely wanted to give him even more chocolate, Chuuya hurried through the corridor. “I still don’t know what they want from me.”

Tachihara was hurrying along next to him. Chuuya noticed the bewildered look with which the other fixated him even without turning towards him. “Um, hello? Maybe because you’re quite hot? Ah, no homo, you know?” Chuuya rolled his eyes at that but snorted regardless. “Seriously, you’re one of the best-looking guys here. And it seems like you’re forever single, so you’re not only available but they also want to be the one person to break your unattainable bad-boy status.”

That statement stopped him. Chuuya would like to defend himself for the last part – while he dressed rather scandalous, leather jackets and chokers were among his favorites, and yes, he liked to smoke – he wasn’t a bad-boy by a long shot. He even helped out at volunteering jobs, thank you very much.

But the first part was much more concerning. They stood in the middle of the hallway in front of the stairs now, effectively blocking the way.

“Tachihara… available? Seriously? You do know I’m gay right?” The redhead was pretty sure that the whole college knew about his sexuality by now. He wasn’t keen on hiding it, what was the point of it anyway? Which made it even more surprising that the girls seemingly tended to flock towards him.

Tachihara next to him laughed awkwardly. “Of course I know! I’m pretty sure they also know about this. It’s just…”

“Just what.” It was a growl now.

“It’s just,” and now the other was definitely looking away on purpose. “Don’t explode, Chuuya, okay? It’s just that they have this weird fantasy about you. You know, making the gay man falling for them, being that special girl and all that shit.” What the fuck?! “And then there are the yaoi fangirls of course, who just have those weird fetishes.”

What. The. Fuck.

If Chuuya’s mood was bad before, now it was below zero degrees. “What the fuck? I’m not some fetish come true? What is this Fifty Shades of Bullshit?”

His friend pointedly looked at the ground now. “It’s just what I heard. Apparently people fall for this kind of set-up. B-but I’m pretty sure that people just love you Chuuya, you are pretty awesome. So, just accept some of those Valentine gifts and give them a chance?”

Fuck this shit. Fuck this entire day. He had enough.

He couldn’t help letting out another growl while twirling towards the stairs. Chuuya had enough.

“Fuck this shit. I’m going home.”

“B-but we still have class?!”

He. Had. Enough.

“I don’t give a damn! I’m going home, avoiding this entire Valentine shit. I’m tired of people proclaiming their baseless love and people ‘falling for me’.” Because he knew this wasn’t true. Chuuya had been unloved for his entire 22 years of living and it wouldn’t change just because he was giving chances. So far nobody had really fallen in love with him anyway.

“And for your information-“

“Watch out!!!”

Chuuya’s tirade was cut short rather abruptly by a loud ruckus and an even louder voice yelling before he was hit with what suspiciously felt like a steamroller and fell to the floor with a crash.

Thanking his quick reflexes that supported himself on his elbows, thus saving him from most injuries, Chuuya still found himself face-front on the cold floor which surely hadn’t been properly cleaned in a long while. Absolutely great.

Even better, the heavy weight on his back indicated that whoever had the genius idea of flinging themselves down the stairs a little too fast and therefore tumbling them down instead of using the proper way had landed much more comfortably than himself.

“Oops,” the person on his back laughed. “That’s not the downfall I was expecting.”

“And what did you expect instead?” Chuuya grumbled, still lying helplessly on the ground. The nerve! Whoever this was, they clearly were in no hurry to get up and moving.

The person – definitely a guy – hummed. “If I had landed only a little bit more face-first I could’ve easily broken my neck; if you wouldn’t have stopped my fall that is.”

“What a wonderful thing that I was in the right place and cushioned your fall, huh? And I still do by the way!” If Chuuya was close to erupting earlier, now was the perfect moment to finally let it out. Which guy would be this obnoxious to-

“Wonderful?? More like tragic! You ruined my opportunity!”

Ah. Dazai Osamu then. Just peachy.

Was it something about today or was it just the universe or whatever karma there was that decided it would be fun to fuck over Chuuya completely on this so called holiday? Who else could have done such a stunt and accidentally fallen down the stairs at the exact same moment Chuuya was passing them but Dazai freaking Osamu, school’s resident genius slash lunatic and to the redhead’s begrudging admittance the real number one heartbreaker of their college.

Accidentally my ass, Chuuya thought, this was definitely another one of Dazai’s famous suicide antics. Could he not have jumped down the building instead? And he surely must have seen Chuuya, right? So why not wait until the smaller male had been out of the way.

Oh yeah, Dazai was an asshole, that’s why.

Said asshole apparently found Chuuya’s still lying form rather comfortable, at least he made no indication to move.

“Ah! Is that you chibi?” Another thing about Dazai: Chuuya couldn’t stand him. School playboy or not, his character was just obnoxious and generally off-putting. “What are you doing down there?”

“Obviously I’m enjoying the view. The ground is rather comfortable, why don’t you join me, bastard?”

That finally got Dazai to move. Even if it meant that the brunet was suddenly appearing up close in his point of vision.

Dazai cocked his head to the side, studying Chuuya with a one eyed glance. It seemed like the idiot had hurt himself again, half his face was hidden under bandages and a big plaster. It matched his appearance wonderfully, with all the other bandages around his arms and neck and god knows where else. Either Dazai was the unluckiest person on earth (and that was rather impossible, since Chuuya was positive that he currently took that spot) or he was even more freakish than everybody thought.

The girls seemed to like it at least.

The redhead couldn’t figure out if the other found what he was looking for, but Dazai suddenly shook his head while his gaze finally left Chuuya. “I think the floor is nothing for me, chibikko, but whatever floats your boat.” Still he made no attempt to stand up.

Hushed whispers harshly broke Chuuya’s own stare and brought his attention back to his surroundings. While definitely not a shy person and generally immune and uncaring towards any kind of gossip, it was hard to ignore the whispers about how two of the most eligible bachelors – who couldn’t even stand each other all that much! – of their entire college were randomly lying in the middle of the corridor together.

Shoving Dazai away from him for good, Chuuya hastily rushed back to his feet, brushing off imaginary (or not so imaginary, the grime on the ground was very real after all) dust. Tachihara next to him chuckled. “So now it’s not only the girls falling for you, huh?”

“Oh shut up, you asshole.” It was in good nature though. Tachihara wouldn’t make fun of him in earnest. Hopefully nobody else in the perimeter would. They wouldn’t dare.

All except one.

“Which girl would ever fall for someone that small? They’d have to bend down all the time like they’re talking to a child!” Thankfully Dazai was still in a wonderful position seated on the floor, perfect for Chuuya to kick him in the hip.

“You shut up as well, bastard. What are you still doing there on the floor?”

The other made no motion to move at all. Instead he only raised his arms at Chuuya expectantly, depicting a strange picture of a one-sided hug.

“Waiting for you to pick me up, obviously. I might have twisted my ankle during the fall and can’t walk, silly.”

Chuuya’s ears were growing hot, a clear sign for the upcoming blush that threatened to erupt on his face and that would clash horribly with his hair. He was overly aware of the student body that still watched the scene playing out attentively. The gossip would only grow worse and worse now.

After still not being picked up, Dazai started sporting a very obvious pout. “Since it’s your fault, chibi, you should at least help me up.”

His fault?! What the hell? That idiot had fallen on him!

“You fell on me!”

Tachihara next to him mumbled “Don’t you mean for?” Chuuya gave him a nasty look.

“But Chuu-yaaa!”

“Don’t Chuuya me!” Embarrassment now fully visible on his face, Chuuya hastily dragged Dazai up towards him, ignoring how the other rather tried to hug him. “I’m going to drop ya!”

Apparently the other male had really hurt his ankle in some way, – or he was acting fantastically, this was still Dazai they were speaking of – he heavily winced once Chuuya tried to let go and his right foot gave out under him. “Ouch ouch ouch!”

With a heavy sigh Chuuya moved one of the taller one’s arms around his shoulder. Fucking lanky people. “Stop acting like a baby, it’s your own fault.”

Dazai hobbled rather unsuccessfully on one foot. “I already said that it’s your fault! If it hadn’t been for you I would have fallen on my neck, hopefully breaking it, and I would not have a broken ankle now!”

“Hell, it’s not broken! But I’m still letting a doctor check you up.”

By now there was at least some movement regarding them. Dazai was even more useless than before but Chuuya slowly got them moving, albeit slowly. Not quick enough to escape the ever growing crowd around them. At least nobody would try to give him chocolate now…

He waved Tachihara goodbye, promising his friend to catch up with him once he delivered the annoyance on his shoulders to the doctor’s office.

Except, they did not go there.

Oh no, after half the way freaking Dazai suddenly decided that he would rather not see a doctor at all. Possibly broken ankle or not.

“You even get another stupid bandage for your growing collection!” Chuuya was exasperated. But Dazai wouldn’t budge, weight suddenly slumping around his shoulder, threatening to drag him down like a sack of potatoes.

“Nah. Don’t wanna.” Stupid pouting child! Chuuya should just drop him-

“I know!” Dazai suddenly beamed, picking up his weight again. “Since you hurt me, chibbiko, you should make up for it. You can take me out for a consolation date!”

What the-

*

And that was the story of how one Nakahara Chuuya suddenly found himself roped into a Valentine’s Day date with his worst enemy after falling flat on his face.

He wasn’t sure how Dazai had gotten Chuuya to agree at all. Maybe it was the puppy eyes… maybe it was Dazai acting like a sack of potatoes again. Anyway, he ended up seated opposite of one Dazai Osamu, hesitantly sipping on his coffee while the other happily slurped on an overpriced latte abomination.

Dazai suspiciously didn’t mention his hurt ankle anymore.

Instead, he talked about everything and nothing. After an hour, Chuuya already knew everything about Dazai’s latest obsession with Instagram food blogs (yes, of course the brunet took a picture of their drinks), how boring his latest literature classes were ever since Oda-sensei left to teach grade schoolers instead (Chuuya found their current literature topic, European poets, rather fascinating) and how drowning was apparently a less painful suicide method than asphyxiation via plastic bag (Chuuya had NO opinion on that one).

It was rather fascinating.

At first, Chuuya had felt utterly uncomfortable and wanted nothing more than leave. What was he supposed to talk about with a person who shared none of his interests, moved in entirely different social groups and with whom most if not all his conversations so far consisted only of jarring insults and merciless teasing?

It turned out that there was no need to think up topics to talk about at all. Dazai kept up a pleasant flow of talking, even asking Chuuya questions and for his opinions rather often, initiating a real conversation after a while.

Dazai himself suddenly seemed to bloom, his entire posture was more relaxed than Chuuya had ever seen and the disinterested and cold look in his one visible eye slowly grew more and more warm and cheerful. Chuuya on the other side felt more and more comfortable and dare he say intrigued by the enigma sitting in front of him.

All in all it was… nice.

At least until the implications of the calendar date changed their dynamics in the form of a cheerful server in a dreadfully pink apron.

“Hello you two!” The light-haired server beamed, holding a plate in one hand. “And a happy Valentine! You two make a wonderful couple! Treat’s on the house!” With a beaming smile he placed the plate onto their table, winked and skipped back to the counter towards a disgruntled dark haired male who sported an equally awful pink apron and who hit him on the head after the waiter tried to jump him.

Dazai’s eye became impossibly big as he studied the chocolate mousse in front of them. Chocolate mousse that was shaped like a heart… Chuuya’s stomach suddenly jumped.

Ah yes. He totally forgot about Valentine’s Day. It was rather nice not being flogged by pushy girls for once. But this…

“Say Dazai…” Said brunet raised his head in question after taking more pictures of their dessert. “Did we just go here because you wanted free food?”

Dazai laughed – Chuuya couldn’t tell if it was real or fake. Dazai wasn’t easy to figure out.

“Of course!”

Ah, so that’s how it was. It was too suspicious after all that Dazai would suddenly go on a date with Chuuya and have fun with him without any ulterior motives. Even if those ulterior motives were just free food, the smaller male couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappoint and… hurt?

Pff, as if, Dazai and he weren’t even friends. They were more like enemies, not being able to stand the other for longer than a few minutes. Of course the other was only playing around. And if he got a kick out of playing stupid gullible Chuuya, all the better for him. Consolation date, my ass.

Deeming the pictures he took good enough, Dazai decided to dig into the chocolate mousse, very visibly enjoying its flavor. He even moaned a little in satisfaction.

“Aren’t you eating?” Chuuya didn’t even touch his own spoon. He was not hungry any more.

“No you can have it.” Well, he had taken the other out and even paid for their drinks, that was good enough right? Then he could leave now and let the other be, his ankle seemed good enough to get going.

Standing up, Chuuya reached for his jacket when a hand suddenly gripped his wrist tightly.

“Don’t go,” Dazai murmured, spoon and dessert abandoned.

“Didn’t you get what you wanted?” Chuuya mumbled, trying to drag his wrist back towards him. “You don’t need me anymore, I already paid-“

“I said what I meant.” Dazai’s grip tightened, the look in his eye now determined. Chuuya noticed how its warm chocolate brown color turned dark. “I wanted to go on a date with you. I want to be here with you.”

“Yeah right, you just wanted me to pay for you.” He knew that he sounded bitter but Chuuya had his fair share of disappointing dates so far, guys and girls alike who were either in for his looks or just to use him to pay for all their commodities. “It’s fine, I had fun and this was probably the best Valentine’s Day I had so far. To think that a commercial fake holiday and your company could be fun! Thanks for that I guess. No need to play nice anymore.”

The hand on his wrist finally loosened its tight grip, instead Dazai used it to shield his mouth and chuckled.

“Oh my god, Chuuya’s cute.” It took said person a moment to realize that he had not misheard and he seriously got called cute by Dazai Osamu. And judging by his earnest laughter and again warm eye, he was serious about this. That was quite the step up from being called short or a slug. Cute, huh?

Sensing Chuuya’s surprise, Dazai elaborated.

“I literally fell for you, doesn’t that account for nothing?”

Fell… for him?

Wait a second.

“You didn’t fall down the stairs by accident?” Could Dazai really be such an idiot?

“Of course not! I already told you I did it on purpose.” He was really such an idiot. “I just didn’t do it to try to kill myself for once though, it’s rather that I saw you standing there and was like ‘why not?’”

Why not? What. An. Idiot!

“You flung yourself down a staircase just to get a date with me?”

Dazai even had the nerve to look proud. “I sure did!”

“And you couldn’t just have asked me out like a normal person?”

The proud smile faltered. “… I could have?”

With a deep sigh, Chuuya slumped back down onto his seat, finally taking his spoon in his hand. Deliberately ignoring his opposite’s gaping stare, Chuuya dug into the rest of the previously abandoned chocolate mousse, letting out a small moan himself when the sweet taste exploded in his mouth. This was heavenly! He decided to let Dazai hanging until he finished off the rest of the dessert on his own, not even throwing as much as a glance at the more and more restless brunet.

Only after he dropped his spoon and licked off the leftover chocolate on his lips (Dazai’s eye followed his tongue; Chuuya did do it deliberately of course) he turned towards the hopeful male.

“Maybe. I probably would have said no, who knows. But your plan was not really nice.” Chuuya raised an eyebrow, Dazai’s hopeful look did not falter though, he knew the smaller one well enough to know that he wasn’t serious.

“I’m sorry!” Dazai whined, playing along.

Hook, line and sinker.

With a big grin on his face, Chuuya stated. “If you’re really sorry, you should prove it.” His confidence was finally back and it felt good.

Dazai was sporting an equally wide grin now. “How?”

“Take me out on a real date. No stupid Valentine’s Day, no scheming and lying.” Chuuya motioned towards Dazai’s now clearly fake ankle injury.

“And you’re paying. I have expensive tastes.”

Everything today had tried to piss him off as much as possible. Chuuya deserved some piece after such a day – who knew that Valentine’s Day might turn out to be more than a fake commercial holiday?

“Who would’ve thought…” Dazai mumbled under his breath, still not low enough not to be picked up by Chuuya.

“Last chance,” Chuuya shook his head. “How about Friday?”

Dazai slowly held out his hand, with that warm smile on his face again that made Chuuya’s stomach flutter.

“It’s a date.”

[milkplusvn]

HUGE Three Lilies Progress!

Tip: You can get these same posts sent right to your e-mail by subscribing to the newsletter.

Today’s issue goes over writing and previews of some backgrounds, as well as future expectations for the newsletter, the main development blog, and the individual devlogs on itch.io.

Writing: FIRST DRAFT 100% COMPLETED

After a long time coming, the first draft of Three Lilies has been completed.

What happens next is that I’m going to leave it alone for a week to give myself time away from it. Then, I get to return to it and start working on the second draft with fresh eyes. If need be I’ll do a third draft (and I will let that second draft sit as well before implementation just in case), but ideally I’m going to have that second draft be the final.

Now, I wanted to post a snippet from Countryside as a nice little picture, but Revue doesn’t give you the option to set the alt text for images (WHY?) and the caption with the description would come out long and awkward, so I’ll just…paste it in here.

nar "Huifang looks up at Anna through her eyelashes."

anna "N-Nevermind...!"

anna_t "Oh, shit, she's so close!"

anna_t "What am I supposed to do when you look at me like that, huh?!"

anna_t "Now that I've got such a good look at her, she seriously beats all those girls I hooked up with at the bar by a long shot!"

Art: Sprites Complete, Backgrounds Time

With the sprites now complete (I’ll show them eventually in character introduction tweets, it’ll be a surprise!), I am moving on to background art. Some assets are being remade so they can be bigger…and more accurate.

Now THIS is starting to look a little more like a forest on a subtropical island. Much better. (Compare: the old one, where I quickly textured thick lines and made bushes and called it a day because this was originally a jam game.)

Here’s a couple finished ones for the road:

Newsletter VS Itch Devlogs VS Main Blog

So, here’s the deal: all three of these things offer notifications by e-mail. If you were to, say, both follow milk+ visual on itch AND subscribe to this newsletter, posting the same information on them twice would just be redundant.

Here is how I plan to utilize these three channels of information, plus our social media.

Small updates will go on Twitter, and even smaller play-by-play updates typically go in the dedicated dev channel on the Discord.

When enough of these little updates have accumulated, I will compile them all into a Revue newsletter issue, thus making the milk+ visual tribune the place to subscribe to for update round-ups. I will also start reposting these newsletters onto our Tumblr for those that primarily follow us there.

After a couple of update round-ups, I will make the game devlogs the place to post game-specific update round-up compilations. That way, those who are only sticking to the devlog updates for information get a steady stream of information, but aren’t getting information so frequently it becomes irritating.

The main development blog will be used for major announcements, such as going gold, release date announcements, and so on. To emphasize their importance, the updates posted on that blog will also be pushed through the newsletter AND the relevant devlogs.

I know everyone has different preferences for how they’d like their updates delivered to them. So, if you’d like to keep up with milk+ visual stuff, here’s the breakdown again (with links!):

Join the Discord and turn on Twitter notifications for much more frequent bits and pieces. Both the Discord and the Twitter will always let you know when a new newsletter issue and a new blog post have been made.

Subscribe to the newsletter and keep following on Tumblr for regular progress round-ups, as well as anything even bigger.

Follow on Itch.io for the occasional news on what’s been going on.

Subscribe just to the development blog for when something big happens.

If you are interested in progress streams (which I plan on having another of soon!), they will be announced on the Twitter, Discord, and Tumblr, and you should also be notified of an upcoming stream if you subscribe to the YouTube channel and click the bell!

Thanks everyone for being so patient with me, especially after a couple years of trying and experimenting with this whole PR thing and just generally getting the hang of everything after Soundless’s surprising reception and real-life bumps. I think I’ve finally achieved a flow that works for me, knock on wood.

Let’s move forward into the future!

[ghcsteater-blog]

CALLOUT FOR  gricvous /  irrxdixtcd  / spencer / marcus

as much as i dislike callouts , there´s a particular mun who has harassing me for a very long time , making me look weak . fueling my anxiety and having the COURAGE to involve my friends / mutuals too . so this is for @brattizen / @axedhearts and all of those who had to bear with such a horrible individual.

SO SPENCER  aka . MARCUS here thought it would be nice to hide in another blog , pretend to be of age ( 25 when he´s actually 17 ) and lie about being in hospital to gain the pity of others . i don´t see the point of hiding when we all know you carry the bad vibe and you lies are clear to the naked eye . you even took a hiatus from all your blogs to give the illusion that you ACTUALLY commited suicide , which you already done several times when we called you out for your shitty behavior .  again , i would let this pass if it were between you and me but dragging my friends into your drama was the biggest mistake you ever did .

NOW , let´s start with my part of the story .

me and spencer met in the horror rpc . we got along . became friends . we became MORE than friends and had an affair . spencer was 1-2 years younger than me , so it was alright with me . everything was sweet / adoring as the fragile beginnings of love until mr . sympathy here got too inquisitive about my body . if it weren´t for me having a hard time saying no and following his lead in the sake of NOT losing him , i could of told him to stop . but everytime i made an efford to change the subject , he would keep pushing me into having sex and even MARRYING him .

i got tired of his continous bs, so i decided to escape with some friends @axedhearts​  /  two friends whom i rather not mention for their own safekeeping where we made our own private rabb/t streams / discor/d servers to keep a neat / peaceful space for ourselves . however , spencer grew on his dominant side to the point where he began to join in and pry to get along with my pals . but the thing is , he always spammed / made others uncomfortable even when told to stop . had the gross habit of asking too many personal questions , vague about a ship i had with someone else , JOKED about my friend´s sexuality  &  CP  /  tried to flirt with her  and call me spicy latina  /  compare mexico with USA . ( which , was the most racist thing you could EVER do to me )

_________________________

i never intended to be profane , but the complications kept going . he used suicide to manipulate  /  strike fear into my friends and that´s where i SNAPPED . i broke up with him , ignored / insulted him with the purpose of getting him away from me and my friends .

spencer here didn´t take it very lightly and as the two-faced human-being he is , went on a rampage to tell everyone i was abusing him . since he , of course ,  was an ´ underaged ´   took the privilege and made an ENTIRE fandom got againt me . luckily , i pulled the recepits on time and he left us alone . but , knowing spencer would not did not give up and spread stuff about me , i considered making amends .

thinking the whole thing would be over and everything would prosper , turns out . i was wrong .

he continously messaged me , even when i was still heated over our little struggle . told them to back off which they took the hard way and , went back to pulling my card  .

this time , i ignored him . swore to myself that i would never talk to him and blocked him on all of my accounts . everyone knew spencer fucked up and this time he had no one to rely on , so he begged for my forgiveness . i knew he would do the same shit over and over so all his pleas went straight to the bin . however , he was so desperate that he send ACTUAL death threats via . other friends  /  anon .

yeah , like . wishing the death of someone was probably the most mature thing you can do . it´s unbelievable that , after this you still had the audacity to send anons to everyone , labeling me as a harasser and that you´re just an innocent  ´ suicidal minor unununu ´ who´s going through a tough time . grow a pair , would you ?  i survived suicide . ALOT OF PEOPLE survived or are still dealing with it . using these kinds of topics for your own purposes is just plain fucking digusting .

enough of me . now , let´s go to the other side of the story , shall we ?

@brattizen​​ , ah yes , the lovely alex . my best friend . my meme menace . the first person to introduce me into the despicable me fandom . i love her , i love her sm alright ???????????? i love her . alex here had the bad luck to stumble upon him , she did not know who she was talking until to he had the nerve to threaten / try to guilt-trip her . 

Alex is a sweet / adoring mun and she doesn´t deserve this kind of shit . none of us do . If you were really as nice as you claim to be , you wouldn´t be doing this kind of stuff . being underaged doesn´t give you a free ticket to act like a asshole towards those who are actually older . and for all of those who are reading this , don´t bother yourselves in sending hate . just block and AVOID this person at all costs . although it is obvious that they´ll be moving from blog from blog doing their thing .

i really , REALLY tried to be nice , spencer . but you kept pushing me to my limit . 

[spartiatis-foinix]

HENLO EVERYONE ITS ME, YOUR DAD. EVERYONES FAVORITE WOLFDAD

One year ago I made this blog, and to be honest, I never thought I’d be where I am. Originally I thought it would be a passing fa and Damon would disappear into nothing, but great people have kept me inspired to keep writing and really enjoy being apart of this community.

Its been a rocky road these past couple months with changes having come to damon, a new URL and a whole personality revamp. But for those of you that had suffered through Damon-and-ares and him being nothing but a whore, I think you. You mean the world to me. Without further adue

MY BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN(don't ask how)

I'm calling all of my children out for being so fantastic and loving me

@spiteful-dragon​ My first Lovey and the firsr person I ever shipped with. Words cannot express how much you mean to me. You were actually the one that kept me roleplaying. Despite me wanting to give up because I felt like you were the only one that care, I never wanted to disappoint you, so I stayed, so *smoochies*

@flor-de-la-muertee​ I love you, Like. I'm actually in love with you. First of all, no matter what you say, your mun pics are literally always the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But the fact that you draw Damons Art makes me want to cry with happiness because drawing this trashcan is tiring and you make him look so good. Plus you were the first person I Rp’d a fight with, and that was the worlds most epic thing I’ve ever done, and youre one of my besties :3

@0ldsoldiersneverdie​ I know you don't Rp on tumblr anymore, and the discor is shutting down, but you really made roleplaying fun with Jackie boy. I love the relationship Jack and Damon had. It felt so natural from fuckbuddies to actual lovers. And then the old man thread where Damon almost killed him. Just talking to you is fun and makes me really happy( PS. wish you the best of luck)

@beyondredemption​ / @purrfectdouble​ / @@divineyellowveins: You are actuallt the best. You sorta brought out the best in my creativity and actually made me think about who Damon was as a character and I cant thank you enough for that.

@@commander-edgelord you little butt. I missed you, and now youre back and I cant be happier. Even better Damon and gabe re getting back together...eventually XD. You are one of my children and I will always love you because holy shit are you talented and funny and so adorable

@morrison-is-online The first person I officially declaired as on of my children is the best child a person could ask for ​. You are the literally the worlds most adorkable little bunny. It’s hard going a day without talking to you because you are really your fathers kid. we relate on so many levels its beautiful

@kniightss​ Here comes the Lion! you are the Reinhardt that I always wanted and always needed. The ship that sends me over the moon in joy. the two giant men just loving and kissing And fucking Damon and rein are so Cute because of you. I remember you had to approach me because I was so shy, and I will always be glad you did.

@orianaxlicarno​ Sis. What Ori is to Damon, You are to me. You’re like my sister  better than my biological one actually Speaking to you and getting to know you has been absolutely the best and I just love you and every bit of you. Call me a dork if you want, I don't give a shit. We talk about everything and your lie is far more interesting than mine.

MY ADOPTED KIDS WHO CAN DO NO WRONG BECAUSE I LOVE THEM

for all of you who we mainly just started interacting with, or it’s beem a really long time since we’ve talked

@talonsdragon @chxxrslove @pressnerftocontinue @hailtothedamnking @an-old-soldier @sxnshxneofblxe @longsilverbullet @embrace-tranquility @the-rad-doctor @ridesagain @the-golden-days-long-gone @shimadamistake @fallenshimadaheir @pressnerftocontinue @the-true-queen-in-the-north @talons-wraith @stormblade-tyr

[espytalks]

a bunch of unorganized info about kaylee and her friends

(okay, i found the info i wrote. i haven't looked at it since i wrote it, which was months ago, so idk what’s all in here. it should be accurate though. i have to do stuff so i’ll double check this info later))

kaylee hid her blank flank until she got her mark.

she was very self conscious about her lack of cutie mark, and is uncomfortable without at least her saddlebags on in public.

she keeps her sketchbook and several pencils and sharpeners in that sketchbook

she does traditional art mostly for fun.

she freelances digital work.

she grew up in canterlot

her best friend is jasper, who she doesn’t realise has a crush on her. he hides it though because he doesn’t want thier friendship to change

jasper works at an animal shelter. Kaylee has done some art for the company because jasper talks very highly about her.

jasper suffers from an unkown sickness that he hides from everyone. he’s fine most days, but it gets bad very suddenly one day.

jasper never saw kaylee get her cutie mark. her family moved before she got it, and she got it on the train ride there.

Jasper came up with kaylee’s nickname, but often calls her Des.

kaylee is a huge animation fan, and dabbles in anime and a certain webcomic that may or may not be homestuc.

she owns plusies and/or figures from many of her interests.

Kaylee likes her cutie mark.

only one pony in ponyville know’s kaylee’s real name, and he doesn’t know that it is. He thinks it’s her roleplay name.

Kaylee is very defensive about her mark and her name. she won’t say when she got her mark, and she won’t answer if anyone points out her name isn’t a traditional pony one.

new town, new her.

she doesn’t make enough money from her art to live by herself, and she doesn’t want to.

she used to spend her free time with jasper. she spends most of her free time alone in ponyville. 

she has a friend she met on her first day in ponyville named hidden.

they met at a party pinkie pie threw to celebrate rainbow dash’s sonic rainboom

hidden was only there because she was invited, and stood in a corner most of the time

hidden reminds kaylee about herself, and kaylee’s very understanding of her

hidden has a secret crush on kaylee.

kaylee doesn’t think she looks pretty. ditto with hidden.

they both think the other is pretty tho

kaylee is on the ace/aro specrum

Hidden doesn’t know what her cutie mark represents. 

she got it on a day where she was giving some sort if presentation. she was dressed up and didn’t find out until she got home.

her best guess is that it means she’s good at being scared.

she actually got it by reassuring another pony going before her who was also scared. 

kaylee’s magic is very unstable due to an accident from overuse.

she’s not allowed to use advanced magic because of it.

she sometimes does it anyways.

Kaylee’s natural hair color is black. she dyes it with magic.

an au kaylee where that accident didn’t happen could potentially put her along with twilight magic-wise, and her cutie mark would be different.

unless this changes, she is canonically friends with cover story, and roleplays as a superhero with him. she sometimes drags hidden with her.

she’s totes be down to learn how to play dungeons and dragons

on an unrelated note, I would totes be down to learn how to play dungeons and dragons if i had enough friends.

kaylee listens to audiobooks while drawing.

she loves electro swing music and dubstep, among many other genres.

hidden likes instramental covers and owl city

Jasper likes country and 80′s music.

basically, my idea for kaylee’s story is learning to accept and move on from loss. 

i have a potential idea that jasper’s ghost looks over her.

oh yeah did i mention jasper died?

he kissed her though before he did. she didn’t know he loved her until then.

she feels very guilty about that. like wow it’s painful for her to think about

her alarm clock reminds her of ambulance sirens.

the blog starts sometime soon after she first moved to ponyville. his funeral was the day before she moved.

the blog takes place in season 1, sometime after sonic rainboom

i havent decided what her poison joke would be, but i have an idea of what discored kaylee would be like. 

kaylee visits jasper’s grave and his family whenever she takes a trip to canterlot, which is usualy for art related things.

Their families were very close. she writes to them often, and includes pictures and drawings.

jasper would be so proud of how far she’s come.

unless it changes, she’s friends with lotus from another blog that i did art for. she did art and designs for him a few times.

she buys a bouquet from the same small business every time, and the owner knows her by name.

i have a potential idea for a love interest for kaylee involving an oc named orange sunrise, but i may or may not scrap it. if i do, he’s just a guy that see’s her often in the plaza  while he sells apples. he think’s she’s pretty though.

she know’s pinkie pie, and of course pinkie knows her. pinkie know’s everyone. kaylee is kinda indifferent. Hidden doesn’t like her much because pinkie’s loud and hidden is very shy.

kaylee’s birthday is october 8th. she’s 17 at the start of the blog.

hidden’s birthday is in april. i forgot which day.

i havent decided for jasper.

kaylee has a mom, dad and brother, and they all live together

hidden and jasper are both only childs

jasper lived by himself, but was close with us parents

hidden lives with her parents. she’s unemployed.

i may have hidden work at honeydrop’s to boost her confidence in the future. she’s a frequent customer.

[starscreambae5ever]

Don’t yall just love fandoms and the cunty people in them.

[teesturtle]

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