#they r. my darlingest children

[apollos-boyfriend]

Do you have OCs you want to talk about? Could I convince you to talk about them?

I DO!!! i will b discussing these two in particular (atticus and theodore respectively) bc i have not really had a chance to and i love toxic doomed yaoi <33333 (yes the most recent images i have for them are. marketable plushies. i swear they're serious characters.)

for some context: atticus is fae, theodore is human. faes have a naturally longer lifespan than most species, with every 1 year for faes being 100 years for humans.

so!!! their story starts in the like, late 1800s. the two of them are street kids, taking up random side jobs just to get by. during a job atticus took up and had theodore tag along to, something goes wrong, ending in theodore's death. atticus blames himself for theodore's death, due to being the one to have asked him to come with. before theodore's death, hex was an optimistic, outgoing person, always willing to lend a hand to humans, as hex felt like he had a lot of advantages they didn't, and it was only logical that hex would lend a hand to the less fortunate. this all changed after theodore's death. fae became reclusive, distrusting of humans and cursing them for being so stupid and uncaring towards their fragile lives. theodore had been his first friend in centuries, and they took that from him. he began delving into necromancy in order to bring theodore back, digging himself deeper and deeper into dangerous methods, as none of the "normal" ways were giving him any results. hex couldn't even feel theodore's spirit in the sea of souls. he had to dig deeper.

little did he know that the reason he could never find theodore is because theodore never left. maybe atticus' determination is what kept him around. maybe his own unresolved feelings for atticus kept him from moving on. unfinished business and all that, yeah? whatever the reason was, theodore's soul never left earth. as atticus further pushed himself into solitude, desperate for a method to bring his friend back, theodore was left to wander the earth alone for over 200 years. there's a reason ghosts aren't meant to stay, though. time stands still in the sea of souls. your being and mind is essentially frozen in the moment you died. on earth, though? there's nearly no preservation. your body and mind still age, although far more slowly, and most importantly, your mind keeps making memories. a human mind can't retain over 200 years of knowledge. it's just not meant for that. so, as time passes, theodore forgets. he remembers brief flashes of his living self. he remembers he was alone, until he wasn't, until he was again. he remembers someone held his hand when he died. it didn't hurt as much when they held his hand. maybe that's just his mind playing tricks on him. making his death feel not as bad as it probably was.

by the time everything aligns for them to meet again, atticus has allied himself with the story's main villains because they promised him the money and resources to fund his research, while theodore has joined the main cast/protagonists, unbeknownst to atticus.