What If My Love Language is Hurting People?

Link to article: What If My Love Language is Hurting People?.

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[[include :scp-wiki:component:adult-content-warning
|gore=1
|sexually-explicit=1
|sexual-assault=1
|child-abuse=1
]]

[[include info:start]]
Two of the three perspective characters of this story are outright bigoted. This tale contains racism, classism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, general bigotry and slurs. It also includes, in no particular order, emotional and physical abuse, generational trauma, dysphoria, explicit sex and sexuality, references to rape, some violence and gore (the gore, at least, is all fictional in-universe), and probably some other things that are slipping my mind. In short, it's an intensely uncomfortable story on purpose, and it's already a lot to commit to just by length. If you need to take a break, do so.

Take care of yourself.
[[include info:end]]
[[include :scp-wiki:component:info-cw]]

[!-- https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/fragment:hurting-people-0 --]

[[toc]]

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[[=]]
+ [[SIZE 150%]]Part I: **Plymouth the Righteous**[[/size]]
[[/=]]

= ##white|**ArtPiece I**##

[[==]]
> **You:** Plymouth sets his drink down on the table with a *thud*
> **You:** "You cant let them do that."
> **Stranger:** do what?
> **You:** Take it all away from you!!"

A young Cole Ortegren tries to hear more of the rain outside than the screams downstairs. Cold hands on a cold keyboard, swaddled in the blankets he's pulled off his bed to station himself in front of the desktop, Cole's not afraid of any more tooth fairies. But he doesn't hog the shower yet either. Little kid. Kid Cole. PieMouth.

//Blood blood blood.//

Something slams, but Cole doesn't jolt anymore. Eyes stinging, fingers slow, Plymouth swigs another pint of ale before laying into his tavern-partner about the hard truths of family fortunes.

> **Stranger:** but i cant do anything, gorha whispers im exiled forever and they wont talk to me
> **You:** "You arent aware of the power you possess" Plymouth corrects her. "You and me. With my political power, we can rally an army and storm your castle to take back what's rightfully yours!!!"

Clumsy, gauche text on a screen that means more to Cole than the world around him. So Cole believes. Plymouth is ready to draw a sword. Cole is ready to smash cut to violence. With every harrowed yell from the first floor, Cole gets fresh visions of the bloodshed to come. Entrails pulled from ruptured bellies by the hooked blades of noble warriors. Rains of arrows plummeting into the kinks between plates, exposing muscle, breaking bone. A campfire of mercenaries chewing on the tongues picked from the strongest opponents of yesterday's war.

One more scream, and Plymouth beheads this lowercase orphan, assumes her crown as the ruler of Not-Yet-Named, the Forever Far Away, where Cole knows there will be bed chambers he must eschew and advances he doesn't yet have responses for.

World Wide Web. Big, big, big. Cole Cole Cole, young young young.

Footsteps up the stairs cut this massacre short.

PieMouth hastily closes his shameful incognito tabs, leaving some anonymous Stranger to bemoan the loss of their roleplay buddy -- if only for a second before clicking towards the next exciting chatroom. From one charade to the next, Cole sheathes his sword and readies his shield. The tones of his bickering father and brother condense into droplets across the door like the rain across a window, until it opens to welcome the storm inside.

The most that can be made of the elder Eric in his incandescent silhouette is just that: some flavor of incandescence. Eric, with the home advantage, slinks into the room without the use of the light, allowing his father to take his place in the doorway. His silhouette is only different in size. He nearly fills the frame, his head as round and smooth as an egg, his arms packed as tight as balloons, his scowl so whole you can see it even in only his outline.

"You will //not// run away from me, boy! You will //not// run your fucking mouth and then bolt!"

Cole's finger on the power button finally wins and the monitor turns dark, but this cloak of darkness lasts seconds before the light is flicked on. He hasn't even made it to the bottom bunk. Thankfully, the patriarch is thoroughly occupied.

"You don't own me, //you don't own me!//" Eric repeats the mantra of a thousand million youth across the globe. His sheltered upbringing is the only thing that keeps him from a more popularly spouted: //I never asked to be born!//

"I do!" his father bellows. "Now come down here so I can //show// you."

Eric's made it halfway up the ladder to the top bunk, but his father crosses the distance with no fear of stumbling across the laundry Eric was always to pick up, or tripping across a wire for a device Eric was never allowed to have, or even laying waste to any toys that Cole was always hastened to put away. Only the most disciplined of boys keep their rooms so clean. All the better for fathers to cross them and pull them off bunk beds.

With little resistance -- because Eric knows better than to resist -- Cole's brother lands on his back, only to stare up at Dad.

"Stand up," he urges.

Eric complies.

"Stand up //straight,//" he commands.

"Okay," Eric whimpers.

"Okay?" Dad puts his hands on Eric's shoulders, and forces him to a kneeling position. Eric tries to shrug him off but fails. "Try that again. Okay who?"

Eric stands. Straight. No slump in his back like his usual stance.

"Okay //sir.//"

"That's better. I don't want you seeing those //fucking// King kids again, alright?"

"Dad --"

"//Alright?//"

Eric weighs his options quick enough to avoid another bellow. "Yes. Sir."

Sir Ortegren seems pleased. Or, content. He keeps his helmet down, over his eyes. With such fervor and grace does he champion His might, Plymouth falters. His reverence revealed, he realizes too late that he's put away his shield.

The patriarch turns to a defenseless Cole, sitting upright in his bed.

"And //you,//" Dad starts. Cole's heartrate spikes. "Who said you could use the computer at this hour!?"

Cole inches closer to the wall.

In absence of a response, the father's rage turns again towards the older. "//You...//" Eric backs up, unsure of the angle of attack, unable to parry so hoping to dodge. "Do you let your brother stay up?"

"No, Dad --"

"I //entrusted// his care to you! Do you remember what I said?"

Sir Ortegren allows no time for the squire to recollect. He lays one good slap across his cheek, which Eric cradles. The knight allows him his slump this once. "You're a terrible influence on your brother," he says in his most level, reasonable tone. "You come home late, and you let him use the computer. Under my nose. I trusted you."

There is a moment of only breathing. Cole's fingers are frozen, but his feet are worse. There's a warmth missing, but it's worse than winter's life-drain spell. Plymouth thinks he can see it in Sir Ortegren's platemail -- extracted through his gauntlets and stored in his breastplate. Then, the knight moves with intent.

Towards Cole's escape.

"No!" Cole yells.

He jumps out of bed, but Sir Ortegren is five times his size and eight times his mass. Cole would break his knuckles before altering his father's trajectory, and he knows it. The patriarch comes away from the computer tower with something important-looking. A little green square with more freckles than that redhead from school. Without a word for the device, Cole already knows what damage has been done.

"If I can't trust Eric to take care of you, I will."

"No! No, Dad, please! Please!" Just as inarticulate as his brother's teenage angst, Cole's begging accomplishes nothing. The father struts to the door, and turns only to say: "If I hear //any// noise from this room in fifteen minutes, you don't have to expect breakfast."

The door closes.

The room quiets.

Plymouth lies, open wound and coughing blood, saying goodbye to his throne, his crown carried off by a man more noble than he could ever hope to be. And from a pool of his blood, Cole turns to the squire -- he who had so incited the warrior's wrath. And he hates him. From the top of his heart, he hates him.

Eric, defeated, sulks towards the light and turns it off. In the darkness, Cole covers himself in blankets. Eric climbs the metal ladder, which makes the whole bunk bed clink and creak. Rain patters the window. Both are colder than the air that surrounds them. A frost covering the windowpanes of their hearts. A slight tint around the eyes. Cole knows people can see it. Cole knows the kids that avoid him. From town to town, city to city, the only place Cole has found where he can hide his frost is in the already impersonal. The already anonymous. The internet. Life's better half: the fantasy worth pursuing.

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Christmas exists as a relative reprieve from daily Ortegren life.

Recently moved to Texas, the Ortegrens are settling into their fourth home of the last three years. The surroundings are unfamiliar. The people are strange. Cole is afraid of school, but school can wait. Festivities are now.

Underneath the Christmas tree, in the living room cleared of unpacked moving boxes, lies an array of gifts, big and small, for the boys to tear into, most wrapped in a cardboard-colored paper with some red strings and ribbons. On Christmas morning, the boys rush from their rooms, their pajamas fuzzy in the cheap multicolored lights. Cole and Eric take great unfettered delight in the annual ritual of gift-receiving and -giving -- though Cole is not so versed in the latter just yet. Freshly thirteen, Cole is getting ready to squeeze into a taller, thinner, sweatier body, and his parents are looking ahead.

On the unexciting side of gifts, Cole receives some deodorant he winces at, some clothes he doesn't fit //yet//, and, admittedly, a very nice hat.

"I don't know why boys stopped wearing hats," Mrs. Ortegren explains.

Cole doesn't know why either. (He will have a day of brief discovery in the near future, a run-in with a girl who makes him feel stupid for reasons yet unknown, and he won't pick up hats again.) The parents -- the mom -- shift their focus to Eric for the moment as he unpacks the next issues of //One Piece// he'd been patiently waiting for. The conversation that begins between Mrs. Ortegren and Eric is distracting and disinteresting. He digs further, only to find a box with unfamiliar wrapping paper.

//Shake-a-shake.// Classically, Cole gives the box a wiggle. He turns around to ask his mom about it, but she is still taken up. And just beyond her, on a leather chair, sits the father, calmly staring and refraining from an interaction. Suddenly, Cole wants nothing to do with anyone. He keeps his head low and his eyes down.

//From Santa.// Santa? Wasn't he a bit old for that? He tears open the packaging, and reveals a small doll. A little elf. He's old for dolls, too, but there's something else in the box. A tiny plastic Christmas card. He puts the doll down and looks at this curiosity.

//Elf for Your Help™.// Cole misses the pun, but opens the page. Inside it reads, in a whirling cursive Cole can barely make out:

> Not everyone has good beginnings, but everyone is capable of a happy ending. We're here to help. To use:
> 
> * Think hard about where you want to go -- whether it be soon or a lifelong goal!
> * Find a token of this desire that you can hold in one hand, and kiss it.
> * Place the token in the Elf's arms, and close the Elf's hands over it.
> * Place the Elf somewhere high in your room, and preferably near your bed.
> * Be patient!
> 
> Grace is a slow and mysterious worker; we're only edging it along. Life will get better for you.
> 
> Love,
> Dr. Wondertainment ♥♥♥

= [[image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/dr-k-stuff-s-personnel-file/II style="width:575px"]]

Cole flips the doll over in his hands. Yellow and green. Not the most flattering color-scheme. Attention: lost. Other presents call. The doll gets forgotten until the cleanup, when Cole shuttles it back to his room along with the rest of the day's winnings. There, he finds his second surprise gift of this Christmas. A tiny box on his pillow, with a note underneath. Cole picks up the box and rattles it. //Shake-a-shake.//

//Bonus present. Sweet.//

He opens the box -- brown and simple, cardboard but classy -- to find that CPU. //Gasp.// Back in the box. Heartrate spikes. "You serious?" he whisper-yells. Before passing judgment, Cole thinks to read the note. Envelope open, letter in hand, it reads:

> Dear Bro,
> 
> Sorry this came late. I got it just before we moved and didn't realize the desktop wasn't gonna be in our rooms anymore. Anyways, I swapped the CPU in Dad's bedside table with the CPU from that dusty piece of shit in our basement. Figured no one would notice. So far, no one has. Now it's a pretty meaningless gift but I guess I didn't want the effort to be for nothing, so, here you go.
> 
> Keep it somewhere secret and maybe toss this letter straight in the dumpster. And don't think I never do anything for you.
> 
> Eric

He was right. It was completely useless. That desktop went deep into storage. It wasn't even in an unpacked box. Somewhere, a storage unit was happy to keep the wonders of technology away from the Ortegrens for the rest of boyhood-eternity. //Hmm,// Cole though. Well, if the gift was symbolic, he might as well use it symbolically. //Fuck this doll anyways,// he thought, //but if they're going to make it easy on me I might as well.//

But a kiss?

Cole looked at the computer chip and winced.

"Nah," he said to no one. "Yeah fuck that."

He pushed the chip into the Elf's stomach and closed the hands over it, which completely obscured it. Next, he climbed onto his bed to put the thing on top of his dresser, the highest stable place in the room. Once his feet met floor again, he looked up and wondered what the purpose of doing any of that was. Elves really weren't Cole's aesthetic and they never would be ever ever. It kind of messed with the room's vibe.

But. //Hmm.//

A parent's call put the fear of God back in him, and he bolted out to meet with family once more, the Elf a conundrum for a later date. Thing is, humans don't look up nearly as often as anywhere else. Only ever in the periphery of Cole's usual sightlines, the Elf's prevalence in his mind will fade easily -- though little did the Elf care for Cole's ungratefulness. The token was placed and the gears -- or wires -- put into motion.

= [[image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/dr-k-stuff-s-personnel-file/III style="width:30px"]]

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> **You:** The corner of Plymouth's mouth twitched, and his squint became a glare. "You've bested me."
> **Stranger:** Aegis raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you were able to admit it." Their sword glinted in the lurid sun, the remainder of Plymouth's blood dripping off its chipped edge.
> **You:** The ocean's incurious tide lapping against the rocks filled the air, along with the wind coming in from the sea. Plymouth held a hand to his wounds, and his sword slipped from his fingers, falling lifelessly to a bed of sand.
> **You:** "All my life, I thought I was the best. I'm not. I thought I was the lucky one. I wasn't. People told me I was worth something. Was it a lie?"
> **Stranger:** ooc like what a hard hitter shit
> **You:** sorry we can skip
> **Stranger:** no this is sweet gimme a sec
> //Stranger is typing...//

Cole can wait. Aside from being home for dinner, Cole is awash in a scheduleless existence that he decides to spend on the computer. The school computers, to be exact. The library is open well past the end of school, probably to be available for extracurriculars and study groups (Cole sees his fair share of both but participates in neither), and they have myriad computers, so many that he's never been bothered for using one up.

Roleplaying. Every day, after school. Omegle. Proxy sites make school wifi his bitch. Free forever, hell yea, Cole wins.

> **Stranger:** Aegis knelt, and took Plymouth's chin in their hand. "No. You just weren't worth /enough./"
> **You:** oof
> **Stranger:** fr
> **Stranger:** i gotta dip actually
> **You:** Plymouth rips his face from Aegis' hand, and
> **You:** aw shit really?
> **Stranger:** yea i'm booked tonight but like you're like good at this
> **You:** ayy thanks
> **Stranger:** like i kinda wanna continue this scene??? what's your discord
> **You:** you too
> **You:** Discord?
> **Stranger:** hmm?
> **You:** i don't have whatever that is
> **Stranger:** ohshi
> **Stranger:** Okay like where can i find you
> **You:** nowhere lol
> **Stranger:** oh, don't wanna meet up again
> **Stranger:** ?

Who is this person and what's their deal?

> **You:** no actually continuing this scene would be cool i just like don't know how to do that
> **Stranger:** gimme a contact ???
> **You:** i guess i have an email
> **Stranger:** bro like what is your life ?????
> **Stranger:** Just get discord it's super easy

Cole purses his lips.

> **Stranger:** I really do have to dip tho
> **You:** gimme your like contact on discord and i'll figure someshit out later
> **Stranger:** Okok but what's yr username
> **You:** uhhhh PieMOuth
> **You:** PieMouth*
> **Stranger:** oh haha piemouth plymouth
> **You:** yea lol
> **Stranger:** ok chill im PentaclesPaige#0006
> **Stranger:** both P names
> **Stranger:** super chill
> **Stranger:** ok cya
> //Stranger has disconnected.//

Well, huh. //They aren't very good at action,// Cole critiques, //but they have a good grasp on the character part.// Still, Cole is reeling a little bit. Someone wants to continue talking to him. Someone has given him an app and a username. //PieMouth.// It came to him quick. It rolls off the tongue well enough. He'll stick with it. Besides, it feels... natural. Like it comes from somewhere. Cole shrugs at himself, and wipes that thought away, a little too quickly to be nonchalant.

Big world, shallow thoughts. Keep It Simple: __Stupid.__

Cole checks the time, and figures he could start walking home now anyways, maybe play some Advance Wars against Eric, or watch him play one of those Pokemon Nuzlockes he does.

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Cole must have eyes on the back of his head, because he can just //tell// she's doing it again. Leaning forward and peeking at his shit. He figured this was supposed to stop as a behavior in the fifth grade at most, but here she was, the seat behind him, deciding that his stuff was her business, and it was making his hackles raise. He could //feel// them.

Here he is, trying to make good use of a perfectly shitty class, and someone is peering at his shit.

He closes his notebook with a kind of //force// he's hoping she'll take note of.

"Cole?"

"//Yes?//" he responds immediately, before he can even consider that more than just the teacher's attention has been thrown his way.

It isn't like the movies. Not //every// eye is turned his way. But it feels like it. Catching glances. Peers peering. Cole feels his face redden. His heartrate -- no, it was already racing. //Fuck this,// he thinks, //fuck this fuck this fuck this.//

"If you have some energy you need to expend, you are welcome to take a walk through the halls."

Cole needs no extra encouragement. He can feel heat rising to his head. He nearly leaves the seat then and there -- before turning around and snatching his notebook, giving that girl behind him some kind of //look.// This deep in his head, he doesn't even register a response. Or an expression. //Message has been communicated. I need to leave.//

Out the door, into the hall. Fuck these people. "Aaaa//ugh//," he actually grumbles aloud, trying to manifest this mania into something he could touch and feel and thus choke and throw away. Left? Right? Left.

Linoleum floors forever. He wonders about the drop of the word "academy." Things weren't academies anymore. Academies had dignity. These are //schools.// Endless meat machines. Cole has received the hand-me-down of Eric's teenage angst. //Hello there, old familiar. I understand you now.//

He doesn't.

He walks, notebook in hand, at a generous pace. He breathes shallow, stupid breaths, and sweats from a mixture of hormones and something more unplaceable. He's coming up short on words, but a more outside perspective might suggest things like: flustered, embarrassed -- no, something closer to intruded, violated. Some //something// in him takes control, and before Cole even knows it, three pages are ripped out and crumpled, and tossed in a bin.

The root of the infection, he thinks, is gone.

= ##white|**ArtPiece IV**##

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Cole can't fall asleep. Grandma's house is old and smells like handsoap in every corner. This bedroom is no exception. Cole's blankets crinkle and hiss as fabric rubs against fabric, his cheap polyester tee shirt meeting the old-money silks of ritzy retirement. It feels like he's draped in the wrinkles that blanket old women's faces. Even the floral wallpapers look like the blemishes on Grandma's skin.

A clock with a tacky wood-carved owl ticks away from the corner of his room, and despite all his efforts he can't turn its repetitions into white noise. It, the blankets, and the occasional creak of compressing wood worm into his ears and lay down to rest with him. Or, of course, Cole is merely antsy, finding external factors to blame.

By this time of night, Grandma would be asleep. He feels confident in that much. He throws the lavender sheets from his body and tosses his legs over the side of the bed.

He shuffles, in white socks and plain blue pajamas, over to his suitcase, laid horizontally on the floor. He unzips it slowly and carefully pushes it open. Inside, he unzips a second compartment, and pulls from it a red notebook, supposedly with notes for his chemistry class, but that is hardly the case. He holds the treasure to his chest, unwittingly giving life to the phrase "close to the heart." Plymouth would do well to know the chinks in his armor, but pride keeps him from noticing his own weaknesses.

Cole opens the door onto the balcony that overlooks the first floor living room, and is sure to walk slowly and silently past the doors of both his brother and his grandma. Left hand on the banister, the other on his tome, Cole sneaks through the streaming moonlight, coming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows to his left. Once he makes it to the stairs, he puts his feet on the bottom of the sloped railing, knowing the stairs to creak. He slides carefully down and steps off towards the door to Grandpa's study.

Grandpa isn't around anymore, and Grandma didn't touch his stuff when he died. The study fell into his final expression -- cabinets open, books agape, it looks scared, vacant and upsetting. The monochrome world beyond the windows looks at Cole with the same dead, milky eyes. That's why Grandma usually leaves the door closed, and that's why Cole can get away with being here, but what he's looking for isn't reconnection with someone he'd met thrice at most: it's Grandpa's computer.

= ##white|**ArtPiece V**##

> [[SIZE 150%]]**PentaclesPaige**[[/size]]
> This is the beginning of your direct message history with **@PentaclesPaige**.
> 
> -----
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> hey
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> uh
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> who this
> 
> **PieMouth**
> oh
> we met on Omegle
> Plymouth
> um
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> OH
> 
> **PieMouth**
> you had a character named Aegis
> fought on a cliff
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ACTION RP DUDE
> 
> **PieMouth**
> stabbed me full in the gut
> yea hello
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> yooooo!!! you got discord sweet sorry i like forgot you existed
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ye
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Like it's been months fr
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ye
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ye
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> 🤡
> what's been up?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> what are you doing
> uh nothing really
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> like why'd it take you so long ???
> 
> **PieMouth**
> lol
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> "lol"
> ??????
> 
> **PieMouth**
> some shit happened i dunno
> im at a new place, computer in my room
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ok sweet
> Do you have like
> a phone?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> lol
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> "lol"
> 🙃

//Can't she take a fucking hint, wow.//

> **PieMouth**
> Not really
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> damn wow
> that's like
> a whole different world
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ye
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> like
> you been doing alright?
> are you doing alright
> //now?//
> 
> **PieMouth**
> woah italics
> how do you do that
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> *like this*
> 
> **PieMouth**
> //?//
> yo
> sick
> That like no joke
> adds a lot to RP mood
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> you still rp?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> when i can
> yeah
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> how do you rp
> 
> **PieMouth**
> Omegle
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> no like How do you rp if you don't have a phone or
> like
> a computer
> 
> **PieMouth**
> lol
> school computers
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> --"""lol"""-- ,,(edited),,
> oh sorry
> i rescind my """"lol""""
> that's wacky dude
> 
> **PieMouth**
> lol
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> you need to stop doing that or i'm gonna make you stop doing that
> 
> **PieMouth**
> sorry
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> "sorry"
> ???
> 
> **PieMouth**
> what the fuck is wrong with sorry
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> no like is that genuine
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yes?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> dude i think you need to get out more
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yea like
> get out of this conversation
> what the fuck are we even talking about
> what's going on
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> bro
> 
> **PieMouth**
> why did i contact you
> what the fuck is even the point
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> dude dude dude dude
> i'm sorry
> I'm totally getting up your ass about shit
> Like we haven't even really talked yet
> I shouldn't've done that to you
> Didn't mean to get on your case
> 
> **PieMouth**
> okay
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> lol
> 
> **PieMouth**
> :|
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> sorry

A wind sends a shivering whistle through a crack somewhere in the room, and the pale blue leaves wave outside. Cole's red face scowls at this fumbling interaction, and he considers whether he should respond at all. Part of him wants to abandon the endeavor entirely. But a trick of the universe lays claim to only one possible outcome, and proceeds in that direction with a fierce determination. Paige continues.

= [[image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/dr-k-stuff-s-personnel-file/III style="width:30px"]]

> **PentaclesPaige**
> Flattering you reached out man, like //i'd// forgotten about you so that you remembered me, that's pretty cool
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ye
> it was the first time someone had invited me to continue, i wrote a note to myself in one of my notebooks
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Oh nice. Still in school?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ye

Cole uses a pause in Paige's responses to flip through his notebook, and folds along the perforations of several specific pages before neatly tearing them out.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> okay this is gonna sound hella intrusive but like
> how old?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> 17

He's not. Cole is fourteen, soon to be fifteen.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> Okay that's good that's like
> Human age
> 
> **PieMouth**
> human age?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> yea you're like
> Not really a person until you're at least 16 yknow??
> I can work with 17
> but if you were younger i wouldve totally ghosted you lol

Cole smirks.

> **PieMouth**
> lol
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ayways I was totally about to slpee before you showed up so like im gonna hit the hay
> Are you gonna be here tomorrow or are you gonna disappear for another months ???
> 
> **PieMouth**
> i'll be here
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> sick
> Did you reach out because, like, you want to continue our rp?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> Yeah
> But actually I was wondering if we could start from the top
> i've developed Plymouth a bit from other Rps, I want to start over with a better understanding of his character
> if you're down
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> dude yes yes yes
> To be completely honest I haven't thought of Aegis since we RPd, if we're starting over maybe we just ddo something completely different? You keep Plymouth?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yea i'm down
> Mostly I'm interested in doing something with him that actually lasts more than just one session, occasionally you run into the same people on Omegle when you put your likes as the same thing each time but it's not something you can plan
> I'm definitely gonna have access to this computer for a couple weeks, so like I'll be available
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> aw
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> are you gona disappear after that?

Cole pauses.

> **PieMouth**
> idk
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ok
> Well talk tomorrow
> gn
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> bro seriously lol
> Goodnight
> 
> **PieMouth**
> goodnight

Cole closes out of the Discord app he'd downloaded onto Grandpa's computer, but he's not done with this room yet. He circles around the table at the center of the room to the back of the desktop, where Grandpa's old printer is. Much less modern than Grandpa's computer, it groans as Cole opens it up and stuffs the first page inside, face down. He closes it, hits //scan,// and the machine produces pops and wheezes that make Cole nervous, but he's done this before. He repeats the process with six more pages, and then closes the printer for good.

Circling back to the computer, Cole takes the scanned drawings of Plymouth and moves them into his character's google doc, sizing and formatting each so they stand parallel to his descriptions, backstory and lore.

"Hey," Eric's voice comes from behind him.

Cole hurriedly closes his tabs, and hears his heartbeat triple, pounding into his ears. "Bro," he whisper-yells, "what the //fuck!//"

"Sorry," Eric intones with that sleep-growl edge that persists just after waking up. "I was getting a midnight snack and I hear you in here."

"Why are you being so fucking sneaky?"

"Same reason you are. Grandma's not too easy to wake up, though."

"Go away!"

"Man, shut up. I was gonna ask you if you wanna go shooting with me an' Jed tomorrow."

Cole can't make eye contact, head whirling with what Eric did or did not see, or what he suspects, or anything of that sort. However, Eric has given him no sense of hostility or blame. He loosens enough to take the question seriously.

"Um, sure, yeah."

"Cool. After breakfast?"

"Yeah. Now fuck off."

"Yeah. Goodnight, bro."

Cole doesn't respond as his brother removes himself from the doorway where he had been leaning on the frame, tip-toeing towards the kitchen to grab a snack or drink or something. Cole feels limited, and decides he'll go back to his room before Eric comes back. He turns off the computer, grabs his notebook, and then pulls several books off of Grandpa's shelves that he has been eyeing for a while. "Don't mind me, Grandpa," Cole whispers. "I finished with //Lord of the Rings,// I need some new stuff."

He pushes the books under his arm, and then sneaks towards the door to check if Eric is within eyesight. Nowhere to be seen: and a clink from the kitchen tells Cole he's occupied. He runs up the stairs, creaks be damned, and gets into his room before anyone can see what he is toting. He stuffs the novels and his notebook back into his suitcase, zips it closed, and throws himself into bed.

He won't be able to sleep for a long time, but once he is calm enough, he finds himself looking forward to going shooting with his brother. And Jed, of course. Cole doesn't particularly care about Jed.

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//Pow, clunk.//

"Good one," Eric says, with a warmth to his tone that contrasts the dry, frigid winter.

The lumberyard is wide and empty, and stretches far beyond what the Ortegren children have termed "the lumberyard." In reality, tens of miles of woodland is all new growth, a forest recovering from the industrial projects of several decades past. The trees are stout, and less sturdy than those that had come before, but they are still each of them older than any of the children who bear witness.

Jed wings a stray bullet into a young spruce. He can't know the difference between fresh growth and that which has weathered the earth's eras, he doesn't know that this wound will create a knot that will last the tree its entire life, one that would be joined by hundreds of other twists and knots as the decades rolled on -- if it weren't for the fact that these woods will be stripped again several more times in the coming century.

To these boys, this is what the woods look like. //It's nice to be out in nature,// Eric sometimes thinks.

//It's cold,// Cole mostly keeps to himself.

"Cole, go set up the cans again," Eric instructs. Cole does as he is told, walking over the crunching frosted pine needles in his furred boots and (thankfully unnecessary) brown snow pants. He hugs his duck canvas jacket around himself, wishing he'd gotten just one more layer, before leaning over to pick up the cans that Jed had hit. He'd made about six of the ten of them, worse than his usual, but it was forgivable when the chill fucked with your hands.

Not that Cole will get the same treatment.

Once six have been added back -- one coming from their can pile that they put in the corner of a concrete foundation for a building that otherwise no longer exists -- Cole returns to the boys, who have been talking to each other in low tones while Cole was away. Cole is vaguely aware of some divisor between himself and his brother, the reason that they don't hang out at school. There is something about older kids that Cole doesn't get yet, and isn't eager to discover. They have many conversations that Cole is never privy to, and take great lengths to send him away to do things. Cole is undecided on whether he minds.

But that isn't on his mind as he takes Grandpa's bolt-action rifle from Jed. He wants to shoot cans. He feels the icy metal even through his fingerless gloves, and the heft in his hands is welcome. He presses the butt end into his shoulder, and levels the muzzle at the row.

//Pow, clunk.//

= ##white|**ArtPiece VI**##

Plymouth nails an escapee with his crossbow. The arrowhead spears into their calf, sending them sprawling onto the ground. Plymouth approaches and stomps the wound, making the highwayman scream in pain while Plymouth levels the bow at a second. This one is caught right between the shoulder blades. If he is alive when he hits the ground, he won't be for long. The third is definitive: into the neck. A volume of blood unbelievable to be contained in a human body sprays like steam from a broken pipe.

The fourth was shot through the shoulder, the bullet lodging into his broken bone. He screamed in pain, but it could hardly be heard over the commotion of the lumberyard. The strikebreaker ducked back under cover as bullets rang past him, the loggers firing back. //This can't last much longer,// he thought, looking at the road and assessing his escape options. There was a stretch of open air between himself and the wagon, though its tires looked to be in tact. No one had gone for the dirty trick of shooting them out, but it was only a matter of time until it was done on accident.

To his knowledge, there were only a couple more loggers to worry about nearby -- at least, only so many with guns and the will to fire back. All he needed to do was make sure they stayed down before retreating to a safer position. He peeked above cover and, seeing no one, fired merely in the direction of the incoming gunfire. //Pow, pow.// The fifth and sixth shots penetrated only concrete, behind which were those he most worried about. Hoping that the shots would deter any to peek above, he ran for the automobile, only to --

Plymouth misses the seventh shot, the fleeing robber jumping into the wagon and the driver starting the horses. He curses, and aimed again. Eighth, ninth, they each jam into the wood of the vehicle, but the occupants are unharmed. He curses again, and then hears the whimper of someone who should be dead. Plymouth cut his losses, turning from the road to find the source of the sound. Behind a row of dry desert brush, the man with the bolt in his back lays crying and bleeding. Plymouth sneers. "Squirming wretch, let me end your miserable existence," he says, with about as much nuance and depth as it sounds. He puts the crossbow to the defenseless man's head, and pulls.

//Pow, clunk.//

= ##white|**ArtPiece VII**##

"That's ten," Eric announces. "Six cans down, ten shots. Barely a passing grade, little bro."

"What?" Cole states more than asks, incredulous. "Fuck you, Jed got six, too."

"So?"

"//So?//" Cole fumes. "I'm just as good as he is!"

"Did I ever say you weren't?"

"You didn't say shit to Jed!"

Jed says nothing. He's learned that when the two brothers spar, it's best to let them have it. He also knows -- no, he hopes -- that it is all inevitably harmless anyways.

"It's not about Jed."

Cole huffs, and almost smiles. "Then //what// is it --"

Cole isn't allowed to finish the thought. In his gesture of confusion and defeat, he has lowered the rifle, so that it is pointing directly at his feet, and Eric is quick. He steps to the side, grabs the rifle's trunk, and forces it to the side so that Cole aims it at the ground, away from both himself and Eric.

"Don't you //fucking// forget you're holding a gun, //Jesus// Cole."

Cole flushes with shame. "Sorry," he says.

"Don't be sorry, be better. Holy shit. I don't want you blowing a hole in your foot."

"Sorry," he says, quieter.

"Sounds like maybe enough for today?" Jed ventures.

Cole is now too embarrassed to make a contribution to the conversation. He lets the older boys sort it out among themselves. "Uhh," Eric says, a hesitation in his body language that Cole is too distracted to pick up on. "Yeah, probably."

Eric takes Grandpa's Karabiner 98 kurz from Cole's willing arms. Cole kicks frostbitten dirt and twists to face away from the boys. "C'mon," Eric nudges Cole in the back of the neck, and they start to walk, the two boys in front and Cole lagging behind. They follow along some long-cracked pavement that they are wise enough to not try to ride their bikes down, which leads from the lumberyard back towards civilization.

Cole minds his business. He wrestles with inarticulate feelings of inferiority and doubt, boyish hierarchical concerns. The boys up front speak in low voices, undoubtedly so Cole can't hear them, but he doesn't try to listen in either. Occasionally they laugh, but they don't rise above chuckles. Something is weighing on their mood. At one point, loud enough for Cole to hear, Eric asks: "Mind if you trot ahead?"

"Huh? Why?" Jed asks.

Eric shrugs. "I wanna talk with my bro."

"Oh." Jed puts two and two together, and his heartrate increases just slightly. "Yeah, alright." Jed hastens his pace a bit, and Eric stays back to wait for Cole to catch up. When they meet, Cole looks up to quiz his older brother with his eyes. Eric shrugs in response, and they start to walk. For thirty seconds, they walk in silence, Cole still too embarrassed to start conversation himself, yet increasingly curious as to his brother's proximity. Even on such a surface level, the intimacy of the act of seeking out Cole's company is uncomfortable to him. He struggles with the emotion.

"Do you... like Jed?" Eric asks.

//Crunch, crunch, crunch,// the ground underfoot.

"Like Jed?"

"Yeah," Eric cautiously responds. "Do you?"

//Crunch, crunch, crunch.//

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"Jesus, it's a simple question, Cole."

"He's fine."

"Fine?"

"Yeah," Cole's face contorts, "why do you care? He's //your// friend."

"I was wondering if you liked him."

"Why?"

Eric struggles for words for a moment. "Just to know if you get along."

"What? We've never fought. Are you trying to fuckin', uncover some dirt or someshit?"

Eric lets out a loud breath through the nose, and the corners of his lips turn up into a bemused smile. "What?"

"Like, you hate Jed's guts but you gotta say it's about me and then you stick it on me. Trying to get rid of him." Before Eric can counter, Cole adds: "Do //you// like him?"

Eric pushes Cole hard enough that he almost loses his balance, but doesn't. Now Cole is smiling too, back into a familiar groove with his brother, one of ribbing and jabbing.

"Hey!" Cole raises his voice to try to catch the distant Jed. "Eric says --"

Before he can finish the statement, Eric attempts to grapple for Cole, missing on the first try but latching onto his shirt collar the second. Cole lets out a yelp, and Eric fits him into a headlock. "Eric says he hates you!" Cole manages to get out before Eric brings him to the ground and uses his weight to push Cole over. Cole fights back by locking his knees in a position that braces him, one arm below him for balance and another fighting Eric's chokehold and failing -- Eric is bigger and naturally stronger.

Jed closes the distance a little, and lets himself laugh when he sees the smiles on both the boys' faces, erasing his first concerns about a violent encounter.

"Don't listen to the little shit," Eric says, hand now on the back of Cole's head, rubbing his face in a bit of dirt, pinning Cole to the ground with his own body weight. Cole, for his part, just makes muffled struggling noises, interspersed with bits of laughter. Eric, testing Cole's compliance, takes his hand off of Cole's head and lets him up for air.

"Says you're a shit-eating retard!" Cole gets in before Eric pushes his face back down and Cole's giggles redouble. Jed's eyebrows shoot up in amusement, but the comment doesn't elicit any other reaction. Cole doesn't notice of course, fighting as he is against a more pressing obstacle. Cole worms his head to the side enough to get out an approximation of: "Stop, stop!"

"You'll be good?"

"Yes!"

Eric stands up, and Cole struggles to his feet, coughing twice and laughing more than that. He brushes some dirt off of his pants, but then he turns on his heels and plunges into Eric's midriff, trying to use his whole weight to send his brother to the ground. It's worked before, but adrenaline keeps Eric alert for the attack, and a well placed foot keeps him upright. He uses his stance to push Cole off, and then gives him a light smack across the back of the head for trying. Both boys heave and chuckle. Cole lazily punches Eric in the arm, and Eric doesn't respond.

"Had your talk?" Jed asks.

"Yeah," Eric says. Without Cole's noticing it, Eric's smile falters just a little before adding a second, "yeah."

Jed gives Eric a sympathetic frown, but the expression doesn't last. "Then walk a little faster, would you? I'm starving and I wanna get home."

"Cole, walk faster," Eric deflects the instruction.

"He's talking to //you,// too!" Cole levels at him, but the complaint doesn't hold any grudge this time. The boys make it back up to the paved road where their bikes have been hidden in some bushes. Cole's gets stuck on a branch and Eric helps him get it out. As Cole picks leaves and twigs out from his spokes, Jed and Eric make some banter between themselves, talking about how long the Ortegren brothers will be in the area and when next they can all hang out. Cole brings his bike up to the road when he's ready, and the older boys take that as the cue to get on.

They sail down the road and into town. They haven't made it to the more suburban parts of the journey before the Ortegrens' turn comes up, and they have to say goodbye to Jed. Strangely, the boys up front stop their bikes to say goodbyes, and Cole quizzically sidles up next to Eric's stopped bike. Usually they just yell goodbyes and keep going, but something is different this time.

Jed and Eric stand awkwardly, and make a kind of non-conversation out of little observations.

"Well, see you... day after tomorrow?" Jed asks.

"Yeah, sounds good."

They look, for a moment, like they don't know what to do. Then, Jed extends his hand in a fist, and Eric bumps it.

"Alright," Eric's speech sounds stilted, "bye."

"Bye."

Jed gets back on his bike and rides off, downhill. Eric stares while he goes, until he turns a corner and is out of sight.

= ##white|**ArtPiece VIII**##

Do //you like Jed?// Cole questions in his mind, having completely missed a dimension of their interaction and noticing that very fact. Eric shakes his head, nearly imperceptibly, and then turns towards the hill to the left that they must climb to get to Grandma's house.

"Alright, little bro. Race you to the top!" Eric gets a head start, having mounted his bike as he said the words.

"Hey!" Cole yells in protest, mounting his own bike and preparing to pedal as hard as he can.

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Cole gets off the bus in an unfamiliar part of town. Of course, all parts of town are at this point unfamiliar. Cole feels, for a moment, that he's in another country, of course completely unaware of just how different other countries can get. He's following another kid named Kody, who's probably a little less than a year younger than him, but nonetheless they share a grade and a homeroom. They sat next to each other, and Kody leaned over to Cole seemingly unprompted to make a joke of the teacher being a fat pig after assigning homework. They were fast friends, in the way that Cole understood friends to work.

Kody is having a lengthy one-sided conversation about a new console that's coming out, going over all the advertised features and release titles. He's particularly excited about some new graphics cards and a sleek controller design that Cole doesn't understand the purpose of.

All this is communicated before they even reach the gate. Kody's house is as standard as they come: so standard, in fact, it sits right between two other identical houses, all equidistantly set in this flat suburban plane. There's a little bit of wind chill and some stringy clouds overhead, but Cole didn't bother with any layers besides his long-sleeve shirt. Kody opens the gate of the white picket fence, but the rest of the house doesn't hold up to the middle-class accent such a fence is supposed to provide.

They enter the door of a tight, one-story house. Inside, directly opposite Cole and immediately visible, is a long confederate flag hanging over a cheap HD-TV. Kody shucks his shoes and Cole follows suit, though he's a little hesitant to, because the carpeting that covers every floor surface but the kitchen's looks grubby and old-person brown. A smell accompanies it. Not an unbearable or even distracting smell, but a smell that Cole notices and dislikes.

At some point, Cole refocuses into reality to notice Kody still talking about something.

"You don't shut up, do you?" Cole says, cutting into the middle of one of Kody's sentences, something about a military setting.

"I --" Kody doesn't seem to have an immediate response. In fact, for the first time since the start of the bus ride, Kody closes his mouth and keeps it like that.

Cole is barely aware of the effect he's had, but feels the relief of a moment of silence. Plymouth absent-mindedly wipes the subtle specks of blood off his blade before sheathing it. Cole walks further into the house without prompting, and sees a hallway to his right.

"That's where Mom and Dad are, on the left. My bedroom's on the right. Bathroom in the middle to the left, too," Kody says. "And over here's the kitchen," he points to the left, "and there's the dining room right there, and --"

Cole tunes him out and walks forwards, past the entryway and into the living room, closer to the TV. There's a big green-brown couch, a recessed lounge chair, a cabinet of CDs and DVDs, even some VHS's, and then a little glass table in the center of it all that should have been destroyed several hundred times by now but has miraculously weathered Kody's boyhood (thus far) and a number of ruffian pets.

Most important to Cole, though, is the game console sitting under the TV, and next to it, an assortment of ten or so games.

"That's my collection," Kody says, a little meek, now noticing for the first time just how much he's being ignored.

"Watcha got?"

Kody perks up at the recognition. "Oh! We have //Accord,// it's a puzzle game, it's not very good, it's about making a machine that builds a tower and you only know if the machine is going to build a good tower by watching it build the tower which can take a while, you can't make edits in the middle of the build so as the tower gets taller and taller before f//uck//ing up each time," Kody puts an awkward emphasis on the cuss, "and then you gotta go back to the bottom and make edits to the machine and hope you reach the goal and --"

"What about this one?" Cole picks up something with a skeleton and some fantasy setting on the front.

"//Graveblade,// that's like a collectathon, adventure-type thing, you go around and fight the undead --"

"You aren't a skeleton?"

"Oh you are, you're like, possessed by an angel or something -- the story's really lame -- and you are the only //good// one fighting against the evil ones, you know, uh, like so Satan has risen a bunch of dead soldiers and God who's only referred to as //He// and //Him// says that to fight an ancient evil you must raise an ancient good so you're like an old warrior, I think your name is Samuel or something, and you're going to go around -- so Satan's risen a bunch of historical --"

"Is it any good? Let's play this."

Kody shakes his head, hard. "No, it's really not. It's not very good."

"What?" Cole shakes the box, as if he's getting the shape of the thing. "How come you //know// so much about it, then?"

"That one," Kody reaches past Cole, his arm momentarily directly in Cole's face which forces the boy to lean back on his heels, and picks a game off the top of a pile. "This, is, //Heat,// well //Heat III,// it's a uh, it's a first-person shooter set in the uh, Vietnam? Well //Heat III// is, anyways, and so you're fighting in a jungle, it's really hardcore, my dad really likes it so I kinda get to --"

"Your dad?"

"Hmm? Yeah, my dad plays it. He plays it with me sometimes, too. He's really good. He's a cop."

Cole snuck the mild discomfort under a huff of amusement and an accusatory glance. Kody seems unfazed. In reality, Kody doesn't notice the subtext at all, and powers ahead.

"It's a good game," he plugs in, "we should play that."

"Okay," Cole says, hesitantly.

As Kody excitedly pops open the case, a feeling stirs in Cole's chest. His intentions unclear even to himself, he nonetheless can't hold back from prying further. "Does your dad play other games with you?"

"No," Kody says, "sometimes. I guess. He doesn't like anything else. He just plays //Heat.// He's really good at it. He kicks my m-my butt." Kody stumbles over his words, and looks momentarily embarrassed.

In an admittance that surprises Cole himself as it comes out of his mouth, he says: "My dad doesn't play any games with me."

"Really?" Kody says. "That sounds lame."

Kody's responses come so fast, Cole has to catch his balance when honesty is given so easily. "It is," he agrees. Cole looks at Kody, who has the disc in one hand, the case in the other. Both of the boys are on their knees on the carpet in front of the TV, looking at each other. Kody's innocent, defenseless eyes disarm him, and he finds himself elaborating on a topic he hasn't even complained about to Eric. "They don't even let me play many videogames."

"Why?"

"I dunno." Cole's anxieties flare as he realizes how much he's said to someone whose house he has just entered for the first time. The feeling, deeply uncomfortable, worming into his heart and stomach, must be expelled at the soonest opportunity. To do so, Cole automatically, unconsciously and instinctually, summons up anger to mask it under. Anger is manageable, and directable. "It's retarded," he says, with a bit of emphasis.

Kody laughs. Cole's eyes widen at Kody, the boy with no reservations, who can laugh in Cole's face without a hint of shame. Before Cole can turn his anger towards this act of disrespect, Kody reveals the true subject: "They sound gay."

Cole snorts. "Gay as hell."

"F-faggy." Cole gives Kody one of the few looks Kody knows how to interpret, the observation aided by Kody's uneasiness, and so he's quick to clarify in a hushed tone: "That's what Dad says. Dad told me one time when he beat me in //Heat// that I wouldn't die so much if I stopped hiding l-like a fag."

Cole laughs, fully. Kody joins him, enjoying just the energy of the interaction. Cole can't express, to Kody or himself, just what it is about Kody's obliviousness that makes laughing so easy, but all of a sudden, Cole can't help but laugh. "They //are// faggy," Cole agrees, and a reminder of the anger comes back to the surface. "Faggy and fucking retarded."

"Retarded!" Kody repeats the word, too loud, and laughs again. "Fucking retarded!"

"//Hey!//" A voice from down the hallway shouts, and Kody seizes up immediately, rising from his knees to a standing position in preparation. Cole remains where he is, but his heartrate rises and his eyes turn to the hallway. Sure enough, out emerges a knight, sword drawn. Glorious righteous holy and right. Cole feels meek. Kody feels similarly. They see the same thing, but in Kody's world, this knight lives at home. His own protector.

"Watch your //fucking// language!"

"Sorry, Dad," Kody says. The apprentice. Cole realizes his place in the dynamic, and loosens slightly. This lesson is not for him.

"If I catch you saying that shit again," the knight levels his sword at the child, "it's your head. You hear me?"

"Yes, Dad."

= ##white|**ArtPiece IX**##

There is a weird silence. Cole takes in the imperator. He isn't like the one at home. He isn't a Sir Ortegren. He isn't someone Cole would expect to be a cop. He's got a little bit of pudge at the waist, but that's the only place. He doesn't look very strong in other areas, either. He's smaller than Cole's dad. Thinner. Shorter. His clothes fit loosely, and he's only wearing boxers. He doesn't look the slightest bit worried about his appearance in front of a guest. Cole, the Ortegren ambassador.

He does, however, take notice. The knight makes eye contact, looking through the slits in his helmet. Cole's heart thumps, equal measures fear and respect, but he doesn't feel endangered, not really. //This one can't hurt me,// he thinks. //Not like Sir Ortegren.//

Cole feels pride for his own father that will weigh on him for the rest of his life.

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> **PentaclesPaige**
> no

Cole's brow furrows.

> **PieMouth**
> OoC? no?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> **hard** no
> I am not allowing a rape scene.

Cole nearly scoffs in real life.

> **PieMouth**
> it's not of Argus
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> really???
> 
> **PieMouth**
> what?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> That is so far bessides the point dude aI am not talking abt a rape scene becauz of //Argus// or someshit Im sayin gno rape scenes period, in general, of anyone
> I didn't think it was something I even had to say
> Ever
> 
> **PieMouth**
> oh
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Im like, upset it came up at all

Cole pauses, indignant. He types a message, deletes it, types another, and deletes that as well.

> **PieMouth**
> it wasn't in your no-gos
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> like ok on the one hand my b ???
> but also ????
> Like that's a no-go by default, Im surprised that you hadn't like, run nup against this at some point, when you were rplaying, like elswehre? How did you never get that memo??
> 
> **PieMouth**
> oh
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> like unless you're fucking with me or something

Cole rolls his eyes.

> **PieMouth**
> i'm not fucking with you
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Then why ?????

Cole stews. He's never had Paige so mad at him. On the one hand, he feels disconnected. He has no understanding for why this should be a big deal at all. Plymouth was already willing to kill -- more than kill. Maim, torture. He has inflicted fates worse than death on enemies before. Sentences to be eternally picked at by snakes, cast into maddening dimensions beyond mortality's reach.

> **PieMouth**
> Plymouth is going full villain mode
> y'know
> rape and pillage
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> I can see that!! That does **not** answer my question!!

On the other hand, his relationship to Paige is valuable to him, in the only way he understands how to value: he does things with her. If he were to fuck up their relationship, they would cease to do those things. He loves doing those things. He would never say that, but he does. He's willing to make concessions to keep doing what he loves to do.

> **PieMouth**
> what would?

There is a weird pause between Cole's message and Paige's response. He doesn't know what to do with the time, so ends up googling some idle interests of his until he gets the ping.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> Why did you want to write a rape scene?

Cole begins typing immediately, but slows as the weight of the question settles on top of him. The reality of the situation is, puberty is hitting Cole like a bitch. He has had no time to explore his feelings, to adjust. There is only one place he can go to when he feels a need to express himself, only one place to take a closer look at his brain. However, Cole doesn't know these things by these words. What Cole knows is that he feels a strong urge to bring the sexual into his roleplay, which also is catalogued in his brain, mistakenly, as nonsensical, meaningless fun.

The stakes are nothing. Paige's reaction contradicts this. The dissonance bothers Cole, which turns into misplaced annoyance.

> **PieMouth**
> it felt natural, i'm not sure what you want me to say
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> I want to know I can trust you.

Cole groans, loudly. //This fucking bitch,// he thinks to himself, //is getting wound up over nothing.// The annoyance starts to burn, to itch.

> **PieMouth**
> why aren't you telling me what you want
> what do you want me to say
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> JESUS Pie!!!
> that your'e SORRY
> that it wont' havppen again!!!!

Cole rocks in his seat with the energy built up in his arms and legs, energy he wishes could go into a good punch or kick at something.

> **PieMouth**
> i'm sorry, it won't happen again.

He wishes the stock response is enough. He doesn't know what else to do, what she wants from him. There comes a pause, and as soon as it's apparent Paige is going to take her time to respond, Cole finds that he has to stand up. He's in the computer lab at his new school. There are two other teens across the room, collaborating on some project or another, but besides that it's empty. A cold blue color. Carpet that needs washing and some missing tiles from the ceiling next to one of the light fixtures. A really boring, oppressive kind of place. He needs out.

He decides that the roleplay is over, and signs out on the computer, returning it to the logon screen, where images of smiling teens in various levels of quality and resolution slide on by before fading to the next. Most of them are sports, green and yellow the team colors.

Paige is being bitchy, he reasons, so she doesn't have to hear him say he's leaving. Of course, he "reasons" this retroactively, motivated far more by a sense of uneasiness and a push to be doing anything else.

He grabs his bag off the floor, stands up, and leaves. He doesn't know exactly where to go. He always spends his whole lunch in the computer lab, roleplaying or, if Paige isn't available, reading and writing. Before he knows where he's going, he simply sets off in a direction.

His thoughts fizz. They aren't accompanied by coherency, nor many complete phrases. Mostly, they bounce to a rhythm of anger, frustration, placeless longing and suppressed shame. When Cole can think of something, it comes out as either an accusation or a defense. //She's too fucking sensitive,// or, //I wasn't writing anything upsetting.// Often, he ends up repeating some aphorism to the tune of //it doesn't matter.//

Soon enough, he finds himself at the cafeteria. Well, this is a natural place to spend lunch, he guesses. He stands, at a loss of where to go, by the entrance, before he hears a familiar voice through the roar of the crowd and the roar of his thoughts.

"Cole! Cole!"

Cole looks to the right, to see Kody at a circular table near the front doors. Somehow, despite the cafeteria being packed tight, there are empty seats around him. On the side of the table opposite him, a couple sit and flirt with each other, the boy's hands always finding a way back to the girl's lap. Cole's mind bubbles and pops, but he looks away from them.

"Over here! Cole!"

//I know, I saw you,// Cole thinks, snapping at Kody in his mind. He does make his way over, however, and sits next to him.

"Hey! I was just in chemistry, and girl who sits two seats up and one seat to the right is really hot. She has really big boobs. She keeps wearing things that hide them though but I guess because the season is getting hotter she's started wearing --"

"Dude, shut up."

"Oh," Kody shifts in his seat, his heart corroding little by little every time he gets a reaction he doesn't understand. "Sorry. Only she's showing a lot of cleavage now and I was looking and I think she saw me looking and I waved but she turned away, and now I think she doesn't like me. Do you think she likes me?"

Cole waves his arms defensively. "How should I know? Probably not. Women are hotheads. They don't like anything."

"They are?"

Cole nods. "Hotheads and libtards."

Kody chuckles at the word. "Libtards," he repeats under his breath, and chuckles again. "My dad says women are really gentle, but I don't know if I believe him, because my mom can really yell when she wants to. My mom can be kind of a bitch. Is your mom a bitch?"

Cole gives Kody a look so searing, it burns straight through Kody's social blindness. Kody turns around, and then forward again, and wriggles like he's fighting against some kind of constraint.

"Are... you, okay?" Kody manages to say, without making eye contact.

"I'm fine," Cole says, quiet, slumping in his seat. "But I'll be better if you just shut the fuck up."

"Okay."

The rest of lunch passes without incident.

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[[image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/dr-k-stuff-s-personnel-file/X]]

> **PentaclesPaige**
> ok. I believe you.

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Clinks of silverware against ceramic and shifting of bodies make up the dinnertime soundscape around the Ortegren table, just big enough to seat the four of them. The parents sit on one side, the boys on the other. Cole had briefly nettled Eric about an embarrassing mishap earlier in the day that had ended with Eric on his back, covered in mud, his bike some feet away. Eric had wrestled for Cole's arm to give him an Indian burn until their mother reprimanded them. Now, they're both smiling, Cole still giggling a little and Eric shaking his head, but the conflict has ended.

The mother clears her throat, with some intent. Cole and Eric look up from their plates of chicken and mashed potatoes to see that their mom is still eating, though she makes a sideways glance at their dad, then back down at her plate. The boys follow her gaze, but the father makes no move, so they return to their plates as well.

Then again, she clears her throat.

"What?" Mr. Ortegren asks, clearly bothered.

"Don't you have something to announce?"

He looks almost like he's ignoring her, taking another bite of his chicken and grunting in a way that resonates, the sound betraying the weight of his body. Both the parents are big, in different ways. Both are fat, but the father is different. Even if he were slim, he would be head and shoulders above some.

He wipes his mouth with a napkin, and then grunts again. "Yes," he says through a mouth half-full.

The boys look at each other while the father takes another bite, clearly in no rush to divulge. The squires, however, have momentarily lost their appetite, hands at their sheaths, armor donned. There is not yet fear, but there is apprehension, eyes on the horizon and an ear to the wind.

Once he's satisfied, the father puts down his fork and knife and brings his hands together, signaling the beginning of his announcement. "Boys, I have a permanent assignment, should I take it, waiting for me in Idaho. We're moving again."

Cole rolls his eyes, and grunts. "Great," he says.

"Don't." Sir Ortegren points a finger at Cole. He's been acting up more recently, and the knight has noticed. Cole merely nods.

"Permanent?" asks Eric.

The father finishes another bite before responding. "At least long enough to get you and Cole through school."

"Your father and I thought it would be good for you two to be able to set down roots."

Cole finds that slightly funny, considering that Eric only has one year left of school. He just huffs. It is, if he thinks on it a little, relieving.

"When?"

"Over the summer," Mrs. Ortegren replies to Eric. "June."

Cole, marking the conversation as unimportant, returns to his plate, scooping a bite of mashed potatoes.

"Oh," Eric says.

"You'll want to be packing sooner than that," Mr. Ortegren states. "So that your mom and I can take your boxes with us while you stay at my mother's."

"We'll be accommodating for any farewell parties you want to have with your friends," Mrs. Ortegren adds, drawing a disapproving look from her husband.

The boys nod, knowing they won't be taking her up on that offer. Their mom has always wished they were a little more social. They don't throw, or attend, many parties.

The conversation ends without much resolution. Mrs. Ortegren looks around, having somewhat expected more discussion, more questions. Perhaps more signals of relief that they would finally be in one spot and one spot only. Creating a home to come back to. All she observes is a father who looks completely content to put his head down and eat, her baby boy looking disinterested, and Eric...

Eric has yet to start eating again. He peers into the middle distance. He looks at the banners on the horizon, he feels the weight on his gauntlet, the straps of his breastplate, the anxious braying of his horse. Are they coming this way? Or will this force pass?

"Eric?"

The cold metal feeling turns from armor to silverware as he comes back to the fantasy of a dining room table from the reality of the battlefield.

"I'm fine," he says, bringing chicken to his lips without any enthusiasm, just to cut off any possibility of continuation.

Though everyone hears the edge to his voice, nobody says anything about it. Mr. Ortegren doesn't care. Mrs. Ortegren frowns. Cole feels antsy, an energy kicking into his legs that tells him to finish so he can be excused to his room. No one decides to pursue the issue.

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= [[image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/dr-k-stuff-s-personnel-file/XI style="width:440px"]]

> **PieMouth**
> The rock walls climb beyond sight, their tops covered by blankets of mist and fog. Coils of vibrant greenery drape down over the narrow pass, barely wide enough for Plymouth to pass through with Argus in his arms. He is forced to use Argus' draping legs to push away the yellow, pink, white and red flowers that hang from above on vines, occasionally webbed with dew-dotted spider-silk and accompanied by spiders with five-pointed abdomens and feet-long millipedes banded with alternating orange and black. "God, if you are listening," Plymouth pleads, "if you answer but one of my prayers: let him live. Let Argus live."
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Argus' mouth moves, but not a single noise comes out. The only thing keeping the hole in his belly from pouring blood is the angle at which Plymouth cradles him. Tiny blue insects, the shape of scratches of pen ink, gather at the edge of the wound, recycling his life as quickly as Argus loses grip of it.
> [i have no more to add, assume he's unconscious now, you got this 👍]

Paige deletes the message as soon as she sends it.

> **PieMouth**
> "Don't speak," Plymouth urges him, "conserve your energy. Do nothing. Only, don't die. For the love of all that is good -- for my sake, Argus. Live a little longer."

Cole's hands shake as he types.

> **PieMouth**
> Rising above the clicks of strange, distant birds, the buzz of a million insects, and Plymouth's heavy steps as he forges through foliage... the sound, an amazing sound, shining light into Plymouth's head like a sunbeam through the cracks in a violent sky. //Running water.// Suddenly, Argus' body is twenty pounds lighter, Plymouth's steps easier. "We're almost there. Just moments longer. Stay with me just moments longer."
> 
> The path begins to widen. Finally, there is space between the hanging plants, Plymouth's vision clears, though the fog becomes denser, the path ahead opaque. Soon, Plymouth even loses sight of his feet, disappearing beneath him, his footing more unsure amidst the mossy rocks. He can't afford to slow down, even as he fears slipping and dropping his friend, dealing the final blow this close to salvation.
> 
> He presses onward. The air is warmer. The humidity reaches such a height that Plymouth can't know where his sweat and the atmosphere divide. He can no longer feel the rise and fall of Argus' chest. He grits his teeth. "You're not dead," Plymouth says, even as he knows the statement is for himself more than his companion of ten years. "You can't be dead! We're so close!"
> 
> Tears well in Plymouth's eyes, stinging as they pass over the cuts on his cheeks and the several thousand bites along his skin. "Moments longer, Argus! Only --"
> 
> He doesn't finish the thought, slipping on algae beneath his feet, himself and Argus falling towards an unknown fate. Plymouth screams as Argus slips from his grip, his body floating out into the fog, outside of both reach and sight. Plymouth's weight brings him down upon another rock, unable to find a grip, unable to see the slope, unable to make sense of direction, now tumbling in such a fashion that he loses track of up or down, flying through what looks like a cloud of gold-tinted mist, like sunlight's white glow on the edges of thick clouds. His heart drops as he no longer feels anything. Nothing to ground himself, no sense of direction, no point of contact. Free fall. It may only last a second or two, but in Plymouth's mind, the weightless moment is eternal, his mind blank, thoughts replaced only by equal measures fear and desperation.
> 
> Then, a splash. Two splashes. The second is his. His arms and legs pull in front of him, his torso becoming the lowest part of his body as he suddenly realizes that he's plunged into a body of water. //A body of water.// The realization flushes the resignation out of his body, pumps blood back into his muscles, pulling him back into the //fight// of fight or flight. He flails until he remembers how to swim, and pushes his head above the water. Now that he's listening for it, he hears the waterfall. They've made it. //The basin.//
> 
> "Argus!! We made it!" Plymouth yells, expecting no reply. "We made it!" His laughs are manic, lacking any pretense of restraint. They sound less like an expression and more like a spirit that is being exorcised from his body.
> 
> Coming to his senses, he drops under the water to get his eyes out of the fog, and sees Argus, floating, face-down, eyes closed. His ruptured belly makes a cloud of blood in the water, greater in volume than Argus himself.
> 
> He swims towards him, his excitement interfering with the precision of his movements, lacking the coordination of a frog and edging closer to the skittering limbs of a spider. Forgivingly, the water doesn't judge, and he closes the distance, putting his hands along Argus' side and flipping his companion over so his face is above the water.
> 
> "Live! Live damn you!" Then, as a reassurance only to himself: "You're going to live. Thank you, God. He's going to live."
> 
> This close to Argus, he can see him through the fog above the water, and he watches as the surface of the basin moves in strange ways. Moving up Argus' side, the water twists, climbs, in the shape of a hand with thin, delicate fingers. It moves towards Argus' wound, beginning to grope along the edges of the gash -- Argus' belly, resembling soft fruit-flesh a thumb has pressed into.
> 
> "Thank you," Plymouth whispers. Then, louder: "Thank you."
> 
> He struggles to find a role, as more hands rise from the water and gather around his wound, some venturing inside. //That isn't the only wound.// Barely thinking, he removes his own shirt, tossing it somewhere unseen, into the fog to float atop the water. Beneath, his thousand cuts and bruises, some slashes inches long and discolorations pommels wide. He tries to pull Argus' tunic off, but it's stuck to him, mixed as it is with his grizzle. Instead, he grabs the neck of it, and //pulls,// tearing the thing along its back, and then stripping it off of Argus' chest, laying bear the dent along his ribs, where sharp bone must press against his lungs beneath the skin.
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> um
> 
> **PieMouth**
> The hands respond immediately, groping along the purple ridges at Argus' side, and then pressing in. Plymouth maneuvers to Argus' posterior, and finds his trousers more difficult to wrangle. He pulls his knife from its sheath at his waist, and gets it underneath Argus' waistline, then pulling down to cut the trousers without harming Argus. He can hear his companion wince at the contact of a blade against his skin, and though it at first startles Plymouth, he then gasps at the realization.
> [you good?]
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> aaaaaaa
> uh this is getting a little uncomfortable 😵
> 
> **PieMouth**
> oh
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> The scene is really good. Your prose is like really really good
> 
> **PieMouth**
> thank you
> it's not supposed to be sexual
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Oh no I get that!!!
> I can see that
> 
> **PieMouth**
> oh
> what's the issue?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Um
> aaaa it's fine, keep going

Cole narrows his eyes.

> **PieMouth**
> ...
> you sure?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Yeah I'm overreacting 🥴
> 
> **PieMouth**
> but... to what
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Ummm okok
> it's like
> not sexual stuff exactly ???
> MOre like
> body stuff
> 
> **PieMouth**
> body stuff? Like... gore?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Noooo uh

Cole's ears twitch as he hears incoming footsteps

> **PieMouth**
> brb

He alt-tabs to look like he's doing anything else, which happens to put him in a paused emulation of Megaman Battle Network as his brother rounds the corner, peering into Grandpa's study where Cole has stationed himself.

"//What,//" Cole asks in an acidic tone, frustrated with Paige's discomfort and his brother's appearance alike.

Eric hesitates at the edge to Cole's voice, but masks it well. "Oh shut up, it's not my fault you watch porn in the middle of the house."

"That's not--!"

"I said shut up. Do you want to go on a walk? Bike out to the lumberyard."

"Huh? No, not really."

Eric frowns at that. He looks antsy. Cole catches on, and it only agitates him further. "You've been on that computer all god damned day," Eric chides, "you should get out of the house."

Cole lifts his eyebrows, incredulous. "Suddenly you're up my ass about how I spend my time?"

"No, look --"

"I don't walk into your fuckin' room when //you're// reading your shitty anime and get up your ass about --"

"I said shut //up!//" Eric quickly lowers his voice. "Shut up, it's not about that. Grandma won't let me go out alone."

Cole's eyebrows couldn't go up any higher, so instead, he waggles his head to emphasize. "What in the world are you talking about? She sends you with //me// because the old bitch won't let //me// go out alone."

"Okay not //let.// She just..." Eric moves into the room, and pulls the door behind him, not quite closing it but leaving only a crack open. "She doesn't want me hanging out with Jed. And now she thinks that if I'm going out, it's to hang out with him. She's getting up //my// ass about it."

"What? Why."

"You remember the King kids? It's like that."

"But..." Cole struggles with the subtleties of couching racism in economic terms, something that even behind closed doors has been drilled into his head. "Jed's family is fine. They don't live in a pit."

"Yeah, well, Grams doesn't think highly of him. Come on, I'd owe you one. Seriously, any stupid website subscription you want, I'll pay for it. Or get you something physical so you don't have to do your dirty business in view of the kitchen."

"That's--!'

"Tell her you're going out," Eric speaks over him. "Tell her you're going out and she'll say to take me with you."

Cole deliberates. He almost asks Eric how much he's willing to shill, but he thinks better of it -- instead, he could take him to a store and trap him into buying something before the price is considered. Eric won't fight as hard in public. Not to say he wouldn't fight, but not as hard. Cole pictures the monster manuals in the cramped game store downtown, the captivating creature descriptions and their painterly depictions on every page -- not to mention the slick feeling of the pages, the allure of the hard covers. Just to have them on his shelf would feel like a communication of status -- not that he could put them there, for fear of Sir Ortegren burning the library.

"Fine," Cole says, "but we're going downtown after."

"The stores close in a couple hours."

"Tomorrow."

Eric nods, a little too fast, too eager. Cole wants to punch him, but not in Grandpa's study.

"Okay. Now fuck off, I'll get you later."

Eric nods again, and then takes his leave without a word.

Cole tabs back to Paige, who's sent a single message in the meantime.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> ok
> 
> **PieMouth**
> gtg my brother is pulling me into his shit

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The temperature is falling steadily as the sun threatens to dip below the horizon, except that the sun can't be seen through the trees. In the summer evening, the sky is still light, and the sunset will be long and ponderous, but the ground, covered in shade, is nonetheless dark. Eric totes Grandpa's rifle, and walks at a pace that makes Cole feel like he has to work to keep up.

"Why are you running like the fuckin' cops are after you?"

"I'm not running," Eric states, tone level.

"You're being weird, bro."

"Shut up or I won't buy you shit."

Cole shuts up. He eyes his brother with suspicion almost the whole way to the lumberyard, but doesn't say another word. He's frustrated. The promise of future gains is only barely enough to buy his silence. What he //really// wants to do is berate his brother. Maybe start a wrestle, put some dirt on him. He was in the middle of a really good scene before Eric barged in, and now he's just replaying the moments over and over to try and figure out what was making Paige so uncomfortable. //She said it wasn't sexual,// he keeps coming back to. //Body what? Is she shy about dicks?// To consider Cole "close" would be to forget that he will never come to the correct conclusion, not in a thousand hours.

"I wanna be home before it gets cold."

"It won't get cold, it's summer."

"It will and you know it. It's already cooling down."

"The less you talk, the quicker we get home."

"What are we doing anyways?"

"//We// aren't doing anything," Eric says, slowing down before coming to a stop. They're steps from passing the invisible barrier between the forest and what they consider the lumberyard, and at one of the familiar empty buildings, a phone light is on. The figure that holds the light can only be one person, based on context and build, but from this distance all they are is a silhouette.

Cole passes eyes between his brother and Jed. "Then what are //you// doing?"

"Fuck off, for a bit." Eric takes the Karabiner off his back, and holds it out to Cole, holding the barrel so the muzzle faces the sky. "Don't lose this thing. Go shoot some trees or something. Aim //that// direction, away from the lumberyard, at all times."

"What, you're getting rid of me?"

"Yeah."

Anger wells up inside of Cole. "You really bring me all this way and then you tell me to fuck off!?"

"Don't fucking //yell// at me! You didn't want to be out here in the first place, I used you to get out of the house, and I'll pay you back //later.// Now go, fuck off, and when it starts to get //cold,//" he puts some salt into the word, "then you can head back."

"Y--"

"Be //loud// when you come back. Yell or something. Okay? Do that and my money is yours."

Cole wants to pummel his brother for sending him into the woods, alone, as the sun is setting. But, his brother is holding a gun, and even with the safety on and the thing probably not even loaded, Cole's instincts tell him to hold back. He resents it deeply, because he can't come up with something good to say either.

"//Fuck// you."

"Yeah, let me hear that again when we're walking through downtown tomorrow, you can watch how every word of protest tightens my wallet."

Cole grabs the gun from Eric's hand, too hard, trying to startle him or jerk his arm enough to get him off-balance. It does neither of those things, and instead Cole just looks petty. Cole spits at Eric's feet, hoping to provoke a more heinous argument. Eric stonewalls him, his blueish face in the waning light giving Cole nothing. Cole glances at Jed in the distance. His posture makes him look like he's turned this way, but he hasn't moved. The phone light is gone, and he just stands, leaning against a concrete wall.

Cole turns and walks along a rough kind of path, a break in the brush from old footpaths now seldom walked except by the boys and, they assume, a select few others they never cross paths with.

"Hey," Eric's voice calls, and Cole turns with tension in his shoulders and a furrowed brow.

He sees the object flying through the air in a gentle arc, and catches it with his unoccupied hand.

"You nearly forgot the ammo box."

Cole doesn't dignify that with a response. He just stuffs it in his jacket pocket, and walks out into the woods.

= ##white|**ArtPiece XII**##

Eric watches him as his figure begins to blur and blend into the colorless backdrop of dim forest and vague shapes. Soon enough, Cole is less of a shape than he is a motion, then disappearing behind a line of trees too perfect to have been the natural speckling of seeds -- not that Eric pays attention to such details. A knot of guilt twists into shape in his heart, but he doesn't have time to think on it. Once he can't see Cole even as an impression against the dark, he looks up instead, at the darkening blue of the sky. He can't quite see a star yet, but he knows they will be soon. He sighs, realizing that it //is// getting cold. So little time. No time at all.

He stuffs his hands in his leather jacket pockets, and comes back to earth, head leveling, eyes finding Jed's unmoved figure. He takes quick strides over to Jed -- Eric's tall. Genes he gets from his dad, that Cole didn't seem to inherit in quite the same way. It seems that even as both of them hit their adult height, Eric would be the big brother forever, have the upperhand in spats. Eric is relieved at the fact. That's part of what makes Cole such a good little brother, part of why they can resolve their issues with a quick toss and a bruise, not letting the tension drag into weeks of animosity as one or the other tries to make plays to put themselves on top.

Jed's features come into focus as Eric draws near. Eric is comfortably taller than Jed too, but not by too much. His eyes come level with Jed's forehead, bare to see because Jed's only ever had a buzz cut as long as Eric's known him. His eyes are grey in this light, but Eric knows they're a gorgeous forest green. His nose is slight, his cheeks a little chubby -- Jed's never been the athletic type. His lips are full -- not the thin type the Ortegrens keep with them, more skin than lip, Jed's look like he could be a horn player. He just looks younger than his peers. Unassuming. More boy than man.

"That was Cole?" Jed asks.

"Yeah," Eric says, coming to a stop close enough to Jed that it's obvious Jed has to look up slightly to meet his eyes.

"What was he doing here?"

"He's my ticket out of the house. Grandma's suspicious of us."

Jed frowns. "How suspicious?"

"Don't worry about it," Eric says.

"How much does Cole know?"

"Nothing." Eric moves his hand, pressing it against the concrete wall that Jed leans up against. Eric uses the leverage to get his face closer to Jed's. "Stop worrying about it."

"Okay," Jed says, voice quiet, eyes now going between Eric's eyes and his mouth.

"In fact, stop talking at all."

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//People are so fucking weird. They do stupid things for stupid reasons, and they barely ever say what they mean.// Cole kicks dirt in frustration, rifle positioned in his hands like he's trudging into enemy territory. //Stupid fucking people. The Paiges with their hangups, their retarded sensitivities, and the Erics of the world with their secrets and their -- augh!// Cole pulls the gun up to his shoulder, kneels down, and fires at the trunk of a tree, watching the bark and splinters spray into the air for a moment. He neglects his hearing protection -- he wants the ringing, he wants the //punch// into his head, hopefully with enough force to shove everything else out. He has a harder time defining what exactly is wrong with his brother.

But his brain doesn't even try. If it can't find definitives, it will fire at the abstract. Eric's not //this// or //that,// he's just a pain in the ass. A fuck up. The words don't even have to match. A bitch, a sissy. Pulling him out of his roleplay just to send Cole out into the woods alone in the dark. What a shithead.

Cole turns on his heels and takes another shot before he's come to a full stop. The recoil mixes with his unsteady feet, and he has to take a step back. He knows, somewhere within him, that he's being reckless, but he has no one to stop him. He wheels on another invisible target, aims up at the last second, and hits the base of a branch. Tinnitus takes half of his sensory input, especially in his right ear, closest to the gun.

He breathes heavily. The light is waning fast now, and the textures of trees are becoming flat. Where one ends and another begins is becoming indiscernible. He has a flashlight in his pocket, but he just lets it get dark. His lungs start to protest -- he's aware as the air gets colder. But is it //cold// yet?

A part of Cole wants to head back now, barely twenty minutes since being sent away, just to spite Eric. But he knows twenty minutes is no time at all, and the jagged edges of his anger dull against the cold stone feeling of acceptance and deference. Eric seemed pretty upset already -- Cole isn't blind. Eric's own agitation bled onto Cole, but... he understands it on an intuitive level he can't put into words, or thoughts. He knows, on some level, the importance of giving Eric his space right now, even if he's not entirely sure what for.

He feels around for an old stump he saw before the twilight shrouded it, and sits down.

He consoles himself with thoughts of reward. Of walking downtown with Eric, feigning browsing to make him look less tunnel-visioned than he is. Of acquiring his Dungeons & Dragons paraphernalia. It has been a dream of Cole's for a long time, to actually run or join a campaign. He's narrowly missed the opportunity twice at previous schools he didn't stay in long enough to make the proper connections. He knows the monster manual will primarily inform his online roleplaying, but it feeds a greater desire as well. He's enamored with it.

His grip on the K98 softens as his mind soothes itself with more boyish interests.

//Fine,// Cole thinks. //Let Eric have his time, let him and Jed do fuck all for however long they want.//

Cole grabs his hunter's earmuffs from where they hang around his neck, and moves them up onto his head. He remembers a dry creekbed near here where, underneath a bridge, the boys had placed one of their can stashes. He tells himself he'll prop the flashlight in some bushes, set the cans along the bridge, fire at them from a distance.

As the earmuffs slip over his ears, the world becomes a weird, half-real thing. Visual stimuli are fading, and suddenly the only sound is a residual whistle that becomes a white noise. His eyes fill with phosphenes, dancing spots of imagined light that scramble his sense of the space around him. The only real feeling is his own breath. Ironically, to ground himself, he looks up, but the foliage, from where he sits underneath a tree, blocks most of the stars, leaving only some tens of incorporeal specks, half of which or more could be imagined. He blinks several times in succession. He becomes highly aware of his muscles, of his throat, of his eyes and stinging nose, of his ringing ears and his tired legs, of the sore spot on his shoulder where the butt of the rifle rests when he shoots it -- of the cold metal in his hands, of his hair where it touches his neck, of the textures of his clothes against his skin. He feels aware and yet disconnected from everything -- like his awareness comes from looking at everything through a screen, an outsider perspective that allows him to see around the corner where the protagonist can not.

His breathing slows, or his perception warps so that his breathing feels slower and heavier. His brow furrows, but he notices it after it happens.

//I should go back,// he thinks, no longer concerned with how much time he allows his brother. //It's cold.//

He stands, and takes a first step, feeling the signal go from his head to his leg, like a button pressed in a video game. And, much the same, the literal stated action takes place, but the knowledge of intent doesn't seem to be properly transferred. His foot catches on a snag that he should have known was there, as his foot had rested on it in an earlier sitting position. Rifle in his hands, one forgotten finger still resting on the trigger --

[[image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/dr-k-stuff-s-personnel-file/XIII]]

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After Jed's first startles, Eric had explained the distant gunshots away. They still draw his attention, take him out of the moment, the singing sensation of his flesh blinking for a moment as his head comes out of the carnal pleasures and into the realm of higher concerns -- but Eric is good at what he does, at his caressing and rubbing, at his hands at Jed's sides, Jed lowered over a low wall, Eric's jacket beneath his belly so his bare skin doesn't touch the rough concrete. Eric is big -- Jed doesn't have another point of direct reference except himself, the visages of penises in lockers and changing rooms, and the exaggerations of porn star physiques on the internet, but still, Eric fills him in a way he hasn't been able to achieve with anything at his disposal at home. The rubs of Eric against his insides, the pulse of electricity as Eric finds Jed's prostate -- just as Jed had directed him to it --

A gunshot, again.

A blink, again. Jed's senses leaving him, his chest tightening, not with shortness of breath from exertion and pleasure but instead from an anxiety preventing him from a full, sustained erection that Eric has yet to notice. But, quicker this time than the times before, exposure dulling his sensitivity, his head ducks back under the water, back into the absorption of senses and --

No, there's more to that sound.

It feels like he hears muscles, hears contact, hears the blood rushing through his own body, but above it, there's something coming from further out.

"Er-ic, Eric stop," Jed half-whispers.

"No," Eric says, removing his hands from Jed's sides to plant on the concrete wall to give him the freedom of movement to lean down, right next to Jed's ear. "I can't stop."

"//Stop.//" Jed says with more force.

"Why should I?"

There it is again, another sound. Eric seems to notice, as his motion slows, and his torso straightens -- Jed can //feel// the warmth of him dim against his back -- and he keeps his ears to the air.

It seems this time, Jed's pulled Eric up with him, and they both wade, heads above the water.

A mewling.

It's a long, human sound, a moan of an entirely different sort.

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The door opens, and an older woman comes in. She rushes to Cole's side in a way that would have startled him, had he had the whereabouts to be startled. As is, his muscles supported no such calls to action, his brain too defenseless to conjure up fear or alarm above a dull, heavy dread.

"Oh, honey, honey!" The voice is familiar. She pulls up a chair, but Cole is only half-aware of the action -- as aware as he is of anything. Since spacing out in the dark woods, nothing has felt quite real. If he were to suddenly wake up and find none of it had happened, he wouldn't be surprised in the slightest, but somewhere inside him he can tell that isn't the case.

As the wrinkled, bony hands take his left and turn it, palm up, closing so that she holds one of his hands with both of hers and presses her pointer and middle finger into his limp thenar muscles, he places her. Grandma.

His rheumy, blurry eyes squint into hers, and she shakes his hand with a worried look on her face.

"What //have// you done?" she asks.

"Shoot myself." Cole can't accurately assess the damage his mental state does to his voice, but judging by Grandma's reaction, and just how //difficult// it feels to get the words out, he figures it must be coming out as a syllable slurry.

His eyes roam over to his foot, hanging in a sling from a contraption he has half-believed only existed in cartoons as a gag for when slapstick comedy put someone in the hospital. //Hospital, I'm at the hospital.//

"Oh honey, talk slower, you sound awful."

"Shoot myself," he says with more deliberation.

Grandma shakes as if she couldn't have put that together, as if none of the nurses had told her. //This bitch,// Cole thinks, but most of the annoyance that comes with the words has fallen off before he thinks it. It remains mostly as a habit. A pure title. Not with emotion, but as an output to the algorithm: //If// Grandma overreacts like you've put a foot in her stomach, //then// put your guard up. But the armor is so heavy, and Cole is so weak.

So instead of tensing, he releases.

"How did //that// happen? Doesn't your brother teach you anything?"

"Eric..." Cole can't finish the thought. In his state, it's like he has only a certain number of words he can say at a time, a certain amount of energy he can put into forming and communicating a thought.

"What were you doing?"

"Shooting cans."

"But honey, did Eric push you, did you get into a fight? I know you boys argue."

//What? Does she think Eric shot me?//

"No," Cole gets out as a single noise, mouth never fully opening into the //o.//

"And what happened to your shirt hon?"

What did happen to his shirt? He tries to replay the scene. The bullet goes through his foot, and the pain feels like it's on a delay. He can't walk. He falls to the forest floor, and he feels the blood pouring out of his foot. He... takes off his shirt, doesn't he?

"Bandage," he says. He wrapped it around his foot. He has no idea how effectual it was.

"Why your shirt? Did you do it yourself?"

The onslaught of questions make the dread feel heavier in his chest. He feels -- he knows. There's an angle he's missing, something she's getting at.

"No," he says, this one more enunciated. "Eric."

"As he should have. Why your shirt?"

//Why my shirt?//

Cole just shakes his head. The pain killers swim through his brain, and he's slowly giving up on thinking, on being conscious.

"Honey." Grandma scoots the chair closer to his bedside, leaning over him. Her old woman smell reaches his nose, and he scrunches a bit. It's not a terrible smell, but it's not a good smell. Her breath mixes into it, smelling like sour mortality. "Was Eric with you?"

Cole remembers crawling towards the lumberyard, abandoning the rifle, yelling. The yells felt muffled, like he was hearing them through a thick glass pane. Some yells were intentional. Sometimes it was because his foot hit something, or twisted at some angle, that sent a pain piercing through his wall of adrenaline and endorphins.

Cole nods. Eric was with him the whole time.

"Was Jed?"

It was Jed who had picked Cole up first. He's deceptively strong, Cole didn't know he was that strong. Eric was there too, but that's where the memories became especially muddy.

Cole got caught on an //mm,// almost affirming before thinking that he shouldn't.

"No," he says.

"Cole, honey. I think Eric is keeping bad company, honey. Did Jed keep Eric away from you?" She puts a hand on Cole's head, and runs fingers through his hair. "Are you protecting him?"

Cole shakes his head. "No."

The questions let up. For a moment, Grandma just sits there, stroking his hair. It isn't soothing, it's sickly, but without interrogation keeping him awake and present, he begins to fade regardless. He looks back to his cast. He hears, for the first time, the beeps of equipment in the room somewhere. Hooked up to him? He can't tell. The white walls, the blue blanket, the railings on either side of him, on the head-end of his bed, where Grandma reaches over to stroke his hair.

He looks back to her face, and sees, through several bleary blinks, her grim facial expression. No longer dominant is the worry for his own wellbeing.

"Oh, honey. What have you done, what have you done..."

It's not aimed at him, he realizes. His face screws up, briefly, and he turns away from his grandma. The realization comes to him as it would in a dream, like a fact stated by an omnipotent narrator, so innately true as to be unquestionable, merely the reality by which the coming events will operate: //I've lost.// In a moment of weakness, he couldn't keep his guard up. Something in how he delivered his words, something in his hesitations.

He remembers the King kids. The black family down the street. He remembers Eric playing basketball with them. The hell that came next. Prying, the interrogations. What he was doing, who with, when. The little lies to parents. The ultimate reveals of their friendships. The screaming. The swords, the blood. The formations. The lessons. The little deaths. The creeping cold. The righteous fury, and then the long, long night.

Cole's eyes water.

"Oh, honey..."

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The last two days had been so //cold.// Things were being kept from Cole. When Grandma and Eric came to the hospital to pick him up, Eric had looked worse than Cole had ever seen him, like a beaten dog. Grandma, then, looked like the beater, all civility and sweet talk, but with Eric always avoiding eye contact. They couldn't look at each other, but Eric looked down, while Grandma looked up. The victor, the righteous, the priestess and matriarch.

Eric hasn't lost the look. Cole watches his brother pass him and go to his ticket's seat, in the back of the plane. His eyes look like they are focused on the air in front of his face. Blank.

They haven't shared words more than where to be and when for the sake of departure on the flight, Eric going and getting Cole snacks and a drink while he sat down at the terminal.

Eric has never looked worse. Cole has never felt weaker.

//Stupid,// he thinks to himself. //I'm so fucking stupid.//

Now, Eric stares at the road in front of him, but if he's taking it all in, it doesn't look like it. He's always been a reckless driver, Cole knows that, but today he's staying in the slow lane, never passing on the freeway, stuck behind trucks going 15 miles under the speed limit.

There's one hour ahead of them. One hour before they pull up to their new home, in a cushy suburb near the military base. A permanent home. Something that'll keep them through high school.

Despite the slow driving, Eric's knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Cole stares at them.

When he first tries to make a sound, he fails. He clears his throat, to no reaction from Eric. Then he tries again.

"What doesn't Grandma like about Jed?"

Eric's eyes flick to Cole, then back to the road, the rump of a big rig in front of them.

"Are you retarded, Cole?"

Cole //feels// stupid. Cole feels fucking awful. But he never takes that kind of smack from his brother. "Are you gay?"

Eric doesn't respond. He looks away. Cole's eyes widen. He meant it as a meaningless jab, but as he says it, as he sees Eric's reaction... it clicks. As his framework adjusts, as the gears' teeth begin to interlock and the machine grows in scope and understanding, he finds all of the clues that have been right in front of him the whole time.

"You..." Cole starts a thought he can't finish to himself.

"Shut up, Cole." Eric's tone is low, quiet. A smoldering growl. "If you don't want me to run this fucking car into the fucking wall. Shut -- shut the //fuck// up."

Cole looks away, out the window, at the aforementioned wall, the lightly decorated concrete along the side of the freeway, the other side of the shoulder. He smiles, and he can't figure out why. He feels sick. He feels sick for so many reasons. He chuckles, despite himself. It feels fake, and yet it comes out unbeckoned.

"What? What!?" There's an edge -- a cracking, jagged edge to Eric's voice.

Cole's laugh continues. "Y-you're a f-fag!"

"Shut up! Shut your fucking mouth!"

Cole's body shakes, and he keeps looking out the window. His muscles feel //ready.// He feels utterly prepared, but he can't tell for what. A //fight.// A fight with who? For what purpose? He clenches and unclenches his right fist, pressed against his chin.

"I'll kill you, Cole! I'll fucking kill you! Shut up! Shut //up!//"

Eric //slams// the breaks, and Cole's body flies forward, caught by the seatbelt and yanked back into position. His laugh catches in his throat, pressure against his Adam's apple. The car jerks to the right, and stops at an angle to the road, poking into the shoulder but not quite out of the slow lane. Someone -- several people -- lay into their horns in response, then curving around Eric's car.

= ##white|**ArtPiece XIV**##

Cole coughs, and looks through suddenly watery eyes to Eric, who is leaned over the steering wheel, looking wild, //feral,// harried, staring across the dash and through the window at nothing at all. He's breathing. Heavy.

"Okay," Cole says, quiet, trying to hold in the spasms in his diaphragm, covering his grin with his hand.

"Shut up."

Cole says nothing. Eric doesn't look at him. Cole coughs, which thankfully overrides the laughter. Eric leans back in his seat, and seems to take some deep, centering breaths.

"Just shut the fuck up," he seems to whisper to nothing.

Cole watches him. He slowly presses on the gas again, and turns back onto the road. The corners of Cole's mouth start to creep back up again, and he turns to the window to hide it.

The rest of the drive passes without significant incident, only the muscles in Cole's body remaining so tense that by the end of it all he feels sore.

Heartrates increase as they turn off the freeway. Heartrates increase further as they leave behind the businesses, and enter the residential streets. Cole finally looks back to Eric again. He's reverted to the same look he started the car ride with, except there's something else in there. Something steely. He's geared for war, Cole sees. He's equipped with as much armor as he's ever seen him in, but strangely, he can't see a blade at all.

They turn onto their street, and crawl past copy-pasted suburban houses, until they reach their address, and park just outside.

It's a warm day. The sun is just past the center of the sky. The only clouds are wispy and insubstantial. All the same, the world is dark. Cole looks at Eric. He's slumped in his seat, his head angled down. Cole's smile has left, his expression neutral. He looks Eric up and down.

"Bro..."

"Get out of the fucking car."

"Eric --"

"//Out.//"

Cole doesn't move for a moment. He stares his brother down. Eric makes eye contact for a split second, but he can't keep it. He turns his head away.

Cole grabs his crutches from between his seat and the car door, and then opens it. The car being low to the ground makes it difficult to get his crutches under his armpits as he steps out of the car, but he stands to full height, wincing at a reminder of the pain. He takes a step out into the street, and then turns around. Eric hasn't moved.

Cole scowls, and then it softens. He frowns, but it doesn't stick. He shuts the car door, and hobbles to the trunk, which pops open before he gets there.

Movement catches his attention, in the corner of his vision. He looks up, and sees his mother at the front door. She makes eye contact with Cole, and then runs over with an urgency Cole can't place. She reaches him, and pulls him into a tight hug.

"Mom..."

She doesn't hear him. He winces at the pain as her embrace pulls him off-balance.

"Let's get your baggage from the car," she says, her voice wavering, unsteady.

She says "let's," but she does it all herself, pulling his bags from the back and placing them on the sidewalk. She stops once they have all of his bags, and Cole feels his chest tighten.

"Mom, what about Eric's?"

She shuts the trunk.

"What's going on?"

"Come inside," she says in a hoarse whisper.

//No,// he thinks. //No.//

Still, he can hardly resist her. On a good day he could, but not with a broken foot, not in crutches. He nearly trips towards her as she grabs hold of his arm and urges him along.

"Let's go inside," she repeats.

"No," he barely says.

"We're going inside, come on."

Sir Ortegren stands in the doorway now, battle standard raised and waving in the wind.

"//No!//" He struggles free of her grasp, and in doing so, loses his balance and falls to the ground by his forgotten luggage. Pain surges from his foot and makes his eyesight fade out for a moment.

"Oh!" she startles.

"Cole, listen to your mother."

"No! No!" He's screaming, but completely ineffectual. His mother can hardly pull him up with how much he squirms, but he can't bring himself to his feet either.

"Cole." A firmer grasp seizes him, and pulls him to his feet. The knight. The crusader.

He doesn't care about Cole's foot. He doesn't care about the crutches or the bags. He //drags// Cole, and Cole can't resist.

"Eric!" he yells at the top of his lungs. "//Eric!//"

As he gets pulled towards the house, he watches Eric's face through the driver side window. Eric doesn't look up. He doesn't move. His eyes still fixed on the steering wheel, his hands shaking along its sides.

"//Eric!!//"

Sir Ortegren shoves Cole inside, and he tumbles to the ground again. "Stay here."

Cole shouts again, but this time there is no word. Just anger, just flailing cords where his lame limbs fail him. The knight shuts the front door and turns around. Cole struggles to his feet, pulling himself up by use of the bench by the door where shoes are offloaded. Once he's standing, he leans against the door, and presses his hands against the glass.

His mother, sobbing, stands guard by Cole's luggage. Ortegren the Noble is leaning down to the driver-side door, obscuring Cole's view of Eric. He's saying something. He's spreading the word, he is bringing down his holy hammer, he is sanctioning the grounds, ridding the household of sin.

The car begins to move. Sir Ortegren moves with it, until it picks up enough speed he can't keep up. He yells something at the car as it peels off. Cole's chest feels like it's going to implode -- his heart can't keep up with the pace of events as they happen.

Eric is gone.

Eric is //gone.//

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> **PieMouth**
> im sorry, i dont think i feel it today
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> aw. That's fine!!
> What's up?

Cole slumps in his library seat, his hands feeling limp on the keyboard.

> **PieMouth**
> i shot myself last week
> on accident
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> OMG
> Are you okay???
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yea i'm due for surgery soon to like reconstruct my foot or someshit
> next week i think?
> im kind of out of it
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> That's understandable dude!! Go, like, rest or something man take some time off 🙂
> Last week??
> 
> **PieMouth**
> nah id rather be in town, then i get to use the computers at the library
> yeah
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Just been pushing through this whole time huh 😔
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ig
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> like
> How ????
> 
> **PieMouth**
> i was being an idiot with a gun how else do you think
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> I dunno it just sounds like a story
> 
> **PieMouth**
> it's my story
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ...?
> Ohh like
> 
> **PieMouth**
> what
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> "it's //my// story"
> is the emphasis
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ye
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> got it
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ye
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Well
> If it's ever a story you wanna share
> I'm interested 👂

Cole feels anger's attempt to flicker into existence, but the cutting wind of exhaustion blows it out before it can take hold.

> **PieMouth**
> maybe
> later
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Okay!
> 
> **PieMouth**
> "later" as in goodbye
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Oh right 😛
> See ya! Take care of yourself dude 💛👋

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"You're a sad sack of shit, y'know that?"

Austin and Cole made quick friends once school started -- Cole never notices that all his friends come quick, but they do. They sit next to each other on the bus home, because they happen to share the same bus stop, which is how they met in the first place.

//I know that,// Cole thinks to himself.

"Tch," is what comes out of his mouth.

"Seriously. You're //gloomy.// You'd think you'd been shot or something."

Austin laughs at Cole's expense. He's had his surgery, but they told him he might be in crutches until the end of the year. They recommended him take it easy, but apparently that didn't include staying home from school. Besides, it didn't seem like his parents were going to allow something like that.

"Very funny, shithead."

Austin's laugh just redoubles, and he elbows Cole's arm, hard. Somehow, the jolt //still// makes his foot hurt, even though it's more than half his body away. Things seem to work like that now.

"I just wanna know what makes you so special, y'know? Who gave //you// permission to bring down the mood?"

Cole can't stare out at suburbia as it passes by, because Austin has the window seat. Instead, Cole is forced to look off into the aisle, which doesn't take him a desirable distance from his current circumstance. He frowns and turns to Austin. Austin, who is wearing his trademark camo and John Deere hat, along with his strong brow and clean white smile.

"Who says I //can't?//" Cole asks.

"Everyone, dipshit. It's rude."

"Why do you care?"

"Because you make me sad, and if you keep making me sad, I'm not gonna have a reason to hang out with your sorry ass. So you can either cheer up, or you can give me a good reason, or you can watch your only friend leave and you can go hang with the bitchy emos instead, maybe they're more your style."

"I'm not an emo //bitch.//"

"You're not being very convincing."

"My brother, okay!?" Cole snaps.

After the words leave his mouth, his mood softens, somber. Admitting it out loud to someone pulls loose a bit of his defenses.

"What, he giving you a hard time?" Austin asks, unsympathetic.

"No. Just the opposite." Cole pauses, but Austin doesn't speak, raising eyebrows instead. "He's gone."

Austin seems serious for a moment. "Dead?"

"Not dead, dumbass. //Gone.// Left. Ran away." Austin is about to cut in, but Cole adds: "Kicked out."

"//Snrk.// Kicked out? What he do?"

Anger and frustration boil in Cole's heart. "Turns out he's a faggot."

"Oh shit," Austin says, dead serious.

"Piece of shit valued his dick over the family and now he's paying for it. Used me to meet his fag boyfriend out in the woods, fuck while I wasn't around, and now he's getting what's coming to him."

"Ah man. And that's eating at you?"

"//Used// me. He fucking //used// me."

Austin smirks. "I see, I see, you're not a //sad// sack of shit, you're just the type of anger that //seethes,// aren't you? My dad's like that."

"So's mine," Cole states, cold.

"Well why didn't you say so? What are you, //protecting// him or something?" Austin laughs, and elbows Cole again. Cole bristles at the touch, but says nothing.

"Nothing to protect," Cole mumbles.

"That's what I thought. And hey, between you and me? You're gonna //win// points with that story, not lose 'em. You can even piss on the libs a little bit if you want, that'll get you in good with the guys I know."

Cole just nods, vaguely frustrated again that he doesn't have the window seat, staring at the seat in front of him instead.

"Hey. What say you and I go shooting sometime?" Austin laughs. "I mean it though. Shit thing is, the best one around requires a chaperone for if you're under 18. My sister's cool though, she could take us. She'd get a kick out of hearing about your brother, too."

"Best what?"

"Range, come on. Seriously, you and I, we could get out some of that aggression, eh? Fuck up some targets, really lay into them. I mean, just imagine, right? Know your brother's height? We could get a target about yay big, right?" Cole's heartrate quickens. "Ever heard the idea of putting some guy's face on the baseball so you hit it harder? Well, same idea. Picture that slobbering, dick-sucking brother of yours on that target, see how good it feels to put some holes in it. Give him what-for. I'd like to see that."

Cole's stare into the seat in front of him turns slowly into a glare, and Austin seems to chortle watching the transformation.

"Imagining it, huh?" He laughs. "Maybe you can picture that fruity bitch of his, too. Maybe picture that sissy putting his lips all around your brother's shitty little two-incher, head in front, and //bam,// aim at the target's crotch, and what you really hit is his head, right? Splatter everything all up your bro's front."

Cole imagines Jed's head cracking open, gray matter spraying onto Eric's abdomen, the ensuing scream as Jed slumps over, falling to the ground, leaving Eric with his pants down, reddened, bits of Jed spread over the dirt and the concrete wall of the lumberyard. The screaming. Only Cole doesn't picture a bullet -- he pictures a crossbow bolt.

Austin's laughter grows. "Yeah, yeah! I see you, I see you picturing it, haha! Ex//act//ly like that. How'd that feel, huh? Maybe shed some manly tears 'stead of these pussy little things, really get it out of your system, whadaya say?"

Cole glances over at Austin, making brief eye contact. His heart is pounding in his ears. He looks forward again, and shrugs.

Austin huffs. "Whatever. Open invitation, dude."

Soon enough, the bus reaches their stop. They and two other teens make their way to the front and get off, Cole holding up the line with his crutches and being very conscious of that fact. The bus doors close, and the thing rumbles off. The two other teens, a boy and a girl, get ahead of Austin and Cole rather quickly, all heading the same direction. Austin seems bothered to have to walk slower to stay with Cole, but does so anyways.

Cole's heart boils, bubbles, twists and hisses. His breaths shudder, and his face coils into a scowl.

Austin, a few steps ahead and firmly in his own world without a conversation to draw attention, doesn't see the transformation. The black mood of his "friend." Cole is patient, though. Was patient enough to wait until they were off the bus, and is now patient enough to wait until the couple in front of them is far enough away.

He exerts himself to close the short distance between himself and Austin on his crutches.

"Hey," he says.

"Yeah?" Austin replies, turning his head slightly to the right towards Cole behind him.

= ##white|**ArtPiece XIV**##

Cole raises and slams his crutch into the side of Austin's head, throwing him off-balance and sending him towards the ground. He falls left, away from Cole, and catches himself with his hands, scraping them and his left elbow on the sidewalk.

"What the //fuck!//" he yells, bringing a hand to his head, and turning so that he's on his back more than his side.

Cole catches his balance, stumbling, but quickly ditches the crutches as he realizes they give him no leverage with which to kick or punch someone on the ground. He lets himself fall, trying to position his knee to stab into Austin's gut. The knee lands, but not where Cole wanted -- the blow, while it makes Austin huff, doesn't give him much leverage, or seem to have much effect. Now, Cole, perpendicular to Austin, doesn't have a good angle with which to punch or kick or do anything. Austin rolls out from under him, easily shedding the attempted pin, and getting to his feet. Cole attempts the same, realizing the role reversal about to happen, but struggles with his broken foot, which is throbbing in pain in its cast.

Austin takes advantage of the moment, and kicks Cole straight in the chest. Or he would have, had Cole not been prepared to deflect. He may be untrained at offense, only winning the occasional sucker punches against his brother, but Cole has been long practicing defense. He palms the leg and pushes it to the side before it can land, which twists Austin's body and throws him off-balance, sending him to the ground again.

"Don't you //ever// fucking trash-talk my brother again you slimy piece of //shit!//"

Cole, ignoring the soaring pain in his foot, launches himself onto Austin, this time landing in a better, more compromising position, straddling the boy.

He rears back to give a punch, but the move is too telegraphed, and Austin easily blocks it, putting Cole's fist in his hand. Cole strikes with the other, and Austin repeats the action. With both fists in his hands, Austin leverages Cole -- Cole is so small, Cole has always been so small. Austin, taller and stronger, is able to roll Cole onto his back, reversing the position.

"What the fuck is //wrong// with you!" Austin yells back, as he pushes a hand into Cole's face. Cole's hands wrap around his forearm, trying to move the intruder that was making breathing hard, pressing down against and hurting his nose, and obscuring his vision all at the same time. He makes no progress. Instead, he feels the hand release and a fist connect with his jaw in the same moment. It doesn't hurt immediately, but he can tell it will. Looking up, he sees that another fist is about to come down -- but it gets stopped by intervening hands.

The couple that was ahead of them had run back, and now pulls Austin off of Cole, shoving him away. An argument starts, but Cole's ringing ears don't let him hear it -- besides, he's incapable of giving much attention to anything except his foot, the pain of which seems to have creeped up his entire calf, deep as bone.

He tries to prop himself up on his elbows, fails, and then feels hands grip him under the shoulders, pulling him to his feet. The girl. She gets the crutches in his armpits, and helps him keep himself steady.

"Do you need me to help walk you home?" she asks.

Cole nods. He and Austin make eye contact, briefly, the boy still between them, blocking their way to one another.

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> **PieMouth**
> hey

Cole's body feels hollowed, like someone took an apple-corer to him. He rotates his ankle on his healing foot. His knuckles are sore. They yelp at him every once in a while as he types.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> Hey!!

She never takes too long to respond.

> What's up? How are you?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> my brother got kicked out of the house
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> oh shit
> 
> **PieMouth**
> and its my fault
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> 🙁
> 👐
> What happened? Are you okay?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> im not okay
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Is there anything I can do to help?

Cole's mouth contorts, but he wills it to loosen.

> **PieMouth**
> no, i dont think so
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> I'm sure it's not your fault lil guy
> 
> **PieMouth**
> it is
> it's his own stupid fucking fault too
> but i didn't think they'd kick him out
> why do people do stupid things paige
> why can people be so fucking retarded

There's an uncharacteristically long pause in the conversation. Cole starts to type only to see Paige typing at the same time, and he stops. She seems to mimic him, also ceasing to type, but in the ensuing silence, Cole's patience wins out, and Paige starts typing again.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> What happened?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> turns out my piece of shit brother is gay
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> oh
> 
> **PieMouth**
> parents didnt like that
> dad didnt like that
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> oh 🙁

Cole worms around a hole in the conversation, and he wants to know what's inside it. It feels like casting a line into a deep pit, hoping there's water at the bottom, and desperately trying to pull something up -- //anything// up. He's trying to grab something. He's trying to //hold// something. If Paige could just give it, whatever it //is,// then maybe this could be a good day -- the first good day.

> do you?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> what??
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Er, like it, y'know

//Do I// like //it?//

Cole has never felt energy pulse through his system so quickly. His hands briefly pull off of the keyboard as his biceps involuntarily clench. His jaw sets, his eyes squint, and the corners of his mouth pull back. Similarly, his legs curl so the insides of his knees hug the edge of his seat as hard as they can.

> **PieMouth**
> I dont fucking care ! I dont *//fucking// care!
> why in the world should i fucking care???
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> 👐
> 
> **PieMouth**
> I dont give a single shit what she doing whitg his time
> i thouvht i cared but i dont care at all
> i dont fucking carew

Cole's knuckles scream at him as his fingers punch at the keyboard with enough force he's vaguely afraid he might break something -- but another part of him wants so desperately to break something, so strongly to destroy something, so passionately does he want to make sure the world gives him some violent recompense for the damage it has caused. Cole tries to gouge out an eye for an eye.

> i just want the family to be fucking normal agian
> I want everything to be ormlal agin
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> You miss him
> 
> **PieMouth**
> i want him back

The honesty slips out of Cole's brain unbidden. Looking at the words on the screen, it startles him. He pushes his seat back from the computer, and then scoots it in just as quickly. His eyes dart between his hands and the screen, as if questioning if they are still under his command.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> You love him

A wet shiver starts at the crown of his head and shoots down the length of his body. He feels hot in his cheeks. He feels like his neck is tight enough to rip open.

> **PieMouth**
> that's a retarded question
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> It wasn't a question

Cole reels. He's never thought of his brother in those terms. He's never heard them said so plainly. It takes a moment of foggy consideration -- cross-referencing his understandings of familial love and displays of affection, in crude inarticulate words -- emotional impressionism.

> **PieMouth**
> yes

His body fights him as he writes it, but he can't figure out why. A shot of self-loathing, with the precision of a needle going through his nose and stabbing into the soft tissue of his brain, enters and disperses through his mind. He struggles for its source.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> I'm really sorry you're going through that.

Cole doesn't respond. Doesn't know how to respond.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> My family didn't really like it when I came out, either
> 
> **PieMouth**
> came out?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> yea

Cole flashes to the scene of Eric's departure, twisted now, the memory distorting. He sees Eric yelling back, a screaming match between himself and Sir Ortegren. He sees the knight invoke the power of God -- he sees the righteous light pierce through heaven and strike down the traitor -- the masqueraded acolyte. And he wants it -- he wants the anger, the name of God.

He types, all of a sudden, a flurry of hatred. Plymouth's gauntlets grip the pen so tight it is only a matter of time until it snaps, and the ink is Eric's blood.

//Let me be right,// a distant voice, like a King looking down from the barricades. //Please just let me be right.//

But he can't feel it. The words fall flat. "Dyke" drips off the page.

The page Plymouth has handed him.

Cole is aware, for the first time. He looks at his hands, and notices their bare skin. The bruising on his knuckles.

He looks up to see Plymouth's outstretched gauntlet, his frosted armor. The letter in his hand, bidding Cole to take it. To deliver his word. His righteousness. His //anger.//

Cole's fingers twitch over the enter key.

= ##white|**ArtPiece XV**##

"Take it," Plymouth bids.

//Who are you?// Cole thinks.

"//Take it!//" The voice booms.

Cole blinks, and realizes his vision is getting foggy.

He backs away. Plymouth's eyes are lost under his visor. All of a sudden, it looks like there might not be anything under it -- like the metal, the pauldrons, the leggings, the chains. The helmet. The defenses -- the offenses. Like Plymouth is a morass of mechanics, a tangle of intentions that force themselves upon him. But Cole -- Cole is weak without the armor, without the sword, without the crossbow. He cannot defeat it.

The icy stare of Plymouth hardens as they both realize that they don't stand on the same ground anymore.

Cole presses Ctrl+A and deletes.

He feels his breath hitch.

> **PieMouth**
> im sorry
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> It's alright
> I'm in a better place right now

Little ugly noises come out of Cole's throat. He wipes a shaking forearm across his face to try to get rid of the tears.

He sees the holy light. He sees the squire smitten by the wrath of God.

> **PieMouth**
> im sorry

He doesn't know what it means, exactly.

> im sorry

But he feels untethered.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> It's okay, really
> I mean it

He feels uncertain.

**[**can we|   **]**

He feels a grip tighten around his throat as he types it.

> **PieMouth**
> can we retire plymouth
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Oh?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> i dont
> i dont want to play him
> anymore

...

> **PentaclesPaige**
> of course

Cole feels something fall off of him, and with it go all of the defenses he still had up. He cries in a way he has never let himself cry before. Not once. Not even alone.
[[/==]]

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[[=]]
+ [[SIZE 150%]]Interlude: **The Ugly Aesthetic**[[/size]]
[[/=]]

[[module css]]
.html-block-iframe {
    width: auto !important;
    position: relative;
    left: 50%;
    transform: translateX(-50%);
}
[[/module]]
[[include :snippets:html5player
|type=audio
|url=https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/hurting-people/The%20Ugly%20Aesthetic.mp3
]]

[[=]]
//Hey Jesus//
//I think we get along most of the time//
//Sorry we haven't spoken, I've said "hi" and "goodbye" but I'm aware that I've hardly tried//
//To foster connection, regression I'm sure from where I was before but all in all//
//Jesus//
//I think we get along mostly just fine//
//I like what you say, how you say it, replay it and I'll find a smile, only once in a while//
//The things people do in your name scare me half to death//

//Hey Jesus Christ!//
//You're known for understanding//
//So I'm asking for your blessing//
//Figure you might get, it's nothing against you//
//Figure you might get, I've got only respect//
//For the things you did, for the things that you do//
//Hey Jesus, dude//
//Don't find it rude//
//I think those guys look really good in black//
//And though your Christian senses might attack//
//At the fact that they're wearing your symbol upside-down//
//Figured you might get, figured you might've bit//
//At the fact that they're still sharing your symbol around//
//So I'm asking your blessing//
//Make this mosh pit a holy ground//

//We wear!//
//The ugly aesthetic//
//So good at drawing eyes//
//On which our future's heart relies//
//The ugly aesthetic//
//Should come as no surprise//
//When beauty is in God's domain//
//What's left is easy to surmise//
//The ugly aesthetic//
//In Satan's name, the holy ghost says "hi!"//
//The ugly aesthetic//
//The ugly aesthetic...//

//Plymouth raised a sword//
//That gleamed in God's radiance//
//The blood that dripped down//
//Was blessed by His countenance//
//We're well aware it's a twist to compare//
//Your message and the outcomes//
//We'd grab a drink, nag at the link//
//'Tween impact and intent//
//But Cole drew a gun//
//And, God help us, Cole wasn't the only one//

//They wear!//
//The holy aesthetic//
//Crusader//
//The righteous aesthetic//
//Celebrator//
//The unsympathetic//
//Consecrator//
//Good word antithetical//
//Nonetheless a white frustrater!//

//I hope Cole can find!//
//The ugly aesthetic// x3
//Legacy of the Ortegren!//
//The ugly aesthetic// x3
//Jesus, be with us, and help defend!//
//The ugly aesthetic//
//The ugly aesthetic...//
[[/=]]

= ##white|**ArtPiece XVI**##

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[[==]]
Hopefully that was a good pick-me-up. Gets the energy up. How are you? How are you doing? It's been a lot of ugly, I know. And not the good kind! Yeah, I'm sort of mixing up my metaphors here by using "ugly" in a negative way with the song so close above.

Who, me? Oh, y'know. I'm the //Elf for Your Help™️!// Did you forget about me? That's understandable. See, I'm a subtle actor here. More like... a vector. A desire, maybe. I help things happen, in the broadest sense. Sometimes, it's very obvious. A little girl wants a pony. Well, maybe that's too much of an ask, living in the city like she is, but a horse ride can be arranged! On the way back from a long trip, Dad thinks he doesn't need the GPS, and where do they find themselves but a ranch. They have some extra cash and a generous schedule, what have they to lose?

Cole, well. He's a little harder, isn't he? I worry for that boy sometimes, but I'm doing what I can. Thing is, he hardly knows what he wants in the first place, and he certainly doesn't know how to work towards it. Doesn't help he's forgotten about me, but so many young boys do.

//Sigh...//

Feel free to take a break here. Only, I don't want you to leave //too// heartbroken. So, have a token of my appreciation, for you making it this far. I think it shows you really care -- Cole really needs people who care, you know? It's good of you. I don't blame you if you don't, either. I find it very sad, of course. I've watched him grow up, and I'm getting pretty fond of him myself. His imagination, his creative spirit! That stuff is highly valued where I come from, eh? //Magic,// it's sometimes called. Despite everything, Cole still has a sense of Wonder. A lot of people from the Clause -- that's what my people call your place, taha! -- have trouble keeping it, and Cole has parents that don't value it very much so it's all the more impressive how he's toting it around. Only, I wish he could //show// it more often, to more people. He keeps ending up in the wrong circles -- oh, or the right circles! Couldn't they all see they're the same and prop each other up instead of smothering one another?

Sorry. Sometimes, Cole's friends work me up like that. Not Paige, though. She's a darling.

Alright, breathe deep, we're going back. Yes, I know, it can be harrowing at times, but lighten up. I have a good feeling about this. Don't give me that look, I'm being serious! I think sometimes people are so ready to see the ugly they miss out on all the beauty -- and there I am again, talking aesthetics and muddying the message. Look, it all makes perfect sense to me. Where I come from, ugly //is// beautiful, except of course we don't call it ugly in the first place, that's just me adjusting to how you Clausians think. Cultural exchange is a doozy, isn't it?

Okay, but I'm serious. Try seeing things from my perspective -- try seeing the brothers who love each other, the hurt little boys who so rarely come upon a raw compliment and a hug. Try seeing the good in these broken people. Yes, I've heard it before, I'm a little //naive// they keep telling me. Well, come on, read on and prove me wrong... but I think they're going to surprise you.

It's been a nice talk. And don't forget, whatever you're seeing, I'm seeing too, and I'm ever so carefully nudging, nudging, nudging along this story, even when you can't see me. I'm an elf, for crying out loud! Do //you// know anyone who's seen an elf?

= [[image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/dr-k-stuff-s-personnel-file/III style="width:30px"]]
[[/==]]

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[[=]]
+ [[SIZE 150%]]Part II: **Eric the Scorned**[[/size]]
[[/=]]

= ##white|**ArtPiece XVII**##

[[==]]
Eric's sweat gleams across his skin from the long walk in 90 degree weather -- never before had Eric felt the sun's glare so literally. The prickling heat on his arms had followed him inside, even as he retreated from the windows. It feels, to him, that the weather picks and chooses, and he is getting special treatment today.

His oily hands don't grip the pen quite like he wants them to. He's afraid his button-up shirt doesn't look half as decent as it did when he started the walk.

//You don't even know if that's the manager,// he reassures himself, peering over the counter and into the kitchen of the Domino's. He blinks several times, to get a bead of sweat out of his eyelashes. He writes into the application a brief job history -- his stints as cashiers over summer, or his one job at a local roller rink he enjoyed and that made his father give him glowering eyes that hurried his retreat to his bedroom every time he got home.

Without a better idea, he writes in his address as his parents', hoping -- with some confidence -- that they won't care to check.

He goes back to the counter, and slides the application across it. The cashier notices him, but waits a moment to finish topping a pizza before sliding it into the oven. They wash their hands, and then meander over.

"I'll put this on the boss' desk," they say with no intent except to finish the interaction.

"Thanks. I appreciate it," Eric replies.

"Oh, uh. You're gonna have to apply online, too."

"Oh?" Eric frowns.

"Yeah."

"Then what was even the fucking point of the -- //this//?" He makes a violent gesture at the piece of paper in the employee's hand, and they recoil from him slightly. "Nevermind," he's quick to adjust, "sorry." His eyes screw shut, and his mouth tightens, as he tries to get a bead on his own temper. "Thank you for telling me. Have a good day."

If the employee responds, he can't tell through the rumble in his ears and his tunnel vision on the exit. In one hand, he holds a sheaf of resumes he'd printed at the library, that he was handing to any business with a "HELP WANTED" sign. They're bothersome to hold, and he fears his sweat will make them damp and gross, but the other option was to bring his backpack with him, and he's afraid that would be detrimental to his image.

He looks up at the Idahoan sky, partly to intimidate it into a cooler temperature, partly to avoid looking at the people he has to pass. An online application will mean revisiting the library. //What a fucking pain,// he thinks, but cursing brings him no comfort, not out loud nor in his head. He struggles to find external objects to despise. The sky, the people around him. He finds moments of reprieve, when looking in disdain on women he judges as bitchy, on kids that get on his nerves, on little nervous dogs that come up to sniff him but then recoil from his intense stare. But more often than that, he finds the external creeping in: he sees a homeless man on a street corner, and attempts to grab at the addictive judgment he would levy on those lower than him, but in the same instant it burns him, his brain snapping away as if it had just touched a hot stove.

He repulses at each repeat instance. On his way between businesses, handing resumes, he crosses queers, butch women, homeless men asking for change. He had once politely regarded them -- he was always taught to be polite above everything -- and keep his rightful despising to himself, his superiority inherent and ever-so-elegantly talked around, though obviously implied, acted on, acknowledged silently and constantly. Now, he struggles to separate himself. Everywhere he looks, he finds connections, similarities. He may look different -- but that is all there is.

His mind feels like a bowl of worms. He finds shelter in a gas station bathroom, and braces himself, his hands on either side of the sink, head down like he might start to vomit. He wonders if he actually will.

He doesn't.

He raises his eyes and looks at himself in the mirror.

So much sweat. There are little brown corners on his features where his perspiration has accumulated grime into one spot. He grimaces, and turns away. He's heard of "homeless showers," using a sink as your cleaning method. Unsure of the process, he merely turns the faucet on, and sticks his head under. A cold comfort crawls over his scalp. He grabs at it and then rubs his face, digging his fingers into the sides of his nose, his eye sockets, and giving special attention to his chin. He feels scratchy, and winces at the recognition that he hasn't shaved yet like he usually does.

He looks at himself in the mirror. Better. Not great. He struggles for something more to do. He squirts handsoap onto his palm, and then, with some hesitation, rubs it on his face, careful not to get any into his eyes. He then repeats the process of running his head under water and wiping his face.

He looks at himself in the mirror. Better. Not good enough. But it has to be. He rubs his face several more times to get rid of the white highlights where he didn't get the soap out, and then grabs his resumes from atop the toilet tank lid, turning and leaving. As he opens the door, someone is waiting their turn, and gives him a look that says they recognize what he must have just done. He instinctively summons up vitriol, but it catches in his throat and //hurts,// like holding in a cough. //I have no right,// he thinks, and shame shoots him towards the door of the gas station with the same force as gunpowder in a barrel.

He has to walk miles to get to his car, parked in an untended parking lot next to a series of garages hiding businesses that don't talk to the public. He's seen one take in a gurney with a covered body atop before the garage door shut. Where he's parked, he thinks, the garage is abandoned -- or, at least, not yet sold. He hides under the incompetent cover of a thin tree and a chain link fence.

The summer evening brings with it, at last, a bearable temperature, though Eric still finds himself heaving and sweating buckets from the trek. Once he's ready, he uses his razor to tend to the scruff that's grown in as he's been preoccupied, and finds his ability lacking without a sink. He tries to soften the hairs with some water from his bottle, and he's unsure if it helps. With shaking hands, he nicks himself, and curses.

"Fuck!"

It comes out strangled, and he startles himself. The flutter in his chest rewards him for expressing the suppressed, and suddenly he finds himself without a reason to hold it in like he'd done all day.

On the realization, a kind of scream comes out of him, loud and deep and hollering, done in three takes with breaths between. He stands up with the energy, and bellows a fourth with some articulation: "God! God //fu-uck!//"

He ends with his throat scratchy. His eyes water, and his teeth grind against one another.

The night answers him with a comforting breeze, a distant dog bark, and the ever-present rumble of a nearby freeway.

= ##white|**ArtPiece XVIII**##

"Fuck," he says, to himself. "I'm fucked."

His voice cracks on the last word, and he recoils at the show of weakness, instantly tensing, grabbing his car door, and slamming it with all his might, for no other reason than to damage something.

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"Cole, see me after class."

The teens file out as the bell rings, some giving Cole a smirk and a chuckle as they pass him. They love witnessing someone else's suffering -- it makes them feel powerful and untouchable. Cole refuses to move from his seat, but makes no attempt at escape either. Mr. Gilmore can come meet Cole at his own table, if he wants to delay Cole's usual RP with Paige. Plus, Cole will have to come up with an excuse -- not that it's hard, but anytime he has to talk around him still being in high school it makes him nervous.

Mr. Gilmore doesn't even have the decency to wait until everyone's left. A girl who's moving slowly, packing her textbooks absently while her focus is on her phone, is still in the classroom when Gilmore walks over and puts his hands on Cole's desk, leaning over and looking at him.

"Is there any reason you didn't finish the assigned reading?"

Cole huffs, and gives no further reply.

"Mr. Ortegren, I'm going to need you to take this conversation //seriously.//"

"I am going to take it as seriously as it warrants," Cole snaps back.

Mr. Gilmore stands up, and sighs, half-turning away from Cole.

"This is your third missed assignment in a row. What you do turn in is often incomplete. When you get put in a group project, you disappear. Don't think I don't notice. You skip questions on the tests when you would get at least partial credit just by writing a single sentence. Mr. Ortegren, if this keeps up, you //will// fail my class."

Cole draws his shoulders inward, tightening his crossed arms, and shrugs.

"What if I don't care?"

"You'll have to take remedial classes over summer. Think of it as buying your free time -- and if you fail those classes, you might have to repeat a grade. I've talked with your other teachers. You aren't doing much better in their classes either."

Cole bristles. "This is pointless," he mutters.

"Excuse me?"

"This is //stupid,//" he corrects, louder.

"Is it, Mr. Ortegren?"

"It //is.// I don't act out. I don't bother people. I sit in the back of the class, doing my own shit --"

"//Don't// use that language with me."

Cole shuts up, but his expression shows no sign of guilt.

"It's not about you bothering people," Gilmore continues.

"Then what is it about? My //future?//"

"Do you want to be sent to the principal's office, Mr. Ortegren?"

"So you can't give me a good reason? You're just going to threaten me into complying?"

Gilmore flounders. The //vocabulary// Cole uses -- he's not the white trash he can look like. Mr. Gilmore struggles to reconcile the stubborn, dirty, camo-wearing child in front of him with the one he'd seen after school checking out books from the library.

Cole shifts in his seat, anxious to leave. "What if I tell you I don't care if I fail this class. Will you let me go?"

"What are you hoping to do after high school?"

Cole feels a cold needle slip underneath his muscles, separating his pectorals from his ribs. He avoids eye contact. "Does it matter?"

"Does what you're doing right now get you the future you want?"

//Fuck you,// Cole thinks, the threat of the principal's office keeping him from voicing it. With no external outlet, it travels inwards, and that creases his brow further.

"I'll let you go right now," Gilmore concedes, "but I'll be talking with your parents."

The needle melts and diffuses over his chest. "Good, then I'm going."

Cole grabs his backpack, and is watched all the while by his teacher, who stands a desk's length away, unmoving, disapproving. Cole wants to yell something at him, show him how little he respects Mr. Gilmore's authority over himself, but he can't risk the conversation with his parents -- with his dad.

He rushes to the door and throws it open.

He didn't used to be such a shit student. Cole wasn't good, either -- but he worked at least hard enough to get a C. He's not sure what changed -- he's not sure what future he envisioned for himself before -- but ever since Eric was thrown out, he's been unable to figure out a single thing worth doing. The only things keeping him accountable are the patriarch's eyes boring down on him, and the occasional reassurance from Paige. He somewhat regrets opening up to her -- he can't rationalize it, can't tell if it was a good idea. It makes him feel weak, but her supportive words matter more to him than any sense of self-worth. He can't let her know that, so he never asks for them, never prompts -- can't let //himself// know it, or feel weaker still, reliant, stupid, girly. Sometimes, it makes him want to cry, and he doesn't allow himself to know why.

Still, it keeps him more willing to share, when she catches on that he's in a poor mood. She's good at it. Knows when to ask for more details, when to back off.

He has to be careful with his words, not to tip her off that he's still in high school and not college, where she expects him to be. Still, he can usually get most of his feelings across.

Some of them, he must admit to himself, have begun to make their way into their RP. He's entirely unaware of how influential his feelings have been to his prior engagements, erroneously identifying that only now do his life circumstances require representation in his fictions.

But he wants to keep it subtle. He's unaware -- or willingly ignorant -- that Paige sees right through it. He's not nearly as good at deception as he thinks he is.

He enters the computer lab, and passes the other few people who come here after school. He watched them become friends as they sat next to each other -- the girls without access to the internet or printers at home, necessary for some assignments -- and resents them for it. He takes his usual seat at the very back of the class, and tunes out their conversation as he enters his new role.

He opens the browser, and it automatically starts on his school email. The inbox is more than full, over a hundred unread emails. He doesn't care to check them. He always tabs out immediately.

But something makes him stop.

In the list of identical-looking subject lines, each longer than the displayable character count, talking about assignments due and when, groups for group projects, all from the same formulaic email addresses, one stands out, close to the top, sent several days ago.

> **Hey Bro**
> //[[[http://www.scp-wiki.net/fakepage|nicerackdoe@hotmail.com]]]//

Cole's heart jumps into his throat, and his hands begin to tremble.

He hesitates for an unmeasured moment. Then, the mouse shoots for the email, and opens it. Cole pours over its contents, however brief they may be, hanging on every word from Eric. His heart aches as he hears his brother's voice in the words: defeated. Eric, the stronger of the two -- the bigger brother -- sounds so passive in his email, so meek. Some part of Cole recognizes and empathizes with the pain, with the realization of how far Eric has fallen. Another, uglier part criticizes Eric, judging him for not projecting strength at his lowest moment. //Maybe the fag's always been weak,// Cole thinks, but the acrylic red thought comes with a layer of watercolor blue -- something like a sigh, something like a pressure in Cole's biceps that wants to be relieved with an embrace, something like a confusing tint of love overlaid on his bigotry.

If actions speak louder than words, Cole should be grateful for the fact, because even as he resents his brother for his vices, for his transgressions against the family, his sole motivation is to help somehow.

He can't formulate a response. In a daze, he opens a second tab, and utilizes his proxy sites to navigate to Discord, where he enters his PMs with Paige.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> 💃
> Readyyyy

She's been waiting, but Cole doesn't have time to apologize.

> **PieMouth**
> My brother sent me an email

There's a heart-pounding delay as Paige undoubtedly hears the notification but finishes whatever it is she's doing first. Maybe one of her sudokus, maybe a YouTube video.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> Oh my god
> you havent heard from him since he got kicked out right ??
> 
> **PieMouth**
> no
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Oh my god

She avoids asking its contents, even though Cole knows she has to be curious. This is the kind of respect of his boundaries he finds incredibly comfortable, and which allows him to feel okay opening up like he does.

> **PieMouth**
> He's living out of his car and working in fast food. He figured out my college email because they're formulaic, derived it from my name. I have no idea what to say
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Did he ask anything of you?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> no
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> That's like
> That's incredibly dude
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> You can contact him now! that's inredible!!
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yeah

Paige reads his signs, and so there's a pause. Cole cycles through the same thoughts over and over, and by the time he's on his fourth or fifth loop, he shakes his head as if trying to shuffle them into a different order or dislodge some rock to reveal a new rabbit hole. When that doesn't work, he types.

> **PieMouth**
> what do i do
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Respond to him
> He told you what his life is like, tell him about yours, keep it casual
> 
> **PieMouth**
> so, pretend?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Pretend what?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> that nothing's happened

Paige seems to consider that.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> Or you can tell him how much you've missed him, and ask him where he is, see if you can't meet up

//I want to tell him how stupid he is,// Cole thinks, //I want him to feel the pain I felt for him leaving.//

> **PieMouth**
> I know where he is. A few towns over. I don't have a car, though, and I don't have a good excuse to take Dad's car, either
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> You don't?

The question feels off, and he bristles.

> **PieMouth**
> no, i take the bus to college
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> hmm......
> I mean
> What do you want to do
> 
> **PieMouth**
> idk

Paige begins typing, but Cole interrupts her by being honest, even as he wilts with shame at the act.

> help.
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> ok, maybe look up what programs he has access to in your state?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> programs?
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> Yeah like
> For homeless people, what state and federal programs exist to get him back on his feet?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> he doesn't need a fucking handout

Cole regrets the message as he sends it, but he pushes that feeling back beneath the surface of anger at Paige's suggestion.

There's a pause.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> There are private institutions that do similar work, like, Salvation Army has a program for getting people financially stable
> 
> **PieMouth**
> What he needs to do is come home
> 
> **PentaclesPaige**
> pie
> there is not a place for your brother at home
> As shitty and horrible as that is, that has been made very clear.
> you can't make him come back

The words feel like so many arrows. Cole coughs metaphorical blood, though the cough itself seems to come through, because suddenly Cole is aware of being watched. His eyes drift up to the girls at the front of the room, and a split second of eye contact catches before the girls turn away.

He blinks water out of his eye, and turns back to the computer.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> What state are you in?

//If you won't do it, I will,// she's saying. Cole knows it. //Fine.//

> **PieMouth**
> idaho

But he aborts the conversation. He closes the browser and signs out on the computer, grabbing his backpack and slinging it over one shoulder. As he walks out of the class, he pauses in the doorway, and turns around.

"Mind your own //fucking// business!"

He slams the door behind him.

> **PentaclesPaige**
> oh shit
> Idaho?
> Really?

...

> okay, pie, how much do you trust me?

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Eric sits in the car, alone, the radio on but with no intention of listening to it. If anything, he's listening to the torrent of rain pattering on the metal, and the wind that sometimes blows so hard he can feel the car shift from side to side. He's tired. He's so, so fucking tired, and he's dreading the idea that the next step is meeting someone new.

Underneath that buzz of discomfort, Eric also notes the kind of neighborhood he's in. It's not what he expected. He's in the middle of what would be a cul-de-sac if it weren't for the parking spots. Maybe it still counted, he isn't sure. He just knows he's never seen a cul-de-sac big enough that there were parking spots in the middle.

But he can't see it now. Not with the car off, not with the rain oozing over the windshield, making a pattern more like crystal than glass. Not with the pitch black of a rainy 1:00 am.

= ##white|**ArtPiece XIX**##

He sighs, loudly.

//No time like the present.//

He opens the driver side door, and that breaks the circuit that keeps the radio on. Now it really is just him, the rain, and the yells of angry fathers. //No,// he frowns. //That's just the wind.// He closes the door before it can push rain sideways into the car, and he hugs his thin jacket close to him. He goes to his trunk and extracts only what he thinks he'll need to fall asleep, a single bag. The same bags he took to Grandma's house. He winces.

The house is big. Two stories. In this light he can't make out its shape exactly, but it looks to be baby-blue and modern. There's thankfully an awning and a light on the porch. He walks over, almost blown to his side, sliding on a particularly slick part of the asphalt. The trees look ready to fall over. Firs, tall and beautiful. These aren't the forests of Minnesota.

He gets to the door, and knocks.

Then he comes to his senses, and presses the doorbell in addition. With the sky pissing rain, it's impossible to hear any response inside. The wet on his clothes the hiss in his ear the buzz in his brain is all just too fucking much to cooperate with any new information, he wishes it would stop and he can just take all of this stuff off, lie down on a couch, be held, not be held, be alone, be left completely alone. The door opens.

Eric is momentarily surprised. "Hey, uh, you Paige's roommate?"

They suddenly look nearly as uncomfortable as Eric feels. "I'm Paige," she introduces herself.

"Oh." Eric's brow creases, but he wills it away. "I'm Eric. You're Cole's online friend."

"Yeah."

//Why did I say that?// "May I come in? It's fucking awful out here."

"Um, of course."

Paige steps out of the way, and Eric walks through the door, into the living space. The warmth is immediately refreshing, so soothing he can feel his muscles loosen and the buzz settle down. "Hey. Thank you. For coming through for me."

Paige rubs her thumb and forefinger together absently, and Eric notices. She avoids eye contact. "Yeah, no problem. I heard your situation. I couldn't stomach not doing something, so."

"Yeah," Eric states. "Yeah."

Eric can't seem to find solid ground to stand on. Paige looks so uncomfortable, it hurts him. She's probably a head shorter than him, but she's a little chubby. Just a bit of pudge around the waist that doesn't seem to exist anywhere else on her body. She stands with a slouch, and her hair looks a little greasy. Her scruff, especially, causes him to pause. It looks freshly shaven, but poorly. It's just a bit asymmetrical, and there doesn't seem to have been an attempt to get it clean off. Eric can't understand the implication -- he's trying his best to not look like he's looking, to look like he's got nothing to say about it. All he wants to communicate is gratitude for being housed.

"Sorry if the place is a mess."

Her voice is scratchy from disuse, and it doesn't seem like she's done anything to it. She speaks in a craggy baritone, not anything like he'd expected from their messages back and forth. Well, he expected any level of outward femininity at all.

Paige, of course, intuits the thought process. She tells herself she might be imagining things, that it's easy to put words in people's heads that are actually her own insecurities. Unfortunately for her, this time she's right, and Eric is doing a poor job of proving her wrong. His eyes bore into her, and she finds it difficult to say what she was hoping to say.

//He's fucking huge,// she can't help but notice. She would never have guessed at his size, between Cole's descriptions and his quiet, polite demeanor over texts. His mass acts as a magnifier for her worries -- the kinds of actions Eric would be capable of undertaking, should he get the mind to do so.

"It's totally alright," he says, a bit too late to dispel the atmosphere. He finally takes a look around, tearing his eyes off of his host for a moment. The space is perfectly livable. It may need a deep clean -- the rug has an old brown shade to it, and the walls seem even more off- than the off-white they are supposed to be. But the space itself is fine. There is a couch that looks like it's never been used, placed to the left of a TV. The aforementioned rug sits in-between the two, looking out-of-place, like it came from a house a hundred years older than this one. To the left, the open floor plan connects the living room to a kitchen, pencil thin but well-stocked. Eric notices the dishwasher is on, but there are still more dirty dishes in the sink, yet to go in.

To the left of the kitchen, and closest to Eric, is a rather steep stairwell, leading up.

"The bathroom is behind the stairs, from the kitchen," Paige says. "Second door. Not the first. That one's storage space. That's pretty much the whole first floor."

"Looked bigger from the outside."

"Yeah. That's because of how much space the garage takes up. Upstairs is my bedroom and the guest room, which'll be yours, and another bathroom."

Eric expects that to lead into Paige moving, to give him the tour. But she doesn't. She stays in place, looking like she's going to collapse at any moment.

"Mind showing me to my room? I think that and a piss are all I'm going to be doing tonight."

"Yeah. Of course. Um, please don't mind the shit outside my door. I haven't figured out where to put it all yet."

"That's fine."

Paige turns and walks up the stairs, hands jammed in pockets. Eric follows her up, and discovers, downwind of her, that she's wearing a rather strong cologne. Perfume? Eric isn't present enough to decipher the terminology, and he is furthermore so thrown off-balance by Paige's presentation that he feels incapable of trusting his nose to discern whether whatever she sprayed on herself was advertised to men or women. The gray area agitates him. He finds his good manners waning, and he wants to get to bed before something vile comes out of his mouth at this person who's already done so much just to help him.

They have to step around a pile of books and two trash bags that are outside the first door to the left at the top of the stairwell.

"Sorry," Paige says under her breath.

Eric neglects to respond, now hoping to say as few words as possible, attempting to cut down on room for error.

She feels the silence, and hopes that Eric simply didn't hear her. It feels like her head is rattling. It's been so long since anyone who she is out to saw her. It is ironic, she notes, that getting groceries while closeted causes less distress than being out. She feels sickly -- like her identity is limp and hanging off of her.

She fights through the feeling to motion Eric into his room. She opens the door, steps aside, and lets Eric by. "This is the guest room. It's got nothing in it right now, but, I blew up an air mattress you can sleep on. I hope that's enough for tonight..."

Eric pauses. "Yeah. Yeah, it's good."

"Good. Uhh, the door we passed, after my door, that's the upstairs bathroom. And... if you need me, just um, knock. I'll put the stuff outside my door into storage so you don't have to walk around it. Is that okay?"

"Better than okay. Thank you."

Paige flashes a smile, and makes brief eye contact for the first time since his opening the door.

"Goodnight," Paige says, hurriedly excusing herself.

"Goodnight. Uh, hey."

Turning to respond looks like it pains her, which makes Eric reconsider his approach.

"Uh," he redirects, "just, um, this is a ton, that you're doing for me. It's above the call of duty. I'm really really grateful. Thank you."

She takes it well. "Yeah. I mean, you're welcome. I'm, yeah, no, it's good. I'm sorry what happened to you."

He wishes she wouldn't bring it up. The anger comes back, the buzz returns, and once again he's afraid of saying something heinous.

"It's..." he struggles.

"It's not okay. I get it. I know you want to be reassuring, but it's okay. That it's not okay. You don't have to say it."

"Okay."

She seems to realize how much she's just talked, and her discomfort settles back into her face. "Goodnight."

"Yeah. Goodnight."

She closes the door behind her, leaving him in the barren room that has just a long window, a closet with sliding doors, empty floor space, and the aforementioned blue blow-up mattress. He tosses down his bag, turns off the light, and nearly falls into the mattress, his exhaustion taking full hold.

He nearly wants to cry. What he almost said was: //You're cute.// He wanted to give her a compliment, something to take the edge off of the vibe he knows he was giving off. It seemed to perfectly split the difference between honesty and a lie for her benefit. He //did// find her cute -- in a completely masculine way. She was meek in a way that allowed his brain to ease up on the instinct for boyish competition -- that allowed him to even communicate the gratitude he would otherwise guard like an open wound. He feels so inherently superior that he can relax. It isn't like that around other men.

They are so scary, all the time. So fucking scary. That was one of the things Eric really loved about Jed. Jed was also unassuming. Weak, bad at a lot of things. Good at other things, good at talking and listening. It put his guard down. He doesn't know how to put his guard down on his own, and the shield is heavy.

So heavy. It bears the Ortegren crest, and it takes all his strength just to carry it.

//I deserve this,// he feels more than thinks. //I deserve everything that happens to me. I wasn't knightly enough. I didn't control my impulses. I broke the codes. I deserve my exile. I deserve to be thrown in with the freaks like Paige.//

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> **pentaclespaige has entered the chat.**
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## don't get me started about theatre of coolty
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## euuuugh
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## if you get me started
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## i might not stop
> ##red|**chokerless:**## Trust me, I am not trying to start you
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## eueeeueuuuuuuugh
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## anyone else hear something??
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## ಠಿ_ಠ
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## It is me!!
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## hi owo
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## it's paige! hey paige
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## but maybe people weren't hearing me
> ##red|**chokerless:**## woof bullet dodged
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## what I meant to say was
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## EEEEEUUUUUGH
> ##red|**chokerless:**## That bad, huh?
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## what's up??? :<
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I think I've made a mistake
> ##red|**chokerless:**## Oh well that sucks
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## mistake?
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I'll tell it simple
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## oh no!
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## there's a CIS GUY in my house!!
> ##red|**chokerless:**## Ah shiet
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## And it was an intentional choice!
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## By me!!!
> ##red|**chokerless:**## riiiiip
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## </3
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## this that guy you're housing?
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## yea
> ##red|**chokerless:**## You're housing a guy?
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## i haven't heard about this
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## yeaaa
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## ##orange|acuterobot:## consider yourself started :3c but let's not clutter, PM me
> ##red|**chokerless:**## That sounds like kind of a big deal
> ##orange|**acuterobot:**## *starts* owo
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## i've heard some of this, but the guy's basically houseless
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## what's uP?
> ##red|**chokerless:**## Paige is telling us about a mistake she's made
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## oh :,3
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## He got kicked out of the house because he got outed and then it took a bit for us to get contact again, but when we did we learned he was homeless but had a job and basically living on dimes working part time.
> ##red|**chokerless:**## Oh shiet
> ##red|**chokerless:**## Well, unfortunately, that happens
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## I think the preferred term is "houseless," I've heard that at my work
> ##black|**bones:**## That must be very personal for you.
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I couldn't hear that story and not start feeling shit so I let my empathy get the better of me and, after I learned he was only a state over, I offered, because I've got unused space in my house.
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## Only I don't know if that was a good decision.
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## is he nice?
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## ##black|bones:## right on the money, yea
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## ##blue|bluefootedboobies:## idk but he's very very cis
> ##red|**chokerless:**## You don't know?
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## that
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## really sucks ^_^;;
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## bleaaaah i could just feel him looking at me and it was horrible
> ##red|**chokerless:**## oh THAT kind
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## yeeeeesh
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## oh that reallly sucks ;;;;
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## But it's not like I can back out now! He just got here!
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## you know as well as anyone that people's unfortunate circumstances aren't your responsibility
> ##red|**chokerless:**## Though probably hard to throw him out now
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## but i can understand how it might have been hard to hear that story, see a direct way to help and not engage
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I'm not going to throw him out.
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## Gracy
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## no.
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## wording gracy
> ##red|**chokerless:**## What am I missing?
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## ^^;;
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I'm not putting him on the street again.
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## he hasn't even done anything
> ##black|**bones:**## The adjustment period may be difficult, but I think that you are doing a very noble thing.
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## thanks
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## ^
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I hope I am.
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## to ##black|bones## not "thanks"
> ##red|**chokerless:**## did he say anything?
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## No. It was all in the tone and the look
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## did he know you were trans
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## no....
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## i don't think he would have to?
> ##red|**chokerless:**## probably wouldn't have come if he did
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## Gracy, time out
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## as your friend
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## please <3
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## ^
> ##red|**chokerless:**## ok
> ##red|**chokerless:**## ciao
> **chokerless has left the chat.**
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## bleaaaahhh
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## sorry ^_^;
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## don't be
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I get it
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I 100% get it
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I am currently experiencing it
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I think
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## If I'm not reading way too far into little things that don't matter
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## cis people are like that
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## he's queer tho, he'll get it
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## yeah! :)
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## mm
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## I hope so
> ##purple|**hetcopogg:**## ay im back what i miss
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## eeeeugh
> ##blue|**bluefootedboobies:**## paige has a boy in her house
> ##purple|**hetcopogg:**## oh?
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## don't say it like THAT

@@@@
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> [[SIZE 150%]]**EricO@@__@@**[[/size]]
> This is the beginning of your direct message history with **@EricO@@__@@**.
> 
> -----
> 
> **PieMouth**
> you're gonna wanna change that name
> 
> **EricO__**
> fucks piemouth mean
> 
> **PieMouth**
> oh it's like
> this image i found
> i think it was a shotgun suicide. mouth blown wide open. bruised as hell. looks like a sticky kind of pie, but it's his mouth
> 
> **EricO__**
> haha
> fucked
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yea
> https://awbw.amarriner.com/
> 
> **EricO__**
> nice, this what you were talking about?
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yea
> tell me when you've made an account, and maybe pick something better than your name lol
> 
> **EricO__**
> fucks wrong with my name
> 
> **PieMouth**
> it's just not very fun
> 
> **EricO__**
> ye?
> dont matter my name when I beat ur ass
> maybe thatll make it better too
> 
> **PieMouth**
> lol
> 
> **EricO__**
> force you to respect my stupid name
> maybe ill be like TurdMuncher
> 
> **PieMouth**
> haha ew
> But nah you're gonna lose
> you probably wanna name yourself something cool enough you can keep a little of your dignity when you lose
> 
> **EricO__**
> TurdMuncher is taken
> 
> **PieMouth**
> you type slow, bro
> 
> **EricO__**
> okay I'm TurdMuncher_
> 
> **PieMouth**
> bro the underscores are half of why your name looks so stupid
> 
> **EricO__**
> the underscore is space for your balls when I claim them as a trophy
> 
> **PieMouth**
> fuckin gay

...

> **EricO__**
> this website looks fucking awful
> 
> **PieMouth**
> yeah but we can play now
> also no sturm no sami no nell
> 
> **EricO__**
> ye i know
> what the fuck is this little twerp with the red hair
> 
> **PieMouth**
> those are dual strike COs
> ported over
> ignore them for now i'll show you them later
> 
> **EricO__**
> ok
> 
> **PieMouth**
> How's Paige?
> 
> **EricO__**
> hes cool
> he mostly stays in his room I dont see him very often
> but we like cleaned the house together and stuff
> it was nice
> 
> **PieMouth**
> What's she look like?

...

> **EricO__**
> "she"
> 
> **PieMouth**
> mm
> you right
> I've just been talking to him so long it's like
> Hard to picture him another way
> 
> **EricO__**
> i mean shes hosting me
> its fucking stupid but i should be respectful
> 
> **PieMouth**
> no difference to me bro
> she's just "she" to me because it's easy
> 
> **EricO__**
> christ

...

> shes been nothing but nice
> the ouse is way big and she doesnt work so idk
> hes just a fucking dude is the thing
> when we first met he had a beard
> 
> **PieMouth**
> wtf lol
> 
> **EricO__**
> hes like shaving now tho
> hes still just a fucking twiggy dude
> bro he was probably fucking catfishing you
> 
> **PieMouth**
> nah
> 
> **EricO__**
> hes probably secretly some pedo creep
> you fucking put me with him too
> 
> **PieMouth**
> nah
> She thinks I'm older anyways
> 
> **EricO__**
> that dont mean anything
> 
> **PieMouth**
> nah bro
> she's cool
> Do you talk?
> 
> **EricO__**
> not much
> sometimes house things
> like i still dont know where everythihg is
> and the toilet got mega clogged once

...

> **PieMouth**
> Oh you fuck
> 
> **EricO__**
> coming for ur nuts dude
> 
> **PieMouth**
> nah
> You're not getting past this ironclad defense
> That just fucking
> Changes things
> 
> **EricO__**
> nah it dont
> i was already winning
> 
> **PieMouth**
> uh-huh uh-huh keep thinking that
> You two should talk
> 
> **EricO__**
> y
> 
> **PieMouth**
> she's really good to talk to
> Plus she probably like gets it
> She gets way more than I expect her to get
> 
> **EricO__**
> gets what
> 
> **PieMouth**
> idk
> fag stuff
> 
> **EricO__**
> i dont talk about fucking fag stuff
> 
> **PieMouth**
> idk
> 
> **EricO__**
> dunno what
> 
> **PieMouth**
> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> maybe you should
> She got kicked out of her house too y'know

...

> **EricO__**
> hows that for a ironclad defense
> 
> **PieMouth**
> fuck
> ah shit gtg
> When are you available?
> We can continue this later
> 
> **EricO__**
> i dont have my work schedule yet so idk
> for now im not doing fucking anything
> 
> **PieMouth**
> okay
> Well I'll be back tomorrow
> My bus is leaving
> But you should talk to her
> 
> **EricO__**
> ok
> 
> **PieMouth**
> seriously.
> Okay bye bro
> 
> **EricO__**
> bye
> nice to be kicking your ass again
> 
> **PieMouth**
> You say that now.
> ok bye

@@@@
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-----
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@@@@

Eric watches as another group of men enter the club. Eric presses his fur-lined jacket into himself, his arms tight to his sides, hands jammed into his pocket. In his left, he toys with a folded knife. A breeze makes him shiver. He looks up at the sky for a moment. The stars are sparse, light pollution at work, and something about it makes him vaguely uncomfortable -- as opposed to the pressing, obvious discomfort he feels otherwise as a bending snake in his gut. He imagines, several times, that the men make eye contact with him, seeing through the veil of shadow.

//They're so obvious,// Eric thinks, with bitter, unidentified envy. The men with painted nails, pink attire, glowing skin. The men who take care of themselves. In another light, the men he's seen enter with unassuming outfits -- those in jeans, tees, gray button-ups, clean military cuts, tennis shoes -- make him a special kind of angry. The thought that he could run into them and not know, that they can walk through his life never clocked.

//Stealth fags,// Eric thinks, grinding his teeth. //Limp-wristed fuckers.//

= ##white|**ArtPiece XX**##

The Spark Club's neon yellow sign mixes with the dimmer blues of suburban electricity, casting Eric in a dreary blue cloak, only his eyes catching and reflecting the warmth of the club's entrance -- his hungry, searching eyes.

He pulls the knife out of his pocket, and flicks it out, folds it, flicks it out, and folds it again, repeating the action absently, his eyes fixed on the comers and goers.

He knows, because he looked them up, that the club allows his age range. He wouldn't be allowed at the bar, of course, though he wonders if they would be able to tell his age at a glance. The door opens, and closes. Men come out laughing. Men go in wearing eager smiles.

//Flick, fold. Flick, fold.//

Men.

The base, animal part of Eric's brain loses grip and spins, like a tire stuck in snow, the complaining engine releasing that acrid, burning smell. //Men.// His heartrate picks up any time one of the men is obviously muscular, fit, //large.// Eric naturally sorts them into those he feels he could beat and those he couldn't -- the action carries no intention, but it burns, whirs. Spins. Skids.

Unable to take another moment, Eric looks at the sky again. Relief. Release.

//Why am I here?// Eric can't come up with a good answer. He won't let himself know the answer -- he won't acknowledge his loneliness, the aching place in his heart Jed once occupied, the gnawing want for human contact, physical contact, sexual release. //Because I hate them,// he thinks. //Because they did this to me.//

How dare boys be cute. Their alluring asses, their twitching genitals. Their scruff, their muscles, their weight. Their strong hands. Their broad shoulders. But even better, when they lose the typical trappings of manhood -- even better when they're meek, soft. //Beatable,// Eric sorts them. //Unthreatening. Easy.//

He's been coming here after work for a week, and every time he leaves a little sooner, his tolerance for the intensity of emotion waning. And still, some force pulls him back. Some knot in his stomach is tied to the place, and he just pulls at the rope until he finds himself back again. Every once in a while, he thinks he might be able to walk to the door. His armor slips, and he finds himself indulging in a fantasy -- that of entering, cavorting, laughing like the men laugh, smiling like the men smile. Meeting a boy, finding somewhere private, and exploring each other. Someone Jed-size, Jed-shaped. He's seen one or two. Pudgy, round-cheeked. They're uncommon, but they're here.

Eric presses his hand over top of his pants, onto his groin, his knees bent slightly, his face twisted into a scowl. //Why am I here?// he asks again. And, unable to trick himself a second time, he leaves.

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> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## sorry I'm being dense ^^;;
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## you're not being dense !!
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## It's a lot of information all at once. But the most important part is, though the "pentacles" suit can refer to wealth, it's more about like, material things, the material world in general
> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## that's all! sorry to overload you with info 👐
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## i got that part

//Knock knock.//

Paige moves a headphone off of her left ear, and turns towards the door of her room. "Eric?"

"Who else?" His voice carries no humor.

"What's up?"

"I was wondering... if you wanted to hang out, or something."

Paige's eyebrows raise.

> ##green|**pentaclespaige:**## brb roommate stuff
> ##edd731|**chereamie:**## ok!

She removes her headphones, stands up, and moves towards the door -- then, reconsidering, picks a discarded pair of jeans off the floor, and dons them first.

She moves towards the door, and opens it halfway.

"Hang out?" she asks.

"Yeah." Eric is hunched, and having difficulty making eye contact. Not that he's typically good at it -- Paige rankles, Eric's awkwardness always interpreted in a negative light, though she tries to fight her own assumptions. "Go out. Have drinks or something."

Paige tenses fractionally. "Drinks?"

"A club, maybe."

And again, but she lets out an abrupt chuckle. "Um, I'm sorry dude, I don't think -- I'm not going to a club, sorry."

His brow furrows. "Okay," and there's a bit of frustration creeping in at the edges of his voice, "then... what? Do you want to hang out or not?"

She really doesn't. Eric has given her very little reason to find interest in him -- they come from such different backgrounds and they hardly seem to connect on anything, from temperament to aesthetic to -- she reminds herself again that she is assuming -- political leanings, favored media. It was really shocking to her system, meeting another queer person she so completely didn't click with. It occurs to her, now, that her insular online communities hadn't prepared her for the diversity of lived experiences. Of course she logically understood the vast differences between human lives -- a great deal of her ideology springs from this very understanding -- but meeting a gay dude who doesn't understand her slang, who has to be taught about how to use the computer, who has so little humor or warmth, who doesn't respond to self-deprecating jokes well -- who raises eyebrows at a woman having a dick -- it's alien.

But she does feel empathy for him. He's unwell, and he's very bad at hiding it, and while his processing of his emotions is so opposite to her own -- how quick he is to frustration, his anger, the //physicality// of his emotion -- she sees in him the same broken girl she was when she had to figure out how to live on her own the first time. //Except,// she notes, //he doesn't have anyone. No chatroom, no community, no friends except his brother.//

"Yes. Of course, I just, I just don't want to go to a club."

"Okay," he shakes his head. "Then where?"

"Um." She flounders. She only leaves the house when necessary -- to go grocery shopping, or to get sewing materials for her clothes, or to replace something if it breaks. She has no hangout spots. "A cafe, I'll go get a coffee with you." That's something normal people do, right?

He visibly loosens. "Okay," he says, the frustration in his voice erased. "I'm available."

"Huh? Now?"

He nods. She tenses, and another chuckle escapes her lips. "Ah, can we do that tomorrow?"

He looks confused, but unbothered. "Sure. I get off work at 4:00, so, 4:30?"

"Yes. Sounds good."

"Okay." He stands there for a moment, looking lost, but altogether not uncomfortable. As soon as he finds he has nothing to add, he makes brief eye contact and says: "Alright. See you tomorrow."

She just nods, and closes the door as he moves to leave.

//Tomorrow,// she thinks, //4:30.//

She breathes deep. "Ah, fuck."

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What If My Love Language is Hurting People?

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