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Ace doesn't know why, but Heartslabyul just doesn't feel safe to him anymore.
After Riddle (That's Housewarden Riddle to you!) properly apologized and the Overblot was dealt with, he should've felt safe in what would become his home for a foreseeable part of the future.
Instead, he kept glancing over his shoulder whenever he ate, expecting his Housewarden to be there, ready with another collar.
Instead, his smiles in Heartslabyul were always fake, the smirk playing at his lips always strained, not that anyone noticed aside from the concerned glances that Deuce shot him.
Instead, he didn't feel anywhere near as safe and comfortable here as he did back in Ramshackle.
Still, he went about his days with a faux smile painted on his lips and counterfeit brightness sparkling in dull red eyes.
Deuce doesn't know why, but he doesn't feel safe in Heartslabyul.
Even before Riddle (I believe you mean to say "Yes Housewarden!") collared him and kicked him out of the Dorm, he kept an eye on the entrances around him, ready to make a break for it when (not if, because even then, he had a bad feeling) something went wrong.
Even before the chestnut tart that he and the others had worked so hard on was thrown out, he tried to watch all of the people around him as best as he could, because he couldn't trust anyone yet.
Even after the failed duel-
A scream of "Off With Your Head!" fills the air and suddenly a familiar weight falls onto his neck and shoulders, but now that he's tasted freedom, the visceral feeling of something violently, rapidly cut off inside his very soul hurts even more than before, because he knows what life is like without it, and now that's it's back, it feels like something inside him, deep and irreparable, has shattered.
He feels broken shards, just barely settled within him, but there's no time to rest because Riddle's Overblotted, and now they have to save his life because he refuses to have any more blood on his hands.
But even when Riddle apologizes, the broken shards still stay there, sharp as ever, and cutting him whenever he goes to poke them.
The pain of those cuts hurt far more than a physical wound ever could.
-and the Overblot-
It should be over, right?
Why isn't it over yet?
-Heartslabyul isn't a place that welcomes him.
When he hears someone, anyone scream, he reaches to cover his neck, tensing up.
When he smells smoke, he's sent back to that day in the garden.
When he sees black, he's reminded of the inky darkness that consumed his Housewarden.
When he feels something around his neck, he panics, thinking that he's been collared once more.
When he tastes a tart, chesnut or strawberry or any flavor, really, he keeps glancing around for the tyrant Housewarden.
When he sits down with the others, just the three of them, he feels like he can forget the world.
When he leaves them to return to the Dorm, he's sent back to the coldness of cruel reality.
When he knocks on the door to Ramshackle Dorm, he feels like he can finally relax.
When he leaves, the tension returns to his shoulders and he wishes he could stay forever.
Ace is tired.
He's tired of the constant paranoia he feels, of the fact that anything can send him back to those days in the rose maze.
Of the daily flashbacks, of the panic when he hears his Housewarden (Always Housewarden, never Riddle in his mind, although he feels as though he doesn't deserve the title) yelling at someone, something, anything, not matter how deserved it is.
He's tired, and he wants to rest, but Heartslabyul isn't safe enough for him to.
Ramshackle is.
Deuce is tired.
He's tired of the fact that he feels like he has to keep an eye on the exits and people around him, of the fact that the only person he trusts in this Dorm is Ace, of all people.
Of the fact that all it takes is the smell of paint, smoke, or crushed roses is all that it takes to send him straight back to one of the worst days in his life (because no matter how terror-inducing Housewarden Rosehearts' Overblot was, the sheer guilt and pain that he felt when he heard his mom crying would always be his worst memory), of the fact that he knows that Ace's smirks are fake and his smiles are too, but not a single other person in the Dorm notices or cares.
He's tired beyond belief and all he wants to do is rest, but he doesn't feel safe enough in Heartslabyul to let himself be vulnerable and defenseless there.
He does in Ramshackle.
Ace cracks first.
After tossing and turning for hours on his bed, unable to fall asleep, he grabs his phone, charger, clothes, and school stuff before slipping out the front door and heading to Ramshackle at three A.M. once more.
His knuckles rapped upon the old wooden door and a tired Yuu opens it and stares at him with deadpan eyes.
"Did you get kicked out again- you're not wearing a collar. Why are you here?"
Suddenly, he's overwhelmed by a wave of nerves, but he holds fast to his conviction.
"Can I stay here?"
"I'm not awake enough to deal with this. Take the couch."
Success!
He flops onto the couch, relaxing on the familiar brokenness in a way that he could only dream of doing on the much more comfortable bed in Heartslabyul, throws his stuff on the floor unceremoniously, and falls asleep right away for the first time in days.
When he wakes up, it's to the sound of something sizzling on a pan and the familiar sore feeling in his body of waking up on the old couch in Ramshackle and a feeling of safety and security that he hasn't felt anywhere else.
Right. He went to Ramshackle and fell asleep there.
Yuu walks into the lounge, staring at him with wide eyes.
"Surprise!"
"You're still here," they muttered. "I thought I was dreaming last night. There's pancakes in the dining room, I'll ask you why you're here when I'm awake enough to deal with this."
Deuce cracks harder.
He jolts awake from a nightmare, barely repressing the scream that he wants to let loose from the horror of Cater and Trey, but more importantly, Ace and Yuu, dead, their blood staining his hands, as Housewarden Rosehearts laughs maniacally above him before he too succumbs to the blot consuming all of those that's he's grown close to and even those he's grown to dislike and there's nothing he can do about it until he wakes up.
Panic races through his veins when he looks to Ace's bed to see him missing.
Rationally, he knows that Ace has been sleeping over at Ramshackle for the past few days, but fear erases all logic from his mind as he sets off to Yuu's Dorm to see if they're safe.
He also knocks on the door at 3 AM, rather violently, in some peoples' opinions, until Yuu stumbles down and opens the door, directing him to the couch before passing out on their bed once more.
The couch currently holds Ace, but he's too tired to care and just lays down next to the heart-marked student.
He wakes up to Ace shoving him off the couch onto the floor with a hard thump, sending more dust up into the air.
He wakes up to a sense of safety that he hasn't felt in a while, despite Riddle being better-
He hears his Dorm Head Rosehearts gently scolding somebody for breaking a rule and all he can see is the Rose Maze, despite the fact that they're inside the Dorm and safe, even if he doesn't feel like it, but emotions don't obey logic or rational thought, do they?
-Trey and Cater stepping in to correct Riddle more-
He remembers when they stood by, meekly ducked their heads and recited, "Yes Housewarden," with apologetic gazes that told them to just apologize and let the tyrant have his way because he has a tragic backstory.
-and the collars finally off their necks.
Riddle broke something inside him that day in the Maze, and he doesn't know if it'll ever be repaired.
They sit down at the table with Yuu, who's awake enough to ask them why they aren't in Heartslabyul, and the words come tumbling out, tangling around each other and getting stuck, as a vague flow of unsafe and maze and rose and sent back, but somehow Yuu understands, because they send the two of them a soft smile.
"Ramshackle welcomes you with open arms."
He smiles and it's finally real.
He feels the broken pieces of his soul start to repair, not into what it was before, but something entirely new.
They relax within the walls of their new home, unknowingly having found a family within a broken place for broken people.