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They step into the mansion. Seven beds for six people. Jae doesn’t stop to answer Pomba’s sputtering questions as the boy emerges from his hiding spot. They simply shuffle past him and face-plant into the nearest pillow.
A shitty night. And an even shittier performance on their part. A sourness creeps up their throat from the depths of their soul, and they swallow it down. Everything hurts.
Jae listens to the others move about the room from under a hazy film of exhaustion. She hears Kemi filling in Pomba while wrapping Henri’s injuries, and Labirinto asking Aguiar about his wounds in a low tone, and she tries not to think of how the mansion feels so empty now.
Jae smothers their scowl into their pillow. All they should want right now is some sleep. Just some sleep. Some dreamless sleep, enveloped by silence…
“Jae?”
Or, perhaps some sleep enveloped by Labirinto. No, that doesn’t sound bad at all. Jae rouses himself and rolls onto his back, arms splayed above his head as he stretches his body over the mattress in an invitation. He peers up at Labirinto through half-lidded eyes. “Mm-mm?”
A hint of a smile pulls at Labirinto’s lips, almost subtle enough to be one of his ticks. Almost. His expression is soft with fondness and fatigue. “Sorry for waking you. I’m concerned… Argano threw you rather hard.”
The wisp of levity that had curled within Jae dies at the reminder. They groan and throw an arm over their eyes. “I told you, the only thing wounded is my pride.”
“And possibly the back of your head.” Jae peeks, and they see Labirinto has extended a hand. “Humor me?”
Jae eyes the outstretched hand and languidly considers the option of taking it and tugging Labirinto on top of herself, potential-head-wound forgotten. Labirinto is not so easily distracted, but she can sure try.
She also knows that his worry will only grow.
Labirinto’s eyes stray to the door, and Jae hears it, from the front yard—the distant sound of Pomba’s weeping, and Kemi’s quiet soothing.
…Labirinto already has plenty that he is worried about.
Still, pulling him down on top of themself to sleep would be so much nicer. Jae lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Fiiine. Only because I like you.” They take Labirinto’s hand and let him tug them up. Labirinto consoles them with a tender caress of his hand across their cheek, and Jae decides that this is sufficient compensation for their troubles.
Now sitting on the edge of the bed, slightly behind Jae, Labirinto begins to examine their head. His fingers are gentle and deft as they always are as he guides Jae to turn their head this way and that, brushing hair out of the way.
Jae is far too tired to give much of a damn about what is going on around them—if Henri is already asleep, or why Aguiar is pacing like he is; if there isn’t any screaming, then it’s not Jae’s problem. They don't care much about what bullshit Labirinto is doing to their hair, either. It can’t get any worse than it already is, matted in dirt and blood.
But even in this bubble of ragged peace, Jae still scrunches up his nose every time Labirinto pokes a scab or nudges a bruise. Truly, it’s nothing. Nothing in comparison to the wounds Aguiar sustained from his duel with Ana, or…
Or from Jae, blood and passion chasing the arc of their blade; her voice whispering such sweet things in their ear.
Jae’s eyes fall to Labirinto’s now-bandaged chest. Their hand is there before they can think of it, fingers tracing the crooked smile they carved in him. The emotions that had flooded them then now ripple through their chest, the memory of a tumultuous flux: Anger, grief, desire, fury, love, desire, vengeance, passion, desire, guilt, desire, guilt, desire, guilt, desire, desire, desire…
They loved Escarlata. They love Labirinto still. They want to make this right. Jae will not lose anyone else, no. They will not lose Labirinto.
Labirinto’s hand falls over the one Jae has on his bandaged chest. His skin is far from soft—cracked by the dryness of the air, crusted in old blood, riddled with knicks and scratches—but it is warm and it is his. His fingers curl around Jae’s, lifting them from the bandages, and he leans in until his forehead kisses theirs.
“I’m alright,” Labirinto murmurs. Jae’s eyes are closed, letting shadow fall over herself like a caress. “What matters is…it’s over now.”
Over far too soon, something in Jae croons. Despite everything, to finally see Labirinto so liberated…
Jae cracks a crooked grin of his own.
“So? What’s the verdict?" Jae asks. "Will I suffer a concussion? Lapse into a coma? Die of a brain hemorrhage?"
Labirinto ticks. “Your head is fine,” he dismisses.
Jae leans in, smiles against his lips. “See? What did I tell you, hm?”
Labirinto hums low, amused. “Know-it-all…”
“I am,” Jae preens.
“Oh, are you?”
They feel the rumble of Labirinto's tone, his breath racing against their own: Provocation. A giddy sound bubbles out of them. They always did like a chase. Easy as anything, Jae slips their hand out of Labirinto’s hold and finds his chest again, fingers splayed.
“Of course I am,” they whisper. “I know everything, my love…”
Their hand slithers up. Fingers brush bare skin, crest over his collarbone—settle in the walls of the Labyrinth.
“Everything that matters…”
They trace the corridors like veins, following his mounting pulse upwards, seeking, searching, so close they can almost taste it.
"Everything that ticks..."
Jae's fingers find his fluttering pulse point and linger there. Labirinto's breath stutters, and Jae feels satisfaction ripple warm through them. They breathe the words against his lips: “I know just where to find…every…last…corner—”
“UUUUUUGGGHHHHH.”
It’s Henri’s grating cry, two beds over, that shatters the silence. “Am I going to have to put up with this shit the whole night?” he complains. “Fucking— I don’t know, just cut to the chase and make out already.”
Jae sneers, his glare sharp as his dagger. “Yeah, you would like that, you creature.”
Henri cackles. “To be put out of my misery? Yeah, I would!”
“Sorry for disturbing you, Henri,” Labirinto, of course, says, like Jae cannot feel the warm flush still clinging to him. “I got—carried away.”
And Jae was having so much fun. He smacks his forehead into Labirinto’s neck with a whine, “Labiiii…” Labirinto’s hand glides through Jae’s hair in an apology, cupping the back of his head, and it’s all entirely unfair. Jae leans in, his lips seeking skin to—
“HEY! You two!”
Jae swears and cracks their eyes open again. This time it’s Kemi, standing in the foyer with her hands over Pomba’s eyes.
“You wretches better behave yourselves in front of the child!”
“I-I’m twenty years old—”
“And Aguiar!” Kemi adds. “For the love of God, stop pacing like that! You’ll fuck up your bandages!”
Aguiar has, in fact, been pacing loops around the bottom floor of the mansion for a while. Jae hasn’t paid this much heed until now, what with being preoccupied trying to have a moment with Labi, but their curiosity begins to creep in.
“Aguiar,” Labirinto calls, “what are you doing?”
“Why aren’t you in bed?” asks Jae, arguably the more important question. Cleaned wounds or not, Aguiar looks two blinks away from collapsing where he stands, and there are several perfectly suitable beds for him to collapse into. Jae’s, for example.
Aguiar huffs, rounding one of the pillars and casting his head this way and that. “Pomba said someone came through here.”
“Yeah, like, two hours ago,” Henri notes flatly. “They’re not here, man. We swept the whole house, remember?”
“I’m just trying to pick up a scent.” Aguiar marches past the front of the house again. “A mark, a trail, or just—something I can use to track them outside.”
“And I thought I was paranoid,” Kemi mutters.
Jae rolls her eyes. Territorial. “Aguiarzinho, my love, my sweet, if you can’t pick up a scent, that means they’re long gone. You’re wasting your time.”
Aguiar growls. “But they were here, while Pomba was here, while I wasn’t here.” (Jae feels something in them soften. Oh.) “What if they were trying to take Pomba? Or hurt him? What if they still want to—”
Jae catches Aguiar by the arm as he marches past and pulls him towards themself. He stumbles to a stop. “Down, boy. Pomba is safe, and there is no one else here but us.”
Jae looks Aguiar in the eyes. (No one else will die. I will not allow it.)
It’s enough to get it through Aguiar’s thick skull, it seems, at least until Labirinto can speak some sense into him as well: “I agree with Jae. We have checked, after all. I can use the Death ritual to view the time that has passed in this place, to see who came through, but…” Labirinto sighs through a tick, wincing like the mere thought of it is giving him a headache. “Something that involved will have to wait for the morning.”
“However,” Labirinto continues. He reaches for his bag of ritual components and carefully draws out the coil of barbed wire. “If it will make you feel better, I can—”
“No no,” Aguiar stops him, a hand over Labirinto’s, swift but careful. “You’re tired. It’s fine. You— You guys are right, anyway.” He casts a look back at Henri. “All of you are right. I…I think I just need some sleep.”
It comes out quieter, an exhaustion so true it aches. Jae squeezes Aguiar’s arm at the affection that swells in their chest and, well, the opportunity is almost a little too easy: “Come on, then,” they beckon, patting the empty space on the bed beside them. “Come get some sleep, Aguiarzinho.”
Aguiar, to Jae’s surprise, hesitates. What in this hell could possibly have him getting cold feet, after everything? “But I thought…Labirinto was sleeping here.”
Jae lets out a snort, which dissolves into a giggle that curls around his lips. “I mean all three of us, honey. And you’re not intruding.” He leans into the one beside him. “Right, Labi?”
Labirinto hums low, leaning into Jae in return. “I wouldn’t think so,” he says lightly.
“No, I mean, I get that,” Aguiar corrects. “You’ve already made that clear. I just mean—there isn’t space for all three of us.”
Jae blinks. Ah. The beds. Labirinto and Henri didn’t exactly build them with doubles or triples in mind. That’s a serious oversight on their part, Jae has to say.
Thankfully, Jae knows how to get creative. They stand and pat Aguiar on the cheek. “Just leave it to me.”
The solution is obvious: If they need more space, Jae creates more space. As the rest of the group is settling back into their own beds, Jae pushes the nearest bed closer to the one she and Labirinto have already claimed and gets them as lined up as she can manage.
Jae futzes with the blankets for a moment, then hops up onto the thin mattress with a little bounce. Once more, she smiles at Aguiar and pat the sheets, beckoning him. “Come on.”
And to Jae’s delight, Aguiar obeys.
The three of them take some time to get themselves situated. Jae shimmies out of their coat and kicks off their shoes while Aguiar fights with the fraying laces of his own. Labirinto, with no shoes to worry himself with, tugs the blankets around to his liking.
In the end, Labirinto winds up in the middle. Jae lies down at his front, tucking themself up against him. On the other side, Aguiar audibly groans, a mix of pain and relief, as he, at last, lets himself lie down to sleep.
Jae takes a deep breath, feeling their own body start to decompress, tension of injuries, exertion, and loss sliding off of their joints. The haze of exhaustion creeps over them again. They watch with silent amusement as Aguiar’s hand bumps into, then creeps up Labirinto’s side with all the confidence of a mumbled question. Labirinto’s gaze flicks down, and then he passes his hand over Aguiar’s own, an answer. Aguiar’s hand settles, and the man heaves a sigh.
Jae grins. Well, isn’t he just cute? They shuffle themself closer to Labirinto’s chest so they can reach over his arm and find Aguiar on the other side. Aguiar is already half-asleep, from what Jae can tell. Jae curls their hand around the side of his head, twists his wild hair between their fingers.
Aguiar leans into their touch. Jae grins even wider.
Labirinto shifts to peer down at them. He brings his hand to cup the side of their face as he always does, a thumb rubbing beneath their eye with a tenderness that Jae can’t help but relish in.
Labirinto whispers, “You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
Jae smiles with all their teeth. “Extremely.”
The kiss comes quick but lingers—lingers long enough for Jae to kiss back, to press into him. They kiss him like they are taking what’s theirs, and in a way, they are; chasing his lips all the way down through the corridors of that twisting Labyrinth. Jae always did like a chase.
But before it can truly start, it ends. Jae sputters as Labirinto’s lips pull away. “Wh— Wait no why’d you stop?”
Labirinto cradles Jae’s face. “That’s all you’re getting for now.”
Jae squeezes his eyes shut and whines. “Oh come onnnn—”
“You need sleep,” Labirinto insists. He scrubs his eyes between his forefinger and thumb, head twisting in a tick. “Fuck, I need sleep.”
Aguiar grumbles something incoherent into Labirinto’s back. His arm has shamelessly wrapped itself around Labirinto’s middle by this point, not that Labirinto seems to mind in the slightest. “I think Aguiar needs sleep too,” he mentions.
Jae hums consideringly. They reach past Labirinto again to caress Aguiar’s face, then let their hand trail down, feather-light, over his muscled shoulder and ruined arm.
Wounds from the battle tonight. Jae runs the pads of their fingers over the outline of a slash, now dry but had bled through the bandages—thin, straight, precise.
They remember her voice, so perfect, like velvet wrapped around their mind, and the passion bursting from their heart as they swung the knife at Aguiar. He threw up his arm to block them. A second later, and Jae’s knife would have gone clean through his pretty little face. A second later, and everything would have been ruined.
Jae smoothes their palm over the wound.
(No one else.)
They tuck their face against Labirinto’s chest. “Good night, Labi.”
Labirinto wraps an arm around them. “Good night.”
“And I want that kiss later.”
“Okay.”
Silence once more settles around Jae, comforting in its familiarity, oppressive in its weight. They ignore the vacuum that has opened up in the room. Instead, they let themself sink into the silence that embraces them, breathing soft and slow, and the shadows of sleep take them away from all this once more.