(or: each twst character realizing you left and witnessing you come back)
ace trappola (you are here!)
warnings: none i can think of!
saw a post about how ace keeps your phone to hear your voicemail and that shit broke me so i’m adopting it
he sleeps at ramshackle still. even if grim gets moved to another dorm after your departure. gets collared every other week
he befriends the ghosts finally. you always said they were nice. he mostly does it because he knows how they feel when he hears their mourning moans late at night
blows off deuce all the time now. they’re barely friends. feels like shit about it but what can you do
his UM is almost never used after you. you helped him get it. ace treats memories like glass; if he takes them out too much, he might tarnish them, ruin them forever. he refuses to fade your memory
can’t hear your name. can’t smell the shampoo you use. he hoards every toiletry in your bathroom like they’re worth millions. in his mind they are
aggressive. he was always a little hot-headed, but now he picks fights with people just for looking at him
he doesn’t cry. he won’t. not in front of everyone else. he only ever tears up when he curls into the blankets you used to leave on the couch for him, inhaling the fading scent like the last remnants of oxygen after being buried alive
he never had super good grades, but they’ve tanked so low every teacher has moved past angry straight to concerned. he’s had guidance counselor sessions suggested to him, but he refuses to use them
he skips classes to clean up ramshackle. he fights anyone who tries to move your stuff out. he dusts and cleans out any old food, but he always replaces it with things you used to eat. even if he won’t eat them.
“Hey, it’s Y/N, leave a message after the - Ace, shut up, I’m doing something! Leave a message after the beep!” the recording of your voice, wrapped in giggles and breathless joy, rings in his ears, the familiar beep coming right after.
“Hey, Prefect. Surprised to hear me, huh?”
ace never calls. the first time he does is a year later.
he kept the phone, hoarded it like an addict stuffs their stashes, shamefully tucked under his mattress
he called it once a week after you left. heard your voice and nearly broke it. he’s never sent a message
“What’s going on with me?” he whispers, voice shaking as he answers a question no one got to ask. “I dunno. Sophomore year. It’s crazy how fast time is, right? Cater and Trey are gone. Off on internships. Riddle’s still here, of course. He’ll never leave.”
He tries to offer a laugh but it comes out too choked to be anything except a feeble cry.
“Deuce is having fun. So’s Grim. He’s bouncing between dorms right now, I think. I dunno. I don’t… I don’t really talk to him all that much anymore. Or Deuce. Which is weird. But I don’t sleep in the dorm anyways, so… not really? I dunno.”
He sighs, pressing his nose to the lumpy Ramshackle pillow that still holds traces of your scent if he inhales deep enough.
“Everyone’s leaving. Riddle’s mass prepping for fourth year, hinting at me that he might give me Housewarden. But I don’t deserve it. I don’t want it. I keep telling him to give it to Deuce, and he keeps… looking at me. He just looks sad. Which makes me angry. I don’t want him to pity me, y’know? Ortho’s been weird cuz Idia left. Rook’s Housewarden now, I guess. Jade and Floyd are Housewarden and Vice, which is… terrifying. Riddle hates having to see them for meetings. Malleus is gone; I know you liked your walks with him. I dunno. Would you even want to come back? If I asked? If it was just me?”
The quiet of the phone line does nothing to ease the tension in his shoulders, and he finally breaks down. A sob shoves its way past his lips, and he slams his knees in his chest, curling in on himself on a mattress too soft, the one he’d always complained about even while you were nestled between his arms and breathing on his neck.
“Your message is too long,” the automated voice grates into Ace’s ear, making him bark out a laugh between gasping sobs. The voice continues, telling him something about trying again, but Ace just hangs up, fists clenched and pushing at the mattress. Not punching, even now he still can’t hurt anything you’ve touched.
“Come back. Please, please, I want to try again. I’ll be nicer, I won’t tease you as much. We won’t fight as often. Please. Please come back.” The words are quiet, shameless, begging. Ace had never liked to be this kind of vulnerable, but for you he would be anything. Just as long as you were here.
The loudest thump he’s ever heard comes from right above the ceiling of your room, and he freezes. He sits up in bed, pulse strong and picking up as he hears a curse. It’s one of the ghosts, it has to be.
His legs pull him from the bed, walking him towards the stairs even though every horror movie he’d ever seen you told him only stupid people walked towards the scary sound. You weren’t here to witness his stupid anyways, so what did it matter? He finds the rooms upstairs, and follows the sounds of shuffling.
“Hey, uh… ghosts? Grim? Anyone?” he asks, opening up the door.
He stops. Freezes, becomes cold as ice and warm with something deep in his chest, pushing at his esophagus.
The flash of eyes he knew so well, a grin, one leg still being pulled out of the dingy old glass of a mirror long forgotten. The cloth it had been living under is wrapped over you now, like a deity’s chiton.
“You came.” The words are comfort, are a laugh between tears, are a vulnerability he’s willing to show. You’re here, you’re here and he wasn’t sure he would ever see you again but of course you came. Of course. You always did.
“You called.” The words in reply are a tease, a hidden joke with a meaning only he got, painted with the kind of smile only he ever got.
The words are love. And he’s never felt so much of it before.
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