THADDEUS

"I know you hear me, dude! Would you please just slow the fuck down for a second?!"

I ignored the incessant voice calling after me, trying my best to blend into the crowd. Hands stuffed deep into my pockets to hide the tight fists that they had curled into, I took a few unexpected turns on the way to the stairwell, hoping to shake off my pursuer.

I didn't want to talk to Mitty. I had managed to avoid him so far by requesting my Unit Supervisor give us separate assignments and eating my lunch in the construction zone instead of the Nutrition Pod.

But unfortunately the fucker was determined, and today the egghead had come up with the brilliant idea of waiting me out.

Luckily for him, I was gonna knock him the fuck out if he got any closer.

I took the stairs two, occasionally even three at a time after passing through the stairwell airlock, moving to my second destination like fire was biting my heels.

Since our run-in with The Elders, things had... changed. Although my bruises were steadily beginning to heal – gruesome purple giving way to dark yellow patches across my entire body – scars that ran much deeper than a surface wound were quickly uncovered.

I was constantly glancing over my shoulder for one, paranoid of someone – anyone – jumping out of the shadows to take me again. Secondly, my wrists had become a no-touch zone, any contact with the sensitive flesh sending me right back to the sensation of those nerve-frying restraints.

But most of all, I was afraid... for Bug.

That thought of him, so helpless and distraught as he clung to the pant leg with all of his might... Fuck, it did something to me.

I had never experienced an emotion like that – one so raw and drenched in power that it wrenched my soul into a completely new direction. It was one that made me want to protect the selfless little being, to lock him up and throw away the key so that no one could ever bring harm to him again.

Fuck, I sounded so damn pathetic. But – somehow – it was still the truth.

Lost in a spiderweb of thought, I hadn't even noticed the fact that I had slowed my rate of escape, and that a certain blonde-haired fool had caught up until I felt a familiar hand wrap around my upper arm.

"Dude, what the hell is up with you? Are you okay?"

I whipped around, yanking my arm from his touch as if it burned while I directed a glare hot enough to scorch the sun in his general direction.

"Bro, back the fuck up." I instantly commanded, taking a few steps back myself to put distance between us, "If you know what's good for you, you'll stop talking to me right now and go about your fuckin' business." I turned, moving to continue my steady jog down the stairwell, only to be stopped by yet another hand on my arm.

"Thad, will you please just fucking pause for a minute! Why the hell are you ignoring me and what the fuck did I do to deserve that?! I've been your best friend since we were kids!"

I wrangled my arm from his grasp once again, expression tight as I tried my best not to rearrange this dude's face.

"You wanna act like you're fuckin' stupid now, huh? How about you go ask The Elders what you did, since you're so buddy-buddy with them, now." I finally acknowledged, flashing Mit a borderline homicidal glare.

A look of surprise painted Mitty's face as he stared back at me with a wide-open mouth, hands raised in the universal sign of self-defense. 'Best friend' my fuckin ass.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." I sneered, all suspicions confirmed. "Leave me the fuck alone, dude. You're not my friend." I rolled my eyes, turning back to the stairwell and continuing my way down. I wasn't going to let this asshole make me late to pick up Aria from his Unit, especially considering how understanding Bug was when I asked him to wait up for me before and after work.

Walking him to and from his Instructional Unit was one of those... changes, too. Although it began purely as a way to ease my newly established, ever-present lack of trust in everyone around us, it had actually turned out to be something that I looked forward to these past few days.

I didn't realize how little I actually knew about the guy until I suddenly was provided the opportunity to have a civil conversation with him. In those few, short, ten-minute stretches of time, I'd already learned so much; his favorite color was teal, he used to have an obsession with hard-boiled eggs, his parents were really strict when he was little, he brushed his long hair meticulously every night... The list went on and on.

I was a little taken aback when I'd learned it all, honestly. In this short period of just a few days, I'd gone from seeing Aria as a simple, one-dimensional inconvenience to my life, to realizing that there was so much more to him than I initially didn't even care to consider.

Aria... was a person. A full, flesh-and-blood human with hopes, dreams, and feelings... Feelings that were somehow beginning to usurp the importance of my own.

"W-wait!" Mitty hollered, following behind me in the stairwell. I just ignored him, heading directly for the airlock once I finally reached the Early Development Instructional Unit floor. "What the hell are you talking about, man?! I really don't know why–"

"Oh!" A sprout of bright red hair bounced off of my chest the moment I pushed the airlock door open, and I looked down to see a frazzled but familiar face.

"Andrea, babe!" Mitty exclaimed, swerving around me to gather up his Soul Mate. Andrea flashed the man a blinding smile, looking up at him through fluttering lashes.

"Oh my," she giggled, moving into his side shyly, "Did someone come to escort me back to our housing pod?"

I rolled my eyes, pushing past them to go on about my business but not before mumbling, "No, he's here because he's a prick."

Andrea gasped and suddenly she was in front of me again, arms splayed out wide to halt my pursuit of Aria's Instructional Pod. "Are you two... fighting?!" She questioned, eyes rapidly shifting between Mitty and I.

"Are we?" I responded, turning to raise a sarcastic brow in Mitty's direction. "How funny, you didn't even tell your Soul Mate what you did, did you Mit?" A humorless chuckle escaped me as I challenged him, tilted my head, "Why don't you tell her about how you snitched to the Elders? About how you made them drag us out of our Housing pod in the middle of the fucking night? About how you made Aria sob?" I was snarling by the end, eyes wide with fury as I finally revealed the truth behind my anger.

Although – naturally – getting beaten was supremely fuckin' painful, Aria had been beating himself up over the situation even worse than the Enforcers had done to me, and it pissed me off. He wasn't supposed to feel that way, ever.

Mitty's brows pulled together as he stood there, opening and closing his mouth for a few seconds as if searching for the right words. "Wait... huh?" When he finally looked up, confusion was evident in his expression. "I haven't said shit to The Elders, dude! What I said during Lunch Period was just a warning!"

Great. Not only was Mitty a bad friend, he was also a fuckin liar.

"Dude, fuck off already!" I curled my lip, giving him a look that very clearly displayed my disgust, "You're the only one who knew about our situation, who else could it fuckin' be?" I exclaimed, asking the question with a particularly sarcastic tone.

"Thad, I know it looks bad but I swear, I didn't tell The Elders anythi–"

"It was me!"

A nervous voice interrupted and I whirled back around, fury replaced with utter surprise when I glanced back upon Andrea. It was my turn to be confused, now.

"Hold up... it was you?" I questioned, gears in my brain smoking as they jammed up with surprise. There was no way... "Listen, if you're trying to cover for Mitty, I'm gonna–"

"No, it was me, I swear!" She repeated, eyes getting a little watery as she stared up at me and instantly spiraled into a ramble. "It's just... Aria was always telling me stories about what was going on between you two and I hated seeing him get treated that way and I thought that maybe if I told them, The Elders would help! I never meant to hurt anyone, I swear! I just wanted to help my friend!"

I stared down at her with an indestructible gaze for an undetermined amount of time as a mixture of shock and understanding became me.

Aria talked to her about us?

Was what he told her really so bad that she felt the need to report it?

Was I that mean to Aria?

... Was I the problem?

"Oh hey guys, what are we all talking about?" Aria's sweet voice knocked me from my sudden staring contest with his best friend, attention now fully focused on the little Bug who was now standing next to me.

The Early Development Instructional Unit workers were given the liberty of choosing their own daily attire (within reason, of course), and I had never been more grateful for that than at this very moment.

Even I couldn't deny that the little shrimp looked fuckin' adorable in the two-sizes-too-big, cream-colored sweater that obscured his upper half. He paired the oversized ensemble with light-colored pants, which he tucked the bottom hem of his sweater into. Finished off with wavy strands that grazed his shoulders whenever he moved, Aria was a sight that I wasn't particularly privy to tearing my eyes away from.

But first, I had to get us home.

"Nothing important," I spat, giving Andrea and Mitty one last glance before turning my attention back to the sweater-clad mini-man. "Let's head back." I leaned down, slipping my fingers around Aria's palm and ensuring a good grip before turning and storming my way toward the stairwell.

My brain felt like a million-piece puzzle, with parts strewn around in every unreachable nook imaginable.

Was I really that bad? So mean of a person that not one, but two people had considered reporting me in the span of a single week?

I wasn't that bad. I couldn't be that bad.

... Or was I?

"Thad?" Aria's voice made me pause in my frantic pursuit to get the fuck out of here, and I glanced behind me as he continued, "You're walking too fast, I'm scared I'm gonna trip."

"I'm sorry," I immediately apologized, surprising myself with how fast the words formed on my defiant tongue. "I'll slow down."

The rest of our journey back up to floor negative six was conducted at a much slower pace to accommodate Aria's significantly shorter legs, and my brain shorted out the entire way.

It was only when I had Bug tucked securely in the confines of our Housing Pod which now held a distinct, comforting mixture of both of our scents that I finally was able to take a full breath of relief. Aria sat on top of his bed, keeping still in the spot that I had just deposited him in while questions swam around in the pools of his eyes.

"Stay here." I ordered, "I'll be right back."

I quickly moved from the bedroom to the bathroom, gathering a random assortment of supplies that I deemed to be potentially useful into my arms before heading right back across the hall to him.

Aria's long-lashed gaze followed my movements as I made my way back over to the side of the bed... Not that I was paying attention to what he was paying attention to, or anything.

"What's all this?" He asked, brow furrowing when I dropped the materials on the duvet beside him.

"Give me your hand," I instructed once more, "Not the one I was holding on the way here, the other one." Aria offered me a confused look, gently biting his lip as if slightly suspicious about what I was about to do next, but still did exactly as he was told.

I frowned at the sight before me when his delicate hand finally settled in my palm, an unpleasant sensation rising in my gut at the knowledge of what had caused it.

"Your broken nail started bleeding again on the way back." I finally explained, reaching over to select a sealed package of gauze from the first-aid mountain I'd rectified beside us before ripping it open with my teeth. "We should wrap it so it doesn't get infected."

"Oh... I didn't even notice." Aria's eyes widened exponentially as he spied the tiny rivulets of blood that dripped from his torn-up nail bed. I almost smirked at the way it really did make him look like a bug, the nickname suddenly taking on a completely different meaning now that I didn't particularly mind his constant presence in my life anymore.

"Thank you, Thad. You're just..." He paused, eyes shifting back up to me. Then, he abruptly displayed a bright, toothy smile that made something in my chest pump hard enough to crack the confines of my ribcage. It stretched all of the way to his eyes, turning his rosy cheeks into little apples and my knees to jelly. "You're just so sweet to notice that and then help me like this."

The tips of my ears heated up, and I hoped that my darker skin tone would be enough to conceal the unanticipated torrent of blood that rushed to my face.

I'd been called many things before, with 'rude,' 'conceited,' and 'lazy bitch boy' being at the very top of that list.

... But I'd never been called... Sweet.

A weird, tingly sensation spread throughout my limbs as I repeated the word in my head, the rate at which I wrapped Aria's finger slowing to a crawl.

"Are you okay?" He asked me, but I couldn't think of the right way to respond.

Because I wasn't okay. Man, I was leaps, bounds, and eons beyond that.

I was fucking euphoric.

And that euphoria must have unlocked something deep, something completely unhinged and foreign and real.

Because I didn't even realize what I was doing before I suddenly blurted five words.

Words that would completely change the trajectory of my entire life for decades to come.

"Aria." I paused, lifting my gaze to lock with his own "...Can I kiss you?"

__

Want more and can't wait? 👀 Become a Patron! You could get up to 2 chapters ahead, exclusive character art & one-shots and more!

Also, follow me on Instagram (@CoolingsunAlex) for story memes, fanart, and Patreon sneak peeks!

Love you all!

Xoxo, Alex