They were barely across the clinic threshold when Bael bit his lower lip to stifle a whine.

Lance had seen fit to acquaint his heel with the top of Bael’s foot. He offered a smile dripping with displeasure, masked by false charm. This is a day Bael would rue, Lance would make absolutely certain of that.

After entering the clinic the pair was quickly alarmed by the full waiting room. The small, cramped space with limited seating contained every manner of four-legged beast a person could imagine; this was in combination with the vast number of humanoid patients as well.

Bael’s eyes immediately started to dazzle as several varieties of canine came sniffing the legs of them both, not wasting a single moment to bury his hands in their fur and shower them with baby talk.

Lance was grateful for the separation of contact, but once again that niggling thought in the back of his mind reared up. He couldn’t help but get annoyed at how much of a lush Bael could be around animals, yet beyond their moments of emotional intimacy Lance just felt like a verbal plaything. Like with this petty, boyish competition they were having. One that he was going to win, mind you.

Rachel turned on her heels right in front of them, shooting them both -with a heavy emphasis on Lance- an impatient and frustrated stare. “I am behind on my appointments, so you two will be waiting right there.” She pointed to a blank space on the wall in the corner of the room. “And” -she directed her focus to Bael, who was allowing one very affectionate dog to lick him thoroughly all over his face- “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, he is infected with hookworms,” she whispered to him.

Bael, consistently not one to do as another suggests, continues reveling in the attention.

Unconcerned with further warning against his idiocy, she leaves without another word and disappears behind a door next to the reception desk.

Still in the heat of irritation, Lance yanks Bael back by his ponytail just enough to knock him off balance a bit. It was very tempting to drag him that way to their designated corner, but he also wasn’t interested in making that kind of scene in front of several strangers. He quietly took his spot leaning against the wall, Bael soon after taking his own as well.

Silence stagnated between them, neither seemingly interested in saying anything to the other. The cacophony of noises in the room began to grate on Lance’s nerves, so much that his teeth started to grind without even realizing it. Several people within the waiting room kept casting wary looks in their direction, uncertain of the charade being played out between them.

Lance watched that door to the backroom like a hawk, his unwavering stare causing his eyes to sting as he frequently resisted the urge to blink. He was only pulled away by the sound of a ragged sigh coming from right beside him.

“You’re acting as mean as a damn snake, what the hell is” -Bael paused to snatch his foot away as Lance struck his heel down once again- “your problem?”

“Don’t you dare ask me that like you have no idea what you’ve done,” Lance hissed, unconcerned for the other people as the din in the room would cover them adequately.

“Look, you told me this girl has never liked you, right? Because you’re best friends with her special someone?” Bael looked at Lance, expecting a reaction of realization but shaking his head upon not receiving it. “Clearly she’s threatened by how close you two are, so what better way to clear the air than make it apparent you’re not sexually available?”

“The problem is that you told her a bold faced lie that I’m going to have to keep the charade up for who knows how long. This isn’t your problem when all is said and done; you just get to leave, never to worry about any of it ever again. For me? This is my entire life,” Lance explained, exhaustion already setting in to his features.

Bael hummed before rolling his eyes. “You’re really blowing all of this out of proportion and acting like a brat. In fact, I would go so far to say you’re acting this way to protect yourself from something.”

Lance averted his eyes to look in the other direction, choosing not to answer.

“Almost as if you’re guilty. Like you’re betraying someone.” Bael’s voice became focused, more discerning with each word. “You like someone, don’t you?”

A shock ran up Lance’s spine as his eyes widened. “Why would you ask me something like that?”

“Give me a better excuse for behaving like an indignant toddler then.”

A heavy silence settled in once more, this time with Bael eyeing Lance carefully while the other man stared at the door once again with his lips drawn into a taut line.

“No, there isn’t anyone I feel that way about. I just don’t like you jerking me around as a part of your silly games. Because it’s all a game, isn’t it? You can say it was to pacify Rachel all you want, but really you just wanted to get under my skin and one up me.”

Bael shook as his head jerked backwards. “You don’t get to flip the blame on me when all I’ve done here is try to help us save the world, remember? Honestly, I thought you were better than that. I thought you trusted me.”

Lance felt pangs of guilt in his chest. He hated acknowledging Bael was in the right here. There wasn’t another soul in the world he knew save for his mother and his best friend that would stick their necks out for him like this. The time they’ve known each other has only equated to six days (four in their current continuity) but the things they’ve gone through sped up the development of their bond. Protecting each other with their lives changed Lance’s usual instinct to push people away initially. No matter how things ended, Bael was going to be an important person to him for the rest of his life.

“Mr. Wisteria,” called a cold feminine voice, jarring them both out of the heated silence. Rachel stood outside the door, face hardened without expression.

He pulled away from the wall to meet his fate, but spun on his heels when he heard Bael dogging behind him. “No no, you stay.”

“Why?” Bael furrowed his brow, a flash of anger ignited abruptly on his face before burning out into one of confusion.

“Please. Just do this for me,” Lance pleaded, unwilling to explain any further.

Bael nodded slowly; his face poorly hid the inner desire to protest this request. Lance was content to leave it at that and meet his fate.

“Hey, Lance,” Bael called out to him.

He would have liked to leave it at that, but it didn’t appear to be in the cards for him today. His shoulders squared and with arms crossed, watched Bael expectantly. There was a sinking suspicion the other man had something scathing in mind to say, the final word to put him in his place before he left for the lion’s den.

First, Bael’s eyes darted to look behind Lance in the direction of the backroom, then he looked back up at him with a pensive face. After what appeared to be great deliberation on his part, Bael’s hand reached up and hooked his fingers on the collar of Lance’s waistcoat. He yanked Lance forward with a single, solid tug, knocking him off balance.

With no better option, Lance was forced to quickly unfold his arms and brace himself on Bael’s shoulders to keep from colliding with the floor. Soon after he caught Bael’s mischievous smile, drawing ever nearer to him.

Then Bael kissed him.

...Kissed him?

Wait, hold on, Bael kissed him?

No sooner than he had initiated it he was pulling away, leaving Lance wide-eyed staring down at the infinitely unfathomable enigma that was this man. Lance once again felt like a gasping fish, only this time his head was within the cat’s jaws.

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Bael cooed with a wink, patting Lance on the chest as his eyes shifted once more to look towards the backroom.

“Y-yeah, sure, right.” Unable to form coherent sentences, Lance took this as his moment of escape. The gallows were calling him, and he was eager to answer now.

Rachel took a seat at her desk once she closed the door behind them, sealing the roar of the animal kingdom in the other room away. Immediately her focus was devoted to papers on her desk, never once entertaining the thought of acknowledging Lance’s presence.

Lance was grateful for this, actually, as his mind was spinning so hard he feared smoke would soon come out of his ears. His hand covered his mouth as he felt the heat rise in cheeks, just knowing he was turning a brilliant shade of pink. Where Bael’s lips had touched his for the briefest moment, Lance’s skin tingled. He darted a nervous tongue out of his mouth to lick at the spot of contact, the moisture on his lips an all too real confirmation it wasn’t just his imagination.

“Go on, spit it out whatever it is you want to say,” Rachel ordered without batting an eye.

Why did he do that? Was it me who accidentally kissed him when he made me fall? It was probably part of the pretend dating, but being physical is definitely going above and beyond what’s required here.

“Lance?”

Is it simply because he’s a terrible flirt and just playing with me, again? I thought he was mad at me, but then he smiled at me in that way even I have to admit is kind of adorable. Adorable? What am I saying? Of course I don’t think Bael is ad-

“Lance!” Rachel shouted, fist curled after colliding with her desk to get his attention.

“Huh? What?” His eyes, having been pointed at her this whole time but not really perceiving her at all in the midst of his compulsive thinking, briefly widened in surprise as his hand dropped from his face.

“Hurry up and ask whatever you came here to ask. I don’t even really totally understand why I agreed to do it in the first place, so don’t make me immediately regret it.”

Lance scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “Right. Bael and I were hoping we could use your clinic as a place to hideout just in case things get dicey while we’re in the city. You know, with the ‘family’ in town and all that.”

“Part of me wants to ask what kind of illicit activities you will be getting into, but frankly I’m really not that interested. You’re not suggesting bringing problems to my business, are you?” she asked, making it clear that was more of a threat than a question.

“Absolutely not,” he was quick to assure. “We’re not from here, so I thought to check in with the one person I did know in town. I promise not to bring you any trouble, Rachel.”

She barked a hollow laugh before shaking her head. “I feel like you’ve been telling me that for years, yet you’ve been at the center of all my problems for the last three years. Well, adjacent to my problems anyway.” Rachel paused the writing of her pen, setting it down on her desk before interlacing her fingers and finally looking up at him. “I can do this for you. Quite easily, in fact. You just need to do something for me as well.”

Oh no, he didn’t like the sound of that. “Alright, what’s your request?”

“Call off the sham wedding. Then I’ll help you,” she answered flatly, incongruous to the weight of what she was asking of him.

Lance sighed deeply. This was essentially what he expected this encounter to come down to. “You know we can’t do that. Doing this is all for Aryn’s sake, you know that,” he pleaded.

She huffed at him, her eyes narrowing into slits of deep-seated rage. “Of course, I forgot. My feelings don’t amount to anything, nor have they ever. You get the brilliant idea of proposing to the love of my life, and she agrees to it without a thought to how I might feel. Do you know how much it hurt me for you two to make such a decision without talking to me about it?”

“We were going to right away, but-”

Rachel held up a finger commanding his silence, which he obliged. “Of course you know, in fact I’m sure that was your goal to begin with. You’ve always hated me since the beginning, haven’t you? Couldn’t stand that you didn’t have Aryn all to yourself anymore. Am I wrong?”

“That’s not true,” he quickly asserted, but not without fumbling over his own tongue.

“You’re a terrible liar, and frankly always have been. I always tried to accommodate you; you were barely a man when I met Aryn, so I just took you as immature. Little did I know it was deeper than that.”

Lance’s heart began to accelerate as she dug her claws into his skin, rending his flesh down to the bone. His breaths became shallow, sharp, and unable to calm his racing pulse. She was capable of reading people better than anyone else he knew, and it was part of the reason he disliked her. The facade of a happy-go-lucky young man was immediately seen through by her. He hated being known for his truth.

“You’ve been in love with her for a long time, but you’ll never let yourself admit it. Since she never knew how you felt you’ve never been rejected, so you’re just clinging to this hope that one day she’ll be yours. I tolerated it, despite it being obvious to me, because she loves you,” she uttered the final words as if they pained her to say them.

“You’re wrong. I’m doing this to protect her from losing her home, don’t you see that? If she doesn’t marry someone her family approves of, then she’s going to be forced to marry one of the Gorman family. Those wretched, horrible bastards who are nearly her father’s age. Or, she can run away and lose her entire family in the process. Is that what you want for her?”

“It could have been discussed first” -Rachel rose from her desk and began walking around it, approaching Lance threateningly- “but you were all too eager to be the solution to her problem. I know you just can’t wait for me to get fed up living the life of a mistress, and it will just be you and her again.” She punctuated her words with firm finger jabs into his chest. “How long do you think that one out there will tolerate it? Don’t you care about hurting him too?”

Lance did not want to acknowledge Bael in this matter, but even he couldn’t deny that he’d made a point to keep this arrangement a secret from him as well. He couldn’t explain why.

“I don’t ever want her to be unhappy, and she loves you so much. That doesn’t change the fact that you bring your own bad history with you.” Lance’s mouth shut quickly after saying this, immediately regretting the words that were already coming out. It was too late now, and he would have to own what he said.

Her eyes widened as she was taken aback by this statement. “What are you talking about?”

“Your brother, I know he’s a captain of the Valerio family. Aryn doesn’t need to be involved with someone who has such close ties to criminals.”

A resounding slap filled the room.

Lance’s cheek stung from the impact, but the ache in his chest far surpassed it. Rachel’s face was a mix of rage and disgust the likes of which Lance had never seen before. He had never planned to divulge this secret that he dug up years ago with his father’s political connections, but he was already burning this bridge as they spoke.

“Get out,” she commanded as she began walking away.

Without another word he did just that.

Having no energy to entertain Bael’s curiosity, still being furious and confused by him, Lance grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the clinic. Bael, quick to read Lance’s emotions, silently followed behind. They mounted Oberon once more and rode off into the city without aim.

Eventually, once Lance’s shoulders loosened and he was able to breathe deeply again, Bael rested a concerned hand on his shoulder. Lance immediately jolted at the contact, his body in a heightened state of awareness and feeling at ease with no one anymore.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Bael asked, the tenderness in his voice almost sickening.

“No,” he answered, and considered leaving it simply at that before deciding to elaborate. “I’m still mad at you as well, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Bael hummed, removing his hand in response to that. “Well, while you cool off, I need you to take us to Stone Tower.”

“Why?”

“I did some asking around while you were busy. It’s where Twinmold’s remains are kept. In fact, the place seems to be a museum of sorts now. So we should be able to easily get in there and investigate.”

Lance altered their course to lead them towards the back of the city towards the looming tower in the distance. Once a tower built to reach heaven by the fallen Ikana Kingdom, it indeed had been changed into a public historical museum for the city. Lance had even visited it before on an overnight school trip, so it struck him as odd that Bael didn’t realize what it was. Just another one of those things about him, he supposed.

Being early in the day and the middle of the work week, the museum had low occupancy currently. This was perfect for them, as it easily let them join a tour group on the spot that advertised a visitation to the room housing Twinmold.

Bael appeared uninterested in much of what the guide explained, but Lance on the other hand was all too fascinated by the history of Ikana. There were many artifacts of the old kingdom that had been dug up from the cemetery outside the city, including things like weaponry and armor, but also preserved artwork. Statues were also present that commemorated the hero who liberated the canyon from the plague of undead, though each one depicted a different artist’s interpretation of what they looked like.

Finally, they reached the gargantuan chamber that housed Twinmold. Lance understood that the twin worm gods were supposed to be humongous, but he vastly miscalculated just how large they were supposed to be. Though the tour promised to show them the body of the creatures, that wasn’t quite the true case. Twinmold’s remains came in pieces, and only a few of them were present here. The two heads were the only significant pieces present.

Unable to pass a large fence that separated the visitors from the bodies, Bael sent Nyx off to inspect the body up close. Once she returned, Bael shook his head in disappointment.

The guide went on to give an in depth explanation of Twinmold and its known history. They were once two enormous centipede-like monsters as large as Ikana Canyon itself. Records of their appearance in Stone Tower correlated with the time that undead began walking the earth, so historians typically assume they were the cause of it. It’s unknown how the hero, a small human, managed to slay them both and live.

Once finished she allowed visitors to ask more specific questions. Bael was the first to raise his hand and be called on.

“Are these the real remains?”

The tour guide paused and blinked at him, as if the question threw her off guard completely and she had not been trained on answering such a question. “Yes sir, these are the genuine remains of Twinmold. As you can see, we have both heads of the great insect monsters and pieces of its preserved corpse.”

Bael nodded, and as she began taking questions from other visitors he slipped away while urging Lance to come away with him as well. Lance attempted to ask what the hurry was, but Bael quietened him as he led them both outside the museum.

“The reason I rushed us out is that Nyx confirmed my suspicion. Those remains are fabricated, and there’s no telling where they’re actually housed. Or why they’re using fake ones anyway.”

“Maybe they’re dangerous for the public to be around?” Lance offered, attempting to be optimistic.

“Perhaps. Well, I’ve an idea where we can go next. Let’s head that way.”

As they started to head towards Oberon, the earth began to shake. Immediately, the crowd of people in and around the Stone Tower began pouring out of the building in an unorganized mass. Despite the small number, the narrow doorway caused the people to converge on a single point. This resulted in Bael and Lance both becoming swept up in the masses of people.

Lance quickly got separated from Bael and his stomach sank at the realization. He could hear both him and Nyx shouting his name trying to find him, but he was unable to move closer due to the shaking of the earth and the cocoon of bodies around him.

Soon after, his vision went completely dark. A solid piece of cloth covered his entire head and a large hand closed itself over his mouth to stifle his shouts of fear. His body was wrapped by an arm that dwarfed the size of any humans. Lance couldn’t move except to aimlessly kick his legs at the air.

Whoever had a hold of him was now carrying him away while easily pushing through the crowd despite the surrounding chaos. Lance was desperate for someone to take notice of what was happening to him and attempt to stop it, but more than anything he just wanted Bael to save him.

Hot tears streamed down his face as his mind reflected on how he had treated Bael just moments prior, wishing to any higher being that would hear him to let him see the other man again to apologize for how he acted. His only hope now would be that death would come swiftly from his captors.

Lance howled, as in the distance he heard Bael crying his name with panic in his voice. Shortly after, the sounds of the city disappeared entirely.

“Help me,” his heart cried.