Emile shook his head as Patton came back with drinks from the back of the cafe.

"We need to slowly befriend each of them, get them to trust us. Talk to us. We shouldn't just approach them as a group. A few of us would be assigned to one."

Lark nodded, "Remus and I are already shoved into Roman's life, so we'll look out for him." Remus nodded in agreement.

Patton handed Virgil his drink, "I've already caught Janus' attention."

Remy nodded, "Nerd Queen needs to loosen up, so ima bitch around with him."

The others rolled their eyes, "Logan is the most level headed, and I don't hate him as much, so I'll go with Remy," Virgil added.

Emile nodded, "I'll work on looking up ways to help them."

Lark nodded, "I have to be out of town for a few weeks, though. Photoshoot. Remus, you're on your own."

"Got it."

Patton clapped his hands, "Well! Since I don't want our bond to souly be over helping our friends out of an abusive environment- we should get to know each other so that that way we're officially friends!"

Emile smiled at Patton, "Excellent idea!"

Patton beamed at him and Emile hoped against reason that no one could hear his heart.

Lark spoke up, "Okay, well, I'm Lark, non-binary. I'm a sucker for tits. I don't mind dressing feminine or masculine or whatever, I really don't care. I don't care if people who don't know me that well, yet, mess up my pro nouns, I don't expect centuries of identifying someone's gender by their looks to Judy get thrown out the window, that's literally what we're supposed to do. So yeah, if you mess up, I don't care, as long as it's not in a way meant to hurt me. It's like jokingly calling a guy friend a girl or vise versa," Lark looked around as they all nodded, "Okay, now that I've given my TedTalk- I love chocolate covered strawberries, Starbucks is my bitch," Remy whooped in approval, "I love dance. Also, I'll stand by Roman before any of you, so fuck with him, I'll fuck you up."

Remy frowned and twirled his straw, "He deserves some of the shit he gets. Yeah, I understand his situation and that he's scared and all that extra stuff...but it doesn't excuse him from the fact that he's done it to us. And doesn't change who he's hurt, or that he's acted like a bitch even when his mommy and daddy don't have eyes on him."

Lark glared, "And what exactly has he done that he's had a choice in doing?"

Virgil grumbled, "He doesn't have to act so arrogant and better than everyone else…"

Remus shook his head, "Roman once befriended someone and didn't tell our parents. When he acted confused and didn't understand why it mattered, our parents locked him in our room and forced him to stop being friends with her, threatening to kill his dog."

Everyone frowned, Emile asked, writing things down, again, "How old was he?"

"Nine. When we were 13, he did it again. Didn't even get a warning. Our parents took the dog to the vet, and got him euthanized. Roman got woken up by our father dropping the dead dog on his bed the next morning."

Patton clamped a hand over his mouth and Emile paused in his writing. Virgil fiddled with his sleeves with a serene look in his eyes and Remy actually paused in drinking his latae. Lark felt so bad for Roman.

"Then, when he started crying, he got yelled at. When he started hyperventilating- I think he was having a panic attack, I don't know, might've been just an anxiety attack- they locked him in the closet to calm down. Actually, they did that when either of us were upset or pissed."

Virgil's face twisted, "That's...fucked up."

Emile frowned, "I think that counts as abuse, but I'll have to be sure."

Remus tilted his head, "Being locked in a closet is weird?"

Patton pouted, "Yes, but being locked in one for being unhappy is even worse."

Remy frowned, "Why doesn't Roman just sneak being friends with others?"

"Our parents have him on a schedule, and if he goes off of it, our parents ask him what he was doing. They're friends with the families he's allowed to be with, most of the kids don't care about ratting Roman out, and Deceit and Logan's parents keep tabs on them."

Virgil frowned, "So, no matter what, your parents always know where he is…"

Remus sighed, "Welp, guess I'll go next. I like anyone with a dick. I don't care if you're a girl with a dick or whatever other gender of another plane of existence," Lark held back a snort, "Got a dick? Get it in my- "

Patton's voice broke out of his scarlet face, "aaaaa-lrighty, then, thank you, Remus, for that lovely description of your sexuality. What else?"

Remus smiled at Patton's fluster, "I'm the family disappointment, and I love it. It drives my parents insane when they can't control me. I once snuck a pet rat in my room- Roman says it doesn't count, because I was just feeding a rat that ate through the wall, but I named it, so it's mine. Then it had rat babies, and I hid them in the shed with the baby daddy and the side rat- the mama's cheating on the daddy with a genderfluid rat, by the way. They're still working out who gets the kids."

Everyone burst out laughing.

Remy manged to ask, "Who- how will they decide?"

"Well, Roman says that they should get shared custody, because both parents still care for the kids and are perfectly willing to care for both the kids and make them feel loved and accepted. I say that the kids should go out and live on their own, because their parents clearly know nothing about devotion and reliability, since the mama cheated and left the kids to the dad who refuses to even look at them."

Emile gaped at him and wrote some more stuff down.

That was when Logan showed up, looking on edge, Remus smiled at him, " 'Sup, Lo Jo?"

Logan looked uneasy, "I have...been doing research, and I concede. The environment the three of us are in is not okay...we need help…"

The others gaped at him, Emile immediately jotting more stuff down.

"Janus and Roman are still unsure, they're trying to convince themselves that everything is okay and that there's something wrong with us. My parents never did anything more than teach me to over control my emotions and focus on work. Half of which, I don't completely mind. Janus has a shaky relationship with his family. His family knows that they're toxic and have admitted to him on multiple occasions, but his family never does anything to fix it, leading him to believe that he deserves it. And Roman's parents are just abusive. And I'm afraid that it's becoming physical, for both of them."

Patton nodded, "So, we need to get Janus to talk to his family, peacefully. Still need to figure out Roman."

Emile nodded, "We should relax, for now. Being all tense like this all the time will be bad for our mental health."

Patton smiled, "Okay, well, I'm Patton! Cis-male! I like to consider myself pansexual, but I do have a preference for boys. I love cats and dogs! But, I'm allergic to cats," Patton gave a small pout to punctuate his sentence, "Put! Not even that can stop me from petting them! My mamas own this cafe and I honestly love it here. One of them is my birth mom, and the other is my step-mom, but I consider myself incredibly lucky to have them both."

Logan sat down by Virgil, their awkwardness could be smelt.

Emile smiled, finally putting his notebook away, "My name is Emile Picanni. I'm in advanced psychology and communications, so I go to the college every Friday and Monday for those classes. I'm 17, and I live with my aunt. I love cartoons, and Remy is my best friend. I'm also gay."

Remy slurped his drink with as much sass as he does anything. Logan allowed himself to think of how well he and Roman would get along in different circumstances, "Hey, Sluts~ I'm the one and only Rem Sleep! Or, y'know- you could use my "legal name", Remy."

Logan looked quizzical, "The...air quotes were used to indicate sarcasm...right? Is your name not actually "Remy"?"

"....it is. Nevermind, I'm not explaining. Anyways, you can't get gayer than me, so don't even try. My blood is made of coffee, so back off, I will fight you over my caffeine."

Logan was about to protest. His blood can't possibly be made of coffee! But he remembered what Janus and Roman said about metaphors and hyperboles, so he let it go. He just watched Remy and Lark fist bump over their coffee love.

"Anyway, I live with my parents. They're cis, but my dad's a drag queen and he acts super gay, sometimes. It's honestly amazing. My mom just goes along with it. Pretends like she's an offended straight girl, or pretends she's a guy, or whatever she thinks of at the moment."

Patton cooed at the straights being okay, Virgil faked a gag and hid a smile. Remus cackled and Lark smirked, their positive reactions making Remy stop fighting his smile.

Except, Logan was confused, "...um…" they all turned to him and he felt rather awkward right now, "What- that is to say...could you please explain what a…"drag queen" is…?"

Remus laughed a bit and pulled out his phone, letting Logan rest the search results on Google.

Logan blinked, "And...people are okay with that?"

Remy rolled his eyes, "As much as they're okay with any gay person. Why, is there a problem?"

Logan shook his head, "Roman and Deceit thought it would be fun to dress in skirts once. We did. Our parents ripped them to shreds when we got back, then they picked out our clothes for the next few months- it was very uncomfortable. They told us it was wrong to dress like girls, they said people would hurt us for doing so, and that we were bad people for even thinking of trying it. We never questioned it. Which is sad, though. We thought it was kinda fun, Roman wanted to do it more often and we said we did, too. But, then that happened with our parents, and we all would freak out every time we thought of it, terrified our parents would suddenly be mind readers and tell everyone how awful we are."

The whole group stared at him.

"...What…?"

Remy stood up, "Right. Ima go bitch slap some bastards."

Remus stood up. Everyone yelled at the to sit down.

Patton smiled sympathetically at Logan, "It's not bad! I'm not gonna say that some people might not be very kind to you about it. But there's people who might not be very kind about anything- might as well just do what makes you happy!"

"Even if it makes you a bad person?"

"No, but wearing a skirt doesn't make you bad!"

"Subjective."

Patton huffed, "Objective!" Patton stood up and walked to the back of the store. He then then walked back out. A brown skirt with thin white stripes at the hem and whit paws at the base of straps that work their way up his blue shirt, "Am I suddenly a bad person?"

"I- Well- no...research concludes...objective. Skirts making someone bad is correlation, not caution…"

Virgil huffed, "Now, you're getting it."

Logan smiled. His parents would disapprove of these friends, but…

Maybe that's why he needs them.

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This isn't even the end of this conversation, this chapter was just getting long