Archive of Our Own ^beta

Moving in was, luckily enough, a quick affair. A smooth ride. It had taken a little under a month to truly tinker with the finer details of everything with both Four Hills City Council (a bit of a bother, but understandable), the Margulis lady (he expected it to be more anxiety-provoking, since all the previous exchanges between the two of them happened by mail before, but it went well ; if anything, there had been a weariness to the business woman that had made the conversation go quicker than what he had expected) as well as the police (which was awful, and terrible, and made him want to gag the whole way through, but at least their background check on him had definitely been, well, flimsy at best), and then a month later, Ángel was in, furniture moved in and placed, new decoration put on the wall and old decoration still present because he was a man of taste, and roommate here as well.

Right! His roommate.

Oliver Beebo was one strange little guy. Honestly, it added to his charm. He was interesting. He had an air of intrigue and, despite how earnest he seemed, of mystery about him that kept Ángel on his toes and wanting to know more. After all, it was not everyday that you entered a party, apparently met a man there, but forgot all about it due to some gas set off by your now dead host. It was also not everyday that you saw yourself become roommates with said man, a compromise that had been reached because this wasn't apparently only your dream house, but also his dream house.

Though, with how Oliver flinched with each step he took, with each creak and hum of the house, Ángel honestly figured out that he was lying about that last part. Even then, he was not fully convinced nor sold about the rest.

This was the type of stuff that added all the more to his mystery. But, in every other way, the investigator (private detective, he had repeated. Not a cop, he insisted) was as transparent as one could be. He was open about his likes and dislikes, wasn't that great at lying, which made it all the more endearing and weird when he did lie. Because, despite how weak those lies had been, they had been present in most of Ángel's interactions with his roommate. And, despite how easily Ángel identified those lies, it didn't help him at all to figure out the truth hidden behind those words.

Ángel wasn't one to make lists, but within a week of living with private detective Oliver Beebo, he had figured out that much :

Oliver Beebo was lying about this house, this mansion, this previously named House of Vera, being his dream house. To him, this was evidently far from ideal. Notably, he didn't seem to especially be a fan of the architecture, nor of the surrounding woods or landscapes—and thus, despite, as he later on learnt, having always lived in the region—. Yet, despite it all, Ángel could count on all ten fingers how many personal modifications or decorations Oliver had personally put into the House. It hadn't been from a lack of trying on Ángel's part ; at first, he had thought that the man felt too embarrassed to decorate anything, or felt as if, since the House didn't belong to him, it wasn't in his right to add his own personal touch to it—to make it home. Though, even after he cleared up that point, after Oliver smiled sheepishly and thanked him, the latter still did not add one decoration to the house, not even to his own bedroom, from what Ángel had seen. Oliver didn't feel at home here, at least not fully. This was not his dream house, and even less his dream home. Yet, despite it all, he had moved here with Ángel, had almost begged for it. And despite how flimsy the lie was, Ángel couldn't figure out why Oliver was so determined to stay.

A part of him was scared to ask.

What if he left?

He didn't know how to feel about this idea.

Another thing was that Oliver was lying about his presence here. He said that he came to the House in the first place because of a case. Ángel had seen a bit of Oliver's work. Well, at least, he stumbled upon his websites and small articles on local newspapers. Why did he put his roommate's name in the engine in the first place? Well, maybe he wanted to do a background check, for once. Who did his impulsive thoughts think they were, anyways? Cops? It was his own right to search for a pretty man's socials on the Internet—his lawyer, Vivi, could confirm!

Well. Maybe not. When he tried to ask her for help, Vivi laughed at him for two whole minutes, teased him for ten more, and then only did she help him to find Oliver's Instagram, which was full of cat pictures.

Cute.

All that to say that he had read about a reasonnable amount of Oliver's previous cases.

The latest was a few months before the party. Ángel was pretty much sure drug trafficking wasn't related to the House of Vera, or Eugene Coli, in any way.

But if Oliver didn't come to the party working on a case, then it raised a whole new can of worms, full of squirming, mind-melting questions. Questions Ángel wasn't sure id he wanted the answers to. Questions about where Oliver got all these informations about how the night unfolded, about Eugene Coli's motivations.

Questions about how much, truly, Oliver remembered of this night, and how much Ángel truly did manage to fill in the blanks.

Did he even fill those? Did he put enough mortar into the crevices to guarantee solid foundations? To guarantee Oliver and him being on the same page? Did he want to know how, and why, Oliver remembered, while he didn't? He spoke of amnesia, that night. Why isn't he subject to memory loss himself, then?

Why was Oliver here? What did he know? Truly? Despite the lie, Ángel couldn't figure out the truth of it. He wasn't sure he wanted to figure it out.

Though, of all the lies that Oliver said, which were left hanging heavy in the air between them, the air between each of their hands, a hand that Ángel had been wanting to hold for quite some time now, there was one lie that outshone them all. The lie of all lies. The beebest lie. Not because it was the most convincing of them. No, on the contrary. This lie was the most bullshit of lies Oliver had ever said to him, which was made all the worse by this lie being the most commonly repeated. It was almost a habit of his, at that point.

Oliver was lying about being okay. About doing fine. Both health-wise and mentally-wise, if Ángel had to be honest. Which was easy. Despite them not knowing each other that much, a few months had been enough for Ángel to feel comfortable to sometimes call out his roommate on this particular lie. It would be more or less direct, more of a worry or more of a confrontation, but Ángel did try.

He was trying.

Each time, Oliver dodged the question, and Ángel felt his hackles raise, the need to press on, to insist, to blabber on and about about how much Oliver deserved to be okay, to be fine, to be healthy, and happy, spurred on by some kind of gut feeling he couldn't explain. Each time, he noticed the tension and nervosity on the other man's face, crackling through his body like live wires, ready to spark up to life. Each time, he let it go, and let Oliver lie one more time. One more chance.

Though, despite all these lies, Ángel had learned one thing about private detective Oliver Beebo, after a few months of living with him. It was far from being all lies. On the contrary, he was definitely saying the truth about Ángel taking him to that bar; he must have been, with how he dodged even more his gaze, out of embarassment this time, when sharing the information. He must have been, with how gently yet earnestly he accepted each of Ángel's invitations to spend their evenings inside that same bar. He must have been, with how, when they decided to celebrate their moving in with some drink, he served his favorite drink to Ángel, without ever asking. He was honest about his excitement whenever puzzles were brought up, whenever Ángel had shared with him a riddle he had found out about through a game, movie, or book. His smile was earnest and open, when he gazed at the Los Bunkers vinyls in the room with the staircase. When he laughed about one of Ángel's jokes (which was in his opinion, as close as one could be to being high without ever touching an ounce of drugs), it was no comedy, no play, no pretend.

Heck, even before moving in, even when seeing this strangely charming man for what was apparently the first time, Ángel could tell that he was tragically earnest. He didn't doubt it for a moment, a second. Even if many would call the decision of moving in an old, abandoned manor with a stranger unadvisable, or even dangerous, Ángel couldn't see Oliver Beebo as a bad guy. He meant well. He meant good. He was warm. Call it instinct. Or a vibe check.

***

Moving in had been a quick affair, as rushed as the decision to buy the House and sell his company, so quick that it left Ángel slightly breathless, always a tiny bit too busy to take a step back and think it through. It had been only a few days before the moving, when he had laid down on his bed, half of his furniture away from his current flat and traveling to his brand new life, that he had truly stopped. Only then had Ángel stopped, to take ahold of the situation, to start to think about it all.

Because, yes. If he had, strangely enough, trusted this sweet, nervous wreck of a detective at first sight, it had all been a very rushed decision. Ángel liked the rush. As much as he mothered Vivi about her activities, she had been the one to call him an adrenaline addict, back in their youth. But this was different. He was supposed to have turned over a new leaf. CEO life was supposed to be a change in his lifestyle, as the years caught back to him, or at least, sadly, to his knees and his lungs and his stomach (one day, he would figure out what spurs on this tummy ache, even if it was the last thing he would do. It couldn't be the snacks. Oliver ate way more than him and was perfectly fine). Heck, Ángel liked his home. He liked his flat, the city life, its rumbles, its hustles and bustles, its nightlife. It had taken so much time to settle in, to dig his roots into this place, and now, an evening he couldn't even remember was enough to weed it all, to wrench it out of the dirt as if all that time, and effort, all those moments and memories, had been for nothing? This wasn't like Ángel, at least it wasn't like him anymore. What was he thinking? had screamed a voice somewhere, in the echo-chamber of his mind and bedroom, at night, while he stared at the ceiling, unable to fall asleep.

I don't know, he had answered. I don't think I was thinking! What's life without a little living, anyway?

And he hadn't been thinking. Ángel doesn't know why he made this choice, at least not in any way that would satisfy a logical, rational part of his brain.

He just knew this: as soon as Oliver started to describe the house, listing off its attributes and qualities with a nervous, almost panicked edge to his otherwise monotone voice, his mind immediately took ahold of the very idea of the House, digging his claws into it like a raptor into a prey. As Oliver spoke of architecture and unique style and insulation and quiet and forest and escape, his old thieving ways had spurred back to life. It had been as if Oliver's words had been enough to give the house all the world's worth in his eyes, to make it a jewel. As if the detective had molded reality itself, through a few sentences, and made perception facts simply by letting it leave his mind through his lips (not that Ángel had been staring at them at that time. He would have lots of time to do so later on, he found out). And, as soon as the house became another jewel through Ángel's eyes, it was too late, he was doomed: as he did with everything seen as pretty, he couldn't let anyone else have it. He saw how entranced Oliver looked, heard the words “really like” and “looks”, and, like a feral dog, started to bite down on this bone of a house, chewing through nothings and things that didn't belong to him, never letting go.

It was probably selfish. But Ángel was a selfish man, who liked to keep pretty things to himself.

Though, despite it all, Ángel liked to think that he wasn't cruel. Maybe that was why he didn't give that much protest (or like, any. at all) at the idea of having this stranger as a roommate. Letting him stay was as much of an apology as his lighthearted, but real, apology, which was given just after he had talked to Miss Margulis. An apology for taking ahold of Oliver's dream. A part of him thought that the house's purpose would have been way more accomplished if it had been in Oliver's hands. Oliver suited the House. Ángel could see it in the way the man had described the building, and would have, later on, after all this bit of thinking, once he would have finally moved in, been able to see it simply by seeing Oliver Beebo inhabiting the House, existing in it. Like a fish that has found its perfect pound (even if according to Vivi, Oliver was a rabbit).

But still, instinct and selfishness and other past thieving tendencies didn't stop him from having second thoughts about all this, at times. Especially during this specific evening (or morning ? he would not have been able to tell the time), when it was only Ángel, his bed, his ceiling, and his late night thoughts. Because this wasn't only about a secluded manor in the middle of nowhere. This was about a manor that, apparently, used to be a hospital, that would have been used as a museum, that almost got used as a murder party house. It was old, and despite what the Four Hills City Council had guaranteed him, Ángel had, in his bed, the sudden realization that so many things could go wrong. There could be asbestos in the walls, or mold, or bugs (even if he had particulary checked up on immediately after buying the house, remembering the detective he had, at the time, just met, saying something about a sensation of something “crawling” under his skin. Must have been an allergic reaction, but still). Something could break down because the house was too old. Actually, many things could break down. So many things. Oh no.

The police only had to reopen the Coli investigation for several cops to barge inside their house, which was possibly the most nightmare-inducing scenario, which said a lot, since Ángel had watched quite a bit of horror movies (he hated those, he only ever watched them thanks to Vivi). The place had “bad idea” written all over it. He heard about it in the first place because he was invited here by a man who had planned to assassinate him, and instead died himself.

Even outside of those circumstances, the place had a history. Ángel himself hadn't been particularly interested in hearing about it, but Vivi did. By proxy, this meant that he knew at least the basis of it. And even if he didn't have the most noisy journalist to ever walk this earth as a best friend, he would have heard about it during his exchanges with Miss Margulis, the Four Hills City Council representative.

Ángel hadn't only bought a house, or any house, had reminded the overthinking part of his brain that had been making him lie on his bed, wide-awake, on that specific night. No, said this whistleblowing, bell-ringing, buzzing-with-anxiety part of his brain : he had bought the House of Vera. A very old mansion, which had belonged to a doctor, and had been used as a hospital, following an earthquake in the 40s, which had been lately named the great Tragedy. The house was named after the doctor's late wife. Vera. This is what he had memorized from Vivi's sneaking and ferret around, at least. He probably didn't know everything (and he still didn't), but it wasn't all that important. This was just enough context to raise alarms in a still reasonable and logical part of his brain, which had decided to become aware and active well after the fact, and little before the actual moving in.

Ángel wasn't really a man of faith, or even a believer, in any way. Not really in God, not in the supernatural, not in miracles or ghosts. So by all means, this wasn't really the type of things that should have made him pause, should have made him think for a second about what the hell he was doing, by buying this house, by throwing almost everything away for an isolated mansion. It was merely a factor on top of all the other things that could go wrong, that he had been thinking about thoroughly, so late in the night, so early in the morning.

That night, he had thought of everything that could go wrong, and had concluded that whatever happened, at least, he wouldn't be alone in it.

This alone shook off any fear and anxiety Ángel could have, and he had fallen asleep with this in mind.

***

Despite the death that should've been reeking of the place, during the last few months of winter, the House was warm. It felt like home, which should have felt wrong, with how silent the place was. The other places at which Ángel had felt like home have always been tumultuous in their noises. It had been the city's chattering and the Capital's rumbling. It had been his mother's words and Vivi's laugh.

But the House, to Ángel, started to feel like home nonetheless, in the matter of, if he had to be honest, barely a month.

A month within which he had seen his roommate go through all states of unwell, illness, disease and unrest. Ángel didn't think Oliver had slept a full night of sleep since they moved here.

Strangely, he couldn't help but feel guilty about it. But it didn't make sense. Oliver's illness wasn't related to their lodging. There was no mold within the walls, it had been checked before the party, and had been checked again right before they moved in, thanks to Ángel's night of overthinking.

Though, with how Oliver talked about it, how he reacted to it, Ángel was more or less certain that this illness was a recent development for Oliver. Someone like him, a detective, could not have carried on with his work as it was with how much the illness impacts him. Oliver hadn't given him any name. All Ángel had was symptoms he had seen first hand. He wasn't sure Oliver knew what illness he had.

But Ángel knew the man lied when he said with a nervous smile that he had already went to the doctor about it. Which was, honestly, quite worrying! Did this man have a death wish? Masochism didn't seem to be his thing, not that Ángel asked, thank you very much (maybe he did, but that was for their drunken selves to know), and as noble as the detective was, he wasn't shouldering the weight of the world by refusing any treatment, he was only hurting himself, so why do this? In a few months only, Ángel had learnt about Oliver. He liked to think he knew him, liked to think of him as a friend (and more if they were up to it, even if Oliver himself seemed keen on dodging that can of worms, even right after furiously blushing to one of Ángel 's innuendos). He knew that Oliver was smart, logical. There was no reason for him to refuse any treatment. To be fair, he did self medicate sometimes: ibuprofen boxes sprawled over the bathroom that they called his, and the kitchen drawers were full with tea bags and mixes of herbal tea, to help with sleep, with headaches, stomachaches and any other ache. Damn it, Ángel had even been adding some of those to the drawers, hoping Oliver wouldn't notice, or at least wouldn't comment on it, hoping these would help, and not wanting the man to spend a fortune on herbal teas, especially when Ángel had his genitor's money lying around, with no real use now, except for Vivi's “treat times” (which involved everything from snacks, DnD dices and photography gear to paying her bail at the police station after a session of breaking and entering).

Though, contrary to what he had hoped, Oliver did, in fact, notice. He did, in fact, comment on it, saying that he didn't want Ángel using his money on him, not when he was freeloading on him. This ensued an argument on what Ángel saw as the drastic and important difference between a "freeloader" and a friend. The fight hadn't been one, not really. There was no screaming match, despite how Ángel sometimes had to bite down a few decibels, as his frustration grew. Not frustration towards Oliver himself, not really (honestly, he almost doubted he had the ability to get upset with him, at least not on things like this), but more with how he saw their situation. Frustration, not towards Oliver's matter-of-fact tone as he gave his arguments, but more at how he undermined himself, his place here, his right to live here, just because of their different social classes. Which is— Ángel got it, truly, he did. He saw those differences, as much as Oliver did.

He just wanted him to realize that it didn't matter, not to him. He wanted him to realize that Ángel wasn't doing this to prove some sort of class superiority, or to make Oliver indebted with him, or to treat Oliver as some sort of charity case.

He wanted him to realize Ángel was doing this because he wanted Oliver to be alright. To be healthy. To be warm. To be comfortable. To be safe. To be alive. To live.

Still, the argument happened, nonetheless. “Argument” was quite the right word to describe it. “Fight” felt like too much. It sure more felt like Oliver was arguing his case, rather than getting angry about it.

If Ángel had to be honest, he would say that Oliver had been more uncomfortable than angry. Not about Ángel's insistence, nor about the arguments he had himself brought to the table (not literally, in this case, since this had happened over the kitchen drawers), but about Ángel's actions in the first place. About Ángel using his money for Oliver. What Ángel had seen on his face had almost felt like guilt.

They did stop arguing about it as some point. Though, now, Ángel tried to be more sneaky about his gifts (even if he wouldn't call meds gifts, and more of a basic necessity that his roommate didn't entertain nearly enough). Or, in other cases, he was outlandish in such ways that Oliver couldn't not accept what he offered him, whether it was tea or some expensive dessert.

If the house wasn't enough, he would help.

He wanted this to feel like home for him, as well.

***

Time goes on. Months fly. The snow fully melts. The outside starts to feel as warm as the house itself. The scarf typically hanging around his neck goes from wool to a lighter, more linen-like fabric. Mozilla Firefox's fur sheds and gets everywhere. Oliver goes from jumpers to t-shirts.

The grass and weeds in the garden grow, and overflow, in the matter of three months of spring. When summer comes round, it is like a flood of green, leaves and thorns, unlatched into the backyard of the house.

Ángel doesn't think about it for a few weeks. Then, he sits on it for a few days. Finally, after glancing down at the garden through the window one last time, he has enough, and admits that he really has to take care of the garden, trim it up a bit, prune things up, maybe, weed it, something, anything. Even if he has to do it himself. Heresy.

He doesn't really speak of the idea, not after waking up, nor in the kitchen, nor at lunch. The sun stares at him through the window, both alluring and threatening. He stares back at it for a second, and then at Oliver and their finished plates, lips curling up in a smile, before claiming :

“I'm doing the dishes!”

There's a brief stand-off, one second long at most, ashim and Ollie stare at each other, before his roommate scrambles back to his feet, reaching for the plates, but too late: Ángel has already grabbed onto both his plate and his own, taking with him the fork and knife he had put on top of the latter. Because he did plan this entire thing ahead. Really, he pretty much had to, with their respective tendencies to try and out-polite each other.

So he gets the plates, and smiles like a cat who finally got the cream–though, he doesn't retire quick enough to dodge the slap that Oliver gives at one of his hand, to distract him.

“Ow!” he exclaims, more with shock and a bit of indignation, rather than because he's actually in pain. “You slap my hand? You slap my dainty little hand?”

“I would be a pretty bad detective if I couldn't catch you in the middle of stealing something,” Oliver retorts, a shade of lightness nested in the corner of his mouth.

“Oh, really, detective?” Ángel challenges, feeling himself raise his eyebrows. “Watch me go, then.”

And with that, he darts towards the kitchen, dodging Oliver's new assault.

“Ack— Ángel!”

“That's me!” he answers back on a sing-song tone, disappearing through the kitchen's threshold.

While Oliver mutters something about bastard thieves, Ángel laughs wholeheartedly in answer. He has no idea how right he is.

With that, he goes to the sink, and raises a hand to the tap lever, ready to open it.

He hears the sound of running water, and lowers his hand down to support back the dishes, moving smoothly, fingers brushing against the crockery, and he feels it slip from his grip, barely, like one does with a remote control while fighting for tonight's program, just before—

The dishes fall to the ground with a resounding crash, bits exploding and spreading across the room like shrapnel. Somewhere, in a body that doesn't feel truly his, its strings cut short, Ángel feels his ears ring in answer to the noise. His body suddenly burns.

For a second, he's blinded by something he cannot identify.

Then, he hears the trample of steps rushing from one room to another, the clang of a door being opened without a care in the world, and the sound of Oliver coughing out his lunch in the toilet.

Ángel comes back to his own body with a start, heart rushing in his chest, all of his muscles clenching back to life with something akin to a spasm. He feels himself blink, and looks down.

His hands are still frozen mid-air, holding onto the plates that are now shattered against the floor. Thankfully, it does not seem like he cut himself.

Then, Ángel blinks again, and realizes that Oliver is still coughing, his voice muffled, but still coming out strangled from a few rooms away.

Oh no.

“Oliver?!” he calls, stepping over the remains of the plates as he runs towards one of the bathroom, his heart racing for an entirely different reason.

He almost slides on the floor as he turns to the angle, holding back onto the wooden treshold, before his eyes find Oliver. He is sitting down on the floor, curled up against the toilet seat, his body shaking with a rhythm of spasms that almost seems like a march.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and, immediately wincing against the idiocy of his question, he asks next: “How can I help?”

The only answer he gets are wet coughs, as well as the sound of liquid mush hitting the porcelain. So Ángel forces himself to rationalize, taking back from previous—many, numerous, too many—experiences, as he slowly approaches Oliver—as he ignores the way the man body jumps in pain with each step he makes—, and, making sure he sees him coming, he gently puts a hand on his shoulder, while the other goes to help Oliver's own hand, which is grasping at his hair and trying to hold it up. He helps to hold the air out of his face, and starts to rub gentle circles on his back. This, more than anything, seems to help: he feels the tension seep out of Oliver's muscles, like smoke leaving a chimney, and, slowly, his coughing fit ceases, his breathing evens out, and the spasms rolling through his body like earthquakes calm down, leaving him shivering under Ángel's hold.

Oliver breathes in, and out, before spitting some more vomit out of his mouth. Not expecting this, Ángel lets out a sharp, surprised bite of laughter. Oliver answers back with a tired laugh of his own.

God, he is always so tired.

They stay like this, for a little while. Then, Ángel cannot keep his concern locked and bolted inside of him anymore, and as usual, as it did each time this, or something similar happens, he asks:

“Do you need something? Anything? I can bring you water. And we have some meds for nausea in the cabinet, right? Maybe some tea, as well, we have some tea, tea could help—”

“It's fine, Ángel,” Oliver says, and Ángel cannot see his expression, so he doesn't really know what he's thinking right now, which makes him nervous. What if he's feeling even worse? What if it's really bad, this time?

“You're hurting,” he insists instead.

“I'll be fine. I've always been, haven't I?” he says, slowly, painfully stretching out of the ball he had hunched himself into.

The confidence in his words loses a bit of its weight, with how shaky his entire body—his voice, as well—is. Even if if wasn't shaking, Ángel has an inkling that something in him wouldn't have agreed with that statement nonetheless.

“I don't think I'd be able to stomach something right now,” he adds after this, which rings truer, despite how much Ángel wants to protest, to help and care in any way he can.

He doesn't have any time to voice said protest, though, as Oliver stretches out a hand to grab some toilet paper, cleaning himself up, before slowly moving his body, legs stretching as he tries to stand up.

“Wait, let me help,” he says in a hurry, hands rushing back to the man.

“It's alright—” starts Oliver, before his legs buckle under him, and Ángel barely catches him. “Thank you,” he instead says, after a short silence, as if reluctantly, which makes Ángel laugh a bit, before his concern comes back tenfolds, as he accompanies—almost carries—Oliver out of the bathroom, then, slowly, to his bedroom.

The walk is a slow one, especially when it comes to climbing up the stairs, especially with Oliver trying to—and failing to—keep his winces out of his face, before they arrive to the hall, and Ángel has to blink, before his hand quickly slaps over the light switch, light into the room.

Despite this hall literally being the one leading to both their bedrooms, Ángel can't help but feel... Something there.

Like all parts of the house, it is warm (even if it's been fresher those past few weeks, rejecting the outside heat and keeping them comfortable), it is home. But still, there's... something.

Maybe it's because this hall doesn't have any window, any opening to the outside world. Maybe it's because of the lack of decoration, outside of one painting that he has never dared to touch, really. Maybe it's because of its heavy silence. Maybe it's because of the empty space at its very end. There's a mark on the floor there, as if something had been there for a long, long time, a piece of furniture, maybe, and someone had moved it recently, uprooting it from its intended and original spot.

Maybe it's because it's such an enclosed space, that the warmth of the house always seem to become scorching, burning, when he stays too long in this room.

Weird.

Though he isn't the only one to not like this room: Oliver does not either. So neither of them waste any time, as Ángel accompanies him back to his room, the second at their right, as soon as they enter. He pushes the door open, and they shuffle themselves inside. There is no orange devil dashing out of the room, nor is there an orange angel sleeping in the bed, so Mozilla Firefox must be hanging out somewhere else in the manor. With how big the house is, he has tons of hiding spots. Ángel twists himself a bit, struggling a bit, with Oliver's weight against him, and then closes the door behind them with a dull noise.

Immediately, the relative coolness of the room prickles at his skin, bile rising up from his stomach a bit. He buries the feeling deeper, trying not to dwell on it.

Oliver, on the contrary, doesn't wait any longer, and slips out of Ángel's hold, stumbling along to his bed, in which he crashes with a muffled sound. He stays like this, legs hanging out of the mattress. Ángel watches, him, unable to keep the smile out of his face, before he steps forwards, and sits on the edge of the bed, right next to Oliver.

Oliver's room is... Well.

It is a bedroom. It hasn't really changed, since they moved in. He knows that Oliver has put down a few of the pictures that were hanging on the walls—the marriage certificate, the family pictures. Though, there's still a puzzle on one of the bedside tables. Tulips still bloom peacefully in a corner of the room (deep love, indicates an unhelpful, sappy voice in the corner of his ear).

That said, there isn't much of anything else, though. Mozilla Firefox's bed—which he never seems to use. Oliver's coat, and his clothes in the wardrobe. Some books—he thinks he can spy a copy of Murder on the Orient Express from a corner of his eye. His laptop, right next to the tulips.

That's pretty much it.

The room doesn't feel lived in. That's probably what makes Ángel feels such discomfort, the rare times he goes in there (because no, he doesn't have the habit to go into the other's man room). He knows it isn't awkwardness, because he may be crushing, but he is also an adult, and has grown long past the point of being bashful about these types of things—especially with a man who is his roommate.

So yes, surely. The room being so bare must be why it feels so wrong, being here. It must be why he always feels on the edge of a cliff when coming in here, like he is waiting for something to happen.

He glances down at Oliver, whose head is still buried deep in the bedsheets. His breathing seems less jerky, at least. His chest rises and falls in long, slow, but regular motions.

Sometimes, when he comes to pick Oliver from his bedroom, or simply when he crosses the corridor and catches a glimpse through the ajar door, Ángel will see the detective sat on his bed, staring out at the window. Watching, waiting. As if expecting something to come out of it.

So maybe, just maybe, this discomfort isn't only an Ángel thing. Maybe this, too, they share. Maybe he isn't just paranoid and close to crazy.

Which is always nice.

They stay like this, for a few more seconds, before Ángel cannot help himself any longer, and his concern blurts out from him, oozing out of him like from a wound:

“Are you okay?”

Oliver answers something beyong understanding, his voice muffled by the mattress, before he raises his head just enough to repeat himself :

“I will be,” he groans in a weary voice.

“How can you know?” Ángel cannot help but retort, something like fear twisting in his gut.

“I just...” Oliver lets his words hang in the air, seemingly searching for a way to articulate his thoughts, before he tries again: “It already happened. We know how this works, by now. I will be fine.”

“Ever the rational, detective,” Ángel teases slightly, through sheer habit. “But that doesn't answer to how you're feeling right now,” he notes.

There's a short bout of silence, and even from this angle, Ángel can see Oliver's face shifts into a mix between a pout and a grimace, as he struggles to find a way to answer. He presses his lips together, breathing in, before he says :

“I feel better now than before. Far from perfect, of course, but still. It's better. It will get better.”

Ángel doesn't know what to make of this. This should be enough.

But it doesn't feel like it.

Then, Oliver raises his head fully, shifting slightly to better face him:

“I promise, okay?” he adds.

There is a small, but honest smile on his face. The sight, and the words, give pause to the anxiety buzzing inside Ángel, as if they were enough to untangle the nervous and unsettled yarn of his insides.

“Okay,” Ángel says with a relieved sigh. “That's good, then.”

He taps a foot against the wooden floor, thinking, filling the air and the room with the motion. They stay like this, for a bit. Ángel's gaze slides back to Oliver. He feels concern lurches back in his chest when he sees how tensed he has suddenly gotten. Little shivers have made their way back along his body.

He has noticed that, sometimes, Oliver will get overwhelmed. Any presence seems to put him on edge.

Now seems like one of these times.

He hesitates, for a second, pausing his foot mid-movement, watching over Oliver, before coming to a decision.

“You know what? I'll let you rest,” he says, raising from his seat, before pausing, twisting back to stare at Oliver—who, laid on his stomach as he is, cannot stare back—and saying “really rest, not doom-scroll on your phone.”

He can guess that Oliver makes a face in reaction to that last remark, but he cannot see it. Instead, he turns back, and goes to the door, opening it gently.

“Where are you going?” Oliver asks, somewhere behind him.

“Out,” he answers.

“Out?” he echoes back, reverberating in the room.

“Well, before that, I'm probably gonna take care of the kitchen. But, yes. I have a long-awaited meeting waiting on me.”

“A date?” Oliver says, confusion heavy in his voice.

“What? No,” Ángel answers. “You don't date your ennemies.”

There's a short bout of silence, before Oliver answers:

“...Sure. Who, then?”

“The garden!” he announces with a flourish show of his hands.

Another silence. Longer. God, he can hear the cogs turning in Oliver's head.

“What.”

Ángel lets out an endeared sigh.

“There might be a pressing need to weed out the garden, before Mother Nature decides to rebel against us and take back what is rightfully hers.”

“Oh. An urgent matter indeed. You'll do it now?”

“Right now,” he confirms. “And just like that, you can rest without having me to bother you.”

“You don't bother me.”

“I know, but you still need to rest!”

“It's not fair for you to take care of the garden all by yourself, though. We both live here, I should help,” he weakly protests.

“You just threw up,” Ángel retorts with a bit of indignation, before adding: “And honestly, I don't think I'll do everything all at once. So don't worry about that, okay ?”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” he says, probably too fast to not be suspicious in any way, but he had quickly found out that a lot of things he did was suspicious, for someone like Oliver. Must be the detective work bleeding into his everyday life. “I already planned on doing it anyways,” he clarifies pressingly.

“That's true,” admits the other man after a short pause. “You did mention it a few times...”

“And here I am, having won a true battle of wits that has convinced me to chose today as the day.”

“Did you?” Oliver says, and he smiles with amusement, his head tilting to the side endearingly, as it does sometimes.

“I did, thank you very much!” Ángel confirms with a sly smile, “What, don't you trust me about this? Me?”

Oliver smiles at him, and all is well in the world. Though, Ángel ignores that rush of dopamine—he's gotten very good at that, in the last few months, if he's honest with himself— and pushes on:

“Really, don't you worry your pretty head about this. I'll take care of this. Now rest, would you? It's like you never heard of a vacation, I swear!” he says with false outrage, almost pouting.

Oliver's hand reaches up for his hat, and, failing to find it since it's not on his head, he settles for the next best thing, and instead hides his blushing cheeks under his palm, burying his eyes with it, as well. Ángel jumps on the occasion and jumps ship, letting out a “byee~” in a sing-song voice before gently closing the door behind him. He catches a bit of Oliver flustered complaints nonetheless, and lets out a low giggle in answer, before looking up at the room.

He always hesitated to call it a corridor. A hall, maybe? Like Oliver, he was never big on architecture.

He always gets this impression of scorching heat, in here. Like a hot flush, sometimes so violent it prickles at his skin.

So he raises himself from the door, against which he was slumped on, and leaves the room, going down the stairs—freeing his body from the sensation and fleeing to a kinder air.

***

Ironically, as soon as Ángel opens the door to the garden, he takes the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, and in a gesture so automatic it could be instict, he gets a cigarette out of the pack before putting it between his two lips, and letting his hands bury the pack back in a pocket, and dig a lighter out of another. In a smooth roll of his finger, the lighter gives a spark, and slowly, the cigarette is lit up. He takes a breath in, and puts his lighter away, back in his pocket. The nicotine fills up his lungs.

So much for a kinder air. Well, at least it's being kind right now. Ángel isn't too pressed about the future consequences of this unhealthy relationship with nicotine.

Vivi and Oliver called him an addict. Separately, then together, in the occasions during which theu all hanged out. This may say something about Ángel. Though, he will ignore all the red flags until he's coughing out tar, or blood, or something equivalently worrying.

Even then, maybe it doesn't mean anything! As soon as he put them together in the same room, Ángel realized that Vivi and Oliver get along well. Maybe too well. Maybe for evil, since they don't waste an occasion to gang up against him.

The horror. The betrayal. He is the one who put them together, and together they plan his fall. Is this how Caesar felt? Et tu, Brute?

At least the nicotine won't ever backstab him nor explode in his face in unplanned ways.

Why did he even think that.

Well, it is true. Unless he does something very, very wrong, the cigarette won't do that.

Ángel takes another breath, half-mindedly checks over his cigarette to make sure that it is indeed composed of nicotine and not of something else (which could have explained his thoughts but would have raised many, many other questions), and, once he's sure it is the case, he still decides that that's enough nicotine for now, so he puts the cigarette out against the ashtray left just outside to this effect.

Do not ask him how many ashtrays are scattered around the house's entries, windows or balconies. You don't want to know.

The sun feels warm against his skin. Summer is creeping in closer, stronger each day. The air is heavy with the smell of grass, pollen and a smidge of leftover cigarette smoke.

Ángel looks down upon the mighty garden, and despairs.

It probably could be worse. But it also certainly could have been a whole lot better.

And, well, it makes sense. He doubts the city council did much work regarding the garden; they already didn't do a lot when it comes to the house itself. And apparently, the meeting meant to organize all this museum ordeal never got to happen.

So, really, it makes sense that the garden has been left in total disarray.

Doesn't mean he's happy about it, though!

There's another thing, though.

With each more minute that passes, each more minute he stays standing in front of the door and gazing at the garden, he becomes more and more aware of the fact that he doesn't have any tool on him. Which, if he's being honest with himself, defies the whole point of this endeavor.

He did check over the house a few days ago, but it had slighlty slipped out of his mind. So now, Ángel stares at the overgrown garden, feels like an idiot, and regrets.

Then, he remembers something. He blinks once, his brain biting into the hook of the thought, and turns his head to the right.

Past the fence, there is a path. And, even from here, he can see it, at the end of the path.

A small toolshed.

A toolshed must have some tools laying around in there, right?

Well, only one way to find out!

Ángel pushes his back away from the wall, and walks out of the garden in long, purposeful strides. Going towards the toolshed—his new objective.

***

The toolshed is old, and wooden. It fits with the surrounding woods, that press behind it like a crowd, lining up before Ángel like jewels just under a thin layer of protective glass, during opening night. Yet, unlike jewels, the toolshed doesn't really catch the eye. It simply is... A shed. There seems to be some moss crawling up the lower part of the wall, as if the woods wanted to swallow it all.

The place would have probably been a jewel for any ARG creator, though: with just enough familiarity to it, yet not enough to erase the uncanny edge to it.

He just has to hope that there are some garden tools in there, Ángel thinks, heading to the door. The door stares in silence, and he hears birds somewhere out in the woods.

He pulls down at the handle, and pushes.

The door opens with a creak.

Well, that sure was ominous. Threatening, even.

He takes a careful step forward, and blinks, the darkness of the shed engulfing him. He blinks once more, his eyes growing accustomed to the lack of a decent lighting, and the shadowy figures in front of him solidify, taking a more distinct shape to show the inside of the toolshed as it really is.

It smells like disinfectant in there, as if the room itself was screaming at Ángel that something happened in there. An investigation, that proved that Eugene Coli had been planning to murder all his guests, and something else, that happened before.

Ángel hadn't been that much interested in all the affair to read any report in details or even at all, or ask the police about anything other than the bare minimum. A “bare minimum” that had mainly been considered as such by the police forces themselves, and that they had told him about without any asking on his part. Outside of that, Ángel had talked to the police agents as little as possible. He wasn't one for authority, the law, and even less for police officers. Those were his natural enemies, his “nemesis”, even, to follow Vivi's words (and damn right she was). Honestly, if he had wanted any more information about all this, he would have asked Vivi, if nothing else. She had been obsessed with the case, a few months back, which was honestly understandable. She probably knew even more about it than the police themselves. Actually, scratch that “probably”: it was a certainty. When it came to a story that held her interest, Vivi was like a hound smelling for blood. She would find any scraps, and dig through gutter and mud to get to said scraps if she had to.

Personally, Ángel learned enough to know if he could live inside the House without a huge risk of the police barging in at any given time, and that would have been enough information for him.

Though, an investigation did happen, following Eugene Coli's death. And it is in this very toolshed that they found proof that he had been planning to quite literally hunt them for sport. The investigation explained the smell. Surely they had to wash a bit of everything, or maybe people working for the Four Hills city council had done it. At least, they had to take down and with them everything related to the investigation. When looking at the inside of the toolshed, “everything related to the investigation” seems to have been almost everything inside the toolshed in itself. The room is almost entirely bare. There is a long carpet on the floor, of simple design, its original color most likely lost through time and the amount of dirt and dust that has seeped through it. There are hangers against the right and left wall, but nothing hanging from it. There are boxes lining up against the right wall. Before him, there is an old, wooden table, with nothing laying on it, and an empty wall.

Not a tool in sight.

Ángel sighs dramatically, but figures he should check the boxes, even if he doubts he'll find anything useful there. At the very least, this makes for more time out of the mansion, and therefore more time for Ollie-boy to relax a bit. Despite how much he clings to Ángel 's side—not that he is complaining, he would never dare complain; after all, he tends to do the same. How strange, how they gravitate towards one another. Like magnets, magnetite crystals even, all square and relying on one another, or cobalt—having some alone time seems to help with his health; with people around, he seems to get overwhelmed easily, even if those people are only Ángel. Well, it's not as if he was special. His feelings for the man (which are definitely reciprocated in some way, Ángel isn't blind, and Oliver most definitely isn't either, despite how oblivious he sometimes is) don't magically make him an exception to Oliver's boundaries and don't transform him into a remedy either. So, rummaging in the toolshed it is.

Ángel steps towards the boxes, and bends down a little so that he can open one of them. His knees protest a little, and he can feel a grimace make its way through his face, but, refusing to lose against his age, since he's still a youngster, he powers through it, and fully opens the box.

There's an old cloth that seems to be used as a duster, gardening gloves, a small spade, a rake that is as small as the other tool, and a pair of clippers.

“There you are,” he comments with satisfaction, before pulling down the clippers out of the box to examine them more closely.

They look a bit rusty, but are overall well-kept. After a quick inspection, it seems to be the same for the other tools, and the gloves look a little worn-out, but not so much that they won't protect him from thorns and other threats from Mother Earth. He can only hope that the rust won't be an obstacle to the clippers' main goal, which is cutting things down, but otherwise he seems to be well-set on having the necessary tools to freshen up the garden a little.

Unless they break down on him.

Well, worst case scenario, he only has to go back into town to buy some new tools. It would only take about forty minutes to an hour, with how remote the house is, and how away from everything in the world, even Internet connection, it is.

Well, let's hope this does not happen!

With that, Ángel stands back from the box, and spins around to leave the toolshed, tools in hand. His knees crack slighlty, but he powers through it, he swears, and he's about to grab the door to get out of this depressing toolshed with no sunlight, no joy, no love, when—

When he sees it.

There, both on the wooden floor and on the too-old carpet. He can see it, even through the grime and time. Most likely because it's more recent. A dark stain, maybe slightly smeared over, but still visible, glaring. The color has darkened when faced with time and air, but Ángel has gotten into enough scuffles when he was younger and watched enough trashy TV shows with Vivi to recognize it: blood.

A blood stain, right on the floor of the gardening shed.

His mind goes over a thousand scenarios, each worse than the other, before he forces his mind to settle on something nicer, and more reasonnable, and less headache and existential crisis inducing: maybe the blood belonged to a rabbit. After all, there's a forest around, just behind the toolshed. It could have been good hunting ground. Maybe it still is! Not his style, though. Hunting. Not very poggers, as teens might say.

The word echoes in his mind loud enough to make him cringe slightly, and, in the privacy of the toolshed, he allows it to show on his face. This is almost enough to fully distract him from the very obvious, who-knows-how-old-it-is blood stain on the floor, right at his feet.

Almost.

Did they ever found out if Eugene Coli hurt anyone, in the end? If he hurt anyone before? Were they supposed to be his only victims, or was the deed already done before?

Was he only guilty of planning, or had he already done something terrible?

Do they know for certain? If anything ever did happen?

...Suddenly, Ángel regrets not having asked more about the case to the authorities and forces that were involved.

Maybe he could ask Vivi about it. Maybe he could ask Oliver, something whispers inside of him. Surely the detective could know something, right? He had always seemed quite knowledgable of what had went down that night, even if he didn't talk about it.

They didn't talk about it. Oliver himself rarely mentionned it, and Ángel couldn't see himself bringing up the subject, except for the one time when, emboldened by the drink in his hand, he had asked the detective about if they could consider this a second date, when they had a drink in the bar of the House.

It had mostly been a joke, and with how quickly Oliver had shut down in reaction to this, it had stayed that way, and Ángel hadn't brought it up again. He had apologized, and decided to bury this. Let it rest in the silence between them. It's like air they breath in but don't acknowledge, this evening they apparently shared, quickly, but that he doesn't remember. It would feel awkward, to bring it up again. It's what had made the beginning of their life as roommates slightly awkward, so Ángel does not talk about it. Oliver doesn't either, and seems grateful for Ángel's silence, if anything.

At the very least, Ángel is happy with that, even as he stares down to a stain of blood, whose origin he cannot truly convince himself of.

He swallows down the sickness that had been rising from his stomach, bitter, questioning and overthinking, before opening the door wide, and leaving the toolshed. Immediately, he has to squint, almost closing his eyes against the sudden harshness of the sun on his face. The weather is still fresh enough so that Ángel doesn't have to wear his lighter clothes, and he knows it will ever get as hot as it can get in the Capital, but the sun is still warm and prickling at his skin like needles. The air doesn't have that much thickness to it, the dog days have yet to leave them in a haze, but still, Ángel is grateful for the manor's insulation, which left them snug and warm during the winter, and fresh as of late. He also knows that Oliver is more than grateful for the weather, because he once said that humans aren't supposed to thrive in temperatures over 28°C, and if that isn't a proof of Beeb's terrible, fatal weakness to the summer warmth, Ángel doesn't know what is. He wouldn't last an hour in the Capital. He had told him as much, and Oliver had protested a bit too much for it to ring true.

But even if the warmth is bearable for now, Ángel doesn't doubt its capacity to become at least a tiny bit more hellish fast, as the summer progresses. It wouldn't surprise him if they reached higher temperatures: with climate change, he isn't sure how predictable the weather can be here.

But he also doesn't doubt his capacity to survive a weather around 35°C. He's been through way worse.

Although, if Ángel has to be honest, he also doesn't doubt the warmth's ability to become suffocating in the matter of a few hours, or even of a few minutes, if he starts to weed out the garden right now, so soon after midday. Maybe not his most glamorous idea, to start at this hour. In his defence, he had slept in after their movie night. He would have also probably slept in regardless. He had no imperative for today, and Oliver never makes that much noise, except when he gets too groovy with the vinyl record player. Though, this only tends to happen in the evenings. Ángel has also learned to not let his door open, even a tiny little bit, so that Mozilla Firefox doesn't barge in at mysterious hours, whenever he gets the zoomies: now that he has learnt that lesson the hard way, there are no obstacles to his lie-ins, except for his adult obligations. Which he does not have today, except if the self-imposed goal of taking care of the garden counts.

Though, if it's self-imposed, does he really have to do this right now?

No, that's Mini-Vivi whispering things in his ear. Things about procrastination not being a thing and the garden being manageable right now, so it can wait. As much as Ángel adores Vivi and would give his life to her, he cannot really allow himself a last minute cramming session with a freaking garden. This isn't college.

Not that college had been the best environnement for either of them, since they spent three years relying solely on their luck and their Charisma stat, as well as their ability to chug down several energy drinks and shrug off a few sleepless nights for an exam or an essay.

Even then. Even if Ángel wanted to procrastinate, to go back inside the house, and talk to Oliver, he can't.

Because Oliver felt terrible this morning, and was still queasy at lunch. He didn't eat much of anything. And Ángel saw these eyebags. They're bad. He has always known Oliver with shadows under his eyes—this seemed to be a constant of his state of being—, so he should be used to it by now, but today's eyebags are particularly bad. 0 out of 10 bad.

Plus, even if Ángel has always known Oliver with eyebags, some part of him is convinced that he would look much, much better without them. Like some kind of intuitive knowledge. On some people, eyebags add some kind of charm. Oliver Beebo is not one of these people.

Ángel wants him to be healthy, not exhausted at all time. Eyebags don't reflect a full night of rest.

So Ángel wants him to have some time alone. He always seems to feel better afterwards. Plus, if he came back after doing nothing, he would be faced with the Ollie Face of Disappointment, which he does not want to face right now, nor ever, thank you very much. He has only seen it a few times during these few months of cohabitation, and each time, even if it was generally during a lighthearted moment, Ángel felt the immediate desire to apologize, and go back in time to undo his mistakes.

This, of course, is a totally normal reaction for a 30 years old man. Not a sign of pining at all. Nuh uh.

So no. Ángel is going to take care of this overgrown garden and weed it out, even if only a tiny bit. He's getting some fresh air, the sun will be good for his skin, and Oliver can get some well deserved rest. A win-win situation.

Ángel puts on the gardening gloves, and eyes the path he has to take to go back to the confides of the house, and its garden. Honestly, it's such a bizarre choice to put the gardening shed that far away from the garden itself, and even that far away from the house. Yes, it's only a five minutes long walk, but still! He's not that much of an architecture enthusiast (you can't really steal an entire house, at least not without fraud involved, and it's not as adrenaline-inducing than other, more interesting occupations), but even he can see that this is bad design. The shed is not that ugly. It did not deserve such exclusion.

Still, he has a mission to accomplish. So Ángel grabs the tools, sighs slightly as he struggles to balance the weight in his arms, and goes down the path, to the garden, humming a tune.

***

Turns out the warmth does get suffocating. Congrats to him for being right! The prize? Being sweaty. Especially his back. Oh God his back is so sweaty from bending down to take the weeds off the ground and his knees hurt a bit. Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing lied. Gardening hurts.

At least he did get a big amount of weeds out of the garden. The flowers in the planters—well, what he guesses to be flowers, but who knows! Mystery planters. He likes the idea—can finally breathe a little, have a little more space. So that's great! No weed shall get past him, his spade, his rake and his hands.

His hands hurt. At least the gloves helped. He still wants to wash his hands, though.

A sudden thought enters his mind.

“Take care of yourself, wash your hands.”

Yeah, he intends to do that. Thank you, framed crossed stitch in his hall. He appreciates this.

Ángel takes a good look at the garden, and feels himself smile at a job well-done. Far from perfect, sure, but Ángel has never been a perfectionist. The garden feels more organized, more lived in, without him having butchered through the lawn or planters. This has been a successful gardening session, though he isn't sure how long this took him.

Actually, no. He doesn't know at all how long this took him: he just knows that it's been long enough for him to be craving a cigarette, which could mean that it's been ten minutes or an hour. Ángel raises his head to the sky, trying to figure it out from the sun's position in the sky. He stares. Stares. Blinks, and pulls a face, sharp pain drilling in his eyes, as he glances down to the ground, little shapes and lights dancing in his field of vision. He grumbles jokingly about the summer sun being too dashing, and rub at his eyes for a few seconds, waiting for his vision to get back to normal. Then, he raises his head back slightly, hesitating, before fully admitting defeat. He isn't able the hour by the sun's position in the sky, sue him.

Actually, don't. He isn't a CEO anymore, he's not sure he can afford it.

He sighs a bit, before pulling out his phone out of his pocket. Luckily, the signal does get a bit better when it's not snowing. As soon as he turns the phone on, he is greeted by his phone background, around 30 notifications from Vivi and Vivi only, and, what he sought for : the time. It's around 4 pm.

Huh. Turns out this did take some time.

Which means that it's time for a well-deserved break! And to rot in the couch of the living room for a little bit. Just a tiny bit. From 10 minutes to two hours, probably.

Ángel puts his phone back into his pocket, then looks down at the different tools spread on the ground around him. He lets out a long-suffering sigh, but still bends back down to grab them, before turning around, ready for the five-minutes long walk to the gardening shed. Only him, his gardening tools, and the sun boring a hole in his back. A sweaty one.

And so he walks, and gets back to the shed. He pushes the door open, and goes straight to the boxes —narrowingly avoiding stumbling and crashing onto the floor while doing so—to put the tools back in one of them.

At the same time, he keeps his eyes firmly pinned to the box in front of him, like he used to do for jewels, at the time. This sure isn't a jewel, but...

Ángel doesn't want to see the blood stain on the floor again. Doesn't want to think about it, and its implications, because as much as he's good at lying to others, he's never been good at lying to himself.

The implications chill him to the bone, despite the heat. So no, he won't look at it.

Instead, Ángel takes off the gloves and throws them back in the box, right where he just threw the tools with a clanking noise. He raises back to his feet, turns around, and leaves the shed as fast as he can without fully running to the door, to keep a tiny bit of his dignity intact. He closes the door behind him, and almost feels like thanking the sun on his back.

A slight breeze greats him, and carries with it the smell of dirt and grass. Ángel stares at the path ahead of him.

As much as he wants to be swallowed by the couch, the ordeal of walking back to the house, only him against the sun, feels like a tremendous trial.

He glances on the side.

The shadows of the trees feels way, way more appealing right now.

How long does the edge of the woods even stretch, anyways?

He cannot help but feel some intrigue. A curiosity that always sits inside his chest, comfortably nested. The need to assess the situation, risks and rewards.

Also, he craves some shade. Please. He is so sweaty.

So really, Ángel doesn't need much more to go left, following the trail of the trees. His gaze passes along them, and as he forgets to even blink, the colors and shapes mash together, into a green haze, the trees closest to him and a more distant foliage melting unto one another.

Then, as he walks a bit further, Ángel does blink, and a tree solidifies beneath his eyes. Its trunk stares back at him, along with the carving on it.

Wait, what?

Ángel blinks again, and fully focuses back into reality, his eyes latching into the writing like a lifeline, astonishement ringing in his ears —or maybe it is simply just his heartbeat—.

On the trunk, there are two letters and one symbol, carved inside a heart:

Á + O

Ángel stares. He feels a weight against his thigh, a small knife that he usually forget about, its presence familiar like that of his clothes or of the curls of his hair against the nape of his neck. Now, his skin itches where the knife rests, put inside one of his pants' pocket, by pure habit: his entire body now screams at its presence.

Silently, he takes the knife out of his pocket, and unfolds it. It glints slightly under the sun's light. Its length is unblemished. It has been ages since Ángel used it, if he had to be honest. He now carries it more by habit than for a real desire for safety. It's a familiar object. A loyal friend. Never once has it failed him.

… Right?

Despite how little he has used it as of late, never once has Ángel thought about not carrying the knife with him. He knows that Oliver is aware of it, because he once asked for it, to open an old box. Ángel had passed it to him, and as he had watched the man open the box in a swift, dexterous motion, he had teasingly commented on his detective skills, since he had noticed that Ángel had been carrying the object around in the first place.

Oliver had jostled a bit under the attention, chuckled, and blushed. It had been fun.

The knife had never seemed to bother Oliver, so Ángel hadn't seen much interest in not carrying it, even in this new, idyllic place—even in a new home.

It still feels reassuring, whether in his pocket or, as of right now, in his hand. The weight of it is familiar, the way its wooden handle fits into his hand, angles smoothed away by time and nesting themselves into the creases of his palm and the bend of his fingers. He could describe its blade for well about ten minutes, with all the dramatics fit for it, and its past as Dominion's trusty weapon (used in self-defense only).

He knows how it can carve through surfaces, not always efficently, but still.

Most of all, Ángel has engraved enough trees in his teenage years to recognize his own writing on a tree trunk.

His own writing. Someplace he has never been to until now, until this very afternoon. On a tree like any other, one whose foliage he has never been under, until now.

Numbly, Ángel raises the hand holding the knife, pointing with its blade to the first letter, the “Á”. Barely brushing against the bark, he slowly, carefully traces the letter, following the already-existing trail carved into the trunk.

A part of him intimately knows that even without this past outline, he would have written the letter the exact same way. Still, he marks down the accent, and does the same thing for the “+”, and then the “O”. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he does the same for the heart that circles the letter, with all its sharp angles.

It's difficult, to carve letters into plain bark, without smoothing out the material in any way. Like with gems and jewelry. If you don't prepare the wood for the carving, the writing is doomed to be a bit messy, to lose a bit of its smoothness, despite how neat your writing is, or how many times you already did this.

Ángel wouldn't even be able to tell how many times he did this, as rebellion, as signalling, or simply for fun.

But he still is sound enough to know where he did this, and in which context.

This, here? This engraving in the wood? This isn't possible.

This isn't possible.

Something is wrong.

The carving into the trunk—this is him. He did this. This was him.

How?

He cannot have done this.

He could not have done this.

A voice startles him out of his spiraling thoughts.

“Ángel?”

Ángel turns back on himself, to face the house, which is far away behind him.

He looks back at his home, at Oliver standing over there, a few steps before him, from where he just called up to him, looking less dishevelled than him, if not for how slightly out of breath he seems to be.

Summer has only started recently, so Ángel hasn't really gotten used to how his roommate look during the warmer months. Though, he had enough time, from the later weeks of spring to the birth of summer days, to get more accustomed to the light, linen shirt that Oliver keeps atop of his shoulders, left open, allowing Ángel to see the white t-shirt underneath, t-shirt which he knows— thanks to seeing Oliver rolling up, at times the sleeves of his shirt—has short sleeves, leaving his arms naked. This, he expects to see, as well as the well-worn, familiar, loved shape of the hat on top of his head, protecting him from the rain, the sun and other people's gazes.

Though, it doesn't always do its job as well as it should. As it is, with Ángel still half-bent over the tree trunk, he can see his roommate's–—his friend's—expression.

Oliver honestly has a great pokerface. His neutral expression iswell—neutral. It doesn't say much. But he can also get really expressive really fast, under the right circumstances. It's been one of Ángel's favorite games, during this cohabitation/whatever-else-is-happening that they have going on. Especially when it ends up with Oliver smiling, or blushing. He also has seen it twist in discomfort or pain, due to his bouts of illness. He has seen Oliver's face pale and his eyes wide and glazed over, as if watching something amidst a haze, more often than he would have liked.

This... This isn't it.

Oliver looks apprehensive. Almost scared.

Then, as soon as Ángel meets his gaze head on, his eyes skid to the side, and something like relief crosses his face, his entire body relaxing from what must have been a quick walk, on the verge of running, if the thin layer of sweat on his face and the shortness of his breath tell him anything. He would have probably heard him coming if he had been more aware of his surroundings.

A slight silence surrounds them, before Ángel gets ahold of himself and calls back, snapping out of whatever... Trance? Deep thoughts? He was lost in.

“Hey, Beebs!” he says enthusiastically.

Or, well, he tries for enthusiasm. From Oliver's slight frown, he isn't sure he managed it.

“Are... Are you alright?” he asks carefully.

“Oh? Yeah, yeah, perfectly! Been doing great, thank you! Why, you were worried about me?” he answers, ending on a teasing note.

“I couldn't see you through the window,” Oliver says as an explanation.

This also confirms that he was indeed worrying, which makes Ángel's stomach do something funny, and creates a fuzzy sensation in his chest, a sensation that he doesn't even bother to analyse or interpret, with how familiar it has become. Still, he cherishes the sensation, tries to hide at least a tiny bit how that makes him feel, and tries to come up with another line to tease him with, then—

“What are you doing with your knife?”

Oh, crap.

Ángel glances down to his knife, which he is still loosely holding in his hand. He corrects his handling, because he isn't keen on losing his finger, actually, and then decides to put it away, folding the blade back in its handle. He makes a move to put it back in his pocket, before freezing upon hearing Oliver's voice, once more, this time with a more tensed edge to it:

“Ángel.”

The knife stays, folded, in Ángel's hand. He looks back at Oliver, at his knife, and then at the tree, for a second, barely more, before he decides to rise back to his feet, ignoring the groan of his muscles as he does so. He must have stayed like this longer than he thought.

What time is it? He can't tell.

“I was just... Checking if it was rusty!” he says, he lies, with a smile on his face.

Oliver's brows furrow, his confusion all the more evident on his face. There's two ways this can go: his friend decides to place this as another weird thing that Ángel does, and doesn't question it any further than that, or, if Oliver has any knowledge when it comes to pocketknives, he'll start correcting him on how one should take care correctly of those.

So, of course, as this conclusion draws itself in Ángel's mind, Detective Oliver Beebo decides to take a third road, that he hadn't considered at all.

His gaze slides over, then locks into the tree, and his brows furrow even more, as of trying to make sense of what is in front of him.

Honestly, that's what Ángel has been trying to do for the last who-knows-how-long minutes. Still, he resists the urge to look back at the carving, because it would make it more real, solid, and not just a sun-induced hallucination, but also because he feels strangely... Embarrassed. Even if he didn't write this.

Even if he doesn't remember writing this.

So it can't have happened.

Even if it would seem like the type of thing he would do. But he didn't. So he has no reason to feel embarrassed!

So Ángel resists the strong, almost childish urge to look back at the trunk, or even throw himself in the middle of Oliver's line of vision to prevent him from seeing the carving. He is an adult and can deal with this situation as an adult. For sure.

Though, as soon as he wins this internal battle against his own instinct, he catches a glance of Oliver's face. Oliver, who is still seemingly staring at the carving (Ángel can't really tell, since he just won a battle of wits against his own self so that he doesn't look back at the carving, even if it's to follow his friend's gaze). Oliver, whose eyes are wide, whose mouth is slightly open, slightly agape. Surprised. Shocked.

Scared.

Again.

… Why?

No, nevermind. That was a dumb observation. Who wouldn't be a little scared, confronted with something that doesn't make any sense ? Ángel rationalizes. Especially since, as much as he doesn't really believe in the supernatural, as much as Ángel doesn't necessarily think there is a supernatural explanation behind this (even if the alternative feels scarier), he knows Oliver. He knows that he has a difficult relationship with anything that's out of the ordinary. Anything out of the field of rationality and logic. A complex relationship, as the detective himself had once put it.

That would explain why he looks scared, at least a tiny bit.

Ángel looks at him. Still the same look on his face, staring at the carving, almost contemplative, hazy, somewhere else.

Haunted, he looks haunted. And is still hasn't said anything, hasn't outwardly reacted in any way, which makes something akin to panic churn in Ángel's stomach.

“Oliver?” he asks softly, apprehensively.

He startles in answer, as if waking up with a start, and his focus goes back to Ángel, still avoiding eye contact, by mere reflex. Ángel lets him, but still searches his face, to see something, anything, that gives off his thoughts. Oliver has a tendency to share his observations aloud. Usually, he would have expected him to immediately jump into detective mode, he would even have been happy, giddy, and relieved for it. It would have been a return to something normal, to something beloved, but also would have given him the conviction that with Oliver's help, they would be able to figure it all out, to understand the why and how of this carving (he stubbornly refuses to call it his carving, even in the privacy of his own mind).

But Oliver says nothing. A short moment passes, and :

“Ángel,” he calls back, almost briskly, but not really snappy.

More like he settled on the most logical answer, after biting back what he originally meant to say. Ángel saw the way he opened his mouth, paused a second, and closed it, just before trying again and answering.

He looks at him a second, balancing the cons and pros of confronting him directly, and finally :

“Are you okay?”

Pushing forwards softly. Like a dance they don't know the steps to.

Ángel doesn't know the steps.

“I'm...”

Oliver's voice trails off, and this, more than anything, scares Ángel. While he isn't always honest about how he feels, Oliver always gives an answer, no matter how unconvincing it can be, no matter how much he is straight up just lying to him (Ángel cannot blame him for this. They are the same, in that matter. Still, hypocritically, it frustrates him, it... Why can't he just be enough for Oliver to be comfortable ?).

Here, the man doesn't even seem to know how to answer.

This is bad. This is really bad.

It gets even more bad when Oliver seems to settle on something much, much more dangerous:

“How?”

Though, contrary to any other time he has asked a question, this is different. Oliver's tone isn't perceptive, or suspicious, or focused, or even curious.

He sounds dumb-founded. Confused in a way that prevents any attempt on his part to understand what is happening before his eyes.

Ángel glances down, and sees Oliver's hands do this thing that they always do when he's nervous to the point of not knowing what to do with them, despite his desire to stay composed. Clenching into little fists, before quickly shaking themselves out of the gesture, as if struck by lighting. The very foundation of the man seems to be rattled, but only his hands are moving: like a house against a storm, only the open windows are slamming about.

Ángel can see fear all over him, still. It's contagious: he can sense it filling his lungs, grasping at his muscles to freeze them over. Though, in Ángel's case, it's much, much more selfish. Because Oliver is scared, and Ángel had been, too, seemingly forever ago, when he had first discovered the carving. He had been scared, because it didn't make sense, because he wasn't the one to do this.

But now Ángel is only scared of one thing: he is scared of how much it looks like he's been caught red-handed.

The crime: a carving with initials that cannot be a coincidence, not with the accent of the “A”, surrounded by a heart like a puddle of blood.

The murder weapon: a pocketknife, like the one he is currently holding in his hand, the one he always has on him. Oliver is aware of this fact. And while he hadn't seemed very concerned about that fact before, he remembers the edge in the man's voice when he had tried hiding it back in his pocket.

The criminal: all clues point to him, Ángel Valdivia, past owner of Seraphim Industries and Eugene Coli's company, retired but unmasked Dominion, roommate of Private Detective Oliver Beebo.

And said detective looks scared, and Ángel had been scared before, but now, his fear seems utterly absurd, in the face of this: Oliver might be scared of him.

Ángel doesn't think he could live like this.

And so:

“It's not what you think it is,” Ángel yelps out, feeling both panicked and weirdly defensive, so much that he is pretty close to raising his hands in a placating gesture, as if he was about to get arrested, which never happened to him, thank you very much.

So why does this feel familiar?

…No, it doesn't.

Ángel continues speaking nonetheless: the silence feels too loud, heavy, choking him down like heat and smoke. Somewhere inside his head, he is aware of drowning, aware that he doesn't need to go to such lengths to justify himself: there is nothing to justify, there cannot have. Yet, he speaks:

“I mean, I don't know what this is! I just found it here, I wouldn't ever do this— Well, I mean, I might, but not like this, I'm not— I'm not creepy, haha. Please don't think I'm creepy,” he ends up saying in a faint, almost small, sheepish voice.

Please don't be scared of me. Please don't hate me. Don't leave, is the unspoken meaning, is what Ángel cannot get out of his throat, no matter how much it is needed: it always stays stuck as a lump in his throat.

What he means by this is: I would do it, if you asked me to do so. I would do it one, two, three, four, five times, again and again, if you wanted me to. But not like this, never like this. First, I would have asked. I'll wait. Please. I'll give you time.

Oliver doesn't question him, doesn't ask anything. His face doesn't even scrunch up in the way it does—sometimes a bit scarily—when he doesn't believe someone, when he suspects them.

There isn't a detective in front of Ángel. Only Oliver, looking...

Looking, for a lack of a better word, haunted still.

“Oliver?” he calls again, as a sharp, brutal, warm gush of wind rises, so surprising that it almost seems to shake the house's figure, a few minutes from here, as much as it shakes Oliver, and his open shirt, and his hair, and his hat.

For a second, Ángel fears that the wind might have prevented Oliver from hearing him, but then:

“I—”

His mouth moves, but no word comes out of it. Wind is whistling in Ángel's ears, trying to free his hair and clothes from the dampness of his body. He doesn't move from his crouching position. The wind doesn't erode his foundations.

Oliver's face is so pale that it seems pristine. The brown of his eyes are two small windows from which he is unable to scream.

He looks like he's about to be sick, again.

Ángel rises to both of his feet, hands on his knees for support. The wooden handle of the knife digs at his calve. He ignores the sensation, and takes a careful step towards his friend.

“Oliver.”

“...Yes. That's me.”

“That's you indeed,” he answers with a little smile. Oliver's hands jolt. Ángel takes another careful step forward. Ever so slowly, he is filling the gap.

“Why?” mutters Oliver, and this makes Ángel pause again.

He feels the presence of the tree behind him, pressing on his back like a knife against his throat, a flash against his eyes. He forces himself not to turn and look, less he sees the carving.

Ignoring crime, murder weapon and culprit, overlooking it all to settle on the motive. Acting like this is unlike Oliver. It makes something under Ángel's skin crawl like bugs. He doesn't want to have to answer this question.

He takes one more step forward. Oliver lets him. He feels almost unseen.

Suddenly, Ángel wonders if the question was even destined to him. But to who else? Who, in their right mind, wouldn't ask questions? Who wouldn't press Ángel, suspicious and guilty Ángel, for answers?

Oliver doesn't. And this is so unlike him, and he seems like he's falling apart right in front of Ángel, the folds of his clothes crumpled like a star in the beginning of implosion. And so Ángel, selfishly, walks one more step forward, stopping right in front of Oliver, and says, lies:

“Um... You can... Ask me at the bar?”

He wasn't the one to do this, but he can still pretend like they can have answers. And so he tries for a smile. He tries to be lighthearted, despite the weight of the sun and incomprehension and worry on his shoulders. He tries to be dumbly flirtatious, if only for Oliver to offer him a smile.

It seems to work, in that Oliver seems to snap out of it. He blinks, and seems pulled out of a haze. From this close, Ángel can see sweat glistening along his jaw. He's still short of breath. He seems on the verge of a tiny panic attack. Ángel understands the feeling. Nonetheless, he guts out the selfish fear in him that tells him he is the cause of such reaction, because Oliver would be right to react like this. He could not blame him for it. Ángel cares about him nonetheless. He wants to help, nonetheless. Unless Oliver tells him to leave him alone.

Oliver does not say anything. He looks back at him, eyes wide, before his gaze settles down somewhere on the grass, at their feet. A nervous sound makes its way through his voice, but his expression is now hidden by the brim of his hat. But Oliver doesn't say anything, doesn't say no, and so:

“Come on Detective, let's figure this out inside,” he says, hands hesitantly reaching for Oliver's own, his voice low enough for the woods to not be privy to his words. “It's hot as hell, and not in a good way. I need some water.”

And Oliver does, too. That he doesn't say.

The man nods, and accepts his offer, two hands clasping with his. They're clammy and slightly shaky. Ángel does not comment on that fact. The contact is enough for Oliver to feel a tiny bit more real, for him to seem a little bit less frightened, and so that is enough. Ángel has learned long ago to gracefully accept his wins and his losses, and make the best of both. It comes with the contrasting mix of greed, addiction to adrenaline, love of life and freedom. It also comes with a lot, lot of failures and a wounded ego that would not have survived if he had adapted.

Therefore Ángel smiles at Oliver, as reassuring as he can despite the most probably dishevelled look of his face and the fear drumming in his veins, and squeezes one of Oliver's hands in his own, before letting go of it. Then, he starts walking back towards the house, and Oliver follows, their linked hands a lifeline.

The knife is back in Ángel's pocket. Its weight encourages him to turn back. He doesn't.

***

When they arrive near the house, Ángel doesn't comment on the garden, even jokingly. Oliver does not, as well. Ángel doesn't dare to steal a glance at what his expression might be, but he has a suspicion that Oliver hasn't even noticed the changes. He is stuck on what they have both seen on the tree.

Ángel tries to focus on what he can manage, what he can do, rather than think, question and spiral. Anything for Oliver. If that means ignoring the garden, ignoring the pull of his tired muscles, ignoring the blood in the toolshed and the carving on the tree, ignoring the urge to smoke that is pulsing in his throat, so be it.

They walk through the garden, and before Ángel even pulls the handle of the backdoor, it opens a smidge. Oliver probably hadn't closed it in his haste. Ángel pushes it with a hand so that it opens fully, and enters his home.

He feels Oliver's hand shudder in his own. He turns around in one rushed movement, worry humming in his body.

“Beebs?”

“I'm fine,” he says almost at the very same time, anticipating the question.

God, he's such a shitty liar. But he looks so, so miserable about it, this close to a breakdown, and Ángel doesn't want that.

So, Ángel forces a small smile on his face and says:

“Okay.”

They don't go to the bar, because Ángel is a liar who worries about another liar of a roommate. So instead, they go to the kitchen. The trip is a clumsy, awkward thing, neither of them being at the top of their shape. Still, Ángel doesn't let go of his hand. Oliver's hold on his hand is just as strong. It's only when Ángel has to get glasses from the shelves that he lets go, reluctantly so. Oliver sits on a chair that is conveniently resting in a corner of the room (Ángel was the one to put it here and he has no shame about it. Walkable cities have lots of benches so walkable manors should have many chairs, it's only fair).

For a moment, only the sound of tap water filling one, two glasses, and Oliver's wheezing breath fill the air.

Ángel gives one of the glasses to Oliver. This makes the man raise his head slightly, just enough so that Ángel can see his eyes under the mop of brown hair. Oliver avoids his eyes, but his acknowledgement is enough to tame some of the anxiety crawling in Ángel's guts. So is the small smile and “thank you” that are addressed to him when Oliver takes the offered glass. Ángel looks at him when he starts to drink, before grabbing his own glass and leaning against the kitchen counter.

He looks at the water, and swirls it around a little. It swirls, and Ángel feels like the inferno nesting on his shoulders is retreating, if only a little bit. He takes a sip, and feels less like he is burning alive from the heat.

What about his thoughts, you say? Well he is trying to bury those down in that little corner of his brain annotated “for later or never”, which is, of course, a very healthy way to deal with stuff! Family heritage, thank you, he got it from his mother!

Ángel is trying to not think of what just happened. Because it doesn't make sense, and there is something deeply wrong with this carving, with its very existence, and he feels as if the wrongness of it is seeping into everything around him. The sense of wrongness sticks like a disease, contaminating his every thoughts, the house that he loves and the man that he—

Oliver is clearly not doing okay, either.

And while Ángel has never seen Oliver be fully healthy, free from what he seems to carry around like his life depends on it, there have been good moments, nonetheless. This is not one of them. This might actually be a new low.

Any person would be terrified in this scenario. Because the unknown is scary. But most of all, what Ángel had done—yet he didn't, he hasn't done anything, how did the carving appear if it wasn't him, because it was him, his writing his knife their initials— would have been scary for anyone. Because it makes it seem as if Ángel is a creep.

But Oliver held his hand. Oliver smiled when he gave him a glass of water. Oliver hasn't worded one reproach in his direction.

Ángel hates how relieved he is about that.

He hates how this does not make any ounce of sense.

But Oliver looked terrified. Still do, really. And Ángel is scared, scared—

Of Oliver leaving.

Of the carving, that does not make any sense.

He told Oliver they would figure this out together.

He steals a glance in Oliver's direction. The man is staring at his now empty glass. He still looks pale.

He doesn't think Oliver wants to figure it out, which is... Weird. Wrong.

But Ángel is willing to turn a blind eye to this, if it means that Oliver can get better. That he can be comfortable. That he can be happy.

This seems like the best way.

Ángel closes his eyes and puts his glass against his forehead, before slowly breathing in. Air fills his lungs and buries his worries deeper, low in his guts, somewhere where he cannot access them so easily. He keeps the thoughts under lock and key, and throws said key away. The coolness of the glass clears the mess under his skull.

This is the best way. Yeah, it's for the better.

He'd do it for him.

Ángel puts the glass down on the kitchen counter, and straightens himself.

“Well, I'm beat! Wanna get something to eat? We've got some of those snacks from that last grocery shopping trip, right? Do you want me to grab you something, Ollie? I think the little tart things are still good, or maybe something with chocolate in—”

“Ángel.”

Ángel stops talking. He turns away from the shelves he had started to go through, mechanically, to busy his hands. Instead, he looks at Oliver.

Oliver Beebo, private detective, solver of puzzles, roommate, friend, beloved, looks at him. He has not risen from the chair. His hands hold the empty glass a bit too tightly, like it's something precious (it's not, he checked the value of the dishes when arriving here). Like it's a lifeline, maybe.

Oliver looks at him, his brows furrowed in... Something. Ángel cannot tell what it is he's thinking. There are too many feelings, too many conflicting emotions on his face.

But he is looking at him, gaze as sharp and pinpoint as a knife.

“I...”

His voice protests, and he takes a struggling breath. Ángel forces himself to not move, to not rush in his direction. Oliver tries again:

“I need to tell you something.”