Chapter Text
Soleil and Atlas found college bemusing. They were a bit late coming into the lifestyle but being childhood friends had kept them close in most aspects of life, including this one. One wouldn’t go somewhere without the other, so they waited until they were both ready and available for college. Neither would lie, college wasn’t high on either of their lists of things to do, but after countless recommendations, they seemed to cave and take the bait. High school was hard enough for the two. They unfortunately found college to be not much better.
Soleil was unusually tall and gangly, with unkempt, medium to short, fluffy curled blonde locks that shot out from every which direction on his head and hundreds of small sun-spotted freckles covering his lightly tanned face and body. He had a tooth gap that sat wide and proud in the middle of his smile and an awkward tic about him that made it so standing still was near impossible. His bright blue eyes were often between anxious and excited as finding an in between was a difficult task. Even while going between the two states, it was hard to find a time when a smile wasn’t present on his face out of habit. He wore an array of bright fun colors and dressed in exciting yet proper clothes most of the time. If anything, he loved to fall back on his favorite outfit of a white long-sleeved button down with the sleeves often rolled up, a pair of bright suspenders, a colored pair of trousers, and a matching fun bowtie with dark plain shoes, so they didn’t clash. He often wore a comb-like headband to keep his hair off his face, but it seemed to make his hair a little more fluffy and wild.
Atlas may not have been as tall as Soleil’s impossible height, but he was sure close when he wasn’t slouched over and just as lanky besides the bit of build he had near his upper chest and biceps to show he had a little more obvious strength than his friend. He had longer, dark midnight black hair that was often tied back in a low ponytail and covered at the top by a dark beanie. He had always-watching dark brown eyes that often went from black to bits of brown in the light. The biggest visual difference from his ray of sun tag-a-long was his darker complexion covered with large splotches of white, ghostly skin. Vitiligo is what the doctors had told him is what he had. The most noticeable bit covered half his face, making a near crescent on it which felt very fitting to his name. His teeth came to obvious points at his canines which sometimes made his smile a little unsettling. Then again, his presence was often described as unsettling. Atlas didn’t dress much like Soleil. He preferred a darker, comfier selection of clothes. Large hoodies and plain yet nice, dark wash jeans with a simple pair of sneakers to match. What he wore under the hoodie seemed to depend. Some days it was a nice button down like Soleil loved to convince him to wear, other days it was a simple t-shirt from his collection. If he had his way, he’d wear pajama pants and slippers out most days, but Soleil always kept him from living out that kind of life.
They were not up to conventional attraction standards, and their mannerisms and actions were strange to most. Their strange relationship with each other often caused confusion as well seeing as “best friends” didn’t quite describe their closeness and “friends with benefits” was something Soleil would never admit to as he would say Atlas was more to him than that, but they’d never admit to dating. For some reason, many had to make that all known to them. At first it was hurtful. They didn’t take it well and became obviously upset by it, especially Soleil. But slowly it just became annoying. They knew how they looked and acted; they didn’t need reminders. Until one day, it just became horrifically unbearable to their overwhelmed minds. It was like something snapped in their brains and they sat thinking of ways to fix these crimes against them and others like them. People were cruel. People needed punishments. People needed to learn.
That is, all people but ones like you. You, in fact, were a star example in their minds. You were helpful and kind and some sort of lesser-known angel that often came out of the woodworks when they were in need. They never knew how you knew they needed you, but you did. And you always came to their rescue through the year of college they spent getting to know you. You were two years above them, but with their late start it made it so that you were about the same age. They also were particularly smart, letting them easily skip a few courses to reach the harder ones that you were in. You were nothing compared to the dirt that walked around you. When they snapped, they came up with how to fix everything. Punish the cruel and unjust, save the kind and merciful. Never hurt you. Even if you somehow got in the way, they couldn’t hurt you. You were so nice to them from day one. To hurt you would be a crime they couldn’t afford to commit, and Soleil made this law. They would try to keep other innocents out of the falling if they could, but none were as important as you.
It was time for the troublemakers to get a dose of their own medicine tenfold and a small house party coming up that they heard one of their main bullies talking about with a few of their cruel friends attending would be the perfect opportunity to set things in motion. It would be small enough for the two to manage while also being the perfect opening to their show. They were among the cruelest at their school. People should get the idea. They got their disguises ready, something fun and clever. People laughed at them, so why not dress up as jesters? Clowns that would get the last laugh. Code names Sun and Moon. Quite fitting for both of them. They created matching costumes with masks they altered and painted to look like a bright shining sun and a phase of the moon. The night of the party, they hooded up, put on their gloves and boots, and dressed in their characters before grabbing their weapons of choice. Guns were so unclassy, neither one would use one if they could avoid it, but a machete and an axe with knives as backups seemed just perfect for them. They had no time to waste. They were late for a party.
It was getting late, just before ten at night when Sun and Moon approached the house. The fun must have just been getting started. The group had to at least have been tipsy by this point if not well drunk enough. Drunk college kids would be so easy to play with.
“There should be a back door, too. Do you want to distract first, or do you want me to?” Sun said while twirling his machete in his one hand off to the side in front of the house.
Moon leaned forward on his axe as he thought for a moment before nodding and swinging it up on his shoulder to start walking to the back of the house, “You go ahead, Sunny boy. You’re nicer to look at than me.”
Sun huffed, “I don’t agree with that statement, mister! But I suppose I can distract first!”
Sun gave Moon enough time to reach the side of the house before approaching the door and starting to knock.
-
Inside, things were heating up between the five friends as they finished off their fourth round of shots and kept their main drinks of choice close to wash them down with. Alcohol on top of alcohol was bringing them up right stupid at this point. A couple of the group had noticed they ran out of their drinks and decided to go to the kitchen in the back to grab more. They quickly started flirting in the empty kitchen, before one was brought up to sit on the counter as her lover started to kiss her sloppily to which she happily returned by wrapping her arms around him as they made out in their somewhat private area.
The rest of the group continued messing around in the main room, laughing and chatting while listening to loud shitty music that helped them to feel like it was their own little party. A clear knock on the door had Misty, the main roommate of the house, turning her head to look out of the main room into the living room where the front door was located. She waited a moment to see if she’d hear it again before confirming the knock and starting to get up to go check it.
“Which one of you assholes invited another person?” She said as she slightly stumbled enough to have her boyfriend catch her and put her back on her feet so she could walk out of the room.
“Not it!” The two leftover people said as they put a finger to each of their noses.
Misty rolled her eyes as she left the main room with a mumbled, “Liars,” before walking over to the door.
She moved the curtain to look out the doors side window to see a large man in a sun themed jester costume. She looked at him confused for a moment before shouting back to her friends.
“Hey, who ordered the creepy clown?”
“I don’t know. Does he have booze?” The one responded before Misty looked back out the window to confirm.
“No,” she said with annoyance, “But he does have something behind his back. He’s just standing there. What do I do?”
Her boyfriend spoke up, “Well, tell the guy he has the wrong house and shut the door on him.”
Misty groaned before opening the door to look up at the guy. He was really tall now that she had the door open to look at him.
“Hey, I think you have the wrong house, man. We didn’t order a freaky clown, so move along or something,” she told him while getting a little uncomfortable at his silent but persistent gaze at her.
She couldn’t see anything behind his large mask with the way the dark seemed to cloud in front of him while the lights lit up behind him. She could barely make out the shines of his eyes in the eyeholes looking down at her. It made her shiver.
“Alright, well, goodnight,” she told him as she tried to shut the door on him only for it to be stopped by his heavy boot wedging between the door and its frame.
She looked at the foot before looking up with a bit of sweat forming at her brow. What the hell?
-
The two in the kitchen were desperate for each other as they pulled at pieces of clothes to reveal bits of more skin to each other. They were hot and dizzy as they giggled with their thought of sneaky activity. They were so involved with each other that they didn’t even hear as the backdoor was wiggled to prove it was locked. They continued making out and touching each other until the girl heard a loud rattling clunk and looked up from the kiss.
“Did you hear that?” She asked as she looked around for the source.
“It was probably Misty’s boyfriend messing with something in the other room. Don’t be so skittish,” her boyfriend said as he came back and started kissing her neck and feeling her up.
-
“Where are those two?” Misty’s friend said while pouring out more shots.
“Probably making out in the kitchen, where else?” Misty’s boyfriend said as he took a chug of his drink, “I’m more wondering where my girlfriend is. What’s taking her so long at the door? Babe! You coming?”
-
The girl trapped on the counter with her boyfriend paying close attention to her sensitive spots tried to enjoy it but heard more suspicious noises before pushing him away and pouting at him.
“No really. I think I heard something! Maybe from the backdoor?” She said as he looked back at her unimpressed.
“Babe, you’re killing the mood here. What, do you want me to go check it out? I’m sure it’s just-,”
As he tried to finish, something suddenly came swooping into the girl’s vision as it collided into her boyfriend’s shoulder and neck causing him to yell in pain and her to scream as she saw the blood squirt from the injury and onto her. She looked up to see the tall man in a moon themed jester costume standing in front of her with an axe through her boyfriend’s shoulder.
“Hmm, maybe you should listen to your girlfriend in the future. It might have given you a few more minutes to run,” he snickered before bringing his gaze up to the girl, “Your turn.”
She screamed even louder as she struggled to get off the counter while the masked man pulled the axe from her struggling boyfriend’s body, making him quiver and shake as he bled out on the vinyl flooring, and she panicked to try to get around and away from him.
-
Misty and the man at the front door heard the screams from the kitchen, making her attention leave the door to look toward the sounds as Sun took the opportunity to push through, knocking the girl back and fully opening the door to allow himself in as he revealed the machete hiding behind his back. Her eyes widened at the sight as she turned, let out a quick yell and ran toward the main room. Sun quickly shut the front door before following quickly behind her, stopping her before she could shut the door to the room completely on him and bursting the door open with a harsh knock of his shoulder against it. As Misty fumbled into the room with the two others waiting inside standing at unexpected company, the girl from the kitchen tried running in only for them to see her be pulled by the hair back into it by a large, gloved hand and a cackling laugh.
Misty’s friend went to go after the girl in the kitchen while Misty’s boyfriend stood up to face the one coming in from the living room door. He put himself between Misty and Sun causing Sun to giggle.
“My, my, what a gentleman! Too bad you chose the wrong princess to be a knight in shining armor for,” Sun said while quickly approaching and slashing at the man.
He missed at first, giving the boyfriend confidence, but a quick slice back quickly caught him by the hand making him cry out in pain as his first hit the floor and he quickly found himself bleeding from the painful and open spot. Sun grimaced under his mask as the blood reached his gloved hands. Her boyfriend tried to corral Misty back to get to the back door as he grunted in pain only for the friend to come back in after a shriek from the girl earlier echoed from the kitchen with a splatter of blood across their face and body.
They looked at the two being caged in by the bright jester before cursing and trying to turn back towards the door only to be stopped by the dark jester coming up behind them and pushing them further into the room. The three of them gathered towards the center of the room as Sun and Moon came from both points of escape, trapping them inside. Moon walked forward and turned the music off so he could hum in place of it. All three were panicking in the middle with Misty between the two bodies. The friend decided to try their luck first and with that caused a chain of events to unravel as a scatter effect was released. The friend sprinted to the side making Moon lunge out to catch them while Misty’s boyfriend tried charging Sun while he was distracted. Sun was quicker and more focused than imagined, maneuvering his machete to the side to come forward and slice across the man’s stomach as he fell forward in shock, guts starting to spill from inside of him to the floor as he gasped at the outcome. Moon caught the other by the head, twisting them in his arms to throw to the ground as he raised his axe high in the air to come crashing down in the middle of their chest with a crunch, not only knocking the wind out of them, but filling them with blood quickly releasing from the injury. Moon stepped on them to pull the weapon out only to bring it harshly back down on them again, making them wheeze in pain as another solid crunch could be heard. They laid with eyes wide open as blood trickled from their mouth as they started to choke on it before they coughed and rested against the floor weakly.
Blood was covering the floor as both individuals struggled to stop it and gave up loosely on the floor. Misty screamed as she couldn’t decide between who to watch but saw an opportunity and opening left open by Sun and tried to run past him out of the main room’s door to get out the front door. Moon and Sun noticed how their main target tried to escape and quickly both ran after her. Moon left his axe behind and jumped over the few obstacles in his way quickly making his way to grab around Misty’s waist as Sun tripped her feet, making her fall into Moon’s hold. They laughed as she cried out for them to stop and struggled in Moon’s hold only for something to stop them in their tracks.
“Misty,” the two heard a groggy voice call out from the living room along with the girl and paused before slowly looking out of the doorway into that area of the house, “You know I don’t mind you having these little parties, but can you try to keep it down a little bit? I have to get ready for night shift in an hour and you know I’ll sleep through the alarm if I sleep in my bed.”
Fuck. It was you. Both Sun and Moon knew it was you by the way you whined her name so similarly to how you would whine to them when they teased you slightly in good fun. You were out on the couch sleeping the whole time and now you were awake. The girl tried to scream for you to help her, but Moon quickly covered her mouth tightly with his gloved hand as Sun threatened her with his machete at her throat. She struggled in his hold slightly, trying to get herself out without getting hurt to get your attention, but it seemed you were too tired to notice. You must have not even sat up from your position on the couch. Moon cleared his voice before softly starting to talk in a strange voice.
“Sorry. Sleep well.”
You hummed back a small, “Thanks,” before they heard your head fall back onto what must have been a pillow.
Well, that ruined their plans a bit. It was a good thing they had already taken care of all they needed to, but the one girl left in their hands, but they had originally planned to take their time stringing out her pain seeing as she did the same for both of them. Looks like that wasn’t an option any longer. Moon decided to pull her away from the doorway while Sun shut the door further into the area next to her two friends they caught before Sun leaned down with his sharp weapon teasing her throat to talk quietly to her.
“You wouldn’t want to wake your poor roomie and get them involved in this, now, would you? That would be awfully troublesome of you,” Sun whispered near her as she cried in Moon’s arms.
Moon snickered, leaning down to whisper to her as well, “Do you regret your actions? All of the pain and suffering your words have caused others like your roommate? How you thought your popularity with the apparent “cool kids” kept you safe? Are you sorry?”
Misty shook her head aggressively with tears collecting over Moon’s gloves as she cried out under it.
“Too bad. You should have thought it through sooner,” Moon’s hand tightened over her mouth, “Sun, I think we’re done with this one. Take care of her.”
The girl shook and thrashed as Sun giggled as he looked at her through his mask, “Time for lights out!”
She looked through the eyeholes of the mask to see his bright blue eyes looking back at her with no remorse. Sun pressed the large knife-like weapon against her throat before pulling it quickly across, slitting her neck open with one simple yet forceful move. Blood fell from her neck like a waterfall, quickly drenching her as she twitched and tried to cry under Moon’s hold. After a few seconds, he dropped her to let her hit the floor as she struggled to gasp against it as the two stood over her menacingly and watched her final moments of consciousness. She faded quickly, going limp as her blood pooled with the blood of her friends that had already surrounded her on the ground.
They stared for a few moments longer before Moon spoke up, “Let’s get out of here before anything more happens.”
Sun nodded and began to follow him out into the living room to shut the main room’s door and went towards the front door before stopping and looking over at the couch. Moon took hold of the doorknob but looked back at his partner.
“What?”
“Them. Are they really asleep?” Sun asked quietly as he started to walk over to the couch before looking over the back of it to look down at you.
Sure enough, there you lay, sleeping away with soft snores leaving you and your phone next to you for that alarm you had talked about. Sun sighed, bringing down his glove covered fingers to touch the back of them against your cheek. As he did, a smear of red appeared that caused Sun to jerk his hand back. Damn. He forgot they had gotten dirtied. He still looked at you softly before going back over to Moon and letting him lead them out with a soft close of the front door, leaving your sleeping body alone and unknowing of the littered bodies of your roommate and her friends in the rooms next door to you. You still had an hour of blissful sleep until you would wake up to the chaos of it all.
As Sun and Moon rinsed off with the hose outside the house before starting to make their way back to their apartment through the shadows, Sun spoke up.
“Do you think they’ll be ok waking up to that?”
“Doubt it,” Moon replied bluntly, “But what are we supposed to do? Carry them out so they wake up somewhere suspicious or dangerous? Have them wake up while we’re still in character, or even worse, while we’re changing? It’s not like we can take them home with us. It would be too obvious.”
Sun frowned with a whine under his mask, “Ugh! I had no idea that was their place and their roommate! To think they were in the next room and could have come in at any moment! This is HORRIBLE!”
“What we just did was horrible, Sun.” Moon reminded him.
“You don’t have to call me that anymore. No one is listening,” Sun said with a roll of his eyes.
“No,” Moon said sternly, “Costumes on, code names on. We call each other that until we are guaranteed out of the danger zone and somewhere safe and out of character.”
“Fine, Moon. What are we doing with the rest of our night?”
“I want pizza. You order though. I ordered last time.”
“Of course you want me to order! Ugh, whatever. But you’re sending me money later!”
-
You woke up to the ringing of your phone’s alarm in an otherwise quiet room. It didn’t hit you yet, you just blearily lifted yourself from the couch to sit up and rub your face before turning off the alarm. As you rubbed it, you felt something crusted on the side of your face. You scratched it a bit to find it to be a dark red substance. The more you looked at it the more you thought that maybe you scratched yourself in your sleep and it bled enough to leave a crusty trail. It was strange, but you guessed you’d have to go look in the mirror to see what it might be. You took a look at your phone. 11:32 PM. You had to get up so you could quickly get ready for your shift. You were about to stand from the couch when the quiet finally hit you. It was extremely quiet in the house. No sounds whatsoever. That never happened in this house from your experience in it. Plus, Misty was having one of her little get-togethers tonight. Maybe they got drunk enough to go out and hit a club or find more cheap alcohol somewhere. Who knew. But you finally got up from the couch and pocketed your phone to walk behind it to make your way toward the first-floor bathroom. As you walked behind the couch, your socks stepped into something a bit wet and sticky causing you to look down under your feet.
It was dark red and the more you looked around, the further you could make out shoe prints leading out from the closed main room door to the back of the couch, and out the front door. It looked like the same substance was on each of the doorknobs, too. Wait. Why was the main room door closed? What even was this stuff? Why was it so quiet? You walked to the main room door, touching as little of the doorknob as possible to turn it and opened the door. You lost all thoughts once you saw what was on the other side. You opened your mouth, but it was like all of the air had left your body. You couldn’t scream even though you wanted to so badly. You could only stare wide-eyed and horrified. Misty lay in the middle of the floor, throat slit opened and body emptied of the blood that had once run through her now an ocean around her. That’s what all of this was. It was blood. You were stepping in it, touching it, looking at it, surrounded by it.
You took a step back as your eyes finally pried themselves off of Misty to look around at the two other bodies that lay next to her, one gutted and one crushed in but both unmoving. You recognized one as her boyfriend. The other you knew from your math class. You began to panic. How many people did Misty invite over tonight? You started to wonder if all of them were dead or if maybe some of them made it out alive. You retouched your face remembering the crust on it. You had blood on you. You ran to the bathroom and turned on the light to look in the mirror. Two strokes of dried blood were on your cheeks and as you rushed to get water going and rub at it, you noticed it wasn’t from you. It wasn’t your blood, so you began to wonder whose it was and how it got on you. That should be the last of your worries. There were at least three dead people in your damn college house, and you were a surviving person from a murder for the moment. Who knew if the murderer was even gone. You didn’t check the house. You pulled out your phone, fumbling it for a moment as you rushed back out of the bathroom to go look back in the main room to double check that your eyes hadn’t lied to you and that you weren’t just dreaming, but as soon as you ran into the doorway, they came back into your vision making it go blurry with tears and your stomach churned from the sight and smell of it. Why did it smell so bad?
You dialed emergency services and waited until someone answered the phone politely. At first you couldn’t speak, you just shakily breathed into your phone. They asked if anyone was there. You stared at Misty in her cloudy, half-lidded eyes before finally choking out a single word.
“Help.”
They asked what was going on, where you were, who you were. You could only keep repeating that one word pathetically to each question.
“Help. Help. Help.”
You were finally told that the authorities were on their way. You were told to stay where you were and stay on the line. You nodded even if they couldn’t see it. You nodded for yourself as you backed up and slid down the back of the couch to sit and stare. You didn’t even care if there was a murderer still loose in your house. If they came for you, they came for you, and you’d deal with it then. For now, you sat in pure shock. The more you thought, the more sure you were that there were five people that were in the house not including you for the night. You hoped it was only three that didn’t make it. Maybe the other two got away. Maybe they were chased out and that’s why you were left alive. You didn’t know. You could only sit there until you heard the sirens and saw the lights outside the windows from the corner of your eye with a knock on the front door until it was opened, and they saw you shaking on the ground, sitting with your body facing the main room. They asked if you were ok and came to you while looking at the shoe prints on the floor. You pointed to the people lying so still in front of you, unwilling to take your eyes away from them in case one moved to show a sign of life. Once the one officer saw, it felt like there were suddenly ten more there with many police cars and ambulances and a firetruck for god’s sake. The one officer had taken you out of the house, wrapped you in a blanket, held your hand as they tried to ask you questions while you sat on the back of an ambulance’s backend after being examined. You just stared into his eyes trying to say anything. You couldn’t find your voice. Finally, a question that you could answer came up.
“What were you doing when everything happened?”
You took a deep breath and shakily while putting your head in your hands replied, “I was sleeping before work. I remember getting up at one point for half a minute to tell them to keep it down but fell back asleep. I slept through my roommate’s death. She’s dead because I went back to sleep, isn’t she?”
You couldn’t take it anymore. Your stomach flipped and your throat burned. You wailed into the night as the sirens continued, and the people gathered around the house in curiosity. No one but you made it out of that house alive. You and whoever committed the crime.
-
Soleil and Atlas just opened their pizza in their apartment while they began to watch a stupid soap opera that Atlas had forced the other to watch with him.
“You seriously got pineapple on the pizza again?” Atlas groaned as he looked at the abomination in front of him.
“Hey! If you’re having me order pizza, I’m getting pineapple on it! Besides, don’t be a baby about it, I only ordered it on half of it for you,” Soleil rolled his eyes at the other before grabbing a couple slices to put on a plate for himself.
They suddenly got an alert on their phones that they both pulled out to check to see a warning of possibly dangerous individuals in the area on the loose. 12:11 AM.
“Guess they woke up,” Atlas said as he examined the alert.
“I guess so,” Soleil said in return, wondering how you’d be in class tomorrow afternoon.
That is if you showed up.
-
Soleil and Atlas didn’t see you for a few days after their spree. Atlas figured this would be the case leaving you at a crime scene with the dead bodies of people you knew. Even if they were not kind to you, you still talked and even lived with at least one. The shock was probably crippling. Soleil was much more worried and much less prepared. He searched for you at any given chance and even took extra notes for you in class. When the two found you a week later, relieved didn’t even begin to describe what Soleil felt. He yelled out to you from across the street, looking both ways before running across with Atlas slowly following behind.
“There you are! I’ve been worried sick! Where have you been?” Soleil said while coming up in front of you only to see the exhausted and distant look in your eyes.
Did-did he cause this? But Misty was so mean to you. Misty was mean to everyone, especially them, and especially you. The rest of them were too. They all played along with her. Why were you so torn apart about someone so cruel dying? You hadn’t even answered his first question yet before Soleil bent forward to look more directly at you.
“Are you ok?” He asked as he fidgeted with his hands anxiously and tried to get you to look at him with the angle of his face.
You looked up into Soleil’s bright and ocean-like eyes and stared before shaking your head no. You took a few steps forward, making Soleil freeze before you rested your head against his torso and crumpled against him. He panicked, instantly wrapping his arms around you to hold you up as you seemed to just collapse onto him.
“OH MY GOD WHAT’S WRONG!?” He shrieked at your weak body falling against him, “ATLAS DON’T JUST STAND THERE, HELP ME!”
Atlas quickly came up and helped Soleil to get you somewhere to sit you down in the middle of them as they tried to talk to you. Soleil held one of your hands as Atlas patted your back.
“Is it about that accident?” Soleil asked while trying to get a good look at you.
Atlas glared at Soleil who missed the look being too focused on you. Of course it was the accident. He knew it was because of the accident. What good did it do to ask if it was because of the accident if they clearly knew that was the cause? Atlas wanted to smack Soleil so hard at that moment but brought his attention back to you as you tried to speak.
“I slept through it. I had no idea,” you said blankly like a broken record that had been overplayed.
They were sure that is what you had been telling everyone who asked. What else could you say? You truly had no idea what had happened and were only left to help with cleaning up the ends of the story that you couldn’t finish even though you wanted to so badly. You couldn’t do a thing for the situation at hand. You were helpless to yourself and the victims. Atlas was sure that killed you inside. You were too kind to not let it get to you.
“It’s not your fault,” Atlas said quietly to you with a more attentive rub to your shoulders, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
You looked at your free hand in your lap as your head hung forward and you strained your voice to talk, “I told them to keep it down because I had work. I should have woken up with all of the noises. I didn’t even go to work. I could have helped.”
“You had no clue!” Soleil said with a tighter hold on your hand, “How were you supposed to know? Don’t blame yourself for something like this. You had nothing to do with it, I’m sure!”
You let out a shaky breath and limped forward. Soleil’s guilt was catching up to him. He couldn’t watch you like this over his own actions. He brought a hand around your shoulder to lean you against his chest into a hug while keeping a good hold on your hand while Atlas followed behind to hug you from the other side.
“This wasn’t your fault,” they said in unison while holding you tightly between them.
They couldn’t let this happen again. They had to be more careful.