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Jevin is so used to being alone, that it was even alone when the world ended all those months ago. Even now, with the Emporium budding and growing, it can't help but feel somewhat alone.
It was to be expected somehow. Their main group, the core of the Emporium, were an odd number of people. Wels and Zed had each other, even if they had broken up weeks ago, Hels and Ex had that oddly confusing love-hate relationship between them, and though they aren't dating, it can tell that Xisuma and Beef are close friends after the latter had saved the former from a collapsed and ablaze building, leading to it being alone more often than not.
It only makes it miss its two partners even more. xB and Hypno were workers in its father's farm, and they were the two to first show it any kind of genuine love. From the moment they first saw it, to the moment it came out to them, to the moment it first kissed them both, it had loved them greatly, and they told it they loved it back. It's why it was left heartbroken when it managed to break free of the cellar it was locked in by its father as a punishment for yet another petty squabble only to see that they were gone, disappearing with their two prized stallions.
It loathes to admit it, but it had spent many nights on the road staying up, wandering around where the others were asleep in the hopes that its partners would miraculously show up. It disregards Wels' comment about how a growing teen like it should be getting more rest, blaming its wakefulness on its insomniac nature. It's sure that Wels can hear the lie in its voice, but he doesn’t tell it anything else.
Jevin sighs as it walks around the camp with its hands stuffed in the pockets of its hoodie, having just finished dropping off some food for TFC, one of the Emporium's newest arrivals. It had intentions of staying with Xisuma for a bit, hoping that he'd let him stay by the radio to listen for any updates. It knows that he knows it's only there in the chance that xB and Hypno would respond to its calls somehow, even if it is aware that those chances are slim.
It's no secret amongst them that it misses its partners, no secret that if it had a choice, if it wasn’t as frail as it was from years of maltreatment, it would be out there looking for them on its own. At this point, it hadn't exactly bothered to hide how red its eyes can get on some days, when the loneliness felt all the more crushing by the reminder that for the longest time, they were the only people it had. They were the only people it could smile around, laugh around, hold in its arms so that it could fall asleep. Even if there are more people around it now, they can never replace the safety it felt whenever it had xB and Hypno with it.
It sighs, knowing that without Wels or Beef to pester that it must resign itself to another day of sulking around. That's when it managed to pick up on a faintly familiar noise, a noise that has it sprinting towards the border before it can even think twice.
In the distance, it can see Zed greeting two men who had just arrived on horseback. The horses were already familiar to it, their names easily coming to mind. The names that fall out of its mouth, however, are the names of the steeds' owners, the familiar all-black regalia and cyan and dark grey hoodie cluing him in to who was there, who was finally, finally there.
"xB! Hypno!"
It throws itself at them, knowing that they'd catch it just like they always did. Indeed, it feels Hypno’s arms wrap around it soon enough, a startled yet relieved gasp leaving his lips. “Jev?” Hypno asks it, his voice shaking in a way that Jevin knows intimately, from all the times it had heard Hypno cry before. “Is that you? Actually you?”
It wants to reply so, so badly, but with the tears clogging up its throat it can merely nod. xB soon joins in on the hug, murmuring, “Oh my gods, after all this time, we finally found you.” He presses a kiss to its forehead. “I finally found you. You’re ok, you’re safe.”
“And you’re here,” Jevin mumbles, its voice soft and hoarse from the barrage of emotions it’s feeling right now. Everything feels surreal and yet so concrete, and it holds on as tightly as it can to its partners, afraid of it all being a dream. “You’re finally here.”
It hears someone mumbling, and it pulls away just enough to see Zed standing there, rubbing the back of his neck as he looks at them with awe and something akin to longing in his eyes. “Are these actually—”
“Yeah,” it answers Zed’s interrupted question. It wipes its tears and clears its throat, though nothing is capable of masking the sheer joy and relief written all over its face, it’s sure. “Zed, this is Hypno, and this is xB.” It turns to them with a soft smile, murmuring, “They’re… they’re my partners.”
“That’s amazing dude! I’m so happy…” It tunes out the rest of Zed’s excited rambling, focusing instead on the familiar calluses that line xB’s fingers as it holds onto his hand. It focuses on the way Hypno’s arm feels right from where it’s wrapped around its waist. It focuses on the look of absolute joy on both of their faces, the way that they stare at it with the same awe it stares back at them with.
It only snaps back to reality when it hears the horses galloping away, and it coughs with a pink blush on its cheeks. “I guess I should show you around first?”
Hypno hums as he rests his chin on top of its head. “We’re tired from the journey, though. Can’t we rest first?”
Jevin looks at xB, who shakes his head with an amused twinkle in his eye. It snorts at Hypno’s dramatics, even if it turns around to bury its face in Hypno’s chest again, something he welcomes. “We can rest after I show you around. I want to show you everything I helped with.”
xB whistles. “You helped with this place?” he asks, even as Jevin grabs his and Hypno’s hands to start dragging them around. When it nods with a small, proud smile on its face, he chuckles. “Of course you did. I wouldn’t be surprised with all you managed to do; we always knew you were amazing.”
Jevin flushes red with a quiet, giddy giggle. It hasn’t giggled like that in a long, long time. “Shut up, you flatterer.” Both Hypno and xB simply laugh at its embarrassment, and it can’t help the fond grin that flits on its face.
It shows them the gardens, boasting about how it’s because it managed to save a few seed packets from the farm that the Emporium now has vegetables to feed on. It talks about how it managed to help establish the tents, using what little knowledge it had on sewing to create patchworks that now serve as shelter. They even pass by the gardens, where Zed and Wels were, and it makes a mental note to talk to Wels when it can.
In return, they talk about their journey, how they hadn’t really encountered many others but still managed to reach the Emporium after noticing footprints leading to it. xB talks about Hypno’s many antics while riding on horseback, and Hypno talks about how xB almost lost track of the horses multiple times. Jevin laughs the most it’s laughed in a long time, feeling energized in a way it hasn’t felt since it first learned about how Xisuma’s radio managed to make contact with someone.
By the time the tour is finished, it can see that Hypno’s exhaustion has become genuine, that even xB has started faltering in his steps. When it asks how long they’ve been up, Hypno mumbles, “Just a day or two at most. We had to push the horses to get somewhere quickly.”
Jevin frowns before dragging them in the direction of its shanty. “Then you guys should rest. That’s coming from the insomniac, so you know I mean it.”
xB chuckles softly, although he tightens his grip around its wrist. “Alright, alright. Jeez, Hypno and I disappear for a few weeks and suddenly you’re bossing us around.”
Jevin frowns. “It’s been more than a few weeks.” A few weeks where it was left alone, its partners together with each other. Now that everyone is getting more tired, now that the giddy thrill of being reunited is starting to wear off, it can’t miss the way that Hypno and xB keep looking at each other, communicating with each other in ways that it can’t even properly pinpoint. It makes the loneliest that it felt many nights ago start creeping back into its system, the many doubts it’s used to hearing from itself filling its mind once more. It should have known that its traitorous mind would try to ruin the moment for it, that all those years of its father telling it each and every one of its perceived faults would lead to it internalizing each of those failures. Now, it can only try to keep its shoulders relaxed, try to keep the smile on its face as it herds them inside to where its makeshift bed is.
It’s small, painfully so, but somehow the three of them make it work. Hypno and xB sandwich Jevin between them, press themselves against it, and the warmth is enough to make it melt a little bit. The two fall asleep near instantly, sharing one last kiss with each other before closing their eyes and letting their breathing even out.
Jevin, however, can’t sleep just yet. Not when the silence feels even more suffocating than their position on its cramped bed. It looks up at Hypno’s face, and it resists the urge to cup his face. “Please don’t leave me again,” it whispers, hoping that he couldn’t hear it. “Knowing that you were out there together and I was alone… it hurt.”
Of course, it had always known that xB and Hypno were closer than most. They had known each other long before it had known any of them, hung out together more than it could hang out with them. It never told it to them, but there were times in its life that it felt like an outsider to its own relationship, that it was intruding on the both of them. When it was with them, when it was bundled up in their arms, it was easy to forget those thoughts. Now that it knew they were together this whole time, however, meant that even now that it’s back to being in their arms it can’t shake away those thoughts.
“I was so scared you’d forgotten me,” it confesses. “You left me in the farm, and I was just hoping that you were only out there looking for me. I just didn’t want the two of you to forget me. Anyone could forget who I was, just not you two. Never you two.”
“Oh Jev,” xB whispers, moving in closer to its back. It freezes, breath stuttering in its chest. “Did you really think that?”
“I didn’t know you were awake,” it says instead, guilt so obviously heard in its voice. “How much did you hear?”
“Enough,” Hypno yawns out, and Jevin instinctively starts curling into itself. “Woah, it’s ok bud. We’re not mad in any way.” He sighs, cracking one eye open while a hand runs through its hair. Hypno looks over at xB. “I told you we should have given it its gift already.”
That pulls a startled laugh out of Jevin. “A gift? Really? In this economy?”
“The economy’s in shambles,” xB agrees with a soft laugh before nuzzling closer. “But yeah. We have a gift for you. I wanted to give it to you after we all settled down, but I guess now’s a better time than any.”
Hypno nods in agreement before sitting up, and xB pulls Jevin up with him. “What is it then?” it asks, wiping away some stray tears with the sleeve of his hoodie.
As an answer, Hypno digs into his pocket before bringing out a pendant. That in of itself is a surprising gift, but as Hypno hands it over to it, he tells it, “You should see what’s inside.”
Nodding mutely, Jevin gasps as it takes a look inside. There are dried flowers inside the pendant, the colors muted and the petals shriveled up, but that’s not the reason why it gasps. No, it gasps because it can recognize the flowers after years of living on a farm, the meaning of the plant immediately coming to mind.
“Forget-me-nots.” Tiny, blue blossoms that symbolize faith and fidelity, a promise to keep someone in one’s thoughts always. It looks up at Hypno. “What?”
“We were going to surprise you with that pendant for Christmas at first, bought it just in time with our money,” Hypno explains. “We were gonna take a picture of the three of us, and then you’d always have us with you, even if your dad wouldn’t let us see you.”
“But then this whole apocalyptic shebang happened,” xB continues. “And we couldn’t find you anywhere. We wanted to find you, but we didn’t know where you were. So we looked for you —I promise we did— and while looking for you, we found a hidden patch of forget-me-nots in an old, abandoned greenhouse.” He hugs it from behind, reaching over to help it hold the pendant with its shaky hands. “And we both just… thought of you. How we could never forget you, and how we hoped you’d never forget us.”
“Never,” Jevin chokes out, slowly closing the pendant so the petals don’t slip out. “How can I ever forget you guys? You showed me kindness when no one else would, accepted me and loved me when even my own father couldn’t. How can I ever forget?”
Hypno leans forward to press a soft kiss to its lips, and it happily melts against him. “And we could never forget you in your sarcastic glory.” He pulls away, taking the pendant from its and xB’s hands so he can fasten the clasp around its neck. “And now you have proof of that in this little locket. It’s not a photo of the three of us—”
“But it’s enough,” Jevin whispers, holding onto the locket with a teary smile. “It’s more than enough. Thank you.”
xB presses a kiss to its shoulder, right over its collarbone. “You’re always welcome, baby. Now let’s go back to sleep, hm? We can continue to be sappy about stuff tomorrow. Right now, I’m still tired.”
Jevin chokes out an amused and fond laugh. “Of course you are.” Still, it makes grabbing motions in Hypno’s direction until he wraps his arms around it, pulling it down to lie back down on the bed. Jevin wraps its legs around Hypno’s, while xB continues to press against its back. “Gods, I love you both.”
“We love you too,” Hypno smiles, pressing his forehead against its own. “Good night, smelly boy.”
Jevin chuckles at the nickname, and so does xB. “You smell,” it rebuts, but it does concede and close its eyes eventually. “Good night. Love you both.”
“Love you too Jev.”
“Love ya.”
Jevin is so used to being alone, but now that it has its partners again, even at the end of the world, it knows that it won’t be left alone ever again.