Magnum Opus

"Fuck knows. I mean, it must be hell at his place if he wants to come crash at mine. His folks are strnage, but they're nice enough. My parents, on the other hand..." He laughed, deciding to leave that as it was and let the statement speak for itself. Tyrone's texts weren't really helping him relax or feel happier, though. He was feeling more uncomfortable by the second at how confused all of this was, and how worrying his best friend's texts were becoming.

'Is gabe with u?? Im with Cain + we're worried bout the kid . hes been gone days, we thought he might be with u . just come 2 the diner, k?? we'll talk here' He texted quickly, biting hard on his bottom lip before turning to Cain. "I dunno, he just seems, y'know, kinda stressed? I don't know what the hell's going on. He's got something to tell me, I mean... hey, it'll probably be some kinky stuff a guy he had sex with got up to. Tyrone's dramatic, he exaggerates. It's probably not that big a deal."
 
At this point, Cain was in clear panic mode. He had put all of his cards in Tyrone and Gabriel somehow hooking up and running away, but to find Tyrone was alone coming to the diner obviously meant his brother wasn't going to follow suit. He didn't expect Tyrone's family to be a part of the cult, so the thought didn't even take it in consideration. When his mother told him the stories, he expected some haggard freaks, but a respected family like his?

"I... I'm a terrible brother..." he whispered softly as he set the pizza down. "I shouldn't be eating pizza and joking around when I could be put searching. He isn't with Tyrone, s-so... where could he be? What if he froze to death? He's probably starving."
 
"Jeez, Cain, you need to eat. You were starving. Just... you're allowed to take a break, you know? Your Mom's out looking and maybe Tyrone does know where Gabe is. We don't know, he's going to come and tell us something so... so hey, just eat that pizza and chill a little?" He suggested cautiously, grimacing to himself the moment he realised just how much of a good time he had been having. For once, he had been able to really fully relax in someone's company. Tyrone was the only person he had been able to be himself around. Everyone else, he'd had to put on this cold, hard front, which led to him adopting this 'bully' persona.

Sat with Cain now, he fully recognised just how he was able to enjoy himself without stressing about putting on some facade. And he did feel guilty for enjoying himself when Gabriel could be out in the cold, dead.

"...We shouldn't feel guilty. He's been gone three days, he's sixteen. He... I dunno, perhaps he's fine and is just having some little temper tantrum. He's really sweet, I think he's kinda adorable actually, but... but he's dramatic and he seems like he'd do this for attention-- not that I'm suggesting he's doing that! I'm just saying it's... it's not impossible, right? You know him best, and you said yourself he likes attention."
 
Running his hands through his hair quickly, he hid his face with his hands to hide his frown. It didn't hide his shaking form, though, nor his growinflg hunched body. For the few hours he had spent with Felix, he was able to take a break from the role of older brother and his keeper, and be able to focus on himself. When he realized he wasn't filling that role, though, it hurt a million times worse.

"He doesn't know how to survive out there. He... He isn't even allowed to use the stove, Felix. If those people found him, he'd be crushed. He'd... I don't know what he would do. Get angry? I can handle myself, s-sort of, but he... he can't." He whispered with a wheeze, sniffling.
 
Felix knew Gabriel was dependent and probably always would be, but he didn't really know the extent Cain and their mother went to to to keep Gabe from harm. If the boy wasn't even allowed to use the stove without assistance, then it really hit home just how much trouble the kid might be in.

Not that he wanted to panic about it. Cain probably didn't need that right now.

"Those people-- hey, I'm sure your Dad won't find you," he offered as helpfully as he could, reaching for his milkshake to at least take the edge off. "You... just don't think like that. Hopefully Tyrone can come and tell us he knows where Gabe is."
 
"You don't understand, Felix. This more than just... my dad. I mean, fuck. I don't even know his name and he doesn't even know mine because we aren't his kids, Felix, we're tools. I just... this'll sound stupid. This'll sound fucking stupid and you'll go back to bullying me a-and I won't have a brother, a-and I think I'm going to be sick," Cain babbled in response as he quickly got to his feet, his already relatively pale face losing all of its color. With trembling hands, he scrambled for the diner's bathroom, cringing as he apologized for each person he only slightly came in contact with.

In that moment, coincidentally, Tyrone busted through the door. He had ran relatively quickly, but attempted to seem calm and collected as he hurried over to Felix' his eyes wide warily as he glanced around. "Fuck, dude..."
 
If Tyrone hadn't come bursting in through the door, Felix would have hurried after Cain, because the other's babbles weren't just worrying, they were also fucking confusing. It might not be any of his business asking what he meant, especially once seeing how anxious it was making Cain, but he couldn't really relax until he found out just what it was he was missing out knowing about.

Although, Tyrone's entrance into the diner did make him forget about charging after Cain - he was suddenly more preoccupied with daling with his best friend.

"...You go fucking missing for the last day without answering my texts or calls-- dude, I went to your parents and they said they hadn't seen you. Where the fuck have you been? Like, if you were with a guy, you can tell me. I'm cool with your sexual exploits," he shrugged, resting back against the chair with an arched brow. "You gonna fucking explain why you're acting so weird, then?"
 
"I wish I was fucking around, dude. This is... This is much more extreme, man," Tyron whispered quickly, his fingers tapping against the counter anxiously. "My parents are nuts. Fucking - you can't tell anyone about this, understood? You can't go and tell your little boyfriend about this, because he'll flip out and I don't want my skull bashed in." He grunted, his expression hopefully a sign of his seriousness.

"Fucking - those twins are monsters," he continued, keeping his voice low. "They're some weird demonic shit or something, Felix. Like... I met up with Gabe and he was just eating a raw dead animal. That's... isn't normal. They eat raw flesh, dude, it's fucking disgusting."
 
"...Did Luke give you those weird pills again? I told you not to try them again, dude, they make you see things. They're fucking rotten for your brain," grunted the other teenager, his immediate response, like most people's, being to snort at the other and assume he was talking a load of crap. With Tyrone's experimental view on drugs, it didn't take Felix long to assume that was at fault for his otherwise astounding ramblings.

"And it ain't fucking right to call them monsters. Gabe's fucking missing, Cain's in pieces-- he ain't my boyfriend. He's cool, he's actually-- I think he's cool. Don't fucking call him names, we're getting along and his brother's missing, so it ain't nice to bring him down further," he continued as sternly as he could manage, locking his eyes on the table to avoid getting any angrier about it. "Do you actually know where Gabe is? We assumed you'd gone and hooked up with him, actually. If you know where he is, you gotta say. It ain't embarrassing if you and him actually got together, I don't care."
 
"I'm not on anything, Felix!" He snapped in response as he tugged his ballcap over his face a tad. "This... This is way bigger than some fucked up drug trip, dude. I don't know how I can explain this to you without sounding mad, but my... my parents have Gabe, dude. He's in the basement, like, locked up. Said he had something to do with a ritual o-or something I don't... I don't really know. All I know is that he isn't going to get killed, which is a plus? I - I can't have my parents arrested, though, Felix. I don't have a job and there's no other way to feed myself. It might help my scholarship, but that isn't a big of a deal right now."

Taking Felix's coffee without question, he took a heavy sip to relax his shaky hands, his eyes darting around the diner warily. "There's more of them, I think. Like... I don't get all of this shit. They never talked about it until I found Gabe and tried to bring him to my place to get warmed up and have proper food. I told them how he was eating a raw fucking animal and they made the connection I guess."
 
It took everything he had in him not to accuse the other of lying and making up some horrible story just to fuck with him. Having forced that back the moment he saw how serous the other was, he quietly reached to pick a piece of pepperoni from his pizza, just to give himself something to do as he contemplated the whole crazy story his friend was coming out with.

On one hand, it sounded insane and as believable as pigs sprouting wings and flying.

On the other, Tyrone had been his best friend since they were literally four years old. He wouldn't make this up, and if he did, he would have broken in a few seconds into laughter. There was no way he would have kept a lie going this long, especially a lie like this.

"...I... He's in your fucking basement? If... If he did eat raw meat, then-- look, Gabe's not... he's not really switched on, is he? He's a bit childish, I dunno, I wouldn't-- just because he did that doesn't mean he's some monster sought out for a ritual! J-Jeez, dude, I-- your parents are in serious shit. I... I gotta tell Cain, you know? This is insane. They're not monsters-- your parents are fucking idiots."
 
"If you tell Cain, he will kill my parents. I... I can't have that happen, man. I need a place to sleep and... I can't go homeless," he murmured quickly as he moved to carefully grab Felix's hand, his eyes darting warily. It wasn't until he heard the bathroom door open and noticed the dizzy Cain emerge did he sat up and stiffened warily.

"... I... You know where Gabriel is, then?" Cain asked once met with Tyrone. Clenching his fists, he went from sickly pale to beetroot red in anger. "Is he safe? I swear - if you don't give him back, I'll... I'll punch you in the face, and Felix knows I've got a good hook, right?"
 
"Hey, hey, calm down-- Look, Ty, you can't stay with me. I mean, you can, course you can-- but you know what my parents are like. They're not... great. But course you can stay at my place, if you can deal with them, don't worry about that, dude," he quickly reassured, the feeling of being caught in the middle hitting him hard. He didn't really understand Tyrone's sudden fearful expression, but that was mostly because he didn't believe Cain was this monster capable of smashing his skull into pieces.

He believed Tyrone when he said Gabriel had been caught eating raw meat, and he believed that his friend's parents were into some ritualistic shit, but that didn't mean he necessarily believed that Gabe and Cain were the products of some batshit cult thing. As far as he was aware, Tyrone's parents were just... insane.

"...We'll go get Gabe, okay? Ty's parents just-- I don't think they're really right in the head, no offence mate. They're fucking batshit crazy-- and if they get arrested, which they probably will, we'll... you can stay with me, it'll be alright. Let's be fair, your folks aren't great to you, either. Your Dad's the biggest homophobe in this town," he grunted, pushing himself up to his feet and shooting Cain a smile in the hopes of calming him down. "Hey, it's not... it ain't Ty's fault. Gabe's alright, I'm... I'm sure he's okay."
 
"It isn't my fault, no." Tyrone insisted quickly as he held his hands up in defense. Despite the fact that he was quite taller than the twins, to be keeping a large distance between him and Cain was telling. Rummaging through his pockets, he smacked the money on the table for the pizza and shyly moved to shimmy out of the booth. With his hands still up, he shot a glance out into the now-snowstorm with a grimace as he moved to tug his scarf closer.

"... If there's a single scratch on my brother, I-I'll... I-I don't know. I won't hurt you because my ma said to not be violent, so I won't hurt you. I want to, though." He grumbled bitterly, his cheeks still red - though they were slowly softening. "I do not want to deal with this. I just want my brother and... we'll leave you two alone."
 
"...I don't want to, like, end being mates with you. I like you, I think you're actually kinda cool and-- and I don't give a fuck if people, like, start teasing me. I can handle it-- so no, I don't want this to, like, end this whole... amicable thing we got going on. Gabe, too. I'd like to be mates with him too," he admitted, though, truthfully, he was less inclined to be friends with Gabriel. He'd always found the boy a little irritating with his dependency and his childishness, and he found him even more weird now he'd learnt he was fond of tearing into dead animals.

That said, his present wariness over Gabe was nothing compared to how he felt about him once actually arriving at Tyrone's house. Felix knew something was off the moment even before he got into the house. It was just a feeling, but one that was evidently spot on once stepping into the house that had taken on the aesthetic of a horror movie - there was blood quite literally over every wall. If that wasn't shocking enough, Tyrone's dead mother clutching a knife in her hand just a few feet into the living room certainly was. Given she wasn't actually torn apart and eaten, evidence that Gabe had done it was lacking. If he had killed her, the temptation to go further would have easily been unavoidable-- but obviously, Felix assumed Gabriel was the culprit. Anyone would, given the circumstances.

"I... I-I'm gonna throw up-- f-fucking-- Ty. Ty, come outside, this isn't good for you to see-- c-call the fucking police, Cain! D-Don't just fucking stand there! I--"

Felix's rants cut short the moment Gabriel came dashing up from the basement to escape Tyrone's father, covered in blood-- though it wasn't of Tyrone's mother, like Felix instantly assumed. Rather, it was his own - a result of Tyrone's father deciding that he needed to shut up and thinking the best way to do that was to slice his neck. The teenager was doing his best to stop the bleeding, holding his hand to his throat, though the amount of shaking his body was doing wasn't really helping to stem anything.

Similarly, as much as he wanted to run to his brother the moment he saw him and blurt that they needed to leave, that it wasn't safe there, he couldn't exactly speak when just opening his mouth allowed more blood to spill out.

Instead, he made an urgent dash to stand near his brother, clutching his hand tightly with his own spare one and began to pull him as best he could to the door to get his point across.
 
Immediately tugging Gabriel close without hesitation, he ignored the fact that his own clothes were now covered in blood. If it were a more relaxed environment, he would tease with his brother and say that, for once, wearing all black was a good thing. Holding his brother close for a good few seconds, he immediately turned his attention to Tyrone, who was beside his mother in horror, sobbing. Sure, his family wasn't perfect. He was often sectioned out for being one of the very few people of color in their neighborhood, and that had always put pressure on their family, but they were otherwise pretty average. Apparently, though, his belief that everything was normal and dull had been proven otherwise by the fact that his mother was dead on the floor. His attention did peel from her though once seeing his father emerge from the stairs with a large knife in hand.

"G-Get out of here, will you?!" Tyrone snapped to the twins in anger, doing everything in his power to keep from blaming the boys. Pushing all three of the others out of the home, he followed and immediately locked the door. "Go run off, I... I-I'll call the cops. None of you should have been involved with this, just... I-I dunno, man." He babbled out in a stammer as he tried to wipe his face clean with his sleeve.
 
"I-I didn't-- I didn't h-hurt her! Y-Your Dad went mad a-and-- and said he wanted to take me by himself, that she shouldn't get the glory o-of... of taking me a-and it was horrible, Cain! M-My throat hurts and he hurt me way more than the bullies do a-and... and I missed Mom and you a-and everyone was mean here to me," babbled Gabriel as he easily took solace in his brother's arms. Sure, he was still bleeding heavily, and the fact Tyrone's father was just inside, behind a locked door, was terrifying-- but just being with Cain seemed to make everything better.

In fact, as much as he wanted to sob to Tyrone that he wasn't at fault for anything that had gone on, he did just block out the human. He also blocked Felix out, even if the boy was doing his best to try and help. All Gabe really wanted was to get home and have that vanilla milkshake he'd been begging for for the last three days.

"Can we go home? I... I don't think I'm bleeding to death, I'm... fine, Cain. I... I didn't do that, I didn't hurt anyone! I-I... Mom says not to, so I didn't," he whispered earnestly, his eyes wide in the horror that his brother might think he'd killed that woman. "...Am I in trouble? A-Am I going to jail?!"
 
"You're not going to jail, Gabe, y-you're not going to jail," Cain reassured in a whisper once carefully leading his brother away from the house a tad. Taking his brother's hands in his, he rubbed them carefully while wiping his eyes with his arm, sniffling. "You aren't in trouble, either. I know you didn't hurt anyone, Gabe. You're too nice for that. We... We aren't going to be able to stay here, though. Ma is going to flip, s-so... we're going to have to move. We're going to have to move again, out of this country. I... I've tried to tell you that there are bad people, Gabriel."

Offering the other a kiss on the forehead, he held him in a tight embrace to hide his brother from the sight of Tyrone's father bashing against the locked door. Wincing at each pound, his eyes desperately locked on Felix as he held his brother's head comfortingly, his lips pursed tight.
 
"We're not moving. N-No way. I wanna stay here, where Tyrone is. He's... not that bad, he was real nice to me when his parents were being jerks," he snapped back, albeit barely above a whisper - any louder than that, and he found that the blood started gushing again. At the moment, with his hand pressed to his neck, he managed to stem it a tad.

He was being creative with the truth, of course. Tyrone had called him a monster, called him a freak, and every other colourful insult he could come up with. Though, compared to his violent, fist-happy father and his mother who had poured boiling water over his legs, Tyrone had been a saint to him. And none of this, bizarrely, had hindered his crush on the other. He was pretty sure that Tyrone wanted nothing to do with him, but that didn't stop him naively fancying him still. So much so that he would gladly stick around in the village, even if there was bound to be some other crazy couple Tyrone's parents had shared all of this with.

Eyeing Tyrone nervously as Felix multi-tasked comforting him and calling the police, he decided it was just best to go home, forcing the urge back to talk to Tyrone a final time.

"...You're a bad person, Cain," he finally mumbled, swallowing hard and grimacing at the taste of his own blood. "You and Mom are both bad and mean and... and nasty for not telling me the truth. I-I'm really angry at you both-- but I just want to go home right now, even if I don't trust you very much. You lied t-to me for years!"
 
"You don't want to have this conversation with me, Gabriel," Cain warned slowly as he held his twin at his side. "You... You don't want to talk about this right now, because I am seconds away from getting angry and I'd rather focus on you getting home and stitched up, okay? So just .... stop talking, please. We can talk about this when you're not bleeding from your neck and I recover from the fact that I blamed myself for you wandering out in the middle of the night."

Offering Felix one last nod of appreciation, he decided to walk in silence, walking stiffly the entire time as he held his brother firmly. Half of him was still panicking, knowing that there was still a small chance that Gabriel would be blamed. The other half was fuming, both at himself and at the fact that he knew exactly what was going to happen. He was going to return his brother home where he'd immediately be scooped up and taken care of, naturally. Then, Gabriel would yell at his twin and their mother, then she would apologize, and everything would go back to normal, completely ignoring the fact that Cain had to be told all of this a decade prior. He was being scolded for knowing something he didn't even want to know in the first place, but he was going to have to keep quiet to keep his mother from feeling guilty. This was how it always went,
 
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