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Chapter Text

Hands hang, joined, between Ernest and his lover's seats at their usual table. Right outside the science hallway's exit, at the farthest table beyond the cafeteria doors. Right where they can be ignored by the rest of the school. Their senior privileges could afford them any of the indoor seating sprinkled around the school, of course, but Ernest isn't the sort of young man to break a habit. He's been sitting here since he walked into this school four years ago. Did his routine not suffer enough change when he invited his boyfriend, Mal, to sit with him shortly after they got together?

Soon, it will suffer more. A butterfly rests on the opposite edge of the table from them, moving its wings slowly like a rise of breath, capturing all of the future Hatter's attention. A herald of spring. A call for the future.

"Do you want to go to dinner tonight?" Ernest asks, breaking his Mal's attention away from the butterfly and back to him. Mal's expression burns to a smile when he realizes the way Ernest is looking at him, attentive, sweet. Nervous as ever, despite the fact they've been together for just over a year.

"Of course! Something special?" Mal bumps their elbows together, letting Ernest's nerves bloom into something softer, something shy with sweetness.

"Well, we never did anything to celebrate your internship."

Mal utterly lights up at the mere mention of it. A high school career spent on local design competitions and protests for home ec funding paid off, earning him an internship with a hatmaker. The specifics are beyond Ernest, rendered into static with terminology and niche award names, but the baseline is obvious.

Mal is moving to follow his dream.

It cracked Ernest to the bone when Mal called him with the news a few nights prior, even though it shouldn't have. Ernest is moving, anyway. Following the call of his own dream-- a chemistry degree, pre-med, residency, a life in terminology beyond Mal's head, a life so far separated from their hometown that he began planning before Mal's heart opened for him.

Perhaps it's different. Perhaps there's a difference between knowing something is doomed before indulging and finding out more nails have been ordered for its coffin. Perhaps there's simply a difference in knowing Mal won't be readily available if Ernest cringes from the immense workload his career path demands.

"I'd love to go out with you. What time should I pick you up?"

"First relationships are made to be broken," Ernest whispers to himself in the mirror, a crack in his voice. His hands stuck halfway up the line of buttons pulling his shirt together, leaving it a Y cutting over him, an autopsy unperformed. (What's the cause of heartache? Rummage past his ribs and see.)

"It's just practice before college. That's when dating really starts." He swallows over it. Fingers in a twitch, fumbling the next buttonhole, he could never be a surgeon.

Ideas swirl around in his head, placed there by old relatives, by past hopes for himself. Tasting of tear salt and clogging his throat.

"I'll meet a... I'll meet someone nice and settle down wherever will pay me best." It would be a promise if it wasn't a threat. Or, if it didn't spark the same anxiety in his belly as a threat.

Ernest sinks to the ground, the creep of familiar panic threatening his lungs. He settles his head between his knees, taking breaths with the care Mal has taught him to reserve for himself, modeled after the way he handles his hat-making materials.

What will he do without him? How will he handle the weight of his coursework? How will he endure sharing a dormitory with a stranger, being cut off from his family, and from his Mal?

Ernest swallows again. Best not to think of him as my Mal.

His fingers still enough to button his shirt up. Once the rest of him steadies, he stands and finishes getting ready. A shirt, a vest, a weary smile. Perfect.

Ernest walks out the front door, finding Mal ready and waiting in his hand-me-down car with patchwork upholstery. Ernest slides into the passenger seat-- his seat-- and clicks the seat belt in place. He tugs it to make sure it's secure, nodding before Mal pulls out of his driveway.

Dinner is lovely. They hold hands like everything is okay (and perhaps everything is okay for Mal. He was forewarned. He knew what he was signing up for.) They go back to Mal's house afterward like everything is fine, sneaking up to his bedroom, whispering about graduation plans. They'll be celebrating with their respective families. They won't be able to rendezvous until their relatives have filtered away, leaving in their wake the grime of judgment unique to extended, external families.

They speed through planning their summers, penny-pinched in preparation for their separate lives. Days to be spent strolling under the sun, and nights to be spent at the local pool until they're shooed away by lifeguards desperate to go home.

"And then we can help each other pack up!" Mal says, like it's some sort of gift. A last opportunity to do something sweet together: sorting through the artifacts of their lives before shipping them out of their context.

Ernest nods and indulges Mal for a kiss when he cups his face. He misses him the second their lips part.

Chapter Text

Mal tapes the last of his boxes shut, looking up to find Ernest's frown set deep on his face. "What's wrong?"

Ernest swallows, hugging himself. "You... You're leaving."

"Well, yeah, we both are!" Mal stands up, reaching for one of Ernest's hands, unwrapping him. He kisses Ernest's hand, an eyebrow raising at the frown he gets in response. "You're going further than me."

Ernest shakes his head, searching for words, and finds only tears burning at his eyes. Mal envelops him in a hug without a word, patting his back and letting his head rest in the crook between his neck and shoulder.

"I know," Mal whispers. "I know."

Ernest closes the trunk of his car-- brand new, a graduation present-- behind a pile of boxes with his absolute necessities. His eyelashes glitter under the morning sunlight, teardrops turned crystalline, refracting miniature rainbows before being wiped away with the back of his sleeve.

Mal reaches over, patting his shoulder. (Ernest's parents are right there, after all. They've maintained the image of being "best friends" for this long, what's a few minutes more?) Ernest sniffles hard, and Mal wants nothing more than to press a kiss onto his cheek. He squeezes the shoulder, pulling Ernest into something like a bro hug. A single pat on his back. Pulling away far too soon.

"Ready to go?" Ernest's dad asks, tossing him the keys. Ernest fumbles them. Mal picks them up and hands them to him properly, getting a nod as thanks, red dusting Ernest's cheeks. Visible embarrassment.

Ernest just nods, and so he's gone.

Mal's heart races as he walks towards the Liddel Hat Shop, wearing the best outfit he could fish out of his boxes for his first day. He hasn't unpacked properly yet. He moved into his little apartment that day before starting his apprenticeship, and he hasn't even checked his phone.

(But that's a good thing. He's too busy to be disappointed at the lack of messages from Ernest. He started a week ago, and there's been nothing but radio silence.)

The bell above the door chines when he walks in, and a little girl looks up at him. "Mr. Copeland?"

Mal blinks, far from used to being called mister. "Yes?"

"I'm Alice!" The little girl chirps, and then turns around to a door leading out from the storefront. "DAAAAAD, THE NEW GUY IS HERE!"

Mal's boss, an older man with a shock of white hair forming a semicircle around his head. He hurries out to greet Mal with a firm handshake and a warm welcome into the hat shop.

Work swallows Mal whole, yet gives him ample time to dissolve into the culture of the hat shop. Alice, he learns, is just as much of a fixture in the store as her father is. Moreso when she comes in after school, slinging her backpack down in the staff room and peering over Mal's shoulder as he works pins into fabric and peers at minuscule embroidery.

Mr. Liddel is the next more familiar figment, with wisdom and advice beyond anything Mal could have fathomed going into his apprenticeship. He's more patient than any of the teachers he and Ernest had back home, yet refuses to go easy on Mal. He doesn't hesitate before assigning him tougher jobs than he's ever had to do before, a sign of trust. Something that polishes a reluctant stone of pride within him.

And the regulars, filtering in almost at random, are last. A man who keeps buying exorbitant hats for his rotating roster of ladyloves, a man who has no business beyond bringing a frequently ripped violet coat in for Alice to practice mending on, and a woman swathed in red who comes in every other Friday at seven in the afternoon.

The woman in red-- apparently named Mrs. Queenie Cardstock (née Hart)-- always buys something different, to the point she and Mr. Liddel seem to have some inside joke, or perhaps a bet, where he comes up with new designs and tries to guess which one she'll buy. From what Mal can tell, he's never been correct, but Alice has a surprising win streak.

(And Ernest is entirely absent. Mal texted him a few times after he got home from work, exhausted to shakes, but is yet to get a response. He has quelled the worry in his belly by reasoning that if his apprenticeship is this taxing, then the STEM degree his Ernest is working on must be beyond exhausting.)

And with work comes stress-- and a cough he finds mildly concerning-- and an in on the bets between Mr. Liddel and Mrs. Queenie Cardstock. He bets with Alice, but Mr. Liddel refuses to do the same, to the point Mal is convinced he's losing on purpose. Oh well. He'd lose on purpose, too, if he didn't enjoy getting a high five after Alice sticks her winning tongue out at her dad. He'd lose if he checked in more on Ernest.

Lucky for him, he wins.

Chapter Text

Ernest groans in an energy drink-fueled haze as his phone vibrates next to him on his desk. Another text from Mal, or his mom, or perhaps a wrong number. There's little difference at this point.

He pries his head off of his folded arms, light glittering over his eyes with all the softness of a lightning strike. Another groan scrapes out of his lips, coupled with his pulse ringing at his temples, the blood thick in his veins.

His eyes barely focus on the header of whatever chapter he's been trying to read. Something about acids.

His head falls back on top of the book, this time with his arms folding over his head in a desperate attempt to keep the light from filtering through the curves of his face, and falls into a sour sleep.

Ernest's phone vibrates again, in his pocket, making him blink sleep-sandy eyes and pause in the middle of the library. It stuns him, for a moment, before he regains his train of thought and continues stalking through the stacks, looking for some specific textbook he needs. Ignoring the tickling in his chest.

He picked up a call from his mom on a whim, only to be met with a tidal wave of concern. He answered honestly: he's been busy, he's been so busy that he can hardly think straight, that he struggles to keep down a meal against the anxiety broiling in his belly. (Well, he might not have verbalized anything after just being busy. Why would he? If he worried her, she'd call more.)

During that call, he had a bit of a coughing fit. His mother instantly flew into a worried fit, asking about symptoms before proclaiming that his childhood asthma is making a resurgence. He claimed it was just the eternally dusty nature of the school, but that didn't stop her from sending his inhaler to the school.

He fishes it out of his pocket-- on the opposite side from his dreaded phone-- and tastes the sweet relief of bitter medicine at its use. He's never been a fan of people being right about him.

Ernest's phone once again vibrates, this time as a class wraps up. He presses his phone to his embarrassment-flushed face as he rushes out of the room, towards the vague direction of his dorm. He didn't even check the caller ID. And yet, he jumps the second he registers Mal's voice.

"Ernest!" His voice is lively, rich, an echo of what he left behind in the pursuit of academic greatness. "Hey, darling, it's been a month! I was starting to think you were ignoring me."

The urge to cry crashes through Ernest's chest. He swallows it. "I'm sorry, Mal. I've been busy."

"Me, too. I should've checked in sooner, I'm sorry." The apology only makes the urge stronger, makes something acidic roll across the back of Ernest's tongue. "But I'm calling now. I've got a weekend off my internship coming up, and I'm thinking about visiting you at school. What do you think?"

"Mal, I don't think that would be such a good idea." The words come out too quick, with a vicious swipe that makes Ernest himself flinch.

"Why not?"

"Well, it's your first opportunity to go somewhere?"

"Mhm."

"We-- Well, um... Shouldn't you use it on something indulgent?" Ernest leans against the wall next to his building's door, letting the autumnal air sink its teeth into him. Gnaw on the tip of his nose, on the pads of his fingers.

"Like seeing my boyfriend?"

"Mal..."

Mal waits, but the words don't come. The idea comes first, cracking his heart evenly in two.

"Oh. I didn't realize."

"I-I-I-- I'm sorry--"

"No, don't be." Ernest can see him in his mind's eye: biting the inside of his cheek as he stoically accepts the truth. It's something he's too good at. "I should have figured. Have you met anyone at school?"

"I-- no, no I haven't."

"Well, I hope you will. And I still want to keep in touch-- we were good friends first. I want to stay like that."

Ernest musters up some sort of noncommittal noise, raw. "I've got homework," he mumbles, and exchanges numb goodbyes before hearing the line go dead.

He listens to the shrill of electricity buzzing through his phone before dropping it into his pocket, brought back to the world. To the students milling about around him. To the endless noise of campus.

He opens the door to the building, relishing the burn of cold metal on his hands, and heads up to his dorm.

Chapter Text

Mal gets dressed with shaking hands, trying really hard not to cry. He turned down the opportunity for a free weekend in exchange for some extra tutoring on his embroidery work. His needlework could always use some extra practice, and it'll keep his mind off of the call. (Ernest, Ernest, Ernest, Ernest, Ernest--)

His trek to the hat shop is much calmer with routine. He has ample time to get there, to unlock the door with his employee key, and to ready it for another smooth day of business. But today, there will be no business. Only the fury of learning. Only his mind frantically reaching for anything new.

Mr. Liddel gets there soon enough, finding Mal with his work area clean yet prepared for the day, with a sketch of today's embroidery pattern and a dream. He smiles and puts a hand on Mal's shoulder, fully aware of something dark lurking behind his eager eyes. But he ignores it, just as readily as Mal. What better way to channel anguish than by art?

"What can I help you with today, ma'am?"

"Oh, I can think of a dozen things you could help me with." The patron lets out a chuckle under her breath, desperate.

Mal has been flirted with by dozens of different customers already, but it ran off his back at the start. But since the break-up, it has stuck to him. Or, more accurately, it sticks with him. A rock in his shoe, an ill-placed callous, a haunting in the peripheral. An annoyance rather than a happenstance, a reminder of what he lost.

"Would you like to see our new hats?" He asks, monotone unlike himself.

The patron blinks, sobered with mutual rejection. "Yes, please."

Alice sits at one of the worktables in the backroom, working on her math as Mal squints at the eye of a needle. A needle drawing itself through his own eye, a migraine earned with endless work and study.

"Mr. Copeland?" Alice breaks the silence in an utterly miserable voice.

"Yes?" He says it before the words themselves snap him out of his work. Once it does, he clears his throat. "Yes, Miss Liddel?"

Alice giggles at the formality. "I'm having trouble."

"What with?"

"Decimals."

Mal groans in a particularly exaggerated way, slumping back in his chair like he's dissolving at the very idea. She giggles more, like a miniature bell. Hearing her mood lighten at his jest sends a warm static feeling through his chest. Something like pride, perhaps? No, that can't be it. "What part of decimals?"

"Converting them to percentages."

Mal pretends to gag, reducing her to a full-on burst of laughter. He leaves his unthreaded needle behind to peer at her math sheet over her shoulder. ""Oh, it does look like that. Terrible. Absolutely dreadful."

"Yes, yes," she sighs, a laugh still dancing on the words. "Can you help me?"

"Wellllll, let's see!" Mal gets a very serious look on his face, taking a pencil in hand and making a show out of getting ready to write. "The first one is .23, yes?

"Mhm."

"Well, you take this decimal right here and you scoot it over two places and then you draw the little percentage sign after it, and now you've got 23%!"

Alice blinks. "Huh. That's way easier than my math teacher made it out to be."

"Isn't it?" Mal stands up with a faux proud look.

"Wait! Can you help me with converting them to fractions?"

Mal blinks, scrounging through the limited memories he has of being in her grade. "Hm... I'd love to, but I think I hear your father calling me from the front of the store. I should go check on that, and you should maybe look up the steps to that! Just to be safe."

As Mal speaks he edges towards the door to the storefront, completely ignoring the unimpressed look on Alice's face.

Mal almost runs right into Mr. Liddel, who apologizes and goes past him into the backroom. Oh well, he's probably better equipped to help Alice with her homework anyways.

Mal busies himself with tending to the empty storefront, straightening displays and un-straightening other ones. He's in the middle of deciding between the two for one of the newer hats when the bell over the store door chimes.

His head snaps over to find Queenie standing in the doorframe, her mascara running and several hairs out of place. After so long watching her walk into the store in a state of utter perfection, seeing her in despair is almost a horror in and of itself.

"Mrs. Cardstock?"

Her face screws up with something between disgust and despair. "Don't call me that. It's Ms. Hart now."

Mal blinks at her, the weight of her words taking a moment to fully drop from his ears to the pit of his stomach. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Can I do anything for you?"

Queenie paces around the store in a huff, and a puff, and a full-on hyperventilation. Mal hurries past her, replacing the Open sign in the door. Mr. Liddel wouldn't want anyone coming in while one of their customers was having a meltdown, and Mrs. Cardstock-- Ms. Hart-- Queenie-- isn't just a customer. She's a regular, and perhaps, a friend.

"My idiot of a husband said I spent too much of his money on my hats, and I told him these hats bring me more joy than he ever has, and he asked me for my wedding ring back--"

Mr. Liddle sticks his head out of the backroom, only to see what's going on and retreat backward. Mal mentally curses him before he can stop himself, feeling bad for it immediately. He wouldn't want to be the one responsible for taking care of this despair, either.

"-- and I threw my ring at him and he told me not to come home again, and now I don't know where to go. My sister is out on her annual vacation and none of my friends have guestrooms, and all of our bank accounts were merged, and--"

Mr. Liddel, in a move that practically elevates him to sainthood in Mal's eyes, comes out from the backroom with a glass of water. He walks to Queenie and offers her the glass, and once it's drained, he pulls her into a shuddering hug. Mal almost crumbles at the sight, filled with some mix of relief and awe. How can he comfort her so completely, so seamlessly, so effortlessly?

Queenie sits in a chair, sipping at her refilled glass a few minutes later. Reduced to hiccups and shuddering words spoken quickly and quietly to Mr. Liddel as she details her miserable position. Until the awe turns to bile in Mal's throat, but with an acidic, uneasy taste. Someone needs to take care of this, and Mr. Liddel and Alice don't have room for another person.

"Mrs. C-- Sorry, Ms. Hart?"

She swallows, looking up at Mal. "Yes, Mr. Copeland?"

"It isn't much, but, uh... Well, my couch is free. I know it's not much, but if you need somewhere to sleep--"

Mal is cut off by her pouncing on him, crushing him into a powerful hug.

"Thank you," she says, in a voice so much smaller than herself.

Something warm flickers in Mal's chest again, stronger, bringing his arms to circle Queenie.

She melts into it, the same way she melted into Mr. Liddel, and she continues to melt as he escorts her to his little apartment and helps her make herself at home.

Chapter Text

Ernest has the ability to see, and as such, is fully aware that Heather Richardson is a beautiful woman. He almost has a few thoughts knocking around his brain, so he is also fully aware that she has a crush on him that's bigger than the damn continent.

He doesn't know how it happened, though. One day she was just someone in his advanced anatomy class, a halo of black curls that he'd have to look around to try and see the board. The next she was picking him for all of their partnered assignments and making not-so-subtle suggestions that they'd be a cute couple.

Ernest doesn't mind, for the most part. It's more of a fact of life than anything else. Neutral, unremarkable, and barely noticeable when obscured by the mountains of work he's been drowning in. She isn't the first person to get a crush on him since he started studying here, after all. He's sure she won't be the last, in the distant part of his mind that's still able to think of romance as a concept without his world collapsing in Mal's absence.

It's just a fact drifting at the periphery of his world, like the presence of air. It's there, but irrelevant until you have to acknowledge it for one reason or another.

A reason like the screen of a different classmate's computer during one of the more boring classes he has to slog through.

He tried to focus on his notes, but his eyes quickly drifted off to anything in the room that could possibly be of interest. Namely, the screens of his peers' computers. He's probably the only person who actually has their notes open— at least in what he can see around him— and he quickly makes a game of keeping statistics.

• 4 screens open to various YouTube videos.
• 3 screens open to Solitare.
• 2 screens desperately trying to run two different Sims games.
• 1 screen open to Instagram, displaying a picture of Mal with a woman dressed in all red, holding her close like the most precious person he's ever had.

Ernest quits the game, staring at that screen. Three rows down, a little to the left, the worst sight he's ever seen. He could almost convince himself that he was seeing things incorrectly. But no. He'd know Mal from miles away, and he'd know heartbreak with the most intimate touch it could offer.

The classmate finally scrolls after posting some comment on the photo, but it's already burnt into his mind.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he digs it out, finding a text from Heather inviting him to a study session. He texts a confirmation without a single thought, speeding away from his own response on his way to Instagram. He hasn't opened it since he started here, his new life offering absolutely nothing that he deems worthy of posting. Especially since it would probably involve his face— a tired subject he has refused to photograph since he stopped taking photos with Mal.

There, right when he opens the app, is the exact photo he just saw on his peer's screen. A photo his lo— ex-lover was tagged in, displaying him with the other woman. A simple click gives him all the information he could ever want about her. Queenie Hart, late 20s, some level of celebrity by the looks of it. With Mal on her arm.

Ernest walks out of the lecture hall like a zombie, his brains repurposed and rewired, unable to think about anything but the acidic churning in his heart. Bright green and harsh, jealousy unmatched.

Heather is a vision in pale gray, idling with a coffee stirrer as she listens to Ernest drone on about the upcoming exam schedule. She looks at him openly, eyes brown and oil slick, sun-warmed river silt filtered over affection. A gaze that makes him scratch the back of his neck and stutter even more than normal, a blush progressively overshadowing his cheeks.

It's not like he likes her or anything. It's not like he's ever liked a her. But college is for dating to settle down, isn't it? It's for serious acquisition, for settling.

When her fingers creep toward his, he doesn't stop them. And when she asks if they can do this again, he nods and offers a time and place.

When she asks what they are, he counters with "Wha- What do you want us to b-be?" And to her answer of something serious— something steady— he simply nods with whatever smile he could muster and says "W-Well, then."

Chapter Text

Mal scratches at the patchy stubble taking over his jawline, something hollow in the pit of his chest. And it's not just from being alone in their new apartment for the first time since Queenie and him moved in.

It's Valentine's Day, and Queenie ditched him at home to go on a date with her new beau. Understandable, of course, but it's left him with an entirely free night to spend picking at his frayed memories of Ernest.

It's been so long since he's heard his voice. Since he's talked to him in any way. Since he's seen his face, tasted his lips, felt the warm satisfaction of his skin.

He swallows back a flush, forcing his attention onto his phone in a bid for endless distraction. He gets little more than basic mind-numbing until he opens Instagram, expecting to be greeted by one of Queenie's latest photos, or perhaps something Alice posted to the shop's new page.

Instead, he's greeted by Ernest's face, tired with age above his present years. Posing with a woman radiating forced happiness, something flat behind her dark eyes.

Mal's face cracks into a frown, clicking the caption open and reading a paragraph about another extraordinary year together. Ernest couldn't have written it— the wording is too far off from his usual texts. Or, at least, how he remembers his usual texts. Has he changed enough in the last handful of years to develop an entirely new writing style?

He slips his phone away, massaging an ache forming in his palm as his mind runs laps around the photo. Ernest never expressed any interest in women when they knew each other, as much as he pretended to in front of his parents. As rude as it might be, he suspects the entire post was formulated by Ernest's supposed girlfriend rather than Ernest himself.

He picks his phone back up and clicks on her profile— tagged, of course— scrolling through her posts and reading each of her captions. Sure enough, this Miss Heather seems to write exactly the sort of thing he found in Ernest's caption. Furthermore, it would seem almost all of Ernest's posts since their break up have been photos of him and Heather, tagging her, and with nearly identical captions.

Something sour swirls in the back of Mal's throat, an uneasiness breeding worry for Ernest. As long as it's been, and as rude as it was to end their relationship over call, Mal can't find it in him to be fine with Ernest having a relationship he doesn't seem happy in.

He's debating matters in his head, the ache in his palm spreading through both hands, when the door to the apartment bursts over. His attention snaps to Queenie, her face drenched with black mascara lines.

"Queenie?" He stands, holding his arms open. She crashes into him, letting out a flurry of dramatic sobs. Which is the only way she seems capable of crying.

"I hate men," she sobs into his chest. He pats her back, sure of it.

"I'm sorry about your date," he coos, rubbing circles into her back. He holds her and gives her the best comforts he can muster until her sobs are reduced to watery hiccups.

He sits her at their table with a carton of ice cream, holding her hand in comfort as she shovels ice cream into her mouth.

"I'm sick of romance," she mumbles, sniffling and swallowing afterward. "First my ex-husband. Then this series of boyfriends, and now being stood up on Valentine's Day. I don't think I can handle another heartbreak."

She says the last line with a dramatic flourish, suggesting that she can, in fact, handle another heartbreak.

"I've decided I'm done with it," she declares, a sudden serious edge to her voice and demeanor. "With romance. I'll never date again."

Mal nods, though he doesn't believe she'll stick to it. "If you think that's the right decision for you, then I'll support you in that. You're a very strong woman, Queenie, and I believe you deserve to find your own happiness and cling to it, whether happiness for you will one day involve a partner or not."

Queenie nods, emboldened by praise, a smile breaking on her smudged red lips. "Thank you, Mal. Whatever would I do without you?"

"You'd have to get your own tubs of ice cream."

She laughs, still with a watery edge, and swats at him gently. "Give yourself more credit. You're a wonderful friend, and a wonderful roommate. What would I need a partner for, anyway?"

Mal smiles softly, a fuzzy feeling rioting in his heart. He squeezes her hand, hoping there's something within him that can make him feel the same way.

He continues to listen to her until she retires to her new room, leaving him alone with a myriad of thoughts running through his head. Ernest, Queenie, Ernest, Queenie, Ernest, Queenie, and the aches radiating up into his fingers.

He throws away her empty ice cream tub and heads to bed.

Chapter Text

Ernest's mind rotates around the foul idea of a ring as Heather brushes her hair at her vanity. He waits, sitting at the foot of her bed in an apartment she procured somewhere along the way.

When had her dorm room melted into this? And when had his melted away entirely, to a shared house and then an apartment he can call his own. A nasty little hideaway stewing with the smell of eternal fear and a never-easy stomach. Hitched breaths and excuses why she can't stay the night. She can't know that he never found the energy to put his bed frame together, between one semester and the other, between the draining dates, between the pointed comments her parents would make about commitment whenever she retreated to the bathroom.

"Ernest?"

Heather's voice sounds as hollow as his heart. It has for a while. And when had that happened? And when had he stopped asking if she was all right?

"Yes?"

"What are you doing after your graduation?"

Just the word graduation sent his heart skittering at a sickening pace. The inevitability he'd been proudly marching toward with a bright smile, and inching away from when it grew too bright, shone too true.

"I-I-I've got a j-job offer from Dr. C-Carol. I did m-m– I did my residency w-with her, rem-remember?"

Heather nods, her reflection bobbing along with herself, her head of hair perfectly situated so he doesn't have to see her face in the mirror. "Your mother called."

He winces. She knows he does, even without sparing a glance at him. That's one of the few things he can genuinely say he admires about her. It's one of the few ways he can gush about her without feeling a stabbing in his side.

"She wants you to come home. And I agree with her."

"Wh–"

"You haven't gone home once since you started your Bachelor's, Ernest! You rarely even call her." Heather turns from her mirror, turning what he fears might be more distant than care on her face. "You've been hiding from her, haven't you?"

"Wha– I–"

She sits right next to him, a couple's length away, ready to crawl under his skin. "What are you hiding, Ernest?"

Ernest stares at her. Hypnotic, demanding eyes. Pleading, perhaps. "Y-Your fa-father wants– wants me to-to-to pro–"

Heather slaps a hand over his mouth, her eyes as wide as saucers. "Ernest, no."

He blinks, peeling himself from her hand. "No?"

"No." She clasps one of his hands in both of hers. "Ernest, are you happy with me?"

"I– Wh-What?"

"Are you happy with me?"

Ernest stares at her.

Heather waits, with the patience she's given him for far too long. Perhaps things would be so much better if she hadn't been so forgiving.

She kisses her teeth, standing up. "Go home, Ernest. Call your mom. Call anyone who cares about you and talk to them. Instead of just sitting around and staring at me like you're doing a good job for hours on end. And I'll be having a talk with my father about trying to force any of my future boyfriends' hands."

Ernest stands automatically, a wind-up toy going right out her door and through the hallway of her building. Marching all the way home, where the inevitable guilt swallows him whole.

He sits at a desk made of still unopened moving boxes and tries to study.

Chapter Text

Mal clenches his dirt-dusted hand into a fist at his side, grief burning up the length of his throat. His other hand is being squeezed by Alice, not so little anymore, as she sobs for her father.

The death wasn't sudden. Mr. Liddel crept towards death with the grace of a prowling cat, pouncing when ready and tasting the sweet reward of a life well-spent doing what he loves. And so the Liddel Hat Shop finds itself safely nestled in Mal's care. Alice's guardianship falls to him and Queenie as well, at her own request. The duo moved into the Liddel's home as the end drew near, to make the transition easy on Alice and to help care for Mr. Liddel in his final days.

And now it's done.

Mal swipes away some snot with a handkerchief he embroidered himself, a cough worming its way through his tears. Queenie places a hand on his shoulder, nodding off towards Mr. Liddel's old car in the graveyard's parking lot.

Mal gently squeezes Alice's hand. "Ready to go?"

Alice shakes her head, another sob tearing through her. She starts towards the car before either of them.

The wind hums against the side of the car as Mal drives his makeshift family back to their not-quite home. His women are Eurydice silent; he'd spare a glance into his rearview mirror to check on Alice if he couldn't hear her stopped-up breaths.

He checks his left blindspot, just about to turn onto their street, when his eyes catch on a glimmer in the car driving past. As blinding as a flashlight on a broken disco ball, scraping past his vision.

He makes the turn, trying to convince himself he didn't see Ernest in the driver's seat of that car.

Chapter Text

Ernest's palms sweat on the wheel of his car--- worn down, a graduation present--- as he finds his way back home, the back seat piled with the belongings he's scraped together during his time away. Two boxes of clothes. Everything else is academic: textbooks, print-outs, equipment.

His childhood home morphed in his years away. His mother must've gotten back into gardening considering the rainbow-splattered lawn. The actual building has morphed as well; he saw a pool in the backyard as he drove up the street.

Ernest parks and walks up a stone walkway, ringing the doorbell with his tail between his legs. His mother throws the door open like she's been waiting at the entrance since he told her about his homecoming.

He hasn't been hugged so fiercely since Mal.

His father joins them shortly after, finishing his welcome with another hug and pulling his belongings out of the car.

Ernest hangs up his keys next to his parents' on the shared hook next to the door, next to keys he's never seen before, before falling into line as they start delivering his boxes back to his room.

At some point they gain stragglers; little siblings he's seen through photos. Margret, five, and James, three. Drifting after their parents and staring at Ernest with wide-open eyes. Their own unicorn or griffon or dragon: the mythical brother they've heard so very much about, spotted only through dusty pictures on the mantle neither of them can reach.

He waves, feeling like a typo, before joining the dust bunnies in his bedroom.

Ernest stands in front of the mirror in his room, light lines in it from the window cleaner he used on it the night he arrived, and straightens his tie.

"It's just an interview," Ernest whispers to himself, the tie cutting him down the middle. Still waiting to be stitched up, put back together, made whole. He's never been good with a needle and thread, like Mal was. It's a good thing he chose to specialize in neuroscience over surgery.

"Just a job. You've got offers back in the city. Just... Just something nice you can do at home to get into it."

He swallows a stone, dropping it right into the bottomless pit of his stomach, and turns from the mirror. He marches to his bedroom door only for his foot to shoot out from under him, landing him flat on his back, a distressing riiiiiip stretching from his back.

He sits up, his eyes on the catalyst for the fall. A crayon drawing one of his siblings must've pushed under his door. His hand fumbles at his back, reaching for the inevitable conclusion.

His suit jacket. His very best suit jacket. Ripped under his body weight. "Shit."

Ernest's heart races as he hurries down the street, his feet step on following the directions his phone keeps spewing out. He clicked on the very first option it gave him for a tailoring shop, not looking too hard. He doesn't have time to look too hard, nor to think anything beyond how awful this interview will be if he shows up with a torn jacket.

Well, it might be a bit of an exaggeration to imagine the faceless interviewer spewing literal fire at him and having his medical license revoked over a torn jacket, but he doesn't have time to think about accuracy either.

He skids to a stop a moment or two too late, doubling back and checking the sign above the belled door before barreling into the Liddel Hat Shop. Hopefully, the map didn't lie about them making non-hat alterations.

Chapter Text

"Hello, Mister! Can I help you with anything today?"

"Y-Yes, please. I need my jacket men-mended."

"Hm, let me look at it!"

Mal leans in a circle at his desk in the back room, something aching in his mind. Behind swirling finances, employee taxes, and a grocery list to pick up after work, something primal lurks.

"Oh, yes, I'll have this sewn up for you right away!"

"C-Can you h-hurry, please? I-I-I have an int-int-inter--"

"An interview, sir? Oh, what an emergency! One second--" Alice's head pops through the employee door. "Mal, we have a gentleman who needs a jacket for an interview. Do you think he can borrow one from the stash?"

The stash is a small closet of clothing that was left at the Liddel Hat Shop for mending or alternation by Alice, but was never picked up. Mal nods, standing and following Alice out into the front.

Ernest and Mal look into each other rather than the other's pixelated likeness for the first time in so, so long. Ernest's eyes fill with panic, while something sinks deeply in Mal's.

Mal blinks plastering on a smile. "It's been such a long time, Ernest. Would you like to come with me to pick out a jacket for your interview?"

Ernest looks at him like he grew two heads, gradually breaking into a nod as Alice looks between the two. Utterly bewildered, she slips back into the employee's only area, leaving Mal to lead Ernest through the show floor towards the stash closet.

Ernest stands like a poorly posed mannequin as Mal rifles through the closet, pulling out every other jacket and holding it up to Ernest, judging how well it works with his outfit and how well it will fit him. Just like old times.

Mal sends Ernest skittering out of the shop with a borrowed jacket and a mumbled promise to return after his interview for an estimate on the repair and to give the jacket back.

Mal swallows as the bell above the door chimes in Ernest's wake, turning roughly towards the back. Alice's head pops out at the same time. "Who was that?"

"An old friend."

"Have you talked about him before?"

"No."

"Oh."

Mal walks past her into the back, leaving her to continue her shift in the front. Alice leans against the front counter, trying to put together pieces she doesn't have as she considers asking Queenie. He tells Queenie everything, after all. Surely she knows about Mal's mystery man.