Author's Note: IMPORTANT! As of now I will not write a second chapter for any pairing. I'm sorry, but I get overwhelmed with these as it is (since I'm a procrastinator by nature) and it's the school year. Please understand that I am still taking requests, just not for pairings already done in this fic. Thank you for your time.

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Edgar loved the quiet of the night, though it was a bit eerie.

Something about being back at Whispering Rock was comforting and distressing at the same time. It was a happy place, where children could show their powers without fear, and where they could make friends with others of their kind. Yet it was not quite right with him. He was used to looking at the camp from Thorney Towers, not at looking at the remains of the asylum from camp. Something about seeing it from here was different. Not unpleasantly so. He was grateful to be out of that place, as he'd told Razputin a hundred times at the Psychonaut's eighteenth birthday party not an hour ago in the Main Lodge.

He wasn't sure why he left the party. Maybe it was just that he was too old. The psitanium had slowed his aging considerably, but he still felt the effects as he stared at his old prison. It had been so long, nearly eight years now, since he had been there. While he hated it so much, at least he had been near his love. Oh, Gloria, how beautiful she looked now, with her hair done up gracefully and a smile on her face. But she was with Fred now.

He had to move on, accept it. She had found the other half of herself in him. Everyone deserved that much in life. Fred made her insanely happy (no pun intended towards their old home, of course). Fred was also a good man. Edgar had many years of memories that backed that up. But somehow, it still hurt to see her on his arm, so in love, and not a thought devoted to him. Oh, it made his insides ache. He knew it was for the best, yet no logic could make it okay.

A sniffle drew his attention towards the other end of the beach.

Dogen Boole had gone from a stubby little boy to an awkwardly lanky teen to a handsome man. Years of missions and training had made him finally have the control to lose his tinfoil hat, revealing a sea of thick dark blue hair. His silver eyes were much more focused now then as a child, and to Edgar, they seemed sadder. The young man pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them in something akin to a fetal position.

For a moment, Edgar wondered whether he should say something. Dogen looked like he needed a friend. Then again, Edgar hardly knew him; brief conversations with the Junior Psychonaut once or twice a year were all he had.

But as Edgar watched, his artist's eyes took in an image far different from what he had seen before. It was like when he had transformed Lana into Lampita in his mind. He saw the soft featured face and saw a delicacy hidden by years of fighting to be 'cool'. He saw hair like darkest midnight waves, an ocean in the moonlight. And he saw pain in those eyes, pain that was of the heart and soul.

So he made the decision to talk to this beautiful young man, who had dressed in his Psychonauts uniform for this event. So formal, so polite. Where had the awkward, mumbling little boy gone? It seemed this could not be the same person. For Dogen had never been this thoughtful as a child, it seemed, and now he was deep in thought, watching the lake waves bring in dead fish and the seagulls swoop down for the food. He had really become a different person as the years had gone by. Edgar approached him quietly, and it seemed as if the Psychonaut did not hear him.

"May I join you?" Edgar asked, gesturing to the sand beside Dogen. "A night this beautiful should not be spent alone."

He blinked, startled, but didn't spare more than a glance at Edgar. "Sure, whatever."

They sat in silence for a moment. The sounds of the night were familiar and comforting to both; the squeak of psychic crickets, the rhythm of the lake waves splashing against the sand, the occasional shriek as a cougar leapt out at a seagull somewhere within the forest. They'd heard this before. There had been many nights like these for both of them, sitting on the beach and looking out at the lake. It seemed as though this moment had happened before.

"Edgar?" Dogen asked quietly, resting his chin on his knees. "Have you ever been in love with someone – not puppy love, real love – and then figure out you don't have a snowball's chance in Hell?"

"Yes," Edgar said in return, smiling ruefully, "That's the story of my life. So, someone you-"

"Yeah," Dogen summed it up. "I know, I know, I shouldn't break up a happy couple. But if I could, I would. Does that make me a bad person?"

The way he said that last part reminded Edgar of when Dogen had been younger, more naïve, and he shook his head. "No, that makes you human."

There was a pause. Then…

"Being human sucks," Dogen announced.

Edgar laughed, hard, and after a moment, Dogen managed a smile. The two returned to comfortable silence for a while, Edgar occasionally chuckling. Each time he did, Dogen rolled his eyes. It seemed the mood had gotten considerably more companionable. Edgar looked at him and was pleased to see Dogen looking significantly happier. There was just a way those soft features lit up when the young man smiled, and a twinkle to those silver eyes… it was, as Raz would surely say, awesome.

"Dogen," Edgar told him softly, "I'm sure you'll be able to find someone else, with time. A man such as yourself is a true work of art."

Dogen looked him in the eye and smiled. "And what's the art without the artist?"