Jesse comes out of the bathroom with a faintly relieved sigh, the blade of the guillotine still embedded in the floor from their escapade of actually getting into the bathroom.

(Suffice to say, it is certainly an event Jesse doesn't really want to repeat.)

Romeo, to their surprise, is still waiting outside the door. He looks up when they exit the restroom and uncrosses his arms, giving them a faint smile.

"I'll, uh," and he glances at the blade, which has actually cracked the tiled floor a bit from the force of it falling, before his eyes flicker to Jesse and he gives them an apologetic half-smile. "I'll get rid of it later."

Jesse gives him a tiny, tiny smile back. "I mean, it would be nice to use the restroom without worrying that I'm going to get beheaded in the process."

A bark of laughter from the demon lord as he flicks his fingers at the guillotine blade, making it slowly vanish from the bathroom entrance, although the cracks in the tile remain. "Yes, that's probably not something you want to do."

A soft giggle bubbles out of Jesse, who reaches up and covers their mouth for a moment to smother it. "No, being beheaded is not on my bucket list for life."

Romeo smirks. "I'd be concerned if it was on your bucket list."

"I wouldn't blame you if you were." Jesse beams at him, still trying to smother their giggling fit. "But, um, thank you for showing me to the right bathroom. I probably would've died otherwise."

"I'm sure you wouldn't have died, you probably would've..." Romeo pauses, eyes momentarily flickering to the ceiling as he reevaluates his statement. "Actually, never mind, you probably would've died."

Jesse can't help but dissolve back into giggles at the sheepish expression that follows the latter part of the statement. It's just not the expression you'd expect to find on a demon lord.

Or even just a regular lord.

When their giggles subside again, they tilt their head at him. "Sorry to interrupt your conversation earlier... I asked Lukas, Maya, and Gill, but they didn't remember where the not-booby-trapped bathroom was, so I figured..."

He shakes his head at them with a soft chuckle. If he finds it odd that they don't mention Aiden, he doesn't show it. "No, it's... uh... honestly, it's probably my fault for booby-trapping the toilets in the first place."

"Yeah, the first bathroom I went into was scary."

He gives another soft chuckle, giving them an almost absentminded pat on the head before beginning to walk down the hall. Jesse skips a few steps so they're walking next to him and not ten feet behind him. "My apologies, then."

Jesse hums mildly, folding their hands behind them. "No, 's fine. You, um..." They pause, before giving him "you put up your booby traps if you want to put up your booby traps."

The lord nearly giggles at that, giving them a mischievous grin at the statement. "Oh? Put up as many as I want, then?" He taps his chin 'thoughtfully', raising his eyes to the ceiling, his grin only growing even bigger. "Say... a few in the bathroom?"

Jesse can't help but giggle more now, shaking their head. "Noooo, I meant-"

"Y'know, I always wanted to do something like that bucket of water on the door prank. Ooh," and his expression literally lights up as his eyes start glowing in slight (mischievous) excitement, "maybe- maybe the bucket of water could be lava."

Jesse's giggles have escalated to the point where they're nearly silent. "I- I don't think that'd be- I didn't mean-"

Romeo's tone is half-excited and half teasing when he speaks again, grinning down at them almost mock-evilly. "Ooh, or perhaps, perhaps I could put something really spooky where you least expect it," he muses quietly, lips falling into a thoughtful, almost quiet expression.

"... maybe in the wall... or the ceiling... or the mirror-"

And he starts at them, hands put up as if to grab them, grab ahold of them hard enough to bruise hurt them-

Jesse instinctively flinches, backing away a step and promptly running into a wall as their giggles cut off into a strangled whimper, trying to restrain the sound but only managing to muffle it, scrambling back as much as possible, pressing their back into the wall, swallowing the tears and shoving them down down down-

- don't look upset- don't look afraid-

- don't look anything-

They clench their hands into little round fists, dig their nails into their palms to keep their hands from trembling (almost cry as they belatedly remember they skinned their hands earlier today while trying to keep up with Aiden but don't cry), swallow hard as they tilt their head back to look at Romeo.

He doesn't look angry.

He doesn't even look irritated.

Just confused.

Slowly, the demon lord edges closer to Jesse, leaning down a little bit so that he's not simply towering over them. His brow is furrowed slightly with confusion.

"Jesse?"

A few traitorous tears slip down Jesse's cheeks, their hand coming up so fast that they nearly hit themselves in the face and scrubbing their face clean of any salty liquid, although the tears that leak onto their palms sting the cuts and make them sting faintly with a vengeance. "I'm sorry."

Their throat is tight and choked with the effort of keeping tears from coming down their face, which isn't working because they can feel more coming, and no matter how much they scrub and scrub and scrub they're not going away-

A warm hand catches Jesse's as they reach up to rub away more tears and makes them jump a bit, almost automatically trying to wrench their hands out of Romeo's slender, scarred ones, but his grip is firm and keeps them from just jerking back out of his grip.

He's got tiny scars on his fingers that makes it look like he's gotten into a bar fight or something. Which is weird since he's a lord. Do demon lords get into bar fights? Do demon lords even go to bars?

Jesse only has a moment to think this before the demon lord speaks again, his voice surprisingly soft. "Don't do that."

He releases one of their hands and pokes their cheek gently, which feel raw and a little tender from Jesse rubbing their face so aggressively and makes a little tingly twinge go through their face.

They blink a few times, sending more tears down their face and making their cheeks feel a little weird in the process. "I'm- I'm sorry."

Well, wonderful, their voice is somehow even weaker than it was the first time they tried to speak.

"Why? You didn't do anything." Romeo releases their hand now, but he's still looking at them in a perplexed way.

His brow creases, and he looks almost apologetic a moment later. "Did I frighten you when I jumped at you? I didn't mean to." He gives his cheek an awkward scratch, still looking at Jesse with an apologetic expression. "My parents used to do that with me as a child."

And Jesse doesn't know why (well, actually, perhaps they do) but their chest gives a tight, horrible squeeze at that, and they're suddenly reaching up with their hands to press over their eyes and try to contain something that cannot be contained, tears trickling down their cheeks and still making it feel bizarre, their breath catching in their chest as the next breath that makes it out of their mouth is a quiet sob.

Romeo is quiet. Jesse almost wants to remove their hands from their eyes to see why, but at the same time, they feel a wary terror throttling their chest and they're locked into the position anyway so they can't really look.

And then he's gently tugging them into a strange and rather awkward hug, pressing their face into his midriff while keeping one hand loosely pressed to their back and one hand tangling in their hair, hands being forced into a little bundle at their chest as their shoulders shake.


Okay.

Romeo's going to be the first person to admit that he has no idea why he's hugging Jesse now.

Especially since they're crying.

He's also the first person to admit that he doesn't like it when people cry (especially Xara or Fred, he's known them for so long that when they cry all he can feel is guilt) and he tends to avoid them as though they have some sort of contagious disease that will kill him on the spot if someone is crying.

And yet here he is, gently pressing Jesse into a little awkward hug that's less of a hug and more like a weird resting position in the middle of the hallway, the small (small, small, very small teenager that he still can't believe is seventeen) person in front of him trembling uncontrollably with quiet cries that he can barely hear from where their head is leaning into his midriff.

In fact, he's pretty sure he's hugging them because they're crying.

He doesn't really know why Jesse reacted the way they did. He doesn't like not being certain about things that he feels like he should be certain about. It makes him feel itchy.

He doesn't like that.

(He doesn't like the way they scrubbed at red eyes so harshly it looked like they were trying to break their own skin, rip it open, until he found himself with his hand shooting out to catch their wrist and keep them from continuing until they did break their own skin.)

"It's alright," he tells them, trying to keep the awkward tone out of his voice. "You're alright."

Jesse stays pressed up against him, before slowly moving their arms so that they're no longer trapped in a little knot at their chest.

Their face is buried in his midriff, they're pressed up against him tightly enough that he can feel every tiny tremor that goes through their body, and now their arms are wrapped around him in a tight hug.

"'M sorry." Their voice is muffled and rather fragile, but he can still hear it.

(Perhaps that's due to the fact that he's just always had spectacular hearing. Whenever Xara used to shout it was like she blew out his eardrums.)

"It's okay."

(Especially because he doesn't know what they're actually apologizing for.)

He gives Jesse another sort of weak squeeze, the teenager tightening their grip on him by such a miniscule amount that he can barely feel it.

Something's tickling the back of his mind- the way Jesse is quietly apologizing for something he's not entirely certain he knows about, automatically reaching out to hug them even though his first instinct when somebody begins to cry is to awkwardly fidget with his fingers and shuffle away, Jesse rubbing their face so hard that they look as if they're trying to prevent themselves from crying-

They're like Fred.

Tears spring to his own eyes, his chest giving a weak squeeze from the stray thought that flits through his head.

Perhaps not exactly- they're much shorter, and he doesn't know what's going on in their head (unlike Fred, because he knew Fred like the back of his hand and he doesn't even know why Jesse's about half the size of a regular seventeen-year-old), and he never really felt the urge to treat Fred like a small child, and he's pretty sure Fred was never this fragile-looking (or fragile at all, but then again Fred did have the ability to smile calmly about any and everything even when he could tell that his friend was trying not to cry), but there are bits and pieces and fragments of Jesse that piece together weirdly to make some (very short) part that's just a lot like his dead friend.

"It's okay," he repeats, a lot lower this time, and he's not entirely sure that Jesse hears it until he feels them give him a very gentle little squeeze in return, still allowing their breath to catch in their throat and make little hiccuping cries bubble out of them.

He runs his hand through their fluffy hair (it really is fluffy) in what he hopes is a comforting gesture, watching Fred (that's not Fred, not quite, but it's so very weirdly close that the thought barges in without his permission)- watching Jesse cry quietly into his robes and making the front of it quite damp, just quietly, quietly watching them while his mind clicks away like a frantic machine.

It's not Fred.

It's not.

And yet they feel so achingly similar that he can feel his chest start to hurt.

He doesn't know why Jesse reacted the way they did.

He doesn't like that.

But he can't eat their heart, not in the least because it'd be like eating the heart of his (dead) friend and the idea and the thought of it just makes bile rise up in his throat that he crushes down because... well, throwing up right now would just be a terrible idea.

Is that the only reason he doesn't want to eat it? No.

Is one reason that he wants to make up for what he did to Fred?

Perhaps.

Will this actually make up for what he did to Fred (to one of his best friends, someone who's dead now because he did something stupid and idiotic and absolutely moronic)?

Absolutely not. It will never make up for it. Nothing will ever even come close to fixing what he did.

(And if Xara doesn't let him forget it, he certainly won't.)

But even if he can't pick out the reason, he just can't eat their heart.

And just like that, because of a stray thought that comes when Jesse reacts the wrong way again, Romeo makes his mind up about Jesse.


A/N: freaking angst guys

I can't write angst and hurt and comfort, it's official xD

Next chapter should actually be pretty fun! But we're not there yet.

Well, either way, I hope you'll enjoy the chapter. (even though this chapter feels bad oh my lord)

Romeo is introspective and Jesse cries a little. (And no. They're not explaining to Romeo. That's too big of a can of worms to open this early in the story.)

Responses to reviews!

Savannah-the-Caracal: I didn't say anything about the demons of Cosmos... xD / Hehe, I'm doing my best. / Indeed xD

Toni42: Yes, Romeo ending with deciding to take Jesse to the bathroom xD / He IS the oldest, after all. / You get more of this this chapter xD / Jesse's not meeting the other lords 'til later, but yep! Other lords got some screentime. x3 / Perhaps she's not up to anything/ Lol xD / Footie pajamas are the best pajamas.

MidnightLegend12: Romeo, actually. The lords are 'switched out', depending on what's happening, but that's a bit difficult to explain at the moment.

TheAmberShadow: District. xD / Pffft xD / Perhaps, but it's the only plan they've got. / Hehe xD

That's all for this chapter! See ya, so long, and g'bye!

x.X. A.L. X.x