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"What more do you want to know?" Gwen asked, walking toward her bed and plopping down on it with a sigh. 'Please don't ask any more ludicrous questions...'
"What should I wear on a... date?" it took Theo a second to pronounce the word which suddenly changed its meaning in his vocabulary. Now 'date' stood for two entirely different meanings.
Gwen pursed her lips, resisting the urge to smack her face against the nearest wall as hard as she could. Wait why hurt herself when she could beat him instead?
"Normal clothes? Don't make it too formal and all that, just wear pants and a simple shirt," she advised, and Theo nodded his head absently, noting her points down in his head for later purposes.
"The colors?"
"The what?" Gwen repeated, unable to admit that her cousin could be this clueless.
'The next thing I know, he'll be asking me what type of underwear he should wear!'
"Decide yourself you idiot," she spoke and felt immense pleasure at the way he suddenly looked offended. "You aren't a babe who needs to be told each and everything. Right?"
He scowled, turning away again to stare at the door and if looks could kill, the door would've turned into a pile of ashes by now.
"I thought you were supposed to be helping me..." he scoffed out and Gwen tilted her head slowly, her eyes glaring at his head that thankfully was turned away.
"Even Seb would know all this stuff—"
"He's just as oblivious as me— He doesn't know either." he changed his direction just in time and closed his eyes, feeling his face burning from mortification.
[She's the worst option out of the four...]
"You want to make Ev— the girl impressed," Gwen spoke and her lips twitched when she noticed him sliding his eyes to her with a massive scowl.
"And how am I supposed to do that?"
"Figure it out yourself, I'm sleepy."
[...]
Theo released his lips with a small curse. "You're not helping you know-"
"What have you done so far to deserve any of our support?"
This time, no words left his mouth and Gwen smugly turned her face away to look at the glass walls that reflected the outside world of Eden. The sky was covered by clouds as far as the eyes could see while the temperature was turning cold as dusk approached.
While her face was looking away, Gwen failed to notice the small flash of pain that crossed her cousin's face. Theo looked down at the ground, smiling ruefully and wondering why he hadn't told his only living family the actual truth.
Simple, he didn't want them to exit the borders of Eden and hunt for the Fates just so that they could murder all three of them brutally. He was well aware of all their natures and his heart clenched tightly when he remembered all the moments in which they had played and fought together as kids.
Young, innocent children with no blood on their hands.
How they had promised to say young forever without abandoning each other and he had broken that very promise...
Fidgeting in his place, he replied, "What do you mean?"
He knew exactly what she meant.
Gwen looked at him, her eyes stone cold and monotonous. The eyes of a warrior and a survivor who had suffered and come out of the war alive yet shattered with low possibilities of repair.
"You weren't there," she spoke and surprised herself at how stable her voice sounded out loud. "You vanished and came back decades later. Did you really expect us to welcome you back with open arms when you didn't tell us where you were all along?"
He released a ragged breath from his lips, feeling all his past memories and pain battling to break out from the chamber that he had locked them in. Dark swirls issued from his body and Gwen's eyes slightly enlarged at the sight.
"It doesn't matter—"
"Yes, it does! It did to us and still does." she cried out, standing up from her place and grabbing onto the bed to steady herself.
Theo gulped, his throat feeling dry suddenly. His insides felt shaky yet he only felt confused at his reaction. Kai and Sebastian had cornered him many times and so did Davina which had shocked him yet he still remained hellbound at not telling the truth. So why was it that this time, he felt as if he was breaking down from the inside with nobody to help him?
"Hey, are you okay?" Gwen asked, placing a hand on his arm and Theo flinched away, aware that he was still standing in her room and arguing with her.
[What's wrong with me?]
"Something doesn't feel right," he told Gwen and her mask of anger melted down into plain worry.
Theo searched through his mind to figure out why he felt so uneasy all of a sudden. This wasn't like him, he mostly felt stable and grounded in such situations no matter how emotional the other person was getting. His confusion slowly transformed into frustration at not being able to find the source of his turmoil.
"Maybe something happened in Eden? Let's go and see if the others are okay—"
That was all it took for everything to click back into place.
Theo almost broke the knob in his attempts to open the door. Gwen followed him hard on his heels, her expression baffled at what suddenly happened to make him rush like this.
And then abruptly, she knew too.
Only one person could make him feel affected like this.
Theo breathed out hard as he hurriedly climbed up the stairs and turned sharply around the corner, feeling footsteps following him close behind. He was thankful for Gwen's presence because if he lost control, someone had to have their wits around them so that they could control the situation in his stead.
Gwen recognized the door Theo stopped outside. It was his room and that was when her thoughts got messed up again. Was her first intuition wrong? Why was he stopping outside his room?
On the other hand, Theo felt his world dropping down at his feet when he wrapped his fingers around the knob and twisted it.
He tried again.
It didn't open.
And unexpectedly sobs entered his ears and Theo stumbled back, his soul crashing down into a mess at the sound of her broken voice.