Bamboozled

Once again, Levi had been hoodwinked.

Bamboozled.

Smeckledorfed.

He awoke, threw Ace a hot glare, and another serious argument happened, but they were too immature to handle it correctly, nor even express it using the right words. Ace knew he couldn't win this argument.

He was caught, en flagrante, conspiring with the perverted pyromaniac to subvert information, then assassinate a woman who had wronged them. Ace had no moral high ground to stand on, no sane mind would agree that endangering the lives of millions for a singular vendetta would be worth it.

Ace did what he always did.

The exact opposite of what any other person would do in his situation.

About thirty seconds later, Levi protested, but the protests became quieter, and then silent, because it was difficult to argue with mouths mashed together. It wasn't hard to do, many of their fights were a pretense for flirting.

About twenty minutes later, Levi was naked, red in the face, embarrassed, because Ace had assured him it was fine that he didn't want to do everything, and they didn't do everything.

Five minutes later, after Ace did the thing that made his eyes water, Levi knew he had been tricked once again.

When it was all said and done, Levi, for the first time in his life, understood how Mary Jane was treated, and he did not like the feeling. It was good at the moment, but not afterward, even when they were wrapped together under the blankets, murmuring to each other.

Levi was afraid, he didn't know when Ace became so crafty.

He had made his bed, now it was time to lie in it.

"You're so quiet tonight," Ace said.

"Thinking," Levi grunted.

"You think too much, let's go to sleep."

He brought Levi in closer from behind, breath heavy on the back of his neck, and let out a loud hey when he pushed him off. Ace sat up and grinned, sure that it was another flirt-fight when it wasn't.

Levi didn't turn to look at him.

"I think you need to move on. Your family died a really long time ago."

"You still get to talk to your dead grandpa inside a necklace, I don't think you get to tell me how I can move on from dead family members."

"That's different."

Another swift smack was received that night from a pillow and Levi finally turned to face Ace, tired of his immaturity.

"Are you ten!?!"

"No, that's when I was stuck under rubble for three days and lost my brother and mother."

"Ace—"

"Shut up! You have an entire family! So many! I saw them all at that stupid sham wedding of yours," Ace screamed.

He smacked Levi, over and over with the pillow, and he let him because it was true. He had a family, but it was in name only, but Ace didn't know that. The few people Levi was close to weren't role model material either.

"I lost my dad! My wife! My son! And you—"

Ace was again caught.

He was a liar as well, but he lied through omission, and Levi had no idea that Ace had a wife, a son, and the bed he made now might as well have been on fire. Ace stopped smacking him with the pillow, said nothing, got dressed, and left to his own room.

Levi wasn't sure anymore if he made the right choice being with Ace, and that terrified him because for years he chased the high of the one , and now he had him. Like a dog chasing his own tail, once it was caught, the reality was that it was not as exciting as it seemed.

Relationships weren't romance movies, there was no soft music, light ambiance, and quirky events that made everything end out alright for everyone in the end.

The honeymoon phase was over.

It was not only over, but the cruise ship they had set sail on for their honeymoon had slowly sunk, the foundation itself weak. It sank so slowly that they never noticed until it was too late and they drowned together.

Suddenly, Ace ran back inside, shrieking, followed by several masked men, causing Levi to scream which made the walls scream, the floors cry, the air sing, the lamps to dance.

Everyone stood still, looking around awkwardly, waiting for all the inanimate objects in the room to stop having a panic attack, but they were more afraid of the living than the living were afraid of them.

The bed was sobbing, wet tears spilling onto the wooden floor, and Levi patted it, soothed it while looking fearfully around the room for his own reassurance from the masked assailants that broke inside his hotel suite.

"Don't cry, it's okay," Levi whispered in fear.

The bed stopped crying, and Ace swore he could hear it say that it was only upset because it overheard the two of them arguing earlier, it was a very hard day for him.

"Please, excuse us," one of the criminals said.

They quickly left, speaking as if they accidentally walked in on someone using the restroom, making sure to shut the door behind them.

Ace wanted to go with them.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Rosaline awoke in the middle of the night to a familiar number and answered it with apprehension.

She quickly got out of bed, and left her bedroom, closing the door quietly, trying not to wake the baby. She answered the phone, flicked on the light switch, and stood on the second floor, leaning over the stairwell railing, telling herself, he called her first, it must be important.

It was not.

"Why did you call me," Nero slurred.

"You called me," Rosaline replied.

"Mm. Mmm yes, I see. Of course, yes. Yes! "

He repeated the same phrase, several times, over and over, loud shouts in the background, and then what sounded like the barking of a dog, mixed with someone saying, speak something we can understand.

"Why did you call me," Rosaline asked.

"I got more money. I wanna see 'im."

"I...I guess you can but you can't ever be alone with him."

"Das fine. I dunno' wat tah do wit 'im anyway. I jus' wanna hold 'im."

"Wow, that's pretty mature considering-"

"You know, I HAD A DREAM," Nero screamed into the phone.

"Stop screaming."

Now Nero was speaking so quietly that Rosealine had to put her phone on the highest volume, and was about to hang up.

"I had a dream that someone took 'im from me, and I was so scared. So scared. So, so I wanna see 'im erryday, ya know? Ya know what I'm sayin'?"

"I get that," Rosaline nodded. "Sometimes I'm afraid to even-"

" Do you feel me? "

"Yes, Nero."

"No. Do you feel me? You gotta say that YOU CAN FEEL MY HEART-"

Nero broke out into song, and Rosealine hung up.

Can you hear the silence?

Still singing, on the other side of the line, a chorus of drunken men and women, bruised and beaten, sang along.

Can you see the dark?

Eating and screaming, kissing and flirting, celebrating their win against the Aecors, a party was thrown at Alto's estate in the middle of the night once his sister and Nero's friends returned.

They were not pleased that they didn't try very hard to find them.

They were even more displeased when Nero shrugged and said, well we always make it out alive, somehow.

The party was held outside by the pool, the night sky lit up by more fires, the criminals proud that most of them were made by their boss.

Nero and Alto were still wearing the same clothes that they wore when they killed Duchess. Nero took his shirt off, flexing, showing off his tattoo of his son's name tattooed on his chest, in a fancy script, boasting that he didn't cry the entire time they did it.

They all knew it was a lie.

While everyone was singing, can you fix the broken , Rosealine decided to call an old acquaintance in the morning whose number she had saved years ago, tired of worrying every night if Nero would slit her throat in the middle of the night once he started setting the entire town on fire.