Back at Amityville it was quiet.

Renaissance stood in the middle of the room, his hands slipped into his pockets, his newly cut hair tied back into a small ponytail at the base of his neck. He was dressed in a pair of black slacks, an emerald green shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a pair of suspenders over the shirt.

Jove's room was too dark. And too empty.

It had been almost three weeks since Ren had last seen his ghoulfriend and little brother - or even heard from them, since he knew that their skellyphones apparently did not work on the Horsemen Islands. Sometimes he wished he had gone with them - and sometimes he was grateful for the chance he had to finally get some rest and relaxation after all of the things that had been happening.

But then he remembered he had not seen Jove and LW for three weeks and the resting and relaxing turned into worrying and feeling lonely.

He had not felt this anxious in a very long time.

Somewhere inside, Ren knew that this was a good thing. He was far too dependent on both Jove and LW - so dependent that he himself knew that it was almost suffocating in his need for the both of them. He hated that he was so attached - hadn't he told himself enough times that forming such deep attachments only hurt in the long run? Looking back at his family - at his cracked, shattered, used-to-be family was enough for Ren to remember that things that were supposed to work normally did not always.

But LW and Jove were different.

Jove's room was dark, like it normally was, with the shades on the only window drawn tightly shut; the only light came from beneath the enormous four-poster bed, where a faint blue glow could be seen. Ren had checked on the mushrooms daily, as per Jove's request, and he had come every day to feed and care for the dozens of foxfires lonely for their owner's existence. One of them - a paleish pinky yellow one whose name Ren thought might have been Fruitloup, if he remembered correctly - leaped up on the bed and nuzzled beneath one of Ren's hands as he stood over it, looking despondent. He absently stroked its fluffy head, reminded only too much of how similar it felt to Jove, and lifted his other hand, pushing his hair away from his face.

it's only for a few weeks. Then they'll be back.

A few weeks was a very long time to wait - especially with what Ren had told LW only a short time before she had left.

"I plan on marrying you someday."

A faint red dusted Ren's cheeks at this thought. He did not regret his words, not in the slightest - if anything, he meant them more than anything, meant them so much that just thinking about it made his chest tight and his heart beat quicker. He had never felt so close to another person before meeting LW, and he was not about to break that connection now, or ever.

He knew things did not always work out, but he was going to be damned if he was going to mess them up himself. He was not the same person as he once had been - he was not weak, not a child, not pathetic.

He was not his parents.

The thought was reassuring - as was the fact that LW and Jove would be back in a week - at least, that was what Ren kept telling himself. But even he knew how Amityville's field trips worked - how "well" they worked out sometimes.

He could not stop himself from feeling anxious. What if something happened to LW, or Jove, or to anyone else there that he cared about? If he remembered, Vaith was also in the exchange program with the Horsemen. And Ren would not have been able to forgive himself if something bad happened to any of them at all.

He did not even want to think about the possibility of none of them coming home. It was too much to bear, too much to hurt, too much to even consider. A life without LW, without Jove, it was impossible.

Thinking about it was painful. But, then again, so was waiting here while they were not. He had grown up with his parents' fists and harsh words raining down on him, had had a sister who had turned her back on him, leaving him to fend for himself, and right now was the first time that Ren had ever felt so alone.

It was absurd, but he could not help how he felt.

Setting Fruitloup down (he had picked up the poor thing to hug it close for a few moments), Ren made his way to the door of Jove's room, stopping only to look back for a brief minute at his little brother's space. He pressed his lips together, feeling very much alone without them both, and then turned and left, shutting the door quietly behind him.