It felt like reality momentarily shattered for me.

"But.....you....uhm.....date?? How...me!?" I couldn't even begin to words.

"Well not technically WITH us, but basically close enough." Leo then quickly corrected after a moment of thought.

"How about you START with that next time and not give me a mini heart attack in the process!?" I yell.

"Where's the fun in that?" He winked.

"PSYCHOPATH!!" I pick up a still-burned and smoking pillow and whack him with it.

"Glad someone else sees it," Dion huffs from the sidelines, enjoying the view of the assault being waged on his man.

"We were gonna ask you anyway, but given your quite recently developed living situation, it kinda expedited that process," Leo said, eyeing the room around us almost maliciously, accusing it of having the audacity to not function properly.

I calmed down a moment and let his words process.

One look around my room had me answering immediately.

"When?"

Leo looks to Dion for an answer.

He, Dion, wordlessly pulls out a mini device from his ten billion pockets and did some quick rapid-fire calculations on the spot.

"Now?"

"NOW!?"

"Technically 2 hours from now?? We still gotta wait for that appendage to get far away enough."

"Isn't that a little too soon?"

"Yup, but the tragala's migration pattern, as Mel would say, is a bitch." He looked back at his calculations. "We either do it today or wait, at best, 3 weeks before getting another decent opening to take her down."

"What do we mean by 'decent'?" I quietly pop my head between them and ask for clarification.

"The small window of opening we have today has a 30% chance of success." Dion responds to my question without hesitation.

"What about any other day?" I further question.

"0%" he deadpan answers. "-2.5%, if possible. A legitimate death sentence, through and through."

I gulped.

"I-if you're having second thoughts," Leo started to say, but I cut him off.

"At 30% odds? Bitch please, I've survived worse."

"Then what's got you hesitate?" Dion pointed.

"How did you guys manage to come up and see me with all that madness going on?" I leaned against a non-burning counter and asked.

The two of them were silent for a moment.

"It wasn't easy..." Leo started, the look on his face momentarily conveying untold horrors they must have been through. "But you were worth it." He finished solemnly.

I was quite then.

Moments ticked by as I allowed myself to fully absorb and process what he'd just said before making my next move.

I silently walked over and just hugged him.

He hugged me back on the spot.

I tried to pull away to go hug Dion next, but Leo wouldn't let me go.

I huff out a laugh at his action.

"Let me go hug Dion." I say in protest.

"Nah, he can come to us." Leo refuses with a grin.

I burst out laughing as Dion just rolled his eyes at the both of us and got up to join the hug.

I squeezed tighter when cuddled up with them both and breathed the moment in deeply.

I let the memory ingrain myself deep in my psyche, but don't hold on to it for too long for fear of letting it consume me and my entire being.

1.....2.....3.....

"Okay! Time for food!!" I loudly declare as I race towards the kitchen at the next rumble in my belly. "And y'all are eating with me, no excuses. If we're leaving then we might as well empty my fridge."

"How are you so sure we can even digest your food?" Dion pointedly questions my bold confidence, with a slight hint of a tease in his voice.

"You look, act, and talk like me. More specifically, my species." I counted off to him on my fingers. "If it looks like a duck."

I shrug and turn back towards my pantry, pulling out ALL my stored best ingredients for a feast like no other!!

"BEFORE you go full scorched Earth on your remaining food supply..." Dion jumped forward and started plucking small leaves, pinching grains and spices, and dumping samples of other food items into little flasks and jars and tube pitchers.

"Since we're going down permanently, for a while anyway, might as well grab samples of actual authentic earth things to use in our replication process."

"Excuse me?" I say, suspicion lacing and completely coating my tone of voice. "Why you replicating our shit?"

"How else did you assume we made half the stuff we bring you??"

I pause for a moment.

"Ooooooh," I say when realization finally hit. "Listen, I'm hungry and still kinda delirious. Leave me alone, DON'T JUDGE ME!!!"

"Please eat the candy bar Mel," Leo just says as he silently watches me and Dion talk.

As if watching us interact in and of itself brought him some kind of peaceful joy, judging by the serene expression and calm smile on his face.

"If I do it'll ruin my appetite. I'll eat everything all at once," I stubbornly declare.

"No." I hear Leo say, as I turn around to face him to argue some more, I feel a small wedge-shaped object get shoved into my mouth.

Shit. It tastes so good!

I glare up at the golden twinkling bastard and grab the other end of the bar sticking out of my mouth out of his grasp and chewed venemously.

"You're lucky it tastes good," I angrily seethe at him.

"Good girl." Leo decided to taunt some more as he patted me on the head for relenting to eat.

Dion had to pry me away from him minutes later for how much I kicked his ass for that one.

"W-worth it!"Leo groaned after with a shaky smile as I stood over a boiling stove with only a quarter of the candy bar left sticking out of my mouth as I mindlessly chewed at it and made dinner....breakfast....lunch? Food. I was simply making us food.

Let's just go with that.

"Leave it to you to find the one violent person who is not above kicking your ass and will also do so without hesitation," Dion says as he tended to Leo.

"Why do you think I like her so much?" Leo responds.

"You're telling me no one else fucks him up?"I turn around to ask in surprise. And also to partially interrupt. "He's the king of fucking around, he should be well acquainted with finding out."

"Oh, he's the king of something alright." Dion eyes Leo almost spitefully, "And you'll find out what almost immediately when we go down."

I quickly got preoccupied with my pasta that threatened to boil over that moment, so I quickly train my attention back on my cooking and failed to follow up on Dion's ominously worded phrasing.

Moment later I feel a giant presence behind me.

"Need some help?"

Dion almost startled me, but I accept the offer nonetheless.

"Y-yeah. If you know how, help me with the sauce?"

Dion was on it without further instruction.

I nearly snap my head off my neck to eye Leo.

He laid down again on one half of my burned bed and pulled out a device that looked like a phone and began tapping away at it mindlessly.

"Aren't you going to-"

"I'm useless in the kitchen."

"He's useless in the kitchen."

The two say in unison, cutting me off.

I look between the two of them.

"That's still no excuse," I say as I march over to the spoiled prince and drag him into the kitchen.

Dion looks at me in mild alarm.

"Am I not enough help?" He asked.

"You are," I lovingly assure. "But he's still gotta pull his weight."

I pick up a knife and hand it to Leo, which Dion immediately swipes before his boyfriend, whose face lit up in glee, could get his hands on it.

"Anything else, please!"

I think for a moment for a mundane task.

I snap my finger in triumph when I came up with one.

"Can he be allowed to stir the soup?" I ask.

"Yes." Dion says.

"Yaaay! Boiling liquid." Leo ran towards the lid.

"On second thought-" Dion tries to interfere.

I pull him back by his shirt top.

"He's your boyfriend, not your baby." I chide.

"You'd be surprised how he manages to be both." Dion responds with an annoyed raised brow.

"AYO!?" Leo screams from the pot.

I fight back my blush as I dementedly cackle while the two of them break out into a loving banter and argument.

The preparation of the food was quickly finished not long after as I, admittedly, didn't have much supplies left outside of replenishing produce that didn't yield much crops this growth cycle.

I was able to make a humble loaf of bread, half of the flour Dion scooped up for himself for his jars, an impressive bowl of pasta, deliciously creamy sauce, and actual meat! It might've been canned for over half a decade, but I sincerely did not care.

I sat down cross-legged in pure glee and my mood must've been infectious to the others.

"We eat like royalty, take a quick nap for an hour and a half, then prepare for our descent down, okay?"

I was so hungry I didn't even register who said that.

It could've probably even been said by me, but I was eyeing a huge chunk of meat simmering in the pot that I honestly couldn't tell ya one way or the other.

"Please remember to breathe while you eat," This time I was sure that was whispered to me by Dion.

"I make no such foolish promises," I counter, diving my fork in for the kill.

"Atta girl!" Leo praises, "I stirred that pot real good, and I can't wait for you to taste my efforts."

The look Dion gave him would've sent me to the moon any other day, but I was already well underway in eating twice to three times my body weight.

A small, not as hungry, part of my brain was worried that they wouldn't, or couldn't be able to, eat the food.

But I was pleasantly surprised that they began eating as well without much hesitation.

So they can digest human food?

Fascinating.

I allowed the small section of my mind to marvel at our continued shared similarities, while the other half diminished several months worth of rations.

I maaaay have starved myself recently more than I intended to, with how much I currently ate with reckless abandon.

But I appreciated the boys not even batting an eye at me as I did so.

They almost seemed to be happy at the fact.

The burp I spontaneously let out when I was done was unGodly and demonic. Which serves to make them laugh out in turn.

Boys.

"Excuse me," I meekly squeak out, leaning back to stretch out and alleviate the strain on my now protruding belly.

"You've been excused," Leo replies while still chuckling, gathering me close as I seem to have leaned back onto him.

I suddenly become hyper-aware of everything around me.

"L-let me go get pillows-"

I try to escape but my plans get thwarted.

By Dion as he out of nowhere flips a blanket over the two of us (me and Leo).

"Sleep now." Was all he said as hands several of my still intact pillows to Leo.

Leo shifts us and arranges the pillows in a comfortable fashion on the floor while Dion handles the blankets.

They weren't gonna allow me to move a finger, it seems.

"Comfy?" I hear Leo ask me suddenly when he was done.

All I do is nod shyly as I'm pressed against his chest and I try not to let my brain short circuit.

"W-with how y'all are setting things up, I hope we don't oversleep." I mildly worry.

"Don't worry, he won't allow it," Leo says, pointing towards Dion like his very presence was a slur.

"Shut up, you love me." Dion simply says as he finishes laying down the covers and slips under the one Leo and I were under and sits next to him.

"Yes. Very." Leo leans back onto Dion's holders with a devilish smile while still holding me close.

Leo leans up to him then and Dion's hand comes up to hold onto Leo's cheek as their lips connect.

They kiss.

A passionate one that wasn't as carefree or unserious as the last.

There was something deep and caring that scaped away at the banter and fights they seem to have to show an actual genuine connection between the two.

They really do care for each other...

The thought, which shouldn't be surprising, still caught me off guard.

Then another thought hit me just as hard.

They care for me too...

At least they seem it. That's what they say.

I try not to let the thought or fact consume me as I reigned in wild turbulent dreams that threatened to run wild with unattainable assumptions.

My heart loudly beats once as I smile and turn away, snuggling into Leo's arms as I let them have their spontaneous intimate moment in peace.

But then I feel myself get pulled closer into them.

"Whoa!" The motion caught me off guard.

"Good night Melody~" Leo sang into my ear.

Both of Leo's arms were around me, but I also feel one of Dion's join in as well around my waist to tug me back as well.

"Stop saying it like that. We're not going to bed. This is an over-glorified nap." Dion corrects.

"Dionysus, I swear!!!"

I laugh as I feel the first tendrils of sleep claw their way into me.

I rest more easily into the both of their embrace and let sleep consume me wholeheartedly.