john loved his husband. he was a bit queer, sure. being the whole manifestation of a god’s hatred earned you a reputation, so it was inevitable that john & 1x4 earned more than just a few odd looks whenever they went out into public holding hands. never mind the looks & whispers, however; the most important thing was that john loved 1x4, regardless of 1x4’s origins. 1x4 was one of the sweetest people he knew; so it didn’t make any sense to him at all how 1x4 could even be created off of hatred, or be treated by the general public in such a derogating way.

recently, 1x4 had gotten news of an ancient viridian crown being buried deep beneath the overlapping code & scripts of robloxia, concealed deep in some cavern somewhere. 1x4 had heard of this ancient crown from matt dusek, one of the more notorious admins at ROBLOX hq. matt dusek had told 1x4 about it one day while john was out at work & 1x4 was sick at home, resting. oddly enough, directly after matt dusek’s visit, 1x4 suddenly got mysteriously better… & simultaneously couldn’t stop talking about the ancient viridian crown.

then, there came the order.

1x4 was ordered by builderman, the literal head of ROBLOX hq, to go down deep into code & scripts in order to retrieve the crown. it was an ancient artifact after all, something to be kept & preserved… so what 1x4 would be doing would be an action of heroism, right? john had thought so too at the time…he couldn’t have been happier for his partner, yet even he—the ever-vigilant, the ever-watchful—couldn’t spot the obvious role that 1x4 was playing in this intricate plot.

1x4 was playing the martyr. the robloxians didn’t like 1x4, they despised him, so they wanted to get rid of 1x4— & in what simpler way would that be done other than making him complete a prestigious task that would inevitably kill him?

john had waved 1x4 off at the door with a smile on his face. as the days passed, however, john began to grow worried. the days turned to weeks, & when the weeks were about to hit the one-month mark, john finally slammed his book onto the table & got up. this was ridiculous. 1x4 wasn’t supposed to have been gone for more than a few days, so what the hell had happened to him that he was gone for nearly a full damn month??

so, john set out. he followed the exact path he thought 1x4 would have taken to gain access to robloxia’s code, the path to which was located deep in ROBLOX hq’s basement. john worked there, so he could have access to that chamber. when he didn’t find any sign of 1x4 there, john was about to leave the basement & look somewhere else, when he suddenly heard it;

a quiet thudding. a clanking of chains, a fight against restraints; shackles. john stepped away from the stairwell & cautiously made his way over to where the sounds were coming from; an iron door that john knew held a dungeon behind it that was no longer in use, thanks to the better exploiter persecution system robloxia had today.

“hello?”, john called out cautiously as he slowly creaked open the iron door leading to the dungeon-rooms, peeking his head round the rusted doorway whilst holding his lantern out into the room so he could get a better look at whoever was inside… & what he saw made his jaw hang slack, his grip on his lantern faltering so much that it fell to the ground with a shatter.

“…dear..?”