otomaticallyobsessed

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Go For It, Jamil!

Summary: Scarabia hears their Vice-House Warden has a crush and are a little too enthusiastic to help out.

AN: I really like the idea that the dorm mob loves their wardens and vice wardens. It makes me think of the tsum event where all of Savanaclaw was in tears because they thought Leona got turned into a little burrito plush, lol.

I got Omar and Babkak from the Aladdin Broadway musical. There's also a Kassim there but I thought it sounded too close to Kalim so just kept it to the two of them.

Warnings: Pining. Apparently I'm really into that.

Spring had come to Night Raven College. With the blossoming trees, chirping birds, and returning sunshine, one thing everyone could count on was Kalim’s annual Welcome Spring party. Of course, he also had a Welcome Autumn, Welcome Winter, Welcome Summer, Farewell End-of-School-Year, Beginning of School, Halloween, New Year's Eve and Day, basically anything party. The difference here was that there were generally more flowers. 

“And we can have the cherry blossom trees around the entrance of the courtyard!” Kalim was saying. Jamil dutifully followed behind him by a few steps, taking down notes for the numerous things they would need to order. “That way when the wind blows the petals will swirl everywhere and it will be super pretty!” 

“MmHmm,” Jamil muttered, only halfway paying attention. 

“And I was thinking the food should be fruit-themed. Blueberries, strawberries, plums, apricots, rhubarb - is rhubarb a fruit? It’s sweet but it’s like celery, right? Cause it grows in the ground in a stalk?” 

“It’s a vegetable.” 

“Oh, and pastels! I can get bolts of silk and we can have them hanging from the ceiling in panels and string beads between everything.”

“Sure.”  

“And it’ll be the perfect backdrop when you confess to (Y/N)!” 

Jamil nearly tripped over his own feet. Both of them froze at the sound of a shattering pot. Looking up, Jamil felt dread build in his stomach as a wide-eyed first-year stared at the two of them, obviously having overheard Kalim’s (obviously totally ridiculous) announcement. There was a broken flower pot at his feet. 

“I-Uh-” The first-year stuttered. “Sorry, I’ll get a broom.” He dashed off like his feet were on fire. 

Jamil sighed. The last thing he needed right now were rumors swirling around. “Kalim, what are you talking about?”

Kalim blinked at the retreating student before looking back at Jamil with a beaming smile. “(Y/N)! It’ll all be super romantic, right? And spring’s a time for new beginnings. We’ll have a string quartet and I’ll set up a gazebo with hanging lanterns and you can take her hands and look her in the eyes and say-” 

“Okay, okay, okay!” Jamil quickly said, clapping a hand over Kalim’s mouth before another eavesdropper got the wrong idea. “You have way to clear an image of all this.” 

“Of course! I think it’ll make a great story for your wedding!” 

Jamil heard a gasp. He turned just in time to see the first-year from before ducking behind the corner with another in tow. 

Yup. There was the headache coming. 

“Kalim,” Jamil said, measuring his words as steadily as he could. “I’m not going to confess anything to (Y/N).” 

Kalim pouted. “Aww, why not?” 

“Because I don’t have feelings for her.” 

“What? Of course you do!” 

“I promise I don’t.” 

“Don’t worry, she’ll definitely say yes.” 

“That’s not the problem here.” Jamil sighed. “Look, I get that you have good intentions, but you don’t need to go overboard and be involved in everything. We talked about this, remember? The whole thing about boundaries?” Actually, (Y/N) had mediated that conversation a few days after Jamil’s Overblot. Is that why Kalim had become convinced they had some sort of romantic attraction? Because talking about feelings must lead to the extreme of those feelings? 

Kalim looked chastened, a certain wet puppy dog look that would make most people fold instantly. Jamil was not most people. “Right, I remember. I just…” Jamil waited for Kalim to continue, silently hoping he would just drop it. “I want you to be happy, you know? And I think you’d be really happy with (Y/N)!” 

Jamil looked at Kalim sideways. “It’s more of a two way street, you know.” 

“Well, yeah, but (Y/N) likes you too!” 

Jamil tripped over his own feet again. He felt a strange kind of dread at the way his heart skipped a beat as a warm feeling flooded his chest. 

“She-what-Where did you hear that?” 

Kalim shrugged, smiling coyly. “I can tell. Just like how I can tell you like her.” 

“I don’t,” Jamil said firmly. 

Kalim held up his hands in surrender. “I hear you! Boundaries! I won’t mention it again.” He added under his breath, “Even if I think you two would be really cute together.” 

“I heard that.” 

*

Behind them, hidden in the long shadows of the Scarabia hallways, a cluster of students were beginning to plot. 

*

The next day, Jamil was taking some time to relax between classes. Well, as much as he could relax. Mostly his thoughts were occupied jumping between organizing for the Welcome Spring party, creating a mental schedule of what school projects were do when, planning what he would make Kalim for lunch for the next week-

“Jamil!” 

He turned to see (Y/N) waving at him. He felt his heart start thumping rapidly in his chest. Stop it, He thought. I can’t let Kalim get in my head like that. 

“Hi,” She said, coming up to him. 

“Did you need something?” 

“Not really. Just saw you over here stuck in your own head again.” She elbowed him playfully. Jamil felt himself smile without realizing it and quickly schooled his features to a more serious expression. “Want to take a break? I snagged these cookies from Sam’s. Tomorrow’s the expiration date so I got them on sale.” 

Jamil wrinkled his nose. “Is it worth it?” 

(Y/N) shrugged, taking a bite of a cookie. “It’s in the budget. You know, whenever Crowley actually decides to pay me.” 

“You know, if you’re ever short on food you can always come to Scarabia. If Kalim’s not throwing another party with a buffet I can get you something. I always make extras for Kalim, anyway.” This was not entirely true. Jamil had had practically his entire life to get used to cooking for Kalim, and it was only recently that he had started making larger batches, packaging them up to deliver to a certain magicless prefect who’s nutritional health he definitely didn’t worry about.  

(Y/N) smiled and offered him the cookie bag. “You look after everyone all the time, don’t you?” 

Jamil smiled back and took a cookie. They sat in an alcove in the hallway, chatting about nothing of significance. Jamil told a story about how Floyd had insisted Jamil teach him how to spin on his head during basketball practice and (Y/N) told him stories of her recent trip to Harveston, Epel’s hometown, and the sled race against the surprise Royal Sword Academy students. 

Jamil saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but whatever it was disappeared before he could catch it. “Sorry, what did you say?” 

“Oh, about the stuffed animals. Sebeck won’t admit it, but I think he still has his squirrel plush in his room. I don’t think it’s magic anymore but it is really cute.” 

Jamil heard the drag of a bow on strings and looked around. 

(Y/N) frowned. “Are you okay? You seem distracted.” 

Jamil shook his head. “No, sorry, I’m fine. I thought I heard-” 

Music started to pour around them. Although it was the calming, one might almost say romantic, type, they both still jumped at the sudden noise. Jamil jumped up, looking around, and took a hit of sunflower petals directly to his face. 

“Omar!” Someone hissed. “Be careful!” 

“Sorry, Babkak,” A voice squeaked back. 

Wait, Jamil knew those voices. He whipped around the corner, seeing a group of Scarabia first-years. Several formed a string quartet, softly playing music. The other two had a bucket of flower petals, one of them throwing handfuls in the air while the other directed a zephyr spell to blow them across the hallway. The two froze with wide eyes at the sight of their Vice-House Warden. 

“What,” Jamil said, voice steely and arms crossed. “Are you doing?” 

The string players looked nervously at each other but continued to play. Omar gapped like a codfish. Babkak stood up straight with a confident smile. “We’re setting the mood!” 

“What mood?” “For your confession!” 

Oh. Oh, no. Now Jamil realized how he recognized them. Babkak was the one who dropped the flower pot yesterday and Omar was the one he had dragged with him to eavesdrop. They must have heard what Kalim had said yesterday about him and (Y/N) and taken the wrong idea. And, Jamil justified to himself, it was definitely the wrong idea. 

“Jamil?”  

Jamil turned so fast the first-years were momentarily worried about whiplash. (Y/N) stood at the corner, looking curiously at the impromptu band and flowers. Behind him, Jamil could hear them hastily whispering to each other to keep playing and trying to get the effect of floating flower petals just right. 

“Something going on?” She asked. 

“No!” Jamil said, perhaps a little too quickly. “They were just leaving.” He glared at the first-years. “After they clean this up.” 

(Y/N) took a step forward. Jamil felt his mouth go dry as she reached up and plucked a few stray yellow petals from his hair. “Is this for a botany project or something? Kind of romantic, huh?” 

Jamil felt his face burn with embarrassment. 

“No!” Jamil said, at the same time Babkak said, “Yes!” 

“Okay,” (Y/N) said, rolling closed the half-full bag of cookies. “Well, I should probably get going. I need to see what kind of trouble Grim has gotten into while I was gone. I’ll see you later, Jamil.” She waved to him and then the first-years. 

“What made you think this was a good idea?” Jamil asked, trying very hard not to yell, when (Y/N) was out of earshot. 

“Sorry, sir,” Omar said, dejectedly picking up flower petals. He glared up at Babkak. “I told you we should have gone for the romantic dinner. And rose petals, not sunflowers.” 

Babkak waved his friend off. “Don’t be so cliche. Besides, sunflowers are way better! They’re pretty and you can eat the seeds!” 

“Hey!” Jamil snapped. The two boys looked back up at him while the other first-years were trying to discreetly pack up their instruments. “I asked what you were doing? Did Kalim put you up to this?” 

“No, sir, this was all us!” Babkak said, a little too proudly. “We wanted to help.” “Yeah,” Omar said. “We’re all rooting for you, Vice-House Warden, sir!” The other first-years made noises of agrement. 

“Rooting for me?” 

“With (Y/N), to tell her you love her!” 

Jamil groaned, covering his eyes with his hand and rubbing his temples. “I am not in love with the Prefect.” Jamil missed the skeptical look the two gave each other. “Look, I appreciate the…vote of confidence, but I’m not going to confess anything to anyone any time soon. So whatever else you have planned, or whoever else you told this rumor to, you can give it a break. Understand?” 

“Yes, Vice-House Warden,” They all echoed dutifully. 

As Jamil marched away, Omar leaned over to Babkak. “I’ve got twenty madol that say he confesses before the spring party.” 

*

Jamil’s muscles were burning, and he welcomed it. He needed the distraction after this morning and basketball practice against Floyd in full force was a pretty good diversion. Ace had been uncharacteristically distracted all practice. Although Jamil couldn’t help but notice that Ace seemed to pass a little harder than necessary. 

During a water break, Ace came up to Jamil. He tossed his water bottle between his hands, taking a step away and then closer. 

Jamil knew he would regret it before he even asked, “What’s up, Ace?” 

Ace startled, surprised Jamil had made the first move. “I heard something,” He said. “In potions class today.” 

“Did someone blow up something again? Anyone get turned into an animal or something?” 

Ace pressed his lips together. “Do you like (Y/N)?” 

Jamil couldn’t decide whether to be exhausted, flustered, or annoyed. “Who told you that?” 

Ace’s eyes widened in shock. “You do?!” 

“No!” Jamil snapped back. “People are just going around spreading rumors.” 

“Huh?” Floyd asked, sliding over on the bleachers. “I thought everyone knew already.” 

“Knew?”

Floyd flashed his sharp teeth. “Come on, Sea Snake. Everyone knows you’re, what’s the land term? Head over heels for Shrimpy.” 

Ace dropped his water bottle and jabbed an accusatory finger at Jamil. “I knew it!” 

“You don’t know anything,” Jamil said, shoving Ace’s hand aside. 

“Oh?” Floyd said, leaning in a little too close. “So that means she’s available then?” 

“No!” Ace and Jamil both shouted at the same time. Ace glared at Jamil. A few other members of the basketball club glanced over, snickering to themselves at the outburst. 

Ace puffed out his chest, planting himself solidly in front of Jamil. “Look, (Y/N) is one of my best friends. And if you do anything to mess with her then… then…” Ace fumbled, running out of steam with his threats before catching his second wind. “Then you’ll have to deal with Jack!” 

Jamil crooked an eyebrow. “Jack? Not you or Deuce?” 

Ace shrugged. “Jack’s the biggest. But Deuce did used to be a delinquent. I’ve seen him be pretty brutal when he wants to. And I guess Epel can scrap up too, when Vil isn’t around. Probably couldn’t convince Sebeck to help out, he’d just lecture about a knight’s honor or something. Ooh, Ortho had a blast cannon! So, you know, watch out!” 

“I like how you didn’t put yourself in the line of fire there, Crabby,” Floyd said. He rolled his shoulders. “But you know, I think Shrimpy is pretty great, too. I don’t want to see her sad or anything. So if someone were to maybe break her heart,” He glanced sideways as Jamil with crazed wide eyes. “Can you swim, Sea Snake?” 

Jamil just glowered back at him. “Can everyone just stop talking about (Y/N) today?” 

“People are talking about me?” All three of them jumped. (Y/N) walked into the gym, Grim hanging off her shoulders. “I thought I felt my ears burning.”  

“Shrimpy!” Floyd immediately ran up to her, sweeping her up in a tight squeezing hug. Grim jumped off her shoulders with a yelp. Ace yelled and pulled at Floyd’s jersey, trying to pry them apart. 

(Y/N) weakly patted Floyd’s back with a free hand. “Hi, Floyd, hi, Ace. Sorry, I need Jamil real quick.” 

The two boys froze, slowly turning their heads to stare at Jamil, who was busy hiding his face in his hands. They watched like hawks as (Y/N) walked over to Jamil. 

“Hey,” She said. “You okay?” 

“Fine,” He said, waving her off. “Just one of those days, you know?”

She frowned. “You need me to talk to someone? I can chew out Ace if you want. Floyd is sort of out of my league, though.” 

Jamil sighed a laugh. “No, that’s fine.” 

“Oh! Right! Hang on.” She slung her backpack off her shoulder, reaching in and pulling out a familiar water bottle. “Here, you left this in the library. One of the Scarabia first-years found it and asked me to bring it to you.” 

“Oh, thanks. I was wondering where it was.” Jamil didn’t mention that he hadn’t been in the library at all today. As he reached to take it, their fingers brushed. Jamil grabbed the bottle and jerked back like he had been scorched. His heart was hammering, not from the exercise of basketball practice, and he was momentarily worried (Y/N) would be able to hear it. Not to mention if she would notice how clammy his hands had suddenly become. 

“Well,” (Y/N) said. “I guess I’ll get out of your hair-”

“Wait!” 

The entire basketball team, plus (Y/N) and Grim, turned to the sudden outburst. Babkak had half way thrown himself out of the doorway entrance to the gym, hand extended in a Stop motion. Omar guilty peaked out from the door frame. 

“Uh, I mean,” Babkak said, back peddling. 

“You should stay!” Omar jumped in. “I mean, we should all stay to watch practice! Support your local team and everything!” He weakly punched the air. “Go team?” 

Jamil opened his mouth to chastise them again before (Y/N) spoke, “That sounds fun. I don’t get to see you guys play too often. If that’s okay with you, though.” 

“Oh, um,” Jamil stuttred. 

Floyd jumped up, throwing himself over Jamil’s shoulders and smiling wide. “Of course you can stay! You can watch Sea Snake show off!” 

Jamil elbowed him. “You’re the one who shows off, Floyd.”

(Y/N) shrugged, smiling. (And Jamil definitely didn’t feel his heart flip.) “I don’t have any plans.” 

As everyone got back in position for practice, Ace took his place, whispering to Jamil, “Remember: Ortho has a laser cannon.” 

Jamil rolled his eyes. 

From the corner of his eye, Jamil saw the group of Scarabia first-years shuffle into the bleachers around (Y/N) and Grim. He thought he saw a few of them hiding objects behind their backs, but was pulled back to the game before he could investigate further. 

He lost himself back in the game. Sneakers squeaked against the waxed wooden floor, the bounce of the ball reverberated around the gym, each quick and practiced movement by the players blurring at the edge of Jamil’s vision. Another player passed him the ball. He faked left, turning around Floyd, before lining up a shot at the three point line. He raised the ball, arms tensing in preparation to shoot and- 

A blare of sound echoed through the gym, bouncing off the acoustic walls and tumbling down around everyone in attendance. The ball slipped from Jamil’s hands, falling uselessly in a pathetic arc and bouncing across the court floor. Jamil turned to the bleachers where the noise had come from. The first-years, Jamil now recognized them as the string quartet from earlier, now made up a brass band. The noise he had heard was the blast from a tuba. The rest of the band joined in, trumpets, french horn, and bugle. They started playing a high-energy marching tune. How many instruments did these people know how to play anyway? Omar and Babkak had red and yellow pom poms, waving them enthusiastically. Babkak passed a pair to a bewildered (Y/N). 

“Go, Vice-Housewarden Jamil!” Babkak cheered. 

“Show them who’s boss, sir!” Omar whooped. 

Everyone froze, looking from the impromptu cheering section and band to Jamil then back again. Jamil’s face felt as hot as the Scalding Sands desert at noon. It didn’t help at all when Floyd started cackling. 

He began to march over to confront his dorm mates, again, when a new echoing sound made him pause. (Y/N) had thrown her head back in laughter. She stood, waving the pom poms above her head. 

“Go, Jamil, go!” She cheered. 

Jamil was pretty sure he was going to spontaneously combust at any second. 

*

The rest of practice had been a disaster. Every time Jamil got the ball the bleachers would erupt in noise, distracting him and everyone else trying to play. Jamil had never felt so off his game, fumbling the ball, bumping into his teammates, and losing focus at every moment that mattered, and most of the ones that didn’t, too. He purposely avoided turning in the direction of the cheering squad, partially because he wanted to discourage whatever activities the first-years were insistent on doing, and partially so he didn’t have to see (Y/N) cheer for him so enthusiastically. (And, maybe, so she wouldn’t be able to see how flustered he was becoming with every second.) 

A teammate had patted Jamil’s shoulder in sympathy as they headed to the showers after practice. “Don’t worry,” He said. “I bet she still likes you.” 

Jamil resisted the urge to punch him. 

Now, at least, he was back in a rhythm of something he knew how to do: cooking. Ever since his stint in the Culinary Crucible, the ghost chefs had tapped him and a few other stand out cases to help out in the kitchen every once and a while. 

The kitchen filled with the scent of roasting spices and sizzling meat, spilling out into the cafeteria sitting area. Students had started lining up way before the kitchen officially opened to secure their plate of Jamil’s cooking. Jamil felt the tension melt out of his shoulders, much like the butter in the pan he was currently using, as he fell into his familiar rhythms. 

“Thanks again for your help,” One of the ghost chefs said, floating by with a steaming bowl of freshly made turmeric rice. 

“Not a problem,” He replied. “It gets me out of my own head.” 

“Oh?” Another ghost asked. “Having troubles, youngster?” 

“Girl troubles, maybe?” Another snickered. 

All the ghosts jumped as Jamil brought down a butcher knife to decapitate a fish. They collectively decided it was maybe best to drop the topic, already deceased or not. 

“Ah, Jamil, chef, sir?” A student volunteer said, warily eyeing the butcher knife. “Someone was having an issue with their meal. They wanted to talk to you.” 

So much for his relaxation. Jamil quickly let the others know what to keep an eye on in the kitchen and headed out to the main sitting area. He scanned the tables. It looked like everyone was enjoying their food as far as he could tell. He looked back into the window of the kitchen. The volunteer student pointed at a table near the back by a window. He was about half way across the room when he realized that the student was a Scarabia student, a first-year in fact. And, now that he thought of it, he didn’t think he had seen that student in the kitchen before he had come to talk to Jamil. 

Jamil froze, seeing exactly who was sitting at the indicated table. This was a set up. He turned around to go back, only to be stonewalled by two now very familiar Scarabia students. 

“Hello, sir!” Omar chirped. 

“Taking your dinner break?” Babkak asked. “Great! We have the perfect table for you.” 

They both hooked their arms around Jamil’s and practically dragged him over to the table where (Y/N) and Grim sat. 

“Oh, hi,” She said, blinking at the surprise arrival. Jamil felt his throat tighten and couldn’t formulate a response. 

The musically talented first-years descended to the table, quickly picking up her plate of food to whisk a tablecloth over the table, setting down a candelabra which was quickly lit, and a vase with a dozen roses. 

“Roses,” Omar whispered to Babkak with a sly smile. Babkak rolled his eyes. The two shoved Jamil into a seat opposite (Y/N). A plate of food was set in front of him. The sneaky Scarabia student from the kitchen grabbed Grim, shoving a plate of tuna tartare in his paws before he could protest. Then, the group of wannabe restaurateurs vanished as quickly as they had appeared. The two left at the table, Jamil and (Y/N), looked at eachother with confusion. Jamil dropped his head to stare intently at his plate, stabbing at the sayadieh with his fork. 

“Hey,” Jamil was jerked out of his thoughts by (Y/N)’s voice. “I wanted to apologize for earlier, at practice. It looked like we were a pretty big distraction.” 

“You don’t need to apologize,” Jamil said. “It wasn’t your fault.” He glared at the first-years eagerly watching from a table a safe distance away. 

“Yeah, but still, I don’t need to make your life any harder.” 

Jamil looked up at her. She was twirling her spoon around the tabouli, eyebrows furrowed in deep thought. “You don’t make my life harder,” he insisted. “In fact, you’ve made a lot of things easier. My relationship with Kalim is a lot better now, for one thing.” 

She smiled at him, and his heart definitely didn’t skip a beat. “Well, glad I can help, then. But don’t sell yourself short. You’ve been doing a lot of work since everything that happened.” She waved her hand, regarding the invisible thing they both understood. It was still hard to talk directly about his Overblot, the manipulation, abuse of magic, and kidnapping aside. (Y/N) had told him she wanted to give him space for it, to consider how he felt and talk to others at his own pace, but still trying to address the root of the issues. That was when she had started organizing those sessions between her, Jamil, and Kalim, giving them a place to directly talk with each other without outside pressures and influences, helping them work things together as friends instead of the master/servant role Jamil so often felt himself confided to. 

“This is great, by the way,” (Y/N) interjected, scooping up a mouthful of tabouli. “I can always tell when it’s your cooking. Thanks for those leftovers the other day. I know Grim really likes them too.” 

“Oh, yeah, of course,” He said. He didn’t say, “I didn’t make it for Grim. I made it for you.” He blanched at the intrusive thought and snatched up his water glass, taking a large gulp and trying not to choke. 

“You sure you’re okay?” (Y/N) asked. “You’ve seemed kind of on edge all day.” 

“I’ll deal with it later,” Jamil said, looking over at the first-years who started enthusiastically nodding and giving him thumbs-up. 

(Y/N) drummed her fingers against the table.  “Listen, actually, there’s been something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about-” 

“Lgeimat!” Jamil shouted. 

She blinked at him. “Sorry?” 

“The lgeimat! I left them in the fryer! Sorry, have to go, have a good night!” Jamil shot up and zipped back to the safety of the kitchen. 

“I didn’t know we were having lgeimat tonight,” Omar said from their spying perch. 

Babkak thudded his head on the table at their third defeat. “We’re not.” He grumbled. 

*

Jamil collapsed on the low couches in the Scarabia common room, arm flung across his face to cover his eyes from the late evening light. The day felt like it went on forever. Jamil had caught himself constantly looking over his shoulder, jerking at every unexpected sound, in anticipation of an over eager group of first-years. 

“Hi, Jamil-Oh,” Kalim stopped himself, looking over at his drained friend. “You okay?” 

Jamil sighed in response. “Long day.” 

“Oh.” Kalim sat down next to him. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Jamil peered out from under his arm at Kalim. At least that was one improvement, again, thanks to (Y/N) specific intervention. Kalim had slowly been teaching himself not to jump to conclusions or take it upon himself to fix everything by throwing money or extravagance at it, but by taking the time to hear other people, namely Jamil, out first. Of course, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t throw money or extravagance at the problem in the end, but progress was progress. 

Jamil gave Kalim a halfhearted glare. “It’s all thanks to that rumor you started.” 

Kalim blinked. “Rumor? Oh, you mean about how you’re in love with-”

“Yes!” Jamil cut him off, sitting bolt upright. “That! Some first-years heard you the other day and have been following me around, trying to start up some grand romantic gesture.” 

“Oh, yeah, I heard about that. I think it’s sweet.” 

“Sweet?” 

“That everyone believes in you! Everyone knows how hard you work. We all want to see you happy and with the person you love.” 

Jamil stood. “Kalim, I’m not-” 

“Nope.” Kalim said shooting up. He put his hands on the taller boy’s shoulders, forcing him to meet his eyes. “You’ve been different ever since winter break. You smile more when (Y/N)’s around. You’re not so tense all the time. And whenever we’re in a group, like at the cafeteria or dorm meetings or parties, you’re always looking for her. And when you see her your whole face just lights up! Do you know how often you talk about her? It’s a lot, Jamil! ‘Oh, I wonder what (Y/N) would think about this. Do you think (Y/N) has that in her world? Do you think (Y/N) likes spicy or sweet food? Do you think (Y/N)’s doing okay at Ramshackle? Do you think she needs help with any repairs like when we stayed there during VDC training? (Y/N) sure works real hard to catch up with a whole new culture. Do you think (Y/N) would want this extra curry?’”  

“I don’t sound like that,” Jamil protested weakly. 

Kalim sighed, hands on his hips. “I’ve known you my whole life. I know what you’re like when you’re mad, I know what you’re like when you’re sad, I know what you’re like when you’re happy, and now I know what you’re like when you’re in love.” 

Jamil pushed back. “I’m not in love with her!” 

“Yes, you are!” 

“I’m not-” Jamil cut himself off. He felt suddenly dizzy. He sat down hard. “Oh, I’m in love with her.” 

Kalim threw his hands in the air. “Yes! Thank you! Finally!” 

“But,” Jamil continued, and Kalim tried really hard to keep his frustration to himself. “I can’t tell her that. I can’t… put that kind of pressure on her. She has enough going on with Grim and Ramshackle and trying to find a way home and… Sevens, she’s going back home, Kalim! I don’t know when or how, but she won’t even be in this universe! And what, I’m just supposed to show up and dump this emotional baggage on her when she already has everything else to worry about?” 

Kalim sat down next to Jamil. He twirled his fingers together, trying to collect his thoughts. Why was it always so hard to know the right thing to say? “You said feelings were like a two way street yesterday, remember? So don’t you think (Y/N) should have a say too?” 

“Kalim, I can’t-”

“Yes you can!” Kalim shouted, jumping up and clapping his hands. “You’re Jamil Viper! If anyone can do it, can do anything, it’s you! And keeping everything bottled up isn’t fair to you or her or anyone. So-So-” Kalim frowned, trying to look stern, a very strange expression for the normally boisterous boy. “So go tell her how you feel right now, and let her decide what happens next! That’s an order as your house warden!” Kalim flinched. “Please.” 

Jamil stared at him for just a second too long, making Kalim squirm with worry that he had gone too far. Then, Jamil sighed, resigned, a half smile on his face. “Well, if my house warden is ordering it, how can I say no?” 

*

Despite what he had told Kalim, Jamil dreaded every step towards Ramshackle dorm. Even with the ‘order’ from his house warden, Jamil considered turning back. Instead, with each uncertain step, he plotted out exactly what he would say. Was it just as simple as ‘I have feelings for you?’ Should he have some grand gesture ready? Absolutely not. Those first-years had spoiled that concept for him. 

Before he realized it, Jamil was walking up the pathway to the dilapidated dorm. He stood at the front step, fist up ready to knock. It hovered there. A plan, he still needed a plan. He couldn’t just walk in without a plan of what to say, what to do. He’d had the entire walk over here, how had he not come up with a more solid idea? 

The door snapped open in front of him, Grim hurdling out, crashing into Jamil’s chest. “What-? Oh, hey!” Grim said, rubbing his head at the bump then cracking into a wide smile at the sight of Jamil. “Did you bring us dinner again?” 

“Uh, no, not this time,” Jamil said, already thrown off. 

Grim frowned. “Meh, whatever. I’m going to Sam’s anyway to get some tuna.” 

“Milk and eggs!” (Y/N)’s voice called from inside. “You’re getting milk and eggs! And oranges if they have any.” 

“That too!” Grim said. He winked then sped off down the path. 

(Y/N) appeared at the doorway, clearly having sprinted to catch the dire beast before he left. “Grim, I said we don’t have the budget to- Oh, he’s gone. Right, sure, why not?” She sighed. “Hi, Jamil.” 

Jamil swallowed hard. “Should I come back later?” 

(Y/N) waved the idea off. “No, it’s fine, you’re already here. Come on in.” 

Jamil followed her into the dorm to the sitting room just past the entrance hall. Despite the age and wear of the building, it was clear that (Y/N) had taken a lot of pride in fixing it up and keeping everything in order. 

“Sorry, I was in the middle of doing dishes,” (Y/N) said, whipping her wet and slightly soapy hands against her skirt. “Go ahead and take a seat, I’ll get some tea and snacks.” 

“It’s fine,” Jamil said, quickly standing back up after having just sat down on one of the overstuffed couches. “I know where everything is, I’ll get it.” 

“No, no, you’re a guest. Take a break, I’ll get it.” 

“It’s fine really. I’m sure Crowly has been keeping you busy all day.” 

“And you’re just as busy. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

“No, really, I-” 

“Jamil!” Jamil jumped at her sudden outburst, his hands frozen in the air. She huffed and put her hands on her hips. “Honestly. You take care of everyone else all the time. Let me take care of you for once.” 

Oh no. Oh no. 

“Now sit down while I go make some tea.” 

He sat down. This was worse than he thought. He really was in love. 

She wanted to take care of him. Of him. When was the last time someone offered to take care of him, to lighten his load, to take responsibility for the burden? For as long as Jamil could remember that had been his job, his life. Kalim, Najma, his parents, the Scarabia students, everyone and everything. It was like he didn’t realize just how tired he was until (Y/N) offered to help. Why did her snapping at him just now make him feel so relieved? 

Almost without thinking about it, Jamil’s feet took him into the kitchen. (Y/N) was standing at the stove, setting down a heavy teapot on the burner. She was mumbling to herself about something, Jamil couldn’t really hear what. His ears were ringing. 

(Y/N) noticed that Jamil had come into the kitchen, turning to face him. She frowned, eyebrows knit together. “Jamil, I told you that - Oh!” 

Ignoring his anxiety, ignoring that nagging thought that he didn’t have a plan, ignoring the churning nervousness in his stomach, Jamil pulled (Y/N) into a tight hug, burning his face in her hair. 

“I like you,” He said, so softly that he had to repeat himself to make sure she heard, to make sure she understood the depth of his feelings. “I like you. I think I might even- I feel better when I’m with you, like I can be better. I don’t feel like everything I’ve done up until now is just in service to someone else, because all of those things lead me to meeting you. I feel like I can think clearly, that I don’t always have to be on alert. I want to take care of you, I want to be with you, I want us to be together. And I know - I know I’ve done horrible things in the past, I know you’ve seen me at my lowest. But you still see me, me, not anything else. Not the servant, not the diplomatic aid, not the Overblot monster- How could I not fall in love with you? So, (Y/N), please. I just - please.” He wasn’t quite sure what he was asking ‘please’ for, he only hoped she would understand. 

(Y/N) trailed her fingers along his back, threading through his long hair. She pulled back, as much as Jamil’s embrace would allow. The corners of her eyes were dotted with tears. “Jeeze, Jamil,” (Y/N) said. “Way to steal my thunder. I wanted to say it first.” 

Jamil let out a cracked laugh, tears welling up in his own eyes. “You did?” 

(Y/N) hiccuped, laughing. “Yeah, of course. I thought I was being kind of obvious with it. I finally decided to suck it up and tell you at dinner earlier, but you just ran away so I thought you knew what I was going to say and didn’t feel the same.” 

“Sorry, I guess I was nervous. And those first-years all day…” 

(Y/N) laughed out loud. “I was wondering what was up with that. Was that Kalim or something?” 

“For once, no. They took it upon themselves to try and set us up.” 

“Aww, they care about you.” She hugged him close. “And I can see why.” 

*

That weekend, it was finally time for the Welcome Spring party, and there were, indeed, more flowers than usual. Kalim was flitting around, making sure everything was organized and where it needed to be. Jamil had asked if he could leave for the morning, coming back when it was time for the party to start. And, even though he had been the one to ask for the time off, Jamil had double checked that it was okay with Kalim no less than a dozen times before he actually left. Kalim insisted repeatedly that he would be fine, that he had a handle on everything. And, maybe, for the most part he did. It definitely helped that Jamil had assigned tasks to several other dorm members the night before to make sure Kalim didn’t get too overwhelmed. 

Just as the golden hour set in, magical floating lanterns bobbing along in the air amid swirling flower petals, the guests started to arrive. Kalim had sent out a recommended dress code ahead of time, requesting pastels, whites, and gold. Something to fit in with the refreshing and floral mood he wanted to create. Mostly, he was happy to report, everyone was able to follow the requirements. Heartslabyul students especially were rigidly adhering to the dress code under the watchful eye of their house warden. Most of them wore pinks, as it was the required color when taking care of the dorm flamingos so they already had something that would fit the theme. Savannaclaw didn’t much stick to theme, but had tried to comply with sticking puffy peony blossoms through belt loops or behind their ears. Octavinelle wore light blues and corals, studded with shimmering scales, pearls, and other bits of underwater flora. Scarabia, of course, as the hosts, were the most bejeweled, taking inspiration from the fairy gala that had inadvertently plunged the campus into chaos, but also resulted in beautiful flowing white and gold garments. Pomfiore stayed mostly in lavenders and lilacs, highlighted by golden embroidery in fantastic scenes and shapes. Ignihyde, for those who did show up, dug out whatever was the lightest color in their wardrobe, mostly staying in light blues. Similarly, no one was expecting much from the usually dour-toned Diasomnia. But, not wanting to create a social fopaux at one of the few events he had received an invitation to, thanks to (Y/N) reminding Kalim to expand his guest list at the last minute, Malleus had ensured that all his dorm members wore mint and emerald green with gold dotted throughout. 

There was a noticeable absence of two usually prominent figures, but Kalim assured everyone Jamil and (Y/N) would be arriving soon. And, although Jamil had tried to slip in quietly while everyone’s attention was focused on the dance floor for an aerial ribbon performance, Kalim’s squeal of delight quickly diverted everyone’s attention. Jamil held in a groan as attention whirled to him and (Y/N). They both wore outfits from the fairy gala, meticulously designed and created by Professor Crewel. She squeezed his hand in support, dragging him further in, head held high while ignoring the stares. A few Scarabia students gave congratulations, thumping Jamil’s back as he passed. Ace caught Jamil’s eye from the other side of the room. He pointed to Ortho, who was waving excitedly, and drew a finger across his throat. Jamil rolled his eyes. 

As the aerial dancers finished, (Y/N) drew Jamil to the dance floor. As a band kicked up (seriously, how many instruments did those Scarabia students know how to play?), (Y/N) wrapped her arms around Jamil’s neck as he placed his hands on her hips. He really hoped she wouldn’t notice how sweaty his palms had gotten. 

“You’re nervous,” (Y/N) said. “I’m not used to seeing you like that.” 

“I’ve just never really done this before,” Jamil said. “Not dancing, I’ve done that plenty. Just the whole relationship thing. I never really had a chance before. I don’t want to mess this up.” 

“I think you’ve been doing pretty good so far.” 

Jamil smirked. “It’s been two days.” 

“Well, see? You’re gaining experience already.” She leaned forward, placing her head on his chest. “I’m nervous, too, you know. Not about this. I’m really confident how I feel about you, and I want to stay with you for as long as I can. I mean about everything going on around us. There’s a lot of unknown. Technically, you know, I don’t even exist. Don’t have any papers like a birth certificate or passport or even a valid nationality. But I know I have great people helping me out, including you. And knowing they’re on my side, it helps make things a little better. And I’m on your side. So everything will work out, you know?” 

Jamil hummed. Lowley, in a quiet voice so he could dismiss it if she didn’t hear him, he asked, “Can I kiss you?” 

(Y/N) looked up at him, smiling, eyes twinkling. “I’d like that.”  

*

Off to the side, behind a bolt of silk cloth, Babkak handed Omar a 20 madol note.

[otomaticallyobsessed]

IN ALL MY DREAMS I DROWN. poly!octotrio

Husband/Captain says the best medicine is sleep. You plead and beg with him to find another remedy. "I know what is best for you," Husband/Captain says.

tags: mythical beings & creatures, references to scottish folklore, seasickness, implied/referenced abuse, prophetic dreams, blood and violence, forced marriage, rape/non-con elements, no abuse done by octotrio, eventual happy ending, rescue mission, & happy mermay

word count: 6,690

There is a storm on the horizon. Alas, that is normal. Your husband has terrible luck with sailing.

Truthfully, it has felt for as long as you have breathed, you have breathed in the calmness before a storm. Anticipation for something awful on your tongue. Dry, warm air before a storm hits in your lungs. There is always a storm on the horizon. You have never seen another type of sky while sailing. 

Dark clouds pile onto each other like stones. Icy blue and cold black spreads across the south like rivulets of oil. There is a faint tingling in the air. You look down. So deeply tired, the motion almost causes your eyes to lock close – like when a rocker-eyed doll is tilted. Blankets of goosebumps sleep on your arms. You know with sighed resignation that the upcoming weather will be one of the worser ones you have experienced.

No matter how many waves you sail upon, your husband cannot escape the looming storms, try as he might.

In your hand, you hold a lantern. It walks with you. Burning brightly, it works effectively to prod off the combined darkness of night and storm. Hypotonic red and yellow twirls over each other. A caged calamity which sways somniferous with each step you take. 

This is the forty-second time you have paced the entirety of the ship. From stern to bow, croaking wood weeps under your aimless poltergeist motions. Some cuckoo clocks, upon the stroke of each hour, release little trapped dolls to dance and spin in circles upon the stroke of each hour. You are quite similar to them. Except, you are a doll in a broken cuckoo clock who works its dancers tirelessly. Spinning and spinning, stern to bow, then again, stern to bow, repeat, stern to bow.

With each step, the fire in your lantern sways like a hypnotist's watch, undulating red and yellow. 

You have been awake for two days so far. However, you only walk at night to fend off sleepiness. In the daylight, you keep yourself busy with menial tasks. Walking helps to fight off the sleep before it envelopes and rains upon you.

Yet, it seems you are making too much noise with your endless pacing. Your scolding comes with the cry of a single creak. The wooden door of the captain’s cabin opens. 

Eyes once up to absorb the sight of the creeping storm, the layout of the ship, and any sight you wanted to see suddenly drop down.  Eyes now on the floorboards, you listen to the pitter of feet marching down steps. Wind howls in your ears and rakes through your hair. Endless pacing comes to a sudden halt. With retreating eyes, you stand by the shrouds. 

When a pair of boots enter your eyesight, thorns wrap around your heart. Panic settles in when he speaks, “Another sleepless night, my dear?”

You have no idea what your husband looks like. Never gathering the bravery to look up and with him never having the want to tilt your chin up, neither of you have made eye contact. His face is like tenebrous darkness casted by storm. Numerous features could lay on it. Numerous possibilities yet no answers. No beard though; you know this when he places a palacting kiss on your forehead where your brain stews with undreamed dreams. No coarse hair tickles your skin.

However, your husband knows what you look like. Taller than you, stronger than you. Knowing your features and face shape in this uneven marriage, that is his right in nuptial laws. Spouses should submit to their husband, he told you when the ship first departed from the dock of your hometown.

Though, you cannot remember your hometown. Or really anything before him. 

All of your life (because you must have had one) before him is blank like empty waters. From the Memory Sea, you search desperately for something. No matter how many lines you cast out, all you pull up is stringy, golden brown kelp or thick, ebony black kombu. The fishing rod of your desperation cannot possibly successfully make a catch in empty waters. How foolish of you to even cast a line, Husband/Captain would tease.

You know him only as your husband. He never gave you his name. You heard the men under his command call him captain. He adopts two names on your tongue, Husband/Captain; though you hardly use either.

You hardly address him first. He addresses you.

“My dear (Name),” a finger oscillates gently on your cheekbone. “I do not think the moon is as lonely as I am without you in bed. I miss you.” When you move your head to the side in shame, the finger guides you firmly to look at him – or at least his shoes. 

“Speak.”

Lips feeling looser, you weigh your next words carefully. What can you possibly say this time around? Is there anything left to say? Fitful in your resolve, your eyes travel to take in the pulsing glow of your lantern and how it illuminates different colors. The image paints itself in your memory: the empty lantern that is devoid of anything but a pile of ash, the chest in the corner which you are not allowed to open, the bed with its silky sheets that inundate you with dreams of drowning. 

You dream of drowning every time you sleep. When your head hits the pillow, it is like falling into a bottomless puddle that goes much deeper than anticipated. Idiosyncrasy to yourself, you are only one of this swaying ship that fears the reality of drowning.

Below your feet, almost breathing, the ship rocks back and forth. It feels like you imagine how it feels to be rocked gently by a mother. Maternally, even the ship wishes for you to sleep. The captain and his vessel conspiring against you together.

But – you cannot – so you must bargain some way to stay awake until the vessel docks. “I was … I was growing a bit uneasy over the storm. And I could not –.”

Husband/Captain hums and you know to immediately fall silent. 

The pattern of the lantern handles indents in your hand. Digging steel hurts like a bad punishment. What a silly excuse. For two months all you have known is encroaching storms, why would you suddenly develop an anxiety over them now? You look out upon the ebony, mature cumulonimbus clouds. 

“Isn’t there an old saying: out of sight, out of mind. I’m positive that watching it does little to quell this uneasiness,” he says.

If anything a rainstorm would be a blessing, diverting his attention from you.

“If I’m aware of it, it helps dispel that anxiety. If I’m away from it, not watching it, I feel quite worried about what could happen.”

“I share that sentiment. I’m quite anxious with you out of my sight.”

So it seems, you think, so it really seems. Your husband has pulled you away from the ship’s railings on multiple occasions, hand a shackle on your wrist, reeling you back onboard. Staying within his sight is an unspoken wedding vow.

You tense prematurely, already knowing his next words. You have lost for the night. Oh, how you have lost deeply. “I don’t want to sleep tonight … please … –” in all my dreams, I drown. But you cannot talk anymore because –

“Now hush, love,” Husband/Captain coos. 

“Here’s your gown.” 

What he holds out to you is rivulets of soft cotton. A sleeveless gown with fragile, ornamented straps which will hang gently on your shoulders. The pattern is a delicate stitch like doyle napkins and a little bow rests on the chest’s center. Ending at the shin, white lace replicates the look of distance waves, twisting up and down.

You take it within your scarred arms. Diagonal slashes racing down and then another group of diagonal scars racing up coat your forearms. Memory Sea has yet to unveil how you got these scars.

“Please,” you plead. It takes so much bravery to say that one word that you feel winded after.

Your head is patted in fruitless consolation.

The captain is not happy about today’s catch. Not happy is really too subtle of a way to put it. He boils with a rage known of a tyrant’s disposition, body exploding into a mess of volcano-esque fire. It is a strange sight to the men. What they pulled up from their nets would feed the crew without the need of rationing. Their catch was bountiful; what is there to be possibly upset about?

It is because all they caught is codfish. Codfish pyramiding upon codfish. A family reunion of hundreds of generational codfish. Oh, and one common ling. Which he took from the nets, it serpentine amber and white body oscillating in hand, as he howls at his crew, “A fucking ling! A ling!”

Eyes down, you had a perfect view of the ling being dropped to the floorboards and the captain raising his boot to mallet it down upon the fish’s head. Red and white puss splattered in a gory firework, piscine epidermis popping loudly. 

Then, the captain stomped off, leaving a one-footed trail of red behind him. 

Antipaction and questions lingered in the eyes of the crew. The crew looked upon you with high expectations. Well, aren’t you going to follow the yellow-brick road, the red footprint trail? Weren’t you going to head into the captain’s cabin and help your husband – lie on the bed, stomach down, as he punched fireworks into you, until he worked out his anger? This ship’s crew really has no delicate manner of speaking with their eyes.

Averting your eyes, sheepish, you shake your head. You are not inclined to want pain. Fleeing, you took to entering the kitchen to cook, growing ill at the sight of nets.

Nets. Just the cross-hatching pattern could make you feel consumptive. Like your stomach is empty or your stomach is bloated, it makes you so incredibly sickly to watch the crew pull up their meshwork that cradles school upon school of fishes. 

Upon your forearms are scars, scars of an identical pattern.

When the men take to dumping their catch into a circular, steel tank that is about the size of a Queen bed, you thank them in a whisper. Looking into their eyes is like falling off a cliff, missing the water, and landing upon a bed of jagged stones. Eyes like stone, not resentful but still dangerous. You work to keep your head down until they all leave. 

With the captain so vexed, you delegate yourself to preparing his meal first. The rest of the crew can wait until mid-afternoon. So, you prepare a dredging station with quick work. Find a shallow bowl, cut the lemon, mix together a double serving of spices with the flour. Your husband is fond of sharp herbs mixed in with fish.

You have learned to cook with his guidance.  He likes to say, “A country’s cuisine reflects their culture and history. It’s a fascinating field of study.” Then, fingers guide you with firm resolve to work upon dicing, cutting, and slicing. 

Now, you are almost a veteran at preparing fish. Mostly codfish, though you would have longed to experiment with a ling – you remember the pomace of oozing brains and otoliths, multiple streaks of red like lightning on the floor. 

But you suppose you are not allowed to. It is probably for the best. Staying with your routine. 

Seasonings scenting the air, you hear your stomach growl. Ah. Perhaps just a bite won’t hurt.

Triple-checking, you make certain that none of the crew lingers by the kitchen. No curious eyes are peeking through the window. When you are assured in your resolve, down to the bone and up to the skin, you crouch down by the bucket. Into the pool of threshing codfish, your hand swims. 

The one you take out is a medium-sized portion. Green and yellow skin a similar hue of summer moss. As it squirms wildly, you turn it belly-side up. It takes a great deal of effort with such dull teeth. Yet, after a bit gnawing, the piscine epidermis finally breaks with a loud pop in your omnivorous mouth. 

Rotating it around like corn-on-the-cob, you munch down upon the live and raw codfish with ravenous hunger.

A fortnight after, you wake up gasping for breath. Saliva is like a second tongue in your mouth, overcrowding. Unhesitant, you turn over the edge of the bed and wait for a soup of briny seaweed, torrential waves, and a codfish to splatter upon the captain’s bedroom floor. A single jellyfish tail of bubbly saliva is all that hits the ground. 

Lungs so incredibly strained cannot comprehend where all the water went. 

Coughing, you cringe against the sensation of water in your mouth. The natural lubricant of saliva is suffocating, pressing hard on the walls of your buccal cavity. 

And though your lungs kick painfully, there is nothing more to spit out the tiny dime of water already spat out. Coughs come and go until they ebb to you panting softly in bed. Fatigued breaths eventually wither, to you just breathing steadily and staring off to the only light source. 

Pointed spirals of light move in a kaleidoscope pattern. Leather red brightens to a bloody crimson. Rich blue wood absorbs the glow. You are a bit unsure what is really rocking back and forth, swaying with such somnolence: the boat itself or the chest where a star is locked inside.

The chest you are not allowed to open. 

In your ears, you hear the ocean gnash and moan.

Blech and blarghhh. Blech and blarghhh, you go. 

Over the bow of the ship, you puke. 

Bile falls heavy into the awaiting waves below. One teary, squinting eye watches the pallid greenish-yellow sludge sink.  Your nose is sour by the scent of imaginary citrus oranges; your head is a spinning dreidel.  On the night of your three month anniversary on the ship, you woke up from another drowning dream with a secondary heart heavy in your throat. Prisoned, it banged and banged for release. So, you rushed up to the bow and granted its plea for freedom. 

To the sea, let me go to the sea, your bile begged. And you listened. 

A powerful blech and blarghhh has you stumbling feverishly. Your feet skid on wood like a lynched cowboy’s who kicks fruitlessly to feel solid ground. Stomach and railing biting each other, you lean far with the force of your next hurl. Far enough where you too could fall into the awaiting waves below.

Your heart spikes because you realize, puke only halfway out and face winking in agony, that you are falling in. You have gone far enough. Cerulean waters seem to reach out in an awaiting embrace.

Just as your feet start to lift from the ground, the saltine noose around your neck pulling, a hand wraps gently yet firm against your waist. You gasp wetly, bile lipstick thick, as you find yourself back on solid ground.

“Easy there. Easy. I got you,” Husband/Captain murmurs. He presses a kiss to your neck but does not hold your hair back when you gurgle again. Throat fluctuating with heaving breaths, he lies his nose on that weeping patch of skin. Salt is thick on you. “Sudden sea-sickness will pass. Happens even to the veteran sailors.”

Not this extreme, you want to argue. You are too cowardly to object. And besides … Vomit acts as a reliable tape over your hatred. You wish his hand would stop rubbing a thumb on your stomach and instead gather up tendril-esque hair. 

“Though I would have never expected you to succumb to such an illness,” he says, awestruck as if you are breaking some bodily law. The thumb on your stomach becomes more pressing. “Perhaps … perhaps it is not the matter of the seas that turns your stomach so.”

You realize with a cold sweat what he is referencing. “It is not that.” A helpful hand (your own) rises up to start wiping off the pallid greenish-yellow cosmetic. Fingers fling and flick the remains of your regurgitating stomach into the waves. 

“I would be able to tell.”

“Is that possible,” his voice doubts. “How could you?”

“Of course I could. It’s my body.”

Husband/Captain chuckles like you have told a funny joke. Now it is not his sole thumb that oscillates back and forth on the skin of your nightgown, he opens up his hand like a flower. He takes to rubbing your stomach until his hand goes down to cradle the spot between your legs. 

You wish the ocean would take you. 

The night sky is full of stars. Stars are a rarity. You never get to see them often because of how normal it is for your husband’s ship to be caught in a storm. Tonight, all is tranquil. Tonight, you are in the embodiment-al heart of the calm before the storm. And, lastly, tonight, you will try something new and exciting. You will use those pinpricks of light to paint pictures; you doubt anyone has ever thought of such a fabulous game before. 

It takes a while for you to get into the groove of it. When there is this strange, thrusting force behind you, bile pops out your lips like blood. Stars align to make a teddy bear, fashioned with a little bow. When your tears fall into the awaiting waves, they catch them with so much tender sorrow. 

There is a melody in the air. A little different from blech and blarghhh. Far different from the harsh hit of his hips. It howls below you.  Water licking on the side of the ship seems to say: dont worry dont worry i will save you. 

When you strike the match, it hisses and balloons with a fierce flame before shrinking down to something petite, something weaker. With great care, you press the match through the open lantern panel. It transforms with a fiery jump. 

You stick the match between your lips once you wave it in the air harshly, killing it. Lantern panels now all closed, you hold it up to illuminate the revolutionary sight before you. It has been a day and three months … you have to know what’s in there. The rich blue box sits in your path with all the magnetism of precise metals. You crouch before it, nun-like.

The top of the wooden chest is an arch, so you rest your lantern to the side. Out of your sock, you pull two fishbones – ones you had cleaned down with your tongue and whittled down to points with a kitchen knife. 

You cannot remember anything of your life before this boat. Against his wishes, you have been trying to remember what could have been of you before this boat. The storybook must have more pages, a prologue of sorts left unsaid. This boat … nothing but him lives your memory. Hand outstretched like thorns, sand, snakes, poison, fire, and nightmares. A hand that puts a glittering circlet on your ring finger. Your first memory is being wed. 

Into the mouth of the lock, you slowly slide in the first fishbone. Behind you, the sound of a blanket hitting the floor thumps. Thin and fragile, the fishbone snaps halfway in the lock as you rise to your feet – and you rush, hand just managing to grab the lantern, as a raging storm at your back runs at you.

“YOU UNFAITHFUL FUCK!”

You run up the stairs three at a time, heart jackrabbiting with fear.  

Tears are already in your eyes before you comprehend them. Your hand depresses on the door. Wood clatters and shakes with tremendous rage below you, growing closer. Run away, you scream at yourself, just as you realize there's nowhere to run to. When the door opens, water pelts your face in a thousand exploding fists. 

This is the closest the storm has ever been. But it was clear yesterday ? – calm before a –?

A scream tears from you as a reaching hand misses your arm, his dirty nails almost tickling the goosebumps coating your skin. With reckless abandon, you jump down the flight of seven stairs just outside of the cabin. The deck catches you with all the care wooden arms have – which is very little. Wide yet still finite, the deck faces off with you in the fierce, piercing rain. Where to escape to, it asks, as violent waves rock below. 

Left knee bleeding and a section of your nightgown ripped, you sprint towards the bow. And from the south, a savage, ravening storm follows. Dark clouds pile over. Icy blue lunges.  Maybe it would not be so bad to fall off the edge. Is that what all those ceaseless dreams of drowning meant — you have to drown to finally be at peace? 

An ethery scent explodes in the rain. The marriage of the sounds of breaking glass and petrified screaming kisses in the gusty air.  In the blimp of chaos, both of you hit the floor, right next to where fire from a broken lantern starts to eat up the wood.

“No … No, please,” you cry. “Please no!” 

By his hateful hands, you are turned on your side. Before you can make eye contact, he punches you across the face with an intensity reserved for crewmen in brawls. The wind howls mournfully in your ringing ears. Blood pops out of your mouth in tiny lightning bolts. 

As ringing and blustery winds ebb in sound, you catch the last of your husband’s words, “...I know what is best for you.”

“Scold or hit me! I cannot go back to sleep! Please!”

He grabs your head in a vitriol grip. Acid burns pierce where his fingers dig in. Husband/Captain lifts you by his hold on your head, like a lion might do with a cub by the scruff of its neck. Eyes stomp shut in fear. You fear the intensity of his face will overwhelm and drown you. 

“Help me! Someone! Please, help me!”

“Now hush, love.”

“SOMEONE! ANYBODY PLEASE –!”

“Here’s your gown.” Then, he slams your body on the ground. Your head cracks with the fragility of an egg.  Molten dreams with rainbowing incandescence slip out from the lightning-shaped fractures, spilling all over deck. 

The moon is full tonight. 

You feel in your bones that you have not seen a full moon in a very long time. Despite it being a monthly occurrence, storm clouds shield it away; even when unveiled, the nude moon is caught waning or waxing. This phase of the lunar sun kisses uncloudy skies with a powerful completeness. How you missed it with a whirlpool fervor. You feel so at peace.

A silver eye not missing any weight or heft. Hanging on a vertex, it hums with the sprinkling song of moondust and moonlight. With that melody, it shaves the weight of weakness that has shackled you. Avoirdupois lightens; the full moon brightens.

I have not seen a full moon this serene since I was a little boy/girl, you remember that much.  It is such a wondrous sight that you do not notice the water rising up by your ankles. 

No – not water, bedsheets. Bedsheets that snake serpentine like individual rivers connecting together. With a fluidity unique to water, white linen slithers across the curve of your calf and climbs up in gusts of silk to the tendons in your hamstrings. Moisture still clings to you; dry sheets juxtaposingly soaking you.

I am going to drown again. You frown delicately at the sentiment. Yet, despite the acknowledgement that watery suffocation is going to repeat itself, you think this time it will be a metamorphosis. Something different from previous dreams. 

You only think this because moondust and moonlight hug your slowly submerging body and tell it to you. Reassures you of it, to wade off fear of drowning.

Sheets climb up to your sternum. With rocking motions, they purl and lick at your shoulders. Ribbons weaving in and out of each other, pulsing up in gigantic breaths to climb upon you. Cloth falls over your mouth and silences you. Tendrils of linen rush into your nostrils. You keep your breath for as long as you can. As the bedsheets engulf you, you keep your eyes trained upon the full moon.

A silver eye not missing any weight or heft. Complete. I want to be complete again. 

Once fully submerged, you open your eyes. There is a tentacle in front of your face.

There is a tentacle in front of your face. It lies on its side. Facing you like how two lovers might turn to pillow-talk at one another. About as thick as an elephant leg, it stretches fully across the deck, dipping down into unseen depths over each side of the ship. 

Suckers squirm like a breathing wall before you. Voluminous in numbers. Almost replicating plasma barnacles of the underside of aquatic vessels. Individual suckers purl and roll with fake breaths. Fluctuating up and down in uneven patterns, unorganized hive mind motions. Most of them were a vibrant lavender yet – like moles on a wrinkled face – cheetah spots of violet-whitish squirms in slower beats. Moving like bubbling lava, lavender stirs and beckons. 

You cannot resist. Pushing your hand upon the breathing wall, you breathe in the scent of salt.

There is an ocean beneath the surface. Blood and plasma swims warmly underneath the skin. Despite the cold and salty water that falls like tears over shells of suckers, there is a warmth. An alive warmth. 

It cannot wrap itself around you; this particular tentacle is wrapped from one edge of the boat to the other like a behemoth bow strangling a Christmas present. However, touch is reciprocated in other methods. Like an expanding stomach, lavender pushes into your starfish spread out fingers. Suckers harmonize in a circle around the area where you put pressure. 

Hypnotic, eldritch beauty finds primitive comfort in you. Even though the side of your head is still sticky with clotting blood, you think you feel comfort too. It is only ripped from you when a crewman shouts, “God, help us all! A Kraken! By God, a Kraken!” 

Beyond the goliath, shielding tentacle, the ship and its crew are in discord. And once it reaches your ears, awareness of it crawls into all your other senses. Drawing away from the tentacle, you realize while standing up that the scent of ether in your nose is overwhelming. Half of the deck is engulfed in flames. Warmth from fire blankets you in heavy sheets. And –

“Someone! Anybody please –!!” And men are being dragged off the boat and killed by twisting, gnashing tentacles. 

The boat tilts. Stumbling feet are magnetized backwards; you trip over the tentacle you were just touching. A shriek that pains the wound on the side of your head erupts from you as you are rolled across the deck like a dice across a game-board. 

Your tentacle (the one you caressed) does not reach to steady or save you. Instead, it squeezes tentatively on the vessel ensnared in its grip. Splintering wood spreads up like a field of pointy grass. Then, after a moment, it slithers back into the ocean just as your spine hits the railing of the tilting ship. 

Over your shoulder, you see a raging sea. Waves curve into each other, resounding claps of exploding water striking your ears. Above, bullets of water clip fast upon the awaiting ocean. That familiar saltine noose reemerges around your neck, as your feet lift with gravity. Everything happens in a millisecond and in an eternity, dream-esque.

Your knees hit the deck when a hand pushes you away from the edge. You suck in deep breaths in a panic, prematurely housing oxygen away before you were doomed to fall in. But you had not fallen in … because … because there was a hand. Sprawled on the wet and burning deck, both elbows down on the ground, you turn over your shoulder one final time. 

His hair is the color of the sea. You never expected to see hair a different shade than black, brown, or blonde, perhaps a rare red, but his is breathtakingly blue. Coping, your mind fixates on it because you cannot comprehend the three-points of fins growing where his ears should be. There must be a mystified expression on your face regardless. The man smiles at you with covetous patience. 

“Hello, (Name). I wanted to be first to say on behalf of us, we are terribly sorry for our delay.”

Delay? “I don’t understand.”

“Do not stress. A great deal will soon resolve itself. Are you hungry? Can I do anything for you?”

Kindness is far more alien to you than the sight of piscine traits that your mouth falls open in a tiny circle. Words fail to form. Just as your bottom lip starts to quiver, the man amends, “Is there perhaps something you don’t want me to do?”

Meekly: “Do – Don’t go.” Apologetically (and quickly too): “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” 

Desperately, you wish you had something to hide in but all that you wear is a slim cotton gown. It is innate to leech onto goodwill after such a drought of it. An amused warmth settles of his features, then it softly falls into a deep sadness. Once more, you fumble for words, upset that you have upset him … “I’m sorry – I –!”

A loud noise breaks the moment. There is a pyramid of hundred or so noises caterwauling in this storm, mixing together like how a tornado tears up earth and neighborhoods to mix a smoothie of different items. Something salient breaks through all that cacophony – Husband/Captain shouting, “Give that back, you beast!” And then three consecutive popping sounds as he fires his gun.

You watch the figure of your husband, his spine facing you, wrestle with a tentacle. Like an obsidian tongue, the tentacle emerges from the door to the captain’s cabin and sways back and forth, trying to tug something from your husband. It is a tug-of-war with a predictable winner.

Strength evolves into desperation. A shout undulates into the rainstorm as Husband/Captain is thrown up. His body somersaults in the air. The tongue churns back into the mouth of your bedroom like a retreating snake. Clutched in a protective grip is the blue chest. Defeated, Husband/Captain pushes himself up on his elbows, nose broken.

Through sheets of rain, you two make eye contact for the first time in ninety-two days.

People say he is the fairest of them all. Women and men in the town swoon over him. And with a husband/wife to match, those jealous men and women think when their eyes land upon your awe-striking beauty. Yet, when you look upon him now, all you see is a hideous man. Like a swan (yourself) marrying a condor (him) – he is ugly beyond putridness. 

His bloody mouth moves. His shaking hand moves. You do not move. 

You cannot tell if the next sound you hear is the ring of a gunshot or the bang of a lightning bolt. 

It is like when I bite into the codfish, you think deliriously, watching red soak your nightgown. Hah. What a strange color. You think the man with the blue hair is trying to get your attention but the crimson color has you in a trance. Like mold, it grows slowly on the wrinkled creases of your nightgown, a little bit below your ribcage. So much – so much red. 

Yellow interrupts your mesmerization. Cheeks squished together, you look into a black pupil ringed by a honey wedding band then backdropped by a white planet. The triptych of color has you equally magnetized as the man takes his dominant hand and settles it under your rib.

“Breathe in.”

You do obediently. 

“Breathe out.”

Once more, you follow instructions. With your exhale, the wound in your abdomen closes up like a sleepy eye. He cards his non-dominant hand through your hair with excellent care. “There, there, are you feeling better?” When you nod, he whispers lovingly, “I’m so glad to hear that, my dearest.”

He smiles and reveals a collection of cutting instrumental teeth, shark teeth. 

The man looks like he is about to inquire more yet a voice interrupts in a lazy drawl, “Caaan I kill him now?” 

You turn to see your husband covered in red, down to a level where it almost looks like a second skin or a set of clothes upon him. His body is bent over the railing and a man with almost identical features holds him by the top of his torso, a piscine hand tight around his throat. “Kinda gettin’ of tired of his squirmin’ – he’s all sticky.”

Jade knows that is not a truthful admission. Floyd likes when they squirm. Jade wants that vile man dead too with as much intensity as his brother does but – “Come now, we are not barbarians. We have rules for our way of life.”

“Don’t care. He made Sealy cry. I’mma tear off his penis.”

“Please, refrain from such violence for a moment longer. Sir – well, that is too polite for you. Hm, Captain. Captain, we have customs where we challenge the owner of a particular vessel to a certain game. Will you play along?” The only response is an opaque red-white trail of slime dropping from his trembling lips. “Good. I will say the first two lines of a poem. You must complete them.

“Floyd, if you would, please.” The squeezing hand releases and your husband gasps for breath as if he has just escaped drowning on dry land. Shadow and light from the flickering flames shudder across his choking lips. “O my Luve’s like a red, red rose / That’s newly sprung in June.”

“Get off my fucking boat!”

“Hm, another verse then. As fair as thou, my bonnie lass, / So deep in luve am I.”

“I’ll roast you alive, you overgrown fish! (Name), get away –”At the mere utterance of your name, the man returns to strangling your husband with an explosive vitriol that it almost seems his gold and olive-brown eyes will bulge from his face in anger.

“Shut the fuck up.” He seethes with rage.

The other man responds to your husband. “Sorry but the responding lines are: And I will luve thee still, my Dear, / Till a’ the seas gang dry. Go ahead, Floyd.”

Red. So much red. It sprays out when Floyd rips off the skin enveloping around your husband’s throat. Glittering seafoam rivulets that arch beautifully. Leaping and pirouetting through the air. Thicker rivers start to follow after the initial misting, jetting shower. Some of the spume lands upon your temple. Already sticky with salt and blood, you do not flinch at the sensation. 

Then, the man, the man named Floyd, falls spine first into the thrashing sea, taking your husband with him. It takes a few moments before you realize the other man is gone too. 

You are not sure how long you stay sitting on the deck, letting rain drench you. It could be three or thirteen minutes of absent minded staring at the skies. Cords of white lightning are thrown across the canvas like spools of yarn, wavy and disorganized. Water pelts your face angrily; the weight of it hurts. Below you, the watery depths wail with ghastly noises.

The noise does not lessen or quiet to announce his presence. He simply emerges. One tentacle pushing up from the railing is followed by a hand which is followed by another hand. Then, hovering about three feet in the air above you, the Kraken analyzes you.

Wind picks up, howling. If you were standing, it would be a very real threat to push you off the ship. Tangible winds pick up tendrils of your soaked hair and cheerfully play with, whipping it back and forth in painful, fast-paced oscillation.  Entranced, you watch the Kraken’s very dry hair flow in the air with gentle grace. 

“Hello.”

You almost faint. His voice is each raindrop, sleeping in each ebon cloud, racing through each electrical bolt that shatters in loud cracks. Blue eyes with a horizontal, pill-shaped pupil squint in worry at the shiver you give at his voice. 

“Are you cold, angelfish? Ah, here,” only two behemoth tentacles have to umbrella over your form to completely stop the downpour. You lose sight of the man due to the massive, lilac parasol of muscle that covers you. He enters your sight again when his upper body slithers forward under his tentacles. “Is this better?”

He is so inhumanly gorgeous that he leaves you spellbound. Around you, his numerous tentacles wrap across the deck and into holes he has made into the ship’s helm like hungry snakes in a garden of mice. Prism-like, Stygian black glitters with each rain freckle that races down the arches of muscular tissue. Light shimmers evangelical on each part anatomical droplet. 

Yet, his real eldritch splendor is in his human-mimcing top half which leans towards you amorously. 

Silver hair, like the color palette of a full moon has dropped into it, sweeps across his face gracefully. The skin of his neck and collarbone pulse with each measured breath. A blue much mellower than the typical rough ocean hue shines in his eyes. His lips move and your eyes dilate just a smidgen.

He whispers to you in your little pocket universe. It feels you two are floating on a planet designed only for the two of you, heave ho-ing back and forth on waves made of stardust. He speaks so softly.

“I’m,” his voice breaks slightly like a chipped mug, “I’m terribly sorry for being so delayed. We tore down countless ships before we arrived upon this one … That is no excuse though. I should’ve been stronger and taken all of them down in a week.”

You do not really get what he is talking about but you still ask, “How many did you take down?”

“A hundred and thirty seven. Each one just another bleak joke. My angelfish, I’m so sorry.”

“That’s quite a number.” 

“Ah, yes, I suppose. We would have done a thousand more. Floyd, Jade, and I –”

“Who’s Jade?” Then, as an afterthought. “Can I please know your name as well?”

He blinks at you in confusion. After a heavy, contemplating moment, he states resolutely, “Let’s get you out of this wrong skin and into something proper.”

“Proper?” You blink in replicating confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Hush now, hush love,” Azul says, more tender than – than someone that has drowned in Memory Sea, never to be remembered again. Honestly, you do not recall there being any reasons for apologizing.

The parasol of tentacles peels apart and, hand in hand, Azul guides you towards the railing. You take care not to slip.

“Here’s ya gown.” The man who had ripped out your husband’s throat – you do know his name is Floyd – holds something out to you, leaning over the railing.

What he holds in his hand is unlike soft cotton. It is wetly sleek, patterned with black and white which diffuse into each other with freckling gray. There are no straps for your arms to slip and where the train of a dress should end is hind flippers. A dog-esque face with long whiskers stares at you with hollow eyes, awaiting for you to slip it on. It is a seal pelt.

Boldly, you look into his eyes. Gold and olive-brown, warm eyes. They are so earnest that you have no inclination not to believe him. That is your possession in his webbed hands, and he is returning it to you. 

In the span of three months and one day, you have had seventy-three dreams where you drown in them. In the span of three months and two days, you rejoin the ocean where you were always supposed to be, sunrise and clear skies on your tail.

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Out From Desert's Door - Chapter 2

You stand up, making your way towards the bed. Up closer, you can see a faint line of perspiration clinging to his brow even though the temperature has dropped significantly. It shimmers in the dim light like sea scales.  “I’m not stupid, Azul.” Azul remains strong, back as straight as a washboard. “Jade told me he found you in the kitchen.” “That’s it?”  Azul looks you in the eyes. “That’s it.” “I don’t believe you.”  Azul throws his hands up in defeat. “ Gods help me – you’re stubborn when you want to be.”

Read the rest on Ao3

Comments + Reblogs greatly appreciated <3!

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Rituals☁️(Leona x Reader)

Leona is low on spoons after the Tamashina-Mina tournament and needs some attention. Also what better way for him to sneakily court his favorite creature?

Curated from my 200k+ words Leona x Yuu fic

Characters: Leona Kingscholar x Yuu!Reader (GN. No physical description for Yuu. Yuu knows massage therapy.)

Words: 3k, 3rd person

Notes: I saw a meme the other day about how: “Liberalism leaves people’s bodies when mental health starts to affect someone’s hygiene” and I thought of how the fandom used to treat Leona. Also, I really wanted to make the “he uses you as a pillow” cliche not icky. 

Tagging: @comingyourlugubriousness @nammanarin @twst-the-night-away @twstinginthewind @ephemii @the-monday-witch @anevilbunnyinthehat @stagefullofsilly @theshipthatneversetsail @patrioticarcreactor @ice-cweam-sod4 @beaniz @the-nightingales-song @efsstash @cyn-write @porcelain-animatronic @lowcallyfruity @bestmannequin2018 @h0rr0r-10ver-69

-

It was baffling enough of a request that Leona Kingscholar invited Yuu to his home, but even more so was the thing he asked of them now.

“What? Am I your servant now, too?”

“No, course not.” He seemed deeply offended at this implication, nostrils flaring in indignance while his ears flopping backward against his hair. “I’m…askin’ you.” His ears flipped back up as he took a step closer, awaiting their response.

“Wait. You're serious…?” Yuu asked with a crinkle of their nose.

“Please…?” The word was barely audible, the man’s green-eyed stare never breaking from theirs. “If you’d be so kind…” He smirked, putting on an air, propping a hand on his hip. It was a warm day at the palace and he donned a pair of loose linen pants and a matching cream-colored tank top, all embroidered with gold.

Yuu swayed their head back and forth while they considered the idea, unimpressed by the sudden “princely” act. What was up to? They gazed down at the object in their hand as if it held the answer. Well, it wasn’t often that they heard that word from Leona Kingscholar. “Fine, okay.” 

Was it really such a big deal, brushing his hair?

–

The hammock below the two of them swayed with both their weights as they sat face to face, each teetering on each edge of the colorful canvas. Late afternoon light filtered through the stained glass over all the greenery of the palace gardens, gilding everything it touched. 

Sighing, Yuu made another move, leaning forward to grab another section of the dark waves from the man’s shoulder. They hadn’t even ended up using the brush much so far. The only thing it had been good for was hitting the man when he talked back. 

“Well, the good news is…I got most of it.”

On their way here, Yuu grabbed their bag, bringing it with them to the gardens. Luckily, they kept a few favorites with them at all times. A small vial of rosehip oil; that would work. It could be used for both skin and hair in a pinch. Removing the dropper from the bottle they dripped some more into their palms, rubbing them together before applying it to the end of the man’s loose curls.

“Stinks.”

Yuu couldn’t help but roll their eyes at him. “It’s just rose. It’s nothing compared to that eye-watering cologne you bathe in every day. They sighed, working it through his thick tresses in the silence, pulling it all through to the ends of each section. “...I shouldn’t really be brushing it when it’s all tangled like this, you know.”

“Tch, I know that,” He said indignantly, his lips pressing into a small pout, eyes downcast to watch them work. “Everyone just assumes my hair is like my brother’s…”

They pressed their lips together. “Hmph. Then do it yourself, next time, huh? ” Letting out a huff, they released the bushel of soft curls, the dark curtain falling over Leona's neck. His hair honestly wasn’t as bad as he had made it seem. It just needed some moisture and careful detangling.

“Naw, why would I…when you’re already doing it for me.” The man reclined forward, propping his elbow on the canvas. “Mmm.” He watched them move on to the next section, meticulously separating the frizzy and smoothing it over with the oil. Releasing a small sound in his throat,  he stared up at them with lethargic eyes, seemingly in a trance. 

Yuu shook their head at his comment, knowing that secretly he was just eating up the attention.  Keeping their eyes down on their work, they were careful not to pull too hard on his strands.

Leona muttered something as his lids fell completely closed, the end of his tail tapping on the edge of the hammock by their knee. A steady drumbeat.

They took their time with the rest, with only the noise of a few birds calling and Leona’s occasional sigh or grumble. It wasn’t long before, their lids lulled down too. It was relaxing in a way quieting detangling someone’s hair.

Every once and a while their eyes flitted to the man’s face, catching the little twitch of the corner of his lips. After Yuu was done detangling, they pulled two equal parts of the bottom sections forward, trying their best to get them even. They stuck their tongue out while they focused, before braiding them as neatly as they could manage, in the way he normally wore them. 

“There, you look more like yourself...” Yuu shrugged when they were done, tugging on one of the braids, and making sure the man wasn’t actually asleep.  “Better?” They crossed their arms, raising a brow over at him.

“Yeah.” The man opened his eyes slightly, the edge of his mouth falling into a crooked, but satisfied smile. “You did good.” His voice crackled just like the way a warm fire would. Like the bonfires at Savanclaw. He may have been sincere, but everything Leona said was always dipped in just a little bit of patronization.

Yuu palmed him on the forehead, pushing his face away slightly before letting their fingers drift up to his scalp, moving some of the hair out of his face.

“Hm?” He questioned, shifting slightly, turning his head to look up at what they were doing.

“Are you uh- still having those headaches?” They began to work their finger into his crown, between his twitching ears, pressing gently down on a few familiar pressure points. “I have to tell you, I’m the best.”

“I always have a headache when you're around.”  The man sat up erect, suddenly seeming full of energy, grabbing their calves and yanking them closer to him, practically into his lap. He kept going until the backs of their legs were hooked over his thighs. He chuckled in delight at their bewildered deer-in-headlights reaction. 

Yuu froze at his boldness, pressing their lips together into a pout as they stared up at him with blinking eyes. 

“Don’t be all shy, now. Prove it. I think I got a big one coming on.” He purred at them.

Still playing, hm? “Hmph.” They huffed out a breath at his shenanigans.

Leona didn’t let them get far though, keeping his hands locked around their ankles, leaning over to study their reaction. “Feel free to say no.” He released them, holding his hands up innocently. “...If you’re not up to the task that is.” A bit of his white fangs gleamed as his sneer widened, leering at them through his dark lashes.

“You-” Yuu stuttered, resigning themselves. They were falling for it. This is what Leona was best at: pushing others into “proving themselves” by gently prodding them from their comfort zone.

“Fine.” Saying nothing more, they only lifted their hands to evaluate him once more, taking in a breath before tracing their fingers down the sides of his muscular neck. 

Ah, the man seemed a bit surprised to see them agree, but he quickly masked it with another smug smile as he lifted his jaw to accommodate them.

Leona’s skin was much warmer than theirs and surprisingly smooth, his excited pulse fluttering under their fingers. “Hm. You are tense.” They muttered aloud, pressing their thumb into one of the hard muscles there. “That hurt?”

“Ack, what do you think? Beast…” He hissed, his ears lowering slightly, grabbing their wrist to stop them.

Yuu smirked, most people didn’t expect that kind of strength from them…until they gave them a chance to prove it. “Sheesh, sorry you big baby. I was just askin’.” They rolled their eyes and swatted his nosy hand away. This allowed them to focus again, laying their palms on both of his broad shoulders. 

They could see it clearly now, his shoulders were rounded forward, and his left side was higher–signaling to them he probably held more tension there.

The man was studying them again, one grumpy eye barely open. 

Yuu chuckled, no one expects how much it hurts. Though as much as they enjoyed hurting the man, they went in softer this time, gently kneading his shoulders and neck, before they bothered to poke him anymore. As they worked closer to his jaw, they became enveloped in his signature smell. Traces of cinnamon, hints of orange, and star anise lingered on their fingertips as they explored his exposed skin, taking care to not pull on the golden necklace that hung from his neck.

“How…did you know?” Leona asked through a groan.

 They had hit the right spot.

“The way you walk, for one. You know, with your head forward. For royalty…your posture is terrible, you know. You heard Vil. Anyways, I can just tell by feeling most of the time.” Yuu added, continuing to work on the tightest areas first.

“Tch, you’re one to talk,” He said through his groans, brown ears flopping to the sides as he began to relax into their skilled touch. “...I recall us both getting reamed by Schoenheit at those practices.”

“Hey, I’m not the one on trial here. You asked for my expert opinion.” They continued, reaching around to the back of the man’s neck to rub circles in the base of his skull, moving up into his thick hair.

Leona made a rumbling noise in his chest at this, letting his head nod forward until he went completely limp in their hands. Somewhere, between the ticks of both their breaths, he had slumped his whole weight on them. A whole lion in their lap.

“Mmm.” He nuzzled his forehead against Yuu's shoulder, moving his hand from their calf up onto their arm, running a finger across the loose thread of their sleeve.

Yuu tensed, the man’s warm breath tickling their neck. It felt a little surreal to think such a powerful mage lay against them now like an oversized house cat. It was sort of an honor that he felt so relaxed around them. Sort of. 

They shook their head, trying not to giggle, and straightened their back to accommodate the new weight. Yuu kept on working as if nothing had changed, ignoring the fluttering in their guts that his soft breaths over their cheeks stirred. 

After they finished with his scalp, they worked back down to his shoulders, grabbing both of them and twisting them to one side, signaling wordlessly for the man to turn around for them. The hammock squeaked as he rearranged himself and Yuu pulled his head down into the center of their lap.  

Going by cat behavior, he had shown them his belly, a small sliver peeking from the edge of his tank top. Now, with a completely malleable lion in their lap, Yuu couldn’t help but smile. He was totally at their mercy, moving whichever way they pulled him.

Some people they had worked on, like Jack, could never fully relax for them, no matter how many times they reminded him to. However, the oxymoron of man before them seemed to have no problem flopping over like a sleepy kitten, ready to be petted. 

Their fingers made their way up and down his neck shoulders and even a bit of his chest, respecting the barrier of his tank top.

Every once in a while, Leona’s lips tumbled open with a deep rumbling sigh of relief, pressing himself in their touch with each stroke, seeming to crave more and more. Their face grew hot, and some part of this felt…too intimate. No, no. It was just a massage, but the man’s touch-starved reactions were becoming harder and harder to ignore.

 It was only when Yuu’s fingers reached up to his jaw did Leona open his eyes once more.

As their fingertips settled on the sides of his face, his shoulders went stiff under their care. Yuu could feel Leona’s pulse ramp up for the first time during the massage.  His jaw tightened as they brought their fingers up to the temples of his grimacing face, trying to soothe him. 

He couldn’t be nervous now, could he?

“You…hold a lot of tension in your face too,”  They said calmly, urging his head to the right side, “Especially your…jaw.” They moved down to press their thumb into his cheek, easily finding the small, rigid muscle on the left side of his face.

The man grunted, “Easy.” 

Yuu shook their head again and eased up some. “...Just breathe.” They sighed, rolling their eyes as they massaged his jaw. “That right there is probably a big culprit of your headaches, you know.”

“Hmm,” He replied thoughtfully, his face softening some at their more gentle method. 

Their fingers worked each side of his face some more, then trailed slowly up his nose, rubbing circles across his sinuses. When they made their way up to his “third eye” area they rubbed extra hard to make a point, trying to get him to relax once more. “Sorry, just trying smooth out that permanent wrinkle you got there…”

Leona scoffed, dipping his head back into their touch, and closing his eyes shut again. “Tch, yeah well, every time I come home to visit it ages me five years, so...” He chuckled.

Yuu let out a light chuckle too, taking the strokes they made on the man’s cheeks upward and into his hairline, brushing against his scar a few times.

Leona’s forehead creased, an uncommon expression gracing his usually stern or sarcastic face. His broad nose curled in discomfort and they could see his eyes flicker anxiously under his lids. He was even holding his breath.

“Hey…Just breathe I told you!” They repeated with another soft laugh. “It helps with circulation.”

“Mmph.” The man said nothing and grunted at them before exhaling loudly. They would have thought they were doing something painful to him by his expressions.

Yuu tilted their head, realizing exactly what this was all about. They cupped their palms around his cheeks before dragging the stroke up, one of their fingertips running over the edge of his scar again to test the theory. 

The skin was dryer there and slightly raised. It created extra pull whenever they went over it. But, besides that…it was no different than any other part of his face. The Leona Kingscholar couldn’t be self-conscious, could he? No one ever really commented on it, and it surely did nothing but, to quote Rook: add to his “handsome and rugged charisma.”

But, the more they thought about it, they could understand why he was so dodgy about it. A memory like that, couldn’t have been pleasant.

The more times Yuu went over it they sensed a strange pull of energy from the area, like deep space. They were sure it was something the man had buried deep, so he could convince himself that he didn’t remember what actually happened anymore. 

Can’t remember every little scratch, he said once. How many people knew the real truth, they wondered. Or if there were any legends behind it in the palace.

“You don’t have ta’ touch it.” The man blurted out, trying to keep a straight face. His lips pressed together hard before he feigned a usual smug grin.“Though, I know that you’re a professional and all.”

“Wha-” Yuu almost wanted to roll their eyes at him for how dramatic he was being but, they didn’t. 

 “And- Why…would it bother me?” They asked casually, continuing the face massage as normal.

“Hmph.” Leona let out a huff, one side of his mouth arching upwards into a small smile. “I…see.” When he opened his eyes again, they were shiny, reflecting the tree tops around them. “Not many people have uh-”

 “Feel better?” Yuu lifted their hands from his face as they finished, saving him from the awkwardness of elaborating further. They had seen plenty enough to know how relieved he was at their response. That was enough.

“Mmhm.” He answered, clearing his throat before sitting up to face them again, the whole hammock groaning in response.  “....Thank ya.” He muttered, reaching behind to rub the back of his neck. “Much looser now-”

He sighed, eyebrows curving up over his eyes. Then, all at once his gaze snapped up to them, taking them in from head to toe. In one smooth movement, he let his body settle down against theirs, his strong shoulder pressing against theirs. 

Yuu’s heart hammered against his, mirroring the same fervid beat. No, this was more than just hair brushing. They hadn’t considered the implications until this moment, those of beastmen courtship and personal hygiene that they had read about. The two were often interlinked for beastmen. Sacred.

A hug? No, he was just still just staring at them now, inches away, like a cat ready to pounce. The usual slits of his eyes are now dark pools of space, reflecting back their own baffled expression. 

Yuu swallowed. They were so gridlocked by his intense stare, it was hard to speak or even breathe with him pressing them so firmly to the canvas hammock. He seemed at odds with something, his worn gaze downcast. “W-What…what’s wrong, Leona?” They whispered through an unsteady chuckle, managing to keep their head.

“Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.” He whispered, letting his weight sink further into them. There was a peaceful smile on his face as he reached up to grab a section of their hair from behind their ear, twisting it between his fingertips, tail flopping behind him lazily.

It felt like they were being chosen for something.

“Wha-” Their eyes widened, it took them a whole 30 seconds to realize the man was braiding the pieces together, calm and methodical, like when he was arranging his pieces on a chess board. Part of the plan. It was obvious Leona knew how to braid hair but it was…surreal to behold it.

When he was done the corner of his mouth turned up more, creasing a dimple in his cheeks. His eyes fixated on the sight of his results, he was so…proud of his work.

Yuu didn’t even have time to speak before he turned his head away, lying his cheek on one side of their shoulder once more. He had done it so casually as if he had done it a hundred times before and would do it a hundred times more.

They understand why he did it, they were…a matching set now.

He chose them. Their heart squeezed as the man draped his arms around their waist, locking them in place once more as something shifted between them.

 Leona’s cocky air had all but dissipated. “...Is this okay with ya?” He muttered so softly they almost missed it. He was asking permission, asking if they would accept him.

“Oh um…Y-yes.” They let their arms fall around his back, tugging on the end of his curls as they held him. Yes, he was getting way too comfortable, but it was their fault for allowing it, right? Yuu laid their head on his, letting him know for sure that: yes, it was okay.

“Hey, I know you're not falling asleep right now.” They grumbled playfully, tugging on his hair and furrowing their brow. Meanwhile, they curled their legs around his torso like a koala as he held them tight, making sure there was no space between them.

They knew it was all a lost cause. He had set the board how he wanted. He would not let them go again, and they didn’t want to leave.

“Shh,” Leona mumbled into their shirt, inhaling deeply. “ You’ve been real workin’ lately hard, right? Rest wit’ me.”

“But I-” Yuu yawned, their eyes watering some as they did. The action had forced their eyes shut. The breeze also was not helping, rocking them both gently inside the hammock.  “Fine. But just for a little while.” They breathed out, their own shoulders finally relaxing. Yuu’s head slumped over to gently bob against Leona’s. 

“You win…this time.”

The man only chuckled at their admission of defeat, a warm note buzzing against their chest. 

The last thing they saw was the colored glass of the greenhouse, filtering in pink light through the serrated leaves of the palm trees.

Leona’s sighs of contentment traveled through their body, as his warm fingers kneaded into their back. 

--

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Good morning!!! Congrats for hitting 2000 followers, I think you really deserve it! Also, I'm really glad that you've returned! I've been following your blog ever since last year, when I found your "Love Rivals" and "Meeting your future children", I really like how you portray the twst characters in your writings! There are times where I smiled For the 2000 milestone event, could I please request Idia with Lavender (Mind Reading)? You know how Idia usually think lowly himself, right? What if Idia has feelings for reader, yet he doesn't take action because of his low self-esteem/fear of rejection, but when Idia got in a potion accident where he can temporarily read minds, all he can hear from reader's mind are praises and thoughts of infatuation/admiration about him.

So that's the general idea of it, the rest is up to you. Also, I don't mind if you'll make a few changes here and there. That's all, thank you and have a nice day!

This is so cute! Thank you for hanging around so long!

I may have niche-video-game-referenced my way a little too close to the sun with this one. Hopefully, it makes sense to somebody.

...

Pairing - Idia Shroud x Reader

Prompt - Mind Reader

...

"Tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna, tuna..."

It has been 40 minutes since Idia had gained his powers of telepathy and already he wanted them gone. Grim hadn't had a single thought the entire class except a dumb song he made up about tuna.

The whole thing had been Grim's fault really. The mischievous cat had run away from you and invaded the 3rd year alchemy room. And of course he ran right into Idia just as the upperclassman was adding ground eye of newt to his animal comprehension potion, causing the vial to smash all over him.

You had apologized profusely and tried to wrangle Grim back to your classroom, but Crewel made you miss your class and clean all the dirty cauldrons as punishment, thus why Idia couldn't stop hearing Grim's

Everyone else went on with making their potion, but unfortunately for Idia and his tendency to get overstimulated, he could hear the immediate thoughts of every person in the classroom. He had been trying and failing to pay attention to the lesson due to the crazy noise. Serves him right for daring to venture outside his room.

"I think I put too much nightshade."

"When's lunch again?"

"Sevens, he's pretty."

Idia perked up in his seat. That last one was your voice. He looked over to where you were scrubbing grime off the rim of a black cauldron. Much to his surprise, he made eye contact with you. You looked away so fast, he almost thought he imagined it in the first place.

"Shoot, I hope he didn't catch me staring," you thought. Idia could see the embarrassment in your face now that he knew what he was looking for. He didn't know who was standing behind him, but whoever the guy was was maxed out in luck to get the prefect to like him.

Idia turned back to his cauldron and began to stir lethargically. He tried to block out the noise coming from everyone's thoughts but it was getting very loud. He just wanted to be back in his room playing video games!

"His little pout is so cute! Poor thing, he probably wishes he was back in his room," you thought. Idia's brows furrowed as he subtly looked around the classroom trying to find the person you were thinking about. "I wonder what he's looking for."

Idia snapped back to look at you, only to find you glancing at him again. This time, you were startled but you held his gaze and offered a hesitant wave.

Idia turned his face away as fast as he could so you wouldn't see the growing blush on his face.

"Hm, his hair is turning pink on the ends. I hope he's not mad at me for staring at him," you thought, turning back to the cauldron you were working on. "Though if he doesn't want me to look at him, maybe he should try being less nice to look at."

Idia let out an involuntary squeak. He felt his head start to swim and quickly sat down on a nearby stool. He was sure he looked absolutely crazy to the other students but he was so preoccupied by your thoughts that were apparently about him.

"Is that shallow of me to think that? I don't know. I mean, I don't like him just because he's cute. I also love listening to him talk about games he likes and his inventions are crazy awesome!"

Idia pulled himself deeper into his jacket. Your gaze had been fixed firmly on your work for fear of being caught staring again, so you didn't notice Idia's rapidly increasing fluster meter.

"I like how sweet he is to Ortho, even though he kind of hates everyone else." You sounded kind of defeated when you thought that, or at least you would if your thoughts sounded like anything. "He probably hates me too. I am just another normie. Though I don't know if he co-ops Untitled Goose Game with just anyone."

"No! I don't!" he wanted to scream, but he couldn't get a single sound out of his mouth. He thought he was the self-deprecating one, but you seemed to have convinced yourself that the boy who had a big fat, very obvious crush on you hated you. He even let you play the blue switch controller even though it was his favorite.

"I do wish he would stop being so mean to himself though," you thought, more sincere than Idia expected. "He's so amazing, but refuses to believe anything nice I or Ortho say to him. Maybe if he read my mind, he'd know I'm being sincere."

Idia froze. Did you know about the potion? Had you been messing with him the whole time?

"Well, that little brat better believe me when I tell him I love him even if I have to beat it into him with a Wii remote tennis racket attachment," you thought with a playful vengeance. "Do you hear that, Idia Shroud? I'm gonna make you believe nice things about yourself no matter how many niche video games references it takes!"

That was the moment you decided to glance at Idia, downright shocked when you found him curled up inside his hoodie on a stool with bright pink hair poking out the top.

"Idia, are you okay?" you asked. When he didn't respond, you went up to him and brought your face down to where his would be if you could see it. "Hey, are you alright?"

He jumped, almost falling off the chair.

"You actually said that?" he looked stunned which confused you.

"Yes?" you offered, unsure what he was talking about. "I did just say it."

"Uh, um, I'm, uh, fine," Idia tried to smile at you but it came off more pained than reassuring.

"I don't believe you. What's the matter? Is it too loud in here?" you asked.

"Shame he's always hiding his face. His blush is so adorable!"

"Yes!" Idia shrieked frantically, catching the attention of a few nearby students. "It's too loud. I can't think."

You nodded empathetically.

"You wanna step out for a minute?" you offered, gesturing to the door with a nod of your head. Idia nodded, desperate to get away. It really was very loud, especially with everyone's thoughts flooding his brain. Your seemingly-harmless sweet nothings were only the final nail in his coffin.

You followed Idia out of the room and shut the door behind you.

"Won't Professor Crewel get mad?"

You scoffed.

"Not a single teacher at this school gets to get mad at me after everything I've done," you leaned against the wall with a calming smile. "And if they do, they'll answer to the ghosts that live in my house."

That made Idia chuckle. You lit up seeing a smile on his face, no matter how minute.

"I love seeing you smile. If only I could be the reason more often."

"You're pretty much the only reason," Idia mumbled. Your easy smile dropped.

"What did you say?"

"What?" Idia averted his eyes, his mind filling with panic. "I didn't say anything."

"No, no, you said 'you're pretty much the only reason'," you questioned, your eyes full of confusion and shock. "That sounded like... I don't know, I was thinking something and then you said that and it sounded like..."

You squinted in confusion before scoffing at yourself and relaxing.

"That's stupid, Y/N. He can't read your mind."

"Actually, I can?" Idia squeaked, his voice getting higher with every word. Your eyes widened.

"Idia," you said solemnly, standing dead still.

"Mm-hm?"

"You can read my mind."

"Well, not usually, but there was a thing with a potion and it was with Grim and it messed with my head and now I can read minds and it's actually really loud but mostly I'm just nervous because of the stuff you've been thinking and I'm just really..."

You held up a hand to silence Idia's rapid rambling. He looked away sheepishly. You sighed and blinked a few times to process before laughing. Idia looked up in confusion.

"Aren't you mad?" he asked hesitantly. "I violated your privacy."

"I mean, you saved me the time of confessing to you myself," you chuckled, a giddy smile on your face.

Idia stared at you, trying to find traces of joking but you seemed to be serious.

"You aren't mad?"

"I'm in love with you is what I am."

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Double Trouble (Floyd x Reader)

Summary: A certain pair of twins are found roaming around NRC campus. No, not those ones. (AKA, Floyd and your kids come visit from the future.)

AN: This was supposed to be a cute short fic. Now it's 20 pages and three weeks later.

Warnings: Maybe a little ooc near the end. Kids and mentions of how they're made.

It was a pretty quiet day at NRC, which meant (Y/N) was waiting with bated breath for something to go terribly wrong. 

“You worry too much!” Grim complained, hanging off her shoulder as they walked along the main thoroughfare past the Great Seven statues. “We finally have a day off! No work from Crowley, no problems with the dorms, no weird stuff popping out. And! Sam had that sale on canned tuna!” Grim pawed at the can he was holding, trying to rip open the pull tab on top. With a frustrated huff, he reluctantly handed it over.  

(Y/N) quickly popped open the can and handed it back to him. Grim gave a small cry of delight as he buried his face in the shredded tuna. “I know, I know,” She said, absentmindedly scratching him behind the ears. “I think I’m just not used to it anymore. It feels like something should happen, you know? Like, they say right before lightning strikes you can feel the static in the air. And be honest, when was the last time we had a real day off?” 

Grim looked up, licking his lips. “Well, last month we - no, wait, that’s when the fairies stole that magestone and had that fashion show. Oh, what about the weekend when we - no, that was Camp Vargas, huh? Uhh, Port Fest was really fun!” 

“We were working at the food stalls the whole time.” (Y/N) grinned at her feline-type companion. “Or at least I was.” 

Grim frowned. “Hey! Taste testing is an important part of selling food! You have to make sure your product is up to snuff!” 

(Y/N) giggled and took the empty can from Grim, putting it in the plastic bag that held the other odds and ends they had picked up from the Mystery Shop. “Of course, we couldn't have done it without you.” She shielded her eyes from the sun, squinting to look up at the sky as if to double check it wasn’t about to start falling. “I just think that-” 

“Mama!” 

Both (Y/N) and Grim jumped, the latter falling off the former’s shoulder with a yelp to float in the air. (Y/N) blinked the white sunspots out of her vision looking around for where the exclamation had come from. No sooner had she started her search than a tiny force threw itself against her legs nearly knocking her over. (Y/N) looked down, seeing a wailing child bury his head into her hip, arms clasped around her in an iron-clad grip. 

“Whoa, hey, hey!” (Y/N) said, trying to get her bearings. She pried the child’s grip away just enough for her to kneel down so they could be closer to eye level. The boy had a cherubic face, big eyes and big cheeks, with big tears rolling down them. He had teal-colored (your hair texture) hair. One of his teary eyes was a stormy gray while the other was (your eye color). A set of sharp almost shark-like teeth bit at his quivering bottom lip. 

‘Do Jade and Floyd have a younger brother or something?’ (Y/N) thought. 

She patted the boy's hair down and whipped the tears off his cheeks. He was taking big gulping breaths, trying to calm himself down. “Hey, it’s okay,” She said in what she hoped was a calming voice. “You’re okay. Did you get lost? This can be a big scary place, huh?” 

The boy took another shuddering breath and flung himself in (Y/N)’s arms. She fell back, sitting roughly, as the boy buried his face in her shoulder. 

“Geez, who the heck is this crybaby?” Grim muttered, floating nearby with his paws on his hips. 

“Grim, don’t be rude!” 

“He’s the one who ran into you! That’s rude!” Grim floated a little closer, cocking his head to look at the boy. “You know, he kinda looks like-” 

“Ah!” (Y/N) yelped, pain suddenly rushing through her hand. She had been patting the boy’s hair, trying to help him calm down, when he suddenly turned his head and bit down hard. Jerking her hand back, (Y/N) could see a fresh set of indents forming a perfect semi-circle around the joint of her thumb, two of the points already beading with blood. 

Grim immediately jumped to the defense. “Hey! What’s the big idea?” 

The boy let out another wail, picking himself up and dashing away before (Y/N) could take another breath. “Hey, wait!” She called after him. “It’s okay! Come back!” 

“Okay?!” Grim said as incredulously as he could manage. “He bit you! Look, you’re bleeding!” 

(Y/N) whipped away the blood from her hand on her skirt. “He’s clearly just scared, Grim. It was probably just an instinct. Come on, we better find him before he gets into any trouble.” 

Ignoring Grim’s grumblings, (Y/N) jogged off in the direction the boy had gone. She wondered why a kid so young would be alone in a place like this. He was, what, maybe seven or eight? Not to mention obviously terrified. And… Wait, had he called her mama? (Y/N) faltered a little when she remembered that. Maybe it was like when a kid called someone they were close to auntie or big sister? But why mama? 

“Say that again and I’ll bite your fingers off!” 

(Y/N) was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of a child’s voice yelling some… pretty violent threats. She couldn’t imagine the small crying boy from before saying something like that. Was there another kid wandering campus? Was it a family visit day or something? 

(Y/N) turned the corner to see the boy facing off against a group of students. Or, no, it wasn’t the same boy. Sure, he had the same round face, teal hair, and mismatched eyes, but he held himself in a completely different way. Instead of curling in on himself with fear, his shoulders were back, chin up in defiance, his sharp teeth pulled into a scowl, tiny fists balled with rage instead of anxiety. 

(Y/N)  didn’t want to believe it, but the students looked like they were getting ready to square up with a kid. Channeling into her de facto role of campus peacekeeper, she put herself between the kid and the students, saying, “Hey! What’s going on here?” 

One of them jabbed his finger at the boy. “This kid came out of nowhere and started insulting us! Saying our magic was weak!” 

“It is!” The boy said, peering around (Y/N)’s legs. “My papa’s the strongest guy at Night Raven College ever! He could take you all on at once! Tell ‘em, Mama!” 

“Mama?” Another one of the students said. “Prefect, you know this kid?” 

“Uh, not exactly, it’s kind of complicated. Look, he’s just a kid, he didn’t mean any harm. Let’s just all cool down for a second okay?” 

Another student stepped forward, punching his fist into his open hand. “I think he needs to learn some manners. And if his ‘mama’ isn’t going to teach them to him, we will.” 

Instinct kicked in and (Y/N) scooped the boy up in her arms. “Now, just hang on a second, you’re not really going to fight a kid, are you?” 

“Yeah, I can take all you sea cucumbers on!” The boy shouted from her arms. “You look like a sea cucumber too, and their face is their butt!” 

“That’s it!” 

As the student advanced (Y/N) took a step back. Her arms full, her body reacted without thinking about it. Her leg flew up in a high kick, landing squarely in the approaching student’s face. His face bore a perfect shoe print as the young boy in her arms started cackling. (Y/N) took advantage of the momentary stunning and booked it out of there. 

“Grim! Cover!” She yelled. Grim blew a spray of blue flames at the pursuing students, giving the new trio an opportunity to escape relatively unscathed. 

(Y/N) sprinted through the halls, the boy clutched in her arms, Grim flying close behind them. Dodging into an empty classroom, (Y/N) took deep breaths as she tried to calm her rapidly beating heart. The boy leapt out of her arms, clapping his hands. 

“That was so cool!” He exclaimed. “Uncle Grim was all like ‘Foosh!’ And Mama kicked like ‘bam!’ He had a footprint on his face! Did you see that, Mama? Did you see?” 

(Y/N) held her hand up, trying to order her thoughts for a second before speaking to the overly excited boy. “I saw, I saw. Did you really just go up and start insulting those guys? They have to be twice your age, you could have gotten hurt!” 

The boy pouted, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking away. “I know. I’m not supposed to start arguing with people. I’m sorry.” He recited the apology as if he had done it plenty of times before. 

(Y/N) knelt down in front of him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Look, I just don’t want you getting hurt, okay? I know you’re probably really tough but you can’t blame me for worrying, you know?” 

The boy grinned, showing off his sharp teeth. He threw himself into (Y/N)’s arms in a big hug. “I know. That’s why I have Papa and Mama! Nothing bad happens when you’re around! Oh!” He gasped as if suddenly remembering something. “Mama, have you seen Cas anywhere? We got split up! I need to be there to fight anyone who tries to mess with him!” 

(Y/N) rubbed his hair. “What did we just say about fighting?” 

Meanwhile, at the Monstro Lounge, Floyd was having one of his rough days. First, he had to break up a fight between a bunch of customers in the Lounge, which might have been fine normally, except they all cowered and begged forgiveness as soon as he got there, so we didn’t even get a chance to squeeze anyone. Then, Azul had started bothering him for his grades in his history of magic class. Like, yeah, it was easy and he could finish the homework no problem, but it was so boring! Why should he have to put effort into something like that, anyway? He was a great mage. Practical exams were a breeze. Why did the paper assignments even matter? Third, Jade kept talking his ear off about some rare new mushroom someone had sent him. Something about how it could let you see into the future, or bring stuff back from the past, or something. Floyd sort of zoned out in the middle of his brother’s explanation. 

And, worst of all, he hadn’t seen his dear Shrimpy all day! Usually, on days off, he’d go track her down, making himself home at Ramshackle dorm, looming over her while she tried to study in the library until she finally paid attention to him and they could go do something fun, or dragging her to his basketball practice so he could show off. But he’d been stuck inside all day. He was starting to get stir crazy. 

All he could think about was wrapping his arms around her soft, plush form and squeezing as hard as he could, until she gasped and made those cute sounds he liked. 

Floyd giggled, kicking his feet. Maybe he could sneak out? Yeah, he could be sneaky when he wanted to! It couldn’t be that hard, right? He was already out of the Monstro Lounge, past the main entrance of the dorm. All he needed to do was go down the tunnel to the mirror chamber and-

“Well, hello there, Floyd.” Busted. Floyd grimaced, turning around to see Jade smiling at him, holding a huge stack of paperwork. “I was looking for you. Professor Trien gave me the assignments you’ve missed. He asked me to make sure you got these done before your next class. You don’t have anything else to do today, right?” 

Floyd groaned, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Jade, I don’t want to do that! What’s even the point, huh? What’s some paper going to prove about casting spells?” 

Jade gave a faux sympathetic look that Floyd could spot from 10 miles away. “Oh? So you did have plans today? Such a shame that you’ll have to cancel them, then.” 

Floyd grit his teeth as Jade shoved the stack of papers into his arms. He briefly considered dropping them all and throwing a punch, if he didn’t know for a fact that Jade was one of the only people who could actually match him blow for blow. Floyd could count on one hand the amount of times they had physically fought with each other, but man, did no one ever suspect that the more calm and collected twin could be just as brutal. 

Jade took Floyd by the elbow, not so gently leading him back into the main dorm, when Floyd froze, ears perking up at a sound. 

Jade frowned. “Floyd, I said-” 

“Shh!” He interrupted, putting a finger to his lips. Floyd cocked his head to the side, trying to hear that sound again. Suddenly, he shoved the papers back at Jade, bounding down the hall and taking the stairs two at a time down to the lobby. 

The main lobby of the Octavinelle dorm took the same decor ques as the Monstro Lounge, or maybe it was the other way around. The lobby was seemingly empty, but Floyd was able to narrow in to the sound he had made out earlier, the hiccuping sound of a kid trying very hard not to cry. 

Floyd stalked over to one of the couches, peering over. A small boy was huddled against the back of the couch, trying his hardest to make himself disappear. 

“Hey, there, Guppy,” Floyd said, leaning over the back of the couch. “What’s with the sad eyes?”

Most children might have been frightened by the sight of a shark-toothed, manic eyed mer looming over them, the moody lighting on the lobby casting haunting shadows over his face. But the boy looked relieved, jumping on and over the couch to latch himself onto Floyd. 

“Papa!” He wailed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I got lost and I couldn’t find Argo, and then I found Mama, but I had big feelings and I bit her! I know I’m not supposed to bite when I have big feelings, but I forgot and it was an accident! And then I ran away from Mama, and I know I shouldn’t have, and I still can’t find Argo, and-and-and-!” 

Before he could say anything else, and before he had the chance to start crying again, Floyd scooped him up under the arms and brought him high in the air. “Wow, you have strong looking teeth!” He praised. “I bet you  can bite real hard! Show me, show me!” Floyd flashed his own sharp-toothed grin, exaggerating gnashing down. The boy sniffled weekly before giving a half-smile. “Hey, come on, you know what I mean. We want a full smile, right, Guppy?” Floyd tossed the boy into the air, catching him and swinging him around so his legs flew out behind him. Despite himself, the boy started giggling. Floyd smiled, booping him on the nose. “There’s those teeth. Look how strong you are!” 

The boy covered his mouth with his hands, trying to stifle his giggling. He made claws with his hands, baring his teeth. “Grr!” 

Floyd gasped dramatically. “Oh no! This isn’t a guppy at all! It’s a shark! Jade, help me!” Floyd theatrically collapsed to the floor, making sure to keep the boy at arms length above him so he didn’t get hurt. The boy’s mood had fully switched now, laughing and holding his arms out so he could pretend to fly. 

Jade stood in the doorway, smiling softly at his brother’s antics. But, more pressingly, wondering how a small child had found his way into Octavinelle in the first place. And, possibly, why he happened to have a certain family resemblance? 

“Pardon me,” Jade said, stepping forward. “I couldn’t help hear you say ‘Papa?’” 

“And then, I swung on this rope over the river, and it was probably, like a hundred feet high! And I let go and did a huge cannonball and it made the biggest splash ever!” The boy, (Y/N) had found out was named Argonaut, was regaling her and Grim with some pretty fantastical exploits from the last camping  trip he and his brother Caspian had taken with their Uncle Jade. The name drops were getting much too specific, and (Y/N) still needed to find out what happened to Argo’s twin, so she decided a visit to Octavinelle was the best next thing to do. 

“Wow, you did all that?” She asked. Argo walked beside her, holding her hand and swinging it back and forth in a large arc. “A hundred feet is pretty high. You must be brave.” 

“The bravest!” He said with a big sharp-toothed smile. “Papa said I have to look out for Cas because he gets scared real easy. But he knows tons of stuff and he’s really smart, so that’s okay.” He frowned a little. “I can’t read really good, so Cas helps me out. That’s why we’re a team!” 

“You sound like a very good team. We’ll find him soon, okay?” (Y/N) could tell Argo was worried about his brother. Even if he kept putting on a brave face, being lost in a big, strange place like NRC would put any kid on edge, not to mention that Argo had no idea how he or Cas got there in the first place. 

“My tummy felt bubbly like when I had too much soda that one time and there was a big light and then I was here,” He had said when she asked. 

‘More magic nonsense,’ (Y/N) thought to herself. She decided she was never getting used to it. 

Stepping through the mirror to Octavinelle, the air temperature noticeably dropped at least ten degrees. The light took on the cool blue hue of the water surrounding the glass tunnels around the dorm. Its own little pocket dimension, or however the dorms actually worked, was like living inside an intricate aquarium full of coral reefs, darting fish, and cool temperatures to remind the largely mer-based population of home. 

Stepping into the Mostro Lounge’s lobby, (Y/N) turned to Grim and said, “Okay, you stay here with him. I’m going to try and find-” 

“Argo!” 

“Cas!” 

Argo sprinted away, colliding with his double in the middle of the Lounge floor, almost knocking a poor waiter off his feet. The two boys hugged as if they hadn’t seen each other for years instead of the better part of an hour. (Y/N) felt a pull on her heartstrings at their reunion. 

“Cute,” She muttered. She took a step forward. “I-”

“Shrimpy!” 

Before she could get another word out, (Y/N) was tackled in a bear hug. Floyd pinned her arms to her sides, picking her up and swinging her around. Behind the daze of dizziness and the feeling of her ribs creaking under pressure, she couldn’t help but compare her normal greeting from Floyd to the smaller twin’s reuniting. 

“Urk, hello, Floyd. Good to see you too.” 

“Aww, that’s all you got to say? With our kids here and everything?” 

“With our- what?!” (Y/N) squirmed out of Floyd’s hold and stumbled back. 

Floyd pulled the two careening boys close, beaming like a proud father. “Come on, Shrimpy, you met our little leptocephalus, right? I’m Papa and you’re Mama, right, boys?” 

“Yeah, Mama,” Argo said, “Don’t be silly!” 

“Argo,” Cas muttered, tugging his brother’s sleeve. “Something kinda weird happened, you know? Mama and Papa look different. I think this is where they met.” 

“Yeah, Night Raven College, the best school in the world!” Argo threw his arms up in celebration. He turned back to Floyd and (Y/N). “Cas and I are gonna come here too when we get big. We’re going to be great mages just like Papa and Uncle Jade and Uncle Azul and Uncle Ace and Uncle Deuce and Uncle Grim and everyone!” 

“Everyone, huh?” (Y/N) said, starting to feel dizzy. 

Cas pouted at his brother. “That’s not what I mean, Argo.” 

“He’s right!” Grim cut in, paws on his hips with a smug look on his face. “Since I am going to be the world’s greatest mage!” 

Floyd poked Grim’s exposed tummy. “You were last on that list, seal.” 

“Mrow!” Grim started flailing his paws at Floyd, who easily kept him at bay with one long arm pushing his head back. 

“Ah, here’s where you all went.” Jade came up to the group. He was gently cradling one of his terrariums that had a strange-looking purple and silver mushroom with a dripping cap nestled inside. 

“Hi, Uncle Jade!” Argo waved. 

“Hello, nephew.” 

“Is that one of your fancy mushrooms, Uncle Jade?” Cas asked, standing on his tiptoes to try and get a better look. Jade held it down so the twins could see. Cas’s eyes sparkled in fascination while Argo screwed up his face in displeasure. 

“It is,” He said. “And I believe this is why you two came to visit us.” 

“What do you mean?” (Y/N) asked, picking Grim up to rescue him from Floyd’s teasing. 

Jade turned to his brother. “Floyd, do you recognize this?” 

Floyd stuck his tongue out. “Bleh, yeah. You made that nasty tea from that mushroom the other day and tricked me into drinking it.” 

“Tea?” (Y/N) asked. “Oh, was that the tea in the thermos you had the other day?” She frowned. “You tricked me into drinking it too, Floyd. You said it was tasty and so excited to share it with me, then laughed when I started choking on it because it was so bitter.” 

Floyd had picked the boys up, holding one in each arm. “That’s because it’s funny when it’s you, Shrimpy.” 

She narrowed her eyes. “Mmhmm, sure.” 

“I apologize that you were roped into my experiment, (Y/N),” Jade said, not looking or sounding apologetic at all. “But I believe it led to an even more fascinating result than I could have hoped for. This,” He held up the terrarium. “Is an oracleum mycoculous, the fortune-telling mushroom. A very rare specimen a fellow mycologist friend of mine sent me from the Shaftlands. He knew I attended NRC and he asked me to study the effects of magic on this particular species.”

“A fortune-telling mushroom?” (Y/N) asked. “Like, if you cut an apple in half the shape of the seeds can tell your future?” 

“It’s a bit more extreme than that. It’s rumored that when prepared in a certain way, eating an oracleum mycoculous can give one insight into future challenges, typically giving a person a strong intuition into choices they should make in the near future. My colleague had heard rumors that making a tea with the mushroom infused with magic could give the person who drinks it clearer visions of the future. I only intended for Floyd to drink it and record any dreams or premonitions he had, but if you drank it as well, Prefect,” he booped Cas on the nose, who giggled while intently studying the mushroom. “It would seem we were able to bring your future children from your future to our present.” 

(Y/N) gulped hard, finally starting to accept what she had been suspecting this whole time. “Our children?” She squeaked. 

Floyd nuzzled the two boys. “Aww, Shrimpy and I had little guppies!” He smiled wickedly. “How many tries do you think it took before we ended up with these fry?” 

(Y/N) felt her face explode with heat. “Floyd! That - I mean - We’re not even together!” 

“If I may,” Jade said. “The visions associated with the oracleum mycoculous are said to only be possibilities. It shows you options for possible futures depending on certain choices made. So perhaps your boys were drawn from one of these possible futures.” 

(Y/N) felt dizzy at ‘your boys.’ “Okay, wait, hang on-” 

“Mama, are you okay?” Cas asked. He reached out to her. (Y/N) felt a thud in her chest and took him from Floyd. 

“I’m okay, Cas,” She said, trying to hide her anxiety from showing on her face. “Just a little confused, is all. I bet your actual parents are really worried about you.” She turned to Jade. “So, how do we fix this?” 

He smiled slyly. “I have no idea. But wouldn’t it be fascinating to find out?” 

“Absolutely not.” 

The Leech family, plus (Y/N) and Grim, although, if the current children were to be believed, (Y/N) would be part of the Leech family in the future, stood in front of an annoyed-looking Professor Crewel in the alchemy classroom. 

“Sorry?” (Y/N) asked. 

“I absolutely do not approve of any relationship of this sort. Any pup of mine could do much better.” 

“Aww, Beakfish,” Floyd pouted. “That’s no way to talk to your future son-in-law, is it?” 

Crewel frowned deeper, his grip tightening on his teaching pointer that often doubled as a whip. He obviously didn’t approve of Floyd commenting on his pseudo-adoption of (Y/N). Although he had been in somewhat of a custody battle with Headmage Crowley in that regard. (Y/N) anticipated a negative reaction from her one father figure, but at least there was a higher chance Professor Crewel would be able to get something done in a timely manner, rather than the crow-coded Headmage dramatically lamenting without much work actually being done. 

(Y/N) frowned, feeling her face heat up again. “Sir, we’re not actually together or anything…” 

Floyd draped himself over her shoulders, trapping her in a backward hug. “Aww, my wifey Shrimpy is so mean to me. Why’s your Mama so mean, guppies?” 

“Mama’s not mean!” Argo defended, taking one of her hands. “Mama’s the nicest! She lets me stay up past bedtime and eat tons of ice cream and watch PG-13 stuff on TV!” 

(Y/N) looked down skeptically. “Do I really do that?” 

He smiled slyly. “If I say it’s in the future then would you?” 

“Nice try.” 

“Grandpa,” Cas said, looking up at Crewel with big puppy eyes. “You’re going to help us get back to Mama and Papa, right?” 

Crewel faltered. Not even he was totally immune to the child’s charms. He crossed his arms, huffing in feigned annoyance. “Well, of course we’ll get them home. But after we’re having a serious conversation about your future prospects, pup.” 

“Like I said, we’re not even together,” (Y/N) protested weakly. 

“Jade,” Crewel said, holding out his hand. “The oracleum mycoculous.” 

Jade clutched the terrarium close to his chest. “But it’s my only sample. I made the other one into the tea that Floyd and (Y/N) drank.” 

Crewel raised an eyebrow. “And we are in this situation because of that. I’ll have to use the mushroom to reverse-engineer an antidote to send these two back.” Jade reluctantly handed the mushroom over. “I’ll start research right away. Hopefully, we’ll get some answers soon. In the meantime, I’ll have to entrust these two in your care.” 

“Not a problem,” (Y/N) said. “You guys can stay at Ramshackle with me and Uncle Grim.” (Y/N) caught herself, wondering when it had become so easy to refer to her friends as ‘Uncle’ as her theoretical future children did. 

“Papa’s gonna come to, right?” Argo said. 

“Absolutely not!” Crewel said, griping the terrarium so tightly (Y/N) was afraid it might break. 

Floyd sniffed. “You’re going to tell me I can’t be with my children? You’re going to separate us?” 

“You’re already on thin ice, don’t push your luck.” 

“I’ll take care of it, Professor,” (Y/N) said before tempers could rise any further. “Thanks for helping us with this.” 

“Of course, dear,” Crewel said, his tone softening. He cast a suspicious eye at Floyd, who was getting a bit too close to the alchemy ingredients along the walls, lifting the boys up high so they could get a better look. “Just let me know if you need any help.” 

In the end, Floyd did end up staying at Ramshackle for the night. (Y/N) could hear the three Leech boys loudly playing in the living room while she tried to make something quick for dinner. Macaroni and cheese would probably work. Kids liked mac and cheese, right? Even if they were mer kids from the future. Or, half mer? (Y/N) wondered how that worked, specifically biologically speaking. Did the boys have mer forms like Floyd and Jade did? Did they look more human in some parts and more eel-like in others? It occurred to her that there was still so much basic mer and beast-man biology she had no idea about. But how do you ask that sort of thing without it being awkward about it?

“Mama!” Cas called, poking his head in the kitchen. “Can Argo and I go pick out our rooms?” 

“I call the big one!” Argo yelled, sprinting past his brother up the stairs. 

“Hey, don’t run inside!” (Y/N) warned. 

“Yeah, and you can’t have the big one,” Cas scolded. “That’s Mama and Papa’s room.” 

(Y/N) gulped. A sly smile stretched over Floyd’s face. “Yeah, where is our room? I should go unpack right?” 

(Y/N) shook her head, trying to get rid of certain thoughts while organizing others. She clapped her hands together. “I know. Why don’t we build a pillow fort in the living room? It’ll be like a big sleepover.” She weakly kicked at Floyd’s shin, more out of show than real malice. “Because that’s all this is.” 

“Like when there was that big storm!” Argo said, racing back down the stairs. “And the lights all went out and we had to stay away from the windows so we made that big tent in the middle of the kitchen!” 

(Y/N) smiled fondly at a memory she hadn’t made yet. “Sure, like that.” 

“I know where the biggest pillows are!” Grim called, racing up the stairs. The boys eagerly followed, making plans for their blanket fort that would stretch all across NRC campus. 

Floyd sighed dramatically, draping his full body weight over (Y/N)’s back as she tried to stir the macaroni and cheese. “How’d we get so lucky, huh?” (Y/N) purposefully ignored him, something that didn’t slip Floyd’s attention. “They’ve got my looks, of course, handsome devils. Hey, do you think we live on land or in the sea? Ooh, or we could do both! Like a summer house! I bet I make a ton of money, I got to take care of you and the guppies, right? Aww, you’d be a cute little house wife. I’ll come home after work and you’ll say ‘Welcome home!’, I can’t do your voice too good, it’s higher than mine, you know? But you’ll say ‘Welcome home!’ and I’ll give you a big hug and say ‘I’m home!’ And I’ll bring you and the kids gifts and we’ll play games after dinner, and when they’re all tuckered out and in bed I’ll pick you up and go to our room and I’ll squeeze you real tight and say-” 

“Floyd!” Floyd jumped at (Y/N)’s sudden exclamation. He felt her body tense and then sag in exhaustion. “Just… You shouldn’t say that kind of stuff, you know?”

Floyd blinked. “Huh? Why not, Shrimpy?” 

“You know why.” She didn’t say anything after that. Floyd let the remark sit. After a minute of silence between them, listening to the cheering and shouting from the boys upstairs, (Y/N) finally sighed and said, “You shouldn’t say stuff like that to a girl. Not when you don’t mean it.” 

Floyd chuckled feebly, his heart not in it. He felt torn between squeezing tighter and getting as far away from here as possible. “How do you know if I mean it or not?” 

“Because you’re always like this. You’ve been like this since we’ve met, you’re like this with everyone. And you know-” She cut herself off. She seemed to be deliberating something serious and finally continued. “And you know how I feel about you.” 

Floyd felt his mouth go dry, his heart started thumping a million miles an hour, and his stomach turned into knots. He had to say something. This was one of those moments where you had to say something, right? Of course he knew how she felt, it was pretty obvious to everyone how she felt, Floyd included. And the garden, especially what had happened at the garden. Or, rather, what hadn’t happened.  

Now, had he taken advantage of that little fact over the school year to wring out some more entertainment out of the magicless Prefect? Well, yes, of course he had. Had he meant to have his own feelings grow into something he couldn’t manage over that time? No, but it had happened anyway, sneaking up on him and socking him in the heart like a mantis shrimp when he least expected it. 

He tried to say it without saying it. He tried to show it without saying it. But why couldn’t he just say it? 

“(Y/N),” Floyd started. “I-” 

There was a crash from the living room, accompanied by a shriek and laughter. 

“Papa!” Cas called. “We need help!” 

Whatever seriousness had come over Floyd’s countenance disappeared in the blink of an eye. His signature wide grin cut across his face. If anyone was paying attention, they would notice his smile didn’t reach his eyes. He quickly reached over (Y/N)’s shoulder and stole a spoon, scooping a chunk of the mac and cheese from the pot to shove into his mouth before dashing out into the living room. 

(Y/N) stuck her tongue out at his retreating form before turning back to the stove. As she slid the dish of mac and cheese into the oven to finish cooking, she paused. Had Floyd used her real name? 

“Argo!” Cas whispered in the darkness. 

A large quilt hung over their heads, precariously draped between several chairs. Pillows were stacked on all sides making soft walls and they had layered several duvets and couch cushions below to create an improvised mattress. Mama was on the couch, which served as the left-most barrier of their fort, the quilt draping down close to her head with Uncle Grim curled up on her lap. Papa lay sprawled between Cas and Argo, arms and legs out like a starfish. 

“Argo, are you awake?” Cas asked again. 

He heard his brother mumble something before his head popped up from the other side of their dad, hair flattened against one side of his head and sticking out in every direction on the other. “Wassup?” Argo said sleepily. 

“Did you hear what Mama said with Grandpa Crewel?” Argo rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “She said she wasn’t dating Papa!” 

Argo squinted at his brother in the darkness. “But they are. Mama and Papa said they started dating at Night Raven College.” 

“But they’re not yet. Remember what Uncle Jade said? We’re only from one future. What if Mama and Papa don’t start dating in this future?” 

It took Argo a second to register what Cas was suggesting. His eyes went wide and he gasped loudly. Cas shushed him and Papa mumbled in his sleep, finally turning over on his stomach without waking up. 

“You mean we won’t exist?” Argo whispered, panicked. Cas nodded. “What do we do?” 

Cas smiled. “Don’t worry, I have a plan.” 

The next day, amid a bright blue sky painted with thin wispy clouds, Floyd had insisted on visiting Heartslabyul to “Show off his guppies to his best friend, Goldfishy!” (Y/N) sarcastically predicted that this could only end well. 

The group of five had, as anticipated, balked at the two visitors and their explanation for being there.  But the boys had taken to seeing their pseudo-uncles like, well, like merboys to water. They were outside, near the rose garden maze. Argo was practicing some kind of gymnastics, holding Deuce’s hands tightly, walking up his stomach and chest to flip in a practice summersault. Cas munched happily on a cinnamon roll almost as big as his head while watching in fascination as Ace showed off some card tricks. 

“Have you heard anything from Professor Crewel?” Trey asked, setting down a new plate of danishes on the table.  

“Nothing yet,” (Y/N) said, taking a napkin and wiping off some smeared frosting from Cas’s face. “But I assume something like this will take some time to get right.” 

“And you’re…” Trey waved his hand in a circle. “Doing alright?” 

“I’m… Okay.” (Y/N) looked over at the boys now playing tag. “This isn’t the worst magic thing that’s happened since I’ve been here.” 

“That doesn't mean it makes everything easy,” Riddle commented, gazing over the rim of his tea cup. “Especially given your… choice of partner.” 

(Y/N) rolled her eyes. “I’m well aware. Floyd’s not too bad, though. He’s pretty good with kids.”

Riddle huffed. “Considering he basically is one himself I’m not entirely surprised.” 

“Hmm? Are you talking about me, Goldfish?” Floyd said, appearing out of nowhere. He grasped the back of Riddle’s chair, pulling back so Riddle was thrown off balance, throwing his arms out to try and reestablish equilibrium. Riddle scowled, face turning red. He looked like he was going to say something, but bit his tongue as Cas and Argo ran up and started digging into the pastries. “It’s not nice to gossip about people.” 

“Yeah,” Argo said, a mouth full of cherry danish. “It’s impolite. You’re the one telling us about manners all the time.” 

“All the time?” Riddle asked.

“When you come over for dinner!” Cas chimed in. “You come over with Papa cause you work together and we all eat and you help me and Argo study!” Argo stuck out his tongue at the last part. 

Riddle went from red to white. “We work together?” 

“Yeah! You and Papa are best friends!” 

(Y/N) was momentarily worried that Riddle was going to faint. 

“And Uncle Ace and Uncle Deuce come over all the time! Uncle Deuce is going to teach me how to ride a blast cycle!” Argo said. 

“We’ll revisit that later,” (Y/N) said, ruffling his hair. 

“Can Uncle Trey still teach me how to bake?” Cas asked. “Uncle Cater was going to help me make a Magicam account to show off the stuff we make! Before Argo eats all of it.” 

“Don’t be so good at baking and I won’t be so good at eating,” Argo replied, stuffing another danish in his mouth before darting off, Cas close behind him. 

“I feel dizzy,” Riddle mumbled. 

“Sounds like you’re keeping busy,” Ace said, watching Floyd duck around the hedges with the twins. 

“When am I not?” (Y/N) said. “But at least it sounds like we’re all still close in the future. I like that.” 

“It sounds like you don’t go home, though,” Cater said, mostly to himself. “Back to your world, I mean.” 

(Y/N) hummed. “Maybe home is what you make of it.” 

“Hey, Goldfishy?” 

Riddle growned, shrugging off Floyd’s arm for leaning on him. “What is it, Floyd?” 

Floyd was quiet for a moment, such a rare occurrence that Riddle looked up at him to make sure he had been heard. Floyd was looking out at the rose garden, watching the two children darting around bushes, chasing and being chased by Ace, Deuce, and Grim. (Y/N) stood nearby, watching with a serine look on her face, chiming in every once and a while to make sure the younger boys (and the older ones, too, let’s be honest) were being careful of their surroundings. 

“You know about all that formal romantic stuff right?” Floyd finally asked. 

“I don’t know about ‘romantic.’ What are you getting at?” 

Floyd has a lazy smile on his face. “Do you know how to write a love letter?” 

Riddle felt himself blush. “I’m not getting in the middle of whatever exploits you’re up to, romantic or otherwise.” 

“Aw, come on,” Floyd said, poking Riddle’s check, causing Riddle to swat at him like a fly. “(Y/N)’s real nice, you know? She deserves something fancy. And I want-” It was rare that Floyd was at  a loss for words. Riddle looked up at him, seeing determination and focus scrunch his brow as Floyd tried to choose his next words. “I guess I want to prove it to her. That I like her. That I really like her. That I-” Floyd groaned, letting his body go limp and dragging Riddle with him to crash to the lawn. “See? I’m not good at this kind of stuff! Help your best friend out!” 

Riddle yelled, “If you weren’t so cavalier all the time, you’d be able to focus when you had to be serious!” 

Ace stalked through the high hedges of the rose maze, having been called It in the boys’ game of hide-and-seek. “Better watch out,” He called in a sing-song voice. “Uncle Ace is going to find you!” 

“Psst!” Ace whipped around, seeing Cas peeking out from behind a hedge, waving him over. He went over, seeing Cas, Argo, Deuce, and Jade sitting together, huddled under the shade of the maze. Argo had smuggled a few more pastries from breakfast and was tearing them apart to share with the group. 

“Jade?” Ace asked. “What are you doing here?” 

“My dear nephews called me,” He said. 

“Papa let me borrow his phone!” Argo said, holding up the cell, smears of frosting covering the screen. “He doesn't know he let me borrow it, but I’ll give it back before he misses it.” 

Cas put his hands on his hips. Ace had never seen a more serious looking eight-year-old. “That’s still stealing, Argo!” He huffed. “Whatever. We have something super important to talk about!” 

“Yeah!” Argo chimed in. “We need to make sure Mama and Papa kiss!” 

Deuce choked on his cinnamon roll. Jade tilted his head and smiled. 

“Oya?” Jade said. “That’s quite the goal.” 

“We want to get Mama and Papa together!” Cas clarified. “Because they’re in love and stuff! And we want to exist in the future!” 

“I don’t know how much we should be messing with (Y/N)’s love life,” Deuce said. “It feels kind of invasive, you know?” 

“Anyway,” Ace said, crossing his arms. “It’s Floyd’s fault anyway.” 

“Is it?” Jade asked. 

Ace gulped and scooted away a little before continuing. “Well, yeah. Come on, we all know (Y/N) likes Floyd, for some reason, whatever, that’s on her. If Floyd can’t string together 2+2 then that’s on him.” 

“Floyd isn’t exactly subtle with his emotions, either,” Jade said. “He might have issues directing them to a specific conclusion, however.” 

“So, you think he likes (Y/N), too?” Deuce asked. 

“Undeniably.” 

Ace rubbed the back of his neck. “You know, liking is one thing, but we are sort of talking about future marriage and kids here.” He nodded his head at the twins. 

“But Mama and Papa are in love!” Cas insisted. “And the stories Mama tells us says true love conquers all!” 

“That does sound like the sort of sappy thing (Y/N) would say,” Ace relented. 

“I mean,” Deuce said. “We can’t really force anything, right? If they decide they want to get together that’s up to them. But,” He winked at Cas and Argo. “A little push couldn't hurt, right?” 

“Great!” Cas said. “Phase one is complete! Now, we need recruits for phase two!”

It was Day 3 of having Argo and Cas at NRC. (Y/N) was fretting about what to do with the boys while she and Grimm went to class. 

“I can skip class and stay here!” Grim volunteered. 

“Absolutely not,” (Y/N). “Your grades need all the help they can get.” Floyd had offered to spend the day with the boys as well, when he had tried to worm his way into spending another night at Ramshackle. But (Y/N) had insisted he go sleep in his own bed at his own dorm. And it totally had nothing to do with the fact about how her heart had fluttered the morning after his first night there, when he’d woken up with a big yawn, hair a mess, and smiled lazily at her while wishing her a good morning. Nope. Absolutely not. 

“We’ll be okay, Mama!” Cas promised. She had set him and Argo up at the kitchen table with a box of crayons and coloring books she had snagged from the Mystery Shop (Sam really did have everything in stock). “Argo and I will stay right here and not do anything sneaky!” Argo punched his brother’s shoulder. (Y/N) raised an eyebrow, even more nervous about leaving the boys in the large dilapidated dorm for an entire school day. 

“Don’t worry about it, Prefect!” Phineas, Ezra, and Gus, the Ramshackle ghosts, said, materializing in the kitchen. “We’ll take care of them.” 

(Y/N) sighed in relief. “Thank you, guys. Boys, you be good for the ghosts while Uncle Grim and I are away, okay?” 

“Yes, Mama,” They both said dutifully. They listened intently for the sound of the front door closing before jumping up and smiling at the ghosts. 

“Okay!” Argo said, clapping his hands. “Phase three of Operation Angelfish is a go!” 

For once, everything seemed to be going as normal. (Y/N) and Grim went to classes, got an update on the return potion from Professor Crewel (Just waiting for it to reduce to a concentrated form), had lunch, went to gym, nothing out of the ordinary. Which, as previously established, put (Y/N) on edge. 

Everything seemed to be normal. Too normal, as far as (Y/N) was concerned. If she didn’t know better (and she did) it would seem like her friends were going out of their way to make it seem like nothing important was going on. There had been at least three times already where (Y/N) had walked up to a group, only for them to immediately stop talking, or very obviously switch topics, all while casting side-eyes at each other. She also couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t seen Floyd all day. Well, maybe out of the corner of her eye, or hearing his voice, but it was always cut off, he was pulled away by his brother, or one of her friends suddenly desperately needed her over there right this second. 

She tried not to take this as some kind of commentary on the possible future relationship the two out of place children suggested. It wasn’t really that bad, was it? Her having feelings for Floyd? She knew Ace, Deuce, and Grim were pretty shocked when she had first confided in them. (“I think I like Floyd. Thought?” “And prayers.”) And while no one had ever said anything explicitly negative, besides the occasional teasing or complaining about her crush, there wasn’t anything actually encouraging either. (Y/N) knew she let Floyd get away with way too much most of the time, and only after interacting realized how moon-eyed she’d been acting. Half the time she thought Floyd might return her feelings, and the other half felt like he was taking advantage of her swayed good graces. It made her head spin and chest ache. 

And now, with Cas and Argo appearing out of nowhere? Saying that they were married in some possible future? Happily married with children? The picture the boys painted was idyllic. The kind of thing (Y/N) had only seen in magazines or at the end of some Jane Austen novel. (Y/N) felt herself blush every time she thought about it, whether it was out of embarrassment or longing, she wasn’t sure. Dinners together, people from NRC coming to visit all the time, (Y/N) bringing traditional holidays from her world to celebrate, a beautiful house by the Coral Sea where the boys would learn to swim in their human and mer forms. 

Was there a lingering darkness in the back of her mind that told her this meant she would never go back to her own world again? Sure, of course. Was there a nagging that this was only a possibility, and her own future still had a chance of being completely different? Yes, definitely. 

Did that stop her from planning how exactly she would formally confess to Floyd once she made sure Cas and Argo got home safely? Not a chance. 

Finally, it was the end of the day. (Y/N) was already planning in her head what to make for dinner when she heard someone call her name. Well, sort of her name. 

“Child of man,” Malleus called, raising a hand in greeting from the quad. 

“Oh, Horton,” She said, jogging over to him. “Hi, I don’t usually see you around now. How are you?” 

Malleus puffed up with pride, a self-satisfied smile on his face. “I’ve been recruited.” 

“Recruited?” 

“By my future nephews. I’m meant to distract you.” 

“Future-? Ah, I see.” (Y/N) had an adorable image flash in her mind of the twins and their doting Uncle Horton. “Any particular reason I’m being distracted?” 

“I’m not meant to say.” 

If they had managed to wrap Malleus into whatever they were doing, (Y/N) thought it couldn’t do that much harm. Why not let the boys have fun while they were still in the past? But just to be sure…

“Grim, you’ll make sure the house doesn't burn down while I’m gone, right?” 

Grim saluted, giving a conspiratorial nod at Malleus before flying away. 

Malleus offered his arm which (Y/N) took while they strolled away. “Should I be worried about what you’re all planning?” She asked. 

He hummed. “Not at all. Now, have I ever told you about the controversy surrounding bat-styled gargoyles versus griffin-styled gargoyles in 15th century cathedral architecture?” 

Floyd was mad. Actually mad. Sure he got annoyed or frustrated every once and awhile, but actually angry? That was a rarity that no one wanted to witness. 

Not only had Shrimpy not let him stay the night at her dorm again, which, fine, it was her house, but he’d been trying to see her all day to no avail. Either someone would pull her away, Jade would appear out of nowhere and stall him until she was gone, or they’d just keep missing each other. It would have been one thing if circumstances kept them apart, coincidences were coincidental after all, and it’s not like they had never gone a day without seeing each other. But this was intentional, pointed and deliberate. He was in a Shrimpy drought and the people around him were building a dam. 

And he couldn’t find his phone anywhere. 

Eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore. His skin felt too tight and all the lights were too bright and he wanted to scream. He cut his last few classes and returned to Octavinelle. He had already started tearing off his jacket and shirt as he walked through the mirror portal, leaving clothing in a scattered trail as he marched his way to the decompression chambers that let out into the surrounding water around the dorm. He jumped into the water, the icy chill shocking his human system. He felt his muscles stretch and a comforting pressure encase his body as he shifted back to his mer-eel form, legs melding together as one as he whipped through the water. He shot through the water, scattering fish as he went. He didn’t have the patience to play with any of them today. He was finding he didn’t have the patience for a lot of things. 

She’d try to tell him, once, that she liked him. That maybe she loved him, or that could have been him projecting. (Oh, dear Seven, did he love her?) She’d asked him to meet him in the gardens after school. She said she’d been thinking a lot and there was something extremely important she needed to tell him. He’d poked her, saying she should just tell him now, in the passing period between classes surrounded by curious and eavesdropping classmates. She’d said no, that she still needed to get her thoughts in order. She’d written a letter, she said, that she was holding firmly in her hands, but she thought he would appreciate a more direct approach. So. Garden. After school. She’d be waiting. And then the bell had rung and she’d run off. 

And he’d left her waiting. 

He hadn’t shown up. He’d heard later that she’d been there so long the grounds keepers had to ask her to leave so they could lock up the bio-dome at night. He’d seen her the next morning, eyes red and puffy, huddled with her first year friends who were speaking in low, comforting tones, trying to be affectionate and reassuring in that awkward way teenage boys did. And he had waltzed right over, picking her up and spinning her around. And she hadn’t mentioned the garden. She hadn’t mentioned the letter. She never mentioned any of it again. They fell back into their old rhythm, the one Floyd knew, the one he was comfortable with, the one he could predict. 

He should have gone to the garden. 

Why the hell hadn’t he gone to the garden? 

Floyd burrowed into a reef section of a shallow, tearing at floating kelp with his claws and snapping jaws. He was trashing and writhing, kicking up the loose sand so it created a hazy cloud around him. The sand started getting in his mouth and eyes but he didn’t care. He welcomed the sting of it. 

Argo and Cas being here meant everything was okay, right? If they had kids in the future, it meant everything worked out, right? 

Floyd was mad. He was angry. 

And he didn’t understand why. 

“Floyd!” Floyd looked up, seeing Jade swimming towards him. 

He scowled, turning away to focus on wreaking havoc on the underwater flora. “Not now,” He said through gritted teeth. 

“Floyd, this isn’t the time-” Jade tried to reach out and touch his brother. Before he could make contact, Floyd whipped around with a snarl, swiping at Jade with his sharp claws.Jade quickly jerked out of the way, his surprise quickly melting to aggravation. Jade surged forward, catching Floyd around the stomach and tackling him to the sea floor. Floyd gnashed his teeth, clawing at Jade’s back. “What exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish here?” 

“Get off!” Floyd writhed, wrapping his tail around Jade and spinning to loosen his brother’s grip. Momentarily free, Floyd took the opportunity to lunge at Jade again. 

A fight, good. This is exactly what he needed. He needed to do something physical, something violent, something to get his mind out of whatever stoop he was stuck in, something so he didn’t have to focus on how bad he felt, something where the outcome could be predictable and certain, even if the certainty was pain. That was better than not knowing. That was better than letting feelings he couldn’t control take over his mind. 

He and Jade wrestled, throwing each other into the sand, striking with teeth and claws, whipping with their tails. They didn’t cast any spells, which is the only way each twin was able to understand the severity of their fight, even if it was a subconscious understanding. Fighting was one thing, using magic against each other was another. 

Finally, the two faced off, gills heaving with underwater breaths, scratches and gouges bleeding, eyes locked. Jade pushed back a little, careful not to make any sudden movements. 

“Do you really think this is the best use of your time right now?” He asked.

Floyd snapped his teeth. “Who asked you? What do you know about anything, anyway?” 

“I know (Y/N) tried to confess to you.” 

Floyd froze, then felt another surge of anger bubble under his skin. Why did Jade know? What right did he have to know (Y/N)’s inner thoughts when Floyd himself couldn’t even have them? 

“She told me,” Jade continued. “Or, I gathered from context clues. She asked if you had ever dated anyone back home, what sort of person you liked. She wanted to know if you prefer meeting in person to discuss important things or if she should leave a letter. Not that she really needed to discuss much. I would say it’s been rather obvious to anyone paying attention for the last few months. The real issue, I find, is why you haven’t confessed yourself.” 

Floyd yelled, grappling Jade and sinking his teeth into his shoulder. Jade bit his lip to keep from crying out. He took advantage of the grapple to twist and pull Floyd into a headlock. 

“I went there,” Jade continued through gritted teeth. “I went to the garden. I was planning on spying, I thought it’d be fun. But you never showed up. I kept waiting, and so did she, and you never appeared. Why in all of the deep blue sea didn’t you come?” 

“I don’t know!” Floyd confessed. He went limp in Jade’s grasp, all the fight going out of him. He let out a choked cry, something Jade hadn’t heard from his brother in who knows how long. “I don’t know, I don’t know!” 

Floyd sank to the rocky coral outcropping, collapsing. Jade observed him for a moment. He swam down, curling up next to Floyd. 

“She still has feelings for you, you know.” 

Floyd groaned deep in his chest. “I can’t.” 

“Can’t what?” 

“Can’t tell her. I can’t hear her say it. What happens after that, huh? What happens after we both say it?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“That’s the problem! How do I know what to do? Do I change, does she? And what if neither of us do? I can’t risk it, I can’t lose her!” 

“You’re losing her anyway.” 

Floyd felt his anger flash again and lashed out with a claw which Jade easily dodged. The fight drained out of him again and he flopped back down. 

Jade regarded Floyd. When he determined that Floyd wasn’t about to fly off the handle again, he came closer. “Don’t you think it’s selfish, keeping your feelings all to yourself?” 

“Eels are cowards,” Floyd mumbled.

“But humans are brave.” Floyd peaked up at Jade. “They can’t survive long in water, they don’t have the heightened senses of beastmean, nor the longevity of fairies. They don’t have claws or teeth or endless magic supplies. But they’re brave and stubborn. That’s how they’ve lasted so long, become such a force in the world. And there’s a certain human we know that is exemplary in that regard.” 

Floyd hummed. “She’s amazing. She’s pretty and smart and clever and strong and… What if I mess up, Jade?” 

Jade patted Floyd’s back. “Then I’m sure she’ll let you know and you’ll figure it out together. Relationships require two people, after all.” 

“You think she’ll forgive me? From before?” 

“If you apologize, I’m sure she will. And, brother dear, I have the perfect setting for such an apology. Come on, we need to get you fitted with your suit. And maybe some stitches there above your eye.” 

“Ow!” (Y/N) cried as she banged her shin for the third time. 

“Sorry, Mama!” Argo said, pulling her hand to maneuver her around the low table. 

“It’s fine. Are you sure I have to keep this blindfold on?” She reached up for it. 

“No!” Cas gasped. “It’s a surprise!” 

(Y/N) sighed and let herself be pulled along, gritting her teeth when she stubbed her toe on the side of a chair. 

After Malleus had brought her back to Ramshackle after their walk and gargoyle lecture, she had immediately been set upon by the boys who kept insisting that she absolutely not look anywhere near the backyard. Almost immediately after walking in the door, Vil appeared seemingly out of nowhere and shoved a garment bag in her hands. The dress was beautiful, of course, and probably worth more than she could ever afford, in her old world or this one. It seemed like almost everyone she knew was bustling around the dorm, being extremely secretive. Finally, her boys had come to get her, giving her a blindfold to wear and gingerly escorting her down stairs. 

‘Her boys.’ When exactly had she started thinking of them like that? 

(Y/N) felt a cool breeze as she stepped outside. She could feel the boys walking her up the hill in the backyard, stopping suddenly. 

“Okay, Mama,” Cas said, his voice bubbling with excitement. “You can look now!” 

(Y/N) removed the blindfold and gasped at what she saw. The large oak tree in the back dripped with tiny string lights and paper lanterns. Fireflies gently bobbed around in the oncoming twilight. A small table, (Y/N) recognized it from the Heartslabyul rose garden, had been set up underneath the glowing bows, decorated with a candelabra. 

“Oh, boys,” (Y/N) said, taking each of their hands. “This is beautiful. Is this what you’ve been up to all day?” 

“Mostly!” Argo said. 

“Yup, now it’s phase 4!” Cas said. 

“Phase 4?” (Y/N) asked. The boys just dragged her over to the table and pulled out the chair for her. They made to rush away before Argo hastily corrected himself and pulled out a wireless speaker from behind the tree trunk. He took out what suspiciously looked like Floyd’s phone, sinking it up to the speaker. Soon, it began to play a string quartet. Argo smiled triumphantly, he and Cas taking hands and rushing back to the dorm. 

(Y/N) smoothed her dress and sat down, watching the fireflies and sunset with the calming music in the background. There was a tea set on the table and she poured a cup. She paused for a moment before filling up the cup across from her as well. As she sipped the tea, she saw the silhouettes of Cas and Argo dragged someone around the side of the dorm. In the low light, she couldn’t exactly tell who it was, but based on the lanky form and fond body language, she guessed it was Floyd. She sighed inwardly, half excited to see him and half dreading it, especially in such a romantic location. So this way the boys’ real plan. She wasn’t sure exactly how to feel about that. 

She stood up as Floyd came closer, stepping into the circle of light around the tree, ready to disperse whatever plot the boys had set up, before gasping. “Floyd! What happened?” Although Floyd was wearing a nice suit and tie, he had a black eye, a split lip, and a cut above one of his eyebrows that looked like it had been hastily patched with stitches. She rushed to him, her hands hovering around him. “Are you okay? Should we go to the infirmary? Who did those stitches - why do you have stitches!” She frowned. “Honestly, I keep telling you to stop getting into fights! One day you’re going to fight someone stronger than you and then where will we be? Look at you, you’re still bleeding!” 

Floyd only grinned, leaning down so his forehead touched hers. “Shrimpy’s worried about me.” 

She weakly pushed him off. “Of course I’m worried. Gosh, did the boys see you like this?” 

Before she could take a step away, he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her in a tight hug. “I like when you’re worried about me.” 

“Is that why you keep doing stupid stuff?” 

Floyd hummed. “Maybe. If it makes you pay attention to me, then it’s worth it, right?” 

(Y/N) didn’t know how to reply. She felt heat building up in her checks, a mixture of embarrassment and longing and something else she couldn’t quite place. 

“Floyd, I-” “I like you, (Y/N).” She froze at his words. “I couldn’t say it before. I mean, I could, but I didn’t. And that’s my fault. It was bad, I was bad, I still am bad. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I just - You’re so much of everything. And I want that everything. I want us to share it, forever. I want to see you all the time because you make me so happy and I want to make you just as happy. I think we can be, together. I promise I’ll try, really hard. And I-” Floyd sniffed as (Y/N) pulled back. His face was flushed, tears dotting his lashes. He was trying to keep up his usual confidant grin, but it crumpled at the edges. “I’m sorry, Shrimpy. I’m so sorry I hurt you, that I acted like nothing was wrong, that nothing happened. I love you, you know that right? You know it now. I love you.” 

“Oh, Floyd,” She muttered, brushing his hair away from his face. “If I kiss you now, is your lip going to start bleeding again?” 

Floyd broke out into a real smile, letting out a choked laugh. He crushed (Y/N) to him, picking her up and spinning her around. He peppered kisses on her face while she giggled too. She took his face in her hands, gently lowering him closer and kissing him. 

Back at the dorm, spying out the windows, Cas and Argo high fived. 

The next morning was bright and sunny and (Y/N) couldn’t help but think it was all for her. 

Cas and Argo were making their rounds in the quad, saying goodbye to their uncles, many of whom grew misty eyed and the imminent departure. Floyd was squeezing her hand, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. 

“Alright, pups, everyone settle down,” Professor Crewel called, waving everyone over. He took out a paper bag and shook out two dark purple oval candies, handing one to each boy. “Here, this will get you back to your time in the blink of an eye.” He patted each of their heads. “Be good, pups.” 

The two took the candies and rushed over to Floyd and (Y/N). Floyd crouched down and picked each boy one at a time, throwing them in the air and catching them before repeating with the other. (Y/N) pulled them both into a tight hug, kissing the tops of their heads. 

“I can’t wait to meet you boys for the first time,” She said. 

“We’ll see you soon, Mama!” Argo said. 

“Mama,” Cas said. “You’re going to take care of Papa, right?” 

(Y/N) laughed as Floyd frowned. “Hey, shouldn't I be the one taking care of Mama?” 

Cas frowned, a perfect mirror of his father. “Only kinda. Mama’s the one who does all the taking care of.” 

“Well, when you get home, tell your Papa and he promised you ice cream.” 

(Y/N) quickly whipped away the tears that were forming in her eyes. She cleared her throat to try and speak without faltering. “Speaking of, I’m sure your Mama and Papa are worried about you. I think it’s time to head off. But one more hug.” They crashed back into her open arms. Floyd threw his arms around all of them, squeezing tight. 

Finally, the Cas and Argo each took the others hand, popping the candy in their mouth. Cas screwed up his face and Argo stuck out his tongue at the bitter taste of it. (Y/N) couldn’t help but laugh, comparing their reaction to hers when Floyd had first gotten her to drink the oracleum mycoculous tea. It seemed there was no good way to mask that taste. 

Before their eyes, the twins started to fade out, as if they had been projections. They stared in fascination at their disappearing bodies. They looked up and waved and everyone waved back. Eventually, they slipped out of view. The group waited another moment, giving some sort of solemn respect to the family they would meet again in the future before dispersing. 

“So,” Floyd, leaning down to speak quietly to (Y/N). “You never did answer me, Shrimpy.” 

“Answer what?” 

He grinned deviously and (Y/N) immediately regretted asking. “How many times you think it took before we got them.”

[otomaticallyobsessed]

All three of my followers better read this! I cant believe it has so few notes!

One Night Remains

Leona Kingscholar loves sleep more than anything else in Twisted Wonderland. So he is determined to continue sleeping all through the night when he has to host two freshmen crashing in his dorm for taking a rather stupid deal he had nothing to do with. It wasn't his problem.

Yet for some absurd reason, the three nights that the prefect stays in Savanaclaw, he doesn't get a wink.

Chooser, Chosen

(part one) (part two) (part three) (read on AO3)

Word count: 7.7k | (this is the song Yuu sings during that one part :3)

Leona wanted to rip his ears out. As small as Grim and Yuu were, he hadn’t known that they could be so loud. Or so shrill. It could only be called singing by the most insane souls in Twisted Wonderland. Ruggie had almost tried to escape when they’d started shrieking at the top of their lungs, but if Leona had to endure this torture, then so did he.

“Fine,” he finally spat out, sick of covering his already-flattened ears with his hands. Their voices still got through the tiniest of spaces that he didn’t know he wasn’t covering, and he had no idea how. “Quit your screeching.”

Yuu was quicker to stop than Grim. He seemed to be especially enjoying this, Leona found. But a particularly sharp glare shut him up just fine, he also found, and finally, his ears were saved. “You’ll help us?” the weasel asked, voice hoarse from how he’d been belting without a care in the world just a moment ago.

If it was up to him, he wouldn’t be doing any of this at all. But Leona ran a hand down his face, while his ears rang and throbbed even after they’d closed their mouths. “We’ll see. That’s the best you’re goin’ to get,” he added, giving Yuu a warning look as she opened her mouth again. “Give it a rest.”

“Please never sing again. I don’t think I could take it,” Ruggie begged, looking everything like he would ram his head into a wall if they started back up. Leona would probably join him. “You’re a lot crueler than you look, Yuu.”

Out of everything she could have done, the herbivore grinned. Leona almost wanted to ask where the audacity came from, to be that cheeky while she goaded a lion in his own den. “I’m taking Leona’s advice,” she told him, making the housewarden scoff when he heard it. That only made her grin widen, annoyingly. “I’ll use my spine on you, too, thanks.”

“That’s just askin’ to get taught a lesson,” he growled back, but found that she hardly seemed scared at that. What a strange herbivore she was. “You got a plan, or are you expecting us to go in blind?”

It didn’t take her long to make the final touches in her head before putting it into words. She told them all about what she’d gone through the past two days, and what her torture had taught her about the Octavinelle groupers. And as loathe as Leona was to admit after she had nearly rendered him deaf and crazy, he found that her plan could almost work. “Wow.” Ruggie whistled, and Leona could tell that he was seeing Yuu in a new light. Leona was too, if he was being honest. She wasn’t all that doe-eyed anymore, he supposed. “That’s pretty gusty. Sure you can handle it?”

Yuu just shrugged. “I’ve dealt with them for the past two days, and I’m still standing.”

“What’ll you do if it ends up going sideways?” Leona asked.

That just made her grin again. Leona fought the urge to sigh and just go to bed. “Are you saying you think you’ll mess up?”

Again with the spine. Leona couldn’t stop himself from smirking, as his tail swished with something he almost wanted to call amusement. “I can handle the cephalo-punk just fine. I’m sayin’ I don’t exactly have my utter faith in you to make it work. No offense.”

Leona didn’t know how to feel when Yuu’s grin did not lessen. If anything, that same dastardly, twisted glint from her first night there returned, much more visible now than before, now that she didn’t have the same naive look about her. “If I can’t go back to Ramshackle, you’ll just be seeing a lot of me every night,” she told them, even throwing in a cheeky wink as she did right alongside Grim.

His smirk dropped. “Are you threatenin’ me?” Leona was strangely more surprised than angered. Yuu just shrugged. She shrugged, out of all the things she could have done. Leona didn’t know if he’d wanted one answer over the other to be perfectly honest, but the lack of a clear one certainly wasn’t what he’d hoped to get as a response. He sighed the deepest sigh he had in a long time, holding his forehead as his eyes rolled. It was strange how he was trying his hardest not to laugh even though he felt like he should definitely be a bit more offended than he was. “Here I thought you were a goody two-shoes.”

“I’m certainly more of one than most students here. You included, I’m afraid.” Leona had to make himself give her a hard look instead of let that laugh get even closer to finding its way out of his throat. “It’s up to you if you two want to help us. We’re not forcing you to do anything.”

Of course they weren’t. Grim snickered, sounding a suspicious amount like Ruggie while the sophomore sighed instead. “Only for you, you scavengers,” he grumbled, ears flicking as he mirrored the look Leona had. Except, it was directed at his housewarden a moment after he’d shot it at the herbivore. “What’d you tell him, Leona?” He wished he’d said nothing at all, now that it was giving him this much grief. How did everything become Leona’s messes to clean up in the span of one night? 

“You’d better hurry ‘n get some rest,” Grim taunted, a smirk on his face that was much too arrogant for a pipsqueak like him. “This could be your last night of quality sleep, y’know.”

“I’ll get right on that, O Great Grim,” Ruggie leered, shooting both Ramshackle students one last dour look. “Sure glad I ain’t rooming with you guys right now.”

“Says the one who got this all started in the first place,” Leona shot right back, turning his glare over to his dormmate instead of his freeloaders. As Ruggie slinked out of his room, the lunatic grinned at him, giving Leona a wink just as he shut the door. Leona didn’t want to know what exactly was running through the hyena’s head, but he was certain that if he ever found out, he’d want to do more than just beat him in spelldrive.

And then it was just the three of them once again, in beautiful, blissful silence. Only to be ruined once more when Grim started talking again. “You really should be more villainous, minion. It gets stuff done,” he mused, giving her a grin as he hopped onto the couch. Then he yawned, already curling up on the cushions before Leona himself had the chance to make it back to his bed. “I think I’ll sleep, too.”

“You really think you get to, after the stunt you just pulled?” Leona growled, making Grim’s fur bristle as his eyes shot back open at the tone. There were so many ways to make him pay. Leona was having a hard time deciding just which exactly he wanted to execute on the weasel that night.

But then Yuu—stubborn, arrogant, persistent Yuu—just had to smile at him, in a way that was just apologetic enough yet still sure of herself to make his anger dissipate. “We need all the sleep we can get if we’re going to get tomorrow to work,” she reasoned, and Leona didn’t know how to feel about the way he didn’t really want to fight her. “It’ll get us out of your hair, at the very least.”

Leona scoffed, flicking his tail as he rolled his eyes. “This is the last night you’re gettin’ free board,” he reminded, trying to look like he was still irritated more than he really was. “Even if this doesn’t work.”

“Thank you for letting us stay here for the three nights you’ve already let us,” Yuu told him anyway, making his tail swish all the more. “We haven’t been the greatest houseguests.”

“Is that so?” he mused flatly. “Can’t say I noticed.”

She smiled at him again, a little more apologetic than before. So Leona rolled his eyes, dismissing her attempt to apologize when he hadn’t demanded one in the first place. Then she sighed when she turned around, finally catching the way that Grim had taken advantage of her diffusing the situation to fall into slumber. He was already long gone somehow, despite being in the lion’s den that nearly became his grave. Leona didn’t know if it was foolishness or arrogance on Grim’s part, but either way, it wasn’t the greatest testament to prove there was much of a brain in the weasel’s skull.

“One of these days, I’ll beat him to sleep.” There were the hints of a laugh in Yuu’s voice, as she reached out to gently tug the blanket higher on Grim.

“Maybe I’ll get to sleep, too,” Leona added bitterly. It made that laugh become stronger, ringing in his ears despite how quiet it still was. 

“Unless we mess up tomorrow,” she reminded, with that devilish smile that only seemed to get more evil each time she flashed it. “Then neither of us will, ever again.”

That laugh returned, louder now as Leona glowered at her with a swishing tail. Yuu just gave him a grin, so he forced his expression to become even darker. “Why are you helpin’ him, herbivore?” he asked, finding that he wanted to know the answer now, when it was all of a sudden his problem, too. “Helpin’ any of the suckers who made a deal, for that matter. It wasn’t your mess to clean up.”

Yuu shrugged. It made Leona’s glower become a bit more real than it had been. “They made some bad decisions. We all do that. They should have known better, but it isn’t right for them to have to suffer so much for a mistake. And besides, some of them are my friends.” Maybe she was still doe-eyed after all, Leona found himself thinking. She looked up at him with those innocent eyes, and the faintest smile appeared on her face. “Why are you helping me?” she asked, making something weak in him almost startle.

Leona gave her an unamused stare in return. “If you really have to ask that, maybe you’re more dimwitted than I thought.”

She giggled. Leona’s tail swished just a bit stronger. “Of course. I hope the great Leona Kingscholar can forgive my threatening of his sleep.” That was all it was. She smiled at him, in that way that told him she was apologizing silently. 

There were so many levels of disrespect to that comment that Leona didn’t even want to start unpacking it. So all he did was growl in reply, watching with slitted eyes as she crouched to dig through her bag. It was to get her magic potion, Leona realized, as she procured a small vial that held liquid that was an iridescent, shimmering black. He didn’t exactly think it was the safest looking thing to drink, he realized as he glowered at it. It didn’t matter that it came from the headmage—for all the years Leona had been at Night Raven College, he’d known the man to cut corners and skimp whenever possible. There could be a thousand things wrong with that potion, that Yuu was foolish enough to swallow and take without any questions asked.

Before he could school his features back to normal, the herbivore just had to glance up at him, catching the way his eyes smoldered. “Professor Crewel told me it’s safe. There aren’t any lasting side effects if I stop taking it,” she told him, irritatingly guessing the reason behind his annoyance correctly. “Doesn’t stop it from tasting disgusting, though.”

“Whatever you say,” Leona mused, putting the dull tone of boredom in his voice. He still watched as she uncapped the vial, feeling something strange grip his insides as the potion disappeared behind her lips, eliciting a faint grimace to darken her expression. Leona didn’t know how to feel about the way it made something sour his own tongue, as though he had been the one to take the potion instead of her.

He watched Yuu carefully in those first few moments after she took it. If nothing else, it was certainly effective. The air shimmered around her just like the potion in every way it could—it almost seemed like stardust had surrounded the herbivore for a few seconds, as it glittered in the space around her while it did something magical to her scent. It was the same thing that had happened the first night, and the second. But now he was able to watch and study, to see just what exactly the potion did to her to hide her in plain sight.

Only when Yuu gave him a half-uncertain smile did Leona finally realize that he’d been staring. She’d had this happen to her every night since she’d gotten to this world, no doubt, so Yuu was hardly fazed in the slightest. It left her able to see just how Leona watched her, trying to figure out just what it was that was happening to her. “Some potion he gives you,” he mused dully, pretending he hadn’t been caught. “There’s ancient magic in there.”

She hadn’t been told that, it seemed, because Yuu looked surprised. “There is?” Leona hummed as a substitute for a nod. There had to be a jumble of spells and enchantments weaved together to make something that could do so many things at once. For it to be so potent, there was no doubt there were some parts so archaic that Leona was surprised they still existed. “You can tell?” she asked. Her surprise changed to awe as he hummed again, making her eyes sparkle and shimmer like the potion. “Just from seeing it?”

“Isn’t all that hard, once you know what to look for.” Even so, Leona felt the hints of something proud tug his lips up into something of a smirk, as Yuu continued to look at him in that way. “You’re starin’, herbivore,” he purred, finding that he wanted to see if he could get back at her for the way she’d tormented him earlier.

He almost chuckled at the way she startled, blinking hard as she clasped her hands together and stared down at them instead. It let him catch the hints of pink rising to her ears, no doubt dusted on her cheeks as well. “Sorry.”

“Sure ‘ya are.” The pink darkened. 

Worry stung his nose again, but it wasn’t as sharp as it had been before, during the nights when she had been distressed. It was gentle, if anything. It reminded Leona of a fluttering heartbeat, which he wondered if Yuu’s was doing when his smirk deepened. “We should go to bed,” she decided, and Leona wondered what insane part of him it was that almost wanted to stay up just a bit longer.

“Oi. Where do you think you’re going?” he asked instead, making Yuu pause from how she’d nearly joined Grim on the couch yet again. “Come here.”

The herbivore blinked again, that awe swapped out for confusion. “I didn’t think you’d want me to sleep there after I threatened you.”

“So you did threaten me.” Leona grinned at the way that made her face flush once again, changing that pink into a true red. “I ain’t about to banish you just ‘cause you got more arrogant.” Yuu rolled her eyes a little, but she listened anyway, crawling onto the bed alongside him. Even though the potion had messed with the way she smelled, Leona could still make out his scent was on her without much effort, surrounding her just like that stardust had. 

He wondered if it would still, once she was no longer staying in Savanaclaw. “I wouldn’t blame you, if you did,” she admitted. “I wasn’t the greatest of people just now.”

“If you think that was somethin’ real terrible, then you haven’t been in this school long enough.” That got Yuu to smile, the tiniest of laughs escaping her lips. Leona’s ears twitched at it, how it still seemed to echo in his mind without fail. “You gotta earn your place, though,” he told her, smirking at the way that made Yuu look at him in equal parts surprise and suspicion. “Sing something for me, if you like bein’ a songbird so much.”

Her head tilted ever-so-slightly, and Leona found himself thinking that it was almost cute, the way she did that when she was confused. The thought was instantly shoved out of his head with a scowl. “You practically just begged me to not do exactly that,” she reminded, the hints of a disbelieving grin appearing despite the way her brows knit together.

“You’re more delusional than I thought if you think I’d ever beg for anything.” Leona hummed as he laced his fingers behind his head, leaning back to let his back touch the headboard. “That couldn’t have been your best shot. Maybe it was the weasel’s, but not yours.”

Leona’s suspicions were proved right when the herbivore huffed, bringing her hands up to nervously fidget her hair into the beginnings of a braid. Maybe she really was a songbird. She certainly got as flighty as them when she was anxious, always moving in whatever way she could manage. “I haven’t really sung for anyone before,” she admitted. “Except my brother.”

The smirk on Leona’s face just grew all the bigger. “Even better. I’m your first,” he purred, making Yuu huff again and shoot him a glare that wasn’t all that sharp when her face was that flushed. “Shouldn’t have sang anything if you weren’t prepared for the consequences.”

Yuu gave him a pouty look, but she didn’t say anything else to argue with him. A sigh found its way out of her chest as she finished braiding her hair and lost her excuse to stay silent, eyes darting across something Leona couldn’t see. He almost thought she was going to deny him. And something strange and oddly gentle inside Leona told him that, if she really didn’t want to, he wouldn’t press. The next time she said anything to get out of it, he would let her.

But then she took in a breath, parting her lips. And she started to sing, making Leona quiet even his breaths so that he could listen.

 It was different from before, when Yuu had been screaming at the top of her lungs like a banshee. Her voice started off shaky and hesitant at first, almost fumbling over the first few words as nervousness rolled off her in waves. But then it became a little more confident, as she got through the first verse without a single complaint from Leona. It lost the tremble, replaced with something more intentional that wasn’t quite vibrato, but something just enough to make his ears stay pinned on her.

Yuu was not the best singer by any means. Nothing about her singing was remarkable—it was as ordinary as it could get. She didn’t look at him, eyes fixated on something invisible to Leona but almost seemed to act like a lifeline to her. Especially when her face had dusted pink, growing deeper in shade for every note she sang. He decided that was alright, he found. Leona wasn’t sure what he looked like at that moment, when he realized that Yuu’s voice might be one of the prettiest things he’d heard. He certainly wasn’t sure what he looked like when she reached the chorus, words making him almost sit up as he watched and listened.

I've spent a thousand nights

Lost in your emerald eyes

Lost in a place where I know

You can see my soul

Make me lose track of time

You and your emerald eyes

Finally found a place that I can call my home.

The last remnants of the song dissipated in the wind as she finished, as the words and melody echoed in Leona’s ears again and again. She blinked, and it seemed as though she’d come out of a trance when her hands tugged on the shirt of his she’d all but taken at this point, finally mustering a sheepish glance over at Leona. He was staring at her, he realized with a start, flicking his ears as he recollected himself. It was almost hard not to, when he’d realized that the glow of the moon and stars suited her so eerily well.

Leona smirked to hide that fact, laughing silently to himself about how it made her shoulders rise in embarrassment. “Not bad,” he mused, watching as she hid behind the hand fixing her glasses. “Better than your little performance earlier, at least.”

“I’m better with instruments,” she murmured, still fiddling with her shirt. “My voice isn’t the greatest, to be honest.”

Even though he had absolutely no reason to, Leona found his smirk becoming a bit more teasing. “Where’s that spine now?” Yuu rolled her eyes shyly, making his tail flick in amusement. It was only then that he realized it had found its way around the herbivore, curled around her so that the tip rested on her other side. “If you’re going to use it on me, then use it when you have reason to. Like now.”

At least she didn’t seem to notice his tail. So he kept it there. If he tried to move it away, she would just catch sight, Leona reasoned with himself. That would end up causing him unnecessary issues to deal with at a time he didn’t want to give himself any more problems than he had already. “Do you treat all herbivores this way, or just me?” she asked, the hints of a tease in her voice.

Leona’s smirk grew. “Who knows.”

She gave him a look that wasn’t at all sharp when she could hardly keep from laughing. “Fine,” Yuu relented, sighing a little as she tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Don’t regret that later, okay?”

The second part of what she said almost went over Leona’s head. It was almost impossible to listen, when he found himself the closest to the scar he’d given her than he’d ever been. He could only try to figure out how she hadn’t been keeled over when she’d first gotten it—how she wasn’t in pain even now, when it looked pink and tender while it still healed. But she’d somehow been the first person he saw when he came to, on that spelldrive field he’d almost turned to sand.

Yuu seemed to know that something had changed with Leona. Her smile changed a little too, growing softer and a little smaller. And for some reason, that made him feel like she was reassuring him. “I—” Leona started, then stopped, finding that his throat was strangely dry. Too dry to keep going, with words he didn’t have. He sighed, pushing his bangs up with his hand as unease churned his stomach. Even if he thought about it for longer than he did, he wasn’t sure if he’d been more unsure of what to say. “What did I do?” he finally got out, and he was displeased with the way his voice sounded. It did not tremble—a lion’s roar could never tremble—but it was not sure. It was not confident, like a prince—a king—should always be.

Leona wasn’t confident he wanted to know. It had been intentional, the way he hadn’t asked Ruggie or Jack anything about what happened that day. All he knew was that when he woke up, his body had ached like nothing before, while sand clung to him like a miasma. Yuu had taken up all of his vision, even though scarlet blood dripped from her head like rubies and matted her hair with grains of sand to make them look like golden flecks. And she hadn’t seemed to care in the slightest about what she looked like, because everything about her had been fixated on him when it shouldn’t have. 

Then the herbivore came into his dorm, smiling at him like he was someone worth looking at. She did that even now, when Leona was certain that all she should feel towards him was nothing but hate and resentment. “You made a bad decision.” Leona’s tail thumped on the mattress, certainly loud enough for Yuu to hear. She didn’t look at it. All she looked at was his eyes, with her own that were much too seeing for her own good, even when she was without her glasses making everything clear. “We all do sometimes.”

That was all she said. That was all she would say, Leona realized, as the silence continued to grow instead of lessen. He’d been ready to hear a tale of how he’d nearly turned everyone to sand. How he’d nearly destroyed everything the light touched because he didn’t get his way. How even now, Yuu didn’t trust him not to turn her to dust, and how she’d slink off his bed and away from him in the next moment.

And yet, none of that happened. Despite himself, when Leona next exhaled, it shook ever-so-slightly at the edges. “This might be a bad decision too, herbivore,” he warned, eyeing her and his room and—him, the failed usurper that should have known better than to think that anything could be his. “You got a warning already.”

Out of everything she should have done, Yuu did none of them. She took his hand instead, that had fallen in between them once it had left his hair. Leona was hit again with how much bigger his was, as she took the thing that had left her mangled and twisted and slotted her fingers between his. “You have claws,” she agreed, far too calm than she should have been as she glanced down at what she’d done. “That doesn’t mean they’re always out. And if they are…” Yuu looked up at him then, with eyes that were unspeakably beautiful in the moonlight. And she smiled, something warm and kind and much too sweet to ever be directed at someone like Leona Kingscholar. But there she was, doing just that anyway. “Well, we’ve seen that they can’t stop me.”

Leona stilled. He didn’t know what to do, when he looked at the herbivore and saw the way she looked at him. She was insane. She was annoying, making so many of her problems his without even asking him in the first place. She was an enigma. She was so stupidly, foolishly kind, even to him, even though she had seen just how far that kindness would take her.

And yet. “Big words for such a small herbivore,” he said, trying not to think about how the way her smile grew made something stupidly, childishly warm swell in his chest. 

It only grew when she laughed, still becoming everything Leona could ever hope to hear without fail once again. “You told me to use my spine.” Of course he did. Leona had to roll his eyes, because he wasn’t quite sure what he would have done if not that. “Now. Do you want to spend your potentially last peaceful night sleeping, or are you going to stay up talking to me?” she asked, a tease in her voice.

Leona tried not to think about the way that, strangely, perplexingly, he wasn’t quite sure he knew what the answer to that question was. “That’s rich, comin’ from you,” he huffed, trying not to let his smirk turn into a smile as Yuu giggled. She beat him to lay down first, leaving him to be last when she took second place before he could. And yet, he didn’t quite mind.

He didn’t turn away tonight. Neither did she, even as he made the lights switch off with a flick of the wrist and gave her every opportunity to. Hesitantly at first, Leona let his arm drape over her as he lowered it again—because it was more comfortable that way, instead of crammed to fit on top of his side. And then that same deranged, warm thing in him beat just a little erratically as Yuu shifted closer to him, pressing her scarred ear to his chest. He almost wanted to bat her away so that she wouldn’t hear the way it pounded—like an innocent, doe-eyed herbivore, he grimaced to himself—but found that he didn’t have the strength to. Especially when his ear flicked in the newfound silence, and he realized that when he rested his chin atop her head, that this was the most comfortable he’d been in a long time.

“Good night,” the herbivore whispered, as Leona found his hold on her tightening. He hummed in reply, listening to her faint breaths as she started to succumb to rest. If only he had more time to sleep, Leona mused as his eyes closed. He supposed he just had to make the precious little time he had count.

After three endless days of fighting tooth and nail, Yuu and Grim were finally able to return to their dorm. It was just as dank and decrepit as it’d been when they left, but at this point, they wouldn’t have it any other way. This was their dorm, and despite everything it was, they were proud of it.

“Good to be back,” Grim exclaimed, already relaxing the moment they stepped into the foyer. Jade and Floyd didn’t seem like they had done anything substantial to the place in their absence, at least, because it looked largely the same as they’d left it. “And out of Leona’s room. I still can’t believe you got him to let you sleep in his bed. It’s totally unfair!”

Yuu hummed, finding that she’d given up trying to explain it to him. All that Grim saw was bias towards her, and the one way that would make him forgive it was a few cans of tuna sent his way. “I got you out of the deal with Azul,” she reminded nonetheless, laughing a little at the way he shrugged it off like it was nothing. “And I seem to remember you doing a lot more eating than waiting on tables tonight.”

“I had to do that already. It was time for me to get a break.” Yuu rolled her eyes, though there was a grin on her face. Of course. Grim yawned then, sharp teeth glinting in the abysmal lights of their dorm. “I’m beat, though. I wanna catch some winks before we hafta go back to class tomorrow.”

“Did you remember to do your homework?” Grim’s face dropped at Yuu’s reminder, giving her something akin to a glare as he scurried off in a hurry, trying to outrun the lecture he thought Yuu was going to give him. She decided she’d give him a head start, walking slowly through the halls as the reality of the day seeped into her.

Somehow, they had done it. The odds had seemed a million to one, even with Leona helping them, but they had managed to prevail. Albeit with a few scratches, Yuu found herself adding, as she moved her arm and felt the throbbing pain of her new injury burn her collarbone. It was nothing she couldn’t handle, though. 

Grim yowled suddenly, cutting through Yuu’s thoughts like a cleaver. He didn’t make that noise unless something was wrong. She quickened her pace, feeling her heart start to pound at a more worried rhythm. “Grim?” she called, as she rounded the corner to make it into the lounge.

“What are you doing here?” he exclaimed, his fur bristling while his eyes were kept wide.

It was then that Yuu saw the uninvited guest in their lounge, sprawled on the couch as though he was the prefect and not her. “Pipe down,” Leona hissed, shooting Grim a sharp look. “You woke me up.”

“So what? This isn’t your dorm!” Leona’s gaze turned into a glare as he sat up, resting his elbow on the armrest and propping his head up on a fist. Sleep still seemed to have a hold on him, and yet, even though his eyes were half-lidded, the emerald rings still held so much intensity and fire in them, as he stared at Grim. He did not leave. “Do something about this, minion!”

Yuu, despite Grim’s clear distress, found herself trying not to smile. “You go on ahead,” she offered, feeling that smile become even harder to hide when Leona’s eyes slid to her, the glare dimming somewhat. “I’ll be up soon.”

Grim didn’t need to be told twice. He hardly spared her a glance that was a mixture of appreciative and mournful as he darted up the stairs and out of sight with record speed. Yuu hadn’t even known that he could be that fast.

Leona didn’t seem to mind, content with lazily watching her just stand there. Yuu couldn't find it in herself to, either, when she finally let that smile faintly show on her face. “I thought you were sick of us," she said, finding that smile grow when he hummed. “You have your bed all to yourself now. I don’t think our couch is better than that.”

“It isn’t.” Yuu couldn’t stop the little laugh that got out of her. She winced slightly as it escaped her chest, making her wound throb with white-hot pain. Leona’s gaze changed at that, his eyelids raising ever-so-slightly. “C’mere,” he called, more a soft demand than anything else. She listened, feeling her heartbeat quicken as Leona sat up when she got closer. The intensity of his eyes never let up, even when her expression returned to normal.

His hand came up when she was finally close enough to satisfy him, though it did not touch her. Leona was waiting for her to say it was alright, she realized, something warm and gentle filling her chest when the way he glanced up at her eyes confirmed it. Yuu hummed, accepting his request, and tried not to let her breathing change when she felt him undo the first button of her shirt. Then the second, before he spread the two sides apart.

Nothing met Leona but bandages, not showing even a trace of skin beneath her neck. It made his eyes narrow, especially as he saw that it wasn’t just snow white that he was met with. Crimson blood had left the tiniest of blemishes, three pinpricks that were hardly anything to the eye, but still enough to make him glower. “How bad is it?” Leona still asked, gaze moving to look up at her face. 

Lies wouldn’t go undetected. So Yuu sighed, even though she wanted to shrug it off. But her newly acquired injuries would just make her wince again if she did, and Leona would certainly see through anything else she tried. “I’m on painkillers,” she told him, feeling the warmth of his hand even through his glove and her bandages. “They’ll kick in.”

Even though she’d hoped that would satisfy Leona, it didn’t. He glared at her clavicle as though it had done a great insult to him, even when Yuu brought her hand up to cover his. “You shouldn’t have this,” he eventually said, a growl in his voice as he spoke. “I should’ve been faster. I—”

“I should have been more careful,” Yuu cut him off, making Leona’s ears flatten and his tail thump on the couch next to him. “This isn’t your fault.”

“Sure it isn’t.” The way that he glanced up at her didn’t go unnoticed. She knew exactly where his gaze went, the sight making his lip curl back in a silently snarl directed at only himself. Yuu didn’t know what to do at the way it made his eyes darken, glinting like emerald wildfires in the middle of a rainstorm.

When another moment passed, she decided that she didn’t want Leona to look angry at himself for a second longer. His brow knitted as Yuu’s hand lifted off of his, before his hold on her shirt tightened as he felt her fingers brush against his cheeks. When she finally held his face in her hands fully, ignoring the way his silky hair tickled her fingertips, she tilted it up, forcing his eyes to rip off her bandages to instead look at hers. She knew her plan worked when she watched Leona’s glare become directed at her in his confusion, his free hand coming up to wrap around her wrist to pull it off.

“Leona Kingscholar,” Yuu started, before he was able to rip her hands away, “I have a spine. I have a brain that is not peanut-sized, and it’s telling me that you are blaming yourself that has nothing to do with you.” His eyes narrowed, and she caught the gleam of his fangs when he started to open his mouth, no doubt about to challenge her. “Maybe I wasn’t using it for a moment back there, or back then, but I am using it now. I’m listening to you.”

“You call this listening to me?” he huffed, not convinced in the slightest. “Maybe I was wrong when I told you that. It doesn’t seem like you have any wits sometimes, when you go and make deals with swindlers that get you nothing. Or when you go an’ charge forward to your death when you have no magic to arm yourself with.”

She knew he was trying to hurt her. But even so, she felt his claws scratch her, making something angry bubble up inside her. “Why do you care?” she asked, feeling her own small growl whisper in her voice.

“Because I do,” he hissed, his grip on her wrist tightening. Yuu instantly stilled at the way his eyes flickered, raging like a wild beast. “You went and made things my problem when I didn’t ask. Now this is your problem, herbivore. Hope you’re happy.”

They stayed like that for a long moment, glaring daggers into the other’s eyes with angry snarls draining their lungs of air. Leona was furious. Yuu just didn’t know who he was raging at, between himself and her and a myriad of other people and things it could possibly be. With the abundance of choices he had, she hoped it wasn’t the way he felt about her. Especially when she decided, in her exasperation between how Leona was like this and how the daggers she shot at him were all but dull, it was a smart idea to lean down when his chest swelled with an inhale, no doubt about to continue with another sharp comment. And she gently pressed her lips to his, trying to take the sharpness out of him, too.

Leona bristled, that hold he had around her wrist tightening still until it was almost painful. And for a split second, Yuu wondered if she had just gone too far, and that she had taken everything completely wrong. Maybe she’d be mauled that night in her own dorm, and not in Leona’s room like she’d thought she’d be. Maybe there was the faintest of hopes for her to keep her life, as she started to pull away in order to spew out a sling of apologies at her idiocracy. But then the fist gripping her shirt tugged her right back, practically sending her into Leona’s lap from his strength.

His lips were surprisingly soft, Yuu found herself realizing, as the hand around her wrist came down to hold her waist equally gently in the closest thing to an apology she’d get. It was a dizzying contrast from how rough his voice had been before, as the scent of sun and dust and the faint hint of acacia swirled around her. He kissed her like he was starved, and she’d offered him the first real taste of food he’d had in years. It was all she could do to match him, to tell him all the things she’d wanted to without using words she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to find.

Yuu didn’t know if she even remembered what breathing was as time seemed to stop. The only thing reminding her that she was alive and not just feeling everything Leona gave her was the rapid beating of her heart, which almost threatened to shatter her with how strongly it thudded in her chest. It finally came back to her when her lungs finally burned too hot for her to ignore, making her pull away despite how she longed to burn to ash with him. Maybe he felt the same way, Yuu realized, as she took in how his chest heaved and how he looked at her with eyes so beautiful she thought she might die anyway.

“Maybe I am stupid,” she muttered, finding that she still kept some of the hiss in her voice from before. Yuu found that she didn’t particularly care, especially when the housewarden had the audacity to glare at her again.

“The only way you’re stupid is annoyingly persistent,” Leona growled, before he kissed her again. He was gentler this time, reassured that she cared for him the same way he did for her after she'd kissed him. As if she couldn’t, when she had been hoping that somehow, someway, she could get just a bit lucky for once. She most certainly had, if she was able to be like this tonight, and to have spent the past three nights with him.

It was only after they’d broken apart for the second time that Yuu realized what she’d done. She covers her mouth to make Leona give her a strange look. “I just kissed a prince,” she blurted, almost feeling like she wanted to die when the shock hit her like a wave. She’d probably just crossed so many lines and made so many mistakes in etiquette that it could be a national scandal. Yuu almost wanted to kiss him again, just to get back that feeling of the world disappearing so she didn’t have to face it.

Leona laughed then, the sound filling her ears and making her heartbeat quicken. She adored his laugh, she realized, making her skin turn even redder than it already was after the way he’d taken her breath three times now with that. “You got kissed by one too,” he reminded. Yuu found that she had to hide the entirety of her flustered face, a little too nervous to take on even the room they were in. Leona chuckled, before she felt hands coming up to gently lift hers away. “Don’t go hidin’ on me now, herbivore.” 

She forced herself to calm down when Leona let his forehead fall against hers, letting her fingers intertwine with his. This was the most relaxed she’d felt in a long time, between her deal and her homework and all the little worries rooming with Leona had given her. At least those had been for nothing, she mused to herself, finding she couldn’t help but smile at the way his tail had curled around her leg at some point.

But then of course she had to think of something else, to make her stomach knot and unease seep back into her. Leona seemed to know, by the way his nearly-closed eyes opened again. “Is this really okay?” she asked. “You’re a prince. I’m— I don’t have magic whatsoever. I’m not even sure if I have a legal presence here.”

“Who cares. I don’t.” Leona made her anxious huff turn into more of a squeak when he brought one of her hands to his lips, keeping his eyes locked with hers all the while. “The one good thing being second-born’s given me is the freedom to choose. I choose you,” he promised, smiling at the way that made her blush. “I’m also choosin’ to sleep here tonight. Hope you don’t mind, after I so kindly gave you my room for the past three nights.”

Yuu couldn’t help but scoff in a laugh at the way Leona added that, already yawning as though he could doze off in a matter of seconds. “Out here? This couch isn’t as comfortable as yours to sleep on, unfortunately.”

Leona gave her a look like she was the most deranged person to grace Twisted Wonderland. Maybe she was, she thought with a level of satisfaction she certainly shouldn’t have. She had just kissed a prince. “You have a bed. It works just fine, far as I’ve heard.”

“But Grim’s already there.”

“We can move ‘em.”

She huffed, bringing her hands back up to cup his face in disbelief. “You have to play nice with him,” Yuu told him, even though her feigned sternness was completely forgotten when she watched the way Leona nuzzled into her touch. He looked up at her with half-lidded eyes that were no doubt meant to dissuade her, but she kept firm. “We’re a package deal.”

“Fine. But he’s takin’ up your space, not mine.” Yuu laughed as she nodded, knowing that was probably the closest thing she’d get to him agreeing. “Do I get to sleep now?” Leona asked dully, making Yuu hum as she kissed his brow.

“I suppose, Your Majesty.”

“Good.” Yuu almost yelped as Leona surged up, holding her in his arms as though she weighed the same as a feather instead of letting her drop on the ground. He must have noticed the way she was staring at him, because he smirked while he started towards the stairs. “Maybe I’ll make you sing me a lullaby, since you were so willin’ to last night.”

Yuu almost frowned at him, but then she grinned, making Leona falter just for a moment. “Only if Grim can join me,” she chimed, wrapping her arms around his neck playfully. “I know just the song to sing with him.”

Leona huffed, his ears flattening as he no doubt remembered the wonderful performance they’d given him last night. “Maybe I’ll just drop you instead.”

Her grip on him got tighter in response, just in case he decided he really would. “Don’t you dare,” she warned, only met with an amused hum in response. “You’re evil.”

“Yet you still kissed me. Makes a guy wonder about your taste in people.” Leona’s eyes glinted as Yuu made a flustered noise, hiding her face in his chest. “I’m your problem now, herbivore. Hope you’re ready for what that means.”

#ooh leona wants to kiss yuu so bad he looks stupid rn

[otomaticallyobsessed]

NRC BOYFRIEND TEXTS ── deuce spade x gn!reader

[otomaticallyobsessed]

NOW PLAYING ‘I CAN’T STOP THE LONELINESS’ BY NIGHT TEMPO. jade leech

Good old Jaido is being ironic, acting happy on the worst day of his life. Why would an artist create happy music to pair it with such sad lyrics?

tags: unrequited love, angst and tragedy, hurt no comfort, complicated relationship, regrets & sorrows, friendships, bro doomed by the narrative, happy birthday to me fuckers

word count: 2,087

The first dance goes to Floyd, his brother.

This is only natural because, of course, the bride dances with the groom on their wedding day.

At his seat at the family table, Jade rolls a glass of celebratory champagne in his gloved hand. Freshly poured, it still bubbles with some last desperation. Champagne is a sipping wine but – carbonation burns the bridge of his nose with white pain as he gulps it down. Each organ in Jade stirs like kicked sediment, bubbling over. 

Floyd’s side of the table is weighed down by their father, mother, himself, and grandmother; yours is weighed down by Grim, who is trying to steal extra food off his father’s plate. The reservation hall is drowned in people though, all coming together to support your unity. 

The only one who fails to uphold this support wholeheartedly is one-drink-down-ten-more-to-go Jade Leech, the pillar of brotherhood crumbled and eroded. 

It is my own fault. Jade thinks as his mother pours him another drink. All my fault.

You and Floyd dance to ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’. Sung by Frankie Valli, each lyric and note match up with each other perfectly. There is no juxtaposition between melody and meaning. With you cradled in his arms, Floyd looks down, softly mouthing each word to you. By doing so, he expresses that each word is genuine, engraved in his soul. 

To Floyd, he truly cannot take his eyes off of you, magnetized in. When there is a break in lyrics, he steals June coded kisses – warm like the beginning of summer. You two nuzzle cheek to cheek, amorous. 

As expected, Floyd cannot stay slow-dancing for longer than a minute. Melody starts to change. From sweet, it goes to this jumping excitement as the baritone horn and baritone saxophone intensify. You two start to pull away, independent in your motions. 

Besides the tight hold both your right hands have … refusing to let go … tying the knot.

The music goes: can’t take my eyes off of you, bum bum, whump whump, bam-d bam-d, bum bum, whump whump. You shimmy your shoulders back and forth, a smile eclipsing your face. Floyd throws you a wink, hips swaying side to side. Despite the ridiculousness … no, because of your joint ridiculousness, it amplifies that sentiment of nuptial bliss: you two were destined and designed for each other.  

Moved by music, you even hop in platform heels. Then, blindsided and unexpecting Jade watches, as the beat reaches its peak. You two shout, both of you jumping, but making certain your eyes connect when you shout the lyrics: “I love you, baby!!” The crowd goes wild with cheers, clapping along to the music. 

And if it’s quite alright, I need you baby to warm a lonely night! You and Floyd throw away coordination lessons as the song continues, already the perfect dance partner for each other. 

This entire wedding feels like one big, ironic joke being played on him. 

Jade looks up from his happy, bubbling champagne when Floyd dips you so low that your spine is parallel and supine to the ground, floating only four inches or so. Both of you laugh louder than the music and cheers. A polite smile is still glued to Jade’s face. 

He says words that only the watery ear of his champagne hears, “I should have never introduced them.” Unsaid because he is swallowing his alcohol-scented sorrow: It is all my fault.

The second dance goes to their father.

You seem to remember those coordinated dance lessons afterall. Especially graceful in his father’s imposing arms. Though, you keep your stance far away from his father’s shoes. Trembling at the mere notion of just touching the side of one. Burnished elkan leather that probably costs equivalent to your engagement ring. 

Your engagement ring – ah, what a cursed, loathed object it is in Jade's world. 

He was there when Floyd bought the ring. Do you know this? Jade thinks you probably do not. The proposal spot was all Floyd’s plan while the engagement ring was Jade’s. 

“Get her this one.” Jade had pointed towards an engagement ring with a criss-crossing design on the band and a diamond the size of a dime. “Diamonds are known for their durability.”

Diamonds would be able to sustain through a wild lifetime with Floyd. 

Washing dishes and spreading cream cheese on bagels in the blissful morning light, typing on computers and holding a phone up to your ear to talk in the middle of noon, brushing teeth and reaching under the sheets to stroke teasingly at his navel, moving further down and down, in the blanket of night light. Living a domestic life until you were dissolved into seafoam. All the remains of your love. A single diamond ring on a skeleton finger. Resilient.

Even though one should be the main player in their own life, it seems Jade is destined and designed for the background. 

When Floyd told Jade where he would propose, it kicked his ribs and stomach harder than any alcohol could. ‘I’m already down, why push me further’ is what Jade’s half-a-second wrinkling expression spoke. With the news broken, Jade smiled with hidden rage, “I’m sure she will love that.”

The place Floyd proposed? It was the place Jade introduced you to his twin. 

Isn’t it ironic? Jade knew you first but he will never know you the best. You will reveal your pink love and black secrets to Floyd yet never Jade. Jade: your first friend in Twisted Wonderland, now your brother-in-law. 

The third dance goes to their mother.

You are truly more beautiful than any diamond. You are something that gleams brighter than all the jewelry on the ocean floor or in sunken shipwrecks. When Jade and Floyd were little, they used to steal stuff from each other all the time. Noses would be broken because hey, that shell you found is prettier than mine! It only makes sense that they would find themselves attracted once again to the same, shining allurement. 

They learned to share as all children do. They broke off pieces of a sturgeon’s scales together and shared that. The diamond that is you though? Jade means a lot to you, he knows it; he knows it does not go beyond friendship. 

When you are dancing with his mother, you shine. Laughter pianos out of your mouth in a genuinely happy melody. Unlike him, you do not have to force this mirth. Acrylic nails grab your wrist and twirl you so fast you could puke. Giggles are a kinder substitute. Despite your early anxiety, all is alright now. 

Jade reflects upon that. The only moment you were frowning at that wedding.

He was speaking to Trey Clover when you appeared out of nowhere, platforms clicking. The visage of you stole his breath away; then, you stole him away from his conversation with Clover, apologizing. Jade let himself be dragged by your firm hand. As the tendrils of your hair and wedding veil bounced with your pace, Jade watched the dorsal side of his diamond gleam and raced down to a secluded hallway. 

You turn on Jade, blindly bright. Sevens, you look gorgeous. Even with that frown on your face – how can he help, he wants to soothe it away immediately – you are a sight he will never tire off. 

“Am I doing the right thing?”

For a second, Jade’s world stops. 

He thinks for a second, perhaps he could be the main character. For second, the diamond on your ring finger is not so loathsome to him. Instead of it representing infinity, it turns finite. It is a piece of jewelry you can take off. It takes only a second before you speak again:

“I mean, Floyd has been so great through all this. Super understanding, super wonderful. I mean he’s put up with all my little whims. And he was so excited about seeing the dress! I mean, the tradition of not seeing the bride before the ceremony is boring and super outdated –”

Ah, he is back in the secondary character position. You were only talking about the tradition you brought over from your world. It had a little bit of your culture that you wanted to keep with you – not seeing Floyd until you walked down the aisle. 

Jade is incredibly stupid to think you were talking about the wedding. You do not seem the type to call off a wedding. He smiles and asks, “That eager?”

“Well, I,” you fluster and look away. ‘No. I’m not, but it was the only thing Floyd and I really fought on. I’m starting to realize that it is a bit silly.”

“Keeping tradition is often how we show love for the generations before us.”

You weigh Jade’s words carefully on the scale of your consciousness. He wonders if he spoke his heart if you would take that into consideration or ignore it. After a pregnant silence, you say, “But I don’t really have a family history anymore.”

Jade blinks, surprised, as you continue, “Today, Floyd is going to become my family. Or, well, I’m going to become part of his. I have nothing of myself to offer in terms of tradition anymore.”

“You will just choose to assimilate to the circumstances?”

“Wouldn’t anyone do so for love?”

Those words fall like an anvil on Jade’s heart. “Yes. I fear they might.”

“Fear is such a drastic word!”

Jade laughs as you say, “Ah but I suppose it is true. I’m actually terrified right now.” Your hands fall down to play with the hem of your gown. You run your thumb over the outfit you will only wear once. Such a monumental, life-changing piece of fabric. 

The diamond catches a flicker of light, reflective. Jade asks, “Are you having regrets?” He waits with bated breath. 

“About Floyd? No. Never.” Your expression only solidifies the truth of your words. 

“Then my advice?” You look on with eager eyes. Jade smiles through the pain. “I say you should keep with the tradition. Weddings are a merge of the very notion. When you become a Leech, you still have your identity to care for.” That is not the real reason though. Because, this. This Jade gets to steal: the first sight of you in your wedding dress.

“Thanks, Jade. You’re the best friend – the best brother that a bride could ask for.”

Hand over his heart, concealing everything, “It is my pleasure.”

The final and fourth dance goes to Jade.

Carried by a crowd that rushes, you two dance a mad dance, hands welded together. In your gown, you move like Jade imagines all those sneaky princesses that defied and tricked the Seven must have – well, six princesses. Like an oscillating dream, you lean back, arms out. Laughing, you swing right back into Jade, chest to chest and arms out to the side instead.

When your hearts connect in the dance, Jade thinks he could be foolish enough to steal a kiss. Just one to be a solution to all his troublesome pining. A shade of Venus pink, shining and alluring him into a dumb mistake. 

I had you first but I will not have you last. Or in any ways that matter to your heart. 

The song that plays is a melody that demands dancing. It is a force that moves your hips to sway side to side. Puppets you jump around, platforms banging along with the lyrics. And what tragic lyrics they are. The smile on your face would make him think he was listening to a love song. 

Fluent in quite a few languages, Jade knows better. Though, Jade is unsure why the song is structured like this. Why would an artist create happy music to pair it with such sad lyrics? It is such a cruel juxtaposition. Jade smiles when you twirl yourself so your dorsal side lies against his front, snug in his arms as he dances with you. Those Venus-hued lips pull up in a diamond grin.

Why would an artist create happy music to pair it with such sad lyrics? There is only one answer. Irony. 

Jade laughs and helps you back to your feet when your platforms catch on the bottom of your wedding gown. You thank him so genuinely. Jade never wants this particular melody to end.

Then, it does.

“Can I steal my Shrimpy back,” Floyd jokes, when the song ends. You happily launch yourself into his arms, ready to dance until your feet are sore. Stolen successfully. 

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Insert Your Name (10)

Mafia!Jade Leech x Mafia!Reader

Link to part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine!

Notes and TW: You have a conversation with a "god." This series will have mentions of blood, violence, crime (kidnapping, attempted assassination, extortion), and harassment, as one might expect from a mafia AU. Please enjoy!

Tags: @guava-enjoyer @itszzmoon @twstsandturns @myteacupisempty @rou-luxe @chikitasmol @night-shadowblood-writes2 @haveneulalie @owodi

You thought as much for a while—that this world exists inside a story. This world is created for “(Y/N),” and you are Friend A, according to that manuscript. But after all this time, your own thoughts and Jade’s persistent questioning has led you to doubt it. Jade was the one who said you aren’t a character, that the two of you have “thoughts and feelings that go beyond ink on paper.”

But a god? It isn’t a common word in Twisted Wonderland. The Seven are legends, but they were real mages who lived millennia past. Some religions exist, but they’re mostly local. To see someone proclaim themself as a god before your eyes seems like a joke.

The man notes your skepticism and chuckles.

“I only mean it in relation to your abilities. It will become clear as I explain.” He takes another sip of tea. “Twisted Wonderland is a place made from stories, for stories. Broadly speaking, it is a ‘story setting.’ And my purpose is to make stories come to life.”

You try to make sense of his words. Referring to himself as a god, talking about what he does to stories . . . . “Are you the author of that manuscript?”

“No, I’m afraid you have come to the wrong conclusion. I make stories come to life, but it has been a long time since I’ve penned one onto paper. As for the matter of the identity of the author, you would not have to look very far, as she has spoken to you only moments prior.”

You inhale sharply. Your eyes drift to the window as your thoughts start to whirl. That can only be (Y/N). She was the author all along? It would make sense since she’s the main character. But nothing else adds up. Her odd behaviour, her breakdown, her supposedly lost memories of you. You’re also pretty sure she has never met Jade prior to the events of the manuscript playing out in real life. How could she have written it before that? Furthermore, you don’t believe (Y/N) could ever be the type of person to imagine harm coming to anyone, even in a fictional story, even if it’s to Jade’s parents whom she has also never met.

“To clarify, that person is not the one you’ve known for some time.” He chuckles at your bewilderment. “(Y/N) was a character created to be a placeholder. Tell me, do you recall her appearance?”

“Of course I—” You cut yourself off. The only things you can think of are adjectives. Pretty. Dainty. A messy bun. A slim waist. Gorgeous, sparkling eyes. You can’t even remember their colour.

“(Y/N), which stands for ‘Your Name,’ is a placeholder. A blank space where anyone can insert their name.” The teacup clinks against its saucer. “It is supposed to be a one-size-fit all. However, the (Y/N) you know was created for a specific person. The name that was intended to replace this placeholder is that of a girl who lives outside this story setting—a girl who did not exist in Twisted Wonderland. That is the true author of this story.”

You don’t understand what he means by “placeholder.” But you know what he means by people who live outside your world. You recall the twins and Azul mentioning something similar. Shrimpy. Prefect. That human from their high school days, someone who supposedly came from another world. Someone who did not exist in Twisted Wonderland before coming here.

“Were there other cases of . . . well, people from other worlds?”

“Certainly. Like I said, Twisted Wonderland is a place made from stories, for stories. Seeing as tales of strangers in strange lands are the foundation for many stories, from folklore to modern novels, it is not strange to believe someone could be the protagonist of a story where they are pulled from another world to this one.” He pauses when he sees your furrowed brows. “I must apologize again. I am often chastised for my long-winded deliveries.”

“Yeah, you talk too much. Cut the fluff and tell me.”

He chuckles. “Yes, of course. The most recent prior to this case was one named Yuu, although that character was not under my jurisdiction. Your author, however, is under my jurisdiction. She was a fan of Yuu’s story. Once it ended, she sought to extend the story. Essentially, she wrote a fanfiction, which is the very manuscript you stumbled upon. The setting is Twisted Wonderland years after Yuu's story, and the main character she created is an idealistic version of herself—the person she wished she could be.”

It makes sense why you could only think of positive adjectives when describing her. (Y/N) was indeed, like you’d thought from the start, created to be perfect.

“Day after day, she wished with all her soul to insert herself into that story, to live out that fantasy. Eventually, I heard her wishes and decided to grant them. I gave her the opportunity to enter (Y/N)’s body.”

“You can do that?”

“My dear,” he says pleasantly, “there was a reason why I likened myself to a god from your perspective.”

So they weren’t empty words or narcissism. This man has powers you have never even heard of.

The first thing you feel is a wave of relief. So the person who came screaming at you with the intent to kill was not (Y/N), after all. It was someone who took over her body. A stranger took over the body of your beloved friend, took over her life, her relationships, her autonomy . . . A stranger. The second thing you feel is anger. How dare they. How dare they waltz in and ruin everything? You keep quiet and listen to the man’s explanation, resentment bubbling in your gut.

“So the author abandoned her previous life to enter your world. It came with a few caveats: she must lose her name and run the course of the story as (Y/N). Only after the story’s conclusion would she regain her name. Another caveat was that she did not have access to (Y/N)’s memories. I imagine it was a point of curiosity for you—why she seemed to forget everything about who you are.”

You narrow your eyes. “It wasn’t Walrus?”

“I am afraid not. She has never encountered Walrus.”

Deductions and contemplations can be wrong. You know this better than anyone. Yet, you can’t help but feel cheated. With all the information you had, how could you possibly have known? It’s as though you were blindsided by a truck. Looking back, it makes sense. The elusive identity of the author. How the manuscript contains insider knowledge about events concerning the Leech family. Of course it does, the author was the one who wrote those details into existence. Even her reaction to seeing you on the beach, which must have been her first time meeting you. Of course she was confused when Jade mentioned you to her. You don’t have a name in the story. How could she possibly know the name of Friend A?

“Walrus is a character who ties up inconsistencies from the original plot. I had to work hard to ensure it all fell in line.”

“Aren’t you a ‘god?’ Can’t you just, I don’t know, make it happen?”

He laughs. “I am not omnipotent. I can only influence factors that make the story more likely to happen. As in, I can create ‘events,’ which influence ‘responses and actions.’ Characters are defined by their base character traits and then shaped through events; this is what is called character development. I design and set into motion events that will most likely produce the desired characterization. Notably, I cannot control characters or their emotions. I must say, that young lady did not understand this concept very well. Her events were heavily focused on what her favourite characters could do for (Y/N), as opposed to building a foundation so they would wish to do such things. It was rather difficult to make sure the pieces fell in place so those events could occur.”

Several things connect in your mind like a line of dominoes tipping each other over. The manual first appeared in that attic with no clear origin—he must have planted it there because you, Jade, and Floyd are the only people who enter that room. Jade fell asleep in (Y/N)’s apartment because he was busy to the point of exhaustion after taking up the mantle as the leader of the mafia. (Y/N) did not become Floyd’s mood stabilizer. Jade did not fall in love with her. When she—the author—confronted you on the beach, she blamed you as the reason why Jade would not love her. But that isn’t entirely true, is it? Her “events”—Jade cooking for her, sleeping in the same bed—relies on Jade already having feelings for her. But to Jade, she was a stranger he met in an alley. You understand a crucial fact: actions and emotions cannot be manipulated.

“I admit that I panicked and caused you alarm when I tried to send you and Jade away from that beach. That whole debacle was not an event in the story, so I caused some factors that led to Floyd accidentally breaking one of Jade’s terrariums. It was not a serious emergency.” He grows pensive. “But now that the story has gone completely off the rails, I must figure out how to proceed. The author is quite upset with me, especially since she thought with my help, the story was guaranteed to go exactly as written.”

“You were communicating with her?”

“Periodically, yes.” He sips his tea, looking directly at you. “But she was terribly hard-headed and refused to listen to my words.”

What a waste. She had a god on her side, yet she couldn’t use her brain to take advantage of it? Perhaps it’s your bias against her, but you can’t think well of the author.

“Why did you decide to grant her wish, anyway?”

The man lowers his gaze with a soft smile. “I am a storyteller at heart, and she had a story she desperately wanted to become her reality.”

You grit your teeth. “So what? It’s only made things difficult for everyone. Is that shitty story even worth telling?”

“What do you use to judge a story’s worth? The number of people who read it? The number of critics or fans? These are all irrelevant.” His eyes, though gentle in the warm light of the fireplace, hold silvery clarity and resolution from the moonlight. “All that matters is that one person found enjoyment in it. Even if the only person who loves a story is its author, that story has served its purpose. There is no such thing as a meaningless story. Every writer sets out to write a story for a reason, be it wealth, fame, personal satisfaction, a creative outlet . . . . Why do you think this author wrote hers?”

It doesn’t take a genius. Her obsessive, near delusional insistence that Jade loves her. Her breakdown from seeing the two of you together on that beach. Her malice towards you, perceived to be standing in the way of her love. Of her happiness.

“She wanted to be loved.”

She wrote a story where she could project herself onto a perfect, infallible main character. In this story, her favourite character would love and spoil her. They’d overcome trials and eventually live out their happily ever after, blissfully in love, even past the story she wrote. She wanted to be loved fully, completely, and unconditionally.

You feel a little sorry for her. But if you were to be honest . . .

“Why the fuck should I care?” You slam your hands on the coffee table, glaring at the man sitting across from you. Your hands curl into fists. “I don’t give a shit about her personal life. Jade and Floyd’s parents are in a coma. They’ve been worried sick. And that’s just fine? Because she wanted to live in her little fantasy of being loved? If I believe everything you say, then she’s the one who wrote that assassination into our lives. Without her, Mister and Missus Leech would be perfectly fine and running everything as usual. Jade and Floyd wouldn’t be missing sleep and meals. Jade could go study terrestrial plants and fungi like he’s always wanted instead of working himself to the bone for the mafia. You’re telling me I’m just supposed to accept it just because she’s got a sob story? And even worse, none of this would’ve happened without you.”

The assassination attempt is mentioned in the story as an offscreen event. In order for it to be true, the man across from you most likely manipulated events so that the attempt would be carried out. Just like he’s been doing for every event, all this time.

You want to lunge across the coffee table. You want to wrap your fingers around his thin throat, dig your thumbs into his carotid arteries, punch his nose in. But you don’t. You restrain yourself, your hands shaking on the table. With his abilities, he could easily make your life impossible.

“Fanfiction is fine. People can write what they want. But her fanfiction has very real consequences on my life and the people I care about. Why would you even help her knowing the harm she’s causing?”

Hypocrite, Floyd has once called you. That author is selfish in that she’s chasing her own happiness at the expense of what she considers minor characters. You’re selfish in that you’re ensuring happiness for yourself and your loved ones at the expense of the author, a stranger to you. You’d be a hypocrite for condemning her, but you don’t mind. You haven’t gotten this far by sacrificing yourself for strangers.

“Why, of course.” The man tilts his head as though it’s obvious. “No story can progress without conflict. You are a supporting character, as are the main male lead’s parents. Forgive me, but such characters are expendable for the purpose of the plot.”

It suddenly dawns on you. You should’ve realized sooner. This man doesn’t see you as a person. He only sees you as another character within a story, a particularly troublesome one who has messed up the plot beyond repair. You might wholeheartedly believe yourself to be a fleshed out human being with thoughts, feelings, and everything else, but he will always think of that as you being a character. His powers and knowledge of the world make him vastly different from you. He cannot talk to you on equal terms.

It’s like if an ant gained sentience and spoke to a human. Even with the ability to communicate perfectly, the ant would never be able to understand why humans enjoy roller coasters or haunted houses, no matter how much either side tries to explain. Similarly, you would never understand this man’s desire to turn stories that are destructive to “characters” into reality. So, you won’t try. You’ll work with his rules.

“I may have a solution to the derailed plot.” You look at him with determination quietly burning in your eyes. “It’s pretty simple if you can do it. Make me the main character.”

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Hcs for making with Jamil who has a split tongue

Split tongue like a snake, good idea.

Pairing: Jamil Viper x Fem!Reader

Tags: fluff, suggestive, making out, dry humping, split tongue, teasing

A/N: I'm split on the split tongue thing. Sometimes it's hot, other times it freaks me out.

You knew he had a split tongue before the make out happened

Jamil is a bit self conscious about it given that it was a deal breaker for some of his previous partners, too odd of a feeling

For you it was only hot and it made you more curious

Not just about kissing him but feeling his tongue on other places too

Such a perverted girl hiding under that innocent façade of yours, he knew there was something alluring about you

It does feel slightly odd to slide your tongue in between his

To have him lick your chin and feel his tongue on both sides of it as you squirm on his lap

Licking from your chin back into your open mouth, feeling him push it in and letting you suck on it, hearing Jamil hiss as you bite his tongue, it's all too much

You want more but you're hesitant to ask

Jamil can see the desire in your eyes, he takes your hand and makes a V sign with your fingers, his lips pressing against it with a smirk

Right before his tongue licks and curls to beckon you forward into a deep kiss again

Will not let you breathe until he feels your fingers twist into his uniform

As you try to get closer he's leaning back, letting you tilt his head back, your eyes fluttering, filled with desire for more kisses

[otomaticallyobsessed]

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐔𝐏 𝐌𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃

summary: when you ask about your boyfriend's home, you get more than you bargained for; but considering it's him, you don't mind, right?

pairing: jade x gn! reader

warnings: fluff, a little suggestive, nonsexual nudity; i’m suffering from a serious case of eel on the brain so you must suffer with me; can’t stop thinking about bioluminescent eel brothers and just mixed that in with jade’s ceremonial robes home screen lines

twisted wonderland masterlist

“I’m captivated by the human custom of changing clothes to suit the occasion,” Jade hummed as deft fingers tied your previously crooked tie and then straightened out the collar of your uniform shirt. “It reminds me of fish who change their scales to match their environment.”

“That sounds like an interesting ability to have,” you chuckled as you combed the long black strand of hair behind his ear, mesmerised by the way the ambient light of the nearly empty Mostro Lounge reflected in his heterochromic eyes. Even with him sitting down and you standing between his legs, he was tall enough to where you were nearly on eye-level. “I’ve never really thought about it, but I guess mers don’t really wear clothes then?”

“It depends on the mer, really, though accessorising is far more common than what you humans would consider clothes. Those in brighter waters seem to enjoy bejewelling themselves for outings, though it doesn’t serve much of a purpose in the deep.” Jade smiled, though this smile lacked the usual nerve-wrecking edge it held when others were around. When he was satisfied with his work, his hands slid down to rest on your waist. 

“On top of having to learn how to walk, having to wear all these layers of clothing must have felt really restricting,” you said, your hand mapping the path from his jaw down to his shoulder to play with the lapels of his blazer. “Though I have to say, you do look very good in your school uniform.”

“Fufu, you flatter me, my pearl,” the merman chuckled. “Even so, you look much more lovely in anything you wear. I’m still not accustomed to clothes with excess fabric. My people aren’t like aquarium fish with their long tail fins, after all.”

“I’m still in awe you managed to pull off this transformation of body and habitat so gracefully,” you thought out loud. “If my living conditions changed so drastically, I would’ve felt like a fish out of water… Quite literally, I guess.”

“Admittedly, those first months were rather rough, that’s true. But the world above the Coral Sea holds so many new experiences, I do not regret my decision.” His hands gently squeezed your sides at that, his eyes never leaving yours. Faintly you wondered whether his people could enrapture humans with just their gaze or if it was your own heart which rendered you defenceless against him.

“I’m also glad you came here, Jade,” you confessed, voice coming out barely above a whisper. This time you couldn’t stop your palms from cupping his cheeks between them as he brought you just close enough to where Azul couldn’t reprimand him for indecency. “Would you mind telling me more about the differences you experienced? I want to learn more about your home, too.”

“Gladly,” the moray smiled at you and it warmed your heart despite the hint of sharp teeth showing through. “Let’s see… Ah, I enjoy looking up at the stars, especially when out in the mountains. It’s a very different feeling than from the ocean and it makes me forget the passage of time, even though I have no particular interest in astrology.”

“Sounds like a date in the making, if you ask me,” you grinned knowingly. Every so often, Jade pestered you into switching clubs to the mountain lovers club and while you had yet to relent, you did join him on hikes frequently.  

“I will hold you to that,” he promised, eyes crinkling at the edges as if he had gotten just what he wanted. Knowing him, he probably had been gunning for exactly that without you noticing. “Now then, what else did I find astounding when I first came here? Most of it are probably minor things to you, like sneezing, cracking your joints or getting a sunburn. Still hearing the first two was very alarming initially. Azul and I thought Floyd had broken a bone.”

“To be fair, sometimes it does sound like something went incredibly wrong when someone cracks their spine or neck,” you shuddered, reminded of the sounds Ace and Deuce had produced in the past which had you halfway to the nurses office already. “A sunburn must have been a nasty surprise though.”

“That it was,” Jade sighed. “There’s hardly anything worse than drying out for a merman, so we didn’t spend much time in the sun anyway. But to learn that a human’s skin is so easily burned by something they need for their health… Speaking of sunlight, considering it does not reach the depths of my home, everything seemed excessively bright up here too in the beginning.”

“Woah, maybe I underestimated how cold and dark your home is, by my standards at least. Like, no sunlight at all? I’d probably freeze,” you laughed, goosebumps forming under your blazer and shirt at the mere thought.

“Hm, I guess it must seem so to you. When I first learnt about the summer temperatures at land I also thought it wouldn’t be bearable,” Jade chuckled, a spark of mischief in his eyes that you couldn’t place yet. “But an environment devoid of light gives way to many new possibilities in which life can evolve. Sure, you have to always be on guard for what’s lurking around the next corner but you also get to appreciate the colourful glow of bioluminescent fish and plants.”

“The first part sounds terrifying, to be quite honest.” You knew he only ever brought these things up to get a reaction out of you but you still wondered what his life was like to be able to say it with such a calm expression. Instead, you chose to focus on something more pleasant. “Though the bioluminescence sounds beautiful. Back home there were beaches where algae turned the sand and waves a fluorescent blue, so I wonder what it would look like underwater.”

“Would you like to see?” Jade asked, one hand sneaking from your waist to intertwine his fingers with yours. Anticipation was almost tangible in the air, yet you couldn’t figure out why for the life you. So despite the hairs on your neck standing on end, you nodded. Immediately, Jade had risen to his full height and was pulling you along through Octavinelle’s winding hallways.

“Jade! Where are we going?” You laughed, not expecting the sudden switch up. Though that was probably on you; despite hiding it much better than his brother, Jade still tended to do only what was fun to him. 

“Oh, you’ll see,” your boyfriend smiled conspiratorially over his shoulder, eyes twinkling like a kid’s on Christmas. He was seriously cute when he got excited about something, even if it meant finding yourself at the end of his teasing more often than not. Considering he was very fond of growing all sorts of things in his terrariums, perhaps he had managed to raise some sort of luminescent plant and this was a ploy for him to gush about his terrariums? 

Confusion set in once more, however, when you walked in a different direction than his room. Sure, you didn’t know the structure of Octavinelle all too well but you’d think you’d find the one room you had visited most in the dorm. Wracking your brain in order to figure out what was happening in his, you almost bumped into the moray as he came to a halt in front  of one of the many doors. You had never been here before, so you braced yourself for any- and everything as he twisted the doorknob.

The first thing you noticed was the smell of salt and the humidity in the air. Then you noted how you couldn’t see anything in the pitch black darkness. As if he heard your thoughts, a small, dim light flickered on above, revealing tiled floors leading up to a large pool. Of course Octavinelle would have a pool of this size. 

Following Jade to the edge of the pool, you peered into the water to find only your reflection staring back at you from the water, the lack of light turning it from clear to near intransparent.

“Seems kinda of irresponsible to cultivate plants or fish in a school swimming pool, don’t you think?” You voiced your doubts as you remembered why you came here in the first place. “How deep is this thing anyway? I can’t see anything in there.”

“Who said anything about fish or plants?” Jade’s chuckle reverberated around the room from behind you and when you turned to see what was so funny, you saw him neatly folding his uniform blazer before starting to unbutton his shirt.

“Wait, hold on.” You held up your hands as you tried putting one and one together, just to end up at three. “Not that I particularly mind where this is going but what’s happening right now?”

There was a shit-eating grin stretching across Jade’s lips and revealing his sharp teeth as he shrugged off his shirt, sauntering over to where you were standing as he slipped his gloves off. 

“Didn’t you say you wanted to see bioluminescence for yourself?” At his newfound proximity, you quickly averted your eyes from his swimmer’s body, to feign at least some form of decency, which seemed to amuse him even more. “Have I never told you that my people possess a form of bioluminescence ourselves?”

“You conveniently forgot to mention that.”

“An oversight on my part, my apologies,” Jade hummed, a hand placed over his heart, sounding not sorry at all.

“That aside, it’s not like I brought any swimwear,” you sighed, looking at his eyes and decidedly nowhere else. “Nor can I breathe or open my eyes in saltwater.”

Out of thin air, seemingly, Jade procured a small phial of shimmering liquid; the same one Azul had given to you when you went to the Coral Sea. At his unreadable smile, you raised an eyebrow but nonetheless took the potion from him. “How much of this did you plan out?”

“Fufu, do you really think I would carefully steer a conversation a certain way just to give me an excuse to bring you here?” When your answer was a resounding ‘yes’, he grinned even wider. “I see, this is the impression you have of me.”

“Also, this still doesn’t solve our first predicament,” you reminded him, yet already finding your resolve to deny him weakening. Damn the effect he had on you.

“I can’t see the predicament you speak of at all,” Jade mused, hands landing on your hips again as his fingers pinched the fabric of your uniform. “Perhaps this is a good chance for you to experience how a merperson would feel, swimming freely without any restrictive layers. You were so eager to learn earlier.”

“Jade Leech, are you suggesting I go skinny dipping in a public college pool?” You only received a closed-eye smile as a response as his hands tugged more of your shirt out of your pants. “I can’t believe you. And I can’t believe myself for going along with this…”

The vice housewarden was more than okay with undoing his former handiwork and helping you out of your tie, blazer and shirt. When it was time to remove the rest of your clothes, he left you to your own devices to do the same. For a second you contemplated leaving on your underwear but decided against it at the thought of having to walk back to your dorm with it either soaked or missing.

A splash behind you drew your attention as you draped your last article of clothing over the back of a chair you had found and you chugged down the potion, then ambled over to the pool’s edge again. Dipping your toes in, you breathed a sigh of relief when the water wasn’t too frigid, yet still settled for sitting down and hanging your legs in first.

After a minute or so of acclimating to the temperature, you wondered where your boyfriend had gone, unable to see anything in the dark water. Just then, a cold hand wrapped around your ankle. Despite knowing what -or rather who- it was, you still jerked your leg upwards, but it wasn’t like you got very far, Jade’s strength keeping you exactly where you were. A pair of mismatched eyes stared at you from right under the surface before Jade’s head emerged and broke through the water’s surface. 

“Looks like I caught myself a pearl,” he mused before gliding his webbed fingers up your bare claves, sending a jolt up your spine, but not from the coldness. Crossing his arms over your knees, he laid his head down on them so he could look at you properly, his bare chest resting against your legs. If it weren’t for the long shadow of his tail moving right under the water’s surface, he would have reminded you of an overgrown housecat.

“Oh no, whatever shall I do now?” You played along, running your hand through his wet, teal hair and gently caressing the fins where his ears would be. Sighing under your touch, his long nails absentmindedly traced over your thighs, careful not to  hurt you. “Please don’t eat me.”

Cracking his left eye open at your teasing, he pressed a lingering kiss above your knee, his teeth lightly gracing the skin there as he pulled away. Definitely not enough to hurt in any way, but enough to remind you of the danger he could pose; a notion that sent adrenaline racing through your body for all the wrong reasons. He winked at you, maybe as a promise for later. “We’ll see about that.”

As he parted from you, he pushed himself up in a display of awe-inspiring core strength and pulled you against him by your waist and thighs, taking you with him as he slowly sank under the surface again. Your hands tried finding purchase on his shoulders, yet continued to slip over the slick covering his skin. Jade, however, had no difficulties holding on to you.

On instinct you had closed your eyes and held your breath as you submerged but the careful caress of a thumb over your cheekbone prompted you to open them and take a tentative lungful of air. Just as back in the Coral Sea, the sensation was weird and unfamiliar but you didn’t drown, which you noted down as a pro.

Whatever you wanted to say died on your tongue as you looked at Jade. Bright spots glowed on his chest and the stripes running over his ribs glowed in an equally stunning teal. Backing up so he was a good arm’s length away, you studied the rest of him, finding that the stripes over his hips as well as clusters of spots on his arms and fins all seemed to be luminescent.

“You’re so beautiful,” you whispered, more to yourself than to him, yet he still pulled you flush against his torso again. Without much hesitation you started tracing the constellations you could reach. “They’re like stars.”

The moray was glad you couldn’t see his face from your position for an uncharacteristically genuine expression of shock decorated his face. Nobody back at home had ever complimented him so genuinely without any ulterior motives. Yes, he had been the one who instigated this little stunt but he hadn’t factored in that you always managed to tug on his heartstrings in the end. At first, he had been a little wary, wondering what you thought about his merform, especially after he had chased you around the sea like this before, but he realised he shouldn’t have worried.

“And you flatter me yet again,” he chuckled instead, tone and expression back to his usual show of amusement. Still, he looped his long tail around your middle once as his hands wandered over your curves and stroked along your skin that was so much more delicate compared to his. “Should I perhaps be wary that you are lowering my defences for nefarious reasons?”

“Ah and here I was hoping you wouldn't notice,” you sighed, fingertips brushing over the bright spots littering his tail as you held his gaze, his yellow eye almost glowing against the darkness that surrounded you. “Despite all the warnings I’ve intended to steal from you. This, to be precise.”

Maybe it was the fact it was just the two of you down here and the rest of the world was forgotten, that drove you to be so straightforward and sappy. But the rhythmic beating of his heart underneath your palm dispelled any feelings of shyness or awkwardness at the -frankly cliché- confession of affection. 

Not that Jade seemed to mind either. Before you caught up to what was happening he closed the gap between you and pressed his lips against yours. Perhaps taking the potion earlier was inconsequential after all as Jade moved with the intention of robbing you of all air anyway, the webbed fingers on the back of your head keeping you exactly where he wanted you. You cursed your lungs for burning with the need for oxygen, never having yearned for gills as much as in this moment, if it meant you could keep kissing him for just a second longer. Before he parted from you completely he bit down on your bottom lip, not enough to draw blood but just so to leave it tingling from his attention. 

“What a silly little darling,” Jade mused, tracing the shallow indents of his teeth with the pad of his thumb as he drank up the expression on your face. The coil of his tail around you grew just a tad tighter, yet still careful not to hurt you, as a sudden wave of possessiveness washed over him. “Everybody knows you can’t steal what’s already yours.”

© the-travelling-witch 2024 - do not repost, translate, copy or edit

if you like my content, reblogs, comments and asks are always much appreciated ♡

➺ send in an ask to be added to or removed from my tag list

twst tag list: @savanaclaw1996 @honehbee42

[otomaticallyobsessed]

IS IT CASUAL NOW? ── ace trappola + gn!reader, 1k

ace trappola has always been a somebody.

he was born a somebody, there is no denying that; not his father's iron fist always reminding him and his older brother that they could not have achieved the comforts they had today without the hard work of his ancestors, nor his mother's soft hands smoothening his messy hair and telling him to always be humble. there is something distinctive to his family name, the consonants twisting around his tongue like the echoes of the eternal city in a dying sunset and the ancient pathways of the foro romano; english nannies and private schools, summers in the afterglow savannah, winters in the north of the shaftlands.

his "first love" is at seventeen, summertime, at the poolside of some seaside village where a distant cousin let him sleep in the spare bedroom. the sun beats down on his nape kissed a hot, angry pink, and he lays on his back for hours and thinks of how the sun can eat him up with her love. he does not remember why or how he kissed you ── beautiful, sunkissed and golden in his memories of that heat wave in july ── but he remembers the mornings after where he awoke to your legs tangled with his beneath thin, cotton sheets as the sun rose in the horizon, skin tingling with sunburn and bruising kisses.

no one asks why you come down together for breakfast in the mornings, or why the mattress underneath the bed is no longer pulled out for someone to sleep on at night. when his nonna mentions how she expected it, considering how attached at the hip you two have been since first year, ace just gives a non-committal hum, and the subject is never brought up again.

when summer ends, ace does not kiss you goodbye. neither of you talk about it either.

this is not to say that you are a nobody, not to ace. he is not so foolish, not so prideful as he was in his youth just two years ago. ace has already shared with you most things that he would not divulge to just anyone; his time, his space, his bed. you are his other half, the same way he is to deuce; the way your little gaggle of troublemakers have tangled themselves in a web made up of a red string of fate. and so neither of you speak about those hot summer months, entangled with each other like pieces of an ambitious puzzle, and life goes on. there is a shift, yes, he feels it in the marks from your nails in long, linear b lines down his back, stolen moments in between classes in dark janitor's closets, your tie and underwear tucked inside his drawer, but nothing has changed. you sleep over, then you're gone by morning for your next class. you see him in the hallway and beam, let him sling his arm around you like you are both still sixteen and first-years in a school that seems so much bigger than the two of you.

you never stay, but ace never loses you.

ace cannot lose you, or at least, he doesn't think he can. he has never lost anything, anybody; not once in his life. people have only been dismissed from his company, or little toys taken away for some time for his misbehaviour.

but he has never lost.

and then winter of third year rolls along, and there is a trembling sense of finality that settles over ace when he sees you studying for what will be your final exams, skin pale without that warm glow months before. he sees you less often, kisses you less often, as even he has to be hidden away indoors, skulking around dark corridors leaves him saturnine and dreading the exam hall and the weight of his pen in his hand. ace goes to bed alone, and even in those few moments where he manages to stay awake before his head hits the pillow, he thinks about how cold the bed is without you.

ace thinks about how this will be the last year the two of you spend together, before you're both inevitably sent off someplace else, surely not together, for your work practice.

and suddenly losing you becomes terrifyingly plausible.

ace doesn't want to be a somebody if it's not with you; he knows this now for certain. he sleeps over at ramshackle when exams are over, but even when you kiss him he cannot help but think: this is the last time, this is the last time, this is the last time—

maybe that's why he swallows when he watches you get dressed the next morning, thinks of your mocking in saccharine sweet just the night before, crooning in his ear: poor, poor ace. always gets what he wants, and the moment he doesn't, he throws a little fit.

that's wrong, ace had wanted to say. he doesn't remember throwing a fit, not once in his entire childhood. and then he looks up at you, divinity in the flesh, hands wrapped around his throat, and he thinks: oh. i've never had anything to lose before you.

“mhm?” you hum when ace wraps his arm around your hips, lazy but firm. his lips press against the curve where your the skin of your waist stretches over your hipbones, that sweet curve. “you want me to call someone to bring breakfast? i think jack can be convinced.”

“mrm,” ace mumbles against the sweet curve of your waist to hip, the single syllable roughly translated to “no, thank you” by your keen sense.

(his sweet darling, his other half)

“what is it?” you coo, running a hand through his messy auburn hair. “c’mon, i agreed to take ruggie’s shift—“

“fuck ruggie, respectfully,” ace grumbles, and he tilts his chin to look up at you, his mahogany eyes soft and sweet and lovely. “stay.”

stay.

he sees your expression falter at the word. he’s never said it to you, not in this context. ace was so foolish to think he could have you without asking, so dumb to even consider that you’d stay for someone you weren’t even officially bound to.

“stay?” you echo, voice small.

“stay with me,” he reiterates, his cheeks beginning to burn. ace sees the corners of your lips tug up, and he thinks he sees you somewhere down the road, making fun of him and his stupidity at your wedding table.

(his heart swells at the thought, endlessly fond)

“yeah?” you’re smiling now. little shit, he thinks in the same breath as: how pretty.

“yeah,” ace exhales, before his heart seizes. “…will you?”

you laugh, and it sounds like summertime and first loves. “obviously, dumbass. i thought you’d never ask.”

(he was foolish to even doubt)

© trappolia 2024

[otomaticallyobsessed]

by saying something stupid, like “i love you”.

twisted wonderland ౨ৎ vil schoenheit. 1.5k words.

warnings : reader has some insecure moments ( as we all would with vil ). happy ( late ) birthday vil ! ♡

there was always an overwhelming sense of pride you felt as a friend of the vil schoenheit — not just as a personal label, but given to you by the man himself. with such title, you got the behind scenes of all he’d share; movies, shows, modelling, anything and everything vil did, you most likely knew about. even if he couldn’t tell you in person, he’d call you, or shoot you a text – sometimes nothing more than a few words telling you to be ready with face masks, or a simple picture of him on set in a beautiful gown or fitted suit. you’d be lying if you didn’t feel a little special when you thought about who vil was to the public.

though he meant much more to you than his image. if he thought of you as a friend, you thought of him as your best friend — always giving advice that saved your ass more times than possible to count, letting you in on all the best fashion and beauty tips that nobody except vil probably knew, he was everything someone dreamed of having by their side. as a friend. which, was enough for you — you had to think that, to convince yourself that your absolutely beautiful friend with a face sculpted by gods, and hair that flowed and was as precious as ichor, there was no room for romance when it came to him. it made you embarrassed to even entertain the idea, that vil schoenheit could like you back — when you’re that perfect you’re able to have anyone.

but, with such perfection comes problems — the biggest one for you right now being what the hell you should gift him for his birthday. vil had everything he could need, custom-made skincare, perfectly tailored clothing, madol galore, you couldn’t offer much except your best of wishes, all the products needed to blend his smoothies, and the entire night reserved for him, if he wished to take it. you only hoped it was enough along with your little surprise with streamers.

and, to your delight, vil seems happy with your little display – of course careful to not get any strands in his hair and mess it up – and gives you a smile, patting your head as he treats you to a compliment. “i expected something like this, but it was still lovely nonetheless.” with how many people have been coming up to him, and definitely messaging him, vil’s probably been through it all today — every kind of birthday wish and greeting, it was only right for him to think of what you might be planning. and though it may have disappointed you a bit to not surprise him, you let his compliment go to your heart, and returned that fond smile that made your face go hot. i’m glad you liked it.

feeding you with even more happiness, vil tells you how he’d freed up the day to celebrate, and looks at you expectedly, practically forcing your little offer out of you — which pulls a dramatic sigh from him, complaining of how he needs nothing more than to relax with you, throwing his arm over your shoulder as he leads you through the pomefiore dormitory. once again, you’re feeling special — while everybody waits to see if he’ll allow a birthday party to be thrown for him, and to be graced by his presence, you get to be by his side and have a private and personal celebration with vil.

he seems to have already expected this to happen, as the second you reach his bedroom, there’s pairs of pajamas awaiting the two of you on his bed and the face scrubs with your usual spa headbands sitting on his vanity. it makes you smile as he excuses you to the restroom, placing your pair in your hands and telling you to not keep him waiting — he’s the birthday boy after all. and your smile turns into soft laughter, even when he allows you to go first, he still rushes you. you wonder if anyone else has ever seen this side of him. if anyone has ever had this kind of friendship with him. it’s selfish, but you hope you’re the only he’s trusted like this, but maybe that’s simply because of the racing of your heart you get whenever he treats you so kindly — you know other’s like him too, but if anybody else were to know vil like this, they’d fall in love too. especially as pathetically as you have.

you’re shaken from these pestering thoughts at vil’s knock, asking if everything’s alright — and you’re glad he can’t see you with how hot your face burns from embarrassment. you give a very reassuring ‘mhm!’, and rush the clothes on and throw your former in a bin that he’d gotten just for when you come over. you’re sure you look a little messy with the tut vil gives, smoothing over your arms as he tells you he’ll be quick, and to get everything ready like usual. even being his friend, his beauty was intimidating, as was the way affection seemed to come naturally to him — mainly, you’d guessed, from his caring nature (even if it wasn’t a nature that wasn’t easily made out). his soft face and calming touches put you in a constant state of relaxation around him, though your overwhelming crush made you tense at even the slightest action your heart deemed as romantic, even if your brain argued it was friendly fondness.

you tell him he looks lovely when he steps out (you’ve learned to say something other than ‘nice’) — a satin slip accompanied by a short robe, and you guess it’s a set with how similar they look. vil smiles at you again, and you wonder how many times he’s done that today – more than usual, you think, and it makes you warm and giddy. never could you get enough of that expression, even if it’s greedy (though he’d scold you if you said that). his hands are soft as ever, smooth skin and slim fingers with perfectly filed nails applying the mask to your face, you feel sad to close your eyes and miss him, but you let vil work his magic — and afterwards, it’s your turn. you feel nervous, something you have felt rarely when doing things like this for him, and your heartbeat fills your ears as you compare how awful your hands must feel in comparison to his. really, you should moisturize more often like he’s told you to. yet, your worries are quelled when he opens his mouth, “your hands feel nice.” maybe vil is a mind reader, or maybe your fingers are shaking as they rub over his pretty features.

more and more time passes, until the sun fades into the distance, and allows the moon to take it’s reign. your skin feels blessed by an angel (which, in a way, it has been), and your mouth and stomach feel delighted from his smoothie blends. again, vil slides his arm over your shoulder, lightly nudging you to follow along with him and go to the balcony. even if it’s colder, and your nightwear isn’t the best for such conditions, you happily trail after him when he’s moved his arm back to his side — there’s just something about vil that makes you want to follow. maybe it’s to watch and admire him, like rook does, or maybe it’s to have the chance to be something in his life. something more than what you are.

there’s twinkling in his eyes as he stares on, his beautiful hand holding his beautiful face, and you feel jealous of it. the night sky is lucky to have such a perfect man admiring it — and you are also lucky, to be able to stare and adore your own star. and it feels oddly similar, both something you will never be close to, but you will always see it — vil is far above you in every regard, and you wonder why he’d chosen you to be such a good friend of his when he undoubtedly had a million options of those who’d die to just be within his proximity.

your mouth seems to move on its own, a few stray tears accompanying your words as you slip out how you love him. just a little whisper — but it’s loud enough to reach his ears, and he whips his head around so fast you can’t believe he’d make such a movement. “do you mean that?” his voice is accusatory, but questioning, and you almost feel like letting yourself go to cry. he’s going to let you down gently, you know that, and you hope he doesn’t let you go completely — but you still nod knowing that’s a possibility.

he sighs, shaking his head with a small chuckle, and it feels like your heart is going to shatter. how much of an idiot you were to think-- “Sevens. you have no idea how long i’ve been waiting to hear you finally say that.”

--that vil schoenheit didn’t love you just as much.

[otomaticallyobsessed]

Um hello! I saw your asks were open! If it's not too big of a deal, could I ask for Ace and Deuce fighting over who gets to confess to reader first?

A Fight For Love

thank you for the request! hope you enjoy this <3

Ace x reader / Deuce x reader Summary: Ace and Deuce fighting over who gets to confess to reader first. Warnings: Yuu!reader, (english is not my first language)

You could hear a commotion from the common room. You aren’t supposed to have anybody over today, your sweet day off from all the bullshit this campus has brought upon you since day 1.

But obviously, the universe had other plans. It’s when you hear a loud meow and a crash that you finally acknowledge what will most likely transform your afternoon into a wild goose chase for a solution to a problem you have nothing to do with. 

Sometimes you wonder how the world was able to go on without anybody's extinction before you came along. 

It’s with a sigh that you get up from your newly bought bed (Epel somehow, someway, destroyed the previous one) and walk from your bedroom to the corridor, to the stairs, and finally to the common room, where you find before you what could only be considered a scene from a shitty comedy show from the early 2000s. 

Ace with a chair in his raised hands, ready to throw it at his opponent. What shocks you from that vision is the fact that the chair in his hands is from his own dorm, which means he has to have brought it with him himself, for some reason. 

Deuce has Grim in his right hand and a pillow in the other and you can see the cat trying to scratch his attacker for freedom.

Poor Jack in the middle with both his hands put in a position to stop the idiot duo and his body angled to shield Epel who until that point looked unbothered from all the chaos. 

Thankfully the moment you enter the room everybody has the dignity to either look shocked and apologetic or downright embarrassed. Grim takes his chance to jump away from Deuce’s hands and runs to you.

“What the hell is everybody doing and why are you doing it in my dorm? Of all the places in the world!” Now that’s when they all look down, trying to make themselves look pathetic in your eyes to hopefully not get an earful from you.

“He started it!”

“He started it!”

“I didn’t even do anything!”

“I’m sorry, I was trying to stop them!”

“Myaah!”

They all scream in unison making your head spin and they continue to do so, screaming at each other who did what to whom for that reason and the other. ‘It was my idea first!’ ‘I thought about it before you!’ ‘I care about it more!’ ‘I’m older’! Blah, blah, blah. Excuses, excuses, excuses. Couldn’t they be more cliche?

“STOP! Everybody out! I don’t know what’s going on and I honestly don’t care. It’s my day off so whatever problem you’ve brought upon yourselves, deal with it. On your own.”

Miraculously they all leave without saying a single word. In your heart, you know that this is something that you’ll have to help solve one way or the other. Since the day you came to this freakish land is like you’ve become the go-to problem solver and everybody else has lost the ability to be independent. But one thing at a time, now the most important thing to do is go upstairs, get under those warm fluffy blankets, and take a fat nap. 

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

“Oh Great Seven, now she’s angry with us. Again!”

“Ace, stop whining as if it’s not your doily as well.”

The duo continues to bicker back and forth until they reach their dorm room. Jack and Epel left them the moment they saw a chance to escape their idiocy, so it’s only the two of them. The two of them are confronted by their oh-so-lovely, red-faced, angry housewarden.

Once Ace is able to tuck himself to bed without breaking his neck due to the collar now attached to it, he thinks that maybe stealing a chair wasn’t one of his brightest ideas…

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

Monday, dreadful dreadful Monday. 

Like every day the two idiots are waiting for you outside of your dorm so that you can walk together to your respective classes, but before you can even reach them you can already hear them bickering and arguing over Seven knows what.

“Ok, this is getting tiring. What are you two babbling about that is getting you so worked up?” 

“I need to tell you something!”

“I need to tell you something!”

Again with the screaming over each other. “Well unfortunately I can’t hear both of you at the same time so you’ll have to decide who goes first. So?” That’s when they choose to remain silent and not say a word. You honestly have no idea how you’ve been able to hang out with these two without going mad. “Whatever, if you don’t want to talk then so be it, just deal with this thing on your own and make peace, we don’t want to get in trouble again, do we?”

They both nod their head in agreement and start walking to the school with you.

· · ────── ·𖥸· ────── · ·

They find themselves in their dorm room at the end of the day, trying to come to a decision without it becoming a brawl. Riddle is already weary of them after yesterday's shenanigans.

“I really want to go first! If you say it before me I won’t have the courage to say it ever again! You wouldn’t have these reservations and you know it!” Deuce whines.

“Ok, but what if the prefect hears you first and immediately agrees to go out? Then I won’t be able to get a date! I want to go first!”

“Fine! I don’t want you to say it first and you don’t want me to say it first. I get it. Then let’s come to an agreement, who can get the prefect alone first gets to ask first, that way it’s fate that gets to decide. Do you accept?” Ace at that grumbles a bit but ultimately shakes Deuce's hand and seals the deal. Tomorrow the game begins

You wake up, dress up, and meet the guys outside. The routine goes on without a hitch, whatever they did to deal with their problem worked because you don’t hear them argue all day. Granted it seems like they don’t want to leave your side either, nearly asking if they can come to the bathroom with you, but a win is s win and you learned to take what you can get. The only moment of reprise you get for the day is when the duo as to leave in the afternoon to go to their respective clubs, well not exactly, they did ask you if you would come with them to hang out a bit more but with how tiring the day has been you decline and tell them that you were going to relax a bit around the campus and to text you once they’re done if they still want to spend time with you.

You were in the library trying to learn about fae history when you hear hurried footsteps coming towards you. Most likely Ace since he told you that he got out of basketball practice early and asked if he could talk to you.

When you finally see him he’s sweating profusely and has a stink clinging to him.

“Did you seriously come here directly without at least taking a shower? You smell so bad, dude!”

He doesn’t seem to care about your statement and simply straightens up and looks at you with a solemn expression. 

“Dear prefect, there is a very important thing that I must make you aware of!”

“Dude calm down, you’re being really weird right now.” While you study him, trying to ascertain his well-being, all he does is blush.

“IhaveacrushonyouandIwouldliketogooutwithyou!”

“...what?” And now he looks even more embarrassed, the poor guy can’t catch a break. He speaks clearly and slowly now, trying to make sure to use the right words.

“I’ve liked you for a while now. You’re funny, strong, and proud. You’re a great person and an even better friend and I would be honored if you’d agree to go out on a date with me.”

He is looking right into your eyes, hoping to be able to discern your feelings after his confession.

“Oh, sure. That’d be nice” 

“What? That’s it? It’s that easy?”

“I mean, why shouldn’t it be? You like me, I like you, let’s go out. Simple really.”

“Sweet!” He smiles to himself and walks away, not saying another word. It’s only when he’s halfway to his room that what you just said sinks in.

“WAIT! SHE LIKES ME?!”

The botanical gardens have a charm to them, they are always a little warmer than the outside world, a little humid, and full of plants with colorful flowers and fun-shaped leaves. It’s a relaxing place to be in, no wonder Leona has a habit of sleeping here so often.

You were enjoying the beauty of a flower, one that resembles a chrysanthemum, tho not exactly.

Somebody clears their throat behind you and when you turn around you see Deuce standing a few feet away from you. He gives you a small smile and gestures for you to sit down on one of the benches with him. He takes your hands in his and looks briefly into your eyes but immediately looks back down at your intertwined hands.

“Listen, I have to tell you something and it’s very important”

“What did you do this time? I promise I won’t be mad,” He raises his head so fast with a panicked face.

“NO! You got it all wrong! I’m not in trouble! I’m in love with you! … I wasn’t supposed to say it like that…”

“Oh, well how were you supposed to say it then?” You tilt your head lightly trying to not make him more sad than he already is.

“I had this whole speech prepared. I wanted to say all these nice things…” And how can you not feel something pull at your heartstrings just by looking into those puppy dog eyes?

“Well, how about you tell me all about how much of an amazing person I am on our date? Saturday for lunch? At Mostro Lounge? Azul owes me a favor still so we might even be able to eat for free,” The look of pure unadulterated wonder in his eyes is enough to make you smile. Tho the scream he lets out does make you wince in pain a bit. Your ears are gonna need to be checked out.

[otomaticallyobsessed]

SCHISM. jade leech

You could not grab a full-bodied mushroom, that had already lived a life outdoors, and stick it into a terrarium. "I know the pieces fit because I watch them tumble down" - TOOL, Track 5 on Lateralus

tags: established relationship, relationship issues, soul bond, ghost camera, angst w a happy? ending, character study, parental crewel, mental breakdown(s), crowley finds a way to send the prefect home, grimms fairytales, tattoos

word count: 16,920

“No! NoNONO! Wait, Jade! Cut it out Jade! Jade!” 

The words you let out are overflowing with terror. Palpable fear making itself known by method of your vocal cords. Out of you comes one last fruitless, ignored shriek of his name before you cry like a child on a rollercoaster. With you in his arms, Jade falls back first off the cliffside.

Catlike, you cling onto your boyfriend. Pointed nails dig deeply into his neck, causing little injuries and indents. The fall is short and, before you know it, you are both underwater, weightless.

It is freezing and awful and warm and great all at the same time. You want to resurface immediately. Which you do, kicking yourself out of the constricting arms around your waist. Lake water ripples and billows. Once you surface, you expect to hear that mocking laughter. Rivulets of water cascade down your neck and face as you bring two soaking wet hands up to your temple to wipe away water – rather fruitless. But you clear the skin over your eyes and open them, searching for what you thought you would find in sound.

“My clothes are drenched, Jade,” you whine, knowing he can hear you no matter if he is underwater. 

The lake remains a calm surface, no body popping up. Kicking your legs and waiting, you glance up at the cliffside Jade had thrown both of you off of. Sun burns the palm you face up to its golden rays, protecting your eyes. There is, sitting all pretty. The mushroom you had been going to collect lies unplucked. Next to it, your pair of sunglasses that had fallen off your nose when you were lifted as easily as a mischievous cat.

Though, you are not the mischievous one in this. That description belongs to another: the one sly predator swimming underwater and avoiding surfacing for mischievous reasons most likely. Who were kidding, you think watching still waters, definitely for those types of reasons.

And you only get one warning – a hand pinched on your nose and a hand cupping your mouth – before you are dragged right back underwater. 

You thrash wildly. A lean body folds and tilts itself over you. You punch at where you think his shoulder or rib-cage is. He spins you once then twice underwater, disorienting you. You clutch at his shirt and pull. He kicks at your right leg and bends your body as if it is a bow. Wrestling against one another, your objective to resurface and his objective to dance clash until finally Jade pulls you up for air.

This time mocking laughter accompanies the cool sting of air. “Ugh, you jerk! You absolute – ugh!! My clothes!” Your punching fist is caught. Jade twists it and wraps it around his neck in an amorous hold like you two were going to start tango-ing. He laughs, subdued chortling at your furious expression. 

“Fufufu, you should’ve seen your face.”

“This is Floyd level behavior! I cannot believe you!”

“Come now, (Name). You were just complaining about the heat.”

You gasp, offended. “The heat?! You did this because –”

“Because I wanted to assist my love however I could? Yes, of course. I do need to take care of you after all.”

“Oh, you ass,” you growl and dig your nails in the back of his neck. 

Jade is unaffected by your humane strength. Instead, Jade smiles at your attempt to inflict any harm on him. His lips pull up and you are struck breathless by the visage of him. Sunlight falls on his glass-clear skin in an evangelical way. Teal hair is pressed down by water, slick with a rare shine. Even with black eyeliner smudged raccoon-esque, his eyes are piercing and vibrant. A lemon and an olive, rich like plucked from a painting. You punch his latissimus for being so effortlessly handsome at times.

With clipped and vexed words, you say, “I’m cool now. Thank you.”

“It’s my pleasure.” His white smile is aggravatingly handsome too. “Don’t I get a reward for my consideration,” Jade asks, not missing a beat, simply floating with you in his arms.

“Take me back to the shore?”

“Of course I will.”

“Okay, here’s your reward,” you say, pecking him on the lips. “Now then.” Your gaze sharpens. “Shore. Now.”

When you two finally reach the lake’s sandy border, you start to wring out your button-up. You will not walk around in wet clothes. The dripping fabric of your tank top suctions itself to your skin in an unrelenting, octopus-like grip. You glare when Jade openly stares. Half-lidded eyes trace up and down the curvatures of you. Taking the shoulder ends of your button-up, you whip the material down hard once then twice then thrice, watching as water droplets splash your boyfriend. 

Take that, you think triumphantly as you remove another article of clothing.

Jade gets back at you by taking his own wet button-up and wringing it out over your head rather than over the dirt like you had done. Dropping the shoe you were shaking water out of, you attack him and his self-satisfied, coy smirk. 

It takes about five minutes of horseplaying until you two get back on task. 

You sit on shore, squeezing water out of socks and mourning when Jade was more cowardly about touching. All two sets of teeth yet no bite. Endearing courting methods involved gifts, and even then, he was earnestly timid about it. Hand like a shield on his heart all the time as if to translate, be gentle with me. 

Rolling a still damp sock back on your foot, you think that message was truly worth ignoring. Jade Leech and gentle were antonymous. 

Still, there was a certain charm about his slyness. The fake humanitarianism he wore in his finely pressed uniform and neat bow was attractive. The glowing, angular silhouette of those sharp, up-turned eyes could still make you swoon. Something about him being out of reach was magnetizing. 

But … you watch as Jade walks up to you, your mushroom and sunglasses in his hand, there is something equally magnetizing in unlocking this part of him. 

And you have to admit the dip into the lake did wonders dropping down your temperature. Now you were not losing by such a large margin in the battle against heat stroke. 

You let him have this win. And you let him come to you. Accepting your sunglasses, you lay them to perch on the crown of your head. Before he offers a hand out to you, Jade carefully places your mushroom in the bucket you two have been wandering around with. He drapes his wet button-up over the button, electing to stay in his own tank top.

“Not going to dry out your socks?”

“No, I happen to enjoy the feeling of walking around in wet socks. Reminds me of home”

“You’re incorrigible.”

A smile splits across Jade’s face at your harsh words. Stalactites and stalagmites of razor enamel shine in his mouth, menacingly. And yet he offers out a hand to you, nails trimmed down to the plate, safe and warm even if it is calloused a bit.

Your eyes trail over him. Past shoes and compression tights and white cargo shorts. Gliding over the palm of his pallid hand and over the black eel skeleton made of tattoo ink which wraps itself from elbow to shoulder. Up to his collarbone, to his face, and to his eyes. 

A fond thought arrives in the mailbox of your mind. It is a letter perfumed in heart, base, and top notes of aquatic and woody scents. The smell of stepping on the beach and breathing it all in so deeply that your ribs ache. As the letter’s wax seal melts off, you read and transcribe the letter into the passionate smile on your lips and the way you trust yourself with holding Jade’s hand. The letter reads: I think I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

That was only yesterday.

That was only yesterday. Now, that mental letter means nothing to you. 

How quickly our opinions can change, you reflect, standing in Crowley’s office with a pearl of torment clutched in the bowels of a stomach ready to puke. 

When you were summoned to Dire Crowley’s office, you were vexed more than anxious. In your head bounced around the theories on what under-the-table job the Headmaster was kindly electing for you to take care of. Another thirty plus stack of papers he did not want to write his signature on or another school activity that you would be generously put in charge of. You weighed the options of work as Grim (perched on your shoulder) weighed the options of what you would ask for as a reward.

“Tuna croquettes, Henchman, imagine the taste of those! When Crowley gives us our job, ask for those! Ask for tuna –”

“What even is a croquette? When did you learn a French word?” You can already guess the answer to the second question: if it involves food, not even a language barrier can stop Grim from learning about it.

“They’re these breaded balls of tuna that are deep-fried.” You stick your tongue out in disgust. “They look delicious. You can dip them in honey or put them on crackers. Oh, Henchman, you have to ask for them. And we should pick up more honey for home.”

“I’ll remember to pick up honey. I can’t promise any tuna coqu –”

“Croquettes.”

“Croquettes. You know, you need to stop watching food blogs or going on websites like Food & Wine. I found my phone opened up to twelves tabs of just food blog recipes last week.”

“I’m not the one browsing them. Jade is.”

“Well, I’m cutting both you and Jade off. You’re grounded from looking at food blogs together. I can only handle so many different ways to organize a bento box before I go crazy.”

“Henchman,” Grim whines, nuzzling his fur against your cheek. “But they all look so yummy.”

“Grounded,” you had declared just before pushing open the door to Dire Crowley’s office, knowing he was already expecting you. How you wish you could re-spark that easy conversation between you and Grim. How you yearn to have the foresight to ignore his summoning.Now, you stand in front of Crowley, frozen. 

“He-Henchman,” Grim whines, trying to get you to speak or at the very least blink.

Blind-sighted is the only accurate description for you. Your eyes sit in your skull like wispy white spider eggs, paralyzed. If breathing were not a necessity, you would dare not even breathe. Vision blurring, you focus on the thin lips of Crowley underneath his raven masquerade mask, replaying all he had said. Salted water twitches on your bottom eyelashes. 

After seven volatile overblots, the too close for comfort spell of comatose casted over the entire world, and two years of rapidly draining hope, you had a way to go home through the assistance of the Dark Mirror and Dire Crowley.

You think you really are going to puke.

The only thing that halts your throat from cleaning itself of previous dishes is the bite of Grim’s fangs on your cheek. Like four tiny needles, his fangs sink in with a vengeance. You startle back with a yelp, stepping back, fruitlessly because your attacker is still laying on your shoulder. “Grim, ouch!” Blood holds itself unsteady in the puncture mark before one droplet slides down your cheek. You bat him off your shoulder. “That hurt.”

Grim lands gracefully in the space between you and the Headmaster. He turns around on two legs, neck craning to look up at you. His eyes are wishing wells of cerulean blue. You know what that sorrowful color means without his frowning eyebrows telling you his thoughts indirectly. “You’re not planning on going are you, (Name)?”

You are not a fantastic multitasker but you might just find yourself puking and crying. The wobble in his voice as if his emotions were an earthquake. How were you to explain what it was to yearn for family when Grim’s only family was … his only family was you. 

“Gr-Gri,” your bottom lip trembles. 

You find yourself unable to do anything but react to physical pain. Speaking meant acknowledging it. Ignoring Grim’s question, you look up at Crowley, past his lips to those glowing eyes. “Headmaster, I –” Your words pitifully stop there. No section of your mind can construct a sentence and you cannot even say Grim’s name fully.

You look at him with child-like vulnerability. Vulnerability seen in the eyes of kindergartens who are squeamish that the world has become big — the world offering more than just their four walled home — and thus look up at their teachers for guidance. Nervous without their parents around. Sevens, you are only nineteen. 

You cannot lie; I want to see them again.

Perhaps the desperation in your eyes is prominent because Dire Crowley quickly amends, “Now, this is not without some wiggle-room. I am not an unreasonable person! According to the Magic Mirror, you have exactly a month before the carriage arrives. Plenty of time! 

“Now, I have done my part in delivering the news,” Crowley says jovially. Jovially as if he has not turned your entire world on its head. 

“Wai –” 

You stutter. A hand is already pressed firmly on the small of your back. Your body shudders with a riptide of thoughts. Thinking about the conditions of how you will get home, thinking about asking for an extension, thinking about how unfair it all is. After Tsunotaro’s overblot, you managed to accept your place in Twisted Wonderland and one raindrop day causes all that to shift into a storm.

All the conditions of Crowley’s instruction fight in your head. Five talons on your back fight to move your catatonic body. You feel as elastic as rubber and as stone as granite. Somewhere far away, you think you hear Grim hiss. What are you going to tell Jade? And with that horrible thought, you allow yourself to be pushed out of the office.

You think you feel Grim crawl back up to your shoulder but you feel as if some supernatural force has kicked you into the back of the line, kicked you out of your mind. 

“Now (Name), please remember the Dark Mirror says this event only lasts for four hours. Think of it like a solar eclipse; it is a change of elements allowing this method to work. The carriage will ride past the –'' The rest of Crowley’s words waterfall out his mouth like white static. There is a strange ringing in your ears. You think you might pass out.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you wag your tongue, speaking words you will not remember tomorrow. 

Crowley says something more but it is a breeze, wordless and untranslatable, before closing his door. You stare at the gradient of wood. There is an urge to knock on it again, worrying your memory is wrong and now is the first time you were called into Crowley’s office. But you know … how you know what reality this is. It feels like you left parts of your brain lobotomized and body amputated, lying beyond that gradient wood; missing parts of yourself.

You rub your cheek, a little blood gathering on your knuckle. Grim’s bite, you remember, bleeding as if you had dug into a pimple. “Huh? I.” Without fully gathering all the parts of yourself back up, you walk off after a breath of hesitation.

Grim hops off your shoulder as you two glide away. The physical burden of this situation is already a heavy weight on your shoulder, you do not need him adding to it. Observing that, Grim stays quiet on his two legs, keeping stride.

He feels his skin bubbling with questions. Your eyes are full of water refusing to fall. Will you two be returning to class or Ramshackle? You were called into Crowley’s office in the middle of Magic Analysis class. Would you really still have the fortitude to write up answers? 

Your mind was swimming with something much more tantalizing than the differences of divination magic in users like the Fates to users like Jafar. 

Grim watches you stop in the corridor. About two hallways away from Magic Analysis class. You stare ahead, blank and dollike; then, as if a horrid thought has passed into your mind, you move as fast as a scorpion. 

For the briefest moment, horror is in your eyes. A tight, clenching hand flies up to your face, slapping itself over your mouth as if you are going to vomit or scream. You squeeze your eyes tightly together, doubling over at the hip. Nails dig (four on the left and one thumb on the right side) into your cheek, forceful enough to leave marks. 

The pain is grounding. 

Hyperventilating for no more than ten seconds, you suddenly straighten up, taking a deep breath. You put the thought away like a child pushing their shoes into a cubby. When you look down at Grim, your eyes are dry as his big blue eyes implore you to speak. Your body shakes slightly like you have goosebumps running up and down your skin.

“Henchman?”

“Tuna croquettes. What would you say if I made some tonight,” you give Grim an unsteady smile but your voice is magically even. “You’ll have to pull your weight and help me. It’s been a while since we cooked together, right?”

Heartslabyul is the first to know. Thus is the natural law of order. 

There is probably an unconventional rule written down: lies can only be told on a Tuesday if the liar has prematurely prepared mealworms for the hedgehogs during noon … or … something eccentrically long like that. A rule only plausible for Heartslabyul standards. But you predicted, walking into Magic Analysis class yesterday, that Ace and Deuce were going to find out the truth first. Even if you were not prepared to tell them it.

The reveal was a far leap from graceful. Unplanned, your woes spilled out of Grim’s mouth, something about you not being there for finals. Sudden cobblestone hits your back. Wincing at the bite of the school wall, you wilt at the rapid fire of Ace and Deuce, not even getting space to speak, Ace starting:

“You only get a month! How long have you known!”

“Grim just told us you aren’t going to be here for finals, and he well – he!”

“He’s gotta be joking, right?”

“After Draconia’s overblot, I thought it was impossible to –”

“Prefect, I can not go through that again. I know I joke about sleeping forever. But those are jokes!”

“Ace! … But really how did Crowley and the Dark Mirror figure it out?”

“They haven’t contacted Briar Valley have they? Not even Crowley can be that suicidal.”

“I mean, I can totally understand if you want to go; we all have families but –”

“But you don’t want to go right, Prefect?”

“Ace, don’t just ask them that!”

“Oh shut it! Why shouldn’t I ask, you coward? No one else is gonna but us!”

“Wait, does anyone else know, (Name), besides Grim.”

“So no one else knows.” You nod. “Wait, when will you tell Jade?”

Never, a part of you thinks. Wanting to save yourself from the hurt, you judge wrongly that you can continue through this month without having to face Jade and tell him. You just want to avoid the pain. Cobblestone-made bruises hum on your shoulders, deep in reminder. 

You did not even get to break the news in Ramshackle, away from prying eyes. When you finally got a word in edgewise, you were still pressed against the outdoor wall of Night Raven College. The walking crowd was gratefully small … yet you stayed anxious over the idea anyone else would find out. The college was a hunting ground for weakness and each dorm was not above spreading a rumor. 

Your anger at Grim for revealing your predicament lasts only ten minutes. What good was fruitless anger when these might be your last days in Twisted Wonderland? 

Eventually, the group of five in Heartslabyul come to know. If Ace and Deuce knew something, the information eventually falls like dominoes to Cater, Trey, and Riddle. 

Even with two of the three away on their internship, the information was passed over. Your favorite cake appears glittering with magic residue on the porch of Ramshackle with a letter signed by Trey that leaves you shaking. Quotes on eternalism – specifically time’s finiteness – from books and poetry start to bloom on Cater’s Magicam stories, not enough to change his feed but enough to stir up suspicion, and you feel that pit in your stomach deepen.

Other than the five in Heartslabyul, you keep the predicament from everyone else. Tears welling up in Kalim’s eyes; disbelief writing itself on Ruggie’s face; the volume of Sebek’s concern mounting in your ears. You do not want to deal with any of it.

Jade … you do not want to even think of how that will blow over. Would you get tears? Most likely not. Would you be shouted at? No, you have not heard Jade really shout. Would his expression reveal his inner turmoil and disbelief? No, he is a master at schooling his expressions. So predictable yet not, you mourn, walking down the hallways to your next class.

When we are at the height of our most paranoid, we think that every conversation that we cannot hear is about us. 

You reflect upon this philosophy as you walk. Whenever glancing or idle eyes fall upon you, you get this stabbing pain running itself through your spinal cord. Your heart spikes when you see Riddle interact with Silver in class, jumping to the obvious: they are talking about me. Lips move yet sounds are unheard; in response, your heart drums a solo of fortissimo fear.

About three-fourth through the day, you leave Grim who has been gluing himself to your side with Deuce. Citing that you are feeling unwell and need to go to the nurse. No one argues with your firm insistence that you do not need a guide. 

Your feet carrying you to the Mostro Lounge is simply muscle memory. If you want to calm down, you go to Jade. Knowing his schedule too is all ingrained in you. 

The host sits you in a booth pressed snuggly against the aquarium’s glass. Upon your request, he neglects to give you a menu or coaster. This one time you will not be dining. You know it will vex Azul, taking up space where a paying customer could be, but you will make him forgive you. 

Underneath electric, pulsing blue lights, you sit like an egg in an incubator. Facing the stretching walls of a sixteen foot tall aquarium. Shielded and blanketed by cerulean and black shadows. Entirely still. 

What are you going to do? More people will come to know – people you care for and would not like to be torn from. And they will try to gauge or guide your decision, perhaps do both at once. You abhor that idea. All you really want right now is someone to be your rock to latch to when there is a riptide around you, someone who will be calm in the stare of a calamity. 

Questioning, your eyes trace the motions of a codfish. It is odd for one of them to be swimming off from the school. He swims on the very belly of the conjoined body the school has made, pressing the limits of harmony. 

The yellow-olive codfish starts to break the formation completely. Curious thing. You wonder if it has a disease. Determined, the codfish swims to the bottom of the aquarium, tail dilating back and forth as it heads down. But if a fish has an illness, usually they float? Ah, you are no marine biologist so you can never tell. 

Then, you finally spot what it wants. A mollusk resting against a rock formation, just shy of a fake shipwreck punched full of holes. The codfish descends down to it. Cold fingers go up to your lips, concealing a smile, effortlessly. Adopting his mannerisms, you think with a laugh. Ah … you really have been spending far too much time with Jade to the point where you mimic him.

You anticipate it this time. Sediment explodes in a puffing cloud. The codfish retreats almost comically. And, slowly like savoring his success, the moray eel slinks his head back through the cavern of the starboard, mollusk caught in his mouth. 

“Chamomile tea. It is known to soothe even the most anxious of souls.” 

To be honest, you would have expected that voice to be much closer. His chin hovering over your shoulder and teeth too close to your ear is typical. Turning to drink in the sight of him still in his waiter attire, you concede that you will have to get closer to him later.

You glance down at the ceramic, steam still rising from its watery mouth. “And you just happened to have it on hand?” It looks to be the perfect temperature too. The stream is not excessive or lacking. 

“On hand, why of course. I anticipated you coming here today.”

You raise a brow.

“It actually belongs to Table 5.”

Smiling, you pick up the teacup. Warm ceramic nuzzles into your palms and you take a generous sip. Near you like a guiding presence, Jade watches with one hand over his heart and the other holding the tray behind his back. “Well, I say my soul is subsequently soothed now. Thank you.”

He bows, bent at the hip, like a chivalrous knight. “Now,” he says as he tucks the tray under his arm, pulling out his notepad, “I sure hope the scenery alone hasn’t brought you to us today. Would you like to order now or later?”

“Aw, why do I get on the clock Jade and not boyfriend Jade.”

“Because I am paid by the customer.”

“But aren’t I just priceless?”

“The special of the day is also priceless. Monkfish. Though I’m assuming lobster rolls sound more appetizing to you than monkfish piccata.”

You hear your stomach growl at the notion. You gasp when Jade’s pen starts to move across the paper. Leaning off the booth, you push at the side of his stomach, glaring playfully. “Hey, no writing! I’m here to freeload; don’t ruin that for me.”

Chuckling, Jade starts to lean down to you, teeth all on his display. He looks ready to bite at your lips, all mischievous and elevated that you will definitely bite back. Staring each other down, you startle suddenly at Jade’s next move. Quite quickly, Jade shoots back up, wincing with his gloved knuckle pressed under his nose. 

“Jade?” You blink up at him as he furiously rubs the bridge of his nose. “Do you need a tissue?” 

“No, I'm fine, my love.” He gives one last rub to his nose. “Felt a sneeze coming on.” 

Looking at him unconvinced, you hum when Jade pushes your teacup of chamomile closer to you. Then, he grabs your right hand sweetly, squeezing it. Your eyes meet again. Sevens, you could fall into those eyes as easily as a suicidal man falls into a noose. 

“Why don’t you drink some more and I’ll be back shortly with food for us?”

“Us? Aren’t you on the clock?”

“You’re stressed,” he states like he is noting that you are wearing a certain article of clothes. As if it is obvious. His thumb runs itself up and down the ladder of your tense knuckles. “It’s a little evident, dear.”

Panic writes itself on your face. “Is it really?”

“Hm, now it is.” Referring to the way your eyebrows clench and your voice whispers in fearful tones. A manipulative, proud smile crawls onto his face. “But I know your soul after all, so it is evident to me.”

Jade lets your hand go, making sure you rest it on the teacup. Urging you one last time to drink, he stalks off to get you both some food for an impromptu lunch together. You watch his back as he disappears into the kitchen, blue light raining down on him.

Sweet and mild dyed water runs down your throat, on a mission to relieve you of stress. When you have about half a cup left, you set it down, contemplating.

You were so grateful for Jade. If you were only friends with him, you would have told him about this first. Advice from a Leech with benevolent intentions is often the best advice. Even Floyd, who is very go with the flow, is so emotionally intelligent. And Jade … Jade would not pressure you to give his details about your misfortune but he would also not allow misfortune to ruin you. Refusing to intervene too early or too late. He is like that sacred rock in the riptide. 

However, you and him are dating. That makes certain topics difficult to breach. 

Chamomile tea still the ideal temperature, you stare back at your reflection in the liquid. They pull down their lips. Worry has gathered fast and voluminous in their eyes like ants crawling all across a dead mouse on the ground, coating the brown fur to a patchy, thick black. Sizing up a reflection, you reflect on previous conversation.

Chamomile tea. It is known to soothe even the most anxious of souls. 

But I know your soul after all.

Souls. Soul. 

Perhaps you can tell Jade what is going on, just without directly telling him.

The Ghost Camera is a bulky thing. All heavy brass, that precious metal silver, and nickel. It almost tumbled out of your hands and into water during Camp Vargas; you could only imagine the speed it would have sunk at if Floyd had shorter arms. Eventually, you stop carrying it daily after your first year. Yet, you refuse to part from it entirely, still taking photos when you have it on you.

Perhaps it is an effect of being born in the very early 2000s but you adore having photo albums. Your parents had ten of you alone, separate from your siblings, and half of your childhood on camcorder films. It is in your DNA to keep memories. 

Or Memories as the fragments are called.

Though, you sympathize with Grim that a whole room of photo albums might be extensive. But you have a whole house to yourself! And Sam sold you photo album books at a very cheap price because no one at a college wants to have physical reminders of being at college. 

And how they could become physical reminders.

There is no system for the room crammed with albums. You do not have not enough time to delegate a day to organize each album by person, dorm, or month. So, letting fate guide you, you pick up three books, cradle them in your arms, and announce to an unimpressed cover, “Okay, let’s do this.”

The Ghost Camera is unique. Takes ordinary, unsuspecting photos then does a full 180 by being enchanted with magic. 

When the user photographs a subject, it photographs a part of their soul along with the physical form. Memories are those soul fragments. If a soulbond between user and subject comes to be, it allows Memories to move across the surface like twenty second animated clips. If a soulbond between user and subject deepens, Memories can slip out of the photograph and take on corporal forms. 

One night you dreamt of chasing a rabbit and woke to Ace, who had slipped out of the photo, standing over your bed. How you screamed. Until he floated silently back into the photo you had on your nightstand.

Once, a fake Floyd had tried to juggle three glasses of spice in your kitchen before one had fallen through his flickering, tangible then not-tangible hand. Then, the Memory had the nerve to melt away, leaving you with three broken spice jars. 

Malleus had once strolled down the hallways of Ramshackle, mumbling over the decorations you hang onto walls of a once abandoned building, before sliding down a hallway, never to be seen from again that day. 

The only way you can feel a Memory from the real person is the lack of warmth. It is like stepping out of a toasty car at the peak of winter. Memories carry along with them an icy breeze, unable to be fully human. 

Grim is in bed asleep, warm, and you really only have time to do this now. Walking down to the lobby, you slide your hand over the spine of the albums. If you can ask whoever is in here for their advice, you never have to reveal the situation until you are at the ready. 

A dodge on your part but who readily jumps into despair? 

You collapse on the couch. With the weight of the albums in hand, a horrid thought passes in your mind. Cinderella’s stepsisters and the glass slippers.

Cinderella’s stepsisters, you will always be like them. You will have to slice off your heel and toes — as if you are carving into an apple or slicing down into a row of carrots — to fit into the glass slipper of Twisted Wonderland. Of Sage’s Island. Of the Coral Sea and Queendom of Roses, if you ever visit. You walk magicless in a world of magic, limping while blood soaks the inside of your crystal heels.

The thing about mushrooms is that you cannot just plant one into a terrarium. 

Originally, you were under the assumption that it was like moving flowers from bed to bed. Jade cleared up the misinformation for you. You could not grab a full-bodied mushroom, that had already lived a life outdoors, and stick it into a terrarium. Full-bodied mushrooms would come to reject the ecosystem. The key to get them to stay? The key was to get the mycelium into the ecosystem; without the support system underneath the soil, the mushroom would wither and leave in a few days.

As you rummage around in the bucket from your recent Sunday date with Jade, you know there is little you can do. Some would take and others would not. Shifting, latex-covered fingers stir through the rather common mushrooms, passing over maybe only two or three rare ones.

Apparently, the one you tried to pluck off the cliffside six days ago was poisonous to the touch. Not enough to be fatal but you would have gotten a nasty itch coating itself over your hand. Even with the latex on, you avoid touching it. Jade’s hand is still a pinkish-red after all.

Stupid Jade, you think fondly on the protective eel and take a mushroom out of the bucket. 

Terrariums are beautiful but mushrooms are rather fleeting. As you start to crumple up the gold-hued chanterelle mushroom in hand, you reflect upon the matter. Take for example the terrarium tank you are working on currently in Jade’s dorm. He has three on his bed-side shelf: one cylinder, one spherical, and one square. The one you laid on his desk is the spherical one. 

This one terrarium has housed pholiota adiposa, then albino pleurotus ostreatus, and now gomphus clavatus mushrooms (known as pig ears), and has probably housed more before you even knew Jade. 

Mushrooms are decaying plants. It is nearly impossible to curate an enclosure that can house a certain fungi all year round. After a while, Jade simply scraped all that death up in his hand, threw it into the compost bin of the botanical gardens, and departed from it.

A part of you would never understand how Jade could deal with it. All that hard work only for it to naturally wither and go. You suppose he dealt with it because he adored change. Who would have thought? The always-in-control Jade Leech actually enjoys seeing things shift and change. You understood his love of a challenge though. His unfinished magnum opus was a terrarium breaking the laws of nature, trying to get nine species of mushrooms that mimicked a coral reef in one single environment. 

“Each species of fungi have different growing conditions that they favor, so it is impossible for me to recreate all of these in the same ecosystem,” he once said.

“So why even try?”

“I think it is most enjoyable and eye-opening to covet after the impossible.”

He then looked at you like you were a meal, speaking double meanings with a honeyed tongue. Scandalous yet not, so you could never accuse him of being scandalous at any moment. Ah … even the memories of Jade could make your face feel warm. 

Distracting yourself, you start to add little bites of the gold-hued fungi in hand, tucking them under the moss and placing them on the tree bark. 

Jade’s unfinished magnum opus involved this glasshouse– the pig ears, gomphus mushrooms. Gomphus mushrooms could not be successfully cultivated as they are mycorrhizal, meaning they form a special relationship with their host plant. Two of the nine species he was working with for his coral reef terrarium were mycorrhizal, pig ears and indigo milky. And Jade finally got a mycorrhizal species of mushroom to sustain itself in an ecosystem made of glass. Proving the impossible was possible. A smile reaches your features, feeding more of the common mushroom in the terrarium so the pig ears could feast. 

Though that one project was going to have a long way to go, you had faith Jade would be able to complete it, despite the ecosystem and biology of fungi fighting against him. Would you be there to share in that victory? You dip your hand back into the bucket, ignoring the squirming of your stomach. 

The door clicks open. 

You look up to be greeted with the sight of teal hair and spindly limbs reaching up to six feet and one inch. Tongue already forming around the ‘J’, you stop suddenly. One then two Dunhill shoes – costing more than you will ever keep in a month’s pay – are kicked across the pale lilac floor. You watch cap-toe shoes sumersault and tumble. 

As he falls into bed with a groan, you greet, “Hi Floyd.”

“Shrimpy!” You blink in surprise as the exhaustion seemingly disappears out of Floyd. He props himself on his elbow, legs shuffling a bit further up the bed, and a predator’s smile pulls on his lips. Energetic at the sight of his twin’s significant other.

“Was wonderin’ why my bed was so neat,'' Floyd hums … and oh, he must still be exhausted, you observe. Lying back down in the bed you cleared of candy wrappers and sheets you straightened, Floyd slightly props his head up with his crossed elbows and a pillow so he can keep talking to you. “What ya doin’ here?”

“Just helping Jade with his terrariums. I wanted to repay him for the chamomile tea.”

“Shrimpy’s so sappy.”

“Hey, I just adopted the Octavinelle values. Can’t be walking around with a debt. Got to keep us on an even playing field.”

“Mmm … which ones?”

“The pig ears. They’re so volatile. I’m worried if they’re going to stay or not.”

“Is that what has Shrimpy so stressed?”

“Hm? I wouldn’t say stressed. Just trying to figure out how I should handle them.” 

You pick another mushroom out of the bucket. Gomphus mushrooms were so sensitive. Cousin to chanterelles mushrooms, you could safely add the gold mushroom in – as you had just done. Looking down at the mushroom you now hold, you consider if it would be safe fertilizer for the pig ears. You do not want to jeopardize the delicate balance. 

Under Floyd’s watchful eyes, you put the mushroom you picked up back into the bucket. You start to rummage again before the eel’s words interrupt your work. “So what’s got ya so stressed?” 

Not catching his drift, you say, “Nothing? I’m not too stressed right now.” It is a true statement. Your body feels entirely at ease, just measuring how you can help here and there with the terrariums. You cap the glass enclosure with the glass cover. If Floyd wants to sleep, you should not impose. 

“Ya smell stressed.”

“You’re a real gentleman, you know that, Floyd?”

Ah, that old reliable nose of an eel. Hiding a playful smirk, you sing, “Well, I’ll get out your hair so my musk doesn’t ruin your sleep. I was just about done with everything anyways. I think Jade’s going to use the rest of the mushrooms from our hunt to cook something.”

“I’m serious. Ya stunk ever since Tuesday and ya stunk real bad on Friday,” Floyd says in a low tone, eyes glued to your back. “Kinda still smells now too. Not as bad but still.”

You are glad you get the terrarium down safely on Jade’s bed-side shelf because your hands shake at Floyd’s words. Ah, that vexingly reliable nose of an eel. Trust their olfactory system to even pick up the stench of tension like a dog picking up frequencies unheard. You sit back down on Jade’s bed, spine facing Floyd.

“Just school stuff. Crewel’s been on my ass about a test. I need to get mine and Grim’s shared grade back up in Animal Languages. Things like that.” 

You can lie successfully with your body, keeping it from tensing in betrayal. You can lie successfully with your vocal cords, keeping them even and precise. However, you found you can never lie eye-to-eye with Floyd. It did not matter whether the golden eye was on the left or right. Somehow that flaming, glittering sun burns you to the core and figures out the undeniable, obsidian truth.

Already, you are mapping the escape route. Just a quick spin off Jade’s bed, grab your phone from his desk, and exit out the door. Avoid his eyes at all cost as if is a predator, and that he is. Moving off the bed, you say, “Like I said, I’ll leave so my musk doesn’t –”

“(Name).”

Your eyes snap up; a gasp is pinched tight in your mouth. Floyd challenges you back with his luminesce eyes. Bristling a hissy cat, the back of your thighs hit Jade’s mattress and you whine, “I hate when you two do that!”

Floyd laughs. He laughs in his normal, nasally drawl instead of the deep, sinister tone that Jade has. As Floyd takes pleasure in your surprise at his perfect impersonation of his twin, you refuse to look at him. The gloating jerk. In a rush, you grab your phone just as Floyd starts to speak, “Ya always fall for it, Shrimpy. It’s cute.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Ya stressed around Jade?”

“No.”

“Really? Ya reek right now. All stressed out after hearin’ ‘Jade’ speak. Smells like wet dog and cigarette smoke.”

“I’m not stressed,” you argue, flipping on your phone to check the time. Above Jade’s head, white numbers stare back at you, 4:43, and you watch it change to the next minute with a scowl. The screen goes black; angelic numbers and the photo of Jade leaning over Ramshackle’s oven, cooking a meal for your one year anniversary, disappear. “Look, I’ll –”

The words die in your throat when you and Floyd lock eyes. He knows I’m scared but just not of what. You cannot blame Floyd with the way his mismatched eyes narrow, little squinting fireballs of suspicion. He is only looking after his twin. 

“I just need a little time before I can tell him, okay?”

“Kay, Shrimpy.”

Glance around the bedroom; check that you got everything in hand. You lock eyes with yourself, heart agonizing in your chest like a clawed talon has made it its footstool. Your happier, lighter face smiles back at your crinkled expression. Frozen in mirth. Stuck in a moment of easy breathing and thoughts. The photograph on the desk of you and Jade taken from the Ghost Camera. Only one of you looks at the lenses and the other stares down at the person pulling them into the surprise photo. 

Uneasy thoughts fill your head. This is the photograph Jade wakes up to every morning. He had even cut Azul and Floyd off the edges of the polaroid, chuckling evilly when Floyd gapped and Azul sneered, instead of just folding them off the edges. Always wanting to get a reaction. 

Would the facsimile of your soul one day be all that was left for Jade to keep? A photo that might fleetingly speak the words of your heart to him. You imagine it with a wince: Jade talking to a facsimile of you, empty of your warmth, but still there. Staying when you would not. 

I don’t want that for him. I don’t want that for me!

I want to see them again. 

Gomphus mushrooms. School assignments. The dinner you have to cook. Whatever lingers in your brain, you try to focus on it to distract yourself from the conflicting yearnings of your soul. Eventually, you will come to tell Jade. It might be procrastinated upon already, but better late than never. When you left the Leech twins shared bedroom, you did not realize how right you were. Eventually, you did come to tell Jade. You told him that very night, at 2:13 A.M., on the porch of Ramshackle.

You have not been sleeping well since Crowley broke the news to you. Everyone knows this. The concern is clearly written in Ace and Deuce’s faces when you two have classes and lunch together. Epel gives you the caffeine and Vitamin C eye-roller that he never used his first year. Sebek and Jack take to allowing their large hands to be the barrier between your cheek and a cold desk that might startle you awake. 

Crawling out of bed, swollen eyebags aching like a bruise, careful to let Grim sleep, this is normal now. 

Stumbling feet successfully walk themselves down spiraling stairs. One foot by one foot. Out of the corner of your lidded eyes, ghosts move like the undulating waves of a storm, pellucid bodies pulsing without a heartbeat. Sweat rolls down your neck, soaking into the nook of your collarbone. You miss the last step, bump hard into the wall, and that is all it takes. You start crying.

Uncertain of why you are down on the first floor instead of the second, you cry and cry, confused. When did you get out of bed? Your only answer is the raspy noise your mouth exhales. The loose t-shirt that is three sizes bigger than yourself is constricting and choking you. 

The waterfall on your face continues steady even when the warm breeze of spring-turning-summer fights against it. You would take in a deep breath of fresh air if each breath you did take did not feel like drowning. Engine lungs refuse to start smoothly, instead churning with gasps and coughs of water.

I want my Momma. I want my Jade. I want my Dad. 

Your butt falls heavy on the steps of Ramshackle, knowing there is no one coming for you. There will no longer be any hortative, glowing green fireflies coming to save you tonight. You sit there, presuming you will fall asleep from the exhaustion of weeping.

You feel like you are on a boat. A boat in the middle of a snow-globe. Turning and turning is fruitless because the sight is never changing eternalness: blue waves and a lighter blue sky. Color that cuts into sadness. Color that swallows. You can pirouette, jump, do handstands, but the sight remains. Blue on blue. On a boat that you do not even attempt to steer because there is no direction you want to go in.

Your mother once said she was so in love with your father that she knew he was the one because she would put him above her parents. Never getting enough of each other. Time spent with him was just better than time spent without. Better than being with her own parents.

That is love; when you find your person, you put them above everything else.

The iron gate to Ramshackle creaks. 

You would like to say you watch Jade Leech climb up the cobblestone path to Ramshackle, thinking about the definition of love, but you cannot see past your tears. All you see is an emulsified blur of black, teal, and dark green water. Furious hands whip at your face. Eyes red and face warm, you look up. He is still a haze of skin, hair, and clothes sliced into little horizontal lines of color.

“Ja-Jade?”

“Pardon me if it sounds odd … but I heard you crying in my dorm. Of course, you weren’t there. But it still made me anxious so I decided to check.”

You sniff, scrubbing your eyes harshly to clear them.

“And here, I do find you crying in the exact same volume and manner.”

“Sorry. I —”

“Nonsense. You need not apologize for your tender disposition.”

“Sorry,” you say again. You drop your head at Jade’s exaggerated look. The exaggerated look on his face is only a squinting of his eyes. However, you can decipher and tell the differences between the twenty eye-squints Jade Leech can make. 

You keep wiping away tears as Jade sits down by you on the porch. Vision clear, you smile at the rare sight of Jade in his pajamas. Oh, those are the fleece pants you bought him with a blue flannel pattern. A bit comforted by that, you lean into him as he rests an arm upon your shoulder. 

“If my own disposition is not seen as rude, what is troubling you? You are not known for being so out of sorts. Crying is one thing, crying outside Ramshackle at 2 o’clock  is another.”

“Do you think I smell?”

The smile grows a bit on your face as Jade quickly tries to submerge a laugh with his hand. 

“Sorry, that was ah, a bit unexpected.”

“Heh, I know.”

“But?”

“Floyd made a comment early. I smell like stress.”

“Well, I would be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed too.”

“I think I could tell when you pull back from that kiss all the sudden. The sneeze excuse wasn’t very convincing.”

“Come now, I am an excellent actor.”

“Not around me.” You warm up when Jade trails his hand up and down your arm. Not around me. I can always read what is on your mind, Jade. 

“Ah and there goes my dreams of being the first eel-mer movie star. Why are you so cruel, my love? Crushing a poor eel’s dreams?”

“Ah, my apologies,” you say remorselessly. Playful, your hand falls into Jade’s hand. You take to drawing swirls and seashells into the rough, warm center of his palm. Above, a few droplets of water start to sprinkle out of the sky. A slight change in the weather as you start to draw more seriously.

“Thank you.” He plants a kiss on the crown of your head. It settles on you like a flower petal, soft. “Now, would you like to tell me what has made you so incredibly stressed? I can be very patient, forewarning.”

“When you graduate, where do you want to live, land or sea?” You watch three droplets hit Jade’s hand, feeling a few pepper themselves on your shoulders and back. You take one droplet and smooth it out into the image of a starfish. That is not what you wanted to come out of your mouth. However, the chronic worry you have had about graduation slides out of your mind easily. 

In the dust of rain, you listen to Jade’s answer. “If I were to choose … between land or sea … why that certain is a weighty question. And to think you have been all alone in your musing about it. How sobering, I cannot even imagine such a barnacle of a thought.”

“You’re stalling.”

“Hah, I can never keep things hidden from you, can I? Let me think.” He cannot draw up an arm to his chin but he definitely has that same contemplative look on his face. As rain kisses his crown, he slowly says, “Both land and sea come with advantages. Though I have only known land for three years, it has gifted me with wonderful consequences that I have never thought I of all merfolk would know.”

“I’m a consequence?”

“Quite. My favorite consequence,” Jade replies tenderly. “The sea can be seen as inhospitable to visitors. I happen to enjoy the cold and dark where others do not. I suppose I would have to measure the decision through memories. Am I fonder of the memories of my childhood or am I fonder of the memories of my education?

“I still have the chance to cultivate and reap the benefits of my education, unlike my childhood which is long gone. But, in the end, I would want both land and sea. And somehow, I would find a way to make that possible, no matter ecosystemic limits.” 

You wilt as the rain starts to grow more constant. A few twenty or so dots of water are not gathered on Jade’s palm. Taking the abundance of paint, you draw the face of an eel with the water. “But it would matter: the consequences and the people you could possibly leave behind.”

“Your worry is about whether I would stay with you or my family?” You cannot nod because that is selfish of you, pushing your dilemma onto your boyfriend. Jade can tell what exactly the root of your stress is even as you draw. Leaning to be heard better over the rain, he says, “I would never leave you, (Name).”

“Crowley found a way to send me home.”

Jade tenses up. You wilt when the canvas of his hand suddenly changes , hand gripping your hand in a tight, binding hold. 

“Pardon?”

“Crowley, he found a way to send me back to my home. I–” The clouds of your eyes grow heavy. “I don’t know what to do, Jade.” 

Holding hands, you look up, hoping the answer can be found on Jade’s face. He is the decision  maker in the relationship, picking the food you eat, offering advice on homework; Jade always has this way of knowing how to solve anything. His expression; you need to see so it can guide you. 

Oh.

Oh. That is not good.

Profile stone and staring off into the dark beyond Ramshackle, Jade is unreadable to you. You wilt a third time. 

“Cater’s been talking about getting Kalim to throw one huge going away party. I told him you would really enjoy it if the Pop Music Club played Supertramp’s Goodbye Stranger during it.”

That sentence gets you to stop cutting the strawberries. Jaw dropping, you turn towards Trey’s villainous smirk as he pretends to innocently pipe frosting on the second cake. Only his profile faces you, acting arrogant to your mortification. “You … absolutely did not.” The response you get is the crinkle of Trey’s cheek as he tries to push down his smile. 

You whack him, taking vindictive joy in the icing that runs down the side of the mousse cake, and shout, “You jerk!”

“Hey, I just think the Ramshackle Prefect should go out with something memorable.”

“Isn’t being magicless enough?”

Trey takes to fixing the frosting as he replies, “You know Cater won’t do something so big without permission. He might just livestream all of it.” He picks back up the icing bag to resume and cover up the slight imperfection. “Would a party really be so bad?”

“Goodbye parties defeat the whole purpose of the word party,” you grumble. One by one, you plant the scales of cut strawberries on top of the strawberry tart. They extend out in the space of a lotus. “I’d be covered in tears and snot by the end of it. Ugh.”

“Hm, I suppose I see what you mean.” 

Trey and Cater, after being alerted of the news with your permission, manage to return to Night Raven College from their internships for the weekend. The use of magic makes it easy for them to travel in quickly, popping by for an unbirthday party.

Currently, you and Trey prepare the strawberry tarts (as is customary for unbirthday parties) and a chocolate mousse cake (as is customary for you to enjoy). Riddle has meticulously plotted out each faucet of this unbirthday party. Nostalgically, he reminds you a lot like his old tryantical self, barking orders as his stress rockets, meticulous to give you the perfect unbirthday party. When asking where you were wanted, Trey happily scoops you up before anyone else can. 

Playing catchup, you and Trey talk about a wide variety: how his internship is going, new recipes or meals you two have been introduced to or learned, the shenanigans of Ace and Deuce that Trey missed, and how your shared friend Jade Leech is doing.

To be frank, you enjoy Trey’s company a lot. Despite being a graduate of NRC, he makes you feel the closest to home. Normalcy. He expels this aura of normalcy that is absent from the rest of the student body. Pearly white, non-serrated teeth smile at you. Regular brown eyes shimmer behind his glasses. Within his presence, it is easy to masquerade around with the facade that NRC is a quotidian college. Protected by the walls of the kitchen, you can forget about the flamingos being used as croquet mallets and the magic pens waving through the air.

You are kicked from this fantasy comfort when Trey asks you for a favor. As Grim happily slurps up the leftover frosting from the plastic bag, a question is posed. “Can you do me a favor and grab the chocolate sprinkles?”

“Ah, of course.” Back on the paper plate goes your knife and quarter sliced strawberry. 

You turn to where the shaker of chocolate sprinkles lies. Ah, unfortunately it is on a pretty high up shelf. No matter, you stretch out your body and reach. Fingers only scrap the glass surface. You move to your tiptoes, stomach pinched by the countertop.

“Don’t worry, Henchman! I got it!” On stubby legs, Grim stands up from his spot on the counter. He squints at the cabinet overhead and stands on his tiptoes too. He makes it about halfway less than your reach. Ribs pressing into Grim’s fur, you stretch out like an uncoiling snake. 

You watch your finger slide down the glass. So close. You stretch when the sprinkles container suddenly starts to move. Putting your hands in front of your face in the shape of a triangle, you instantly coil back into a tight position and squeeze your eyes close. The impact never comes.

A wary eye opens and watches as the red glow of Trey’s pen and the sprinkled shaker that floats over the mousse cake. No matter how much you pretend, no matter how many times you stumble into your boring Wonderland, hoping all the magic is gone, it always comes back to catch you by surprise. Normalcy … you cannot get that back unless you go home.

Trey notices how eerily silent you are as you go about cutting up strawberries and hanging some of the banged up fruit to Grim. There is only one mousse cake but plenty of tarts waiting to be served in the kitchen. Well, it can’t hurt. “Here. For you.” You blink as two empty plates are put in front of you. “The piece of cake, or tart, typically goes to the Housewarden. However, I doubt Riddle will be too mad at this development.”

“Only been gone from Heartslabyul one semester and you’re already breaking rules,” you gasp with fake terror.

He simply puts a finger to his lips, eyes shining under his glasses. Trained, he empties a slice from each sweet with deadly, applause-worthy accuracy. Two confectioneries are put on the plates in front of you. As calm as an executioner, you stare at the two slices: a tart with scales of strawberries running across it and a cake with layers of mousse and bread laddering across it. 

And you suddenly know this is something deeper than just picking which treat you want to eat. Ah, Trey Clover is a Night Raven graduate after all.

Under watchful amber eyes, you pick up your fork. 

“Ha greedy, aren’t you?”

You admonish Trey for his teasing comment. Balancing the two sweets on a fumbling fork, you take the biggest bite of the overlap. Chocolate stains your lips. Despite that, it is the strawberry tart that you taste first. 

“Aren’t I the unbirthday girl/boy? I get to be greedy!” You grin like Grim does and stab back into the confectioneries. Your fork picks off a bit of the mousse then moves to scoop off a bit of the tart before returning to your mouth. So what if you are greedy for wanting both? You can make a Wonderland for yourself.

Right?

A week and a half left. A week and a half passed. Time falls on a perfectly split down the middle day. Wednesday, the day Mountain Lovers club meetings fall on.

As time marches on, voices become more vocal about wanting you to stay. The Unbirthday party had gone swimmingly with a few rough waves. You sympathize with it. Yet you feel you have to be so careful when conversing about it, any wrong word might cause anyone to jump to a conclusion. So, with the loss of sleep, you are also talking less. 

You wonder if everyone takes your silence as a sign you have made the definite answer. 

Not everyone though. Jade Leech. Jade is the only one not acting erratically. When no filter Ace had asked him to agree with them he wanted you to stay, the eel-mer had only put a hand on your shoulder, picking you up after the Unbirthday party, and said, “Why that is not in my expertise to answer. I’m afraid that I would have to vote for a no comment statement.” 

Calm, level-headed Jade. Calculating Jade. How you adore that detached yet sly nature of his. He is the sight of land after days of aimless traveling blue waters. He is chamomile tea on a sleepless night. He is a neat white pill of xanax. 

And today, you are blessed to bask in that tranquil presence after school. Waiting to be received after knocking on his dorm door, you think upon it. No interrogation. No stress. Just you and him, hunting and sketching mushrooms. You even picked up a new set of charcoal pencils at Sam’s Shop for today. You light up when the dorm door opens. 

“Ja – oh, hi Floyd.”

Something has set off Floyd. It is evident in the deep scowl cutting itself on his face. His discord eyes are dull. His posture is slouching like a deflating house made of bad wood. When you spoke, you even saw his hand twitch into a fist. Instead of attacking, Floyd blinks down at you and sighs out, “Sorry Shrimpy.”

Your grip on your bag tightens. “Um, why are you apolog –”

“Hello (Name).” 

A little of that happy fire comes back to your soul. Smiling, you look behind Floyd to see Jade dressed in his pair of cargo pants and lightweight thermal henley. Foraging bag slung over his shoulder, he is like a breath of fresh air, the normalcy that sweats from him. “Hi honey,” your smile is innocent.

You only notice it for a brief flicker of time: a nasty glare directed from olive and gold eyes to mirroring gold and olive eyes, so hateful that your heart pats in worry that you might witness a fight between them. Then the loathing bleeds out of Floyd. He nudges you out the way, stomping down into Octavinelle’s halls.

“I’ma go. Can’t stomach watchin’ this.” Words that depart with Floyd.

“Jade?”

“What are you doing here, (Name)?”

Your stomach drops. “I - uh,” your neck is growing foolishly warm, you have not heard Jade speak so monotone in a while “, well, today is Wednesday and so I came to – uh.”

“Did my lack of response not clearly indicate that I would not be needing you for this hike?”

Further and further, your stomach sinks. You know what he is referencing, the single text you sent about thirty minutes ago: Did you want me to bring anything for tonight? It was just a quick check-up on your part. It is unlike Jade to take more than ten minutes to respond to you.

“I just thought you were busy.”

“No. I was trying to indicate that I would not need you on this particular night.”

“But … but this is our thing.” 

Much like Floyd, Jade nudges you on the way. You stumble, staring at the expanse of his shoulders and back. He refuses to turn around, “Yes, but if I am to be alone in the Mountain Lovers club for the rest of my third year, then I should slowly wane off your company. A rational decision, yes?”

A hairline fracture snakes itself up your heart. Splatting, your stomach lands on the ground. Jade will not turn around to look at you. You look down your own foraging bag where those new, suddenly silly charcoal pencils lie.

“Um, yeah, that does actually make a lot of sense.”

“I will see you tomorrow though. So don’t fret so much.”

“I’m not fretting.”

“I know you won’t. That’s what I admire about you.” 

And then, he leaves, back still a wall facing you. Perhaps you do not adore that detached yet sly nature of Jade’s in its entirety.

It is only natural that things decay. Jade knows that. Observed it happen with mushrooms a hundred plus times. Brown rot, soft rot, white rot. The fear of rot gives way to the fear of death. Death: that final departure. He wonders if when you inevitably step through into the carriage, ebon stallions with steely gray eyes as cold as the Grim Reaper’s scythe carting you away forever, if it will be like death or decay. 

Jade knows you will not stay. Who would? So he is going to do better by you right now, be kinder and more unaffected, after tonight. He just needs this solitude for a few hours.

Memories of his twin’s face are dancing in Jade’s mind when he really wants to be focusing on you. It cannot be helped. They fought physically before, but never departed from one another still needing to fight. They would have fought. They should have fought. It was only the knowledge that you were arriving in fifteen minutes that kept them shouting at each other.

Floyd thought Jade was doing wrong by you. 

Jade told Floyd to stay the fuck out of his relationship. 

“Dad always said you were the fuckin’ coward of the family.”

Jade should have thrown a punch there. Walking down the hiking trail, he feels the knot of nails into palms. Easily falling back into the therapy of forming fists, Jade relocates his hands to the strap of his bag. Not yet. He cannot get destructive yet.

“You’re not gonna even fight for them!”

No. Jade was not because he knew your soul. It would only be natural for you to return home. It would only be natural for him to return to the sea. It is only natural for things to decay, Jade reminds himself as he finally makes it deep enough into the thicket of Sage Island’s forest.

Not this though. I wanted this to stay. 

“Nothing to be done except support them.” 

Jade says this to a peculiar looking tree as he removes the forage bag off his shoulder. He deposits it down by a peculiar looking rock. He is a master of nature but it is better to have landmarks for his belongings. Rolling up the sleeve of his thermal henley, the skeletal eel tail and filigrane ends of the waves tattooed on his left side peek shy from the rolled cotton. 

“Nothing to be done.” He finalizes the word with a nod. Then, he breaks off the path into a brisk jog. 

Jade has gotten much better with the usage of legs since freshman year. Experience conducts improvement. None of them had quite taken to it fluidly. Jade can still remember when he tried stairs for the first time, shaking like a lamb, yet still finding the ability to laugh smoothly when Floyd fell down them. Though Floyd had laughed even harder at Jade when he experienced his first calf cramp, thinking he had been shot. Thank the Sevens most of their blunders had been in training camp, away from ill-intent eyes.

I hate fighting with my brother, Jade thinks as he moves slightly to the right to avoid a rock too big to jump over. He keeps pumping his arms and jogging. 

Fighting is natural for moray eels. You have to fight in the Coral Sea to keep what you covet. It is not like Jade is lacking that urge to change the situation and make you stay. But this situation? It is too close to resembling a scenario where a person quits a job for the sake of their wife’s promotion; or someone changes their dream college to settle with the one their boyfriend is choosing to attend. 

This is something I cannot put up a fuss about. Jade passes a blackberry bush and tries to stomp out the memories that come with it. 

Your excited face — hand-feeding him some berries — laughing as you gather them up — pouring them into a muffin tin — a sweet and tart memory

You have to do what is right for you, not him, not Grim, not anybody else. He should not infer or try to influence you this upcoming week and half. Jade takes a meaningless right turn, trying to get lost deeper in the woods.

Yet as he falls deeper into the thicket of trees, spores, rocks, and leaves, he finds memories returning to him:

The smell of you, distinctive like red to a bull, swimming in the college hallways or in Mostro Lounge. 

The look of pride on your face when you find yourself able to read his true intentions better than all but two of the student body. 

The feel of the first time Grim chose his lap over yours, a reluctant purr vibrating against the cotton of his gloves.

The sound of you shuffling morning sheets and the sensation of the kisses you press to his face to arouse him from sleep.

Your smiling voice left like a voicemail —

— That happy world tumbles down upon Jade like a Jenga tower, suddenly unreachable, as he too tumbles. A loose tree root snags his foot; ground flies towards him. Barely expecting it, Jade gasps as cold and wet hits his face.

Mud. Mud from the previous days’ rain presses itself to his face, soaking into his cuts and unraveled hair. Throat undulating, Jade starts to spit back the wet dirt he had taken from the earth. The crust of sediment coats his lips like a cosmetic. He watches brown saliva bubble under him.

Jade’s hands embrace the ground as he positions himself up on all fours. He watches his hand. Cold blue of his veins like the tassels of a jellyfish. Red-pink heat of his knuckles and palm bed. Contrast to the pale calcite-like bloodlessness of his skin. All of his skin ill-fitting. Pale dough splitting apart in gaping ovulate mouths. Himself. Splitting apart down to the last atom. 

I – I – I –

He can barely feel his frozen body move as he lifts up one fist. Mud-stained teeth grit. His fist flies in a frenzy. Two, five, seven, eleven, twelve, fifteen. Moving like an electric chisel, Jade punches and punches and punches into the ground until a tiny crater is left into the earth where he fell.

It is not enough and Jade knows it. He pulls his hand back, chocolate-dipped with mud and leaking from the new wounds a rock had given him, as he sits on his haunches. 

Both of his hands go up to his face, covering off where open mouth breathes flicker out of him. It is not enough.

As if he was kicked into the back of line; as if he has lost his mind; Jade jumps up with a spark, turns towards the nearest tree, and punches it. Pain splits down his arm like lightning and it feels calming. Now, red is flowing in equal measure with the brown. He wants to do it again. He wants to fight until his fiery soul is extinguished. 

People think him so different from his twin. Floyd and Jade are the same; both yearn for a good fight now and then. Jade simply hides just a small percentage better than his brother, under a sheep’s skin like an ill-fitting and tearing apart in oval holes. 

There is no need to wear that soft suit when he is alone, in a far off corner of Sage’s Island that no one is going to be at this hour.

Jade goes through the motions of his emotions, all of them rocking him as violently as Charybdis’s whirlpool. His fist falls like a meteor into tree bark. Hair is pulled and yanked, just to give him the satisfaction of pain. The ground stirs at the violence of his long legs. Finds a rock, kicks it. Finds a bigger rock, kicks it harder. Trying to break one of his toes. 

His hand flows through wet leaves and mud, grabbing a stray branch. Jade turns towards a different tree. “FUCKING SHIT!” Slices his branch down like a claymore, a hum of satisfaction blooms up as the thick twig breaks into an explosion of wooden chunks with a deafening crack. 

“FUUUCKAAAARRRGGG!” He shouts back at the answering wilderness, two inhuman sets of teeth on display. A vein in his neck strains with the pressure of his harrowing, soul-tearing screams. 

When Jade returns to his dorm, covered in mud and blood, he finds Floyd asleep. It seems his twin found his own way to relieve himself from the cliffhanger urge to fight. Jade mourns that because he has not. His own energy and need to fight seems as vast as the ocean in his anxiety of losing you. 

He wants you to stay. 

“He wants me to leave. I can see it in his face. He wants me out of his life, and this is the ideal situation to do it without directly saying it. Agh, he is such a coward at times. And what’s worse! Is that he keeps acting like nothing is wrong. He took the hike alone and came back like nothing was wrong. Same old Jade. Not a word of the situation. Oh God, what if he does want me to leave,” you lament, shaking. 

A tissue box is nudged closer to you. You stir, looking up from the hands you had shelled up your crying face into. With a sniff, you grab a tissue, “Thank you.” You blow your nose and settle back into the loveseat.

Kleenex clutched tightly in hand, you continue speaking a voice clogged with tears, “You know, I’ve been wondering why Jade won’t let me in. He obviously has an opinion on the situation yet he isn’t saying it. So then, I start thinking he is being petty because I didn’t come to him about the situation first. Like maybe he thinks I don’t trust him with that information. But it was so hard to talk to him about because he’s my boyfriend. And I just want to talk now but I’m so scared about what he will say.

“I could always read him before. I just somehow knew what he was thinking at times. Now, I feel like he’s a jigsaw puzzle missing a piece yet I don’t even know what the picture is of anymore.” 

You hesitate and pass the moment by blowing your nose again. “Honestly, I feel like that too.” With teary eyes, you look towards your confidant. He gives a tiny huff of his snout, chin resting on the loveseat’s armrest between you. His big brown eyes simply stare wistfully at you.

“Are you going to communicate that to him or just to Pongo?” 

Eyes drawn away from Pongo, Crewel’s dalmatian, you glance towards the opening of the kitchen connecting to the living room. Your professor is deep enough inside the adjacent room where you cannot see, only hear him. You reply, “I’m trying to keep us on amicable terms. I don’t want him to think that I’ve made the decision to leave.”

“Then, tell him that very sentence, pup: I have not made the decision to leave yet. If you start off with that then you can continue on with explaining the rest. Do you think he has already thought you have made the decision yet,” Crewel says as he walks out of the kitchen. 

He carries a platter out in his lavious living room. Crewel is much more of a casual manner of dressing; a devil-red button-up with a silk evening tie, ebon with engravement of flora. He puts the platter down on the table in front of the two chairs, scolding Pongo off his chair. 

“That’s just the thing: I can’t tell what he is thinking anymore. I never really understood what Ace, Deuce, and Grim meant when they said they couldn’t really read Jade’s true intentions. Now, I feel the exact same way. Just second-guessing everything that comes out of his mouth,” you vent as Crewel accesses your bad posture. 

He must feel generous because he makes no note of it. “Well, mind-reading is a magical skill that not many mages master. So, though it is unfavorable, we have to learn to trust words at face value.”

“You say that if he is not Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden. Words are Jade’s sword. And he knows better than anyone that words can be manipulative, exploitative, and false. Since I didn’t come to him first, he is going to think –”

“Octavinelle students at their best are deeply intune with the world around them. That young pup is Octavinelle’s vice-housewarden because he is deeply observant and intuitive … and deeply sympathetic. I agree that words are his sword. A sword can be used to defend and help too. Do not restrict it.”

You wait until you have finished chewing around the carrot chip in your mouth before you speak, “I know that. To me, those are some of his best qualities … But! Octavinelle students work to solve problems. Jade hasn’t even given me his thoughts on my problem.”

“Perhaps he feels that if he says a certain thing, you will resent him. Or you will suddenly pick your decision because of what he says. I’m certain he wants you to make the decision for yourself.”

“But he’s one of the main reasons this is so hard to decide upon. Him and Grim.” Crewel’s face scrunches at the mention of your troublesome cat. “I love Jade dearly and I think of Grim as family. I know Grim’s thoughts. I cannot read a single thought on Jade’s face.”

Your eyes fall down to the floor, suddenly too damp to maintain proper eye-contact. “It is like he is shutting me out while staying robotically in the same relationship we had.” 

In your ribcage, the valves and arteries of your heart give a painful jerk of agony. As if noticing, Pongo empathically rests his head upon your knee. You greet him with a soft whisper, stroking down the crown of his head to his neck. You are still shaking.

“Nothing happens when you do nothing, pup. If you keep shuffling your feet upon the matter, eventually, when it comes for you to decide, you will be making a decision purely from your soul and nothing else. But that won’t give you closure. It won’t be good for you.”

“I don’t want Jade to resent me. I don’t,” you bit back a cry. Harshly, you pick up a tissue and press it over your eyes. After a few deep breaths, you manage to gain yourself before you slip down a watery, steep incline of the mountain of your emotions. 

“If neither of you talks to each other, nothing grows. Nothing changes unless one of you manages to talk to the other.”

“It’ll be such a painful conversation.”

“The ones that reap the most rewards are often the most painful of them all.”

You look up, eyes still incredibly wet. Crewel’s eyes resemble something like dark storm clouds. That color would suggest a bit of hardships but his advice flows off him naturally. You cannot look at Crewel like he is a surrogate father if you chose this world over your own. But, you will hold onto this relationship fondly, if this world is the one you stay in.

“I want him to know my soul again. I want to be able to read his soul again.”

Sometimes, Jade seems like a mountain. A bit too poetic comparing a hiker to the very structure they climb but it is suiting. Height aside, he is out of reach frequently. Scaling him – boots slipping on sediment walls, fingers bleeding with each desperate grab of sharp rocks – had been a trail as harsh as Everest. The view from above is breathtakingly beautiful and a sweet reward trumping all others.  

Your first kiss felt like being on top of a mountain. 

Mountains are rewarding but they are still mountains. A simple slip on slick rock and you bust open the crown of your head like a senile king or an old ram. Incredibly foolish of you to trust a jagged summit to keep you safe. 

Right now, he seems quite like a mountain. You worry over each of your premedicated steps in approaching this. Sizing up which indent of rocks you are going to trust putting your weight on. One breaking underneath you will not end it. Two breaks though … Jade might pull away from you. 

Studying the eminence of his back, you pick yourself up from Ramshackle’s couch and start the hike.

Jade does not even jump when you wrap yourself around his torso. You trap him in with an embrace, X-ing arms over his chest, underneath his arms. Steadfast, Jade continues with slicing long strips of fat into precise, 12 millimeter squares. Over the side of his arm, you look at the air-tight bag of hog casing and chop onions sizzling on the stove.

“Smells delicious. You look really good when you cook.”

“You say that no matter what I do.”

“Well, I can’t help that my boyfriend’s good-looking and I have to tell him so. It is just natural that I let you know.”

“Ah, then I thank you for the wonderful insight,” Jade says, all coy allurement in his voice. His knife falls and repositions itself to the start of the sausage, again and again like a guillotine at the height of revolution. “Can I ask you to add these in the skillet? I think you happen to look delectable when cooking too.”

“Good enough to eat?”

All you get is a quick flash of teeth, playfully biting air, as you reach over Jade’s body to grab the bowl he gestured to. You smile warmly. In the bowl lies chopped shallots, parsley, scallions, and a dozen more minor ingredients that you can identify. You take them, dumping them into the skillet. A tantalizing smell rises up to you along with a cloud of steam.

Taking a spatula, you start to stir the mixture. What is on the pan bubbles and cooks. As you maneuver the ingredients to burn evenly, you cannot help but think this is exactly what you wanted to avoid.

The environment of normalcy.

The ease of talking to Jade.

What a foolish thing to want to ruin, you sneer as you push at ginger and grounded cloves. But those two things have a masquerade mask slipped over them. Neither of you have brought up the issue once since the time you spent past midnight on Ramshackle’s porch. 

“Jade?” Jade hums, letting you know he is listening. Your hundred questions feel like acid in your throat. “What are we making?”

“It is Boudin Noir de Lyon. A French blood sausage. I’ve only attempted it twice before.” With his knife, Jade points at the long glass of goose blood that you have on your counter, next to the bag of hog casing.

“Ah, I see.” 

To be honest, you were unaware you had the components in stock to make Boudin Noir de Lyon. Sometimes, Grim and Jade just showed up with bags upon bags of food or food ingredients. You could understand why Azul wanted Ramshackle as a second Mostro Lounge. Shelves are bottomless and the kitchen is so spacious after your remodel.

It is a house wasted on you. You can easily look around and imagine all those industrious chefs roaming around, cooking and serving. Would Jade be content with the tradeoff?

“Jade?” This time you are going to try to go in and not dodge the subject again.

“Yes, my love?”

“You once said eels mate for life. Was that just sweet talking or is that a fact?”

“I thought the biology of merman species didn’t interest you much.” 

You remember that, saying that you did not need biology to let you know that Jade liked you very much and you liked him very much. So what if there were hints and nuances to learn about his biology. You just liked him; you felt at ease around him. “Just please … Please answer the question, Jade.”

“Eels and eel-mers usually pick only one to spend their life with.”

“Usually?”

“In the occurrence of a death or loss of a mate before one reaches adulthood fully at twenty, some eel-mers find someone else.” Jade elects to hold your hand instead of his knife, halting your worry-energized stirring and letting the spatula rest. The only thing you notice about his touch is that he is as cold as a December death. “We were only seventeen and eighteen when we met.”

“So you could find someone else if I left,” you say with a mix of relief and sadness. Then, your hand slips through Jade’s hand. You look at it with a gut-wrenching guilt, the collision of flickering skin and your tangible skin.

“No,” he says firmly, just barely managing to keep a growl out of his voice. “No, I couldn’t find anyone else but you.” And as if saying those words restore some of the bond you had, your hand floats back up as fake bones, muscle, and skin reappears. He squeezes your hand tightly.

You take Crewel’s advice. “Jade, I haven't made my decision whether I’m going to stay or not. I want you to know that: I haven’t decided yet.”

“I know.” He says those words. But he looks at you like you are something fleeting, like you are a mushroom collapsing in on itself, mildewed and smoldering, premature decay. His ice cold hand around yours is painful tight. 

“If I leave,” you choke on your words. With a gasp, you quickly pull away from him to wipe away the tears you were unprepared to feel fall. Ice rises up to press its thumb to wipe away the water. “I-If I leave, I want to know you’ll be okay. I want to know that you aren’t hiding away all your anguish from me.”

Clipped and short: “I can’t burden you with that. The weight on your shoulders is enough.”

“You ignoring this situation is a burden. I want us to talk. I want to know what’s on your mind, what’s in your soul.”

Jade holds his tongue. You try to pull your cheek away from him but that just worsens the misery in his eyes. You fall still, waiting.

“Jade?”

“I’d never be able to recover.”

“Huh,” you gasp breathless.

Even after such powerful words, Jade still holds his tongue in the cage of his mouth. The influence of words is not lost on a man such as him. If anything it is evident as emotions are on his twin’s face, unhidden. So very unlike Jade who keeps everything hidden to a certain degree.

Lifting a rock off his chest, unburdening himself, Jade confesses, “If you were to leave, I’d never be able to recover. There would be a hole in my heart always ready to receive you again.” 

Disconnected, you feel one tear race down the right side of your face and another tear catch on the curve of your left cheek, hanging and warm.

You were not ready to hear that. You thought you could handle hearing Jade’s true emotions but you had expected him to be losing interest. In his first year, he was fascinated with manholes; in his second year, he was fascinated with mushrooms; you expected this romantic interest to be fleeting. He learned to play bass in middle school then never picked it up again. Jade grows bored, he tosses things away, thus is nature.

He still has an interest in mushrooms, you think, he is settling down with his interests.

Were you two fleeting? An insecure part of you expected to be fleeting to him. I’d never recover. That is a far cry from a passing fancy that washes and recedes like the tide. 

“I’m sorry for saying my true feelings.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” you say, blinded by tears.

“But I’m making you cry. I’m cruel.”

You take his face in your hands, fingers clumsy due to impaired sight. “I’m glad to know it though. I’m glad you can say that.” Then, shaking, you go in for a kiss. And the fake Jade vanishes back into the photograph, leaving you puckering up for cold air.

With the sweet smell of a French meal you do not know how to cook lingering in the air, you cry and cry. 

You only have three days left to make a decision.

I’d never be able to recover. 

You have been rotating those words around in your head for thirty-eight hours. Moving the sentence around like it is a puzzle piece in a game. Dissecting it like it is the evidence that a serial killer left in the heat of crime. Even considering the weight of the punctuation mark. 

The true feelings of the soul of Jade Leech.

Grief comes without any sort of recovery. Instead, hurt erodes from the turret of time that passes through and splashes about but ultimately without cure.

I’d never be able to recover? Who’s to say that’s true?

But, the same sentiment rings true in your soul. Whichever you choose, the recovery path for the only choice will be fierce and full of regret. You will slice a part of your soul up and crush it no matter whether you go home or you stay in Twisted Wonderland. You pluck yourself out of the memory as you pluck a bottle of nightshade off Professor Crewel’s supply rack in potionology. 

Despite everything, you attend classes and unbirthday parties and … well, you would have attended club meetings, to procrastinate on the decision. If you leave, you leave with nothing but the skin on your back. You pour the deadly nightshade in the cauldron as Riddle, your lab partner, keeps stirring. You only have a day left. The phone in your pocket has been buzzing all day with concern but among the ladder of contracts you slide through you never see Jade 💕 among them. 

Pulling away to save us both the hurt, you think with a smile. That is so Jade, I should have been able to predict that. You watch the whirlpool of the gray mixture. Yeah, I’d never recover either. Then your lab goggles slowly but surely start to fill with tears. 

Riddle stops stirring, tool falling from his hand, when he sees you remove your goggles out of the corner of his eyes. You push them up and reveal bright red eyes brimming with tears. Tears so glutinous and heavy that it almost looks like melted wax. 

You cry because you know what you are going to pick. Your soul may fiercely want both options, impossibly greedy. Yet, now in the blimp of time, this pocket of your life, you have chosen the one you will go with. Removing the gloves from your hands, you start to furiously scrub away the ocean draining from you. It is so difficult to see. 

“Prefect, do you need to use the eyewash station? (Name)?”

“Ri-Rid,” you wheeze out. The waterfall is cascading down your face, clogging your voice. Gradually, the sound of you crying is starting to pick up a bit in volume.

“Prefect, what’s wrong? Here, I can use a spell to get it out of your eyes if you need. Did something splash up from the mixture?” You feel his smaller hand timidly rest on your quivering bicep. Sevens, your entire body is shaking like a power-drill. 

Students are starting to look in your direction. Morbid curiosity draws their eyes to you, listening to the gut-wrenching sobs you expel. Riddle’s face hardens in a glare. Frustration lies pink on his cheeks. With the force of your sobs, your knees start to tremble, tipping over the fence edge of buckling. You are a wreck.

“Professor Crewel –.” 

“Every single pup is excused from class. Right now.” 

The door is already magic-ed open. It takes a minute for others to pile out, some lingering in curiosity and some leaving steadfast in their recoil to no longer hear your cries. The click of the door breaks you and you finally collapse. Riddle goes down with you, gentle hand glued to your arm. 

“I need to make a call,” you manage to get out from your wet throat, crying as if you are grieving. You suppose it is appropriate. You are grieving someone who you will lose tomorrow and never see again. “I need to –”

“Who do you need to call, (Name)? I can call them for you.”

“Pup.” Crewel does not finish his thought.

You are back to being incomprehensible, crying like you have never cried before. Water coats your face and no matter which direction or what material you use, you cannot dry your face against the assault. Jade. You want Jade so badly. 

Riddle – top of his class yet failing the grade of life – stares, not knowing who you want or how to solve this. He grew up isolated; comforting others is not his specialty. “I could call Ace and Deuce. I can –” Riddle quickly locates his phone, fingers frantic. The phone slips out of his grip when a hand starts pounding against the classroom door. 

Beyond the tears, you hear:

“Class is dismissed –”

“Striped beakfish, move it.”

“Pup, I’ll have you –”

“Professor Crewel, I need to –”

“Shrimpy’s in there move it.”

“I don’t have time for this – move.” 

The arm in Riddle’s hand is suddenly wrenched away. You puppet your head up forcefully despite your tears. You should have known. Jade knows your soul after all. 

If it was under any other circumstances, it would be either terrifying or oddly hilarious, the open concern on Jade’s face. He collapses right down on the ground in front of you after pushing Professor Crewel out of his way. His face is taut with the emotions on it, a far cry from the always composed look he has. Only you could get such a reaction. His knee bumps your knee but you do not mind, throwing yourself on him and crying yourself dry of grief. 

“It’s okay. I got you. I’m not going to let you go, my love. I got you in my arms, okay?”

Jade’s single yellow eye manages to catch the bewildered look on Riddle’s face. There is a question in the housewarden’s expression: what’s wrong? It is obvious to Jade. You picked whether you want to stay or go.

A soul bond is engrained in the two holders. It allows them to read each other easily when they are at their strongest in a relationship. Thus, Jade knows exactly what you cry for. Riddle misjudges it as stress or a laboratory accident. Jade knows exactly why those tears fall down your face. You are staying in Twisted Wonderland. He knows in the beautiful, snotty, and wrinkled mess on your face: you are staying with him.

It is odd; all you wanted before was to talk, discuss, have a heart to heart vocally. You wanted so badly to restore your crippled communication. Now, you do not need a single word to let him know the entire situation, all the nuances are laid bare on your soul. 

“I got you. I’ll always be here, my love.”

He wipes flushed, wet cheeks and pulls you back in for a tight hug. You know when you feel tears fall onto your collarbone that they are his own soul thanking you for trusting him. 

The hand on Jade’s bicep is like ice.

Jade twitches, nose scrunching up. His bed tries to lure him back and make him ignore the comatose-cold hand on his arm. It is not a hard task; he is exhausted beyond belief and wants to sleep. His head tousles in the lilac pillow, falling back off the cliff into dreams, when the frozen hand starts to shake his arm.

“Mmm.”

“J … Ja … Jade.”

“Mmmmmm.”

Leave him alone. He is tired. Binding his pallid arms around the pillow in an amorous hold, he tries to dream. The room swelters with summer heat and the silk is like a balm to him. His bare stomach lies the inner sheets and the muscular expanse of rhomboids block out whoever is calling his name. Leave him alone.

“Jade, wake up please. Please Jade.”

“Leave me alone,” Jade groans into the pillow, words distorted with fatigue.

Above him, a sniffle and pathetic hissing cry breaks the heat. The sound is familiar. Out of mouth that is stringy with prison bars of salvia, tears, and snot, his name is called again. Around his eel sleeve tattoo, the hand remains shackled to him, gently shaking with each hiccup of tears. 

“Jade. Wake up.”

“Love?”

He blinks and there you are. Blue tears fall down your face and ice fingers pinch into ink. Jade is suddenly awake, releasing the pillow he was embracing and turning on his back, motions hazy with sleep. “Love?” His warm fingers reach up to thumb away the steady waterfall on your cheeks. Sevens, you are freezing. 

“What’s wrong,” he asks as he sits up in bed. For some odd reason, you are dressed up in your white button-up and slacks like you have somewhere to be going. His other hand reaches up and then he cups your face in his embrace. “What’s wrong, (Name)?”

“I wanna go home. Oh, Jade, I really want to go home,” you blubber breathlessly between your bawling. “I just – oh God – I want to go home.” Then, you fall into his shoulder, squeezing him tightly and sobbing anew. Sobbing inconsolable for your mother.

Jade knows that there are fresh tears wetting his bare collarbone but he feels distinctly out of his mind. Like his skin is not really his own, floating in a stranger’s body. Grasped in the throes of selfish panic, he pushes you tighter into his shirtless torso. Sleepy strands of hair are in his mouth; haunted eyes are unfocused in the dark of his room. Despite his large height, he truly does feel like he cannot come to terms with your words and is kicked out of his body because of it. 

Subconsciously, his dominant hand runs over your back in circles. Trying to use it as a rope to come back to his senses more than to comfort you. 

Home? But he had thought — had he mistakenly pushed his own soul’s objective onto you — you cannot go home!

“(N-Name). (Name), love,” Jade says into your ear. You do not respond, hysterically loud enough to drown out his voice.

He is surprised that Floyd has not woken up. The pitch and volume that you cry at is like someone screaming in a cave, knowing they are in solitude and can let it all go. Even when your teeth bite into his shoulder, your cries are far from quieting. 

It does not matter if Floyd was a deep sleeper — which he isn’t, Jade is the deeper sleeper of the two — no one should be able to sleep through this.

Yet, grateful Floyd is asleep, Jade hugs you tightly to his warmer skin. Shushing, he runs a hand down the crown of your head to your shoulder, hoping his touch will ground both of you from the cloud of agony. His grip is piercing, dug tight into your skin, but you do not bleed. Holding you so you do not escape him and leave for your home world. Selfish Selfish Selfish. 

Eventually you fall asleep; no one can cry like that without exhausting themselves. 

Eventually he falls asleep, blinking watery at his desk, thinking something is wrong with the image and doubly petrified for the morning. 

When he wakes up, there is no one in his bed.

[otomaticallyobsessed]

bring back zooterkins, the best 17th-century swear word

I don't normally do Just Characters Swearing, but. ...this kind of wrote itself and then wouldn't leave my head. it comes from both a piece of character-writing advice that has always stuck with me, and also my conviction that Leona is 1000% funnier as a character if his dialogue has to stay G-rated. let Kalim say fuck, but don't let Leona say bastard.

(I'm sorry)