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kellopot · 1 year

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working on someone,,,

You long for home the same way Ace longs for you.

It’s not a well kept secret— Heartslabyul knows of it, because Ace has tried sneaking out leftovers from parties as discreetly as he can but there’s only so much he can do before someone catches him in the act. He blusters through his excuses uncharacteristically unsmooth and they let him go with a knowing, pity-filled look.

(Because what was an even worse kept secret was the fact you wanted to go home. You didn’t shove it in anyone’s faces but it’s plain to see when you look at something that was similar but not the same as your home and then smile as if you belonged somewhere else.)

The first years know of it too— but they all share the same feeling of dread, in a way. You’re a dear friend, not that Ace would say it outright, because that felt like something he should save for goodbyes and goodbyes made him feel queasy now. Deuce looks as wretched as Ace feels because he can’t keep a poker face on even if his life depended on it. And Jack looks as if he actually means it when he wishes you well but there is no genuineness in his posture. Epel, Sebek, Ortho— he wasn’t there when the news had been broken to them, that a way to get you home had been found. But he sees traces of it in the ways that they don’t show up to any classes at all and you show up, eyes red rimmed, so late that you’d missed almost everything.

So then, Ace starts wondering if you’ll leave immediately. If you’ll look forwards and not backwards and never see the way Ace traces your footsteps, wanting to go back to the times where you still weren’t that homesick and Ace didn’t feel crushing pressure squeezing his throat.

You don’t. You don’t actually leave immediately— thank the sevens for that— because it gives Ace the opportunity to invite you back home for a last minute attempt at convincing you to stay. Thinly veiled, his invite is delivered haltingly, tripping over his words so often that it couldn’t be excused at all.

“-so that’s why I- we want you there. My family. And me,” he finishes uneasily because he sorta doesn’t wanna fuck this up massively. “You’ve never really been anywhere else anyways, maybe you’re feeling so antsy cuz of that. Once you see how beautiful my folks’ place is, you’ll feel better.”

Ace wants to hit himself. Folks? Antsy? “You’ll feel better”? Ace knows exactly why you’re antsy but he can’t help but want to drag this out a little longer, to keep you here, as feeble as his attempts are, so he can finish memorizing the way you look, sound, smell.

“And there’s loads of stuff to do there-”

“Sure.”

“-sure?”, he dithers nervously, blinking at you. The curve of your mouth is the exact same as he remembered when you teased him for getting an upset stomach after eating one too many slices of cherry pie. “Oh. Okay. Cool.”

Ace wants to hit himself again.

“So when are we leaving?”

Soon. Soon is when they’re leaving. Because the way to another world was apparently not very permanent so you and Ace can only travel back to his place for a day before coming back for your farewell party. Farewell party, that felt so strange to Ace because he’s familiar with see you laters but not goodbye forever.

On the way there, you crack so many jokes, and Ace gets swept along so easily that he forgets momentarily, the crushing weight on his throat and the impending parting that looms over his head. On the train ride there— because Crowley had permitted the trip back but not the use of the mirror for transport— you start looking out at the scenery rolling past, stars in your eyes. You ooh-ed and aah-ed and asked Ace questions that he can answer confidently, with a smirk, because tourists always asked the same questions when visiting.

“This train ride is a tourist favorite,” he brags, “Something about prettiest scenery. It’s a lot better if you’re actually there instead of inside this train.”

“You seem to know a lot about what tourists like,” you shift to look at him, leaning your head on the window. Your breath fogs the glass and Ace has to resist flicking your forehead because that was not a comfortable angle to lean at. He should know.

“My town’s the one that gets the most visitors. We’re set in a good place— all surrounded by the nature and stuff but also a bunch of attractions got built around us. It’s easiest to stay there if you wanna visit all of them relatively quickly. Inn’s always full when the holidays arrive. Sometimes I entertain them but I got banned after telling a few half truths.”

You laugh at his last statement. “No wonder you’re so good at making stuff up and keeping people occupied. Always been an entertainer, huh?”

“I’m retired now!”, he winks conspiratorially.

“You won’t lie to me, will you?”

“Never,” he slips out breezily, and finds that he means it, “Can’t lie to you.”

You grin, Ace starts another joke, and it’s all swept under the rug.

He finds it all come unraveling when you actually arrive at his home. And sit there. In the kitchen he grew up in. Wearing your stupid, oversized borrowed sweater from Ace and holding a mug of warm cocoa that his mother made after fussing over the two of you for the longest time. To Ace, you look so much like you belong here that an ache had actually started forming in his chest.

“She’s nice,” you divulge after much fussing, and a teasing wiggle of your eyebrows. “Do you think she’ll show me your childhood photos if I ask?”

Yes. His mother would do that, especially to someone she’d taken a liking to like you.

“Don’t even bother,” he sniffs, hands empty and cocoa-less because his mother had tutted when he showed up unannounced with a guest and was now cleaning out the spare room. You take a long, loud sip in retaliation and Ace pouts until you offer your drink and he takes a gulp.

Fine then, he thinks, watching you roll your eyes as he swallows down chocolate and fondness, I’ll forgive you for looking like you belong here too much.

The next agenda, is to make you actually want to stay here. Which is a lot trickier than actually getting you here. He shows you the forest first, the nature you were ogling at, and tells you that it must have rained because it smells of candied water and there are numerous fallen pine cones around them. At your blank stare, he explains.

“These trees have a sort of candy taste and smell to them, sorta like lollipops. It’s got something to do with the way the leaves secrete water or something but every time it rains around here, you can actually drink the water and it’ll taste sweet.”

Your eyes look like they would bulge out of their head. “Are you serious?!”

“Yep,” he grins, “and the pine cones always fall off when it rains heavily. And it literally smells like a candy shop right now.”

“You have candy rain.”

“Yep,” he says again, popping the p, “but only for a really small patch. These trees are rare so tourists aren’t actually allowed to look at these.”

“You took me here illegally?!”

“I’ve got permission! Sort of. I’m a local,” he flashes a cheeky look at you and now you start hitting him with your fists, delight coating your voice even as you mock-punish him.

He laughs and laughs till his mother calls you both back and Ace has to give her his infamous puppy dog eyes so she won’t scold him for taking you out to see their very important, very sacred trees. She’s still cold hearted enough to send him off to his room to organize all the things she found in the old room she just cleaned out.

“No dinner until then,” she says firmly, foot down, then turns to you with the brightest, sunniest smile. “Can I get anything for you, dearie?”

“Oh, no- well- maybe Ace’s old childhood photos,” you look at him and Ace is mortified to see the mischievous glint in your eyes. No doubt you would tease him for them on the way back.

“Coming right up!”

“I’m your real son!”, he protests huffily, but his mother simply looks at him and he slinks back to his room, your gaze burning him from behind.

And it’s a good thing he does because his room is still as it looks when he left but now there’s a pile of old junk in the middle of it with a photo of Ace in middle school at the very top, freckles dotting his skin and big ears that he hadn’t quite grown into yet. He shoves that photo somewhere deep between his bookcase and desk so it never sees the light of day and picks up the next thing.

It’s a box. An old box. He opens it and is hit with nostalgia as the old key stares back, the string worn but sturdy. He remembers he was only ten- or nine- when he made it with his brother. It was a temporary program where the creation of keys were being taught and whoever signed up had the opportunity to make their own key. Of course, he was too young to do so without a parent or guardian so he’d begged day and night until his brother caved and took him.

“Making a key to your heart?”, the older Trappola teen teasingly remarks as Ace concentrates on drawing straight lines. His brother had to help with drawing it but it was primarily, Ace that had come up with the design. “You’ve gotta find a good person to give this to in the future or all this work will be for nothing.”

“What if I wanna keep it for myself?”, Ace looks at the design and can’t imagine wanting to give away the first thing he’s ever made.

“Trust me,” his brother chuckles as the design gets approved and they’re being guided to the workplace, “You’ll want to give this to someone.”

In the end, even though it was Ace’s design, his brother had to be the one to melt the metal then reshape it with heat. It was complicated enough that he’d struggled but Ace had helped with the final decorations, and chosen the sole gem fixed into the head.

He startles when the door opens, almost dropping the box, but it’s only you, with a more pronounced flush on your cheeks and laughter still winding down, probably from looking at pre-puberty Ace. “Came to see if you passed out. You’re never this quiet when being told what to do.”

“Hey! I can behave when I want to.”

“I highly doubt that,” you gesture to the box, “What’s that?”

For a beat, he freezes, pauses to look at the old key. The color hadn’t faded and it was still in good condition. On impulse, he thrusts it out to you.

“A- A gift,” he searches for the right words, “It’s a key- key to uhm, my heart?”, his voice lilts and he feels like bashing his head in when you simply stare at him blankly, the key still lying in his palm, “No, never mind, forget that. It’s just a key… chain. You can use it as a keychain. Just some ratty old thing I won back when I was a kid. Pretty limited though, only one in the world, and I was just lucky- yeah.”

You take it, finally, you take the key, brushing the lint away and inspecting it, holding it up to the light. A hint of a smirk finally makes its way onto your face. “Alright, alright, I’ll keep it since you’re giving me something so special. Who knew you had it in you, Ace.”

Relief bursts through his lungs, mingled with disappointment that he ignores. “I can be nice when I want to. That thing doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Sure, sure,” you slip the key over your head, securing it around your neck, “Gotta replace this string though, it might snap.”

“You’re- wearing it,” he’s dumbfounded and confused. You’re wearing his oversized sweater and the key he made and looking at him like he’s slow when you’re the slow one for not realizing Ace wants to scream right there and then.

“I’ll use it as a keychain when I get home,” you decide, “And it’s the key to your heart, isn’t it? I’ve gotta take good care of it,” you lift the key to the light again and there, in so very tiny words imprinted into the metal are “Key to Ace Trappola’s heart”. Ace knew he shouldn’t have trusted his brother to not mess with the key when he was the one who had to do all the work.

“You’re mad,” he finally forces out. “Insane. Crazy.”

“I suppose I’ve gotta be to hang out with you,” you take the insult with grace and start looking at all the other things deposited in his room, Ace only barely able to keep his head straight to entertain you. From how much he keeps glancing at the key nestled between your collarbones, you must know he’s looking. And yet, you don’t say a thing.

Maybe I really can keep them here, Ace thinks, throat tight as you settle into his space so naturally. Maybe I can convince them. Or slip some sleeping pills during dinner and miss the-

“You’re a good friend, Ace,” you tell him, and Ace knows he can’t do anything because you look at him so softly and trusting and Ace is only able to handle so much.

“Yeah,” he swallows, “Yeah, I’m a great friend. You are too but not as good as me.”

You throw a pillow at his head and Ace laughs, as if you weren’t going to take his heart along with you when you left.

You long for home, Ace knows, because you long for home exactly like how Ace longs for you to look at him the same way he looks at you.

#I choose violence today #sorry for whoever has to scroll past this flaming pile #blame it on ai bc I know they won’t read it if I put it under a read more /lhj #I hope you rot bestie #this is revenge for all the things sitting in my inbox #sleep with your eyes open #could totally apply to junoace since he wants to go home so bad #I’m insane and it’s bc of the ainsane bullying /lh #unedited as FUCK was writing in a daze dont mind the second rate scuffed writing ai 🥺#pottering-about

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