chloromanci

[chloromanci]

[chloromanci]

Joker’s hypervigilance blooms within Daniel a tangle of unease and he finds himself mirroring his customer’s glances toward the door. Gothamites pass the shop more often than they frequent it even now that spring begins warming the outside smog. Daniel thinks to inquire about Joker’s worry but he isn’t the only one disarmed by Camellia’s charm. She’s the only one here ignorant to any threat. Joker’s being very nice to her and that’s all she needs in an immediate friend.

Cami blinks verdant eyes the size of silver dollars up at her father before swinging her toothy grin back at her guest. “Uh huh,” she titters excitedly, folding half her body over the counter to get a better view of both the pictures on the phone and Joker’s face. “I used to have a small garden but now I have a big, big one. It’s upstairs! Wanna see?”

“Sprite,” Daniel interjects with a smile that looks as though it’s backed by indigestion. Cami ignores her father like she knows better than to trust his rejection. She’s smiling wider and wider by the minute. “Sprite,” he tries again, this time softer, “I don’t think he wants to see. I think he just wants to get his own set up. Hm?”

Cami deflates only a little but, like her father, is not so much deterred from her joy as she is rerouted from her previous mission. “You need suck…” Her little brow pleats and she looks to Daniel for assistance. “Succulents,” he offers, to which Cami agrees, “Yes. Suck-lants. Fairies like the puffy ones. And the puffy ones like moss.” As though to aid in her pitch, Cami executes a pushup to stand on top of her stool and steal the moss back from her father’s hands so she can be the one to push it over the counter toward Joker. “Like this.”

“Herbs are good too,” Daniel adds, leaning forward to brace his forearms sidelong where his daughter looms in the direction of her sales victim. “What’d we plant last week?”

“Sage!” Cami plants her hands flat beneath her once again and tips forward to whisper like she's got even more government secrets to trade, “It’s soft and fuzzy. Also we have pink flowers too. Because I like pink sometimes.”

“Gerberas. The pink flowers are gerberas,” Daniel explains to Joker. “But any flower will do. If your wife has a favorite that I don’t have, I can outsource and have ‘em here in a day. They’ll just come from over the river.” New York. “I know a guy.”

“Steve,” Cami again whispers to Joker conspiratorially, of the guy her father knows.

The little girl’s attention visibly loosens the coil in his throat. Every muscle spasm that tends to leave his back feeling cemented relaxes. Joker, while softening his painted face so his smile won’t frighten her, squares his shoulders before tapping his screen to keep the dimmer from fading and locking the mobile.

Sokol tucks against his master’s left leg and plops on the floor. Blue eyes cold enough to sear flesh shift from his master’s gentle smile, to the bob of his Adam’s apple as he assures Cami, “Of course you can!” to his feet that may begin shaking or his fingers might begin carving his palm. So far nothing. Since the animal’s head bows, only his big black ears crop up from under the counter.

Before he loses his train of thought after leaning forward and turning his phone around for Cami to see, his brackish stare thrashes her father’s way. Joker swallows what tastes like a rusted nail, then answers Daniel with a quick, albeit quiet, “Given that it’s already spring and her flowers haven’t opened…” despite the shop’s humidity that adds even more volume to his below-the-shoulder length hair and thickens his ringlets, something gelid with an acrid odor grazes the back of his neck.

He’d turned away from the door.

Werewolf’s pupils shrink to pinpricks as he, while keeping the old gnarled tree with a smooth rounded stone staircase leading to a circular hobbit-like door in his yard for Cami’s viewing, touches his chin to his shoulder and watches the shop's door. He should turn. One foot glides as if on air and lands behind him, angling Joker’s hips and keeping the phone in his right hand should he need to draw his gun.

His focus returns to Daniel for a whispery, “I think the actual flowers at this point.” Cami wins his attention once again. Joker shifts from foot to foot in a metronome-like oscillation; he tilts his head and speaks to her as if his own daughters entered the building, “And that’s not all. You see…” he flicks to the next image of a birchwood cottage perched between two shrubs that should be crowned in purple flowers, “My wife is making a whole village for our daughters, but she's having a little trouble with the actual garden part.”

The next swipe shows a walkway made from tons of dried up beans leading to a fairy-sized teatime table and a rounded cottage that also should be surrounded by greens.

“Your dad said...that you happen to be an expert in the matter of homing fairies…” Comedy’s side of his smile stretches back as he glances left and right like they're sharing sealed CIA records, “Got any advice I can pass on?”

[chloromanci]

The weight of Nix’s stare is that of a crowbar to the back of the neck. That kind of attack would come without warning but Daniel perceives the threat before the blow can land and twists his neck to meet those frosted eyes. All the winter air sits within them. Feels just as shocking too. But Daniel’s an open book and doesn’t care for posturing. Gothamites wear hoods and cowls and false names to get the things they want. Not Daniel. He’s as blatant as that crowbar assault too and nearly as honest. She can crack him open if she wants to. The mess’ll blend into the rest of the street.

“Grass is always greener.” Daniel grins, much more pleased with himself than anyone ought to be, and then shrugs his shoulders as if to relay to her that he knows it wasn’t actually clever at all. Horticulturist, grass. Stupid. “But I don’t know. Some things beat sleeping in the back of a 1989 Honda Accord. I’d have eaten an arm, a leg, and then some for working A/C. And aren’t your summers here kind of...muggy?” He isn’t actually sure. Now he’s trying to remember what that climate summaries report actually said.

Blinking corrects his sights away from their blank fix over the shoulder opposite where Nix’s little girl clings. Now Daniel hooks back into their staring contest. His smile widens and dimples his cheeks. “Nah. Lost the pool deal, but snagged a place in Burnley. We’re living right above the shop.” He’s lucky Cami’s little enough not to mind sharing cramped quarters with her old man right now. Still beats where they’ve come from. Daniel plants his hands on his hips and cocks his head, squinting once again past Nix. “School district’s pretty shit though, I have to admit. Are you springing for private for her?” Lilac, obviously. Not that he could do the same for Camellia right now. Still bears asking.

Like a bloated corpse beckons flies and their maggots, Gotham's permeating decay seems to herald visitors. Most are unaware of the preternatural snare the city seems to wrap around their throat until it's too late. Nix, however, longs for the cleaner air and the clearer skies. Looking up now there is only smog, and the noxious plumes adrift from the industrial district. Those black rivers pervade everything, bedecking the concrete around them in a skin of grime. Cloys the throat on the inhale and sticks itself firmly in the windpipe.

She looks at him now and struggles to peel back the vision of an insectoid skin to find his face, and perhaps it shows on the subtle up-curl of her lip or the faint twitch claiming a shadowy ring beneath her right eye. Even so, she smiles, and grants him a brief laugh that's tight in her throat. The constant swing and gentle tugging of her daughter's fingers in her hair aid in some semblance of distraction from her bitterness. She swings her weight onto one hip, though not the better one.

" That just about sums it up. " She agrees, her working fingers pattering Lilac's thigh. The girl's dressed for the prolonged winter as Tigger. Her plain red wellies would be perfect to carve right through the oily slush in the gutters, but she much prefers existing as a limpet on her mother's side. Nix muses, " It's crazy, " While looking right at him, " I'd eat my own fucking arm to get out, and you're all frothing at the gash to trade places. " Up pop her brows in ostensible questioning, she purses her lips with the next cant of her head, and pinprick pupils can't hide her study of him. Like he's an ant beneath magnifier, and the sun is just beginning to peel through the clouds…

" So'd you get your indoor pool, or? "

[chloromanci]

I’ve a work dinner to attend (RIP) but I beg of you to send memes for me to write when I get home!

[chloromanci]

I’ve a work dinner to attend (RIP) but I beg of you to send memes for me to write when I get home!

[chloromanci]

ヾ(´▽｀;)ゝ

[chloromanci]

When will I be free from the clutches of capitalism?

[chloromanci]

the mountain in the sea.

dialogue prompts from the mountain in the sea by ray nayler.

i keep making it more dramatic than it was.

what did you see?

the weather is shitting rain.

you were crying. did you have the dream again?

there was nothing you could have done.

please stop pestering me about my vampirism.

i need enormous quantities of solitude.

i'm not up late. i'm up early.

profit is a powerful motivator.

why do you need me here, if you already know everything?

sacrifice should be worth something.

what monsters have we made?

i'm not a bad person, but i had to live.

sometimes i think i imagined that part.

i'm not ready to have someone try to heal me.

i need to carry it with me a while longer.

it's better to ask questions than to struggle for answers.

i'm not done with you yet.

there isn't anything a coward can't live with.

it's always been a game for you.

i thought you might listen to me.

it can't be any worse than this.

what do you do with all the things you no longer need to remember?

what i'd like to build is a forgetting palace. somewhere to put the things i don't want to remember anymore.

i don't want to be the person carrying around these memories anymore.

it's you who doesn't want to hear it. but i need to tell it.

nothing will make it better but time. you have to give it time.

you're playing games you don't even know the rules of.

it's so easy to justify our own actions.

i keep making the pieces fit how i want them to. not the way they are.

i like when you're gone. i win all our arguments in my head.

i think, therefore i doubt i exist.

consciousness is a self-sustaining illusion.

what did you do to make the feeling go away?

i learned to hide it. to smile.

i'm not like you. i never was.

how many people have you killed?

we don't get to choose our homes. they choose us.

i don't hate you. i just don't want to talk to you.

i can't imagine you trusting anyone.

i don't feel afraid. i feel angry.

inaction is also a kind of action.

i feel like i know you so well.

nothing is certain, and nothing is permanent.

[chloromanci]

“It’s your lucky day,” Daniel says with exaggerated aplomb meant to enthuse his daughter more than his customer. The vibrant rise in his voice draws those big green eyes as intended and her father waggles his brows at her to keep her ephemeral attention. “We’re experts when it comes to fairy gardens. Isn’t that right, Cami?”

Cami wrinkles her nose when she smiles toothily. One gap between a central and lateral incisor sees her tongue poking through that hole and now that she’s found it again, she will keep going back to check if her adult tooth has cut through the gums yet. It hasn’t. “We have one!” Now Cami swings her focus ‘round to their guest and her smile wilts around the edges with what can only be described as dazzled awe. “I like your hair.”

Daniel huffs a laugh and smooths a hand over Camellia’s head. The wide set of his palm temporarily smooths down the frizzies poking out of her braids but there’s no real taming what the humidity in the shop has done to her two brown plaits. “Think you can go grab us a little box of moss, Sprite? Remember where we put them last week?”

Cami says, “‘Kay,” and slides off her seat, abandoning her rock project to slip around her father and the counter. As she passes Joker, she gives him a shy little wave. Daniel watches her cross to the other side of the room, her mission delayed only when she gets distracted momentarily by a collection of strings of pearls that she passes her fingers through. When she reaches the bags of soil and mulch, he tilts his head back toward Joker.

“They skimped you on the whole she-bang, huh? Did, ah, Nixie, you said–? Did she want seeds or blooms? I have both, just depends on what she was looking for.”

Cami’s returned with a square plot of live moss in a plastic planter clutched between her little hands. She circles back around the counter to hand the moss to her father, all the while doing a horrible job pretending Joker’s service animal does not attract her attention. Daniel offers a free hand to help boost her back up into her seat, but she isn’t interested in her rocks anymore. “Can I see the door again?” she asks Joker quietly, kicking her little feet back and forth so her heels hit her stool again and again and again. Her father reminds her to tack on a please to her request which she does with an impish smile.

The little girl hadn’t addressed him, yet Joker’s blood warms some from hearing her voice. Thalia tightens her grip on the right side of his face. He leans into that smile, eyes averted.

Shifting from foot to foot ripples up his legs and torso until his shoulders ride the same sub-bass that’s bullied its way into a certain unpublished song. His new ARP and Pulsar will guide this one. Musician’s fingertips strike those invisible keys to will himself into making and keeping eye contact for longer than what keeps him comfortable.

Sokol wedges his nose in the trough of his master’s palm to splinter any forthcoming dissociation. Joker yanks the cigarette from his mouth with his weak hand. Twinkles from the sea glass sweep over every slope and roam the contours of his face before setting within his green eyes. In certain lights, they might appear backlit like some night animal.

Finally he exhales. Poison vents from his nostrils and builds a screen that Joker finds comfort in. He lingers behind it, shoulders still angled and one eye on the door to monitor it for any characters who might think now’s the time to slay the beast. He remains standing on the balls of his feet just to be safe. A grey ribbon zigzags from his right hand. 

“Does it?” he asks, showing teeth to mask how his heart’s in his throat. Another glance cuts his focus toward the door. Dent hasn’t grown that bold yet. Yet. “W-we um...” bone-dry laughter strains his voice, spinning the shop floor until he forces himself to cough, “We have plenty of grass. I think she was more upset about the flowers. Nixie built this one into one of our trees…”

Joker's free hand, though trembling, drops in his pant pocket to retrieve his bright red iPhone, bobble it, then use facial recognition to unlock it and fumble around his photos until he finds the first of many: a fitted round door waits at the peak of a meandering stone staircase.

“She wanted to wrap vines and flowers around this one," he explains, "We don’t have any moss in our yard either. It’s supposed to kinda wedge the thing in place and cushion the stones.”

[chloromanci]

what are you talking about of course theres a shark in the greenhouse

[chloromanci]

Gotham’s got some way about it. It sinks its roots into you anyway, that’s for damn sure. And Daniel, ever the green thumb, is a bit helpless to that sort of grounding. Doesn’t much hurt that he’s been a little bit always searching for some place to do that for him. Maybe that’s not Gotham but at least for now it’s a place that isn’t someone’s couch or the backseat of his car or a hotel room for a week. Nevermind that he’s behind on rent. At least there’s rent to be behind on.

“Jesus.” Empathy in him clocks her discomfort but he’s awkward with it for a moment. Scratching the back of his neck and cracking a grin feels inadequate but at the worst of times he’s nothing if not good for some shit humor in the face of shit luck. “A little bit is right. Shit.” Daniel exhales a laugh and shakes his head, looking away as if to hunt for something that won’t shut her down with her daughter so vinelike attached to her. Belatedly he realizes he’s been spewing expletives in front of her toddler. That she’s been responding in kind is the only reason he halts an apology.

She slides to an abutting topic easier than he assumes truly is. Daniel latches onto it. “Yeah. I mean, buy now and get an indoor pool free? In New Jersey? That’s practically a misdemeanor.” Warmer air catches that joke on an updraft. Daniel glances at the perching girl for a moment thinking of his own before averting his gaze entirely and fixating intently on a couple of pigeons attempting to jaywalk the waterlogged street. “Do you think it attracted a lot of people here? Tragedy does that. You know how many people actually moved to New York after 9/11? Population was booming.”

Irony seats a toddler on Nix's hip, her strained spine curved to one side so that her right side pops outward for her youngest daughter's perch. Lilac is too big for the hip seat to help either of them, and so Nix masks a grimace upon turning to look him in the eye. 

The echoes of the dawning subject shades her gaze, drawing colour from glacial blue to grey. Her daughter's too busy turning her head to people watch, as if she could in any way watch her mother's back for her. Her free hand folds into Nix's blonde tresses, absently wrapping her fingers around and around. She'd felt the rigidity bloom across her mother's shoulders, the tensity of her fingers, wrapping against her thigh to keep her in place.

A laugh, misplaced and built from some hopeless fractals jarring in her chest resounds. The street is built so tight with brick and concrete that for a moment, the snapping of Nix's teeth sings in the air like bones being broken. " A little bit. " In lieu of having a hand free to gesture some miniscule space between her finger and thumb, her nose wrinkles and she flashes her teeth. Catching herself after a moment, she purses her lips, ducks her head. As she ostensibly sobers, her gaze flits down, then up. Down, then up. " Fucker sent my home to the ether. "

A delicate pat of her hand seems to reassure her daughter when her mother ponders accusingly, " Bet the housing market opened right up after that. "

[chloromanci]

She makes a good show but he takes that scoff for what it really is and smiles smugly so she knows he knows the truth. A simple no would have sufficed by her very high and doubtlessly impossible standards. But then he wouldn’t have tricked amusement out of her or that pleasant little pinch to her brows that clearly indicates ire. Seeing it only makes him grin even wider, not even the customer able to simmer him down though he makes a show of turning away at last to hide it.

Daniel bends down to scoot the pot around the corner of the counter so it sits on the floor beside and avoids becoming a trip hazard. The blackeyed Susans are disturbed by the travel they’d endured before arrival but he isn’t worried about their current droop. Adelaide’s a green thumb even without her magic and Daniel’s confident enough to leave the blooms here. If he’d been worried, they wouldn’t be sitting in soil right now but rather cut at the stem and wrapped tightly in twine.

Allison’s competitiveness has the opposite effect than she’s clearly going for. Daniel is smirking wider when he stands back up and turns to face her. She’s tucked behind a shelf with several feet of space between them aside but he can feel her superiority even from here. “What? And risk you dumping these poor Susans out back out of spite? No way.” Daniel tips against the counter at his back and crosses his arms over his chest. “If you must know, Allison, I’ve been trying to court your aunt for weeks now. I’m hoping these will finally win her over. She kept the last ones at least so I’m thinking I finally have a chance.”

His  punchline  lands  somewhere  in  the  space  between  them,    or  else  further  than  he’d  intended  to  pitch  it.    Allison  lets  it  hit  the  water  and  sink,    holding  his  gaze  with  hers,    before  she  finally  squints  at  him  above  the  simmering  veneer  of  a  humored  smile.    ❝    A  simple  no  would  have  sufficed.    ❞  Something  tells  her  he’d  rather  avoid  simple;    that,    or  it  avoids  him  and  she  can  only  guess  why.    ❝    Dental  and  vision  for  part  time.    ❞  Allison  scoffs  so  she  doesn’t  laugh.

Someone  comes  in  the  front  door,    jingling  the  chime  to  alert  for  a  new  customer.    Allison  opens  her  mouth  to  call  a  greeting,    but  the  man  covered  in  dirt  beats  her  to  it.    He  finishes  that  apparent  race  with  a  smirk;    Allison  squints  at  him  again  and  pushes  off  from  the  counter  to  put  more  distance  between  them.    ❝    Yes.    ❞  She  tucks  a  chin  -  length  strand  of  hair  behind  her  ear.    ❝    It’s  Allison.    ❞

Before  Flower  Guy  can  try  it,    Allison  says  to  the  browsing  tourist  meandering  down  the  aisle  of  incense  sticks,    ❝    Let  me  know  if  you  need  help  finding  anything.    ❞  Shooting  her new rival  a  lifted  -  brow  look  over  her  shoulder,    she  circles  around  the  opposite  aisle  and  fusses  with  Addie’s  jar  collection.    Her  aunt  is  either  taking  a  long  phone  call  or  she’s  taken  her  lunch  knowing  damn  well  she’s  got  help  to  cover  her.    Allison  chances  a  peek  first  over  at  the  tourist,    and  then  Flower  Guy.    Eyeing  the  pot  at  his  feet,    she  asks,    ❝    Are  you  delivering  something  for  Adelaide?    I  can  sign  for  it.    ❞

[chloromanci]

Six wire shelves sit in two rows of three central to the store. From where Joker came in through the entrance door, he could have walked straight down that middle aisle between them to the back wall presently lined with bookshelves. Only one of them actually contains any books, all of which are of course on theme. The rest contain varying pots in both ceramic and biodegradable options, trays, seed starter kits, and heavier terra cotta planters relegated to the floor. The shelves in the middle of the room house most of the plants but there was no missing the large outdoor foliage set out in front of the shop.

Daniel taps a finger to the seaglass so the whole thing spins and sends those fractals dancing across Joker’s face. Then he makes an effort to keep a respectable distance between himself and the working wolfhound as he advances on his associate behind the counter along the wall adjacent to the front. “See, I’ve been persuaded to try the social media route for promoting business, but...” Daniel throws a lemonsucked look over his shoulder at Joker before his goodnatured grin returns. “What happened to MySpace? AOL?”

“What’s AOL?” Cami asks, not once breaking her concentration from her sorting. She takes great care setting a medium sized stone next to another larger stone to compare the two and, seemingly displeased with what she finds, she separates them both into different piles.

“Old people Google.” Daniel smiles conspiratorially at Joker and shrugs his shoulders as if to say, ‘Am I wrong?’ Camellia is neither impressed or disappointed by his explanation. The stone sorting is too important. To Joker, Daniel asks, “Y’need seeds then? Fairy garden means grass or flowers. We have some moss too if you really want to sell it.”

The temptation to investigate that capsized dung-pile is excruciating, but Sokol resists. He prepares for Joker to release his pale blue lead so he can patrol Bosch’s Growth’s interior. Doesn’t happen.

Werewolf rocks from side to side on his hind legs. Each rotation is so subtle, Joker might elude the naked eye altogether. He’s forgotten the cigarette dangling between his middle and index fingers, too. That lit cylinder spits a pewter thread that singes his skin. To disguise the scald, he flashes his crooked teeth and leans into another drag off his cigarette. Smoking’s likely prohibited. Try telling him that.

Sokol is first to brace when his master emits a winded, wheezy noise he’s trying to pass off as laughter. When his chin touches his shoulder, he spots a little girl around Evelyn’s age behind the counter. How her ringlets catch the light warms him some, though he doesn’t allow his eye to linger.

Turning his torso on a diagonal keeps the door and most of the shop in view so Gotham remains to him. Sokol paws at his master’s foot to allay its endless shake. 

Joker mutters, “Not enough to browse…” When he shifts his focus around the shop for theatricality’s sake, a teal glint from the sea glass ignites his eyes. “Though my wife just got scammed from an Instagram mom’s fairy garden book. Nixie's blaming herself, but…” the makeup helps exaggerate his frown as Joker speaks out the side of his mouth — with a cigarette still trapped between his teeth, “I don’t...exactly...think they’re scientists over at Renee’s Special Seeds.”

[chloromanci]

House of light C  -   Frank Brunner , 2004.

Norwegian, b. 1971 -

Oil on canvas , 75 x 110 cm

[chloromanci]

When the seasons shift down here, there’s reason enough to celebrate. The city’s got a habit of making something out of nothing about as often as they make nothing out of something. That’s more to do with protecting its own though. In certain communities around here, it’s harder to stay quiet than it is to start talking. Adelaide Argent runs half those communities herself. Probably why he’d been roped into her circle. Hard not to be once the woman deems you interesting enough.

Daniel’s heard about Addie’s niece. This is not what he’d been expecting. That frigid air she brings in with her smells as expensive as she looks and Daniel almost sketches a bow just to really sell the whole vibe. If she wasn’t already biased, Addie no doubt would’ve claimed her aura somewhere in the neighborhood of Chanel. Or whatever the hell that bag’s brand is. He sure as hell wouldn’t know.

“Yeah, first day.” Slothlike and just as unbothered, Daniel moves to stand and presses a hip into the counter on a lean. When he drags his wrist across his brow, it’s a wonder he doesn’t leave behind a streak of dirt. He’s grinning back at her. “Don’t really believe all this bullshit,” he lowers his voice but only enough to convey what ought to be a secret in case they've got an eavesdropper in his supposed boss and waves a hand vaguely in the air to gesture at...everything, “But the old lady promised dental and vision. Can you believe her generosity?” Daniel lets the joke fester between them and doesn’t lose his easy smile. Then, “It’s Allison, right?”

It’s  not  hot  enough  to  shirk  sleeves  just  yet  in  southern  Louisiana,    but  even  that  impending  wet  heat  won’t  dissuade  Allison  from  covering  up.    She  has  the  collar  of  her  jean  jacket  turned  up  against  her  throat  to  dissuade  the  wind  outside  from  slipping  through  her  hair  to  chill  her.    It’s  no  use  though;    death  has  a  funny  way  of  keeping  the  cold  trapped  in  the  bones,    so  Allison  will  wear  her  jacket  through  the  end  of  May  and  into  June.    Even  now,    stepping  over  the  threshold  into  the  shop  which  is  markedly  more  humid  than  the  outdoors,    she  keeps  her  arms  clutched  close  against  her  belly.

She  doesn’t  know  his  voice  or  his  face.    Proximity  does  nothing  for  her  recall  in  this  instance.    If  she  knew  someone  eons  ago,    drawing  closer  at  least  reminds  her  body  what  once  came  to  pass.    He  has  no  such  effect  on  her  until  they  lock  eyes.    Allison  draws  her  chin  up  in  defense  before  she  can  check  herself.    There  are  no  dreams  that  spring  forth  to  give  layers  to  his  eyes  nor  memories  she  doesn’t  recognize  that  offer  complexity  to  the  comfortable  way  he  fits  into  this  space.    She’s  got  nothing  to  explain  him  away;    he  is  just  a  stranger  to  her.

❝    That’s  fine.    I  can  wait  for  her.    ❞  Allison  stops  on  the  opposite  end  of  the  counter  and  pivots  on  the  ball  of  one  foot  to  face  him.    It’s  not  so  far  a  distance  that  she  can’t  see  that  he’s  been  sprayed  in  dirt,    but  it  is  enough  space  that  she  can’t  determine  if  he  has  his  own  freckles  or  if  that  compost  dressed  him  down  so  badly.    Allison  indulges  a  friendly  smile.    ❝    I  hadn’t  realized  my  aunt  hired  another  part  timer.    Did  you  just  start  today?    ❞

[chloromanci]

i didn't mean to be here. suddenly i just was.

Plants keep secrets if you had nowhere else to go. It’s one of those things Daniel learned young, a boy with nothing and no one, a boy cast out by the people meant to love him. Plants also follow the same life cycle we do, bloom and decay, birth and rot, and they go back to the earth just the same as we do. Not enough people get that, Daniel thinks. It’s easier to relax under cover of green. He wouldn’t be surprised if all this life drew Joker in even unintentionally. That’s how it always goes.

Camellia’s sat on the high stool behind the store counter sorting rocks. How she’s sorting them, who’s to say, but it looks to be maybe by size. The humidity in the air has her hair more frizzy than curly, little brown ringlets coiled at her temples and at the nape of her neck. She says nothing to her latest customer when the door jingles. Bad service already.

“Little early for philosophizing.” Daniel speaks from Joker’s right where he’s rehanging a wind chime by the front window. It’s comprised of chunks of seaglass strung together by twine and would throw fractals of bluegreen against the walls if the light outside wasn't so bleak. Joker ought to watch his step unless he wants to wade through a tipped over bag of fertilizer with those fancy shoes of his. Daniel grins knowingly. “What? Don’t like flowers?”

🌱 WATCH. (for @jokethur)

[chloromanci]

Did anyone tell you what happened?

Over a year later and the city’s still half underwater. The effects still flood the streets and keep people out of damaged property and all the while Gotham moves on. Gotham moves on and Gotham wallows. Something to be said about a city that holds a grudge as readily as it picks itself back up. Some people can’t even multitask so well. Maybe even most people. Daniel can’t relate to that though. He’s got his fingers in too many pies not to hoist his baggage everywhere he goes. Seems birds of a feather flock together.

“Nah.” Newspaper so wet it could make a paste sticks itself to the bottom of one of his shoes. Daniel half leans against the closest building to pick some of it out of the rubber grooves in the sole and flick it back whence it came. The sidewalk is splattered like a Jackson Pollock painting. “Heard about it in the news. Like anybody else. What’s it say about a guy that he hears about a city being blown up and thinks to himself, ‘Y’know what? Seems like a sensible place to raise my kid in’?”

Daniel’s smile is wide and crooked when he straightens upright again. Easy, easy. Even scraping shit off the bottom of his shoe doesn’t put him off. “You get fucked over from it much? Or were you safe uptown?”

🌱 STILL BORN. (for @banschivs)