#pressed flowers pressed petals pressed ears THEY’RE ALL SO SOFT. THE TEXTURE IS SO SOFT

[din-dadrin]

love is found in all the ways grogu’s ear flops and folds and presses up against din’s arm or shoulder or chest or any space they bend into to accommodate each other actually

[sparxwrites]

Prompt: Caleb still has Winter Soldier-style triggers buried in his head

[ao3]

“The RED ones are my favourite,” says Yasha, in melodic, fluent Celestial, as she turns a page in her book to show Caleb a pressed sprig of flowers. They’re almost unbearably delicate, pea-sized flowers flattened into fascinatingly textured and perfect circles, a small cascade of them spattered around the centre stem like a jagged spray of arterial blood. “They’re just… so small. But so vivid, you know?”

Talking in Celestial whilst on watch is a habit they’ve picked up, since they’re the only two in the group that know it, and there’s precious little occasion for conversation in it elsewhere. Though he has an accent where Yasha does not, Caleb’s comprehension is faultless, and he’s used to interpreting the resonant, ringing tones of the language with ease.

The sudden pressure the words raise in the back of his skull, like the tolling of a bell, the heavy gathering of a mist in the pre-dawn cool, is new. “Ja,” he agrees, faintly, through the red red red ringing at the nape of his neck. “They are beautiful.” 

He prefers the blue ones she showed him, two pages back, broad blooms with delicate petals threaded through with purple, if he’s being honest.

Distracted with trying to ascertain why he’s suddenly feeling so strange, the next word he catches hits him like a clip to the jaw. “-only SEVEN pages left in this book, and then… I don’t know. I’ll have to buy a new one,” Yasha says, and he’s reeling, the bell tolling louder, the vibrations making his back teeth ache. It’s like a sudden-onset migraine, and he makes a muffled noise, jamming the heel of one palm into his eye socket against the sudden pressure in his eyeballs.

“Caleb?” Yasha asks, her mismatched eyes caught on the creases of pain that suddenly line his face. “Is everything okay?”

He winces, grits his teeth, praying for the ringing to fade as he grinds his hand more firmly against his eye. “I am just- it is just a headache,” he says, and his voice sounds distant to his own ears. “It will pass.”

Yasha catches her lower lip between her teeth, releases it. When she speaks, he barely hears her over the bell-tone, now deep and pulsing, like a drum turned melodic. “Are you sure? You don’t look good. …I could get JESTER?”

The ringing, this time, turns the world into bright, bleach-bone white.

He comes back to himself trembling, not from fear, but from the hot blood-pulse of adrenaline in his veins. He’d be more than trembling, if it weren’t for Jester sprawled across his back and pinning his arms down, Beau sat on his legs with her thumb jammed into a point on his spine that’s making all his joints feel unpleasantly numb. There’s a whining, thin and feral and hungry, a panting - it takes a moment for him to realise it’s him.

It takes a full minute for him to stop it.

“-just talking,” Yasha’s saying, when he comes back enough to hear again. Her voice is soft, as always, and with an edge of helplessness that makes him ache, somewhere a mile below the buzzing-pulsing-burning vibrating through his skull. “We were just talking, and then he… he just stood up, and his hands lit up, and he…”

He what? Bren doesn’t remember, but Caleb can smell the hot ozone of fire and scorched grass, the faintest hint of seared meat underneath. His fingers ache, cracked through black-hot like they always are when he raise an inferno. He can take an educated guess what he did.

“Caleb?” says Jester, tentatively. “Caleb, are you- Beau, have you got him?” Beau must nod, because the weight lifts from his upper body a second later, though not the numbness. “Are you back with us? What happened?”

“I… don’t know,” he breathes, when he remembers how his lungs work, an exhale on the edge of a moan. His mouth tastes of blood and desert, and there’s something tacky drying stiff below his nose, his ears. “Ich- I was-” He’s no stranger to madness, the kind that leaves you hollow and blank and swallowing time down in long, white stretches of absence, but this- this is something else. Something swift, violent, like a knife through the skull. His hands are still shaking. “It just, it happened, it-”

The fingers on his spine shift, ease off, and his arms sharpen into clarity. He brings his hands to his mouth, presses them over tear-wet cheeks. The smell of seared meat grows stronger, and then eases with a wash of pastry-sweet healing magic from Jester’s careful touch. Small, green hands touch his face, his hair, and he becomes aware of Nott’s soft crooning next to his ear. Whatever she’s humming, he doesn’t recognise it, but it has the cadence of a lullaby.

His heart slows, the racing eases. The tight bands of panic around his chest loosen.

“There were- words,” he says, when he can breathe, when each inhale isn’t a desperate, sobbing gulp. His face is still buried in his hands, but he can tell who cast Calm Emotions on him- the magic tastes of peat-bog and fresh pine needles on the back of his tongue, feels like the slow bending of a tree in the wind. “That you said, in Celestial, when we talked. They- rang.” He licks his lips, tastes sour blood and fear-sweat. “What… what happened after?”

He’s not sure he wants to know.

“You went goddamn crazy,” says Fjord, bluntly. Not hisses at him for it, an indignant, muted screech, but Caleb is grateful for his honesty. “When we woke up, your hands were on fire, the grass was on fire, half our shit was on fire, and if Yasha hadn’t had her sword-”

“You went for her face! With your hands!” blurts Jester, just as Yasha says, “I’m fine, though.”

“I healed her right up,” rumbles Caduceus, pleasantly, as though the bottom hasn’t just dropped out of Caleb’s stomach, as though he hasn’t just plummeted into spiralling freefall. “Just a little bit of scorching, really, nothing- oh, none of that, now. Come on.”

A soft-furred hand cups the back of his neck, and the peat-pine-steady-bend of verdant magic washes over him once more. The impending flashback subsides unsteadily to the back of his brain. He still hears the screams, but they’re distant, muted. It hurts worst, almost, like this - as though he’s forgotten them. 

“I didn’t- that wasn’t-” he breathes, but the weight of the magic and the easing of the trembling make him aware, abruptly, of how exhausted he is. It feels like someone’s taken a mallet to his brain, tenderised it to bruised pulp inside his skull. Nott’s still petting his hair, humming scratchily, and it’s making his eyelids droop despite the restrained panic still thrashing somewhere tucked away. “I don’t know-”

The hand on the back his neck shifts a little, a thumb pressed against the point where spine meets skull. “Shh, enough of that. Sleep, Mister Caleb. We’ll worry about this in the morning.”

“What did you-!” demands Nott, close to his ear, but his eyelids are already sliding closed at the command. The last thing he sees, before sleep takes him fully, is an image, imprinted on the inside of his eyelids- Yasha’s face, wide-eyed and pale, with his fast-approaching fire reflected in her mismatched eyes.

[ettawritesnstudies]

Yellow Roses: A Storge Expert

Context: The Laine family has just moved to a tiny apartment in the avian city. Why is not important and also spoilers so I shan’t tell you that quite yet, but please enjoy the story!

“I’m going to sit outside for a while. Just on the steps,” Enne told her mom, “I’ll be right in, I just need a minute to think. Can you hand me my box, please?”

Anda obliged and Enne followed the two outside. Chara felt sorry for the poor girl – she didn’t have much and it mustn’t be easy to be uprooted all over again. She could at least provide her with a little company. Chara turned to Acheran, “Go ahead, I’ll catch up.”

Acheran shrugged and took off with a wave towards the family. Chara moved to sit next to Enne, letting her wings stretch over the ledge. “What do you have in there?”

“It’s a lot of junk,” Grace piped in. Her head was hanging out the window as she watched the exchange. “Nick knacks and pebbles and things that Enne collects.”

“It’s not junk,” Enne said quietly, walking slowly onto the stairs. She placed her feet on each step carefully so as not to miss one and fall without her hands to catch her. “It’s special.” She held her box full of trinkets and Chara could hear the sorrow tinging her voice.

Chara approached her to take the box, but she resisted. “I can carry it myself if you don’t mind.”

“Do you mind if I have a look?”

Enne shrugged and sat down, setting the box in her lap. “They’re not really meant for looking. I started collecting them after I lost my sight, though some are from before.” She felt around until she pulled out a small book. “I wrote this when I was little, though I can still remember the story. I might not be able to read it anymore but I like to keep it around.”

She pulled out a sheet of pressed flowers. Sunflowers, daffodils, marigolds, tiger lilies, one tulip, one rose that was perfectly preserved to be dry and whole. “And I loved the yellow flowers. They’re still soft though which is nice. And I like the texture of petals more now.”

“She’s sentimental,” Grace said, yawning. Luca frowned at his younger sister. She got so belligerent when she got tired.

“Hush, Grace. You’re just being mean now,” their mother scolded from the doorway. “Enne has a right to be sentimental. You don’t remember what it was like before. You weren’t born yet. She lost a lot, and you have no right to tease her over the things she loves, especially on her birthday. What if we made fun of the stories you play with your friends? How would that feel?”

“Not good,” Grace mumbled. “Sorry Enne.”

“You’re forgiven. Thank You, Ma.”

“Of Course,” Anda smiled and Grace’s head disappeared back inside their apartment.

Chara ignored her curiosity at what, “before” meant, figuring it would be rude to ask what happened. She made a mental note to ask Acheran if he knew later on. How sad that they had to move on the day of the girl’s birthday. She turned back to Enne and looked long and hard at the flowers. “Yellow suits you. These are lovely, Enne.” She handed them back, then took off her golden sash. She placed it in Enne’s hands. “This is a deep golden yellow color. Can you imagine it? I’m sure I’m not being very helpful, but it’s darker than your rose.”

“Yes, I can see light and shadow and vague fuzzy blotches of color and shapes but not much else,” Enne said. “It’s very soft.”

“It’s a special fabric from very far away called silk.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt something like this before.” Enne brought it to her face, then felt it between each finger, longing lingering as she started to hand it back over.

“You can keep it.” Chara pushed it back, “As a birthday present. I don’t believe this has been a happy birthday, but perhaps a gift will make it better.”

“But isn’t it a symbol of status in your culture?” Enne was shaken. She tried to force the sash back into Chara’s hands. “It’s yours. You’re a politician, aren’t you? And a scholar - you went to the Atilan university! You’re trying to help us! You’ll need it!”

She dropped her head, curls swinging into her face as they escaped from behind her ear. “I appreciate your generosity, I really do. But I can’t take this. It’s worth too much to you.”

Chara thought for a second before she picked up the bundle of dried flowers again. “I really like this yellow rose you’ve preserved. May I have it, so you can feel better about keeping the sash? I would like you to have it, but only if you’re comfortable with it.”

Enne felt the silky sash again and nodded. “Yellow roses are a symbol of eternal friendship.” She broke out into a smile. “How appropriate.” She laid the sash on her lap with the rest of her things and felt through the bouquet until she found the familiar shape of the rose. She pulled it out and dug in the box for a piece of lace ribbon. “Come here.”

Chara moved closer and knelt down to be closer to the girl. Enne felt for the collar of her dress, then moved her hand down to Chara’s heart and poked the stem of the rose through the thin fabric. Using the ribbon, she tied it tight. “There,” she said, stepping back once she was satisfied that her flower would be safe. “I’m sure it looks very pretty on you. I always thought that blue and grey and yellow were very nice together, and Luca has described you more or less to me.”

“You’re right Enne. It looks very pretty,” Luca confirmed from the doorway. Enne smiled and picked back up the sash, feeling it between her fingers. 

“Thank you,” she whispered.

[dreamy--dolly]

we interrupt your usual pinkblogging to bring you some angsty one-sided salmiko

After the coronation, Mikotsuhime knows that something was torn out of her that cannot be replaced.

Well, that is not quite how it works. The mirror breaks under fingers into splintered shards of glass, and beads of blood dot her fingers. The candle she has in her room has been snuffed out; along with everything else here Mikotsuhime has been swallowed up by shadows. You can repair and replace, she realizes, but it’s not going to be the same. It’ll be a twisted, distorted mimicry of what you used to have and be - a doppelganger that stands as a reminder that things are not the same and never will be.

She knows that she did not need to be the one seated on a gilded throne wearing a golden crown, but it is at least what she wanted. She never got that, but what does she care? Titles, titles, titles - they mean nothing, gold can be tarnished and dented, she’d just be surveying the same depths of blue as her father before her and her sister would do now. No, Miktsohime decides, let the Sea Kingdom be swallowed up by red before the bright stars and the bold blue waves fade.

“I got you flowers today,” Sal says, and hands her a bouquet of periwinkle hydrangeas tied neatly together with a ribbon of pink silk. Mikotsuhime pulls at the ribbon, brushing her hands over the delicate little petals - it is almost as if they could crumble or wither away in her hands just like that. But she’ll make sure to fill a crystal vase up with water and keep them for as long as she can, because at least flowers look pretty before they wither, and also because it is Sal who gave them to her.

“Thank you,” Mikotsuhime can’t quite look into his porcelain blue eyes. “Thank you” isn’t enough, but they’re the only words she has.

“The neat thing about flowers is that they can have special meanings. Roses mean love, sunflowers mean dedication… things like that.” Sal laughs, soft and wavering. “Not all of them are happy, though - striped carnations mean refusal.”

“What do hydrangeas mean?” Mikotsuhime asks. It’s only a fleeting theory, but she hopes that the intent behind these flowers is the intent she wants it to be.

Sal smiles, pale cheeks tinged in pink. “Hydrangeas mean heartfelt emotion, and can be used to express gratitude or being understood.”

It isn’t the intent she quite hoped for, but it is what she needs. Because they met amongst the stars, a forgotten princess and a boy surrounded by friends who has never been more alone. But they both know what it means to be distant, and now they have each other amongst the sea and stars.

She should have known from the beginning that she would never be the one to succeed her father.

The sleeves of her itchy kimono are long enough to hide her bloodied hands. But the sound of blood dripping onto the floor and staining her sleeves red will betray her. She does not think on it, though. Her hands sting from when she broke the mirror, but as long as she manages to break everything else it will not matter in the end.

The Sea Kingdom is a garden. It may have been green and lush and teeming with life and color, but that was long ago. The leaves on the trees have started to turn to wrinkly brown and are wrenched from branches by the slightest of breezes, the flowers have already begun to wither and the warm colors that once saturated their petals is fading. Even the butterflies that floated in the pollen-perfumed air dwindle and don’t stop by as often anymore.

So she’ll tear apart the garden - it was already decaying in the first place. She will rip off every petal, withering or still fresh, till she sees nothing but red.

“You’ve been sneaking out again.”

Silence stifles the air when Uomihime finishes speaking. They sit alone in their room, fluffing up pillows and undoing the sheets folded neatly across their plush beds to go to sleep. Mikotsuhime pretends that the words were lost to deaf ears, and runs a comb through her tangles of dark cobalt-gray hair.

“You’ve been sneaking out again,” Uomihime says again. There is no sting to her voice, but she is not wrong.

“What do you mean?”

“When you came down for dinner, the sleeves of your kimono were torn up. Like you’d been outside.”

There are times, Mikotsuhime decides, that she wishes her sister would not focus the glass lens of the magnifying glass on the minute details. But she keeps those thoughts to herself and flops onto the bed, arms fumbling to wrap around one of her pillows.

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Uomihime says. “I just know. But I won’t tell.”

“Don’t tell Father, will you?” Mikotsuhime’s words are plaintive and shaking - she does not want her father to know about Sal with his bright smile and white hair because he is below them - he is nothing but an animal and will never be more in her father’s eyes. She knows that she is already pushed into the background and forced into the role of a chameleon - blending into the walls so that she is barely seen and never heard - and does not want a reason to disappear entirely.

Uomi nods her head, and squeezes her sister’s hand. “I won’t tell.”

Mikotsuhime’s rest is fitful that night, struggling to escape the brightness of the sea with its stars and the prying eyes of her father and a sister who knows her secret.

“Your Highness?” She watches Sal falter, and how could he not when she comes to him like this: Eyes pink-rimmed and scaly from crying no one would hear, droplets of blood staining her kimono sleeves.

“He chose her during the coronation,” she says and pulls him close. Her sister’s already turned her back on her - she did not let a word leave her lips during the coronation, no matter how pleading and glassy with tears her black eyes were during the ceremony, she still did nothing and let herself be used as a marionette. “Not me - because he knows.”

“Your Highness…” He lets her press her head against his shoulder and wet his jacket with tears.

“It should have been me!” She says. “It should have been me…”

She poisons Sal that night. Poisons him with the decay that will dim the stars in the sea, that will eat away at the garden from the inside out. The words she wants to say are on the tip of her tongue - “I love you” - but she knows that for Sal that he’ll never say those words back. And it is being broken all over again, because the one person who she needs to fix her the most never will. At least, not in the way she wants him too.

He blinks down at her with dark blue eyes when she pulls away. He has been infected, contaminated, and like everything else she touches will see red.

“I want my sister dead,” she tells him. “She doesn’t deserve to sit on a throne - my father’ll just keep doing his work from behind the scenes, and she’ll just carry out his every whim. And she didn’t say a damn thing! She didn’t say anything! She didn’t try to stop him when he picked her instead!” “We can fix this,” Sal says. “We’ll kill them both. They won’t hurt you or make you cry anymore, Your Highness-”

“No,” she says, “Call me Mikotsuhime. Or Mikotsu. You know me well enough. You don’t have to keep calling me that.”

“I’ll help you.” He takes her into his arms again and it is the closest she will ever get to feeling warmth and mending again.

He starts visiting her when he realizes that Uomihime knows. This evening he has brought her sweets - the chocolates that glimmer with little chunks of sea salt. He always brings her milk chocolate because she has always preferred its soft texture and gooey sweetness to dark chocolate - it should not have to be entirely bitter. Mikotsuhime knows what she wants to say - it has been long enough - yet she just can’t. Because there is the unknown.

“How’s the chocolate?” he asks. He looks very unlike his usually immaculate self, she realizes, with sea-salt sprinkled chocolate smeared around the corners of his mouth. It makes Mikotsuhime giggle, and she has to stop so she does not choke on her candy.

“It’s good,” she says.

He reaches up a hand to scratch at his fluffy white hair. “I… You were laughing. Is something wrong?”

“You!” she chirps. “You look kind of silly with chocolate all over your face… Here, let me clean it off for you…”

When she lifts the napkin and begins to wipe off the chocolate that stains his lips and cheeks Mikotsuhime wonders if she could clean it away with a kiss. But she knows that she will not, because she wants to ask him first. And because she knows that Sal does not see her through the same rose-colored lenses she sees him through, he will say no, and it will maybe jumble the threads that they have sewn together.

“It’s kind of strange, really,” she says when she finishes cleaning Sal’s face off, “That my sister and I are so different but we still love each other. It’s kinda ‘cause she likes dark chocolate and I like milk chocolate, but we’re also just different aside from that.”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s always studying and likes to be by herself, and I just like to play out in the garden and look at the stars and talk to people. That’s why I’m happy to have you as a friend - it doesn’t get so lonely when there’s someone else to talk to, and Uomihime’s usually reading or studying by herself. She does have a lot to do, though.”

She wishes that she does not have to use the word “friend” with Sal - “lover” is the word she’d want to use, or - maybe if there really is a future out of reach that’s perhaps within the slightest grasp - “husband”. The princess has to stay locked away in a tower in this story, where she has someone who will stop by as often as he can, but never to whisk her away to the world beyond. And Sal is hardly a prince.

“I have a brother, too,” Sal says. “But we don’t get along as well as you and your sister do. We used to get along as little kids, but we just keep fighting a lot more now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

The room’s poisoned with silence. Then-

“Hey, when I get older, I’d want to travel around. I want to see what the world’s like beyond the Sea Kingdom - Meikai tells us a lot about his travels, but I want to see all those things for myself! And I’d want you to come with me, too.”

“And I’d be happy to come with you, Your Highness. I’d want to see everything the world has to offer, and I’d be happy to keep you company. I’m sure you’d make plenty of friends, though - you’re so extroverted and try so hard to be nice to everyone.”

He squeezes her hand tightly.

“And I’m glad you’ve shown that same kindness towards me.”

The next time she sees her sister she brings out a knife to hold against her throat. Mikotsuhime could use magic to get rid of her, but there is nothing in that to leave a mark behind. Better to dirty her hands, she decides, so that she can lock this moment in a music box so she can replay it in her mind and dance in tandem in the charred remains of her garden.

“You didn’t do anything,” she spits. Uomi tries to pull herself away from her sister’s grip, but she is frail next to her sister. Draw it out, Sal advised her, Make her hurt. Make her feel the pain she brought upon you.

“I know,” Uomihime says. “And I’m sorry.”

While Mikotsuhime’s hands are stained in blood, her sister’s face is stained with tears, glimmering on her pale face in the sea that’s slowly becoming overtaken with dark red.

“Sorry won’t be enough, Uomihime. You could have stopped him.” She moves her hand to squeeze her sister’s throat, and drags the blade down her cheek.

“You could have said something.” She drags down the knife on her lip.

“And you didn’t. You just stayed there.”

She does not deserve the crown or the throne she sits on. Uomihime should not wield the scepter she’ll inherit from her father. Mikotsuhime raises the red-painted knife over her head - she’ll plunge it into her sister’s throat, watch the blood bubble up from the gaping wound in her skin to match the slowly decaying sea’s color—

There comes a flash of bright blue in the red, and it hits her in the eye. She can’t see out of her eye, and sets down the knife to clap her hands to her face. Blood drips from where her eye used to be, and with what she can still see there is Meikai in his deep blue robes and star-bedecked hat.

“Your Highness, this ends here.”

“Let’s run away,” Mikotsuhime pleads, “I don’t care we end up so long as it’s far away from here. I hate it here—I hate being told that I’m not going to survive because I keep seeing the best in people, I hate how everyone always tells me my sister will be better than me, I hate that Father has to constantly push me to the sidelines even when I’m trying my best.”

He rocks her gently in his arms, fingers combing through her pigtails. She knows from the wide eyes and the mouth pressed into a thin little line that he had heard. He had heard the ugly words they’d flung at each other, heard her father strike out every word she’d uttered, heard her slam the door and run far, far away from the throne room, away from her father and her sister.

She has Sal, but not in the way she wants. And she can’t push any further for things to change between them both: She knows. So she has to keep her distance even as he hugs her close, whispering empty words of “It will be alright” and “I’m sorry” because those are the only words he knows.

“Let’s run away,” she repeats. “I can’t take this anymore.”

She looks up at him, face a mess of tears and snot. Her words are garbled from crying. With a gloved hand, Sal wipes away the stray tears from her face.

“I know. We should. But I still have my brother. What if things get better?”

“What if they don’t?”

“We can try, right? That’s what you’ve always told me. And we’ve always tried before. Things worked then.”

“I don’t know if I want to try anym—”

The door clicks open. There’s an intruder that Mikotsuhime wishes was not there—with his blue and white robes and gray horns looming large on his head. He is as cold as the deepest depths of the ocean.

“Mikotsuhime.” He draws out her name.

She knows what will come afterwards—how could you be involved with a commoner, a familiar even? And Mikotsuhime will take it all in silence, because her father will cut her down as he has time and time again before, so she should not even try anymore because he will not listen.

Sal tries to speak for her, though. “Your Majesty, I—”

“You may leave now,” her father says. “That’s an order.”

Sal leaves them behind, looking back at Mikotsuhime pleadingly as he makes his way down the hall. Then her father closes the door, and she knows that she is alone and the punishment she will have to face.

The seal placed on Mikotsuhime and the people she managed to infect is draining her. She is sluggish, collapsed, almost lost to an unwilling sleep. The lapis blue the sea was before is painted over the red, and it is taking every bit of Meikai’s will to seal her away.

She won’t be alone in the Sea of Death, though. She will have the shark that towers over her, dressed in black. She’ll have the blonde boy with a fishbook speared through his bloodied head, the tired-looking little girl made of stars, the prisoner with tangles of long gray hair and a toothy catlike smile.

She will not have Sal, though, because he does not deserve to be sealed away here.

It breaks her even more when she lets go of his hand and pushes him through the seal. If she cannot roam the world like she said she wanted to so long ago, then he should be able to. She knows that he will not hear her words as she pushes him through the seal, but that’s why she says them—at least she’ll know she got the chance, even if her confession falls on deaf ears.

“I love you,” she says, and watches Sal fade away.

Maybe there will be another story, and even though she wades through a nightmare’s sea Sal is the one trying to pull her out of the water’s depths. She cannot see everything he does, but against everything Mikotsuhime hopes that she will get another chance at a happy ending—ruling over a sea that’s colored red, with her loyal ambassador at her side. She knows that it won’t happen quite the way she wants to, though—she will never hear Sal say “I love you back, will never get to feel his lips on hers—but simply knowing that he can travel the world is enough, and at least one day they will be together again.

So as she drowns in her nightmare, voice silenced and hands reaching out towards empty air, the princess hopes and waits.

[grumpyhedgehogs]

Lay Me to Rest in a Bed of Wildflowers

Summary: Various citizens give The Judge flowers. Dep realizes a few things.

Part One: Here Part Two: Here

Notes: This one was a long time in coming. I started work on it a week or so after the first part, had to split it in two, lost the draft, started a new one, found the old draft, stitched them into some Frankenstein’s monster, and spent another three days finishing and editing. At this point, if there are any grammar mistakes they’re just gonna have to stay there. But I had  a lot of fun finishing this trilogy and I hope you enjoy some angst/fluff/flowers! As always, spoilers for Far cry 5 and Far cry New Dawn, please do not read if you are not finished/mind being spoiled. 

P.S.: The titles of the trilogy refer to a trial, execution and funeral. 

~

”You remember the people here. They’re your friends, and you want to help them.”

~

Carmina

Carmina started with cherry blossoms. It was a cherry tree she so often found Dep leaning against- it was the farthest tree on the property, just on the edge between the ranch and the treeline. She knew it made her parents nervous whenever they saw Dep leaning against that old trunk, staring distractedly into the darkness of the forest. Hell, it scared Carmina plenty.

But Dep wouldn’t run now. Not after Carmina’s mother had asked them not to.

That didn’t mean they didn't think about it; Carmina could practically see it in the air around their head as they leaned against the trunk of the cherry tree, unheeding of the twigs and leaves getting caught in their hood. She could feel it, an aura around them when she got too close, needling at the skin.

When Dep got like this the whole house seemed to grind to a halt. She’d caught her father with his hand on the doorknob, frozen between rushing out and leaving them be. Her mother’s grip on the counter as she watched through the open window was white-knuckled and rigid. It was a storm brewing, demanding to be seen but too far away to be touched, too powerful to be warded off.

Carmina plucked a few blossoms from a low-hanging bough as she passed and held them to her nose, eyes never wavering from the dark figure. The tree rarely ever produced fruit these days; it was too old, too twisted, too broken by the bombs to do more than survive. Maybe that was why Dep liked it so much. They’d found a kindred spirit.

They were silent- so out of character!- as she stepped up beside them, but they accepted the flowers readily enough when she offered them.

“You should smell them,” she prompted but wasn’t too disappointed when they simply tilted their head at her. At least Dep wasn’t looking at the dark anymore. “They’re my favorite scent. Besides Mom’s cooking, I guess.”

Dep’s fingers played lightly over the petals for a moment, as if memorizing their texture. They held them back out doubtfully. Carmina smiled, fondness tugging at her chest, and folded the gloved fingers gently over the flowers. “Keep them. They’ll remind you of me.”

Cherry blossoms meant renewal. Carmina figured Dep already knew that.

She gave them lavender next.

Ever since her mother had pointed it out, Carmina couldn’t help but jerk awake every time she heard them creeping out at night. They never seemed to remember the floorboard to the right of the top stair creaked like something out of a haunted house.

She’d lay staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed yet unseeing, until the screen door’s hinges whined again in the early hours and cat-like footsteps crept back up the stairs. Only then did Carmina’s heart stop thumping so very hard against her ribs.

She dropped a sprig of lavender in their hands the next morning. “You’re keeping me up,” she told them, and refused to feel guilty about the slump of their shoulders. The bags under her eyes were heavy. “It helps sleep.” They also meant peace, but again, these were unneeded explanations.

The apple and orange blossoms she actually felt a little bad about, seeing as they could easily have turned to fruit. But- well. The Dep was a little more important.

“For peace,” she murmured when they looked up at her. The summery early evening was just beginning to chill, and Carmina could feel the tip of her nose numbing. The flowers in their yard were fragrant; Dep looked as at peace as she’d ever seen them. Not that that was saying much. “And family. Now come on, Mom’s let Dad break out the grill and I need you around to help put the fire out.”

Carmina didn’t have to look back to know they were just a step behind her the whole way.

~

Grace

Grace found them crouching in the dirt. They were not trying to be sneaky now- she could hear them crunching around in the drying, dead leaves of the late summer. The whole yard around what used to be John Seed’s ranch smelled of green and damp and growth; Grace suspected that just might be what Dep needed right about now.

(She had Nana help her with the flowers. The old woman was surprisingly patient, explaining every color, helping her with textures and structures and arrangement and Grace had never put this much thought into a bunch of dead plants in her entire life.)

It was quiet out in the yard except for the ambient noise of the wilderness. Dep liked birdsong; they used to go out in the early morning and sit on the porch of the Rye’s home, just waiting to hear which bird would be the first to wake. Grace would come around with coffee sometimes.

“Do you remember the birds, Dep?”

They stilled and Grace could hear their labored breathing.

(Kim, when she led Grace outside, had quietly explained the Deputy was trying to build a garden. “It’s the only time they’ve been calm out here,” Kim had confided and Grace’s throat had tightened at the strained tone in her voice.)

They must have been tilling the earth for the new seeds; Grace could smell the fresh soil. It was nice.

Leaves crunched underfoot as the Deputy stood slowly. Grace could almost see their shoulders, thin under such a large jacket (“Like a goddamn bear hide or some shit,” Nick had told her over the radio once, months ago now), tensing up somewhere near their ears. They never liked to be snuck up on.

“Do you remember the bluejays?” She asked, loud in the uneasy quiet. Grace’s ears were straining harder than ever, unseeing eyes darting from side to side; she felt them moving, unbidden, in her skull. But she wasn’t scared of anything but the Dep running. They were so very good at running.

“They were your favorite, Dep,” Grace said, something desperate and hot rising to the base of her throat at their silence. She had never hated the quiet so much as now. “You would point them out every time we hunted together- you- you liked when they were the first ones to sing in the morning.”

A noncommittal grunt. A foot shifting in the dirt. The crunch of dry twigs. Birds singing, branches clattering in a slight breeze. A soft exhale.

“I brought coffee but you preferred tea because caffeine made your hands shake when you held a bow,” Grace tried.

Footsteps padded towards her but stopped a few yards- too far, too far- away. She heard their breath hitch violently in their chest.

She couldn’t cry. She never cried, not even at the end of the goddamn world. “You liked jasmine tea because the flowers were pretty. We shared it. You taught me about the birds every morning.”

Nothing. The birds wouldn’t stop singing. She didn’t know whether that was such a good thing anymore.

Finally, heart in her mouth, Grace stepped forward and thrust out her fist. The flowers would be crushed at the stems, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Nana said you’d probably know what they mean,” Grace’s voice was too fast, too high, God she felt like an idiot. “But I think you need to hear it. So- so, edelweiss for courage and devotion, wallflower for faithfulness in adversity, hyssop for sacrifice, lemon balm for sympathy. And- and magnolia, for- for love of nature.”

She came forward again and again and again and held up her hands when she heard them shift back. Fumbling, Grace caught one thickly gloved hand in hers and wished desperately that she could touch skin, just for a moment. The heat at the back of her throat was spreading, pushing at her mouth, the backs of her eyes, lighting her scalp ablaze. Her legs were gelatinous.

She curled her old friend’s hand gently around the flowers and held their loose fist in both of hers. Grace wished that she could see, that they could talk, that none of this had happened.

“Maybe next you could teach me about the flowers,” she whispered hoarsely, and ignored the lump in her throat at the soft sob coming from somewhere in front of her.

~

Kim

Kim gave them a flower for each day they stayed.

The first one she made a production out of, giving it in the exact same way they left hers for her all those months ago. Dep seemed surprised to come in from their early morning wanderings (it never failed to give Kim a heart attack, seeing their bed empty and made up, crisp cool air where her friend was supposed to be warm and safe- Goddamn Joseph Seed better be rotting in Hell) and find a small bunch of pink and purple petals at their honorary place at the family table.

“Statice,” Kim told them, carefully not looking up from the eggs she was scrambling, “there’s a lot around here. For sympathy. And success.”

The next day, it was peach roses. “Those were a little harder to find,” Kim admitted. She didn’t particularly want to remember that dirty, cramped trek through the woods, or the cursing, or the thorns. “You’re supposed to give them to someone you miss.”

Dep had trembled at that. They’d left the table and were gone for most of the day, the screen door banging shut behind them; for hours, Kim had thought that was it, she’d fucked it all up. But in the end, the sun’s rays were scarcely fading when the Dep had stepped quietly into the kitchen and pressed an apologetic lily-of-the-valley in her palm. Kim kept still as they bowed their head.

“Yes,” she said finally, having to violently tamp down on the overwhelming urge to reach out. “You’re forgiven.Tell us you’re leaving next time.”

Freesia was next. “Thoughtfulness- I thought it was a good fit for you.”

Yellow roses- “Oh, you know you’re supposed to give them to friends. That was a pretty easy one.”

White tulips, which she placed in a box on their windowsill. “For the worthiness part, not the seeking forgiveness part,” Kim had had to justify quickly when the Dep’s head swiveled around as if looking for an exit, “You know you've got nothing to apologize for.”

But they didn’t know, and Kim knew they didn’t. Back to the drawing board.

“Dahlias,” Kim told them later, “they’re for lasting bonds.”

Finally she settled, comfortably, on sunflowers. Hell knew there were tons of them around the house.

“You like yellow, huh?” Kim ventured one day, unsure if the question would cause Dep to flip out. Instead, she got a moment of consideration and then a slow nod. They were a child, unsure if they were going to be granted approval or disappointment. The acid in Kim’s stomach roiled and she hoped the fire burning Joseph Seed’s soul was blistering.

Kim grinned. “Good. They’re supposed to mean happiness.”

She kept a vase of sunflowers on the table after that, and put another one in their dreary bedroom- she’d have to get Carmina’s help redecorating.

And if she had to plant even more sunflowers to keep up a steady flow, well, it’d be worth it when Dep finally took off that damn mask.

~

Hurk

“I didn’t, uh- I mean, I just kinda thought this was better than trying to rip up some weird flowers and accidentally poisoning you or something.”

Dep tilted their head the same as they’d always done- it was reassuring, almost, that the little things hadn’t changed. It at least gave Hurk the strength to keep going.

He hefted the flower pot between his palms and wished the leaves were long enough to obscure his hot face. “Gina said this was fucking stupid, but then she said maybe it’d help you cause she was thinkin’ you got fucked up, like really life-changing fucked up, and I mean, with Seed and all, and you runnin’ around in that mask maybe she was right, right?”

Dep’s mask did not look impressed. They shuffled back a few steps and looked like they were considering shutting the door on him. Somewhere in that house Kim Rye was thinking about throttling him.

“I’m talking too much,” Hurk stated. Dep did not disagree. Their fists were clenching and unclenching slowly at their sides; they were fighting to keep still. “Um. Sorry. Here.”

He shoved the flower pot into their hands unceremoniously. They fumbled, stumbled under the sudden weight, and finally got it secured against their chest. They huffed angrily at him when dirt spilled into their collar and Hurk was suddenly rethinking the whole ‘let’s-give-our-old-friend-who-is-now-a-little-crazy-a-bunch-of-plants’ idea. Carmina had a good heart but Hurk wondered if she thought more with that than her head.

The Deputy shifted the pot in their hands, looking down at it before jerking their head questioningly at him.

“It’s a fern,” Hurk explained helpfully.

They blinked. It was weird to see the mask with only one eye lens in it, but the eyes weren’t as disconcerting as the dried dirt and who knows what else smudging the white painted surface.

“I, uh, didn’t know anything about flowers, so I got you a fern,” Hurk repeated. He desperately wanted to slap himself in the face. “Like I said I didn’t want to poison you or anything. Knowing me, I’d find the only Bliss left around and end up naked and hogtied alone on the bank of a river somewhere. Uh, not that I’m speaking from experience or anything. But yeah, I thought this fern looked nice. I mean, it is a nice fern. Do you like ferns? Am I saying the word ‘fern’ too much? I feel like I’m saying ‘fern’ too much.”

The Deputy set the plant heavily on the floor between their feet. They tilted their head for a moment and slowly reached out to pet one of the fronds lightly. Then Dep backed up and crossed their arms over their chest tightly, like they were hugging themself. Hurk felt as if iron bands were squeezing his ribs.

“It means humility and uh- shelter. I think.”

Dep paused and then nodded. They held themself tighter. Hurk wished fiercely for this all to be a nightmare- couldn’t he just wake up and realize that none of this had ever happened and he was on his mom’s couch waiting for the Dep to come by and take him to fuck up some Peggies just for kicks?

But what was done was done, and all that was left of his friend was going to shatter apart if he didn’t give them this fucking fern.

“And confidence too, apparently. And like, sincerity. That part is about me, too. Cause, like, I’m sincerely your friend and shit.”

Dep’s head hung low; he couldn't tell if they were looking at the fern or not.

“Hey, Dep?” They shuddered. His voice was strained on the next words. “I, uh- I’m really glad you’re back man. Wasn’t the same without you.”

Silence.  He wasn't going to get anything else from them today. Heart like stone in his chest, Hurk turned and reached out to close the door behind him. At least he could tell Gina and Blade he’d tried.

A hand on the door stopped him from closing it. When Hurk turned around, Dep was standing only inches form him- it was always freaky how softly they could move.

Dep hesitated for a split second and then reached out to lay their hand lightly on his bicep. They patted a couple times and then stopped, seeming unsure of what to do next.

His vision blurry, Hurk reached up and closed his fingers around the other’s, movements slow and exaggerated. They blinked at him. He blinked back and ignored the wet warmth on his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he croaked, “I’m real glad you’re back.”

~

Jerome

“I once told you I didn’t know how to speak to you, old friend.”

Jerome came to a careful stop at the edge of the garden; he could sense a sacred space when he was near it, and this was the Deputy’s. The earth was freshly dug in furrows, and holes pockmarked the yard here and there, heralding in a season of new growth for next year.

He hadn’t known that Dep liked to plant vegetables as well, but Jerome could just spy a bag of what looked like pumpkin seeds sticking out of the basket Dep had by their side. A filthy trowel and a shucked pair of torn gloves lay beside them.

Dep looked up sharply at him before straightening (the lethality in that movement was all catlike grace and most likely completely unintentional) slowly. They dropped the last few seeds from their worn palm into the furrow and nudged a bit of dirt into place above them with a boot.

Jerome waited until he could see the glint of a single eye. “I told you our paths had diverged and that I could no longer think of what to say to you because of what you had done, what you had been through. And for that, Deputy, I can only sincerely apologize.”

Dep’s shoulders hitched upward by a fraction of an inch, but Jerome was watching too closely not to notice. They slid one foot back and ended up kicking their basket over. Jerome could see their hands starting to twist together, an old nervous tick he remembered stopping many a time with a calming palm on theirs.

His stomach flipped; it was almost a certainty that Dep would never let him do that now. Maybe never again.

Jerome sighed passed the tightness of his throat and raise a hand, palm out. “Please, let me finish. Please don’t let your past- what he made you think of yourself, perhaps what I helped reinforce through my thoughtlessness, get the best of you. Can I ask that of you, my friend?”

The Deputy visibly wavered for a moment; Jerome could feel his position here, fragile as the last fall leaves clinging to the branches, ready to be swept away at any second. His tongue felt as dry as the Sahara.

After quite possibly the longest pause of the pastor’s life, the person who had once turned out to be the most true friend he’d ever had nodded twice, quickly, as if they were pulling off a band-aid.

Jerome shifted on his feet. “May I-” He didn’t know quite how to finish, how to communicate the deep urge to reach out, the need to be close to someone he’d thought lost long ago, the wish to make sure this wasn’t some dream from which he would be ripped away at any second. The Deputy was sure to reject the confession, anyhow.

Instead, they beckoned with one hand, crossed their legs, and thumped down into the dirt unceremoniously.

Jerome suppressed the bizarre impulse to laugh. There was something softer about them now, surrounded as they were with flowers and gardening equipment. Their pale face- what passed for their face, anyway- tilted up at him expectantly; it reminded Jerome absurdly of a child waiting for storytime.  

Cautiously, wholly frightened of appearing aggressive, he took a seat across from them Indian-style. He abruptly found it hard to meet their eyes over the row of leaves of the freshly grown carrots between them. Instead, he dropped his gaze to the flowers in his lap. They seemed a meager offering now, no matter how much time he’d spent finding them.

“I brought you these,” Jerome told them hoarsely, lifting the bunch halfheartedly. The Deputy was tracking his movements intently, and tipped their head to the side briefly, that single eye blinking slowly at him. It made Jerome’s chest squeeze tight at the sight. This was what Nick meant about the Dep’s old habits shining through at the strangest times.

He held the first one out over the carrots, watching the petals bob and sway in the breeze. It was a moment before ungloved fingers curled tentatively over the stem just above his own. “Gerbera, for loyal love, innocence, and purity.”

There was a quiet exhale from his companion, but still Jerome refused to lift his eyes. “I should have tried harder to communicate with you; I should have known it was you from the start, or figured it out like Nick Rye did. But I think maybe I did know, or I wouldn’t have pushed the notion away so vehemently. I didn’t want to see what Joseph Seed had done to you- what he molded you into. I didn’t think I could take knowing what had been done to so true a heart.”

He passed two more flowers over. He had to wait a few moments before they were accepted. “Sweet William and sweet woodruff mean gallantry and humility. You- you were a hero to us, I hope you know that. You were a hero to me. And I- I wish I’d not turned away from you when you came out of that bunker. You needed us, and none of us realized it until it was almost too late. We left you to fight your demons on your own because you weren’t fighting our battles for us anymore, and you cannot understand- I cannot express to you the shame that brings me.”

Jerome was having a hard time speaking by now, vision blurred into a swirl of watery colors. He persevered, but not for his own sake. “Pink stargazer lily. I know it looks ostentatious, but it- it means honor, prosperity. Deputy-”

He tried to lift his head this time, made a herculean effort to withstand the grief threatening to drown him, but the current pulled him under and he could not meet their eyes. “The sacrifices you made before the bombs dropped, the torment you must have gone through for the sake of us, all to be rewarded with the time you spent under the ground with him- and to come back and help us, and then, to find the strength to fight back against Seed- the story of Job does you justice.”

Finally, the last flowers seemed small, insignificant, a tiny drop of water in the ocean of things he need to spill out to the Deputy, the things they deserved to hear for which Jerome had no words.

“Bachelor buttons,” He said tightly, breathing harsh. They were not accepted for a long moment and Jerome realized they might not ever be. But if this was the last thing he could say to a hurt friend, then by the Lord Almighty Himself, Jerome had better make it count. “For single blessedness. Whatever has been done to you, whatever Seed or I or anyone else has made you believe about yourself, whatever you think about who you are, know this, my friend. You have fought righteously, and you have stood in the way of harm that would have befallen innocents. You’ve withstood hell. Know that you are free now; know that in the eyes of your family and of the Lord you are not damned. You never were.”

There was a moment where Jerome was alone, choking on the silence, drowning in shame and blame and self-flagellation. The garden was still and time could very well have stopped.

And then the flower was pulled from his grip and replace with a hand. Fingers laced with his, and their bare knuckles dropped to rest together on the sun-warmed earth.

Jerome sat with an old friend submerged in a place of growth and life, and let the wind lift the weight from his shoulders, let the sun dry the tears on his face, let the earth turn on and on, inexorably turning away from the past. He hoped the Deputy was doing the same.

They stayed with him (he stayed with them) until the light faded from a friendly sky.

~

Sharky

This was worse than that time when he was fourteen and bought his crush a bunch of flowers to ask her to the Spring Formal. Okay, so he’d swiped them from the neighbor’s yard. Whatever. Point was, he was less nervous back then, when he’d been holding out the stupid flowers and staring her football player boyfriend in the eye, than he was right now.

The Dep’s hood was up like always, but the height of their shoulders and the way they were leaning as far back in their chair as they could told him enough to guess at their expression. He was sweating.

Kim, sitting at the table in her kitchen across from Dep, looked ten seconds away from throttling him. Sharky recognized that vein beating a tempo in her cheek. “Chives, Sharky? Really?”

“The, uh, the book said they mean, like, usefulness and stuff.”

Kim wrinkled her nose. “You busted into my house to tell Dep they’re useful?” Her tone was deliberately calm. Sharky’s heart was beating so fast it might have simply stopped. He didn’t waver from the Dep, though. He wasn't gonna give up his shot now.

“Hey, I know my best friend, all right? They like to be all helpful and useful to people and shit.”

Their shoulders were lowering centimeters at a time. They’d begun breathing again, having stopped when the door slammed against the wall. Nothing like a dramatic Boshaw entrance to get the blood pumping. The hood moved in their classic head tilt. Their fingers twitched against the worn wood of the table.

“There- there’s dill too,” he piped up helpfully, ignoring the urge to scrub at the back of his neck. Drops of sweat rolled into his facial hair. “Just cause, that book- we’ve only got like one fuckin’ book on flowers and plants and shit in the entire county, how fucked is that, huh?- uh, the book said dill means ‘powerful against evil,’ and I mean, that’s you all the way man, so I thought, you’re all flower power these days, maybe you’d like ‘em! I dunno, I guess I should speak your language and shit.”

There was a second of the loudest silence he’d ever heard. That usually didn’t bode well for Sharky.

Kim let out a long breath. “Sharky, I think maybe you should-”

The Dep’s chair scraped back so fast it tipped backward and landed upside down with a clatter. Kim jumped in her seat. The birds outside the windowsill took flight. The Dep’s glass of water was upturned.

Dep took two large steps over to Sharky and threw their arms around his middle. They squeezed too hard and Sharky wheezed for a second, but when they started to withdraw in alarm he planted a firm hand on their back.

“Oh hell no man, you’re good, you’re good.” They smelled like firewood and rich, healthy soil. At first they held themselves away from his body by a few inches until Sharky gently pressed down between their shoulder blades.

His friend almost collapsed boneless against him; Dep was shaking in his arms and Sharky felt the vicious need to dig Joseph Seed’s body out of his grave and set it on fire. Instead, he held very still and let Dep tentatively rest their head on his shoulder. The skin of their forehead was warmer than any fire he’d lit in months; the warmth seeped through the mask and into the cloth of his shirt, burning pleasantly there.

Their shoulders were trembling, although Sharky was unsure if they were actually crying. He tried not to let the plants get crushed by leaning the fist with them in it gently against the back of Dep’s head.

“I, uh.” He croaked, cleared his throat. Kim was frozen on the edge of his vision, hand over her mouth. “I’ve got coriander too; it means ‘hidden worth.’ I thought it was funny, cause like, you hide your face all the time and you're super cool? But, I couldn't find any coriander flowers. So I put coriander powder on everything.”

The Dep huffed against his flannel. Kim snorted.

“Wait til I tell Nick you got the first hug,” she told him, shaking her head ruefully. “He’s gonna be so pissed.”

Sharky grinned wildly.

~

Nick

Nick barely had time to realize that he’d grabbed the wrong wrench and would subsequently have to haul himself out from under the truck to go get the right one when it appeared in his field of vision as if by magic. A gloved hand was wrapped around the handle.

“Oh,” He said, suddenly realizing he’d forgotten how words worked. “Uh. Thanks.”

In the three months they’d been staying with the Ryes, Dep had had trouble staying in the same room as Nick. They still couldn’t look him in the eye. It made something dark and cloying claw at the base of his stomach most days.

The hand retreated and there was a shifting of fabric near his feet. Working mostly on memory and instinct, Nick continued to fiddle with whatever was jamming up the undercarriage of the truck, keeping most of his attention on the dark, dirt-covered boots he could barely make out beside him.

After a relatively companionable five minutes, he couldn’t stand the silence anymore. Nick found himself wishing for the days when Dep knew just the moment to crack a joke to ease his tension. Maybe that was selfish. Yeah, it was probably selfish.

“Hey, uh.” He cleared a suddenly clogged throat gruffly. “I uh, jumped on the bandwagon and got you something. They’re over by the tools, you probably saw them. Go grab them for me, would ya?”

The feet shuffled a bit before their body dropped down with a thump that jarred him badly enough that his knees jerked into the truck’s underside. Nick hissed a little but shook off the concerned noise Dep made. “Nah, don’t worry ‘bout it- happens all the time. You got ‘em?”

Two taps on his shin, and the skin there prickled under his jeans; they hadn’t wanted to look at him, much less touch any of the Ryes in so long...

They were sitting quietly beside the truck now, leaning against the passenger-side door. He could just barely spy the bright splash of color he’d worked so hard on in his periphery.

It must have taken weeks to get the canterbury bells alone. Nick had been afraid he’d do something stupid- spill oil on them or drop ‘em in the mud or something. It was a relief just knowing they’d gotten safely into Dep’s hands.

“Listen,” Nick paused when the wrench clanged loudly against metal. He stilled until the silence rushed back in.

There was a single tap on his leg to signify they heard him. This was the most they’d touched him since he’d tried to tackle them out of some misguided attempt at a peace-offering all those months ago.  “I know this is the part where I explain all the flowers to you, but I got something to say first, yeah?”

A moment of quiet. Nick tightened a lug nut and ignored how slippery the wrench had become in a matter of seconds. Two taps on his shin.

“Cool,” He replied, and had never felt this hot and agitated in his life. The car seemed to be bearing down on him, threatening to crush his lungs with its bulk. He focus instead on the hand tapping light patterns out on the concrete by his knees. “I ain’t gonna sugar coat this, buddy- Joseph Seed got you fucked up.”

A huffed breath and a light shove, barely enough to jostle him. In the old days, Nick might’ve grinned, wrapped an arm around their neck, ribbed them a little more. Now, his heart was beating too loud in his ears to even think straight. “I mean, there are probably better ways to say that, but it is what it is. And I just wanna say- I don’t care.”

Nick was struck with the acute desire to see what the Dep’s expression was at this moment, but it wasn’t like being out from under the car would help him much with that mask still in the way. He thought maybe the truck hiding his face was the reason Dep could even stand being so near him now- that night with the knife really messed them up. Seems like that blade did more harm to them than it ever did to Nick.

“Aw, I don’t mean it like- like that, you know I- I’m not any good at this, at talkin’. You knew that a long time ago, huh?” Nick was wheezing, just slightly. A hand squeezed lightly around his ankle, and he focused on centering his breathing for a moment.

“Thanks. But I mean it, I don’t care. I don’t care what he did to you, or who you think he made you be. I don’t care if you think you’re dangerous or evil, because you know what? You’re wrong. Seed was fucking wrong about you from the start, and he was wrong about you in the end, too. You didn’t start out evil and you’re not ending up evil either.”

The hand withdrew, and over the roaring in his head Nick could hear them stand. For a moment cold fear drenched him with the certainty that they would run; but all they did was begin pacing.

That was pretty much the best permission to continue he was gonna get. “I don’t care what happened because it doesn’t change who you are to me. It don’t change the fact I’m not gonna leave you alone in this- not ever again.”

He wasn’t seeing the undercarriage anymore, not really; in his mind’s eye, Nick could perfectly render the last time he’d seen their face, all sweaty and grave and ready to bring the fight to Seed if it was the last thing they did. In a way he guessed it was, at least for a while.

“You’re my family,” Nick told them simply. “Pretty much always have been. That ain’t ever gonna change, you hear me? Ever since you strolled in here with that stupid Deputy uniform and a smart-ass grin and told John Seed to go fuck himself, you’ve been one of mine. And I ain’t never gonna give up on one of mine.”

The pacing had stopped, and so had the wrench. It was time- he couldn’t put it off anymore. Feeling incredibly undignified and not really giving a shit, Nick rolled on his back to the edge of the truck and scuttled out from underneath it. It took him a bit of a struggle to get himself upright, back twinging in protest all the while. But he got it done.

The flowers lay carefully abandoned by the tools Nick had discarded earlier. Dep was a few feet away, wearing a furrow in his barn’s floor. When they heard him stand they stopped abruptly, back to him.  Their shoulders were hunched inward, trembling. They usually cut a pretty imposing figure without even meaning to; now they just looked small, like a kid playing dress up with their parents’ clothes. They were swamped in the black of their jacket.

Nick hated something about that coat on them- all dark and furred and too heavy. It reeked of corruption, or dominance, and he could just fucking bet it was gifted to them by none other than Joseph fucking Seed. But mostly, Nick hated it because it kept him from seeing his friend in there.

Quietly, careful not to disturb the fragile peace, Nick scooped up the flowers. “Canterbury bells, ‘faith, gratitude.’” He spoke passed the fear clawing its way up his throat, threatening to spill out from his lips. He could just see it, an oil slick down his chin and front, congealing and growing and obscuring his friend from his very eyes. But for every flower Nick took a step forward, surging passed that fear and swallowing it back in defiance.

Dep hadn’t moved.

“Queen Anne’s lace, ‘sanctuary.’ Tiger lilies, ‘happiness, prosperity.’” The last stem Nick offer to them over their shoulder. It was a second before they accepted it. He let his hand fall tentatively- softly so softly, they were like a newborn fawn, ready to bolt at any second- on their shoulder. The coat wrinkled slightly under his fingertips and the fabric almost physically repulsed him.

Instead, Nick gripped just a little tighter, to remind them he wasn’t going anywhere. His palm tingled- this was the first contact with Dep he’d had in- he didn’t know. Hell, for all Nick knew, he could wake up tomorrow and find they’d actually done it, they’d actually run off in the night. Every day he realized it could be the last contact he had with them.

The thought ate away at Nick.

He squeezed lightly again, cleared his throat and in a gravelly voice explained, “Lilac. It’s for family, and innocence. ‘Cause that’s what you are Dep. You’re innocent. And you’re family.”

He couldn’t seem to let go now. Their shoulder moved beneath Nick’s grip, but not quickly, not violently. The muscles shifted, bone creaked. They put their hands to their face, still holding tightly to the bloom he’d given them.

With a larger effort that Sisyphus ever exerted on his stone, Nick dropped his hand; his fingers grazed their hood on the way down. His gaze fell, and he wiped a hand over his own face; he was so very tired.

“So, uh, I guess that’s what I want you to know.” Nick told them, as confidence fled. He kept his hand over his eyes. “I don’t care what happened to you, I’m still with ya to the end of the line. And it’s- it’s okay if it takes a long time. I get it, if you can’t- be around us yet. Be around me yet. I know it’s- it’s gotta be fucking tough as shit. But you’re not alone. You've got me, however long you need, buddy.”

When his hand finally fell from his eyes, Nick was almost too tired to register the eyes looking back at him.

The pair of eyes looking back.

All breath shot out of Nick’s lungs but his body must have realized the importance of the moment, because his muscles locked up before he could ruin it by flailing. He stood, frozen like a deer in the headlights, feeling as if he suddenly acquired lockjaw.

Slowly, deliberately slowly, the Deputy lowered their hood; their hair was rough, and long, and matted as a rat’s nest; it badly needed a cut and it so dirty it could have been any color. Their face was streaked with grime, and pale from lack of sunlight, creating a resemblance to a raccoon around their eyes.

They looked tired.

Dep took hold of the hand Nick had placed on their shoulder and gentle pushed the mask into his palm.

“Fuck that.” Nick sputtered, hurling the mask to the ground. He didn’t even look down to see it shatter to pieces before he’d swept Dep into his arms.

His hand were clutching too tightly to that damn coat, he was leaning too close, probably suffocating them engulfed as they were by his hug, but Nick wouldn’t- goddamn couldn’t- let go.

“You have no fucking clue how good it is to see you again,” Nick told them, and meant it with his whole heart.

They huffed into his neck, hands coming up to hold on just as tightly.

Then the Deputy who had been still stiff, still scared- would that Nick could see the day Dep wasn’t scared anymore- the Deputy who had fought and died and been reborn for them, the Deputy who had run and hid from them, the Deputy who had refused for so long to see the family waiting for them to come back, settled carefully into his arms.

And the Deputy came home.

[tonberryslantern]

Scars

Xanadu Mol boiled in the heat.  Though the window to the Bellworks office was open, the incoming breeze was just a bellows for the furnace that was her small room.  She’d stripped to the waist despite the open window and bright sun of midday, but it couldn’t be helped.  Even now her body demanded she tear off the cloth bandeau she wore for some semblance of modesty, as soaked through with sweat as it was. 

But despite her physical discomforts, it was a mental one which caused her normally upright posture to sag and her attentive eyes to find themselves staring equally at nothing and everything.  She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror by her bed, naked and exhausted, wilting in the heat, and she forced herself to keep looking, to examine every bead of sweat, every curve of shape, every scale. 

“They’re scars, miss.” The blonde Hyur at the party, the small one, the crying one.  What was her name?  veronica? Victoria?  Something like that.  It didn’t matter.  It wasn’t the girl’s name that crawled like some malicious thing through Xanadu’s mind, but her face.  Perfect porcelain white skin and pale blue eyes like Spring ice just before the thaw. And those scars, small little things, but numerous, reddening her face, marring that skin. 

The words had driven a spear of frost through her heart.  “They’re scars.”  What had she thought they were?  Dirt? Did she need her eyes checked? No, not Xanadu’s eyes, no.  The eyes of the demon the other Au Ra had called them.  Those eyes missed nothing.  What had she said?  She could barely remember.  But it had been callous, and cruel.  Dirt. 

“They’re scars, miss.”

(Thanks to @gwenneth-in-wonderland and @arcianmartell and also @allthegall for fine inspiration and whatnots!)

The spear froze her soul. Even in this heat she could feel it still, pulsing inside of her, stiffening her lungs, slowing her heart, aching deep inside so she wanted to claw it out.

“Then wear some makeup,” she’d said to the girl.  Was it Victoria?  It must be. She would have remembered a Veronica or a Vivienne.  Wear some makeup.  She knew the pain she caused when she said it.  The words had slipped out unheeded, a reflex, an adder lashing out with fangs bared, dripping venom.  Why?  Out of fear?  Cruelty?  No, she knew why.

She remembered her first foray into makeup.  His name had been Castienne Laroque, and he had been beautiful.  In her girl’s eye he’d been a god.  His hair was like spun gold, his lips like rose petals, his eyes the stars in the sky and his voice like honeyed wine.  He wore his Scholasticae uniform like he was bred for it, and he had been, the scion of some minor noble house.  And he’d been kind, oh so kind.

No one was kind to Xanadu Mol, the freak, the dragon kin, the demon.  She’d had a thick accent and came from a far off land of heathens and heretics.  She had the eyes of the demon.  But not Castienne, no not him.  He said hello to her in those hallowed halls every morning, and once when she’d been sick and missed class he had brought her notes so she wouldn’t fall behind. Castienne was a hero.  He dreamed of being a knight, like in the books, heroic and strong, fending off dragons and saving maidens.

How often she thought of herself being rescued by him.  His divine purity saving her from the dragons, even the dragon within.  Nights she would lie awake imagining him taking her in his arms.  Her scales would shed off at his touch, her tail fall away and her horns disappear to reveal the curved, round ears of a Hyur.  Even she was not fool enough to believe in her wildest fancies she would be an Elezen, but perhaps he wouldn’t mind.

One day he’d asked to speak to her in private and her heart fluttered as only a young girl’s can. She skipped her afternoon lessons that day and set to work.  Her horns had been smaller then, not yet fully grown, and she spent bells arranging her hair to hide them just so.  From a distance she might be mistaken as having a pair of unfashionable buns low on the sides of her head, but even that was far better than reality.  She tied her tail to her leg with string, and though it made her wince with every movement it did not stick out of the back of her dress, nor make her skirts lift in the back.  The dress itself was as beautiful as any of the girls could have mustered, and it neatly covered her from chin to toe tip in brocade and lace, as was the fashion that year.

But finally, and most importantly was the makeup.  Though the dress could cover much, it did not cover her face.  Carefully, delicately, she applied foundation and powder, liquid cream that smelled like fish oil but matched her skin tone.  With all of it mushed into a paste she covered her scales. It took so long she feared she might miss her meeting.  It got into her hair and eyes where it stung like poison, but she pressed on.  Eventually there was nothing more to be done.  Where her scales had been was now just ridges, bumps, grooves of ill-defined texture almost but not quite the same color as her skin.

She was ready.

Castienne waited for her in the Pillars, at the Last Vigil, just steps from House Haillenarte, her adopted home.  Though she could not see through the frosted windows she imagined the whole house gathered to witness the budding of true romance, of a love they would never, could never experience first hand.  A love of the ages, mythic and magical.  A love that could save her.

Castienne turned to her, and in his hands he held something, a letter!  “Xanadu,” he had said.  “I didn’t think you’d come.”  She couldn’t remember how she’d replied, but it didn’t matter.  What came next were the words that meant something.  “Take this,” he had said, pressing the letter into her hands.  “And give it to Laniaitte.  You’re a ward of the Haillenartes, you know her.”

The letter smelled like lilacs.  Laniaitte’s favorite flower.  Laniaitte, pretty and prim with her red hair and her perfect blue eyes.  Laniaitte who never lacked for admirers.  Laniaitte who might be watching from the windows above, snickering at the little dragonkin in her best dress delivering messages of love to a real princess.

“And what is that on your face?  Is that mud?” He laughed, and she remembered it as a cruel laugh.

She ran back to the Schlasticae in tears, and the unending stream of them lodged in her so carefully applied makeup and caused it to lump and mold uncomfortably between her scales. She ran into her room and slammed the door.  No one came to see what was wrong.  She tore off the dress and the string got caught, painfully tearing at her tail. Her horns poked out from behind her hair, the too thin disguise having fallen away during her flight.

But the makeup did not come off so easily.  It stuck like paste, and she clawed at it screaming.  No one came to see what was wrong.  Finally she tore some free, and with it came several scales, tearing out of her skin and making her shrieks all the louder.  Blood ran down her cheeks and into her hands where those black, hideous scales lay in her palms like evidence.  Evidence of her stupidity, her shame, sin, her guilt for merely being alive. And so, one by one, screaming with every torn piece of her small body, Xanadu Mol ripped out her scales.  And no one came to see what was wrong.

She arrived at the infirmary in the dead of night, pounding on the chirugeon’s door until he opened it cloudy eyed and confused, and saw the half skinned ward of a high house standing before him, naked and slick with her own blood, trembling in the cold of the hallway.  He poured burning salves into the wounds and wrapped her up in bandages because he didn’t know what else to do and hadn’t liked being in the presence of those eyes, the eyes of the demon.  He did not ask what had happened.

The next morning Castienne came to visit, and he brought her notes.  She didn’t look at him.  He didn’t ask what had happened.  He did ask if she delivered the letter.  She told him she threw it in the fire.  He did not visit again.  No one did. She changed her own bandages and, when she could stand it no longer, limped painfully down to the laundry to wash her bedclothes.

After a moon her scales had begin to grow back, and it didn’t hurt so much.  She returned to her lessons in the remnants of her uniform, the sleeves and skirts torn.  Her teacher asked her what had happened to the uniform.  Bandages, she had said, and stared at him until he turned away.  No one liked meeting the eyes of the demon. Through the torn uniform her new scales, soft and shiny dark, could be seen in their old patterns on her skin for everyone to see.  She tied her hair back, away from her horns.  She brushed other students aside with her tail.

In her room at the Bellworks office in Ul’Dah Xanadu thought of the porcelain skin of the hyur girl, her cute round ears, and her ice blue eyes; the eyes of an angel.  The icy stab of the spear twisted in her gut, and she hissed, fingernails sliding over an unopened envelope on her desk that had long since ceased to smell of lilacs.  “Scars. What does she know of scars?”