#anyway stop rambling in tags back to actual tags

[altcvnningham]

needy

adler x f!bell

summary: adler gets up for a morning cigarette. or tries to. read on ao3

tags/cw: established adlerbell, f!bell, she/her pronouns, bell is russian, fluff, light angst, no plot, drabble, smoking mention, kind of domestic i guess, bo6 adler so he's a little soft, pre-bo6 but post-panama, cw references galore, dog imagery as is synonymous w adlerbell atp, author has adhd and goes on prosaic rambles in lieu of an actual plot. this fic could have been an email?? sorry wc: 3.1k

a/n: bwuhhh this was just an excuse to write self indulgent soft morning adlerbell at the rook while i work on my actual pre-bo6 adlerbell rook fic when i have the energy . no plot, lots of rambling, once again kind of just a thinkpiece on their relationship now adler's an old fossil. idk she was doing nothing being left in my notes app ajdkhjkasjk

He reckons she’s needier these days, more than she ever used to be back in Berlin.

Sometimes he wonders if it’s just his age that makes him feel that way; that perhaps she hasn’t changed at all, and instead it’s the dust settling on his bones, rusted shrapnel over the years snagged in the joints and sinews, that makes him feel sluggish in comparison. It’s the first time in his life since Livingstone brought up the CIA’s desire for more sprightly recruits that he wonders- is he struggling to keep up?

Their reunion after all these years was a messy one: a scrap in an indistinct bar, bloodied knuckles split and bruises welted dark blue, the white of his eye burst red, the curve of her jaw swollen for a good week. Fresh after Panama. As soon as she caught wind of what happened she’d picked up his trail barely a week after he arrived in Bulgaria. Had she come to kill him? He doesn’t know. It isn’t as if she’d confess to it even if she had, and maybe he had it coming anyway. It stopped mattering at all the second the fight had descended into the alleyway, wrestled onto their backs against the cobblestone, where hands had found throats and then jaw, waist, hip, and everything else. Punches had calmed to caresses, curses to kisses, and somehow he’d found himself patching her up back at the Rook, his stray dog come home to him, like old times.

She’d eased herself back into his life easily enough then. Simple and unspoken. Or, rather, wedged her foot back in the door well enough that he couldn’t shut her out again, even if he’d wanted to (as if he hadn’t always kept it ajar all these years just to let her in, never closed, never closed). Never a word for what they are, what they have, the routine they’ve slipped almost effortlessly back into again- that hasn’t changed since the old days- and yet he doesn’t find that it robs it of meaning whatsoever.

If anything, it makes it something rare, special, his diamond in the rough, glinting sea glass washed a perfectly chiselled bead upon the shore. Just as she’d crashed along with the tide as time brought her back to him, he picked her up, tucked her gently back into that place she belonged, in between the rib and vertebrae, nestled inside him all to steady the beat of his restless heart. Her alone enough to settle the frantic, ceaseless palpitations he’s suffered nightly, since… Solovetsky? He thinks? The dull gnawing in the back of his mind all those years in between, that wasn’t sure if he was more frightened for her inevitable return or her disappearing forever, slipping through his fingers back to sea again.

He supposes it doesn’t matter anymore. That was then, and now seemed to fare much nicer.

Now, she rolls sweet and placid onto her back against the mattress, limp as a daisy in rain, soft body bowing to his careful manhandling; he’s itching for a smoke, aching for his vice the second he awoke, hours too early for his alarm. He lifts her off him delicately, almost methodical as he starts with her arm, the heavy loll of her head, her shoulder. Like defusing a bomb, he’d joked once, a comparison she’d only proven right by her explosive reaction to it.

It’s an odd feeling, though, the calm where there had once been nothing but war between them, the quiet, the warmth upon his chest now fading where she’d laid her head after he came back last night- back home, back to her- and it’s in moments like these, just mere glimpses of normalcy, that makes him wonder what could have been his life, theirs, had things not happened the way they did. MK Ultra, Berlin, Solovetsky. Perseus. Then again, he supposes, if she hadn’t been shot in Trabzon that night, if she hadn’t been there at all, then he wouldn’t have known she’d even existed. This mundane moment lost to time like everything else.

She murmurs in her sleep, spurred to wakefulness when the mattress lifts and groans at his absence, her eyes squinting through the sliver of morning light bleeding through the gap in the curtains; even when she’s completely out of it, she doesn’t miss a thing. He’s never exactly been the paragon of stealth when he excels at everything else, but even if every factor in the world had worked in his favour- if the beaten mattress wasn’t so rusted, if the ancient floorboards didn’t squeal underfoot when he stood up, if there wasn’t a constant draft on his side of the room that hit her as soon as he moved- nothing would have stopped her from registering his absence, clawing to fight off sleep just so she had an excuse to grouse at him. Ever his stubborn girl.

“Mm… where y’going…?”

Adler smiles to himself, flat but genuine, stifled by the lethargy that hangs over his head heavy as an anvil. Her accent so thick in the early hours it hardly sounds like English at all. He’s half tempted to reply in Russian, just to see if her cottonmouth tongue latches quicker to that instead.

But he doesn’t, just lingers in the doorway leading out to the hall, feeling only a little guilty for letting in the cold. It rather satisfies him instead to see her shiver and pull the blankets further over herself, keeping her right where he wants her. Right where he needs her, so he knows she’ll still be there when he comes back.

“Smoke,” is all he says, rattling the crumpled pack for her to hear.

She’s half coherent when she grumbles, English sandwiched between Russian endearments. Cussing him out.

“Y’can smoke in here… m’don’t mind. Come back to bed.”

Something tugs at his heart, almost foreign, vague. Something he only feels when she digs her claws in him just like that, even if only to graze. It’s the same certainty as when he wraps his finger around a trigger, pulls a pin, wrenches his hand around the hilt of a knife- unspoken, inevitable. The drop of a guillotine, inexorably quick. A certainty that verges on frightening, a promise, which he’s never been good at keeping, but knows she means wholeheartedly, down to her marrow. Possessiveness, he thinks- (is it irony, now, how often he finds her fist wrapped around the leash he doesn’t even notice he’s wearing?)- people not in their line of work, those with nice houses and desk jobs and white picket fences, he’s heard, call that feeling belonging. To be beckoned like that. Home.

It’s her demand that he stays. Hardly a question. And Bell doesn’t beg.

He’s sure that in her spitefulness, if he’d had a trigger phrase just like hers, she’d spit it at him ‘til he turned heel and crawled back on over to her, slid under the sheets like an apology scrawled onto a note and tucked under the door. It’s a near enough thing- the way her bleary eyes fix on him vengefully through matted lashes, searing her betrayal into him. Every morning he gets up before her, it seems to say: you left me. A petulant notion, only half serious, but one cold enough that it almost works. Frigid. Familiar. Arctic air.

It works a little at least- getting soft in your old age- because he lugs himself back over to the bed and just stands by it, refusing to give her the satisfaction of quiet victory if he climbs back inside. She stretches a languid arm flat across the mattress, rolling catlike onto her stomach, splaying her fingers in the hopes that she might somehow pull him back in to her. She manages a knuckle grazing his knee, before she gives up, pulled under by sleep once more. Head slumped against the pillow, she muffles her disdain.

But Adler is nothing if not at least a little amenable. If he’s sweet on anyone, it’s his Bell. His baby. Hard to let a thing like that go, when she was quite literally made for him. Made by him, in his image. Scraped marrow from rib like Adam, caulking the hole Arash shot through her chest and bestowed life upon her once more. He’s happy to have a piece of himself broken off and left inside her, a tithe tossed to the slab of her altar. The fracture of his soul a discarded lamb in sacrifice, sustaining the sick hunger that starves her.

It keeps them inseparable, he thinks. He’d read something somewhere, pretentious shlock about strings of fate and those bound to it- romantic crap shmucks use to justify ugly marriages and affairs, the suffering of co-dependency given some transcendent meaning, a purpose greater than the mundane. The notion that two people, by whatever higher power, are bound to one another no matter what they do to separate themselves of it, tethered from their first breath and suffering an endless togetherness until their last. He’d rolled his eyes the first time he’d heard of it- there wasn’t a world where he’d be enough of a sap to actually buy into that shit. Maybe his ex-wife might’ve been fond of it, maybe it was something she wrote into one of the letters he kept under his bunk back in ‘Nam. He doesn’t know.

But Bell made him understand it. He’d dug a grave in her when he denied her her own on that airstrip in Turkey, and he buried himself in it, over and over again. His memories, his life, his voice ringing like God’s. His favourite things, treasured, secret. His fears and doubts and worries, every little thing that made up the culmination of his being. It was never just Vietnam he put there. It was everything. She’s half himself, a faded mirror image. It only makes sense that they’d find each other again, eventually. She’d walk the earth, stalking like a bloodhound trailing his dried scent until she found him. She’d roam the endless nights, a ghost shivering their old haunts until he meanders his way back to her again, pulled along by a gnawing ache inside himself- a missing piece he’d seek the rest of his life to fill. She could track him blind. And he would feel her coming, like blood in the water. He did. He did.

It’s that tether that makes it impossible not to relent to her, when he kneels down next to the bed, knee joint cracking under his weight, the mottled floorboard doing nothing to steady him. It’s her, when she has enough leverage now to close the distance between her fingers and the collar of his shirt, curled inside the bleached cotton, fist wrenched tight. The seam digs into the back of his neck but he doesn’t let her pull him to her; he waits, making her work for it. The satisfaction that tends to follow when she does is usually worth her ingratiation.

She drags herself across the mattress, using his body as an anchor. Heavy and boneless, she lays right at the edge of the bed where he kneels, her nose nudging at his jaw as she turns, belly up like prey. Too easy a kill, he knows that. She’s gloating. The fact he’d come back at all means she’s got him right where she wants.

“C’mere,” she murmurs gently, saccharine, cloying. He’s surprised it doesn’t make her gag- the pretend domesticity of it all. Dragging her dried lips, smiling, against the underside of his jaw, her fingers sliding idle up the back of his neck, arm slung around his shoulder like she’s expecting to be carried out.

He humours her with a smirk, his blues nearly grey in the dim dark of the room as she mouths at him, vying for his attention. It’s as much a demand as her words had been, sharp as her tone as she nips at his jaw. Adler sighs, as though turning his face to gaze down at her were something laborious, and not the blessing he counts on every finger, every day, seemingly numbered since Panama. He tuts, and it says, what am I going to do with you?

But if his condescension was an attempt to dissuade her advances, it doesn’t work, because she sees right through his playful façade, and the wry smile that unfurls sleepy on her lips betrays her excitement, the sifting of her legs under the sheets audible as she squeezes them together. Needy. She knows he notices.

“Not gonna work, Bell,” he hums dryly. Yet he steals this moment of her surrender, his eyes flitting to every feature of her face. He doesn’t need to commit her to memory, she’s dug in there like a tick. But God, if he doesn’t like to look at her. He brings a rough hand down against her temple, smoothing the baby hairs back, eliciting a satisfied sigh from her as her eyes slip shut. Her head falls back against the pillow, anticipating a kiss he doesn’t give her.

“C’mon. Back to sleep. I’ll be ten minutes.”

“Five.”

“Bell.”

“Five minutes.”

Adler sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and scrunching his eyes shut.

“C’mon,” she croons, “five minutes… n’then…”

He thinks she’s fallen back asleep, the way her sentence carries off like that into silence. But when he opens his eyes she’s blinking prettily up at him, looking far too satisfied. Just as he opens his mouth to ask why, he feels the warm press of her hand against his knee, sliding up his thigh, fingertips tugged impishly at the sweatpants he’d haphazardly thrown on. He’s lightning quick to catch her, fingers circling her wrist; where the darting action might scare a weaker person it makes Bell’s eyes light up like stars, enamoured with his roughness. Excited. The way only she could be, eager pup biting at his ankles for a reaction.

“Behave,” he scolds, giving her knuckle a cursory smack before releasing her. That must finally be enough to spoil her fun, because she huffs, growling low in her throat, and rolls back over, burrowing herself deeper into the blanket than she��d begun.

It’s always a game to her, one she doesn’t much like losing. He can’t blame her for it. It’s always been that way. Back in Berlin, he’d taught her to play poker the proper way, the American way- whatever that meant- her downfall eternally being the fact she couldn’t bluff for shit around him. And it was just him- she’d caught on quick to the play, and had triumphed a couple times against Sims and Lazar; Park had refused to indulge the game, and Woods wiped the floor with the lot of them, even Adler. But with him, Bell just couldn’t lie. He was carved from marble, impassable- what he’d been trained to do. And she was a piece chipped off his softest part, malleable- of course he’d catch every minute twitch and wince, the flitting of wet lashes, the purse of an uncertain lip. She always told him the truth even with her eyes, her heart bore on her sleeve. It almost always felt like cheating. After all, it was what she was made for, wasn’t it?

And this felt much the same way. Not as strict as the luck of dealt hands and stifled poker faces but she’s never said or done anything to him she doesn’t mean. After he missed the shot in Solovetsky, all cards were strewn on the table. There was no mystery anymore. No joy taken in a good old fashioned backstab when the real damage was done, much too late to rectify. Maybe that’s why she makes it her personal goal to poke and prod and tease him now, chasing her fun in her own way, a decade late. Suppose it’s why she hates when he doesn’t just drop the cool attitude and give in.

He rises from the floor, that same knee joint clicking again. Where she might have mumbled a curt jibe about it, she’s silent, sulking into the pillow.

But just as he goes to leave, Adler stops at the door, a foot out into the hallway, the rest of him still stuck here, stuck on her. He sees a similar image in the back of his mind, of her laid upon the gurney in Die Landebahn, halfway into the back room with a syringe in hand when for one single moment of sobriety it dawned on him, what he’d been doing to her. Nothing like guilt, but it came close. Tinged with the regret of something so shameful as affection, Cupid’s arrow dipped in kerosene, shot straight through his heart; to come out the other side, to let him survive, to let him have this, here, her, now. And it’s a torture to have lived it, to know he doesn’t deserve a lick of it. The soft rise and fall of her breath beneath the blanket. Her hair splayed upon his pillow. She buries her nose deep in the old goose feather to try and keep him where he’s left her. Hold him close even when he’s gone.

The decade’s done much to him. He’d put on a couple pounds, had to start plucking the errant greys flecking his hairline, begun to wake most mornings with a tell-tale crick in his neck. He’s learned to relax that hard line in his brow, drawn too deep to reverse the evidence of age; let himself laugh a little easier, surprised people with his newfound ability to actually smile. He’s lost a lot, gained half as much. He’d been through hell and back, worse maybe than what he did to her- his karma, he supposes. And he supposes the decade’s made him soft, sentimentality creeping in to nestle somewhere he can’t reach, hidden inside himself with all the other things he doesn’t talk about. And he supposes of everything he’s lost, he has Bell again, and all things considered- it’s a fair trade.

He sucks in a breath, a sigh made audible for her to hear. Even as she feigns sleep, he knows she catches it, a flinch of her shoulder- where the shot he missed had landed in lieu of her head. In Solovetsky.

Then, Adler sighs, followed by a promise that feels to her like a confession.

“Five minutes.”

And when the door clicks shut, Bell steals herself a little victory smile.

[strawberriesshi]

celebratory dedf1sh drawing because she is not ded she is real

[mattodore]

birthday boy 🎂

[steakout-05]

medic tf2 doodles?!?!?? in this economy!???!?!? (art from yesterday)

most gentle and sweet middle aged german man in the whole entire world smile vs planning to swap all of your organs with a series of interconnected frogs smile

a doodle i did of Medic and Archimedes.... he looks too round in this drawing, not smug and evil enough..... also Mitzi from the RAE appearance :D

i LOVE the voicelines Medic has with Haunted Archimedes, he's not disturbed or even slightly put off by the fact that his zombified dove is 1. talking and 2. has a violent and constant craving for brains. he's just like. being a slightly irritated pet owner about it. he's just like "ugh yes archimedes vants all zhe brains doesn't he. now shut up". also i think this is the most on-model medic drawing i've ever done wtf

[madspeed]

more keykid things!!!!!!!!!!!! The design's based on my original player character avatar i used when i was active on khux with a few swaps (mainly cause i had no idea there was a moogle headband lol)

[pup-pee]

ur bartkon art legendary

TYSMM!!!!! IM GLAD U LIKE ITT!!!!! <33

heres a silly sketch i prolly wont color :3

[wheucto]

if you guys are going to post things about the new ii episode, please don't tag it with bfdi if there's nothing bfdi about it, or at least tag it with ii spoilers / ii 17 spoilers (or a spoiler tag. or multiple). just something please

(not mad! this is just a general request)

[james-spooky]

this is a test

[a-gay-bloodmage]

One of my favorite hobbies to engage in is ignoring the canon course of video game romances

[necrotic-nephilim]

Any ships you don’t like in the batfam fandom that is popular?

OOOH this is such a fun question because I have quite a few

StephCass - i'll be honest this is one of those ships where the fandom ruined it for me. because 2000s StephCass is an elite dynamic, they care for each other so deeply. but the fandom has been intent on defanging and purifying this ship. i don't know *why* but StephCass seems most popular with the anti-Batcest crowd who get very mad if you compare it to ships they deem Batcest. i have an entire meta commentary on this in my drafts I'll likely never post discussing why the only reason StephCass gets the pass for not being Batcest ties directly into misogyny (because the women of the Batfam need to exist as love interests first, not family members so Steph was never going to truly get to exist as a "full" Batfam member so long as she could remain a viable love interest for Tim, and the same can apply to Babs, Helena, and even Cass in some cases) and that just sours me to it. like if i want yuri in Batfam i think there are far more interesting/fucked up ships for Steph like Babs/Steph or Helena/Steph. and when it comes to what i'd actually like to see in canon, i don't want to see Steph relegated to love interest of a Batfamily member, even if it's queer. let her date and exist outside of Gotham the way every other Batfam member gets to, DC *please*.

Bruce/Selina - i can't fully articulate why this ship isn't my thing, it just isn't. i think i just can't conceivably agree with Selina letting go of so many of her fundamental morals and beliefs for the sake of a man, even one she loves such as Bruce. ironically, i think that's one of the few things Gotham War got right about these two. the only canon love interest i like for Bruce is Zatanna and i mourn we'll never get much of that.

JayRoy - i will admit when i was newer to DC the first comics i picked up for Jason were all New-52 and i shipped this. but now that i'm a pre-Flashpoint truther and i've actually read well-written Roy Harper comics, i only see the flaws in this ship. ngl if ppl were actually fun and interesting with it, playing with the idea of Roy knowing Jason as Robin and still seeing him as just Dick's little brother who's gone a little mental, it *could* be fun. but this Red Hood & the Outlaws (2011) and Red Hood/Arsenal (2015) dynamic *butchers* the fuck out of Roy and strips him of everything interesting. and even as a Batfamily stan, my number one pet peeve is when other DC characters get *butchered* in a Batfamily character's book just for the sake of propping up the Bat as some kind of savior. free Roy Harper from this mans.

Bruce/Oliver - we could be here all day if i listed all the Bruce ships i don't like, but i figure this one has to be included. because oh my god either the people shipping this *really* don't understand Oliver Queen or they just hate his ass because why would you subject Oliver to this man. he can't *stand* Bruce. i really hate the popular BruOliie shipping dynamic of like "oh they were boarding school besties" because if you want that, you *should* like Bruce/Zatanna, not these two. Oliver just always gets butchered in these fics and i won't stand for it.

Tim/Bernard - the ESSAYS i could write on this ship and why i dislike it. the fucking *fear* DC (and most popular media tbh) has with depicting queer relationships as anything other than totally perfect and cute for fear of accusations of homophobia has stripped this ship of *any* real grit. Bernard is a non-character in Tim Drake: Robin, he exists to cheer Tim on and prop him up and just be The Boyfriend. we occasionally get glimpses of an interesting character with really interesting trauma and nothing is *done* with it bc at the end of the day, Tim and Bernard must be perfect and cute. what's fun about Tim is he is the *worst* boyfriend alive. that boy is *ass* at dating. all of his relationships are rich with conflict and yet the moment he dates a guy suddenly all of his flaws vanish? i hate it. i mourn what this could've been if we kept messy Tim Drake and had a Bernard who was actually informed by his trauma. DC please let gays be messy again. also of all of Tim's 90s/00s friends to bring back as a love interest, Bernard Dowd was just a *bizarre* fucking choice. Sebastian Ives was *right* there come on now.

Any Crossover Ship - look if crossovers are your cup of tea i'm happy for you but oh my god if i have to see that little green ghost boy or that ladybug girl in the Batfam one more time i think i may explode. i have a lot of thoughts on *why* i think specifically Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug get crossed over as often as they do with the Batfam, but i don't think anyone wants to year that. my only exception to this is Jason/Bucky Barnes, but it *has* to be comics!Bucky. like. Judd Winick's Jason and Ed Brubaker's Bucky would hatefuck and that i wish to see it. any other crossover ship (especially the Peter Parker ones that seem to be rising in popularity) just do *not* do it for me.

honestly besides that i don't think i dislike many ships. (aside from being super opinionated on Bruce ships, but that's mostly bc ppl will use him to butcher the character they ship him with) there are some ships i'm neutral to because i simply do not know enough to have an opinion (like Dick/Wally). i guess the only Batcest ship i'm not particular to is Bruce/Damian, but I wouldn't say that one is popular nor would i say i dislike it, just that it's not my cup of tea. most Batcest ships click for me in one way or another because i like their Weird dnyamics. i guess i could also say i dislike most ships that have come out of Young Justice (tv) because. oh my *god* why were those group of characters put together on a team. it's baffling. but even then it's not disliking those ships, it's moreso disliking that show's depiction of those characters so. everything is really dependant on the canon context for me!

[foxgloveinspace]

(X)

@blue-lollipops-and-ice-clouds

Ok, 1) I am so sorry haha, to be fair I could hear the Alkaline laugh with my 30$ skull candies (that I recommend!! They sound pretty freaking good for their price ok)

2). YES YES YES, exactly. He’s sleeping.

[an-theduckin]

Wait shit people might actually care about me

[yourinaudiblename]

I’ve become afraid of death. which is actually improvement for someone who was suicidal but also. scary :(

this is all your faults /pos /pos /pos-

[my-mind-is-afk-rn]

Man thinking about old alters is kinda weird cause I'm sitting here like "oh I wonder what [x] would think of where I am now" and then I'm like. Oh wait, that's me. That's not some mystical spirit that was just in my life for 8 years of my childhood, that was a phase of mine that I had back in elementary/middle school, except I was having like 40 of them at once and they were all different, and now that we're fused together again, I remember every path of this life like it was the original, but at the same time I remember interactinf with... each other.. and..... now I just have like 40x the memories except I don't and.. uh... anyway what *would* [x] think of me now, well honestly i have NO idea because their life "ended" before I got a grasp of our sense of self... and that was the whole point of doing that..... and I keep forgetting that I was just... Like That for so long. Anyone get what I'm saying? (I need sleep)

[sociallyawkwardseal]

Prompt: Fictober Day 1: "That was good work."

Fandom: Lumine

Summary: Camille and Kody have a brief conversation.

Content Warnings: N/A

Words: 1,249

Camille watched a series of bottles shift between Kody’s hands; once the green liquid from one vial had been drained into another, thicker, clear substance, Kody would reach for another, his expression not changing past the subtle twice of his nose as the scents mingled. The green itself spread and fell slowly, as if he had just dropped liquid food dye into watery corn syrup.

“Don’t hesitate,” Camille reminded him, her palm pressed to her cheek. “If you do, it’s going to end up tasting acidic.”

Kody huffed in response, his hands lingering over another tube held in a small wooden rack. “Don’t distract me.”

“You’re stalling.”

“Because you’re distracting me.”

A quiet hum of acknowledgment mingled with amusement caught behind Camille’s now-closed lips as she watched him continue, now more focused than before as he slowly poured half of the liquid in with the mixture.

“What, you’re not gonna get onto me for using too much or too little?” As he spoke, Kody’s bitter gaze flickered up long enough to glance at the other. He slowly reached out for the stirring stick, eyes stuck on Camille as he pulled it closer. “Or you’re not gonna tell me to be careful about how I stir it?”

“Nope, not yet. I’m just waiting and watching now.” Camille smiled a bit, watching as he stirred slowly, almost meticulously. His focus had seemed to double after he grew quiet. “What happened to me not distracting you?”

“If I’m just complaining about you, then I’m not getting distracted. But if you’re interrupting me, then I’m gonna lose focus. How long does this even need to be stirred?”

“Didn’t you read the note I left you?”

“I can’t read Terranian yet, and you left it in Terranian.”

Camille could feel her smile break as he reminded her—though, the only actual change on her expression was a subtle twitch of her lips. Her brain went blank, the only word crossing her mind for a moment being ‘shit’ as she stared at the boy now working silently across from her.

That’s right, you and Sera couldn’t talk at all when you first met her.

“How did you follow the instructions up until now?”

“Eyeballed it. I made something similar before, so, it’s not like it’s a big deal. Plus, it’s not like I even asked you to actually write instructions down for me—I just asked if you had the ingredients.”

“Given how Lumine has talked about how you make your potions… That’s not really reassuring.”

“I knew what I was doing then, too.”

“Did you?”

Kody grew quiet, pulling the stick out as he transferred the syrup-consistency potion into another glass bottle and seal it.

“I didn’t know how it was actually going to react with him, but I knew it wouldn’t kill him. I knew what I put in it, and that nothing in it would mix badly together to be that bad.”

“M-hm. At least there’s that, I guess.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

Feels like there should be a ‘usually’ there, Camille said silently, watching Kody put the vial aside and seal the remaining ingredients. You’ve got a long way to go, but. That doesn’t mean you haven’t studied hard already.

“I’ll clean everything up, too. So. Don’t worry about me making things more of a mess than they already are.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it before I go out today.” Camille waved her hand, watching as Kody pushed himself up. He gathered the emptied and now-dirtied dishes and tools and took them towards the small kitchen. “If you’re going to try and clean up anyway, just drop them off in the sink that’s not by the fridge. It’s the one that’s for anything that isn’t a fruit or vegetable. Potions, meat, whatever.”

“Alright.” Kody did as she instructed, now without any complaint or push-back, and then sat back down across from her. He picked the potion’s bottle back up and held it up to the light, his eyes flickering back and forth through the liquid that almost matched his eye color as he inspected it. “Is it really safe to wash potion bottles next to where you prep meat, though?”

“I mean, nothing I work with in here is toxic. And if it is, then the bottle just gets disposed of.” Camille shrugged, watching him closely. He seemed, at the very least, pleased with the mixture’s consistency and color. “So, what made you want to make something for pain? Everything okay?”

“You’ve been complaining about headaches a lot lately, and clearly, you’re not going to do anything about it yourself.”

Camille felt her smile shatter once again, her lips now fully turning into a frown. “You really noticed that, huh?”

“Lumine did, too. He actually overheard you mention it first.”

“Sera?”

“You actually don’t say anything about it around her, I don’t know if you’re just like. Worried about worrying her or something, but. You don’t even really say it to us, you just kind of say it to yourself and keep doing whatever it is you’re doing.”

Camille dragged her hand down her face as she leaned harder into the back of her chair. “Aghhh. I didn’t even notice.”

“Yeah, well. It’s getting on my nerves, so try this. It’s cool enough now.” He held the bottle out to her, their green eyes meeting as her attention redirected back towards him.

Getting on your nerves? Is that just your way of saying you worry, in this case? Camille hid her smile, eyes meeting his for a brief moment.

She took the bottle from his hands, much smaller than her own, the glass still subtly warm—partially from the mixture, partially from his own hands. “So, you actually sat down and made this for me?”

“Hopefully it’s not too acidic from you distracting me.”

Judging by his half-smirk, it was less of a concern, and more of a facetious comment. Something to poke and prod at her.

She couldn’t help but smile a bit more, seeing how confident he was. How sure he was that, even though she distracted him so much by talking to him, it would still be alright. Even if he silently struggled with it on most days, she always tried to take the moments that he was so sure of himself in good spirits.

“Ha. Even if it was, I’ve definitely had worse than something that’s a little bit acidic. I’ve probably had coffee worse than it, honestly.” She opened it, sniffed, and hen downed it as quickly as possible. If it was actually acidic, she would—hopefully—not even notice. If anything, it would likely feel no worse than mild heartburn—and at worse, severe heartburn.

“Well, was it?”

She waited for a moment, expecting an aftertaste of… Something. Bitterness. Something akin to bile. An incorrect texture from overmixing, adding one ingredient too soon, overheating it, letting it get too cool during the cooking process rather than letting it cool after, something.

But it was no different from what she would have made herself for a patient. Slightly sweet, a bit sticky—it would definitely feel better if she had chased it down with warm water or something else. But it was, actually, up to her standards.

“Not at all, actually.” She said, twisting the neck of the bottle in her fingers. “That was good work, Kody.”

“Yeah? Told you I knew what I was doing. Hope it helps, it’ll probably take a little bit, but.”

[arvoze]

the power i will receive in a matter of days will be astounding. watch out