#but a while ago i noticed she had started saying such rude and uncomfy things

[iwakuraz]

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[messedupessy]

Number 15 with the Fell brothers~! :3

Ahhhh here ya go man I literally wrote this in one day, which is today just frikking wrote it in pretty much one go and I am seriously proud of myself gnkjegnkjgkrje so yeah enjoy xD ❤

Edit 2021/01/05: Decided to update this, fixed some grammar and added some minor things, enjoy!

Stealing Flowers

Relationship: None, just bros

Warnings: Mention of animal death, but nothing graphic or detailed

Prompt: “Are you seriously stealing flowers off that grave?” 

Summary: Red joins Edge on a trip to the cemetery.

 AO3

Story below cut

“Red, Really?”, Red heard Edge say slightly behindhim, clearly exasperated. “Are You Seriously Stealing Flowers Off That Grave?”

“yep, sure am baby bro.”, he replied with his usualwide grin, as it was true. He was currently picking, or stealing as Edge calledit, some flowers off of a grave he was squatting down in front of.

Though it wasn’t really stealing since the flowerswere technically grown there and clearly not planted, was actually rather whatmost people would call weeds. So in turn Red was actually doing the cemeterystaff a favour by removing some of the said weeds off the grave.

“And Do Tell Me Why Exactly You Are Doing Such AThing, Brother?”, Edge asked again, his voice stiff with barely held backirritation.

“jist doin’ my daily good deed of tha day, bro.”, Redjoked with a dark chuckle, the disgusted noise he got in return worth it. Hethen stood up with the flowers in hand, turning around so he was now face toface with his much younger, and also sort of angry, brother.

Edge was dressed in a fancy black suit; with some kneehigh boots that had some minor heel to them which Red was thankful for theother wearing. As Edge really needed to stop stomping around with those overlyhigh heels of his, they were so not good for that bad hip of his. And alongsidethat cute scowl his face was currently expressing, so was he holding a largebouquet of red roses with a large matching ribbon.  

Red himself was not dressed up for the occasion atall, he was in fact just wearing his usual outfit as he hadn’t bothered at allor even tried to dress up, unlike his brother.

“nah, thought i shoulda get somethin’ fer tha grave,pay me respects an’ all that shit, ya know.”, Red then added with a shrugbefore Edge had a chance to say anything else, fiddling with the flowers heheld in his hands slightly, his mind noting they were probably some sort ofdandelions or something.

That gave Edge pause, stopped him right as he wasabout to say something, probably a lecture, but instead he ended up juststanding there with stunned surprise on his features. But it wasn’t long untilhis whole body visibly relaxed, letting out a deep sigh in defeat, while alsogiving Red a suspicious glare.

“Let’s… Let’s Keep Moving.”, Edge uttered before hequickly began to walk, quickly making his way past Red and down the path of thecemetery with long steps.

And like the lazy ass he was, Red instead of followinghis brother simply took a shortcut.

Then quickly reappearing with barely a sound at theirdestination, which was another grave.

He eyed the grave lazily while he waited for hisbrother, which wouldn’t take long thanks to those long legs of his. The blackgranite of the headstone shined brightly in the strong summer sun, slightlyblinding him but not enough to stop him from reading what was written on it.

It said, with big fancy golden letters:

                                                  Doomfanger

                                              Unknown July. 17          

                                                 2261 - 2284  

                                 Beloved pet,companion and friend

Around the textthere were paw prints carved into the stone also with gold in them, alongsideother golden squiggly patterns here and there which he guessed were leaves orsome shit, his brother not sparing any expense when it came to the grave of hisnow dead pet cat.

The old furballhad finally bit the dust last year at about 23 years of age, which apparentlywas pretty old for a cat. Though she might have been older as it wasn’t fullysure how old she had been when Edge found her back in the underground.

Thinking of theunderground, it was still weird how that was just about 11 years ago, that thebarrier broke and all monsterkind was freed from their imprisonment.

His thoughtswere interrupted by the arrival of his brother, who with quick steps made hisway next to him where he stopped.

He looked athis brother, who was looking very stoic and tense as he watched the grave,holding the roses in his hand tightly, before be abruptly turned to him,reaching out the hand with the roses towards him.

“Hold These, INeed To Clean The Grave.”, Edge muttered tersely.

“sure thin’,bro.”, Red replied taking a hold of the roses, the thought of saying no justbecause running through his mind, but he decided not to for once. His brotherwas already, no pun intended, on edge.

His brotherthen stepped forward and got to work, pulling out various tools from his phoneinventory before kneeling down, grimacing slightly as he did thanks to his oldinjuries. But his expression quickly turned determined as he got to work,removing any weeds that had popped up since last time he had been there,removing old flowers and so on, while Red just stood there watching him work.

The urge topush Edge to the side and do the work himself, even though this sort of shitwork wasn’t his thing, was overwhelming. But he knew his baby brother wouldn’ttake it well, since this was his duty and all that shit, so he let it be, sinceafter all the death of his pet cat had hit his brother hard, harder than youwould expect.

Like to Red itwas just a cat, an animal, they die quickly when it comes to monsters like themwho lives for a very long time. So he didn’t really fully get why Edge wasstill so upset about it and still grieving even a year after.

A low huffescaped him, guess he truly was an insensitive arse.

Still, hehappily tagged along whenever his brother went to visit Doomfanger’s grave,spending any time with his baby brother was time well spent.

It didn’t takelong for Edge to clean the grave, since he came and visited it at least acouple of times a month, so any weeds, rotten flowers or other cleaning of thegrave was quick work. Edge got back up onto his feet with a barely hiddengrimace of pain, for anyone who didn’t know what to look out for wouldn’t seeit as Edge was really good at hiding when he was in pain.

But Red wasn’tjust anyone, and knew exactly what to look out for to notice just how muchEdge’s old injuries affected him.

Which remindedhim, he still needed to beat that fish bitch into a fucking pulp for causingsaid injuries. He didn’t care that it happened almost 20 years ago, or that itwas all done fair and square or that the bitch was still his baby brothers socalled best friend, any kind of injuries caused to his brother would get paidwith blood.  

Edge thenwordlessly reached his hand out towards him, snapping Red out of his suddenthoughts of tearing that fish a new hole. Just as wordlessly he gave him backthe bouquet of roses and Edge then quickly squatted down and placed them ontothe now clean grave.

Without Rednoticing so had Edge also put down a couple of candles which he had lit, how hehad missed that was making his sockets twitch in irritation at himself, he wassupposed to be aware at all times after all, couldn’t risk missing anything nomatter how small said thing was. Edge then stood back up and took a step back,looking at the grave his whole body tense and his expression grim.

Ah, now timefor the part which always ended up making him uncomfy as fuck.

Red seriouslydid not do feely stuff, he did not know how to handle it at all, he glanced atEdge who was standing next to him again with his arms behind his back, lookingas stiff as the stick he at times had up his pelvis.  

As ever sincethe incident, from about 10 years ago, even just thinking about it makes Redgrit his teeth in anger as he didn’t even want to think about it properly, hewas still so pissed about it.

But since thatincident Edge had pretty much become incapable of crying at all.

He was unableto cry at his shitty romantic drama’s he so loved anymore, he was unable to crywhen Doomfanger got sick due for age. Unable to cry when she eventually diedand wasn’t able to cry even at her funeral.

Thoughtechnically it was his baby brothers own fault, he had insisted on finding outthe truth, had forced Red’s hand in the name of saving Red from going insane.

He much morewould had preferred going insane than having Edge suffer as he do now, how hisbaby brother now had the highest level out of all monsterkind and now wasforced to live with it. As he did have a reason, several of them actually, whyhe had kept the truth secret from Edge for so many years to start with and thiswas one of them.

But now herethey were, Edge unable to properly grieve and cry over his dead cat, and himselfunable to comfort him because what the fuck were feelings even, all because ofthat whole fucking incident.

Especiallysince Edge wasn’t the only one affected by the incident, Red himself was nowcapable of feeling shit for other people and not just his brother. Which wasweird, as he now was able to feel shit more proper overall and he absolutelyhated it.

As things thatusually didn’t bother or affect him suddenly did, made him stop and think whathis actions and words could do to people at times and fuck did he hate it. Shitwas better when he didn’t care jack shit about anything or anyone except forhis baby brother, but apparently said brother would rather he cared about othersas well and make him a emotional asshole instead.

Which was whyhe didn’t do his usual asshole thing, like cracking a very bad and insensitivejoke, do something seriously rude like tossing the flowers he still held in hishand onto the grave which he originally had just picked up as a joke. He wasincapable of been his usual nonchalant dickish self and it was frustrating asfuck.

So instead, hedecided to do something so out of character of himself that if there was somesort of overwordly being up there, so would it have struck him down on the spotfor heresy.

“gimme yehand.”, he said to Edge, lifting his hand that he didn’t hold the flowers in uptowards his brother.

“Why?”, Edgereplied stiffly, eyeing the offered hand in suspicion which Red couldn’t reallyblame him for, he was known to pull pranks at the worst of times after all.

“jist do et,i’m trynna do a good thin’ here.”, Red grumbled back, feeling uncomfortable asfuck as he shook his hand for Edge to just take it already.

“… Fine, But IfYou Are About To Play A Trick On Me So Am I Never Letting You Come Along HereWith Me Again.”, Edge huffed after a moment of glaring, rolling his eye light’sas he put his hand in Red’s own.

“don’t worry, iwon’t.”, Red reassured him, giving his brother’s hand a squeeze. Fuck this shitwas weird but he had gotten this far, might as well go through with it.

He then steppedforward towards the grave, the two of them already standing close enough to itso he didn’t have to let go of the others hand. He could feel Edge’s confusedeyes dig into his back as he then squatted down, putting the flowers down ontothe grave as nicely as he could.

“sup, furball.”,Red then spoke, wincing slightly at how corny and touchy feely the whole thinghe was doing was, keeping his one eyelight locked onto the grave. “thanks… ferya always been there for me bro when he needed ya… an’ for been jist a reallygood cat.”

He thenpromptly got up and stepped back so he was standing next to his brother again, ifhe had skin he would swear it was crawling with just how fucking uncomfy hisactions just made him.

Red didn’t evenlook at his brother, to see how he reacted, instead he focused his eye onto arandom piece of grass. A minute or so passed before he felt Edge squeeze hishand back, making Red turn his face back up to his brother who was looking downat him.

“That… ThatWas…”, Edge began, clearing his throat loudly before a very soft smile slowlyspread onto his face. “That Was Really Sweet Of You… Thank You.”

If it wasn’tfor the fact Red had promised to chill the fuck out with his habit of taking picturesof Edge, so would he had pulled his phone out faster than his shortcuts as theexpression Edge was wearing was something he so dearly needed a photo of, so hecould look at it whenever he wanted and needed to.

But at the sametime, he felt if he went and did it, he would ruin whatever this moment wasbetween them, so he resisted and instead gave his baby brother a wide grin.

“heh, anytimebaby bro.”, Red murmured instead, before turning his face away to look atDoomfanger’s grave, Edge doing the same.

They stoodthere in silence for awhile, just enjoying the moment, until suddenly Edgesqueezed his hand again before slowly removing his own from Red’s grasp. MakingRed look up at him, resisting the urge to grab it back, but Edge was notlooking at him, his eyes still locked with the grave before them.

“Al-All Right,I Am Done Here For Today, Thanks For Coming With Me.”, Edge said with a slighttremble to his voice, before he quickly turned heel and began to walk away onthe cemetery path. “Come Along Brother, I Need To Get Back To Work Before TwoPM And I Refuse To Be Late.”

“sure thin’.”, Redreplied, but he didn’t move from where Edge left him. As before Edge turnedaway and began to walk, Red could had sworn he saw something shine in hisbrother’s eye socket.

Quickly shakinghis head so to snap out of it, he decided it was most likely just hisimagination and wishful thinking. But he grinned widely and with a step forwardtook a shortcut to catch up to his much faster brother.

[ineffboyable]

Okay, I have been casually catsitting (not doing it as a business) for over a decade. Usually when people take vacation, but sometimes in recent years mid-day check-ins on I'll or elderly pets. I normally don't get too bogged down by the inconvenient parts of the job (lots of time driving, mediocre pay, stressful communication, being nitpicked or reprimanded when petowner has really specific requests) because I'm not able to have cats of my own and I genuinely enjoy seeing my fireball clients (most of the time.)

However, I'm noticing I'm way burnt out and I wonder if anyone can relate...

I think it all started when Christmas 2019 I agreed to sit for two clients who live 30+ minutes apart. I don't mind working over the holidays too much but wow I was basically spending the entire day driving for four or five days bc both people wanted 2-3 visits. One client does tip me, but overall getting $15 for what ends up being over an hour of work+commute with no gas included. And while sitting for one cat and having to drive over twice a day is a little stressful, doing it between two places is just......no.

BUT while I refer to the two families I sit for as clients, they are both friends of my family. This adds such a weird stressful dynamic. I would raise my rates or turn one client down or say I can only do one visit, but there's a guilt/anxiety around it bc I know they don't have the money to pay more and I know their situation in life and that finding an agency to come in would be stressful. But I also realize that not standing up for myself creates a level of resentment that simmers under the surface and boils up whenever some minor thing happens (note asking to please not leave dishes in the sink, passive aggressive text from client, etc.)

I guess at the end of the day, I'm not some 16 year-old making some money to get fro yo when I go out with my youth group anymore (thank God)... I'm a grown woman who does as thorough of a job as I can taking care of your pets and usually spends way too much time b/c I feel bad that they're alone and also have little sense of time. I'm essentially a top of the line artist giving you bargain basement prices.

Don't get me wrong...mostly my clients do say thanks and sometimes I do fall short. Another difficult thing about casually sitting for people you know is that they are in the mindset that you are a petsitter who will follow their exact schedule for their pets when irl your accommodating them and working them into/bending your existing schedule. But overall I feel locked into...I have to always say yes to requests for sitting and I can't take breaks.

Lately, I've been doing check-ins for one client who went back to work. I'm still working my retail job so I'm bending over to accommodate her and the kitties. Driving 15 minutes to spend thirty minutes letting cats outside bc she is now afraid to leave them outside which inevitably turns into 45 bc you can't herd cats back inside and then having to drive 30-40 to my job bc I'm further out of my way.... all for $15. Idk. I just feel like all my labor in undervalued but I also don't see myself being worth enough to expect more. All the things I love and have considered working in just don't pay: museums, music, mental health, writing, religion, animal care. Sometimes I feel like crap or even scared bc I don't know how I'll make it down the road when I'm not living with family. This turned into something else but...

Anyways, today I had agreed to go do a check-in, but I sprained my ankle three weekends ago and spent this week working standing up (womp womp) so it had ballooned up again this morning. I was going to soldier and go, but I had this growing sense of "no. I need to rest my damn foot and I am mentally and physically exhausted and this is my day off anyways why am I putting my well-being after a check-in that is not totally necessary." So I text her And explain about my ankle, and she's just like okay that's fine I'm coming home early." And I'm like wtf you're not sorry About my ankle?? Do you think I'm lying to get out of this? I am doing all this as a favor to you and the cats bc the paycheck is sad for his draining this whole thing is.

And the trouble with knowing this person in addition to have a sort of business transaction with them is that I start making excuses for their rude behavior bc I know they're very stressed etc. Or as I mentioned before, I guilt myself into saying yes to jobs I don't want bc I am busy and overwhelmed myself. Ex. Aforementioned client asked me earlier in the year about sitting Easter break. I am torn bc I know my family is planning to rent a beach house as a staycation, and I haven't vacationed since a two-night trip Feb. '20. But client says she's going to see her dad and I know he's elderly and she hasn't seen him but once since quarantine started...how can I let her down?? So I end up saying I'll sit for her part of the week I'm taking off while I'm still home, figuring she can get a service for the rest. Lo and behold, she doesn't end up going to see her dad but ends up taking my service so she can go visit a friend. I spend half my vacation essentially working, sprain my ankle and try to work on it, feel generally annoyed.

I know some of this is on me; I am working on setting boundaries and getting more in tune with myself and communicating better. It's on the table in therapy and constantly on my mind, but maybe some can relate about the stress of sitting "unprofessionally." Not that sitting with business it without problems...my friend was making under the poverty line when she had a business. But you can have a bit more separation in theory.

OH one more thing...THE CAMERAS. Now both my clients have security cameras and I kinda get it. You live alone. There's a stranger in the house. But it's VERY uncomfortable and a little demeaning. My friend who worked professionally agreed with this. I wish people would be more upfront and clear about the cameras and consult you a bit. It's like, client got a security system and just told me to make a pass key one day. I assumed the camera turned off when you turned alarm off and were in house, but I get a text the other week about something I did in the house and I'm a little, 1) hurt they feel they have to monitor me, 2) creeped out they are going thru footage of me. You know, again when you have an established relationship with someone and they claim to trust you, it is a bit demeaning to be recorded. Also just (let me reiterate) uncomfy. The camera clicks and stuff. And it didn't even occur to me until recently that it records sounds.

Anyways, I probably sounds like an entitled asshole whineypants but I thought there was the possibility this would help someone. I do really love cats even if I'm developing allergies 🙃 and I can understand my clients' anxiety to some extent, but I just feel really burnt out right now in this area and others.