#i don't even know what else to put

[whatsthepointinstayinghere]

My Master Detective Archives: Raincode Sickfic.

An unfinished work in progress but I don't even think people will like it well enough to want a finished version. At the moment I feel like a failure.

This is the first ever time I've written a Sickfic. And I'm dedicating this one to a special person as both an apology and to cheer them up in their current situation.

I hope you'll like it. I'm going to use Raincode elements but also I might put in some other random stuff, just to personalize it so it's different to any other existing Whump 😜 like guest characters I know. Eh. Maybe some humour in there as well.

Apologies for any bad punctuation and spelling. I'm not really good at these sorts of things. I'm more of a comedy writer.

I worked hard to make sure that it wasn't too heavy but I'll warn that it will be emotional, I wanted to capture the deep passion of the audience, especially when it comes to a character you adore. Before you ask, it is PG (or at least aimed at mature teens), I hate stuff that are graphic NSFW (I'd make the fanfic strictly 18+ if I was using references and slang about it) so you've got nothing to worry about. Quite a lot of the Whump stuff is taken from what I've seen some people of that community post. So HOPEFULLY the caring for the sick side of this story will meet their expectations. I really hope so, I've never written something like this before. Lastly DON'T WORRY, I'm not going to let the Whumpee die, they'll be going through a lot but they'll get well in the end. I also promise that there's a lot of adorable moments like cuddles and snuggles 🥰 for those kinds of particular fans.

Get ready because this will be a long un!

Fans of MDA: Raincode and Whump, enjoy!

NOTICE: CURRENTLY A WORK IN PROGRESS AND WILL BE EDITED OCCASIONALLY.

THAT TIME THE RAIN FELL UPWARDS

-Written by Ice Dragon 19

It was another usual workday in Kani Ward for the Nocturnal Detective agency. Fubuki was in the kitchen making homemade cakes and biscuits for the clients who would visit the agency to request aid from the detectives as the city is constantly full of new mysteries and crimes every day. Since having a part time career in one of the cafés, Fubuki has become one of the best bakers in the whole of Kani Ward. In fact she has managed to reach the top headlines of all the cooking sections in every paper, catching the attention of foodies and famous cooks who travelled from all over just to try her food. She's never been happier with her newfound love, inventing new recipes and occasionally baking treats for her fellow colleagues who enjoyed every bite.

Desuhiko was on duty in Kamasaki District, he was *supposed* to be going around asking for witnesses over a missing person report like Yakou asked but instead he was asking out every single girl on sight. Of course, each response was the same. One even punched him on the nose, causing it to bleed.

Halara was working on a very important client's request. Of course, they were wealthy and paid Halara their requested price. They had to help uncover a secret criminal organisation, stealing stocks and demanding ransoms which in turn was a sledgehammer crash towards business.

Vivia was laying down in his usual spot. In the fireplace in the agency office. He was reading some Death Note manga as he's become quite attached to it over the past few days. Yakou had given up with him at this point, as he tried to encourage him to move so that the fireplace can be cleaned (not by him of course) "Vivia when will you actually move from there and start cleaning it? Look at it, it's all dusty and dirty and you're lying in the middle of it! We need to keep the agency tidy and since you're the only one who uses the fireplace, YOU can clean it"

Vivia's excuse was that nobody could see the dust anyway as it's so dark inside, like a stone coffin. Yakou just threw his arms up in the air defeated and walked out of the sub.

Yakou told everyone that he had some important business to attend to, and by that he was actually smoke chatting in the corner of an alley with a mate he befriended as he helped him get out of trouble with the peacekeepers.

But who cares about all these random people? This story is about Yuma. The poor barstool who ends up doing all the heavy butt lifting. Yuma was on a mission to help a young girl, but it wasn't Kurumi. She was a young, very well dressed lady in blue. What stood out about her was that she wore a blue top hat that matched her outfit. She carried an old timely suitcase in one hand and a large black umbrella in the other. She asked for Yuma to help her specifically simply because she knows far more about him than he even currently knows about himself.... That's right.. she's actually a time traveler.

"Yuma. I am extremely grateful for your help on this very important matter. There are currently things going on that's beyond any understanding in this era as it's not even something from this universe"

Yuma turned to look at his unusual client with a worried expression. "I'm honoured to help you with this Vertin but what do you mean by 'not something from this universe'"

Vertin stopped walking. She couldn't tell him all the details about her purpose, her abilities and powers. But she had no choice... Kani Ward is in great danger... No ... The entire world... The 'era'

"Yuma.... Please understand that I am not from this world. I am a being known in my universe as an arcanist, in other words we can use magic." She continues talking as Yuma stared at her in bewilderment.

"However the magic we use is very limited and controlled carefully. It's not the type people associate with fairytales, it's a lot more complex. I am known as the timekeeper, but what that is and what it means is a different story altogether. I was able to travel through to this era by complex arcanum technology from my own universe. Since I've heard from the research facility I work with, this world is in danger... And we need to find the root of the problem"

She started to walk again at a quicker pace, snapping Yuma out of his listening trance, he ran to keep up with her strides. "And you already know what's causing the problem?"

Vertin kept walking, with Yuma following behind, trying to get his head under the umbrella as his hat was getting wetter.

"Manis Vindicte"

Yuma stopped for a moment then walked on

"who?"

"they are an anti human group of arcanists who are behind multiple destructions of eras. They are even trying to ruin era's from multiple universes. This is their way of getting vengeance on all of mankind who discriminated against arcanists for so long.."

Yuma looked horrified. He's delt with solving crime before but this is on another level. "That's so awful.... To harm other innocent humans not even in their own universe... That's blatant terrorism!"

Shinigami who was quiet the whole time *she was pissed at Yuma for hanging out with another flatty girl* suddenly got excited "oooooooooh master! We've got alien terrorists to boom kill! I'm so excited for this! Kyahahahahaha!!"

It was Yuma's turn to ignore her. But this time not because of her usual annoying comments. He was feeling dizzy.... His head started to throb with pain, he already had a pale complexion but now he's looking more like a walking corpse. He muttered weakly "W......what's......g...going....on?.....i....i...f....feel......t...terrible" He also noticed that heat was starting to form in his head. Strange... Seeing as he didn't feel warm before. Might be a fever coming on... Could be the constant rain... This wouldn't be the first time he had a fever, of all the time he's worked at the detective agency everyone now knows that Yuma is prone to sickness. He's had so many fevers that they've lost count, even the doctors of Amaterasu clarified that Yuma has a very low immunity system, has other conditions that make him more frail and they believe that he may have first had these problems from birth but couldn't find the reason for the constant feverish overheat apart from blaming the cold rain. But the rain isn't as heavy in Kani Ward as you'd expect in a rainforest. One thing for certain is that the doctors warned that Yuma must be monitored at all times, kept away from the rain as much as possible, not overworked and to stay warm. They even feared that Yuma could succumb to a serious illness he could develop easily due to his weak body, comparing him to the elderly.

As for Yuma, this outcome is depressing to cope with. He hates being a burden to others and insisted that he feels healthy enough to go out and help people in the city. Although it normally takes a LOT of encouragement to get Yakou to finally let him leave the sub. Everyone in the agency worries for their little rookie detective, Even Makoto, despite all his hard work as CEO of Amaterasu had taken up medical just to prepare himself to care for him. Yuma and Makoto both share a strong bond, Yuma often visits him as he's mostly alone despite having a successful career to which they became close friends.

Yuma gritted his teeth in pain as he held one hand up to his head and hugged his abdomen with his other arm. With each step he was feeling even more dizzy, his body heavy while being light headed, it was like trying to walk in a bog. Tears were forming in his eyes as the pain was becoming unbearable. Shinigami was shouting something but Yuma couldn't hear her, his senses were warped, he was feeling both intense heat and cold at the same time. He weakly tried to call out to Vertin, to get her attention. But realised that he was breathing so heavily that the words couldn't form. It was as if an elephant was sat on his lungs, he was struggling with each breath "Ver.......vertii.........I......I ....nee.........to........s.... stop"

It was taking so much effort just to breathe in each time, he felt his lungs fighting not to collapse.

Not realising Yuma's far slower pace *struggling with each stride* Vertin's only response was:

"indeed, that's why we need to find the members who have planted their seed of destruction."

But while they were walking along the alleyways of Kani Ward Yuma suddenly collapsed. His body gave way after being too weak to walk, he was in tremendous pain... His lower abdomen feeling like it's going to burst, his forehead red hot from fever, he hugged his abdomen, breathing heavily with tears and sweat streaming down his cheeks. "I'm....s.... sorry...Vertin....I can't...m...move"

Vertin spun around the moment she heard the *thud* and immediately rushed towards Yuma, she had a feeling that Yuma looked ill when she first met him at the agency, but didn't think that it would suddenly attack him like this in such a sudden pace. He certainly wasn't feverish then... Nor in pain from the outside. While she was trying to figure out the symptoms, she then realised that Yuma's vains were turning purple, throbbing up to the surface of his skin.

"Arcanum.... They know that you're frail so they targeted you by injecting a lethal potion into your bloodstream to activate the bodily defense system, oh no.... It's going into hyperdrive! Your body is destroying itself to fight the foreign potion... You need medical help right away!" Putting her umbrella down on the ground she moved his body to an area of the alley where the rain couldn't reach him.

Yuma only responded with heavy gasps of breathing, trying to retaliate as he didn't want to be a burden "No.... Please, leave me here... I'll.....b.....be fine". Shinigami's annoyance wasn't really helping matters. "Awww HERE we go again master! You just HAD to summon another Sickfic! WHY. ARE. YOU. SO. WEAK!" However she stopped her complaining after paying attention to what Vertin was saying. "Wait? You mean he's suffering from an alien virus? Now that's a new one!!! Kyaha!" Although she couldn't really hide much of her concern for Yuma. After all, he's HER master.

Shinigami was too busy gazing at Yuma's condition in both worry and wonder to even bother what Vertin was up to next. She placed her suitcase down on the ground not far from Yuma, opened it and climbed inside the vast emptiness.

When she reappeared again, this time another figure joined her. They were tall with white hair that was brown on the underside. They wore a bizarre lab coat that had an arc like gap in the front, revealing silver jean-like leggings and black boots. The most recognisable features of this strange guest was a lanyard with a sticker of a puppy, apart from that they also held in their white gloved hands a strange gun that looked like a ray gun with a long needle protruding from the front.

They took one glance at Yuma with their piercing goldyellow eyes and scoffed "Hah... So THAT'S the helpless welpling whom you dragged me out for, and I was in the middle of an important genius research project!"

Shinigami suddenly looked round to see who said that extremely rude comment about HER master only SHE can insult. Her purple ghostly face and body puffed up with red rage "Who does THAT uggo think they are? Coming out from nowhere just to SPEAK ILL OF MY MASTER!?" of course despite her outburst, the strange duo are oblivious to her existence (only Yuma can see and hear her).

Vertin ignored her partner's snide comments "Med. I chose you because you are the only person who has the knowledge of arcanum related illnesses and what can be done about them"

Med took their attention away from Yuma who was still writhing in pain, clutching himself tightly, curled up shivering on the floor. He couldn't see or hear much of the commotion as his senses were corrupting... Eyes tightly shut from the agony. They looked straight at Vertin who still remained in her calm, professional stance.

"JUST because my name is Medicine Pocket doesn't mean I'm some low paid random doctor who goes around checking the health of street drunks. I'm FAR too important for that, my devotion to scientific research and funding is critical. I'm a SCIENTIST not a damn medic"

Vertin ignored this protest "Yuma is in a critical condition, his life depends on you to create an antidote for the arcane poison. As you very well know, only arcanum related drugs can cure arcanum diseases."

She walked over to kneel next to Yuma's side, who was still shivering uncontrollably. Her face, despite emotionless most of the time was showing hints of worry... Thanks to her research into this era as well as sources from her research facility who tracked down the universes the Manus were invading, she already knows about Yuma's past, but cannot disclose that confidential information. When meeting him for the first time, she immediately felt a positive aura coming from him, that he's someone who can be trusted. Despite his weaknesses, Vertin has heard of his devotion to helping as many people in Kani Ward as possible, it made her feel remorseful to see him in this sorry state. She reached out and gently placed her hand on Yuma's forehead which was very hot to the touch. Both Med and Shinigami flashed a face of disgust (Shinigami crossing her arms and looking the other way) "we don't have much time... Med, please get over here and diagnose his condition, the sooner you can make that drug the better"

The moody scientist groaned in annoyance at this request "oh, so you want ME to prod all over his weak pathetic little body with my hands that created so many miracles for you dumb arcanists? Pah! You wish"

Vertin flew a stern look at Med who kept their distance from them on the other side of the alley. Med grumbled and eventually complied, walking over to them"

"FINE, but you owe me 50000 Sharponies for funding on my experiments! Just be thankful that I happen to be on your side just because Laplace is run by a bunch of unintelligible old fogies!"

They reached into their pocket and pulled out a pair of spare white gloves, to place on top of the ones they were already wearing and proceeded to kneel down and feel Yuma all over his face, head, neck, arms and hands, tapping around the sickly areas with a look of deep concentration on their face. They already reached a conclusion after about 2 minutes of this. "Yep. These are the symptoms of arcanum poisoning, the subject is going through the responsive stage, where the body is using up as many white blood cells as possible to attack the foreign infection caused by a potion made from the toxic seeds of the pacrisma tree. As he's a human, the poison is taking immediate effect, it forces the body to focus only on the poison, making the victim weaker in the process. Since he's already frail, the attack response has made him develop a sudden fever. The purple vains indicate that the poison has corrupted his blood vessels, he now has a very little survival rate, especially out here in this rain. Only the antidote drug can save him."

Vertin was getting more pale after hearing this fact "Then we really don't have much time! Med, get back into the suitcase and focus on making the antidote, I'll carry him to a place where he can rest. Yuma told me that he has a close bond with Makoto, who lives at the top of Kani Tower, it's the closest place from here and since he's taken up medical training he should be able to access the medications that will slow down the poison." As she was talking, she took her hat off and picked Yuma up, who was slipping into unconsciousness (he was incredibly light..) and positioned him on her back, his head on her right hand side sinking onto her shoulder, she could feel the heat from his head on her cheek. She was beginning to sweat herself from his heat.

Med was heading towards the suitcase in response to Vertin, taking off the used gloves in the process "but how are you going to get the suitcase all the way up there when you can't even carry it? And will that guy even be at home?"

Vertin was so focused on Yuma that she hadn't actually thought of that. But before she could reply, Kurumi suddenly appeared from one end of the alleyway. Nobody of course heard Shinigami yell out "Oh, HERE comes flatty mac bratty. CAN MY DAY GET ANY WORSE!?"

Kurumi was horrified and startled to see Yuma in such a poor state, not only that but who was this girl carrying him? But before she could ask any questions Vertin immediately addressed her the moment she saw her coming.

"Kurumi! I need your help! Please carry my suitcase and follow me. I'm taking Yuma to Makoto's, I'll explain on the way"

Kurumi immediately did what Vertin told her to do, she must have been one of Yuma's clients so she understands if she was trying to help him since he suddenly got sick. The suitcase was wide open, med had already retreated inside so Kurumi closed it and carried it, catching up with Vertin.

Both girls ran through the streets of Kani Ward, through the districts that led to the tower. Vertin explaining the situation all the way with Kurumi struggling to listen with all the noise coming from the rain, pedestrians and traffic. But she picked up the gist of it. Most of the people they passed gave them strange stares, too concerned about their mission right now the girls ran on.

Shinigami was absolutely fuming the entire way, TWO flat chested Brats being all lovey dovey with HER master, she wished she could suddenly reveal herself in her God form and boom kill the both of them to hell while carrying her master away to safety. Damn the boundaries of a death God... Even they have rules to follow!

Yuma's breathing was getting more and more laboured, causing Vertin to panic, she increased her speed despite pain building up from her leg and chest muscles which was beginning to stitch with each running step. She ignored it, getting Yuma to safety so that he can receive urgent treatment is top priority right now. Rain was soaking her body, especially her head as she left her hat and umbrella back in the alleyway. But as they were getting closer to the tower, the rain began to get heavier....

The rain was becoming more of a torrential icy waterfall, as if they were being splashed by multiple cars speeding through puddles at once. This sudden change in the weather took the entire public by shock... They looked up at the sky in panic, it rains in Kani Ward 24/7 but NEVER has it been this bad. Suddenly a strong wind began to rip through the clouds like a blade slashing fabric, people screamed as it tore through the city in one direction, guiding the downpour to spray in bucketfulls at an angle. Not so fun if you are walking towards it. The wind was so strong it actually pushed some people rather violently as if an invisible fist punched them hard. During this event Vertin and Kurumi stopped running as they suddenly had to brace this unexpected force, luckily there was a bus stop right beside them with a glass roof, certainly not ideal for this situation but they had no choice. During the split seconds they grabbed onto one of the side walls of the bus stop (Vertin was holding onto Yuma with all her strength to protect him while Kurumi used herself as a wall by extending her arms past Vertin and Yuma from behind to grab hold of the wall for dear life. Preventing those two from flying away. Shinigami meanwhile floated with her arms relaxed behind her head looking very smug. She's enjoying this newfound disaster that's giving the mortals a hard time.)

They cowered down, lowering their heads from the wind blast. It only lasted a few seconds but it was a terrifying experience. Objects were flying past at dangerous speeds, cars were flipped over, even catapulted if their sides were in the direction of the force impact. Some people were shouting "IT'S A HURRICANE!!" As they held onto the nearest pole, wall or any solid object that was fixed to the ground. The girls were lucky that no objects crashed through the glass walls.

There was no time to question this phenomenon. The girls went back to running. The tower was so close now.

By the time they got into the tower, the bottom floor was crowded with people who fled the vicious rain, even the peacekeepers were amongst them, not caring about keeping law and order as they feared for their lives. Everyone was far too busy talking very loudly in panicked voices, discussing the weather situation and how much it scared them. Some even predicted that it was a sign the world was ending.

*"the world IS ending"* Vertin thought. This was indeed a sign that the 'storm' was coming. Not the kind of storm you're familiar with mind you. But the kind Vertin deals with a lot, thanks to the Manus's meddling with time. Getting rid of the enemy is the only way to calm the ecosystem and force a stop to their time reversal arcane ritual which actually destroys everything in the current world era if allowed to complete.

Vertin and Kurumi managed to get past the crowds and reach the elevator. Yuma told Vertin prior that Makoto administered his security system to allow Yuma access to his home any time he needs, plus he can bring company as long as Yuma is there with them.

Both the girls were gasping for breath as Kurumi pushed the top floor button. It's a good thing she's visited before. After catching her breath, Kurumi finally spoke for the first time "I was originally looking for Yuma since I saw that the other guys in the detective agency were calling out for him. They were so worried that Yuma was still outside. Especially as he can easily get unwell if outside for too long."

Kurumi leaned against the elevator wall as the room was going up, she looked at Vertin who was still standing with an unconscious Yuma on her back, his breathing frigid. Her hair and body utterly drenched, her face red from running which was also showing signs of exhaustion. Kurumi, who was even more drenched since she didn't carry anyone on her back was worried for her unlikely partner. "Are you alright Vertin? What happened back there.... That was so scary... I've never seen anything like it before, only in books or from stories people tell me about of what the weather is like outside Kani Ward... Is this a part of this era 'ending'?

Vertin looked back into Kurumi's worried, teary eyes and nodded morbidly. Before anything else can be said, the elevator reaches it's destination, the door to Makoto's apartment opens.

They came into a large spacious room. Filled with expensive modern furniture. Makoto was actually there, he was looking out of the window that looked down on Kani Ward. He didn't notice the unexpected guests as he seemed to be in a trance. Just staring out of the window, sweat can be seen trickling down his neck, he seemed to be shaking nervously. He suddenly snapped back to attention with a start when Kurumi called out to him.

"Makoto! It's Yuma, he's sick and needs urgent medical attention!"

Makoto didn't need telling twice. He immediately knew what to do. "Quickly! Get him into my bedroom and lay him down, cover him in blankets, he looks like he's suffering a terrible fever and is struggling to breathe, I'll go and get my emergency medical equipment!"

He wasn't wearing his usual mask. He was too focused on looking out the window to observe the sudden weather change. As he was on his own, he had no need of a mask. But that wasn't important. He was far more concerned about Yuma. He showed Vertin the way to the bedroom, opening the door for her, then he went towards the bed and pulled back the covers.

Kurumi also walked in. "Kurumi, please can you and this young lady help get Yuma out of his wet clothes? I have a hospital gown in the wardrobe, put that on him then lay him down with a couple of blankets as well as the covers. Then someone please get a bowl of water and a wet cloth"

Makoto glanced at Kurumi who suddenly went bright red in the face "now's not the time to feel embarrassed I'm afraid... This is medical, he's a patient now and he can't change his own clothing. I know that you care for him deeply and you respect his dignity, that's why I trust you. Just do it quickly but as gentle as possible. Be very careful, his body is so exhausted that every breath is taking too much energy, and may be agonising for him. He's in a terrible state, he looks far worse than I've ever seen him... I can't summon the professional medics, they are extremely busy with a sudden wave of patients who have been injured by this weather."

While Vertin was holding Yuma's limp body in her arms, Makoto walked up to Kurumi who was on the verge of breaking down in tears and put his hand on her shoulder "he needs you Kurumi... I know this is hard given the sudden situation, I understand. But we need to work together to make him feel better. Sometimes we need to cross certain boundaries in order to help save another person's life, this is an emergency situation and he can't stay in those wet clothes as it's making his health worse. Make sure you get it done quickly for the sake of his privacy, and since he respects you as a close friend, he would rather have you tend to him."

Kurumi looked up at Makoto's face and nodded "you're right Makoto... We are the closest people he has here right now" she then proceeded to help Vertin change Yuma out of his wet clothing while Makoto went off to gather medical supplies.

Shinigami looked away in respect. Even though she felt like objecting. But mostly because it angered her that two of her worst rivals were getting too close to her master. Regardless, she wanted Yuma to get well. So that he can get the hell out of there and run away with her. Away from all these idiots that want to touch him!

Now in his gown, Yuma was put in bed. His breathing was shallower for a moment when they got him into the apartment but now it's getting worse. He was silently gasping for air, his breath weaker than before. Vertin went to get a bowl of water and cloth.

Kurumi panicked. "Oh god.... Oh no, Yuma! I hope we didn't make your illness worse"

Vertin shook her head, dabbing the wet cloth on Yuma's forehead "no. It's the poison... His body is slowly succumbing to it. That's what the Manus does... They create lethal poison potions to kill humans in slow painful ways. A poison that takes the form of a disease once it enters the body, warring with the body's defensive cells until it wins, then proceeds to spread to the vital organs, destroying the body in its wake."

Kurumi gasped in horror... Hands covering her mouth, her eyes unable to fight the streams of tears. "Why would they do that to Yuma! Why him! That's so cruel! So........so....cruel." she was struggling to form words between each sob "He....... He's such....a kindhearted.... d...... detective... He's.... already.....been through..... So...much ....pain *she gasps for a breath* He.... doesn't...d.....d... deserve this"

Meanwhile Shinigami was making rude vomiting gestures behind Vertin who watched Kurumi with a sad expression. She morbidly sighed while closing her eyes and lowered her head slightly "I'm so sorry Kurumi, this must be really hard for you. You two seem to be very close..."

Kurumi nodded just when Makoto arrived wheeling in a heart monitor and an oxygen machine, alongside some drugs he picked out to slow down the severity of the illness. "I didn't know his condition would be this bad... Otherwise I'd leave these prepared in the bedroom. Girls, I'll take it from here. Feel free to wait in the living room." Both girls nodded and went into the living room. Shinigami was relieved, being glad that they are finally gone. But now she'll have to put up with HIM.

Both girls sat down on one of the long red couches. Kurumi couldn't hold back the one thing she needed to ask "when you were explaining everything to me while we were running Vertin, I only heard bits and pieces, did you say that you knew the cure for the poison?"

Vertin nodded "yes. Makoto doesn't know this yet. But only arcane drugs can cure arcane ailments, one of my colleagues is currently hard at work developing it as we speak"

Kurumi looked puzzled "colleagues? Where are they now?"

Vertin got up and walked towards her suitcase which Kurumi had placed on one of the chairs opposite them. She put it on the floor and opened it up. "we... have a certain way to get around some places. Recently, thanks to the arcanum research facility we have managed to mimic the Manus's powerful arcane ability to travel through universes. So that we can chase them down and stop them"

Kurumi was full of questions about Vertin and her arcanum universe, she especially had questions about her unique suitcase, so they both chatted for a while, with Vertin explaining that the Suitcase serves as a sanctuary for her allies, where they will travel wherever the suitcase goes.

Back in the bedroom, while the girls went to the living room, Makoto went to work setting up the machines (luckily he had enough plug sockets), and hooked Yuma onto them, gently inserting the wires, and other complex medical stuff onto his pale, shivering body. The entire time he was tending to him, Makoto whispered soft words of comfort to Yuma, letting him know what was going on and what he was doing. "You're going to be okay Yuma... You're going to be okay, you're safe now.... I'm here... I'll take care of you... I promise, I'm going to put this oxygen mask over your face now so that you can breathe, you'll feel a lot better, the girls are waiting in the living room"

Shinigami was watching the whole scene from the righthand corner of the room with curiosity. Although she also felt EXTREMELY jealous. She wanted to be the one looking after Yuma like that. NOT him. She crossed her arms and pouted as she continued to watch.

Makoto (while wearing medical rubber gloves the entire time as that's a major requirement for anyone who is tending to a sick or injured person to avoid bacterial contamination to both the wearer and patient) Gently placed the oxygen mask over Yuma's head, Despite being asleep the whole time, unable to wake up from a deathly nightmare as his body refused to let him. Yuma can still feel what's going on around him... Stiff....Yet shivering uncontrollably.... His head throbbing with pain which was now distracting him from his abdominal pain... He felt the cold gloved hands position something on his face *Makoto had one hand on the mask, positioning it while the other was gently stroking the side of Yuma's head to comfort him* as soon as it was positioned correctly he suddenly felt rushes of air flow right through his lungs... In....and out.... He flinched when Makoto put the mask on him, more tears of pain streamed from his tearducts onto the bed, he gave a little wimper of fear as he didn't know what was exactly going on, breathing so fast and heavy that he had a slight coughing fit. Makoto was quick to comfort him "shhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's okay Yuma, it's only me. Makoto. No one else *Shinigami was deeply offended* now try to relax" he then got some tissues and proceeded to dry the tears from Yuma's eyes.

The sooner he can get those drugs into his system the better. Makoto then got the prepared needles filled with the correct dosage of antibiotics alongside other shots that will help ease Yuma's pain. All the time, letting him know what he's doing whether he's conscious or not. Yuma felt the sharp pricks of needles going into his arm one by one, he couldn't open his eyes as they were sealed shut from the weakness and pain. But soon he began to feel more relieved... As the drugs were taking sudden effect to help fight the pain from the poison. He was now freezing cold despite the feverish heat, but Makoto was straight onto that. He wrapped Yuma up in warm blankets, and re-applied his damp cloth after dipping then wringing it in the bowl of cool water.

He switched on the heart monitor, so the beeps can be heard as the machine records his heart rate. It's relatively low..... As Yuma's heart was struggling with the fight to protect his body.

Yuma was beginning to feel more relaxed.... His breathing slowly becomes less rapid, now he was feeling very.... very tired, as the pain slinks away he can finally rest. He doesn't even feel it when Makoto puts in an I.V drip, the fluid going into the veins on his right wrist. Makoto then finishes his work by tucking Yuma in and positioning the pillows so that it makes his patient as comfortable as possible, also gently positioning Yuma's head in the centre of the pillow. He placed his patient's right hand, with the I.V strapped on with a bandage, on top of the bedsheet, so that Yuma looked more relaxed with one arm under the sheets while the other rested on top.

Makoto gazed down with concern at Yuma from his bedside. His little frail patient, breathing softly and silently since the mask is helping to release his airways as he falls into a far more deep, painless, relaxing sleep. Normally doctors do not form any kind of intimacy with their patients, it's strictly against policy. But Yuma was a special case, he was always there for Makoto whenever he felt so alone... His work constantly burning him out.... Multiple times it made him terribly sick... He refused medical help because he didn't want to be an extra body on a bed when someone else needs it more than him and the hospital was always constantly busy and short staffed. CEO meant nothing to him, everyone should have the right to free emergency care, no matter their class.

He cared far more about the people in Kani Ward than his own wellbeing... But he had no friends, no one to care about him properly. It's always just been about business and his position in it, people leave him alone as he's a very busy guy, not wanting to disturb him. But he does have a life outside of his career, one that's void of company. Since the peacekeepers know him too well and are under strict orders by Yomi, their leader to keep Makoto away from the other city districts that aren't relevant to his career. Despite being the CEO of the Amaterasu Corp, the peacekeepers have gained full control of Kani Ward. No one dares meddle in their affairs or the price paid will be VERY harsh. So Makoto is very limited to where he's allowed to go... It's extremely depressing... As he longs to meet all the people in every district, whether rich or poor. He dreamed of a normal life outside of work, that didn't include being a shut in.....

In his own home.

It was Yuma who came to him unexpectedly one time. Makoto developed frostbite from spending hours in the rain, hard at work over some business statistics. He was prevented from going back to his usual office because he had pissed Yomi off that day (he bruised Yomi's ego by telling him that nobody will EVER take him seriously as the leader of a law and order police force dedicated to the protection of the people in Kani Ward if his surname happens to be HELLSMILE while he rides around on a motorcycle, ripping up through the streets dangerously like a stuntman trying to impress his girlfriend. He also mischievously spilled Yomi's half pint of *the most expensive kind* of exquisite red wine on his way out of the office, which Halara would tell you was approximately the same price as a luxury car. It splashed all over Yomi's white cape which ended in a mad chase sequence from his office right through Amaterasu Corp's building, Makoto running as fast as he could with the red and white raging streak in hot pursuit behind him that was Yomi, Filling up the once quietened down halls with screams of vulgur curses. After all. You try getting red wine stains out of white clothing)

As hilarious as it was. Makoto was banned from working indoors. Yomi ordered the peacekeepers to force him to work outdoors in the rain for a whole week as punishment. While he was on his way back home each time, Yuma spotted him, visibly growing more and more concerned. As Makoto didn't look well at all. And he wasn't... On the last day of his forced punishment, it was especially a cold day right the way through. He returned home so cold, he tried to warm himself up in his jacuzzi but that didn't work as Yuma found him unconscious and saved him before he drowned. He was obviously so worried about Makoto that he actually came to his apartment. Makoto occasionally lets Yuma visit from time to time just for a chat, but this time he left the door open so luckily Yuma was able to get in before it was too late.

Yuma nursed him back to health, spending a lot of time with him. And since that day they have become best friends, more akin to family even. It saddened Makoto to let him go back to staying at the agency, as he'd just be alone again.

A tear rolled down Makoto's eye as he remembered that time, all while watching Yuma in his critical state, wired up to multiple machines and monitors.. looking sicker than ever... He reached out a gloved hand and held onto Yuma's right hand that's attached to the I.V, gently stroking it with his thumb, like a tender mother to her sick dying child. The only sounds in the room being the slow beeps of the heart monitor and Yuma's soft breathing through his mask. Those horrible dark purple vains visible on his pale skin, like evil tree roots.

Makoto needed answers. What happened? And what is he dealing with here? He's never seen vains like this before, he even took a blood sample when he was injecting Yuma with the drugs. Which he'll need to take to a laboratory to try and figure out this strange illness.

Wait..... That girl... That strange girl who carried Yuma in... She's not a local here. Who is she? And why is she here?

Yuma's hand Makoto was still holding was cold and still. But he then felt weak fingers begin to close around his hand. Yuma was aware of his presence and wanted Makoto to know that he needed him. Makoto then gently stroked the right side of Yuma's face with his spare hand in a slow, repeating motion, brushing any hair strands to one side. During this touching moment he felt Yuma lean gently towards his hand. Soothed by this relaxing motion he seemed to be a lot more calmer than before.

Makoto whispered to him in his calm gentle voice "I promise I'll make you better Yuma, I'm going to get to the bottom of this illness. Find out what it is and get the cure. I need to leave you to rest now, but I'll constantly keep checking up on you."

He reluctantly let go of his patient's hand and turned to leave the room. Glancing back to see his best friend currently bedridden. (Shinigami was actually asleep the whole time, out of boredom in the end)

He came out of the room, slipping off his gloves before deposing them hygienically then went to the living room where the girls were still present.

"Right. Nobody is allowed inside my bedroom without my permission. It's been turned into an ICU, Yuma is in the best of care now, he needs to rest, and I'll be monitoring his condition. The room is strictly off limits to everyone, am I making myself clear?"

Both the girls nodded. Makoto continued

"However. I need someone to assist me by staying by Yuma's side while he rests. Making sure to watch out for any sudden severe changes in his symptoms. Kurumi, I give this role to you as you're one of the closest friends Yuma has, he'll trust you to remain by him."

Kurumi blushed while immediately standing up, looking serious. "Alright Makoto, I was going to ask if I could anyway as I don't believe he should be left alone at all. Not in that condition."

Eyes closed, makoto nodded "agreed, shout for me the moment you see any changes" as Kurumi walked quickly past him. Eager to see if Yuma was stable.

Makoto then turned to Vertin. Who looked back at him, hands on her lap awaiting the question she was going to be asked.

"pardon me young lady, but I'll need to discuss some things with you. Firstly about what happened out there when Yuma got sick, and what brought you to Kani Ward"

Vertin knew what Makoto meant by that. He recognised that she wasn't a local here. "Indeed." She said politely with a nod "Please allow me to explain everything"

Vertin told Makoto everything. How she got here, who she was, her abilities and more importantly what she knew was going on, what's been confirmed about Yuma's illness which relieved Makoto that there was a cure in the making.

He listened to everything Vertin said with deep concentration and curiosity. Not saying anything until she had finished. "Thank you, Vertin. You did the right thing, bringing Yuma here, he's stabilised at the moment but we really need this cure as soon as possible. This is all making sense now, especially that change in weather

Vertin nodded "that's why I need to leave now. Normally in my universe, we have only 24 hours until the storm actually happens. However, it's different in other worlds. it's been escalated by Laplace that the storm ritual will complete in a week from now. That weather change was the first warning... More will come, worse each time. That's why we need to find and disperse the Manus members who are in the area as they are the ones creating this ritual"

Makoto looked very worried "But what about the people in Kani Ward? They should be warned, they are in fear as we speak! I can't do much because I need to be with Yuma in case anything happens... No.... I can't be selfish..... I need to quickly tell my officials and announce the whole of Amaterasu corp. Luckily I do have an emergency broadcast here. All the workers would be in panic anyway, with all this sudden stuff going on."

To make his point, he turned on the T.V

Immediately on the screen was an emergency news broadcast addressing the whole of Kani Ward about that previous weather event, going on to report the amount of damage and injuries it caused. Calming down the general public *by saying that the peacekeepers and Amaterasu will handle the situation* and warning everyone to stay indoors.

"ugh... Of COURSE Yomi and his henchmen will be involved. ANYTHING to give them more reputation and authority to make themselves stand over everyone in this city."

He gave a sharp snort of disapproval while he switched the T.V off.

Vertin gave a sigh, both of sadness as well as relief. "At least they are told to stay indoors. That's the main thing. They can't get themselves involved in this, not without the support of arcanists"

She walked towards her suitcase then continued as Makoto watched her. "I'll need to head back to the detective agency, explain the situation there then venture out with my team, to hunt down the Manus. My suitcase will be left here for Med to arrive with the vaccine. So I'll need to gather some members. We don't need an army, there's only a few of them in the area, they avoid gaining the attention of the locals, preferring to attack from the shadows, once they've been defeated and know that the LSCC has tracked them down, recording their footsteps they'll no longer bother this world again"

Makoto. After listening, responded "but you're still soaked through Vertin. I know that you and Kurumi have dried up a little bit after sitting in my warm apartment for a while but I really don't want you both to go back outside... Or anyone else, especially after seeing how dangerous and unpredictable the weather is now. I didn't tell you guys that before as I was too busy with Yuma."

Vertin nodded with her eyes closed "I respect your concern with deepest gratitude Makoto however me and my group of arcanists must do what's best for this era. To save this world from the Storm conjured by the Manus, even if it means risking our lives. It's part of our job"

Makoto looked at her with a pained expression, but he understood the logic behind it. These people are the only ones who can stop this catastrophe. "Alright... I understand, please take care now. Watch out for the peacekeepers... They won't take kindly to outsiders like you and will attempt to capture you on sight, you'll know them when you see them. Normally you always hear them coming ESPECIALLY their leader."

He shook his head with a shrug

"Sadly I have no power to stop them... They are a force of their own, thinking they own this city. I tried to once.... But I ended up being beaten up in public by two burly peacekeepers while Yomi watched from a balcony with a smirk on his damn face, I was a bloody mess by the time they finally stopped, which was a whole two hours. Satisfied that I've been punished enough they laughed and left me in a heap alone in the rain."

Makoto's hands balled into fists as he retold that horrific memory. His face red with rage.

"they think that... just because of my small build, they can use me as a punching bag whenever they want... They even assault me whenever they pass by if they get the chance, making excuses all the way or just for no reason, even drunk or wanting to take their rage out of me."

His voice cracked up and tears streamed down his cheeks, his face no longer red with rage but pain. He breathed in heavy sobs, hands covering his face. This was too much for him.

What Vertin did next was surprising... She didn't walk away, or belittle him, nor freak out that what he was saying was a huge no no to dump on a person you've just met without their permission, especially as they must have so much going on in their lives. She just walked over to Makoto and embraced him.

Makoto was stunned by this sudden act of kindness. His eyes widened with surprise as his face blushed. Her warm body blanketed his, even though she's still wet from the rain. "I'm so sorry..." She said remorsefully "That must have been so scary for you. Nobody deserves to be treated that way, especially you"

Makoto removed his hands from his teary face, wiped a tear then wrapped his arms around Vertin. "Vertin..... You didn't need to do this, I'm sorry for dumping my trauma onto you out of the blue like that... You should have walked away. Like most people do in this city"

Vertin shook her head in disagreement, still holding onto Makoto. "It had to be let out, you've been through so much and you've barely got anyone to turn to that you trust. I don't walk away from those who need support and neither should you, even if I can't do much to help, you were having an emotional breakdown in the moment, we all have them, humans and arcanists are no different when it comes to these things. You went out of your way to say those things to protect me and my friends from those people even if it brought you back horrible memories. You did a very brave thing"

She gently released her arms from him. Makoto was feeling a lot better now, he sniffed and went to the nearest box of tissues to wipe the tears off his face. He smiled at her "Thank you Vertin. I really needed that today, you are so kind"

For the very first time since arriving at Kani Ward, Vertin actually smiled back. She proceeded towards the suitcase and stepped in, as if there was a hidden magical staircase inside that leads to the unknown abyss, making the person look as if they were going through the floor. Makoto watched in wonder, reminding him of one of those magic show props a magician would use.

A few moments later, all of a sudden a head popped up from the suitcase, startling Makoto. A blond haired girl who wore big sunglasses gazed around the room with her mouth agape, she was wearing a red jacket and cap. Holding onto the side of the case this new visitor saw Makoto standing there and she waved at him "Hello! Who do we have here? My name's Regulus. This place is just.....wow... WOW.... WAY more modern than 1960s London!"

She spoke in a very British accent, unable to contain her excitement she climbed out into the room, where she walked around in circles looking all over the place like she was in a huge art exhibition with artwork all over the walls and ceiling. The whole time looking bewildered, struggling to keep her sunglasses on her face as she was looking up and around so much. Muttering "Wow" and "aaaaaah" at every single aspect of the room. The bag she was carrying was chock full of music records.

Makoto tried not to chuckle at this bizarre spectacle. Before another voice came from within the suitcase. "Captain. You were supposed to wait in the dining room until everyone else was ready, like Vertin instructed."

An Apple with a cuff and bowtie then floated out of the suitcase. Yes. an apple. Your questions are now invalid. Makoto looked at it with wide eyes, his expression unreadable. "Allow me to introduce myself good sir. My name is Mr APPLe, I'm sure that my captain has already made her introduction, my most humble apologies for her sudden entry"

Makoto just didn't have any words right now. Apart from an awkward "h..hi?"

Regulus. Who finally stopped gawking at the whole room, gave her protest to the floating apple "I couldn't sit there and wait any longer, We've been waiting for Vertin for hours, so why shouldn't she just let us out for some fresh new world air already? Be...sides, THIS place is fit for a KING! This owner must be rolling in more gold than the treasury in the Tower Of London!"

The apple leaned to one side in midair, gestering that he doesn't seem particularly amused with his partner's comment.

"Captain. That was extremely rude. Please be respectful to others property by not comparing it to an owner's wealth where they could be present"

He *possibly, as his voice was masculine* turned towards Makoto and sighed. "Forgive my captain good sir, she often forgets her manners"

Regulus then turned her focus to her edible partner "I was only making a compliment of my appreciation for this place. This pirate certainly doesn't go by MANNERS, you don't need to be so BOSSY"

Makoto. Who had recovered let out a soft chuckle, he definitely started to like these new strange folk with their amusing personalities "It's alright, I don't mind at all. My home is definitely something"

He held his arms out to his sides as he spoke "Only the wealthiest get an apartment in this tower, and since I'm the C.E.O of this city, I get the top one"

As he said that Regulus dropped her bag of records in astonishment, the huge black disks spilling out from their cases onto the floor. She didn't notice her mess as she was in so much disbelief that a young man like Makoto could possibly own a nice apartment like this one (even though he was wearing a smart purple suit with matching legwear)

"Whaaaaaaaaaat?! YOU? Goodness gracious me, you are so lucky! I don't know how you earned enough for this place, you must have a good job. But you could fit a whole car in here, I'm really jealous! I have to pillage for my fundings. I wish my boat had a big room like this one with all this treasure!"

Makoto laughed heartedly while Mr APPLe gave out a long sigh.

Two more people then came out of the suitcase, one was a silver haired young man wearing a unique lab coat (a little similar to med's but doesn't have the arc gap showing the legs. It's more of an opened up lab coat that's far more commonly seen, but seems to have transparent fabric on the front sides.) He wore a lanyard with the words LAPLACE printed on the card which was attached to his left side of the coat. But the most distinctive feature about him was that his eyes were mismatched, his right eye being entirely gold while the other looked completely normal.

He wore a welcoming smile as he looked around the room "ah, well isn't this a lovely place to live" however, his smile faded as soon as he saw the mess Regulus made on the floor, while she was looking out of the window, cooing at the display it should. His eyes narrowed in disgust.

"Regulus please pick those up, this is someone's personal apartment" Regulus stopped her window shopping for interesting sightseeing and walked over to clean up her records off the floor, complaining as she did "why does everyone think they can tell the almighty pirate what to do?"

The golden eyed boy then turned towards Makoto, his smile back in action. "You must be Makoto, Vertin told us about you. Allow me to introduce myself, I am X, and this young lady over there is Sonetto"

As he spoke, the girl bowed at Makoto politely, she had orange hair and wore some kind of uniformed dress with black and white checkers, "Greetings".

Makoto greeted them both, he was really intrigued to meet these new people, they wore strange outfits, partly modern but also has a touch of classic vibes. When he thinks about Vertin, she looked like she was dressed from a vintage era, perhaps that's where she was originally from? All these new people have an air of politeness to them, nothing like the people of Kani Ward who are far more outspoken and rude most of the time. These guys are more stylish but in a historical way, it reminds Makoto of those dramas set in these huge English manors he used to watch, only because they were very popular with his colleagues.

Eventually, Vertin emerged from the suitcase looking towards all the other arcanists, making sure all were present and accounted for. "Alright, that's everyone. We're heading out, now. We need to get to the Nocturnal Detective Agency while we are in the first day of our weekly timeline, and to get there before another weather disaster happens. The sooner we can get to work, the better."

Everyone in the room nodded, Vertin then turned to Makoto "I'm really sorry that we have to leave now, I leave my suitcase here with you, I told everyone in there to not come out without consent and that only med may come out to deliver the vaccine. Makoto, thank you for your hospitality, I wish you the best with looking after Yuma, please give Kurumi my thanks as well for supporting me. Farewell"

Makoto smiled at her "and thank you Vertin for bringing Yuma and Kurumi here, I wish all of you good health"

With those last words she walked towards the elevator with the other arcanists following behind her

X hesitated for a moment just to quickly tell Makoto "sorry that we can't talk right now given the circumstances but I hope we'll meet again soon"

Then he realised that there was one arcanist who wasn't even heading towards the elevator, annoyed look on his face again he focused on Regulus who went back to looking out of the window, easily distracted. Mr APPLe didn't even notice as he was so focused on following Vertin but X certainly did. "Regulus. Come on please, we're leaving"

Regulus snapped out of her trance with a jolt "oh! Right!" And hurried along to catch up with the others with X walking behind sighing and shaking his head

Makoto watched them go, the elevator door closed and he was in the room alone. Immediately one thought was dominating his mind now, Yuma. He hadn't heard anything from Kurumi so hopefully they're alright.

During the whole scene where Makoto was in the living room Kurumi sat next to Yuma's bedside. Unfortunately Shinigami had a VERY rude awakening indeed, suddenly seeing THAT uggo sneak in undetected just to swoon all over HER master.

Kurumi just stayed by the bedside, watching Yuma as he slept with a saddened expression, the sounds of gentle breathing and monitor beeps the only noises in the room. She wanted to break down but knew that she had to be professional, making sure that Yuma isn't displaying any new symptoms that could be serious.

So far. He looked the same, just relaxed as the drugs were working with fighting his pain. But soon they won't be enough... She wondered how long it would take for the cure to arrive.

Deep down she has feelings for Yuma... She can't bring herself to say it but every time they work together on cases (sometimes he asks her to join him) she feels far more connected to him. The problem was that because Yuma has amnesia it's impossible to know his age... He only knew his name, that was it apparently.

Kurumi was still a highschool girl, so having romantic feelings for someone who may actually be an adult is deeply inappropriate. Despite being roughly the same size. She felt depressed at this thought, but wondered that maybe one day when she reaches adulthood they'll be able to be together. But she suddenly had another thought... Makoto was practically the same size and is technically an adult (she never asked him his age) but it would make sense because he works. They seem to be really best friends, *maybe more than that* she thought to herself. Either way, Yuma deserves someone in that age group who cares about him deeply. Guess she'd have to wait for longer... She's aware of the ol' school romance trope, had lessons on it and all the other girls wouldn't stop going on about it. Every single day they would rub it in everyone's faces that they've got a boyfriend from the Amaterasu boys highschool (it's hidden within the mass building and sets the students for a future working for the company).

The boys there are from very wealthy families, no way would that place accept anyone from a poorer background. Kurumi knows just how much she hates that place, the students deem anyone who isn't as rich and successful as them as "Kani tramps" with no future for any success in life. They'd laugh at them and encourage them to harm themselves as they are better off not existing if they are not born into poverty. And yet the girls at her school love those boys, it was a HUGE deal if you dated one of them, which caused widespread jealousy throughout the entire school. Kurumi didn't even find any of those arrogant richboys attractive, she wouldn't date any of them even if she desperately needed money, people like that are dangerous and she's heard too many dark stories of how they actually treat women behind the scenes... As they think they're too rich and powerful to get into any trouble.

Kurumi lay out her arms on the other side of the bed and folded them below her head, she hid her face as tears streamed down. Why does love have to be so complex?

She was thinking about her future now. Each day was a struggle, and most of the time at school she was alone, while she had some friends she wasn't exactly part of their friend circle, they didn't invite her to outings, sleepovers or any of that. They preferred other girls to hang out with which confuses Kurumi, she's a helper in the drama group but she always feels forgotten. Maybe that's just girls, perhaps they are more interested in other girls who look the prettiest? Kurumi wasn't into that contest, she always sees the other girls trying to impress others with makeup and dresses. To her, it was a waste of time especially as so many people in Kani Ward were suffering. That's why she prefers to help the nocturnal detective agency as much as possible. The members there are her only real friends, especially Yuma...

While she was in despair she felt a warm object nuzzle the side of her head, resting itself beside her, while something that felt like a hand placed itself on her elbow. In shock, Kurumi looked up to see that Yuma had moved himself closer to her, despite being wired up to multiple machines and that mask being in the way, that didn't stop him from wanting to calm Kurumi down.

He must have heard her crying because Kurumi definitely didn't realise that he moved. She had no words to say at first, then she dried her eyes "oh Yuma, you're just so sweet, I'm fine, really." Deep down she wasn't but didn't want to worry him especially as he's already sick. She hugged him carefully, nuzzling her head next to his, her forehead touching Yuma's which was still feverish. "I want you to know that you'll always be my best friend in the world, even if we are completely different people"

She then gave him a small kiss on his forehead to which that made Shinigami so angry that she looked as if she was transforming into death himself, scythe and all. But before she could even try to break her own contract and slice Kurumi's neck, footsteps were approaching.

Kurumi sat up, however Yuma flinched and tried to feel around for where Kurumi was. He didn't want to be alone.

The door opened and Makoto walked in, looking quite surprised when he saw that Yuma moved and that Kurumi's eyes were red. "Kurumi, are you alright? Did you move Yuma?"

Kurumi shook her head "no, I didn't move him, I was upset about stuff I was thinking about and the next moment he moved himself closer to me, I didn't even touch him. I kept an eye on him like you asked, so far he seems okay"

Makoto gave a small sigh of relief "that's good for now. He must have been worried about you if you've been crying, he is really sensitive and constantly needs affection when he's feeling like this. I'm glad to hear that he hasn't deteriorated severely"

He then looked at the clock on the wall. "It's getting very late, please stay in my apartment Kurumi, at least until all this madness is over. Vertin and her team are currently on their way to the detective agency as we speak"

Kurumi suddenly looked concerned "stay here? But I'm not even prepared! And it might be the entire week!"

Makoto looked at her gently "listen, I know that it's a shock to you. But don't worry about necessities, I'll sort that out. I can get my fellow workers to help provide that for you. Are you alright with sleeping on the sofa? Also since my apartment has two bathrooms I'll make one your own personal one, so it's for your own use only"

Kurumi thought for a moment "alright, I'm extremely grateful for that. I'm alright with sleeping on a sofa, it's actually more comfortable than where I'm currently sleeping truth be told"

[thisismisogynoir]

I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

[s4ndg3m]

hear me out on scag x split guys. they both start with "s" it's practically canon.

[starry-bi-sky]

realizing i have. a lot of untapped trauma potential for clone^2 danny because i just Fully Processed Four Months Late the fact that his parents were capturing and torturing ghosts in the basement before he became Phantom. and the fact that he was on house rest for 2 weeks. during that time period. and he wasn't really leaving the house. he could hear their screaming through the floorboards

*points at clone danny* i can give you suuuuuuch a bad time babe ahaha. i've got two untouched years before you meet damian what fucks you up before then

[ghastlyaffairs]

for something as trivial and simple those feelings sure are hard to get rid of

also made a gif a version for fun + alt version with no tears under the cut

the gif is in very low resolution...this is a feature (i could make it bigger but that would require saving each frame individually and than glueing it all together. also i feel like low resolution suits it better. aesthetically and fits the mood)

[sysig]

Puts the “plates” in “Fellplates” (Patreon)

[hooved]

i hate j*lian b*shir fans. he's like the spock of DS9 in the sense that literally all of you vote for him in polls no matter what the question is just because you wanna fuck this out of character version of him you made up in your head

[olasketches]

damn... I think I might be one of like maybe three people who really loved sukuna's conclusion lmao

[krysmcscience]

Hi, I woke up to this yesterday, and my brain is still exploding.

I don't even know how they came across my Ko-fi with how little traffic I got, but they did and were wonderful and I am so unbelievably grateful???

I can't even remember the last time I felt truly hopeful, but here I am. Feeling hopeful.

Wow.

What a world.

[bumblingbabooshka]

My name is [BRUTUS] and my name means [HEAVY] so with a [HEAVY] heart I'll guide this dagger Into the heart of my enemy

Something about having absolutely no choice in who you marry. About being literally forced by the law to spill blood - to accept this stranger as your husband over a man you truly care for or accept the fact that the man you love might die because you put him in danger. Something about risking becoming the wife of a man you've never even seen before a few minutes prior because you know anything would be better than putting your beloved in harm's way. Something about the trust inherent in that decision and in the way she speaks of it after. Truthfully, T'Pring doesn't know the captain and she doesn't know Spock. Either one of them could have taken her as their wife but she does know Stonn. She knows that Stonn will remain by her side no matter what. They made a plan together. They have an agreement which T'Pring believes will be upheld even though the plan changed with the arrival of Kirk. Stonn will always be there, always, and Stonn will be hers. Something about the language used around T'Pring: Ownership, subservience, non-personhood. T'Pring is an object that Spock can win. She cannot reject him, she has no say in the matter other than having Stonn 'claim' her instead. Even when Spock leaves after being very clearly rejected by T'Pring he says "Stonn, she is yours." as if despite her clear rejection he still owns her and is must formally 'give' her to Stonn. But the language T'Pring uses around Stonn is a break from that: "There was Stonn who wanted very much to be my consort, and I wanted him." Stonn who wanted very much to be HER consort and she WANTED him. The language here is very particular - It's not, for example: "Stonn wanted me to be his wife" - he is HERS. And she WANTS him. There's a mutual affection there and a strong trust - a trust which seems to be well founded since Stonn (though silent) stands by her side at the end of the episode. <- That might seem small but if Spock would reject her for 'daring to challenge' (again, the language is not 'because I don't want you' but more of an implied disgust at her having the AUDACITY to reject him) then it's not a stretch to assume that it'd be considered an insult in the TOS Vulcan society to NOT choose Stonn as her champion after a prior agreement. Anyway T'Pring was a woman in an impossible situation within a society which saw her as more of an object than a person and she wanted Stonn and Stonn wanted to be hers and she trusted that he would understand if she had to publicly pick someone else to ensure his life would be spared and he did understand.

[originalcontent]

I can't find art of my ship anywhere so I GUESS that means I have to make it myself, here are some doodles.

[uncanny-tranny]

It's just... odd to me, I suppose, going from "what is in my pants is completely irrelevant to most anybody else's life" to the expectation that you must be completely open, essentially, about what is in your pants.

I think a lot of people understand the general idea of why it's bad decorum to demand people offer explanations for private information like this, but they don't analyze exactly why it's bad besides, "asking directly is just rude" and not "asking in any way still enforces the often violent nature of gender and sex, and putting people in the 'right box' is a part of that violence."

It's especially odd when seeing other trans people enforcing the idea that "what's in your pants?" is a genuine, good-faith basis for interacting with others.

[makerofmadness]

itai itai no SICK SICK - a Cookie Run fanfic

(I spent like two months writing this whole thing lol. If you're wondering how long this is: I hit the text block limit [it's 1,000 in one post btw] and lagged out the post editor and my phone started heating up)

Warning for Heavy Angst & Whump, Hurt/Comfort, as in "a crap ton of hurt but eventually things get better"

Inspired by the song ベノム by Kairiki Bear (title comes from the lyrics)

Starring: Alchemist Cookie ft. Vampire Cookie and others

(Note: some implied Sparkvamp. Doesn't really go any further than the games themselves, though, so I didn't think it was worth tagging as ship but thought it was worth warning for)

TW: Alcoholism (or whatever Vampire is), (Self-Inflicted) Poisoning, Self-Harm (Via Poisoning), Suicidal Themes, (Cookiefied) Hematemesis

(Please tell me if more should be added to the TW, I will update accordingly)

Cover drawn by @driftwoodmfb (background by Nou/from the song's MV) and thanks to my friend @/sleep.starvedd from discord for the writing advice for one scene. And thanks to literally all my friends who read this before it was finished (@softichill @boom-fanfic-a-latta @organichotchoco and also @cosmoknightchaos who wasn't even in this fandom) couldn't have made it without ya.

(Story under the cut. Enjoy)

Grape juice.

She couldn't escape the smell of it within her home. Every day, every time she walked anywhere except for her room/lab, and especially any time she saw her own brother.

Alchemist Cookie's existence was less happy than it would've seemed from the outside, or than she really preferred to present it to others. And it all came down to one thing:

Vampire Cookie.

Embarrassing, was it not? How much he relied on her, his little sister, to keep him healthy, to keep the house tidy, to keep him together. He didn't ever take care of her, she wondered if he'd even notice if she were to ever fall sick and need taking care of, or if he'd just be happy to have that awful nagging away from him, as if she didn't nag with a purpose. 

As if he'd even have a long enough attention span to look after her. 

Ugh.

She shook the thought out of her head as she sat down at the table for dinner, alone. Vampire Cookie has gone out that night- he was always either at home or at Sparkling Cookie's juice bar, it was a struggle to get him to go anywhere else. She was half-considering calling Sparkling Cookie just to beg him to send her brother home, but she knew that would be unreasonable to ask of him like that.

Sparkling Cookie was nice. She liked Sparkling Cookie. He was kind to her; he showed her how to mix drinks once and she tried to apply that skill to her alchemy sometimes. She saw him too often. She somewhat resented him too. She would've resented him more if she hadn't met him.

It wasn't fun having to be called over so often, to pick her own brother up like that, to shoulder him home as he'd confusedly ramble about this and that, as he'd seem to have forgotten who she was...

It hurt. She felt sick just thinking about it.

It'd come back to him, it always did. He promised he always forgot everything from time to time like that, the times he'd forgotten his own name still scared her, but that he'd never really forget her.

She didn't believe it. One day he wouldn't see her every day, and then he wouldn't remember her when he sobered up. One day he'd be around and she wouldn't be. His lifespan would outlast hers. That was what little she really understood of his condition. And how she resented it.

She didn't really understand her brother and how he operated. She worried for his health as he seemed to only consume grape juice some days, and seemed bored or averse of normal sustenance. She tried everything in her power to get anything good into his diet, despite his resistance.

"I don't need that stuff, sis," he'd always tell her, "all I need is grape juice. That's what keeps me going."

She couldn't help but worry for him. He never seemed to worsen despite his diet being built on what should've been unstable grounds- the opposite was the case, actually: he was considered quite the strong and ethereally handsome Cookie by most. He was popular, he had many treasures, and nothing ever seemed to get to him. Everything was well with his life. "Cheers to a wonderful life!" He'd say sometimes.

Was she an afterthought, or did he just not see her distress?

As a Cookie, he was many things: Carelessfree. Unaffected by her pain. An immortal being who would outlive her.

Who would take care of him after that?

She had only ever talked about this to him once. And he told her she was "too young to start thinking about mortality." She was still what would be considered too young for that. But how could she not? Life was at alchemy's center, and her brother was an immortal vampire who would definitely outlive her.

And yet here she was, still trying to make him eat his vegetables because it was 'good for him' or make him go to check-ups with Dr. Bones Cookie because he was too lazy to bother going out that far for something without a promise of juice. He didn't need any of this. She really did know it deep down. But she kept doing it anyway.

She would never dare say it, but maybe deep down she just wanted to pretend he was normal.

...Her brother probably would've crumbled from juice overdose by now if he had been normal.

From that poison he sustained himself on.

But the alternative would've been...

She picked at her plate, having lost her appetite suddenly. She much preferred devoting as much time and energy as possible to shutting herself away in her lab, away from her brother and the grape juice smell that came off of his very dough, and endlessly researching and experimenting until he found his way in somehow and made her stop pushing herself so hard. Her life's work had been researching Life Potions. Her Life's work had been to extend her own lifespan

She got up from the table, leaving her plate untouched. Perhaps Vampire Cookie would just eat it for her. She knew he wouldn't bother. He didn't typically bother with normal Cookie meals, when he did it was either to please her, to participate with a group, to look normal at events, or for the flavor. He wouldn't be eating a random salad by himself.

...she decided to go over to the phone and make a call. To a number she had to have memorized by now:

"...hello? Sparkling Cookie? Yes, it's Alchemist Cookie, I was just wondering if my brother is going to come home soon... ... ...A party, huh? Well... Whatever. Just- If you don't mind me asking, could you, uh... cut him off sooner rather than later tonight...? I'm just- you see, I might be busy tonight, so I'd prefer it if he could come home by himself tonight, safely... ... ...Thank you. I knew you'd understand. Have a nice night."

She put the phone back on the wall and began walking away, but felt... hollow.

Of course he'd have gone to a party without telling her anything. It wasn't as if she'd be worried sick if he came home late...

Maybe he'd come home sooner if he couldn't have more, though...

Whatever. It didn't matter. He always had more lying around, anyway. In the cellar, or in his room, or in the kitchen, or wherever he could store it. He'd even tried to use her vials, more than once...

And then he'd just lie around and do nothing with her. They never really spent time together, it felt. Sometimes they'd go out and do things, social events and the like, but she craved something personal. Meaningful.

For their entire existence, had they ever really just hung out? One time, she had done a favor for Cherry Cookie, and said cookie had talked all about her plans that day with her sister, Cherry Blossom Cookie. Those two had been planning to go on a picnic together that day. And hearing about those plans, all Alchemist Cookie had thought was: Why didn't MY sibling do that with me...?

She sat down on the couch- and looking at the furniture she started to feel ashamed for not being happy. While she had specifically made sure that their home looked normal enough, it very obviously showed through that they had... more than average to spend, with how nice everything looked, shining and sparkling even within the dim lighting of most rooms.

She didn't know where he got it all from.

He didn't have to work, and she was more interested in her passions, and her working options were limited at her age anyway. No one made any money, really-

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, and a voice shouting for her:

"ALCHEMIST COOKIE~!!"

Before she even had the opportunity to say a word or leave the room, a certain fanged Cookie slumped in. She could smell the grape juice saturating his dough. She suppressed a gag. That smell had gotten stronger than usual. She could even see a stain on his coat.

...she wasn't surprised.

"So- *hiccup* 'scuse me-" he plopped himself down next to her, while she just tried to stare off onto space. She had better things to occupy her mind with, things that her brother wasn't interested in in the slightest except for maybe that one time. She'd just escape into her mind while her body would stand in until he either had his fill of rambling to her about 'the wonders of taking breaks' or-

"Sparkling Cookie said you called him, eh...?"

Her jam ran cold. Even though he had no anger in his voice.

"..." she avoided looking at him, knowing that the best she could really say was the truth, "I-I just- you see... I was going to go work in my lab, but I... wasn't expecting you to be home this soon-"

"I mean, duh. No juice, no Vampire Cookie."

He didn't even stick around just to talk to his friends...?

"But, why's that the issue...?"

"..." Was he really that oblivious? "If you had too much, I would have to help you come home... but if I'm working, then I won't be at the phone, so I won't even know-"

"Oh, I see: You're worried about me, aren't ya?"

She was torn between two responses: 'Yes. All the time. Every day. And I don't know how much longer I can take it for.' And 'Worried that you'll try to come home yourself anyway and end up in some stupid or dangerous or stupidly dangerous situation, yes.'

Both went unsaid. Instead, just:

"Yes."

"Awww, you know what I always tell you, sis..."

Vampire Cookie leaned into his sister, affectionately wrapping an arm around her and pulling her closer to him. The warmth and love of a familial embrace could no longer reach her.

"Don't worry about everything so much! It'd do you wonders to-"

"How can I not?? I never asked to have to look after my big brother, just because HE can't put down the STUPID JUICE GLASS-"

She immediately slapped her hand over her mouth. That wasn't supposed to come out.

"..."

"...I-I'm going to my lab."

She got up with her brother's arm giving away from her surprisingly easily, given that he was usually slightly stronger than average, and walked away without looking back. 

She didn't even see the look on his face. But she could care less.

Alchemist Cookie just walked away, practically without thought, her legs carrying her all the way to the door to her lab. As she entered and shut it behind her, however, she suddenly lost her will to carry on.

...

Oh. Her eyes had sprung a leak. Embarrassing.

Alone, nothing and no one to grant her solace, something dark within her mind that had been brewing for a long time began to concoct an idea out of festered, fermented emotions:

If he was going to nourish himself on poison every day, she thought:

Two could play at that game.

It took about a week to gather the ingredients. In that time, somewhere deep down, she had been hoping that something would happen to change her mind. It was a decent amount of time, she thought, looking at the grand scheme of her pathetically short existence. 

But nothing did. In fact, she only had her current thoughts affirmed.

Not by any change, but by a lack thereof: by stagnation. 

By that stagnant grape juice her life had been drowned by.

She couldn't even really focus on or enjoy her work anymore because whenever she tried to get 'in the zone,' her thoughts would always go back to her brother.

One day, which she had spent almost entirely in her lab, her brother came home from the bar- not by himself, but being shouldered by his acquaintance Cinnamon Cookie- who interrupted her planning just to inform her that her brother was home. The nerve of that Cookie. (...she had to have gotten a call, right? She didn't leave her lab the whole day, so...)

"*sigh* How much did Vampire Cookie drink...?"

"...uh- N-nobody knows..."

"...ugh. Whatever."

No one ever kept track.

Days went by and her brother was none-the-wiser to what she was planning. Despite all the time he spent at home...

She had a hard time keeping him out of her room, though. She couldn't lock the door to her lab, so he'd always get in. But her reagent-gathering was sporadic and unplanned, she had nothing written down...

Then came the day she finally decided that she was ready.

This would be the perfect concoction. Acridly flavored. She was turning it into an experimental melting pot, a pot of completely random reagents. Not really. She was very much aiming for the most toxic ingredients she had as she grabbed them from around the room. With the test subject being herself. 

By the end, once she'd had enough of tossing things in the pot, she watched the final color end up as a vivid pink. The mixture had bubbled and fizzed during the mixing process, but now it was... completely still.

Deathly still.

It was almost tranquil, the way it sat. She stared at it for a moment, before scooping some of it into an empty flask she had laying around.

She swished it around a little, staring blankly. Nothing changed about it.

Whatever this nocuous cocktail would do, it wouldn't be anything good for her...

She knew this would be it. This would show him. He'd finally understand. This would teach him a lesson.

She wanted to -------

She slowly took the flask up to her lips.

Bottoms up.

Immediately she felt it burn as it rushed down her throat.

It hurt. It tasted foul. She made sure to get down every last drop, swallowing a steady stream of death-

Something inside her told her to spit it out. But she was set, she refused to go back: She would show him. 

Once she'd gulped it all down, she put the flask down on her work table. Already she could feel the effects: A stomachache was setting in, she felt incredibly nauseous and dizzy, a pain began to burn her chest from the inside, her eyes began to spill water and something buried within her once-logical mind was still yelling at her SPIT IT OUT-

But she couldn't. It was far too late for that.

There was no going back.

~~~

She staggered out of her room with an aching sensation filling every inch of her dough. Her head especially was beginning to throb with pain- but really, her entire body was in general agony.

Her head was spinning, to the point she was starting to see double, and this combined with the sudden shortness of her breath that she couldn't tell if it was just her panicking or if it had been yet another effect of her concoction made walking to the living room take...

She didn't know how long.

The numbers on the clock, she couldn't read them anymore. She couldn't recognize them. She couldn't process any of them. 

Her head hurt even more trying to do so.

But she eventually found her way in, and, after further difficulty bumping into the furniture, finally managed to sit herself down.

She lay back on the sofa, but even cessation of action did nothing to make breathing an easier task. She could feel her heart beating in her head chest. It was speaking over her reason. Shouting over it.

'Why even bother sitting out here? You know he's not going to notice. Even if he does, he won't be concerned. Get to work; Be productive with your time at least...'

She shook any thought from her mind the moment her brother came into the room. She felt too weak to even spend the energy talking to him, she wasn't even sure if she would be able to get a coherent word out anyway, but surely he'd at least ask how she was doing. And then when she didn't answer, he'd look at her, and then he'd notice something was wrong-

But he just walked on by.

He said something, but she couldn't focus on the words. And it didn't change the fact that he just left the room anyway.

(Maybe it sounded like "Love ya, sis" but she couldn't tell. She wouldn't have believed it, anyway.)

That woefully familiar miasma of grape juice hit her senses, worsening that already overwhelming nausea of hers. Stronger than ever. Or was it the same as usual...? Everything just felt worse like this...

'...what a joke. He just walked right past you. He probably didn't even realize you're here. He probably forgot you again.'

The leaks were back, gushing, overflowing- and she didn't have the energy to fix them. Agonizing all alone, with this toxin eating away at her system...

If it didn't crumble her tonight, she'd try again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. And over and over again until he finally noticed that something was wrong...

She slept unrestfully that night, and even though the effects of the concoction had mostly subsided by the afternoon when she woke up, she still felt tired.

She planned her routine out from there: Every day, once she woke up (frustratingly, it was already difficult to keep to her usual schedule), she would immediately take a drink of the poison before she even went to eat breakfast. She'd then just let the day play out as she rapidly grew ill, and see if her brother ever asked about her health.

He didn't ask her. One day, two days, three days- she seldom spoke to him, as he'd be either in his room lazing around or indulging in the one thing he cared about in the world, or at Sparkling Cookie's- and she was just exuberant to see the look on his and Vampire Cookie's faces the inevitable day she'd come in to do her usual 'nag-and-drag' routine and at best not even have the physical strength to get her brother off the floor and at worst-

'You could crumble right in front of him and he wouldn't say a thing. He doesn't care about you. He's NEVER cared about you.'

She didn't care anymore.  That night, though- her brother staggered home with his arm over another Cookie's shoulder again. This time, however, it was Sparkling Cookie himself who accompanied the drunken Cookie through the door.

She didn't know this until the two of them walked into the living room, where she was leaning over the left side of the couch trying not to pass out from exhaustion.

"Oh. Well, hello there, Alchemist Cookie!" Sparkling Cookie smiled at her with a warmth that she couldn't feel.

"He-ey, lil sis! *hic*" Vampire Cookie gave a loose, lazy wave. "How ya doin???"

Alchemist Cookie didn't want to speak to either of them. Tiredness was the bulk of the reason, she really hadn't vocalized much at all in the past few days since her experiment had begun, but really what could she have said to either of these Cookies?

Sparkling Cookie. The Cookie that ran the juice bar. The Cookie that called her on the phone at bare minimum three times per week just to pick her brother up from said juice bar. The Cookie who did nothing but serve that disgusting, baneful juice. 

She really resented Sparkling Cookie.

And her brother... 

Immediately flopped himself next to her, as close as possible, forcing her to take in that grossly prominent grape juice smell, as if it weren't hard enough to breathe already. And lovingly, he started clinging to her side by the arm, practically leaning all of his weight into her as if he hadn't been a heavy enough burden-

His body was as cold as always. She knew to expect that from him. She was always prepared to feel that. And normally the physical cold was easy to ignore thanks to the emotional warmth. But she just couldn't feel that anymore...

She was so, so cold.

"Alchemist Cookie? You're shivering... are you alright?" Sparkling Cookie looked at her carefully and with concern, coming closer to her. She couldn't get up. "You look... unwell..."

...

She tried to say something, but all she could get out were wheezing breaths and a hacking cough she couldn't cover up.

Sparkling Cookie put his hand to her forehead. She didn't have the energy to get it away.

"Hmmm... you're not burning up, but you sure look sick. And you sound sick, too..."

"Yeeeeaaaahhhh... ya look kinda funny..."

Her brother's face was practically pressed into hers as his spacey eyes made direct contact with hersand she hoped he would notice how they had dulled to lifelessness by now as she turned her head too, and even just that caused her a splitting headache that she did her best to ignore because she wasn't going to let Sparkling Cookie see that.

"...eh, doesn't look like much. Looks like Alchemist Cookie like always. *hiccup* You're fiiiiiiine~ It's whateeeeeeever~"

He didn't notice. He didn't care.

Sparkling Cookie sighed and pried Vampire Cookie from her, gently but still causing her pain yet again. Vampire Cookie just leaned to the other side of the couch, oblivious just as he always was.

"Don't be a buzzkill, Sparkling Cookie!! *hiccup* I was all nice and comfy right there... Can't a Cookie just give his lil sis a hug in peace?? What's this world come to... *sigh*"

The look on Sparkling Cookie's face seemed disappointed but unsurprised before his attention shifted back to Alchemist Cookie:

"Thank goodness it was a slow day at the bar tonight. There's no way Vampire Cookie would be able to take care of you like this..."

If he was implying what she thought he was implying, then she wished she could just get up and run away, but she knew the air would leave her faster than it could get to her.

She didn't want him hanging around her house. Her brother had enough access to grape juice already. She wasn't going to let him have the idea of bringing bar nights into their house. She already couldn't escape them normally.

She just barely scraped together enough energy to shake her head, weakly. She tried to get up, now that her brother was off of her and couldn't weigh her down.

The dizziness set in immediately as she could barely find balance in her feet, waving her arms around trying to find a support-

Sparkling Cookie's hands approached to help stabilize her, but she slapped them away before they could make contact. Purposefully.

"A-Alchemist Cookie, let me help you to your room, please. You're clearly too weak to stand on your own..."

As she tottered towards the wall to lean against it, she glared back at him and tried to mouth her answer: 

I want you gone.

She knew he could lip-read decently enough. She knew the way she mouthed it was obvious enough.

She didn't care.

She saw his feelings on his face. In his eyes. The shock, confusion, worry. Hurt. She didn't feel bad. Not for the barkeep that drove her and her brother only further apart. Maybe a little, for the mixologist that'd always bring out some set of old alchemy textbooks from the back when she needed to hang around, that she'd practically had memorized from the amount of times she'd read them all front to back. She turned away before staggering over to the hallway. 

"G'nighty night, sis~, don't *hic* don't let the... what's the sayin again? Whatever, sweet dreams..."

She turned in early that night. She didn't have anything better to do anyway. She couldn't do anything else like this. She couldn't do alchemy anymore. But she didn't care.

She was beginning to accept the struggle to sit up or even just to open her eyes in the morning, the way her vision would still be so blurry and unfocused even after putting her glasses on that she wasn't certain they were even on her face, the lingering aches and pains that hung over every moment...

"...Alchemist Cookie...? Alchemist Cookie!"

This wasn't part of the routine.

She had been sitting there at the edge of her bed for who-knows-how-long likely a minute before she realized a voice she knew all too well was inside her room.

Vampire Cookie.

She looked over to see him leaning with his back to the side of her cauldron pot, holding one of her vials.

She just barely mustered the words with airy breaths in-between: "Wh-what are... you doing... up... this ear...ly!?" 

"Uhhh... first of all, it's 4 in the afternoon." He walked to her as she sulked in place without energy to move. "Second of all, Sparkling Cookie told me that last night, he noticed you were feeling... more than a little under-the-weather. So I came in here to check on you, and I saw... whatever that is."

He pointed over to the cauldron. Her heart skipped a beat.

"Well, I looked at it and thought that maybe you'd finally made more of that wonderful pink juice that you'd kept insisting was 'just an accident' and 'you didn't have the recipe for.' So, I couldn't help but have a little drink..."

Ah, yes, the 'Pink Juice Incident.' The one that had dyed most of the kingdom pink with love. She had been so confused that night when both her brother and Sparkling Cookie came and started thanking her profusely for "that delicious rosé juice" and "the boost in business for the day." That was the first time Sparkling Cookie had ever been over at their home. (And she wished the two of them could've been a little less... excessively romantic.)

...but her brother had been so sweet that night. When he wasn't rambling on and on about how debonair Sparkling Cookie looked in pink, he was giving her a pat on the head or saying about five times total "cheers to my brilliant sister and her alchemy!" despite no one else raising a glass with him, and she'd felt all warm and fuzzy on the inside...

It almost made her wish, in some deep selfish recess of her mind, that she could make it again. Just so he would praise her some more. She craved that validation.

...but she couldn't. And even if she could, she wouldn't. She couldn't poison him like that just for her own needs.

Wait...

He drank the poison...? He drank her concoction!?

The look on his face changed from pleasant reminiscence to light disgust.

"But that stuff tastes awful...! What did you even put in there?"

...of course he wouldn't be affected. Her potions never worked on him. Even when she wanted them to.The 'Pink Juice' affecting him was only a result of how haphazard that entire concoction had been.

She had once sought out to transmute her brother alchemically, to create some kind of potion that could eliminate that listless juice addiction of his. And yet none of them ever worked on anything but a normal Cookie.

There was that one time his personality seemingly inverted out of nowhere, where he started dressing and acting like her for a few days and even researching alchemy (...seemingly), that she never got an explanation for, until she came up with a potion to put him back to normal...

No. She knew her potions wouldn't have suddenly started working on him. She made all her concoctions with the reference of how to affect a normal Cookie, all the way down to composition. He wasn't normal. She had a whole pile of failed attempts at a working Flavor Reversal Potion by the end of her prior experiments in futility, after all. And she used them as the basis for the cure.

...in which case, she certainly couldn't have 'fixed him' by the end of it when he encroached on her field, so how did he return to normal...?

...

Had he really just been messing with her the whole time...?

She'd somewhat started to appreciate him more after that incident. At least, she realized her problem with him was less about him and more...

Whatever. She didn't care anymore. "No juice, no Vampire Cookie," in his own words.

She tried to get up to her feet- and immediately she envied her brother's ability to levitate as the pain shot up through her legs.

"OW!!"

"Alchemist Cookie??" 

"You... you drank my... my poi- my potion...!?"

"Yeah. So?"

"...grrrr..." she didn't look at him, but felt a sudden burst of... not as much as strength as it was anger,and yet it still wasn't enough to give her hands the strength for fists, "why... why can't you... why can't you just control yourself for once!?"

It could hardly be called a shout, but she couldn't do that anymore. 

But she could spit venom just fine.

"...sis, what do you-"

"It's always drink this, drink that...!! All for you, you, YOU...!!!" She pushed him to the side and dragged her legs over to her prized pot. Looking into it, it didn't seem to have had much taken out of it, and yet she still felt furious that he had taken what was hers. As she turned back around and made sure to make direct eye contact, further infuriated by the confusion that met her, she put on a sarcastic tone and gestured sloppily as she mimicked her brother's voice: "Can't you make some juice with your alchemy?' this and 'Can you stop bothering me about alchemy when I'm trying to enjoy my juice?" that *pant*... and then you have the gall, to come into my room, and try to just drink anything that wasn't meant for you... and when it's not that, you're looking through my research notes, to see if they have anything about juice... because THAT'S ALL YOU EVER CARE ABOUT-"

Unable to keep up with her own shouting, she suddenly entered a violent coughing fit. She couldn't breathe. Vampire Cookie looked a mix of horrified and... mortified.

She had to support herself on the side of the cauldron to prevent herself from keeling over, with how light-headed she was getting. She'd started spitting venom, but she felt as if she were going to start spitting jam.

As soon as she could get a breath back in, as she saw that fanged Cookie take just a few quivering steps toward her with a face of remorseful shock, she shot a glare in his direction and finally gasped out:

"Why, does everything, have to be, about you...!? You... about your juice... is that... all I'm good for, to you...? Making juice, for you...? Taking care, of you...?? Catering, to you...!?!"

"..." Her brother stood frozen by her cold words. "...A-Alchemist Cookie, you know that's not true, you're not-"

"It's always, juice for you, juice for you..." As she gazed fondly into the contents of the cauldron, her mouth formed a twisted, broken facade of a smile: "But this, is for ME... this... makes me... feel better..."

It was funny to her, almost. The purpose of this entire experiment had once been to make her brother see what he was doing to her himself. Nourishing himself on that poison of his every day. 

That crimson venom dripping from his fangs as he bit into her life.

But she didn't care anymore. She wasn't doing this for him anymore.

She had long lost her original intent.

But really, her intentions now had always been there, lurking deep down within the darkest crevices of her mind. Just waiting to bubble to the surface.

Her routine poisonings had begun to feel almost comforting to her, in some form. Because at the very least, it was something she had control over. She could control her own degradation except she knew it was progressing at an uncontrolled rate. She was doing this to herself. No one else was. She took a sense of pride in that, a sense of power, a sense of control.

Control. She needed control. She couldn't control her own mortality, she couldn't control her brother and his behavior. This pernicious potion was the only way to control anything, she thought...

So what if her health was deteriorating? She had every right to make it deteriorate.

This wasn't right

"(Feel better...?) Is it... a cure or something...?"

The inquiry snapped her out of her blissful thought, but she didn't look at him. She just thought:

He was right about that one thing: That this was, to her, more nostrum than noxious in the grand scheme of things.

She'd prescribed it herself to her own heart, the one true remedy for its malaise: Her own personal, hand-crafted, home-brewed panacea. 

This would make everything better.

And so, she answered accordingly:

"Yes..."

"(...well, guess I shouldn't be surprised about medicine tasting bad...) Sis... I-"

"Sh-Shut up..."

Her head snapped to look at him and it hurt so much to make such a sudden movement, and she ignored the guilt that had been shining in his eyes and glared as she panted out:

"Get out... of my room... I'm done, talking... and, give me back, my vial, now...! *gasp* And then get out...!!"

She held out her hand. She would've pointed to the door with the other if she could trust her legs to keep themselves standing on their own, without propping herself up still. Vampire Cookie looked at her dejectedly before making his way toward the door, handing her the vial as he walked past but otherwise not stopping to look back...

Until he was at the door.

Just before he left through it, just before he could give her privacy, he looked back at her and said:

"...Could... could you at least... air out the room a little...? I-I just noticed that it's a little... I don't know, mephitic in here...? And you know I'll be able to smell this from-"

"Out...!!

"(...I-I'm sorry...)"

He shut the door, leaving her alone to her own devices in her ill-lit, shadow-casted room where the curtains hadn't been touched in days. She sighed.

'Finally. Almost thought he'd never go away...'

Now there was nothing keeping her from her precious elixir of death life... so-to-speak. 

She didn't want to miss a dose. She rationalized it in her head, one should never skip even just a day's dose of their medication, after all. It just wasn't healthy...

She was really becoming an addict of her own. Addicted to her own misery. Pushing away, hitting away even the very idea of relief. She didn't even do anything of worth anymore, passing through life devoid of passion, of her passion- once she had dreamed of making great discoveries, but now what knowledge could be held in a mind too tired to think...? She reminded herself so much of her brother: Drinking, doing nothing, and decaying in her room; Dozing off in dreamless sleep and waiting for her doom; Hardly ever leaving, barely living in this tomb.

What a miserable creature she was. Maybe she deserved this anyway.

Bottoms up.

Over the next few days, she'd stopped keeping at some point. Of how long it had been since she'd started her slow march toward the end experiment. The days were all congealing into a mass of constant fatigue languor, not helped by her now inconsistent sleep schedule... most of her schedule was 'sleep' now, really, or a state between sleep and awake that she couldn't tell the difference between anymore because she just couldn't do anything else and even thinking was becoming too much of an energy sink sometimes.

She didn't even really have the energy to make her meals anymore. Sometimes she was too queasy to stomach anything. Sometimes she struggled to leave her room in the first place. The times she had done so, when the hunger got too much to bear, she'd noticed that her brother had started waiting around the kitchen more. Sitting at the table sometimes, trying to coax her into joining. "Are you going to keep me waiting for lunch?" or "Don't you think a sandwich would be nice right about now...?" ...he wasn't very subtle.

...one time he got desperate enough to try cooking something. It wasn't very good, he really had no idea how to prepare a salad if burning it was ever a possibility and especially in the way he did it, but...

The only thing she could easily put down was that burning potion of hers. But she was finding the simple act of swallowing to become more and more difficult thanks to the sheer pain of everything in her body.

And it was just another late afternoon, who-knows-how-long after this had all began, after her heart had crumbled and fallen apart, and she was about to take her potion again. Up to her mouth, running down her throat...

But she had to spit it out halfway through because she couldn't swallow it.

"ACK!!"

Something was wrong. More wrong than ever before.

It hurt.

It hurt.

She'd never felt more SICK.

She started coughing, forcefully, oxygen making its escape. Her body was trying to expel something.There was something in her that needed to get out.

And it came out.

Onto the floor and her hands as she dropped her flask, causing it to shatter there with the mess of...

Strawberry jam.

Nausea, pain, vertigo- everything was making her head spin, the room was spinning all around her, her vision was doubling, tripling in an instant and she could hardly keep her balance on her feet, her head was growing light and yet it was still heavy with soreness, everything was in pain-

She fell over onto her back. The lights above her looked all the brighter and stung her eyes. She could hardly keep them open; she didn't want to. She was beginning to fade in and out of conscious, anyway. Her consciousness was beginning to fade in and out of being, anyway.

This was it. The culmination of her experiment: A date alone with death, with toxins flowing through her.

Her crumbled body would lie alone within her room, not to be found for days. Weeks. Months. YEARS.

...

She was full of fear. 

Those leaky eyes of her wouldn't stop, not when this wasn't what she had really wanted, deep down in the crumbled pieces of her heart, though she had long stopped admitting it to herself.

The one thing she'd wanted, needed, was...

Something she'd never get to see herself have, if she were to crumble now.

But she had no way to control the outcome of this. She never had. That cocktail of death had been dooming her every day she drank it. There was no going back.

'This is goodbye...'

~~~

"...Al...mi...C..ki....?... 

(Why did this have to be such a slow process...? Why hadn't she crumbled yet? Was there something keeping her alive, some force of will? Was that really powerful enough to keep her from the brink...?)

(...she didn't want to crumble, but she had gone too far to save herself. And no one else was there to save her. Now she was stuck in a slow atrophy from the inside-out. 

She could feel her insides crumbling. 

Jam and leftover poison still oozed from her mouth, dripping down her face- and within her mouth just tasted so odiously foul and yet she couldn't spit any of it out. Her eyes could hardly keep open. She was just about to let them close, finally, to plug up that incessant leakage, even if she feared she may never open them again...)

"ALCHEMIST COOKIE?!!"

(Wait...)

(There was a voice, and footsteps that, even with the ringing in her ears, were close enough to make out, and they sounded far too fast for any normal Cookie to be running at...

She knew a Cookie who wasn't normal.

"Alchemist Cookie!? ALCHEMIST COOKIE!!!! WAKE UP, PLEASE!!!!!!!"

She just barely opened her eyes again as the ringing cleared to find the face of a Cookie staring down at her, that had gotten down next to her on the floor, that, even though her vision was blurry, she could make out had crimson hair and deep purple eyes...

Vampire Cookie...? 

"Alchemist Cookie!?!?! What on Earthbread happened to you...!?!"

(He... found her. He actually found her. That shouldn't have happened, and yet...)

"..." She was scared to even try speaking. It'd be a waste of what little breath she had, anyway. It wasn't as if he'd ever listen to her, right?

...could she even speak? Could she even breathe? Was she even still...

No. No, the agony was undeniable. It said everything without words. Even if her body had broken down, even if it wouldn't work as she wished, she was very much still in it.

"...N-nevermind, you can tell me later. J-just- just relax, okay?? Just stay... calm..."

He got up and ran away- and while she couldn't get up to watch him leave, she was already feeling no less than sheer despondency. It wasn't disappointment, no- that would imply she had expected better of him, that she had had any hope left in her that he wouldn't just tell her to 'chill out' like he always did and then abandon her there to break down in desolation-

She never heard the door close.

She was ready to let the darkness take over her field of view again. She didn't hear the footsteps returning...

But she heard the sound of wings flapping towards her.

Looking as far towards the door as she could in her position, with her blurring vision she could make out some small, round blob of red flying in through the door and stopping right beside her- and in a sudden 'poof' of smoke, what was left was the taller figure of her big brother.

He came back

?

"Help is on the way, sis...! We just have to... wait right here, not move... and I'll be right by your side, I promise..."

(...oh. She didn't have a phone in her room, did she...? He had... called for help...?)

He knelt down next to her and rested his hand on her forehead. Cold to the touch, as always. But something about it was... soothing, to the slightest extent. Maybe it was because of how much she had been burning up on the inside. Maybe it was just the feeling of care that she felt within those eyes that were finally looking at her with clarity.

(...just for once, she felt grateful she didn't have a lock on her door. That she hadn't been able to shut him out. Just this once. Otherwise, she would have...)

"...Alchemist Cookie... what even happened to you, sis...? D-did the medicine you make not work? (I should've known it wasn't working, why didn't I...) What kind of sickness do you even have??"

"..." She didn't know whether or not to tell him what she had really been doing at this point. Two parts of her were conflicting, fighting for dominance over her crumbled heart: One of them held her original intentions, the other held those that had been more latent. Neither of them really felt like 'her.'

"...you know what, I'll just... leave that to Dr. Bones Cookie to figure out. That's their problem, not yours. You probably... don't even know, do you...?"

She did know. She knew what she was sick with.

She knew what made her sick.

She would've been able to tell him right now, in perfect detail, if she could just speak, she thought.

(Wait... who did he say...? She had to have misheard that, he was way too lazy to go through that much trouble...)

"(...that look in your eyes...)" He sounded confused and... guilty. Since when did he feel guilty...? (...there was that one time...) "But..."

She couldn't tell if he was shocked or in shock, but whatever it was, it left him silent for a few seconds before he said, with an uncharacteristically perturbed voice:

"A-anyway, I'm just... lucky I could smell... all of this from my room, otherwise, uh... (Heh, maybe it's a good thing you didn't open the window when I asked you to, right...? Haha...)"

(Sometimes she forgot how good his senses were... when they weren't being fogged by his favorite intoxicant. Actually, maybe that was why she had forgotten: Because they were always too numbed to function to the fullest...)

...the one thing she could clearly see was the discomfort he was trying and failing to hide, trying to keep his eyes on her and away from the red, sticky, sweet substance spread on the floor...

Unfortunately, it was also on her- splattered on her dress and body, seeping into the undersides from where she had fallen into this red, disgusting mess, and there was still some left over around her mouth that she was unable to wipe off. 

She knew her brother could sometimes get a little squeamish- it only ever showed, really, when he was 'low on juice,' though. He didn't have the capacity for any such feeling otherwise, she thought. 

...he did tend to drink more after physical exertion, though...

She saw a mild burgundy glow coming from where she knew his eyes to be

"I'm... starting to wish I didn't take Sparkling Cookie's advice right about now..." His stomach growled like some kind of animal. What did he mean by that...? "Uh... (good thing I don't like jam as much as juice, otherwise I would've... n-no, no need to think about that...) Rushing around sure works up a thirst, huh? Let's just, hope they... get here, in time..."

("like jam")

(...the alternative...)

...

Seconds passed, maybe a minute, and the two of them just stayed together in silence. It felt like an eternity. What was taking so long...?

...

Alchemist Cookie's body was so ridden with toxin at this point, she didn't know if she even had enough time to wait for them. It was so unfair. Why did she have to change her mind? Why did she have to feel so conflicted? She didn't understand herself. She didn't understand anything. 

...

"...V...Vam...pire... C-C-Coo...kie...?"

The words fought to escape her throat. Vampire Cookie immediately snapped to full focus:

"Wh-What is it, sis...??"

"...A...am, I... g...gon-gonna..."

She gasped for air as she tried to communicate. It was taking so much of her breath. She hadn't spoken in so long, too, that she wondered if her difficulty forming the words was because of her fatigued and deteriorating condition or if she just didn't know how to anymore, if that were even possible.

But with her brother's full concern attention, she choked out the final words as those annoying leaks in her eyes outflowed, for what she knew could be the final time they ever would:

"...crum...ble...?"

Why was she even asking him this?

Why was she even asking him this...?

..why did she want to hear what he had to say...? To a question that was surely unanswerable for him?

...

Was it just to see how he'd react...?

(...just to see if he'd react...?)

His eyes widened as soon as the words escaped her mouth.

"N-NO, NO!!! I-I mean, no!! Don't- That'll never happen, I won't let it...!" She could just make out the white of his fangs... as he was giving her some attempt at a comforting smile, even if she could tell despite the fading of her sight that it was faltering. "Don't even think about that, sis!! J-j-just- just relax, like I said, and everything will be fine... you hear me? You'll be fine, you'll be a-okay, please, I- I won't let anything happen to you, just... just hang in there, I... I..."

She felt a few drops of something slowly drip onto her face. That facsimile smile came to grief.  

"...I-I don't know, if I can do anything... Please, just, hang on... I can't lose you, sis..."

He was...

He was crying.

His voice was breaking up as he desperately sobbed out his pleas: "D-don't make me lose you like this, sis, not like this, not this early... p-p-please, you have to hang on, just hang on... you- you know I really- you know I love you, y'know..."

I love you

Hearing those words, she finally felt a wave of peace wash over her, gently lighting up the darkness that had veiled her world of hurt all this time.

All this time, those were the words she had been crumbling to hear. The words she had wanted, needed to hear.

The words her body was currently breaking down over.

She was beginning to wonder if it really had to come to this just to hear them.

The exhaustion had finally worn down on her too far to persevere. Her muddied eyes so dull and lifeless were coming to a close.

"A-Alchemist Cookie!?!?!?! N-No, stay with me, STAY WITH ME!!!! ALCHEMIST COOKIE!!!!!"

Her hearing was fading away, and the last thing she heard was:

"...I need to go make another call, or three..."

"...when is she going to wake up?? IS she going to wake up!?!"

"S-slow down, slow down!! I'm doing everything I can!!"

Alchemist Cookie's eyes just barely cracked open. It was so... bright. 

Was she...?

...she was lying in a bed, under the covers- she could recognize that feeling. She wasn't wearing her usual clothes, either- she couldn't feel those. And the smell of the room was very... antiseptic. And... like ice cream...?

She was still in pain, she was still sick, but it felt... less so than before. 

(...she could hear a beeping sound...)

Her head felt lighter, but not light-headed. More so, as if a weight had been taken off... 

Her hat was gone.

She was...

...finally beginning to see clearly...

It was so brightly lit, the entire room. Bright and clean, white and lighter blues all over the room... 

After a few blinks, she began to make out her surroundings in more detail: There was a sink in one corner, a chair and a table in the other. Looking down without moving her head she saw she was... definitely in a bed, just as she'd felt. With calming blue covers pulled up to her waist.

...She was wearing some kind of pale blue outfit with darker dots. She couldn't feel much covering her arms beyond the shoulders.

Finally budging her head just slightly to the left, ignoring the aching that still followed her head's movement (yet it still somehow still felt less than how much it had hurt to move before), she saw her arm lying out to the side, and...

There was... an IV tube, hooked up to...

Some kind of... heart-shaped plastic bag...? A bag full of... red, on some kind of white and cyan-striped stand, hooked on by... bones?

She heard the beeping coming from next to the head of her bed, out of her field of view, but she could tell what it sounded like. (She wasn't sure if it sounded... right or not... She wouldn't be surprised.)

There was only one place this could be:

Dr. Bones Cookie's clinic... which was more like a fun-sized hospital, really. It was located at the opposite corner of the kingdom as her and her brother's home (Dr. Bones Cookie had expressed their wishes to have it built more toward the center of the kingdom when they moved in, but there wasn't any room.)

And looking to her right, she saw her brother and the doctor themself chatting away... closer to 'frantic bickering' than 'chatting.'

"C'mon, Doc, just tell me she's going to be okay, tell me she'll wake up-"

"H-hold on!! I'm a doctor, not a miracle-worker! And, to be frank, a miracle's the exact kind of thing we need right now..."

They looked down at their clipboard as her brother crossed his arms, seeming uncharacteristically on-edge. The doctor looked over in her direction, and...

"...Oh, my. Well, we officially have a miracle on our hands...!"

Vampire Cookie turned over towards her, locking eyes with her, and gasped.

Alchemist Cookie could immediately see her brother's dark eyes light up with emotion like a moonlit night sky through a window, despite the bags under his eyes that she never would have imagined him with (at least his eyes were their normal hue). His mouth grew into a smile so visibly brimming with... elation and relief. He didn't seem to be able to hold back:

"ALCHEMIST COOKIE!!!"

Vampire Cookie transformed in a poof and flew right at her, rattling the poor doctor's bones.

"C-CAREFUL!!" Dr. Bones Cookie cried. "Bats are known for spreading diseases, you know...!!"

Her brother ignored them and landed next to her head with maybe a little too much impact (but it didn't hurt more than she could ignore), immediately snuggling into her. That round, red juice bat with pointed ears and sleepy eyes- his body was as cool as ever, even in this form...

And yet it was just barely warm enough that she almost smiled. Almost.

"You're okay! You're actually okay....!"

"...I'm... here...?"

Dr. Bones Cookie grabbed her brother by the wing, lifting him up and away from her. Standing right next to the side of the bed, they held the bat up to their eye socket level, squinting at him with an annoyed look.

"Be careful!!" they warned.

"Well, sorry..." Vampire Cookie said sarcastically before poofing back into his usual form, which visibly startled the poor doctor. "But my dear sister almost crumbled..." he continued, and shrugged, "can't I celebrate that that didn't happen...?"

The doctor pointed at him with their pen and said: "A-as long as you don't touch her until I'm certain her condition is stable!! Do you even realize how brittle her dough was back there!? I'm surprised she didn't crumble before-"

"Okay, okay!! *sigh* I'll just, stand here, just... let me talk to her for a second, okay...?"

"..." They said nothing, but backed up slightly, nodded their head, and motioned as if to say go ahead before turning away to look at their clipboard papers. Probably something to do with her.

Alchemist Cookie looked at her brother, and he looked at her- eye to eye in complete reticence, and the uncertainty hanging in the air applied pressure, for someone to make the first move. She couldn't move her limbs, and her mouth tasted bittersweet. She just lay there, trying to communicate with her eyes to just go on and say it- whatever it was he had to say.

Her brother's expression became more somber as he finally shattered that tension looming between the two of them:

"Sis... why did you do it?"

"...?"

"Why did you..." the words came out of his mouth with an unsteady, shrinking tone: "poison... yourself?"

...it wasn't possible. He'd thought it was medicine. She'd told him it was medicine.

"...you... know...?"

"..."

The two of them just stared at each other, in seconds on end of uncomfortable eye contact and silence except in the midst of it she could hear Vampire Cookie mumble under his breath, something like "where did that spark in your eyes go...?" (and... she didn't know how to answer.)

"...Sparkling Cookie saw some... things around your room... put two and two together."

"...?" Sparkling Cookie had been there...? When??

Seeming to read her confusion, he went on: 

"...I... called him, Herb Cookie and Mint Choco Cookie over when you passed out... I-I didn't know what else to do, they know more about that 'healing' stuff than I do..."

(...That was how she made it, wasn't it...?)

"...T-turns out, Sparkling Cookie couldn't really do anything for you since you were... not awake, you know. Can't give a drink to an unconscious Cookie and all..."

She was glad he didn't get to. The thought of it made her sick to her stomach... 

(How was her stomach faring...?)

"So, he ended up, uh, looking around your room, 'cause we didn't, uh, kn-know what happened, and, uh... yeah."

He seemed... increasingly unsettled the more he recounted. She had a feeling she knew why.

"...He... said he recognized some of the things you had in there from what he read in some books. I think he meant the books he keeps checking out of the library for ya, 'cause he... said you absolutelywould have known, what those things would do to you, s-s-so..."

 "..."

She didn't really know what to say to him. She hadn't planned for anyone to recognize her reagents and their uses... or lack thereof. She didn't have an excuse planned. 

Vampire Cookie stared at her, contemplating, before he took a deep breath and said: 

"...why did you do it? Why would you ever... do that, to yourself...? I just- I, I don't understand..."

She could see the tears beginning to pile up at the corners of his eyes, and it... still perplexed her, to some degree. As she readjusted to speaking, she blankly queried:

"You... care...?"

"...th-that shouldn't be a question..."

Alchemist Cookie looked away: "I... thought you didn't."

"...Wh-wh-what made you... what made you... think that...?"

(Her eyes looked back at him again. The look on his face... why did he seem so... upset?)

"..."

This was it, this was the moment she had been waiting for this entire time: The moment when she would look her brother dead in the eyes and finally divulge to him the disease that had been plaguing her mind, say the words, "you did."

"You did this to me."

...

But as much as it burned the back of her throat, the words just never came. And her head ached with the thoughts that she couldn't express.

She couldn't bring herself to say that.

She felt something burst in her eyes again. Embarrassing; there was no way to hide it this time.

Why did things always have to be so UNFIXABLE...?

"A-Alchemist Cookie, you're... y-you're crying..."

"I-I... I..." The words were so, so hard to form. Nothing felt right. Everything felt wrong. She felt so, sowrong. She couldn't take being wrong. But... her feelings had to come out. And they came out; she finally managed to spit it all out: "...I just... I couldn't... I couldn't take it anymore... I can't take it anymore..."

"...take... what...?"

She sniffled: "...you're always... it's always grape juice, it's all... it's everything to you, it's everywhere,every day, all the time, and I... I-I just feel like I'm nothing to you... I have to take care of you, when you get drunk and that's all the time... you can never take care of yourself or come home by yourself or do anything yourself... and you pass out and say weird things and you forget your own name and you forget my name a-and-"

Her voice was collapsing in on itself like a buckled floor, but she fought weary and bleary through the instability:

"A-a-and that's all I ever... all we ever do together is... because you're always so... intoxicated... it's like you forget about everything else... you forget about me... and you're always just..." She was breathing so hard that it hurt, "you never spend real time with me. It's always either at the bar o-or, or when you're at home you're still just drinking and drinking and..."

A heavy acid rain was drowning her voice and face. She didn't know if she was able to purge everything that had ravaged her on the inside, if she could get everything out in the right words, if her words would be right at all...

But... those feelings needed to get out.

She needed to get those feelings out.

It wasn't wrong just to feel, was it? When these feelings were designed to tell that something was wrong.

"I just... just... wanted, f-for you... to care about me... I-I couldn't take that, that... that I didn't matter as much, to you..."

"Alchemist Cookie..." he was trying to cover his face with his hands, she could see the glimmers of guilt in his tears, but he didn't look away from her. Contrarily, his stare became much more fixed as the words solemnly spilled from his heart mouth: "...you... you mean more to me than I can... I-I don't know what I'd do without you-"

"I know, s...someone has to ta-ake care of you... that's, the problem... I have to, but I can't... I can't take it..."

"Th-that's not what I... (crumbs, I didn't mean it like-)"

"I can't... I can't keep taking care of you... I'm sick of it... I'm sick of grape juice... I'm sick of seeing you drunk all the time... I'm sick of LIVING LIKE THIS...!" She coughed, but she could still breathe. She persisted: "I- I- I can't- I can't... I can't keep doing this... for the rest of my life... knowing that I'm going to crumble before you ever will eventually and then who will take care of you after that??" She took a deep breath. "I-I-I... I'm just a normal Cookie and you're not... Wh-why do we have to be so unequal...?Wh-why- why do I have to be to be so INADEQUATE...!?"

"D-don't say that, STOP!!!" He slapped his hands over his mouth immediately, his eyes widening and looking down at them. After seconds of evident processing, slowly returning to meet her gaze again, his next words were immediately at a lower volume and gentler tone: "...Please..." He almost reached one hand out at her before stopping himself, "Alchemist Cookie, you're my little sister, you shouldn't beworrying about... stuff like this, you shouldn't be thinking anything like this, you're... you're too young for that, you... you're..."

His hands went back up to his face again, this time burying himself enough to muffle his voice just slightly.

"You're too young to crumble... I don't- You have a whole life ahead of you, you have- you have so much time left, why would you... wh-why cut it short...?" 

(...why was that his fixation...?)

"..." the waterworks still welled in her eyes, but her voice grew stabler yet also quieter, colder just like his hugs. But she couldn't move. "...I just... wanted things to change. I wanted to be happy."

"...you weren't happy..."

It wasn't a question.

Vampire Cookie folded his arms, eyes cast down, tears trickling and... contemplative.

"...I... didn't even realize... I-I mean, I guess I started to-"

(Started to...?)

She cut him off:

"Of course you didn't notice, with how happy you are all the time. You're really lucky, aren't you? Life's so good to you all the time... Everyone wants to be friends with you, you just have everything and you never have to work for it, you never have to care about your health because you're special... and you tell me I need to stop worrying about things, but I have to worry about you because you don't worry about anything, but I- I need to worry about you because you'll probably get into something stupid while you're drunk or just stop... stop taking care of yourself everywhere that matters and, I can't let you do that, I can't let you be alone when someone has to take you home and... and..."

She felt as if a world's worth of weight was upon her, a world of pain that she was forced to live in. Alone.

"I just don't understand, why you get to be so happy, when I don't..."

"...I'm not."

"...wh-what?"

"Alchemist Cookie, I... it's not like that, but..." as he stared into her eyes again, he sighed: "...I don't never worry about anything, I'll admit it. The truth is... I'm... always kinda worried... sorta... you know..."

He looked over to something out of her field of view- by the head of her bed. It was where she heard the beeping sound coming from.

"...you're always working yourself so hard, sis... too hard... you basically never relax, I have to remind you to sleep half the time. You think I don't get worried about you...?" He paused before continuing: "I... kinda always felt like something like this would happen someday- not the same thing, but... that you'd just give up taking care of yourself because you're so dedicated to your work. Or that one day I'd just come into your room and see that some experiment gone wrong did you in, and..."

(His breathing hitched...?)

"...I-I... I can't lose you like that..."

"..." Alchemist Cookie blinked away any remaining droplets. Still processing what she was hearing, her only words were: "You're going to lose me eventually..."

"...I- I know. I don't like to- I don't want to think about that... any of this... I-I've always tried to not think about it..."

"...is that why you drink juice all the time?"

He attempted to mumble something under his breath- but he was just loud enough and he was just close enough that she could just barely make it out:

"(I don't know. Maybe more than I need to, I guess...)"

"..."

...

As the saying went: "The first step is admitting you have a problem."

He started speaking clearly again, looking back to her yet another time- and he looked just a little more regretful than even before:

"...I know it's nothing like... what you've been going through, I'm not trying to compare that, I just... want you to know that I do care about you, sis, I just... gosh, when you yelled at me that one time- what was it, two weeks ago now?- I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know it was this much-"

"You mean... the time I yelled at you, in my room...?"

(...she felt just a small pang of guilt about the intensity of her ire in that moment...)

"Hmm? Oh, that was... that too I guess, but I mean earlier than that. Where was it again? Living room, I think...? Yeah, that! Probably two and a half weeks ago, I think..." 

"...that was..."

...two and a half weeks ago...?

...she hadn't even been poisoning herself for that long, and things had escalated this far...?

How potent was that solution of hers...? 

...

Despite the nagging of her own insatiable interest, she knew that, perhaps, this was a knowledge that was better of not known, to herself at the very least. For her own sake. She didn't want to stare into that abyss again.

...

Two and a half weeks ago. She had outpoured her anger two and a half weeks ago.

Two and a half weeks ago, her feelings had finally boiled over. She had gotten to concocting her plan to poison herself with that sick solution...

And for what? For what had all of this been?

Would this have really been the solution to all her problems?

...

If she hadn't survived to explain everything to Vampire Cookie, he wouldn't have realized a thing. He wouldn't have stopped drinking grape juice. He probably would've started drinking more of it just to cope with the loss...

...

Two and a half weeks ago.

Somehow, he had kept track of the time.

And he remembered. He remembered her outburst.

He remembered her.

...

While she was beginning to think back on those weeks, on everything she hadn't paid attention to before, her brother kept on talking:

"That was when you told me you didn't want to, uh, look after me..." he hugged his arms around himself and looked down to the side, embarrassment showing through the regretful smile he was trying to put up, "I, uh, didn't even really get it fully until I was talking to Sparkling Cookie one night, when I went out... and uh, he told me that he always calls you to take me home when I, can't do it myself... and I didn't even realize how often you had to do that, I thought it was just a few times, haha..." his laugh didn't really sound amused as he brought one hand up to his face, "...I didn't even... remember half of those times..."

"...yeah. I can guess."

"And I thought that was all that you meant. So, I told him to stop calling you, and-"

"You... got your friends to take you home, didn't you...?"

That night Cinnamon Cookie had carried her brother home, then the other time that Sparkling Cookie did the same... How could she have been so oblivious...? 

"...I... didn't even realize you had done that... I even talked to them, but..." her eyes turned away from him, "I... guess I was just so focused on how you were still drinking grape juice, I didn't feel like anything was changing..."

"...I...is that why you did it, then...? Above everything else? Because I have to drink juice?"

"..."

She fell more silent than she would have expected to be at this question. She was imagining, over and over again in her head, the various reasons she could give for why she had done what she did- many of which had something to do with grape juice- and the exact ways to lay it out, to get the perfect emotional response, but...

No. None of it felt right, really. None of it was perfect.

Even now, with them spilling everything within their hearts to each other- none of it was perfect. She knew she had so much more to say, and he probably had more too, but the flow of conversation would carry them away before they could get it all across, when they weren't holding themselves back. How long would it take of conveying these ill-defined feelings in words, over and over again, until they finally understood each other? Would it be days? Weeks? Months? Years?

"...I-I don't know..."

Really, that was both true and untrue- she had a multitude of reasons, compounding upon each other to poison her mind- but...

None of her reasons were right. Nothing. The action she had taken in and of itself was just so wrong, there was no way she could justify it anymore. Why had she done that to herself!? It hadn't done any good in the end. Things had been changing for the better around her, Cookies had been caring for her well-being, and it was exactly because she had been so dedicated to her own self-destruction that she had not seen any of it...

(...she really needed to apologize to Sparkling Cookie, didn't she...?)

And to her brother...

She knew it would be foolish of her to tell him, "it's because you don't care."

Because she knew that was wrong.

She was seeing that on full display right now.

She had seen it the entire time.

But it was only now beginning to click.

"...you were... you were actually trying to care for me when I... started doing this, weren't you? When you checked in on me... and I yelled at you..."

"Oh. Yeah. Uh, when Sparkling Cookie told me you were... 'sick,' he pretty much... banned me from the juice bar, temporarily. And told me to cut back on the juice until you were better. And... I knew he was probably right by that. How was I supposed to take care of you if I couldn't even take care of myself?Uh... yeah. But I don't really know how to 'cut back,' so I kinda... went back and forth on too much and too little. Left me really thirsty a lot. Thought it'd be fine to try and look for a drink around your room that one time, but... (gosh, the stuff you said there was... I probably should've seen all of this coming...) I didn't want to..."

He seemed to grow more uncomfortable talking about this, scratching the back of his head nervously.

"I knew I wouldn't be able to resist. So, I just... decided to stay out of your room, after that. You know how I get when I'm... 'low on juice,' right...?"

(He hadn't kept trying to check up on her in her room after that, but she had noticed him hanging out around her more anyway, the few times she left the room. He had... tried to make sure she was nourishing herself...

...Those two and a half weeks, he really had been able to tell she was sick... No thanks to any toxicant, but the few times she'd communicated with other Cookies... and he had done what he could with what he was given, each time...

She really never had needed to dance so close with death, had she...?)

"..."

He always drank more after physical exertion.

But she could only really think of one time she had seen him get ravenous

The day he became abnormal.

Split wood on the floor

Spilled puddles of red

Desperation dripping with hunger

Violet consumed by burgundy 

"...yes. I don't want to think about that..."

"...am I really that scary...? Well, I guess if Dr. Bones Cookie's a good metric to judge by, then... (heh...)"

Alchemist Cookie's eyes moved to the other Cookie in the room. She could see that Dr. Bones Cookie was trying to let the two have their moment and focus on whatever papers were on their clipboard, but couldn't do much to hide the anxiousness on their face looking back and forth between those and the siblings.

She knew that they'd always expressed their own concerns about Vampire Cookie and his condition, but they certainly seemed to know more about the type of Cookie he was, about his needs, about how he functioned in general... but Vampire Cookie would rarely ever show up for scheduled checkups. Alchemist Cookie always did for her own, and she... hadn't considered asking them about him. 

...how had she missed something so obvious?

(...she'd been missing obvious things for the past two and a half weeks...)

"...Dr. Bones Cookie?"

"H-huh!?"

The doctor, startled at the mention of their name, almost dropped their clipboard but managed to catch it in the nick of time. Vampire Cookie tilted his head, but said nothing.

"G-Good Tingly-Bones! Is there something wrong???" the doctor asked as they checked through their papers, making sure they were still in order. (Alchemist Cookie was dreading when she would have to hear whatever those said...)

"No. I just... I know my brother has to drink juice to sustain himself, right...? But... is that really true? Is there really nothing else he can-"

They immediately sighed, as Vampire Cookie shifted uncomfortably in place but didn't say a word. They started to explain:

"Err, your brother is an... interesting Cookie. His dough contains around 10% strong grape juice- that would be strawberry jam in any other grown Cookie, but-"

"He's different. In a lot of ways. I know already."

She didn't intend for that to sound so bitter.

"...w-well," they continued, "they don't exactly put too much about vampires in medical literature, so what I do know is limited, but... normally they have to drink the jam of other desserts... but if his body's composition substitutes juice for jam, then-"

"My brother substitutes juice for jam as well..."

Vampires were jamsuckers- She'd heard about that. She'd never seen her brother personally do such a thing... except in a few scuffles, but that was just the way he fought dessert monsters and such- he didn't do such things recreationally, and never to another Cookie.

...But what she saw in movies and read and novels, heard about in horror stories, about Cookies like him, the things she tried to deny due to the occasional discrepancy and knowing her brother wasn't a monster...

How could she keep denying her brother's namesake at that point...?

Vampire Cookie turned his back to the other two, as if he didn't want any attention paid to him. 

(...they were kinda talking about him as if he weren't right there in the room, weren't they...?)

Dr. Bones Cookie paid him no mind:

"That's my theory, at least. But make no bones about it, he certainly does have it in him to drink jam if he's desperate enough..." they shot a mildly disgruntled look in her brother's direction, "Never set up a jam transfusion with a starving vampire in the room, if I've learned anything..."

She could see shivers travel up her brother's back, and his face turned redder than its usual tinge- but the way it burned his cheeks was unfamiliar compared to the drunken flush she was accustomed to seeing him with. He whispered a "sorry" under his breath with his eyes pointed towards her.  Dr. Bones Cookie's focus appeared to shift before Alchemist Cookie could bargain ask any further questions:

"Speaking of which: Vampire Cookie, I need to discuss a few things with you..."

Dr. Bones Cookie pulled Vampire Cookie to the side- or at least, they tried to. Vampire Cookie wasn't so easily moved. 

"What things...?"

"Err, concerning the patient. I-I know this isn't my field of expertise, but I... I just have a few concerns, and, um..." the doctor glanced over at Alchemist Cookie for a moment, and then returned their attention to Vampire Cookie as they lowered their voice to a whisper that was still not low enough for her not to hear: "(have you thought about signing her up for counseling with Chamomile Cookie...??)"

"..."

Vampire Cookie seemed more compliant after that. The two stepped a bit further away- just far enough that as they talked to each other quietly, she couldn't hear a single word they were saying. Probably something about her that they didn't want her to hear just yet, she assumed...

(...counseling... they were going to put her into counseling...

Something about that knotted up her stomach further than it had already been twisted. Counseling was for Cookies who needed help, for Cookies who cried. Alchemist Cookie didn't need help, she didn't cry.

...

Oh, who was she even kidding at this point?

Gosh, she was really SICK, wasn't she...?)

...she was caught between a rock and a hard place.

Juice or jam.

...

Nothing could ever be perfect, could it? He seemed so deeply discomforted with just the sight of strawberry jam, and of course he'd be: Hungering for the lifeblood of another living being, that was... a disturbing idea, even to her. It wasn't even up for consideration.

Neither of them would be happy like that. 

She didn't want him to be unhappy like that. 

...in the back of her head, she did ponder what life would be like like that, if he drank jam instead of juice. But the reveries of her brother being more active, more aware, more... there were quickly broken by visions of him sucking the life out of other Cookies' necks like a scene right out of a horror movie.

She didn't think he would hurt her... maybe. Otherwise she probably wouldn't be alive right now.

(...once she thought about it, what she pictured of her brother acting ideally... wasn't even that different from the way he was acting right now, or... even how he acted normally... when he wasn't too drunk, at least...)

That grape juice aroma that had lingered around their lives, it was by no means a good thing. It would've been so much better if they could just be rid of it entirely. But they couldn't have that. Life would never be perfect. But for what they could do, for what they did have, it was just something they had to put up with.

'It could've been worse' was never the best thought to turn to- but even it had its uses...

...

It could've been worse.

He could've been so much worse

He could've been like those vampires from the movies and myths, cruel and uncaring and violent- some cold count, creeping around the darkness, hunting unsuspecting Cookies like a predator stalking its prey...

But for all his flaws, all his shortcomings, everything he could improve on, everything he should improve on...

He cared about her. Enough to try cutting back on juice by himself. Enough that he cared about her happiness even when he didn't know the full extent of her pain. 

He came all the way out here to the hospital just to be by her side, when normally such a thing was too much work to him. He tried to respect her boundaries when he saw it was getting to her. He tried to cook for her, when he had never touched a stove, because she wouldn't eat...

She'd thought he wouldn't have cared if she were to crumble right before his eyes. 

Those same eyes had dampened her crumbling face with a gentle rain of tears as he said "I love you..."

(He loved her enough that he was willing to put in the effort to make a change.

He didn't really know how to do it the best way, and maybe things could never go as far as she'd have dreamed of, but... maybe, they could work it out...)

"Alchemist Cookie?"

She had been lost in her thoughts for long enough that the other two had finished their conversation and walked back to the side of her bed. Dr. Bones Cookie was trying to address her while her brother was standing next to them... and while she couldn't read his expression, it didn't seem very joyous.

"...what is it?"

She could read their deliberation in the stuttering of false starts, of "well"s and "you see"s, as they struggled for words, nervous sweat running down, before they at last got a sentence going:

"(How do I say this...) S-so, from the jam test results and what your brother said was found in your room... Good Tingly-Bones, kid, you shouldn't even be alive right now!! H-How much of that mixture of yours did you drink!?"

She wasn't shocked by their disbelief- she'd felt about the same way, after all. But what surprised her, thinking about how to answer their question... was the answer she ended up giving:

"I-I... don't know... I think it was... I drank it every day, for... a week, and a half...?"

(Two and a half weeks didn't leave much up to interpretation. But it still just felt too short... but... no, no, things had really just deteriorated that quickly. And that was what confounded her so. And yet it all blurred together in her head and dragged on for so long...)

"...how much of it every day, exactly...?"

"...I-I wasn't keeping track, I just filled the vial in my room, I think..."

She could hardly fathom the lack of plan or reason in what she had no way of denying had been her own fully conscious actions. She wasn't even sure what to think of herself at this point.

Dr. Bones Cookie sighed, murmuring something about 'treatment' before speaking with a resigned voice: "I-I'll just... keep it brief: That concoction contained some of the most dangerously toxic substances known to Cookiekind... and those substances are all over your body right now. Most of them don't even have known antidotes...! I've given you what I could, but most of what I can do is treat the symptoms until this clears out of your body on its own... (hopefully). You'll be staying here until I'm certain you're in a good condition...!"

None of this was anything she didn't either already know or couldn't have figured out on her own. And yet, hearing the words said out loud, she felt the weight of her circumstances really sink in.

...but one thing stood out to her, regardless:

"...I-I can't go home...?"

"Your body can't fight this on its own. I-it's going Tibia LONG road to recovery, but with proper care... (well, let's just hope your condition stays stable, at least...)."

Alchemist Cookie frowned. Did they really have to try lightening the mood like that...?

"...Dr. Bones Cookie...? How long will it be...?"

"...my best guess right now is at least a month..."

(...that didn't sound like a concrete estimate...)

Vampire Cookie pulled his cape over his face. 

"D-D-Doc said that..." he started with a lachrymose voice, "that no one can really do anything but hope for the best right now. Nothing else. We c...can't control what happens, s-so..."

He turned away and began walking towards the door sulkily.

"I should get going, visiting hours are over. I'm taking too much of their time anyways..."

It didn't even feel as if it had been that long. Were visiting hours that short? Or... how long had he been waiting for her to wake up...?

The sound of his footsteps as he trudged to the door made Alchemist Cookie feel... something that called her to ask, just to make sure:

"You'll come back tomorrow, right...?"

He stopped just before he could touch the handle, at first seeming completely frozen for a few seconds before he at last responded:

"...y-yeah, of course...! Just..." he looked back at her, "don't go anywhere! Okay?"

And with that, he opened the door and staggered out, letting it slam shut behind him.

The weeping was loud enough she could still hear it, unmoving for minutes until finally fading away.

And thus, Alchemist Cookie was left to intensive care. 

Not exactly the intensive care unit, but she couldn't be picky like this.

"...Dr. Bones Cookie?" Alchemist Cookie said. "...when do you think I'll be able to move, or... touch things.... or do anything again?

"Hmm... well... you're able to communicate. That's a good start."

The recovery process over the next few days didn't have a lot to do, with her being stationary as Dr. Bones Cookie managed her condition and kept it from worsening. Even just the fact she hadn't been able to eat for those days was causing problems; Dr. Bones Cookie explained to her that had her brother not told them at the scene about her malnourished state, they would've immediately put her onto parenteral nutrition... which would've triggered refeeding syndrome. She had to be slowly and carefully replenished, gradually increasing back to normal amounts... via catheter in the arm. It wasn't even certain if the damage to her stomach could heal in full.

(She asked them to give it to her while she was asleep. She wanted to be able to move freely the moment she recovered)

Despite this lack of action, her second day of regained consciousness was... not what she would call boring, with a curiosity like hers. She was constantly asking questions about her condition, and when she wasn't doing that, she was thinking over it herself. After all, medicine was a key facet of alchemy.

Would she ever be able to do alchemy again? Was she still even Alchemist Cookie without that? She didn't have anything else that had defined her at this point. She didn't know what to think of herself.

As promised, Vampire Cookie came to visit, more punctual than she had ever seen him been in her life. He seemed a bit less 'out of it' than when he had left, from the moment he was allowed into the room. But he still seemed a little off, the way he was so obviously catching his breath, sweating, as if he had ran all the way there from their home.

...

That was it, wasn't it.

That wasn't it for the odd behavior, though- as soon as he could breathe, he immediately went on questioning her about how the doctor was treating her (well), how comfortable she was (as much as she could be), if she was doing any better (...)...

...he was more alert than usual, more agitated. It was apparent to her that he was still depriving himself, even though she was no longer in his care. He kept pulling his cape over his mouth whenever he wasn't speaking, and when he did speak, she couldn't help but notice that faltering tone of his voice. That barely noticeable reddish tinge tainting his eyes, threatening to consume

...he seemed hesitant to stand too close to her. Whenever even just a hand or a foot would cross some theoretical line, he'd pull it back immediately, as if he couldn't be near her. 

...

That conversation she had had with Dr. Bones Cookie must have really gotten to him, hadn't it? Everything she had said that day in general, to the point he's ended up in a situation like this: denying himself the satiation that would give himself security here.

"I-I'm sorry if I'm a bit... antsy today, I just... i-it's just been really stressful with everything happening, I just-"

His stomach grumbled, shutting him up and putting a look of apprehension clear on his face. He backed a few steps away from her. 

She rolled her eyes, just as a gesture to tell him that his fears were all in his mind: He wouldn't do anything to her; it simply wasn't in his nature.

She trusted him.

She wasn't used to doing that, now that she thought about it. But after what happened in her lab, she felt she could start.

...

The following days of slow recovery, each and every one, he would come in like this. Every single day, for every last minute allotted to visit, he would keep his distance from her, yet still question her as much as possible. She could tell this was eating him up, but she didn't really know how to address it. She didn't want him to be unhealthy.

"...just remember to feed yourself, silly," she said abruptly one day as he left.

"Huh? O-of course I will, I haven't been... d-don't worry about it, sis. It's your turn to relax, anyways."

"But-"

The door cut her off. She made a mental note to shift her research into vampirism the moment she could pick up a book again. Whenever that day would be. If that day would ever come. Every single night, as she was dragged down into sleep, her greatest fear was that she wouldn't rise the next day. 

It was the very next day that she would finally regain the strength to move. She didn't try to sit up without the support of the bed- she wasn't sure she was quite ready for that yet- but she could finally lift her arms. Every movement ached, and it was clear her mobility still had a lot to improve on, but it was there. 

After some discussion and a close examination of her dough, Dr. Bones Cookie finally supposed they could relent on the 'no touch'

She saved her energy for when her brother arrived, and the moment he sauntered in looking in much better shape than when she had last seen him. He seemed less tired, no signs that he had ran- probably started walking sooner, given he still arrived on time- and he immediately was much more comfortable standing close to her. His eyes were perfectly purple, too. Calling him out must have made him get himself together, she supposed.

It was almost jarring to see how much more relaxed his demeanor had become, however.

"Alchemist Cookie, hey! What's up? How's it been?"

...well, he was acting more like his usual self, at least. Casually leaning against the air, floating next to her with his arms behind his head- it was the grape juice smell that confirmed it to her, though: He really had listened to her this time.

She felt nihility creeping up on her. Even though she had been the one to tell him to do it, she still felt this bitter-tasting fear in her that now she had been stable for long enough, things would just go back to the way they had been before. That he would forget this had ever happened. That he'd stop caring again...

"I'm still stuck here. Not much has changed... except for this:"

After some struggle to muster up her energy, she lifted her arms up and held them out and open. And immediately, Vampire Cookie gasped:

"Wait... does this mean what I think it means...?"

He tossed a look at Dr. Bones Cookie, who, after a moment's pondering, seemed to realize what he was referencing and answered:

"W-well, I suppose so... but if you're going to do that again, then you at least need a SHOWER first for sanitation's sake-"

"I washed my hands, that's good enough for me!!"

"H-hey!!!"

Paranoid as they were well-meaning, the doctor tried to grab hold of his cape, but he had already poofed into his smaller form before they could stop him (and all they could do was sigh in resignation). And before Alchemist Cookie could react, she found herself hit square in the chest by the force of what could've easily been mistaken for a baseball if he hadn't been so soft. 

She took the smaller juice bat into her hands gently, holding him out in front of her. The smile on his face was almost infectious... 

"You look so stupid right now, you know."

She couldn't help it. It was such a big, dumb smile.

A big, dumb, warm and loving smile.

"You really..."

Her mouth twitched and her eyes softened. He really was that happy to see her get better. He really cared that much.

"You..."

She took him up closer to her face, and as he nuzzled against her cheek...

She smiled.

She hadn't had a true, happy smile on her face in so, so long.

She hadn't felt truly happy in so, so long.

She had forgotten what it had felt like, to feel secure in the world, that others loved her; to feel that love as it existed right next to her in all its warmth without obstruction or oblivion; to feel all warmth of emotion through the cold of the physical body. She felt that emptiness being filled.

He felt warm to her. She didn't mind if he was cold to the dough. The warmth and love of a familial embrace had finally reached her, and she felt happier than she could ever remember being in recent times. Maybe ever. She didn't know anymore, and she didn't need to; It didn't matter. She was just so happy to have this moment, to have her brother here with her, to be here right now and to experience this joy.

This love.

"...sis? You're crying all over me, y'know... are you alright?"

"Y-yeah, this is... *sniffles* I've never been better..."

She hugged him close to her chest, with all of her limited strength. As limp as her arms were... perhaps that was a good thing: She likely would've crushed him otherwise. She was squeezing him as if she'd never gotten a hug before, as if he hadn't given her one a million times over. 

...he had. But this time, it just felt different. She wasn't being clung to obnoxiously by a tipsy Cookie; this was a genuine moment of reciprocal tenderness, where everything felt just right.

This was something personal. Meaningful. 

"...well, I'm not complaining."

"I-I can't remember the last time I was this happy..."

She felt all warm and fuzzy inside...

She felt so happy to be alive.

"(...maybe Dr. Bones Cookie was right...)"

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

(She had a feeling she knew what he meant... and maybe she didn't have to worry about it. It would spoil the moment, anyways.)

Her recovery seemed to go by a lot faster after this, with her gradually regaining strength in her limbs even if the pain remained. Her brother continued visiting everyday, and now she was the one asking him questions- making sure he was still taking care of his own needs (even if he looked like it already), that they would be hanging out as much as possible the moment she was out of there (she already had several activities planned out), and...

With his little juice bat self nestled in her hair, she asked:

"...why didn't you ever tell me you weren't happy?"

"...hmm?"

"I remember what you said, you know. You said you aren't really that happy."

"...well, why didn't you ever tell me you're never happy?"

"..."

"Besides-"

"I just didn't think you'd care, I guess."

"...Alchemist Cookie-"

"B-but, you always talk about how much you love your life, right...? How do you love your life if you aren't happy??"

"...you know, sis, there's always going to be stuff that makes you unhappy. And sometimes you can't do anything about it. But... I guess what I've learned is... not to think about it all the time. You just have to think about the stuff that makes you happy instead, y'know...? Like, say..." 

She felt his wings pressed down on her head.

"My most precious treasure."

"...what would that be?"

She tilted her head, her eyes shifting upwards despite not making him more visible. He replied, shortly yet sweetly:

"My brilliant little sister who's the smartest Cookie on Earthbread."

"..."

She didn't feel as if she deserved to be called that. But... it felt good hearing someone say it. 

Hearing him say it.

"Love ya, sis."

"...love you too."

For a moment, she didn't really feel sick anymore.

~~~

The poison was finally clearing out of her system; the battle was over, and she had been victorious. But alas, war was not without its casualties:

Dr. Bones Cookie had been quite apologetic, and very apparently frustrated about their own limitations the entire time, even if no one held it against them that they were essentially running an entire miniature hospital by themself. When Alchemist Cookie was finally discharged, she was essentially wheelchair-bound. She wasn't incapable of walking, but the pain and fatigue that it brought was too much to be reasonable, and she was far too at risk of stumbling, falling, getting hurt-

The amount of time it would take to recover her walking ability was uncertain. If she ever did, then the disuse of her legs would likely mean she'd need physical therapy to be able to use them again. But at this point, she was just happy to go home...

Even if she would still need some degree of taking care of. The doctor still recommended she spend most of the day resting at the very least. Her brother would have to take care of her, against all protests of hers. She had been taken care of for long enough. 

She was certain it made him no better than what he had been. 

But he seemed... just fine with this prospect...?

"What if I never get better...? What if you're stuck taking care of me for the rest of my life?"

"C'mon, sis, aren't you the one who goes on about giving stuff in return...? Honestly, you shouldn't have been giving it in the first place, but... hey, at least now you get to sit back and relax, right?"

"..."

"...come on, give yourself a break for once. You deserve it, you know."

...

Recovery really was going to be a long process...

But she had her brother, and he was actually going to put in the effort to moderate himself. And she had never been more happy to be in those grape juice-smelling rooms of their home again.  

(The smell had just barely begun to fade...)

And there at home at last, they were surprised by her brother's friends- Sparkling Cookie had been trusted to watch the house for all the times her brother was out to see her, and with how Vampire Cookie had so excitedly relayed the news to him that she was coming home that day, he had invited Herb Cookie and Mint Choco Cookie over to welcome them home. 

...the latter two were clearly more there for her brother, and she supposed she couldn't blame them as beyond the belated 'thank you's for keeping her alive until the ambulance had arrived, she didn't really have anything to say to them either. They just didn't really know each other that well. 

...

But the former, sitting to the side and patiently listening to the rest, chiming in here and there- she wheeled right up to him and plainly stated:

"I'm sorry."

"...for what?" He tilted his head slightly.

"..." she took a deep breath, in and out: "you were just trying to help me, and I was... really mad at you. You didn't deserve... that."

"...oh. Oh. I see... It's alright, Alchemist Cookie. I'm just happy to see you've recovered from your... sickness..."

He looked deeply uncomfortable with just that one last word. 

"...you don't have to sugarcoat it, you know. I know you're the one who found out."

"..." his smile fell: "I won't pry, but... just know," he said with a gentle tone as he pushed some of her hair away from her face, "you can always come talk to me if you need someone to listen."

"..."

She smiled.

"...thanks, Sparkling Cookie." 

That very night when they had come home together, once everyone else had left and it was just her and her brother again, as she was still getting used to her new mode of movement, Alchemist Cookie found she had trouble getting through the door to her own room. She would be able to just barely reach the doorknob, but the true problem lay in that her door opened outwards... and she wasn't that good at maneuvering herself, thus she didn't know if she could find a way to get around the door hitting her when it opened. She didn't know how to keep it open as she entered, either.

...she ended up having to ask Vampire Cookie for help, already. Just to get the door for her.

(...maybe asking for help wasn't so bad after all...)

She realized immediately upon entering the room how much tidier it was compared to how she had left it, after she had messed it up creating her concoction and neglected to clean up after herself. But now, even that poison of hers had been scrubbed from the cauldron, and under the moonlight through the now open curtains she could see: Neither jam nor venom spat smeared the floor...

Good riddance, she thought.

(She'd have to thank Sparkling Cookie for this, most likely...)

Stains were left behind- forever to remind of that incident, never able to be scrubbed clean. But perhaps some things were best left unforgotten.

Once she was close enough to her bed, she was able to use her limited walking ability to get herself into it. Crumbs, that hurt really bad. 

...and her brother came to tuck her in, even though she tried to reject it. 

"This is humiliating...!"

"There's nothing humiliating about a little TLC, sis."

"It just feels so... It's like you're treating me like a kid."

"...Alchemist Cookie, you are a kid."

"..."

She'd never really thought about it before, but...

She was a kid. Yet she'd never really gotten to be one. Always at work in her lab, always worrying about things she couldn't control... and always taking care of an adult who wouldn't care for himself. That had been her life for so long. That had been her 'normal.'

She didn't know how to live without asphyxia. She had always wanted to breathe, but now that she could, she didn't really know what to do with herself. Everything she could do had long since faded to obscurity in her mind. All those hobbies of hers had grown dusty, forgotten...

But... she could work on it now. She could go out and make friends and read books and look at the stars and do anything she wanted. She could finally enjoy alchemy again.

She had made a mental note earlier, hadn't she...? To get to work on something?

...she could throw that aside for now. Right now wasn't the time for that.

...she could spend quality time with her brother and he wouldn't be too drunk to remember, maybe. A lot of the plans she had come up with for them would probably need modification, given her current indefinite condition, but she wouldn't let anything stop her from having this, now that she had it. 

She knew she could've had it more smoothly, but there was no going back. Things could've been worse, anyways. Better not worrying about things out of her control.

She had bettering things to think about now.

That very second day she was home, after getting changed out of that hospital gown she had left on (getting dressed was difficult, but it was something she could do by herself, lying on her bed...)- which she would have to wash and return later- she had her first real meal in a long time, and he was the one who cooked it. He insisted on learning this on his own, on learning to do things for himself. 

For her.

(He was adamant on washing that hospital gown too)

It tasted... not too bad, really. She could appreciate the effort this time. She put on her best smile, and happily ate away. Even if it wasn't the best.

Maybe someday it could be great.

Just watching her eat seemed to overwhelm her brother with so much emotion, that before she could even take her last bite she found him crying over her shoulder with nothing but pure joy.

"W-welcome back, sis...!"

It had been so long since she had been in another Cookie's embrace and really embraced it for herself; something about it just brought her own emotions out. And the two of them spent a good minute or two crying in that awkward position, him standing next to her sitting at the table by that mediocre meal still cooked with love, just grateful that they were both alive and had each other and that they could finally communicate.

And it was their unspoken promise to put communication above all, because that could've saved them so much hardship in the first place.

And they were never going to let anything like this happen ever again.

Over the course of the month, healing had its bumps in the road. Alchemist Cookie and Vampire Cookie were trying their hardest to get better, to make things better- and they were getting better, of course. But both of them would sometimes fall back into old habits: Vampire Cookie would occasionally fail to keep himself in check, and Alchemist Cookie's issues were a chronic mess. He'd sometimes fall to temptation and drink enough to forget, and in turn she would cry her eyes out and sometimes fall to her darker urges, and he would cry his own eyes out the moment he saw what he caused.

But they were both aware, willing to communicate, and ready to work on it all; For themselves, for each other, for family. They'd try to keep an eye on each other, to keep an eye on themselves- Vampire Cookie especially. And the day he was able to go out to the bar and come home by himself, without needing another Cookie to cut him off- the two of them couldn't have been happier. 

Beginning about a week and a half after she came home, her sessions with Chamomile Cookie were... cathartic, in a sense. She had been hesitant to spill to some Cookie that she didn't know, but the soothing, floral aroma of the cabin was enough to put her mind at ease, and she was assured that she could talk about anything on her mind. Knowing she wasn't forced to wrench things out against her will, she just started talking about her day. 

...and eventually, she started loosening up, started spilling her feelings out over a cup of tea, and she found that a burden had been lifted. Chamomile Cookie would listen to her; that Cookie wasn't that conversational, but she was a Cookie who Alchemist Cookie could confide in. 

She was able to engage more socially with other Cookies again. Pretty much the moment her acquaintances had found out she had 'been sick' (of course, certain details were never to be disclosed) and saw the lingering effects, they were all over her, so to speak. Always well-meaning, but sometimes they were a bit much. 

...she'd never really thought of herself as having many real friends. Maybe really any. She just didn't keep in touch enough. She loved having friends, but they always came and went. But seeing so many Cookies going out of their way to talk to her again made her think, perhaps the problem was just that she hadn't been able to see them.

Gingerbrave was ever the friend to all, of course- the moment he'd seen her rolling around the Cookie Kingdom, he had so many questions about what happened to her and if she was healthy and, really, she didn't want to answer most of them. Fortunately, he wouldn't keeping pressing after she asked him to stop. 

He tried to make an effort to include her in any big events- even if he didn't know too much about how wheelchairs worked or how to accommodate for them. But she did notice some construction work being done on the library for a while, and by the end of it a ramp had been installed. 

She just had a hunch on who ordered that, even if it never directly came up between them. But she had it in her head to repay him someday, whenever she could figure out something suitable.

She was happy to go to the library again. She used to spend so much time there, immersing herself in stacks of books from opening to closing while the the smell of paper would stimulate her hunger for knowledge... 

She decided to try actually checking out the books she'd read this time, to read at home for a change. Things had gotten much brighter around the house anyway; she actually had enough lighting to read, now. She wasn't sure if it was just from opening the curtains or what, but...

One day, she ran into Sparkling Cookie, returning those old textbooks she had memorized over. It... made her laugh once she realized what he'd been doing. Even if she had to thank him again. 

(When had she last laughed, again...?)

Once, and only once, she even had Wizard Cookie of all Cookies just walk up to her out of the blue and hand her a 'get well soon' card, muttering something into his scarf that she couldn't quite make out.

...she couldn't exactly call it a half-hearted effort considering he left an entire hand-written message, but...

'Dear Alchemist Cookie,'

He had written that above the card's printed-on 'Get Well Soon!' message. The rest continued below:

'I sincerely hope that you're in good health right now.

What happened to you? Did you get injured or something? Some kind of alchemical accident?

(P.S. if that's what happened, maybe try MAGIC next 

Actually whatever happened, just get better, will you? It's so BORING without you around! I miss debating with you, honestly. (Don't tell anyone I said that or you're as good as crumbled)

Sincerely,

Wizard Cookie'

...it was so funny to her, she had to stifle a laugh when she read it. This was his best attempt, just to say that he cared...?

...he cared...

Even her bitter rival cared.

...Cookies cared about her. Cookies looked at her when she came by, smiled at her, listened to her speak about alchemy on end...

(And maybe they'd always done that. But she'd never looked for it until now.)

And if no one else had time for her some days, she could always come home and cozy up to her brother on the couch at night, and he'd wrap an arm or his cape around her while she read herself to sleep or ramble to him and he'd try to keep up. And he was so pleasantly cool, just enough to warm her heart.

And whatever the future would be, however much she'd recover in the months proceeding, she knew: It was better.

[solradguy]

Waaaaaghhh!! I love the art where Sol has a bit of a rounded jaw! I think he looks so much more mischievous! Now he has an angular jaw, which I still like, but it makes him look grumpier! One of them is the tricky swindler while the other is the fearsome grumbler!

This is purely an aesthetic difference though. They’re both pretty grumpy

Ngl I usually reference Daisuke's illustrations for Sol's face more than his in-game model so I always forget that they totally changed his face shape in the 3D realm (Strive & Xrd in-game screenshots vs illustrations from Artworks GGX 2000-2007):

But his very, very, first—from 1995—3D model had a jaw shape closer to how Daisuke generally draws it, which is interesting. And a little funny (from Dengeki PlayStation vol.10, October '95):

I love how inconsistently Daisuke draws him in general though, genuinely. It's very "I'm the artist and this is what I feel like drawing today," which I respect and feel on a spiritual level haha

These are all from the Overture Material Collection. Not even his hair or skin color are consistent and these were likely done all in the same year rofl

[inamagicalhallucination]

i know i say that atsushi likes to spend his extra cash on kyouka but i also dont think kyouka lives there for "free" like she could, atsushi wouldn't mind, but i feel like it makes more sense for her to contribute since its not like atsushi's rolling in cash

maybe atsushi wouald be hesitant at a 50-50 thing becuz she's so little and he cares so much about her but i dont believe its 0-100 ya know?

[herearedragons]

tag the oc that's most likely to get stuck in a time loop and what kind of time loop it would be