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rel124c41 · 1 month ago

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GOT YOU (WHERE I WANT YOU) (AS HEARD IN THE MOVIE DISTURBING BEHAVIOR). jade leech

In Jade’s logical mind, there is only one concrete truth: You are getting bored of your boyfriend.

1/3.

tags: no grim AU, established relationship, social criticism, piercings/tattoos, misunderstandings, hurt/comfort, punk!jade leech

word count: 9,684

It is hard to pin down when it started.

For a man who likes to keep himself organized – his books, his shoes, his bedsheets, his life, his mind – it should not be this difficult to pinpoint the start. Perhaps because this change can be attributed to a number of variables, it puzzles him so. In his mind, he tries outlining all of them: Is it because your three month honeymoon phase has passed?; is it possibly an underlying issue he has never noticed?; or, could it be — well, Jade would rather not think about that third option.

Perhaps it is not really important to pin down when it started. Does the beginning matter when already so deep in the middle? Besides, there is a more pressing matter at hand: “How about this one,” Jade holds it up to his brother, “if you do not use it, I’m throwing it away.”

What he holds in his hand is a long sheet of glistening paper. A tattoo sticker measured to be a full arm sleeve that depicts a lion head at the top, prayer hands, and three crosses at the bottom like headstones. Not Jade’s style. “Naaaah.” And apparently, not Floyd’s either. Jade tears it down the middle and discards it in his trash.

As he flips through the other choices, the same question winds itself around in the train station of his mind, stubbornly refusing to halt. It is hard to pin down when it started. When did it start?

Maybe it started in the prologue. Or perhaps it predates the prologue, starting in the preface. The preface where his stomach twisted itself into the most complex, intricate sailor knots when you looked at him. That awful preface where he had to hold a hand to his heart to muffle the sound of it when you smiled at him.

If he was trying to pin down when his attraction towards you emerged like some parasite, there are so many prefaces to start upon. For example, there is the time when:

You sat perched on the cobblestone wall in the main courtyard with a pocket-sized copy of Animal Farm in hand, balancing it between your fingers like teacup ceramic. Dark, heavily mascaraed eyelashes flutter as your eyes slice up each sentence and devour them on your tongue like greasy, hot pink stripes of bacon. Then, those cold marbles – that looked at him fleetingly, glossed over like he was not worth dissecting – caught him beyond a window and held eye contact undeterred.

– or –

You sang with a microphone in hand, caught in a spin with one leg tucked up so your skirt fluttered with your single circulate, “Exhibitiiion is the name! Voooyeurism is the game!” Pinched between forefingers, you lifted up an edge of the box pleat skirt to cheekily reveal a lace pair of coconut white thong panties. In the back, Floyd — who Jade was sent to retrieve after he abruptly left his shift at Mostro Lounge — hammers away on the drums, taking up the spot for an ill Kalim at your pleads.

– or –

The time you had piqued the eel-mer’s interest by stumping and finding a flaw in his land knowledge due to a simple misunderstanding. Jade – who admittedly still had a lot to learn about the current world above sea – had heard in the rumor mill he frequented that you wore a two-way. He had assumed it was something less than innocent until you flipped open a prehistoric device not even talked about in Land Boot Camp and told him excitedly it was cutting-edge technology from your world.

– or – “I like that one.”

Snapped out of his reminiscing, Jade blinks down at the tattoo sticker he has not fully been paying attention to. It depicts an oceanic scene of a Poseidon made of water rising from the waves where a doomed ship falls into an octopus’s grip. It also ends with a sunken statue head of Poseidon where Jade’s wrist would be.

The one that Floyd likes, Jade does not find himself sharing the sentiment. Bit too on the nose. Besides: “I don’t think (Name) would though.” Which is why he goes to place it back down. His bones jolt in surprise before he can pick up the next one.

“AHA! I knew it! ‘Just wanted to change my own aesthetic’ – knew this was for Shrimpy.”

On Jade’s desk, sixteen more of the remaining tattoo stickers lie. Fifteen remain on the desk when Jade pointedly analyzes one to ignore Floyd’s revelation. He subtly grits his teeth in annoyance, upset that by slipping into memories, he also allowed his words to slip.

“It is not for her. I am simply keeping her preferences in mind. We are dating after all.”

Those concrete words – dating – help to alleviate a small sliver of Jade’s anxiety over his current situation. That despite the feeling of everyone wanting to have a piece of you, he had been the only one to succeed. He got the whole pie and he would not be sharing a slice with anyone. He is impossibly greedy to the end.

Yet, it seems his disdain for this situation (because it is so hard to pin down the start of it) must show on his face. “Aw poor Jade.” His brother’s voice is more mocking than sympathetic. “Trouble in Shrimpy paradise?”

“Nothing of the sort.”

Floyd hums as he leans back into bed. “It totally is. I can see it ya face.”

“Please, keep talking. And I assure you will soon find out what talking while missing a tooth feels like.”

“Hehe. Yeah, you wish.”

“Wishing is for people afraid to act. Let me remind you, I am very much a do-er.”

The laugh that escapes Floyd is genuinely amused. Jade drops fake malice from his grin into something softer. At least, Jade can count on his brother for when matters in life get too complicated, both can retreat to this small dormitory and rely on the other.

Matters of dating are so complicated and unnecessary. For moray eels in the Coral Sea, the equivalent of dating involves typically half a decade of elaborate gifts and proving themselves as a fierce protector before a kiss even happens. On land, it has proven to be much more complex. Friends can evolve to lovers; they can vary from lasting three months to two years to the rest of their lives. How fickle. Cater Diamond had mentioned that phrase humans go through, a three month honeymoon, before the other partner ‘flakes out’ (Cater’s words) with their affection. When a child grows bored, they find a new toy under the Christmas Tree to tear into.

Jade likes to think you would not be the type … but, as observative as he is, he knows better. It is almost scary how similar and identical the disposition between you and his brother is. You two are always chasing the next high. Fluttering through life, you refuse to be bored ever.

Which is why, perhaps, Floyd is finally able to pinpoint the start. After an interlude of silence, shuffling through a few more prints, Floyd breaks the quiet with a contemplative sentence. “It’s because of that time ya went to that record store, ain’t it?”

Hooked like a fish, Jade only gives his acknowledgement of Floyd’s response by tearing a lightning bolt through the sticker. A faultline forms through a pinup sitting cheekily on a pair of dice and a heart with a king’s crown hovering over it. As the casino-themed sticker is casted aside into the trash, his twin knows he hit the nail on the head.

“Pike Cichlid again? That guy’s so lame. He’s got nothing on you, Jeido.” And though his twin’s encouragement is genuine and coming from a good place, it is like a teaspoon of water thrown with intent to douse out a forest fire.

That had not been the start. It had been when Jade had already found himself waist deep in this situation. So rarely caught off guard or unsure of where the start is, this whole situation seems to be the equivalent of a trap. Is love not one of life’s most fantastical imprisonment? Covered in saccharine sentiments, love can hide the worst and best in one’s self. It certainly seems that way when Jade found his ankle crunched between love’s many bear traps.

He had only noticed at the record store. Numbness worn off. Pain crashing in. And, after watching you laugh so genuinely and talk so animatedly and dance so freely, Jade realized he had fallen into an emotion that he thought he could avoid for his entire life with demure logic.

“I love that band!” Before Jade realizes what had happened, your hand had slipped out of his. The clunk of your platforms sound like ricocheting gunshots on the floor. “I thought I was the only one that knew about it.”

You glow a bit brighter with your excitement. As a frequent observer, Jade knows when the zenith of your excitement floods through each of your veins like lightning chords of gaiety. It shows so clearly on your face. You have not glowed in a while because of your concerns of filling Cater’s and Lilia’s spots in the band. A band to you is family. So, seeing someone across the store pick up a record you know fairly well, it causes each synapses of joy in your veins powers on; you glow a bit brighter, smile a bit wider.

Before he can even cover the distance between the rows of records, your mouth is moving a mile a minute. You are asking about their favorite single off the album, diving into history you know about the makings of the album, and (simultaneously jumping in place and swaying back and forth on the balls of your heels) talking about the chords you like the most, imagining yourself fully dancing along to them. Your energy is infectious. Like a sun in a solar system, everyone turns their face to you to feel your warmth. It is because of this bewitching nature of yours that Jade is late to revealing who you are talking to.

Until he notices the macaw feather that dangles from the stranger’s left ear and the golden bracelet wrapping up the stranger’s wrist, that odious laugh falling from the stranger’s lips and disrupting your laugh … Insecure is an adjective that poorly describes Jade; it is not synonymous with himself.

Other people have made you glow: Cater, Kalim, Floyd, Lilia, the list can go on. It has yet to bother him with those people. Watching how you glowed at that time was somehow different. It is different than watching Floyd bind himself around Riddle Rosehearts or Azul suction himself to Jamil Viper. The glue between the three of them is tighter than a breakable bind or a suction; their new friendships are insignificant and do not worry Jade. However …

“Nothing on me? I am assured that that guppy is irrelevant. I am hardly worried.”

The way fate sorted out their Unique Magic is nothing sort of an advantageous miracle on Jade’s behalf, what with the way Floyd’s gold eye narrows in skepticism.

“Sureee.”

The center of the situation is this: Jade could not go back to being nothing in your eyes. A sentence to skim over. A body to ignore in the crowd. A musical chord progression you do not find interesting enough to play.

So, he pulls out another tattoo sleeve sticker from the pile.

It depicts a scene of engorged, psilocybin mushrooms with fat stems that travel in a mountain trail spiral. Some of the psilocybin will reach up to the skies on his shoulder. Like a giant artifact, a larger-than-life skull is found on this pathway, vomiting up bulbophyllum phalaenopsis. Which are actually interesting species of flowers Jade would love to tell you about as long as your attention persists.

“Help me apply this.”

“We’re twenty. Why don’t ya just a real tattoo?”

“Pliers or my fist?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got ya.”

If you put up with him a bit longer, he will prove the rest of the student body is dull.

With two of your band members graduated, it has been a wild scramble from both you and Kalim Al-Aism to find people to fill those holes.

This timeline, Jade has outlined perfectly. In September, yours and his relationship was on a rocky tectonic plate. Switching and rolling between the waves of will they, won’t they. Even though you were only friends, Jade had V.I.P tickets to the absolute distress of coming back to practice with only a drummer and singer to make up the formation of a four person band. He has never seen you act so distraught:

“You played bass?” Though the structure of it was a question, it sounds more like an accusation coming from your mouth. Marching into his space, you aim the question slash accusation at him like a knife. Your face and eyes are not friendly at that moment. The expression on your face reeks of perfidy, like he is some knight that committed treason against his King.

Which Jade finds ridiculous and endearing. The emotion in your voice as you ask him about the instrument he used to play in middle school is just so uncharacteristic that it makes him hum happily.

Not bothering to stop in his trek, Jade says with an artful dodge, “Yes. Floyd, Azul, and myself happened to be a band.” Then, he no longer elaborates. He wonders how you found out. Though, right now, he focuses on making his strides short so you can scurry after and match his pace.

“And you what? Never thought to mention it to me?”

There you go, faithfully matching his steps.

“Is it really that interesting to you?”

“I’m in the Pop Music Club. Of course it is.”

“My apologies, I did not anticipate my middle school years would be so interesting to you. Are we to now have slumber parties and reveal our deepest, darkest secrets to each other while watching a romantic comedy?”

“Jade, this is friendship 101! You tell your best friend about your time in a Band.” You say band with the paramountcy as if you found out he has been secretly working undercover for the Mafia. Capitalized importance aside, you look so cute when frowning. He wishes you were his.

“So did you use a Fender, a Gibson; I think you strike me as an Ibanez man! Oh … wait, those brands might not exist here though, right?” The way your frown morphs into genuine sadness causes something odd – concern? – to twist in his guts. Hoping to alleviate your stress, Jade answers punctually.

“I’m afraid I never heard of those brands. I played a Downton brand double bass.”

“... Double bass?”

The face you are directing towards him is horrid. It isn’t cute like when you are drawing your lips into a pitiful pout; it does not have him chuckling with satisfaction when you look at him like he has betrayed you. It is something else entirely. He has seen it before at the start of the Entrance Ceremony, where you surveyed the crowd like each individual was a wad of gum on the bottom of your soles, observing everyone’s matching robes; this is some private university, isn’t it, you spat with disgust.

Is jazz really that disgusting to you? He had never known you hated it so.

As you look at Jade like he is vomit upon your shoes, his heartbeat quickens. Under your breath, you mutter, “Ah … nevermind … that’s not what I meant. Shit.”

“(Name)?”

“Thanks for your help, Jade. I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”

“For that sleepover? I would not miss it for the world,” Jade jokes with his customer service smile.

Trying to appear unbothered, he beams. It is disheartening because you are rushing away from him, lengthening your strides twice as long as his. At least, won’t you depart on a lighthearted joke and laugh with him? It would soothe some of his worries. Yet, you simply rush away, distractedly muttering, “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”

Then, you have slipped through his grasp once again.

However, that September night, about three months ago, you did apologize to Jade for your rudeness. As you both took to watering your extensive number of pots housing oleander and planting talismans into the soil to ward off the three, ill-tempered ghosts in Ramshackle, you explained about how you are simply in a rush to fill up the spot that Cater Diamond and Lilia Vanrouge left behind. As the singer, you felt responsible for finding two new players – bass guitar and electric guitar.

Plucking a straw of sage incense from its paper sleeve, Jade assured you it was of no harm. He understood you felt a little lost without the cement foundation of a band. He knew why too. As wisps of sage incense bloomed the stick’s tip, Jade took to telling you, sincere and quiet, that he would allow you to lean upon him if you needed to.

Still caught between the riptide of will they, won’t they, both of you grew flustered. The rest of the nightly ritual of implanting protection charms and talismans against ghosts was spent in silence. That night in the parlor, you two sat a little closer to each other on the moth-eaten couch.

That had been some time ago. Since then, you managed to fill both of those spots after a lot of trial and error. Cater and Lilia had left some impressive shoes to fill, one the wildcard bass player and the other the mediator guitarist. Those sacred spots could not just be given to anyone who could successfully play a simple riff; those spots were meant for someone who viewed music as a lifeline and chords as their heartbeats. At least, that is how you described it to him.

Forming a band – in Jade’s eyes – is much like forming a business. All the gears need to be oiled and attuned to each other. Where one section is struggling, the others must take up the helm. As Azul, Floyd, and himself balanced each other out, you, Cater, Lilia, and Kalim did the same. Though the new gearheads you have acquired might be a bit too clunky or rusted, it seems that your personal business is going well.

Jade only wishes you would not mix business with pleasure – despite the glaring fact that your business is your pleasure.

Jade likes to imagine your pleasure lies somewhere else, perhaps with him.

Right now, Jade is so engrossed and deeply in the middle of business. At least until Floyd barges through the V.I.P door, loud enough that he startles the pen out of Heartslabyul student’s hand. Jade watches, stifling a grin all the while, the delicate roll the pen makes as it falls away from the contact and moves down the marble table.

“Floyd,” Azul barks indignantly.

Delighted and elevated, Floyd takes no qualms with Azul’s harsh tone. Instead, humming a light tune that Jade does not recognize, Floyd sweeps into the private meeting with a drink in his hand. His twin seeks him out right away, making his way over to the couch he is seated upon, nudging a glass in Jade’s face and repeating, “Try, try, try!”

As Jade takes the milkshake glass in hand and swirls the peppermint patterned straw, the words of Azul’s annoyance at his twin are a great thing to hear. “Floyd. How many times must I remind you not to interrupt these important meetings. I’m terribly sorry …” Jade does not listen to the student’s name, having already forgotten it, as he takes a sip of the ruby red concoction in front of him. The taste of chocolate raspberry floods his tongue.

“But, Azuuul, try this.” The peppermint straw is forcibly removed from Jade’s mouth as his twin bends it towards Azul (who sits on the same couch as Jade).

The housewarden’s face crinkles with disgust. “I would rather not. Sharing food with you two is extremely unhygienic.”

“I’m clean.”

“You wound me, Azul.”

“The both of you,” Azul grunts, shaking his head. He turns back to the Heartslabyul student, noticing the pen at the very least back in the victim’s hand. Anger mulled over a bit, he instructs Jade sternly, “Jade, tell your brother to take back his drink. We have specific times that we discuss menu item additions.”

“But I don’t know the recipe, Shrimpy made it,” Floyd whines.

“Well, quite frankly, I don’t care about that. She can —.” But before Azul and Floyd can get into an argument, Jade interrupts.

“Raspberry Riptide.” He looks contemplatively down at the red slush. Takes a sip so deep that his cheeks hollow a bit. “Hm,” he hums with the taste on his tongue, “or perhaps, Red Sea.” The milkshake glass is about halfway lighter than before when the vice-housewarden stands up elegantly.

“Huh?”

As Jade starts to speak, musical and low, he methodically takes off his blazer plus scarf and rolls up the sleeves of his lilac undershirt dorm uniform. “I’m quite assured we have everything completed here. Our dear card soldier seems to have come to a conclusive decision. I’ll return shortly.” And even if the card soldier is hesitant, the way Jade’s new tattoo moves as he flexes his forearm should be warning enough. Don’t make a dumb move.

As Jade and Floyd exit, the sound of a pen scribbling on a contract their departing sound, Jade reflects on how much influence tattoos hold.

Appearances are influential. One must learn how to construct their appearance to be what they want to be perceived. Perception starts with the linear body, speech and action comes secondary. The beginning there is easily defined and clear-cut. How you look makes all the impact stick, as Floyd has found with shoes and Jade has found with keeping his outfits ironed so neatly that not a thread is out of place.

Tattoos hold a certain volatile quality about them. Coming in such a wide variety of styles, images, and spots, each tattoo is scrutinized by an outsider’s perspective with so many unpredictable thoughts. Their father has an oceanic canvas of the Sea Witch dragging the princess’s boat down to the watery depths, all done by the extensive method of chisel tattooing. The scene inscribed upon his shoulder blades and spine commands respect. Depending on how a person wants to present themselves, they seek to alter their appearances in the best way to match their embellished image of themselves.

You’re in your uniform. Jade observes it as Floyd and him close the distance with a warm smile. Not an NRC uniform of any sorts, rather the uniform Crowley gave you for your job as janitor. You are not enrolled as a student in this college on account of having no magic.

Your appearance goes like this: the top of your coveralls is tied around hips to expose the tight, form-fitting tank top you have underneath; bumblebee yellow mechanic gloves are gripped in your right hand which you balance on your waist; a pair of thick stereophones hang around your neck (ones you found in the back of a dusty, unused computer lab); and, lastly, there is a smudge of oil on your cheek like a delicate kiss.

“Try hitting the switch now,” you instruct the Mostro Lounge worker. “Don’t hold it longer than five seconds but don’t do it less than three either. Got it?”

As the worker does as told, Floyd whispers to his brother, “Shrimpy been textin’ ya back?”

Displeasure presses an intimate kiss to Jade’s lips. As he scowls, he says with polite resistance, “As of this moment, no. That is typical though; her communication device is quite primitive and, frankly, faulty on its best days.”

“Hey, if Shrimpy heard you talk about her pager like that, she’d slap ya.”

“Perhaps. But I’d accept any reaction of her’s.”

“Sap. Ya let her kill ya?”

“I would not be opposed.”

And since they are drawing closer to you and the trash compactor you had been fixing, his brother sings one last time, “sap~” before pushing Jade towards you. Not as though he needed the shove, you were his final destination after all. Still holding the milkshake glass, predictions about what you will name it floating around in his head, Jade presses the chilled glass upon your pierced ear.

You jump; you squeak like a mouse; then, you turn your body sharply towards Jade with wide, surprised eyes. How absolutely adorable you are. The hand holding your gloves holds itself protectively over your ear as you stutter, “J-Jade! What was that!”

Giving you a toothy, mischievous grin, Jade pulls the drink so it is eye level with you. “Shouldn’t you recognize your own handiwork?”

Get it; as you are a handyman of this college? Jade waits patiently as you open your mouth, perhaps to tell him he isn’t funny (he is) or – well, your retort is unknown as the student by the sink’s trash compactor cheers happily, “it’s fixed!” And whatever fleeting amount of your attention Jade was gifted with immediately flies towards your actual handiwork. You are a bird forever uncaged.

“Good,” you say. “Now, be more careful with what goes down there. Pasta and bread, no matter how little of it, shouldn't be thrown out in the disposal. It clogs. Got it?” The staff member nods as you take to slipping your gloves inside your coverall pocket. “Good, good,” you tut in repetition.

With that, you lean down to organize your suitcase of screwdrivers and wrenches. You are filing away your hex keys by sizes. As you do, Jade steals your attention once more, “Have you ever considered working at Mostro Lounge?”

You stifle a laugh and reply with sarcasm — without turning to Jade’s disappointment — “, of course. It’s been my lifelong dream to work after high school.”

“If you are diligent about it, I’m sure you can secure the position. It would allow customers to indulge in the drinks from an alien race.”

“Alien? Heh.” Focus entirely on your plies, you click and snap each tool back into their proper placement in the suitcase’s labyrinth. “I was thinking of naming that extraterrestrial drink Raspberry Riptide.” Your head then turns and Jade almost anticipates finally getting to see your eyes. Instead, chin parallel with your shoulder, you continue, “or Red Sea. I couldn’t decide.”

“Both are creative choices.” Jade smiles fondly behind you, proud of himself for guessing correctly both of your workshopping names for the drink you made. He thought surely only one of them would be right.

“Too much alliteration in the world.”

“I disagree, you can never have enough alliteration.”

“Riveting Raspberry Riptide?”

“Riveting, Rapid Raspberry Riptide?”

You laugh, hand hovering by your lips, and it is as if all the tides have gently washed over Jade’s body. Whenever he is around you, it feels like he has drunk hundreds of candied milkshakes and smoothies. So saccharine, your mere voice leaves a tattoo of sweetness on his taste-buds.

“You’ll have all your customers tongue-tied trying to say it,” you chuckle and close your suitcase. The back of your neck is exposed as you latch all the locks. Truly, you do leave yourself too unguarded around him.

You almost hit him with your thick suitcase as you whirl up and around, giggling happily, “Hey! What’s with you today!” The back of your neck drips with the condensation from the bottom of the Riveting, Rapid Raspberry Riptide’s glass. An appreciative hum bristles in Jade’s ribcage as he catches the scent of dark oil and rich sweat radiating off your body.

Finally, looking at me again.

“I assure you, I’m acting as I typically do.”

You appear unconvinced. “Mmm, yeah right.” Those seductive witchcraft eyes map a miniature flight across Jade’s visage. “Hey, you aren’t in uniform. What gives?”

He wonders how long it will take you to discover it. Scrutiny is not a labeled weakness or strong suit of yours; your observance skills are perfectly average. However, Jade’s patience for this has been biding a fair enough amount of time until you two collided paths again. He wants to drink your reaction now. Swirling the fountain glass, red undulating in the glass like blood in his veins, Jade waits.

“Well? Is this a guessing g–?” Then, your torpid eyelashes bounce up, suddenly alert. It is good for you that Jade has a .00001 probability rate of ever spilling anything in the lounge, or you would have ended up with a new color on your tank top. “Holy hell! Jade!”

“Fufufu … don’t squeeze too hard now. The skin is quite tender.”

You hold onto Jade’s right arm as if it is a rope thrown out in rescue. As if it can save you from the boredom you must have felt all day without him here at your side. Content to be a helpful hand, Jade allows (perhaps even preens under) your constant ministrations. You are like an unstoppable force. He only has to stop when you attempt to twist his whole arm, which would have surely split Riveting, Rapid Raspberry Riptide all over yours and his shoes.

A mischievous (yet almost softly giddy) smile anchors up Jade’s lips. Silver teeth peek through as he requests, “Would you perhaps kindly indulge me on your … mile-a-minute thoughts?”

Bouncing on the balls of your feet, tracing the lines, you are full of energy. Each time your nail scrapes across the outline of a psilocybin’s stem or traces along the edges of the skull, it sends a brillant tingle up his spine. You look as if you hope to memorize the new artwork upon his skin like it is enchanting braille.

“Jade.” You squeeze his wrist and he thinks the bones might bruise. “Jade!” A wide smile blinds. “This is so, so cool! And the mushrooms! Oh, I love that it fits you so well. There’s more above your elbow right; does it go all the way up? When did you get this done?”

“Floyd helped me with it last night. The design –”

“He did the design!” You turn your head, waving at Floyd who is pestering and stealing bites from a line-cook. “Floyd!” His head springs up. “This looks so good!” From far away, Floyd’s thumb pops up to get you a positive response, chewing on rosemary bread he stole. Your mouth only halts from shouting out something from across the room again, uncaring of who hears, when something wet touches your cheek.

Like a turtle, you shrink away. Wide-eyed, you turn bewildered to stare as Jade as he removes his thumb from your cheek. “You had a bit of oil on your face.” The material of his glove is slick with his own spit and your oil. It seeps into the fabric like gray moss.

Those centipede legs of mascara flutter. Your face slowly morphs to a brighter hue, rosing up with a blush, as you suddenly turn your head away. It almost seems like you will continue your conversation with Floyd. Has his actions offended you? He had anticipated a thuggish smile on your face, not a quick, avoidant head-turn.

Under your breath, you still urge him to tell you more about the tattoo by saying, “It is a very intricate design. You and your brother work well together.”

“Fufufu, I’m glad you think so.”

You blink hard twice at the floor before remusing being yourself. Looking up at him, you question, “So, how’d it feel to be under the needle?” When he gives you a befuddled quirk of his lips, you supply him with, “during the tattoo?” That does not clear up his confusion.

“It was done with a sticker. The magical properties –”

“Boring,” you mumble under your breath. It is an ugly truth; you never say comfortable lies, too blunt for that. No guilt is your eyes. Perhaps because you thought he did not hear.

Your words spear through Jade’s chest like a whale-hunting harpoon. Or more appropriately, eel-hunting. Yet, he continues steadfast in his explanation, making sure not to stumble once. “Magical properties make it –” Yet once more, he is interrupted and it is by a student saying that they need you to look at the light fixtures while you are still here, maybe Mostro Lounge blew a fuse somewhere, could you please check?

Everyone needs to disappear. It is the only coherent thought in Jade’s mind as he shimmers silently in anger. If everyone could go away today and forever after, he would not have to play an elaborate game of hopscotch to keep your attention on him.

Always in motion, you reply to the student (who will now be working overtime tonight and receiving less pay too), “Yeah! I’ll be right there!” To him, “ Tell me about it later, yeah? I’m sure it’s … cool!”

Then, you stand on your tippy-toes to kiss his cheek. He imagines the distance must feel like a burden. After such a torturous day fixing areas of the campus, do your toes ache when you have to kiss him?

“Well, I have to shuffle along. Ain’t no rest for the wicked.”

Suitcase in hand, you follow after the student. The glass in Jade’s hand has started to drip, condensation like a dewy rainforest on the shining surface. Love you. He watches you with a forlorn brow, missing you already. Who knows when you two will see each other. It is like trying to keep track of a bus that never arrives on time, always unpredictable.

Until next time, Jade thinks, certain.

A moment or two pass.

You come barreling back into the kitchen.

You almost wipe down a staff member holding a tray of drinks. Yet, still moving like a train, you push a hand under the silver metal, steady its balance effortlessly, and continue on your track steadfast. Your destination? Well, it is quite clear as you drop your suitcase and tightly interlace your fingers with Jade’s gloved ones.

He blinks twice as you stare with the magnitude of a galaxy.

“You! Scarabia! Tonight! Will you come!”

The smile you knocked off his face in surprise slowly re-emerges. Too fast for life itself, you often give out invitations at the last moment notice. Not that he minds as he has grown to appoint free minutes and hours for your spontaneity’s usage.

Slothful and intentional in his words, Jade murmurs for only you to hear, “I would be delighted to come.”

You might as well have bioluminescence with how alight you turn at his mere words. “Sounds razer!”

Then, like a shooting star, you are gone.

There is no need for elaboration from you: him, Scarabia, tonight. Those words make a clear outline for what Jade should be expecting. If it is not a concert in Scarbia, this will be a rare glimpse of Jade’s mental prowess growing old with age.

Imagine that, he just turned twenty last month. No, he is sound of mind. He knows his starts and his ends.

There is a portion of the upcoming Animal Languages exam which he was planning on studying tonight. However, the review can surely wait for another time. It is not often you remember to invite him to one of your concerts. Always racing around, it is a frequent thing for some of your thoughts to slip out your head like cubes of bar soap. An invitation from you is something to cherish.

Jade is intentional when he chooses an outfit that will show off the full expanse of his arm. Besides the top part of his shoulder that is covered by a tee sleeve, the majority of mushrooms are shown. On pale canvas, spiraling columns of psilocybin paint an eldritch picture, slowly growing grotesque. More frayed like torn curtains and oozing like wounds.

If you had only waited a little longer, you would have seen that.

However, one should not fool themselves into thinking a perpetual motion ever stops for one silly person. Jade has always been deliberate when letting Floyd satisfy his impulses. You and his brother match in dispositions. Walking through the maw of a venomous snake with his twin, the mirror shimmering like crystals, Jade knows he only feels so assured of their bond because they are blood. Matching with fingerprints and mirroring irises.

You and him are fragile in a terrarium he is just starting to construct. The environment is so volatile. Jade chews on the words three month honeymoon and the human culture implications of it, as Floyd races away from him, calling out Sea Otter and Sea Snake.

Late in the night, Scarabia starts to cool down. The pocket dimension’s sun sets and the pocket dimension’s moon rises. That does not mean the light in Scarabia is snuffed out though. Instead, acrid scent coats the air like a thick, overused perfume. Sulfur waves puff up from the campfires placed around like chess pieces and trickle out from the lanterns that hang overhead like bats.

His nose is not used to the smell of fire. Magical fire is clean without expelling residue. Fires like the one in Scarabia – correct in nature’s chemical code and unheard of in the Coral Sea – irk his senses.

Still, Jade endures as always.

Walking deliberately, he takes in the sights of campfire light flickering unsteadily. As expected, there is quite a crowd here tonight. Most are Scarabia students, resting on draped carpets or snacking by the hors-d'œuvre, but there are a good handful of Heartslabyul, Savanaclaw, Octavinelle, and Pomefiore students. Most are gathered near the empty stage, waiting.

Some items feel out of place without their owners. Like how uncanny school hallways and mall outlets can be devoid of people walking in them. The desolate microphone on stage seems almost sad without its owner howling and singing into it.

“Jade! Jade!” But, its loneliness will soon be cured. As will his own. “Jade!”

Jade allows himself to be barreled at. He has been hit harder, but he finds he revels in the weight of your abuse the most. He wishes you would squeeze tight enough to crack a rib (as if it were a mere toothpick) as you hug him and bounce giddy on the balls of your boots.

As is routine, his nose finds the crook of your neck and inhales deeply as you ramble. “Jade! You’re not going to believe this! I get to have the first hour of the set to myself instead of having to wait the second hour! I’m so excited! Hehe!”

You pull back slightly to show him all your teeth, grinning and glowing. With your eyes closed like that, Jade memorizes the shade of eyeshadow you have on your lids. The base color is gold and the top layer mimics a tiger skin pattern. Those pretty witchcraft eyes pop open when he asks, “What will you be playing?”

“Ah, I was thinking some Suicide Machines, some Offspring … Oh! I really wanted to do Inside Out by Eve 6 but I don’t know if our new guitarist has the chords down yet.”

“New guitarist?”

“Yeah, our last one said he needed to focus on his studies more. Truth be told, I think he left because he hated how Kalim’s playing dominated over the guitars.”

“Well, Kalim certainly has a unique way of playing.”

“Yeah, but isn’t it more fun when you try out new things!”

“I suppose so. Playing without any variety is a tedious endeavor.”

“Exactly! Better to switch things up!”

After the hypocritical sentence falls out of your mouth, Jade shifts his hands from your shoulders to the swell of your hips. Now, that’s not entirely true, is it, pearl?

He will not say those words; he does not want to cause you unnecessary pain. However, he lets his hands speak for him as he comfortingly rubs the side of your left hip.

It was a grievous experience to you when Cater and Lilia graduated. You stood before them, bottom lip ceasing to stop quivering no matter how hard you bit it. There were no tear drops hanging on your centipede-leg eyelashes, but your body seemed to be stuck in mid-sob all the same. You did not deal well with band members coming and going. Yet, you slapped on a facade all the same. Perhaps you just choose to rush away from grief in the same manner you choose to rush away from everything.

“I’m sure he is a fabulous addition. Do I know him?”

“Yeah, you do! He’s actually –!”

“(Name)! Ah, I’m glad I found ya. We’re starting in ten, ya dummy.”

Jade is not surprised. The face he wears is one of clear anticipation for this very moment, cool eyes and slight smile lifting as his attention moves to your new guitarist. Truthfully, Jade had been prophesying this exact moment.

He would be a fool to not be at least three steps ahead of everyone in this lawless world. So, sliding a bare hand down the length of your arm to interlock fingers, he replies for you, “Sounds like plenty of time. I won’t keep her for much longer than five.” And then the rest of hers and mine life.

The Scarabia student with the macaw feather earring tears his gaze away from you (good) to look at Jade. His face briefly pinches before flattening out, gruff in his mannerisms yet light in tone, “as long as ya promise to deliver her to me before the show starts.”

“I can assure her punctuality.”

Diverting from eye contact, the Scarabia student looks towards you for your confirmation. “I’ll only be a few minutes, Iago! I’ll be on stage at five!”

Iago nods. When he leaves, Jade notices how many rings are on his fingers. Would that not obstruct him from playing his guitar? “You’re the boss. See ya, (Name).”

“I’m not the boss!” Iago smiles mischievously; you start to laugh. “C’mon! You know I hate that!”

“Aye aye, captain.”

You are giggling up a storm as Iago leaves. Big and toothy, like all the ones Jade adores to see. Soft, you glance up at Jade and there is something carefree in your witchcraft eyes, like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. “He reminds me of,” then you say your old guitarist’s name. The one from your original world.

Sea-urchin quills pierce his lungs like balloons. Jade’s hand tightens around yours as he is going to lose you again. Expression neutral, he hums, “is that so?”

“Their mannerisms are kind of similar! Their playing style isn’t a perfect copy but it is pretty damn close! It’s like … a warped fingerprint of each other … ya know!”

He supposes he does not. Jade never met your old guitarist, probably won’t ever either. Praises, however, were sung loud and often enough to feel he had sat down in a past life and drank tea with your old guitarist. As a retired musician himself, he knows a bit about the DNA residue of other musicians – most intimately he knows Floyd’s and Azul’s musician thumbprint – that he can safely nod. “Similar but not quite identical.”

“Similar but not identical! Yeah!”

How enthusiastic. Cute. Jade opens his mouth to dissect (and maybe exploit the weaknesses) in your old guitart’s playing style with Iago’s when you are suddenly squeezing his hand tightly. “Jade! Wow! This is!” Your eyes are glued to his arm, mesmerized. How enthusiastic.

It has morphed since the last you saw it. Around his biceps, psilocybin mushrooms come apart like time-lapsed fruits, bruised and decomposing in sunken holes. Like a book-cover or sticker coated in felt, you touch the unique texture of real life bulbophyllum phalaenopsis lying on Jade’s porcelain skin. As you pet the orchid family plant, Jade smiles.

“Bulbophyllums are one of the worst smelling plants in Twisted Wonderland,” like a child hearing a story, your eyes draw up to observe Jade, “they grow deep in the heart of the Sunset Savanna. Warthogs are the only animal that can digest them and their smell is said to drive men to want to cut off their noses.”

“I would ask how the smell would work against the undead, but I would rather keep my nose intact.”

“As would I.” He taps you on the very appendage. “An adorable feature deserves to stay on an adorable face.”

“Is there a reason they smell so bad? Like are the pheromones supposed to protect something?”

“It is to deter most animals looking for a snack. Once past the smell, there is –”

“(Name), Kalim can’t find his drumsticks!” And though your attention was fiercely focused on him, it evaporates like a drop in the summer sun. Your neck almost cracks with the speed you use to turn back towards where your band members are gathered. Iago waves at you urgently.

Lip wobbling, you murmur guilty, “Jade…”

“Go. I’ll be off to the left side of the stage. Perhaps, if it is not too much strain, blow me a kiss?”

You turn with gratitude in your expression. “Thank you,” you breath relieved. Before you race off, you gift him with something even sweeter than a blown kiss from the stage. You press your lipstick painted embrace on his cheek, leaving a mark that is dark as fresh blood. “I love you. Thank you.”

Logical and intelligent, Jade is correct about one thing irrevocably. The microphone stops looking uncanny as you take it in your grasp.

It is as much a part of you as his sturgeon scale earring is a part of him. An undeniable accessory to your body that you fit into the mold of yourself like a puzzle coming together. Microphone held in your grip, you speak minutes later (rarely without shouting), “This is a song that came out last year in my world before I came to Night Raven. It was September 1998. And, at the start of my senior year in high school, it was all anyone heard on the radio. I practiced it every day after school until I memorized the chords. I decided when I graduated in 1999 that I was going to be a woman like that – a rockstar.”

Kalim, energetic, slams a beat on his drums, getting the crowd hyped. A grin materializes on your face. Fond, you shuffle a few steps back on the stage, looking towards your drummer, before turning to face your beloved crowd.

You howl into the microphone — everyone … please make some noise!! — as the band starts to play.

Jade thinks to himself, there are certain places people belong.

The first time you two officially met, it was after Azul’s overblot.

Too distracted about the success of having two hundred and twenty-five magicless students under his thumb, Azul had not anticipated the slothful Leona Kingscholar deciding then and there would be a perfect time to destroy the contract between the two housewardens. Given Kingscholar’s haughty disposition, it was only natural that he would take to unraveling each and every contract Azul ever made. From there, the spool of Azul’s self control unraveled until he was naked, lying on the floor, come undone like a sweater.

In the aftermath, sprawling among his unthreaded mind and magic, Mostro Lounge had suffered significant damages.

Smashed plates, broken tabletops, shattered ornaments, and an indoor aquarium leaking out corpses of fishes and intestines of underwater plant-life. Jade himself happened to lose a one-of-a-kind tea kettle that was a family heirloom. However, his grief was a mouse compared to the elephant in the room: the irrefutable fact that Azul had truly lost so much in mere hours.

Not that Jade held any doubts that Azul would bounce back better than ever. There has always been an undercurrent of confidence in both Floyd and Jade that is Azul trips, he comes back sprinting.

A rich image, though, if you imagine a slow, eight-legged Azul ever being able to achieve a sprint; simply, it is all metaphorical.

Hilarity aside, yours and Jade’s colliding paths happened after Azul’s overblot. It is an easy start to label. Puppetered by fate or perhaps coincidence, Jade had found himself unable to fall asleep that night. A teacup, drank down to the granular leaves at the bottom, sat on both the nightstand of Octavinelle’s housewarden’s bedroom and his own brother’s bedroom. Not wishing to usher himself into sedative-induced sleep just yet, Jade slipped into the wreckage of Azul’s restaurant and found you dancing upon it.

Now, you were not vindictively celebrating a release from contract. Nor were you particularly happy about the overblot in general. At this point in time, you have not even met Azul before, much less held a reason to revel in his misfortune, but still you danced.

It is a violent twitching and lurching motion like you are trying to dispel a ghoul out of your body. Juxtaposingly, it is a gentle swaying and gyrating like you are performing on the thawing, icy floes of northern waters. It is a combination of motion Jade has never seen before. Some he will later learn have names and rules about how they are done; others are merely the eldritch and true hypnotism of music puppeting your body.

I think I know them; Jade squints. Perched on the stone walls in the courtyards. Caught in the middle of cleaning an empty classroom. Finally, the memory flutters in: you, pitching a fit at the Headmaster, saying you did not want to be attending college, much less a private college.

You are the janitor. He knows you. Not intimately (and he does not even know your name) but he does recognize who you are. Dull and colorless in his world, there is no reason for you to be here when Jade came to the lounge to fight his own insomnia through cleaning up the mess.

And, you aren’t even cleaning up anything. You might as well be a thousand stars away, a hundred planets, and ten galaxies away from this place right now.

In hand, you have your trickling mop which you strum invisible frets on. As if determined to wring music out of a cleaning supply, you violently took to dipping it as if caught together in a macabre tango, jerking it like horse reins, and pounding it against your sternum when a particular hard chord is struck. Despite the violence, it would take a blind man to not immediately recognize you know what you are doing with your fingers.

As you strum and pluck at air, the motion in your phalanges reminds Jade of the incessant twitching of shrimp legs as they glide down underwater vegetation. Fluid as if you were a machine constructed for the purpose of playing the guitar until fuel runs out, your programmed raison d'etre.

Jumping like a restless rabbit, your boots slam upon the lounge floor. Pound. Airborne. Pound. Airborne. It is a repeat that only ends when you plant them both down. Your hip ticks back and forth as if you are balancing on a surfboard. Then, in a mannerism he has seen of many beastmans, you throw your head back and howl.

It is not at all like the cacophony of those beasts. From your pursed lips, you eject a bewitching melody that threads itself through Jade’s ears like a dangerous conjuration. It causes the teapot in Jade’s hands to tremble slightly.

“Awooooouuuuh! Got you where I want you!!”

What peculiar lyrics. He has never heard anything like that before. Although, with the pair of ancient headphones over your ears, you might as well be as unreachable as the moon. Jade still has to evacuate you from the lounge. Talented singer or not. Holding onto his kettle of sympathy, he makes his way over to you.

The only reason that there is a .00001 probability rate of Jade spilling drinks in the lounge instead of being a plain 0 is because … well, frankly, it is sentimentally embarrassing. Yet, when you turn around, lyrics like cigarette smoke on your lips, and face him, you perform a spell. Now, Jade knows you are magicless.

This knowledge is contradicted by the way your eyes instantly cut each of his Achilles tendon and drain all tangibility of his legs from underneath him.

Or perhaps it is because of the spot you left wet from the mop.

“Dude! … Sir! … Um, shit! Whoever you are, ugh! Idiot!” Headphones yanked around your neck, you race forward and leave your mop-guitar behind.

Now, Jade has not had legs for as long as his peers. He got them at seventeen, practiced with them over the summer at Land Boot Camp, and he is now nineteen in his second year of college. So for approximately two years, he has been anchored by hamstrings, calves, ankles, etcetera. He is familiar with them enough to know when he cannot recover from a fall.

It is quite a shock to the walking eel-mer when he does not in fact hit ground – despite the clear, piercing sound of another family heirloom being broken to bits, at least he can fix this one, all the chipped pieces congealed in one place – and it is not an act of magic this time.

“You okay there?”

Starstruck, Jade blinks at your face hovering over his. Briefly, he feels your knobby knee on the small of his back. His body is bent uncomfortably like an abused violin bow; yet he feels no dull sense of pain. The touch of your embrace is irreplicable, as pleasant as home. Into your swirling eyes, Jade stares and recalls a childhood memory from the days that legs seemed an impossible addition to his body.

The bottom of the northern Coral Sea is dark and cold, yet it is home. Additionally, it is not entirely the bottom of the sea where he grew up. There are still depths unexplored before in that great expanse of stretching black sand.

Jade is seven and a quarter (he likes to count his age meticulously) when he comes across one of those unventured abyssal areas that he has never seen before. He knows he has gone further than ever before because he has never seen such an eccentric trench before. When he is eighteen, he will find that manholes closely resemble the sight.

It is one giant manhole. It is like some behemoth man carved a circle into the seabed. Where the black sand underneath him is seeable, this sudden descend is full of a nebulous black without any sort of gray or silver shadows. A ring of ineffable ebony.

It is wide enough that if he stretches his tail across he might be two feet off from measuring out the mere radius. The diameter is twice (and then some) as long as his tail. Approximately, Jade calculates diligently in his head, the trench is 5.282 meters long across. And since it is a perfect circle (this has Jade entranced as trenches do not form like this in the environment) it is a full 5.3 meters in each direction he could swim across it.

Not that he would dare. No. He is too terrified to even calculate the time it would take to swim that distance.

Yet still: “Goin’ to swim across?” His mother eggs him on.

Young Jade looks behind with wide eyes. A swarm of impish intent is swimming in those violet blue hues. He loves his mother dearly but her errant ways are sometimes too much for him. Now so more than ever. As he feels his sinking stomach drift down and down, he replies dutifully and clearly to her troublesome inquiry, “No, Mama.”

Then, because he is still a child, his eyes mistakenly slide back to the circular trench. His stomach lurches. Jade relocates behind his mother. He tries not to let his chagrin show as she laughs at him, high pitched and musical like a witch.

She eventually turns her head around, talons delicately placed on her chin which is parallel with her shoulder. Like jellyfish tentacles, her deep black hair sweeps across her nose and cheek much like scars. Jade shivers at the water breeze, not cowering but using his parent as a shield.

“Afraid, baby?”

“No, Mother.”

“Do not lie.”

“... I’m not afraid.”

It is a half-truth from a squeamish boy. But it is spoken with the conviction of a man. So, his mother only turns her head a bit more to glance down at Jade who stays firm behind her back. Her violet blue eyes narrow like they are knives meant to dissect his larynx.

She likes ugly truths and loathes comfortable lies.

A soft smile graces her face. And, Jade, who was keeping his eyes intently focused on his mother’s slithering teal tail, steals a quick glance up at it. His tense muscles unwind. Then, as his mother does whenever one of her two boys hide behind her, she grabs Jade by the black strand and tugs him hard in front of her body.

She digs her talon in his shoulders, almost draws blood (would if he were anyone else), and pushes his body to overlook the trench.

His mother does not relent, even as Jade binds his tail around her forearm almost hard even to break the bone (would if she were anyone else). Without a single whimper, he squirms in her harsh hold. His dual-colored eyes are wide in fright. The abyss looks bottomless. If his mother loosens her talons, he will surely fall in and never be heard from again.

Delicate and dangerous like a nightmare, his mother puts her head onto Jade's and whispers, “fear, insecurity, and anxiety are like curses. You’ll learn about curses soon in school. The more power you give them, the worse it gets for you, Jade.

“So,” here her grip relents finally and Jade starts to unwind his tail from her forearms, “banish it.” The cavern swallows like flowing sheets undulating over his head.

That exact feeling is mimicked by the stare in your witchcraft eyes.

And those eyes fall all over town.

#twisted wonderland #jade leech x reader #jade leech #twisted wonderland x reader #punk jade leech #twst jade

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