Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“She’s cute.”

Jade, controlled as ever, did not react. “I suppose,” he said after a beat.

Floyd’s smile was sharp. “You don’t buy books for just anyone, JJ.” He put the car in gear and set out for the freeway. “’Sides, I saw how you were looking at her when she broke that guy’s hand.”

Jade’s lips parted enough to allow a smooth chuckle. “Is it so wrong to enjoy that? I believe you had a similar reaction.”

“Nah.” Floyd palmed the 48-ounce cup of limited edition cherry limeade Slurpee adorning the cup holder and sucked down enough of it to give himself another brain freeze. “Gahh, fuck.”

“You are going to rot your teeth.”

Floyd squinted through his headache and made a disgusting show of flossing his tongue between several of his teeth in response.

“How unbecoming.”

“hOw UnBeCoMiNg,” Floyd repeated mockingly. “Whatever, mom.”

Jade trusted him to drive well enough, so he returned his focus to the outside world zipping by at the speed of sugar-high-Floyd miles per hour. He rested his chin on his knuckles. Today’s job would be routine enough by their standards. He wondered whether it would be too forward of him to pay her a visit in another week or so. Perhaps he should think of another gift. Something not too extravagant, but not too personal just yet.

Jade was mulling this over still as his brother was wrenching open the safe with a crowbar.

“I could have opened it for you,” Jade said primly as he paged through the documents on the desk.

“No way, you’re on a date in your own head.” Floyd nearly snapped the crowbar before the door gave way, but he managed it. “This is more fun, anyway.”

Abruptly, there was a key in the door, the lock clicked, and a man was stepping into his office. His surprised gaze landed on Floyd, then Jade, then Floyd again. He was frozen for several seconds. Then he tried to run.

Jade loved it when they tried to run.

He leapt over the desk and grabbed the man’s shoulders, throwing him backwards into the center of the room. Floyd caught him and wrestled him into a chair and a gag before he had time to scream.

“You plotting your next move?” Floyd asked as he continued rifling through the safe.

“Planning, dear brother. Plotting is for other things.”

Floyd held up a fistful of rubies gleaming like blood against his pale fingers. “Girls like jewelry, right?”

“I think that would be going a bit too far at this point.” Jade wrenched the man’s arms tighter behind his back, his screams coming out as thin whines through the gag in his mouth. “For the second time, then, where is the other safe?”

“You never asked him the first time,” Floyd called. “Hey, there’s gold in here, too! Zuzu’s gonna love that.”

“Oh, didn’t I?” Jade shrugged, but he did not release his grip. “I do apologize, sir. I find myself distracted today.”

Chapter Text

Floyd was whistling as he ran the scraper over the floor of the freezer, sending up little puffs of his breath with every note. Despite Azul’s best attempts, some of the blood always managed to leak from the plastic they put down. They couldn’t wash the concrete without thawing the whole freezer, but scraping it up took care of the worst of it.

Jade was far more reserved. Whereas Floyd needed to keep his body busy - always moving, jumping, dancing, fighting, something - Jade’s mind was running in unpleasant circles. He had left for a bit, hoping to apologize, explain maybe, but when he came back, Floyd noticed he was more distant than usual.

“You afraid she’ll talk?” he asked.

Jade didn’t seem to have an answer. He had been taking inventory and thus far had to start over three times due to losing focus. “I do not know,” he said so much later that Floyd thought the question had been lost on him.

Floyd swept the chunks of ice into a dustpan and dumped them into the trash. He looped an arm around his brother’s neck. Hanging his full body weight on anyone else would probably break bones, but Jade was used to it. “Aww, cheer up, buddy. She’ll get over it.”

“Over what?” Jade asked, even though he knew the answer.

Floyd rolled his eyes, causing the gold one to flash. “Over being scared of us. And, like, this whole thing.” He gestured vaguely at the freezer.

Jade said nothing, but the sadness in his eyes was palpable.

Floyd blinked. “You…don’t want that, do you.”

Jade blinked back. He managed to keep his tone even. “I do not know,” he said again, more quietly. “I do not know what I want.”

Floyd rested his chin on his brother’s shoulder. “Yes, you do. And I, your therapist, am telling you a thing you already know, which is that you shouldn’t lie to yourself.” He wrapped his over-long arms around Jade and squeezed him tight. “You’re my favorite dumbass.”

Jade managed a small chuckle. “And you are mine.”

Chapter Text

Jade’s heart was acting quite abnormal indeed. Elevated rate, irregular beat, high pressure. The sorts of things that might send someone to a hospital.

He breathed through it and focused on her heartbeat instead.

It was even more erratic than his own, spiking and falling, pungent with the scent of adrenaline. Something that brought out the hunter in him, whether he liked to admit it or not. But even as the thought passed through his head, guilt softened his conscience. He intensely disliked anything that would make her afraid. And if that thing were him, well, he could hate himself, too.

He parked the car and led her to the elevators. He stole a selfish glance as they entered the lobby and saw her marveling at the decor.

“Good evening, sir,” the night clerk called as they passed his desk. Jade nodded.

He typed in his passcode at the next elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. The top floor of seventy-three, to be precise. Seventy-three floors he owned. He wiped down the keypad out of habit. There was little risk of any old family enemies finding him here, but they had not made their fortune by being careless. To crawl from the depths of the sea and climb to the dizzying heights of the white collar world took a certain kind of creature.

Jade tucked his arm into the curve of her waist, feeling little twitches of joy when she clung to him as the elevator hurtled itself skyward. And yet, anxiety hovered in its usual place at his shoulder. Restless, cautious, his mind always working, always calculating. No wonder he and Azul were such good friends.

He stepped out of the elevator and entered the next code before scanning his card. The lock opened, and he went inside. The motion sensor turned on the atmospheric lighting and revealed the sleek, modern interior of the penthouse.

“Your apartment has stairs?”

He heard her bag hit the floor as he adjusted the lights. “Are you hungry?”

She nodded meekly.

Jade opened the fridge and made a disappointed face at it. He had been gone for almost a week, and he had not restocked anything since his return mere hours ago. Mostly frozen fish and some staples like butter and cream. “I am a bit low on ingredients, so it will not be anything extravagant.”

To his surprise, she laughed. He smiled curiously at it, but she didn’t bother explaining.

Seafood casserole was hardly what he had intended to cook as his first dish for her, but it would do. Something simple, warm, comforting. She had been through so much already. When she wandered off to explore the apartment, he went back to the control panel in the wall and selected some music.

He had just placed the casserole dish in the oven when he heard her steps again, her bare feet almost indiscernible on the expensive flooring. She laid her hand on his forearm and sent sparks through him all over again.

His hands found her waist, and she rested her hands on his chest, leaning in to listen to his heart. Eyes closed, Jade found himself short of breath, drowning in something different from water, something that poured pure bliss into his blood and sent him spiraling into the clouds. He hummed the melody absentmindedly, stepping into a motion barely resembling a dance.

She shifted enough to pull back and look at him. Her eyes were strikingly beautiful, magnetic, drawing him closer with every second. His body felt numb as he brought his hand to her chin and lifted it toward him.

Jade stared long enough to watch her eyes close as the moment he had been creating in his head for months finally became real.

Her kiss broke a barrier inside him that he didn’t know he had. He felt everything at once. She tasted like the sun, like lightning, like fire. In the back of his mind, he wondered how he restrained himself. But in the front of his mind, he knew.

Because for the first time in his life, it wasn’t about what Jade wanted, what Jade got, throwing aside whatever stood in Jade’s way. It was about her. What she wanted.

She wanted him.

Abruptly, she laughed, breaking the spell. He pulled back from her with breathless surprise.

“Sorry,” she stammered, cupping one hand over her nose and flushing with embarrassment. “My nose is numb.”

It was by far the most confusing reaction to him. But the laughter overcame him, too. Jade had not laughed like this in a long time. Certainly not for reasons so pure.

He kissed her again, over and over again, marveling at the silken warmth of her mouth, the sound of her blood pulsating against her skin, the soft, delicate trails of ecstasy her touch left on him, the faint smell of burning potatoes, you turned your back on the broiler again Jade, you’re about to ruin dinner-

He separated from her with a gasp and whirled to the oven. In quick succession he turned it off and opened the door to keep it from getting worse. All in all, the damage was minimal, but it was almost enough to make him swear aloud. (Almost.)

Setting the table and pouring wine gave him a chance to collect himself. Every time he stole a glance at her, he caught her doing the same, and it made him smile all over again. He felt just a little ridiculous. Probably how Floyd felt all the time, he imagined.

“You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that.”

She shrugged, beaming at him. “I have some idea.”

Jade shook his head. Maybe eventually he would tell her.

He took her to the guest room, feeling lightheaded all the while. “My room is upstairs,” he said, doing his best not to make it suggestive. That truly was not his intention. “If you need anything.”

She came back to him for another kiss, long and yet not long enough.

Jade had always been a light sleeper. He and Floyd used to get into constant scrapes over it as children, because Floyd wanted to stay up and play while Jade wanted to sleep. He could also fall asleep abruptly and completely, while Jade had to essentially teach himself how to fall asleep. It was irksome.

Some sort of noise brushed the edge of Jade’s consciousness as he slept. He did not often dream anymore, so unusual sounds tended to draw him out of sleep. He tried to fight it, but then he heard something else that jarred him fully awake. Footsteps, quiet and uncertain. A myriad of scents bombarded him, water and steam and faint traces of fear hormones.

“Jade?”

He threw himself out of bed and ran to her. She embraced him and pressed her face into his chest and trembled. He cradled her delicately.

“I had a nightmare.” Her words were a muffled hum against his sternum.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he murmured.

She choked on an exhaled breath, as if she were trying not to cry. “Tomorrow.”

Jade tugged her by the fingers toward his bed. He watched her lie down, slowly, cautiously, as though trying not to awaken a sleeping monster. Trying not to take up too much space at the very edge of the mattress.

He lay next to her and stroked her hair until she relaxed enough to move a little closer to him, at least to a more comfortable margin from the edge of the bed. She still shook, from fear and maybe cold, but after a minute she edged toward him a bit more. Jade rested one arm over her and pulled her into his body. It wasn’t long before the warmth lulled her back to sleep.

Jade did not sleep. He stared over her shoulder into the darkness, his golden eye flaring with bits of unused magic, as if he could hope to see whatever had frightened her. As if he could protect her from her own thoughts.

No matter, he thought to himself as he finally closed his eyes and let his muscles relax. It did not matter what creatures clambered forth from the trenches of her mind to torment her. He would slay her dragons.

Chapter Text

Jade heard her screaming long before he reached the door.

Azul sighed a few steps behind him. “I was hoping we could tell her first.”

Floyd reached halfway to his brother’s shoulder, then thought better of it and let him get away.

Jade entered the office and crossed the room to the sofa which held his angry, shrieking mess of a human. He knelt beside her and hesitantly reached for her arm, which she ripped away with a pained squeal that may as well have burned him.

He whispered her name, half for himself, really, a ghost of the pity he felt. She only screamed louder into the pillow. The pitch of it made his ears ring. He caught sight of Floyd not-subtly covering his even more sensitive ears.

“Would you look at me?”

She may as well have been in a separate universe from him.

“Please.”

Nothing. He was hardly certain he would be able to hear anything over the raging of her pulse.

“Please, my love.”

She held her breath for a second and hiccupped. It was enough.

Jade hated that it was enough.

He mumbled the magic words just as she lifted her head and met his gaze.

Sevens, it hurt to see how much she suddenly wanted him.

His spell did more than just force people to tell the truth. Years of intensive study (and practice) had allowed him to polish it to a smooth shine, to cast a fae-like glamour over someone and politely insist they fulfill his every whim. Selfish, it was, at the end of the day. Selfishly, countless times, for many selfish reasons, he had used it. For business. For pleasure. For Azul. To piss off Azul. For no reason at all.

He struggled to hold his concentration. ‘Take a breath for me.’ She did immediately.

‘Good. One more.’ Fuck, her eyes were watering, overflowing with his manufactured devotion.

‘You are feeling better already. You can relax now.’ Her heartbeat leveled itself out like a ship settling after a storm.

‘Take my hand.’ He shivered as her skin met his.

He blinked and broke the spell that he had sworn never to use on her.

“What is commitment with coercion?” Azul shrugged. “Meaningless and easily broken. Not true loyalty at all.”

“Yet you bound us to a contract.” Jade swirled his glass of black rum before taking another sip of it.

Azul gave a delicate laugh that matched his smile. Polite, reserved, and at minimum eighty percent disingenuous. “If you recall,” he said in a correcting tone, “I insisted that the two of you could leave at any time. In a way, I bound myself to the contract.”

Jade either could not think of a comeback or could not be bothered to. “This one is too sweet,” he declared.

“Mm, agreed.” Azul made notes on his iPad. “Floyd?”

Floyd was passed out with an empty bottle of it next to his hand.

“Definitely too sweet,” Azul muttered.

Her eyes flickered back to life as she rose from the trance. Jade still held her hand, but he could not look at her. He had promised himself. He had sworn never to force her to do anything. He did not want to hurt her.

After all, he’d said he wouldn’t, and what was a man without his word? Not a man at all.

“…Jade?” came the hoarse, empty echo of her voice.

“You’ll be okay, Shrimpioli.”

She pulled herself to a sitting position, but she didn't let go of him. He had often wondered if his magic bore residual effects, like the unintended consequences of a medication. He was the cure worse than the disease. He was also the disease.

Jade paid no attention to the conversation. Azul explained the situation in his limited way. Floyd offered reassurance and the suggestion of a solution. Jade could give nothing, do nothing, to atone for the sin he had committed.

“I hope you can forgive me,” he said abruptly. It was the awful truth.

But then her mouth was grasping his and everything else went white.

He all but leapt on her and forced her body to sink into the couch. So small, so delicate, so delicious. Her head tilted back and opened her throat to him, and he devoured it. Every tantalizing swipe of his tongue over hers, the flat, useless teeth of a prey animal, tempted him. And he had one caught, right here between his hands and jaws and around his hips.

His mind was gone from him as he let his teeth scrape whatever soft surface he could find, desperate for the taste of fresh blood. It drove a hot spike through him from the neck down. It had been a long time since he had been able to indulge all of his dark proclivities with total freedom. It usually did not end well for the other person.

His hand forced her chin higher yet, his fingers cupping her trachea, so easy would it be to sever the muscles that allowed a human to cough and thus fight for their life. The mere thought of thrashing prey sent an electric shock through him that became a guttural snarl.

Jade had not realized how much he had forgotten of himself before now. Take what he wants and damn the rest. The praying mantis ripped off the heads of its partners after mating and sucked them dry. It was just nature.

A gentle touch stroked the spine bulging from the side of his head. Back and forth, bitten-down nails pleasantly grazed his scalp as they dipped smoothly into his hair, encouraging him to relax, unwinding the corrupt monster from around his heart.

Every inhuman thing about him dissolved.

He shrank away from her, used her forehead as a resting place, a grave for the worst part of himself. Many times before, Jade had tried to eliminate his human side or erase his animal side. He could do neither, it seemed, doomed to be a half-human beast that hungered for living flesh in every way.

“…we should go.” His voice was shattered like glass upon rocks.

She insisted with oblivious concern. For him, not herself. “Jade, are you okay?”

He rocked unsteadily to his feet, his form awash with shame. He made a poor attempt to make himself presentable again. He felt like a man headed for trial. Or the gallows. “I said I would never hurt you,” he said. His eyes stung. “And you asked me not to lie.”

Chapter Text

One of the reasons Jade had chosen this particular residence over the others freely available to him was the view.

His brother preferred the chaos of the city itself, like the busy layers of a forest floor - things running, crawling, hiding around every leaf. Had they lived closer to the sea these days, Floyd would be the one to spend every day playing at the beach.

Jade preferred some distance from the lower levels. The inner workings of his mind were chaotic enough without outside help, so he chose whatever brought him peace instead. Looking down on the city, at the expanse of incandescent stars winking back at him, certainly helped with that. It was not that he felt he was better than anyone else, though a younger Jade might have.

He just really liked the view.

It had changed little by little over the years, of course, as buildings were torn down and constructed, as the residential areas spread farther and farther from the city center, but the essence of it remained unchanged. Above, the real stars, like diamonds spilled across royal-purple velvet. Below, the other stars, twinkling with the colors of all the other gems.

Sometimes he would still stand here, in the same spot by the floor-to-ceiling window, and cross one hand to the opposite shoulder, where a lifetime ago, someone else rested their fingers, their chin, while their warm body pressed against him.

‘It is beautiful,’ Vil would murmur into his ear, sometimes colored with a suggestive smirk, other times out of pure appreciation for the sight. Aside from the tone of his voice, it was easy to tell what he meant based on wherever his hands ended up.

‘Not as beautiful as you,’ Jade would answer no matter the situation. The words sounded so hollow to him now, true as they were. Vil was beautiful, was still beautiful, but in a way that mattered little to him anymore.

Jade’s mind did not wander so much as it raced in every direction at once. He used to fight it, try to block out other thoughts that did not seem appropriate for whatever time, but in the end, it was like trying to restrain a shark with a butterfly net. It was better to let the beast roam free.

So he was not too disappointed in himself for these memories drifting through him at the moment, while he held her captive against the glass with her knees around his ribs.

He had had girlfriends throughout high school, as it seemed The Correct Thing to Do at the time. During college he had gravitated toward men, or maybe they gravitated toward him. He had certainly thought himself the center of the universe at that age, gleefully accepting many offers, smirking as he declined so many others. Eventually it became less of a personal pastime and more of a tool, a weapon like so many others the family business called for.

He buried his face in her neck, relishing her jagged breathing over the shell of his ear, her hands barely brushing his shoulder blades, the heat that coursed through her as if radiating from his own pulse where it burned inside her.

She was so fucking soft.

Even when she tried to move with him, as her crown began to ever so slightly tense around him, trying to keep him there through sheer force of will, there was nothing sharp or deadly about her. She was all plush curves and slick velvet, welcoming him, wanting him, wanting nothing from him but the sake of his company. This part of the experience was altogether new to him.

His name shattering the silence, less so.

Jade pressed his mouth to hers and watched as the waves crested through her until she was shuddering around him and her eyes rolled back.

Yes, it was quite a view, indeed.

Chapter Text

“Darling, I said no biting. I have a photoshoot tomorrow.”

Jade dragged his tongue over the serrated bruises, digging the feathery point into each divot left by his teeth. Not deep enough to bleed. This time. “How can I be held responsible for the way you taste?”

Vil grabbed a fistful of pillow and lightly smacked him in the face with it. “I'll have you know this is some very expensive damage you’ve done.”

“Oh, goodness.” Jade hugged the pillow to his chest and gave a devious smile. “What a shame to know my art is not appreciated. How ever can I make it up to you?”

Sighing, Vil rolled onto his side to face him. He gently stroked Jade’s face with one finger, drawing a perfect line from his forehead to his nose to his mouth. Jade obediently closed his lips around it. No teeth, as instructed. “You could make me some tea,” he said.

Jade tossed the pillow aside and reached over to take Vil by the shoulders, then pulled his perfectly-sculpted body atop his own. He let out a contented sigh as they melted together. Vil pressed his face against Jade’s neck, his mouth tightening into a grin at the tiny gasp he failed to suppress. He drew his hands up Jade’s sides, turned backwards so his nails scraped each rib like he was testing the bars of a xylophone. It certainly caused his instrument to compose some beautiful music.

“And how can I be expected to do so under thessse ssircumstances?”

Vil chuckled at the hiss that colored his voice and bled one word into the next. A sure sign that Jade was losing control. And enjoying it. “I am confident you will find a way.”

With that, Vil silenced him with an exquisitely smooth hand across his mouth. He let his wrist twirl through a delicate spiral, dipping each finger between Jade’s lips, relishing the ribbon-like tongue on his skin.

And then, of course, as if waking from a trance, Jade slid out from under him and disappeared down the stairs to the kitchen as if nothing had happened. Though, of course, Vil had no complaints about watching him walk away.

Jade opened the cupboard that functioned more like a medicine cabinet and picked out several jars as he waited for the kettle to come to temperature.

”What sort of flavor would you like?” Jade asked cordially.

“Mmm, something earthy,” Vil replied. “Maybe a touch of cinnamon or star anise.”

“Chai, perhaps?”

“That sounds delightful.” The ends of his fingers met Jade’s hip bones with matching, gentle swirls. He always marveled at the unique stretch of Jade’s muscles over his frame, the places he had bones where others didn’t, the spaces where human bones were absent. Vil shuffled forward until their bodies met again.

Jade tilted his head back a little, straightening out his many vertebrae.

“I'll even let you add some mushrooms,” he murmured into a waiting ear. “Reishi and chaga, if you please.”

He laughed at the tangible shiver that rocketed up Jade’s spine.

“It would be my pleasure.”

He ground the mixture with a mortar and pestle, added it to two linen sachets that he dropped into a pair of double-walled glass mugs, and poured the water over them. Vil only let his tea steep briefly, as he didn't like it too strong, but he did like it quite hot since it was perpetually cold in Jade’s residence. Jade preferred his tea stronger and a few degrees lower. His metabolism was absurdly fast as well, so it stood to reason.

“Thank you, darling.”

“Of course.”

Vil was about five steps from the bed when he felt it.

He had enough time to twist halfway around and see Jade in the doorway, wearing nothing more than a devilish smile as he set his empty mug aside and crossed the space between them with too-long strides. He took Vil by the waist and helped him fall onto the bed as the extra ingredients dissolved into his blood.

“I should never trust you,” Vil declared as the world swam around him. He let his eyes close as Jade laced their fingers and pinned his hands above his head.

“As the saying goes,” Jade said, pinching Vil’s lower lip between his teeth to ensure his artwork would be appreciated in the form of a swollen pout the next day, “you knew I was a snake before I bit you.”

Chapter Text

“I’m not gonna ask again.”

Jade made a poor attempt at flipping the blood-soaked hair out of his eyes. Not that it mattered much, as his captor had secured a wad of fabric over his left one to stifle his magic. “Then would you mind terribly if I asked you to bring me a chair?”

He received a smack across the face.

“Shut the fuck up.”

Jade did so.

“Where is it?”

Jade said nothing, as instructed.

His interrogator growled and took his chin in one hand. “You’re really getting on my nerves, asshole.”

Jade blinked - though he supposed that with one eye obscured, it came across as a wink instead. “You told me to shut up.”

Another smack.

Jade was really losing an internal battle over this. “And I thought you said you would not ask again.”

He expected another hit, but none came. The interrogator did pull out a knife, though. A beautiful one, a crafted chef's knife, with hand-hammered detailing along the spine and swirls of blue-green paua shell inlay in the handle. His hands were fastened to a wooden frame meant to serve as a makeshift rack at the moment, but Jade could imagine himself holding it, feeling its perfect balance in his hand, the clean finish it would lend to any task.

“I won't.”

Jade allowed his gaze to linger thoughtfully on the blade. His name rhymed with so many fun words. Blade. Trade. Paid. (Floyd always hated this game. Floyd also told him to shut up when he tried to play this game. Annoyed. Destroyed. Ha ha.) “I am a bit disappointed,” he said softly. “I had expected the Asims to do better than this.”

The knife trembled. His voice trembled. “I thought I told you to shut up.”

“I thought you wanted an answer.” He had always found the Asims' choices colored with disappointment. Good help was not so hard to find these days, really, but one must put forth the effort. The effort must reach beyond placing a thousand-dollar nine-inch chef's knife into the quaking hand of a young man barely younger than himself. Kalim's seventh or eighth younger brother, if he recalled correctly.

“I could just kill you,” said the young man. The boy.

Jade could taste the fear seeping through his skin. “Could you?” He looked pointedly at the knife. “I doubt you could properly break down a dead salmon, let alone me.”

The boy poked the tip of the knife into Jade's side, where a human would have soft things like kidneys and a liver, unprotected and ripe for the picking. Evidently, whoever had assigned him this task had not educated him on mer anatomy.

He wondered if the boy was being set up. That would be a bit sad, but not unusual.

“Want to find out?”

Jade could not help it. He finally laughed. It caused the point of the knife to dig into his ribs. “Truthfully? It would be my pleasure.”

After all, it was Jade who taught new employees their knife skills.

The boy took a shallow stab at him, not even hard enough to rip through his shirt, let alone take out any vital organs. Jade laughed - giggled, really.

“You will need to do better than that.”

He was an attractive one, too. Especially with the fear in his cabernet-colored eyes. Perhaps…

The knife quite suddenly pierced his side. Jade drew a searing breath as pain burned white-hot along its edge. Oh, what a terrible mistake. It would not be long now.

The boy was so stunned at himself that the knife left his hands and remained stuck in between Jade’s pinbones. Its blade was sharp indeed. He flung his head back against the wooden frame, relishing the fire scraping against his ribs, struggling only to control his mouth.

See, the trouble was that Jade was just a little bit human. Just enough that the pain triggered a huge release of endorphins and adrenaline. Enough to help a predator get through a fight.

“Oh, my,” he said with a barely controlled gasp for air, “this will hardly do.”

He ripped one arm free from its restraints and gripped the knife handle. The angle of the laceration was truly pathetic. He pulled his other arm free with a snap of splintering wood so he could stand and do this properly.

“It should be…more…” Jade could not restrain the desperate cry as he twisted the knife. “…like…hng…” He turned it until the flat was parallel with his ribs, their spines perpendicular to each other. No bones to interfere with its lovely path. “…this.”

With one elegant swipe, he sliced cleanly through his own flesh.

The shock paralyzed him for a long moment. A cold shudder rocketed up the length of his arm as an inferno exploded through his hip and leg and chest. He wondered if he would pass out. Blood. He smelled blood. He tasted blood.

But that was mainly because he was licking the knife.

Jade had just retracted his tongue from the freshly polished blade when two things happened. The boy finally passed out from the sheer horror unfolding before him, and the hormones in Jade’s bloodstream went nuclear.

He collapsed to the floor with a breathy sigh as pure bliss exploded through him. The knife slid from his fingers, but it was okay. He hadn’t damaged it. He had really been hoping the boy would stay awake for at least some of this so he might learn something, but some things couldn’t be helped. Jade was a thing that could not be helped.

He pulled himself together enough to string up his prey in the same place he had just been, with a few modifications. His nails were leaving claw marks and causing yet more blood to mar his hands, and his razor-edged fins were cutting through his sleeves. The high was wearing off, and it was being replaced by a much more base instinct.

Feed.

The young man woke up screaming, but not for long. Jade found the noise grating and severed the nerves responsible.

When he was finished, he retrieved the beautiful knife and went poking around the room for the others. Sure enough, he found it - a brand new knife roll, poorly wrapped, haphazardly hidden, concealing a matching array of the most breathtaking knives he had ever seen. He carefully tucked the centerpiece back into its place, rolled the bag properly, and secured it.

A note fluttered to the floor. He picked it up with one bloody hand.

Here’s to the next step in your culinary journey. I trust these will serve you well in school and beyond.

Congratulations!

It was signed by Kalim’s father. Jade gave a little sigh.

Oh well. Some things couldn’t be helped.

Chapter Text

“I want to ask you something.”

Jade’s left eye lazed open and angled itself in the direction of her face. “Mm?”

She started to speak, then stopped. Then tried again. “But don’t …this will sound weird. Don’t…take it the wrong way, I guess?”

“Mhm.” Jade could have fallen asleep right where he was, with his head centered on her chest, rising and sinking with every breath like the push and pull of the tides. His eyelids fluttered.

Her arms were folded behind her head as she gazed up at the ceiling, lost in thought, but he felt her shift enough to lay one hand on his shoulder. “Do you…I mean, are you, like…into anything?”

He pressed his face closer to her breast until his eyelashes brushed her delicate skin. She smelled like gardenias today. She loved almost anything with a fragrance - soap, lotion, perfume, a whole collection of bath bombs and oils and other things he had never gotten for himself. Vil had avoided most anything with a heavy scent, usually, as he would have to change perfumes and outfits throughout the day for work. So he was happy to indulge her.

Jade was about to speak, but she cut him off.

“Because I’m not,” she blurted out. “I just. I had to…deal with it. So much. With Jack. Stuff I didn’t want to do.”

Jade lifted his head to look at her properly. In turn, she was trying not to look at him. He smelled the tang of salt and hoped she was not about to cry.

“I know you wouldn’t make me, that’s not it. But I don’t…want you to be disappointed,” she whispered. “I want to make you happy. I just…want to be enough for you. I’ve never been enough for anyone.”

Jade crawled toward the head of the bed and caged her between his arms. He hated to see her sad, but looking down at her like this, having her vulnerable and open to him, and only him, stirred something in his heart. He kissed each of her eyes and licked away the salt.

“You want to know what I like?” he asked quietly with a gentle, inquisitive tilt of his head.

Fever flooded her face, and her mouth gave a little twitch. It made him want to lick his lips.

“I like you,” he said. “I like to make you happy.”

She looked a tiny bit annoyed. It was adorable. “That doesn’t count,” she said indignantly.

Jade laughed low and deep in his chest. It sent a thrilled hum through her. “You do not understand.” He leaned down to whisper into her ear. “That is what I like.”

She draped her arms over his back and merely breathed with him for a moment or two. “You mean it?”

Jade turned to lie on one side and look at her. “Allow me to explain.” He drew one finger along the side of her face, tucking a few strands of hair out of the way at a time. “I have been through a number of relationships. I will not pretend the better part of them were anything other than physical. Without exploring it in great detail…let us merely say that ‘variety’ was the watch word.”

He traced little shapes along her skin. It was so soft, so perfectly delicate beneath his touch. “I thought I could make up for whatever was missing by being a terrible version of myself. I did not know what I wanted, so I took everything in an effort to find out.” He wanted to look away as a quiet shame stole over him, but she was watching him so intently, and her eyes were so beautiful. He knew it was hopeless of him. “You feel that you have never been enough for anyone,” he repeated. He stroked one finger from the top of her forehead down to the tip of her nose, pausing over her lips. “I have always been too much for everyone.”

She sighed, casting a light breeze over his hand. “You are very dramatic.”

Jade laughed again, pleased when it brought her smile out of hiding, too. “I have found that I enjoy myself best when you are doing so as well.”

She kissed his finger before pushing his hand out of the way. “I’m very lucky,” she said before capturing him in a kiss. “But I am a little surprised, I guess.”

Jade chuckled and lowered his voice. “May I tell you a secret, then?”

She moved her mouth to his neck. “Mhm.”

“I do enjoy being told what to do.” He let his eyes slip closed as she took a little more control, granting him whatever she wanted.

“I do like that,” she murmured.

The fingers of one hand twitched of their own accord as he resisted grabbing a handful of sheets. “And you already discovered this, but-” Jade’s voice thinned to a whine as she pulled the skin of his neck into her mouth. “-do not be afraid to bite.”

Chapter Text

It was a question one of them had been asking himself for a long time. But he was surprised to hear the other one voice it.

They were friends, at minimum. With benefits, certainly. More? Potentially.

But were they enough?

They were good for each other in some ways. They would tear each other apart in other ways. Not just physically anymore, no longer merely in the currency of blood and bruises, but in clipped words and irritated sighs.

Jade knew how it felt to cut himself down to fit another’s expectations. He had tried it, stopped trying it, tried it again, but it never quite trimmed him into the right shape.

He suspected Vil had never had that problem. Vil made the world change to accommodate him instead. If Jade did that, there would be a lot more blood on the walls.

“Are you happy with me?”

Quiet contemplation. “Are you not?”

“It was merely a question.” A question indirectly answered.

“What are we?”

Heavy silence split the room.

“I suppose I do not know anymore.”

A surprising tightness in his throat. “I suppose not.”

“If it helps…it is nothing you have done.”

“Mhm.”

To have it all disintegrate, evaporate, dissipate before his eyes was something he never expected. Then again, maybe he expected it all along. He had never known any other way, after all.

A last, slow, lingering kiss that tasted of sadness. Regret for what never was and probably never could have been.

“I do love you,” he said. “As much as I am capable of loving anyone.”

It was true. Even though it was never enough.

Chapter Text

Vil was a good actor. Terrific, really, given the awards and the Top Ten rankings and the interviews, sponsorships, and casting offers. He took his work seriously; he would spend hours learning his lines before even the first read-through, do research beyond whatever background information the production team gave him, and call the executive producer with questions about the script until he was certain he could seamlessly perform the role. He would do everything to ensure he was the most prepared, professional actor on set. He practiced the stage directions in his down time, where to stand, when to sit, when to deliver which line with which tone.

Vil stood in front of his vanity and studied the array of items before him. An arsenal of his skincare products. His entire makeup line. Fragrances. The mask for his red light therapy machine. Gua sha tools. He studied himself in the mirror, as he did every day, more frequently when he was practicing expressions for a role. Perfect. Flawless. Beautiful.

A lot of good it did him now.

He uncapped an elegant bottle of oil, allowing the heavy, intoxicating scent to escape. He hated winter. It did terrible things to his skin, no matter how much water he drank or moisturizer he slathered on. This was an experimental blend that he had not released to the market yet, and he wasn’t sure he would. Was it selfish to want something all to himself for a change? (Yes, Vil, that is at least fifty percent of the definition.)

He sighed as he worked the oil into his skin. His shoulder still ached after that stunt scene; he would need to schedule a massage for tomorrow. Perhaps his publicist could move some things around to make time.

Vil closed the bottle and pulled his robe back over his shoulders. The material itself did nothing for the chill, but the oil had enough magic in it to maintain a comfortable temperature. He located his slippers, took one more thing off the vanity, and left.

The rooms beneath the main part of the hotel were already vivid with activity. He went to his office first, just to have a few minutes to himself. Another bout of selfishness. He would soon be surrounded by dozens of people, most of them strangers, all of them fawning over him, telling him how beautiful, how flawless, how perfect he was. Clamoring for his attention, pledging to do anything for him. Not terribly different from a typical day at the office, if one ignored the details.

Vil actually did not like being around people all that much. Or maybe he did, and he was just in a mood today. One person would be able to tell him without hesitation, but that person was, and now likely always would be, absent from his circle.

What had he done wrong?

He left the office and went to the curtained room reserved for him. Dark, lit only by an array of flickering candles lending an intimate warmth to the space. Heavy with the aroma of flowers and sandalwood. Empty but for one person. A stranger, like all the others before and after him. He began to turn toward the sound of the curtain drawing back.

“Wait, please.”

The stranger waited.

Vil removed his robe and folded it before setting it inside a drawer. Then he tied the blindfold around his head.

“Alright.”

Unfamiliar hands found his shoulders, his neck, his waist. A foreign mouth found his. No sharp teeth to damage his pretty skin, no questionable ingredients in his tea to drug him into a more malleable state.

But as long as Vil kept his eyes closed, everyone looked just like Jade.

Chapter Text

“Oh, JJ.” Floyd sighed and gave his brother a gentle pat on the back with the hand that wasn’t already pinning his hair out of his face. Jade currently could not speak coherently enough to respond, as his body was in the process of punishing him for everything he had done to it in the past few hours.

Floyd wrinkled his nose at the smell. Smells worked differently on land, but he was still way more sensitive to them than Jade and Mom were. He wished they’d had time to put some garbage bags down or something. This was gonna be quite a mess to clean up.

Jade’s breathing was shallow and stilted, with every muscle in his back seizing each time he retched again. Agonized yelps escaped him thanks to the bloody mess he’d made of his abdomen. Plus he kept ripping the bandages open.

He finally managed to choke something out. “Water.”

Floyd cringed. “It’ll probably clog the pipes and stuff-”

“Water.” It came out growled and ended with something landing in the bottom of the bathtub with an ungodly noise.

Floyd sighed and reached up to turn the shower on. Cold needles rained down on the back of Jade’s head. It seemed to help enough for a minute, so he stood and went to grab some supplies. He winced when he heard Jade get sick again. When he came back with an armload of trash bags, boxes of sea salt, and more bandages, he found his brother had climbed halfway into the tub so that the water pelted him in the face.

Blue and green shapes appeared wherever the water struck him as if it were washing away his human skin like makeup. It sure felt like that sometimes - walking was still kinda weird, and so were clothes, and Floyd wasn’t sure he would ever get used to it. But he knew he was sensitive to stuff, so he was trying to be careful.

Jade didn’t know how to do that.

The water, unable to drain through all the…mess…was starting to rise above Jade’s nose. He wouldn’t drown, obviously, but Floyd worried what would happen if he smelled that much blood.

Floyd stuck his hand in the rust-pink water and started fishing things out to put in the trash bag. Jade really looked terrible like this, half-transformed and lying limp in the bottom of a filthy bathtub, and it made him sad. He finally got enough stuff out that the water could drain.

Jade tried to talk, but every time he moved even a little bit, he bit down on his bottom lip to keep from screaming.

“Just gimme a minute.” Floyd decided the water was as good as it was gonna get, so he closed the drain and let the tub start filling up again. He dumped a whole box of salt in the water and swirled it around to help it dissolve. The water was lukewarm instead of the frigid cold they preferred, but it was the only thing they had.

Jade, against what was probably his best attempt at good judgment, curled into the tightest ball possible so that most of his upper body would fit in the tub if nothing else. He let out a warning hiss when the salt reached his self-inflicted injury and lashed out vaguely in Floyd’s direction.

“It’ll stop hurting soon.” Floyd took his brother’s flailing hand and held it tight, even when Jade clumsily lurched over and bit him. He knew what that felt like, too, when his teeth hurt so bad that he wondered if they would shoot backwards through his jaw. He remembered when they were little and their adult teeth were coming in, and they would bite each other as often as they would bite pieces of coral and tight knots of seaweed and some of their classmates. Anything to relieve the tension. Anything to make it stop hurting. It was childish, but Floyd didn’t care. He just wanted Jade to feel better.

Jade loosened his hold after a while, but he still left his teeth stuck in Floyd’s hand, whimpering beneath the surface of the water. Floyd’s arm had turned back into his eel form, too. He stretched - sitting on the hard floor without the water to buoy him hurt after a while - and then he reached over to tuck Jade’s extra-long piece of hair out of the way of his fins.

The place where he’d cut himself was a dark cloud in the water. Floyd hoped it looked worse than it was. He knew how to stitch up most injuries, but if Jade had nicked a major organ or a blood vessel, he wasn’t sure he could handle that. Thankfully, his body was a lot more flexible in his true form, so at least it would take some of the pressure off. Floyd just hoped his insides would stay on his insides.

Jade’s whining tilted upward into something that sounded like a question, though there were no words to go with it.

“I can’t,” Floyd replied. “You’re already takin’ up all the space.”

He whined a little louder.

Floyd sighed. “Fine, just wait a sec.”

They were supposed to be practicing shifting between human and eel on their own until they got good at it, without using the water to cheat, but he supposed this once would be okay. It took a fair bit of maneuvering, especially with Jade still firmly attached to his hand by the mouth like a baby lizard. He finally managed to get the better part of his tail curled into the tub, then rested Jade’s head on his lap. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the shower wall.

“You’re so dumb,” he mumbled as he stroked his brother’s hair with the hand that wasn’t sandwiched between rows of teeth sharper than the points of the knives Jade had brought back from his adventure. “Don’t know what you’d do without me.”

Jade’s cries were starting to quiet down as he drifted in the general direction of sleep, but his garbled reply sounded a lot like “Me either.”

Chapter Text

“Dearest brother of mine.”

“Nn?”

“Would you please let go of me?”

“I on’t anna.”

Jade sighed and reached up to pat his brother’s head, unflinching at the teeth currently sunken into his skull. “Alright then.”

Jade returned to his book as if Floyd were not attached to his head like the creatures that shared their name. It would be pointless to ask what was wrong. Clearly something was, but Floyd never answered that question. Too many had responded with solutions for him to even bother anymore. He didn’t want a solution. He just wanted some company until the awful feeling passed.

Floyd’s arms were latched around him so tight that it might as well have been his tail constricting Jade’s torso. Rather than suffocating, Jade found it comforting. He sighed a bit and leaned back against his brother.

“’ade?”

“Mm?”

“I on’t anna o ack to school. I on’t ike it ere.”

Jade did his best to pretend he could not feel the slobber oozing down the side of his head from Floyd’s mouth. “I know.”

“’o I otta?”

“Well, I suppose not,” Jade said. “I think Mother and Father would understand.”

Floyd whined.

Jade placed his bookmark between the pages and let Floyd tighten his grip around him. It took him back to their childhood; whenever Floyd had a bad day, all he wanted to do was squeeze somebody until he felt better. That somebody was usually Jade.

“But,” he continued, “I would be terribly bored.”

He heard the telltale clicking of Floyd’s jaws flexing, then a sudden cold wetness in his hair when his brother let go. Jade used his sleeve to roughly dry his hair. Floyd wiped his mouth with a much more tattered sleeve.

“Really?”

Jade opened his arms enough for Floyd to curl up against him like they were little again. He did not typically squeeze as hard, but he knew Floyd wouldn’t mind. “Absolutely.” He gave a little extra squeeze for good measure. “I do not know what I would do without you.”

Chapter Text

“What do you think, Jade?” Floyd walked heel-to-toe along an invisible line on the floor with his arms spread wide, as if trying to balance on a tightrope. Or attempting a sobriety test. “Should we trade places today?”

“Hmmm,” Jade said thoughtfully. “I suppose it could be fun.”

“Yay!” Floyd spun on one foot like a ballerina and giggled. “Okayyy, so, that means I’m gonna ask the questions today,” he said to their…guest.

“Let me go!” The man thrashed against his bindings, but it just made Floyd laugh some more.

“Ehh, don’t waste your time,” he said dismissively. “Jade is really good with knots.”

Jade pressed a hand over his heart. “You flatter me.”

“I don’t know anything, I swear!”

Jade perused their collection. Typically, he would choose the more delicate instruments for interrogation - scalpels, needles, an ice pick, a soldering gun. Things that would inflict precise, perfectly controllable pain. But, if they were switching places today, he supposed he should think more like Floyd. He picked up the aluminum bat, noting that it was becoming quite dented from frequent use. He gave it an experimental swing. “This should do nicely.”

“Please!”

Floyd tsk-tsked. “Like I said, I’m asking the questions today,” he insisted. He leaned in close to the captive and widened his eyes so that the gold of his right iris was fully visible. He couldn’t hypnotize people exactly the way Jade could, but they didn’t need to know that. “I’ll make it easy on ya since I’m such a nice guy. Where’s the money?”

“I don’t know anything, I’m telling you!”

Jade cleared his throat.

“Wait, wait,” Floyd said with a wave of his hand in Jade’s direction. “C’mon, you can tell me. We won’t hurt you if you just play nice.”

Fear radiated through his face. “I don’t know,” he said between short, panicked breaths. “I don’t have it. I don’t know anything.”

Floyd sighed. “Have it your way.” He glanced up as if looking for a thought floating overhead. “Damn, now I really want Burger King.”

He took a long step backwards. Jade took the bat and swung without hesitation. A crack reverberated through the air, and the man began screaming.

“Are you suuuure you don’t wanna tell me?” Floyd leaned in again, tilting his head like a curious cat.

The man was babbling more than speaking. Tears cascaded out of his eyes as he shrieked and thrashed.

“I’m just sayin’, it would be way easier.” He shrugged. “Gotta pay your debts, buddy.”

When he still didn’t get a response, Floyd stepped aside again and bowed as if inviting Jade to pass through a doorway ahead of him.

Jade sliced the air with the bat and expertly shattered his other kneecap, eliciting another chorus of screams.

“Humans sure do run out of kneecaps awful quick,” Floyd said with casual disappointment. “What do you think, Jade? Elbows next? Shoulders?”

Jade balanced the bat over one shoulder and stretched his neck this way and that. “I think joints are too easy,” he replied.

“No! Please!” The man was, as Cater might describe it, ‘ugly crying.’

“Did you know,” Floyd said with a chuckle, leaning in with one hand on the man’s shoulder so he could look him in the eye again, “that the human skull has joints, too?”

“Twenty of them,” Jade added.

Floyd nodded eagerly. “Yeah! Pretty cool, huh? They don’t really move much, but they make all these neat lines that kinda look like cracks.” He giggled. “Earthquake head.”

The man looked like he might pass out from fear. Floyd steepled his fingers over the man’s forehead and dug the points of his nails in just enough to make their presence known. “I bet we could find out what they look like, yeah? Do you think the bones will break along the same lines?”

Jade lazily swept the bat in a circle and let it land firmly in his other palm. “Like dropping a watermelon.”

“Haha, there’s an idea. Shit, I'm really hungry now.” Floyd tilted his hat up and grinned into the man's face. “Gotta wrap this up, my guy, so I’ll ask ya one more time. Where. Is. The. Money.”

The man hesitated. He scrabbled for breath as if clinging to the edge of a cliff by his fingernails. His gaze jumped between Jade and Floyd as if debating which was more dangerous. He opened his mouth. Floyd grinned wider, expecting an answer.

“I spent it.”

Floyd’s face fell. “Are you fucking serious?”

The man was openly blubbering quite pathetically. “I g-gambled it away,” he said miserably. “Please, I have a family- I have kids-”

“Then why did you-” Floyd started to yell, but he cut himself off. “Nope, pops was right, there’s no point in asking you people when you get like this.”

He groaned loud enough that his irritation echoed around the storage unit.

“Would you prefer to switch back?” Jade asked politely.

Floyd sighed and waved toward him. “No, it’s fine. I usually get to have all the fun, it’s only fair.” He folded his arms like a willful child.

Jade nodded. “Would you like to bet on it?”

Floyd’s eyes illuminated as if he were using his spell. “Oh, hells yeah. Loser gets dinner. Three?”

“Two,” Jade countered. “Over or under?”

“Mmmm, over,” Floyd decided. He knocked on the man’s head and pretended to listen for a hollow sound. “He’s got a pretty thick one if he’s dumb enough to spend our money.”

Jade shrugged. “Very well.”

Floyd stepped back quite a bit further to give him some space.

Jade gave his arm a few shakes to loosen it up. He focused on the weight of the bat, the way it felt at the end of his hand, how it became an extension of him. Then he reeled back and swung.

The hit sent the man to the floor, along with the chair he was tied to. His cries stopped instantly, a splatter of blood and brain and bone mottled around the fatal wound, but Jade adjusted his grip and brought the bat down like a sledgehammer one more time, sending bits of material flying through the air like the innards of a piñata. Then one more just for fun.

“Three,” he announced. “I suppose you win.”

Floyd’s pouting expression melted into a beaming smile. “You took him out in one hit and we both know it,” he said, “but you always know how to make me feel better.”

“I do my best. Where are we having dinner?”

Floyd slung an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “All-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, my man.”

Jade set the bat down, where it rolled away on the concrete. “Not Burger King?”

“Pfft, who said I have to pick just one?”

Jade pressed a hand over his stomach. He was less than enthusiastic about fried food, but seeing Floyd skip merrily out the door made him feel a little better. He supposed they could clean up later.

“You know,” he said as he was locking up, “I realize I may have been incorrect.”

“Hm?”

Jade shook the door for security, then turned to follow his brother back to the car. “About the number of joints,” he clarified. “I cannot recall if it is twenty or twenty-one. I shall have to check my book later.”

Floyd giggled. “Or we could just count ’em.”

“Yes, we could.” Jade started the car. “Will Jamil be displeased that you missed practice again?”

Floyd gave a shrug. “Eh, it’s fine. I’ll just tell him I joined your club for the day. What is it? Mountain something?”

Jade rolled his eyes. “Close enough.”

Chapter Text

Floyd tapped the window of the washing machine with a suspicious expression. “Are you sure we’re doing this right?”

Jade was reading the instructions on the bottle of detergent. “I am mostly sure,” he replied. “I measured everything carefully.”

“Hmmm.” Floyd looked and sounded skeptical. “Are you sure we put enough bleach?”

“Again, mostly sure,” Jade replied. He hummed and set the detergent down. “I suppose we shall find out in due time.”

“Ehh, I don’t know about this thing.” Floyd was treating the washer as if it had challenged him to a staring contest.

Jade understood his skepticism to a point. Much to his personal embarrassment, they had never actually done laundry since moving ashore. At school the staff had handled it. But it could not be terribly difficult if most humans managed it on a regular basis.

What he found particularly fascinating was the way stains worked. A stain was all but impossible underwater, but they interacted with different fabrics in unpredictable ways. Blood, for example, needed to be rinsed in cold water immediately if there were any hope of eliminating it. Dirt and mud were more easily dislodged, while any sort of oil-based substance was much more difficult. He was already devising all kinds of experiments that would answer his questions.

“It will never dry anything if you continue opening the door,” Jade said when Floyd checked the contents of the dryer for the tenth time in almost as many minutes.

“It’s taking so looooong.” Floyd threw himself down on the floor with his limbs splayed out like a starfish. “I demand entertainment.”

“I have not connected the TV and such yet,” Jade answered, which elicited another groan of potentially fatal boredom from his twin. “Check the games cupboard.”

That certainly perked him up. Floyd got to his feet and went to rummage through their collection. He returned with Battleship and a glowing grin.

Jade cleared a space on the floor. Moving was an exhausting process, and he was beginning to think furniture was more trouble than it was worth. They set up the game, each of them trying - and failing - to fold their excessively long legs into a comfortable seating position. Floyd gave up and stretched out on his stomach, propped up on his elbows. Jade felt awkward doing the same and settled for keeping his legs off to the side and leaning on one hip.

“E5.”

“Miss.”

Jade placed a white peg on his side.

“Hmm…C4.”

Jade blinked. “Hit,” he replied and added the red peg to the bow of his destroyer. His gaze flicked upward to meet his brother’s with a slight edge.

Floyd giggled. “It’s your favorite stable plastic explosive.”

Jade sighed. “Am I so transparent?”

“Yes. C5.”

Another hit. Jade decided he really must learn to be more surreptitious about his preferences.

Floyd had decimated Jade’s fleet and was about to deal the final blow when there was a knock at the door. Jade went to answer it, grateful for the opportunity to stretch his legs.

“Hello, Azul.”

Azul strode in. “Greetings.” He scanned the mess of the apartment with barely-concealed dismay. “How are things going?”

“We’re playing Battleship!” Floyd cried from his place on the floor. Then the dryer alarm sounded to announce that it was finished, so he rolled to his feet and went to open it. He removed an armload of clothes and carried them into the bedroom. There was a soft whoosh as he tossed everything on the mattress. Then he returned to move the next load from the washer to the dryer. “Play with us!”

Azul shut his eyes for an extra-long blink and willed himself not to react. “You should fold or hang up clothing immediately after removing it from the dryer,” he said flatly. “Otherwise it will be wrinkled.”

“Laterrrr,” Floyd whined.

“And Battleship is only a two-player game,” Azul continued as he removed his shoes to leave them by the door.

“Uhh, yeah, maybe if you don’t have six copies of it.” Floyd rolled his eyes and went to collect the other five.

Azul frowned at Jade. “Why?”

Jade shrugged. “Object permanence.”

Floyd cleared out their current game and swiftly assembled the playing field so that each of them had two boards. He took his spot on the floor again and gazed up at the others eagerly. “Come onnn.”

Jade gave a tiny, helpless shake of his head and went to join him. Azul followed with tangible reluctance.

“I offered to help you organize things,” he said tartly. “I have a schedule, you know.”

“Should’ve written a contract,” Floyd giggled. “Now you have no choice but to have fun.”

Azul resigned himself to it. He had an easier time sitting with his legs crossed on the floor than Jade, who kept changing his position every few minutes in a futile attempt at comfort.

Jade looked around at the state of their new apartment while Floyd explained his ludicrously complicated house rules for Mega Battleship. It seemed impossible for them to own so many things. When he last spoke to their mother, she assured him that once they had everything put away, it would ease his anxieties. He did not like for things to be out of place. It would be too easy for someone to cover their tracks if they had broken in, if they were lying in wait for him-

Jade shook the thought out of his head with a twitch and reached his arm across to rub his other shoulder. It did not truly hurt anymore, but the thought continued to pester him.

“H10,” said Azul.

“Miss,” said Jade, glad that he had managed to get his thoughts back on track before either of them noticed. “D9.”

“Miss!” Floyd grinned. “J8.”

Jade sighed. “Hit. You have eliminated my submarine.”

“Knew it!”

“I mean this in the most polite way possible,” said Azul, “but how the hell are you so good at this game?”

Floyd shrugged. “I’m not. You two are just so obvious.”

They played through two rounds of it, then took a break to do some actual work. Azul and Jade set to patiently organizing things, putting things away, and hanging up the clothes Floyd had so eloquently discarded on the mattress. It was sitting directly on the floor, and Jade was seriously considering leaving it there, even though Floyd had threatened to build a tent over it and pretend they were camping every night.

“When will your furniture arrive?” Azul asked after a while.

Jade was spending a little too much time flattening the collars and lapels of every shirt and coat in the closet. “We have not purchased any yet,” he said. “I have not found anything to my liking.”

“Hmm,” Azul said. “And Floyd?”

“He finds everything to his liking.” Jade imagined that a room designed by Floyd with an unlimited budget would look patently ridiculous. In the same trip to a furniture store, Floyd had decided he wanted a bean bag chair, an inflatable couch, and a hot tub that would have cost several thousand dollars. (“In the bedroom?” “Uh, duh? Where else?”)

Jade was surprised to sense Azul coming suddenly toward him, leaving enough space for his comfort, save a hand reaching out to rest on his shoulder. He turned away from his anxious fingers, making no effort to hide his distress. There was no point in trying to conceal anything around Azul; his senses were as finely tuned as the eels’, and that aside, Jade trusted him.

“It’s alright,” Azul said simply. “I ensured those responsible were dealt with.” His eyes gleamed, and his jaw was firmly set. “Comprehensively.”

“Of course.” Jade let his gaze drop to the floor of the closet, where Floyd’s shoe collection was spilling over onto his side. “I know that, logically, the odds are quite low that it would happen again.”

Azul took hold of the hand that was once again rubbing his shoulder. Jade had not even realized he was doing it again. “It is also logical to feel lingering effects, Jade.”

Jade closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath that turned into a sigh.

“Food’s here,” Floyd yelled from the living room.

Jade hung up one more shirt before following Azul to the kitchen. They had little choice but to eat at the counter, but Floyd merrily unpacked the boxes of sushi and seafood and spread them out buffet-style. He pushed the box of sashimi in Jade’s direction and hoarded the spicy tuna rolls for himself. Azul and Jade picked at various items with their chopsticks since apparently they had not purchased any plates yet, either.

Floyd opened the next box and froze. “Uhh, who ordered this?”

Azul and Jade peeked at the contents. “Ah, that’s mine,” said Azul.

Floyd and Jade just stared at him as he separated a piece of grilled and glazed eel meat from the others and lifted it to his mouth. He seemed to enjoy it a little too much.

“What?” he asked with feigned innocence. “It’s good.”

Floyd made sure to stare at Azul with his most unhinged expression as he sucked down an entire octopus arm between the points of his teeth like a second tongue. “Serves you right,” Floyd said when Azul’s mouth twitched. “That could’ve been my grandmother. At least your fricken arms grow back.” Floyd paused, as if silently wondering whether this would still work in Azul’s human form.

“Don’t get any bright ideas,” Azul said, pointing the chopsticks at him.

The dryer alarm went off again. Floyd all but leapt up to go open it. When Jade looked at him curiously, Floyd just grinned. “It’s warm and soft,” he explained. When he opened the door, several strips of what looked like paper fluttered out of it with a puff of dryer lint. “Whoops.”

Azul thought nothing of it at first, but his attention snagged on something. They couldn’t have been receipts. Receipts that went through a wash-and-dry cycle turned into little annoying balls of wadded-up paper that shredded all over the place. “Floyd,” he said with intensifying alarm, “what is that?”

“Uh, my favorite blankie and pillowcases. Also the money.”

Azul all but choked. “Excuse me?”

Floyd shrugged. “I washed it. No big deal. You’re welcome.”

Azul tripped over his own feet as he staggered to the dryer. He snatched up the pieces of material and examined them with growing horror. “Floyd,” he said again, “what did you do?”

Now it was Floyd’s turn to look at him like he was crazy. “Did you forget already? Just did what you asked.”

The bleached, worthless bills slipped from Azul’s quavering hands.

“Are you alright, Azul?” Jade asked from a safe distance.

Floyd, ignoring the unraveling of Azul’s temperament, removed the rest of the bundle from the dryer and walked it to the bedroom, leaving a trail of shattered dreams fluttering to the floor behind him. “I don’t know what you’re upset about,” he said indignantly. “You’re the one who said to launder the money.”

Jade was certain Azul was about to faint, if he did not explode first. His eyes bulged behind his glasses, and his voice came out in a soft, raspy, desperate scrape against his throat. “That is not what I meant.”

Chapter Text

Jade was in a mood. That much was obvious from the way he scrolled endlessly through his phone. Which mood specifically, he was less sure. A muddy mix of disappointment and boredom tinted lightly with sadness and topped with sprinkles of envy. An altogether distasteful combination.

He only had an instagram account in the first place because of Cater. He had hardly used it. Too many security issues, and nigh unusable through a VPN. But here he was, scrolling through the only page that really mattered.

Fashion Week had recently wrapped up in the City of Flowers. Cater made up the bulk of his notifications as usual - livestreaming, comments, tagging him in a slew of posts and videos. Jade soon discovered why when he selected the top image.

Cater and Vil, posing dramatically in front of the famous statue. A few swipes to the left showed several more pictures, culminating in a selfie.

Jade flipped back and forth between the pictures. In each one, Vil looked perfect. His practiced facial expressions honed by years of acting and modeling. The ways he held his hands aloft. The-

Jade felt his heart seize, at least in his mind. He zoomed in on the last photo, the one with Vil and Cater, each wearing beaming smiles.

The lace draped over Vil’s hand had slid off to the side, revealing a thin ring of rose gold adorning one delicate finger. A ring Jade had given him.

“More mushrooms, darling? Really?”

Jade smiled serenely. “This one has a special meaning.” He removed it from the cushioned box and held it at eye level. “It is an enoki mushroom.”

Vil lifted an eyebrow. “Do I remind you of ramen that much?”

A light laugh, and the urge to make a joke about tasty things. “Wild enoki look quite different from their culinary cousins. When cultivated for food, they are raised in a highly structured environment, kept completely in the dark and grown in bottles to develop the long, white stems. It is the only way to ensure they meet the standards for consumption.”

Vil’s expression sobered a bit.

“In the wild, though, they are wholly unrecognizable. They grow much larger and take on a golden hue to the caps when they are allowed to see the sun.” Jade’s smile turned sly. “And they taste much stronger.”

Vil’s hand was almost limp as Jade slipped the ring over his finger.

“Only a few know its true form.”

He was wearing it. Jade looked back through his other pictures and examined his hands with forensic precision. The ring wasn’t there. Which meant he had done this on purpose. Perhaps he knew Cater would get his attention. It was like him not to reach out first, to instead lay himself out there like bait and wait for Jade to come to him.

A more rational side of his brain said he was overthinking all of this. But it was tucked into bed and kissed goodnight when Jade opened snapchat instead. No such luck in trying to take him by surprise. Vil was already online. Of course, Jade could not figure out what to say.

Vil sent you a chat!

Jade probably stopped breathing when he opened it.

‘Up late, aren’t we, darling?’

Just like that, the ground vanished beneath him, and he was falling into a bottomless pit. Whatever healing he had done evaporated as the gaping wound ripped open, exposing the depths of his heart to the frigid air.

‘You know I do not sleep much.’

He could all but taste the laughter on Vil’s tongue.

‘I admit I have not, either. I have been so busy lately.’

‘Yes, I saw,’ Jade replied. ‘But you already knew that, did you not?’

‘You really DO like to ask questions you already know the answers to.’

A red box appeared. Vil had sent him a picture. Jade wanted to open it as much as he did not want to open it. It might be a present. It might be a grenade.

He tapped it and looked anyway. It was a picture of the ring.

‘I am flattered,’ Jade wrote back. ‘I am certain anything in your collection is worth several times its amount.’

A bit of a longer pause. Vil sent another picture. He was seated at his vanity, his phone camera catching a glimpse of the multifaceted floor-length mirror behind him to show that his hair was loosely clipped in the back. He was tilting his head and giving a sweet smile with his free hand tangled in the fabric of his bathrobe. The caption read ‘I am the most beautiful thing here.’

The rational part of Jade’s brain was trying to beat him with a stick. He shut his eyes for a long breath and tried to resist what the other 98% of his brain was telling him to do.

No use.

‘You are the most beautiful thing everywhere.’

Jade wanted to ask why Vil was doing all of this. Why Vil was trying to get his attention. But before he could think to put the words together, he got his answer, in the form of another picture. Vil had not moved at all, but the angle of the image had. It faced the other mirror more directly and allowed him to see every inch of Vil’s back, bare from his shoulders all the way down to the royal blue robe draped across his lap. He had one leg crossed over the other, and he was wearing Jade’s favorite red heels.

‘Come over if you want to see more.’

Curse this wretched app for announcing when one took a screenshot.

Jade’s weakness for very expensive, very fast cars did him a favor once in a while. The engine gave sharp, hellish growls every time he shifted and accelerated as he snaked his way through traffic, as if to frighten anything stupid enough to remain in its path. He made it to the hotel in record time.

He did not bother trying to compose himself. He also took the stairs three at a time, because he wasn’t sure he could be trusted in an elevator. He also still had a copy of the key to Vil’s suite, because of course he did.

Vil beat him to it, though, and opened the door when he was still two strides away.

“Hello, darling.”

Jade did not slow down. Not when he plowed through the doorway and kicked it shut behind him. Not when he slammed Vil into the wall, doubtlessly painting his back with bruises of Jade’s own design, leaving marks only he dared to leave. Not when Jade had him pinned to the floor with his tongue firmly between Jade’s teeth. Vil chuckled and sighed and gasped all the while, playing his part perfectly, and Jade did not even care if he was acting.

It was a long time before the aggression went out of him.

Eventually, Jade found himself where he had so many times before - lying in a bed that wasn’t his, listening to water filling a bath in the next room, and using an expensive pillow to punch himself in the face.

“Ugh, I forgot how much these can hurt,” Vil said as he surveyed the damage Jade had inflicted. “I forget, does Epsom salt bother your skin? Or is it just the eucalyptus oil?”

Jade expelled all of his frustrations through a sigh into the pillow. Vil came over and took it away from him. 

“I promised I would not make the water too hot, on the condition that you join me.”

Jade glared up at him. “Why do you keep doing this?”

Vil scoffed. “Why do I?  Why do you, darling.” He stroked Jade’s chest and leaned in close, lowering his voice to a murmur. “And I think we both know the answer.”

Jade hated that he pulled Vil in for another kiss. And another.

Vil hated that Jade distracted him for so long that the bathtub began to overflow. But it gave Jade one little victory to smirk about on his way home.