#and then you hear taffy shatter the glass he was hand-washing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

musubiki · 3 months

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most recent story development in my brain: ive decided to actually seperate taffy and coco during the timeskip

initially i had it that taffy sticks with coco because he has nowhere to go and they eventually get together over the timeskip. the new version is that he runs away and disappears right before mochi leaves

in my head i see him as the type to run away after what mochi and coco do for him-- after coco put in so much effort and time advocating for him because she saw that there were traces of a good person under his antagonistic nature, and after mochi beat his ass for the final time and finally cleared his curse, he doesnt know what to do with himself.

the rest of the guild at that point (mochi included) has an attitude of "We know why you were the way you were. Now that there's no reason for you to hate us, you're free to go where you want. You can even stay with us." and this sentiment eats him alive. the guilt he feels is insane. the fact that he spent months (years?) trying to ruin mochi, brewing in bitterness and rage and all of a sudden all of that is gone and replaced with forgiveness and warmth is unbearable and he cant stand it, so he leaves.

this is all coupled with his feelings for coco and the attitude on his end of "I don't deserve this. I don't deserve her. All I can do is bring them down. All I can do is bring her down. I have no right to stay here. I have no right to want to stay here."

so theres a pivotal scene in my head where he has all these thoughts, standing right outside the side door to mochis house hearing them all chattering inside, and has a long moment of hesitation before going inside. in the OLD version coco opens the door before he can make up his mind and forces him inside with the rest of them, but in the NEW version i think its much more taffy-like if hes gone by the time she notices and gets to the door

(tldr timeline: mochi removes his curse -> he disappears -> he only appears for the last amanita fight because really thats HIS fight as much as it is mochis -> he leaves again RIGHT after. i imagine coco tried to stop him or say goodbye but this man is notoriously good at escaping quickly)

and so timeskip-wise coco attends university on her own. she keeps in touch with oscar and lime (more oscar than lime) and while she never directly set out to look for taffy, there was always that desire to look for him in a crowd or something, maybe hoping to run into him at random or that he would show up out of nowhere like he did the first time.

I'm not totally sure what he does during the timeskip then. something far away from coco and the guild, but somewhere close to the ocean because he could never find it in him to stray too far from it for too long. maybe lost his touch with water magic a bit because he was too afraid and guilt-ridden to use it. never really stopped thinking about coco but couldnt muster up the courage to go find her again. for YEARS hes convinced that she doesnt want to see him and he wouldnt do anything to make her life better. hes done too much to all of them for them to ever accept him, he thinks.

until one day coco just. shows up. after tracking him down (with mochi and sulluvans help). sitting on a barrel at the docks he works at in some city somewhere, eating some cotton candy she bought at the docks like "Heyo! Mochi needs another guild member, and you kinda owe us one, soooo..."

#lore #bpp #text #and then while hes too busy processing one of his shipmates throws down some supplies and it clobbers him #falls right into the water #coco: gee youre a lot more of a clutz than i remember #or she BUSTS out hysterical mocking laughing #coco move #can you imagine the kind of feelings his heart went through in the span of 2 seconds #its like all the negative emotions were just washed away (haha get it) for a brief second #i think they return when he sees mochi though #i also like the idea of post-timeskip the running theme of (yeah im dating this guy from class now--)#and then you hear taffy shatter the glass he was hand-washing #i dont know what he does post-timeskip yet #maybe he'll be one of those guys who go out to rough ocean and fish crabs #taffy running away feels right #even though it sucks for both of them

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grailacademy · 5 years

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Welcome To Grail Academy - Chapter Twenty-one: Something Soon

Calicem was a diverse city, but a heavily segregated one as well. The rich pushed most of the working-class citizens out of their homes and neighborhoods years ago, planning to renovate the abandoned buildings left behind but never actually starting any projects. The communities that still fought against the gentrification were all grouped together in one sector of the city, and it was in one of these neighborhoods that a famous diner stood, like a beacon in the darkness: Peach’s Diner. This is where Yorick sat, huddled in a booth with his hands around a tall glass containing a vanilla milkshake and a curly straw. As he slurped on his drink in silence, Rettah plucked the cherry on top and popped it into her mouth, interrupting the anecdote she was sharing.

“-And he never even called me back! Can you believe that?” She chewed on the tooth-rottingly sweet red bubble.

“No way, he didn’t want to talk to a girl who sawed the legs off all of his furniture? That’s crazy!” Queenie responded with sarcasm, but they both knew it was a joke, and the girls laughed.

“It’s still not as bad as Scarlet’s last boyfriend, ha!” Queenie jostled Scarlet sitting next to her, making the chunk of cake on his fork plop onto his plate with a splatter of icing. He used the back of his sleeve to wipe some frosting off his face, mumbling a quiet, “Yeah, he was a total weirdo.”

Queenie slid a napkin towards the center of the table, showing all the notes and lines scribbled on it in pen. “Okay, our guy is waiting at the club next door. This should be a normal trade, but the buyer is a little….paranoid.” Yorick leaned forward to look at the napkin, eyes scanning over the plan. He asked Queenie, “What exactly do we get in return for these trades?”, and she shrugged her shoulders underneath the poofy letterman jacket decorating her torso.

“Depends,” she started, “Information, coordinates and defenses on our enemies, recipes or ingredients for Boost products, new recruits, whatever Sable values as important. This one is for blueprints of a few buildings she wants to use as outposts.”

Yorick nodded and spooned the last bit of whipped cream out from the bottom of the glass with his fingers, popping it into his mouth. Queenie and Scarlet stood up, the leader of their team slapping a few Lien on the table while their teammates left the diner to scope out their checkpoints for the meeting. “I got this one, you guys go ahead and scout.”

Bernard closed the door to the bathroom behind him. He turned the faucet to the shower on and let the water run until it heated up, meanwhile setting his scroll on the edge of the sink. His teammates had yet to return to the dorm room after their exams, so he took this bit of alone time to clean himself up. He pressed the play button on his scroll’s screen, and jumped into the shower while music played from its speakers. He didn’t consider himself to be a good singer, but that didn’t stop him from crooning out the words to his favorite song as he washed his hair. This was the one time he allowed himself to be vocal and dynamic, when nobody else was around. His out-of-tune rendition of an old rock n’ roll song paused just before the chorus, because the ringing of a call on his scroll stopped the music. The warm water from the shower faucet dripped down his chest, following the trails of various scars and old wounds before they were trapped by a soft towel. He answered the call while he dried his hair.

“Hello?”

“¿Como va tu entrenamiento, Bernie?” The voice on the other line made him shiver. He knew who it was, but that wasn’t his mother. Bernard looked at the lesions and blemishes across his chest the foggy mirror, draping the towel over his shoulder.

“....Qué deseas.”

“¿No puedo revisar a mi estudiante estrella?”

“Qué es lo que realmente quieres.”

“....Los planes han cambiado. Necesitamos que termines tu entrenamiento y vuelvas a casa. Hay trabajo que hacer.”

Bernard was quiet. Not out of choice, but because he didn’t know how to respond. The voice on the other line filled the lack of noise for him, though.

“Sería una pena si tuviéramos que poner a tu hermana en el sistema. Usted tomó ella lugar para mantenerla fuera de peligro. Hazlo por ella.”

“Tres meses.”

“Demasiado largo. No empujes tu suerte. Un mes.” The person hung up, and the chorus of the song played again. It didn’t have the same impact on him that it did before, ringing through the now hollow emptiness he felt in his chest.

The factory homebase of the Hedge Witches was much larger than most would expect. Yes, there was the actual factory portion where shipments were made, and the courtyard connecting the greenhouse to the main building, the field behind it, and the array of repurposed storage rooms used as offices, but there was much left to explore. The black haired boy who sat in on meetings held by the organization’s leaders, arms crossed and sitting on a crate when he was supposed to be taking notes, cautiously moved down a long stairwell. His only source of light came from candles mounted on the walls, which flickered rhythmically as he walked past each one, like a dance of warning to turn back. He wasn’t afraid. The stairs opened into a narrow hallway in the basement, a level of the headquarters few people had ever actually seen. This area looked older than the building on top of it, and it reminded him of ancient catacombs more than a dusty cellar. As he made his way through the crypt, the boy took time to acknowledge how the brick walls and wooden floors were now covered in dirt and mud, packed on in layers like an animal den. The end of the hallway opened up into another oddly shaped room, a mud-shaped cave that ended at a near wall, and an extremely high ceiling. At one point, it was a smokestack that puffed fumes from the taffy factory. But now, the floor of it was covered in silk pillows and cushions. The boy looked up to the tall, open center of the pillar that shone a foggy grey sky through a mess of black webs and nets wrapped around its walls. “You needed me?” He shouted up, listening as his voice bounced off the walls of the structure in echoes.

The black netting shifted and changed shape, and slowly, Sable lowered herself onto the pillows by her hair like a ribbon-dancing acrobat. Her locks stayed where they were, except for the few that held her head and waist like a harness. “Yes.” The sway in her walk gave her body the shape of melting wax, her movements resembling the dancing flickers of the candle flames at the entrance as she stepped over the lush cushioned bedding on the floor.

“I need you to run an errand for me. Yorick’s semblance training is moving at a….less than reasonable pace. We have to speed up the process.” She handed Hari a tattered comic book. The ink on the cover was faded, but the title, Blue Inferno vs Doctor Bloodlust, was still readable. He took it, running his hand over the figures of a masked vigilante fighting a man in a lab coat, both of them clad in futuristic armor and shooting lasers at one another. The art style of the book has not aged well, the blue spandex on the story’s hero looked to be riding up a bit too high in some rather unappealing places. “How long do you think a trip to Atlas will take?”

“Two days, if I leave right now.”

“Good. Find Azura, follow her to their home. Take anything that you think will spark memories for him.”

“Anything?” “Anything.”

Hari rolled up the comic and tucked it under his arm, and Sable’s hair spread to make an opening in the tower’s ceiling. He crouched down, pulled at the neckline of his tank top, and looked up through the hole into the sky. “Oh!” Sable remembered, advising him, “Bring a coat, I hear it’s cold in Atlas this time of year.”

Hari rolled his eyes, “I’ll be fine, mom.”

“I know you will, but I get worried!” She hugged him and planted a big wet kiss on his cheek, which he immediately wiped off in embarrassment and disgust.

“Goodbye, sweetie! Stay safe! I love you!” She clasped her hands over her chest, giving Hari a patient look while she waited for him to repeat the phrase. He groaned loudly and turned his back to her, groaning “....I love you too, mom,” before he sprung out of the crouch and disappeared out the mouth of the smokestack in a swirl of black hair and feathers.

Yorick’s hands were getting sweaty again. It was a strange sensation when it was paired with the frigid cold from his milkshake glass. The drink was long finished, he wasn’t even holding the cup. But the club he followed Rettah into after Scarlet and Queenie scouted it out put him off. It wasn’t exactly his scene. Rowdy biker bars full of criminals and drunks weren’t his preferred spot. The raucous laughing and shouting pounded at his ear drums, and the constant shattering of bottles and metal music on the jukebox in the corner didn’t help. He would have killed for a smoke right about now, to calm his nerves. A gang of bikers hunched over a pool table, one of them with a thick beard reminiscing about the good old days. Like some kind of miracle sent by an angel, the miscreant flicked half a cigarette butt onto the floor at Yorick’s feet, apparently finished. Avoiding eye contact with the group of men, he sneakily picked up the butt from the floor before someone stepped on it and snuffed it out. He took a couple of puffs and followed Rettah the rest of the way to a booth at the back of the bar, where their friends waited. Their path was blocked by a crowd of people waiting in line for the bathroom, so the girl grabbed Yorick’s wrist and pulled him through the sea of ruffians. On the other side of the line, Queenie leaned forward over the table of their booth and negotiated with a lanky man in a burgundy pinstripe suit. Scarlet scooched further into the booth to make room for the other two to sit down, and Rettah skipped over giddily with Yorick trailing behind.

“You have been very generous to me, and I appreciate that.” The man combed a strand of hair neatly back into place on his head of grey hair, eyeing Queenie. “But I want something in return for these goods. Understand?”

“Whatever you need. Money, Boost, supplies, we can provide it.” Queenie rapped her knuckles against the wooden table.

“Protection.” The man shifted in his seat, the gold pins on his lapel reflecting the light hanging over them. “I want a guaranteed alliance with the Hedge Witches. The way I see it, you need someone on the inside, and I need someone to keep me safe if you want this job done correctly.”

Scarlet tugged on the sleeve of Queenie’s jacket, whispering something into her ear. She nodded, and held her hand out to the man. He took it and shook, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody was watching them. Under the table, he handed an orange envelope to Scarlet, who folded the package and hid it between his knees. “Pleasure doing business with you, Mister Reed.”

Reed picked up his hat from one of the coat hooks on the sides of the booth, placing it on his head and leaving the bar without another word. The four of them made sure he was out the door before they pulled the envelope out. Scarlet wedged his nail under the fold on the paper, ripping the top open and pouring its contents onto the table. “What is it,” Rettah asked. Queenie turned the papers over, and showed them the detailed blueprints of Grail Academy’s clocktower.

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desdemonafictional · 6 years

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The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (pt 2)

A continuation of my fic of Choko’s “October People” fic

pt 3

Time doesn’t pass in the October world the way it passes elsewhere. Edgar is analytical by nature, but even for him it is difficult to keep track of the hours. Maybe it’s more difficult, because he is so analytical. Before he came here, he lived his life by a series of planners and alarms.

On an early night, when Edgar was still fresh and woefully confused by it all—the murky passage of time and the ghostly shapes that haunted the stalls, the way he could stare at his reflection for so long that he ceased almost to recognize it entirely—Johnny Sea came to visit him.

Edgar caught the soft sound of a breath sighing out and turned to find him at the edge of the vanity, craning his neck up to observe the ceiling. The antique silver chains that hung from the poles of the ceiling swayed in some unseen wind, or some deep insidious tide. Each of their glass-tipped ends glowed in the candle light.

“It suits you,” Nny said, reverently touching a single glowing shard. “It’s exquisite. Like you are.”

A pang of something almost painfully sweet knocked the breath out of Edgar, hard and intense. For a moment he was certain that anything he might have sold to be here was worth it, just to bear that feeling one more time. But then the feeling faded, and Edgar was cold again in the candlelight.

“That’s kind of you to say,” he replied, but distantly.

“Jimmy tells me you’re settling in,” Nny said. “Well actually, what he tells me is a lot of shit that I didn’t ask to hear, the devil knows why I didn’t install a mute function on that degenerate when I signed him on, but you were in there somewhere. Did you like the tour?”

Jimmy? Edgar thought, and then shook the thought away.

“What did you mean,” Edgar said, “when you said Tess and I made different deals?”

Nny crossed his arms in front of himself. “Oh, you know Tess. She tried to get clever with me there in the middle. We had a lot of fun that day! Me trying to lure her to her untimely death, her trying desperately to maintain her life and sanity, taffy, kettle corn….”

Edgar thought for a moment of the lonely sounds of chains in that dark hollow beneath the starless sky, of Tess’s ragged tearful breathing. It occured to him that what he regrets now isn’t so much his decision to take Nny’s hand as his inability to do anything for the only other human being in this monstrous underworld.

(Edgar has gone back to see her a number of times since that first night, and it has never once ended well.)

Nny flicked his wrist, shattering the memory. “Clever Tess! She caught on just in time. Fast talker, that one. You know she wanted to save me too. Well, at first…” He pursed his thin lips. “I don’t suppose she’s forgiven me yet. But you know how it goes with scorpions and frogs. We can’t help our nature.”

“And me?” Edgar asked.

Nny paused. He uncrossed his arms, thoughtfully, and came towards the cot, the striped silk of his coat lining flickering in the dim light. “You could have been free,” he said, “and you knew it. That means something. For your freedom, Edgar-Edgar-Vargas, with your hot little twitching heart, you could buy any prize.”

And then, as Edgar held his breath in something almost fear, almost longing, Nny settled onto his knees at Edgar’s feet. His lighthouse eyes looked up at Edgar, expressionless and alien, as he lifted his fleshless fingers up to Edgar’s cheek. The tips of his ivory digits hovered just above the skin.

“You wanted a home,” he said. “I’ve given you mine.”

The crowds come at night, smelling of smog and fast food grease, whole and human and carefree. Edgar watches them sometimes, how they move in herds through the carnival as the hungry machine picks off the weak and the careless and siphons them away into its dark stomach—rough and reckless boys eager to impress their uneasy dates, third wheels, precocious children.

This is their busiest season. Well that’s no surprise—the season of death, blood on the stones, the dying daylight. In this world it’s always October, so how he’ll know when the calendar truly changes is anybody’s guess.

It was on an evening as he was avoiding Tenna, who was friendly in the absolute most disconcerting way and kept asking him if he’d be willing to part with a finger or two, for purposes no doubt nefarious and perhaps cannibalistic, that Edgar finally found himself drawn into the mechanics of the monster.

There was a hollow thump on the crate below him, at which point Edgar looked down to find Sharktooth in full death-paint, sneering up at him.

“What are you,” he said, “the new lightning rod? Hell’s bells, we’re sure getting our money’s worth out of you.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Edgar sighed. He wasn’t being entirely sarcastic. For all that the showman never seemed pleased to see him, he was at the very least a familiar face in this unpredictable world.

“If you’re not doing anything up there,” Sharktooth said, “maybe you wanna come down here and make yourself useful.”

A frission of interest caught Edgar by surprise. He considered the twilight for a moment, the damp wood beneath his hands, and then leapt down to the earth. He found the idea of spending any time with this strange creature as intriguing as the midnight call of a lamp-lit street, a mystery and an omen all in one.

The moment Edgar touched the ground, Sharktooth turned away from him, flipping up the wool edges of his collar. “I got a new toy for the show,” he said, “I need a warm body to test it out on.”

An odd anticipation prickled through Edgar’s guts. “What kind of toy are we talking about?” he said.

“Easier to just show you,” Sharktooth said, crooking a finger over his shoulder.

They picked their way through a maze of construction, under hollow-eyed strongmen lifting fresh signs for new exhibits, around the swollen footage of the freakshow. Edgar followed close on the showman’s heels, thinking a thousand curious thoughts. When he pulled back the tent flap to allow Edgar entrance, the single brief moment of passing underneath his shoulder filled Edgar with another wash of that strange anticipation.

It was dim here, the only light radiating up from below, from the set that sprawled sullenly across the ground. Edgar froze at the entrance, terrified by the shadow in the glowing murk. At the center of the ring was a clear tank more than twice the height of a man, in which something moved like living thunder. He jolted when sharp tipped fingers closed down on either of his shoulders, sucking in a shock of air, hairs prickling down the back of his neck.

“How about that?” Sharktooth said, a smirk twisting the edges of his voice. “You like swimming in the shark tank, don’t you, Vargas? You wanna take a dip?”

“I’m not dressed for swimming,” Edgar said, mentally swearing at himself even as he said it.

The creature behind him let out a snarl of laughter, squeezing and then discarding him. “Then you’re not gonna like the box,” he said, making his way lazily across the stage.

With a snap of his fingers, limelight splintered the darkness. On a platform below the tank, there was a box full almost to the top with luminous water, strung with chains. Inside its depth, open manacles drifted heavily. Sharktooth stopped in front of it and rapped it with his knuckles, baring his teeth.

“Daring escapes!” he said, “Miraculous revivals! A damsel in the jaws of death!”

Above him, strung in lights like a theater marquee, the words JAWS OF DEATH flashed and faded.

“Here,” he said, shaking out his wrists, “it goes like this.”

And then he threw out his arm towards the audience, to a ghostly swell of applause. “You, yes, any one of you!” he called out, passing his hand over the empty seats. “Any one of you may suddenly find yourself helpless in the jaws of death! To survive, ladies and gentlemen, you must surrender to the peril! Let your body succumb to the unknown, let it taste you—let it know you!”

His passage over the dark arena broke over Edgar, his gaze pausing as it lit there. For the first time, there was no irritation or impatience in his blacked out eyes, nothing save pure and sultry invitation. His open hand, thrown out before him, curled into a gesture of summoning. Edgar felt his throat going hot.

“You there,” he purred, “won’t you come up to the stage? The abyss is hungry to know you—it’s calling your name, pretty thing.”

Hot and dizzy with the pressure of that unbroken gaze, Edgar felt himself take an automatic step forward. His toe scuffed the sawdust. But before he could more than begin to move, Sharktooth flicked his fingers and cut the magic.

“Of course it would be a girl for the real thing,” he said, shooting the rows of the audience a dismissive sneer. “That’s all these troglodytes wanna see, a wet pair of tits. Give the people what they want, more flies with honey, yadda yadda.”

As he turned his attention back to Edgar, Sharktooth narrowed his eyes. “Hold on, Vargas,” he said, “—were you about to come up here?” At Edgar’s mortified silence, he clutched his hair, caught somewhere between fury and laughter. “Fuck me, you are the easiest goddamn mark I’ve ever seen.”

Edgar flushed. He bent down and, to avoid making further eye contact, brushed imaginary wrinkles out of his lightweight pants. After a moment, the wheeze of furious laughter died away.

“Anyway, the box is new,” Sharktooth carried on, righting himself. “I’m not sure what the effect in action is gonna be. You’ll be alright for a practice dummy.”

“I feel like you’re being unnecessarily insulting,” Edgar said, “for someone who apparently needs my help.”

“I don’t need your help,” Sharktooth corrected him. “You just happen to be the only person not doing anything useful right now.”

“So ask Tenna,” Edgar said. “I know for a fact she’s slacking off. She’s been after my fingers for hours.”

“Uhhhhggh, no,” Sharktooth said, addressing his complaint to the ceiling. “Fine, I’ll be like. The minimum of nice to you if you’ll just help me with this death trap.”

“Alright,” Edgar said, and made his way up the steps.

“What,” Sharktooth said, “just like that?”

Edgar shrugged off his jacket and set it down in a neat roll beside the box. “Honestly, I want to see the rest of the act. Anyway, I’m already bought and sold, there’s not much you can do to me now.”

Sharktooth cocked his hip, a grin slowly twisting the corner of his mouth. “Nah… I can’t take your soul,” he said, “you’re right about that. But what’s gonna stop me from taking your life?”

And then he snapped his fingers.

The world went cloudy and green tinted, in the very moment that Edgar’s heart screamed into panic in his chest. The cool weight of water closed and held him—glass bumped his fingertips—the loose fabric his white clothing went translucent as it dragged against him, drifted in the crushing space. Through the glass he could make out nothing except the shape of a man, one finger tapping a place just above Edgar’s head.

Air. The first thing he needed was air. He had seen a thin empty space at the top of the box—this thing was not actually designed to kill him, just shake him up a bit. As he kicked up, his toes bumped glass. He reached through the water and wrapped a length of chain around his wrist, lifting himself up to the surface, where he coughed and glared blearily down at the laughing figure below him.

“You could at least have let me take off my glasses first,” he said.

The hand clapped to muffle Sharktooth’s laughter was smudged with white greasepaint. “Gotta keep on your toes,” he managed.

Edgar blew out a wet puff of air as Sharktooth pulled himself together and stepped back, giving the tank a thorough look over. He held his hands up in the shape of a picture frame.

“Okay,” he said, after a moment, “that’s not bad. It’ll look better with the cuffs.”

Edgar eyed the open ends of the manacles. “Fool me once, shame on me,” he said. “Fool me twice, I don’t think so.”

Sharktooth scoffed. “Look,” he said, “there’s a whole routine here, I’m not actually gonna kill you. Johnny’d turn my gills inside out for one thing.”

Edgar considered him for a moment, measuring the likelihood of that thought. Although he was wary of this place—of the interest of cats in mice—something in his gut told him that there was too much left undone for this to be the end of the line. The nature of this fairy tale was beginning to come clear in the back of his head. “Yeah?”

Sharktooth grinned up at him. “Yeah.”

“Alright.”

The grin faltered. “Seriously? Seriously? You’re not even gonna make me fight for it?”

Edgar untangled himself from the length of chain, ready to let go as directed. “You know how it is with scorpions and frogs,” he said, with a wry smile. “I guess we just don’t get tired of being stung.”

For a moment, through the wetness of his glasses and the glare of the stage lights, Edgar could not make out the exact nature of the expression on the face below him. And then there was a blur of motion, the movement of a hand, and matter shifted in the depths below him. A heavy tightness pulled his ankles, dragging him down below the surface once and for all.

It was a slow process of sinking, the buoyancy of his lungs fighting against the weight dragging him down. His wrists, secured behind his back, left him little to struggle with. Although his body rippled with the panic of a drowning thing, his mind was oddly calm. He could see the shape of his captor through the glass, motionless, and understood that he was being watched with rapt fascination.

Surrender, the memory of that showman’s pitch played again in his mind, succumb—

In the depth that drew him down, his clothing translucent against his thighs, Edgar allowed himself to settle at the bottom of the tank, his knees parting until they met glass on either side. The pressure in his lungs burned hot. Under the green swirl he was dreamily aware of the weight on his body, lovely and dire. He lifted his chin and breathed out a stream of bubbles, thinking—well, in for a penny…

There was no use in fighting his nature. It was becoming clear that he would eat the apple again and again, given half the chance to damn himself.

The sound of the snap rang through the tank like the crack of lightning. All at once the clarity of thin air opened up around Edgar—light burst over him—and he stumbled over the ground, falling against Sharktooth’s chest. Wool scratched the peaks of his bare nipples, hard from the chill.

Sharktooth startled, his hands coming up and closing automatically against Edgar’s shoulders. His skin was strangely cold, despite the fact that Edgar was dripping wet and just about anything ought to be warm by comparison. Goosebumps prickled under the sharp grip.

“Holy hell,” Sharktooth muttered, “forget the wet tits, that’s a show.”

In between heaving gasps, Edgar managed to reply, “—Thanks.”

Sharktooth stiffened. He pried Edgar off of himself, but his grip was tight—for all that he was pushing Edgar away, he didn’t seem quite able to let go. “You’re a reckless son of a bitch,” he said.

“Well,” Edgar said. “I obviously didn’t get where I am by being measured and reasonable.”

The showman’s gaze drifted down, over the length of Edgar’s prickling skin, to the sodden cling of the white fabric against his hips. Edgar suddenly did not feel particularly cold anymore.

Sharktooth let go as if burned. “Fucking hell, next time put some clothes on,” he said, jerking the skewed lapels of his coat back into place. Buttons flashing, blackened lips twisted into a scowl, he snatched up Edgar’s jacket and shoved it into his hands.

Edgar accepted the bundle, but made no move to redress. “I appreciate you not murdering me,” he said.

“You better stop tempting me,” the showman muttered, and stomped away into the darkness beyond the stage, until the curtains swallowed him and even the sound of his boots was no longer audible.

Edgar pulled on his jacket, one wet arm at a time. “I think that went well,” he informed the leviathan in the tank, who had nothing to contribute at that time.

#jthm #mmygar #etc

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