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ananas-pineapple-thing · 7 years

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I found this in my drafts, and I’m not a great writer, but I thought I’d just post this friendship fic thing-y

Me and You and You and Me

The river looks pretty.

It's not something Septimus ever imagined himself thinking before- but then again, this is his first time here without a soldier's uniform, without the icy hand of fear curled around his neck, and even then it might've looked nice. He might've just not noticed until now, this second, and that's fine. That's okay. Maybe he would've liked to see the river unfiltered by the lenses of duty and death and order when he was younger and colder and needed it more, but that's just how it works. Everything good comes all of a sudden, loud and rushing and overwhelming and so, so new, and he can deal with it that way. Even if the one he wants to share this with the most is dead. It's fine, though, it's okay! He's completely fine!

Septimus scratches the letters 409 into a tree with his new pocket knife in his honor anyways, because this is absolutely what his very best friend would've wanted as his legacy. He pretends he is not even the littlest bit sad whenever someone passes and looks confused.

No one's really glancing his way anymore, because, well, the river looks pretty. The whole of it he can see is lit up with the reflected yellows and golds of the sun, shimmering on the waves of the pale, almost frosty blue water. There are no clouds in the sky, and any lingering murkiness fades away to clear water. Even from far away Septimus can see the small boat Nicko is piloting, and the even smaller blip of Jenna sitting on the edge, legs dangling in the water. Even from here he can see the sunlight glinting on his sister's circlet.

The bank is covered in damp, trampled grass and dark sand, but it's nice. It feels comfortable, familiar. Septimus is too tired to join them in the water right now, and he doesn't want to sit on the wood planked bridge where he saw them off, with his back exposed to the people coming and going. It's better here, curled up against a large rock where no one can sneak up at him. He can actually watch them here instead of sitting all prickly and still, waiting for the Chief Cadet to press a knife to his neck, maybe, or waiting to be pushed into the hungry waters.

Nicko is pulling on Jenna's legs from his boat until she is dragged into the water. She resurfaces, spluttering and soaking and angry. Nicko is leaning over the railing, laughing.

Septimus is too far away to hear what he's saying, but it must be something like, isn't the water nice? Didn't I tell you?

Jenna doesn't seem to think so. Still fuming, she grabs Nicko by the shoulders in a surprising show of strength and he topples in after her.

Now Jenna is laughing. Nicko tries to splash her, but she ducks behind his boat. The rope keeping it tied to the bank is slowly unfurling, and Septimus wonders how long it will take them to notice. He wonders if he should call out to them.

But if he can't hear them, then, well, they won't be able to hear him. Besides, it might be fun to watch them chasing after it. Septimus can't help but smile and lean closer when Jenna notices and starts tugging on Nicko's arm. He mistakes it as an invite to splash her in the face.

The feeling in his chest when Septimus watches this is new, one that makes his heart swell into something almost too large to be healthy. He laughs out loud at the scene before him- Jenna and Nicko paddling furiously after their boat- dropping his head to rest on his knees. Dropping his guard enough so that he doesn't notice the footsteps until they settle right next to him.

Septimus whirls around and stops, breathing hard. There is an older boy there.

It takes him a moment, and when he gets it, he's embarrassed it took so long. It's okay. It's just Beetle.

"Wotcha, Sep," Beetle says, maybe not noticing Septimus's momentary panic, maybe just too polite to mention it. He flops down beside him, grinning, almost inevitably getting grass stains on his white stockings in the process. "The river looks nice, doesn't it?"

"Wotcha, Beetle," Septimus says, smiling back, and closes his eyes. This part is not new. This part has happened before, in other ways. It's as familiar in the same way the rhymes embedded in his brain are, the same way he always looks over one shoulder, in case. Familiar the same way letting a boy fall into a fast following river every night is.

409 standing next to him along the castle walls, both dressed in uniforms. His best friend catches his eye and then shakes a lizard out of his hat. How long was that there? he mouths, and they both stifle their laughs.

Side by side, holed up in a wolverine pit, waiting to for the inventible death of someone, even themselves. "What do you think your name is?" he asks 409 in a whisper, as a distraction. 409 shrugs, saying, "What my mum called me? Probably better than what yours called you."

His cot is wet from the icy water dumped on him the day before by the Chief Cadet to force him up. His nose is running, his breath misting. It is so, so cold and so, so wet. He shaken up by 409, and led back into his friend's cot. It's cramped, but warm and dry. Passing over a different river, in the forest during a Do-or-Die exercise. "The water looks nice, look, 412," his best friend says, leaning a little too far out. Neither of them notice. "I think it just looks cold," he replies.

Septimus opens his eyes again. "It does, doesn't it?"

They both sit there for a moment, watching the gentle waves in the water. His siblings are out of view, but he knows they'll be back in a moment, to drag him in, maybe, or invite him for hot chocolate. He's not worried.

And anyway, this is nice. Sitting with Beetle is nice. He's only met him twice before on chores for Marcia, but he's someone Septimus knows he wouldn't mind having as a friend. It would be nice to have one of those outside of his family again.

Beetle smiles at him again, and it makes Septimus ache in the way that it reminds him of someone else, from what feels like so very long ago. It's fine, though, it's okay. He's completely fine.

When Jo-Jo comes home from the Grot everyday, Edd and Erik are sprawled across his bed.

The thing is, he isn't sure why they come to his flat at the end of each day when they can easily buy their own, more convenient rooms in the Wizard Tower. Maybe they're just trying to save money by leeching off of him. Maybe they miss the nights in the forest when sleeping came easier and there was always another brother a few steps away. Maybe they like his company. Maybe more and less of each, in different ways.

For the most part, though, Jo-Jo doesn't mind. He'll come home and throw his clothes on the closest head and then he and Erik will kick up their feet and demand that Edd make dinner for the three of them with the limited supplies in his shelves. They'll eat cross-legged on the floor and let Edd know how much they like his food by repeatedly insulting it. Someone will try to destroy his framed drawing of Marissa. He'll try to save it. As it stands, the glass has multiple cracks and the color is fading. She looks like a blob. Instead of their egos deflating by their defeat, the twins will take the loss as an invite to make fun of Jo-Jo for about half an hour, and he'll get a few insults in as well if he's lucky, just like old times. Not that Jo-Jo missed their arguments. He just. Anyways.

Jo-Jo has to do some hardcore shoving to get a spot on his own bed, and even then he doesn't have enough room to stretch out his legs. Erik is having trouble as well, but Jo-Jo is too concerned about his rapidly numbing feet to bring himself to care about Erik and his stupid elbows. He should've thought of that before invading Jo-Jo's bed.

"We could like, all dye our hair black, pose as royalty, and get rooms in the Palace," Edd says, reading aloud from a list titled Battle Plans to his bored and half asleep audience. There is a stack of cards scattered here, somewhere, but they all forgot about the game and by the time they remembered, they were all too tired to play. "Then Erik and I wouldn't have to sleep on the ugly lumpy couch."

Jo-Jo is no longer bored and half asleep. He is wide awake and incredibly insulted. He springs up, part-leaning part-falling over Erik and attempting to grab the list. "First of all," he huffs as Edd raises it above his head, "my couch is not ugly. You're ugly. And secondly, it's lumpy because you throw your clothes on it!"

Erik shoves him back with cry of, "My elbows, move Jo-Jo, move."

"Alternatively, you could just ask Jenna to give you the rooms," Jo-Jo continues, not at all fazed.

"I've always wanted to pose as royalty," Erik contributes. He plucks the Battle Plans from his twin's hand, and Edd lets him. Jo-Jo feels a twinge of something at that, but it's not the right time- because it never is- so he shoves it into the corner of his brain to suffocate there.

"Really?" Edd says, sounding almost insulted. "Since when?"

"Wow," Jo-Jo says. "Move into the Wizard Tower, both of you."

Edd and Erik share a look. "No."

Jo-Jo shares a look with Marissa-the-blob. "Idiots."

The three of them are all trying very, very hard to keep straight faces, expressions going tight as to not smile on accident, but then they catch each other's eyes. Edd, Erik, and Jo-Jo burst out laughing until their chests are heaving with the effort, and keep going even then. One of the twins shoves Jo-Jo off the bed, and he lets himself fall flat on his back. He's joined by Edd dangling off the edge a moment later, and then Erik, who lands on top of Jo-Jo.

"Jeez," Jo-Jo wheezes, batting at his brother on top of him, all dead weight. Erik takes his own sweet time rolling off, so Jo-Jo makes sure to kick one of his elbows on the way, since Erik seems so attached to them. Heh. Attached.

"We should just stay here, but we get the get the bed and Jo-Jo gets the couch, since he loves it so much," Edd says, hands up and gesturing in the air, as if trying to non-verberally explain why this is a good idea, and begins to tip over the edge. He realizes his mistake just in time and grasps onto Jo-Jo's bed again like a lifeline.

"I bought that bed! With my wages!" Jo-Jo sits up, indignant. "And I don't even like my couch that much." That is lie. Jo-Jo loves his beautiful couch. His couch has never fallen on him and wouldn't try to freeload on him either. And it's incredibly soft. He should probably just marry his couch.

Jo-Jo snorts. Better not let Marissa hear that. Or anyone, for that matter, because Edd and Erik would laugh at him for ages and then tell some more people and laugh at him again. Then Jenna would come visit him in person to laugh at him. In like, a mean way. And then Jo-Jo would forever be known as the guy who entertained the thought of marrying his couch. And everyone would be laughing at him. Could he get away with blaming his brothers for driving him into that insanity? Marcia would probably believe him. And Septimus.

"Jo-Jo?" Edd's ugly, rude voice breaks into Jo-Jo's sad daydream. "Are you okay? You laughed at something, and then stared at the couch with this depressed look for three whole minutes. What were you thinking about?"

Jo-Jo did that? Well, great, now he has to make up something before the inevitable laughing starts. They cannot know. These older brothers are going to make him prematurely grey.

"...Huh?" Jo-Jo says. Nailed it.

Edd and Erik fall back into laughter once more, louder this time. Jo-Jo sighs, but he lets the fondness tug at his heart, lets himself duck his head and smile underneath his curls, exasperated.

"You two," he huffs out, untangling himself from his brothers. It's not a real sentence, so he tries again. "You two, I swear, I swear."

And that's not much better, but they get it. Erik pulls him back down by his collar, dragging him over the two feet Jo-Jo had managed to put between him and them, so that his head is squashed against Edd's shoulder and Erik is draped over the both of them.

"Swear that you'll give up your bed for the greater good?" Edd asks, all straight faced, and Jo-Jo fists are too stuck and too far away to punch him.

"Ha," Erik says, yanking on Jo-Jo collar a little harder. "Now both of you shut up. I'm tired, and this is strangely comfortable."

Because you're not squashed at all on top, Jo-Jo means to say. Instead, he pries Erik's fingers from his collar and lets himself get as cozy as he can with Edd making his legs more and more numb by the moment. He swears, swears later that he only closed his eyes for a second. 3.

I am Syrah Syara. I am five hundred thirteen old. I was born in the Castle. I

12004 takeaway 500 equals 11504 takeaway 13 equals 11491

am not the Syren. Anymore. I am Syrah Syara. I am Syrah Syara. I am Syrah

Syrah is kicking at the dirt with her bare feet. Not because it’s particularly exciting, because what would be about all this? It doesn’t matter anyway. Her feet are barely leaving prints. They are too small or too weak or the dirt is just stubborn and she, she needs to be far stronger to make any sort of impact on it.

Summer is coming to an end in the Castle, and the green is all tinted in red-yellow-oranges. Rose is growing out her hair again, and the Sick Bay staff are pulling out scarfs and buttoning up coats. Midsummer’s day is long gone. Marcellus Pye is holed up in his Alchemie Chamber making everyone in the general vicinity tea, and Simon is grumbling over having to help. Septimus is rememorizing Heating Charms. Nicko and Rupert are closing up the Boat rentals for races in the Moat, and Syrah’s flowers are all wilting.

Syrah is wilting. She is kicking at the dirt and trying to convince herself that she is here, in mind and soul and body, in the control over her actions. It’s very hard. The dirt won’t move so is she really kicking it? Is she is she is she is-

Today is a very bad day.

She is not on the island anymore, that much Syrah knows. But then sometimes she feels like she still is, that if she wants to lift a limb she can’t, that someone else will pull on strings that lift the limbs for her when she doesn’t want it. And her head hurts. Her heart hurts. And her ribs are aching and she’s very, very tired.

She can’t fall asleep. And.

The Castle is not her home anymore no matter what they say because Julius is dead and her old home is rotted and the streets are new and there is no one left to live for but herself.

And why would she live for herself? The Syren is still inside somewhere she knows, she knows or maybe it took a piece of her away with it or maybe she died with it and why would she live for herself when herself aided a monster?

It’s very very cold. Summer came and went but she was cold.

Everyone she loves is dead. Her whole life so far has been more than five hundred years long and it’s all a hole to fall into. They’re all dead and she is alive.

She wants to leave. They want her to leave. Rose walks on eggshells around her. The Queen looks at her like a puzzle not a person. Marcellus was Julius’s friend and he’s alive while he is dead. Septimus avoids her.

Septimus.

It was her fault she couldn’t remember first but now she can and it’s too late to fix and it’s her fault and now he won’t look her in the eye. He was so happy she woke up and now. Now he probably wishes she slept forever.

She can’t fall asleep or the Syren will takeover again. It will find her and invade her mind again. Turn her into a puppet again. Turn her to nothing.

But she is nothing without the Syren even now. She does not know what she was before and she does not know what to be after and it is the worst and something so insignificant and small because she was saved but at what cost what should the cost be and she can’t-

And she is so, so tired.

Syrah lets herself fall back onto the dirt now, curling her arms around her torso and tucking her chin onto her knees. She tries to remember being asleep for two years and how wonderful that was, the numbness where she could feel nothing, remember nothing. She tries remembers how she used to sing for Julius and the little tree she planted outside the Wizard Tower. It might still be there, it might have been cut down. She won’t ever know. Her head is still buzzing too much to picture this, and she feels dizzy, watching the backs of the houses tilting along with the rest of the world. This is a bad time, and a bad day. Maybe a bad year, or a very bad five hundred years.

The wort part is. She doesn’t know if she can feel bad. She was rescued two years ago and the Syren’s gone and so much is different now that all this, she might be making it up. Despite what Rose says about her having a right to feel this way, it feels too small and technically too long ago to feel sick about. Many, many miles away. Maybe she’s so lost without the monster that she’s holding onto aftereffects that aren’t really there. Maybe bad days aren’t bad days at all, and she. She’s just.

"Syrah?"

Syrah sees the braids before she sees the rest of Lucy, and by the time she’s kneeled down to peer concernedly at her face, Syrah’s vision has gone all blurry for no reason at all. She can taste salt water.

Lucy pauses, then pulls her into her arms. Syrah chokes back on a sob, but she can’t pull away to hide it.

“It’s alright,” Lucy says, almost whispers. “You cry all you want, and I’ll stay here."

Syrah doesn't say anything, but Lucy continues, "That is, if you want me to."

Syrah wipes at her tears, but they're coming down too hard and too fast and Lucy is holding her more gently than she deserves. She closes her eyes, buries her face in her shoulder.

"Just for a moment," she says, and she can feel Lucy nod. Today is a very, very bad day, one that Lucy is not able to understand, will never be able to. But having someone to hold onto will be nice. To convince her she is still here, in mind, in body, in soul. Maybe Syrah can tell her why exactly this is day has been too much, after a moment. But for now.

The tears are coming faster now, and Syrah thinks she might need a little more than just a moment. It isn't until her hair dampens slightly does she realize that Lucy is crying too.

Sam is picking up Jenna and twirling her around, around, around, until she's dizzy all over and feels like she's flying, like she can touch the ceiling, if she wanted to. Then he drops her on the ground once more and she wobbles over, tilting sideways and falling flat on her back. She giggles, and he laughs, louder, looking so overjoyed.

The ceiling is so far away now.

"Sam, do it again," she orders, watching his face spin out of focus along with everything else.

"One second," Sam says. He holds a hand to his head, squinting, and then abruptly joins her on the floor, blinking rapidly.

"Actually, maybe not," Simon says, kneeling besides her. He rests an elbow on Sam's shoulder, and Sam doesn't put much heart into trying to shake it off, only scowling to keep up his fakity-fake annoyance. "Let's wait until you aren't dizzy anymore."

"I'm not, look!" And Jenna stands up and to perform a handstand, shoving away the inevitable paraphernalia of the Heap's room to an increasingly cluttered corner. She stays up maybe a second and a half before the world begins to tip once more.

Jenna falls again, out of breath, the ceiling pinwheeling above her. Her heart aches with affection when her brothers clap and whistle and stamp, before turning back to what they were doing. Simon and Sam are standing where she left them, eyebrows raised and impressed in the way only older siblings can be. Impressed by a handstand that lasted a second and a half, a second and a half and then ending in a fall.

"I didn't know you could do that," Sam says, eyebrows raised almost uncomfortably high.

Simon cackles at that, sounding as delighted as he could possibly be, and both Jenna and Sam and can't help but smile themselves, too. He scoops Jenna into his arms, holding her tight around the waist with her feet just barely above the ground, and turns in a slow circle for all their brothers to see. "There's a lot we don't know about you, right, Jenna?" he says, rather than asks, and then raises his voice an octave louder. "Our sister's going to rule the world someday!"

Then he throws her up in the air, far higher than he's allowed too, something that's been banned since Edd tossed her to Erik and she bumped her head when she was four.

-her hair is flying all around and the ceiling is close enough to touch, for real this time-

And then she's falling down, down, down far too fast, terrifyingly so, her brothers's faces blurring into the furniture and clutter and the background, Simon's open arms so close yet miles and miles away, and Jenna swears she sees everything then, the good and the bad, the cold and the awful and the brilliant and wonderful, and she's almost surely going to hit her head again, but Simon has his arms out to catch her any second now, and she doesn't remember to be afraid. fin.

#Septimus Heap #poor nicko I'm sorry I only wrote like 3 lines about you I love you I swear #wolf boy & septimus & beetle #nicko & jenna #jo-jo & edd & erik #syrah & lucy #sam & simon & jenna #my art #I guess

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