Joscelin Fitzthomas (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dredefulchilde) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thenearshore2018-08-28 10:23 pm
dredefulchilde) wrote in thenearshore2018-08-28 10:23 pm
the gang's all here
Who: Ayumu and her shinki family (Joss, Maria, Gojyo)
What: Family growing pains
When: Late morning, January 13
Where: Temple of Vesta
Warnings: Probable discussion of trauma
Hakkai had been as good as his word. He had come to Vesta’s temple in the evening with the tea he'd said would help Joscelin sleep, and the boy, desperate for an uninterrupted night's rest after weeks of nightmares, hadn't even waited until his usual bedtime to try it. He'd brewed himself a cup right after dinner, and was out like a light. He stayed asleep, too. Hours and hours of glorious, dreamless sleep.
He finally emerges late in the morning, rubbing groggily at his eyes. "Mistress, did you get to--"
There's a strange adult in the kitchen, and no sign of his goddess.
"Who are you?"
What: Family growing pains
When: Late morning, January 13
Where: Temple of Vesta
Warnings: Probable discussion of trauma
Hakkai had been as good as his word. He had come to Vesta’s temple in the evening with the tea he'd said would help Joscelin sleep, and the boy, desperate for an uninterrupted night's rest after weeks of nightmares, hadn't even waited until his usual bedtime to try it. He'd brewed himself a cup right after dinner, and was out like a light. He stayed asleep, too. Hours and hours of glorious, dreamless sleep.
He finally emerges late in the morning, rubbing groggily at his eyes. "Mistress, did you get to--"
There's a strange adult in the kitchen, and no sign of his goddess.
"Who are you?"
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"Oh. You're Joscelin, right?" He sets his cup down, and leans back against the counter, offering the kid a big grin. "I'm your new big brother. Gojyo."
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Joscelin schools his face into its usual sardonic sneer and arches an eyebrow. He makes a great show of taking in Gojyo’s current attire, never mind that he himself is wearing little boy pajamas and his usually neat hair is wildly askew. “I wasn’t aware that our little family was growing.” He feels it again, that surge of anger and confusion and jealousy. He doesn’t want Ayumu to have other shinki. Isn’t he enough?
Is it his fault? Was she cross with him because of the nightmares?
“Mistress Vesta won’t be happy that you’re destroying her kitchen.”
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"Mistress Vesta isn't gonna find out," he retorts, grin never wavering, "because I'm gonna put it all back when I'm done." The kettle's starting to rattle, so it won't be long now -- he turns back to his tea fixings, and drops four bags into the waiting cup, then glances at Joss over his shoulder.
"You want some? There's enough hot water."
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He walks right past Gojyo and pulls out a tin of loose-leaf, carefully measures the contents, and puts them in the black china teapot he’d given to Ayumu for Christmas. He’s showing off, of course. This is the correct way to make tea.
“When did the Mistress name you? I wasn’t aware she was taking other shinki.”
He was supposed to have been enough, damn it.
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"A couple days ago." Shades of Chikusa and Ken throwing a fit over that first dinner bubble up int he back of his mind, and he turns back to Joss, serious for the moment.
"Don't take it personal, okay? You're still her favorite. Ayu-nee's just an old friend, and now that she's a god I asked her to name me, so we could keep an eye on each other." He waves one hand -- his right, the one with the heavily tattooed arm -- at the kitchen, and generally at the temple beyond. "I'm not movin' in or anything."
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"Caliban! Get down from there." He scoops the kitten off the counter and turns to Gojyo. "Make yourself useful and grab me a tin of cat food from that cabinet, will you? There's a tin opener in the drawer." He'd do it himself but he doesn't want to suffer the indignity of having Gojyo see him drag over the step-stool to reach a moderately high shelf.
"Where did you get those tattoos?"
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It doesn't seem like Joss has figured that out yet. Gojyo mentally shrugs -- he'll get there. Or he'll find himself buried in fur, either way.
He raises an eyebrow at the order, but he reaches that long, tattooed arm up into the cupboard and fishes out a can. "I killed a man," he replies, deadpan, clapping the can onto the counter. He'll be tall for Joss and get things from high places, but he's not feeding the damn cat. "And stole his arm."
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"Pardon?" is Maria's first remark as she enters the room, looking surprisingly put-together for someone who just woke up. She's dressed rather simply in a tank top and tights, looking very much like she was initially just going to be passing through on her way to a morning run.
Gojyo is definitely getting a rather scrutinising look from her now, though. "Are you Gojyo? I thought you normally had other living arrangements."
It's what Ayumu had told her, at least.
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"Oh, is that it? I've killed before." Said as if it's no big deal. "How did you get it to attach, magic?"
He busies himself with preparing the cat food, trying not to gag at the smell. "Right. Kishi, Musha, let Prospero and Caliban and the other two eat first," he lectures the cats as if they can understand him and aren't all crowding around a single large bowl of Fancy Feast. "They're littler than you are."
The boy looks up to see Maria in the doorway. "Apparently not last night. Are you staying for breakfast, or going out?" Will he have to cook? He wants Ayumu to sleep--she's had it even worse than he has, these past few weeks--and feels, suddenly, as if he's the man of the house, trying to take care of the others. Their kitchen is mostly stocked with Japanese food but there's eggs to fry and bread to toast and he feels at least reasonably competent at that.
Joscelin stirs sugar into his tea, frowning as he tries to figure out these arrangements. It's positively cute.
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And before he can respond to Joss's casual admission of his own murder, a cutie in something tight walks in and scowls at him. This is apparently his life. "I'm not stayin' here," he retorts; the kettle begins to shriek, and he breaks off just long enough to fill his mug. "I just came by to do laundry." And steal tea. "I figured everyone would be out by now."
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"I was just going to have a piece of fruit or something, nothing too heavy. I didn't want to wake anyone up cooking," she explains, though it seems like it might be a bit late for that at this point anyway. Nonetheless, she starts to cross the kitchen to see what's in the fridge, even if she's definitely still giving Gojyo a rather wary look.
"Saying you were planning to wait until nobody was here isn't that reassuring, honestly."
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"There's still a few mikan left in the pantry," he offers, surprisingly helpfully. "Last of the offerings from New Year's."
He turns to Gojyo. "I agree. Didn't Mistress tell you there are children here? Honestly, dancing around in your smallclothes like that. How suspicious."
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But before he can have a chance to explain himself to her, Joss stops making sense. "My what?" What the hell are small clothes? Does the kid mean his sweats? Gojyo stares down at the calf-length pants, then back up at Joss, his complete lack of understanding written all over his face. "They're sweatpants."
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"It's still not exactly the kind of first impression most people would want to be making. Did you not even consider you might run into others here?"
As she says that, she picks carefully through the pantry until she finds the leftover fruit and picks one of them out, leaving everything else in place almost scrupulously.
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Joscelin rolls his eyes. Honestly. "You're not very bright, are you? How are you going to help the Mistress when you need to?" They're both fun to tease. Goodness, what a revelation. He's going to have fun with them.
Nose in the air, he walks over to the refrigerator, only to find--
"Blast."
Ayumu's gone and put the eggs and milk on the high shelf again.
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They're horrible and he hates them both.
He takes another swig of his tea (it's really awful. He might have a second cup) and gestures with it in Maria's direction.
"You, girlie." She's the new shinki, isn't she? The one that Ayu got assigned? Gojyo wonders how she's liking it here. She seems to be getting on just fine with the little asshole... and if Ayumu thinks the kid is a literal gift from the heavens, then she's probably happy to have a girl, too.
He waggles his eyebrows at her. "For you, next time I'll wear my good sweats."
"And you,” he continues, smoothly rounding on Joss. “Brat.” The kid's cute and all, and Ayu's happiness is his first concern. Of course it is. But there's only so much bullshit he's gonna take! He tilts his head, gauging the distance Joss has to reach in order to get the breakfast he's aiming for. Sucks to be tiny, doesn't it? “Sure it's me you should be worryin' about?”
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"Excuse me?" she asks, tone cool and imperious, and looking for all the world like Gojyo is something unpleasant she just stepped on on the sidewalk. "I'd considered giving you some benefit of the doubt, but I might as well not bother if you completely lack any sense of common decency."
Her steely look lingers on him for a moment or two longer before she turns her attention slightly to Joss. "Would you like me to get that for you?"
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"Why thank you, Maria. I would like that very much."
The smile he gives Gojyo is much less angelic. Brat, indeed.
"What an interesting group we make, we three," he observes breezily, as if to no one in particular.
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A very groggy looking Ayumu chooses that moment to come stumbling into the kitchen, wearing light blue pajamas spangled with grey and orange cartoon kittens in various positions of sleep and her favorite lucky cat slippers. Apparently, she'd crashed har before she could braid her hair last night because she's sporting some rather spectactular looking bedhead this morning, looking as if some kind of black ravenous beast had taken up residence on her head at some point in the night.
She grunts a sleepy greeting to the gathered before making a beeline for the tea fixings. The lady of the house looks like she's going to be pretty useless until she's had her morning tea.
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"Water's still hot," he murmurs, taking another swig of his battery acid. And if she's just woken up now, this late in the day, then that means she slept, for once. She must have got some actual sleep, thank fucking somebody. "Mornin', sunshine."
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She's just set them down on the counter for him when Ayumu comes in, and she turns her attention to the door, following Ayumu's progress across the kitchen and to the bits and pieces set aside for tea.
"Would you like something to go with that...?" Maria asks, on the assumption that Ayumu might probably be at least awake enough to answer that question. It seems impolite not to offer to make her something, at least.
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Oh, thank god. She slept. The relief is visible in Joscelin’s face, and he turns to her.
“Good morning, Mistress. You’re looking well.”
He stays out of her way. When she’s a bit more alert, it’ll be easier to hold a conversation.