i bet on losing dogs

the last few days have been quite … interesting. the little shop that jun found himself living in as a guest was nothing like his last ‘ home ‘. blue, that was apparently his name, was also nothing like anyone he ever met before. jun thought he was harmless, but there were also times jun didn’t know how he survived this long by himself, like all the times he accidentally killed himself putting the wrong ingredient in a potion. blue told him about someone he called teacher, who used to live there but didn’t anymore. jun didn’t know what happened to him, but he hoped he didn’t come back any time soon. revealing himself to blue was already a risk, he didn’t need any more unpredictable factors. what he needed was to leave soon.

days turned to weeks though, and he was still here. oh and he was cooking, or trying to. blue was incompetent taking care of himself, as the thing constantly reminded them, but he never ratted jun out. yet. so jun thought he needed to start pulling his weight before blue threw him out before he got a decent plan together on what to do next.

it wasn’t working so far though. his stew was floating with little black charred pieces he kept scraping from the bottom of the pot and the scent had a sour note. damn. and just his luck, he heard the door to the apartment starting to open. he panicked and shouted. “don’t come in yet!”

so! several things he learned about his new temporary housemate: he was neat, he was quiet, and he had sharp teeth, and he often worried his bottom lip between them and looked very intently into the distance, like he was waging an inner war with himself. blue sometimes caught him whispering (or whisper-shouting) to himself. it was all very interesting, and perhaps would have also been frightening if blue wasn’t fascinated.

with humans encroaching on their neighborhood, the others in the community were often moving away; for the same reason, no one really moved in anymore. teacher used to tell him stories about when there wasn’t a human in sight, and there were still trees, and the trees talked, but when blue first opened his eyes to the light, the world was already like this: very loud, very crowded, and yet somehow still very lonely.

even if jun hated him or was apathetic to him or just used his room and board and never spoke to him in the day or even looked at him, his presence was still a welcome addition to the shop, filling a silence that blue had scarcely noticed until he arrived. edgar disliked the hellion, but blue was sure he would come around, as would the crybaby walls that liked to groan whenever he was around. (it was like none of teacher’s manners rubbed off on them!)

usually he came home to jun squirreled away in his room, but today, there seemed to be an occasion. blue unlocked the door that separated the shop from the apartment above and began toeing his shoes off, only to sniff something burnt. not a moment later, he heard jun’s shout.

“what’s happening?!” he yelped, stumbling as he dashed for the kitchen. “is there a fire? step aside--” he was already chanting the spell as he crossed the open threshold to the kitchen. there was a distant rumble of thunder, and then a trickle: when he stepped foot in the kitchen, the ceiling was raining.

jun fidgeted, not sure how he felt about that the other was acting so chipper. though he was surprised when the weeds suddenly just dissolved and the rain stopped. he stayed back, slightly suspicious and careful of why the boy was being so nice to a stranger. “i’m fine,” he mumbled, wiping the blood dripping down his cheek and wincing… the voice inside him kept nagging, and he had to keep pushing it back. 

this could be his break. or…it could be trouble for the stranger, who looked nice and probably didn’t deserve a bleeding celestial being dumped on his doorstep since that usually brought extra trouble.

jun shivered and hugged his arms around his own midsection, now that the rain wasn’t on him anymore, it was really cold. “if you could tell me the closest hostel or…somewhere that takes in inhumans, that would help though.”

at the sound of the request, blue blinked. “sorry, a-- you want a hostel?” the longer blue studied him, the more closely he realized that even for a celestial, the other boy looked pretty out of place, and not just in the fact that he seemed ready to fidget out of his skin any minute. he didn’t look like he belonged in this world. 

blue wondered where he was from and how he landed here of all places. was he running from trouble? blue had been doing so well avoiding it.

when jun heard the voice, he jumped and all the garbage he managed to get back into the bin dropped again. IDIOT, the thing gnashed. TURN AROUND.

jun turned around. (but because he wanted to! not because it told him to!) “sorry,” he said meekly. was that the store owner? fluffy brown hair, soft looking eyes behind glasses, and somehow the rain was parting around him. a water elemental then? a hundred questions swirled around his head, and jun was sure there were questions in the other boy’s head too.

EAT HIM, the thing said.

no, jun said, mentally slapping the voice away.

he felt like a feral mess and probably because he looked like a feral mess. blood was still on the right side of his face from the cut from being punched and his sleeves of his hoodie were definitely still bloodstained from when he tried to soak in his nosebleed earlier.

fucking humans, ungrateful little..

“i’ll be out of your way soon,” he mumbled with a small bow of his head. “i just– i didn’t mean to make a mess, so i’m– i’ll clean it up, don’t worry, ok?”

CLEANING??????? the thing was furious. EAT HIM!

jun started cleaning.

oh, man, he was being polite. what was he supposed to say to that? blue resisted the urge to start biting at his nail, a habit that teacher wasn’t around to shake out of him anymore and therefore something he had to do. anyway.

he was pretty sure that was blood on the stranger. his hellion blood immediately sensed the lighter scent of celestial blood -- like hearing a sparkling spring through the rain. a bloody, sparkling spring. an ethereal, bloody, sparkling spring.

but, somehow more pressing than that, the stranger looked very troubled, which had the inexplicable effect of making blue feel guilty. why did he look so pained about some trash? “it was an accident, don’t worry about it!” the guy wasn’t looking, but blue tried to smile encouragingly anyway as he stepped forward. thankfully, the trash in question was just the weeds he’d sheared off of the plants earlier and nothing too messy; with a small spell cast under his breath, they began to rapidly wither and crinkle in on themselves until they melted into the pavement entirely.

jun cursed under his breath as he ran, his boots splashing harshly in the rain as he tried to get out of it. if it wasn’t a human neighborhood then he would’ve just blinked home but he remembered the last time a non-human was caught practicing in strict no magic zones and didn’t want to be the next poor bastard on the front paper. so then, it was a surprise when he turned a corner and caught a whiff of magic.

not just any magic. warlock magic, to be exact. jun was always told to be careful of warlocks and wizards, but he figured all of them were told to be careful about sorcerers and the others too so he never really saw a point in the rivalry. he found the source of the magic, a rather humble looking storefront with one glass window and a green awning. he couldn’t tell what they sold. he also really didn’t care, he was currently bleeding out in two places and just needed the veil to hide him while he healed. he slipped into the small alley next to the shop trying to be discreet, but it was just his luck that he slipped in the rain and knocked over the garbage bins, resulting in a loud crash. great.

GREAT, the thing snarled.

jun slapped himself in the face. shut up, i know! he ignored the thing’s indignant growl and started trying to clean up before they were noticed.

closing time.

cheek in hand, blue allowed his gaze to wander over to the clock for the nth time in the evening. well, not for another two hours. but! “we’re in charge now,” he whispered to edgar, who slept away in a lazy curl on the other side of the counter. “i think that means we get to say when we close.”

he felt the wooden walls of the shop thrum in agreement and split into a grin that was probably way too excited for what he was actually doing. first, he needed to rescue the plants from the rain before they got flooded. foregoing the jacket hanging on the rack, blue rushed outside, and nature parted for him: the ground at his feet dried and the chill in the air exhaled a bit of warmth, a little pocket that moved with him as he trekked out into the rain--

--only to stop when he heard a crash. blue yelped, almost dropping the potted sunflower he’d been about to lift. the alley?

he crept cautiously around the corner, slowing to a stop when he realized that there was someone very soaked rummaging around his garbage.

his first scavenger! teacher used to tell him to blast intruders on sight, especially scavengers, and especially sorcerers. something-something-something an ideological war. blue did no such thing, because the prospect of finally meeting someone not human unreasonably excited him.

it was a whirlwind… daniel was definitely not going to remember any of this in the morning except how jisung just… “did you actually punch that guy?” daniel was barely helping them move, his footsteps slow and heavy. he was drunk, okay! and he couldn’t stop staring at his best friend’s head. the top of his head…because jisung was shorter than him, which meant he had been a whole head shorter than that man. “jisungie, you’re so small,” daniel marveled. “but you punched him so hard.”

“uh huh. we can talk about that later,” jisung said decisively, trying not to think about his screaming knuckles. “i don’t want him to catch up to us or anyone out here to recognize you.” he secured daniel’s arm over his shoulder with a huff, bearing a little more of his weight. he’d lied-- he didn’t actually have the car. (looking for daniel had gone like this: waking up out of anxiety, seeing it was half past midnight, and treading out of the motel to see if he was loitering around, then discovering he wasn’t there and gradually becoming more panicked until he’d walked well into the city in his sleep clothes, partly afraid he’d find daniel hurt or worse in some dark alley.)

(but whatever, he’d already walked the distance. that meant he could do it again, so he pushed his legs to go faster.)

“next time, just bring the booze back with you,” he said through gritted teeth, blowing a damp flop of hair away from his forehead. “seriously, i’d rather deal with you in the room than somewhere with people i can’t--” i can’t protect you from, was what he meant to say, but it caught in his throat for some reason, accompanied by a suspicious stinging in his eyes.

daniel rubbed his eyes as he felt jisung moving them around, barely listening to the conversation. it was like now that the other boy was here, it was okay to let his guard down. “sure, let’s go,” he said with a hazy smile. he was starting to follow jisung when a hand came between them. daniel stumbled, and when his vision cleared he saw the guy that he had been talking to now standing between them for some reason. 

“so you’re not his boyfriend? then who are you?” he heard him asking. “cause then how do i know you’re not actually some creep?”

daniel felt someone trying to pry their hands apart, and he started to feel like something was going wrong, his mind clearing a bit. “he’s my friend,” didn’t he already say that before? “and like he said, we’re leaving. jisung, come on.” he started to shake off the man’s hand, but then he was pushed back and his hand separated from jisung’s, and he saw the man push jisung in the other direction. “h– what the hell?”

at the contact, alarms immediately started blaring in jisung’s head. “what did you call me?” it was the long week, it was the hour, and it was the fact that he was standing here miles away from home in some unknown city in some unknown bar practically in his pajamas, all for daniel, that sparked jisung’s anger, normally a tempered, dormant thing. 

"i’m his best friend,” he hissed. “who do you think yo--”

and then daniel was shoved. and him too. but it was mostly daniel that made him see red, and as soon as he gathered his footing he launched himself forward and decked the guy in the face.

ow.

ow ow ow ow OW OW--

daniel tilted his head in amusement, if jisung wanted to hold hands then he should have just said. shit, did he say that out loud? “you know me so well,” he sniffed, ruffling jisung’s hair with his other hand. “OK, OK, fine. let’s go, uh…” he waved towards leo or leon or louis or whoever. he saw the man frowning, which was understandable, where was jisung’s politeness? “i’m about to suffocate in here anyway. sung-ah had the right idea.” he grinned, gesturing to jisung’s attire.

oh, did daniel want to hold hands? jisung would hold both of his hands, possibly with zip ties, for several long hours, if it meant making him stay put until he slept all the alcohol off. “mhm. i’m a genius.” he stiffened when daniel motioned for the stranger to come with them. why aren’t you my soulmate so you can hear me asking you what the hell is wrong with y--

“with both of you? i won’t complain. lead the way.” the guy looked at them expectantly. his smile was smarmy; jisung’s mood just worsened.