#morxtorium

Despite the cold rain washing down the streets of Selphia, Annabelle is out on their bicycle. They’re on the side of the road, practically soaked to the bone, including the canvas bag strapped over their shoulder. Under the light rain, Annabelle curses only loud enough for themself to hear – why were they this stupid? Why did they decide to agree to this? Why couldn’t they have pushed for someone else to come out in this weather?

See, she’s agreed to run a few errands for her family - including her father, dropping off whatever documents at his office for whichever case he was presently working on. Swamped with phone calls of his own, why not turn one of his kids into his own delivery person, right? Annabelle didn’t have a real job or actual responsibilities anyway so couldn’t she just do him this one favor –

The accident happens when Annabelle huffs and swerves and the wheel of their bike runs into a chunk of sidewalk that’s crumbled into the road. They’re sent flying with their arms tucked in close to prevent breaks; they’ve fallen enough times in their life to have at least trained themselves to not use their wrists to brace for impact. And rather than their wrists crumbling under the weight of their body, instead their sleeves tear against the road and the knees of their jeans turn bloody.

The rain seems to reflect the gold flecks in her blood – and as Annabelle begins to collect herself, she holds up a sharp finger. “ – I’ll bite you if you come any closer,” She insists. “I’m fine. I’ve had worse. Just…mind your business –” She reaches to touch the canvas bag, only to find it must have flown off her shoulder during her fall. “Oh fuck me. Can’t I have just one thing go right?”

Once upon a time, weekends were spent sleeping in. But those days were surly past Simon now. By the time the sun had risen, he had taken his third mug of coffee. There were lesson plans to create for the following semester, on top of his own research deadlines. Not to mention shopping for Johanna and Jasper, wrapping their gifts, and then hiding them all well enough to ensure neither twin tore into their gifts early.

He’d never been excited for the holidays before becoming a father. But now, he did enjoy watching their faces beam with each gift. He just wished they were neater with unwrapping his presents. Perhaps when they were older, they would admire his careful wrapping job.

The stirring he hears in the back bedroom signals one of them must be waking up shortly, so Simon conceals the wrapping paper once again, then trades out his slippers to take a few letters to the mailbox. That is when he nearly trips over an old friend on his doorstep; if it weren’t for the thin railing, he would be face first in the frozen ground. Once he gathers his balance once more, Simon fixates on the object that tripped him: an old, worn stuffed lion. The color had since faded in the twenty years since Simon had truly last seen it, but even he can still recognize his own handiwork with the magic.

And then he recalls how he’d seen something oh-so-similar on the floor of his office, just weeks prior.

With no intention of returning his old work back to the young man, Simon pockets the stuffed animal into his robe, drops the letters in the mailbox, and returns to his home without a second thought.

For the past month, Simon has watches the leaves outside shed their green coats in favor of a curling red and a crackling orange and a comforting brown. From his office window, he watches as rain pellets the ground. Nat King Cole’s Sincerely album plays from the record player he was gifted some years prior. He watches as students race in the rain to class using books and backpacks as makeshift umbrellas.

Simon returns to his work.

His desk is not as organized as he wished it to be. Research notes from sort of music box that Gilbert has been blabbing about sit on top of everything else - and Simon is not in the mood to do a job with fewer leads and long months abroad. He’s not the eighteen-year-old who thoughtlessly agreed to a contract with a Dreamshade anymore; there are more important responsibilities at hand. Like the bracelet he has sitting on a simple white towel that has been tugging at him for months. A magnifying glass shows up the feint markings of magic imprinted into the old metal. Despite its years, the bracelet still glitters as though it were made just yesterday, but he had an archaeologist confirm the techniques used to make the bracelet dated at least three hundred years prior.

The thick gloves he wears to handle cursed objects snap to his wrists when someone knocks on the door to his stuffy office. Annoyed at the sudden interruption ( truthfully, this is what he gets for taking solace in his office as opposed to alongside his coworkers in the lab ), Simon pulls the cloves back off and stands to answer the door.

“...Do you need some help with something?” He asks, staring at the young man from the doorframe. He doesn’t seem like a student - but then again, Simon couldn’t always recall those he’d taught in past semesters. His own eyes narrow. “My office hours are posted online and I’d appreciate it if you followed that schedule or set up a meeting with my email as opposed to showing up unannounced.”