#questionable choices

His red petals blew ever so slightly in the breeze of the air conditioning just above.

The glint of a half ragged, microphone-headed man in his ill fitted suit shone in the reflection of the sunglass lenses.

It was an image that the microphone tried not to notice, as the realization of how tired and frazzled he looked made him feel like a sick prey animal in the middle of an open field.

Jammed in a monochrome room with a high profile individual who had a hell of a reputation, along with his very stern assistant who had one of his own- it left a hanging chill in the air for Mic.

Mic tapped his foot, his hands gripping the suit fabric around his knees while Thorn has finished summarizing the situation as Mic had explained it. Then the assistant- Mr. Flower, chimed in to finish it all off.

"…And the only reason there were claims of you… "whoring out your own sister" is because your religious zealot of a mother happens to think the entire entertainment business is a product of the devil?" He said, deadpan as he hovered behind the couch Thorn sat in, clipboard in hand and an eyebrow quirked.

Mic nodded, tense,

"Ah yeah, that about sums it up…" He said, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees as he seemed thoughtful yet frantic.

"Defamation of character aside here, I'm at the end a my rope. We've been meetin' nothin' but dead end after dead end, and I-… I just…" The microphone headed man took a sigh, as if to calm himself before he continued on. "Listen, I know it's cut throat out there and I'm under no illusions that there aren't a lot of shady people in the business who are gonna ask for more than what the fine print will tell you." He began, his tone shifting slightly, "but I would never- and I mean NEVER do any of those things my mother has claimed." Mic assured, his voice becoming much steadier and firm as he went on.

Mic paused for a moment, reaching for the glass of water on the table to take a long gulp of before setting it back down.

He wasn't sure what sort of things were going on in Thorn's mind- if he accepted Mic's story or not. It was the truth of course.

He had been struggling for months now to get his sister into the acting scene like she had dreamed of since she was a kid, but there was always something getting in the way. Sleazy director's who couldn't keep their hands to themselves, Hollywood bigshots who would steal the role last minute or some nepo baby who's daddy owned an agency.

It was starting to become hopeless and Mic hated seeing his sister so down in the dumps about it. She had what it took and that wasn't just Mic being the doting big brother he was. His sister was genuinely talented! The problem was finding the right people to give her a chance.

If nothing else, Thorn must at least sense how desperate Mic was, and yet, as Mic thought back on all the rumours he'd heard of Thorn, coupled with his own experiences with the man, Mic really wondered if showing any sort of desperation around the monster was a good idea at all.

Mic seemed to shift uncomfortably in his seat as he grappled with the words he wanted to bring before Thorn.

He didn't really have much of a choice in the matter at the end of it all.

He didn't exactly come to Thorn expecting to get out of it all unscathed, but knowing that he didn't know what to expect was almost worse.

Mic sighed and watched as Thorn leaned forward, putting the last of his cigarette out on the ashtray at the centre of the coffee table. "Look" Mic started again, "I've always been a family first kind of guy. I take care of them, I take care of my friends. But there's only so much I can do. So I-… I…"

There was a pause as the man seemed to struggle to find his words, all the while Thorn dug into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket to retrieve another cigarette from the box inside.

The sounds of Mr. Flower scribbling notes onto his clipboard filled the cold office air, along with the flick of Thorn's lighter as he lit himself another smoke. Then he leaned in, ready to address his client.

"…And that's why you came to me, I get it." Thorn said, taking a drag of his cig while the smoke poured from the corners of his mouth, "Though I'm a little hurt that I was your last resort and not your first call, Mic." The man said, a slight smirk as he spoke. A sentiment that seemed to make the microphone squirm a little.

He loosened the collar of his shirt.

"Ah- well, ya know, it wasn't like I didn't think of you first or nothin'" Mic laughed nervously- an attempt to cover the fact that he could feel his own voice getting caught in his throat. "I just- I know you're a busy guy and I know you do good work I just-"

"…Don't trust me?"

Another pause as Mic froze in place, watching those sharp, jagged teeth come slowly peaking out from a knowing grin.

Well shit, how does one steer the conversation out of this pit?

Mic was silent, but as Thorn casually chuckled, returning to a reclined position on the couch, Mic allowed himself a minute to breath.

Though it was more to brace himself for whatever was about to come.

"You know my price, Mic." Said Thorn, plainly. "And you know that whatever you ask of me, I can deliver." He went on, and Mic nodded. That much was true.

Thorn was the first guy to go to if someone was desperate for anything.

If you needed something, Thorn could get it. If you had a ladder to climb, competition to crush, Thorn had connections. If you were in any kind of tight situation, Thorn had the money to throw your way.

But there lied the rub to begin with.

You had to be desperate.

"Yeah, of course. And I'll pay anything!" Said Mic immediately without thinking and of course, immediately regretting his choice of words the moment they left his throat.

Mic's fists tightened around the cloth of his pants.

At that, he could see Thorn's smirk widen and Mic could swear the billowing smoke of Thorn's cigarette had almost enveloped the room while the temperature seemed to rise.

While Mic could not see what was going on in Thorn's eyes, there was definitely something in the quick glance that Mic had happen to catch from the quiet Mr. Flower. He was first and foremost, an observer though. Mr. Flower had always been as long as Mic knew him, so if there were was any sort of warning behind that glance, Mic would never know the full extent of it.

Not verbally. Not at this point.

"You know Mic, I'd like to think we're friends, yeah?" Thorn asked, not waiting for answer. He rolled his lit cigarette between his gloved fingers and Mic could have sworn he caught a flash of Thorn's wild spiral eyes from behind his darkened lenses. "Uh- sur-"

"And like you said, you take care of your friends, just the way I like to think I would too." He went on, taking a drag of his smoke before standing up.

Mic tensed, unsure of what to expect or how to respond to whatever was happening.

He watched as Thorn slowly stalked around the coffee table to approach the microphone creature, one hand buried in the pocket of his dress pants.

Thorn's various accessories faintly clacked and jingled as he walked, the rosary beads hanging from his wrist and hip, just barely poking out from beneath ebony cloth.

Mic always wondered about those…

"How about we make a deal?" Suggested Thorn, stopping just a few steps shy of Mic who was still sat and was made very uncomfortably aware of the sheer size difference between a monster of the void and your average void creature.

Despite trying to hide his nerves however, Mic's discomfort was betrayed by an audible gulp. But if Thorn noticed it, he made no attempts to show that he did. Not that he needed to.

Mic could hardly breath under the amount of smoke filling the room, and he could feel the sweat beginning to form across his body as he could swear the room was becoming very, very hot and stuffy. Like there was a fire raging in one of the nearby offices. Though if that were the case, surely the emergency sprinkler system would have gone off by now.

No, this was something else and it had Mic's limbs trembling long before the anxiety began to well up in his throat.

"I- uh, a deal?" He stammered, looking up at Thorn who's smirk widened.

He lifted his hand, directing Mic's attention towards the coffee table. A pristine, lengthy contract sitting there neatly printed with Mic's name at the top, beneath which was a mountain of text with little time for Mic to even glance at any of it.

Where had that even come from..?

"I'll set your sister up with her dream job just like you both wanted, and she won't have to pay a penny!" Thorn explained, the enthusiasm dripping from his words much the same way toxic sludge drips from the rim of a rusty drainage pipe.

If Mic had eyes, they would have certainly widened at that prospect- and if he had eyebrows, they definitely would have knitted together incredulously at this point.

"But…" Mic said, knowing there was more. He just wanted to know what.

Thorn's grin softened to a smile, but it was by no means any more comforting than the jagged grins Mic almost preferred at this point. And it didn't help matters at all hearing Mr. Flower writing down things at a much more consistent pace than he had ever been doing during the entire meeting.

"But!" Thorn began, "I do require recompense for my services- a sort of equivalent exchange. Doesn't have to be money, but… You know this." Thorn said with another widened grin and a shrug, all said with the tone of a man going through another routine Friday night. And as far as Mic understood, that is exactly what this was to Thorn, yet to Mic himself- as he stared at the suddenly appearing contract on the table in front of him, he couldn't help but feel… afraid.

Mic tried to think back to every previous sucker who he had brought to Thorn in the past and what had become of them.

Good gods, what had become of them? It had only now occurred to Mic that setting up a meeting for those previous clients was the last he'd ever personally heard from them, and while that wasn't entirely uncommon, he would think he'd have learned of what became of them through word of mouth. Especially when working under Thorn.

Mic felt like he was about sign onto something far bigger than what he had ever asked for. But his thoughts ran back to his sister, her tired form dragging herself up the ramshackle staircase of her shoddy apartment for the fifth time in a week while he went to check up on her.

The way she held back tears while filling her brother in on having just come back from another audition that had gone nowhere.

The sounds of her teary, drunken sobs still echoed in the back of his mind.

She was tired, far more tired than he ever was.

Mic bit his lip, surely their friendship meant a more promising outcome, yeah?

"What do I need to do?" Said Mic.

Much the same way the smoke in the room seemed to thicken, Thorn's grin deepened. There was some kind of flash behind those shades of his but Mic couldn't be arsed to dwell on it. The room was suffocating and he wondered how Mr. Flower could just stand there casually like he wasn't choking.

Mic was ready for this to be done so he could leave.

Did he not notice it? Was this just Mic's stressed and anxiety ridden mind just fucking with him?

As if Thorn had almost ready Mic's mind, the creature could hear a chuckle from the man. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, aside from a few special requests, anything you'll be doing for me won't be all that different from what you're used to." Thorn assured the creature, who attempted to stammer out a response but Thorn was quick to speak over him.

"Sign the contract, Mic and we'll get started. And don't worry, I'll take good care of you and your sister."

With that, Mr. Flower approached as well, wordlessly placing a pen next to the contract. He didn't even spare Mic a glance this time, just quietly took his place next to Thorn who stunted even Mr. Flower's height- and he himself was at least a good six feet tall.

With a moment of hesitation, Mic reached a shaky hand out to scribble his signature on the line at the bottom of the page. Not a moment after he finished, the contract lifted from the table, as if suddenly caught up in a violent breeze, almost disintegrating into a flash of flame and rose petals. Not a trace was left behind except for the pen, now covered in a thin layer of ash.

"Good. We'll get started next week. As for your sister, tell her to expect a call within the next few hours."

He exited the room, the sound of his heels thudding dully over the grey carpet while Mr. Flower followed suit.

The moment they were out of the room was when Mic could see them exchanging words, but the glass deafened Mic to anything that was being said between them.

The creature leaned back onto the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

What in the world did he get himself into?

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If I get to continuing this ever, I really, really wanna do it from Mr. Flower's perspective.

I think his thoughts on stuff like this would be fun to draw from.

Plus i get to focus on him and Thorn. <333

my bbz

But i feel like I've done a lot of vague drawings of Thorn- mostly with Mr. Flower and with very little idea of who Thorn is and what he's like most of the time.

He's... kind of a different person when it's just him and Mr. Flower, and as much as I love that about him I also want to focus on you know, the rest of him?

This was just a small interaction that cropped up in my head that i meant to just jot notes down of and it turned into a whole thing.

So, if you read this thanks for making it this far. ; v;

Time seemed to slow around her. Jim looked up at her expectantly, his suit neatly pressed and his smile sweet and a little shy. There were candles and flowers on the table, and the crowd of well dressed restaurant goers were gasping and pointing at them in excitement. It was all picture perfect, the ideal image of what a romantic moment should be. 

A moment that, according to all conventional wisdom, was something Jemima should have been looking forward to all her life. 

Sure, Jemima had never been the type of girl to plan her future wedding at ten years old or spend hours scrolling pinterest looking at dresses, but that didn’t mean she didn’t occasionally think about it. And ever since she and Jim had moved in together, she’d known it would be coming eventually. This was the next step of being in a relationship. First comes love, then comes marriage, right? And if dating faithfully since they were sixteen years old wasn’t love, then what was? 

Jemima would be lying if she said there wasn’t a part of her that still felt unsure. She’d hoped that proper adulthood would bring some much needed clarity to her mind, but it turned out that the day to day monotony of classes and schoolwork had just been replaced with the day to day monotony of employment and housework, with the added bonus of financial anxiety hanging over her head at all times. 

She found it nearly impossible to shake the feeling that she wasn’t a real adult, that she was just play-acting at something that everyone else had already figured out. Which was probably the source of her hesitation, and was something she just needed to get over. Besides, her life with Jim wasn’t a bad one. She had to assume that marriage would make it even better. 

“Jemima Roberts, will you marry me?” 

Jemima adopted what she hoped was a serene smile, and held out her left hand so that Jim could slip the ring onto her finger. 

“Of course I will.” 

Jim stood and pulled her into a kiss, and the restaurant burst into applause. 

— — — 

If one more person asked Jemima how she felt now that she was a wife, she was going to start tearing her hair out. What was she supposed to say? 

Everything was supposed to be different now. 

Everything was exactly the same. 

The honeymoon had been as lovely as what you could expect, given their budget, but then as soon as they arrived back home things had gone right back to the way they were before. 

Jemima still got up nearly an hour before Jim did every morning, making breakfast for the two of them before taking her cup of tea into the bathroom to do her hair and makeup. She still went into the office every day and hated every mind numbing second of it, doodling aimlessly during especially boring meetings in the margins of her company planner. She still fixed the same small rotation of meals for dinner, still needled Jim about taking out the trash and not putting her nice knives in the dishwasher, and still went out on mediocre dates every other week or so. 

The only difference was her name; she was now Jemima Steven on every official document 

Everyone acted like this was supposed to be some kind of fairytale happily ever after, but it was just business as usual. Not necessarily bad, not always, just routinely and frustratingly mundane. 

She was almost glad when, a month or so after their first anniversary, the attention shifted from her marriage to motherhood. The question of whether she wanted children was far easier to answer than the question of how she was finding married life. 

She had always loved children, even when she herself was still a child. As a girl she’d loved playing house, as a teen she’d loved babysitting, and she’d even briefly considered teaching primary school, until she spent a summer volunteering at a children’s center and found that trying to manage large groups overwhelmed her. 

Wanting to be a parent one day was the only thing in her entire life that Jemima had ever been certain of. So when coworkers and extended family began to prod at her, asking if she and Jim were planning on trying soon, for once she found she didn’t mind the weight of the expectation. 

Jim, to her disappointment, wasn’t as receptive to the idea as she was. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to have kids eventually, it’s that every time she asked, all he said was “well, let’s give it some time.” 

Eventually, Jemima was able to pry his concerns out of him, and unsurprisingly, they were almost entirely logistical. 

“Would you want to stay home after the baby’s born, or would you want to go back to work and use a nanny or daycare? Either way it’ll be expensive. Not to mention the space we’d need to raise a little one properly, a flat this size is hardly appropriate. Are the schools where we live right now up to snuff, or should we look into relocating?” 

After some discussion, they agreed that they would wait to start properly trying until Jim got a promotion that would help them afford to move into a house; preferably somewhere with a good school and plenty of other families in the area to connect with. 

Work was still dull and life was still mundane, but Jemima found that having such a clear goal to work towards made the day to day monotony much more bearable. There were even times, late in the evenings when the flat was clean and the sunset cast a hazy glow over their little home, when she caught herself feeling content.

It was in those fleeting moments that she would pull out her pink sketchbook and lose herself in its pages, and for just a little while, everything else fell away and she could just exist as herself...even if she wasn’t quite sure who that was supposed to be.

— — — 

Jemima had decided that she hated moving. House hunting had sounded fun in theory, but in practice it was tedious and tiring and none of the places that they looked at ever managed to feel quite right. Then when they finally did pick a place, there were a seemingly endless amount of hoops to jump through to get through the closing process. By the time they were ready to sign the paperwork, Jemima had just about torn all her hair out, she was so stressed. 

Even once they had the new house secured, their troubles weren’t over. Packing up the flat took way longer than she’d expected it to, and when they finally finished there were twice as many boxes filling the rental truck as when they’d moved in. How they had managed to acquire so much extra junk in just three years of living, Jemima had no idea. 

It was strange, walking through the flat and seeing it completely stripped bare. Without their furniture and clutter filling it up, it was hard to recall any of the time they’d spent here. Only scant traces remained: the dust bunnies that had been hiding beneath their furniture, the chip in the paint from where Jim had dinged the wall with a new sofa, the wine stain she hadn’t quite been able to scrub out of the carpet. Soon even those tiny remnants would be smoothed out and painted over, and it would be as if the two of them had never existed in the space at all. 

Walking through their new house, Jemima had to wonder what traces of the family that’d lived here before them had been similarly sanded down and stripped away. What impressions had their furniture left on the carpet, what scratches had they left on the walls? Had they walked through the halls and regretted leaving their home as an empty shell for someone else to fill, like a notebook with all the used pages torn out?

“Ready to get this done?” 

Jim’s voice shook her out of her musing, and she turned to him and nodded, one of her perfect smiles clicking into place. 

“Absolutely.” 

The plan had been for them both to take a week off from work to get settled in, but some project deadline had come up for Jim’s team at the last minute and he’d agreed to go back to the office early. This meant that Jemima now had to spend a whole week alone in an empty house with piles of boxes to unpack in every room. Which was fine, it wasn’t disappointing or isolating or overwhelming at all, it was fine. 

Jim was at least there to help her push the furniture into place, and they’d specifically avoided a kitchen with cabinets out of her reach so she didn’t need him to help her with any high places (not that he’d have much better luck than her anyway). Having the rooms full of chairs and tables and shelves did at least make the house feel less barren, though Jemima would be lying if she said it felt like home yet. 

On the third day of unpacking alone, the unfamiliar sound of their new doorbell ringing echoed through the house. Jemima looked up from where she’d been sitting at the kitchen table with a cooling cup of tea. She was meant to be sorting through Jim’s video game collection, but hadn’t managed to muster up the motivation to start just yet. 

Sighing, she got to her feet and headed towards the front door. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was a door to door salesman or some religious nut, but maybe telling of a stranger for bothering her would give her a much needed boost of energy. 

She pulled the door open, and her mouth fell open in surprise. 

“David?”  

— — —

First up: Ursa Major

Nyx = Neutral -> Like -> Love + Desire (At first, Major was indifferent to Nyx, but seeing how well he held his own against not only the other Dark Astrals made her like him, but also seeing him protect Minor in the process, while (seemingly) not fully on bored with the Astrals and their plan. It was quick to assume that the smaller Astral (Lunar) he was with was family- and seeing him be so calm and playful with their own family made her fall hard and fast. She also had intense desires to bring Nyx into her pack as her designated wife mate~!)

Minor = Familial (Although they formed at the same time, they're the same age. Major has taken on a parental role for the smaller cub, so she has always seen him as family.)

Razzle = Neutral -> Familial + Desire (At first neutral, but once she learned that Razzle was one of Nyx's kids, she immediately began to see the deer as her future child and had the desire to bring them into her pack.)

Second up: Nyx

Major = Fear -> Like (This man fears the bear, and is begrudgingly in a "romantic" relationship with Major. It's mainly to ensure she doesn't hurt his family and is slowly going to like her- but still very much scared of her :))

Minor = Neutral -> Friend -> Fear + Like (was initially neutral but developed a liking for Minor after the rescue. However, over time, Nyx came to both like and fear the smaller bear. Minor helped explain things, but the explanations made Nyx nervous.)

Razzle = Neutral -> Friend -> Familial (Was Neutral to the Beast, but the more Razzle grew under his care, Nyx began to see them as his own kid like Jack!)

Third up: Ursa Minor

Major = Familial (*See Major for Minor*)

Nyx = Neutral -> Friend -> Familial + Desire (Was grateful for the rescue from the opposing Dark Astrals, so when Major went to fight, he stood between Nyx and Major. But once Major seemed to show interest in inviting Nyx to the pack, Minor began to view him as a potential father figure- with the desire to bring him into the pack!)

Razzle = Like -> Friend -> Familial + Desire (By default Minor 'likes' majority of Nyx's family- solely because they are Nyx's family. However, Razzle quickly became a friend and a familial figure because they were Nyx's child, and they also cared deeply for their family. Causing the cub to desire having a pack sibling like Razzle!)

Last but not least: Razzle

Major = Neutral -> Fear -> Like -> Friend (At first, Razzle was Neutral and scared of Major due to their... suddenness and their attempts to try and take their papa from them. However, she slowly grew to like them, seeing the bear as someone who would help protect Papa when he's doing Astral work.)

Nyx = Neutral -> Friend (The time when Nyx was Moon is a bit fuzzy for Razzle, but they do remember bits and pieces! But once Nyx took them in after helping them fight Rez's control, they've grown to see him as a father figure!)