Dont Imagine With Jade Leech

Don’t Imagine with Jade Leech…

Warning: None! As far as I’m aware. Some weird mushroom? It does “bleed” but not much detail

author’s note: this is my first ficpost!! planning on a floyd ver for suresies >:) (god no one is gonna see this this is so self indulgent)

1.3k words, fluff, pre-relationship

DON’T Imagine…that for once you didn’t have to worry about overblots or whatever latest shenanigans your friends had gotten up to. Everyone was in their own little bubbles, even Grim who had pounced on the chance to attend a Heartslabyul tea party. For once, there was only peace and you couldn’t be more relieved. You decide to take a leisurely stroll through the halls of NRC. Why not? You could stand to learn more about the place that you call home now. (You wonder if it will be that way indefinitely.)

Don’t think about peering into the science classroom while being sucked into the vortex that was your own thoughts and finding Jade shouldering on hiking gear. The equipment was bulky yet swung across his back effortlessly as he took stock of his stuff. You spot a lantern peeking from the side of his overcoat and a compass on a backpack strap. You blink and realize this must be the “Mountain Lovers” Club that Jade himself had told you about in passing. You recall that conversation with a weird fondness. Jade Leech was most certainly a man to be wary of—that was a fact without question. But, in the moment you showed interest in his little club: you saw his eyes shine with a wholesome joy. That is not a passion a person could fake, you were sure of it.

“Prefect? Can I help you?”

Oh, certainly do not think about how you were caught staring. Jade’s eyebrow crooks upward with the beginnings of a crooked smirk creeping up his face. You clear your throat and ask where he was going. Try not to think about how you feel like you walked in on something intimate. Don’t, because your face is warm. You don’t miss the way his face brightens ever so slightly under the usual mask of cunning.

“Ah. I am heading to the mountains. It is a little ways from the school gate, and yet I have yet to scale it. I wish to correct that today.” You hum in response. It wasn’t like you had much else to do today, and Jade wasn’t bad company—to you at least. It was hard to tell with him; like any day now could be the day the other shoe drops. You know that. And yet, you ask to join him.

“You…Want to?” He says, the shock written all over his face. It shifts back just as quickly as it came into the Jade’s usual polite expression. “Fuhuhu…I would not want to turn you away after you asked so nicely after all. “

In a few hours, you and Jade were well on your way up the mountain. The journey was mostly quiet as the two of you walk side by side absorbing the peacefulness into your very bones. Sunlight streams through leaves above you and warm your skin, the chittering of woodland birds becomes the soundtrack, and the crunching of sticks accent your footfalls. Interspersed among beats of comfortable silence was Jade’s stops to examine mushroom specimens for his terrariums.

He halts you with a hand on your wrist for one of these stops(don’t think about how it stops your heart singlehandedly) and crouches to a mushroom though it looks to you much more like an open pomegranate. “A ‘Bleeding Tooth’,” Jade says with a hushed awe in his voice, “It secretes a thick red liquid—hence the name. Despite that, it is completely nonpoisonous. What a most fascinating specimen.” The name was indeed scary sounding. You crouch down next to Jade for a better look, and you can’t help but agree with wonder.

There is a pause. As you look at this most strange looking growth, Jade peers at you. “Creepy. Is it not?” He says nonchalantly. You blink up at him. He looks back with a glint in his eye that you feel as familiar. You just can’t quite recall from where. But it makes you feel wrong inside. “Mushrooms are a particularly extraordinary part of land ecosystems,” He continues, “They do not hunt or hide. But they will be the ones to dispose of all life eventually and make it anew. And if something, or someone, were to stop them…well there’s been enough proof of its power.”

Ah. You remember now. His yellow eye draws you in like an angler fish draws in prey. You cannot help but liken this scene to when you first met Jade in the Coral Sea—when he was swimming circles around you and merely toying with his food.

“It is a little scary, is it not?” Jade Leech says again. You stare. And Jade stares back. Something in the back of your mind supplies the nature of Jade’s unique magic to you. It does nothing to stifle the tension in the air that threatens to suffocate you. You wonder, if there was any part of Jade that wanted to make you bleed like the mushroom he so admired.

“Not really.” You reply as you turn back to the fungi. Jade makes a tilt of his head. “Really, now?” You nod. “I mean, that’s how they survive, right? They grow in bright colors and weird shapes to make sure they can live. It’s not like we can fault them for that,” You point to the oozing mass in front of you both, “Isn’t that what every living thing wants? And it’s pretty important that they decompose stuff, since it recycles nutrients. If anything, doesn’t it make them pretty essential?”

You look over at Jade again: “They don’t tend to hurt the living unless somebody decides to mess with it. And some don’t have any effects at all. It’d be weird to lump them all together like that.”

Jade stares. And you stare back. Something imperceivable happens within his mind and you find yourself wishing you could peer inside. He smiles. “I knew bringing you along would be most fruitful.” And he stoops down to take the Bleeding Tooth with him.

You’ve been walking for a few hours at this point. The two of you chat more freely now after that little pitstop. You find yourself slowing as you hike higher and higher up the mountain: apparently you severely misjudged the fitness and experience required for such a journey. Your hiking partner’s mirth in his eyes cannot be overstated and you shoot him a look. He plays it off masterfully with a faux offended look that you would even say such a thing. You nudge his side. He laughs. Despite his ribbing, he lends you his hand to pass the rougher terrain. Do not think about how your fingers lace perfectly against each other. Do not think about how when you make it across the felled tree in the way; Jade takes a few seconds longer than necessary to pull away.

At last, the you two make it to the top and the view was worth your pain and more. It was gorgeous: the sun casting hues of orange, yellow, and pink as it sets across the vastness of the mountain below you. Every tree and bush looked like strokes of a paintbrush on the ethereal work of art. You turn excitedly to Jade at your side to point out the way the clouds frame the scene—and are met with his expression examining your own. You dared not put a name to it, but it made your heart race in a way you didn’t know it could. Do not even think about classifying Jade’s expression as “fond” or god forbid “admiring.”

Because then, it would mean your heart would be as good as his.

Continually filling your mutual's dash with your blorbo like some sort of missionary trying to convert them

and the more that i am in pain, the more that you’ll gain (and to me, that seems like a pretty fair trade)

The boy was unconscious before he hit the floor.

Gia’s boot connected with his side.

Then his stomach.

His chest.

Face.

A blaze threatened to burn Gia to ash. Burning brighter and hotter and into a mounting roar— it would consume them to nothing. They could feel it in the trembling overtaking their body and so, in the only way they knew how, they’d take the source of it out with them. Gia would make kindling of this boy’s bones through stomps and swears and spit.

At least, they would have.

Hauled away before they sent the tip of steel toes smashing into the boy’s nose again, Gia fought against the pair of arms pinning their own to their side. They cursed at them and their owner. Struggled to grind their heels into his feet only for him to nimbly maneuver them away.

“Hey,” Floyd said as they tried— and failed— to rock their head back to catch him right on his teeth, “Hey. Knock it off, it’s over.”

It didn’t sound like this was taking much of an effort, which in turn only sent Gia into another round of thrashing and yelling. What this got them was a tighter squeeze around their diaphragm and a lift off the ground as their legs kicked at empty air.

They were screaming. And they kept screaming as there was a brief shift in balance…a stomach-drop instinct of falling back…followed by a pain shooting up their tailbone as they both dropped to the floor. This stopped the screaming.

“Ouch,” said Floyd flatly. He kept Gia sat between his outstretched legs. “You done?”

In a wheezing voice, Gia swore at him some more. They fought against his hold. When that got them nowhere, they thumped their back against him, weak and spent.

The fire puttered to smoke.

Gia slumped forward. The only reason they didn’t flop face-first into their knees was because Floyd still held onto them. So they stared at their lap, breath ragged, innards wanting to crawl up their throat. And there was something else. Something else was making its way out.

“Hm..?”

One long arm slipped out from around them, clamped a hand under their chin, and forced them to look up.

Gia shut their eyes in a final attempt at protest. Tears fell.

“Woah,” Floyd breathed.

Against their will, they blinked up at him. Floyd studied them, an expression settled prettily on his features. Curious… and something Gia was almost too scared to name. A merfolk trick, maybe, and idly Gia understood why sailors back in the day would risk finding out what it was.

“Aw, what’s the matter?” Floyd crooned, gently wiping his thumb under their eye. His skin felt cool on their cheek. It was terribly nice. “We got to the bottom of it, didn’t we, Shrimpy?”

Gia jerked away from him, the nickname a shock of ice water. Gia ground the heel of their palms into their eyes, pulled their knees to their chest, and curled into themself.

Floyd didn’t pin them again, but he continued, “C’mon. You knew going in you weren’t gonna get the money back.”

“I know.” Gia grit out. And they did know. The moment they realized the Ramshackle had been broken into they’d known. That’s not why they were here. What they wanted was payback.

But after the two weeks they’d spent tracking down the thief— somehow picking up one of the Leech brothers along the way— they hadn’t settled on what that would look like. Sure, the thought of getting in a jab or two crossed their mind, but when they’d cornered the culprit and Gia got a look at the mastermind who’d whisked away all their hard work…the thoughts evaporated.

It was just some Ignihyde kid. Small for a freshman. Gia actually felt bad. Floyd, on the other hand, was so bored with the reveal he circled into disgust. To top it off, Gia would still have to compensate for “dragging him along.” They didn’t even want his help in the first place.

But despite that blossoming headache, Gia couldn’t bring themself to raise hell. What was the point?

They’d been having dreams again. There was another shoe waiting to drop somewhere in Night Raven. And if that were the case, then they were going to have to focus their energy on keeping ahead of the curve. That was hard enough with the Corlux girls living in their dorm, but now with the boys bringing another wave of chaos under the guise of the “SDC Training Camp,” well…

In comparison, dealing with this kid didn’t feel worth the effort. So they thought.

Until Gia asked the sniveling snotball what he’d spent their money on. He’d barely gotten the word out when Gia’s fist slammed into his jaw with the force of a wrecking ball.

“Gacha...” They spat into their legs. “Gacha. Spent my money on stupid, 2D anime girls. Pictures he could look up for free.”

“Heard it’s a mega-popular title, too.” Floyd added unhelpfully. He played with their braid as he said so, Gia could feel him twist their hair between his fingers.

“But say…Shrimpy.” Floyd caught their eye from where he hovered over their shoulder. His chest was to their back again. “Here’s what I don’t get…”

He had that look on his face again. Interested. Intrigued.

“Why’re you so worked up about this?” He asked, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not lettin’ anyone get away with taking something from me and I’m chargin’ ten-fold for tryin’. But I’ve never seen you blow up like that. Not when Jade and I kicked you outta Ramshackle or when Sea Snake sent us flying across the desert. This…”

Floyd pointed over his shoulder where the boy from Ignihyde lay sprawled on the ground, “This is small fry. Might as well be plankton. It wasn’t even that much money—”

“It’s all I had.” Gia said, hating the unsteadiness in their voice. They twisted around to face him.

“What’s it for?”

“It's…” They couldn’t figure how to reply to that. The best they could give him was a limp shrug. A shiver hit their spine and it came to mind how warm Floyd was now that they’d leaned away. They rubbed their arms. “I…I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

“What?” Floyd laughed, “Don’t tell me you’ve been mixing it up with loan sharks.”

Gia shook their head. “When Grim and I graduate…we can’t stay here. We need somewhere to go.”

A twitch of confusion crossed Floyd’s face. “Sealie’s a direbeast. He’s teeny, kinda stupid, and you prolly pampered the feral out of him, but you never really lose your survival instinct.” He looked down at Gia, “And aren’t you going home?”

Gia let out a snort, short and sour. With it that…thing that had wanted to come out earlier clung itself to the back of their throat— their words thick and heavy with the ache in their jaw. The memories of a ranch full of distant eyes and rotting apathy. “Home?”

The word was an ugly, wet noise they tried to smother under their hand. Heat rose to their face again, but nothing like the scorching rage from earlier.

Shame overtook them. Gia could feel Floyd’s eyes on them as they tried in vain to scrub away the tears. They just kept coming, hot and damning, overflowing like a boiling pot.

It was stupid. They were stupid. Crying over something they couldn’t change. Crying over scraps. This wasn’t fixing anything. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. They hadn’t cried once when they were sent away to their aunt’s house. They didn’t bother begging their parents to take them back home because they’d known they didn’t have one to go back to.

The concept was lost far before ever stepping into Twisted Wonderland and the only thing they could do was keep moving. Gia knew this.

They told themself this after each and every misstep. Every time something went wrong…when everything inevitably went wrong….

Gia needed to get as far away from Floyd as they could— maybe they couldn’t stop themself from absolutely losing it, but he was the last person allowed to see them do so. Except before they’d pushed themself off the ground, his arm circled around their shoulders and pulled them towards him.

Gia gave a sound somewhere between a hiccup and a gasp. On instinct they started to shove him back, but a second arm wrapped around their back and locked them in place.

Floyd held them against his chest and…no. He was hugging them to his chest.

“I think…” He started in a slow, pensive voice, his hand moving to pet the back of their head. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”

Gia kept still, their forehead pressed against the spot beneath his collarbone. They were aware of many things at that moment.

A deep amber trace of cologne, tear stains gradually spreading through the fabric of Floyd’s shirt, the shakiness in their hands, and how his strong, steady heartbeat only made theirs beat a faster jig against their rib cage.

“Did you know lobsters never stop growing?” Floyd asked.

“…What…?”

“Lobsters.” He repeated, “They keep growing throughout their lifetime until eventually they get so old and tired, they can’t molt out of their shell. That’s what kills them, y’see. They get stuck in their shell because it gets too hard for them to break and it gets so diseased and spoiled they just die in there.”

From their spot under his chin, Gia chanced a look at him. Floyd was still stroking the back of their head. They were crying in the arms of a merman with a sudden interest in shellfish. Behind them still lay the unconscious Ignihyde boy they’d tried to beat to death not five minutes ago. It occurred to Gia that surreal couldn’t possibly begin to describe what was going on right now.

“…Am I the lobster or something..?”

Floyd shrugged as if admitting pep talks were painfully not his thing, “Lobsters, shrimps. Both decapods.” He pressed his hand down on their head, guiding them back to him. It made them feel small.

They didn’t fight as he shifted their legs over his thigh and closer to him.

“Point is…You’re a tough little shrimp and you like it that way, but this shell's too old for you now. You’ll smother yourself if you don’t break out sooner or later.”

Gia knew a thing or two about lobsters, too. Lobsters didn’t come out of their old shells with a new one intact. A recently molten lobster was soft, tender— and highly vulnerable to a watchful predator.

They were all but giving Floyd the go-ahead to sink his teeth when he already had them in his jaws. Whatever he was looking at them with, it wasn't concern. His eyes were not soft. His were sharp, hunting eyes.

“Why are you doing this, Floyd?” Gia heard themself ask. The answer wouldn’t matter. Their arms were already around his neck.

“It's your lucky day, Shrimpy. Think of it as grace from the benevolence of the Sea Witch.” He chuckled as he curled himself around him, resting his chin on their shoulder. “And I’m in the mood to carry it through.”

“Ha.” Gia guessed it meant to be a laugh, but it was brittle and fragile and cracked and soon— nothing more than a cascade of sobs.

—

Humming.

Somewhere along the line, between where Gia’s cries waned into a silent weeping, Floyd started humming. He cradled them, though accurately speaking it was more that he had them propped against him.

So Gia stared out into a place far beyond where they lay wilted in his arms as his melody moved through them. A comforting, lulling sweetness he carried achingly well. They’d never heard it before, but in its notes they caught a timbre of nostalgia.

It was only through sheer luck— or maybe the unfortunate fact that Gia’s body was too-well trained against the notion of sleep— that they caught themself nodding off with a jolt.

“Floyd.”

He replied with another hum. Low with an undercurrent of disappointment.

To call it a glare would’ve been giving it too much credit, but whatever it was Gia did their best to fix it on him, “What is that?”

Floyd dipped back into his song long enough for Gia to think he chose to ignore them before saying, “You don’t like it?” Gia hadn’t noticed he was gently rocking them until he stopped to return their gaze. He knew the answer and let it show, smug as ever.

“Mama used to sing it to me and Jade as kids when we got upset.” He said, “It sounds way better underwater. You should come listen to it. I’d be happy to sing it for you again…if I feel like it then, anyway.”

“Right.” Against every fiber in the shriveled husk of their being, Gia sat up. “You enjoyed this way too much.”

“Listening to you cry?” Floyd laughed, “No. Not really.”

Gia thought about lobsters again. Soft ones. They closed their eyes and took a deep breath. The air was cool coming in. Colder coming out. When Gia opened them, they set their sights directly into his eye. The golden right one. “I’m paying you back. How?”

What they got was a low whistle, “Back on it again, huh? You’re a regular ice maiden.” Floyd giggled as he swiped a knuckle over their cheek, “Even if you’re still a bit leaky.”

Gia didn’t look away from him. “Unless it’s for free,” they pressed.

“Eh-heh! You wish.” A pause. Then, “A month.”

He clamped his hand down on their head and roughly ruffled their hair, which did nothing to soothe the throbs assaulting Gia’s temples. Floyd looked hungry with the moonlight caught in his teeth, “You do as I say for a month and I say: You're workin’ at the Lounge.”

Gia expected an anemone to sprout from where Floyd removed his hand. It didn’t, but their headache morphed into a full-on migraine. A month at the Lounge.

They felt a twitch at the corner of their lip and huffed, dropping their focus towards the ground between their legs.

There it was. The puncture of teeth. They had to hand it to him— the guy knew an easy catch when he saw one. And this one did him the added favor of shucking itself for him. A soft little lobster, indeed.

Gia wanted to get angry. They couldn’t. Crying, as it turned out, was dangerously exhausting.

Had Floyd considered that, too?

“Got stuff going on with the SDC. Make room for me to deal with that first or take it up with Vil and Crowley.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Floyd sighed, stretching long and towards the sky. Satisfied with the pops he elicited, he leaned back on his elbows. His eyes fluttered closed, content to bask in the starlight. That was easy.

Gia guessed it made sense for a hunter to know their place on the food chain.

They reached into their pants pocket for their phone. It hadn’t rung, so it was safe to say no one noticed they’d snuck out of their own dorm yet. Grim probably still snoring away in bed. It was past two in the morning.

Gia turned to look at the Ignihyde boy. Blood poured down his nose, now pointing at a new angle. They watched for a few seconds until they were sure of the rise and fall of his chest. Something that should’ve been done earlier, but better late than never or whatever. They weren’t angry at him. Not anymore. Still, Gia wasn’t inclined to care much either.

You never learn.

Whether it was their own voice or their mother’s, they couldn’t tell. Regret didn’t sound all that different between them.

Gia stood, giving a few stretches of their own as they ran through what to do with the guy. Fights weren’t anything recent and though Gia knew Crowley turned a blind eye to them handling their problems in however way they saw fit, this…might be overstepping.

This wasn’t a fight for their life when someone hit overblot or a simple scuffle with some jackass. This was, plainly put, an outright murder attempt. They didn’t care about the boy, but this definitely would be grounds for expulsion, right?

You never learn.

They stared at the sack of bones, three-fourths considering turning one of the rooms at Ramshackle into a makeshift dungeon when Floyd interrupted the thought.

“Leave’im.”

Gia glanced at him, expecting Floyd to be looking at them, but his eyes were still closed. “There?”

He nodded lazily then said, “I’ll take him to Octavinelle, no problemo.”

A wave of throbbing around their skull. Oh, great. Another debt. “I’ll figure it out.”

At this, Floyd frowned and peeked up at them through a single eye. His green one. “We made a deal. I’m taking a month.”

Gia blinked. “That was…I thought that was for—” For what? Was he talking about finding the boy? Was body disposal included? They gestured at the general area of their meltdown.

“Noooo. That’s for the minnow over there.”

“…Then what about…?” Gia pointed at the wet stains on his shirt.

Methodically, Floyd made his way onto his feet. “I told you.” He said as he stood to full height, “I was in the mood. You’re not taking my kindness for granted, are ya?”

Gia felt wrung out, they were too tired to fight him on their sentence at the Lounge— but they couldn’t leave him with a loose end to tie their noose with. They’d messed up too much already. Gia stood their ground. “Running a charity now?”

Though he smiled, a shadow crossed over Floyd, his right eye glowing sharper.

“Alright,” He reached out to flick one of the stubborn strands of hair sticking out from the top of Gia’s head. “You’re too fun to let you go out all ‘woe is me.’ Doesn’t suit you. You still gotta looooong way to go before your time’s up.”

Blackmail. Gia thought. Blackmail for sure.

He breezed by them, stalking towards the not-corpse, “Don’t let me down, okay?”

Gia watched as he considered the boy on the ground for a moment. Then without a trace of effort, haul him up by his shirt before throwing him on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. For a beanpole, the dude was wickedly strong.

Gia’s arms rose to hug themself as if with a mind of their own. It wasn’t the same. They turned on their heel and returned to Ramshackle Dorm.

—

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"idia shroud has a nice waist" - said not me

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT A LEECHCEST POST AT ALL! IF YOU SHIP LEECHCEST, LEAVE MY BLOG/SRS ⚠️

One thing I love about the Tweels is the fact that they’re actually separate people and not just blatant carbon copies of each other unlike what we see with most twins in media, and this is coming from an only child.

Cause in most twins, we only see a slight slight difference to distinguish them but with the Tweels, we see actual differences. They’re like their own individuals. They have different interests, different characteristics and they’re their own people.

Many differences I can point out are their feature which I made a chart for

There’s also the differences in voice too, and one thing I love is that they actually fight. They have actual disagreements, they don’t just get along 24/7, and they still care for each other.

Eugh I can go on about them I love these two sm

Have some more doodles :3