You can drag my reputation through the dirt as many times as you want, but jealousy has never been a pretty look on you.

Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Once Upon a Time
Characters: Jaela Shiroshinrei
Race: Human – Meta – Fire
Age: 25
Final Word Count: 531 words

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I expected some ugliness when things had settled. I expected that there would have been other young women out and about who would have hopes and dreams of finding their match in the twins. I was right to expect that much and I admit that I found myself amused more than worried about it all once I’d figured out what was happening. It was subtle, it always had been and I figure it always would be. The glances, the dirty looks, the soft muttering. There were some rumours but those were very, very short-lived.

Plenty underestimated us, though I think it’s more of a case that they underestimated Naela. She’s the one who put them all back in their place and it was hilarious to me. My always and ever so quiet sister, putting her foot down and telling the nagging women that they’d have to shove it or learn to deal with the consequences of putting their noses in places it didn’t belong. They stared, oh they stared, confused, some laughed, thinking she didn’t mean it but others backed away because she’d looked murderous.

They learned.

One didn’t learn though and I guess she’s more my problem than anyone else’s since she keeps on batting her lashes at Tony and he’s just not seeing it. That or he’s seeing it and ignoring it, I’m perfectly fine with both options, to be honest. Of course, that he’s ignoring her this way seems to piss her off and she’s tried several times to get ugly rumours started but those also never made it very far. I mean, we lived in this village while we were young, we didn’t stay very long but we did and those who knew us, well they still know us and they know better. They also know the guys and Reiko and most just know better than to start anything that would soil the name and dojo.

I started seeing her wear a lot of deep, dark green colours and it only made it all the more amusing. It’s sad how far she’s willing to push and try to ruin my life and my reputation but jealousy is an ugly look and now that she’s wearing the one colour that’s usually seen as the one matched with jealousy it makes it hilarious. Sad-hilarious, is that even a possibility? I suppose it doesn’t matter because, to me, it is. She’s so pathetically sad that it’s funny. Probably only to me though I’ve seen Naela sort of roll her eyes at the pest now and again when we cross paths with her. At the very least, she’s left Reiko and Singh alone but it makes sense, they have little to do with her obsession with Tony.

It makes you wonder if she’ll ever get over it. She’s been at it for a couple of years at this point and I just—I’m not sure if she’s going to stop. That’s the point that makes all of this seriously pathetic but what can I do? I’m sure that even if he were to tell her to forget it, she wouldn’t get the point, so what can we do, really?

You always ask me to give things up, but when I ask the same, you back out.

Timeline/World: Birds of a Feather – To Serve and Protect
Characters: Timothy Steinz
Race: Human
Age: 37
Final Word Count: 551 words

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Friendships and relationships should be a two-way street. They should be something where you give as much as you get. It wasn’t like that with Anton at first but we weren’t meant to be equals. I was the boy born of the servants, the boy who would eventually be protecting him, keeping him safe from nothing and everything and all of those things in between these two extremes. We were friends from a young age though I guess I worshipped him. I gave him everything I could and it didn’t matter if he didn’t give back half as much as I gave him.

When we were forced apart, things turned ugly. He was so dependent on my presence that being separated in any way was terrifying and impossible to handle. I wasn’t doing so well but I’d never depended on him the way he depended on me. When I came back, broken and unable to walk, things changed but not in a bad way. I still worked my ass off to be able to get back on my feet so I could protect him, keep him safe and happy but just the same, he started giving a little more.

I guess that just maybe, that forced time apart and the fact that it was very likely I could have not come back at all—at least not alive—from this thing that it gave him a new sort of perspective on life. I’m not going to complain. I could have kept on until the rest of my days giving him my all and everything but I imagine that it would have left me empty before too long, raw and bleeding, so to speak. This new side of him was a little hard to get used to, it was just too much at first and he was trying too hard but we adapted, we did.

Ten years later and I feel as though we’ve just always functioned the way we do now, sharing everything equally though I still would put my life on the line to protect him. I buy him sweet treats from this one place; he’ll buy me a snack from a place on the way along the drive. I’ll offer to prepare our evening meal; we’ll do the dishes together. It might seem like small things to anyone else out there but it means the world to me that he’s willing to do those little things that he would never have done before.

Considering I was raised as a servant and he was raised like a king, there are no words to explain how it makes me feel, how the thought that he’s willing to help me prepare a meal warms me up from the inside out. I just can’t explain. I wish I could put it down to words but I really can’t, there’s no way to explain it all. While he never did act like a spoiled rich kid, that still is what he was, a rich kid, he still is, so I suppose the use of ‘was’ isn’t fitting. He’s rich enough we never would have to worry about working I still hold a small job and he works here and there as well, it keeps us busy, it keeps us humble, in a way.