I don’t think I should listen to someone who gets lost way more than I do.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Elliott Fontaine
Race: Human
Age: 30
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 767 words
 

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I think I’ve finally found one thing that I have no care for at all. At least, as far as all things nature are concerned. If you hand me a carnivorous plant, telling me that it is the world’s most dangerous thing, I’m still not going to turn my back. I’m going to set it up in its own little area and see what I can learn from it.

If given a chance, I totally will spend time outside in forests, climbing up hills and hiking through slightly rougher terrain. I’m very much so an outdoors person though I still love helping out and about in the house as my duties request. My time off is my own, however, and Lady Areleous is also of the mindset that when I have clocked out, I have clocked out unless an emergency arises in the greenhouse. That has happened only once in the years I’ve been here.

I’ve been here so long that I’ve now been given my weekends off. Though I do work one weekend a month and that is my personal choice. It is much quieter out and about on the weekends. Though now with so many of the family having completed high school and moved out further onto the private road, the whole house is much quieter. That hasn’t changed my duties and the greenhouse flourishes as always.

Over the last weekend, we took a long trip to visit a fabled maize maze. That just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Geoff would roll his eyes at me and tell me to call it a corn maze, the way the Americans do but I’ve picked up the maize habit from Lady Areleous. I can’t help it. The way she talks seems to rub off on me and I find it rather quaint.

I’d never been to a maize maze before. I’d heard all about them, I’d heard about hedge mazes too and just, all sorts of natural—even if manmade—mazes and I just hadn’t thought to go. The idea of getting lost for pleasure has never appealed to me but Geoff won this round, and we went.

As we were approaching the little building where tickets, refreshments and whatever else could be bought, a couple came out, bickering. All I caught from their brief passing was that somehow the husband was complaining to his wife—I assume they were married, I could very well be wrong—that he never should have listened to her about which way to go, as even when they were out and about in their neighbourhood, she was constantly getting lost.

If a trip to a maze was what it took to bring that out between a couple, I couldn’t imagine that daily life was like. Geoff, at my side, looked at me with a quirked brow as he’d caught the same snippet of their conversation I had. I could only shrug in answer as we got our tickets, confirmed that if we did get lost, there were plenty of markers to let us know which way to go, and we went in.

Now, to make a rather long story short, a trip that indeed could have taken us about an hour to roam through took us two, but only because we kept encountering other people who claimed they had just come from the direction we were heading and that it was a dead end. We both came to the conclusion that we shouldn’t have bothered listening to them and that is the end of that.

By the time we got out of there, we both could admit that, yes, it had been actually quite fun. The maize had been as tall as it could get, it was lush and beautiful and it was interesting but, for the sake of an outing, it hadn’t been all that great.

I’m not saying all mazes are terrible but as someone who likes clear goals and making sure that I know the way to these goals, mazes seem to be counterproductive, and I’ll leave them to someone else. I do give an A+ to the people who have put it together, though. I’ve seen the aerial photos and the design was splendid.

On our way home, we did stop at a little dinner that was out of the way and that, on its own, ended up being far more enjoyable than our time in the maize maze. Maybe had it been a hedge maze, things could have been different, I’m not quite certain, to be honest. I don’t know that I’m willing to try.

Your tears are the only form of payment that I accept.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Elliott Fontaine
Race: Human
Age: 29
Final Word Count: 707 words
 

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Plants will do whatever the heck they want to. No amount of cooing or playing classical music or talking to a plant will ensure that it does exactly what you want. No, I’m not going to change my mind, yes, I’m aware that growing trees can be shaped in almost every shape possible with some patience and time but this isn’t the point. Plants still will do whatever the hell they want and this includes only growing if you give them their water only at a certain temperature and only on a very set schedule.

Met Bella. Geoff would give me this amused look if I were to tell him that Bella only grows and flourishes when watered with the tears of her defeated enemies. She’s a personal project that I’ve been working on and she has been just so very finicky about everything that I was sure she’d refuse to even sprout, at first.

I knew, from the get-go, that this would be a difficult project. Growing plants of her type has rarely been managed in ‘captivity’, in the wild, they flourish like no one’s business though they do so only in particular areas. That area had a very similar temperature and humidity level as what can be found in the greenhouse, so once I had managed to get my hands on a single seed (expensive and rare little buggers, but so worth it), I set to work.

I really did think she wouldn’t sprout. By all means, all signs pointed to an absolute failure and I was ready to accept that very failure when, the morning after I’d told myself that I would finally be letting it go, I came by to see the tiniest of sprouts in this cherished container.

Since then, it has been a fight to figure out her needs. Too hot; too cold; too moist; not moist enough; moisture too cool, you think of it, I’ve had to figure out why it wasn’t working in my favour but so far, I think that it will very likely be worth it. She’s not yet ready to bloom but she’s getting there, little by little.

All this work for a measly flower? I’m sure many would think that but it is more than a measly flower, it is a challenge for someone whose whole life revolves around greenery and work in a greenhouse and a bit around the house in general. I thrive on working with my hands and around plants, so trying to see if I could somehow master—that’s a big word and I’m pretty sure it will not be any time soon that I master this—this elusive and picky plant isn’t just ‘for one measly flower’, it’s so much more than that.

Yes, I know that it still seems like a lot of work for not a lot of reward but this is no different from those people who keep watch and care for plants that only bloom once every so-many-years. I think the last plant like that, that I’d heard about, bloomed only once every thirty years or so. I don’t know that I would have that kind of patience and I tip my invisible hat to the people who do spend their lives keeping such plants happy.

In my particular case, I believe that simply caring for Bella and making it so I can get her to bloom at least once—and repeatedly if I can so manage it—is going to be more than enough. Mind you, I haven’t forgotten to do the rest of my tasks and expected duties. I check on her during my down time and I make sure she’s taken care of when everything else is ready and done for.

That’s not to say I might not have sneaked a few looks at her during my working hours but Lady Areleous knows about my project and she seems as fascinated as I am to see it come to fruition, so I take that to be quite a good thing.

After all, we all need a passion of sorts in our lives, do we not? Geoff has his love of working on cars of all sorts and I have my plants.

I don’t want to be alone for the vacation, so come with me. Drop everything and pack up.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Elliott Fontaine
Race: Human
Age: 27
Final Word Count: 588 words
 

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He was nineteen when he sprung his crazy idea on me. I was just sixteen, barely sixteen; I’d turned sixteen, so to speak, that very morning. I looked at him for the longest of times because he hadn’t actually spared me a glance or spoken a single word to me in almost six months. He’d been dating this girl—she couldn’t have been much older than me—who was clearly only interested in him because of his money. Or his bad-boy attitude, I wasn’t sure. He’d changed in recent years and I didn’t recognize the friend I’d held dear for most of my life up until that point.

So when he came to me that morning, his eyes bright, his hair dishevelled and his breath actually smelling like stale beer—I had to fight to keep a straight face—asking me to drop everything and pack up because he didn’t want to be alone for his vacation, I stalled.

For one thing, I’d started working for this really large family and they were treating me better than I’d been treated in a really long time. They counted on me to get my work done and I didn’t want to disappoint them, I would have felt rotten if I’d done that. It was my first big job that hadn’t been offered to me by a family member and I didn’t want to screw that up.

For another thing, there was just that one fact still that I hadn’t heard from him in six months. I’d seen him around, I’d even tried to talk to him but he’d ignored me completely as though I had never existed, it had stung.

So that he approached me, clearly hung over and likely freshly dumped, just so he wouldn’t have to be alone on that vacation he’d likely planned to go on with her? I didn’t want to. It was the very last thing I wanted to and I told him as much. I didn’t even keep my tone even or neutral, the way I’d done forever because I had never wanted him to know how bad I needed him in my life. How bad I had wanted to be the one he’d ask out.

He’d always claimed to be bisexual but as it turns out, it might have just been a ‘phase’ for him. He’s married, last I’ve checked and when anyone mentions the possibility that he might have ever dated any other men, he turns his nose up at the idea and snorts. Either he’s just closeted or he’s straight and I suppose it doesn’t really matter, not anymore.

He stormed off after I’d told him to go on his stupid vacation alone, of course. That was, after he spent a few minutes staring at me open-mouthed. I imagine he wasn’t used to being told no and especially not from impressionable young men like yours truly.

I’d like to think I’m not all that impressionable anymore. I’ve grown into my own person and Geoffrey always helps me keep a good head on my shoulders. We’re good for one another. It took us the longest of times to move on from being good friends though we both could see we were seriously attracted to one another. I think it was the fact that we worked together. We didn’t want to chance things going south and not working out for us in a personal and professional way.

So far though, so good and I think we’re ready for the next step.

I don’t want to look at your smug face any longer than I have to.

Timeline/World: Main Profile
Characters: Elliott Fontaine
Race: Human
Age: 25
Final Word Count: 796 words

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There are times in my life when I wish I could turn the clock back, just so I could get the last word but in but I know that’s pointless. I know that’s not going to lead me anywhere and if it somehow were to change how the present currently is, I think it wouldn’t be worth it.

My present is as perfect as I think it could get. I work for a good family, they’re all just great and several are more than willing to help me with my daily activities when they have the time. I have a wonderful, oh absolutely perfect boyfriend though saying that to his face would get an amused smile because he seems to think he’s not. He sees himself as just the mechanic, the guy who gets down and dirty with the vehicles but he’s so much more than that. It took us way too long to stop being afraid of what could be, to stop just dancing around the subject and take that leap. Best leap of my life.

My past is something else entirely but I guess I’m just one of many. I don’t know that anyone can really say that their lives have gone exactly the same it should have, even if it has led them to where they are now, happy or not.

One particular situation brings me back to the time when I was still sharing living expenses with my brother. He was a couple of years older than me and he’d moved out when I had. He hadn’t ever really gotten well along with our step-father and the man had been trying to get him out of our house ever since he’d moved in. Ben claimed he was staying to keep me safe from the man’s somewhat violent side but I knew he just didn’t want to bother with finding a job or a place to live.

So when I did finally move out, he did too. Somehow he talked me into us sharing an apartment and we did. I ended up paying most of the bills myself. Now and again he’d come home with some money and he’d pitch in just barely. Most of the time he was out there, doing who knows what.

That who-knows-what turned out to be playing cards, betting money he didn’t really have and sleeping with girls he shouldn’t have approached. I learned that one day when some thugs came to our door, demanding to know where my brother was because he owed them money. I didn’t know where he was, I didn’t want to be beaten up to a pulp and I told them as much before I was out of that apartment two hours too early for work and still went in just so I could feel safe around the rest of the crew.

When I got back that evening, Ben was sprawled on the couch, the whole apartment reeked of cigarettes, something I’d often begged him to smoke outside, he was looking like a smug ass bastard and that was it for me. That he somehow managed to look this smug when he owed money—a lot I’m sure else they wouldn’t have sent these brutes—when he didn’t even pay any of the bills on time and just… I couldn’t take it. I told him what had happened earlier and he shrugged me off. So much for protecting his kid brother against the evils of the world.

I went down to the landlord, a man who was pretty understanding really and I told him that I was leaving. I was willing to pay the broken lease fee that wasn’t even an issue. I told him he could do what he wanted with me brother and the sparse furniture in the apartment, I’d be gone within the week.

When I got back upstairs, my brother was gone back to who knew where. I just packed up my clothes, a few mementos I was sentimental about and I left. That was it. I didn’t care about anything else. What little working tools I had were at the farm and there just wasn’t anything else. I had never been a decorating type.

I lived in a small bedroom at the farm for about two months before I replied to an ad requesting some farmhand help closer to the city, greenhouse work and some other random tasks. A week later, I had moved in with this huge family, I did a few mindless tasks around the house but I spent most of my hours in the large two-storey greenhouse attached to their home. It was different, that kind of work but I loved it and still love it.

I love Geoffrey more though.