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Once upon a time, in a far off kingdom, there lived a family: a mother, a father, and a young boy of seven, named Oswald. They had a nice little cottage, and a baby on the way, and everything was perfect.
Except, of course, for the mother’s deep and abiding desire for vegetables. She craved them so desperately that she’d gone through all that their money could buy within a week and a half of the cravings, and her husband was so desperate to satisfy her that, in the middle of the night one night, he snuck into their neighbor’s garden and stole an armful of greens.
But their neighbor was a witch, a powerful (if lazy) man named Levi, and the next day, when the greens had been all but consumed, he visited the family and told them that the price for his vegetables (as many from his garden as they pleased!) was the infant child in Oswald’s mother’s stomach.
The parents agreed: they had, after all, already consumed most of the vegetables, and hoped that when it came time to collect the witch would have forgotten about the price.
He did not.
The witch Levi took the young girl immediately after her parents had named her and vanished, leaving her brother heartbroken and furious in the aftermath—though, as a very small boy, there was nothing at all he could do about it.
Once upon a small time later, in a slightly farther off kingdom, there was a boy who was the son of a prostitute and a nobleman. He didn’t have anything very much at all to live for, and no motivation to speak of, so he set about wandering. He wandered, and wandered, and wandered, until he found a massive tower, and, since it was hailing, snuck inside and found within the tower a girl, a couple of years older than him, with long, flowing black hair.
The girl, who introduced herself as Lacie, doted on Jack for the duration of the storm before giving him her earring and sending him away again, telling him that the witch she lived with didn’t take kindly to visitors and that he ought to turn to thievery to live.
And so he did, so starstruck by Lacie, until eventually, after an incident with a massive beanstalk and a giant, he ended up in a small town, lying in the front lawn of some cottage or other, a young man with black hair and a stern face poking him with a broom.
“Owww…” Jack complained.
“Get up. You’re on my lawn.”
“I just slayed a giant…have some compassion…”
“You’re on my lawn. Get off of it.”
Jack pushed himself up. “Alright, alright,” he said with a smile. He knew he looked charming when he did this, and that combined with his recent heroics would probably have the man fawning over him. “I’m Jack. Nice to meet you.”
“...You disgust me.”
Jack blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“There’s something…about you, Jack. You don’t seem…real. You’re like water.” His brow furrowed. “The only thing there is a reflection.”
Jack kicked him in the balls.
The young man doubled over, wheezing, and, one yard over, a white-haired man started howling with laughter. Jack remained standing there, trembling lightly—some unnamable emotion was swelling within him, pressing against him from all corners.
“This is priceless!” laughed the man next door. “Jack, did you say your name was? —Feel free to stay with us as long as you please!”
“There is no ‘us’,” said the black-haired man.
“Don’t be so mean, Oswald! Why, I practically raised you!”
“You mean I took care of both of us.” The black-haired man—Oswald—was still scowling, though he didn’t seem to know if he wanted to glare at Jack or at his neighbor now. “He isn’t staying. I don’t like him.”
“I own this house, though?” said his neighbor.
Oswald’s scowl deepened.
“I don’t need to stay,” Jack said cheerfully. “Though, would either of you mind pointing me in the direction of a witch named Levi? I’m looking for him.”
“Is that why there’s a dead rotting body in my backyard,” said Oswald.
“It’s a giant’s corpse, it’s in everyone’s backyards,” said his neighbor, smirking. “So, Jack the Giant Killer, what are you looking for the witch Levi for?”
“To get as far away as possible?” suggested Oswald. “That’s what I would do in his situation.”
“Oswald, you wound me.”
“...A few years ago I met a woman named Lacie in a tower,” said Jack. “She mentioned that a witch named Levi was keeping her in the tower. I’m in love with her, so I intend to fit him for her han—”
Oswald slammed him against the wall of his cottage. “What,” he growled, “did you say?”
“My, my, ” said Oswald’s neighbor. “What a development!”
“Do you know anything about either of them?” Jack asked.
Oswald leaned in closer. Yet another strange feeling stirred in Jack—this one bringing with it an uncomfortable rush of blood to his nether regions. “Where,” he said, “is Lacie?”
“Now, now, Oswald,” his neighbor said in a sing-song voice. “Sins of the father, and all that.”
Oswald’s hand curled into fists on the front of Jack’s shirt. “I think I will have him stay with me, after all,” he said. “Good day.”
“What, wha—”
Jack found himself yanked inside Oswald’s cottage, and then unceremoniously thrown to the ground.
“What, exactly, ” said Oswald lowly, “are your intentions with my sister?”
“So Lacie’s your sister, then?” Jack said, making sure to keep his voice light and friendly, though that didn’t seem to make much of an impression on Oswald.
“Yes. Our parents sold her to Levi for a lifetime supply of cabbages before she was born. However, they both passed a few months later. I’ve been trying to get her back ever since—I don’t eat cabbages.” Oswald sighed, annoyed. “She’s never mentioned you in her letters.”
“Letters?” Jack asked. “May I see them?”
“Absolutely not. And yes, letters. Master Levi may be deeply irritating, full of himself, and prone to making snap impulse decisions while drunk off his ass at three in the morning and refusing to back down, but he isn’t a monster. Lacie and I have been writing to each other since we were small. Not once, however, has she mentioned anyone like you. ”
“We did only meet the once,” Jack said. “She rescued me, during a storm.”
There was a pause. “...That’s it?”
Jack smiled. “Yes.”
“Even Master Levi, ” said Oswald, voice low and dangerous, “even Levi fucking Baskerville, the most disastrous human being I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, has more than a singular meeting where basic human decency is shown before he falls head over heels for someone. I cannot believe you, I really can’t.”
“So the witch’s full name is Levi Baskerville?” Jack asked. Excellent—that would make it far easier to track him down.
“It’s Levi Fucking Baskerville,” said Oswald. “Legally. That isn’t relevant, though.”
“He’s the witch who—”
“He’s a disaster who can barely feed himself. The only reason Lacie’s still up in that tower is that I have no idea where it is, but since you apparently know, you can take me there.”
Jack frowned. “Are you sure it’ll be that easy?”
Oswald fixed him with a heavy stare. “Yes.”
So Oswald was an idiot. Great. Jack smiled cheerily, though, and said, “That’s awesome! Though, if need be, we can always ask my friend Miranda for help. She’s a serial killer.”
“We are not bringing a serial killer along to rescue my sister,” said Oswald. “Besides—”
He was interrupted by a knock at the door; Oswald and Jack both turned to see Oswald’s neighbor entering with a freshly baked pie.
“Hello~!” he said. “I heard you two were embarking on a rescue mission, and I wanted to make sure you had provisions for the road!”
“I’m not eating a fucking cabbage pie,” said Oswald.
“It’s cabbage and cherry tomatoes!”
“Go to hell.” Oswald paused. “And eat it yourself. Jack and I are going on a journey and I will not be around to feed you.”
“Your cooking sucks, anyway,” said the neighbor, leaning against Oswald’s table, looking utterly unconcerned.
“I try to live up to your example in all I do, Master Levi,” Oswald replied dryly. “Also, if you leave the laundry hanging out to dry in a storm again I will actually murder you.”
“That only happened once!”
“You left it out for a month and a half,” said Oswald, “while I was busy caring for your daughters.”
“Why is it,” sighed Levi Fucking Baskerville the witch, “that they’re only my daughters when they’ve been wreaking havoc or when you’re upset with me?”
“Because my nieces are perfect angels. Jack, let’s go. I don’t want to talk to this idiot anymore.”
Jack, who felt that he should probably be flabbergasted by this incredibly strange relationship, nodded cheerfully. “I’m ready!” he said.
“Perfect angels? I’m not the one whose ex tried to behead him!” Levi called after them.
“Miss Barma and I were never together,” said Oswald, “and the only reason why she remains alive is that you refused to use her as bodily components in your spells.”
“She was too crazy for me.”
“Which means a lot, coming from you.”
“Oh, you’re the Oswald Miranda always mentioned!” Jack gasped, realizing that he’d spoken without thinking a second later.
Odd.
Why had he done that?
“Miranda Barma is your serial killer friend?” asked Oswald. “Must I worry about my sister or I getting beheaded? —Feel free to relieve Master Levi of his head at any point, he never uses it.”
“Yes I do~,” said Levi. “There are many lovely ladies and gentlemen around the village whom I—”
Oswald grabbed Jack by the wrist and yanked him quickly out of the cottage.
“I swear that I won’t behead you or Lacie,” said Jack, who absolutely had promised Miranda Oswald’s head already, but who didn’t mind lying for a chance to get Lacie out of the tower. At this point, really, Jack thought that telling the truth might actually be physically harder for him.
Though he wouldn’t be the one beheading Oswald, so technically, it wasn’t even a lie! Perfect. Jack was such a responsible, upstanding member of society, with nothing at all wrong with him.
“Good,” said Oswald. “Which way is her tower?”
“What?”
“We’re going now. So, which way is she?”
Oswald was staring at Jack, his eyes a deep purple and totally focused on him. Jack could have lied—could have led him straight to Miranda, fulfilled his end of their deal, and then gotten her assistance in taking down the witch Levi Fucking Baskerville.
He didn’t.
“Follow me,” Jack said with a quick grin, and started off in the direction of Lacie’s tower.
Oswald followed silently, trustingly, though Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that the young man still deeply disliked him.
Well, whatever: Jack didn’t care! He was going to reunite with Lacie and get her out of the tower. That was all he cared about.
Assuming care was a word that could ever and would ever apply to Jack Vessalius.
Care was a soft word, short and sweet, with the implication of kindness, of love, of friend or family. All of these concepts were foriegn ones to Jack, though he was great at giving off the impression of them.
Sometimes he thought that everyone was faking it, all of the time, but that was a completely ridiculous thought: after all, if that were the case, the world would work in a way far harder for him to get by, since he wouldn’t be able to use their softness to get what he wanted (Lacie out of the tower).
Oswald, he knew, cared. Even after knowing him for four short days, in which the other man barely spoke and seemed deeply unhappy about the most basic parts of living life on the road, Jack could see how deeply he cared. About his sister—about the witch Levi—about his nieces—about the little boys he kept watch over in the village—about Jack, even, despite the fact that Jack was pretty certain he still loathed him. An odd man, truly—Miranda had been captivated by his physical beauty, but Jack couldn’t help but wonder what she would make of his personality: reticent, honest, devoted. Fascinating.
On the fifth day, they made it to the tower. It was just as Jack remembered it: stretching up into the sky, nestling its way among the clouds. He had seen its tip when he’d visited the giants, but he’d also pissed off a shit ton of giants and had thus been unable to get close. He and Oswald came to a stop at the foot of it, and he tilted his head back and cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Lacie, Lacie, let down your long hair!”
“You sound like an idiot,” said Oswald.
“I’ve heard the witch say it to get up into the tower, I think it’s like a secret password or something.”
Oswald somehow managed to convey disbelief even through his totally expressionless face, and Jack smirked triumphantly at him as a mass of black hair slammed onto the ground in front of them.
“That is physically impossible,” said Oswald.
“Your next door neighbor is a witch ,” said Jack.
“Your mother is a witch,” Oswald said, and gripped his sister’s hair, and began to climb.
Laughing, Jack followed him: his mother had been a witch, in an insulting sense of the term. That was what his father had called her, the one and only time he’d met him: a witch and a whore and a liar, as though he couldn’t see the clear resemblance between himself and Jack.
Though on the inside, Jack too was a bitch and a whore and a liar, so perhaps his father had been right not to claim him.
The climb was long and hard, though Oswald never slowed, and of course Jack didn’t either. And when they both made their panting way into the tower to see Lacie looking at them disapprovingly, Jack wasn’t even surprised when she didn’t recognize him and instead scolded her brother for the long and dangerous journey he’d made.
Still, though: Lacie agreed to accompany them out of the tower, which meant that Jack had succeeded in his goal, and he knew full well that Miranda Barma’s home was on the way back to the village Oswald lived in.
Had lived in, because Jack had a debt to pay to Miss Miranda Barma, and, though he had to admit he had enjoyed himself, these past five days with Oswald, he was sure he would enjoy himself even more once Oswald was gone and he had Lacie’s attention all to himself.
After all, Lacie was the first and only person Jack had ever felt anything for, and he never wanted to stop feeling again.