Work Text:
“Alright, that should do it! #NewDrink, #FruityDelight, #MustHave, #MostroLounge,” Cater exclaimed as he finished typing up the captions for his new Magicam post. “Now, where’s my end of the deal?”
”Right, of course.” Jade counted the appropriate number of thaumarks and handed them to Cater. Even though he didn’t use social media himself, he was more than aware of the positive effects it could have on business if utilized correctly.
“Thank you! Great doing business with you guys, as always.” Cater hurriedly turned around to leave. The latest phone model wasn’t going to buy itself and he was in quite the rush to get to the queendom before they were all sold out. Cater had told Jade that he couldn’t dare call himself an up-to-date influencer if he was using an outdated camera.
Jade followed after him. “Here, let me get the door for you,” He offered, politely smiling as he held the front door of the Mostro Lounge door. “Ah, and I’ll get back to you about our future collaboration soon.”
“You’re always just a gentleman, Jade. Thanks again,” Cater giggled. Just as Cater began to walk out, he suddenly heard yelling coming from the bar. Both Cater and Jade’s attentions were diverted to a silver haired boy and the blue haired boy— who was easily towering over the other— yelling at each other behind the bar.
“Floyd! I told you to wait in line for the ingredients. Now we’re going to have to completely take those drinks off the menu for the night!” Azul attempted to whisper, but his anger basically turned it into more of a quiet scream. His face was tinted a deep red, which made him resemble an angry red octopus. ”Y-You… complete idiot!”
Jade narrowed his eyes and bent down to meet Azul eye-to-eye. “Hey! The line to Sam’s Shop was basically a mile long. Don’t forget that you were the one who asked me to make deal with that other supplier. Sorry that I don’t have Cater’s cloning ability and I can’t be in two places at once,” he huffed.
”If you were having such trouble, then you should’ve told us. Ugh, I can’t believe this!” Azul cursed before stomping off toward his office to cool down. Floyd simply crossed his arms, not caring to catch up with the upset dorm leader.
Cater whistled. “Wow, talk about a cat fight. Honestly, it makes me wonder how you guys became friends in the first place.” Cater’s eyes lit up when he realized what he just said. “Oo, actually, I bet that was quite the story. Color me interested.”
Jade tilted his head in confusion. “Ah, I wouldn’t really call ourselves ‘friends,’ more just business partners. And I honestly don’t remember how we came to know each other. Perhaps, it was just… some sort of fate.”
“Yeah, yeah. More like business-soulmates, anyway, I’ve stayed around long enough. See you later!” Cater waved Jade off before skipping off.
The calmer twin closed the door and sighed, it appeared as though that tonight it would be another busy night of preventing his brother and Azul from killing each other. As he walked back to his workstation, he couldn’t help but think about Cater’s words.
…
“Alright kids!” The merwoman excitedly clapped her hands together, “It’s time for recess, hurry along now!”
The merchildren collectively all rushed to the front door. The teacher had to swim over the students’ heads in order to unlock the door. “Now, now, relax. One at a time okay, or else I’ll keep you all in here,” she warned. Obediently, the students formed a neat line. Once the door opened though, they quickly forgot about the promise they had just made and flooded out.
The peppy teacher looked around the classroom to make sure there weren’t any stragglers and her eyes immediately locked the two oddballs of the class. “A-Ah, the Leech brothers, make sure you go outside soon. I won’t be here to supervise you both, though it’s whatever you two want, of course!” The teacher hurriedly swam out the door, making sure to leave it a bit ajar for her last two students to follow after her.
Floyd tugged harder on Jade’s tail. His brother had a death grip on his desk, refusing to acknowledge the other. “Come. ON. JADE! Stop being so boring already!” He whined.
“I’m not the boring one, everyone else is. You know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different outcome, we need to think of something else!” Jade suddenly felt a hand tickling his stomach. He teared up trying to hold in his laughter, but it soon became too much. He lost his grip on the desk and fell back into his brother. “Now that’s just unfair…” he groaned.
Floyd grinned at his success. “Come on! You know mom wants us to make actual friends for once. Maybe today will be different, trust me.”
“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in trying it your way again. Also remember Floyd, we’re not making friends, we’re making connections. Remember what dad said, friends get you killed,” Jade reminded him. He then finally relented, letting his brother drag him into the hall by his hand.
Once they were at the playground, they formulated their plan. Jade would try to talk to the kids playing on the swingset and roundabout while Floyd would try to talk to the kids that were playing tag in the coral forest. They nodded in agreement before going their separate ways.
As they had discussed, Jade swam up to the kids at the swing set. They were smiling and laughing as they talked amongst themselves, doing their best to spin each other around and tangle up the chains as much as possible.
Jade gave them a small smile, “Hi, it’s a pleasure to meet you all. Would you mind if–”
The kids’ smiles quickly morphed into looks of terror. A merboy with a shiny, light blue scaled tail nervously spoke, “S-Sorry, are we in you and your brother’s ways? We’ll leave. Please don’t hurt us!” Before Jade could say another word, they had all run off, leaving the swings completely abandoned.
…Perhaps, he shouldn’t have smiled with his teeth, he always forgot that surface dwellers weren’t used to seeing sharp teeth.
When Jade swam up to the roundabout next to them, he basically got the same reaction. Only this time, he didn’t even have to speak for them to notice him and run off screaming. He sighed to himself and wondered if Floyd had any luck. That question was quickly answered though when he heard a scream in the distance and saw Floyd swimming back over to him.
Floyd rubbed the back of his neck. “Ugh, all I wanted to do was mess with them a bit, but I guess I scared them too much,” he mumbled.
Jade shook his head and glared at him. “You tried squeezing them again, didn’t you?”
Floyd chuckled, “Heh, how’d you guess? Anyways, did you have any luck?”
“Oh, I didn’t have any luck either,” Jade sighed, “Maybe we should stop trying to act like ourselves because it’s clearly not working.” He pointed to the other merchildren, who were huddled on the other half of the playground. “I suppose it’ll be another day of keeping ourselves entertained.”
“Ugh, but that gets so boring though!” Floyd groaned.
“Agreed,” Jade said as he sat on the swing behind him. He gazed at the sun above him. It was so much more colorful and brighter near the Coral Sea’s surface, not to mention a lot less dangerous, but… maybe he and Floyd didn’t belong here after all. It had been around 2 years since they had moved closer to the surface, and they still weren’t any closer to making any actual connections. They hoped that during the first week of 4th grade, things would change, but there just weren't any interesting characters among all of these sheltered surface dwellers.
Jade’s eyes fell back toward his brother, who was sitting in the swing right next to him. He was about to say something when in the corner of his eye, he noticed a break in the rock formation that surrounded the playground.
“Wait, Floyd,” he whispered into his brother’s ear, “I have an idea.”
Through a bit of their usual deception and planning, they managed to slip past the gaze of their teacher. The two of them giggled as they finally managed to squeeze through the rocks. They knew that they’d most certainly get in trouble, but sometimes adventure was the best type of teacher.
On the other side of the rocks, there was a slight drop off from the coral reef their school was located on. Beyond the edge laid a maze of algae covered rocks with various pink corals and forests of seaweed covering their surfaces. The twins glanced at each other and they could see that the other’s eyes were also glistening with excitement.
Without a word, both of them dived into the seaweed forest. Jade hid underneath one of the rock formations and waited for a few minutes. Soon enough, the seaweed parted in front of him and someone pounced on him. “Found ya!” Floyd laughed.
Jade laughed with him. Just before his brother swam off again, he noticed something shimmering in the sand next to him. “Wait, Floyd! Look what I found!” He held up a small, odd golden device. On top of the golden platter, some sort of wax stick sat on top of it. “I wonder what it is,” he said while inspecting the bottom of it.
Floyd stared at it with big eyes. “No idea! Wait, there’s something else here too!” He wiggled behind the rock Jade was sitting on and pulled out two wooden crates. “I have an idea too, whoever finds the most land-dweller stuff wins!”
“Deal.”
Like always, Floyd blitzed off in the other direction before Jade could even react. The loud rustling of seaweed and Floyd’s taunting always made it quite easy to find him though. They continued taking turns chasing each other and sharing the colorful rocks and trinkets they found while hiding from each other. At one point, Floyd managed to find a shiny jewel encrusted necklace, easily putting him in the lead. Jade wasn’t going to admit failure so easily though, plus, he honestly just wanted to find more neat things.
As he swam along, he made sure to keep his eyes peeled for the slightest shimmer, which was a bit difficult to do considering where they currently were. While staring at the sand beneath him, his head suddenly donked against a wooden wall.
“Ouch!” He yelped and spun back from the impact. Once he regained his balance, he noticed that below him, his crate was slowly sinking toward the sandy abyss. Jade sighed and glared at the wall that had caused all of this.
Getting a better look at it, it had a few openings on the sides and the tall wooden masts sitting on top of it casted looming shadows over the forest surrounding it. On its masts sat torn white sails and some sort of sigil on the front of them. Realizing what it was, the tip of Jade’s tail started to wag. “Floyd!” Jade called out. “Over here! I think I found something that’s more than just a little interesting.”
Within seconds, Floyd poked his head out from the seaweed forest. “What is– WOAH” he gasped while gawking at what was in front of them. “Fine, fine. You win. Let’s leave our stuff here and go inside already!” He didn’t even let Jade get a word in before he dove into one of the openings on the side.
”Hold on, Floyd, wait for me!” Jade yelled, following in after him. He would’ve preferred to make sure it was safe before they started exploring it, but this wasn’t the first nor the last time Floyd would run in somewhere without a single plan.
Once inside, Jade could see the remains of the ship’s lower decks. Various crates and barrels lined the walls, with shards of broken glass strewn about the floor. The room was lit with a dim purple light, the source of which seemed to be spilling out from the room next door. Jade pulled his brother next to him and they peeked over the edge of the door’s threshold.
In the center of the room, they could see a cauldron with purple smoke billowing from the center. On the shelves of the room, there were potions of all sorts of colors and in the corners of the rooms, there were mountains of potionology textbooks. What was most interesting though, was the merperson stirring the pot. In one black tentacle, they held the stick they were churning the pot with, while in their other tentacles, they were holding various textbooks for them to read and were even writing on two different papers at the same time.
”Talk about multitasking,” Floyd muttered under his breath. “Wait, isn’t that the octo-kid? What was his name again? Azul?”
Jade’s eyes widened at the sight. “It appears to be,” he whispered back. Even though they’ve been in the same class for years, Azul always made sure to keep his distance from the brothers, so they’ve never really got the chance to interact with each other before. Jade never would’ve imagined that he’d be this interesting though.
“Hey! Azul! Whatcha doing!” Floyd suddenly yelled. He was standing in the exact center of the door.
Jade simply blinked. He glanced back at the space his brother was just in, since when had he gotten so slippery? Jade joined him in the center of the doorway, since their cover was blown, he might as well make sure a fight didn’t break out.
The young merman in front of them had a dumbfounded look to him before he finally registered what was going on. “Ah, AH!“ Azul’s textbooks and quills clattered onto the floor as he dove into a large nearby pot. “Not you guys again! Don’t come any closer or I’ll ink you!” He shouted and used his tentacles to tightly twist the top of the pot onto himself.
The twins looked at each other, a sinister grin appearing on both of their faces. Without saying a word, the two of them began to swim in circles above the opening of the giant pot, like a pair of sharks preying on their next meal. “You know, that threat doesn’t sound very convincing when you’re hiding from us,” Jade snickered.
“Yeah! Come on, we didn’t know that you were hiding a secret like this!” Floyd cackled.
“And what’s it to you guys? Huh?” Azul yelled back. The walls of the pot he was in further amplified his shaky voice, which made the twins giggle amongst themselves.
“We just think that you’re easily the most interesting person we’ve met since coming here,” Jade replied.
“W-What, really?” The pot shook side to side. “N-No! We’ve been in the same class for years now! You’re just like everyone else and I’m not falling for it.” The twins stopped swimming for a second and tilted their heads at each other. Both of them honestly had no idea what he was talking about.
Jade thought for a moment before replying, “Um, Azul. Do you actually recall a time where we assisted in your bullying?”
“I… I guess not,” the octopus murmured, “You guys still sat around while it happened though! So don’t act like saints either.”
“Ugh, come on dude, nobody really likes us either!” Jade groaned, he was already beginning to lose his patience. “The only thing I could’ve done was say I’ll squeeze them, but that would’ve just left ’em even more scared of us.”
“Okay, I guess you had your own reasons, but I bet you both still look down on me, even now!”
Jade held Floyd back from reaching to pry open the pot’s lid. “Azul, you can rest assured—Floyd stop it! That we honestly don’t care about things like that. Where we’re from, being well-fed just means that you’re more likely to survive,” Jade struggled to reply.
There was a momentary silence before Azul finally spoke again. “Okay, fine, what do the two of you want from me?”
Floyd finally stopped trying to wiggle out of Jade’s grasp, allowing for Jade to safely release him. “Well, we were thinking that we could make a deal.” Jade grinned. “In exchange for not telling the teacher about your little hideaway, you let us help you with your research.”
The pot shook once more. “What? Why would you want to do that?”
“Like I just said, you’re easily the most interesting person here. So…” Jade and Floyd swam closer to the pot. After a brief moment, they watched as the top of the pot slightly tilt open, revealing a set of teary gray eyes staring back at them. “…Is it a deal?”
Two tentacles slowly snaked their way out from underneath the lid toward each of the twins. The two of them grinned at each other before eagerly accepting their handshake.
…
Perhaps it really was some sort of fate that three outcasts managed to meet each other solely by coincidence. If Jade hadn’t chosen Floyd for a brother, then he might’ve never gotten to go on so many adventures. And if the two of them hadn’t sought to explore beyond the wall, they never would’ve met Azul. The butterfly effect truly was a force to be reckoned with.
The brothers had always agreed that if things became boring, there would be no need to continue upholding their end of the deal. However, there was also a mutual understanding that when they were around each other, and when they were around Azul, things would simply never stay boring for long.
During transactions, it’s important to make sure that both parties are receiving fair compensation, that is simply the nature of good business. But wasn’t every relationship that of a give and take? Give someone else affection and receive said affection back… Jade never would’ve thought relationships could be so needlessly complex.
The sound of yelling from Azul’s office broke Jade from his daydream. Jade finished wiping down the glass he was holding and quickly made his way toward the back of Mostro Lounge. Opening the door to Azul’s office, he was greeted with his dear brother and dorm leader trading magical shots with each other.
“If you find me that boring, then why don’t you just leave already!” Azul shouted as he poked his head out from behind one of the couches. He swung his magic pen and shot off another blast toward the opposing couch, which Floyd was cowering behind.
Floyd immediately shot back a blast of his own, singeing a bit of Azul’s hair, “You’re being so lame right now. Why are you bringing up all my mistakes from the past week! I already told ya I wouldn’t do it again!”
The two of them still hadn't noticed Jade’s sudden appearance so Jade cleared his throat. “Sorry to intrude, but we just got a flood of new customers and we need all the help we can get. Right, and about the supplies that Floyd forgot to acquire, I just took the liberty in striking another deal with Sam. According to him, we’ll be guaranteed a first spot in line when it comes to receiving our supplies. All it took was an agreement to assist in advertising his wares and he prioritized acquiring our necessary ingredients, they’re being delivered as we speak.”
As soon as he finished rambling, both Azul and Floyd collapsed in relief.
Azul soon stood up and brushed the dust off the front of his suit. “Thank the Great Seven, what would we do without you, Jade?”
Jade smirked. “Perish, most likely.”
“...Sorry Azul, I thought I could handle all of the work ya gave me,” Floyd suddenly mumbled. He was still sitting behind the couch in what Jade could only assume was shame.
Azul sighed, “It’s… alright. I shouldn’t have overreacted, especially when we have work to do. I know you’ve always been really stubborn, but it’s better to get things like this sorted out before they become a bigger issue. After all, we’re all business partners for good reason. Isn’t that right, Jade?”
Jade hesitantly nodded. “Right, business partners.”