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The morning was quiet in the way only early autumn could be—soft light filtering through the potion shop’s windows, the scent of rosemary and damp earth drifting in from the garden. Jeremy stood among the herbs, a basket hanging from his arm and a handwritten list in his hand. He muttered to himself as he scanned the garden, carefully selecting the necessary ingredients and placing them gently into the basket. Normally, Jean would be the one up with the sun and getting the herbs for the day himself, but when Jeremy had woken up he had found his partner still deep in his sleep, which was so unusual Jeremy figured he was specially tired and didn’t have the heart to wake him up.
A cold breeze made him shiver, and he made a mental note for himself to refresh the spells protecting the garden from the merciless winter months. Naturally, magicless grown seasonal ingredients were more potent, but some of his potions required them fresh. Before he met Jean, Jeremy used to import what he couldn’t grow or wasn’t available locally due to low demand. It was time-consuming and sometimes expensive, but it had been a necessity for his business.
When Jean had come to town—or been brought, really, considering he’d been half-dead after one of Riko’s final curses—he’d ended up helping Rhemann, one of the town’s council members, in his personal garden. It hadn’t been much of a job, more something Jean could manage as he recovered. His lay lines—what some might call the “pipes” that allowed magic to flow through a witch’s body—had been twisted and corrupted, nearly broken, letting only the smallest trickle of magic through. Whether they would ever heal was uncertain, but even that faint magic was enough to give Jean one of the best green thumbs the town had ever seen, and Jean had found that he enjoyed gardening and wanted to keep doing it indefinitely.
Jeremy had visited Rhemann regularly, and Jean and him had fallen terribly in love. Their relationship, which began as an uneasy friendship, had developed slowly. Both carried pasts that threatened to drag them under, scars that felt like they’d split open again at the slightest touch.
Even now, Jeremy sometimes felt Jean still held back some of the rawest parts of himself — as if afraid Jeremy might leave.
As if he could.
As if Jeremy himself didn’t carry a weight that made him feel unworthy of Jean, that familiar, quiet ache.
But still, they’d made it through.
And now they were living together, and Jean had grown a garden of their own for Jeremy’s potions and food for their table.
Humming as he worked — a habit Jean kept calling annoying, though always with a smile — Jeremy crouched to gather some rosemary when a faint glimmer caught the corner of his eye. Curious, he set the basket down, the list resting on top, and stood to look for whatever he saw.
Something was half-buried among the anise plants, its coppery sheen nearly lost in the dirt. It seemed to be a coin. Odd — it shouldn’t have gleamed like that, not as old as it looked, and he was certain one of them would’ve noticed it while preparing the garden for sowing. He crouched to pick it up, and even through his gardening gloves, he could feel the faint pulse of magic. Huh. Peculiar.
He turned it over in his hand, inspecting both sides. There were no markings to hint at the enchantment placed on it, and he didn’t recognize the emblem or the denomination. He sent a wispy thread of his own magic forward, its blue shimmer carefully surrounding the coin, scanning for any traces of black magic or tricky curses. The examination came back clean; the object seemed to be safe.
Curiosity piqued, he slipped it into his pocket for later and returned to his basket to continue his task. He would try and identify the spell later, preferably after breakfast.
When Jeremy came back inside, he found Jean already in the kitchen with breakfast underway. Jean had chastised him for not waking him, but Jeremy just shook his head and told him he deserved the rest. Jean would’ve kept complaining if Jeremy hadn’t silenced him with a kiss.
They ate together, then walked the few meters to their shop. Maybe it was the early autumn air, or the sentimental mood, but Jeremy took a quiet moment to marvel at how it wasn’t just his shop anymore — it was theirs.
The morning passed quickly. After sharing the packed lunch Jean had prepared for both of them, they returned to work.
The rest of the day passed as usual and soon enough, it was time to close. Jean headed off to Cat’s house for their weekly private time and some broom flying — how they could enjoy riding those death traps, neither Jeremy or Laila knew.
Jeremy knew Jean would probably be back after he was already in bed, but he’d wait up for him anyway. He had completely forgotten about the coin in his pocket until he was changing into his pajamas and he heard the coin hit the wooden floor with a soft clink.
It spun once, twice, before settling flat.
Jeremy finished pulling on his pajama pants before reaching for the coin.
The moment his fingers touched it, the room spun. Images flooded his mind, sharp and vivid.
“Jean, we’re going to have so much magical fun together! Right, Kevin?”
Evil eyes. An even worse smirk.
He wanted to go home. He wanted to hug his sister. He wanted—
Kevin’s voice, gentle. “Hey Jean. I got you this from our last trip into town. They said you can record in it? Memories. I thought you might like it, just keep it to yourself.”
Pain. Everywhere. Magic burning hot and freezing cold all at once.
He shouldn’t have messed up that hoax. He deserved this.
A dark box. No sense of his magic. Hunger. Thirst.
Please let me out. Please, please, please, please.
A knock on the door. Sweat on his brow. A voice cutting through the dark.
“Hey Johnny, Riko said we can spend a little time together tonight.”
Fear. Disgust so strong it felt like his bones would absorb it and keep it forever.
Another night in pain. Riko had called him to his room. He was going to die this time, he was sure. Riko was going to kill him, at last.
He thought of Renee. He thought of Kevin and—
Jeremy dropped the coin as if it had burned him and staggered back. His breath came in short bursts, heart hammering like it was trying to escape his chest. What the actual hell had that been?
Then, it hit him like a rogue spell. Kevin had said it, hadn’t he?
A damned memory coin. Jean’s memory coin. He didn’t even know Jean even had one. To be fair, he had not seen one in person before, as they went out of fashion decades before he was born and were rarely made by current witches, but Jeremy felt stupid for not recognizing the thing nonetheless. He kicked himself even harder: just because he hadn’t noticed any dark magic on it, he should have been more careful before an unknown magical object without protection, he knew better.
He knew coins could keep years of memories, if the spell was strong enough, and a few seconds of touching were barely scratching the surface of what was inside. He’d caught a glimpse, nothing more. And yet, it was as if he had breached Jean’s trust in this way, even though it had not been on purpose. Those moments belonged to his partner, that were his to share or to keep to himself, as he saw fit.
Jeremy felt his gut twist, and a sticky feeling of guilt ate at his heart. Guilt and an overwhelming sorrow. He didn’t think he would be able to forget those mere seconds of Jean’s life before they met, back when he had been trapped under a dark witch’s clutches.
Jeremy knew bits and pieces of the story, enough to get an overall picture: Jean’s parents had needed a very powerful spell, and reached the Moriyama clan for a deal, offering their first-born as repayment. Jean was around 14 when he was given to Riko Moriyama while he was still alive and was nothing more than a plaything for years. He was tortured and mistreated in a hundred different ways, both magical and non-magical, to the point where he had been taken out and brough to town almost dead. Jean had promised Jeremy that one day he would tell him the whole story, when he was ready, and Jeremy was relieved the coin hadn’t soured that at least.
Jeremy took a deep breath to cm himself down, reached for one of his discarded socks and used it to pick up the coin. He wrapped it with and left it on the bed and stared a it for a few more moments, then continued his night routine trying to ignore it as best as he could until Jean came back. He was not looking forward to the conversation they would need to have.
Jean returned later that night. The fact Jeremy was still up shouldn’t have been a surprise, but he must have sensed something was amiss on Jeremy’s expression because he immediately took of his jacket and sat on the bed with Jeremy. “Mon Coeur, what’s wrong?”
Jeremy hesitated. The coin was still tucked inside the sock, resting on the bed between them like a secret waiting to be spoken aloud. He didn’t know how to start. Instead, he reached for the sock, the fabric soft and familiar in his hands, and held it up.
“That’s a sock, Jeremy. I know socks… Did you get a new pair? Did you lose the other one?”
Jeremy couldn’t help the way his lips twitched upward, the beginnings of a smile tugging at him. Jean’s voice was teasing and warm but this wasn’t the time.
Without saying anything else, he carefully unfurled the sock. The fabric was soft, worn from use, and the coin dropped onto the bed without a sound.
Jean’s face darkened instantly. His body tensed, the air between them shifting. He shifted in bed, one arm twitching like he meant to reach for the coin — then hesitated, fingers curling back into his lap.
“Where did you find that?”
“The garden. This morning.”
Jean’s eyes didn’t leave the coin. His voice was quieter now, almost a whisper. “Do you know what it is? Did you-”
“It is a memory coin. And yes I saw— “Jeremy’s throat tightened. “I accidentally touched it—I didn’t realize—”
Jean’s expression cracked, pain flickering across his face. Jeremy’s heart clenched.
“Only a few seconds,” he added quickly. “I dropped it fast. They weren’t even full memories, just fragments.”
Jean nodded, a shaky breath escaping his lips. His shoulders sagged, like something heavy had settled back onto them. “I’m sorry you had to experience that.”
“No, baby, no.” Jeremy reached out, taking Jean’s hands gently in his own. They were cool to the touch, fingers slightly stiff. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for. I’m the one who’s sorry — for invading your privacy, for everything you went through.”
He squeezed Jean’s hands, grounding them both. “Please, forgive me, my love.”
Jean shook his head slowly, eyes still on the coin. “You don’t need to apologize either. It was an accident. I don’t even know why it showed you anything with just a touch — usually it doesn’t work without intention.” He swallowed. “I just… I wasn’t expecting to see that damned thing again. And those are not good memories. No one deserves- Not even me. ”
His voice was quieter now, but he went on.
“Kevin gave it to me, at Castle Evermore. On one of his trips with Riko, he found it in a small magic shop. The seller said that if you put memories in it, you become unburdened by them.”
“And was that true?”
Jean shrugged, the motion small and tired. “It’s not like I forgot them. But taking them out helped — for a while. Then even the coin started to feel heavier and heavier. I always felt the weight of it, the knowledge of what was inside… It was like carrying a double burden: The memories in my head, and the ones carried by the coin.”
He looked away. “After I came here, I got tired of it. I did not need it anymore. I took a small walk and thought I’d left it in the woods.”
“Magic objects have a bad tendency to move around on their own,” Jeremy muttered.
Jean hummed in agreement, but his gaze lingered on the coin, troubled, as if the small object might stir again. Feeling confused made sense, Jeremy thought, considering that his attempt to get rid of it hadn’t worked and the coin had found its way back. They could try throwing it away again, or maybe destroy it? Jeremy could find a spell for that. Or maybe- Ah.
“Do you want to keep it?” Jeremy asked softly, because he had to make sure before suggesting anything. His hand found Jean’s and squeezed.
Jean’s fingers curled around Jeremy’s, and he looked up, eyes tired but clear.
“Not really,” he confessed. “I don’t want to keep carrying unnecessary weight.”
“How about a blank slate instead?” Jeremy suggested.
Jean tilted his head. “A blank slate?”
“I could reset the coin for you,” Jeremy said. “I’m pretty sure I have an old book with a chapter on memory coins. I could delete the stored memories, let you use it again — from scratch. Instead of those memories, you could fill it with better ones. Happy ones.”
Jean was quiet for a long moment, eyes drifting back to the coin. The room was still, the only sound the soft rustle of fabric as he shifted. His expression was thoughtful, but there was something lighter in it now.
“I would like that,” he said finally. “But…”
Jeremy leaned in, voice gentle. “Yeah?”
“I want you to use it, too,” Jean confessed, meeting his eyes. “I want it to be our memories.”
Jeremy’s heart gave a quiet, aching thump. He squeezed Jean’s hand, warmth blooming in his chest.
“I can work with that.” Jeremy replied.
Jean leaned into his side, their shoulders brushing, the warmth between them grounding. The coin sat quietly on the bedspread, no longer ominous, just waiting.
“I’ll look for the book tomorrow. We’ll do it together. A proper reset.”
Jean nodded, his gaze steady now. “We will not have to choose the memories carefully. Every memory with you in it is a precious treasure I want to keep forever.”
“I can say the same, every memory with you is special.” Jeremy kissed Jean’s cheek, then chuckled, “But we do have to be just a bit careful, don’t you think? Or are you saying it’s okay to keep certain, ahem, spicy moments in it?” He raised his eyebrows, teasing. “I wouldn’t mind watching them in replay…”
Jean rolled his eyes, but the corner of his mouth twitched with amusement. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to Jeremy’s temple, and Jeremy closed his eyes, letting the quiet magic of the moment settle around them like a blanket.
The coin glimmered once, then stilled.