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Two Time used to rest their head on Azure's shoulder, tearing apart dandelions in their hands while he tended to his gardens.
They said it was calming, once, something to pass the time and quiet their mind while Azure worked. He never found himself minding, since dandelions were weeds anyway. And, anytime he held up one for Two Time to “make a wish”, they would scrunch their nose up and mutter something about the Spawn and how they didn't need wishes.
He had a nice little garden then, with rich soil and plenty of herbs and flowers. A few vegetables, some fruits, whatever he could get his hands on really. Two Time had once saved up their money for a small tree for him to grow at the edge of the garden, but it didn't last long, turned to lumber once it reached any real size.
Azure developed the habit of leaning to one side after a while. He would rest one hand in the grass, while the other picked at leaves and twigs and stray bugs trying to eat his crop. And his partner would settle against his shoulder and soak in the morning sun.
It was one of those nasty little things that stuck around after his death.
There's a long wait between rounds. There’s nothing to do, and food and medicines are provided easy enough. The soil is shit, it's dry, there's no sun, and Azure hadn't been able to make anything he found in the forest actually grow properly, so he stuck with the easy stuff. The purple vines he could make always needed a bit of blood to take root, and they liked to snap at passerbys, but Azure was dead and also everyone he talked to in this wretched place was absolutely miserable, so it worked out in his favor.
Realistically, there was no reason to garden at all. He could just nap or something, maybe babysit Coolkidd, who really didn't need that but whatever. Just anything not so…. Frustrating.
Noli liked to rest their head on Azure’s lap, it made moving difficult, but Azure wasn't a stranger to it, so he managed. Also, it was a clingy bitch that insisted that “if they were gonna be a ‘thing’ then they had to act like it”. Azure had punched it across the face for that comment.
But they also helped him tear apart Itrapped's floorboards to make the garden itself, and then tried to cover for him when Itrapped found out and got pissed, so some sins can be forgiven.
Noli was stretched out across the dirt and leaves, head on his lap and arms folded over their torso. It was humming something vaguely familiar, like a song Azure had heard from the radio whenever him and Two Time would sneak past Amarah’s quarters.
It was also off-beat. Noticeably so. Azure chose to ignore that and he straightened his back from where he was leaning and snaked his free hand to wrap around Noli's wrist. It lets out a happy hum and Azure lets it have this for a moment before digging his nails into their skin until blood starts to stain their robes.
Noli shoots up and turns to Azure with a exaggeratedly wounded expression which he knows is bullshit because the two of them had injured each other far worse before. “WhAt th3 f-f-fuck?”
“He wants you to shut up,” His hat happily supplies, “I don't mind, though.”
Azure is going to get rid of the thing, one of these days.
Noli sighs dramatically. It flops onto one of Azure's plants which- ouch. Rude. He makes a face at that.
“Y0u’re n-n-no fun.”
Azure rolls his eyes. Noli has taken to resting in the makeshift-planter now, evidently. It brings its arms under their head and crosses one foot over the other. The squashed purple flowers just a pillow for it's back.
Azure has to resist the urge to drive a vine through their stomach and drag them below the earth. It's a nice thought to entertain, but it'd be exhausting. And then Azure would have to listen to the hat instead of someone actually interesting.
There's a grumble of annoyance above him at that thought. Azure takes that as a victory.
“What are you even doing?” the question comes out a little less violent then Azure had originally thought, but the point still gets across. Noli blinks an eye open.
“E-e-e-enjoying tH3 sun.”
Azure blinks up at the blood red sky, then back down at Noli's stupid expression, and lets a vine shoot through the ground dangerously close to its ear.
“Oh-kay! O.K! Okay. J-j-j3ez,” Noli sits up quickly, out of his planter luckily, and crosses it's arms with a huff, “N0 f-un.”
You said that already, he thinks, but the hat just hums. Azure briefly wishes that Two Time were here so he'd had some respectful company, but he squashes that down quickly. Two Time had never trampled his flowers, but murder was pretty fucking rude, in his book.
Anger flares through him for a moment, but Azure just takes a breath and clenches his fist before he actually stabs Noli.
Speaking of, it's staring at him, cross-legged (can they not sit still for at all?) with their chin in the palm of its hand. Their face is twisted in something like worry.
Azure shoots them a glare to shut that down, but Noli opens its mouth anyway because of course it does.
“W4nn4 m-m-mak-e oUt?”
It screeches something garbled and ear-splitting about traitors (of which Azure is not, thank you. He would fucking know) as his garden tackles them to the ground. His hat bursts out into a fit of giggles that makes the whole mess of sounds even more indecipherable. But it quells the fire in Azure's chest just a little.
He plucks a purple flower from the pile of Noli’s limbs and vines. It's not quite a nightshade, more like a cheap copy. It vaguely reminds him of the fake plants him and Two Time used to giggle at in store windows, more like a photo of an actual plant held in his hands.
These will bleed when he shreds them, though. Sticky red crimson that will run down his hands and send a stabbing pain through his heart.
Azure tucks it behind Noli's ear, who makes an unhappy grumble, but otherwise resides to its fate.