Almost two weeks pass. Sadde still has work, even if school's out, but they and Theo hang out a bit more. No new cards appear, and Kero seems to not think that strange, so Sadde themself doesn't care. And one day Theo gets a text in the morning: Happy birthday!
Theo keeps looking around nervously. Whatever it was, he didn't see anything obvious.
Can he meditate while standing up, without his staff out, by closing his eyes and trying to focus? Is that a thing he can do in the middle of a bakery with lots of people around? He can feign tiredness so people don't look at him too weirdly...
To outwards appearances, Theo appears to calm a little, but he's actually far from calm. He can't take it out on the shopkeeper, though; they don't know anything about magic.
He pays the shopkeeper for the damage, then goes over to meet Sadde, keeping a look out for any more flying cakes.
"Oh, okay."
And eventually they get back to Theo's house. It's not that far a walk, really.
"Daaaad! We have cake!"
He goes into the kitchen and places the cake on the table, opening the packaging. It's chocolate cake with chocolate icing and some white chocolate shavings on the top. Theo seems to really like chocolate... in small quantities... on his birthday...
Theo starts cutting pieces for everybody. His dad comes in to say "Happy Birthday" (again) and to take some cake, then disappears.
"Though I'm sure the minute we face anything more dangerous than a jumping bunny or naughty cake she'll change her mind and come with no matter what I say. Not that I'm likely to say anything, either, having a smart adult on hand is a pretty good idea no matter what YA fantasy novels might tell you. I mostly don't want to bother her until we get to that point."
"Well, there was that fight against the giant bird. And also the time when you do ill-advisedly tried to grab the magical jumping bunny with your hands and could have fallen to your untimely death. It could be worse, and probably will be, but I think we probably need to plan these things better."
"Arrow, Big, Bubbles, Change, Cloud, Create, Dark, Dash, Dream, Earthy, Erase, Fight, Firey, Float, Flower, Fly, Freeze, Glow, Illusion, Jump, Libra, Light, Little, Lock, Loop, Maze, Mirror, Mist, Move, Nothing, Power, Rain, Return, Sand, Shadow, Shield, Shot, Silent, Sleep, Snow, Song, Storm, Sweet, Sword, Through, Thunder, Time, Twin, Voice, Watery, Wave, Windy, and Wood."
"... Mask up? And I'm not sure if people could really blame the wind on us, even if we were caught there, unless we were holding some sort of leaf-blower. I mean, they could try, like the shopkeeper did today, but it might be harder if they re-play the video and watch us not doing it?"
"Well, the other two weren't exactly complex, and if we'd had time to plan them they'd probably have gone over pretty smoothly as well." Pause. "Well, Jump, anyway, I wasn't there for Fly, maybe you neglected to mention something that would make it really awfully impossible."
"Whoa, wait, what! That's ridiculously powerful. And how does that even work, anyway? If someone used to it go back in time, would we just be younger versions of ourselves with the same memories, or would we have to wait until they made a change and have some sort of weird déjà vu of stuff that did-but-didn't happen, or what?"
"Okaaaay. Sadde, did you live somewhere obscure when you were younger? Will I never be able to find you if something like this happens? If you happen to wake up like 10 years in the past, could you please come to my house – I've lived here most of my life – and then can we try to stop whoever's messing with time?"
"Oh, okay. Well, hopefully we won't be that young. Actually, how does that interact, Kero? Do we still get our memories, no matter what age we are? Do we also get the memories we had at that age? Aaaand – this is a horrible idea – what if time is wound back to before we were born? Or don't you have any... data on that?" he says, looking a bit queasy.
"Firey, Earth, and Light are under the power of the Sun, and me. Watery, Windy, and Dark are under the power of the Moon, and Yue. The Arrow shoots a series of magical arrows; it's under Firey. The Big can make anything bigger; it's under Light. The Bubbles creates bubbles and washes things—"
"The Clow Cards were created by uniting Western Magic, under the Sun, and Eastern Magic, under the Moon. Each card is powered by one of those, and I am the Guardian Beast of the Sun. Sun cards draw power from me, and I draw power from them, and I will have access to my true form once you have captured Earthy and Firey."
"Fight is under Firey, and teaches its user martial arts. Firey controls fire. Float makes things float, under Windy. Flower is under Earthy and makes flowers. Freeze can lower temperatures and generate ice. Glow creates glowing floating balls of light. Libra can detect lies and is under Earthy. Light controls light. Little makes things smaller, and can reduce magical power as well, and is under Light. Lock is under Earthy and can lock a place and seal it off. Loop warps space to create a continuous repeating loop and is under Earthy. Maze creates a pocket labyrinth dimension and is also under Earthy. Nothing can unmake anything, and isn't under any other cards or powers. Power gives strength and is just Firey. Rain creates rain and is under Watery. Return can send you to observe the past. Sand can create and manipulate sand and is under Earthy. Shot is under Firey and attacks someone until they are destroyed if you ask it to. Silent is under the Dark and makes things quiet. Sleep makes people sleep. Snow is under Watery and can create snow and snowstorms. Song can copy any song. Storm is under Windy and can create storms and tornadoes. Sweet is under Light and can turn things into sweets. Sword is under Firey and is a powerful magical sword. Through is under Firey and can make you go through things. Thunder makes thunder and is under Firey too. The Voice can mimic or steal voices. The Watery controls water, the Wave controls waves of water, and the Wood creates plants and is under Earthy. "
"That... is a lot. Okay."
He writes a lot of notes on what to ask for each card, then goes through them, a few at a time:
"What sort of martial arts with Fight? Any? And with Libra, what actually counts as a lie? If you leave something out, does that count? What about body language, like if you shake your head when the true answer is 'yes'?"
"So Libra does respond to lies through head-shakes, then?" he tries to clarify, and then continues with the long list: "How does Light control light? Can it act like Darkness, by just stopping light in an area? Little doesn't... like... obey the laws of physics and biology, does it? It won't kill people if you shrink them?"
"It's a different dimension every time. Nothing is like Erase but instead of making specific things disappear it just makes areas of things completely cease to be. It counteracts all the other fifty-two cards and is as strong as all of them together, and can make even magical things disappear."
"Okay, wow, that sounds horrible to fight," he says. On with the questions. "What kinds of strength can Power give? Just physical strength, or also like mental fortitude? How do you observe the past with Return? Can you specify exactly where, or is it random and confusing? And shot just sounds horrible."
Well, on with the questions, he supposes. He can freak out over some of the cards later on. Oh wait, no he can't, he's going to fight Shadow. He can freak out tomorrow, when it's not his birthday.
"How precisely can Silent make things quiet? Is there anything special about the properties of the sweets that Sweet makes, or are they just regular sweets?" he asks, and then actually thinks of another question. "... Why is Through under Firey?"
"Oh, okay. I didn't realise you spoke with the cards to gather this information," he says, a little confused. He continues, "How... does Voice steal voices? What kind of plants can Wood make? Magical moving ones? Toxic ones? Ones that are really useful for making magical items when they've been cut down, maybe?"
"Like... why and when does Voice steal voices? Does it just find people and go 'oh, that's a nice voice' and they are somehow now unable to speak and it can use their voice? Does it have to hear them and then it literally yanks some weird ball of light out of your throat? Does it make you unable to even comprehend the idea of you speaking? There are so many ways it could 'steal your voice', and so many reasons it might do it."
The rest of the day proceeds without anything really important occurring. Theo wants to see if he and Sadde can target different things with Change at once, but unfortunately it seems like the 'only one thing at a time' thing applies to the card, not to them, so when Sadde tries to change something after Theo still has something targeted, Theo's one reverts. They have more cake. Kero has to be stopped from eating all the cake. Theo's dad continues to stay quiet, watching TV, and remains ignorant of the magic that's going on in the house.
Theo lands, trying to soften the landing, grunting in pain, but is quickly back on his feet, blurring a little. He looks around for the torch, but it's so dark all around, he can't find it. Fuck. The plan. Turn on a light. Not happening; they're outside. Get Windy to capture it; infeasible, shadows all around, try it anyway. Shine a torch on Shadow. Not happening, the torch is gone. Fuck.
He grabs the Windy out of his bag, activates the staff, then summons Windy, tries to see where Shadow is, but oh for god's sake whose idea was it to fight the bloody Shadow in the dark.
Theo can just about make out where Sadde's looking in the dark, sees the streetlights, and quickly suggests, "Can you change their direction? Intensity? Make them hand-held? Something?"
More things that they can use. They could try to make some ground glow, or they could try running at it and— nope. They could... use Jump? Not helpful. Fly? Not helpful. He runs over to Sadde and hands it over – he's not gonna use it – and ugh, another card would be useful right about now. No, he doesn't mean that; if the universe is listening to him and conspiring against him, please don't send another card to attack them.
"Windy, try to keep track of Shadow. Warn me if it gets too close!" There, now he hopefully has some early warning system, and if Windy can't do it, no loss anyway.
He has his staff at the ready.
When the streetlight shines brighter, Theo quickly searches for the torch again, but fails to locate it. Those shadows are worrying, but he already knew it was in the bakery, so it doesn't provide much meaningful data. Windy helps to confirm that at least Shadow (probably) hasn't moved, but there's still the problem that it's wild. Seriously, way to jinx a plan. 'What could go wrong,' they said. 'The other times just went badly because you didn't have a plan,' they agreed. That is not happening again.
Time for a daring move?
... Of course it is. Theo has a quick look around for a weapon. Wait, not a good idea, it can just be used as ammunition. Wait, yes, a good idea, Shadow already has plenty of ammunition inside the bakery. Do they have knives? Who's he kidding, of course they do. This just gets better and better. He picks up a small branch nearby, holding it and his staff at the ready. Disposable weapon that he doesn't care about, plus a potentially stronger magical weapon.
"Windy, can you shield me, somehow? Kero, any ideas?" he asks, trying to brace himself mentally for the inevitable battle to come. It's reckless, but maybe charging into the bakery with a weapon and Windy at the ready will let him drive it out of the building.
"I'm charging into the building," Theo says with a grim smile.
Taking a deep breath, he looks at the door, then decides to just get it over with.
He rushes at the door, moving far quicker than normal past the threshold, and then scans the room for the torch, a light switch... or a shadow to throw himself at.
As soon as he's in, tendrils of darkness lash out, sneaking into Windy's whirlwind and being cut off. Some tendrils manage to hit Theo before Windy can do it, though, feeling like punches and shoves.
And with the light shining through the window and the thinning of the shadows due to the attack, both the torch and the light switch become visible, the former close to the door and the latter behind the counter.
Tendrils of shadow slip through Windy and wrap themselves around Theo's right foot, tripping him before Windy cuts them off and they dissipate. The darkness around the switch gets denser, it becomes harder to make out, as if there was something blocking out what little light the twisted streetlamp managed to shine through.
He falls over – there's nothing he can grab in time to steady him – but gets up immediately afterwards, then continues towards where the light switch is. He can still remember where the it was, even if he can't properly see it. He manages to get within reach of it, and moves to turn it on, dodging away from another of Shadow's tendrils.
The figure starts glowing and returning to its card form where Theo's staff hit the air. And after it does it floats—
"We should probably get out of here," he says, looking at the damage to the store. He jogs over to the store, turns off the light, pushes the door back into position. "There, now it looks less like a huge fight went on here."
You know, except for the smashed window. And scattered debris.
Theo drops his bag when he's shoved into the wall.
Okay. Wait, what? Sadde... wants him as the prize? When did that happen? Have there been any signs? Of course there haven't. Or maybe there have. Theo wouldn't notice them! He had no idea!
He looks at Sadde's face, then into his eyes, then to his lips, and has a little freak out. He feels like everything's moving a million miles a minute, but also like everything's moving in slow-mo. Sadde? Really? Does he pull away? Does he try to slip out of the way? Does he turn his head? Does he headbutt Sadde or maybe shout in surprise? Just... what the hell?
He thinks about it. Kissing Sadde. He's... not actually as scared of the idea as he thought? Okay, sure, it's Sadde, but... it's Sadde. He notices something. His expression softens a little.
... How hasn't he noticed before that it's Sadde?
He starts to lean in.
When Theo finally notices how close Sadde is, he reacts. He spins around ridiculously quickly, knocks Sadde's hand away, and then growls out, "Get. Away."
He continues moving away from Sadde, this time much quicker than before. He looks like he's walking with purpose, but not in the direction of anything important.
Was that a noise that Theo made, when Sadde pulled away? Gosh. Isn't that interesting.
"I... It wasn't..." he tries, failing miserably, then decides to give up on any pretences. Who cares if he says what he means?
"It wasn't just because you didn't kiss me. It was because I didn't realise I liked you, you made me realise that, and then you pulled away!"
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Is he? Why, he might just find out a few differences in Sadde's reactions depending on what he's doing.
Theo stands up, grabs his underwear and wipes himself off, then fetches some clean clothes and goes out into the hallway, in the direction of the bathroom. He stops, looking a bit embarrassed.
His dad's at the top of the stairs. He turns to look at Theo, notices his state of dress (or rather, lack of), and raises an eyebrow.
Well, Theo's a little bit red from the embarrassment, but that's quickly fading. He looks over at Sadde, taking in the view – his dad's made it clear he's staying away; he's got time to do this – then walks over to the bathroom.
And he proceeds to kiss Sadde in the shower.
"I mean, exclusivity would be nice? It's not totally necessary, though...? And I don't know about the 'boyfriend' thing. Maybe?"
He hasn't really thought about this much. He hasn't really had much time to. He had a sudden change of emotions, got rejected, had a few days of moping, and then was going to try to ignore everything and carry on regardless, but this happened.
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Sadde is not complaining. Look at all this lack of complaints! He is definitely completely 100% unbothered by Theo being on top of him, snogging.
...he's a bit bothered by Theo's trousers.
"Yeah, but it's pronounced 'Quelle surprise'," he says, pronouncing it like 'Kell soo-r-preez'. "That's not that difficult? The 'u' and the 'r' in 'surprise' are just like... uh..."
Turns out it's actually pretty difficult to explain it through English words.
"Okay, no, I get it."
"I don't know? Maybe we meet some French person with a card, and for some reason they speak no English at all, and: yay! I can speak some French, so we're not totally stuck."
Or, you know, after all the card drama is over, they can holiday together. If they're still together. And alive.
"... That is true. But if we're boyfriend and genderfriend, he should probably know, so it'll have to happen eventually..." He then starts kissing along Sadde's jaw and neck.
Has Theo totally forgotten about the incident from earlier? He might have. Or maybe he's just distracted.
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Sadde laughs. And then hmmms. And there may be other noises involved. "We've just gone at it twice," he points out, and is interrupted by his own involuntary noises.
Maybe the talk will be about that, then. Theo can just imagine it now: Hey, son, I'm okay with you fucking him, but can you please just keep it to while I'm not in the house?
(It wouldn't go quite like that.)
Or maybe Theo's dad just doesn't want to embarrass Theo in front of his... friend.
Theo notices he's been quiet for quite a while, and says, "So, um... Done anything interesting at school?"
And soon the familiar environment appears, with the cards floating and their real forms floating behind them. Kero’s magic is recognisable, as is Sadde’s—they’re very similar, and very distinct, in a strange way. And nothing else, for a while.
Until there’s something. A flash of light, somewhere in the distance, of fire.
Theo's dad is still in the kitchen when they get down there.
"Hey, Dad. Sadde and I are gonna go, um, go for a walk, if that's okay?" Theo asks, trying to sound nonchalant and totally not blushing.
"Oh, ok. Don't get back too late, though," his dad responds.
... And that's apparently it. Theo goes outside and starts moving in the direction of the park from the map, walking in step with Sadde.
—but apparently the magical rapier can cut through wind, who'd've thought? Sadde's eyes are blank as he slashes and steps forward with unprecedented grace, avoiding the worst of Windy's attack and cutting through everything else, continuing to increasingly close the gap to Theo.
Sadde's thrown away, but he rolls with it, getting back to his feet very quickly and skipping from one foot to the other. He stops, assessing the situation, and then charges again, and now he's not just quick, he's supernaturally quick, getting much more impulse from kicking the ground than he should have.
Well that's okay, Theo can also do supernatural speed.
... Sometimes. And apparently now is not one of those times.
He shouts for Windy to try harassing Sadde, buffeting him with wind, and then repeats the move he did with Jump, since it seems like his best option for now. He kicks Sadde again, then manages to right himself and runs over with his stick, trying to hit Sadde's sword arm.
Haha no, the same trick won't work twice. Sadde braced himself for the kick and didn't actually stumble, using the momentum from the kick to twirl around and go after Laura, slapping the stick out of her hand. The Sword is a rapier, so no cuts happen, but Sadde is strong enough (or maybe the card is) that it'll definitely leave a mark. His movements are fluid, and he dodges Windy's attacks like they're not there, dancing between tendrils of wind and slicing at them to parry.
He jumps back from Laura and Theo after she's dropped her stick, not actually looking between either of them, and starting to hop from one foot to the other once more.
It does, but it uses its comparative advantage. The hooded form melts into the shadows of the trees projected by the lamps. As Windy continues trying to hamper Sadde's movements, the shadows on the ground move, followed by an equivalent movement of the trees themselves. And even though they don't actually touch Sadde, their shadows touch his, limiting his movement in invisible and unpredictable ways, causing him to stumble and lose his balance.
Okay, that is not cool.
He studies the situation for inspiration, his eyes taking on a more calculating look. He should've done this much earlier, but apparently he was too busy rushing into things. Sadde's mum is over there, on the floor, wounded, possibly dying. Sadde is possessed by the Sword, and doesn't seem to have any ability to stop it. The Shadow can affect the movement of other objects by grabbing ahold of their shadows. He has the Jump available if he needs to quickly get away, and Windy is usually pretty all-around great for capturing cards, but pretty ineffective by herself here.
The Sword seems to have made Sadde into a really good swordsman. It can cut through Windy's tendrils, it's at least somewhat intelligent because it can combat repeated moves, and it can threaten to kill Sadde as a means of getting what it wants.
... And the Shadow almost worked to hold them still. It seems like it can inhabit shadows, so maybe it can inhabit his shadow, and help his attacks be more effective. "Shadow, help me get some more reach! Windy, come back here."
Oh, fuck right off. Theo blurs out of the way of the attack with some less temperamental superspeed, movements efficiently taking him out of the path of danger, then directs some commands to his cards, hopefully softly enough that the Sword doesn't hear him. "Shadow, if you get a chance, disarm them," to Shadow, and then, "Windy, feint attacks at them and trip them at a good opportunity," to Windy.
He'll leave it up to Windy what counts as a 'good opportunity', but she's shown good intelligence so far, so that shouldn't be a problem. A surprise attack will work better than a barrage.
Turning to face Sadde again, Theo returns to the offensive, fighting for the most part not with supernatural speed, but much more quickly than the average human and with a strikingly efficient grace.
Theo jogs over to Sadde and takes off his jacket, holding it against the wound. You're supposed to apply pressure, aren't you?
"Try Changing the wounds to be covered over, at least temporarily. We can undo it when the ambulance gets here," he suggests, voice somewhat off-key.
Theo just looks on blankly, though he's stopped applying pressure since the wounds don't currently exist.
They can hear the sirens of the ambulance shortly. "Sadde, go flag it down and show them where we are. Undo the change when you're nearly back," he suggests, uncharacteristically taking charge.
He says, rather obviously, to Sadde's mum, "This is going to be unpleasant," then gets his jacket ready for when the wounds reappear.
Theo reapplies the pressure with his jacket, and successfully appears to hyperventilate. "Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod! He just came out of nowhere!" he babbles. "I had no idea what to do!"
The paramedics are following with a stretcher, and rush to Laura, taking over from Theo. They load her onto the stretcher and take her back over to the ambulance, allowing Sadde to ride along.
"I'll be along in a bit, okay? I'm sure she'll be fine," Theo says quickly to Sadde, in a way that's probably convincing if you've never interacted with him before.
Theo doesn't notice how weirdly he's acting, so he wouldn't expect there to be anything for Sadde to comment on. He goes in the direction of the hospital, a bit cold; he's now a bit underdressed for April, seeing as he no longer has a jacket.
Eventually, he arrives. The hospital, fortunately, wasn't too far from the park. He goes to the ER waiting room and looks for Sadde.
Theo decides that's probably true. They agreed to be in a relationship, so they're probably supposed to be there for one another, so that's what he'll do.
He gets up and walks over towards Laura's room, trying to project an aura of confidence. He's not actually supposed to go in there, but he tries to convey that he knows what he's doing, and has permission to be doing this.
The door opens, and in comes a nurse. She seems surprised to see both of them there, looks at the bear on Sadde's head a bit weirdly, and guesses that Theo is not a family relation from the way he and Sadde are interacting. "Visiting the patient at this stage is for family members only," she says to Theo, rather pointedly.
Theo pulls his head away from Sadde's shoulder to look at her, and doesn't seem to know what to say.
Theo looks at her pleadingly, obviously not wanting to cause a scene and hoping she'll just let it go.
The nurse looks at Sadde and sighs, acquiescing. "Okay, but make sure you don't disturb the patient."
She has a quick check to make sure the patient's okay, then leaves. Theo puts his head back on Sadde's shoulder.
There isn't really much conversation.
Eventually they get back to Theo's house. Theo's dad hears them come in and goes to greet them, saying how glad he is that Sadde's mum seems to be doing okay, and that he wishes her a speedy recovery.
He's also looking at Theo a bit weirdly, but it's hardly surprising that Theo's acting weirdly after being witness to a stabbing. He's somewhat more worried about Sadde (not by a huge amount – Theo is still his son – but it wasn't Theo's mum who got stabbed yesterday).
Oh, it's because he's tired, and because it turns out that just forcing yourself to continue when you probably shouldn't is typically a bad idea. Who'd've guessed.
Thinking things over, he starts to shake a little. That card was worse than he expected, and seeing Sadde acting psychopathic, trying to attack him and Sadde's mum, was definitely not something he had prepared himself for.
Theo's pretty deep in thought by now, so he doesn't properly respond to that, but it's probably nice anyway.
He goes back over the things that happened, trying to work out what triggered him to start acting weirdly, and decides it was about the point that Sadde's mum got stabbed. He started looking around and thinking rather than continuing in a panic, so it was definitely helpful, now he thinks back on it, but it was a weird change, and he doesn't really understand why it happened. Then he went to the hospital, sat there with Sadde because he was needed instead of actually feeling much of anything, and instead made things worse.
... And now he's having a breakdown, 'processing', forcing Sadde to deal with this on top of his mum. It's not Theo's mum who's in the hospital, so why is he forcing Sadde to deal with this too? He knows he's being a burden, and it just makes him feel worse. Now, he seems to actually notice that Sadde's there, and he hugs him back.
"It's alright. I don't know how awful the fight was, I was apparently possessed by a brooch that became a magical sword. And you didn't really do anything wrong, it was just like... you weren't really there, you know? Going through the motions. So I was like... I had no idea what was going on in your head, which I very frequently don't but I don't in a different way."
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And apparently Sadde can't wait for the water to be on to kiss him.
"Yes, and so could you. If you think there is any way at all I will let you continue to pursue these cards without all the help I can give you you may know me less well than I would have hoped. Aren't there any other, more experienced sorcerers that could also help? Surely the release of magic with potentially apocalyptic power warrants asking for their help as well."
And Sadde sits next to him and puts an arm around him and rests his head on his shoulder and closes his eyes and realises that sleeping while his mother was almost dying was not a terribly successful endeavour and he's actually pretty tired and he might nap a little bit on Theo if that's okay.