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^{[Self indulgent farm AU continues]}

[Wolfgang Grimmer] - [Kenzo Tenma]

The paper newly posted on the town message board had been just strange enough to catch Grimmer's eye on the way home from the store. He'd stopped and stared at it, eyes reading over the information present, and after a reading over the final line a few times, he stood up straight with a small noise of confusion. Apparently, whoever read the thing and accepted the strange proposition was meant to take the paper with them, wherever it was found. Was that really alright?

And what a strange thing it was, too. But it sounded a bit fun, and Grimmer had never encountered any sort of dangerous jobs or opportunities on the message board. Perhaps this would be just fine, as well. Tenma had been a little squirrely ever since his leg had healed enough to walk, but not enough to work. Grimmer smiled to himself, imagining the doctor's excitement over this strange invitation. With that in his mind, Grimmer shouldered the bags to one arm and gently ripped the paper from the board, tucking it under his arm.

And of course, he'd been right. It only took a tiny bit of coaxing to overcome the fake sort of hesitation that Tenma often gave when presented with an opportunity for frivolous fun. Oh, you know, we should make sure the chickens are fed and are all in good health, but Grimmer would assure he'd already done that. But weren't we supposed to deliver that thing today-- And another reassurance that it had been taken care of. Exhausted of reasons to not go after only a few suggestions, Tenma would give a short sort of sigh and smile wide, pretending to be just a tiny bit bothered as he announced he'd go get properly dressed.

And so, here they stood, at the gates of some rather odd little place. Well, 'little' was the wrong word for it. Tenma leaned back slightly to take in the full scope of what lay before them, large gate with trees just beyond. His breath puffed out in quiet clouds as he took the opportunity to stretch, attempting to shake loose the little tendril of foreboding that had entered his chest. "Well, it looks normal enough, doesn't it?" Tenma mused loud, rubbing at his arms in thought. Grimmer murmured a noise of agreement, though he had to admit, he felt a little uneasy. For months now he'd been able to let his guard down, for the first time really in his whole life, and how easily it returned to him when faced with this odd situation. The flyer had been friendly, the setting safe--so why did he feel so ill at ease?

"We can turn back if you'd like that," Grimmer mused, glancing over at Tenma with a soft look in his eyes. Tenma, however, shook his head and smiled, reaching out to gently clasp Grimmer's shoulder.

"I think a little fun will do us good, don't you?" he chuckled, echoing something that Grimmer had said earlier when coming home with the paper flier. Grimmer just hummed and nodded, smiling to himself at the doctor's words. Yes, he supposed it would be fine. If it wasn't, well, Grimmer was confident they could get themselves out of trouble. They had done well enough of that in the past, to be very sure.

[Section 1 - 1 (555 words)]

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"Ah, watch your step here, doctor--"

"Mr. Grimmer, I assure you, I'm fine," Tenma's voice was tinged with laughter, an affectionate note in his voice at the other man's fretting. Even so, he took great care in stepping over a snow-dusted log, holding on to a tree as he maneuvered his way to flatter ground. It was difficult to tell, with all of this snow--stranger still that it didn't seem to have been disturbed in quite awhile. No animal prints--not even bird feet. It set Tenma with a strange sense of melancholy to see such undisturbed snow. A place without birds surely must not be a very good place to be--he recalled an old adage that he'd heard before. Ominous, certainly, but beautiful in a way that made him just a little bit sad.

Grimmer seemed to notice Tenma's silent contemplation, but said nothing of it. Instead he turned his face forward to survey the road ahead. Trees, trees as far as he could see, bright green beneath a layer of ice. Grimmer glanced down to see a small sliver of red peeking out of the snow. "Oh, Dr. Tenma, hold on a moment," he called out, bending down to brush some snow away. Beneath his fingertips he found a rose--perfectly full in its bloom--fully encased in a thin layer of ice. He gasped softly and cupped it in his hands, lifting it up. The stem snapped--he winced internally--and it lay unmelting in his palms.

"What've you got there?" Tenma asked, stepping his way back over to survey the flower. His eyes widened, for more than one reason. "It's beautiful, but..." he trailed off, not saying what they were both thinking. Frosts like this didn't happen. Frosts brought death, not eternal life, so to speak. The flower's petals looked perfectly preserved.

Grimmer was getting a little better at sensing a tense atmosphere. After a brief beat of silence, he found his smile, letting it grow soft and sunny as he held the rose out a few inches closer to Tenma. "For you, my dear," he said with a warmth that was partially mocked, partially genuine. "A rose by any other name--"

Tenma dissolved into chuckles, lightly pushing on Grimmer's fingers to push the flower away, shaking his head. "Mr. Grimmer," he breathed, laughing all the while, then relented and took the rose with a lidded glance up towards Grimmer. "I don't think this rose smells very sweet," he finished the phrase, and grinned from behind the petals, bringing out a warmth in Grimmer's chest that he had trouble pushing down. It showed in a pink tint on his face, and Tenma smiled a bit softer now, lowering the rose to reach with his other hand and grip Grimmer's arm encouragingly. "You're very sweet, though," he murmured, something that seemed to perk Grimmer up fractionally, back to friendly, back to casual.

"Aww," Grimmer waved away Tenma's comment with a cheeky grin, and he blinked as his eyes were drawn downwards once more. "Oh... there are more, doctor," he murmured, expression falling to curiosity once more. Tenma glanced down and bent his knees carefully, much to Grimmer's worry (the doctor's foot was better, yes, but putting the wrong weight on it might prove unwise), and uncovered more snow. Beneath, to his surprise, there was a clump of various flowers, frozen in time by the ice.

Tenma's light expression was gone, brows knitted in its place. He got up and moved further down, brushing off more snow from the lumps on the ground to find more and more flowers such as the one Grimmer had given him. He still held it in his free hand. It did not melt. "Strange," was what he finally uttered, a slow and winding breath of a word that gave voice to his perplexed posture. "Some sort of artificial ice, perhaps? Perhaps..."

[Section 2 - 1 (644 words)]

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Grimmer watched the man closely, before finally moving closer to lay a hand on his upper back. Tenma jumped slightly at the contact, pulled out of his thoughts, then gently lay the rose down on a snow bank and straightened up with a huff. "Well, whatever it is, it's strange, isn't it?" he mused, and Grimmer nodded with a small smile in response. Moving on seemed like the best thing, right about then. This place of no sound or life set him on edge in a way he couldn't explain.

He did, however, make a mental note to buy some flowers for Tenma when they got back. They... suited him, in a way Grimmer wasn't able to understand of his own thoughts, but he would take the impulse where it came. He found they often led him towards good things, things that made Tenma smile or laugh incredulously. Grimmer was finding it easier and easier to let his emotions show without fear of what they might mean.

He reached down to clasp the other man's hand. "Let's see what's ahead, shall we?" Grimmer mused, and Tenma's eyes shone. He wasn't sure he'd ever get used to the simple contact. He nodded, and they moved.

The forest, however, showed no signs of ending any time soon. It wasn't long before Tenma stopped, his brow furrowed as he stared at their surroundings. "I could have sworn we passed these trees--oh, listen to me, how silly," Tenma murmured, positive they'd only been walking in one direction. But then, really, how could he explain such deja vu? Grimmer listened with a surprised look on his face. He didn't want to admit it, but his mind had wandered down simpler paths of which flowers to buy, while they'd been walking. Because of that, Tenma was left to worry over their direction all on his own.

"Ah, don't worry about that--we can retrace our steps," Grimmer suggested with a calmness in his voice that was clearly meant to soothe the other man. "No new snow means they'll still be there." Grimmer looked behind himself and, sure enough, their footsteps lay behind them. Tenma let out a small breath, attempting to shake the feeling of nervousness in his chest.

"You're right. You're right, let's go back to the gate. Perhaps we'll be able to circumvent the forest in another way, yeah?" Tenma motioned for Grimmer to follow as he began to retrace their footsteps. Sure enough, they formed a straight line, until they formed nothing at all, and Tenma was left to stare at the snow where he was positive they'd walked, and yet, no footprints showed.

Grimmer had noticed, too. Even the spots where they'd upturned snow to find flowers underneath had been re-covered, the flowers gone from sight. All that remained was the rose that Tenma had left. He reached for it, twirling it in his hand slowly in thought. Grimmer watched him, his expression a little gaunt. He hadn't expected to get lost. Looking forward, however, he could see nothing but trees, no sign of the gate far ahead and no sign of any clearings or any ways out. "We should put this back," Tenma suddenly spoke. Grimmer's attention was drawn back to the rose, then Tenma's face. "I don't know what it is, but... something makes me feel as though we shouldn't have picked this, or moved it."

"Doctor," Grimmer began to argue, his limbs already feeling exhausted at the mere thought of having to find the broken stem from which the rose came. But Tenma stood up straighter, holding the flower close to his chest.

"It's not far from here. We might as well try," he said, though he knew he was talking nonsense. Usually, though he felt mean to think such a thing, it was the other way around--Grimmer with his lofty ideas, and Tenma with his worldly realism. But this place felt strange, looked strange, and Tenma couldn't deny the strange pull in his chest towards the spot he was nearly positive the flower had come from.

He bent down in the snow and uncovered what he could. Finally, he found it--a stem without a flower, amongst a smattering of tiny frozen purple flowers. It was a beautiful thing, and Tenma found himself carefully fitting the flower back onto the stem without thinking about doing so.

Grimmer watched him--and then, there was a soft click, the sound of something almost mechanical moving. He couldn't tell where it had come from, but instantly, he was on the defensive--moving towards Tenma, a hand reaching out for him to shield him from whatever had just happened. Tenma looked around quickly, his eyes sharp, before they fell on a path that he could've sworn was not there mere seconds ago.

"Mr. Grimmer--look there!" he called, pointing, and Grimmer's eyes followed the finger to a path that was lined in visible, colorful flowers, in a winding pattern through the trees ahead. "Was that..."

"...always there? No, I don't think so," Grimmer finished the doctor's sentence with a soft note of wonder in his voice. After a moment he reached down, helping Tenma stand with a grunt of effort. "Good thinking," he murmured, almost apologetic. Tenma just smiled and shrugged, letting out a small laugh.

"Well, I didn't expect it to work. It was just... instinct, I guess." Tenma reached for Grimmer's hand once more, and began to lead him down the path, taking care not to step on the few errant flowers that had made their way onto the center of the road. The majority of them lined the edges--all frozen, like the rose, all permanently encased in the strange, life preserving ice. Tenma found himself walking faster, pulled by something unknowable and indescribable. He let go of Grimmer's hand and broke into a fast pace, ignoring the startled call behind him as he ran through the trees.

And then, finally, it all came rushing into vision far too quickly for the doctor to react.

[Section 2 - 2 (1000 words)]

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The snow ended as soon as the woods did--and Tenma found himself rushing forwards onto icy floor, sliding and slipping until he fell with a thud on his hands and knees. He stared with a primal fear at the moving shapes below the ice--it was thin. It was thin, it would break, and he would surely die or drown, but all he could think to do was stay still and frozen while his mind attempted to catch up with his body.

"Doctor!" Grimmer cried as he rushed out of the woods and stopped on the shore of the lake, his eyes wide with worry. "Are you alright? Hold still--don't move!"

"I-I'm not hurt," Tenma managed to call out, not moving his head to do so. His back was to the other man--he couldn't tell what Grimmer was doing, but it sounded urgent. There was a crack of wood, and Grimmer's voice returned.

"I've got a long branch, doctor. I'm going to hold it out to you, alright?"

Tenma didn't respond. The fear coursing through him was paralyzed into silence by the sight of the beautiful fish swimming beneath the surface of the ice, faint behind the reflection of the sky above. Tenma placed the flat of his hand against the ice, surprised to see a few fish come up to it and inspect it before flitting away.

A branch poked him in the side, and he nearly fell onto his stomach with fright. "Doctor, the branch," Grimmer barked, fear making his voice more aggressive. Tenma murmured his ascent and carefully, so carefully pivoted himself around to take hold of the wood, his eyes turning up to Grimmer in surprise. The man was halfway over the lake himself, one hand clinging to a sturdy branch overhanging the lake, the other reaching out for Tenma with the stick. Tenma gripped it more surely and nodded his head, attempting to work his legs enough to shuffle along the ice, trying to make his weight not quite so difficult to pull.

Grimmer got the both of them to the shore, and halfway collapsed into the snow beside Tenma, arms immediately going around the other man and holding him there. Tenma shivered at Grimmer's hot breath against his hair and ear, and he found it in him to rub the other man's back in some semblance of comfort. "I'm sorry--I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me."

"You shouldn't have run," Grimmer stated the obvious, pressing his cheek to Tenma's head as he stared at the lake as if it were some sort of venomous thing deserving of his hatred. He didn't care that it was beautiful--it had nearly caused a disaster. But the smooth, gentle (if not shaky) motions of Tenma's hands on his back slowed his heart, and Grimmer found the crease between his brows softening in kind. "You're sure you're alright?" he asked quietly, leaning away enough to look Tenma over. Even the place where he'd caught himself on the ice was fine, not torn by rough texture, but smooth and uninjured. Grimmer held the doctor's hands in his own, turning them over and over to look at them.

"A little bruised maybe, but feeling fine," Tenma nodded, his expression a bit contemplative. "Fish are swimming beneath the ice. It's thin--thin enough for that, and yet... it didn't break when I practically threw myself on it. It's strange."

"Strange like the flowers," Grimmer supposed, and his eyes darted to a rock on the ground beside him. He picked it up with one hand and lobbed the heavy thing onto the ice. The angle at which it hit was brutal--and sure enough, a crack formed in the ice. But instantly, as if by magic, the crack sealed over and disappeared.

Grimmer's mouth hung open. Tenma's in kind. Slowly, the two looked at each other, and Tenma closed his first with a small shake of his head. "This place... isn't natural," he murmured, grunting as he carefully tried to stand. However, it seemed the angle he'd fallen at had done something rather mean to his hip, and the cold was doing it no favors. "Ah..." he began, and Grimmer glanced at him, taking in his defeated expression. "It's embarrassing, but I may need some help walking."

Grimmer's heart clenched against his will, and he nodded, automatically standing and shouldering one of Tenma's arms. After a moment of thought, he shook his head and bent down in the snow once more. "Wrap your arms around my neck. I'll carry you on my back. Little easier on both of us, yeah?" he offered with a smile, and Tenma hesitated only for as long as it took him to realize that arguing meant both of them getting colder and colder.

"Yeah," Tenma breathed, shifting enough so that he could wrap his arms around Grimmer's neck and lift himself up enough for Grimmer to get an arm around each of his legs for support. "You're certain this is alright for you?"

"Mhm. You're warm, doctor," Grimmer mused aloud, and Tenma flushed, letting out a laugh at that, louder than necessary. Perhaps he was still letting off stress from the fall. "Well, it's true!"

[Section 3 - 1 (866 words)]

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Happening upon a building was a strange sight indeed--but it confirmed to Grimmer that perhaps this place wasn't as abandoned as he'd previously thought. All that said, no lights were on inside the barn. It looked just as cold as the rest of it. But getting under something would get them out of the wind long enough for Grimmer to check for any damages on Tenma that the ice might have caused--or really, let the doctor check his own damages. He knew more than Grimmer did about all of that, after all.

"Oh, Mr. Grimmer, look over there," Tenma whispered in his ear, pointing subtly at a bale of hay in front of the barn. Atop it sat a black cat, curled up and quite cozy-looking. Grimmer's brows raised, a small smile touching his lips.

"We have a visitor," he mused, walking closer, towards the barn entrance. The cat raised its head sleepily and regarded them with lidded eyes.

"I think it's us who are the visitors," Tenma chuckled, as the cat opened its jaws in a yawn. "May we stay here for a short while, little one?"

The cat flicked its tail and rested it over its own nose, closing its eyes once more. Tenma supposed that was as good an invitation as any.

When Grimmer walked inside, he was surprised to feel a rush of warmth come over him. All of that hay stacked in one place surely provided a great deal of warmth, though it was a concept foreign to Grimmer. They didn't really keep a lot of hay at their farm, raising only vegetables and chickens. He really did have so much to learn... "Alright, let's see what that lake did to you," he murmured with a lighter tone, and Tenma managed a chuckle at it, wincing as he was lowered down as gently as possible onto a loose pile of hay.

"Can't be too bad," Tenma murmured, and fell quiet as he carefully helped Grimmer undress him enough to get to skin. It was difficult to see in the dark, but Grimmer could spot a nasty bruise blooming above the doctor's hipbone, and two each dotting his knees. He hissed in quiet sympathy. "It's not bad," Tenma repeated, offering a kind of tired smile. Back on his feet after weeks, and now this? It was demoralizing. He swore, he didn't get hurt this often back when he was chasing...

Well. There was no need to think about that right then. "Even so," Grimmer murmured, and interjected a soft 'lift your hips' as he tried to hike Tenma's pants back up to his waist, "we should think about heading back soon. I can carry you as much as I can, but... even I get tired," he chuckled, and Tenma smiled exasperatedly, rolling his eyes and reaching out to touch Grimmer's cheek.

"I'm well aware," he chuckled, and blinked as the sound of a meow echoed from the front of the barn. He craned his neck to see, watching the black cat in the window of light from outside, before it turned tail and walked towards something unseen in the distance. "Wonder where the cat's off to," he mused aloud, and Grimmer glanced behind to watch it as well, a curious light in his eyes.

[Section 4 - 1 (548 words)]