ｃｈｒｙｓｓｉｅ

ｔｈｅ ｎｏｔｅ

To be truthful, Grayson quite wanted to punch the fire alarm in. It had dragged him out of a rather pleasant dream involving his Chrysanthemum, and planted him firmly in reality where almost everything was hell on earth.

However, due to Kingston's multiple objections as he kicked the covers off to go and rip it out of the wall, he had been reduced to glaring at it while he stood in the kitchen and made breakfast.

"Honestly, just leave the cooking for me when I'm here," he grumbled as he flipped a pancake and waited for the side to cook. "That goddamn smoke alarm has gone off every single time I've stayed here in the past two months. If you cause it anymore stress, it'll break."

"It's not like it's a human. It can't get stressed out."

"Well, I can. Either remove it, or improve your cooking skills, and I swear, if I hear that thing one more goddamn time..."

"Calm down, Gray," his Chryssie mumbled from where she was curled up on the couch, under a blanket. "It went off for twenty seconds at the maximum. Stop being dramatic."

"That's not the point. It's that Kingston is a terrible cook," he growled in response, flipping the last pancake onto a plate, then shoving it across the counter in said man's direction. "Eat them. I'm not hungry."

His flower glanced at him. "Don't be that way. You are hungry, I heard your stomach growling when you woke up."

"See?" said Kingston smugly, taking the plate from him. "You did like the smell of my cooking. It's not that terrible."

"Mmm, yes, the scent of burning pancake batter really does get my appetite going," snorted Grayson, slinking over to Chrysanthemum and curling up against her, though she moved further from him in the slightest of ways. "I don't even trust you to make cereal right. Who the bloody hell puts the milk in first?"

"Who the bloody hell doesn't?"

"Normal people."

"You aren't a 'normal people'," Kingston replied, rolling his eyes. "I'm pretty sure that normal people don't murder other humans for fun."

An uncomfortable silence settled across the room, and Grayson's fingers ceased their caressing of his flower's hair. He noted how her body stiffened against his, mentally recorded the way her fingers, usually so gentle, tightened down an awful amount on his lower arm, as if to say

(don't do anything that you'll regret later)

something, send some sort of metaphysical message through the mental grapevine. And he wasn't psychic - he never had been - but he got the memorandum just fine. Though his fingers itched to take a fine-sized chunk out of her brother's face for stating his most obvious flaw, he would give the benefit of the doubt.

"What did you just say?"

Admittedly, he didn't expect the oddly steely look that appeared in Kingston's eyes at the question - they were usually

(like clouds in the midst of a sunrise or a childhood teddy bear)

so soft and light. But at that moment, they appeared to be knives - harsh and unforgiving.

"You heard me."

The harsh tone was unexpected. It made Grayson wonder what the hell he had done wrong - beyond murder, of course, but Kingston had always seemed to be just fine with that. Perhaps it was a demonic possession that had stolen the happiness away.