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Trash or Treasure..?

It was hot.. Very hot.. Dare he say, blisteringly so..?
Adrien certainly thought so as he wiped his hand then the back of his bare arm across his forehead, taking a glance first over his shoulder at the distance he had covered then ahead along the rocky un-even path that he had yet to scale.. The youngest members of his family unwittingly taunting him with their gleeful laughter as they pretty much ran on ahead.
To be that young.. And to have that strangely inexhaustible reserve of hyperactive energy!

When he had volunteered earlier that day, when the air was still cool with the morning dew, to look after his younger sister he had been ready to accept any such challenges that she and her two friends were willing to throw at him. He himself had suggested that they take a walk then go on to entice them on this thought with the lure of flowers that the girls could pick for their mothers, an easy task he had thought, and one that could take up a good portion of the day to allow Wren most of the day to put her feet up and enjoy the peace and quiet.
He shivered a little as the recollection of how she had mentioned having some special time with Flynn too.. Parents should never do such things! It was wrong on so many levels..
Back to the task at hand though!
Dragons Peak was not what he had had in mind when he had suggested the outing. Not. At. All.
And to top the whole thing off, there was hardly a flower to be found on the rocky outcrops of the towering crags! Way to blow a pretty gift for Wren and the other girls mothers when they got home..
It was certainly going to be the last time that he offered to take Isabel with them. She was far too adventurous for a quiet day out, no prizes for guessing who it had been insisting that climbing the dragon was far better than walking the very edges of the forest..

Adrien heaved a great sigh as he patted a hand down on the back of his neck. Sticky.. Ugh.. He took another deep breath and trudged onwards, following the young girls and the twisting dusty path.
He was by no means an unfit man, he enjoyed a good work out, if had to be said, but walking and running he had never been quite so fond of. And when face with small children who seem to be permanently drugged up to their eyeballs with sugared confectionery, he felt that he had almost every right to be lacking somewhat for once.

"Damn kids.." He grumbled to himself though he smiled away to himself as he caught a glimpse of his little sister, Eden, peeking back around a larger rock that marked a corner of one of the hair-pin turns of the path.
"C'mon Adrien! You need to be practising your running more!" She giggled gleefully with an impish smile, "Or you need to chase more pretty boys!" With that she very quickly disappeared again behind the rock.

All Adrien could do was feel his face grow all the hotter at the remark. True he did like to swing down onto that side of the fence more frequently.. But it's not like he was completely adverse to women! When had Eden noticed, was a thought more worrying. He had always thought that he'd been pretty discreet, he knew his parents didn't have too much of an inkling.. Still.. He picked up the pace wearily at last, following the path, around one corner, climbing a few steeper rocks and traipsing around whatever twists the trail threw at him. It wasn't long until he had to admit defeat, he was soon pounced upon by the small group of children he was guarding, a small scrub-covered plateau of a kind providing them all with a level place to rest.

"Ahh! I'm sorry kids! I just don't think I'm cut out for all this climbing in this kind of weather!" He found himself apologising and politely refusing their encouragements as he sat heavily on a rock, and possibly a lizard but he was fairly certain that it had, had the sense to scuttle out of the way of his rear.
"We're nearly at the top! C'mon! C'mon!" Isabel pestered in particular.
Inwardly he grouched, outwardly one of his eye-brows twitched slightly.
"I'm a DEAD man! The only way I'm going now is down! Ad I'm not nesecerily walking!" He told them, throwing himself backwards off the rock and into the straggly bushes and struggling plant life behind him.
"FRIK!"
The children leant on his legs and looked down at him curiously, the quietest of the three managing a nervous giggle while Eden looked a little more concerned for her much older siblings state of health.
"Adrien..?"
"Oh FRIKIN' christ!" The inked man replied, curling up just a little, both his hands over the back of his head as he wiggled away from the source of his sudden, sharp discomfort, "Arrhh.. What the hell.."
"A rock I imagine, all things considered..?" Eden ventured carefully, giving Adrien a not quite so comforting pat on the knee as he climbed past him to investigate, crouching beside her prone brother to shift the rather bare branches of the bush aside, "Oh.. Or the long forgotten remains of someone's lunch..? A really posh person though!"
"What the hell are you- JEEZE, owch! Rattling on abou-..?" He drifted off mid sentence as he finally cracked open one of his eyes to see what Eden was talking about.

There she was, holding a small to medium sized, stoppered bottle. A dusty thing, it had evidently been there for quite a long while and if it were to be used again it would certainly be in dire need of a wash..
"Yeugh.. Put that thing back, Eden.. You don't know where it's been.." He curled his lip ever so slightly as he pushed himself up to his knees and then his feet, wincing then wobbling as he got up. Woozy..
"Well.." His sister started, when she didn't reply he looked down to her once more to find her pointing down to where she had picked the dirty bottle up from.
Looked like a nest.
A magpie-like birds forgotten secret stash of pretty things..? Who knew.
"That doesn't mean that it's any better to pick up.."
"It's only dusty, Adrien!" He was met with, defiantly. "It only needs a wash! It would make a pretty little vase for the flowers for mama!"
Adrien snorted just a little with a smile, "Flowers..? With all these rocks, unlike the forests, where.." Again he trailed off as once again, defiantly, all three of the girls presented him with a few, though small, pretty flowers that they had spotted and collected on the way up.. While he had been taking his 'breathers' no doubt.
"Well that's.. Unexpected.." Was all he managed as he was press ganged into holding onto the flowers and then the evil, sharp, head-ache inducing, dirt-ridden bottle that had gouged a hole into the back of his head.
"C'mon Adrien!" Eden called to him as the threesome ran to the path once again.
"We'll show you where we found them while you were taking your lazy-breaks!" Isobel grinned cheekily as they started running recklessly down the steep incline back towards Amies.
Adriens stomach flipped a little as his mind happily filled with images of one of them tripping or slipping down the steep, craggy incline and he too picked up the pace, stumbling after them.

"Wait WAIT! This is NOT funny! This is NOT GOOD! STOP!"
The bottle, shoved into a pocket, rattled against some loose change and a set of keys. It almost seemed to quietly hum with contentment to itself.

My Pillow is Leaking!

Missing again..
Really, Adrien thought that he would have got used to this already, finding that the bottle he had picked up so long ago, moving around when he was not looking at it. It did not usually concern him immediately, but when he could not find the thing (or if it had not decided to show Adrien where it had decided to go), after the initial ten minutes of looking, the young man did tend to start panicking about where it had gone to.

He had noticed that the bottle had a strange liking for spots of sunlight and being up in high places.. A windowsill with the window ajar was the preferred haunt, he had come to find.. But it did often lead him to worry when he could not find the thing, that today was the day that it had toppled out of the window or off a high shelf and that he would later find the shattered remains of it in the street below or the floor.. The very thought of it made him feel a little sick, another thing he still found most peculiar..
His attachment to.. An Empty bottle..

He sat back on his heels after he extracted himself from under the kitchen cupboards (the hot-pipes were always a winner, apparently). It was strange, now he thought about it, how the bottle didn't seem to empty in recent days.
It hadn't looked like it actually had anything physical inside it.. But the misty sort of look it had.. It had seemed to be more swirly and restless than usual, it glittered and sparkled more when the bottle gave off a feeling of contentment.
And it had all started when Eden had brought home some unusual feathers from her outing with their father, while Adrian had been taken the day off Eden-minding to tidy up his own place..
He was thankful that he ha taken the time out to do it at last, it had been starting to get rather nightmare-ish hunting for the small glittery bottle while there were still boxes and clutter all over the place..

Bottle-hunting..

Yes! That's what he was doing at the moment, wasn't it..
He frowned as he stood, turned and leaned against the counter in the small kitchen, going over the usual places that he had already looked when something just caught his attention out of the corner of his eye..
Something bright, shimmering, dancing across the floor in the hallway following a breeze through he house.

Adrien started towards it curiously as slowly it seemed to stop glowing, disintegrating away into nothingness as if it had never been there in the first place. Sure it was odd.. But Adrien had a bottle fixation, it moved and he had honestly seen stranger things since he had come to own the little thing.
He stood in the doorway and waited a moment, watching as slowly another glowing ethereal, feather-shape made its way down his hallway. It was incredibly perplexing to say the least..

He made his way slowly down the hall, watching for the glowing little feathers. He tried to pick one up as it drifted past his bare foot, the moment he touched it however, the feather seemed to waver and disintegrate on contact. At least he wouldn't have to worry about cleaning them all up, later. All he had to do was tread on them if they bothered him that much.
The though made him smirk a little, as he spied where it was that the feathers seemed to be coming from.. A small gap from an ajar door, the door to his tiny bedroom, no less!

Creeping closer, Adrien reached out to push the door open, met with several more feathers dancing their way past his feet and down the hall. He'd have to get a draft excluder next time he found himself near some of the lager shops, he though to himself absently, as his eyes drifted over to the base of his bedside table.. And the rather large glowing pile of feathers collecting there.. And the way they slowly seemed to be cascade down from his bed..

His eyes widened a little at the potential mess there was to be cleaned up, had the feathers not been so easy to get rid of, as he stepped out at last and crossed the very small distance to his bed, reached out, and quite suddenly flipped the covers back.
He was met with an explosion of feathers, or so it felt and a strangely high-pitched little noise, making him jump a little, as he dropped the corner of the covers, disturbing yet more of the feathers, his slightly wide eyes fixed down on his sheets.

And there it was, the little bottle he ha been searching for, strangely still and silent, nestled down in his sheets with the collection of bird-feathers his sister had found only a week or so ago, the ethereal feathers (those which had had not disturbed when he had flipped the covers), also clinging around them.
The bottle seemed.. Shocked at it's sudden, rude discovery, and Adrien could help but apologise to it before he knew what he was doing.

The little thing seemed different, as if the feathers were not obvious that there were some changes. As the thing seemed to settle, it started to glow away to itself once again, almost humming. And as the glow returned to within its glassy surface, it looked like there were shimmering tendrils of pale blues and green within, swirling it all the more.. And the more Adrien looked the more it became apparent that it was from the tendrils, from the bottle, the feathers were slowly materializing, gently floating up and around the bottle, growing the higher they climbed.

"You're going to be a lot harder to hide now.." Was all Adrien managed as he sat on the bed, scooping up the bottle to give it a closer look, the bottle shimmering all the more brightly as he did so as if to show off how proud it was of the mess if could create.

Just A Heart-Beat Away..
Part One

He.. No, they..
He and this little bottle nestled snug against his leg in his coat pocket, had come a fair ways.
The fairly reclused man, had oddly enough started to find it easier to go out on his own, or was he really alone? Always with him was that strange, once grubby little vessel that he had nearly wedged into his brain. It wasn't nearly so hard to be able to be himself when he had taken his youngest sibling out to the beach, to go for a walk.. No, life had been quite charmed since his first, and until now, only trip out to Dragons Peak.
And it had all been down to that bottle.. Or at least, Adrien had put it down to that with a somewhat reserved air about the notion.. There was something unmistakeably different, unusual about the little thing. That swirling contents, the ethereal feathers that it spewed in great quantities when it had seemingly been caught off guard.. And those cursed little whirlwinds when they were out and about and something had distressed Adrien or Eden.
The mysterious, ever moving, ever changing shimmers within the bottle, and okay.. Maybe the whirlwinds, they could probably be put down to something pretty normal, something very safe and unremarkable.. But the feathers and just the very presence that the bottle seemed to have allowed for just a glimmer, a taste of something much more than the ordinary. That there were still some very special, unexplainable elements left in this world.

Yet with all the strange little happenings that had been springing up where that special little bottle had been.. It had been oddly quiet for quite some time now. Adrien often found himself wondering if it were biding its time, was it waiting for something? He had found it odd with all the little quirks he had placed on the object, it was not like he had much of a choice! What with the humming, the seeming shimmers of delight, the sullen darkening of the ever moving contents within when he had failed to pick it up before leaving the house.
No, it was certainly something special, almost alive..
Which is why he probably should have been a little more surprised than he was when he had lifted the heavier than usual little bottle from its favoured spot on the windowsill to find it thrumming it an unusual way. It was not the usual hum of whatever power possessed it, nor was it the almost inaudible, undulating purr of contentment.. No it felt.. Odd.. Almost..
Adrien gently rolled it from hand to hand, stroking the warm glassy surface. A ticking? It was fast for now.. He held it steady and after a moment it started to slow, evening out.. Tap tap.. Tap tap..
The man looked as it curiously, lifting it to the light to peer closely at the contents, the tapping wavered.. Was that a nervous skipping?
He held it carefully by the neck, cupping the round body and brought it to his ear to listen closer..
Thudthud- thudthud-
"WHAT?" His exclamation had left his lips before he had even realised it, pulling his hand, and the bottle, sharply away from his ear, the ticking, the thrumming and the contents moving erratically at the sudden movement, a good handful of ethereal feathers materialising around his hands and tumbling gently down to the floor.
There was no mistaking what that noise had been, that had been a heartbeat..
Adrien stood still, transfixed on the bottle as it continued to waver nervously, brushing his fingers over the surface as ever so slowly it seemed to calm, though it maintained an air of trepidation.. Which was odd in itself, as he reminded himself, as it was..
"Hell.. Who am I kidding?" He mused quietly, "You're something more than just a bottle, aren't you? Like that guy on the beach was sort of.. Hinting.."

It didn't feel as strange as he thought it would, talking to the little.. Bottle.. Creature..
The man smiled, just a little, leaning back against the kitchen table, pleased as normality, for them at least was restored.
"So.. There really is something alive in there.?" He didn't expect an answer, he was confirming what he had suspected but not dared believe for so long.

The proud little bottle shone and hummed by means of an answer.