gifts for friends and what they represent

07.02.20 208 words

Summary

The gift shop had been Luke’s idea. They didn’t really have much time to explore the places they were visiting, being constantly on the trail of the Azran eggs and all, but Luke can pretty much convince Hershel, Emmy, and Desmond to do anything with a little “please?” and some puppy dog eyes.

Luke gets Aurora a gift.

Notes

07.02.20: wow two in one day!! this one just kind of. popped into my head so i decided "y'know what. we're posting this for drownout."
so yeah!! that happened
03.23.26: for context: this fic, alongside the rest of the fics in the 'on the bostonius' series, were written and released over the course of a week in 2020 when i was super hyperfixated on the professor layton and the azran legacy. in some notes, i may refer to a few writing challenges that were happening in the fandom at the time. for background context (cw for mentions of pedophilia & 'proship vs anti' discourse) these writing challenges (namely 'drownout' and 'wholesomelayton') popped up in response to a strange wave of fics romanticizing pedophilia. if i remember correctly, a bunch of people wanted to 'drown out' these with fics that Didn't do that. i don't know why we did this. 2020 was a weird time. most of them are quite short but they're a fun artifact of summer 2020 i think.

“I’m sorry… but I still don’t get it.”

“What’s there to get? It’s soft and it keeps you safe at night!”

The gift shop had been Luke’s idea. They didn’t really have much time to explore the places they were visiting, being constantly on the trail of the Azran eggs and all, but Luke can pretty much convince Hershel, Emmy, and Desmond to do anything with a little “please?” and some puppy dog eyes.

Right now, he and Aurora were standing next to one of those shelves, practically covered with stuffed animals that represented their current destination’s animal population.

And he was trying to buy her a stuffed animal. Luke had more than enough at home, and buying your friends’ gifts was a gentlemanly thing to do. Unfortunately, Aurora didn’t quite understand the gesture.

Luke looked down at the soft little bird plush in his hand. And then back at Aurora.

He took one of her hands and placed the stuffed animal in it.

“Think of it as a symbol of our friendship,” he said, smiling brightly, “it’s bright-colored and loud on the outside, but it’s soft on the inside, kind of like me.”

Aurora chuckles at this, clutching the bird to her chest. “I guess you’re right.”