#Also if you try hard enough you could make all these prompts into a cohesive story; probably! At least we tried to put them in that order! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hysteriium · 3 years

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𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑩𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑩𝒍𝒖𝒆;

(𝐆𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞)

(𝐀/𝐧 ): This is the first I’ve posted in ages!!! I can’t recall how long it’s been, life has truly been hectic but I’m getting back on the saddle!!! We’re starting with my boi! I hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun writing this! I’ve been experimenting with the way he talks so it’s not as overt as I’ve previously written! I feel like the intonations may break the flow a bit so I’ve tried to make it more cohesive! Lmk what you guys think! Also shout out to my amazing partner @lilliryth they’re the light of my life and helped me edit this!! They’re such an amazing person and I would not be where I am today without them.

( 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 ): Wedding. That is all. It’s not what you think.

( 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 ): DK! Joker x Reader.

( 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 ): 7,600+ k words!

( 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ): Angst (very little), swearing, violence.

The first time you’d asked, he simply stared in disbelief.

“Come again?” The bright red hues of confusion painted his husky voice.

The question had been wreaking havoc in your thoughts for the past month, unsure of how to slip out from ambiguity onto the sureness of the tongue. Such a bold yet silly little request was sure to be large and repugnant to the man hovering above you. While the darkness of his eyes was accentuated by his stygian greasepaint, hints of cocoa peeked through, prompting shy flutters of anxiety in your abdomen.

You can do this.

Your tongue slid across the arid cracks of your lips, wetting them. You cleared your throat, “I need a date to a wed–”

That was all you could get out before he blinked a few times and strode off.

The second time, albeit similar in difficulty, thankfully didn’t result in him running.

You tiptoed into his makeshift office with an air of mischief, his room sombre except for the lamp that spotlighted his desk. Hunched over blueprints which you suspected were his next big scheme, his eyes never drifted from the intricacies on the paper.

“Boo!” You shouted, catching his hips with an unbreakable hold when you closed the distance. While his body tensed, he couldn’t control the breath of amusement that left his nose.

“I can see you really tried there.”

You knew he followed your stare when his long fingers worked to roll the sheet. They were fast – so fast the pinched ends stuck out in layered rings that almost resembled winding mountainous trails. He couldn’t have curious eyes ogling his extra top secret will-have-to-kill-you-if-you-found-out criminal plans, now could he?

“What?” you started, while your hands fell and your footsteps whispered away from him. You felt the creases of your mouth wobble, ready to smile at any moment, and so you bit the inside of your tongue. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No,” he smirked, petting your head.

Curse his height.

“Now, uh, what is it, doll?”

You let your smile leap free, “I need to ask a super dooper big fav–”

“I’m not going.”

“But whyyyyyy? My parents are harassing me! They think their daughter’s going to grow old and grey and be alone forever.”

“Gee, I can’t imagine why.”

You shot him a look, one that only fuelled his amusement.

“J, I can’t just not show up.”

You watched his figure rise slightly as he drew and released a breath.

“I don’t like wed–” his tongue stuck out like he’d tasted something bad before he cleared his throat “–dings, they’re full of false hope, drunks and...” he shuddered, “romance. You see, they’ll end up killing each other in a few years. I can picture it now: dearly beloved wife kills cheating husband. Oh how could this have ever happened?”

He scoffed.

“You’re so dramatic. I promise it would only be for a few hours.”

“And pumpkin, how exactly are you gonna sneak me into a… place like that when I look like this,” he said, hands motioning to his face – mostly his scars.

It broke your heart. You could've sworn you heard it splinter, the downturn of your brows impossible to hold back. If only words were enough to convey complex feelings, to convey the pile of bricks nestled in your chest, to convey the desperate crave to comfort and rebut, the need to protect – even from himself. You had yet to find a way, and so you were stuck behind the thick lock and chain of language with no key in sight; restricted and bound to tools you never thought were enough, but could only hope were enough.

“Hey,” you whispered, reaching up to cup his face. In his eyes you saw the emotions flicker, almost as tangible as they were transparent – anger, fear, shock. Stood still and stiff, you nodded softly, giving him a smile of equal warmth. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

He squinted before hesitantly giving in, shifting so his cheek rested against your palm. He had to lower himself a little more to do so.

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with how you look. They’re beautiful, and I’ll keep saying so until there’s no breath left in my lungs.”

You held him ever so gently while he flitted his eyes shut. Your heart galloped then, its swell too big for your body and for a moment, brief as the breeze, the chaos he prided himself in was absent; for a moment there was peace.

“If you weren’t The Joker, I’d say go as is. Though, I have a plan!”

“Oh, do you now?” He said, shaking his head and returning to work. It was clear he was rapidly reaching his patience threshold.

Damn it.

“They have food!” You trailed off unsurely, as if it was a question – pinning your last hope on appealing to his raccoon inclinations.

It didn’t work.

The third, well…

You had just about given up and accepted the fact that it wasn’t his scene, that him meeting your parents would never be an option – a reality you had started to think of as a good thing the more you thought about it.

And so, the third day had been your acceptance. Self-care. Instead of chasing after an ideal, your hands were clutching a book, almost too hard, as the part you had been anticipating since very early had reached its finale. With your legs curled underneath you and practically asleep, your eyes flicked furiously from word to word–

That is until a looming figure shadowed the page completely, concealing all light from the lamp next to you.

Annoyance creased your features as you looked up at the clownish culprit. Your eyes met and a staring contest ensued, the intensity of his eyes beckoning a response until he, uncharacteristically, broke first.

“Will this make you, uh, happy?”

All traces of irritation were washed away by bewilderment, “sorry?”

“My being with you.”

“You mean to the wedding?” You asked, wide-eyed. If you hadn’t been as shocked as you were, you would have snorted at his continuous inability to say the word ‘wedding’.

He shifted on his feet, eyes darting away for a second before he licked his lips. “Yeah.”

“Is this a joke?”

“I’m not that cruel.”

You paused to hum obnoxiously, your finger tapping your chin to challenge the notion.

“Never mind,” he waved his hand in the air and was about to walk off before you grabbed his hand and sprung off your seat. You felt him try to wiggle out of your grasp with a grunt, but it was too late. “Thank you!” You shouted.

You missed the way his surprise melted into a genuine curl of his lips, twitching; the muscles unused. Instead, you were too busy stuffed in his vest, with your arms swathed around him. You both stayed there for a while basking in the warmth of each other, as his hands, which you guessed were hanging awkwardly in the air and unsure of what to do, encircled your waist.

Third time’s the charm.

Shaking fingers twirled sapphire silk, gliding over your cinched waist before finally moving up to the delicate exposed flesh of your neck. You glanced over the spaghetti straps that curved comfortably over your shoulder, and the simple silver circle necklace that laid between them, its chilled presence clashing with the heat of your skin.

Knock knock knock!

“Just a minute!” You said, jumping at the sudden rude intrusion.

“Not even funeral parlors take this long,” you heard J say from the other side, the distinctive departure of footsteps following promptly. They seemed faster than usual.

You puffed air at his complaint after calming your racing heart. Then you scrambled to finish up the final touches of makeup, at last winding the nude colored ribbons of your heels around your calves. Your head felt light, and your shoes only worsened the sudden gelatinous state your legs took on. Never before had you dressed up in such a way, not for years and much less in front of someone you dearly cherished. The line between fashionable and laughable was blurred and never truly had been exercised. Waving away the fuel your anxious thoughts provided, you decided to try and move. Your heels wobbled trying to avoid the flowing material pooled by your ankles, and you’d just managed to slip one foot out through the thigh-high slit. No matter how much you sighed, the pressure remained, weighing like an anvil. And so, with nothing much to lose, you made your way to the door; the dampness of your fingers leaving its foggy signature upon the knob.

This was it.

You breathed in one last time before opening the door.

“Okay, I’m re–”

You exhaled sharply, feeling the earlier intake of air leave you – taking with it the remaining wind in your lungs. You couldn’t control the twinkle of your eyes, nor the flip of your stomach as you gazed upon him.

His form was angled against the wall and his arms were crossed – that was, until he dragged his eyes over to you. His limbs then dropped to their sides and he quickly, almost stumbling over his shoes, righted his position. The bob of his Adam's apple was clear while both of you stood meters from each other with widened eyes. You knew he had the ability to pull off a suit, but the royal blue he donned was stunning. The stark colour complemented his blond locks, while his foulard tie with its blends of pinks, purples, and its navy base matched his socks.

It seemed you were both in the same boat, consumed by swells of giddiness and the need to fidget. The fingers that were dressed in dark brown leather gloves drummed against his thigh, while one of his cedar suede shoes tapped furiously against the floor.

“What.” He finally stated, rather than questioning.

You dropped the necklace your fingers had started circling.

“Nothing! You just look… really nice,” you uttered earnestly, unable to contain the sweet smile that broke through awe.

“Yeah, yeah. Uh… you too,” he said, the last part coming out less steady.

He avoided eye contact when you trotted over to him, fiddling with his cufflinks, though his tending to them immediately vanished when you began to accentuate the swish of your hips.

All fidgeting stopped.

You were sure he was expecting something else, rather than the delicate cupping of his cheek once you reached him, soft lips meeting with roughened skin as you kissed his scars. You took your time with each one, whispering affection, before claiming his mouth. He growled against you, and you could feel him tighten his hold.

The tip of his tongue traced the stain of lipstick, a wordless demand for entry which left you weak. Almost parting your lips to allow the gentle slide of his tongue, he suddenly reared back with a smirk.

“Peach,” he cooed.

You were going to have to reapply later.

With a small smile you extended your arm to the couch, and knowing time was beginning to pass, he complied. As he advanced, you peeked at the orange lining in his blazer. The hue was similar to his purple coat, though slightly lighter. You smiled to yourself, the small detail so characteristically him.

“Alright. Let’s get this over with,” he sighed, bracing himself.

Already a step ahead, you had brought out the makeup needed just prior to getting dressed. Sitting on one of the nearby surfaces, you picked up a small translucent bag with little red hearts on it – a fact he’d snickered to himself at when he first saw it – and walked over to him.

“As you wish, grumpy,” you simpered, “now hold still!”

True to his new title, you heard him mutter something unintelligible under his breath. The tap-tap-tap of his foot against the floor was most of the noise for a good while, and although distracting, the fidgeting of his hands was less noisy. You knew more than anyone he needed to squirm around, some movement at the very least, and so you endured. You deduced that he’d not been this close to someone in so very long, let alone allow them to do his makeup. That task, intimate and personal within itself, was not something others could be trusted with.

“Time to hide these little guys,” you murmured, focused as the beauty blender sat between your fingers and dabbed on concealer. “Not that they need hiding. I’ll miss them.”

“Really?” He chimed in, eyes shut while you did your work.

“Yeah, they’re a part of you and I’d never want you to hide or be ashamed of who you are.”

“Hmm,” he trailed off.

Occasionally his mouth quirked, his tongue darting out to lick his scars; an involuntary movement. You were patient, and even if he wasn’t overt about his guilt of messing up your progress, you reassured him lightly with a kiss on the head, sometimes playing with the dirty blond waves that lacked any sign of green.

The day before he’d washed out the colour in preparation for the big day, groaning until he caught sight of himself in the mirror; contemplative. Ethereal and almost delicate he seemed. How precious it was to witness such cracks in the fortress, where the basking rays of sun illuminated what once was – and still is, only shrouded by shrubbery and thorns, so overgrown and disordered that they had forgotten to take care of even themselves. Forgotten how.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he groaned as you finished blending the concealer on both cheeks. Grabbing the foundation you had colour matched, you dabbed a bit on your hand before applying that too.

“Honestly, me neither,” you replied, feeling no need to sugarcoat the shock from your tone. You knew he appreciated the truth. “But I’m glad you are! You’re doing so well!”

He squirmed a little at the compliment but settled seconds later. Soon after finishing the blending, you reared back and observed your labour. Although it wasn’t perfect, and if you looked hard enough you could still see the intricate crevices in his skin, it passed.

“All done!”

As soon as you spoke, J pushed off his palms. He was halfway off the chair when you stopped him.

“Wait! I have to walk you through something.”

At this, his eyebrows quirked up. You knew you had his attention.

“Conditions!” You announced.

“Ah. Now there are conditions.”

“Yes! I don’t want you to throw a tantrum and blow up the whole reception.”

“My my, aren’t you a little fire stopper.”

“Promise me.”

He flicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. With one hand on his chest and the other raised just next to his head, he bowed a little. “I swear.”

You wrinkled your nose, “I swear there will be no funny business, and I’ll be on my best behaviour – oh and no crossing your toes either!”

“You know me so well,” he sighed, admitting defeat, “Fine. I swear there’ll be no funny business and I’ll be on…” he cleared his throat and brought a closed fist to his mouth, “my best behaviour.” Then he shone his impishly wide grin, one that only intensified the pit of doubt in your stomach.

It would have to do, though.

“Okay,” you whispered.

He stood up now, towering over you.

“Okay,” he mimicked, dropping his hands at the base of your hips.

The last few days had been full of surprises, his agreement to attend trumping all. However, his overt display of affection was a close second. Never before had he been so forthcoming and so comfortable with physical contact.

As his hands laid there, unmoving and making their home in your curves, you inched closer to him; a specific craving only his warmth could ease. Though, those very same hands around you tightened when you tried to step forward, holding you in place. Curiously, you looked up at him, brows furrowed.

“What are you–”

It seemed he couldn’t help himself. The evil laughter he’d been trying to restrain bubbled from his throat and bounced off the walls. The eagerness to ask what he was doing quickly died – hard – when you could no longer feel the ground beneath your feet. It instead morphed into protests and occasional bouts of laughter as your arms dangled along his back, your pelvis against his shoulder. One gloved hand rested crudely just below the curve of your ass, occasionally squeezing your upper thigh and holding you in place, while his other arm hung unobstructed.

“We–” he clicked his tongue, “–wouldn’t want to be late now, would we?” He finished, purring.

The location was a couple hours outside of Gotham on the coastline in an area you’d practically never heard of. If it wasn’t for J’s gift for navigation, and his frustration when you kept leading him down wrong turns, you would have been hours late instead of just missing the ceremony. The last straw had been assuring him the early exit was your turn off despite his gut instinct, despite the countless times he asked ‘are you sure?’ and despite his sneaking glances – something he stopped doing when he almost crashed into the car next to you, too focused on craning his neck. All of this combined had resulted in the brutal demise of your map reading days.

Stopping where he could after taking the wrong exit he held out a gloved hand, a wordless demand for the navigator. Before long, you were back on the freeway, thankfully heading the right way. The directory rested in his lap as he balanced the seemingly breezy tasks of reading and driving.

Clearly safety was his middle name.

Once the two of you arrived at the venue, the first thing you both noticed was the heat. Warm and uncomfortable, the seabreeze made this bearable. The next notable feature was the rambunctious clamour of the crowd; music, laughter and shouting.

After worming your way out of the van, comically wedged between two much smaller cars, you headed towards the reception, stopping short from the asphalt-sand border. J stared at it as if it had foiled his genius villainous plots, as if it was the cause of all his misfortunes, as if it was responsible for the brutal murder of his first pet. Then, he made a face – a mixture between a scowl and disgust.

He sniffed, “it smells like...” he paused to grimace, “high society.”

The ghastly look was then directed ahead to each moving – breathing – organism he could see. There was no doubt in your mind the crowd had already made it on his hit list.

“For once I miss the stink of Gotham.”

“Well at least it’s at the beach!” You exclaimed, not recalling the last time you’d been. Trying to think that far back made your brain hurt, the tingle of overworked cogs and Brain Fog a lethal combination that coerced your forfeit in seconds. At the very least you were happy to be making new memories, hopefully some you’d be able to remember in the future; memories you prayed were not, later too, guarded by the merciless Brain Fog and his ravenous desire to generate headaches.

“I hate the beach,” J delivered flatly, hatred distilled rolling off his person in waves.

“Oh, you hate everything!” You pouted, brushing off his pessimism.

“It’s hard not to.”

“Well…” You stopped to think, wracking your brain to prove him wrong, “what about me?”

That had to get him.

“You especially,” he grinned, eyes twinkling with a mischief that spoke nothing other than ‘you walked right into that one, sweetheart.’

You were unable to help the sigh that sailed past your hued lips, “well, come on sunshine. You can’t stare daggers at them all day.”

“I can try,” he spat sourly.

You rolled your eyes and dragged him along but immediately dropped the act when you quickly realised it hauled unwanted eyes, like metal to magnets. Yet, J followed even though you were certain he saw the cursed asphalt-sand barrier as the very gates of hell themselves. In fact, he seemed a little bit too eager to start his anathematised exploration of the 9 circles as when you looked back, expecting to see his long limbs hanging in defeated protest, you were met with, well, nothing.

One moment he was there, the next he was gone seemingly stalking off into the unknown, hiding among the sea of people. It wasn’t like he was easy to lose either, his height and his aura of absolute discomfort is what set him apart from the rest. He protruded like a broken bone – so why couldn’t you find him?

“Damn it, J!” You harshly whispered to yourself, unknowingly stamping your foot until the insidious specks of sand tumbled their way into your shoe, under your feet and between your toes. Easily conquering your layer of protection, their coarse presence made you want to grind your teeth.

Maybe this was a mistake.

Before you could go off and search for the lost irritating puppy, you heard shouts. At first they seemed like ordinary yells, distinctive deviations from the crowd which happened to catch your attention at the right moment. Though, the more time passed and you wandered around like a newborn giraffe looking for its mother, you realised this was not the case. Most telling was the way those vague cries morphed into the familiar syllables of your name. And then finally in view, the supposed sweet comfort of childhood embodied neared; their worn features staring into your own, different from all those years ago.

You fought the urge to run.

“Hey honey!” Your dad beamed.

Two pairs of smothering arms made their way toward you, enveloping. With your fingers clutching separate materials, each as scratchy and glacial as each other, your head started to spin and you felt yourself holding your breath.

“Hey mum, hey dad, it’s nice to see you two again,” you said, feeling the slow ache from clenching your jaw starting to set in. You quickly swapped this expression for a small smile when they released you.

“How’ve you been?” Your dad inquired, the shimmer in his eyes a sight you couldn’t help but double take at. You noticed there was no glass in his hand.

“Don’t bombard her dear,” your mum rolled her eyes, “where’s this date you were telling me about?”

She lingered on the word with an emotion you couldn’t quite discern while her adjudicating eyes swept over your outfit. Her eyebrows then lifted, scrunching her nose with it. “Not bad.”

Her scanning forced you to shrink into yourself, the automatic motion of your palms relentless in their pursuit of wrinkles, a fact you did not pick up on until your mother cleared her throat at your unprompted staring contest.

“My question dear, it’s rude to ignore your mother,” her thin brows creased and the folds just above them rested along her forehead in a similar fashion.

You scrambled for an acceptable answer, the question just as ambiguous to yourself.

“He’s… um… getting us drinks! I was actually just about to go check up on–”

“Well if a man can’t even fetch you a drink he’s hardly useful,” she scoffed, turning to her husband to whisper, “can’t imagine what this prince charming looks like.”

Anger, lava-like and boiling, rose up in your throat. The pressure seemed unbearable as you tried to keep your mouth closed – tried not to defend the one you loved with your entire being. How dare she judge someone she had yet to even meet? She had yet to see the beauty that radiated in and out.

It had only been minutes and you’d already been zapped of your energy for the day.

“I think I should go check on him now.” “Yes, of course. Come back to me when you have something to show,” your mother smiled. You watched her lips stretch, her wine lipstick as pigmented as the red coating your vision.

Her hand clutched the necklace around her chest. Her fingers traced the glistening diamond which hung overtly, screaming it’s pricelessness to all passersby as she went to go have another sip of her champagne. At the corner of your eye you noticed movement, a pair of worn hands clutching suit pants. Hard. You turned automatically and when you met his eyes your dad shot you a strained smile. It almost looked like an apology.

Your stomach turned.

You tried your best to conceal the stomping as you promptly departed, promising yourself to at least wait until you were out of their view and blending in with the crowd. Once you merged with the patches, you quickly discovered that navigating your way out of it was going to be just as hard as trying to find J. Left and right amalgamated, looking the same no matter how many times you tried to compare differences and so did everyone’s outfits. You could have sworn you’d seen the same red dress three times, though you also could have sworn you went all different directions to the last; the truth was you were no more knowing than a sailor stranded at sea lacking a compass, the same indistinguishable shapelessness stretching out for miles and miles with no end in sight.

Then, a miracle – a clearing of people which shrieked hope and a long portable table with flowing white lace harbouring all kinds of food. Amongst the good news, a blotch of royal blue caught your eye and a flash of blond. Focusing your view on the table and its few inhabitants, one of which was the blue wearing stranger, you quickly realised your missing date was fixed and firm in place at the snack area. No sooner than this revelation processed you dashed over, the anger returning once the relief had run its fleeting course. As you stormed your way over to him he failed to look up, too preoccupied with the food he was collecting. Lacking in subtlety, you grabbed his arm.

“Jesus there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

J, who had been waiting to stuff his face with what you identified as another cupcake, mouth ringed with strawberry frosting, crumbs and sprinkles, dropped it in surprise and turned to you with widened eyes. They shrunk as soon as they showed an inkling of surprise and instead shifted to speckled guilt.

“Cupcake,” he managed to mumble with a full mouth.

Your fiery frustration was immediately put out by how cute he was, and you felt a surge of guilt yourself. It wasn’t fair to be taking out your personal frustrations on him.

After closing your eyes and taking a breath, you reset.

“They think I’m lying about you.”

He swallowed.

“You wanna leave? I, uh, know I want to,” he said much louder than the whisper you wish he’d used.

Such a comment warranted an elbow jab into his waist as you smiled ear to ear and sickly sweet at the passing guest who had clearly heard J. The middle aged woman with short brunette hair, white pom-pom earrings and beady eyes shot you two a blazing look before rutting her nose into the air. The reek of pretension wafted off her. Now you could see what J was saying earlier.

Pee-yew.

Everyone here sucked.

“I’m gonna kill her later,” he murmured, squinting after her.

“J, you promised to be good!”

Even if she was a grandiloquent old bitch who deserved it.

His ominous response was to pour himself some punch, the clown-in-disguise bringing the plastic up to his lips. As the cup masked most of his face, the only thing visible was his deadly gaze which bounced from congregation to congregation.

“How much longer.” Again, it wasn’t phrased as a question, more a statement.

“The bride and groom haven’t even danced yet.”

He scrunched his nose, though dropped the subject. At least verbally.

“You’re so crabby. You do know that you’re drawing even more attention to yourself this way?”

“Hmmph.”

It was silent for a few minutes before, without warning, he grabbed your hand. The hesitant and jagged strokes of his thumb followed and even though they belonged to a novice, the delicacy was still there.

The message was clear:

I’m new to this.

Your lips upturned, the gentle quirk hidden by transient hair flowing along the salty breeze. His touch was warm and paradoxically amiable; his presence a shelter cutting the chilly current that had picked up around noon. Stained lips, of which you had forgotten about until the sticky residue imprinted boldly on his glove, aimed to ease his buzzing mind. Expecting a grumble for the lipstick mark, what you got in return was the soft gaze of dark brown eyes – a sign of taming raging waters. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact the window into his soul for once could be identified as just that – a window; crystal, without the dirtied stains of camouflage and trepidation.

Something had changed.

Before you could get another word in, it was announced the bride and groom were going to have their first dance. The crowd gathered around the newly wedded couple as the music suddenly switched. The speakers were loud as they played a waltz, the couple’s limbs intertwined and swaying to its dramatic pace. They twirled and swayed with the grace of swans tiptoeing and beguiling the creeping ocean on the golden sands. Even though you knew virtually nothing about them, and were convinced that in fact this whole invite was your mother’s scheme to pry, the sight was a beautiful one to behold. The epitome of love – reciprocal trust and utter surrender; it had you wondering where you’d gone wrong previously, and if such a thing was as formulaic as it seemed to be, or if they were freefalling into the abyss as much as everyone else was; blindfolded, but nonetheless with each other. Welded in each other’s hearts.

How long had you projected your yearning at the couple and vicariously lived through their magical moment? You couldn’t say, though it was only the sudden grip on your shoulder that had managed to break your fixed admiration. It was firm, but nowhere near the realm of rough, and it even contained a fraction of gentleness, an action that wordlessly said ‘are you okay?’

At the sudden presence, you looked over your shoulder to find J, his guarded eyes holding a knowledge which only deepened the crawling feeling of embarrassment. Blood rushed to your cheeks. As you rounded your gaze back to the couple, you quickly saw the crowd was beginning to join them, all dancing at their own pace as the music continued its intimate lull. J’s hand slid down your arm while you watched and returned to hold your hand. Content and about to lean into him, your sudden love struck daze pounced away when he started to walk, dragging you along with him.

“Hey– what are you doing?”

No response.

“Let me go!” You said, your tone coming out a lot angrier than you’d expected. You guessed this alerted him because even though you were mere meters away from the rest of the crowd he stopped to explain.

“I saw the way you were looking at them. You know, cupcake, you’re not hard to read,” he drawled.

You pursed your lips, looking away for a moment.

“So what? What are you doing?”

“What does it – ah – look like?”

He’d seemingly taken your lack of response as a positive and continued forward. He grinned once he had you in position and placed his palm on the small of your back, his thumb rubbing gentle circles. He then maneuvered his other hand to grab yours and stretched it forward. From his first few steps you knew immediately it was the Viennese Waltz. The fast tempoed dance was one you weren't all too familiar with, but you’d learned its slower English counterpart.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” you gasped, trying your best to conceal your astonishment. You didn’t want to seem rude, though he just didn’t seem like the person interested in such a thing. Nor have the time. You were certainly finding yourself more curious about the origin of such a talent, and all the other potential abilities that were sneakily tucked away.

“Well aren’t I just full of surprises.”

He dipped you slightly in time with the halt of the orchestra. He held you there for a moment before the tune resumed its boisterous charm, climbing steadily to its crescendo.

“Here’s to another,” he said, his smile widening. If you didn’t know him so well you would have believed the expression to be completely innocent and honeyed. Standing there intertwined with his limbs you knew that devilish gleam was anything but.

And, seconds later, this suspicion proved right.

Suddenly he lifted you, twirling you around in such a way that made you feel like you were the bride. You’d only seen such a thing in Disney movies and cheesy rom coms – to be cherished, to be loved and cared for in such a delicate way was a fantasy; a taste of nostalgia and a serenade to the hopeless romantic within.

“J, put me down! Put me down!” You felt yourself swallow when his hands tightly gripped your hips. For a moment the irritation you’d experienced all day from a full face of makeup and wandering had all been worth it.

His laughs slipped out, too; a direct contrast from his often irked facade, a musically heart-warming phenomenon which no instrument could emulate. The whole time you kept your eyes on each other and never once did they deter, focused on drinking in the beauty of each other. The cheers from the crowd you’d gathered fell upon both your deaf ears, transfixed by each other’s magic in your own closed off bubbles.

As you continued to dance, the act itself felt like flying. The crowd separated when you neared – that is, until everything stopped. Sharp and prompt.

Neither of you had much regard for the abrupt bump when it happened, there were people everywhere and mistakes occurred. It was no big deal. At least that’s what you told yourself until such a collision was followed by a violent shriek and a splash.

Loud gasps replaced the background noise of applause.

In a few frightening seconds your brain made the connection – linking who you’d just seen in the same area minutes before, inches from the ocean.

“Oops,” you squeaked, too scared to turn around. However, despite your better judgement you did just that.

The groom stood in shock, evidently unable to come to terms with the sight he was seeing. One moment his new wife was safe within his arms, dancing as if it was only two of them in the universe, the next she was below him, swimming with seaweed. Then, his form began to tremble, a telltale sign that what was to come was nowhere near the realms of good.

He turned around with searing red eyes, a wrinkled nose and bared teeth. The eyes of the bull met the petrified, and his stubby, squared and well-manicured finger pointed directly at you.

“You fucking bitch!” He roared.

You jumped, feeling yourself cling to J. His arm wrapped around you reassuringly and although you trusted him with your life, being confronted by a raging groom was still nonetheless intimidating. The groom who apparently cared more about telling you off than helping his wife, who was still floundering in the crashing waves, began his march over to you.

“Do you know who I am?” He continued, and you wondered if he was still aware there was a crowd around. J almost instantly stood in front of you and had to hunch further to scowl at your aggressor.

“What was that?” J grabbed the man in front of him and slipped the blade hidden in his sleeve between the groom’s lips, angling it against the crease of his mouth.

“Hmm? Why not try your luck, princess. Say it again.”

The groom froze, the flicker of fear evident even on your end, though he kept up his brutish facade.

“You’re both going to be 6 feet under when my dad’s through with you.”

“Aww… run along to daddy so he can fix all your problems,” you could hear the pout in your boyfriend’s voice, comfortable and in your eyes even elated, to spit out the toxins he’d been gathering from just being here all day.

“So you do know who I am–” “The second most spoiled kid of Gotham’s underbelly.”

“And yet, you’re still holding the knife.”

“Of course the first would be your brother though, hmm?” J continued, completely ignoring the man's statement.

The groom gritted his teeth.

“I bet it stings to not be the favourite. To not even have him here on your big day.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” The groom spat, bullseyeing J’s shoe. You saw red pooling at the corner of the man’s mouth, the mere act of expectorating on your boyfriend’s shoe more urgent than self-preservation.

Yeesh.

“Now that’s not very hygienic,” J growled, wrinkling his nose. His grip on the knife tightened and in one quick motion, the groom was screaming.

While you couldn’t see the infliction from where you were positioned, the blood dripping onto the sand was clear as crystal. The screams of those around you were piercing, their horror and disgust forcing you to cling tighter to your boyfriend.

“J, please! That’s enough, it’s okay!” You pulled on his blazer. Feeling the hundreds of widened eyes staring holes into your being was no longer a concern. What mattered most was him. Getting out of here.

With a quick glance to his right, J met you, then looked back at the groom.

He smacked his lips.

“Seems you are lucky,” he purred, the shimmer in his eye reflecting nothing of the warmth he concealed so carefully – nothing of the warmth of when your eyes met. Instead, it was serrated and reflected jeopardy. He possessed the force of a hurricane. A gravity; the way in which he commanded the direction of things and uprooted the fortitude of the righteous, the sure, a mothernatured finesse.

He looked back at you again before shifting his hold on the man, fisting his wrinkled and bloodied shirt, then barked, “why don’t you go join your blushing bride?”

With the element of surprise, J raised his knee and shot it between the man’s legs, the man falling down almost as fast as the foreign presence made an impact. You could have sworn someone at the corner of your eye jolted, most likely fearing the worst while others let out shrieks. Fear of the unknown, the seduction of one’s imagination and its ability to fill in blanks was the most manipulatable aspect of consciousness. Rather than bleeding out and rocking lifeless against the cradling waves like so many had thought, the groom sat there, soaking in the shame of defeat and crimson. He hollered while his new wife crawled to his side.

“Tell your precious father I said ‘hi.’”

All eyes now turned to you both as you speedily departed, J dragging you along once more. The colony of sand in your shoe that had begun its formation hours ago was well in its breeding season now, the leathery insole most likely buried along with the newly wed’s marriage. Before you fully exited the cooperative crowd, forever to forget the merging faces of horror, two familiar ones caught your eye.

Hah!

“Some date, huh?” You smiled, staring at your mother straight on. The way her face twisted up in a myriad of emotions – surprise, disgust, embarrassment – was something you’d never forget. You were sure you destroyed her little snobbish social circle by the mere association. Pride swelled in your chest, a childish victory that didn’t seem so childish when you later reflected on your relationship with her.

When the two of you escaped back to the van successfully, there was a moment of contemplation.

“I – heh – think that went well!” J laughed to himself, rounding his body to face you, “you think your parents like me?”

“I think I should be asking the same to myself,” you said.

“Cheer up buttercup, at least your parents know you’re not dying alone anymore.”

“To be honest, after that shitshow they’d probably prefer it,” a sigh left your lips and you began to bite them, unconscious of the small action until the taste of metal blew up your taste buds.

“Eh. Who needs parents, anyway?”

You began to fiddle with your hands, suddenly finding them incredibly interesting. From the lack of interruptions you concluded he knew you were miles away, trapped in the wilderness of your own thoughts.

“So I’m guessing you only came because you found out whose wedding it was.”

It took a lot to break the silence, and the air suddenly shifted to a heaviness. You weren’t sure you were the only one tensing.

J clicked his tongue but didn’t answer.

“It’s okay… I think I’ve had my fill of weddings for a while, anyway. And parents. And honestly, maybe people,” you answered for him, despite the swirl of hurt brewing in your gut.

He breathed out his amusement. The lack of transience had you swallowing, frantic to keep the growing weight on your chest from expanding – from consuming your entire being with emptiness. You didn’t know how long you had until the stampede made its mark, the thunderous thuds of terror already echoing in the distance.

Those were only thoughts you could entertain alone, sunken in the decaying paradise of your bed.

Silence prevailed again.

Dazed and lost of direction, you remained fixated on the lines of your palms.

“The husband had a temper. You know, I thought they were so lovely at first.”

“That’s what they want you to believe. Their little golden castles sparkle in the sun and it’s only until the rain pours that you can see them for what they really are. Wet cardboard. Looks can be deceiving.”

“They certainly can be,” you looked up at him, smiling softly.

Even with the friction, you slowly reached up to cup his face. This time on his end, there was no fear or hesitation. Instead, just an unspoken mutual trust between two wandering souls. You looked down at his lips while your thumbs stroked the hidden lines of his scars. The gentle caresses wore down the makeup until finally they were visible again.

The marks of a survivor – beautiful and bold.

“Wait,” he said, the word simple and yet so labyrinthine. He reared back and looked at his hands while your own moved to rest on your knees. Curled into fists, his slowly unclamped like a blooming flower. What they revealed had your heart thumping, dancing its rhythm in your throat. You felt your eyes widen and the sadness immediately leave you, as if all its colour had been drained from you. You felt like a 1930’s cartoon, so shaken to the core that all you could see was greyscale.

“It wasn’t the only reason,” he whispered, the commanding presence absent.

He cleared his throat and finally looked up at you, “in fact, these were my only reason.”

“You son of a bitch,” you bit your tongue in awe at the binding pieces of metal in his hands. They twinkled in the holiday rays, beckoning, unuttering whispers of fabrication. Was the weight of those dual bands as heavy as his heart? As heavy as the solemn expression as he processed your jabbing words?

“I-I know it’s not much but–” he stuttered, and was promptly interjected.

“Oh! No, no, no! I didn’t mean–”

You both smiled. Yours wide and brazen, his small and seraphic.

“My J. Always starting fights, always getting what he wants,” you took the ring from his finger and darted to your left hand, slipping it on its rightful throne, “how can I resist?”

You kissed him mellowed and full of saccharine and he sighed, his reciprocation just as tender despite the usual dash of coarseness.

“Mine,” he murmured, resting his forehead against yours. He fluttered his eyes shut and his breathing began to steady.

“Mine,” you whispered.

In all that was and all that ever could be, never would you have believed such a moment possible. Magical and idiosyncratic, you wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Nothing big and extravagant in front of many eyes. Just the two of you, inside what you now considered the best moment of your life. What many described as a lock and chain, a prison for the rest of one’s life, you would describe as the only thing you had ever wanted. As much as before, everything felt complete.

Supernal.

You don’t know how long you stayed like that, breathing in unison, basking in each other. All you knew was that it was all too soon when you hit the road again, starting the long journey back to Gotham. After a lot of the same scenery – trees, cars, rocks, more cars and occasional bodies of water – your eyes had become leaden. Resting became impossible to oppose and before long your eyes gave into its stinging demand.

Somewhere within the haze of half-consciousness, a mysterious material was draped over you. It was silken on the inside, your arms softly grazing it occasionally, and linen on the outside, your chin brushing over it when passing uneven roads. Subtle ripples of cologne drifted from the fabric as you finally fell prey to sleep’s siren song.

“Sleep well, sweetpea,” lulled a sweet voice.

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zedecksiew · 3 years

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Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

+++

( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

#reviews #kriegsmesser #gregor vuga #warhammer #writing #rants #overthinking #rpgs #wfrp

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ryuu-to-sobakasu-hime · 3 years

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Ryuu to Sobakasu no Hime (Belle) Novel | English Translation | Chapter 3

**This is a machine translation. I put it together by extracting text page-by-page from a .pdf version of the Japanese novel, and running it through Google translate. I have only minorly edited some of the more confusing lines to make it more read-able. It is still a very rough translation, but it’s good enough to understand what’s going on. If there is anyone out there who wants to properly translate the novel, I am more than happy to edit it, if you’ll contact me.**

———————————————

Chapter 3: Memory

"Mother."

"What is it, Suzu?"

When I called, my mother turned around and replied.

Eleven years ago. The house was still new. There was no garage yet, and potted flowers were lined up all over the garden. "Do not cut my hair."

I told her that and ran down the slope in front of my house. Mom walked down the stairs opposite her, resting her hand on her waist and waiting. I ran away in the opposite direction, bouncing, saying that I would never let my hair be cut. But I was taken back without a hitch. She was seated on a bench in the garden and dressed in a haircut cape. “I’m going to make you look cute, Suzu.” After cutting my hair, I don't like the tingling of my hair. She shook her legs and sharpened her lips. But when she held the scissors without hesitation, she cut my hair all at once. "Because you’re going to be an elementary school student," I hope the hair on both sides doesn't stick to my shoulders. The bangs were far above the eyebrows. Even when I went to school, my neck was tingling for a while.

I played a lot with my mother. I took a sumo wrestling on the lawn of the riverbed in the evening. I pushed her by force and my mother rolled on the grass. I won, I laughed happily. Mother also laughed. I asked why? Won’t she cry if she loses? Mom shook her head. “I'm glad that the weak Suzu has become stronger.” Dad was laughing while lying on the grass. My mother often made salted seared meat. She lightly sprinkles salt and roasts the bonito stabbed on a gold skewer from her lenticel over an open flame on the stove. I was staring from the top of the chair. Since the fat drips, the microwave oven will not get dirty if you bake it while sucking it with cooking paper. When it gets burnt, dip it in ice water to cool it, and then drain it. It was a style. So as a kid, I had a hard time holding a thick piece of salted meat with chopsticks, and I had a hard time putting it in my mouth. Mom was waiting for dad's return, holding a mug and watching my struggle.

My dad was a salaryman at that time, and he wore a tie and went out to the city every day. Perhaps because of that, we had some money in our house in the old days. Mother bought a state-of-the-art smartphone at the time. I decided to try out the performance of the on-board camera, and on dad's lap, I pointed my smartphone at my mom. I asked dad to help put mom in the frame and pressed the shutter. She is dressed in white.

The smiling mother, she was beautiful. The photo of her was printed on paper and is still at the house. I was a cheerful child running around, unlike now. I definitely liked playing outside rather than inside the house. If there were trees, I climbed, if there were leaves, I tore them, and if there were insects, I chased them. But it didn't burn in the sun. I must have been such a constitution. Instead, my face is freckled.

I was often injured. My knee was also full of scratches. In the woods, on the riverbed, on the slope in front of my house, I often stumbled and fell. My mother ran up in a hurry and she hugged me tightly, crying in pain. Mysteriously, it hurts somewhere. That's when I was happy. I don't know how many times I fell because I ran around vigorously and wanted mother to hug me. Every time mother rushed in as if it was a big deal for her daughter and worried. Every day was like summer vacation. I clung to mother doing the laundry and cleaning and played. After lunch, she opened the tatami mat, laid a summer futon on the tatami mats, and we took a nap together. The smoke of the mosquito coil was rising slowly. When I woke up, most of the time, I couldn't see my mother sleeping next to me, and she was busy doing housework. In retrospect, she never been told me that she is busy. She was always with me when I asked for it. Since my house was in the mountains, I rarely went out to eat somewhere, and instead my mother cooked any kind of food. One day she saw it in a picture book, and she said she wanted to eat yakitori. She had never eaten it before. My mother made yakitori by sticking chicken on skewers one by one. For the first time in my life, I saw yakitori with the naked eye. I didn't know how to eat it, so I couldn't do well by chewing the meat and removing it from the skewers. Dad and mom were staring at me. Never missing what her daughter experiences for the first time in her life. The place where we, who live in the mountains, go out to play is not an amusement park or a shopping mall, but a campsite further in the mountains from our house.

On a sunny summer day, my mom and I wore a wide-brimmed hat and crossed the subsidence bridge. Dad was carrying a lot of camping equipment. The water crystal pool in the depths of the Yasui Valley was a breathtaking blue color even for us living in the area. The water is so transparent that you can clearly see your shadow on the bottom of the river. I feel a little scared as if I were floating in the air. My mother was an advanced swimmer. She boasted that her mother, who was once a local kid, swam like a kappa every day in the summer. She knew all about the fun of the river. At the same time, she never let her swim in dangerous places on dangerous days. Mom wraps around me, floating. She dived into the water to show her off her skills. Still picked up by her, I became anxious and called out. “Mom, don't go.” But mom, she swam in the blue water, as if she couldn't hear me.

One evening, I was playing with my mother's smartphone and saw a strange app. I put it on. When you launch the app, you'll see white and black horizontal stripes lined up. I pointed to what this was and asked my dad who was next to me. Dad looked it and twisted his neck, calling mother, who was preparing dinner. After dinner, mother's hand fixed the smartphone I was holding vertically. I laid it down and found it to be a piano keyboard. As prompted, I pressed one of the keys. There was a "do" sound. I looked at my mother's face. My mother also saw my face, saying that she had come out. It's mom’s music production app. Only then did I look around my mother's room and notice. Old records, cassette tapes, and CDs are lined up on the shelves to the end. And if you set them on a record player or cassette deck and pass them through an amplifier, music will be played from the left and right speakers. The collection was a brilliant one that accurately captured the main points of the history of classical, jazz and rock. I didn’t know at the time, the value and meaning of such a lineup being packed in a room at the end of the world.

In that room, I pressed the keys of the app one after another and recorded. When played, each sound sounds in the order in which they are arranged. Even if you enter an insane scale, it will play back in a lawful manner. I was so happy that I bounced on my chair. My mother was laughing too. Warm incandescent light was illuminating us. After that, I was crazy about this app. I had my mother lend me a smartphone and I was playing around with it day, night and morning. The operation was intuitive and easy to use. There were words that I couldn’t read because it wasn’t a children's app. And there were many functions I didn't understand. But I was absorbed in that kind of thing. I was completely absorbed in the exciting new experience of writing songs. I composed a number of songs and previewed them in front of my mother. The mother who finished listening gave me advice in short words each time. If you do xxx, it will be better, or the trick is to do xxx. She sometimes took out some of the records in the collection and listened to them for reference. My mother is neither a musician nor a composer.

I think each piece of advice is accurate even if I look back on it now. Over and over again, she listened to my melody, and she said she noticed something, and she sang herself to make sure it was. When I asked, she said it wasn't bad. She said she was smirking at me as she said. I put the sound in a place that I wouldn't normally put it. I'm sure this song was a failure, and all the work I've done so far will be ruined. But as it gradually takes shape, it seems strangely cohesive, she said. I felt as happy as I wanted to. I'm sure it's my parents' favor, but even if my mother added, I was happy. For me, I'm not making it with the intention of letting someone else listen to it. It would have been nice if only my mother could listen to it. My mother sings along with the song I typed in. Take the tempo with her right hand and sing gently. The voice of mother, who was also a member of the chorus made by her friends, echoed and was transparent.

She listened to my weird songs many times. I was happy and sang along with it. Anyway, it’s a song that is as nice as my mother.

I couldn't. Happy memories of me and mother suddenly end here. And that August has come. After this, all I have is a painful, painful memory. The voice of a little girl crying and crying echoed in the riverbank. A girl was left alone on a sandbar. Is she 4 or 5 years old? She looked smaller than I was. It was so sunny just a while ago, but I noticed it wasn't a blue sky, and it was covered with overcast clouds. The beautiful and calm river was cloudy, flooded, driftwood-filled, and surprisingly fast. I can imagine that it is raining heavily upstream. Before this happened, there were people happily making noise on the opposite bank when the flow was still transparent. They are now staring at the girl on this shore. She wore colorful outdoor clothing that made it easy to see that she probably came from the city, not a local. The girls' clothes were also bright colors that I had never seen. Why did people from the city overlook the girls' flashy colored clothes? Why did she forget her existence and she came back to this shore? What to do with friends, their families, and those who enjoyed fishing and canoeing on the riverbanks.

It seemed that she couldn't do anything, and she had no choice but to stand and look like a stick. It's no wonder you're standing. The violent flow of the river separated the girl from the people. Everyone realized that it couldn't be helped. One of the adults was talking to someone on his cell phone. However, everyone can see that where the girl is, is gradually narrowing. Everyone is aware that it is very unlikely that the rescue team will arrive in time. Therefore, I have no choice but to stand up without being able to do anything. Is it just listening to the girl's crying as it is? At that time, someone picked up the red life jacket beside the canoe.

I went forward while staring at the girl. She was a mother. Mommy, and I hurriedly clung to the hem of her mother's clothes. She realized that what her mother was trying to do was too dangerous. She wouldn't have been anxious. She screamed and pulled hard, trying not to let her go. Mom crouched down and squeezed my hand, and she told me something. At that time I can't remember what mother said. Maybe I was screaming and not ready to hear the words. Mom stood up to shake off my chasing and ran, locking the buckle on her life jacket. I fell down on a stone in the riverbank trying to chase her. Still, I got up and shouted at mother's back. Don't go. I think mom didn’t hear my words. While checking the girl's whereabouts, I went around the river, went into the water, and got in the stream to help. It started to rain.

How long has it passed since then? Suddenly the surroundings became noisy. The girl was rescued from the river. Adults are pulling the soaked and tired girl out of the river. I was staring at while getting wet in the rain. People running up. A mixture of joyful voices and crying voices. Are you okay? Open your eyes. I'm glad I was saved ... The girl was wearing the same red life jacket that her mother wore. At that moment, I understood at once what was happening. Mom isn’t here.

"Mother ..... Mother .....!"

I looked left and right, searching for her.

Not anywhere.

"Mother ...!"

In the distance, I heard an ambulance siren. The girl was wrapped in a blanket.

Carried by many adults, she leaves the riverbank. Everyone is crazy about it and realizes that my mom isn't there.

She isn't.

"Mom!" Only I raised my voice and kept calling. Many times. Many times. Many times. I don't remember much after that. When I heard that my mother was found all the way down the river, it seemed like a lie. It wasn't long before I realized that the mug that mother was using was missing. Dad put a picture of mother, which he took someday, in a picture frame and put it in a corner of the kitchen. He had to add flowers every day next to it. Neighbors bothered to talk to me every time I met them on the road, listened to me in a friendly way, and encouraged me with tears. Meanwhile, the Internet was flooded with anonymous posts about the accident.

"It's a suicide act to jump into a river flooded by rain"

"It seems that she was confident in swimming, but it's different from the pool."

《It is irresponsible for my child to help someone else's child and die》

《If there is an accident, playing in the river will be a nuisance and annoying》

《Because helping people is a good person, this is what happens》

The person who wrote it probably didn't know anything about the actual situation, and the day after he wrote it, he probably forgot what he wrote. However, the person who wrote it keeps sticking in my chest forever. Immediately after the accident, an acquaintance told me with resentment that it was terrible when I saw this. In front of these words, I was too young to understand all the meanings. However, as I grew up and became able to understand the meaning of the words accurately, I continued to suffer from the unconscious malice contained in them. Losing mother.

How should I pass on these writings as a bereaved family, even though I still can't accept them, as if the mother who helped me was all bad?

Aside from me, my mother just smiled in the picture frame in the kitchen. From that accident, I think something has changed decisively from what I used to be. One evening, in mother's room, where dust began to build up, I stood on her chair, hoping to return to her happy memories. And I sang the song I sang with mother. But when I started singing, I realized I couldn't sing at all. My voice became stuck in the back of my throat and couldn't get out of my mouth. I was confused. Something in my heart was suppressing me from singing. Why can't I sing? Tears came out.

Hey mom. Why can't I sing?

It was clear that the reason why singing was so fun and necessary was because my mother listened to it.

However, just because you can't sing... You don't have to worry about anything. Even if you can't sing, no one will blame you. Life just goes on. I went to a local junior high school. The jumper skirt uniform was stuffy. Many of the elementary school classmates went to the town as they went on to school, and there were not half of the students remaining in the local area, so even in junior high school, it became a compound class. Therefore, the chorus practice was accompanied by the vice-principal teacher, and it was decided to sing in all grades. There were three people in all grades. Because there were only three people, I quickly realized that I was just lip-synching without singing. I was asked why I didn't sing, but I didn't say anything. I thought they would get angry, but they didn't get angry. It means that only I can visit from the next practice.

I sat alone in a corner of the music class and watched everyone practice. I may have looked like a lethargic girl who was just silent. But inside that, there are things that can't be translated into words.

I think it was swirling. When I left school and returned home, I irresistibly entered mother's room in the twilight. The twilight light was shining through the window. Cardboard boxes containing tableware and seasonal home appliances that are no longer in use are piled up on the table. It was completely turned into a storeroom. It's been many years since then. It has passed. I listened to the large number of records there, one by one from the edge of the shelf. Days, days, days. By listening earnestly, I managed to calm my rough feelings. But one day, there was a moment when I thought I couldn't bear it anymore. Upon returning, I entered my mother's room, sat down in front of the keyboard, quickly opened the report sheet, and began to write fiercely with a pen to spit out the incomprehensible feelings in my chest. I was almost suffocating if I didn't spit it out. I turned over the paper and continued to write forever. -Why did mother leave me in the river? Why did she choose to help the child who she didn't even know her name rather than live with me? Why am I alone? Why, why, why – I added paper, supplemented with post-it notes, and wrote long, long lyrics. The scale that springs up is notated long and long. Those that were neither were spit out as pictures. It was a swirl of many kinds. It was like a whirlpool floating on the surface, like a black hole that swallowed everything, and like a hole in the top of my head. The floor of the room was filled with pieces of paper with a mixture of lyrics, pictures and sheet music. But suddenly..... I returned to myself and stopped writing. Right now, I've noticed the worthlessness, meaninglessness, ugliness, and helplessness of the words, pictures, and scales I wrote.

What are you doing? I broke the paper. Everything I've written so far.

I threw it in the trash can without hesitation. The bundle of paper looked like a vomit that I had just spit out. Then I became a high school student.

I finally found myself worthless. The uniform tie was stuffy. I crossed the subsidence bridge while looking down and went to school. I took an exam and passed the exam at a junior and senior high school in the center of the city, and transferred from high school. There, I met my childhood friend Shinobu-kun again.

"Shizu.."

"Shinobu-kun ..."

Now that I was in high school, Shinobu-kun looked tall and shining, all different. On the other hand, I didn't seem to have grown at all since then, and I was irresistibly embarrassed and couldn't even talk. What have I been doing so far? I started a new life going to the city from the mountains, but I couldn't get into studying. Even though I had a hard time taking the exam, I just looked out the window during class. Knowing that this shouldn't be the case. Club activities didn't go anywhere. There were very few such students. On the way home, you can see the students devoting themselves to club activities. The track and field club is jumping the training hurdle in a line in the courtyard. The volleyball club is running on the ground. A percussionist in the brass band with a metronome in his ear is striking a stick in the hallway. The Naginata club sits upright in the martial arts hall with a good posture, and thank you for your cooperation, saying before the practice. The first-year students of the baseball club, who have not yet been numbered, stand side by side and watch as if they are digging into the practice of their seniors. I didn't belong anywhere, so I left school quickly. It was already winter. There is a river called Kagami River that flows from east to west in the center of the city. Since the flow is often gentle, the TV tower and buildings on the opposite bank are reflected like a mirror. When I returned to the station through the road beside it, the girls of the light music club carrying the "Chahahaha" musical instrument case overtook me with a light step while laughing. A cute cat-shaped stuffed animal attached to the school bag is shaking. Attached to my school bag was a cheesy plastic plate of "Gutto Koremaru". "Gutto Koremaru" is an egg-shaped character who can poke his hand against the wall and endure the pain. I have a crack in my head, probably because I endured it too much. Of course, it's not cute.

In a dark and narrow corridor.

I resisted, "I can't do it! Hey!", But I was pulled into the room, saying "OK." The soundproof door slammed behind me. Shinboku "Ah!" There was a flashy room in a karaoke box, and the pink and purple lights were spinning mysteriously. It smells of incense. Only for girls in the class.

I heard that it was a social gathering, but when I saw the frenzy of the girls standing on the sofa and shaking their heads, I thought that I could not get into this tension very much.

"Peggie Sue is cute"

"This is the one that is popular in" U ", isn't it?" On the monitor screen on the wall, the popular Az of "U", Peggy Sue, was seen singing in a black rubber dress. Purple lipstick that shakes silver hair. An eccentric beauty with red eyes. Peggy Sue? "U"? Az? Is it popular? I don't know anything. It's like an event in a different world from me. Then, Hitomi suddenly offered a microphone, "Yes." Sing, and so on. "Huh?" Puzzled. Neither the coat nor the muffler is taken off. But "yes" the microphone was pointed again. Why for a child like me who is at the end of a class?

"Sing together?"

"Hey, sing."

The shadows of the girls press the microphones. What do you mean?

"Are you not going to sing alone?"

"Isn't it a lie that you can't sing?"

I see, so it’s this situation.

Dozens of microphones are forced against my face one after another. "Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"

"Sing"

"Hey, sing?"

"Sing"

Those voices sound like a threat.

"You're telling me to sing."

"Sing!"

Ahh!

Immediately, the microphone popped off and fell to the floor.

The girls dancing on the sofa suddenly saw me. It's calming down as if I was taken aback.

"What happened? Suzu-chan"

The mic and the shadows of the girls disappeared like a phantom.

"No, nothing. I'm sorry. Hey ..."

Without saying anything, I pushed the door of the karaoke box open by force and went out like crawling. Someone might have heard and told everyone that I couldn't sing.

When I got off the bus, powder snow was flying. I almost slipped down the slope from the bus stop. Even in Kochi, it usually snows in the mountains, aside from the city. When I crossed the subsidence bridge, I heard a crackling sound of thin ice. The surface of the concrete bridge is frozen.

Cold. It's not dexterous enough to get used to everyone, and it's not divisible. On the other hand, I’m not strong enough to be alone, not prepared, and have no idea.

I don't do anything selfish. Rumors that you can't sing, that's a lie. I'm just not confident in myself for a while. I want to get along with everyone. Really. I know. Of course I know. So "Ah ... Ah ..."

In the middle of the bridge, I impulsively exhaled my voice.

"Ah ... ah ... ah ah"

As I breathed in, cold air sank into my throat. Still, I sang towards the river. "Ah..”

Did I sing? It didn't match a song. It's just a growl. The bag slipped off my shoulder. Will you forgive me if I sing? Can I get along with everyone if I sing? It doesn't help to sing alone in such a place. It's like a scream of a dead end before being crushed. Still, I sang that song with my mother with a squeezed voice. I was happy back then. It's different now. Powder snow was swirling in the flow of the river. Suddenly, in front of me it became pitch black. Nausea swelled from the back of my stomach, and I held my mouth with both hands.

"Uuuuu!"

I crouched on my knees. However, I couldn't stand the momentum of the backflowing gastric juice. I pushed my body forward and vomited towards the clear stream under the bridge. The vomit that was about to kneel and vomit fell to the surface of the water, creating a number of ripples. I spit out everything in my stomach and fell on the bridge. My hair is messed up and my mouth is smeared with gastric juice and smells. It's already spicy. I want to get rid of everything. Shivering and crying as if groaning. Drops of tears ooze on my cold cheeks and tingle. I wish I were gone.

I could hear the slight sound of powder snow folding and piled up right next to me. A notification came to the smartphone that slipped off my bag. It was a message from Hiro-chan.

<< Look at this, Suzu. It’s so amazing that I’m seriously laughing. >>

There is a link to somewhere.

-------------------

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dcx2NedPVBEdbfQaU-WC0pJMRmn20ASn7HSC0KY9R7E/edit?usp=sharing ~ Google Doc of the English-translated novel.

ryuutosobakasuhime.wordpress.com ~ English fan-site for Ryuu to Sobakasu no Hime where translations, scans, and other content is posted.

#belle #belle movie #ryuu to sobakasu no hime #ryu to sobakasu no hime #ryu #ryuu #studio chizu #mamoru hosoda #竜とそばかすの姫 #belle 2021 #hime

30 notes · View notes

shoichee · 3 years

Note

Hello and congrats on the 100 milestone! Can you do prompt #19 for Midorima? 😁

MAN OH MAN IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME BUT I’M FINALLY BACK, TSYM for being here since the beginning, i rlly rlly appreciate it <333 so HERES SOME FLUFF

Midorima x Reader

19. “I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me”

Word Count: 3349

prompt list here

»»—————　☼　—————««

“Seriously, are you sure you’re not secretly related to Shin-chan?” Takao shoves another helping of rice into his mouth and you instantly frown at his messy eating habits.

“Takao, it doesn’t hurt to wipe the grains off your cheeks with napkins that the cafeteria always abundantly provides,” you say, not once taking your eyes off of the study guide you compiled for the class final. “And please don’t talk with your mouth open.” You can easily sense Takao groaning before slapping his eyes while leaning back in frustration, but you still carried on in skimming your notes instead.

“And that’s exactly why Shin-chan doesn’t know how to approach you,” he petulantly mumbles. You spared a glance above your packets, not catching his inaudible words.

“Pardon?”

“Never mind,” Takao sighs, settling to childishly stabbing the shrimp tempuras with his chopsticks and popping them into his mouth. “You werdn’t gert it.”

“What did I just say about your eating manners?” You roll your eyes, choosing to brush off his words as you continue to devote your attention to your papers. Takao simply opts to noisily munch on the rest of his lunch while being deep in thought, letting you study in some relative peace. He then gets up, tosses his trash away, and plops back down on his seat, and he props up his chin on his arm, watching you completely engrossed in your own world and figuring out how to exactly figure out his next best course of action.

“Y’know what? Screw this, I’m not getting paid to be a wingman for two difficult people,” he dramatically sighs, purposely trying to get your attention, and it worked. “You might wanna start paying attention to poor Shin-chan before he over thinks himself to death.” Takao does an exaggerated shrug and a shake of his head to emphasize the “seriousness” of the situation. You merely frown.

“You never cease to amaze me with your convoluted words. If you want something from me, just spit it out already.” You reluctantly let down your papers to give him your undivided attention, and Takao leans closer, dropping his voice to a hush.

“Look, I know you see him in a different light from the others,” he whispers conspiringly. “And he does too.” He makes pointer-finger motions in front of him to represent “you” and “Midorima.”

“... This again?” You pinch your nose bridge and release a harsh sigh, but you nonetheless let Takao continue.

“Come on, would it really hurt to do a confession? For someone so blunt and straightforward, you’re really dragging this out for way too long.” Takao frowns at your deadpan expression but continues his little movements with his makeshift “finger puppets.” “Once you”—he takes his left index finger—“and Shin-chan”—he brings his right index closer to his left—“do the chu”— he brings his index fingers together to imply the situation—“I can finally be free from the clutches of Shi—”

“I already told you,” you smoothly interrupt, “that we don’t see each other that way. He’s been a reliable partner in class projects and a very helpful person to share notes with. I’m very certain it’s like that on his end with me too.”

“Why do you sound so disappointed when you say it like that?” Takao slowly grows a shit-eating (yet hopeful) smirk. You scowl at his implications. Takao amusedly notes that you’re way too similar to his best friend.

“There’s no chance that we’ll ever get to that stage… ever. Okay? Satisfied now?”

“So you are disappointed at the possible outcome,” Takao gleefully says, his face showing all signs of plans being concocted in his mind. You completely widen your eyes at your simple slip-up.

“I… it’s not a possible outcome, damn it,” you vehemently insist. “It’s a guarantee.”

“Puh-lease (y/n)-chan, how do you know unless you try it?”

“Alright Takao,” you dryly reply. “Why don’t you try staring directly at the sun first before confirming that you become blind from that?”

“That’s not the same!”

“Same logic,” you huff. “Look, you know Midorima-san more than anyone, and even you know how he thinks. He finds the concept of friends and teammates to be pretty unnecessary, and frankly I can empathize with him. If he finds camaraderie to be a hassle already, dating is already beyond off the table. It takes much more to be a genuine friend to him than your average person, and if I do, by chance, confess, I’d be throwing away everything that I built up with him like an idiot… just being like this with him is more than enough for me. Besides, a relationship isn’t important right now, not when class takes up most of the time.”

“Well, normally yes, but in this specific case, there’s an excep—”

“I already came clean with this,” you say, furrowing your brows. “So can you finally let me study for this class in peace? Obviously, it’s a given for you not to open your mouth to anyone else about this.” With that, you tune out any further noise and burrow yourself into your class materials, and Takao could only sigh as he tries to wrack his brain for another way to play wingman.

“... Seriously, they’re both so stubborn.”

———

“(y/n)-san.”

“Hm?”

You turn around from looking at the bulletin to the person who just addressed you. Midorima stares down at you quite seriously before he promptly clears his throat.

“You’re blocking the way, nanodayo.”

“Ah… I apologize,” you say, immediately stepping closer to the bulletin to clear up the hallway. You turn your face to appear fixated on the bulletin board, but still sensing Midorima staring at you, you reluctantly peek at him from your peripheral vision. “... Is there something else you need, Midorima-san?” Midorima looks at the bulletin board for a moment before he turns back to your face.

“Regarding the group project we were paired to do in chemistry,” he starts, “the teacher praised our work very highly and wants to know if he can use it as an example for future lectures. I’m here to hear your answer on his behalf.”

You mentally sigh from the secretive disappointment. Of course Midorima was here for straightforward business. Nothing more, nothing less. Still, Takao’s words begin flitting through your mind now… of all times.

“Of course he can use it,” you smile. “I think it’s an honor to have our project regarded so highly like that, especially since so much effort was put into it… although… I think you’re the reason why we received such a high score, Midorima-san.” You train your gaze on Midorima, trying to gauge his reaction from the compliment, but he gives no such sign away, not any that you were aware of as far as you were concerned.

“(y/n)-san, I believe your own efforts and work ethic shouldn’t be trivialized,” Midorima replies, briefly closing his eyes and adjusting his frames. “After all, you are the one who made this project a cohesive final product, one that is also comprehensible to other peers in our presentation.”

“Ah… well…” You were definitely thrown in for a loop, not expecting Midorima to compliment you back so openly, albeit probably not for the reasons you were hoping for. “... Thank you, Midorima.” In an attempt to curb your growing flusteredness, you opted to stare at the bulletin board again, pretending to be occupied in reading the pinned papers.

“... Right.” Midorima softly clears his throat. “I’ll be taking my leave back to the faculty office. It was good talking to you.”

He swiftly turns around and walks back in the direction he came from, and when you were certain that he was walking judging from his footsteps, you turn your head to stare at his back before averting your gaze.

You frown once he exits out of your sight as you ponder about his particular diction.

“It was good talking to you”? Had Midorima ever said that to anyone before? You sigh to yourself and pinch your nose bridge to chastise yourself. Takao was right; you might’ve fallen a little too hard for the reserved individual, but even still, a relationship isn’t something you wanted to actively chase after.

Amidst your dilemma, you were completely unaware that Takao watched the entire exchange, holding back his laughter from seeing you uncharacteristically look like an absolute love-stricken fool. He got too much of a kick out of seeing the both of you trying to flirt… and an even bigger kick when he saw Midorima turning around to briefly “discreetly” stare at you while you were having your inner monologue.

———

“Takao, I’m having none of your bullshit today.” Midorima simply scowls as he prepares to leave the main building to the gym. Takao merely tags along while taunting him in a sing-song voice.

“Come onnn,” Takao insists, slapping Midorima’s back a little too harshly. “You said it yourself didn’t you? Favorable outcomes come to those who prepare the most. Don’t lie, I know you’ve been planning to naturally bump into our (y/n)-chan in different scenarios. Like yesterday in the hall—”

“You knew?!” Midorima jumps out of his skin to shoot an accusatory look at him, but Takao merely struggles to hold back a snicker at his reaction.

“Shin-chan, how hard is it to say three specific little words to someone else?” Takao sends a frustrated look. “You’ve always gone the extra mile to prepare your lucky items, read the Oha Asa predictions, and do little rituals not just for yourself but also for (y/n)-chan too, yet you don’t want to do a simple thing like confessing?”

“A confession isn’t that simple,” he retorts. “It can alter my fate for potentially worse if I’m not prepared.”

“Jeez, only you can take this so seriously,” Takao sighs, which only earned him a withering look from Midorima’s end. “But then again, it’s nice that you see it as something serious… but when are you actually gonna do it?” His response was only silence, as if he didn’t really give much thought about it until it was brought up now.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Oh come on, Shin-chan!”

“To be honest,” he says, stopping in place. “The horoscope says that Cancers would be rejected by signs like of (y/n)-san’s, much less be compatible. Predictions state that such relationships between the two would be troublesome.”

“Okay, Shin-chan,” Takao says, patting Midorima’s shoulder. “I know I constantly joke about this Oha Asa and this entire thing with (y/n)-chan, but”—he stops when he sees Midorima giving him another scathing look—“even if the horoscopes state it so, it’s like you said: favorable outcomes come to those who do the most. If you did everything you could, I see no reason to be scared. Plus, you have me to help you.”

“... It’s not that. Part of this is beyond what I can do to prepare. Whatever I do will not influence (y/n)-san’s answer, and that is something out of my control.”

“You know, you could just say that you’re nervous.”

“I am not.”

“Well, if you want me to be honest,” Takao says. “I think it’s because the two of you are so eerily similar that you find it hard to approach (y/n)-san. Like, when’s the last time you’ve met someone as serious and stiff as yo—I’m kidding, I’m kidding! Please don’t raise your fist at me!”

“That being said,” he continues, “Just talk to (y/n) like you’ve talked to everyone else. I mean you both always hit it off when you talk together in class.”

“I… suppose…”

“Trust me,” Takao grins, slightly elbowing Midorima’s ribs. “I’d like to think of myself as an accurate guy in ball-passing and in detecting social cues.”

———

You really tried to carry yourself normally.

You really did.

But a part of you is becoming hyper-aware of everything Midorima does, and being your normally collected self is suddenly becoming a lot more difficult. Studying at your own desk is nigh impossible with both Midorima’s words and Takao’s implications running through your mind. Even Midorima, who normally minds his own business, shoots you pensive looks here and there during class, and he approaches you during break after.

“... Your sign is at one of the lowest ranks in luck today… may that be the reason why you’re not being your usual self?” He studies as you pull yourself together.

“Erm… somewhere along the lines, yeah. Most likely woke up on the wrong side of the bed today,” you mumble, rubbing your neck to ease the nervousness.

“Is that so…” he says. He pulls out a small toy that was found in the local gachapon down the street. “Ahem… I hear that your lucky item is this today.” He holds it out in front of you, silently waiting for you to take it, and you gently pluck it out of his large hands.

“Well, what about you?” you inquire. “I’m sure you got this toy for a reason, like say… for your own good luck?”

“Well,” he coughs. “I have my own. I am always prepared for such occurrences should things go awry.”

“You’re always so prepared for everything,” you quietly laugh. “Not that it’s a bad thing, though. I do wish I was more like you in that regard.”

“W-Well, I think you have your own admirable traits to be proud of, er…” Midorima slowly turns red and contemplates backtracking on his words. “I-If you excuse me, I must get going for health committee duties, nanodayo.” He heaves his bag on his shoulder as you wave at him, and he lingers there, debating on something that you aren’t sure what it is. “Might you have time afterschool today?”

“Uh… not that I think of,” you reply. “Are you already looking ahead to the next partner assignment?”

“Actually, no… it won’t take much of your time, (y/n)-san. It’s something quick. Can we meet at the vending machines near the gym? I do have practice around that time, so I hope somewhere nearby could suffice for you too.”

“That’s fine with me, because… I feel like I need to tell you something too or I won’t be able to study at this rate, but if you have practice, shouldn’t you be focused on that more?”

“It’s fine. This one takes… a higher priority.” Midorima fixes his glasses and readjusts his grip on his shoulder bag as he ponders about your own words. “If this arrangement is fine with you, I will be seeing you after school.” You only nod as you wave goodbye at him again, and you exhale a long sigh of relief and nervousness once he leaves. You really wonder if telling Midorima that you had something important to tell him was a good move on your part, considering that you can’t backtrack your words on someone as stubborn as him. Takao may or may not have seen Midorima’s attempt in being forward and silently laughed himself to oblivion in the corner of the classroom.

———

“Were you waiting long, Midorima-san?” You briskly jog with your heavy bag to the destined location to see Midorima thumbing through his book before he looks up.

“You are as punctual as always.” He closes his book with a thud and places it in his bag on the bench before he stands up to face you. “Which is always appreciated considering it is not as common in others.”

“I just think it’s common courtesy.”

“Not quite, considering I asked you rather suddenly to meet me here,” he says. “You aren’t obligated to even agree in meeting me, yet here you are on time, just like with our past project sessions.”

“Well… you did say it was important enough that you put practice as a second priority, and I do want to tell you something too.”

“R-Right…”

An awkward silence dominates the exchange after Midorima clears his throat and goes silent as you patiently wait in agony. You eye at his troubled expression, wondering what sort of thing he was going to tell you that got him so worked up. At the same time, you grew slightly antsier, quietly tapping a foot or rubbing your neck, and you wonder if Midorima was actually waiting for you to say something first.

“I… I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me.”

“I-I believe I may have developed feelings akin to attraction for you.”

“Uh…”

“Ahem…”

Both of you stare at each other in unadulterated surprise.

“... You… like me?” Midorima murmurs, his eyes still full blown in shock.

“L-Likewise,” you reply, opting to stare at Midorima’s bag on the bench instead. Another awkward silence ensues as both of you take in each other’s sudden words and Midorima clears his throat again.

“... Why are you afraid of liking me?” Midorima restores his composure, staring at your flustered state with furrowed brows, thinking that he somehow made you uncomfortable at some point throughout the year.

“Wait… no! That’s not what I meant!” you say, mildly shaking your head. “Uh, let me rephrase that…” Midorima silently watches you as you continue. “Well, you weren’t the person to have romance in your mind, let alone have feelings, let alone for me, and… my friendship with you is something that I treasure, and I don’t want to hinder you with such things that can make you uncomfortable in being around me. That was why I was afraid, although I’ve been in denial about it until recently.”

“I see.”

“And um, I thought that confessing to you would end the friendship we had.”

“... Likewise.” Midorima uses your word against you with an upward curl of his lip. It almost seems like he was teasing you. You grow redder at his response, but he continued. “I suppose the lucky item I gave you provided the most favorable outcome for the day.” You only nod as you processed everything that just happened in a few moments, and both of you went quiet again.

“...”

“So…”

“... I’m not sure what to do next,” Midorima frowns. “I wasn’t prepared for this particular situation, nanodayo.” You only smile at his own flusters.

“Well…” you say. “We could date, but I don’t think that’s important right now, considering that we still have to focus on school… I mean unless you want to, then we can try to make it work?”

“Ahem, while I do think these things are quite frivolous,” he says. “I suppose we can learn to balance our relationship with other aspects of our lives accordingly.”

“I would like that,” you smile, walking to approach closer to Midorima. “Could we… um, hold hands? If you’re not into that though, that’s okay.” He says nothing in response but his hand slowly reaches out for your own to gently clasp, and closes his eyes in bliss before he opens them to look at you.

“... I must go to practice soon. It’s almost time.”

“I see,” you mumble. “If that’s the case, I’ll be inside the library to cram in extra lectures.” You pull your hand away to separate, but he holds you tighter. “Midorima?”

“... I’ll walk you there, nanodayo.” He peers over your face to gauge any objections on your end, but when he finds none, he gently tugs you along as you both walk to the building next-door.

“I never knew you were into hand-holding.”

“N-Not really,” he quietly says, his ears turning red.

“Actually,” you say, bringing Midorima’s attention back to you in light of the topic change. “I need to thank Takao tomorrow… he’s the one who pushed me to confess.”

“Hmph,” he scoffs. “I do suppose that the idiot has some merits to his words.”

“I do now see what he means when he keeps insisting that we’re too alike in personality and preferences.”

“That just means we’re more compatible than what fate initially predicted, nanodayo.”

“You checked the horoscopes for relationship compatibility? Never would I have thought that such things occupied your mind, Midorima…”

“Urk—That’s…”

#knb x reader #knb #knb scenarios #knb fic #knb fics #midorima x reader #midorima shintarou #midorima shintaro #midorima shintarou x reader #knb fluff #100 followers #100 follower milestone

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seekingseven · 3 years

Note

Another drabble request: how does Four find out about Twilight's wolf form?

Linked Universe Prompt Requests #8!

Oh, that's a great question! Here's one possible way it could have gone down...

⚠️CW: Alcohol Mention! ⚠️

(You can also read the fic here on Ao3!)

~~~~~~

Four was not the kind of person who spent his evenings in a places like this, and he knew Twilight and Time weren't either.

Maybe that was why he was so uncomfortable.

Music pulsed through the floor, amplified by the tavern's high ceilings and the patrons' warbling voices. Drinks clinked, beer frothed, and lantern light clotted over polished countertops. Across the room, a red-lipped waitress tossed a red-faced patron a pinched smile, the kind that crinkled at the edges with professional, faux patience, and the man let out a wheedling chuckle. A group of boys howled at each other as glossy cards splashed across their table. Behind the bartop, a tenderfaced bartender dropped a stack of glass mugs, and a nearby group of tipsy women had begun to crackle out the Hylian national anthem.

Four pressed his hands over his eyes and tried to cough out the smell of vomit and rotting sweat. No use. Spirals pulsed at the edges of his vision--he was pressing too hard--and he let his hands slide into his lap. The muscles in his neck tensed as he slipped deeper into Twilight's pocket.

This was not what he had in mind when he had decided to follow Time and Twilight on their "quick, fifteen minute errand." He had been right in deducing it was more than that, of course; reports of local children going missing near a known monster hideout hadn't inspired confidence in Four that grocery shopping was all on the two's minds.

But, a tavern?

To each their own, he supposed, but he couldn't entirely stifle the little flame of disappointment in his chest.

Adrenaline gushed through his throat as the world swung around him; Twilight was moving again. Vibrations thudded through the cloth around him. The overhead lanterns flickered crazily, blocked by Twilight's shoulders one minute and blazing down his backside the next. Four shielded his eyes under his hands and stared at his knees. This whole shrinking thing had been a bad--terrible--idea. He could only hope that Time and Twilight had a lower alcohol tolerance than they appeared to.

The movements stop, and Four sighed as the acid in his throat slipped back down. A booming echoed from overhead, and Four couldn't help but wonder if this is what the Minish had to deal with whenever he came to visit.

"Is Mr.Garto here?"

Four's ears perked up; that was Twilight's voice, and that was the name of the man who had first begun reporting the disappearances. Interest piqued, he righted himself until he as peering just over the small slip of space between the pocket and Twilight's tunic. If he turned just enough, he could catch a glimpse of Time's legs and the mahogany bartop behind them.

"He's not here right now," a voice whispered. The muscles crisscrossing Four's chest cinched. That wasn't the sound of a bored bartender, or a dolled up waitress, that was...

"A child?" Time asked, voice thick with its typical lack of tack. "Where are your parents? A tavern is no place for a boy your age."

Silence--at least, between the three parties. The debauched din around them showed no interest in smothering itself for the sake of dramatic tension.

"My parents work here," the voice replied. It was soft, but there was a bristle underneath it; a boy, Four would bet, and a frightened one at that. "My dad's Mr.Garto. Amerigo Garto. He's out right now. If you have questions, then you can, uh, demect them to me."

"Cute," Twilight murmured, voice lowered so that he was its only listener. Four would have rolled his eyes if he didn't happen to also find the childish mispronunciation endearing.

"Very well then," Time cut in. Whatever spell the boy's subtle stutter had cast on Twilight was lost on him, judging from the clipped words and serious tone. "Please tell your father that we would like to speak to him about the abductions. If he has any information, he's welcome to contact us. Here's the postal address of the inn my teammates and I are staying in."

A shuffle of cloth, and the faint sound of a hand bumping a counter. Four pulled his arms over the pocket and strained his neck to the side. The cloth around him dipped under his weight, threatening to give, and Four flinched so hard that he slipped back inside.

"You're looking for them?" the voice came again. "The lost kids?"

Time chuckled. The paternal sound felt oddly out of place in the drunken supernova around them. "Of course we are. We have an idea of where they might be, so we wanted to get in contact with your father to see if he had any more information."

Twilight leaned forward, letting both his pocket and his pocket-sized stowaway swing along with him. "We'll find them for sure. Don't worry."

"You will? Do you think you can find them? My sister and my puppy, I mean."

"Your sister?" Time asked.

"Your puppy?" Twilight added.

The boy's voice seemed smaller, now, lighter, and it took little imagination to envision the pale faced, blue-eyed seven ear old that was undoubtedly cowering under the others' combined stares. "Yes. They were the first to go missing, sir. Sirs. I hope you can find them. Let...let me know if I can help."

Across the bar, someone threw a bottle of wine against the wall. Glass powdered around the purple stain in the wood. Twilight flinched. A gaggle of teenage laughed in their testosterone-saturated way, unabashedly amused at the adults making spectacles of themselves, and Four stifled the urge to slap all of them.

"We will," Time said. His voice was a breath's distance from inaudible. "Take care, little one. We'll speak to you soon."

A mumble of agreement, muffled, and Four clutched the fabric of Twilight's pocket as the world spun on his heel. Left, right, left; he was swaying with each pull and pinch of movement, and he caught only a heartbeat's glimpse at the boy before Twilight and Time exited the tavern.

He looked exactly as Four had imagined him to.

"That's so sad," Twilight murmured, letting the tavern door close softly behind him. "I hope we find them."

"We will. Hopefully Garto gets in contact with us soon. For now, we'll just need to brief the others and see if there are any other locals who might have more information."

"Yeah, yeah. That sound about right."

This time, the silence was real. Only the sounds of feet squelching against mud and dirt interrupted their thoughts.

Twilight stopped. Four gripped the back of his head and hissed as it bonked against the raised metal of Twilight's scabbard.

"Hold on," the rancher began, "I forgot something back there."

"Forgot? What?"

"...something. I'll be back. Don't wait for me."

"Sure. Try to not stay out to long, though."

Twilight assured he wouldn't, then turned heel. Feet against the floor, night air, cold, and then a flush of heat. The air is stuffy again, and the quiet is gone, and Four is peering precariously between gaps in the pocket stitching. He thumps against the back of Twilight's leg as the rancher makes another sharp turn. It's a wonder that the rancher hasn't grown suspicious of the wiggling in his pocket yet.

But perhaps he was too occupied to grow suspicious, because Twilight slowed to a stop and leaned forward on what Four assumes to be the bartop.

"Is the kid still here?"

A grainy voice responded with a huff and grunt. "No, he went outside. Just through the hallway. Something about wanting to play hopstoch."

"Ah, okay. Thank you."

Another snort. "If you find him, tell him to come back inside. It's too dark to be out alone."

Twilight made a sound that could have been construed to be somewhat affirmative, then hurried out the door. The evening breeze, greased with the steam and sweat spilling from the tavern's backdoor, greeted them again. A clink of metal and the cloth ruffling; Four furrowed his eyebrows. What was Twilight up to?

It was the last cohesive thought he would have for a good minute.

The cotton confines around him popped out of existence. Air rushed against his head and through his air as he fell, weightless, and he had barely processed the fact that Twilight had vanished before he thumped against a tree stump. Dazed but unharmed, he sat up, eyes widening.

In the place where Twilight had stood mere moments ago was a massive grey wolf.

A wolf...

Wolfie?

"Who's there?" someone whispered. A figure on the other side of the backyard inched forward, and Four's throat tightened when he recognized it as the boy from earlier. His eyes were red. Little hopstotch stones dangled between his fingers, shining and unused.

The wolf--Wolfie--barked. The boy flinched, squeezing his elbows to his sides. Wolfie barked again, insistent, and wagged his tail furiously. Blue eyes watched silently as Wolfie rolled on his side, then chased his tail, then made an impressive show of chasing a terrified chipmunk through the yard. Gradually, the boy's eyebrows slipped downwards. Wolfie let out another bark. A whisper of a smile pinched at the boy's mouth.

"Where did you come from, big guy?"

Wolfie barked again, advancing further and, when the boy didn't recoil, butted his head against scabbed knees. The boy laughed again. Wolfie's tail wagged harder.

"You're so big! Who's your owner? They must take really good care of you. And you look really strong, too. Look at these muscles!"

The boy carefully closed a hand around Wolfie's paw, then lifted it upwards. Strength roiled beneath an oily coat, and the boy let out a small gasp of awe.

"Wow! You look even tougher than my sister! Hey, wanna play hopscotch with me? I think you would be good at it."

If Wolfie licking the boy's face wasn't confirmation enough, him hopping towards the dilapidated hopscotch court was. The boy laughed with delight and rubbed Wolfie's snout, giggling harder as the wolf licked a wet strip across his cheek.

"Huh," Four murmured, picking stray wood chips out of his hair and grinning to himself. "Looks like we both have a little secret."

~~ Fine ~~ I hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading! [Previous Request] - [Next Request!]

#linkeduniverse #linkeduniverse twilight #linkeduniverse wolfie #minish four #linkeduniverse fanfic #so sorry for the plethora of typos here im just #this fic turned out to be a lot more of a challenge than i thought it would be #haha!#hope you enjoy!#seeking's prompt requests #ope forgot a tag #linkeduniverse four

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leiawritesstories · 3 years

Text

Another Place

Nessian Week, Day 5: Alternate Universe (AU) Day

Yes, I took the prompt literally. ;)

Word count: 2914

Warnings: fuzzy science, fuzzy space mumbo jumbo, language

Skye Penderwick belongs to Jeanne Birdsall. All other characters belong to SJM.

@nessianweek

~~~~~~

“I’m heading out, Doctor.”

Dr. Nesta Archeron, who held a PhD in astrophysics, looked up from her desk. “All right, Skye, thanks for everything. See you tomorrow?”

“Absolutely. Don’t forget to sleep, Dr. Arch!”

“Never do, Dr. Pen!”

The other astrophysicist’s snort of laughter floated down the hall. “Yeah, right.”

Fine, maybe there were nights when Nesta stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, scribbling calculations on the chalkboards and in her notes, combing through theories of all the great scientists before her, adding bits and pieces to her own theory, and generally ruining her sleep schedule with badly timed, random “a-ha!” moments. But to be fair, seven years of developing a theory of alternate universes would do that to a person.

Seven years ago, she’d run across an anomaly on a deep-space image that didn’t match anything ever recorded or observed by any scientist, ever. And yet it was small enough that most scientists could easily overlook it; it blended into the edge of the nebula that was the focus of the image. Nesta had noticed it, though, and that small imperfection, the wrinkle in the darkness of space, rooted into her mind and stayed there, leading her to question what the hell that blur was and why the hell it was there.

Which in turn led her down the murky rabbit hole of various theories of wormholes and other flaws in space-time, none of which aligned with her observations. And then down the even murkier rabbit hole of theories (of varying degrees of coherence) of parallel and alternate universes. The alternate universe idea in particular intrigued Nesta, and she spent weeks researching every bit of information available, noting how it lined up with her observations, and finally coming to a realization that this image her team had captured could serve as visible, concrete evidence in favor of a theory of alternate universes.

She’d drafted the first bit of her theory and formed a small team to develop it by the next morning.

After five years, countless different images of the anomaly, multiple variations on complex equations, much screaming, and three lifetimes’ worth of coffee, Dr. Nesta Archeron hit a wall.

Literally and figuratively.

Because when she ran into what seemed like an insurmountable block, she punched the nearest wall as hard as possible.

The cracks still radiated across one wall of her lab.

That block, and her efforts to break through it, introduced her to Dr. Skye Penderwick, a brilliant American astrophysicist who, coincidentally, also happened to be fascinated by the theory of alternate universes, despite having no theory of her own. She’d been working at the same facility as Nesta for several months before the two actually met, and within days of Nesta inviting her into her lab, she’d proposed a potential solution to the Archeron team’s roadblock.

It worked.

Nesta offered her a collaborator position that very day. Skye accepted.

Two years later, they were on the edge of breakthrough. Both of them knew it. Both of them saw clearly where their calculations, their notes, their carefully chronicled, detailed observations of the motion of the anomaly, and their years of hard work were leading. The theory Nesta so elegantly posited was nearly complete. All the two self-described space nerds needed was something, anything, to hint beyond scientific explanation that on the other side of that anomaly laid an alternate Earth.

Unfortunately, that something hadn’t shown up quite yet.

For, despite all the remarkable achievements of space science--lightspeed travel, quantum leaping, imaging software capable of capturing formations’ minute details, even the discovery of other habitable planets in faraway galaxies--nobody had yet been able to present a coherent, plausible theory of an alternate universe.

Yet.

Sighing, Nesta pushed back from her desk and walked to the back of her laboratory. She placed her index finger in a barely visible indent in the pristine white wall. A panel slid silently open, revealing a space illuminated by a soft blue glow. A nondescript grey-and-cobalt pressure suit hung neatly in a glass case. Nudging the panel closed, Nesta opened the case and removed the pressure suit.

Hers.

For her…uncatalogued trips. Trips to the station her team had planted by the anomaly.

Trips which Nesta took regularly. She couldn’t risk any of her team traveling; each and every one of them was needed in the lab. No, it was her job and hers alone to make a regular leap to the station, check on their telescopes, and observe the anomaly up close.

She’d never tried to cross it. Not that she believed there was no passage; in fact, she’d painstakingly detailed the fascinatingly inexplicable illusion of a gap that appeared once every year, and had always failed to conclude if there truly was a gap.

Hence tonight’s little jaunt to the station. That gap had just appeared, and since it only showed for sixty hours, she had to go now.

So Dr. Nesta Archeron slid into her pressure suit, fastened the sleek boots and gloves, programmed the correct coordinates into the screen built into the underside of the suit’s left forearm, locked on her helmet, and keyed in the quantum leap sequence.

A blink later, she stood on the steel tiles of her team’s small, simple station deep in the reaches of outer space. Removing her helmet, Nesta allowed herself exactly three minutes to drink in the wonders of deep space.

Then she set the station’s timers for forty-eight hours, sat at the control panel, and piloted her space station/highly advanced spaceship into the gap in the universe.

For it was indeed a gap.

Commander Cassian Ilnair released the cockpit hatch of his sleek “interstellar exploration transport,” or, as he called her, the Millenium Falcon. Bloody government and their bloody idiotic pompous names for spaceships. That’s all it was, a spaceship, albeit a highly advanced, highly adaptable one that had carried him and up to four crew safely across nearly every corner of the universe and back to Earth.

Pulling his flight helmet off, he shook out his unruly shoulder-length hair, half- unzipped his navy blue pressure suit, and started postflight checks.

“She’ll need to be refueled and the usual before she travels again, but other than that, good as new,” he reported to his CO, a woman five feet tall if she was an inch whose impeccable, formidable exploration resumé and take-no-bullshit demeanor made up for her diminutive height.

“Excellent, Commander. I expect a full report on Disturbance AS-2947C by noon.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cassian saluted.

“Dismissed.”

As he headed for the shower, Cass stole a glance at his wrist screen, which showed eight-fifteen a.m. Damn space time, he grumbled to himself, throws off my goddamn body clock. Luckily, he’d noted no significant change in that particular disturbance since the last time he visited it two weeks ago. That’d make his report much easier, indeed.

Sure, the disturbance was rippling ever so slightly, but it did that every year at this time and had been doing so since it appeared exactly seven years ago.

Not a single scientist in all the ranks of the space force could provide a plausible explanation, or even a cohesive theory.

Disturbance AS-2947C was just that, a disturbance. A puzzling, inexplicable snag in the fabric of space time that had just appeared one day and sat around for seven years, following a routine path of motion but not really moving anywhere, just pulsing, and showing a ripple for exactly sixty hours exactly once per year.

Cassian knew his brilliant astrophysicist friend Dr. Emerie Nguyen was developing a theory that AS-2947C was a wormhole, but so far she hadn’t found any evidence to support there being another side to it. So far, all Emerie could say was that this disturbance could very well be the concrete evidence of stable wormholes she and every other member of the space sciences sector had been chasing for years. And yet they were still chasing it.

He quickly showered and changed into his everyday uniform, slipped his wristband back on, and drew up a quick set of notes for the commodore. At exactly two minutes before noon, he knocked on her office door.

“Enter.”

Cassian stepped into the office, closed the door, and saluted. “Ma’am.”

“At ease, Commander. I believe you’re early today.”

“Some days I try to be punctual, Commodore.”

“I see.” She motioned to the west wall. “Report, Commander.”

Tapping three fingers twice against the wall, Cassian swiped an image from his tablet onto the wall, which doubled as a presentation screen.

“Today’s imaging of Disturbance AS-2947C shows no remarkable differences from the last set. The formation has not morphed or shifted noticeably in any direction.” He swiped to a new image. “The annual irregularity in the approximate center of the disturbance appeared on schedule roughly three hours before we arrived, making it now roughly seven hours visible.”

“Any notable observations about the irregularity?”

“No, Commodore. The irregularity is behaving exactly like it has for the six years we’ve observed it. It merely appears as what looks to be the illusion of a gap, holds steady for sixty hours, and disappears. We have never been able to decipher if the irregularity is in fact a gap or if it is simply a change in the observed color.”

“Have you never attempted to pilot your craft towards this irregularity?”

Cassian swallowed. “With all due respect, Commodore, yes. I believe you are familiar with the deep-space engine failure incident of last year?”

“I am.”

“That was my attempt to discover more about the irregularity.”

“Ah.” The commodore tilted her head, her eyes calculating. “Though I never did hear the pilot’s explanation of this failure.”

“First, may I ask what the engineers’ conclusion was?”

“The engineers concluded that the engine failure, which somehow you managed to prevent from becoming catastrophic, was the result of a power failure caused by the change in the conditions of space within the disturbance. They informed me that the engine short-circuited when your craft entered the boundary of the disturbance, but they could not explain or even theorize why.”

Cassian nodded. “I can theorize why. Commodore, I believe the power failed because, simply put, the way we fuel our crafts does not exist within the disturbance.”

“Are you implying that neither solar nor stellar energy exists within AS-2947C?”

“Yes, ma’am, I am. The instant I entered that region, my engines went completely silent. I had no time to observe anything else, as my immediate reaction was to reverse course and exit, lest I risk total craft failure and being stranded in the deepest parts of space. My craft regained power once outside the disturbance region, and I made it back, despite one of my engines being nonfunctional. As I’ve thought about it over the months, I can only come to the conclusion that the power cut off because there was no available power source.”

Commodore Amren considered Cass’s explanation. “It is logical, and it would explain why the engineers could not determine the cause of the failure. Power source failure, when rectified immediately, leaves behind no visible evidence within the engines of our craft.”

“Commodore, I still want to enter the disturbance. I believe that a craft carrying physical fuel could safely enter the region.”

“Physical fuel became obsolete decades ago, Commander.”

“And yet we still have stores. This is why. We knew there was a chance some mission might need to use fuel rather than energy to power its craft. This is that mission.”

“Commander, I’m afraid I cannot give you clearance to enter the disturbance. Not at the moment, at least. You know the regulations.”

Cassian sighed. “Right, right, seven days between active pilot duty.”

“There is one thing I can do, if you wish.”

“Tell me?”

“You may take a small stationary craft to the observation point. Stations do not qualify as actively piloted craft. I can assign you a seventy-two-hour observation mission, which will allow you to be as close to Disturbance AS-2947C as possible without endangering yourself or your craft, and also will allow you to report any noteworthy changes. Acceptable?”

“Accepted, ma’am. Thank you.”

The commodore nodded once. “I’ll get the assignment written up now. Prepare for launch at 1600 hours.”

Cassian snapped a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Dismissed.”

Four hours later, Cassian’s small observation stationcraft left Earth’s atmosphere, set its destination coordinates, and blinked away into a quantum leap, arriving at the observation point in mere seconds.

Arrived at destination, the cool, mechanical autopilot voice announced. Artificial gravity effective in sixty seconds.

Cassian sat back, checking his harness. All secure.

Artificial gravity in effect.

Unbuckling, he stood up, pulled off his helmet, and walked to the windows, staring into the fascinating mystery of Disturbance AS-2947C. The irregularity rippled, gently, like he’d seen it do before, taunting him with the possibility of something on the other side. He stood there barely thinking, just marveling at the sight of this enigmatic corner of deep space.

And then the irregularity expanded. And a craft like nothing he’d ever seen flew out.

Nesta hadn’t known whether she was sane when she flew into the gap. Hell, she hadn’t known if she was thinking, let alone doing. If wormhole theory meant anything, then she’d expected a moment of terrifying flight through stark blackness that ended in her ship landing in some other, possibly uncharted, part of the universe.

She hadn’t been expecting to see an alien station.

But there it was.

The gap was a tunnel of sorts. And at the other end was a station Nesta didn’t recognize.

She directed her ship around the foreign station, intending to capture images for examination in her lab. But before she could key in the command to the ship’s cameras, her radio cracked with static. And then someone spoke.

“Who the hell are you?”

Nesta stared at the receiver, then dragged her gaze to the station. Standing in what looked like an observation deck was a man wearing a pressure suit and boots, holding a comm device to his mouth.

“I repeat, who the hell are you?”

“You tell me first. And while you’re at it, what the hell is that station you’re in?”

“It’s a standard observation craft, of course. Unlike whatever alien craft you’re flying.”

“This is a typical exploration ship, you coarse, callous idiot.”

“Like fuck it is.”

“What’s the matter, never seen a woman fly a real ship before?”

“Never seen that particular ship before in my entire life as a pilot. Or in any of my texts.”

“You’re telling me this very real ship I’m flying doesn’t exist?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then--” Nesta’s eyes widened in shock. “Pilot, may I have your name and credentials?”

“Commander Cassian Ilnair, Earth’s space force.”

“Earth’s space force,” Nesta muttered to herself, scanning through her mind for anything related to that name. Nothing. And then it hit her.

“Commander Ilnair, who leads your nation?”

“My nation?” He seemed confused by the word. “Nations melded into a global government centuries ago. President Amarantha currently heads the Global Council.”

A look of wonder crossed Nesta’s face. “It’s true…it’s true. I can’t believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“Commander, my name is Dr. Nesta Archeron. I’m from an alternate Earth.”

The man standing in the unfamiliar station dropped his comm device. And stared.

“Permission to attempt to dock at your station? We have some items to discuss.”

He sat down on the deck floor and picked up his radio. “Granted, if you can.”

Nesta flew a slow lap around the station, noticing two docking ports, both with airlocks that seemed oddly familiar. Hmm, she thought, airlock design is clearly universal. Aiming for the port closer to the observation deck, she carefully guided her ship into the space and sighed in relief when the hatch clicked into place with the station’s airlock.

“Connect the airlock to my ship, if you would?”

“What’s the magic word, Dr. Archeron?” Nesta swore she could hear his damn smirk.

“Please connect your airlock to my ship so I can explain myself.”

“Of course.”

Less than two minutes later, Nesta heard the familiar hiss of an airlock sealing into place around her ship’s hatch.

“Clear for exit, Dr. Archeron.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Nesta placed her tablet and several images into her pack, slung it over her shoulder, released her exit hatch, and swiftly ascended the ladder into the station. The moment her head cleared, she was looking around, mentally cataloguing every detail of the spacecraft. It was basic, functional, only containing living quarters and an observation lab.

“Whenever you’re done gaping, Doctor, we can talk.”

Nesta turned to face the commander, who was leaning against a wall just outside the airlock. “There is a difference between observing and gaping, pilot, not that you would know.”

A cocky grin crept across his face. “Naturally, I’m just one of the best pilots in the universe, I wouldn’t know.”

“Your universe,” she corrected.

“What?”

“Your universe, Commander Ilnair. Or has your tiny brain already forgotten what I said about being from an alternate universe?”

He shook his head. “Right. Sorry, I’m still trying to process that.”

“As am I. Show me to the lab?”

“Not much to show, but follow me.” He led her down a short hallway onto the observation deck and laboratory, clearly the main space of the station. “Here we are. I believe you mentioned something about explaining yourself?”

“I did.”

He gestured toward her. “Go ahead.”

So she did.

#my writing #nessian week #alternate universe #enjoy

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queenofbaws · 3 years

Note

a concept more than a prompt, but id enjoy your thoughts on the potential for until dawn to switch the character plots for joshs prank. instead of josh fake torturing chrid and ahsley, he sets up mike emily and matt and jess to go through choosing who lives and who dies.

oh man, i LOVE this...........i also love the tacit sort of suggestion that it would be chris, ashley, and sam sent to the guest cabin at the beginning to get them out of the way. i'd like to imagine they just have like. a really tense game of scrabble before shit hits the fan, meanwhile the others are having the worst night of their fucking LIVES in the lodge..........................

full disclosure: i am literally now fully OBSESSED with this idea, and what's under the cut is going to be 100% me talking to myself and just spitting shit out, so if you've come here for cohesion, i am so sorry.

THE OUIJA BOARD PRANK

i'm torn on this one, and here's what i mean:

i think with all these people (5 instead of the 3 we see in-game), it would be 100x easier for josh to pull his fuckery with the board itself. however. i also think it would be easier for them to write it off as someone trying to creep them out/scare them, and at the end of the day, who's gonna get saddled with that blame???? well. probably josh. he is, after all, kinda spooky.

i think this prank was easy with chris and ashley for the same reason ALL the pranks are easy with chris and ashley: they TRUST josh, and are also, um.

FAIRLY GULLIBLE. chris isn’t big on the idea at first, but when he sees josh get upset by the board...well, he does start to fold a bit. i don’t think the others would be quite as quick to glom onto josh’s emotional state, though they’d probably feel a sense of guilt/discomfort with him because of what happened to the twins.

i can 100% see the gang (i keep wanting to call them the all thats aklsdjfkljsdklfj) getting freaked out. i can. ESPECIALLY if they see the quick flash of the spooky ghost girl that we as the audience see but chris and ashley seem to miss in the game. i can absolutely see it scaring them, but i can ALSO see it backfiring ROYALLY in josh's face and making them more suspicious of him. emily and jess specifically i could see rounding on josh and accusing him of fuckery. i think it would be easier for mike and matt to laugh off, too, like "AW MAN! you got us!" and maybe even assume it's like...him getting even for the twins, in a way? but then they'd be way less likely to accept what happened later in the night as legit, so...HMM.

if the tables were turned, i think he'd have to ditch the ouija board, honestly. i don't know that it would end up being a viable option, UNLESS it was a divide and conquer sort of situation. even then, though, i'm just not sure any one (or two) of the gang would trust josh enough to believe he WASN'T fucking with them. HMMMMMMMM.

THE SAW PRANK

god help me, i feel like...........i feel like one of the biggest changes...........josh would need to make............to the prank(s) in general...........is.............keeping mike/matt from just............tearing them down.

you strap either of those beef boys down for the saw prank? neither of them are 90lb soaking wet ashley - they're going to do some kind of damage there. you strap either of the girls down for the saw prank? you're telling me they're not going to team up and knock that fucking door down??????? genuinely i feel like so much of the saw prank was SO heavily dependent on chris and ash being...like...they are...which is to say, uh, hmm. less than prime physical specimens, and also panicked beyond reason because (ostensibly) this is a really, REALLY hard choice for chris and ashley knows that!!!

it's probably a significantly less difficult decision for these 4. it would still be nerve-wracking i'm sure, i mean, they do still think someone's dying and it’s not going to be FUN, it’s going to be traumatizing either way, but............if it's between josh and them..............................

i think this one COULD, IN THEORY, still work fairly well IF josh could convince one of them to be an accomplice...but WHO???? and HOW????? oh god help me, now i very much want to see any combination of this.......the guys trying to pick between the girls, the girls trying to pick between the guys, matt and jess choosing between emily and mike, matt and emily choosing between mike and jess, emily and mike choosing between matt and jess, mike and jess choosing between emily and matt.........alksjdfkksjdfklasjdfkjdsf THE DRAMA OF IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!! (and the fallout whenever someone's picked!!!!!!! you're telling me you don't think emily would go full-on psycho, mask and all, if she was chosen to get sawed???? PLEASE!!!!!)

THE GHOST IN THE BASEMENT PRANK

this one? beautiful. *chefs kiss* gorgeous. some minor changes like locking the basement door behind them, fucking with the electricity, blahblahblah, and this, i think, would be PERFECT. and i think it would be perfect for a few reasons:

1. depending on who's stuck down there with who, be it the whole gang or just a few of them, nothing leads to heightened emotions quite like fear. maybe the first big moment where emily and jess reconcile? or get ANGRIER at each other?? mike and matt reaching a boiling point with each other OR exchanging one wordless look, nodding, and deciding fuck it, whatever bad blood they got can wait? matt and jess showing their dynamic? emily and mike working together while picking at each other???? the entire group having to put shit aside and work together or self-destruct completely???? sign me up for ALL of that.

2. the. fucking. guilt. so like i said, i think the ouija board prank is ehhhhhhhhh for a lot of reasons, but i think if you showed these four a convincing hannah-beth ghost??? oh i think there'd be an effect. i think there'd be...a big effect. unlike with chris (who wasn't part of the original prank on hannah), i think even the nonbelievers of the group would have a hard time getting over the hurdle of their guilt for what happened to the twins if faced with literal fucking ghosts of them.

3. springboarding off of point 2 up there, imagine ANY of these four finding the dollhouse. just close your eyes. consider it. emily going pale and silent. jess grimacing and immediately closing it again. mike knocking the dolls over as soon as he realizes what he's looking at. matt not being able to look away. just. it's. so. good. and hannah's diary???? hannah's fucking DIARY. them seeing hannah's unbridled excitement at ALL of them hanging out, and then dealing with knowing what happened only hours after??????????????????????

i'm lying on the ground. i'm staring at the ceiling. i want it so badly.

THE BATHTUB PRANK(?)

i am hesitant to call this one a prank mostly because it feels very incidental, but for all intents and purposes of exploring this beautiful au, let's ask ourselves: WOULD any of them take a bath in these circumstances??? perhaps!

would they be taking a bath ALONE???

DOUBTFUL!!!

two warring couples involving warring best friends desperate to show each other that they've moved on and don't need each other??????????? i think bath time becomes its own battleground, honestly.

that being said, would i pay good money to see either mike or matt running through the lodge in nothing but a towel yelling "GUYS? GUYS???? THIS ISN'T FUNNY! OH HA HA, YOU GOT ME NAKED, REAL NICE, NOW COME OUT AND QUIT BEING DUMB!!!!"?

yes.

yes i would.

here's another familiar problem with bathtub prank though: josh is probably going to get the shit knocked out of him in the resulting chase through the lodge. sam did it. i think any of these four would do it. the DIFFERENCE is most of them probably aren't going to give him one crack to the head and bolt - i feel like more than one of them would like. idk. knock him the fuck down and then, uhhh

take.

the.

mask.

off.

and then we have a full scooby-doo reveal WAY too early in the game, and who wants that??? not josh, that's who.

THE SAW PRANK 2: ELECTRIC (GUN) BOOGALOO

this one suffers, i think, from a lot of the same issues as the first saw prank, so at the risk of making this even LONGER than it already is, SEE ABOVE!

additional wrinkles: who's he giving the gun to???? i mean, like...really???? which one of them's getting that gun? do they all get guns??? do two of them get guns???? where are these guns coming from????? is it all four of them around the table and 3 need to die? does only 1 need to die??? what are the parameters????? if anyone (read: emily and jess) has gone through any sort of bonding/reconciliation during the night, this could have PROMISE, but........i'm still not feeling TERRIBLY confident in it being pulled off effectively.

additionally, in the original saw prank 2, josh was, if you think about it, LUCKY that it was only mike who took it upon himself to knock him around after his big reveal. are you gonna look me in my eye and tell me mike AND matt AND emily AND jess aren't all four gonna go ham on that boy the MOMENT they're unchained????????? his insurance isn't PREPARED for a claim of that size.

ASSORTED FINAL THOUGHTS

all in all, i think MOST of josh's pranks would have to be changed/reworked in a fairly major way to menace these kiddos instead of the nerds. honestly i think the saw pranks, as they currently are, really WERE designed with chris and ashley in mind specifically, and would therefore be most effective on THEM. however. if there is one thing in life i have, it is faith in josh washington, so i'm sure he’d be able to find a way to do it AND give the resulting pranks that silent hill-y personalized torment touch if he really put his mind to it.

i think sticking to the hannah-beth haunting angle is probably the STRONGEST way to go in terms of an overall through-line, maybe even more so than the outside threat of The Psycho. i think drilling down on their guilt would be way more effective than focusing only on their FEAR, and i do think he'd be able to accomplish that...again, if some tweaks were made. the vengeful ghost angle i really, REALLY like for these four, and i think it would lead to some ideal inter-group chaos as they tear each other down and then build each other back up again when they see their backs are really to the wall.

mostly, though, MOSTLY, i am now CONSUMED WITH IRE (of the joking, and not literal kind XDDD), because HOLY SHIT i have so many things on my to-write list right now but i?????????????????? really want to keep thinking about this??????????? a lot??????????????????????????? and im genuinely not kidding when i say i’m going to be rolling this one over in my head until i’m able to settle on pranks that i like. and then i’m going to shriek like a banshee because i’m going to want to write them. and...............................and i love this so much. thank you for twisting my brain like this, i’m like. fully obsessed with this now askdjflskajdlfkjsdkfj

#corefenellie #asks #queenie rambles about supermassive

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lilolilyr · 3 years

Text

Tagged by @ongreenergrasses, thank you!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Way over 300! Tho it feels like it's been at 300sth so long by now, it'll be weird to look at once it hits 400 :D

Btw, funny how this tag meme asks for so much stuff that can be looked up by just... looking at my Ao3... without asking for any commentary by me? Lol

Anyhow, rest under the readmore bc this is 20 questions and Long!

Personal post - do not reblog

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

995596 - just a few more ficlets or 1 longer fic, and I've got a Million! Hey, maybe I should try to write one with... 4404? (I'd need to ask a calculator xD) words exactly... not rly a hardship with how many drabble exercises (exact wordcounts, 100 is the most used, I also do 200, 500, longest was 10000 exactly lol) I've already done... we'll see!

Over 400k for this year alone, and over half of that is my actual writing (not translations etc), I'm so proud! Last year I only barely hit 200k and that included a lot of translating work

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Again, one could look this up in my works filtered - sorted by kudos? But all three of my incubus!jaskier witcher series are in it, part 2 of the series is highest with 1091 kudos, then a Venom halloween oneshot, and 'Belonging', a fluffy snake-crowley piece from my ineffable spouses series (yes, sth with under 1k words - 666 to be exact - is in the top 5... my poor longfics lol)

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

...I try to? But atm I have 202 unanswered (and I always click 'mark read' on replies so these are all comments on my own fic) even tho I told myself I'd not let it get past 200, and now I'm doing a tag meme instead of replying to anything so ummmm

Edit: 203 unread now

But I do love love love all the comments I get! And while atm it's still semi-manageable, if it ever gets to the point where I really can't manage to reply to everyone cause it's too much, i'd rly take that as a compliment lol :D I'd still try to reply to the longer and/or more thought through comments tho :)

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

*thinks* I have an MCD fic? But not only is that very much a case of ~posting a draft version that's barely in complete sentences insgead of taking the time to turn it into a real longfic~, I also just killed off the mlm couple I only semi care about and left the wlw couple with a happy/hopeful (rly don't remember) ending, so... hm idk whether that counts for angsty ending

Apart from that... I dunno, I just prefer my babies to be happy and fluffy? *.* i remember a mirror milippa in the mirrorverse one where in the end Michael is worried about lying to Philippa about her identity... there are some angsty TOG and Gomens ones but I think they end happy-ish (my memory is. Bad. but looking through my 'angst' tag I just saw a lot of h/c and 'angst with a happy ending')

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

They're all happy???!?

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Ahahahahahhahahaahaha

Check this out

I need you to know that all the works in that collection take part in the same universe (or rather, multiverse), and are alltogether just scratching the surface of my gigantic headcanon multiverse that I've been building in my mind since I was like 10

Actual crossovers other than that I don't remember writing

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeh but I only remember clicking 'delete comment', as it should be

Recently I've just gotten a bunch of 'you Need to continue this' and 'omg why isn't there more' or 'this shouldn't end' type comments, not hate, probably not meant maliciously, but So Annoying (maybe espesh bc I don't want to just hit delete on these, but I also don't want to pretend it's fine, but I also don't have the energy for a fight, and trying to explain why that behaviour is entitled and annoying and that I write what I want to write and nice comments should praise what I actually have written, and hoping that they understand and don't get mad is... hard.)

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Check out my rated E and rated M in my works

Mostly femslash lately, but I did also write other smut in the past

Most is a bit dominant/submissive play, but I do also like good fluffy smut with feelings! Best in combo, really :D

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not in the sense of pretending someone else wrote it (that i know of), but posted to other sites without my permission - writing 'don't repost to other sites' etc did Not help, they even copied those tags lol, so I just let it be, choosing my battles wisely etcetc, I'd prefer for my fic not to be cross-posted by others bc then I can't edit or otherwise influence the fic anymore and don't see everyone's reactions to it, but as long as it's not someone pretending they wrote it, I only semi care, not enough to fight it tbh

PSA: I Only post fics to Ao3 (and WIPs/prompt fills to tumblr&discord at times), if you see them somewhere else that's Not Me and you'd do me a favour by checking them out on ao3 and kudosing&commenting there instead :)

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup, one to Russian a while back, a floreleine (Gunpowder Milkshake) one to Korean just today actually, and I translated a bunch to German myself

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I made a TOG fic together with @cinnamonplums, well mostly I wrote and she made the art :D

Trying to remember whether I ever actually co-wrote anything... don't think so?

13. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Don't make me choose!!!

Atm Milippa is OTP bc I'm busy writing them for @discoveryfemslashfortnight (this is not a post to reblog for the fortnight), but I'm also still rly into Floreleine, Bering&Wells and Andromaquynh and Andronilynh, and I read a lot of Mirandy lately

All-time favs I'm not rly active in atm but will always be dear to me are the ineffable spouses, clintcoulson, heistwives, gosh so many more I'll stop here tho xD

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

A Heistwives Kinda Job immediately comes to mind

I also rly want to finish at least one cohesive original-ish storyline for the lverse that I already linked for the crossover question above, but I just have so much backstory (it's been over 10 years!!!) and it's... hard...

And everything else that's still WIP and untouched for more than a few months will probably have the same fate lol

Also have a few that haven't even seen the light of day at all, most recent a Mirandy ~what if Andy had been pregnant when Miranda hired her and how would it change the entire storyline~ bit - I wrote it in bulletpoints in one go as quickly as I could, I know I had the finished product in my mind, I don't remember anything now and don't feel like going through the bulletpoints painstakenly filling in the blanks

15. What are your writing strengths?

Writing one-shots quickly in one go

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Forgetting everything about a fic if I leave it in a draft for a second too long

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

There are many ways to go about it, and I think they all work (depending on the fic and the length and relevance of the dialogue)

I tend to leave single sentences as is, and for longer and important sequences use cursive and 'they said in xylanguage'.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The Hobbit apparently? I remember thinking that fic was so long lol, it's 3k

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

Kat/Ana from Reef Break, they have Such Shippable Chemistry, and it would totally fit Kat's player personality to bang both siblings (she's canonically friends with benefits with Ana's half-brother)... but the ship has one (1!) fic on Ao3 *cries*

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

TOG Andromaquynh longfic In Your Stead has had the title since last year and probably for a while to come! I loved the story idea so much I really worked with several drafts and only! worked on that fic until it was finished so I wouldn't get distracted & forget about it, and the result was wonderful.

Tagging, if you want to do it, @sarah-fiers @purlturtle @cookie-sheet-toboggan @ussjellyfish @onaperduamedee @startrekgeorgiouery @rosalie-starfall @lonely-night @banashee @xvnot15 and everyone else who sees this

Questions to copy:

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? 5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? 6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending? 7. Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? 8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? 9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? 10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? 11. Have you ever had a fic translated? 12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? 13. What’s your all time favorite ship? 14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? 15. What are your writing strengths? 16. What are your writing weaknesses? 17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? 18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? 19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to? 20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

#tagging meme #tagged #mine #ongreenergrasses #ao3 tag #ao3 link #lilolilyrae #sept'21 #personal #Personal 2021 #28.09.21

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murdereraisuha · 3 years

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screaming about chapter 5 but more coherently this time

This is gonna cover 1. the recent update’s events in comparison to my previous theories & expectations, 2. the winner of the VDC and Vil’s character development 3. Kalim & Jamil’s character development, and 4. the main story moving forward

Spoilers for everything up to 5-67. Word count: 2117

So, in my “Jamil is Snow White” theory post, I used the events of the original Snow White to try and guess how TWST chapter 5 would correlate to it and what characters would fill what roles (Snow White, huntsman, prince, etc.) in the story.

Originally, I kind of assumed the beginning of chapter 5 would line up to either the beginning of the movie or halfway through when the Queen is already hatching her plan to get Snow White with the poison apple. However, it seems like the movie events have actually been compacted into 5-57 to 5-67.

After the NRC rehearsal, Vil becomes the most beautiful, corresponding to the beginning of the movie when the Queen is still the most beautiful. Then, Neige, out of his natural cuteness rather than hard work and practice like Vil, usurps him, representing the point Snow White becomes the fairest in the land. The next part with the apple juice and Rook coming to the rescue is a mix of the next part of the movie, when the huntsman tells Snow White to run, and the part of the movie with the poison apple. Then, the MC and the rest of the dance team kind of act like the dwarves by fighting the Queen/Vil. However, other than that, everyone follows their corresponding role: Neige is Snow White and Rook is the huntsman.

I think the story as it has played out makes sense. I was initially startled by Vil suddenly going murder mode, but. To work so hard on this song and choreography and training up your team, only to have the media love your lifetime rival who’s only brought an arrange of a kid’s song with clumsy singing and dancing to the table, potentially crushing your plan for victory here... I understand Vil’s feelings here and the sudden, desperate decision to curse Neige.

Rook’s actions after that don’t seem too out of line with what we know about his personality and his unconventional beliefs/actions regarding beauty and Vil’s beauty. Seriously though, wtf please don’t just drink poison. Anyway, I really enjoyed Kalim coming in then. The way he noticed Vil’s face being like Jamil’s before his overblot? The part when he tried to remind Vil that no one drank the juice so Vil hasn’t hurt anyone yet? Good stuff right there.

However, the way things played out also disappointed me somewhat. Though we had a Kalim & Jamil interaction, we still haven’t had a good resolution to their character/relationship development, so hopefully that’s in the final part of chapter 5. Furthermore, though Kalim did slap the apple juice away, I really felt like he and Jamil would have had more involvement with poison/curses in this part considering all the stuff in this chapter about Kalim being poisoned in the past.

There’s also the fact that all Jamil did was evacuate the area, it was Kalim and Rook who were around when Vil overblotted. The pattern of the previous overblot causing the next has kind of been broken. It could mean that the pattern was actually the dorm leader causes the next overblot?? Anyway, I’m hoping that Jamil will have his time in the spotlight in the next part.

-----

So that kind of brings me to the future. First off, who will win the VDC? Personally, I think that it will be NRC. With everyone so enthusiastically proclaiming in 5-67 that they’re going to win the championship, it would feel off for them to fail. From things that Vil has said this chapter, like in 5-37 when he admonishes Deuce that effort isn’t enough to succeed, it seems like the bad route/worst case scenario of Vil’s outlook is to lose hope that his efforts will ever give him success or a happy end. Therefore, the good route would be for him to keep hope, to keep the belief that he can get his happy end, and I think winning the VDC would be the thing that would support this belief. I do not think he would learn much from losing; if he has already lost and got relegated to the role of villain so many times before, one more time would not mean much to him.

Other people have said that Vil also needs to learn to chill and stop holding people to such high standards, which is something I agree with. Though Epel’s beliefs on masculinity and power were pretty harmful, Vil’s methods of trying to correct those beliefs were also harmful. Vil’s treatment of Epel at the end of Epel’s ceremony robes story seriously left a bad taste in my mouth. The thing is, something or someone would need to prompt a change in Vil’s beliefs for a change to occur. After Deuce and Epel’s outing, they seem to be pretty chill with Vil, so there aren’t any conflicts in the group. I can’t think of anyone in the team other than Kalim and maybe Ace who would have a strong enough opinion on not pushing yourself too hard that they would try and give that opinion to Vil, and Kalim’s already had a big interaction with Vil in 5-62.

So, I feel like any further Vil character development this chapter would come from an interaction with Neige. Going back to the debate of who will win VDC, we know that Vil resents Neige for always being the hero. If Neige won yet again, would Vil take what he says to heart? However, if Vil won, that would be a new situation. I think that the first things he hears from a Neige that has finally lost would be impactful to him.

I’m not sure though of all this though because of this line in 5-66:

Vil’s saying that throwing a tantrum and taking it out on other people was awful of him. Though it obviously refers to his attempts to murder before and during his overblot, it could also point to an overall shift in mindset regarding how he treats others. His attempts to mold Epel into a poison apple, for example, stemmed from his own ambitions and frustration at Neige, which you could interpret as a sort of tantrum that he then took out on Epel. Vil may have already learned to relax on pushing his high standards on others.

Regardless of if that’s true or not, I personally think that Vil and Neige still have a lot that they could learn from each other, assuming my perception of Neige as being innocent rather than a white lotus is correct. Vil’s team’s performance had a lot of cohesion and rehearsal put into it, but it was very competitive focused. On the other hand, Neige and the dwarves obviously had a lot of fun with their performance. However, it was clumsy and they were ill prepared. Therefore, Vil could teach Neige more discipline and planning while Neige could teach Vil about how to not lose sight of finding joy in your work.

-----

As I have already said, I’m hoping for more Kalim & Jamil stuff in the final part of chapter 5. I originally theorized that something would happen to one of them, probably Kalim, and that would lead to some sort of reveal about their feelings and the chapter would end with them clearly on the trajectory to repair their relationship and really become friends.

Since nothing happened yet and neither got poisoned/cursed, I think then that the event that sparks the finale of their character development would probably relate directly to the VDC. First off for our possibilities, we have the two’s families watching as Jamil takes the spotlight as a main vocal while Kalim is in the back. Given what we know, I don’t think Kalim’s family would be too happy about that. The conflict from that definitely seems like it could result not only in some sort of understanding between Kalim and Jamil, but also maybe even a change in Jamil or his family’s status. For a less dramatic possibility, we also know from 5-47 that Jamil’s sister will be coming to watch. If she makes an appearance, perhaps she will have some unexpected insight to say that would lead to a discussion & development between Jamil and Kalim.

Finally, my Jamil becomes the most beautiful theory might still be partially true, though idk if that’s just me not wanting to give up on it cause of how funny it would be. Basically, the theory was that, after the VDC performances, the internet/media become super interested in Jamil due to how talented and handsome he is. I originally thought that could serve as a factor for Vil overblot, but now I think it could prompt some discussion & development between Jamil and Kalim due to it serving as a clear example of Jamil finally showing his true ability and by how much Jamil was letting Kalim win. Furthermore, Vil might be affected by an event like that. Though the overblot’s already happened, perhaps something happening with Jamil specifically would lead to something happening between him and Vil, fulfilling the pattern of the previous overblot doing stuff with the next. I’m out of ideas for the Scarabia boys, so let’s continue.

-----

Honestly, I don’t think anything will happen with Idia and Ortho outside of a quick teaser at the very end of the chapter. Considering that we still have to cover all the stuff with the VDC performance and its results and the aftermath of the results, Idia’s presentation thingy might not even happen until chapter 6. ?

Idk, rn I’m more concerned about the overarching plot with Mickey Mouse than I am about chapter 6 Ignihyde shenanigans. So, we had a little flash of the Queen/Hag during the day, and also we finally discovered that Malleus is Malleus. So things are picking up a bit. I’m not sure if something unexpectedly big this chapter will happen though. I’ve seen people saying that the boss was surprisingly easy so there might be another big battle coming up. I don’t actually play the game so I don’t know anything about that, is it intentional or is it just that the chapter took so long to update that y’all had tons of time to beef up your boys? For me, it did feel like the Vil overblot was the climax of the chapter. With all the other stuff like the VDC results and the Scarabia boys’ character development, I don’t know if there’s any more room. There could be some big new info with Mickey Mouse or Grim’s bad eating habit, but I can’t picture something happening that would warrant another boss battle.

I do have some thoughts on Mickey Mouse, but I think I’ll save my memey ones for another post and wait for the end of chapter 5 before getting my serious thoughts together. Anyway, now a little talk on chapter 6. So, we have 4 options: chapter 6 will be something regarding Idia’s presentation, something regarding Deuce borrowing the magical wheel, something combining those two plot points, or something else entirely.

Well, for something combining those two, Riddle was the one wanting Idia to go do the presentation in person, right? So, Idia probably doesn’t like Riddle that much. Maybe he wants to make some sort of plan to get back at Riddle. What can he use?

Uh I just looked back at 5-39 to figure out what exactly is up and one translation says Deuce forcefully borrowed the magical wheel and another says he borrowed it as a huge favor??? The original says 無理言って借りてきた, deepL translates it as forcibly borrowed, 無理を言って means asking for something unreasonable. What exactly are the circumstances here?

Okay whatever, look, Deuce is in some sort of debt to Ignihyde. Idia could use him since he and Riddle are in the same dorm. Idk my train of thought got wrecked by the translation confusion.

But anyway so we know Deuce is probably gonna be Meg. I’ve never watched Hercules and I don’t know anything about it aside from what I’ve just read on wikipedia. The summary there says that Hercules kills a bunch of monsters and becomes famous then Hades holds Meg hostage in exchange for Hercule’s powers and Hercules accepts the trade but then “Hades reveals that Meg was working for Hades all along” ??? And then in the end though “ Hercules chooses to remain on Earth with Meg”. So what happens, is Meg good or what? Alright it might be better to at least wait for whatever sneak peek of chapter 6 we get at the end of chapter 5 before speculating. Let’s end this here before it gets any longer.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst spoilers #twst analysis #twst theories #vil schoenheit #kalim al asim #jamil viper #update screaming

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angelanimedesaray · 3 years

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Through The Looking Glass Chapter 5: Flickers In Time

AN: Okay, so there’s a lot of time skipping in here, just a lot of brief short moments as our little ones get a little older. The time frame is honestly all over the place for what happens when. I’m doing this before we get back on track because I realized a lot of these scenes I had planned I couldn’t string together in a cohesive linear fashion at the length I’ve been writing these chapters, so I decided just to do a time passing chapter, and here we are.

Also, congrats guys, the next chapter is our first MATURE CONTENT warning that I’m honestly a little nervous writing, but we’ll see how it goes.

Characters: Levi, Reader, Reader’s Parents (Mentioned), Kenny (Mentioned), Occasional OCs

Pairings: (Eventual) Levi x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Family Drama/Troubles, Running Away, Mentions of Divorce, (Is Fluff really a Warning??? I mean, if you don’t want to feel warm fuzzies, I guess)

Word Count: 10464

<---Previous Part Masterlist Next Chapter---->

Levi flickered in and out of your life in moments that could be fleeting like the pictures of an old film, or seemingly endless and frozen in time, held in your hands like precious gems.

Friends came and went as you grew older and the social cliques and popularity divided people further and further away at school. It didn’t help that your mother followed through with her threat and pulled you out of school to homeschool you for a year, and your family moved a few times for your father’s job. But despite all the rapid change in the space of a few years, Levi continued to appear at the most unexpected of times, a constant friend despite his inconstant presence. He grew more...distant, the older the two of you became. Not distant like your friends at school had become, simply more...reserved, withdrawn into himself, and wary of the world around him. But you could still get him to relax, get his guard to lower some when he was around you. He always arrived acting far more mature than his age, but you managed to get him to be a /kid/ with you at some point during his visits…

*Levi’s POV*

The trees outside had turned, a palette of oranges, reds, yellows, and lingering remnants of green, clinging to the thinning tree branches or littering the ground like paint spatter. Levi had stared at the colors in silent, wide-eyed fascination when he’d appeared, twirling an orange leaf between two fingers by the stem before Y/N had grabbed him by the arm with a happy exclamation of his name, dragging him deeper into the yard and insisting that he help her rake up a pile of leaves to jump into.

He’d been a little displeased when he saw all that hard work to rake up the yard disappear as she jumped into their pile and sent leaves everywhere, but the shrieked giggles and the wide grin on her face as she rolled around and continued to spread leaves everywhere helped make up for it. Plus, she was perfectly ready and willing to rake up the pile all over again so Levi could try doing the same--apparently she’d seen his skepticism over the point of it all.

He had to admit that there was a sort of childish thrill to jump in and cause an explosion of fluttering autumn colors all around him.

Afterwards, when the leaves were raked up into their final piles and they had picked all the bits of multicolored leaves off of one another, she had dragged him inside raving about caramel apples she said were a Halloween only treat--whatever that was. By now, he’d learned to just go with the strange things she said. They made sense to her, and he didn’t need to understand everything she talked about to enjoy what she was trying to share with him.

This time, it was green apples on sticks with a shining brown glaze and chopped up nuts sprinkled all around it. It was sticky at the same time it was juicy, since the apple was crisp and fresh underneath--sweeter than the things he was used to eating, but not enough to give him a stomach ache, thankfully. They both had the caramel and apple juice all over them when they finished, having to scrub at their faces and fingers afterwards. As with most of the foods and drinks she shared with him when he visited, it was another thing he’d been able to genuinely enjoy, part of him wishing the treat wasn’t seasonal like she’d told him it was so that he could look forward to maybe having one more often when he saw her.

*Levi’s POV*

The excitement practically oozed from Y/N when he appeared one day, and she dragged him into the house, informing him that her family bought a piano for her to practice with at home. This was something he was more familiar with by proxy, considering all the times she’d talked about learning to play the piano, sometimes at his prompting. As such, as soon as she said she had a piano, for once he knew what he was being dragged into, and he looked forward to it with enough curious excitement that he easily matched her pace. Curiosity and even some excitement radiated from him as they tread into a part of the house that he hadn’t seen since his first visit. At the foot of the stairs was the large living room, and pushed up against the wall was a light brown wooden piece of furniture with ivory white and onyx black keys, and a matching bench pushed underneath.

Y/N let go of his arm long enough to pull out the bench with a brief, frustrated grunt when it got caught on the soft rug, which did in fact cover the entire flooring now that Levi got to look at it. She slid onto the bench with ease and got off again to adjust it, doing this several times until she had it where she wanted it and could reach the pedals at the bottom and seemed to be able to reach the keys. At that point, she turned to look at Levi, who had walked up to the piano to investigate, hand gliding gently over the smooth wood and listening to the hollow thunk of her foot pressing on the peddles underneath as she tried to make sure she could reach everything.

“C’mon, there’s room for both of us. You can turn the pages for me, too!” she said cheerfully as she opened up a thin book that was propped up in the center of the piano above the keys on a built-in stand.

Levi racked his brain for the names of some of the songs she’d said she was learning to play on the piano in all their conversations, dismissing the ones she’s said were really easy, the first songs she’d learned to play. What had been the name of that one song she’d been looking forward to learning?

“Have you learned Furr A Lease yet?” Levi asked as he took a seat next to her on the bench.

Y/N lit up as he mentioned it, flipping through the pages of the book and settling on a specific one that had rows of bars and spots that made no sense to him, but clearly meant something to her. “You remembered! I had my teacher promise to teach me to play Fur Elise as soon as I could recognize all the notes, so I can! You’ll have to turn the page once for me,” she rambled, fingers hovering over and finding their place on the keys as her eyes flickered up towards the pages in front of her. A look of concentration fell across her face, and after a few moments of silence where Levi simply watched her, her fingers pressed down on the keys in semi-practiced movements, and a lovely sound started to fill the air.

Occasionally she pressed a little too hard or too soon on a key, and the sound was thrown off, but Levi was aware that she was learning. Even though it threw him off in the moment, he was still enjoying listening to her play. He could see she was trying hard, and the practice was paying off. The sound was nice and beautiful, and it was gentle, like her.

He only moved when she asked him to turn the page for her. He had to stretch with care to make sure he didn’t get in her way, but he apparently timed it right, because her playing didn’t hitch because of missing notes.

After that, whenever they were inside and she wasn’t intent on having him try something else out, he asked her if there was anything new she’d learned to play on the piano. Every time, she would drag him into the living room like he’d hoped and they would sit down side by side on the bench while she played for him.

*Reader’s POV*

One of the great things about Levi whenever he showed up was how he was willing to listen. He wasn’t much of a talker, anyway, he never had been. But even though he didn’t speak, and there was a distance as time went by, it wasn’t out of indifference or coldness. He did listen to what you talked about, and considering he was able to recall stuff even from past conversations and ask the occasional meaningful question, you knew he was, in fact, paying attention.

Considering you didn’t have anyone to talk to with some of your interests, it was a breath of fresh air. Even with your parents, some of the things you tried to talk to them about, they started using the mechanical voice, the one that told you that they weren’t really paying attention because they were giving automatic, short responses. And the few people your age that bothered to spend time around you didn’t understand some of the things you wanted to talk about, or gave a blank look and then switched the subject to something else entirely.

With Levi, you could go into depth about rudimentary energy conversion, or basic natural science--the basic stuff taught in elementary science classes that you were developing a stronger and stronger interest in as time passed. Most of the people your age that you knew didn’t really care about science unless they got to see something with fire, something explode, or got to do an activity they could barely put any effort into and goof off for the rest of class.

Even if Levi didn’t understand everything you told him, he tried to. And what you could demonstrate or explain, you did, with Levi paying attention and trying to follow what you were saying to the best of his ability. If he seemed like he wasn’t interested, as you’d been worried a few times by wandering eyes or a general look of disinterest, he usually put those worries to rest with a well-formed question that showed he was paying attention.

When he did lose interest, or perhaps gave up on trying to follow something you were attempting to explain, he would change the subject to something else that you enjoyed. That way the topic was still something you enjoyed and wanted to share, even if it was no longer the one you’d previously been talking about.

Which you understood. It wasn’t for everyone, and he wasn’t going to be as enthusiastic about it as you, no matter how much you talked about or explained things to him. He still did far more than most people you knew, and listened nonetheless.

Though you did notice that one time you talked about studying the human body and naming bones and such, he was already surprisingly knowledgeable, and even helped you study and remember some things you were struggling with. Like remembering the names of bones and their spots in the human body. It wasn’t that you thought he was stupid, it was just that you’d gotten so used to having to explain most of the sciencey things you talked about, it through you for a loop when he was rather knowledgeable about it. Especially the specific parts he was knowledgeable about: arteries and the like.

But, whenever you started to get that worried, pondering look on your face and your mind started to wonder how he knew those kinds of things so well, he usually caught on and managed to direct your attention elsewhere, the touchy subject forgotten before you could dig too deep and realize something unpleasant.

*Levi’s POV*

Warmth trailed uncomfortably from Levi’s nose and down over his lips, his jacket hanging halfway down the arm that was still clutching the bloodied knife in a tight grip. His eyes weren’t on the almost unconscious man underneath him, but on the tan coat and wide brim hat that was quickly disappearing from sight without so much as a glance back in Levi’s direction. His lips parted, intending to call out to the man, but he disappeared entirely before he could gather the words.

Gone, just like that, without a word from either of them.

And something inside him told him he wasn’t coming back.

His grip slackened slightly on the knife, stunned and still staring in the direction Kenny had disappeared. His smug accomplishment at winning the fight he’d picked with the adult now below him disappeared entirely in the wake of on setting abandonment as the reality of what had just happened settled in, and Levi realized he was now alone in the Underground.

He blinked, and while the lighting didn’t change much, the smell in the air did. The man below him was gone, the ground was different beneath his feet, and the lighting, while still dark, wasn’t from the absence of light from a nonexistent sky. There was no ceiling again, just the trees up above him, and open night sky with the moon and stars glinting around him.

The surface.

Which meant…

He didn’t have to look far. He simply turned his head a little to the side, and there was the wooden playhouse he’d slept in several years ago. Sitting atop it was the familiar form of Y/N, though she was a little hunched over. At the sight of her, Levi instinctively hid his bloodied knife, taking a moment to wipe it off in the grass below him before he put it away where she wouldn’t see it.

Like the day he’d found her sitting on the steps after that incident at the school, there was shouting coming from the house, mainly a woman shouting. There were pauses in between, and if he listened hard enough, he could faintly make out the sound of a man’s voice replying. He couldn’t make out what either of them were saying, but whatever it was, he was sure it was the reason she was hunched over on top of the playhouse like a depressed bird.

Levi pulled out his handkerchief, and barely managed to get it to his nose to wipe away the blood when she finally noticed him. Her posture straightened slightly upon seeing him, though she definitely hunched back over to wipe at her face first before she turned to face him more fully.

“Are you alright? You’re bleeding,” she stated.

Of course concern for his well being was the first thing she said. She was always worrying over him, it seemed. Even when there was clearly something upsetting her, she asked about him, first.

“It’s nothing,” he answered, finished wiping away the blood and secretly hoping it wouldn’t continue to bleed so she wouldn’t continue to fuss over something that equated a scratch for him. He was probably going to look a little rough no matter what he did, considering he was literally just in a fight.

As Levi walked over to the playhouse, Y/N leaned down and fixed his jacked, pulling the shoulder up from his elbow and back where it belonged before Levi could shrug her off and fix it himself. He didn’t need her fussing over him like a mother, because she wasn’t.

Partially sulking, and nowhere near wanting to talk about his own problems right now, Levi decided to draw her attention away from him again as he leaned his back against the side of the playhouse that was now too small for both of them to fit inside.

“You’re upset. What’s going on?” Levi asked, head inclined back towards the house for clarity since they could still hear voices from inside.

Y/N shrank again, and Levi’s gaze settled steadily on her once again. “My dad’s going back overseas,” she said quietly. Levi’s brow furrowed at the mention of overseas, no idea what she was talking about or what that was even supposed to mean. Context clues told him her dad was leaving again.

There seemed to be a lot of that going around right now.

“They’re fighting about it because apparently my dad’s already done his required military service. He doesn’t need to go back, but he is,” she clarified just as softly. “Mom’s insisting that he doesn’t love us enough to stay, and he wouldn’t go if he did.”

Levi looked away as she got especially quiet, and he suspected she might be shedding more tears. At the same time, Kenny’s retreating back flashed through his mind. Sure, Kenny didn’t love him, Levi wasn’t an idiot, he knew that much. But he’d thought, at the very least...well, he hadn’t expected to get abandoned in the street like that. And he felt betrayed because of it.

As much as he thought this would be a good distraction from his harsh reality like it usually was, this was just echoing his own pain right now, and he hated it, a muscle twitching in his jaw as his teeth ground together, and a bit of resentful anger starting to bud inside him towards a man he hadn’t met for making Y/N feel a similar sense of abandonment.

“She’s wrong, though.”

Or maybe not.

Levi looked up in surprise at Y/N’s entire change of tone, which went from small, timid, and hurt to firm determination with a bit of fire he hadn’t seen from her before peeking through. It wasn’t at all what he had expected from her, and she wasn’t done, either, wiping away residual tears as she continued to speak in that firm tone. The way she spoke, it was easy to tell she was venting out frustration that her mother didn’t understand this.

“I know he loves us. Just because he’s going away for a while doesn’t mean he hates us or anything. He’s going because he needs to protect people, it’s what he does, and it’s the right thing to do. It’s scary when he’s gone, and it hurts, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love us.”

Levi watched her as she smoothed her hair back with both hands, taking a deep breath before she hopped off the playhouse. He straightened up from his previous position leaning against the playhouse, but before either of them said anything, she suddenly wrapped both of her arms tightly around him. Levi stiffened, pain flaring up in his side where he’d been hit during that fight, hands starting to rise to push her off him in an instinctual reaction, but she was attached to him like a leech, and as his hands met her sides to push her off…

“Thank you for being my friend, Levi,” she murmured into his ear, and Levi paused.

Hesitantly, Levi returned the hug, his hands finding a place on her back as she clung tightly to him. She was warm, and it was comforting to be held like this again since…

Well...he didn’t want to think of how long it had been. Already he felt a slight burn in his eyes, a mess of emotions trying to bubble up and out of his chest as he clung tightly to Y/N in return, wrestling with himself to keep it under control. The hug felt good, but he could tell he was trembling, and with how tightly they were holding one another, surely she could tell as well.

Y/N’s arms loosened slightly, and she started to pull back in concern. “Levi, are you all right?”

Cursing himself for the outward display of weakness the whole time, Levi hugged her a little tighter in response, which gave her enough of a hint that she stopped trying to pull away. Instead, she secured her arms around him again in that comfort he suddenly realized he craved. Every moment he wasn’t here on the surface, he craved the clean air, the warmth of the sun, the energy that oozed off of her and helped lift his spirits, as well as the security he felt while he was here.

If only he had the security of staying. If only he wasn’t so sure that he would simply flicker away again, like every other time. If only this existence didn’t keep slipping through his fingertips like a mirage lost in fog.

If only people stopped flickering out of his life...like Kenny just had.

“Why do people leave?”

The words slipped past his lips before he could get control of himself again, and he cursed his stupidity. Why did people leave--it was a stupid question he already knew the answer to. Because the world was cruel and harsh, full of death and destruction that took without a care, with people that were just as cruel and destructive. And sometimes, when it seemed like people cared...well, he knew better now. Already he was forming another wall to try and keep people out before they could wreak that kind of damage on him again when they left.

Y/N, while she didn’t give him an answer--maybe she didn’t have one, considering her more sheltered existence--still gave him something to hold to. Though he wasn’t sure how concrete the promise really was, considering how they kept fluttering through each other's lives.

“I won’t leave, Levi. Not really. I’ll always be here when you need me most,” she promised, her words muffled since her face was still buried in his shoulder thanks to the hug. “I’m usually here waiting and looking for you to come back, anyway. You’re the only real friend that’s stayed with me so far.”

*Reader’s POV*

“What nonsense have you cooked up this time?”

By now you were done being surprised by Levi’s sudden appearances. If they hadn’t started when you were so young, perhaps this wouldn’t be normal to you, and you would wonder how he got into your house and in your room on the second floor without a sound or alerting your parents, but it had never occurred to you to ask those questions in the past, and before enough time passed for you to start asking those kinds of questions, it became normal for you. With Levi’s appearances being normal, you no longer thought it odd.

Not even looking up, you gestured to the chessboard on one side of you and the halfway finished game of solitaire on the other side. “I got grounded for lying, so I’m trying to entertain myself. Thought I would try to play some card games. Or practice some chess.”

For once, Levi didn’t look completely lost as he took a seat across from you in between the two games. It was like you had at long last spoken a language he understood, his eyes flickering between the stalemate on the chessboard and the game of solitaire you were too stubborn to admit defeat with.

It was a little difficult to play against yourself when you knew your opponent self’s every next move.

Levi’s eyes flickered around the room, probably noting the lack of...well, lots of things. Most of the stuff you usually played with. No video games, or movies, or music, or even books. You’d dragged this out of the family game chest for something to do. You weren’t even allowed friends over for a little while. It was your mother’s way of putting the pressure on you to stop lying and tell the truth.

“It must have been a pretty big lie,” Levi commented as his eyes returned to you. His comment earned a bitter snort from you, especially at the dark humor you found in him saying that.

“I wasn’t lying. Just, no one believes me,” you said with a sigh, glancing up at him before you shook away the depressing thoughts. Levi wasn’t always here, and when he was, you never knew how long he would be here. Every time he showed up, you had to make the most of it.

“Come on, this will be much more fun if you play a few games with me. Chess or cards? I am ready to teach,” you said excitedly, leaning forward and planting your palms on the ground as you came closer with a wide smile, gazing at him expectantly as you waited for him to choose.

“I know a few games,” Levi said, nodding towards the cards. You immediately brightened. Could you get right to playing games for once?

“Which ones do you know? War, slapjack, blackjack, rummy, go fish, poker--well, I don’t know how to actually play some of those, I just know they’re card games.”

Levi shrugged. “Basic gambling games. Like poker and blackjack.” A blush started to creep up in your cheeks as you realized he knew the games you didn’t know how to play. His sharp eyes didn’t miss the expression, and a first finally happened between you. “I can teach you.”

You nodded sheepishly, watching as Levi gathered up the cards that had made up your solitaire game and shuffled the cards, starting to explain how to play poker to you as he handled the cards. You never heard him talk longer than short sentences, so hearing him talk about something at length was new for you, and it was your turn to listen to him with quiet attention. He had a rather soothing voice. Steady and fairly low--at least for a boy his age--and occasionally he said his words like a sigh. It gave him a general carefree feel as you listened. If you had been tired, he probably could have lulled you off to sleep just listening to him. It helped that you were paying avid attention to give him the same respect he gave you when you were talking about things you were interested in.

Even though poker was usually played with more people, you and Levi played a mock version of it with CheezIts you swindled from downstairs. Needless to say, Levi was a little...too good at playing poker. For the life of you, you couldn’t read him while playing the game, which meant he won every time. Eventually, you got pouty. Sure, your dad never /let/ you win when you played chess with him to teach you how to really play, but this was ridiculous. At least you could take a few chess pieces off the board with your dad. This was just--just--

You huffed as Levi scooped the pile of CheezIts towards himself once more, looking mildly annoyed at the orange dust he kept having to wipe off his hands as they played. “You’re too good at this game.”

“You’re not good at hiding your expressions. You’re an open book. And you have lots of tells,” he returned bluntly, shuffling the deck once more.

Was he smiling? You could have sworn he just smirked, but it was gone before you could be sure. Dang it! You had to do something to get back at him or this was going to drive you crazy.

“Bah, enough poker for today. I at least know the basics of how to play now. Maybe we could do some chess?” you asked hopefully. Chess was something you knew but he didn’t. You’d have the advantage again. Hopefully you’d be able to beat him a few times and it would satiate your desire for a few victories.

Levi simply sat aside the cards after shuffling them, coming over to the chess board as you set it up. “You’ll have to explain this one,” he said softly, gaze roaming over the starting positions of all the pieces to commit them to memory.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly,” you said cheerfully before you started explaining how each piece got to move and the goal of the game.

It was a nice respite from an undeserved punishment while it lasted.

*Levi’s POV*

For once, he found an upside to living underground, as when he appeared outside, he was almost instantly drenched in an unpleasant feeling with humid, hot air and the sun beating down on him, making him cover his eyes entirely and re-expose himself to the bright sunlight little at a time. At the same time, he shrugged off his jacket, pushing hair out of his face and looking around with a squint for Y/N. She had to be close, she always was.

“Levi!”

Levi turned at the sound of her voice, spotting her as she came out of her house pushing something slender with two wheels along with her, waving her hand excitedly with a fancy bag slung across her chest from shoulder to waist. She hurried over to him, hands guiding the wheels in the proper direction as she approached. She kicked out a metal bar and let the slender thing prop up on it when she reached him.

“I was just going to the store to get some treats--do you want to come?” she asked cheerfully.

“Might as well,” Levi mumbled, his jacket draped over his arm now, though he was considering using it to give himself some shade.

“You can put your jacket in my bike basket, and...um…” She frowned, turning back to look at the bike with a thoughtful look. There was only one weird looking seat, and he was certain both of them were not going to fit on it. “Well, I haven’t done it before, but you can try riding on the handlebars. Or I can try it, if you know how to ride a bike,” she said, looking back at Levi, who was already shaking his head no in response to the upcoming question.

“Handlebars it is,” she said with a nod, swinging her leg over the bike to get situated on the seat and kicking that bar of metal back, balancing the bike on the two tires. Levi put his jacket in the basket at the front, and then hesitated, looking at the way she balanced on the bike and the slender bar with her hands on either end.

This was not going to end well…

“Come on, it’s not that hard. I don’t think so, anyway. And I’m right behind you to keep you from slipping. It might take a few tries while I figure out how to balance with two people, but we’ll figure it out. It would be easier if I had bike pegs, but I don’t, so…”

Here goes nothing, Levi thought, turning his back to her and putting his hands just inside hers on the handlebars before he jumped up and back, partially landing on his hands. Y/N moved her hands to the very edge, allowing Levi to get his hands out from underneath him and move them off to the side as his ass hung over the edge of the bike. Her chest was pressed against his back as she leaned forward, though, giving him a bit of stability like she said as she leaned forward, head peeking around his shoulder so she could see. Levi kept a tight grip on the bike as she shifted from foot to foot, trying to figure out the balance and keep them from tipping over--something Levi felt happening every time she tried to lift her feet. She was going to make him a nervous wreck if she kept--

Instead of trying to lift her feet again, Y/N just started walking them forward slowly, getting the wheels to start moving instead of trying to balance in place. As they started heading down the brown stone walkway, Levi wondered why she didn’t just move onto the wider black stone street that looked like it would give them more room for error than this narrow brown stone path.

As they started to pick up speed, Y/N suddenly took her feet off the ground again--which Levi knew, because the bike wobbled. “Hold on!” she told him, which was entirely unnecessary--his knuckles were white on the bars as they started to go faster with a push he could feel, and the bike wobbled and veered from side to side as Y/N attempted to steer while Levi had the better grasp on the handlebars. Eventually they managed to find a sort of arrangement, and they were steering mostly in tandem, Levi feeling what direction she was trying to move the handlebars and watching the narrow path in front of them to see what direction they needed to go in order to avoid crashing into something. As they picked up speed and Y/N adjusted to what they were trying to do, the ride grew smoother, the wobbling stopped for the most part, and Levi was able to relax. Mostly.

As they navigated the streets in their precarious arrangement, Levi had to blink sweat out of his eyes and squint against the wind, Y/N occasionally switching which of his sides she was peering around as they continued to go down the path at a speed that he occasionally wondered if she had complete control over. He kept worrying she was going to accidentally swerve into something, or wasn’t going to be able to slow down before taking a corner and they would lose balance.

Finally, finally, she started to slow them down, and skidded to a stop in front of a red brick building with a glass and metal door. Inside he could see bright light from a light source other than fire that he wasn’t familiar with, and a cacophony of brightly colored packages on rows of shelves. Levi hopped off the bike and looked inside with cautious curiosity as Y/N moved the bike over to the wall and lowered that metal bar again, leaning the bike next to the wall out of the way before she approached him.

“I have enough money I’ve saved up to get us some soda and candy, or ice cream. Since it’s hot out, I think ice cream would be better,” she mused as she pulled open the door, letting him go in first.

And she was speaking gibberish again. Well, for the most part. He didn’t know what the soda or ice cream was, but he of course knew what candy was, though he usually didn’t bother with it because it was such a luxury, and that money could be spent on more important things.

And here the difference between him as the Underground dweller and her as the surface dweller was glaring.

There was a man behind a counter off to their left as Y/N came in behind him, a man who immediately eyed Levi was a narrowed look as he took in his ragged appearance and (current) lack of a coin purse or a bag. When Y/N bounded in with her clean-cut appearance and bag that obviously had money in it though, the dirty look eased, though Levi could still feel the man watching him to make sure he didn’t steal anything.

Y/N dragged him towards the back where there were more glass doors keeping certain products inside, with strangely shaped bottles and other containers with more bright colors. “I’m thinking we can choose a drink, and an ice cream, and we can have some over at the conservation site we went to that one time! Wait, no, the ice cream will melt by then...we can have the ice cream as soon as we get outside!” she amended as she brought him to a stop in the back in front of the wall of completely foreign foodstuffs. Levi looked blankly at everything in front of him, completely lost on what he should get. Hell, he’d never even seen half of the materials this place was made out of. He was used to wooden buildings and shelves, to dirt or clay walls with the occasional stone structure, firelight or darkness. He didn’t even seen any flames in this place, yet it was as bright in here as outside, but with more...artificial colors. This place was different enough he was unsettled by it, and he honestly wanted to leave as soon as possible so he could be back somewhere that felt more...comfortable or familiar.

“You haven’t had soda or ice cream before, have you?” Y/N asked, deflating a little as she asked it and realization flashed in her eyes. Levi shook his head, and she turned back to the wall of product with a slight frown, hands on her hips. “Well...what kinds of foods or drinks do you like? I like the really chocolatey stuff, or the fruity stuff. Mom’s always telling me to have less because there’s so much sugar in it.”

“I don’t have a lot of sugar,” Levi said quietly. Too much, and he might get a stomach ache, so he’d like to stay away from something packed full with sugar like she was claiming.

“You probably don’t want soda, then. It’s super sugary and bubbly.”

Well that last part just made him curious…

“Or you can start with something lighter, like Sprite, or ginger ale...or you can have lemonade instead…”

At this point she was just talking to herself, pulling open the door in front of them to start picking up and looking at the bottles. Levi shivered at the surprising blast of cold air, suddenly wishing he had his jacket as she held the door open, continuing to look at the bottles. Levi’s head was on a gradual swivel, taking in the sight of all the different colored packages around him and trying to figure out what everything was. This was nothing like the Underground, it was the exact opposite. He didn’t even recognize anything in here--so far, anyway. You would think they were from entirely different worlds.

“How about this--I’ll get a lemonade and a Sprite, I’ll let you try the Sprite, and if you don’t like it, I’ll just take the Sprite and you can have the lemonade,” she said, handing the two bottles to him and shutting the door, relieving him of that cold that would have been refreshing if it had been brief instead of constantly bombarding him while she held the door open.

The bottles weren’t made of glass, like he would have expected. He had no idea what this was, and he watched the bubbling drink and the yellow drink slosh around inside as she pulled them up to the counter. He was momentarily distracted and forgot she’d mentioned she was getting something else, but was now dragging them over to pay.

“I’d like to buy these two drinks, and two ice cream cones, please!” she said, leaning up against the counter on her tip-toes with Levi just behind her holding the drinks. The man glanced skeptically at Levi again, who just gazed steadily back at him in silence, the two bottles held tightly in his hands. He looked at the boxey...thing, in front of him, touched a few things that made strange noises to Levi, and then turned back to Y/N with a polite smile.

“That’ll be six seventy-four, little missy.”

Y/N dug around in her back, pulling out one faded green paper looking thing, and then another, and then reached back in to pull out a handful of coins, pushing them around in her hand and placing nine coins on the counter, pushing them over to him and dumping the rest into her bag.

“There you go,” she said as the man counted back over what she’d handed him, then put it in a drawer with a nod.

“Go ahead and get your ice cream,” he said, nodding down towards some strange thing at the end of the counter.

Y/N took the bottles from Levi and placed them in her bag, heading over to the thing at the end of the counter, grabbing yet another thing Levi didn’t recognize that was in a cone shape and dark brown, and she reached up and pulled down on a lever. Something thick and light brown came out, with Y/N’s tongue sticking out as she tried carefully to layer it before she pulled the lever back up, stopping the flow and handing it over to Levi.

“That one’s mine, don’t eat it. It might be too sugary for you,” she said before grabbing another cone and doing the same thing at a different spot. This time what came out was clear white, and she managed to be a little neater with what she was doing before she handed that one to Levi and took the brown one from him.

“Have a nice day,” the man called automatically as they passed the counter for the door.

“You too!” Y/N called, and then they left, re-entering the heat of the outside world.

Levi simply stared at the treat she’d put in his hands, seeing it start to glisten in the sun and able to feel how surprisingly cold it was. Like those red things she’d given him that one time. Beside him, Y/N started licking hers, apparently doing so in a very specific way to try and keep it from melting past her fingers, since she had to catch a few drops that started to trickle past the edge. Levi hesitantly followed suit, unsure if it was something he would like...

It was freezing cold, and sweet, but not so much that he pulled back. It tasted...well...he wasn’t sure how to describe it. It was good, though. And once more, he found himself associating something he was experiencing on the surface with clean because oddly enough that was the best he could do for describing the ice cream, as she’d called it.

Following her lead on how to eat it and knowing better than to bite into it after his experience with the red frozen treat, the two of them leaned against the wall and ate their ice cream until all that was left was the cone. Apparently that was an edible thing, since she crunched right through it and quickly ate it, too. It tasted similar to a cookie, actually, as he ate it. Not sweet like the ice cream, and a nice crunchy compliment.

When they were done with their ice cream, Y/N retrieved her bike, wheeling it around so it was facing the direction they’d come from. “All right--to the conservation site,” she said cheerfully, finding her balance on the bike again as Levi grumbled under his breath, reluctantly resuming the position on the handlebars.

Next time she better come up with a better way to travel, because he wasn’t too keen on this arrangement.

Their wobbly trip was longer this time, and more laborious considering this time she had to bike them up a hill this time, which she gave up on not even halfway through when she almost veered and lost balance while trying to struggle up the hill.

“All right, this isn’t going to work, we’re walking up this hill,” she huffed, waiting for Levi to hop off before she got off as well, walking beside the bike and guiding it by the handlebars.

“Well, at least most of the distance was easier to cover,” she said with a sigh, reaching into her pack and handing him the Sprite bottle as they reached the crest of the hill. It was somewhat nostalgic, coming back up here, with the memory of the long grass, the meadow and the pond with the berries and the wildlife. The only thing that was missing was slightly more forgiving weather and her carrying him, which he wasn’t about to let her do since he was perfectly capable of walking himself this time.

“I can actually swim, now, so we could jump in the pond. Mom wouldn’t be too happy with me getting my clothes wet, but it would be fun!” she suggested cheerfully.

“I can’t swim,” Levi returned bluntly. He’d most likely just be watching her bob around the entire time if she went through with that.

“Dang it...well, we can just stick our feet in the water, again, then,” she said, easily brushing off the disappointment as they crested the hill and she guided her bike off to the side into the rocks. Kicking the metal bar to lean it against again, she left it on the side of the road, pushing aside grass that wasn’t as tall as he remembered and gesturing for him to follow her once more to the pond.

Just like they had before, they dangled their feet in the water, and Levi took the chance to clean up any traces of ice cream that might have lingered on his face and wash away any dirt on his person. Meanwhile, Y/N was simply playing with the bottle of lemonade, watching him and waiting expectantly for him to try the Sprite so she knew if they had to switch drinks or not. Once Levi felt relatively clean, he followed the instructions of the little white arrows painted on top of the lid and twisted it open, hearing the bottle hiss at him as the air escaped and the drink inside bubbled drastically before settling down again. He glanced at Y/N, who was still waiting for him to try it, and, based off his past experience of trying the foods and drinks she gave him, started small with a little sip.

He pulled back a bit from the bottle, unsure how he felt about it. It was clear and sharp and refreshing, but the bubbles...well, he wasn’t used to his drinks being fizzy, and it threw him off. Maybe he would adjust to it? He’d probably ask for something more normal if they did this again, though.

Seeing that Levi was keeping his bottle, Y/N happily started on her own drink, taking big gulps before putting the lid back on and throwing herself back on the ground with a pleased sigh.

“I love summer,” she said, eyes closed as she soaked in the heat from the sun’s rays. Levi stayed quiet, watching the birds across the pond hoping around and pecking at the ground in search of bugs or worms. The water rippled occasionally from small fish coming close to the surface, and the breeze ruffled his hair and cooled him down slightly from the heat of the sun. He felt like a little kid again, looking around at a bright and new world.

Well, technically he still was a kid, but really, he’d grown up a long time ago. Yet every time he came up here...he felt like a kid again. And he felt much lighter and carefree. It just made him all the more determined to find his way to the surface.

*Reader’s POV*

It was dark and damp in the place that you were hiding, your sobbing echoing around the large metal tube and a small trickle of water at the bottom getting parts of your pants and shoes wet. It smelled musty and terrible down here, and you’d be colder if it wasn’t for the medium sized dog that was pressed against your side and partially in your lap. Your greyhound black lab Sabrina was attempting to comfort you, giving a few licks on your cheeks.

It was the middle of the night, and you were tucked away in a storm drain, cold night air whistling down the tunneled space. You’d been down here for a while now, and you didn’t know what to do. You were lost, practically alone, hungry, and scared, and it was your own doing.

Footsteps echoed down the storm drain, splashing water with each step, and you scrambled to your feet, ready to bolt from the stranger in the drain.

“Why are you down here?”

You relaxed considerably at the familiar voice, wiping the tears from your face as he drew close enough for you to make out features in the dim light provided by your flashlight. “Levi?” you said with another sniffle. Sabrina got on all fours and put herself between you and the stranger, starting to growl and causing Levi to pause before you pet her head and neck to calm her down and told her to sit and settle. She calmed down and allowed Levi to draw closer, though he was much more careful now.

You were still mid distraught crying, but he’d asked what was happening, and this was your chance to ask for some help and get what was happening off of your chest. After a few more sniffles and wiping at your tears to get yourself under control enough you could speak again, you attempted to explain what you were doing crying in a storm drain with a dog in the middle of the night.

“My parents are splitting up. I want to stay with my dad, but I’m going with my mom cause I’m apparently too young to decide. And I thought...I thought if I-I ran away…” God, now that you were saying it out loud, you could hear how stupid this whole idea had been. “That they might get back together while they were looking for me,” you finished in a very small voice.

You’d done it in a distraught panic, honestly. Clearly you didn’t have enough food smuggled into your backpack, because you were already out of food. You’d at least thought protection, which ended up coming in the form of Sabrina and a tiny pocket knife you got from your grandfather a year ago. Now you were here with five bucks, a dog, a pocket knife, no food, no blankets or pillows, a stuffed animal, a book, a game, and the feeling that you were absolutely--

“Are you stupid?”

You blinked in surprise when you heard Levi say it aloud, immediately blushing and hiding your face in shame as he said the very thing you’d come to realize but hadn’t wanted to admit out loud. This whole idea had been a stupid plan, and you’d executed it horribly, resulting in this mess.

“For someone so smart, it was stupid thinking running away was going to solve your problem,” he continued to scold you, coming to a stop just beside you and looking down on you with you could only assume to be some harsh judgment. “All running from your problems is going to do is make things worse. Your parents aren’t going to magically get back together because you’re missing. They’ll likely fight more.”

You hated how right he was. They were probably blaming each other, if you knew them well enough. This was really something you should have thought through before bolting when you did. You were curling into yourself with every word he said, and as much as you hated hearing him say it, you knew he was right, and he had a point. You never should have tried running from your problems. You should have tried to say something and made them listen. Running was only making things worse for everyone.

You felt his foot kick you--not hard enough to be mean or painful, but enough to get you to move and look up at him, tear streaks still on your face. “Are you going to sit there feeling sorry for yourself, or are you going to get up and head home?”

You wiped your face one more time, getting shakily to your feet. Your dog followed suit, standing expectantly at your side as you gathered your mostly empty bag. You didn’t have anything else, so you were ready for a walk of shame back home. There was only one problem.

“I don’t know how to get there. I got lost. And...and I’ve overheard Mom and Dad talking about a white van going around taking kids, so...That’s why I’ve been down here. Once I didn’t know where I was,” you said in a quiet voice Suddenly very aware of the terrible situation you’d put yourself in.

Levi was staring hard at you. His expression was blank, and he was still, but you could see him processing the information and deciding what to do next. Suddenly, he reached out and grasped your wrist, pulling you forward and towards the mouth of the storm drain.

“Standing around feeling sorry for yourself won’t get you anywhere,” he muttered, dragging you along with Sabrina following on her leash. “You can recognize the area your house is in, right?”

You nodded hesitantly. Moving to the suburbs had its drawbacks. No more were you surrounded by diverse streets, houses, and buildings--everything here was uniform, with rows of streets and houses that looked identical to you.

But what he said about feeling sorry about yourself was also right. So instead of thinking of what you couldn’t do, you wracked your brain for what you could do. You knew the name of the section of houses you stayed in, and what the park looked like, and the number on your house. You could also recognize one of the biking paths that ran along the edge of the housing area. So you had some landmarks you could recognize. If all else failed, there was the pool center or the school that you could recognize without hesitation, and if you waited long enough there, maybe someone could get you home. You knew your phone number. You had options.

Levi got you both to the mouth of the storm drain, and he stopped, staring at the sight in front of him. The last time you’d seen Levi, you’d been living on the east coast. Now you were in the southwest, and you’d gone from a lush green temperate climate to the desert. It was like he’d never seen the desert and was trying to process the entire change of terrain.

“Where the hell…”

Now he was the one just standing there, and you realized that if you’d still been living where you had before, he’d be able to recognize streets and houses and the like as well. He hadn’t been here before--this was all new to him. He was even more lost than you were. At least he was still making an effort.

You tugged him towards the slopes behind you. “That’s definitely not the right way. We have to go back to the houses,” you said, the two of you struggling up the steep slope and back onto the bike path you’d been following aimlessly before ending up here. You hesitated there, swinging your flashlight both ways before choosing to go left. “I’m pretty sure I came from this way. We can follow it until I recognize one of the town names.”

*Levi’s POV*

Levi let Y/N tell him where he needed to go, considering this was an entirely new area to him. He hadn’t even heard of barren land like this above ground, with just sand stretching out as far as the eye could see, and everything in earthen shades. It was completely different from where she’d been living previously, yet she didn’t seem phased by the strange sights. So, Levi tried to ignore the oddity of the landscape and let her give any signals for where they needed to go as needed. However, he stayed in the lead, holding tightly to her wrist with one hand as she crowded close to him, her dog trailing right behind her as they walked with their sides almost pressed up against one another.

Her comment about kids being taken in the area had him even more on edge than he would have been. Already he was keeping his head on a swivel and his eyes peeled since they were two kids traveling alone at night in a strange place, but her piece of information had his free hand consistently hovering near where he kept his knife on him. At the first sign of trouble, he was ready to draw it to protect her, but he was keeping it concealed for now in order to keep from panicking Y/N. She was already distraught enough over her situation, he didn’t want to upset her anymore. Even now, he could feel her burying her face in his shoulder to try and hide a fresh wave of tears. He didn’t say a word about it, continuing to guide them steadily forward along their path despite the tension in the air.

He still couldn’t believe she’d been foolish enough to get herself in this situation. He’d known she was a little...naïve about the more dangerous parts of the world, but this was just…

Levi let out a soft sigh, reconsidering his stance on popping the protective bubble she seemed to be secured inside. If naivety was going to lead to her doing something like this, maybe she needed a bit of a wake up call. Horrible people lurked in dark places at night, and she was an easy target. He wasn’t, but she was, and she was lucky she hadn’t been snatched in the time she’d been out by herself.

Right now wasn’t the time to disrupt that little protective bubble, though. She was scared enough, shaking and crying as she clung to his arm, the hand he had on her wrist giving it a small squeeze of reassurance in the hopes that it might help calm her down.

They followed the path long enough Levi started to worry that she had no idea where they were still, and was simply leading them even further away from her home. Eventually, though, she pulled on Levi’s arm to get his attention, bringing him to a stop a few paces away from a fork that they had passed that the other path had twisted into an opening in a stone fence that led to rows and rows of identical houses.

“I recognize that name,” she said, pointing towards the words scrawled on a sign just in front of the entrance. “It’s not the area I live in, but it’s close,” she commented, looking far more attentively around the area.

“How close?”

“I think...one over from where my house is. There should be another section that starts with C, and then it’ll be mind. If I can find the park, I’ll know the way home,” she said.

Good, then they were heading the right way.

Levi urged her forward, surprised by how...quiet it was out here. Besides their footsteps, he didn’t really hear any other sounds. Maybe the occasional voice from someone outside their home late at night, or a closing door, but he wasn’t hearing much in the way of wildlife like he would where Y/N had lived before. The loudest thing was their footsteps, which was a little disconcerting.

“You’re not going to do something stupid like this again, are you?” Levi asked as they continued to walk. He just wanted to make sure what he’d said got through her head, and she would know better from now on.

She nodded emphatically at his side, holding a little tighter to him as they continued forward. Well, hopefully she /would/ be a little smarter about this kind of thing in the future. Time would tell.

They continued their trip in relative silence besides Y/N’s occasional sniffles, with Levi staying protectively in front of her the entire way until at long last, after finding their way to the park she’d mentioned, they turned onto the street she said her house was on. There was one of those horseless carriages in front of the house she said was hers, a stark white one with blue markings and something red and blue and clear on top. On either side of the carriage was two men in black uniforms having some solemn discussion over the top of the low carriage. The sight made Y/N shrink beside him, and for a moment, Levi thought it might be trouble. Before he could draw his knife, she spoke up.

“My parents must have called the police,” she mumbled, the embarrassment clear in her voice.

He was pretty sure that wasn’t the uniform of the Military Police, but she didn’t seem to be panicked over the sight of them, just embarrassed and shrinking into herself. He still stayed on guard as they drew closer, the two men noticing them as they drew closer.

“Are you kids lost?” one of them asked while Y/N was still mostly hidden by Levi standing in front of her. However, she stepped out enough to be seen with Sabrina trailing behind her, her cheeks burning red as she spoke in a voice so quiet Levi thought the two might not have heard her at first.

“I live here,” she mumbled.

“Y/N L/N?” the other one asked as they both straightened, getting a better look at her as they drew just a little closer. She nodded, and her grip on Levi’s arm loosened slightly as she moved hesitantly forward, pulling the dog along with her. The two men approached, and Levi tensed, expecting trouble. “Your parents have been worried sick, where have you…”

Y/N pulled out of his grip, apparently perfectly fine with the two strangers in front of her house. Maybe surface police looked different? That didn’t make any sense to him, but she seemed pretty sure, no hesitation as she approached them. For a moment, as Y/N pulled free of Levi’s grip and both of the officers got on either side of her to make sure she was all right and take her inside, their backs were to Levi, only for a moment. But that moment was all it took. In a moment that was becoming quite familiar to him, Levi blinked, and the scene disappeared, and he was standing in the middle of the street in the Underground.

This, he wasn’t okay with. He didn’t even get to see her safely through the door to her home, didn’t even get to make sure those men really were safe. What if they hadn’t been? What if they had been kidnappers or something worse? What if he’d just left her in more danger than he’d found her? He didn’t know enough about the surface to feel confident that she was going to be all right until she walked through the door to her home, and he didn’t get that luxury.

He was going to be worried sick about her until he saw her again, which, hopefully, would be soon. He had to know she was all right.

Levi’s gaze was drawn to one of the stairwells to the surface, and his gaze intensified, expression contemplative.

Perhaps, for once, he could find his way to the surface and look for her himself. If he was careful, he might be able to stay out of reach of the military police above ground long enough to find where she lived. He knew what it looked like now.

But first he had to get up that stairway...

Next Chapter---->

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Tags: @humanitys-hottestsoldier @artist-bby @kaz2y5-pie @tartheyes @super-peace-fangirl @huntersbunker @nefelimalfoy @soft-levi-girl-blog @honeygivemeachainsaw @regalillegal @sugas-daddy7 @cathyannecookie @chaoticshepardplaid

Levi Tags: @clary-quinn

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