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kingdumkum · 1 year

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WHERE THE RIVER MEETS THE SEA

this has been a long, long time coming. hopefully it’ll live up to the obscenely high expectations i’ve set. agree or disagree, please reblog/comment/send an anon with your thoughts--but make sure you read the RULES of interaction first.

summary: your date stood you up… again. Don’t worry, though, Baji will be there to pick up the pieces, like he always is. The only question… what will you do when you find out his secret? wc: 15k (we don't talk about it)

cw: virgin fem afab!reader x virgin!Baji, a lil itty bitty baby bit of blood, somewhat public (initially), bc why not, marking, creampie, Confessions galore, somewhat gendered pet names (princess, babe, sweetheart), actually gendered pet names (one handful of "good girl," "pretty girl," and "my girl"), subtle yandere themes but not to the extent a DC label is needed—correct me if I’m wrong though—be nice if I missed something, this is my first time :) way too many words but c’est la vie such is the way.

dedication: Storm, my friend, your support and advice has made me a better writer. Without you, this would probably still be sitting in my drafts, collecting dust and every hateful thought I’ve ever had about my writing. Thank you for being you and all of your aid in getting this to where it is. 💛

Your coffee’s cold when you give up. Well—second coffee, to be precise; the first you’d ordered after Tadashi said he was a few minutes away. That one had grown cold too, but the barista, taking pity, had given you a piping hot refill—for free.

It feels like an insult when she offers you a third.

An hour and a half has passed since Tadashi said he’d be there, and… well, you were still kinda hoping he might show up. But when the manager approaches with a tight-lipped smile, not-so-kindly pointing at their hours plastered ever so neatly on the glass door and indicating they’re just a few minutes to closing, your hope ebbs entirely.

The heat in your cheeks could’ve rewarmed your cup—but not one to cause a scene, you offer a tight-lip smile of your own and apologize. You don’t explain that you were waiting for someone; the pitying look in the barista’s eye as she mouths sorry and slides the unwanted third cup your way says they know.

You slip into the bathroom, wondering how in the world you could be so stupid— again. This was your third first date in three months… and the third time in three months that you’ve been stood up.

It hurts more when you check your phone. Two new messages from Emma, asking how it’s going and if you want to grab dinner to dish; one from Draken, asking if you can bring back a vanilla frappe and a triple dark roast espresso with two pumps of caramel; one from Baji, saying he might be late to pick you up, but he’d be there, and could you get him an order of whatever you’re having?

Nothing from Tadashi.

You don’t respond, instead letting your phone rest against the mirror while you stare at your reflection and try, desperately, to convince yourself it isn’t your fault.

Everything had been going great—you thought. You thought he really liked you, that he was excited to get to know you, and that this one, this one for sure would show up. You made jokes that he found funny, you were just the right amount of flirty, and you knew—thought—hoped—the picture you’d sent of your outfit (a simple sundress that accentuated your best features and wedges that made your legs seem endless) was enticing enough that he’d want to see it in person.

But here you are. Crying in the bathroom of a cafe you’ll never be able to return to, wondering how you’re going to explain to your friends that you got stood up.

Again.

Your phone starts to buzz. With a deep breath, you wipe off your dripping mascara. You force yourself to smile at the hollow reflection staring back at you, then answer with an overly-cheerful, “what’s up?”

“Kenny’s worried.” Baji’s familiar drawl echos, making the space seem even smaller. “I said he was being too overprotective, but—well, you know how he is. Said it’s his duty or some shit to make sure you’re okay. He tried to come down here himself, wanted to meet the guy trying to woo you—can you believe that? He actually said woo—“

“What do you want?” you interrupt. Too harsh, you realize when Baji doesn’t answer. “It’s just—I’m kinda in the middle of something, you know?”

Baji takes a moment, then forces a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, the little princess’s got a date, we know. God, they wouldn’t let it go. You should be thanking me, ya know, I’m the only reason they’re not all crashing—”

“Baji.”

The line falls quiet. Then, softly, “where are you, y/n?”

You frown and start searching for your mascara. “At the coffee shop. Why, where are you?”

Another pause. This one heavier. With the phone tucked to one ear, you slowly swipe the wand over your lashes. It’s clumpier than you usually like, but it’s better than nothing—

“I’m outside.”

Fuck.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he echoes. You mouth another fuck, heart plummeting, then start reapplying your mascara. More carefully, now that you’re out of time. “I, uh—I’ve been here. A while.”

“Oh… yeah?” you question, teeth starting to grind. “How long’s a while?”

Baji clears his throat. “Long enough. You gonna come out, or are ya gonna make me come in?”

Mascara gets tossed in your purse, gloss comes out. “You’re not exactly welcome in the ladies room, Baji.”

You can picture the dangerous curl in his smile when he replies, “not without an invitation, babe—why, you asking?”

Your laugh isn’t completely real, but not unnatural, either. You hover the gloss over your lips, and for a moment, you imagine what it’d be like. To sneak someone into the bathroom, kissing until your lips start to bruise, his hands playing with the hem of your dress, his lips marking your skin, his voice whispering your name…

You shake the thought away. There’s no point in getting your heart broken twice in one day.

“Three’s a bit of a crowd for a single stall,” you deflect. “Be out in a minute.”

Baji hums. Your gloss feels too thick, but you don’t take it off. You fluff your hair again, placing it the way you like, turning your necklace so the clasp faces the right way, lips smacking together once, twice, three times—

By the time you run out of things to do, you think you’re ready. You pick up your purse and give yourself a final once-over. Pretty, you think. Doesn’t look like you spent the last seven minutes sobbing in a public restroom.

When you exit, Baji’s still on the line, but he doesn’t hang up. You know, because the teasing, “well shit, babe, if I had known you’d worn that, I would’ve come two hours ago,” echoes; once from your phone, and the other from the man himself, standing right in front of you.

You laugh, and this one isn’t forced at all.

Baji’s smile gleams in the evening sun. A low wolf-whistle causes your face to warm pleasantly—the way it should have, when you met Tadashi. You take Baji’s extended hand, not flinching when his callouses rub against your soft palms.

You’re used to their roughness. Much like the others, Baji’s always been a hands-on friend (and fighter), so over the years, you’ve gotten used to the various bumps, cuts, and jagged edges, to the extent that the only hands that’ve ever felt comfortable have been those rough ones, soft only for you.

Baji spins you, over-exaggerating the way he checks you out. “Sweetheart, you’re going to stop traffic looking like that.”

“Oh, please,” you deny, but your smile hasn’t been this genuine all day. “Laying it on a little thick, Baj.”

“Only the realest truth for the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” is his sly reply, accompanied by a slyer wink. It’s his usual charm, but you’re oblivious to his sincerity, the way you always are. Baji pulls you into a tight hug and closes his eyes, and for a moment, he allows himself to pretend this was your intention all along; to wind up in his arms, with his compliments, by his side—the way it always seems to go after every failed date.

But you never say as much, and you always seem so genuinely excited for the next one that he’s never going to ask. Instead, he’ll take these moments. The ones where you turn to him for comfort, where he gets to hold you, your knight-in-shining-armor, and do all that he can to make everything better.

He’s so close that you almost miss his muffled whisper of, “fucking—stupid bastard. Doesn’t know what he’s missed.”

Your smile slips. Your thumb rubs against the back of his knuckles, familiarly cracked with scabs that never seem to heal. These are fresh, though; you can tell by how his hand darts to the back of his neck, preventing you from looking too closely.

“Been up to no good?” you question with a raised brow.

“‘Course I have,” he responds easily, “you’ve been busy.”

Baji won’t meet your gaze. ‘If only you knew,’ he thinks—but he’ll never say it. Not that. Not to you. He shrugs off his black leather jacket and drapes it over your shoulders, fingertips lingering as he straightens the collar. His dark eyes flick to yours, a coy smirk almost hiding his guilt as he hopes beyond all hope you don’t see through him.

You almost do.

Not enough to call him out on it, though, so instead, you roll your eyes—but you can’t deny how this—him—is making everything better. He picks up the helmet he only brings when he’s driving you and puts it on for you, visor up so he can brush the hair out of your eyes. Baji offers a comforting smile, then juts his chin to his bike. “Wanna ride?”

The answer, of course, is yes; for him, it will always be yes.

Silently, you climb on and wrap your hands around him, chin tucking into his shoulder as if you were made to be there. He revs and pulls off, seamlessly weaving in and out of traffic. Your eyes close. The wind whips in your hair, and the familiar scent of nicotine, mint, and Baji’s crisp aftershave envelopes you. For a moment, you feel like everything’ll be okay. Your heart might hurt now, but after an evening with him, it’ll all be okay.

That’s the power of Keisuke Baji, though; the sense of embarking on your greatest adventure but feeling like being home, all at once.

It’s nearly sunset when he stops. Pulls up to the river, kicks the bike stand, then grabs your waist to lift you off the seat.

“I can do that,” you say, even as you let him lift you.

“More fun when I do,” he replies with an easy grin. Your feet hit the ground, but Baji keeps one hand around your waist. He takes off the helmet with the other and laughs when your hair flops out. Hurriedly you go to smooth it, but Baji catches your wrist after setting the helmet down. “You don’t have to do that. Not with me.”

He cages you between the bike and his hips with just a few inches of space—and suddenly, your heart starts to race. When did he get this close? How hadn’t you noticed the way his leg slid between yours? Why isn’t he taking his hand away? Why can’t you breathe?

Baji’s dark eyes dart between yours, then down to your lips, and for a second, for a split second, you think he’s about to kiss you—

“Not like anything can make it better now,” he smirks, and if it weren’t for how his fingers were locked in yours, you would’ve slapped him.

“Asshole.”

Baji laughs, and you swear the moon shines a little brighter. You’re grateful that he turns to check out the area before he can see just how much of an impact his laugh has on you—though you don’t doubt that he knows. He’s Baji, after all, and you’re not blind (or deaf). He’s handsome, witty, flirty with anything that moves—and that laugh of his could bring even the tides to a standstill.

“Coast’s clear,” he says, looking back at you, a lazy smirk curling his features. It shouldn’t be a surprise, hardly any ever comes this far south of the city—but a few weeks ago, you’d accidentally stumbled upon a couple who were… not expecting company, to put it delicately, and ever since, Baji had been extra cautious to make sure it was just the two of you before getting settled.

He takes a few steps backwards, leading you to your spot; a grassy knoll that overlooks the river as it feeds into the darkened sea. The moon slowly rises over rolling waves while the sun, more a memory, sets over the river’s bend. It’s a secret, sacred place for the two of you, where heartache and daydreams don’t exist; only the moon, the tides, and each other.

Your stomach flips but you can’t tell why; this is exactly what happens every time you come here, from the way he helps you off the bike to how he stops you from picking at your appearance. The only difference is the way his hand is still wrapped in yours.

You wonder if Tadashi’s would have been this warm.

But Tadashi isn’t here—Baji is, and it’s Baji’s warm hands that always make things better. So you let him keep his hand in yours, even though you’re not sure you should, and you let him gently tug you along when you don’t move fast enough. Let him take his time in taking his jacket back, in spreading it on the grass before waiting for you to sit. You even let him settle next to you, instinctively leaning into the familiar comfort of his body and for a minute, you wonder how you ever could’ve wanted your day to end different.

Then Baji meets your gaze, smiles that sweet, genuinely kind half smile that he only shares with you, and you remember: Baji is your friend—and no matter how many heartaches he heals, that’s all he’ll ever be.

You can’t remember when things got so complicated.

When it was just you and Kenny, you’d sneak up to the roof of the brothel and watch the sun dip behind the buildings and talk about how one day, you’d get a house that was that color pink, and it’d be on the far side of Japan where you could watch the sunset from your porch and life would be good. The sunset was the only dream you’d ever need, and it would be good.

Then Mikey started coming. More often than not he’d fall asleep before the sun did, and on the days he didn’t—the roof felt too… small. The dreams, too… little. They evolved, from a porch where you could watch the sunset to a skyline that never sleeps.

Dreams change, and that’s okay… but a part of you aches for the time when the sunset felt like enough—when the family you had, the brothers you’d found and the friends you’d made—was enough. You still had the sunset, but rarely. More often than not, you were by yourself up there, or stuck to Kenny’s side somewhere out there, or brushing against Baji’s shoulder down here.

So these days, you prefer to watch the moon rise. There’s more comfort in a light to guide you through the night, rather than watching your dreams disappear with the day.

And you do, the way you do every time you’re stood up or don’t feel—enough. You sit beside Baji with the full moon crawling towards you, staring at the conjunction of the river and the sea, and focus on how you’re going to get through this.

Baji cut his hair since the last date—the last time you’d been stood up, you correct. Still long, but now only to the edge of his jaw, not mid-back like you were used to. The light is bright behind him, bringing out the warm undertones in his onyx hair. You can make out the scab on his cheek from a bar fight a few weeks ago; the scar on his nose from when Mikey split it the first time they fought; the tender bruise along his jaw that looks too new to have told you the story yet.

Instinctively, you reach for it… then chicken out, instead teasing the edge of his hair. You’re left wondering if an angel’s wings would be as soft.

Baji glances at you from the corner of his eye. “You don’t like it?”

“What? I didn’t say that.” Your hand falls back to your lap, eyes quick to follow. The light behind him is too bright—too blinding. Too much like a halo. It’s impossible to hide the truth from an angel, and you know you don’t have the right words to convey just how beautiful you find him. “Just… gonna take some getting used to. I don’t think you’ve ever had it this short.”

He scoffs. “Maybe at birth.”

The idea of baby Baji flashes through your mind; sweet, chubby cheeks, little fists flailing at the world. A tuft of hair, dark as his and long already, but when he opens his eyes, they’re yours—

“Why’d you cut it?” your voice is steadier than you expect. It does nothing to change your thoughts, especially when Baji’s slender fingers start pulling at grass, just the way a baby grasps what's in front of him.

He stares straight ahead, letting one hand splay by your lower back as he watches the green blades dance in the wind. “Figured it was time for a change.”

You hmm in acknowledgement, brain too traitorous to come up with anything other than, ‘I bet you were a cute baby’ or ‘you look handsome either way’ or, worst of all, ‘why would you ever want to change?’

He probably meant nothing by it. Baji’s as flexible as they come; sets his own hours at the shop, varies what time he wakes or goes to bed, never eats the same thing too many times in a row… there’s not much permanency in his life as it is, so it sticks with you that he still wants something different.

If he thinks you’re being weird, he doesn’t say so. He waits for you to speak, like always, and like always, you find yourself loving him a little more for it. Baji’s so—quick; to judge, to speak, to fight… but in these moments, when it’s the two of you and the moon and no one else, he’s not. He’s slow; slow to speak, slow to touch, slow to pull away…

Slow to make you wonder why you keep wasting time with boys who don’t deserve it when he might be enough.

The silence becomes too much; too easy to drown in. Too tempting to fill with all the wrong things.

“What happened to your jaw?” is the best you come up with.

It’s no surprise when he answers, “got into a fight,” but how he says it… how he immediately ducks his head and covers the darkening bruise with a broad palm, as if he’d forgotten all about it and wished you would, too… that makes you pause.

One tenet of your relationship is that you don’t lie to each other. There are often times you wish he would, like when Chifuyu teases him about the pretty girl at the pet shop who came back and asked for the number of the flirty hunk who sold her a dog collar and Baji admits she was pretty cute and he’ll take her to drinks tomorrow night, or when Kazutora reminds Baji that he promised to go on a double date with the twins they met clubbing so no, he can’t take a look at that leaky pipe in your bathroom—but you’d never say that. Not when he could, so easily, call you out for keeping your own.

So when he goes out of his way to not have to tell you the truth, you know better than to push.

“Did it hurt?”

Baji looks to you with a cocky smile. “You should see the other guy.” You snort. Baji knocks his shoulder into yours. “I’m good, really. Just… had some business, s’all.”

It’s supposed to be comforting, but it’s not. It only flares your curiosity… and honestly? Your annoyance. “I hadn’t realized a pet shop needed such security.”

Baji barks out a laugh. “I mean, you’ve seen how crazy some people get about their pets, ‘specially when they think Dr. Google is a better resource than Chifuyu’s degree… but nah, this was… off the books.” He catches your inquisitive gaze and offers a smile, but it’s more like a grimace in the lowlight. His hand creeps closer, fingers pressing into your back, and for a moment, you’re willing to let it go. He gently grazes the middle of your spine. “It’s done, alright? Finished. Won’t happen again.”

You know he’s lying because he holds you close, the way he only does when he thinks you’re about to leave.

But you don’t leave; you never leave. You just give him a withering glare you know he can’t see, then turn back to the ocean.

You hate this feeling. The one where the world becomes unsteady, and everything you’d been trying to keep buried since you were thirteen sneaks up on you. That horrid, awful, destructive fascination and jealousy and yearning that’s plagued you since Baji first bragged about stealing a kiss from the pretty girl that lived three floors above him and only gets worse every time he mentions someone new.

Going on dates was supposed to squash this. Meeting a nice guy, having a good time, and getting a kiss or two of your own was supposed to end this. This—obsession—you’ve had since the first time Baji said he hopes that one day, you meet the right guy and you accidentally thought, ‘maybe it’s you.’ Because at the end of the day, he’s the one who’s there. Not Tadashi, who couldn’t even be bothered to show up. Not Draken, who recently started putting Emma above all else (even you). It’s been Baji, your Baji, whose mere existence makes everything better, that’s been the last one standing.

You can’t ruin that. You can’t risk pushing away the only companion who still puts you first for something you’re positive you can find somewhere else.

At least, that’s what you have to tell yourself, as yet another date fails and Baji is here, again, picking up the pieces and making you feel more whole than when the day started.

The sky is nearly dark when you finally ask the question that’s been on your mind since the barista gave you that pity cup—the one that’s probably still sitting in the bathroom, the last witness to your heartbreak. Just as alone and unwanted as you.

“What’s… wrong with me?”

Baji’s sharp. He alway has been, from the stern angle of his nose to the feral way his teeth carve like a predator’s. He watches everything—the road, the fighters, you—with a scrutiny that’s often clouded behind cheshire grins and snide quips.

But there’s nothing sharp about him tonight; only soft. Soft hands that gently grab your chin and force you to look at him. Soft breathes as he pulls you close. Soft words as he makes sure you hear him whisper, “nothing.”

Baji’s eyes, dark and teeming with something you can’t place, move from one eye to the other; to the fingers on your cheek; to your tongue, wetting your lips. He leans in, forehead resting against yours as his hand slides back, gripping your hair like you're his lifeline and not the other way around, and you’re back to thinking okay, this is it, he’s going to kiss me, he’s finally going to kiss me—

But all he does is repeat, “absolutely—fuckin’ nothing, alright? And—‘n fuck whoever makes you feel otherwise,” before resuming his seat like nothing happened.

You let go of a breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding. It’s stale and hot and full of fury, your fury, and suddenly, you can’t take it anymore.

“Fuck you, Keisuke.”

“What?” Baji scrambles for your arm as you abruptly stand, too furious to even look at him. You rip away but don’t stop, trying to will the stupidness of—whatever this is—to go away, to release you so you can go back to feeling better and right and whole. “Wait—come on, I didn’t—what did I say? Did I do something? Where the hell are you going?”

“Forget it!” you snap. His every question—the fact he wants to make it right even though he’s the reason it hurts—just makes it worse. “Just—leave it alone, alright? It obviously doesn’t matter—”

This time when he grabs your arm, he doesn’t let you leave. He pulls you in to him, nearly crashing you into his chest as he holds you in place.

“Damnit, y/n, what the hell? What did—why are you being like this?” For the first time tonight, he meets your eyes without falter. He tucks a hand under your chin, all but pries your eyes open himself to search for what you're hiding. You try shrugging out of his iron grip, but he’s too strong. “What did I do?”

“Nothing—” You’re horrified at the way your voice cracks. “Fucking—nothing, Baji, you did nothing—“

“Then why’re you so fucking mad, hunh? Why’re you acting like I’m the bad guy here?” His fingers tighten. It would’ve hurt, if you weren’t so angry. “I’m not the asshole who stood ya up—I’m not the one who’s been dickin’ everyone around, pretending like everything’s fine when I know, Draken knows—even fuckin’—Pah-chin—can tell that something’s wrong—“

“You’re calling me an asshole?” you gasp incredulously. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yes!” he retorts hotly—then, upon realizing how horribly angry you’re growing, quickly backtracks, “I mean—no! Actually, no, you know what, I did mean yeah, because guess what, princess? You are acting like an ass! You’ve got—all these people who wanna be here for you, I want to be here for you, and all you’re doing is getting mad at me for it—”

“What do you want me to say, Baji?” It’s useless, trying to get free, but that doesn’t stop you from trying. “That I’m—heartbroken—at being stood up—again? That I’m done with dating, that I’m giving up, that everyone fucking sucks but I must suck worse—”

“They don’t deserve you—”

“Like hell!” Your tone is scalding. It must burn him just as bad, because a single lapse in his grip lets you rip your arm away. “That’s the whole goddamn point of dating, jackass, to figure out who’s worth what—and all this has shown is that I’m not worth it, to anyone.” You slam your hands against his chest, tears stinging your lash line. If you weren’t so angry, you might not have missed how his face falters when you push him away. “And you just—sitting there, and—and holding me like that, and—and telling me that I’m not the problem when I’m the only common denominator—you’re such a fucking liar—”

“You think it’s any easier for me?” he’s quick to yell, frustration making him bare his teeth like fangs. Anyone else would’ve cowered—but you stand your ground. Place two hands on his chest and shove, hard, forcing him back as he continues, “you think it’s any easier to see you gettin’ your hopes up, to freak out over what to text, what to wear, what to do—all for those fuckin’ dickweeds? Hunh? Guys who can’t even—spell your name right, or remember what your favorite flower is, or fucking—show up? You think it’s any fucking easier seeing you so goddamn upset over someone who doesn’t even deserve to breathe the same air as you, let alone spend time with you–be with you? Because it’s not, sweetheart!”

The sweet pet name that usually makes your heart skip a beat only aggravates you further. Your hands go from shoving to slamming, open palms against the hard muscle of his chest—but he doesn’t even flinch. Just catches your wrists before you can do it again and stares, like you’ve started speaking in tongues. “Oh, poor Baji, must be hard, hunh, thinking no one’s good enough, thinking everyone’s so lucky as to have people throwing themselves at them left and right—but newsflash, Keisuke, not all of us are like you! Not all of us have the ability to pick whoever we want, some of us actually have to work at it—“

“Stop working on the wrong guys then!”

“You’ve never even met them, how would you know—“

“Because they let me stand in the way!”

The world stills.

You can’t place why; why this feels like a sucker punch, why your heart is suddenly skipping beats–why you can’t tell if this hurts. Not until Baji’s grip tightens, then his eyes widen, and you have a sneaking suspicion you know where this is going—but still, you ask, “what?”

He doesn’t respond. He can’t.

He lets go of you, though every fiber in his being begs him to stay. He takes a step back, though his heart pleads for him to wrap you in his arms and hold you close and tell you the truth, about what he did, why he did it, why he can’t bring himself to regret it…

He has to turn his back to you, to stare at the waves crashing along the sand as he tries to process just how badly he’s fucked this up and if there’s any possibility for redemption. It’s too late to lie. Too late to try and salvage this.

He’s made his bed; it’s time to lie in it.

Baji sighs–or something close. Something choked, not quite a laugh but also not quite a sob. Something is stuck in him, and even with the ice in your veins, you piece it together. Somehow, this—the failed dates, the heartache, the loneliness—it's all his fault.

Still, you have to ask. “What the hell are you talking about?”

You try making the venom in your voice match that in your blood, but you can’t. Not when he looks so—defeated. He runs his hands through his hair, doing a miserable job of either pretending he can’t hear you or attempting to buy enough time to come up with a plausible lie—though you don’t need him to. Not when his actions say enough.

It’s your turn to reach for him. Your turn to grab his arm, to keep him in place. You want to hold on to your anger, but the way his hands are shaking makes it impossible.

You draw him close, voice gentle as you say his name. You reach for his cheek, keeping his hands still with one of yours, and you tilt his head; he lets you tilt his head so that he has no choice but to look at you.

When your gazes meet, you wait.

“I had to,” he eventually says. His voice is steady, but his hands aren’t. His fingers wrap around your wrists tightly, as if he’s afraid you might try leaving—but your grip on him is equally tight. “They weren’t good for you. They were jerks, and they were only going to break your heart, and I couldn’t let that happen. Not to you. I had to—I had to.”

“Had to… what?” He doesn’t answer, not until you prompt, “had to what, Baji?”

“Don’t—” he breathes. “Don’t… call me that.” His eyes close, and he leans into the palm on his cheek. For a moment, you pretend that he’s memorizing the feel of you, as if he’s scared to lose you—but that can’t be it. Keisuke Baji isn’t afraid of anything.

You’re not sure what’s more painful: the knots in your stomach or the hope in your heart. “Tell me what you did,” you muster up. “Keisuke, tell me what you did.”

When his eyes finally open, all of his anger is gone. In its place is something you’ve rarely seen, and even rarer directed at you: desperation.

“I stopped them.”

For a moment, all you hear is your own heart… then the waves of truth come crashing down.

“I—I found them, and I swear on my life, on your life—I only meant to talk to them, to figure out if—if they had good intentions, if they were gonna treat you right—but they all sucked, y/n, they were awful—going on and on about how they were—how they wanted to—to fuck you, just to say they could—or they weren’t—serious about how they felt and I couldn’t—I couldn’t let them do that, I couldn’t let them hurt you like that, so I… I hurt them first. Not—not much, just enough so they’d—get the idea. Leave you alone. Stay away from my girl—”

He cuts himself off, and for a moment, you’re frozen. You don’t know what to do, what to think—is this real? Is he saying what you think he’s saying? Does he really mean it?

Baji’s voice cracks when he says your name.

“Y/n, listen—listen to me,” he pleads. His forehead presses against yours. Your cheeks grow wet, though you can’t tell if that’s because of you or him. “You are—the most amazing person in this whole freaking world. You get that? You’re—smart, and pretty, and so fucking funny and—and anyone who can’t see that is an idiot. And it fucking—kills me—that you’ve got it in your head that what these—stupid pricks think is the only thing that matters, because it’s not. It’s never mattered. The only thing—the only thing that has ever mattered… is you. Okay? You.”

Your throat closes. Your hands reach for his, catching only wrists as he cradles your face, trying to ground yourself in this moment. In all the things he says and all the things he doesn’t; in the silent, desperate dream that refused—refuses—to die, taking over you once more.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” His lips are so close, they brush your nose. “I’d say I regret it, but I don’t, because— you deserve better. You deserve the world, if you want, or—or the moon and all the stars, and—and unless they’d get it for you, they don’t deserve you. Okay? None of them deserved you.”

You’re just a hair away from kissing him, from caving to the impulses you thought were dead and gone and hopeless all these years, and the worst possible sentence sinks out: “you’re an idiot, Kei.”

Then you lean forward and kiss him.

In an instant—you feel whole. You feel right, in a way you haven’t since you decided you never had a chance with him; in a way you’ve been searching for in the words of all the others who’d let you down, who’d broken your heart and always, always, always led you back to moonrise with Baji, back home—

Baji jolts. He pulls away and stares at you with a wild mixture of shock and confusion. His fingers ghost his lips, only to draw back as he stares at them, then at you, then back at them, like he can’t quite comprehend this hand is attached to his body—like you were. Like you want to be, like you thought he wanted to be, like you thought he was asking you to be—

Your heart plummets as he just—stands, no witty quip or teasing remark at the ready. No lines to read between; no phrasing to draw false confessions from; nothing other than the stillness of the night, and the pounding of your heart.

“Wait—” you shrink as you realize just how hoarse a single stolen kiss has left you. “I thought—please, Kei—”

A flicker of… something dances in his eyes, and then—he watches you. Studies you, with the same scrutiny he holds before a fight or when picking apart a bike to see what parts are broke and what can be saved.

“Say it again.”

It’s your turn to blink; your turn to have wide eyes and parted lips, to study him like you’re not sure how to fix it. “I don’t—“

“My name,” he says, and your heart starts to leap. “Say my name, sweetheart.”

“I say your name all the time, Keisuke.” You’re barely above a whisper. Barely above the fear that this time, he’ll break your heart and there’ll be no one to pick up the pieces because—you ruined this.

“Not like that,” he breathes. You forget how to. “Say it like it means something. Like—you don’t hate me. Like—”

“Kei,” you interrupt, hands coming to cradle his cheeks as you read between the lines, “I forgive y—”

He doesn’t even let the final word form before his lips are on yours. Hard, aggressively melding like he’s worried you might change your mind and wants to milk every second out of this as he can—but you reciprocate just as desperately. Keisuke’s hands wrap around you, one gripping the base of your neck and the other resting on the small of your back, pulling you impossibly close, as if he couldn’t get enough of you. His mouth opens, teasing your lips apart as you trade air, fingers digging into your soft skin like it’s the last thing he’ll ever touch.

You pull away first, and that’s only because your lungs are aching—not that you mind. The pain helps make this feel real.

For once, Keisuke’s grin doesn’t seem mocking. He moves a hand to cradle your face, thumb rubbing against your cheek. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that, sweetheart.”

“Not as long as I have,” you admit with a breathy laugh. Your hands lock around his neck, fingers playing with his hair, and you realize you’re smiling.

You kissed. Keisuke kissed you, you kissed him—everything makes sense. Everything is right, and with the moon and tides as your witness, everything is good again.

“Can I…” Keisuke starts, eyes flicking to your lips in an unspoken question. You finish his sentence with a kiss.

“You can always kiss me, Kei,” you say. “You don’t even have to ask.”

There’s the grin you recognize; the scheming, teasing grin that always makes your stomach flip in a way you thought meant he’s up to no good, but now realize as a sign you’d fallen for him long ago.

“Oh, yeah?” he questions, brushing his lips against yours. “Only here? Or can I kiss… here?” He moves to the corner of your lips, then to the hollow of your cheek as he continues, “and… here? And maybe…”

He trails off, and he trails down, letting his lips drag against your cheek while his hand keeps you firmly in place, lips going done to your chin, down the column of your throat and back up. Your breathy yes would be pathetic—if it ever made it out. All that escapes is a breathy groan of displeasure when he stops, teasing lips hovering just above your own. “What’s that, babe? Want me t’stop?”

“You’re such an asshole.”

Your hands tangle in his hair, lips melding as your make-out turns heated. He slides his tongue along the seam of your lips, silently asking you to open—and you do. His hands curl around you, bringing you closer until there’s no space left between you.

Something digs into your leg. Something hard and unmistakable, and it leaves you grinning deeper than Kei.

You break away, laughing at his whine of protest and briefly glance down. Keisuke follows your eyes and is quick to splutter a nervous chuckle, hands dropping as he tries to step away with a short apology—though the way you catch his belt loops stops him. “Shit—sorry, I didn’t—I just—it’s your fault, y’know—“

“Shut up,” you giggle and drag him back. Now, you kiss him; once, twice, then a third before trailing your lips along the sharp ridge of his cheekbone, along his temple, to his ear. “How about you take me home, Kei?”

Keisuke’s whiplash nearly hurts you. His eyes, big and brown and wide, stare like you’ve grown an extra head. His hands shakily splay against your back, as if he wants to keep you close but he’s not sure he’s allowed to. His voice wavers slightly when he asks, “but I thought… aren’t… I mean, isn’t this… what you wanted?”

Slowly, you nod. Even slower, you pointedly look at the space between you, bridged only by the tent of his black pants. You smile at the sweet way a blush covers his cheeks, and risk slowly trailing your hand along his belt until your fingertips are hovering over that stupid, shiny, obnoxiously big belt buckle you always tease him for.

“I want you, Keisuke, and I want you to take me home.”

He doesn’t need more encouragement.

Keisuke’s kisses grow fiercer. He devours you, never once breaking contact as his hands slide to find firm purchase on the back of your thighs. With ease, he lifts you atop his bike, setting you in front of him and stepping between your spread legs. The hem of your dress slides up with his calloused palms, collecting in a bunch then pooling down to protect your modesty as he finds two handfuls of ass. He gives a squeeze, eliciting a delighted gasp from you, then pulls back with a toothy smile.

“Then have me, sweetheart. Always been yours, anyways.”

Your stomach twists, the way it always does when he looks at you like that, and you like it. It makes sense, it feels right—and you don’t have to pretend to justify why it makes your panties wet.

“Gotta—gotta get home—“ you try saying, but Keisuke’s hands have a mind of their own. They’re the only reason you’re still upright as he starts kissing along your neck, carefully grazing his sharp teeth but never once digging in. Your arms lop around him, digging into his scalp and shoulders as he finds this one spot that makes you moan, and you almost curse him for what that smile has done to you.

“Fuckin’—insane—if you think I'ma make it,” he mumbles into your skin, and you think you finally understand how some people can climax from someone’s voice alone.

You laugh and intend to push him away and demand that he do, that you have to, that you need to, because this—isn’t like you, you’re not one to get hot and heavy like this, certainly not in public—

But you can’t think straight. Not when Keisuke’s hands are kneading your ass, pinching and releasing like he can’t decide if he wants to hold on forever or explore somewhere new. Not when his teeth nibble your neck, and you shudder at the unbelievably primal sensation running through you.

Not when the unmistakable hardness of Keisuke’s boner finds home between your thighs, and he starts bucking his hips. It’s subtle, and he doesn’t tease you for the pathetic way you start whimpering. He focuses on continuing to explore the expanse of your otherwise untouched skin, while all you can do is revel in the way your high starts building.

You’ve been kissed before, on the lips and neck and once a little lower, but no one’s ever done this to you; pressed against your collarbone. Moved your neckline aside to suck on the fat of your breast. Left a mark that’ll last longer than a minute. For a moment, you wonder if you should tell him he’s the first, but when the zipper of his pants starts catching your clit, the only thing you’re able to do is moan his name.

Loudly.

Breathy and passionate and different than before, and he pauses. Lifts his head from your collarbone, a thin tendril of salvia keeping his lips still attached to the sensitive skin you know will bruise. He lets one hand trail up your side and cup your face, staring like this might be the last time he ever sees you, all while his hips continue to rut against you.

“Say it again,” he breathes, thumb catching your bottom lip. “Just—just like that.”

“Kei,” you repeat, giggling at the way he brightens and starts kissing you, “we need to go home—now.” For good measure, you boldly let your fingers slide to the edge of his belt buckle, in case he needs some more convincing. His free hand darts to yours, but he doesn’t stop you. He laces his fingers in yours and guides you, letting you palm at his thick hard-on. He lets out a low groan and drops his head from your lips to rest at your chest, just above the collar of your dress. You card one hand through his hair, the other applying light pressure to the (you assume) very painful ache between his legs—and not at all because you know, if he kept bucking into your core the way he just was, the way he keeps doing against your palm—you wouldn’t be able to make it home, either. “Take—take me home, Kei—”

“Not—” he huffs. His grip on your ass tightens, but you can barely feel it. Not when Keisuke whines, low and needy, teeth coming out to nip at your breast, and all you can focus on is the ache between your own legs, getting even worse as his hips start moving faster, forcing the back of your hand against your cunt as you continue to palm him. His hips don’t stop; they push against you so fiercely, so desperately, that you cave, taking away your hand so there’s nothing between you but your clothes.

You’re on the precipice in minutes; hands digging into his shoulders as you choke on a sob, pleading with him to go faster, to not stop, to keep making you feel good—and it’s made all the worse when he does, pressing his throbbing erection even harder against your soaked panties, all the while pleading into your skin, “can’t—can’t—fuck, baby, I can’t—y/n—“

You gasp when his teeth break skin.

Keisuke’s hips still. Warm air saturates your chest as he groans into it, and for a moment you’re frozen. Your whole body aches, and you want to scream at the cruel way your orgasm was stolen—but you’re too in shock that he got you there that fast, that easily. Something warm trickles down your cheeks, between your breasts—blood? saliva? tears?—he doesn’t move. You don’t move. You’re not even sure he’s breathing, until his shoulders heave and your skin is warmed once more. A slight burn starts to spread across your chest, and when you open your mouth to ask him why the hell he stopped—all that comes out is his name.

You say it softly, then a little louder, but it’s not until you grab his face and force him to look up that he speaks—but his eyes are fixed firmly on the reddening bite mark forming atop your breast.

“M’sorry…”

A mean part of you wants to tell him he owes you a lot more than sorry, but the way his lower lip disappears as he nervously chews on it has you choosing otherwise. “It’s okay,” you comfort instead, “it didn’t hurt that bad.”

Keisuke grimaces. “No, I—”

He sighs, head dropping back to your chest. Both arms wrap around your waist, and he presses a light kiss to the place he’d just bitten; the only way he probably figures he can keep close without meeting your gaze. He mumbles something, but you only know because you feel his lips moving.

“Can’t hear you…” you try prompting, but it only makes him snuggle deeper. He sighs again, loud and warm and in a way you’re familiar with—the way that really means, I can’t believe I have to do this… “C’mon, Kei, don’t you want to take me home?”

“Ididntmakeit.”

You have never, ever, in your life ever seen Keisuke embarrassed. Not when he told you about needing Chifuyu to tutor him post-juvie; not when he failed his college entry exams; not even when you accidentally walked in on him showering (in hindsight, he was probably a little too comfortable with how long it might’ve taken you to leave).

This was the man who went skinny dipping for fun. He’ll order fruity drinks for his friends who are too embarrassed to do it themselves. His approach to a lost fight is to get a rematch, not pretend it didn’t exist, and even in mundane moments that have you at a loss for words, like mistaking someone’s name or forgetting a face, Kei’s always quick for a retort or defense or a smile that makes everything better.

Keisuke Baji doesn’t get embarrassed—but that’s the only word that fits. His cheeks are redder than you’ve ever seen, his breathing faster than his pulse. His eyes refuse to meet yours, and his fingers knead into clumsy, nervous patterns along the side of your thighs.

Then he takes a deep breath, and with one shaking hand, he slowly brings your palm to the crotch of his pants… that are now sticky.

Your eyes widen, and you’re almost too late to choke down a gasp. Kei’s eyes close, and he ducks his head in shame. “I didn’t—I mean, I haven’t—you're just—I’m so sorry—”

“Why?” It sounds curt, and you don’t intend it to. Better than laughing, you reason—although you will absolutely get him for this later… when it stops feeling like the most humiliating thing in the world.

Keisuke swallows. “I haven’t ever… you know.”

“What, cum early?” It’s cruel to tease, you know that, but you can’t stop the slight satisfaction that you—you—are able to bring a man like Keisuke Baji to his knees.

“No! I mean—no, I…” Kei looks out to the ocean, fingers still anxiously kneading into your thighs. The temperature drops, though you’re not sure if it actually does or you’re just feeling like it as you try to understand what’s happened, what’s happening—what you’re to do next. His jaw clenches and he tries to pull away from you, but you don’t let him. You wrap your legs around the backs of his thighs, keeping him in place.

“Kei…” you say softly. You don’t force him to look at you. Instead, you let your fingers trail up his abs, curling around his neck so you can rest your forehead against his temple and kiss his cheek. “I don’t care. Just means you gotta make it up to me—”

“I’ve never had sex before.”

You’re grateful he doesn’t look at you, because you’re not able to control the utter shock coloring your face. How is that possible? You’ve heard the whispers when you go out; you’ve seen the looks. At parties or bars or clubs, he’d find a pretty thing and disappear, and you assumed you knew what happened behind those closed doors—because why, why, why would you want to ask about that?

The others didn’t dispel it, either; in fact, they’d constantly rip on him for his… gift, and Keisuke never fought back. He’d just smirk and wink and say, “it’s never disappointed,” and by the time you’d turned red, thinking about when you caught him in the shower and knew what they were saying was true, they’d moved on to taunting someone else.

So how the hell is it possible that Keisuke’s a virgin—and, more importantly, how didn’t you know?

You’re not sure how long it takes you to recover. If he were to ask, you’d say you were just waiting for him—because when you do speak, it’s only when Keisuke turns to you with narrowed eyes, an apprehensive blush clear on his face.

“Wanna know a secret?” you ask, forcing a teasing lilt to your voice—though your stomach twists. This isn’t exactly the way you wanted to tell him, and for a flash, you think of how disappointed he might be to learn the truth.

But when he meets your gaze, eyes wide and focused entirely on you, somewhere between hopeful and nervous, you know it’s for the best. Your smile is sweet, but not as sweet as your lips when you kiss the crinkle between his eyes. He immediately relaxes, hands stilling as he leans into you. “Neither have I.”

He straightens and pulls far enough away so he can examine you. For a minute, your confession hangs between the two of you, then Kei starts floundering, “but I thought… you said… but he… what about your ex?”

You shrug, your own cheeks starting to flush. “It never felt right.”

Keisuke blinks. His mouth parts, eyes darting between yours like he’s waiting for the gotcha!, but all he receives is the embarrassed way you can’t meet his gaze, feeling as if you’ve somehow let him down. You squirm, his warm hands still atop your thighs sending butterflies to your stomach, and shrug again. “I dunno, I just—didn’t think it was fair. Doing that with someone, when all I could think about…” you swallow, lips twisting as you debate whether or not to tell him the truth.

He catches your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes. “Think about what, sweetheart?”

The way he asks tells you he already knows; but like earlier, when you knew and had to hear it anyway, he needs you to say it, too.

So you take a steadying breath. You gently trail a finger down the side of his jaw, and you make yourself smile as you say, “you, Kei. It didn’t seem right if it wasn’t you.”

This time when he kisses you, it’s slow. He takes his time in tasting you, in savoring the moment. He lets you guide where his lips go, how his hands wander, and he waits for you to pull back before he suggests, “how about I take you home now?”

Your stomach flutters. Fingers knot at the base of his skull, and slowly, a smile spreads on your face.

“I’d like that.”

He presses a chaste kiss to your temple. You can feel the joy in it, one that doesn’t fade for either of you as he unhooks your legs so you can properly straddle the bike, then tucks the helmet on you and pops on himself.

“Hold on,” he calls as he revs the engine, “might be goin’ a bit faster than usual.”

“Don’t worry,” you laugh, and even though you know he probably can’t hear you, you add, “I’m never letting go.”

You make it to Keisuke’s apartment in seven minutes flat—which, normally, would leave you terrified, given his place is twenty minutes from your spot, but you doubt that’s what’s got your heart racing. He barely gives you enough time to take the helmet off before his hands are back on you, easily scooping you up and carrying you up the stairs. You bump into a few walls, and the way you’ve got a loose grasp on his helmet sends it craning into his back just as often, but neither of you care. Between fits of giggles and cautious glances to make sure he’s not about to walk you through a glass door (or down a stairwell), you kiss like it’ll be the last time you ever get the chance to.

“Anyone home?” you mumble into his lips. He slams you against the front door of his shared three-bedroom apartment, using his hips to keep you up while he tries to find the lock by memory.

“Nope,” he replies, lips busy with your skin, fingers fumbling uselessly behind you. “Stupid—fucking lock—told Tora to leave it—never fuckin’ listens—”

“Relax,” you laugh, although that’s rich coming from you. Your legs tighten around him as you break free from his kiss, instead sucking along the column of his throat. Freeing his face is supposed to give him enough room to actually look for the lock, so the two of you can stop dry-humping in the hall and finally get the privacy you need—but like always, Keisuke does the unexpected.

He throws his head back and moans, giving you more access to leave a matching hickey—and you’re not strong enough to resist the temptation. A whine starts in his throat, from where you’re sucking on his pale skin. The keys clatter to the ground.

“Keisuke,” you scold—but before you can tease him for being in a rush, his lips are back on yours.

“Never gonna make it,” is his only defense.

“Gonna—gonna have to,” you reply, but every time you try pulling away or reach for the keys yourself, he grabs you. Wraps your wrists in his rough hands, pins them to the door beside your head, and leans so far forward that, even with your limp legs, he’s able to keep you up himself. “Kei—“

“So help me sweetheart,” he warns, hips rolling against yours with a sense of urgency only outmatched by his kiss, “if you keep saying my name like that, I swear to the gods I’m gonna fuck you right here.”

“So help me, sweetheart,” you shoot back, breathy and hot as you try to avoid the way his lips chase yours, “if you don’t get me inside right now, I might let you.”

He freezes. Pulls away from the delightful bruise he’d just been leaving below your ear and stares at you with a mixture of awe and utter delight. “Really?”

You swat the back of his head. “No, dumbass, open the fucking door.”

Keisuke’s lips, pink and bruising slightly, twist in a pretend pout as he squats. He keeps one thick palm under your thigh, keeping your leg wrapped around him as he snags his keys. “You’re such a fucking tease.”

“Says the guy who does—that,” you try scoffing, but you’re cut off with a moan when Kei stands and bounces you against his hips. His boner is back and harder than before, pressing into your core, the messy, wet mix of your drenched panties and his earlier cum making a lewd sound in the otherwise silent hallway.

“Does… what, babe?” he teases. “C’mon, finish that sentence.”

You don’t know how he finds the focus to actually find the lock this time, but you thank every deity in the world that he does—because it takes just a second, a single, solitary second for him to jimmy it in, slam the door open, and you’re finally alone.

The door frame rattles. Something falls, but you can’t tell if it’s the mirror you insisted he hang above the entry table you insisted he get or if it’s the rickety old coat rack Chifuyu said would ‘class up the joint’; all you know is that as soon as the key is in, Baji’s hands are back to cradling your thighs for support as he crosses the threshold.

You reach for the door, but he catches it with his ankle and slams it shut, quickly spinning to pin you against it.

“Really—” you pant, “really got the place—to ourselves?”

“Mhm,” Keisuke confirms. He leans into you, palms rubbing along your thighs until they get to your knees, silently asking you to wrap tighter around him. You do, and the moment he feels your ankles cross at the small of his back, his hands move to your waist. “Told ‘em—needed space.”

“Oh?” you question, your hands reaching for the hem of his shirt and tug, tug, tugging—“And when’d you do that?”

He reaches behind his head and yanks his tee off, tossing it carelessly into the darkness of the apartment. You hadn’t even paused to turn on the lights.

“After I saw Tadashi.” You can tell he’s grinning, especially as you drag your nails along the chiseled plane of his abs. His hands slide up your torso, thumb rubbing your stomach through the thin cotton of your dress, grazing the underwire of your bra. “Told Tora this one wasn’t gonna work, either, ’n he said I should just tell ya the truth, 'cause he couldn’t watch me mope around all night again—”

“Mope?” you tease. Kei’s fingers dig in. “Kazutora accused you of moping?”

“Well—shut up!” he whines. “You try watching the person you’re in love with go out with guys who don’t deserve them and tell me you wouldn’t start moping either—y/n? Why… are you looking at me like that?”

Your eyes are wide. Your hands go limp, the helmet falling to the floor with a loud clatter. Your lips part to say… something, but you’re not sure what.

Keisuke’s told you he’s loves you a thousand times; the brief ‘kay love ya! before he hangs up; the gentle love you, see ya tomorrow whenever he’d bring you home; the drawn out gods I love you after you’ve surprised him with his favorite meal—but none like this.

None so… blatant. So unmistakable.

Kei stares at you curiously, as if he isn’t even aware of what he’s just said. He repeats your name, hands leaving your waist to catch your chin.

“You’re… in love with me?”

Keisuke blinks.

For a moment, you think you must’ve misheard, he must’ve misspoke, you must have misunderstood—but a brilliant smile breaks his face, and he nuzzles his nose against yours. “‘Course I’m in love with you, sweetheart. I’ve been in love with you, and I ain’t ever gonna stop loving you—”

You kiss him.

The gentlest one yet. The way you always dreamed your first one would be; soft, sweet, lips pressing together while your hands held him close. Heartbeats synching. The world falling away as it’s just the two of you, in this moment, endless and forever.

There’s only one thing to say when you pause: “I love you too, Keisuke.”

Your teeth knock together as Keisuke can’t contain his smile, either. Hands move, one around the small of your back and the other under a single thigh. Your lips never part as he carries you to his room.

He sets you at the foot of his bed and stands above you. His chest heaves, bare and flushed with need. Your hands slip from his neck to his bed to keep yourself propped up, legs still wrapped tightly around his waist. Keisuke’s hands travel to your knees, and he just—stares.

He loves you. How could he not, with the way that pretty dress puddles on his mattress, exposing nearly all of your leg but hiding what he’s been waiting for his whole adult life? How could he not, with the way his spit makes your collar glistens in the moonlight, filtering in from behind those sheer curtains you insisted he get? How could he not love the way you say his name, reaching towards him, fingers catching on his belt buckle as you ask him if he’s ready?

“Not yet,” he whispers. The hoarseness of his voice, the way it’s dropped several octaves from merely seeing you on his bed, sends a jolt of electricity through you. You’re about to ask why, but the reverence in how he’s looking at you makes you not want to break this spell.

He trails his fingers along your calves. Gently, he unhooks your legs from his waist. His fingers shake as he struggles with the straps of your heels, but when you go to help, he catches your wrist.

“No,” he repeats, “not yet.”

You keep quiet and merely watch as your best friend, the man of your dreams, takes his time in undressing you. One wedge, then the other, falling off your feet with a dull clank! on the carpet. Keisuke kisses your ankles, then starts kissing up your calves, then your knees, then your thighs—

The anticipation has you dripping. Your thighs instinctively clench when he gets to your hem, hands curling into fists by your sides. Your panties are uncomfortably glued to your cunt, sticky in a way you’ve never been before, and he’s not even lifted your dress to see yet.

Keisuke rests his chin atop your thigh. “Please,” he pleads—pleads—“Let me—baby, let me. I wanna taste you.”

Today is not the day you learn to refuse him.

Your muscles shake from anticipation as you slowly spread your legs, but that’s not enough for him. “Baby, no, I—I wanna hear you say it.” His voice is soft, shaky. A little hesitant, as if he’s not sure if this’ll ruin the moment but he knows he has to be sure—he has to hear you say it… if only to revel in the desperate way you say his name.

“Keisuke, please… whatever you want, have it. Just—touch me, Kei, please, I need you—“

“Need you too, sweetheart,” he praises, running his lips along your thigh. “Gonna—gonna have you now, okay?”

His fingers still shake when he lifts your dress, exposing the black lace of your panties to him. At first glance, he can’t tell that they’re absolutely soaked—but that doesn’t stop the way you start to squirm in embarrassment as he just… stares. His thumbs dig into the fat of your hips, broad palms keeping your thighs spread and pinned to the bed.

It takes you a moment to realize he’s not breathing.

“Kei?”

He doesn’t look up.

His grip gets tighter. His eyes narrow. Before you get the chance to ask him what’s wrong, he growls, “you wore these for him?”

You blink. That is not what you were expecting, but before you can defend with they’re my lucky pair, or I wanted to feel sexy, or it doesn’t matter, I’m here with you—Keisuke’s ripped them off.

You yelp when the fabric bites your skin, failing to wriggling away as Keisuke strips them off your ankle. “What the fuck—“

“I’ll get you a new pair,” he mutters. “Shit—I’ll get you a hundred pairs, but you get rid of every single set someone else has seen. Got it?”

Your lips purse. He’s being unreasonable, you think, and totally ridiculous… but no matter how much your brain tries to reason he’s out of line, your fluttering pussy doesn’t get the message. Your slick is evident now, exposed and iridescent in the moonlight, dripping down your hole and slowly saturating the sheets.

Usually, Keisuke wouldn’t let it go. Usually, he’d keep picking at it until you cave, or at least recognize you heard him—but usually, he’s not staring at your cunt.

Right now, he can’t focus on anything but how desperate he is to be inside you.

“Yeah, think ya got it… fuck, babe… seems like you like it when I say shit like that, hunh?”

You whimper slightly, having to bite your lip to keep it together. Slowly, he drags the tip of his finger from the sheet beneath you up along your wet folds. He barely touches you, but when he pulls his finger away, it’s covered in a layer of you.

He brings it to his face with a cocky grin, watching how the pad shines in the moonlight. “You always this wet, or am I special?”

“Shut up,” you shoot back, preparing to bring up how special he found you earlier—only to immediately throw your head back and moan as Keisuke buries his face between your legs.

There is no preamble. There are no more teasing quips or pauses; Keisuke dives in like a man starved, and the only thing that can sate his appetite is you.

He starts with broad strokes, gathering as much of your slick as he can. He’s messy, messier than you, and soon there’s more of his spit than your wetness between your legs. His arms wrap around your thighs, keeping them pinned and spread on his shoulders as he continues to feast, thumbs spreading your lips open so he can truly devour you.

When Keisuke starts suckling on your clit, your fingers knot in his hair. You moan, loud and whiney and plead for him to keep going as your orgasm starts to boil—faster than before, more powerful too, with greater ease than you’ve ever managed to pull from yourself.

Keisuke brings a hand to your clit, quickly swiping the puffy bud with the pad of his thumb as he focuses his tongue on your fluttering hole. In and out, up and down, the warm muscle drives you insane. Your grip on his hair must hurt, but he says nothing; he focuses on making you feel as good as humanly possible, never once letting up, not even when you start to choke, “Kei—I’m—I’m gonna—“

“Cum for me, sweetheart,” he commands. “C’mon, pretty girl, make a mess on my face, wanna feel how you clench, wanna make ya cry—”

It sends you over the edge.

With a scream of his name, your back arches. Your thighs try closing around him but still, he doesn’t let up. He keeps pace, tongue-fucking you, lapping up all the juice that spills out as his thumb continues caressing your clit until you do start crying and you do have to plead, “no—no more, Kei, can’t—“

“Can,” he corrects—but he stops. His hand stills, moving so that the warmth of his palm covers that sensitive bundle of nerves, and only then does he stop lapping at your hole. He presses a gentle kiss to your sex, then to your inner thigh. “But I’ll be nice tonight, sweetheart. Only ‘cause I love you, though.”

You stare at the ceiling as you catch your breath. The paint is peeling in the corner. The glow-in-the-dark stars you helped him put up when he first moved in are dim. The walls are covered in motorcycle posters. A calendar set to the wrong month hangs above a salvaged desk, covered with various veterinary textbooks, barely legible notebooks, a handful of empty beer cans, and a handful of DVD cases, one of which you know is Dyslexia; How to Read When Even Your Brain Doesn’t Want You To. A neon sign advertising Margaritaville is unlit beside his closet. A pile of clothes that didn’t make it to the hamper rests beneath it.

The room is so—Keisuke , you feel at peace, even as your limbs turn to jelly.

Your heart is racing faster than if you’d just run a marathon. “Thought—thought you said you hadn’t—“ you try panting, but it’s too much effort, too soon. You end up collapsing back on the bed, head swimming with euphoria.

“Said I hadn’t had sex,” Keisuke corrects as he stands, your limp thighs falling to the either side of his waist, “not that I’ve never eaten pussy.” He scoffs, as if that should’ve been obvious. “I’m not an idiot, babe. I respect women enough to know where the clit is.”

A little laugh escapes you. The fan motor is the only other sound. It’s cool, your nipples perk beneath your bra, but you’re still hot. Still hyper aware that Keisuke is just a few inches away, watching your bare cunt flutter and beg him for more.

Keisuke does love you. You know he does, because he gives you time to catch your breathe before he starts up again, only pressing soft kisses to the inside of your legs and quiet offerings of, “so fuckin’ pretty” and “can’t believe you’re here” and, your favorite, the only one you respond to: “so in love with you.”

“I love you too, Kei.”

He runs his hands along your sides, slowly taking more and more of your dress up with it until the entire thing is resting by your neck. He makes quick work of your bra, not even needing you to sit up as he unhooks it and lifts the cups away.

He says nothing; just stares at your naked body with the same adoration and awe he held when taking off your shoes.

“You’re—so beautiful,” he whispers. “Y’know that? So—so fuckin’ beautiful.”

He bends down and takes a pert nipple in his mouth. You whine, hate yourself for doing so, then whine again as his free hand starts tweaking your other nipple. He runs his tongue over every inch of your chest, making sure you’re covered with his spit and hands, traversing as much of you as he can.

When he gets to your face, he smiles. “You’re mine, yeah? All mine?”

Your fingers run over his jaw, over the bruise that’s barely discernible in the moonlight. No one’s touched you like him; no one’s even kissed you like him, either, and you’re not sure if it’s the “Keisuke” of it all making you feel like this, or if this is how it’s supposed to have felt all along.

The answer comes easily.

“Yeah,” you agree with a smile of your own, “yeah, m’all yours, Keisuke. Pretty sure I always have been.”

“Always, hunh?” He holds you gently now; a stark contrast to the hungry way he’d just devoured you. “That mean you’ve always loved me, too?”

Your breathy yes is lost in a gasp when his hand slides between your legs. Gently, he prods a single thick finger into your virgin hole, shallowly dipping in and out. “Never had someone else in here, hunh? M’gonna be your first?”

“Y-yes,” you repeat, voice cracking. Your eyes flutter close as he keeps fingering you. You’d had fingers in there before, but none like this. Your own couldn’t compare, two of yours barely able to stretch the way one of his does… and he’s not even going all the way. Not even knuckle deep as he explores only the shallows, letting you adjust.

Your face scrunches when he adds a second.

“This okay?” he asks. You look at him, hand wrapping around his neck as you bring his forehead down to meet yours.

You nod, then remember what he said earlier, how you could feel his cock jumping when you were sweet and needy for him. “Yeah, Keisuke. Yes—yes, I want this. I want you.”

He cups your face and trails soft kisses from corner to corner, breaking apart only to lift your dress and bra over your head. They’re carelessly thrown to the floor, you have half a mind to scold him that it’ll wrinkle—but when he goes back to your cunt, two fingers halfway in, all you’re able to say is the harsh inhale of his name.

They’re shallow, never pushing in deep enough to hurt, slowly stretching your rim to its max. He goes a little deeper, then starts scissoring them, and it becomes nearly impossible to believe he hasn’t done this before.

“No—no way you’re a virgin,” you hiss when Keisuke’s lips travel to your breast. He alternates between sucking hickeys and kneading them while staring at the way your cunt sucks him in, never stopping his ministrations.

Keisuke lets out a short scoff and shifts. “You literally made me cum my pants like a teenager.”

“Then how—“

“I told ya, babe, I respect women,” is his only reply. The only one he’s willing to give, at least, because he starts paying more attention to your tits than what questions are spilling his way.

You feel like you’ve got to be ready when he adds a third, and you say as much—only for Keisuke to meet your gaze with a cocky grin. “Trust me, sweetheart. You’re gonna thank me for this.”

It can’t be much longer until he deems you ready, but it feels like forever, even if he keeps you distracted from the slight burn between your legs by playing with your breasts, sucking on your throat, praising you.

“Taking m’fingers so well, pretty thing. You’re such a good girl f’me, can’t believe you made me wait this long…”

“You didn’t tell me either,” you scold. He curls his fingers mid-way through your sentence, rubbing against a sensitive spot you’ve never been able to find on your own. You keen his name, hand snapping down to catch his forearm. He pauses.

“Too much?”

Slowly, you shake your head, eyes watering. “Please, Kei, I—I want you to fuck me.”

Keisuke presses a chaste kiss to your forehead. “Never could say no to you, sweetheart.”

If you could think clearly, you’d start listing all the times he has denied you, starting with just a few seconds ago—but him withdrawing his fingers leaves you feeling too empty to do much but pout.

When he pulls away, you chase after him, only for him to shake his head with a fond grin. “How am I supposed to fuck you if you won’t let me take my pants off?”

With hot cheeks, your lips twist. “You were the one who wanted to fuck on your bike, and then in the hall—what, were you planning on stripping naked then, too?”

You’re rewarded with a very rare, very endearing blush. He sits back on his knees and rubs his neck, eyes dropping from yours—then his lip curls in a smirk. “With how wet you got, seems like you wanted me to. What—you like the idea of that? Getting fucked in public? Don’t worry, sweetheart, maybe we’ll try that one day…” He laughs at the way you squirm, but he’s not wrong; your cunt clenches at the thought.

“You’re such a dick.” Your hands reach for his belt, fumbling slightly as you try to undo it. Keisuke’s hands take over, getting rid of the black leather in seconds.

“Your dick,” he corrects, hands back on you, gently laying you back against his pillows, trailing over your now completely naked body, leaving gooseflesh in their wake. You roll your eyes but say nothing, heart in your throat, pussy pulsing in anticipation.

He straightens, taking in the display in front of him. Taking in you.

You sit up slightly, chewing your lower lip. He’s beautiful, but even more so in the moonlight. It illuminates his pale skin, almost making him glow in the darkness of the rest of his room. Obsidian hair falls in a straight sheet around his flushed cheeks, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Violet and red marks adorn his neck and chest. His abs flex when he watches the way your eyes trail down; down the inlet between them, down the stern jut of his prominent v-line, over the faint trail of dark hair that disappears into the band of his jeans.

His fingers—the ones just inside you—hover on the button. They’re covered in your slick, resting just above a bulge that looks absolutely delicious, one that you know he can’t wait to bury inside you—but still, he hesitates.

“I love you, Keisuke,” you say. He smiles. It’s the only further confirmation he needs before he’s pushing off the bed and pulling down his jeans and underwear in one go.

The others have lied about a lot—like Baji’s lack of virginity—but the size of Keisuke is not one of them.

Your jaw drops as you push to your knees, staring at Keisuke’s cock like it’s the first you’ve ever seen. It’s not, and technically speaking, it’s not even the first time you’ve seen his��but that time in the shower, when it was hanging heavily between his legs and you only caught a glimpse… apparently, that was him soft.

Keisuke hard is more impressive than any porn you’ve seen. So heavy that it can barely support its own weight, even with all the blood rushing through it, and so wide around even Keisuke, with his broad palms and lanky fingers, doesn’t dwarf it.

A thick bead of pre slips out the tip, trailing along the bulging vein that disappears under Keisuke’s hand as he starts to stroke it.

“This… is where the others tapped out,” he says slowly, taking in the way you watch. “I mean—not that I’m thinking about them—but I just—“

“You’re big.”

Keisuke chokes on a laugh. “So I’ve heard. Pretty virgin like you wouldn’t know any better though, would you?”

You give him a withering glare. “I’ve sucked dick before, asshole. You’re big.”

Keisuke’s jaw clenches. “Yeah? Go on, then. Show me how you’ve sucked dick.”

Later, you’ll tease him for how jealous he got, and later, you’ll revel in the possessive way he determines to erase every other touch from your memory—but now, you obediently crawl towards him, one of your smaller hands overlapping his, and you take control.

You press a soft kiss to his flushed tip. It’s larger than your lips, his pre a salty gloss as you kiss again and again—Keisuke grips your hair. “Suck.”

It’s as much a plea as it is a command, one you can’t ignore. You take him,—just the tip—in your mouth, tongue swirling over his warm head as your hand replaces his on the rest of his dick. Your fingers barely touch, and no matter how you adjust, how you lay your palm or spread your fingers… there’s still at least an inch of him exposed.

He hisses, nearly drowning out the lewd, wet sound your pussy makes as it clenches around nothing.

“This—turning you on?” he says, as if his cock isn’t twitching obscenely against your tongue. “Fuckin—sucking on a big cock making you wet?”

You let go with a wet pop! and bat your eyelashes at him. You know exactly what you’re doing when you say, “No, Kei. I’m this wet ‘cause of you.”

With a groan, Keisuke pulls your head back to his dick and thrusts in, sliding as far as you’ll let him before you start to gag. “That’s—that’s it, sweetheart, get it nice and wet.”

He holds you there for a moment, waiting until you tap on his thigh before sliding out. Your eyes are teary, saliva dripping down the corner of your mouth. Deftly, you twist your wrist while catching your breath. His fingers go from knotting in your hair to petting the back of your head.

“You keep doing that, I’m gonna bust,” he warns, but his fond smile gives him away.

You merely smile. “Telling me you’ve never had your cock sucked, Kei?”

His lip curls in a snarl, which disappears with a groan when you take him in your throat once more. Slowly, lips pursing around him, tongue flicking along the sensitive underside of his cockhead as you try going as far as you can. Your jaw is already starting to ache, but you’re determined to prove yourself.

“Not—like this,” he moans, pushing your head a little further down. Your lips split in a smile, and you raise your hand to start fondling his balls—a trick that’s always gotten you success before—but before you make contact, Keisuke is sliding out and grabbing your jaw. He’s breathing heavily, pupils blown out with lust. He stares at your lips then leans forward, not flinching at the taste of himself on you.

“Wanna fuck you now,” he mumbles. You wrap your arms around his neck and start to lean back, nodding.

“Want you to fuck me too,” you agree. One of Keisuke’s muscular thighs slides between your legs, easing them apart. He keeps kissing you, letting you fall softly against his pillows while he keeps stroking his member, slick with your spit.

He taps the tip of his cock against your clit. You hiss in surprise, eyes closing shut at the sudden sensation of pleasure that rushes through you. “Let me know if it hurts,” he says quietly. He grips his cock right beneath the head, guiding it through your slick folds, getting as much of your fluids on him as he can.

He’s torn between needing to see the way you suck him in, and the need to squeeze his eyes shut. The sight of you alone, legs spread on either side, pussy gushing because of him, covering in marks because of him, mewling his name as you beg him to fuck you—it’s almost enough for him to cum on the spot.

Faintly, honks echo from the street below. It’s amazing that in this instant, as your world is about to change forever and for the better, everyone else is going about their business like nothing’s happening. They’re catching a late-dinner with their partner; walking home from a late-night meeting that could’ve been an email; swinging by the grocer’s to pick up snacks and drinks to share with their friends… The whole world is continuing on, just beyond that window, but for you and Keisuke… it’s as if time’s stopped.

The world is only real for the two of you.

He bends down to kiss you, making sure to pour every ounce of love and care he has into this one. You respond just as sweetly, reveling in the power of this moment, this one decision that will irrevocably tie you together forever, the way you were always meant to be.

He loves you, you love him, and there’s nothing else that matters.

“Ready?” he asks. You nod, then echo, “ready,” and he puts it in; just the tip, spearing past your tight hole. The two of you let out a synchronous gasp.

It’s even more than three of his fingers; warm, too, and thick, softer but also harder and full—you’re so, so, so full as he slowly edges in. It hurts—it feels good—it burns—you need more—

“Baby,” Keisuke pants. He’s let go of his cock, letting just the first inch or so rest comfortably within your walls. You feel him twitch, feel how tight his fingers dig into the sheets on either side of you so he doesn’t add more bruises to your ever-growing collection. “Baby, talk to me. Tell me—are you—are you okay?”

You whimper slightly when he sinks a little further. Eyes scrunching, your fingers digging into his thighs as you try to even your breath. “It—it’s so—“ you try saying, but it’s like you can feel him in your stomach, the pressure tightening all the way up your throat and cutting you off.

“So—good,” Keisuke gasps. He does the best he can, really, but you—you’re so—warm, and wet, and inviting—the place you’re joined might be the best thing he’s ever felt–ever seen. He slides a little further, presses a kiss to wherever he can reach as he waits until your chest stops heaving as horribly. He tries telling you he loves you, he really tries telling you how amazing you are, how perfect you are, how good you feel—but all that comes out are choked, half-sentences that fade into groans.

Tears prick at your lash line by the time he’s securely sheathed in you. Your fingers dig into his back, trying to pull him flush to your chest and bury his head in your neck so he can’t see. You know how he’ll feel; he’ll pull out and say he’s sorry, that he never meant to hurt you and it’s not worth it and he won’t try again–and that’s not what you want. You just need some time to adjust, that’s all.

You never realized how empty you were.

Keisuke lifts up from the crook of your neck when the first tear slides against his cheek. “M’sorry,” he breathes, kissing one eye, then the other, licking the tear tracks and kissing you again. “M’sorry, I don’t wanna hurt—“ His arms shake on either side of you. The urge to start shifting his hips is sinful, but he doesn’t. He can’t, not until you're okay, not until you tell him it’s okay.

“It’s—okay,” you breathe. Your face says otherwise, but really… it’s okay. You play with the hair at the nape of his neck, offering him a little smile as you shift your hips ever-so-slightly against his. “I’m—I’m okay, baby, really. Just—just go slow.”

Keisuke kisses you. Slowly, deeply, spreading your lips with his as he gently pulls out and slides back in, heeding your directive to go slow. It hurts, it still hurts, is it supposed to hurt like this—but right when you’re about to give up, right when you’re about to tell him it's too much and maybe you should stop… it starts to feel good.

Not just full, but satisfying, bumping against the back of your messy cunt with every stroke. The ridge of his cockhead catches your insides in a way that makes your toes curl, and before long, your legs are wrapping around his waist, pulling him closer.

“Gods—fuck, Kei, fuck—“ you hiss, burying your head in his shoulder, biting his collarbone to keep yourself from screaming. “Just—there, like that, don’t—fuck—“

“Thought you said you were a virgin,” he hisses. Your broken pleas of, I am, I am, I am—go unrecognized as he slowly picks up speed. “Virgin pussy—heh—always feel this—fuckin’ good?”

You moan, loud and unreserved, nails digging into the muscle of his shoulders. Your stomach burns. Your pussy clenches, but for the first time, there’s finally something to hold on to, finally something to fill you up—you’ve never been so full, never felt so good. The coil tightens in your stomach, made all the more tense by the fact there’s something inside— “Gonna— gonna cum, Kei, don’t—don’t stop, please—“

“Yeah, sweetheart? You gonna—gonna cum for me? Go on, cum f’me. Cum on my cock, baby, show me what we’ve been—been waitin’ for—“

You cry when your orgasm finally washes over you.

You’ve never climaxed this powerfully before, to the point that you’ve felt like—this. The world is empty besides the two of you. Bells ring in your ear as you struggle to keep your eyes open, your whole body floating. You feel everything and nothing; like you’re weightless but have never been so heavy in your life.

You gasp for air, fingers digging into Keisuke’s shoulders as his hips stutter a few more times then still. His moans into your ear as his own orgasms consumes him, painting your insides white, shooting so much it drips out of your spent pussy and starts to puddle between you.

He stays there for a moment. Lets his lips trace lazy patterns beneath your ear, still half-hard inside you, one hand gripping the back of your neck and the other holding your breast. Even though you’re spent, your hands delicately trail up and down his spine. Your breathing is heavy and your smile bright and you think you could stay right here forever.

The plastic stars one his ceiling smile down at you, and you imagine the ones outside are doing the same. ‘About time!’ they seem to say. After all these years, about time. There’s a shrill whistle of bus brakes, screeching to a halt; a muffled shout from one pedestrian to another. The fan creaks slightly, the cool air washing over you and helping calm the raging fire on your skin. The clock on Keisuke’s lopsided nightstand, made even with a stack of textbooks he never got to put to use, beeps at midnight: the end of one day, the start of forever.

Kei takes a deep breath and slides off, hissing as his sensitive cock is exposed to the cool air of his bedroom. He lays on his back, taking a hand and placing it over his eyes as he tries to calm his racing heart.

Your legs are sticky. They’re already getting sore. Your hips ache, your spine stretches, your chest burns—but you relish it. Kei’s breathing evens beside you.

Glancing, you check if he’s asleep—but with the way his forearm covers his eyes, you can’t tell. He looks even more like an angel now. Light, from a city just waking up, creeps past the curtains, illuminating slivers of his pale and flushed skin. He looks–relaxed. Content, even with the blush still coloring his high cheeks bones. His lips are parted, shallow gasps of air being sucked through them, but the longer you look, the more it looks like they’re curling in a smile.

His chest rises and falls steadily, and just when you start to think he might actually be asleep, the hand beneath your neck starts playing with your hair.

“Think it’s—always this good?” he asks breathlessly, pulling you in a little closer.

You pretend to think. He tilts his head, cracking an eye to look down at you curiously. You smile. “I don’t know. Think we better try again—y’know, just to be sure.”

Kei barks out a laugh and pulls you to his chest, looking at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. And right now, with the gentle light filtering through his open window, sweaty and smiling and with his cum dripping from between your legs to make a mess of his thigh, you are.

You play with the edges of his hair, sprawled lazily across his sweaty forehead. With a soft smile, he reaches for your fingers and pulls them to his lips. “Do you actually like it? My haircut, I mean. Pretty sure you liked the other stuff.”

You answer with a laugh, pressing a kiss to where the edges fall. “I love it.”

He grins and rolls over, pinning you to the mattress. The short locks make a curtain, hiding the two of you from anything but each other. “Good. Did it f’you.”

“For me?”

He hums and buries his face in your neck, delicately kissing the bruising skin. “Noticed your type. None of them had long hair, ’n I thought…”

With a pealing laugh, you grab his cheeks and bring his face to yours, smothering him with kisses. “Keisuke, you are such an idiot.”

He pretends to frown, but kisses you all the same. “Weren’t calling me that when I was making you scream earlier.”

“Kei,” you say, forcing him back so you can really meet his eyes, “short hair, long hair. No hair. The only kind of guy I’ve ever truly wanted has been you.”

Keisuke blinks. Short, thick lashes bat against those endlessly high cheekbones of his, and then he smiles. He lowers his lips to yours once more and gifts you a kiss; deep, slow. A kiss that’s been years in the making, that says all that your words have and then some.

“I love you,” he says, and you barely have time to say the same before he’s kissing you, hardening cock easily gliding back through your sticky folds, and you go for round two.

So... happy adventuring :) thank you for reading! if you made it this far… pls reblog, drop a comment, or leave an ask if you enjoyed!! I worked really, really hard on this, and it would mean the absolute world to me that, if y’all enjoyed it, you told me why. if you hated it, tell me why. if i made you cry or scream or fall in love or fierce fiercely full of disappointed rage, tell me why!! i won’t bite (unless you ask)!

hopefully the next adventure gets even better. thanks for reading!

#baji #keisuke baji x reader #baji x reader #baji smut #keisuke baji smut #baji x reader smut #tokyo revengers smut #tokyo revengers x reader #keisuke baji x reader smut #tokyo rev smut

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suguru-getos · 1 year

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| unwind with me | itachi x reader |

a/n: i’m a sucker for domestic itachiiii <333 fluff and just, slice of life thingy goin’ on

living together with itachi had its perks. you didn’t have to worry about taking the trash out. you didn’t have to worry about a lot of little things which otherwise irritated you. take today for example: you have had a truly hectic week. meetings, appraisals, work politics, a certain bitch you hate and want to kill. everything was coming together hauntingly. so? saturday you didn’t do anything. being the epitome of a couch potato suits you sometimes. especially when those sometimes include your period.

today your eyes opened to an annoying nuisance. your period cramps again. itachi came to you, a huge mug of iced latte in his painted hands, nudging you tenderly and kissing your forehead. “good morning, you are up early today. yesterday you woke up at 11:45. look, it’s just 10:30” he winked, watching you roll your eyes at him. itachi had a subtle way of teasing you & you fairly understood that.

the coffee tasted immaculate. you had no words to express how tasty it was honestly. just the right amount of coldness, the kind that wakes you up soothingly. the perfect amount of chocolate & caramel. the perfect amount of crushed ice. you looked around the house & decided while sipping your morning drink, today you needed to be productive.

“m’ gonna open my laptop & then play games. after that m’ taking a shower and we’ll go out.” oh— itachi was ‘also’ your boyfriend. makes sense doesn’t it? why else would he treat you like a princess when he could’ve been labelled as king ‘aloof’.

“you will take a shower, work out a bit because it’s been 4 days you haven’t moved your body. i suggest pilates since you are still on your period. then, i will help you cook something for lunch. and further on; we will go out.” you always loved when itachi had his little planner instinct come out for you. there are times when you could really use that.

with that, the day was starting to go by with a slight haze. you had tasks lined up where you’d rather not think. give your mind a little rest by being in the backseat & let your boyfriend handle the itty bitty bits about that all. “speaking of, i need to get my nails done,” you sat on the kitchen counter, watching… or rather, gawking at your man chopping vegetables with such ease. “uh huh?” he looked rather indulged, the bun accentuated his features which would make van gogh bow.

he leaned in, gently placing himself between your legs and kissing your lips softly, hands freshly washed and scared to touch your supple skin. “i love you, angel,” itachi cooed, leaning his forehead against you. “i am so, so glad you depend on me you know that? because you don’t depend on anyone else & that’s what makes me strive so hard to be worthy of it,”

there he was, with his unadulterated words, piercing them deep inside your heart. your pupils shaked in sheer adoration, eyes glossing up. “m’ on my period dya wan’ me to fuckin’ cry?” you whined, leaning your head against his shoulder and hugging him.

he felt so warm, tenderly warm and caregiving that you often forgot that the world doesn’t know, or see this side of him. he’s ruthless to others, often labelled as cold. a twisted part of you likes it. you are exclusive to his love. you’d always be.

“alright now, i want you to eat, then how about,” itachi bit his lower lip, “we do some self care and i prepare us the cosiest haven for watching movies together,” you were introverted & your boyfriend reciprocates the same energy.

“deal!” you grinned, helping him prepare the rest of the ingredients.

little did you know that today was going to be even more special, it’s about time you were just his girlfriend. itachi has something rather too special to share with you tonight. 💍

#itachi #itachi uchiha #itachi imagines #uchiha imagines #uchiha x reader #itachi x reader #itachi fluff #uchiha fluff #naruto fluff #naruto shippuden fluff #naruto x reader #naruto shippuden x reader #naruto shippuden imagines #naruto imagines #naruto x reader fluff #itachi x reader fluff

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amaranthinecanicular · 5 months

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THE KING'S CANARY TAKES FLIGHT!

The king's canary has abandoned his duty. Jimmy would argue he just quit a bad job. Either way there's a bounty on his head and a curse around his neck, and with Grian and Joel's voices ringing in his ears, Jimmy's dreams of freedom seem further out of reach by the day. That is until he saves a blaze hybrid who, for some reason, is hellbent on returning the favor. Alone, Jimmy is pathetic. Honestly, even with Tango, Jimmy still thinks they're kind of pathetic. But with a little bit of luck they just might make it.

[My gift for the @mcytblrholidayexchange, for @thesleepycat! I'm so sorry it's so late, but I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you had a stellar holiday!]

[alternatively read on ao3.]

THE KING’S CANARY TAKES FLIGHT!

It’s a catchy headline. Jimmy glares down at the trodden newspapers and admits at least this: it is a catchy headline.

One week and three towns out from the capital and the gossip still refuses to die. Jimmy blames the excess of perfectly reproduced ink on paper; if redstone wizardry hadn’t automated the process, he’s certain the printing press would never have taken off, and he’d have been able to slip through the cracks of the kingdom long before news could spread.

He skirts the edge of the street and keeps moving. The phantom twinge of a boot grinding into his toes is easy to ignore. Less easy to ignore: the voices of the townsfolk, tittering over his crime. He hears his name but more often he hears his title. Canary. Canary. Canary.

“Poor birdie. Can’t be easy, being the king’s canary,” says one woman. Jimmy doesn’t know if she’s being sarcastic or sincere; he can’t risk looking her in the face.

“Pah! Canary. Yellow-bellied sapsucker, more like,” says a man. “All he ever had to do was stand there and not die and get paid for standing there and not dying. Couldn’t even do that.” He’s starting to sound like Joel. “Got no idea what a real, honest day’s work looks like. Spoiled and ungrateful, you ask me. If I were him, with gifts like that, I’d be up in the castle no questions asked. Bitty canary’s nothing but a coward—ow!”

The man hops up and down on one foot, glaring at the oblivious butcher who’d stomped on it.

Jimmy draws his hood low.

Joel thought he was cursed by a witch. Grian thought he was born with it. The Red King said it was a gift from the gods, divine proof that he was meant to rule and no harm was to come to him.

Jimmy doesn’t know anything about a witch, or the gods, or the circumstances in which he was born, but he thinks Joel was closest to the mark. It’s a curse. It's always been a curse.

A dilemma: Jimmy needs food.

His wings are numb with cold and his feet feel like he’s leaving behind the skin with every step, but food is the pressing issue. It’s taken two weeks and five towns of varying industry, but he’s finally run through the stock he took from the castle. He’s got plenty of money for more, but money isn’t really the problem. They just put out a reward for him. Martyn’s doing, if he had to guess. If anyone was considering letting him go before, they certainly aren’t now.

Redstone has taken hold here, turned the town metropolitan, and he can hear as well as smell all the local dishes that the vendors are hawking: caramelized redstone sweets, charred and spiced meats, cups of blazepowder soup. They smell so good. He keeps to the outskirts of the market square, watching from the corner of his eye as steam wafts up every time the vendor ladles out chunky red broth. Jimmy feels the hiss of a burn on his hand; a second later the vendor’s eye twitches at a splash of hot soup. She looks up, and Jimmy ducks away before their eyes can meet.

There are no good options. If he pays for a meal, he’s almost guaranteed to be recognized and exposed. If he tries to steal something, he’s almost guaranteed to be caught and exposed. (He has no talent for thieving, as Grian and Joel proved every time they dared Jimmy to nick something, back when money was tight.) If he does nothing, his traitorous stomach will complain loud enough to garner attention, and then he’ll be exposed. Or he’ll starve. Which is also bad.

If he could, he’d have hiked through the forest until he got to the plains biome. Away from the towns and the crowds, free to hunt for his own meals. But every time he drifted from the path Joel and Grian’s voices rang in his head, reminding him that he’s never been good at camping, that mobs seem drawn to him like they knew he was weak, that he could barely hold his own with them around and on his own he was next to useless.

He’s almost at the end of the square. What then? Keep going and hope he doesn’t collapse on the road to the next town? Even the thought of food leaves him lightheaded, he’d never make it. Wheel back around and pass through the market a second time, and risk being recognized? His pace slows to a crawl. Joel and Grian were right—he can’t survive on his own. He doesn’t know why he tried. He was warm and well-fed in the castle, and if he wasn’t appreciated then at least he was secure, and he only had to die occasionally.

Among all the spiced fruits and roasting meats, there is a small cart selling apples. The man working the cart is distracted (reading a paper with Jimmy’s reward plastered across the front, because what else would he be doing), only halfheartedly calling out prices to the bustling crowd. Jimmy is several yards away. Then only a handful. And then he's within arm’s reach, and no one has looked his way once. Surely no one will miss an apple? The owner of the cart shouts, and Jimmy flinchs, but he's only making a sale to a man on the other side of the cart. They fall into animated conversation. Jimmy stands scant feet away, unnoticed.

He could do it. He could do it now. That would show Grian and Joel. If Jimmy could steal an apple, what else could he do? What couldn’t he do? Of course he could survive on his own! Oh, they’d feel so terrible for thinking otherwise. They’d fawn and shower him with praise, and they’d tell him how capable he was, how strong and clever, how they were wrong to doubt him. They’d grovel, probably. They’d tell him they were sorry that he had gone through what he’d gone through, and how they appreciated that it had been for them, and that he didn’t need to do it any longer because he had tons, oodles of other skills and gifts that made him worth the burden of keeping him. He’d show them.

If he ever saw them again, he’d show them.

The nearest apple is shiny and perfectly red. Jimmy reaches out.

Pain ravages him. It explodes hot along his side, blunt force that shatters his arm and leg and pulverizes his insides, even as it doesn't. He staggers. He chokes. Every breath feels like a betrayal, his body piercing itself over and over. The ghost of broken ribs. He chokes. He groans.

It doesn’t stop hurting. It’s getting worse. Fear and pain leave him nauseous. Where will it come from? Where where where—

There. A redstone automobile down the street, blurred by his tears. It’s moving too fast. The wheel is wobbling wildly, the redstone in the undercarriage is sparking. It’s coming straight at him. No, it’s—it’s coming straight at the apple cart.

The crowd is parting around him, now, he thinks. He’s getting looks—recognition or alarm, he doesn’t know. He tries to say run, but all that limps from his mouth is a moan. The man speaking to the vendor turns and sees him. Jimmy thinks he sees him. They have seconds.

“Run,” he thinks he says. Gasps, sobs, something.

The world jags and falls sideways. A man is above him. The man from the apple cart, and the vendor looking perturbed over his shoulder. One of them is speaking, the words bleeding and incomprehensible. Jimmy retains none of it. The pain is sun-bright. It razes away everything else.

Scant feet away, a vehicle screeches, and an automobile, out of control, smashes into the apple cart. There’s shouting, screaming. The vendor is gaping at the wreckage that is his livelihood. The man he was speaking to gapes as well, first at the splintered remains of the automobile and the cart, then at the mashed apples, then at Jimmy. If Jimmy could see him, he would know, then, the difference between alarm and recognition.

Jimmy doesn’t see him. Jimmy is dead.

Jimmy doesn’t wake up right away. First, he stops being dead. Then he’s sleeping. He’s aware when this happens, in the loosest sense of the word—there’s no dreaming, no out of body experience, nothing in particular to tether him to the world at all. But the body knows when it’s dead and when it’s not, and so Jimmy knows. He lays quietly, thoughtless, floating, starry, until his body decides to stop doing those things. Then he wakes up.

The first thing he notes is that he’s still starving. At least he’s no longer cold.

The ceiling is a bland beige, splotched with dull scorch marks. Not back in the castle, then. That’s good. He blinks. He blinks again. His eyes are crusty and dry. So is his mouth. It’s very, very dry in here, actually, and very hot. Practically boiling, but in an arid way. Now that he’s awake, his armpits and the small of his back start to prickle with sweat. He has to wrestle his arms out from under a heavy quilt to rub the last of the sleep and death from his face, and his palms scrape against chapped lips. Still, he’ll always take too hot over too cold.

“Hey, you’re awake,” says a voice. “How are you feeling?”

There’s a blaze hybrid standing in the middle of a small, round room. He’s stoking a little fireplace with—with his bare hands, by the looks of it. Wow. Jimmy’s never seen that before.

The hybrid turns to him fully. He’s shorter than Jimmy, wiry and sharp all over. He has wild blond hair, swept back from his face, the ends of it wavering into candle-like flickers of flame. His eyes are red all the way through. A long, slender tail flicks behind him, tipped in a merry ball of orange flame.

“I’m okay,” Jimmy says neutrally.

“That’s good. You, uh, looked like you were in a lot of pain before.”

Jimmy does his best not to react to that. Grian always chides him for wearing his heart on his sleeve. “Okay. I’m feeling much better now.”

“You look it,” says the blaze hybrid. Jimmy chances a glance at his expression, then away. Does he know? Impossible to tell—mostly he just looks relieved. “Do you remember what happened?”

He does, for the most part, though he doesn’t remember this man. But the faces were all blurring together at the end. “Kind of.”

The blaze hybrid scrapes a small wooden chair out from a small wooden table and drags it to Jimmy’s bedside. Jimmy does his best not to stiffen up too noticeably. The man throws himself into the chair, his limbs poking in different directions like an awkward bundle of sticks.

“We were in the market. You looked like you were in pain,” he says. “A lot of pain. You called me and the apple vendor over to you, and then a carriage took out the cart behind us. Then you—” He pauses. “Passed out. I brought you here.”

Passed out. Jimmy doesn’t correct him. Instead he focuses on the “here,” and how very not a doctor’s office “here” is. Unless this man is the town doctor, and this is just the very cluttered and unsanitary place he practices medicine. Or maybe he’s a trained healer so he saw no need for a doctor? This could be innocent. It could mean nothing.

Stupid, says a voice in his head that sounds like Joel. He knows.

Jimmy does not panic. He is so so good at not panicking. “Well. Thank you. For that. Um. And—and where is here, exactly?”

“Oh! Yeah, of course. Welcome to my home!” The blaze hybrid throws out an arm, gesturing to the small room: the tiny fireplace, the tiny table, the tiny dresser, the few utilitarian appliances and the many tinkering knick knacks scattered all over that Jimmy can’t make heads or tails of. “Temporary home. Place I’ve been renting for a few months, I guess. Welcome either way.”

“Thank you,” Jimmy says again. Still in town, it sounds like. Okay. Okay. He can work with this. What would Joel and Grian do? Fight their way out. Not really an option for Jimmy; he’s always frail after revival, unlikely to win a fight or a foot race. But he’ll figure it out. And the blaze hybrid might not know who he is. Probably. Definitely!

The blaze hybrid says, “Sorry if this is forward, but. You’re the king’s canary, aren’t you?”

“I don’t like that name,” Jimmy says immediately, like an idiot. Death always muddles his brain, blunts his filter. “I—I actually have to go, right now, immediately. Places to see, people to go, you understand how it is, thank you again for the help—”

He lurches for the side of the bed, where the floor, predictably, rises to meet him. Less predictably, the blaze hybrid catches him around the shoulders.

“Hey, hey! Careful, man, slow down.” He pushes Jimmy back to the bed. Jimmy wishes he could say it was forceful, but Jimmy's pretty sure he's just as weak as a foal, and terrified out of his mind. He must do a poor job of hiding it, because the man makes a funny sound in the back of his throat. “Oh, I’m not—I’m not going to, like, turn you in or anything. No one else recognized you, and I didn’t tell them. Don’t worry about that.”

Jimmy will absolutely worry about that, thank you very much. “Um. Okay.”

The blaze hybrid holds up his hands. “I mean it. You’re safe here. The only reason I asked is because I was wondering if it was your, uh, power that happened? Back at the apple cart? I think that’s what happened, I just wanted to be sure.”

This feels like a trap. Like the king’s men are just outside the door, waiting for confirmation before they burst in and drag him back, where Ren will likely soliloquize about loyalty and betrayal and then Martyn will lob off his head. But if that were the case, shouldn’t they have already done the bursting and the dragging? Jimmy all but confessed his identity two seconds ago. He sees no way out of it now.

He nods, just once.

“I thought so.” The blaze hybrid's eyes are deeply red. Fire dances inside them. Jimmy can’t tell if it’s reflection from the fire or something inner and innate. “Thank you. You saved my life.”

Jimmy swallows. “You’re welcome.”

“Seriously. Thank you.” He reaches out and squeezes Jimmy’s shoulder. He’s smiling. “So: don’t call you canary. Got it. What should I call you?”

“Jimmy,” Jimmy says, after he fails to think of a proper alias that isn’t Joel or Grian or King Ren. “Jimmy Solidarity.”

“Jimmy Solidarity. I’m Tango, of the Tek variety. You can just call me Tango.”

Jimmy nods. He doesn’t know what else to say.

Tango says, “You hungry?”

Is he trying to stall Jimmy long enough for the king’s men to get here? Most likely. Jimmy’s stomach decides he doesn’t care. “Oh my gosh yes please I’m starved.”

Three bowls of blaze powder soup later (better than what was being sold in the street, if only because it is now in Jimmy’s belly), Jimmy finally feels like more of a human again.

“Thank you,” he sighs, reclining back on the pillows of Tango's bed. The bowl is still warm in his hands. He’s loath to let go of it. “That was amazing. I’m, uh. Sorry if I took too much.”

Tango is still on his first serving. He laughs, and it doesn’t sound mean-spirited at all. “Dude, don’t worry about it! Nothing a chef likes more than someone enjoying his food.”

Jimmy swirls his spoon through the creamy broth at the bottom of the bowl. “Is that what you are? A chef?”

“Nah, not really. I just like cooking. Sometimes you gotta have a hobby that’s just for you, not for money, you know?”

“Sure.” It’s not something Jimmy has ever thought about, but he likes the idea. “Um, I should. I should probably go.”

“Okay,” Tango says easily. “You want some tea before you head out?”

Jimmy might actually cry. “Yespleaseohmygosh.”

The tea is even better than the soup, spiced and fragrant, smoky in the aftertaste. Somehow, against all odds, the company is even better.

Rather than being a wildly successful chef, Tango works with a nomadic troupe of demolitionists. Not a job Jimmy’s ever heard of before, but it sounds cool when Tango describes it. According to Tango and his expansive hand gestures, the redstone wizardry boom has resulted in cities and infrastructure rapidly expanding, deconstructing, rebuilding. In the chaos—his eyes brighten with the word—there’s opportunity for innovation, discovery, entrepreneurs.

“And blowing stuff up in creative ways,” he adds. “So that’s always fun. I just figured out how to make the buildings implode instead of explode—reduces debris and collateral damage, and just looks awesome.”

“That’s amazing,” Jimmy says sincerely, and Tango’s smile glows, literally. It is suddenly imperative that Jimmy break eye contact.

“Another cup?” Tango asks.

Jimmy wants to, very badly. He’s enjoying talking to Tango. He’s enjoying the warmth and the tea and the conversation where both parties see each other as people, instead of a tool or a burden. “I should probably get going.”

“Oh,” Tango says, then laughs, a little bashful. “Yeah, of course. Look at me, chatting your ear off! Let’s get you up.”

He takes Jimmy’s cup and then his arm in a firm, claw-tipped grip. His hand is bony and pleasantly hot. With his support Jimmy finds his feet, and manages three whole steps before his knees buckle.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” Tango catches him, and leads him back to the edge of the bed. “You okay, buddy?”

“I’m fine,” Jimmy says. He feels a little lightheaded, a little breathless, more than a little humiliated. “This just happens when I—it just happens sometimes. I’m used to it.”

“Do you want to rest up a little longer?”

“I really should get going. You’ve done enough for me as it is.”

Tango nods slowly. “How far are you headed?”

“Far.”

“Right.”

A pause. Jimmy clasps his hands between his knees and wills strength into his body. Usually it takes about three hours after revival to fully recover, not that Jimmy will tell Tango that. It’s not like he hasn’t had to get up and go minutes after death before. Ren was the target of back to back assassination attempts once, and Jimmy made do then. He can feel Tango reappraising him, the paleness of his face, his worn clothes and unwashed hair. He struggles not to shrink on himself.

This was a nice reprieve—a lovely surprise after a terrible death. He needs to leave before he ruins it. Oversteps Tango’s bounds, annoys him, reveals himself as something to be used or pitied.

Tango hovers, then sits beside him.

“It’s just that…you still look kinda iffy, dude. Is there anyone I could bring you to? Anyone you trust to help you get…wherever you’re going?”

“I do,” Jimmy says quickly, eager not to be thought of as pathetically alone. “I mean, I did. I mean—I don’t, anymore. They wouldn’t have been safe, is all, with the whole on the run thing, and anyway, they wouldn’t have—that is, I…” He trails off, and says lamely, “It’s complicated.”

Tango’s voice softens. “Okay. I get that.”

They sit together. Tango offers him another cup of tea; Jimmy takes it. He blows across the surface, watches the flecks of leaves bob on rippling waves.

After a minute, Tango claps his hands on his knees and stands up.

“Well hey, if you’re going to go you should at least go in some good shoes.”

He crosses the small apartment to the door, where Jimmy’s tattered shoes are propped up against the frame. Instead he grabs the sturdy pair of work boots beside them.

Jimmy blanches. “I can’t take your shoes!”

“Sure you can.” Tango sizes up Jimmy’s foot, decides it’s close enough, and pushes the boots into his arms. “They’re my extra pair, so you’re not putting me out. They might be a little snug, but I think snug is better than what you were working with.”

“That’s not the point! You’ve done too much for me. I can’t take your food and your tea and your shoes, I just can’t.”

Tango gives him an amused look. “Okay, but you saved my life, remember? I value that a little more than an extra pair of shoes. Take ’em. I insist.”

Jimmy does take them, but only because Tango also tries to give him new clothes, cloak, and packed-up food, which he turns down. This time when Tango helps him up, though Jimmy teeters, he keeps his feet.

Outside it’s still winter. In the warmth of Tango’s apartment, Jimmy had almost forgotten. Since his death night has fallen, and the streets are empty and bitterly cold.

“You’re sure I can’t convince you to rest a little longer?” Tango asks.

Jimmy draws his cloak tight around his shoulders. “Long way to go, I’m afraid. Thank you for everything.”

Jimmy looks back at him. It’s the first time he’s looked into Tango’s face in a while: he’s pointy all over, angular, bordering on gaunt. He’s a candle in the dark. His smile is tinged with concern.

“No need to thank me,” he says. “I hope you get where you’re going, Jimmy. Take care.”

He offers his hand. Jimmy shakes it. If either of them linger, Jimmy tells himself it’s only because Tango is so warm.

Jimmy walks away. With every step further he remembers that he’s a fugitive, and that he needs to go quickly, quietly, and carefully. On to the next town, and the next, and the next, until he’s run out of towns entirely and has made it to where the sky is blue and the horizon opens into forever. He looks back once, and sees Tango still standing there, waving. He looks back again, but now the door has closed, and Jimmy doesn’t know which window was Tango’s. The gifted boots squeeze gently at his toes.

His hands twitch with splinters as he reenters the market square, where the stalls have been folded up for the night and the street is empty.

Only it’s not empty. The owner of the apple cart is despairing over the broken remains, picking through sharp shards of wood. He hisses and shakes out his hands. Jimmy grimaces. He tugs his hood lower and turns on his heel.

“Hey,” the man calls behind him. “Hey you!”

Jimmy walks faster.

“You! You’re the one who—stop, blast it! You owe me a new cart!”

“I really don’t, actually,” says Jimmy, dropping his voice two octaves. A hand grabs his shoulder. Jimmy’s wings protest, pushing back hard under the cloak. The hand is shaken off. So is his hood.

“It’s you,” the man says.

“No it isn’t,” says Jimmy.

“It is! You’re the canary! That reward could buy me a whole fleet of new carts.” He looks around wildly.

“Please don’t,” says Jimmy, but the man is already hollering.

“I’ve got him! I’ve got the canary, guards! Someone!”

Jimmy turns to run but the man seizes the back of his cloak. His hand closes on the arch of a wing, and Jimmy yelps.

“Hey! Let go of him!”

There’s the distinct, winding pain of a body shouldering hard into Jimmy's ribs. Then Tango is tackling the man to the ground.

Jimmy goes sprawling. He struggles to his knees through the phantom dings and scratches of two men wrestling on cobblestone. Behind him, Tango is fuming, “What the hell, man! He saved your life, what are you doing?”

All along the street, lights are coming on. Doors are opening. Heads poking out. Eyes going wide. The town is folding in on him. Jimmy can’t breathe.

And Tango is above him, once again.

“Come on!”

He offers his hand. Jimmy takes it.

They run.

Grian and Joel would have come with him.

If he’d asked. If he’d told them. Of course they would have. They would have protected him, taken care of him. They would have sighed and scoffed the entire time. They would have resented him, and made sure he knew exactly how much of an inconvenience this was, and didn’t he know he was upending all their lives, and why couldn’t Jimmy just do his job? He was always causing problems, and never considering the effect it had on others.

The moment Jimmy revived on the cold marble of the throne room and realized he had to leave was the same moment he realized he couldn’t bring Joel and Grian with him. He couldn’t even tell them. They would have insisted on joining, whether Jimmy wanted them to or not. Whether they wanted to or not. They cared for him; they would risk implication and conspiracy for him. And they would never let him forget it.

He’ll never see them again. That hurts too much to think about, so he doesn’t.

“I’ve ruined your life.”

“You haven’t ruined my life, come on.”

“I have, I absolutely have. Your home—”

“My temporary home.”

“Your temporary home, your job, all your things. Poof! All gone, Tango! Because you helped me!”

Tango is starfished flat on his back. Jimmy is making the ground’s acquaintance with his face. They fled down the darker road out of town, figuring they were less likely to be followed, and after an hour of hard running, they both pancaked in the dirt. Jimmy has too many cramps to name, and a doubled echo of Tango’s cramps on top of that. The stars above feel judgmental. Jimmy is glad to stare at hard-packed earth instead.

“Oh my gosh, you’re my accomplice now,” he moans. “They’re going to be looking for you too. Tango, your life is over, I’ve ruined it.”

A warm hand pats at Jimmy’s back with infinite, undeserved patience. “You didn’t ruin anything, buddy. I mean it! This is for the better, if you think about it.”

“For the better. Ha.” Jimmy spits out a little bit of dirt. “How?”

“Like you said, that place was temporary. My team will pick up my stuff, so I haven’t lost any of it. Well, except for what Bdubs will scavenge. That’s a given.” Tango waves a hand like being forced to abandon his entire life in the dead of night is hand-wavable. “And the good thing about working with your buds is that they’ll always have a job for you if you need it, so no harm there. Honestly, demolition was fun, but I’ve been thinking of trying something new for a while now.”

“You’re a wanted man now. How are you going to go back? You’ll be arrested on sight.”

“Pshaw. One guy saw me help you.”

“The whole town saw you help me!”

“Hey, you’re the one they’re after, not me. By the time I get back, they’ll have completely forgotten I exist. Tango Tek who?”

Jimmy rolls his head to one side to give Tango a flat look. Tango is already looking back at him. He looks amused. That makes no sense.

“Okay, honesty time? I wanted to offer to go with you before,” Tango says. “Help you get wherever you’re going. But you seemed pretty jumpy, and I thought it would freak you out. Offer’s still on the table, though. I like traveling new places, seeing new things. Makes for good machination inspiration. And two is safer than one, right?”

“You don’t know me,” Jimmy says. His voice is weak.

“I don’t know how many times I can say this, but you literally saved my life. That makes you a pretty cool guy in my book.” He looks Jimmy dead in the eye, and says simply, “You seem like you could use some help. I’d like to help.”

Jimmy believes him. In the back of his mind he can hear Joel and Grian taunting: just like Timmy to trust the first stranger he meets. Can’t ever hack it alone, can you, Tim? Probably he’s about to run off with some maniac bent on selling his curse to the highest bidder. Or an opportunist who intends to hold this favor over his head for the rest of his life. Would be just like him to get into hot water like that. Sure, it would be nice if there were someone out there who really wanted to help for the sake of helping, and it would be nice if doing so didn’t lead to resentment or blackmail or a direct ticket back to the castle. But that person is a fantasy. That person doesn’t exist.

But Jimmy believes him.

He sniffles. Some dust goes up his nose. “We don’t even have a torch.”

“Okay, you got me there,” Tango concedes. “We’ll need to get some supplies in the next town. Oh—here, this is yours.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out Jimmy’s coin purse.

“It’s why I followed you. You left it in my apartment.”

Jimmy just gapes, so Tango plops the purse on his back.

“Take your time,” he says, generously.

Jimmy does take his time. After a few long seconds of fish-mouthing, he says, “I hope you took some. I was going to bribe you into not giving me up.”

Tango snickers. “Darn. Missed my chance. Guess you’ll just have to buy our first meal instead.”

He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t. Even if Tango is being genuine, Jimmy is still a wanted man. Bringing him along could only put him in danger. Grian and Joel would be judging him so, so hard if they knew.

But Grian and Joel aren’t here.

“Deal,” Jimmy says.

Tango smiles. Jimmy dares to smile back.

Then Jimmy yelps at the ghost of sharp fangs sinking into his neck. “Ow ow ow—Tango, spider! Spider spider spider!”

“What spider where now—whoa!”

Jimmy yanks him up just as a spider the size of his torso skitters out of the forest, barely missing a lunge for Tango’s face.

The spider chases them a full second hour until torches intersperse the road again. If this had happened yesterday—or even a few hours ago—Jimmy is sure he’d have burst into tears.

But Tango makes this funny yelp-laugh sound when he screams, and when they finally reach safety, he cheers. Jimmy, despite himself, cheers too.

The next town is close enough to reach by afternoon the next day. They walk through the night and arrive exhausted, unwashed, hungry, and in better spirits than Jimmy expected. By a lot, actually. Turns out sharing misery halves it instead of doubling. Who knew?

Jimmy tries to keep a low profile while Tango goes to retrieve food and supplies. Waiting in an alley with nothing but his thoughts (and Grian and Joel’s imaginary advice), feeling equal parts conspicuous and insignificant, he half-expects Tango to return with guards. Maybe more than half. Even if it hadn’t all been a ruse to gain his trust and turn on him when most profitable, Jimmy finds it hard to believe Tango won’t come to regret his decision when he realizes what deadweight Jimmy is.

But all Tango returns with is two loaves of bread stuffed with roasted peppers and Jimmy’s exact change. He even managed to secure lodging. The innkeeper refused to give them a two-person room when she hadn’t vetted the second person, so Tango conceded to a single. Then he helps Jimmy climb through the window in the back. There’s a lot of flailing and scrambling and frantically beating wings, but once they’re through, Jimmy lays flat on the floor and stares up at the ceiling in wonder.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Jimmy says breathlessly. “You’re a genius.”

“Aw shucks.” The flame on Tango’s tail flares and puffs. “Thanks, man!”

They crowd onto the tiny bed and Jimmy is out as soon as his head hits the pillow. He wonders, as he falls asleep, if maybe Tango cut the innkeeper in, and he’ll wake to guards waiting to arrest him and Martyn laughing at him for thinking he got away, and Tango and the innkeeper splitting the reward money…

He wakes twelve hours later to Tango fiddling with some new redstone contraption. He sees Jimmy’s awake and says, “Morning, buddy!” Then he hands him a bowl of oats with fresh winter fruit, and a hot cup of spiced tea.

In the next town, Tango sells his little redstone doohickey, and uses the money to pay for their meals. It’s only fair, he says. And when Jimmy protests that bankrolling the trip is the least he can do for all the help, Tango just laughs.

“Back with my crew, we split everything evenly,” he says. “Theoretically, anyway, when we weren’t enabling Etho’s spending habit and Bdubs wasn’t trying to weasel his way out of it. Regardless! We should be supporting each other equally. That’s what partners do, right?”

Partners. Jimmy doesn’t trust himself not to say something stupid, so he just nods. Partners. That sounds nice.

On the road, they talk about their people.

Skizz, Impulse, Bdubs, Etho—Tango’s demolition crew, a cast of colorful characters. “You’d like them. They’re good guys. Skizz especially, he’s my bestie. Nicest guy in the overworld.”

Tango has loads of stories, a broad range from heartwarming moments with Skizz to absurd adventures with Bdubs to wild tales of Etho that make Jimmy question whether he’s a real person or not.

“He soloed a wither once,” Tango declares proudly.

“No way.”

“He did.”

“No way! You’re lying.”

“Jimmy,” Tango gasps, scandalized. “Would I lie to you?”

Jimmy’s gut instinct, for some reason, is no. “No one can solo a wither.”

“Etho can. Though if you asked Bdubs, he’d tell you he soloed it. Now that’s a lie.”

Jimmy hums. Night is falling rapidly but the sky clings to a deep, dusty orange. Joel always says that means snow.

“Grian and Joel might be able to take down a wither together,” he says. “Especially if I was there to help them. Definitely not alone, though.”

“You talk about Grian and Joel a lot,” Tango says, a gentle invitation.

“Oh, sure. I spent most of my life with those jerks. Don't really remember anything before I met Grian. I think I lived by the sea?” He daydreams sometimes about sparkling blue that stretches on forever. He’s not sure if it’s a memory or a dream. “But then I got saddled with Joel and Grian, and we kept each other alive. Or I kept them alive with my curse, not that they’d be caught dead saying thank you, no sir.”

He chuckles, and thinks to stop there. But Tango is watching him and smiling. Jimmy snaps his eyes back to the sky.

“I sort of grew out of my wings as I got older, can’t really fly with them, you know? But I could fly when I was a kid, and there I was, zooming through the trees, when bam! I get slapped in the face by some invisible brick wall, and that makes me bam! smack right into a tree. A second later, and bam! Grian smashes into a tree right next to me. Turns out he was flying behind me, saw me crash, and that made him crash, and his crash is what made me crash in the first place.”

Tango laughs. “Feedback loop of pain, huh? That’s how you met?”

“Yep. Then we found Joel two years later, and that was that. Locked in with two bullies. We kept each other alive. Or I kept them alive with my curse, not that they’d be caught dead saying thank you, no sir! They’re my—”

He almost says brothers. Thank goodness he didn’t. Even the thought of Grian and Joel’s ridicule makes his cheeks burn with shame.

“They’re my roommates, kind of. Or they were, before I started working for Ren and living in the castle. They’re why I stuck around so long, actually.”

The way their jaws had dropped, the first time he gave them their cut. He’d had the thought: I can finally repay you. I can finally be of use.

“They were the first ones who called me a canary,” Jimmy says, brightening. “It was just a joke. An annoying one that I hated, but it was ours, so I didn’t really mind that much. Martyn heard it once, and he told Ren, and, well.” He stares hard at the orange sky. “Kind of got overdone, after that.”

“Yeah,” Tango says. When Jimmy glances over, his smile is a little dim. “I bet it would.”

He seems glum. Jimmy doesn't like that. "You know, Joel has a curse too. Turns into a big monster at night. Needs true love's kiss to break it, the whole thing."

"Yeah?" Tango perks up. "What kind of monster?"

"Oh, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," Jimmy says breezily.

Tango's grinning again. Thank goodness. "Try me."

Money was always tight, when it was just the three of them. Jimmy minded, of course, though not as much as Joel and Grian did. Privately he liked that it was them against the world. The worst part, to him, were the nights they had to split a thin serving of broth and Grian and Joel were in foul enough moods to needle Jimmy for not pulling his weight.

Still, they made ends meet. And there at the end, they were even doing well. Jimmy can confidently say that Grian’s the best architect in the kingdom, and his reputation was only ever growing. He was commissioned by some nobles in the capital. This is the one, boys, this one changes everything, Grian would say, over and over, and Joel would grumble, it blummin’ better be, how much you keep banging on about it, but he’d catch Grian and Jimmy in headlocks and knuckle at their hair, so he was excited too.

They got to the capital. It was bigger and busier than any place Jimmy had ever been, built into the shadow of the king’s castle. While he worked, Joel took up odd jobs throughout the city. He was hired to clear out a nest of phantoms that was terrorizing the outer districts. He let Jimmy tag along.

Jimmy felt the death coming up on him. Claws raking his back, tearing his throat. He swung around, looking for Joel, and saw a king’s guard instead. He was bleeding and exhausted. Jimmy tackled him out of reach of a phantom’s talons; somewhere in the distance Joel screamed Timmy!; before the pain had a chance to fade, Jimmy shuddered. Jimmy died.

Jimmy un-died in the castle. Joel and Grian were nowhere to be seen. Instead there was the king’s guard, who was actually the king’s hand, who was actually Martyn.

Your whole life’s about to turn around, mate, Martyn said. You’re welcome.

“Why didn’t you turn me in?”

He manages to rein the question back three more days, until it pops free on the road. It’s started to snow, just a handful of delicate flakes that Tango tries to catch in his mouth. He’s looking at Jimmy, frozen, with big eyes and a pointed tongue poking out of his mouth.

The question is still as ill-advised as it would have been on day one. He’s sure Grian would think so. Why would you bother putting the idea in his head, he would say, why push it? Grian is smart about things like this, keeps his cards close to the vest. Joel is more forward, likes to know things upfront, doesn’t mind being confrontational about it. But Joel wins fights that Jimmy doesn’t. He’d say it’s plain stupid.

Tango doesn’t say it’s stupid. He says, “Yeah, that’s fair. I’d want to know too.”

It makes Jimmy feel almost reasonable for asking. Tango wipes his mouth and kicks thoughtfully at the road.

He says, “I’ve got no loyalty to the king. Nothing against the guy, I’ve heard some good things, but I’m netherborn, right? And I barely feel any national pride there, so not much obligation here.”

“There’s a reward,” Jimmy points out. Imaginary Joel and Grian groan in frustration.

Tango’s eyes narrow skeptically. “Sure, but you didn’t commit a crime, did you? Unless I read that article wrong. Seems to me you just left your job. You should get to quit like anyone else. I don’t see what the big deal is.”

He says it so simply. Just as simply as Jimmy thought it was.

“I mean,” Jimmy says, “I did steal some bread.”

Tango barks a laugh. “Well, now I have to turn you in. Moral obligation.”

Jimmy nods solemnly. “It’s only right. Clap me in irons, throw away the key.”

Tango keeps laughing. His nose scrunches with it. Jimmy feels a little silly for being so proud. He’s made loads of people laugh before, thank you very much. It’s just that he’s usually the butt of the joke instead of the one making it.

He likes making Tango laugh. It’s a nice laugh.

It doesn’t snow much longer, but they spend the time counting who can catch more snowflakes on their tongue. Jimmy wins by one.

“Here,” Jimmy pushes one horn into Tango’s hands. He’s so excited.

Tango turns it over, as confused as intrigued. “Is this an animal horn? Where did you get this?”

“Just now, when I went to the bathroom! There was a goat out there, it tried to kill me—”

“What—”

“Honestly it shouldn’t even be here, Grian says they only live in the mountains. But it missed, and it broke its horns off against a tree trunk.”

“Wow.” Tango admires the color and the shine, the smooth break and the grooves in the dark keratin. “It’s so cool.”

“It gets cooler.” Jimmy lifts his horn to his lips. A sweet note carries, and a flock of birds take to the sky. Tango’s jaw is on the floor.

“How’d you do that?”

“Grian knew how, and he showed me and Joel,” he says. “I thought if we were separated, or lost, or see a threat or something, we could blow this to find each other.”

Tango’s eyes are shining. “That’s an awesome idea. Can you show me?”

Not every town can be reached in one hard day’s walk. Sometimes they have to camp out on the road, laying out bedrolls and building fires to keep winter at bay. Tonight it’s cold enough that Tango gives Jimmy his extra bedding; he’s netherborn, he says, so he doesn’t need as much to keep warm. They keep the fire high and scoot the bedrolls close, talking too late into the night. And Jimmy just…tells him.

“You’re going to build a ranch?” Tango asks.

He sounds surprised. He probably looks surprised, not that Jimmy would know, since he’s having trouble looking at him.

The ranch isn’t something he likes to talk about. Every time he says it out loud, it sounds sillier, so he tries to keep it tucked safe and close behind his heart. He mentioned it to Joel and Grian once, though he’s sure they don’t remember it. Why would they? They’d been so dismissive at the time. There aren’t enough riches in the world that could convince me to sell you a farm, let alone teach you how to run it, Grian had sneered. Joel pointed out that even if there were, no one in their right mind would stick around once they realized what a slow study Jimmy was. Jimmy felt small, and he never mentioned it again.

With Tango, he told him only as much as he needed to. They were heading out of the forest biome and into the plains, where the land unfurled into smooth, rolling prairies and burst with sunflowers. The logic was sound enough on the surface: Ren’s borders ended with the biome, and with one step past Jimmy would be free and clear. Tango was just glad to visit somewhere he’d never been before. He didn’t ask further questions, and Jimmy didn’t offer further answers.

But they’ve been traveling together for weeks, now. Tango has never made Jimmy feel small.

“I’m not planning on building one, exactly,” Jimmy mumbles. He busies his hands by sitting up and thrusting his hands at the fire. A talent of Tango’s: he can build a beautiful fire in three minutes flat. “Grian’s a way better builder than I am. I’m just hoping to buy it off of someone. Something small, if the owner was already hoping to retire or something. And then I’ll pay them extra to stay on a little while and teach me how to run things.”

Tango sits up too. “That’s an awesome idea.”

Jimmy’s head snaps up. “Really?”

“Yeah, man! Way better to admit when you need help than to crash and burn just because you tried to tough it out alone. Keeping the old rancher on until you’ve got the hang of it is smart.”

Tango looks genuinely impressed. He looks admiring. Jimmy’s wings start to flutter.

“Do you know anything about running a ranch?” Tango asks. He doesn’t sound accusing like Joel, or mocking like Grian. Just curious.

“Not really,” Jimmy admits. “But I’m pretty good with animals, and I don’t mind hard work. It might take me a while to get the hang of something, but I’ll stick with it until I do.”

“That’s great,” Tango says earnestly. “I think it’s way more useful to be able to stick to something than to be good at it right away.”

One of Joel and Grian’s favorite pastimes was poking fun of Jimmy until he shouted and flustered, and then laughing at how splotchy he got. They said he looked like he had a rash. He hopes he’s not as pink as he feels now. “Thanks,” he says again.

Tango leans forward, elbows on his knees, eyes bright. “What kind of animals will you have?”

Jimmy hums. “Chickens, for sure. Lots of cows. A couple goats, I think. Maybe a warden?”

Tango’s laugh is surprised and delighted. “A warden?”

“Yeah. I was thinking like—if I could train it, then maybe it could use it’s sonic thing to round up the herd. Is that weird?”

“No, I love it! Wardens are so cool, and we know so little about them. Plus they’re kind of cute, in a scary monster way.”

Jimmy beams. “Exactly! Tango, I could not possibly agree more.”

“You’d have to bring that one up from the underdark yourself,” Tango says thoughtfully. He lights up like a firefly. “I could help you! I bet I could think of a way to get it safely to the surface.”

“You definitely could, that’s not even a question. You’re brilliant.”

Tango’s eyes go ruby round. Jimmy’s mouth opens and shuts. Should he take it back? He should take it back.

But Tango just smiles, broad and lopsided. “Thanks, Jimmy.”

“You’re—” Jimmy’s voice cracks. God damn it. “You’re welcome, Tango.”

They stare at each other. Tango says, “You have frost in your eyelashes.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows shoot up. “Huh?”

“You have—” Tango clears his throat. “You know, because it’s so cold. It doesn’t happen to me because I run too hot, so I just, uh. I noticed.”

“Oh,” says Jimmy.

Tango nods, pink at the ears. He turns quickly to the fire, stoking it with a few deliberate pokes of his fingers, then says a little too loud, “I’d love to make some mazes for your animals. The warden especially. Obstacle course type things, you know, for enrichment.”

They're just daydreaming. Jimmy knows that. But he wants it. It’s a little too revealing, how much he wants it.

He wraps his arms around his knees and rests his chin on them. “Yeah? Like what?”

The good news is that they’re getting closer to the border, if Jimmy’s map is to be believed. The bad news is that they misjudge the distance to the next town and run out of food a full three days before they get there. Tango slaps together ingenius redstone traps to catch hares that tide them over, but that doesn’t stop them from ordering two full stews each when they finally come upon a tavern, nor does it stop them from hunkering down right outside the building and inhaling the stew in companionable, ravenous silence.

Deep into the second bowl, Tango giggles, “Oh no, we’re pathetic.”

Jimmy thinks that yeah, they kind of are. He thinks, maybe, he doesn’t mind being pathetic with Tango.

Working for the king wasn’t so bad. It really wasn’t.

On his good days Ren was generous, kind, goofy and forgiving. He cared about his subjects’ problems and pushed for the industrialization that improved quality of life throughout the kingdom. He treated Jimmy like a subject instead of an equal, but like a subject he was respectful of. Most of the time. Half the time.

The issue was that, the other half the time, he stopped being the good King Ren and started being the Red King. Vicious and uncompromising. A nose for weakness and for bloodshed. Jimmy suspects it’s a curse, though it’s clear he’s not eager to break it. He makes lots of enemies, the Red King does. Jimmy knows that better than anyone. Once he died impaled on a traitorous guard’s spear. When he came to, curled around a wound that wasn’t there, Martyn was beheading the would-be assassin three feet away, the spear was cracked in half at the foot of the throne, and the Red King was howling with laughter.

Never look him in the eye, when he’s like that. Never expect an apology. Never expect to be free.

But reiterate how generous he was. Happy to pay for Jimmy’s services, and provide him with safety, food, comfort. On Jimmy’s first day he said, The crown appreciates your service, lad. You have been touched by divinity to prove our birthright by providence, and for this we shall be gracious. How might we show our appreciation? No price is too high for the king.

Jimmy is still surprised he managed to stop quaking long enough to request a stipend for his family. (Family sounded more sympathetic than roommates, he figured. He was glad Joel and Grian weren’t around to hear.)

Martyn looked annoyed by the request, imposing at the king’s right side, and Jimmy tried to clarify, something modest, please, but Ren didn’t hesitate. The first payment was enough to set the three of them up for life, if they were scrupulous. The second payment ensured they could live comfortably without having to work another day ever again. The third payment was excess, and it never stopped. Grian and Joel were overjoyed.

Tango is frowning. It’s a strange look on his narrow face. Jimmy has rarely seen him without a smile.

“I guess that’s generous,” he says, slowly.

“It was,” Jimmy insists. He fingers the leather pouch weighed down by his earnings. More than enough to get him where he’s going and then some. The Red King may be waiting to kill him for abandoning his post, but Jimmy can’t deny that the only reason he has any chance at all is because of his kindness.

“Right. Right.” Tango scrubs a hand through his hair—it sends sparks flying off the ends. Jimmy watches them swirl with the snow, and then he watches Tango’s mouth purse as he makes funny humming and scoffing sounds. Jimmy looks back at the sparks again with renewed focus.

“It’s just,” Tango blurts, “You didn’t really have a choice, right? I guess it was nice that he paid you, but you weren’t allowed to say no to the job offer, because it wasn’t really an offer. And obviously you weren’t allowed to leave.”

Jimmy shifts uncomfortably. “I guess. What’s your point?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t think you should be defending him, is all. He forced you to hurt for him. He didn’t give you a choice. You shouldn’t have to be grateful.”

His eyes are fierce. Striking, hot like live coals. The sharp angles of him look harsh in a way that Jimmy’s never seen before. He doesn’t know what to say.

The indignance goes out of Tango’s shoulders. His tail curls. “Sorry. Not my place.”

Jimmy thinks of agreeing with him. Instead he says, “Don’t be. That’s nice of you to say. Thanks.”

Tango smiles, but it doesn’t have the spark it usually does. They walk for a few more hours. Tango’s silence is uncharacteristic, and it makes Jimmy antsy. He feels like he’s done something wrong. He doesn’t know how to fix it.

Eventually they decide to take a break before the next leg. Not for long, if they want to sleep in beds tonight, but it’s good to get off their feet for a little while. Jimmy nibbles at some jerky and sips at his waterskin. The only downside to the break is how the winter reasserts itself. He very carefully does not wince at the cold water that needles down his throat.

“Here,” says Tango.

He holds out his hand for the waterskin. Jimmy gives it to him, though he knows he has his own. Tango clasps it firmly between both hands, and after a moment, hands it back. Steam puffs cheerily from the top. The next sip Jimmy takes is hot enough to make him shiver.

“Thank you,” he sighs. He takes another scalding gulp and shuts his eyes to focus on the warmth as it flushes through his chest and belly. “You’re amazing, Tango.”

Tango says, “You know, I worked in a coal mine.”

It catches Jimmy off guard. “You did?”

“Yeah, for about a year. They hired me as an engineer, to make things safer and more efficient. Not an easy balance, but a fun challenge.” Tango licks his lips, then says, “I actually worked with canaries. Designed an apparatus that resuscitated them when they passed out.”

“You did?” Jimmy says again. Broken record, Joel would say. Jimmy can’t be bothered to care. His chest is winding tight.

“Yeah.” There’s something off about Tango’s face, his voice. He looks a little earnest. He looks sad. “The owners of the mines weren’t too interested, but the miners themselves, they took as many as I could make. We all loved the little guys. Didn’t want to see them get hurt.”

“Oh,” Jimmy says. “That’s really cool.”

It’s a silly thing to cry over, so he doesn’t. He does indulge in a moment of bravery and reach out to hold Tango’s hand in his. Tango just runs his thumb over Jimmy’s knuckles, over and over. He doesn’t let go, even when they make it to town and a room and a bed.

When Jimmy wakes the next morning, Tango is still holding his hand.

“Tango!”

Tango jumps up with a start, sending the wood for their fire pit scattering. “What! What’s up? Are we running?”

“No no no—” Jimmy skids to a stop in front of him, wings flaring for balance. He’s grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. “That caravan we just passed. There was an old woman in the last cart, did you see her?”

Tango, gathering the sticks back up again, gives him a quizzical look. “Yeah?”

“Right, well, she had a thorn in her foot, I could feel it, and I figured she wouldn’t recognize me because she could barely see. So we got to talking, and I took the thorn out—bunions the size of mountains, man, I’m telling you—and look! Look what she gave me!”

He sweeps his hands out from behind his back. The green glass bottles slosh and clink together. Tango’s jaw drops.

“Ohmygosh, is that—is that wine? Jimmy! That’s wine! You’re amazing!”

Jimmy laughs, triumphant. “I know! I’m amazing!”

They jump up and down for a while.

“Okay okay okay, we should be smart about this,” Tango says. He stops jumping but keeps flapping his hands. “If we’re careful, I bet we could make these last the rest of the trip.”

Jimmy nods rapidly. He’s already removed the stopper on the first bottle. “Right. Just a couple sips a night, to warm us up.”

He takes a swig, then hands the bottle to Tango. “Right! Just a night cap. We’ll play it smart.”

“Can you?” Jimmy asks, deep into the second bottle of wine.

Tango has been giggling for the past hour, this funny consonant sound like an ignition clicking. The more they drank the bigger he built the fire pit, until the flames roared higher than they are tall, but Tango is happy, so Jimmy is happy. “Absolutely! Can I what?”

“Tango, Tango. Can you tango?”

Tango’s face is flushed. The pink clashes with the red of his eyes and the amber of the fire. Jimmy thinks it’s lovely. “Can I what?”

“Don’t laugh, this is an important question!” Jimmy is giggling too now. “I’ve wanted to ask you since we met. Do you actually know how to tango?”

“Jimmy.” Tango lifts his chin, expression sloppily stern. “What kind of question is that? Of course I know how to tango.”

Tango does not, in fact, know how to tango. They dance anyway, spinning and dipping and swinging each other in circles. They make flagrant and frankly ugly use of their horns. Tango nearly throws Jimmy into the fire by accident and then fishes him out at the last second. In return, Jimmy tries to lead Tango in a waltz he barely learned at the castle. They laugh so hard they stomp on each other’s feet.

They dance and dance and dance until they spin out of the safety of the firelight and get attacked by a skeleton. Then they stumble back to the fire and dance some more.

THE KING’S CANARY AND HIS COAL MINE?

“Is this kind of racist?” Jimmy asks. “It feels kind of racist. They’re calling you a whole coal mine.”

Jimmy and Tango squint together at the newspaper that nearly got them caught. Tango’s involvement has finally been noticed. His attempt to get them lodging for the night was met with guards and a frantic escape into the forest, where they crouched beneath a rotted old log until their legs fell asleep and their pursuers moved on. Then Tango pulled out the flier he’d grabbed in his haste.

He pokes at a short paragraph detailing his life. Well. His work history, mostly. “I think maybe it’s a reference to the fact that I used to work in a coal mine. I’m surprised they knew that.”

“Still feels kinda racist,” Jimmy says, then sighs. “I’m sorry, Tango. I knew you’d get caught up in my nonsense eventually, and it’s finally happened.”

Tango snorts. “I think I’ve been caught up in your nonsense for a while now, partner. This is like recognition for all my hard work! It’s kinda cool being on a wanted poster, huh? None of the other guys have bounties on their heads, not even Bdubs. I can’t wait to see their faces.” He prods Jimmy with a pointy elbow. “Guess we really are partners in crime now, huh?”

Jimmy knows he should feel guilty. But Tango is smirking at him, like they’re sharing a secret, and Jimmy banks the warmth of it in his chest like like something to be hoarded and adored. “Guess so.”

Tango’s name in the papers means they have to avoid towns and main roads. Meaning, in turn, that the safest option is to just keep to the forest.

This is fine in the daylight. Exciting, even! Jimmy always marvels at how Tango keeps their energy up. Cutting through the forest is more direct than the roads, anyway. It’s a bit of a struggle, but they’re making good time.

Then night falls, and suddenly it’s mobs mobs mobs, and Jimmy is shrieking and fighting with creepers and zombies and spiders while Tango is scrambling to find a clearing and build a fire big enough to ward them off. Somehow, they manage, after many scrapes and bruises, but winter is only ever deepening. The cold reaches into Jimmy’s bones. All of his joints ache, and even with the fire beside them and all of Tango’s extra bedding he shakes so hard he can’t sleep. He tries to keep his teeth chattering to a minimum.

“Jimmy,” Tango whispers from the next bedroll. Jimmy cracks his eyes open. From one side Tango is lit up in gold, but from the other the moon bleaches all his warm hues blue. “Jim?”

Jimmy does not let himself stutter. “Yeah, Tango?”

“You’re still shivering.”

“Um. Yeah. I guess I am. Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

Jimmy falters. “You already gave me all your blankets. I—I keep putting you out.”

“You’re not putting me out. Don’t think that.”

His hand brushes Jimmy’s cheek. Jimmy sees it coming and still he jumps at the first brush of warm thin fingers.

“You’re freezing,” Tango says, brow screwing into a knot. He bites at his lips, his eyes wide and worried. Moonlight glints off the points of his teeth. “Okay, so—I run hot. Blaze hybrid and all. If you’re up for it, I think it would help a lot if—if I get in there with you? Insulation and body heat and stuff.”

Oh, Jimmy won’t freeze to death at all. His face is on fire. “You don’t have to, Tango.”

“I want to,” Tango blurts, a few sparks flaring off the ends of his hair. Then he subsides, fidgety and shy. “If you want to, I mean.”

“I want to,” Jimmy says. “That could—that might be nice. Thanks, Tango.”

Tango’s shoulders sag in relief. His smile is toothy and painfully awkward. “Okay. Cool. I’ll just, uh—wriggle on in then. Incoming.”

Jimmy snorts. Tension, miraculously, dissipates. Tango does wriggle in, and when he’s done wriggling, he tucks the blankets under him to insulate the heat. The difference is instant, cocooning Jimmy in warmth so profound it practically tranquilizes him, eyelids suddenly heavier than bricks. He knows he should be embarrassed. Gratitude and affection drowns it out.

“Is that better?” Tango asks.

“Yeah.”

“Good. Okay, good.”

His arm rests gingerly across Jimmy’s shoulders. Already half asleep, Jimmy nudges into the narrow cage of his body. His sternum is hard and Jimmy’s nose thaws against it. "Thanks, Tango."

Tango’s arm relaxes. The world smells of spiced tea. "Always, Jimmy."

Jimmy sleeps better that night than all the many nights he’s spent on the road thus far. Better than any night in the castle. Better than he has in a long time.

They’re less than a day’s travel from the border when the snowstorm hits. While the sun is up Tango and Jimmy trudge and trudge and lob snowballs at each other, and when the sun is down they’re forced to cobble together some sort of shelter. Eventually Tango rigs up something droopy and wet that does nothing to keep out the cold but at least will keep them from being buried alive.

“Oh my god, it’s awful,” Tango laughs.

“Shut up, it’s amazing,” Jimmy says, because it is.

They drink the very last of the wine and then hold each other close for the rest of the night. For the first time since Jimmy met him, Tango shivers. Jimmy holds him hard and tries his best to rub warmth into his back.

And then Jimmy gets caught.

It’s his own fault. Of course it is. It always is.

The snow has stopped by morning, but Tango is still shivering. His golden hair is just hair, no sparks or flames at all. His tail is barely a smoldering ember.

“I’m fine,” he assures Jimmy though cracked blue lips. “It’s just a cold, it’ll pass. Not so good in the rain and snow, is all. I’ll be right as rain in no time, don’t even w-worry about it.”

Jimmy does worry. The only food they have left is hardtack, and the only water is freezing cold. Tango’s so weak that he can't even heat it. “There’s a town near here. You rest, I’ll keep my head down and get you something warm to eat.”

“Don’t,” Tango says, but any sternness is undercut by his trembling. “I’m telling you, I’ll be fine. If we get going now we’ll make it to the border before sundown. I’m serious, Jimmy, don’t.”

“I won’t go,” Jimmy lies. “Rest anyway. One nap to regain your strength won’t kill us.”

It takes some convincing, but eventually Tango agrees, and drops off nearly as soon as Jimmy cards a hand through his hair. Then he tucks Tango in, builds the fire as high as is safe, and hikes through the snow to the nearest village.

When he gets there, the townsfolk are too busy digging themselves out to really spare him a second glance. Notably, he doesn’t see a single paper with his name on it, not even in the tavern. He keeps his head down anyway, he’s careful, and he doesn’t whoop with joy when the tavernkeeper says they serve blaze powder soup, no matter how badly he wants to.

As soon as the town is at his back he sheds his cloak to wrap up the bowl and keep the heat in. A little sloshes over the side, but not much. In minutes his spine is aching and his muscles are seizing with cold, but it’s fine. Tango isn’t far.

He doesn’t see the club coming at all. Suddenly his head is cracking open, and his teeth are rattling in his skull, and starbursts are blotting out his vision and he’s on the ground, in the snow.

There are men. There are ropes. Jimmy blinks sluggishly and stares at the soup, splattered and steaming, and thinks, but that was meant for Tango; what will Tango have to warm him now? And he thinks, I’ll have to get free, so I can get more.

Darkness pulls him under.

“For the last time,” says the mercenary. “Where’s that coal mine attached to your hip?”

He’s one of five. Jimmy doesn’t know which one; they all look the same, even a week out, with the same rough beards and ugly laughter and bad humor. He might be able to discern them if he ever looked at their faces for more than a second at a time, but he refuses to do that, even when they yank on the rope slowly skinning his wrists and grab his chin and sneer inches from his face.

“For the last time,” Jimmy says back. “I wasn’t traveling with anyone.”

The man growls. Jimmy’s wanted poster is shoved in his face. It’s old, the ink smudged and barely legible.

“Bullshit. It says right here, coal mine. We want that reward, canary, and we’ll have it.”

“The paper’s wrong,” Jimmy snaps. “But kudos, you know, for being able to read. You don’t look the type.”

The back of his hand splits Jimmy’s mouth open. Blood speckles the snow in bright ruby droplets. The earth spins and Jimmy starts to list toward it until a meaty hand throttles his collar and brings him nose to nose. Jimmy looks sharply to the side.

“Watch yourself, canary. Mouth off like that again and I’ll skewer and roast you over this fire.”

It’s a bad fire, objectively. Tango’s are better by far. Jimmy shouldn’t say so, but he’s going to, because he’s angry. When he woke up and realized what had happened, he was angry. The next day he was angrier. And the day after that he was angrier still. He keeps expecting himself to cower, but his fury won’t let him. He’s angrier than he’s ever been in his life. He’s angry at the mercenaries, and at Ren and Martyn. He’s angry at Joel and Grian and his curse and the world and himself. He’s so sick of fear and sadness and hurt. The hurt won’t ever stop but he can get rid of the others. He can spit in this man’s face and damn the consequences. It’s not like he hasn’t died before.

Jimmy opens his mouth but all that comes out is a grunt of pain, echoed by the mercenary when another one comes and kicks him in the hip.

“No, you fuckin’ won’t. Reward’s only if we bring him in alive. You kill him, I kill you.”

Around the pitiful fire the other mercs guffaw in unison. The first man growls, gives Jimmy a shake like a dog with a rabbit, and then throws him aside.

“Reward don’t say nothin’ about roughing you up,” the man says. His boot digs into Jimmy’s stomach. Jimmy glares down at the snow and dirt and blood and doesn’t give him the satisfaction of crying out.

They try to get Tango’s whereabouts out of him for a while longer, but eventually grow bored with his silence. After a short debate they toss Jimmy the bones of their dinner. Jimmy ignores it.

In the dead of night, when most of the mercenaries are sleeping except the one on watch, Jimmy thinks he can hear the musical call of a horn in the distance. He thinks he must be dreaming.

At the end of the second week, the mercs get drunk. More drunk than any other night. At first Jimmy thinks this might be an opportunity for escape.

They drink more. They get reckless. Jimmy thinks, oh, this is bad. He’s right.

All they do at first is taunt him. Shove him around a little. A few more bottles in and they come up with a quick, admittedly creative game involving Jimmy’s curse. One mercenary grabs a rock and has the others stand around him in a loose circle. Jimmy is forced to stand in the center as well, and as the man with the rock turns slowly, threatening each of his friends one by one, the other merc watch Jimmy for his reaction. When Jimmy flinches at a strike to the shoulder or hip or face, the mercenaries try to dive out of the way of the hit they know is coming.

They do this for an hour. Jimmy is barely standing by the end of it. He doesn’t cry out once.

He doesn’t cry out, either, as they drag him to a tree and tie him to the trunk. Drunk fingers make poor knots. He could get out of this, he thinks. If he could just get his feet under him. If he could just make his hands work and his vision stop swimming.

The mercenaries are speaking to him. Words register on delay.

“Can the canary sing for himself?” one mercenary slurs. “Let’s find out!”

“It won’t work,” Jimmy mutters. His curse has never worked on himself. They don’t hear him.

One pulls a crossbow, and takes too long fumbling a bolt in. The others egg him on. “If you kill our reward, I’ll take it out of your hide,” one of them says, but doesn’t stop him.

“Stop distracting me,” says the man with the crossbow. He takes wavering aim. “I’ll jus’ knick his arm.”

Jimmy stares down the stock. He thinks about all the time Joel and Grian have ever laughed at him. He thinks of all the times Joel and Grian have ever made him laugh. He thinks of Tango, and the fragrance of spiced tea. He wonders if dying for real will feel like every other time he’s died.

A bolt slots neat and sharp between his ribs, and Jimmy thinks, yes, this hurts just as much as every other time.

The pain is blinding. He died to an assassin’s arrow once, choking on blood that both was and wasn’t flooding his lungs. It took ages. He hopes this is quicker. He can’t catch his breath. His head hangs and tears press from his eyes. For a second his vision clears.

There’s nothing there.

His head snaps up. The mercenary is still taking aim.

He shouts, “Tango, don’t—”

An inferno consumes the camp, and Jimmy’s vision sears to colorless white.

The mercenaries are screaming. A fire is roaring. Someone cuts Jimmy free, but he doesn’t see who. He can’t see anything. Pain comes in from everywhere, too much to separate. He’s burning and he’s bruising and he’s coming apart. All of it coalesces, all of it becomes the one lancing bolt that isn’t in his ribs. He can’t think of anything else. He can’t think at all.

“Tango,” he chokes. “Tango—”

His vision starts to go. No. He can’t die, not to this. If he dies, then that means Tango—

If Jimmy could lift his head, he’d see the forest on fire, and the mercenaries burning alive. He’d see Tango’s heaving back, bright as a star, and he’d see him turning back to find him, a hand pressed to the wound in his side.

Jimmy does not see. Jimmy is dead.

First, Jimmy stops being dead. Then he’s sleeping. In some starry, dreamless place, he grieves. Then he wakes up.

The first thing he notes is the ornate ceiling, a mural to Ren’s magnificence. Various takes on this same theme are painted in every room of the castle, so it's pretty obvious where he is. Either he was dead much longer than he's ever been or some other mode of transportation cut the travel time down to a fraction. Maybe both.

The next thing he notes is Grian and Joel standing over him. That explains that--Grian probably flew him here. They stood over him like this the first time he died, too. An old man had had a heart attack nearby, though they didn’t know it then. Jimmy was dead, and then he wasn’t, and then he was staring at Grian’s face, a thousand miles away, and Joel beside him, blubbering into his hands. When they realized he was alive they screamed.

They don’t scream this time, and they aren't crying. They look like they might have been, though. Their eyes are rimmed with red.

“Look who’s awake,” Grian says. His wings are poorly groomed and his smirk doesn’t look half as shit-eating as it usually does. He nudges Joel in the side. “Go get him, Joel.”

Joel glares. “Why me? You go get him!”

They argue about it for a minute, though Jimmy is too muddled by death to follow. Who are they fighting about getting? Ren? Martyn?

He settles back into his pillows. It doesn’t matter, does it?

Grian wins, eventually, much to Joel’s chagrin. He turns his glare on Jimmy, as he usually does. Jimmy expects to be noogied or boxed around the ears. Instead Joel hooks an arm under his neck and butts their foreheads together.

“If you ever scare me like that again,” he says, and sniffles hard, “I’ll bloomin’ kill you, you hear me?”

He huffs and grumbles his way out of the room. Jimmy watches him go. He turns his attention to Grian.

Grian waves a little. “Hi, Tim.”

“Hi, Grian,” Jimmy says, and he bursts into tears.

Grian holds him. “There there, you big baby,” he says, and pats his back gently.

Tango is gone, Jimmy tries to say. He tries to say, I’m sorry you had to save me again, I’m glad to see you, Tango’s gone. Tango’s gone.

Instead he cries and snuffs and gets snot all over Grian’s red sweater. Somehow, Grian lets him. He pushes at Jimmy until he scoots over on the bed. There’s more than enough room for them both; the beds in the castle are bigger and softer than any he shared with Tango on the road. That thought sets him wailing again. Grian chirps at him, sits him up until Jimmy’s slumped in the center of the bed and Grian can sit comfortably behind him, picking through his wings while he hiccups and sobs and shakes.

The tears don’t stop, but eventually they quiet. Various saline fluids drip silently down his face while Grian preens him.

Grian says, “Why didn’t you tell us you wanted to leave, Timmy?”

Jimmy’s breath shudders out of him. “You—you would have come with me.”

“Obviously.”

Jimmy can hear Grian’s eye-roll in his voice. He bites the inside of his cheek. “…You would have made me feel bad about it. I didn’t want to ruin your life.”

Grian’s practiced fingers twitch to a stop deep in his feathers. He huffs, withdraws his hands, then closes them firmly on Jimmy’s shoulders and turns him in place.

“You ruin my life every day, Timmy,” Grian says. He's frowning, but he meets Jimmy's eyes with determination. “But so does Joel. And I ruin yours and his too. We're all messing with each other, all the time. That’s how it’s meant to be, or we wouldn’t be—we wouldn’t be—”

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. Grian’s face falls into relief.

“We went after you anyway, you understand?” he says, gentler than before. “It was a lot of work, but we’d do it again. And we’d only make fun of you a little. So next time, just take us with you, save us the trouble.”

“Okay.” Jimmy’s eyes swell up again. “Okay.” Then he says, “I met someone.”

“I know. We were tracking you both. We found him first, then he helped us find you.” Grian pulls his sleeves down over his hands to wipe carefully at Jimmy’s face. More tears take the place of the last.

Jimmy can barely get the words out. “He’s gone, Grian. I don’t, I can’t—he’s gone.”

Grian’s eyebrows fly into his hair. “What?”

The door opens. Joel staggers in, supporting a wild-eyed Tango. His hair is a mess, singed at the tips. His slim chest is a cocoon of white bandaging. He is very much not dead.

“Jimmy!”

Tango breaks free despite Joel’s protest. He launches at Jimmy and immediately falls flat on his face. Jimmy feels it first.

Jimmy screams a little. Then he lurches out of Grian’s grasp and straight off the side of the bed.

“You’re—you’re alive! Tango, you’re alive!”

“I’m alive? You’re alive!” Tango springs up. His nose is bleeding. His hands are warm on Jimmy’s arms, helping him up, then on his face. The calloused pads of his fingers, the chips of his claws, the warmth of him. Alive. “I can’t believe you went to town like that, I told you not to, ooohhh, I’m so mad I could kiss you—”

“You’re alive,” Jimmy is sobbing. “You’re alive.”

Tango’s mouth wobbles, then purses, then wobbles some more. That makes no sense. What reason does he have to cry?

He pulls Jimmy into his chest. Every awkward angle and sharp jut of bone digs into him, and Jimmy only holds closer, tighter.

“I thought I lost you,” Tango says. His voice cracks. “I thought I’d never see you again. When I saw what those bastards did to you, I lost my mind. I could have burned the whole forest down. I could have killed them all.”

“You did kill them,” Grian says flatly. “Like, all of them. Barely left any for me and Joel. Rude.”

"I hurt you," Tango says. His arms around Jimmy stop holding so tight, which won't do. "When I burned them, I hurt you. You died for me, again. I'm so sorry."

"I don't care about that. I come back to life, Tango, you don't. You—" He pushes Tango back by the shoulders, feels his heart break at the sight of the bandages. "Oh my god, you did get shot. I knew it. You can’t do that again, not ever.”

Tango makes a clucking, clicking noise. Through the panic, Jimmy thinks: I missed your silly noises. “Yeah, okay. I’ll do my best to not get shot again.”

He’s smiling. It’s brilliant. He’s brilliant. He's alive.

Tango taps their foreheads together. Jimmy’s eyes flutter shut. His nose is clogged, but he fights for a deep breath anyway. Just one breath of that spark and spice. Just one more. Just one more.

“Also I’m here,” Joel says loudly. “If anyone cares.”

Jimmy ignores him.

Jimmy is on the road again. The air is cold but not bitter. The snow is finally starting to thaw.

Grian and Joel filled him in on what happened to his bounty. Turns out as soon as they learned that he fled, they went to appeal to the king on his behalf. Predictably, the king ignored them. Joel and Grian are not to be ignored, as Jimmy knows better than anyone.

After weeks of dedicated campaigning and psychological warfare, in which they managed to turn the whole capital city against its monarch, the Red King gave way to King Ren. King Ren remembered that actually he liked that funny little canary guy, and didn’t think it was all that groovy to hold him against his will. The bounty was lifted, a retraction was printed, and Grian and Joel took off after Jimmy. Instead they found Tango fuming in the snow. The mercenaries were acting on a bounty that wasn't even live anymore.

Jimmy isn’t ready to believe any of it until Martyn, grudgingly, hands him a severance package in the form of several bags of gold, the reins to a genuinely massive horse, and an official pardon with the king’s signature and seal. Ren calls Jimmy dude in it.

“What are you going to call him?” Tango asks.

“Norman, I think,” Jimmy says. Tango nods approvingly.

“Norman. I like it!”

Tango is walking beside Jimmy with a pardon of his own, and even a small sack of gold as an apology for the bounty. No horse, though. He’s the main reason Jimmy hasn’t mounted and rode off into the horizon. Joel and Grian are closing out their own affairs, and then they’re planning on catching up to Jimmy and helping get him set up in the next biome. Ranching still doesn’t seem like the kind of life they’d enjoy, so he doubts they’ll stay. Jimmy will live on without them. He did in the castle, and the did on the road. They can survive apart. It's nice to know, still, that they'll come when he calls.

As for why they're trailing a day behind, Jimmy suspects the only real reason for that is because they’re giving him and Tango time to…he’s not sure what.

Jimmy says, “I guess you don’t have to escort me to the border, anymore.”

Tango kicks at some slush. “I guess not.”

“You could go back to your demolition crew. Or anywhere else you wanted.”

“Yup. Yup.”

The sun is rising. The sky is mostly pink. In the distance birds are singing.

“I was thinking—”

“If you wanted, you could—”

They look at each other. Jimmy laughs, and so does Tango, clear and loud.

“You first,” Tango says.

Jimmy summons his courage. He’s surprised at how easily he finds it.

“You could stay,” he says. Tango stops walking, and so does Jimmy.

“What?”

“You could stay at the ranch, I mean. You said you wanted to see the plains, so you’re still welcome to join. You could stay at the ranch. For a little while, or—or however long you’d like.”

Tango stares at him. Jimmy’s courage falters, but does not crumble. He starts rambling.

“You wouldn’t have to pay rent or anything. Just help me around the ranch sometimes, with the cows. And the warden. And when you want to go explore, you could, and the ranch could be like—like a homebase or something. I’d never expect you to get hurt for me. And you’d—you’d never expect me to get hurt for you.”

“I wouldn’t,” Tango says. “Never.”

“I know.” Jimmy’s throat is tight. “I know you wouldn’t.”

Tango takes a few deep breaths. He looks a little starstruck, which Jimmy wasn’t expecting, and is very sweet. With each one breath the flames in his hair and tail swell and ebb, swell and ebb, until they calm down with one firm exhale. Jimmy waits patiently.

Tango meets his eyes and clears his throat. “Yeah, yes, I’d like that. I’d really really like that. I was going to say the same thing, but you said it better. You’re really incredible, you know that?”

Jimmy kisses him. Quick, the corner of his mouth.

Tango looks starstruck again. “Wow.”

Jimmy spins to face his new horse and mess with the bridle. It nickers knowingly. “Ahem. Um. Are we both going to be able to fit, do you think?”

There’s a sound that might be Tango slapping his cheeks. “Only one way to find out!”

They do both fit, though it takes about ten minutes of flailing and sliding off the side and Norman probably laughing at them in horse. The whole thing is objectively humiliating. Jimmy doesn’t care a whit.

It’s full morning by the time they’re ready to start moving again. Tango’s arms come around Jimmy’s waist. His smile is sharp and crooked at his shoulder. “Ready, rancher?”

A thrill goes up Jimmy’s spine. “Born ready!”

He gives Norman a little kick. They rocket into a gallop, and in under five minutes Jimmy is somehow the one tumbling off the side of the saddle.

Tango howls with laughter. He pulls Norman into a canter, then a trot, then a walk. It’s clear which of them have actually ridden before. “Oh man, I’m sorry, are you okay?”

Jimmy groans from the ground. “Maybe you should drive the horse.”

That sets Tango off again. “Sure, sure. I’ll drive the horse. Here, let me help you up.”

He leans down, offers his hand. Jimmy takes it.

“My hero,” he laughs. “My rancher.”

#life series #traffic smp #double life smp #team rancher #mcytblrholidayexchange2023 #jimmy solidarity #tangotek #tango tek #grian #joel smallishbeans #ran's writing #life series fic #fantasy au #Jimmy is on the run for his life #Tango is just along for the ride #Jimmy and Tango's Big Disaster Road Trip

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whiskeyapologist · 1 month

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SMH coffee preferences

bitty: the super sweet seasonal drinks (he is the quintessential psl girlie (gn) in the fall)

jack: drip coffee with a little milk

shitty: controversial but i don’t think shitty drinks coffee or anything caffeinated

lardo: iced coffee all the way

holster: americano

ransom: caramel macchiato

dex: espresso shots (& if nursey isn’t around, a dragonfruit refresher)

nursey: he’s a matcha girlie through & through

chowder: frappuccinos (especially the vanilla bean one)

whiskey: black coffee. i feel so very strongly about this

tango: hot chocolate (even in the summer)

ford: prefers energy drinks (specifically celsius), but has been known to enjoy a chai latte (hot or iced, depending on the weather)

#omgcp #i don’t have enough of a read on ollie & wicky or on the scones (?) so absolutely open to suggestions

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ittybittyluci · 4 months

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MORE LUCIFER HEADCANONS

I cannot get enough of this man, so here you go, some shit that’s slowly been accumulating in the midst of my brain rot:

🍎 Biggest sweet tooth on the goddamn planet. He likes small treats that he can pop in his mouth, or things he can have on the go (like caramel apples).

🍎 He’s an amazing cook, and loves to make food for others, but he hates cooking for just himself. He also has to be in the right headspace, if he’s too deep in depression he’ll just stress out and burn everything and become a mess of tears on the floor.

🍎 The entirety of Lu Lu World was created FOR Charlie. Man had a daughter and a second later was like “I’m making her a fucking theme park.”

🍎 He leaves 1 singular rubber behind (hidden or in the open depends on his mood) whenever he leaves a place.

🍎 During construction, he put a secret duck pond somewhere in the hotel. It’s beautiful (as beautiful as anything can get in Hell), except instead of real ducks they’re all just rubber ones. He goes in there every day, and has a whole soap-opera style, seven layered story going on with each and every one of his little duckies. They all have their own plot, personalities and relationships that he keeps track of… and nobody at the hotel knows about it.

🍎 One day someone walks in on him playing with his ducks. They stare at each other for a good five minutes before the person just closes the door. They never speak of it again.

🍎 He uses the cane like a fidget toy. Something to keep his hands still so he can look at least somewhat professional in public.

🍎 He has several nervous habits. Some of which include: Twirling his cane, “fixing” his hat, playing with the buttons on his waistcoat, adjusting his bowtie, tugging at his sleeves, and playing with his shirt collar.

🍎 The man is both touch and affection STARVED, and any form of either has him practically melting into a puddle on the floor. He WILL cry. He will do anything the person asks him to. Basically, flattery, if it’s genuine, does indeed work on him.

🍎 Biggest worry wart on the planet. Such big heart too. He can get a little overbearing and clingy when someone he loves is sick or injured or just having a bad mental health day. If he notices they’re feeling down, they won’t have to lift a FINGER.

This has been in my drafts for weeks now, and it’s just accumulated enough to actually be posted! Eat up bitches, and let me know what you think or if YOU have any special headcanons for the itty bitty duck king

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prismatic-bell · 2 years

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Hey everybody, it's SMALL BUSINESS BLACK FRIDAY!!!!

Friends, Romans, countrypeople, all my scallywags and hooligans, longtime veterans and Twitter refugees, it's that time again.

LET ME YELL AT YOU EXCITEDLY ABOUT MY ROOMMATE'S ETSY SHOP

Follow me under the readmore and let me expound, Watson.

It is WINTER, and thus time to MOISTURIZE and KEEP YOUR SKIN HEALTHY. You can do this with a variety of products sold worldwide but none will provide you the scent and satisfaction of HANDMADE COLD-PROCESS SOAP. Perhaps you'd enjoy the light, subtle scent of green tea and cucumber, or maybe you want to smell like a movie cowboy looks (so, you know, all the good stuff without the sweat and cow poop). If you want to make your bathroom smell nice for guests this winter season consider the aptly-named Christmas Tree scent, or you can clean and exfoliate with my personal favorite, Coffee scent with real coffee beans in it. None of these quite your thing? No problem--click into the main shop, there are seventeen scents from apple to lavender and I've only shown you four.

Now that you're clean, I must insist you pamper your face with ZEO'S LIP BALMS which are as soft and silky as a kitten's itty-bitty nose and come in many flavors

Are you a proud BASIC BITCH like moi? Would you bleed pumpkin spice if we cut open your veins? Do you wear a toque with a bobble on top and screech excitedly every time you see the leaves turn color? PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU TO THE BRAND-SPANKING-NEW FALL FLAVORS LINE which has not been available in person for like three years and not online, um, ever. Featuring such delights as Chai Latte and Cinnamon Donut (among others), all you need is a favorite cozy sweater. Or, if you're slightly more bougie than that--an Intermediate-Level Bitch, let us say--you may enjoy THE COFFEE SHOP LINE, which is also entirely new and features all your faves from your local cafe--whether you enjoy the simplicity of Black Coffee, One Sugar or the sucrose-soaked glory of a Caramel Macchiato. And if you simply gotta have a classic, you can do so in mutiple ways with the reintroduced WIZARD OF OZ LINE. I can't pick a favorite from this one. It's like picking a favorite child. From the sharp and strong Rosemary Spearmint of the Wicked Witch to the Chocolate Cinnamon sweetness of the Tin Man's exceptionally large heart, it's a delightful collection that--yes--features two perfect cold-weather flavors, Dorothy's Cinnamon Apple Vanilla and the Scarecrow's Spiced Orange Vanilla. (okay, okay, Dorothy's my favorite.) Ah but PERHAPS YOU ARE WONDERING IF ZEO'S RESTOCKED YOUR FAVORITE. Have you heard me rhapsodize before about the Sailor Senshi balms, Steven Universe flavors, or variety in the Overwatch line? Good news for you--all of these, along with Yuri! On Ice and Wonder Woman, have been restocked. COME REPLENISH YOUR FAVORITE.

Now that your lips have been touched by the equivalent of Julie Andrews personally gracing you with her presence, HOW DO YOUR HANDS AND FEET FEEL???? Bit scratchy, perhaps? Nipped up with the weather? In need of some TLC? Zeo's fantastic CUTICLE OIL doing wonders for your fingernails and the areas thereabouts, but you need something more heavy-duty for the rest?

Well grab a pair of socks you don't mind getting messy and pick up THE MOST AMAZING HAND AND FOOT SALVE YOU WILL EVER OWN. I will personally swear by it. Your poor abused soles and fingers will feel as though they've been dipped in the sparkles ubiquitous to Disney princesses and then wrapped lovingly in the finest of elf fabrics. You will wake up in the morning certain your skin has been carefully and benevolently replaced by a supernatural being that wants you to have a really fantastic day. "Half an ounce? That doesn't seem like a lot--" You don't need a lot. There is every possibility Zeo secretly got this recipe from Miracle Max.

Is this whole post just an excuse for me to post funny gifs? No, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it.

SO WITH YOUR FOOTSIES AND TOOTSIES PAMPERED PERHAPS YOU'RE ALSO OF THE HIRSUTE PERSUASION, or, statistically likely, know somebody who is. You need your whiskers to behave themselves and remain as the most luscious facial locks so you might, someday, aspire to be this gentleman.

(I think we all aspire to be this gentleman, whoever he is.)

ZEO CAN HELP YOU WITH THAT TOO

Moisturize your muttonchops with BEARD OIL! Condition your chin with BEARD CREAM! Subdue your stubble with BEARD BALM!!! All three of these products will provide you with soft, supple whiskers, and the beard balm can be used to do some lightweight taming. (It also works on regular hair on particularly staticky days, if you're the kind of person who has that kind of trouble.)

NOW THAT YOU'RE ALL CLEAN AND MOISTURIZED DO YOU WANNA SMELL GOOD

HECK YEAH YOU WANNA SMELL GOOD

Tumblr has decided I don't need any more gifs because apparently I've abused my power too much, so you're all spared from my horrible Jack Sparrow puns. That's okay because according to Johnny Depp, Jack smells absolutely horrific.

INSTEAD LET ME INTEREST YOU IN THE NEW ALICE IN WONDERLAND LINE OF SCENTED OIL ROLLERS

There's Alice. There's the Hatter. There's the Queen of Hearts. There's lush, English scents and a teatime to make your heart sing. All are guaranteed to delight you but the Queen, especially, is a wonderful winter scent.

HEY BUT MAYBE YOU LIKED THAT COWBOY IDEA SO YOU SHOULD TAKE A GANDER AT THE TRIGUN LINE Featuring our favorite foursome (Vash, Wolfwood, Millie, and Meryl), you have four fantastic takes on The Old West But In Space In The Future. You assume gunpowder? YOU'RE RIGHT. You assume leather? CORRECT. You assume vanilla? ....no? You haven't watched the show recently enough, go back and do it again. Take some donuts as snack food.

BUT DID YOU PERHAPS WANT SOMETHING A LITTLE SHARPER AND MORE ESOTERIC, YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN THE YONA LINE WHICH NOW ALSO HAS TWO NEW SCENTS Designed to smell as though you're hanging in ancient Japan with dragon gods, these are admittedly not my faves (personal preference, I'm not the patchouli type) but are adored by all who try them. So what, Nina, is your type, if not patchouli, you ask, AND FRIEND I WILL REFER YOU TO THE DARK TOWER LINE. On first glance this is similar to the Trigun line, but there's one major difference: where Trigun leans heavily on hope and light, The Dark Tower is postapocalyptic and comes with a tinge of darkness and danger. These are the smokier scents, the heavier scents, the ones with just a hint of bitterness at what a better, fairer world would have been--but with such joy that for this moment, at least, we are here, to enjoy what we have.

Ah. But you, friend, you're the more particular type. You need something a little more unique. In that case, allow me to introduce you, please, to THE YU-GI-OH LINE. Featuring ten characters from the original show, there's no taste this line won't match. A sexier gambler-slash-archaeologist than Indiana Jones could ever hope to be? Choose the suave and masculine Suguroku. Sexy and sophisticated lady of status? Mai Kujaki. Your life's goal is to smell like the physical embodiment of a Claire's store if Claire's actually sold decent body sprays? Anzu Mazaki. A mystery wrapped in an enigma and tied up with a whiff of the esoteric? May I present Ryou Bakura?

AND NOW FINALLY

THE DENOUEMENT OF THIS POST

From the time this post goes live until midnight Arizona time on Monday, all items in the shop are 25% off for the Black Friday weekend. This is an automatic sale and requires no input from you except your purchase.

COME BASK IN THE DELIGHTS OF SELF-CARE AND SUPPORT A SMALL BUSINESS!!!

#small business #black friday #cyber monday

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delicatechildwitch · 7 months

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Thinking about how the foodie au has several categories of characters.

Like for instance, there's at least three Draxum made turtles (Slushie, Peppermint, Blackberry)

Then we have all the itty bitties. (Mellow, Gram, Toffee, Peppermint, etc.)

At least three ocean goers (Mellow, Gram, Chips).

The non-turtles (Cowtail, Caramel, Bluecrop Blueberry, Ichigo Miruku, Cotton Candy, and Cocoa who is not yet official).

Also, the Big Mama employees, of course. (Caramel, Milkshake, Waffle-ish, Kiwi, Chips, Muffin, Slushie, etc.)

Plus there are several that share colors or have similar types of foods for names. There are a lot of fruit/berries, for instance.

There's probably more, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

Just wanted to share my thoughts.

(owners of the characters mentioned, since I don't want to not credit them:

Milkshake, Waffles, entire AU - @sleepis4theweak

Slushie - @buny1

Peppermint - @pinkatint

Kiwi - @banana-pancake5

Bluecrop Blueberry - @trashyandtiredsol

Toffee - @peoplepersonoaktree

Ichigo Miruku - @tinker-the-dragon

Blackberry - @artcosmique

Chips and Muffin - @critter-core

Gram, Mellow and Cocoa - @allyheart707

Cotton Candy - @ofthefrogs

Cowtail - @3mutantsinatrenchcoat )

And Caramel is mine.

#tmnt foodie au #slushie the turtle #peppermint the turtle #blackberry the turtle #gram the turtle #mellow the turtle #toffee the turtle #chips the turtle #cowtail the cow mutant #caramel crumb #foodie au bluecrop blueberry #ichigo miruku #cc the sea bunny #milkshake the turtle #waffles pancake #kiwi the turtle #muffin the turtle

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cricketnationrise · 11 months

Note

Hi! I’m so excited to leave a prompt! 7:12am, Dex, and the Haus kitchen!

hey if this is your prompt come say hi properly!

want your own ficlet? rules here [ONE WEEK LEFT]

🏒🏒🏒🏒

haus kitchen, 7:12am

Dex wakes up to the scent of warm cinnamon wafting down the stairs. There’s something so nice about waking up on his own, no alarms, no practice, no shifts at the student center – just a rare Saturday with no obligations. In fact, Dex is almost asleep again, so comfortable in his blanket cocoon, when he gasps – Bitty is visiting Jack this weekend. He rolls over to check the clock and frowns. It’s just a little after seven on a Saturday, usually the Haus is totally still, only faint snores of hockey players to disturb the peace. But today, there’s spices in the air and if he strains himself, Dex can hear the coffee maker bubbling away.

Quickly getting socks on his perpetually cold feet and throwing on his warmest sweats, Dex climbs the stairs to the main floor and makes his way silently to the kitchen. The sight of Nursey carefully drizzling some sort of brown sauce into a bundt pan stops him in the doorway. His tongue is poking out the side of his mouth in concentration. It’s cute.

Nursey finishes his drizzling and slides the pan into the oven, setting an alarm on his phone. As Nursey bustles around gathering up his dishes, Dex spots a second bundt pan sitting on a cooling rack. It’s clearly the source of the smell and Dex can’t help but drift into the kitchen properly, drawn inexorably toward the aroma.

A quiet “holy shit,” slips out when he gets near enough to see the beautifully baked Monkey Bread inside. The biscuit pieces are a perfect deep golden color underneath the caramelized butter and brown sugar topping. The mixture is actually still bubbling around the edges – clearly fresh from the oven. Dex’s mouth waters; he hasn’t had Monkey Bread since the last Christmas his grandma was alive – no one in his family has had the heart to make it since. He’s so lost in his sense memory that he doesn’t register the water turning off.

“Fucking hell, Dexy, make a noise why don’t you?” Dex turns to see Nursey clutching the counter with a death grip, his other hand braced over his heart, the very picture of cliche startlement.

“Sorry – I just – Monkey Bread?”

“Yeah,” Nursey says, still breathing harder than normal, “I woke up randomly early, couldn’t go back to sleep – had a craving. My Auntie used to make it once a month like clockwork. Figured I’d give it a go. Share with the team if it went okay enough.”

“I’d say it went more than okay. It smells amazing. Just like my grandma’s.”

“High praise indeed. Poindexter seal of approval,” Nursey teases.

“Doesn’t come lightly,” Dex jokes, “There’s usually a rigorous application process.”

Nursey’s eyes crinkle up as he laughs, no less devastatingly beautiful for how quiet it is in deference to their still-sleeping Haus-mates. Dex feels his breath catch in his throat.

A soft chiming breaks the moment and Dex reminds himself to actually exhale while Nursey checks his phone.

“The first one’s done cooling,” he says, moving to the counter. He pauses, then looks at Dex for a long moment, searching. Dex holds still, uncertain, but Nursey must find whatever he was looking for in Dex’s expression because he beckons Dex closer with a jerk of his head. “Help me flip this? I don’t want to drop it now and ruin it.”

“It looks so good I’d even eat it if it fell on this floor, but sure.”

“Wouldn’t want you to catch something – you know we’re only four days post-Kegster, the floor is still half biohazard.” Nursey pulls out the platter that Bitty normally piles high with cookies and lays it over top of the bundt pan, then hands over a set of oven mitts. “You hold that side, and I’ll take this side and we’ll flip on three, okay?”

Dex nods, Nursey counts, and they flip the pan in perfect sync with each other – clearly d-men magic is good for other things besides hockey. Nursey carefully pries the bundt pan up, revealing a perfectly formed ring of biscuity-cinnamony-buttery-gooey goodness. Delicious, yes – good for their diet plans, no. Dex will be eating at least a third of it regardless.

“Here,” Nursey says, handing over a fork. “Dig in.”

There’s no talking for a while after that, just the soft groans of delight at the taste, the contented hum of well-fed hockey players.

#cricket writes #omgcp #ficlet fest 3 #nursey #dex #year 4 #Anonymous #check please

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the-faramir · 1 month

Text

Niji-iro Midori: The Reluctant Ringmaster

Chapter 5: One Does Not Simply Walk Into Abberton

The Celestial Menagerie escapees fled through the night, but the journey from Escadar to Abberton was no short stroll. Abberton was over 30 miles away as the crow flies, and a direct path was not optimal for a rag-tag band of refugees without supplies.

Bufurug led the way, as he knew the Starstone Isles like the back of his hand. Even though he had reverted back to his natural form seconds after the escape, his short shoony legs took surprisingly long strides.Erol Korkut, a human, and Alyssa Sunmeadow, a halfling, both of whom had worked with Toby selling concessions, followed closely behind, still dressed in their work aprons. Next came Midori and Itty-Bitty, with Lyla Cadwalader, a gnome animal trainer, making great strides to keep up. Bringing up the rear, and guarding the company from behind, were Brondin Stonehammer, a dwarf security guard, and Stefano Xenides, a human rigger.

Bufurug guided the procession northward toward the river flowing down from the mountains that lay northeast of Escadar. "We'll need water if we want to make it there alive! Keep going along the eastern riverbank. It will lead us to the foothills of the mountains near the Erran Tower. From there, we should find a road leading northeast to Abberton. Let me formulate a plan for supplies—I know how to survive in the wilderness.

"For now, it doesn't look like we're being followed, so let's take advantage of the cover of darkness and press on as quickly as we can till sunrise. Keep quiet and save your breath, and we'll take a breather at first light."

After hours of hiking by the riverside without incident, the sun began to rise. Bufurug called for a rest. "It's plenty warm out still, so you all can take a nap by the riverbank. Lie on your backs and prop your legs up on a tree if you're aching from the march. I'll keep watch and prepare my spells in case we run into any trouble."

After a few hours with no incident, Bufurug quietly roused each of the team, one by one, most of them groaning at the early wake-up call. Midori's stomach gurgled in protest. "Hey, Bufurug. I hate to bring this up, but did anybody, ya know, pack any food?"

"No, no, Midori. None of us were prepared for the sudden escape. We'll have to forage for food." Bufurug turned his attention to the river. "Hey, you two, stop drinking! You need to go upstream some more for safety. And you, there! For the love of Erastil, if you're going to use the river as your latrine, do it downstream from where people are drinking!" Bufurug stomped off to assist, muttering, "Ugh, tenderfoots."

"Hey, Squirt!" Itty-Bitty, the seven-foot-tall, 300-pounds-of-muscle orc clown stepped over to Midori and gave her a hand up. She still wore her clown's greasepaint from last night's performance, and her pink-and-purple hair puffs were starting to sag. "I got a caramel apple if ya want. I been keepin' it in me pocket." She proceeded to pull the lint-covered treat out of a pocket in her gaudily patterned pants, trailing a few lines of softened caramel like brown cobwebs.

"Gah!" Midori reacted with revulsion. "No, that's fine, Big Sis. Ya had the forethought to pack a snack, so ya deserve to keep it all for yerself."

"All right. I always keep one in me pocket. Just in case. And the case is now." Itty-Bitty popped the apple into her mouth and pulled out the stick, tossing it into the river.

Bufurug gathered the company around him to discuss foraging. "Everyone! I know you are all tired and hungry. But rejoice! For Aroden has blessed this island, built the Erran Tower, and placed an aeon orb atop it to provide us all with the bounty of nature! A brief search should provide you with all the sustenance you need for the day."

"All we need?" Midori queried with a mischievous smirk. "Well, I feel a mighty need for some deep-fried tofu after all that runnin'. Let's see if Aroden provided us with some wild ‘tofudebeests.’ I'll try callin' one!" She cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed out the guttural, annoying call of the imaginary creature that she had just made up.

Bufurug was not amused.

Midori looked over at him and stopped making her racket. "Yeah, I know. Can we forage up some soybeans and make tofu?"

Midori grinned hopefully at Bufurug.

"That's...no." Bufurug was somewhat frustrated, but willing to educate Midori. "First, the soybeans we eat are a cultivated crop. Even if we were to find wild soybeans, they'd be different. If we had the right soybeans, tofu is a whole process on its own. You make soy milk—"

Midori interrupted, "How in the hells do ya milk soybeans?"

"No, no, not that kind of milk. Once you have the soy milk, you cook it, and strain it, and add bittern or gypsum or lemon juice to curdle it. Then form and press it. We just wouldn't have the time or effort to waste on that. Plus, we have no equipment for food prep or cooking. We'll have to find fruits and nuts, rest while we eat, then go. We're too close to the Menagerie still to risk cooking fires, so no small game, either. They could find us, and then our escape would be for naught. I reiterate: no fires!"

Bufurug turned to address the team as a whole. "Anyhow, when foraging, be careful about which plants you touch, too. Remember, 'leaflets three, it's not TP; berries white, not a delight.' For that matter, don't touch any berries or fruit that you haven't eaten before. Well, don't eat any berries at all, just to be safe. Edible leafy greens could be confusing to those not in the know, as well. You should be able to find cherries, crab apples, apricots, peaches, and grapes this time of year. Maybe walnuts and figs."

Erol piped up, "I thought cherries were berries!"

"No, they're more closely related to apricots and peaches," Bufurug answered.

"One more thing. Most of you are unarmed. While you're out there, try to find fallen branches suitable to use as clubs or staffs. This land is full of dangers; we want to be able to defend ourselves."

During her foraging, Midori found a peach tree with a few ripe fruits and she started to pick the few that she could reach. She composed and sang on the spot a song about peaches and how much she loved them (which was mostly the word "peaches" repeated ad nauseam). She also came across a grapevine laden with fruit hanging off of tree branches beyond her reach, but she took one look and exclaimed, "Bah! Those grapes are probably sour, anyhow."

Over the next hour, everybody noticed that there was not very much fruit to gather. One by one, each of the comrades returned with meager handfuls of fruit, alarming Bufurug somewhat.

"I don't understand! There should be plenty of fruit to eat! What has happened to Erran? Have the gods forsaken us? Has Mistress Dusklight really kept me locked away from nature for so long that I haven't noticed what's been going on here?" He cast his eyes downward in shame. "Can I even call myself a druid anymore?"

Midori raised her voice in frustration. "We each have, what? A handful o' fruit? An' we need to go on a day's forced march on that? I...can't see how that can work out."

The reality of Midori's current situation and the circumstances in which she had left the day before hit her with full force. Tears welled up in her eyes and her voice began to quaver. "Mistress...no. Dusklight. Just Dusklight. She doesn't deserve to be called by a fancy title! She abused us all! She MURDERED Toby!" She sobbed twice, sniffled, then wailed in regret, "AAAAAAAAH! An' we just walked away without a fight!" Tears streamed down her face as she fell to her knees.

Erol and Alyssa approached Midori to comfort her. Itty-Bitty walked over to give her a side-hug and a shoulder on which to cry.

"They would have killed us all, kid," Bufurug reminded her evenly. "Never underestimate Dusklight. She is more skilled than she looks, and her cronies also have surprises up their sleeves. Not everyone in the Menagerie is there under duress. Some relish the thought of killing."

"Then we'll have to hone our skills and come up with surprises of our own!" Midori stood up, wiped the tears from her eyes with her palms, and steeled her face with grim determination. "I swear to Cayden Cailean, I will kill Dusklight or bring her to justice! Then all of our folk still under her control can be free!"

Midori started to sing.

🎵🎵🎵

Toby, you were my friend, my partner in crime We shared our dreams, we had a good time But then she took you away from me She made you pay too much for your petty thievery

Dusklight, you're a monster, you're a tyrant, you're a fiend You killed my Toby, you broke my heart, you shattered my dream But I swear by Cayden Cailean, the god of freedom and wine I will make you pay for what you've done, I will end your reign of crime

You think you're clever, you think you're smart You think you run your circus like a work of art But you don't care about the people you hurt You make them suffer, you treat them like dirt

But I'm not alone, I still have my friends We left your gods-damned hellhole, we made our amends We'll start our own show, we have a new goal We'll spread joy and hope, we'll heal every soul

I will make you pay for what you've done, I will end your reign of crime

🎵🎵🎵

Midori raised her fist and shouted, "Who's with me?"

Midori’s friends cheered in solidarity with her.

Stuffing her meager forage into her belt pouches, Midori muttered, "Well, I just lost my appetite. Sooner we get there, sooner we start trainin’. Let's go!" She ran off up the riverside ahead of the gang.

Bufurug tried to warn her, "Midori, hold up," but she was already on her way.

Midori nimbly ran around a copse of trees that hid the big bend in the river where it shifted from flowing from the east to flowing from the north. There, upon the riverbank, she discovered a wreck of a boat that must have crashed no more than a few days earlier.

"Hey!" Midori called out, "anybody here? Anybody need some help?"

Nobody replied except for Bufurug as he ran around the trees to catch up. "What happened?"

"A wrecked boat," Midori replied. "Musta been goin' way too fast, lost control, and crashed into the riverbank at the bend. No crew around. I see some crates. We should see if there's anythin' we can use." She sniffed the air as some of the others caught up. "Ugh. Something smells like rotting meat." As she walked around the bow of the boat, Midori found the source of the foul stench.

"Oh, no. Well, that'll be the captain." A corpse lay in front of her, his head dashed upon the rocks, his clothes torn, and the majority of his flesh eaten. A sword belt holding a rapier remained fastened around the waist. "Hmm. Ya won't be needin' this anymore."

Unbuckling the sword belt from the late captain's waist, Midori unsheathed his rapier to examine it. Rapiers were Cayden Cailean's weapons of choice. Finding this particular one to be in good condition, Midori smiled. "I shall call you...'Lightsnuffer,' and I shall use you to snuff out Dusklight's..." She twirled the tip of the blade while trying to find a word less awkward. "...light!" She grasped the rapier in her hand, awkwardly, and gave it a few clumsy swings as if she were chopping wood with a hatchet.

"I can help teach you how to use that," interjected Brondin, who had come up beside her, narrowly avoiding the swing of the blade. "I'll help train you when we get to Abberton."

The team started searching the wreckage. The hold in the back of the boat held several items, secured in place with a cargo net. Brondin and Itty-Bitty pulled back the net to let the others take stock.

Lyla called out, "Here's a keg! I'll bet it's beer!"

Alyssa added, "Oh, and a box of wooden mugs."

Bufurug pulled the lid off of a smaller crate. "Medical supplies! We can treat our cuts and scratches."

Midori pried the lid off of her wooden crate with a stray piece of metal from the wreckage. She detected muted scents of dried beef, tallow, spices, dried fruits, and baked wheat flour. "Iron rations? Survival food?" She rummaged through the crate to see how much was there. Reminded of how hungry she was, her stomach gurgled.

"Hey, everybody! Food! Over here!" She saw a few more crates with identical markings. "Enough for us all!"

As the others began to gather around, Midori opened one of the cloth-wrapped packages, exposing a stack of very thin cakes that were baked a light brown on the outside. She gingerly picked up one of the cakes and looked at it with a doubtful expression. "Ugh. Cram. Hardtack. Bland as ash. Or maybe we lucked out and it's halfling wandermeal?" She nibbled at a corner, and flavors of caramelized sugar, butter, vanilla, citrus peel, and cinnamon burst onto her tongue. Her eyes opened wide and she shoved the entire cake into her mouth, chewing noisily and attracting the attention of the rest of her comrades.

Lyla asked, "What have you found?"

"I dunno, I thought they were hardtack, but they turned out to be crunchy cookies and they're freakin' delicious!"

More of the group gathered around, some taking samples from Midori's stack.

"Yeah, ya know what? These taste like elven magic. Yeah, yeah, from those elves who live in those hollow trees, bakin' cookies and stuff. Y'know, the Keebluriel Elves!"

Midori's logic confused Bufurug. "The...what? That's not a real thing, Midori." Everyone else was used to Midori's nonsense, so they just shook their heads and went back to what they were doing.

After a quick meal of iron rations, Errol opened up the cask of beer and poured everyone a mugful. Midori stood up and cleared her throat, garnering everyone's attention.

"Clearly, this cache of supplies is a boon from Cayden Cailean! Praises are in order!" As everyone raised their mugs up into the air, she began to sing:

🎵🎵🎵

Here's to Cayden Cailean, Cayden Cailean, Cayden Cailean Here's to Cayden Cailean, he's with us tonight He's happy, he's jolly, he's blessed us, by golly! Here's to Cayden Cailean, he's with us tonight!

🎵🎵🎵

"So drink! Drink! Drink! Drink!"

Everybody drank quickly, finding this beer to be the best they had ever tasted. They all returned for a second round.

Once everyone had eaten their fill, Bufurug advised "Load up your pockets and pouches with as much food as you can carry. We'll stick close to the river. Keep drinking more water than you think you need to compensate for the dried food. We should have more than enough to fuel a one-day hike to the foothills without stopping for foraging. When we get closer to the Erran Tower, we'll surely find better forage. The aeon orb, the stone circling the top, has been imbuing the land with magical energy for millennia, thanks to Aroden, and should be stronger near the tower even if it's starting to weaken out here."

"Did Aroden create the aeon orbs?" Alyssa asked Bufurug, "I hear he pulled the Starstone Isles right up from the sea floor so we could have a place to live."

"Well, no. Although Aroden created the aeon towers—the one here on the Isle of Erran and the others on the Isle of Kortos—he went to the Darklands down below us and liberated the stones from an underground jungle. That was the Orvian vault of Vask. The aeon orbs were being used to support the xulgaths living there."

"Xulgaths?" Alyssa had heard of them before. "I thought they only existed in stories our parents would tell us to get us to behave. Did they die out when Aroden took the orbs?"

"Oh, no. You see, Aroden left one behind for them. The xulgaths live on in the Darklands to this day."

Worried, the halfling replied, "Do you think they'd come up to the surface to take the orbs back?"

“That would not happen. Although raiding parties come to the surface from time to time, it seems that the passage of time has caused the xulgaths to...well, forget about the aeon orbs. I've heard that they barely remember any details from their formerly great civilization.”

The company managed to hike toward the foothills without incident that day, and they camped for the night in a small clearing near where the river flowed down from the mountain.

Midori woke to a quiet commotion in the camp. Bufurug and Brondin Stonehammer whispered urgently to each other while sounds of whispered communication came from the surrounding woods. "Could be bandits," Brondin whispered.

Brondin saw Midori stirring and walked over to her. "Midori," he whispered, "we find ourselves surrounded. Prepare yourself and draw your rapier. If they turn out to be hostile and they get close, stab forward at a face or torso if you see an opening. We're not sure who they are, but they could outnumber us."

Midori hissed, "Aw, man! I'm too tired for this! I have a better idea." She stood up, cleared her throat, and prepared to project her voice.

"Midori, no—!" Bufurug tried to stop her to no avail.

With her magically amplified voice, Midori let out a loud, long yelp that sounded like a cross between a dragon's bellow, a lion's roar, and a rooster’s crow. All those in the camp who were still sleeping scrambled to their feet in a panic. In the surrounding woods, the voices cried out and retreated into the distance.

"Midori, what in the nine hells was that?"

Midori shrugged and simply explained, "If you hear weird noises In the night, simply make weirder noises to assert dominance."

Bufurug addressed the company. "Bandits are easily startled, but they'll soon be back, and in greater numbers. I suggest we break camp and move on. The Erran Tower is not far. Drink up, as we are leaving the river behind.

After everyone had a chance to prepare for the hike, the group left for the Erran Tower on a seldom-traveled trail through the forest. They arrived about an hour later, as the sun began to rise over the eastern horizon and started to burn off the fog.

Coming around a bend in the trail, the procession saw a large clearing that was home to the Erran Tower, a 300-foot-tall mudbrick pyramid with a flat top, above which orbited a large, glowing stone.

Bufurug instructed, "We have arrived. Fan out and gather fruit, but be mindful of your surroundings." The team found the produce to be slightly better than by the riverside, but not much. Bufurug lamented their situation, but directed the group to a road leading from the tower toward Abberton, going back into the woods and toward a bridge crossing a fog-filled dry creak bed.

As the group passed by the mudbrick tower, Midori remarked "What is that smell? Did something die in there? Glad we're not exploring the inside of that thing."

After hiking several dozen feet farther down the path, Bufurug held up his hand to signal the company to stop in their tracks. "Wait. Listen." Complete silence weighed down on the forest like a heavy blanket. "It's quiet. Too quiet," he whispered. "We're in danger. Prepare yourselves."

As everyone readied their weapons and glanced around the path frantically, Lyla pointed back to the entrance of the tower. "There!"

Erupting forth from the tower entrance came a small squadron of four reptilian humanoids with dull gray, scaly, mottled skin, wearing leather armor and tattered hides and armed with nasty-looking weapons. The one in the lead pointed at Bufurug and his team, exclaiming in Draconic, "Rotinivokari! Amid!"

Bufurug, incredulous, identified them. "Xulgaths? Here? Friends, you are in over your heads. You should run."

"Well, looks like it's showtime!" Midori drew her rapier and encouraged her friends. "I think we can take 'em. They don't look like much."

She shouted at the attackers, "Step right up! Step right up! Come and get yer ass-whoopin'! We're not afraid of a buncha rubes like you!"

"Midori, wait!" Bufurug tried to stop the impetuous kitsune, but was too late.

Midori charged toward one of the xulgath warriors with her rapier, thrusting forward to target his chest, but her blade only caught in his armor. Midori looked up into the warrior’s face glowering back at her. "Hehehhhhh, maybe I should be a BIT afraid," she admitted as she backed away, turned around, and ran back to the company.

"Stay back, everyone," Bufurug barked his orders at the group, "I shall handle this, myself!" He grasped a sprig of mistletoe hanging from his belt and began gesturing and chanting to cast a spell.

"Sruthán, leanbh, sruthán! Tá bálseomra trí thine! Sruthán, leanbh, sruthán! Sruthán an mháthair sin síos! Fire in the hole!"

Bufurug gestured as if he were throwing a ball, and a blast of flames erupted from a spot roughly in the center of the xulgath warriors' formation, engulfing them in fire. One xulgath was quick enough to duck and roll to the edge of the blast, swearing in Draconic and in considerable pain from his burns. The other three screamed in agony briefly, then went silent, collapsing to the ground.

Midori exclaimed, "Holy crap, Boof! I didn't know you could do that!"

"Second edition allows for it," the shoony druid replied.

Midori stared at him blankly. "What?"

"...nothing," Bufurug shrugged.

Bufurug sprinted toward the surviving xulgath, readying his makeshift staff for a strike. Stefano ran up alongside, fists at the ready. Once within range, Stefano slowed down and began to cough and heave from the xulgath's stench. Nonetheless, he let loose some punches, which the xulgath dodged easily. Bufurug, blessed with a shoony's snout, suffered no ill effects.

The xulgath quickly sized up his two opponents, then swung his club at Bufurug, hitting him in the shoulder. A follow-up bite and swipe with claws connected only with the air.

Bufurug shouted, “Athraigh an bata seo ina sail éille!” His staff darkened, hardened, and grew heavier as he spun it at the xulgath, connecting with one end and following up with a strike from the other end that struck the xulgath's head.

As he fell, the xulgath warrior shouted out in Draconic, "Letoclo udoka, yicari-xiiwiss!"

As Draconic was the de facto language Xa Hoi, her neighboring country when she was a child, Midori knew the language well. She translated, "'Help us, spinesnapper'? What...what is a spinesnapper?"

As if in answer, the slow, rhythmic sound of ponderous footsteps echoed through the forest. A much taller, uglier, and more muscular xulgath emerged from the tower and shambled down the forest path, wielding a large stone maul. He growled menacingly.

Itty-Bitty hefted her pruned tree branch and ran toward the new foe. "'GRRRRR' this! Yer not so big! Stay away from me friends!" As she charged, winding up her makeshift club, the much larger xulgath spinesnapper swung his maul to connect with her as she approached, knocking her back down the path, where she landed with a sickening crunch.

Reacting quickly, Erol and Stephano ran to Itty-Bitty's aid, pulling her to her feet. As the blow from the maul had fazed her somewhat, they walked her back to the rest of the party.

As the spinesnapper approached, Bufurug shouted, "Make for the other side of the bridge! I will hold back our foe!"

As the spinesnapper approached, Bufurug chanted once more “Ag siúl tríd an tine, tá cinniúint i mo lámha. Ag fanacht le tintreach a bhualadh!“ A lightning bolt shot down from a cloud that had just appeared above and connected with his foe. Now covered in soot with smoke rising from its scales, the spinesnapper shook his head to clear it, snarled, and once again moved toward the group.

Bufurug sustained his spell. “Buailfidh tintreach!” A second bolt struck the xulgath, but did not slow his approach.

Bufurug retreated halfway across the bridge then turned to face the oversized xulgath, slamming his staff onto the wooden bridge.

"You shall not pass! I am a druid of the Wild Order, keeper of the Isle of Erran! You shall not pass! Return to the underground shadows from whence you came! You shall not pass!"

As the spinesnapper stepped onto the bridge, almost on top of the shoony druid, Bufurug called down yet another bolt: “Buailfidh tintreach,” striking the xulgath, but also splitting the bridge in two, the tower-side half collapsing into the creek bed.

Bufurug toppled over with the spinesnapper, but managed to grab on to the edge of the bridge. The xulgath grabbed Bufurug's legs and struggled to pull him down as well. His fingers slipping, Bufurug called out to his allies, who were staring, dumbfounded, "Fly, you fools!"

From thirty feet away, Midori reached out, screaming impotently, "Bufurug!" Her companions grabbed her, wordlessly encouraging her to run.

Bufurug could hold on no longer and fell down into the fog....

...followed suspiciously quickly with a muffled thud and a cry of pain from the xulgath spinesnapper. Bufurug's voice carried lightly over the air, "I'm...okay."

The party ran over to the edge of the bridge and peered into the abyss. The fog had cleared out, revealing a ten-foot depth with Bufurug unceremoniously sprawled on top of his unconscious foe. "I guess it didn't have so much fight left in it and I finished it off with that fall. Somebody toss me a rope!"

After helping Bufurug out of the creek bed, the procession continued down the road. Eventually, they crested a hill to see a village about a quarter of a mile away. There was much rejoicing.

Midori caught a whiff of a breeze blowing toward them from the village. "Oh! Lamb, beef, chicken! Bread! Somebody's cooking!" She pulled her coinpuse off of her belt and examined the contents. "I still have the entire cash drop from my booth from the night we left. Looks like lunch is on Dusklight!" Midori ran forth to scout out the source of those wonderful aromas with half of her friends running after her.

"I must advise caution!" Bufurug warned. "Slow down and stay together. Don't attract any unwanted attention. We don't know who awaits us in the village."

Midori and the others stopped to let the others catch up, then Midori's nose continued to lead the group toward the local inn, a three-story building built on top of a rock outcropping. The sign above the door read, "The Miners' Den" and featured a carving of a shovel and pickaxe, crossed diagonally across the sign.

Midori opened the door and walked inside, looking about the sunlit foyer eagerly. The others filed in after her. The wide staircase on the right side of the room led downward into a stone-walled basement lit by torchlight. Smiling welcomingly, a human woman with blonde hair in a burgundy peasant top and a skirt stood behind the reception desk on the left, with shelves and racks of keys behind her, and an open hallway leading to the rest of the building.

"Hello, and welcome to The Miners' Den! Are you here for lunch?"

"Lunch! Yes!" Midori piped up enthusiastically, "Whatever you're cookin’, we can smell it from down the road. We gotta get some of that!"

Bufurug strode up to the desk and signaled for the front desk clerk's attention. "A hearty meal for eight, if you please; also water and a keg of beer. We have been walking some distance and could use something substantial to replenish our strength. The young lady in green has graciously offered to treat us all."

The clerk turned to Midori. "Oh, how nice! The crew downstairs can get you a family-style lunch spread and your drinks for..." She grabbed paper and quill to jot down the order. "Five silver even. Will you be staying in the inn for the night?

Midori reached into her coin purse, pulled out five silver pieces, and handed them to the clerk. "Oh, we—"

Bufurug interrupted: "That all depends on a few...variables. Once I've had a bite to eat, I was hoping to ask you a few questions before we finalize our itinerary."

The clerk replied, "Very good, sir! We have a washroom on the right at the bottom of the staircase before the entrance to the common room. Clean water from a hand pump from our underground well. I'm sure that you all would like to wash up first after collecting road dust from your journey." She opened the covering on a voice pipe installed in the desk, blew its whistle, and spoke into it: "Vruti, table for eight. Full service. Keg of beer."

The sound of multiple yipping voices speaking the Draconian language in the background came up through the voice pipe, along with a more clear voice speaking in common, "Yah, we can do that, Gwen. We set up now."

Hearing the voices in the background, Midori asked the hostess, "They speak Draconian? You got workers from Xa Hoi?"

The hostess smiled and replied, "No, they're locals. You'll see. And they're friendly. Now go on down and grab some lunch."

The party descended the staircase, stopped by the washroom to clean the dirt off of their faces and hands (except for Itty-Bitty, who reapplied grease paint to her face instead of washing it), then moved into the common room.

Before them stood a torchlit cavern strewn with wooden dining tables and chairs, some occupied with what appeared to be locals. Various hallways branched out from the room at odd intervals, interspersed with closed doors. At the far end of the cavern, a wide window with a counter opened into the kitchen, showing a cooking fire surrounded with rotating vertical skewers full of meat. However, the feature that most interested the party was the staff: all kobolds, standing two or three feet tall with long tails and sharp horns, each one with different colored scales. Cooks in white jackets and toques worked in the kitchen. A few servers in black aprons who carried large trays laden with food bustled around a large table set for eight.

Midori's eyes opened wide, trembling and sparkling. "Eeeeee! Itty-Bitty," she whispered as she elbowed her friend in the ribs, "those are kobolds? They're so damned cute!"

"Yeah, those are kobolds," Itty-Bitty replied. "Usually they run away or try killin' ev'ryone when ya find 'em. Never seen 'em serve lunch before."

"Ooooo! They're so cute I gotta punch somethin’!" Midori proceeded to punch Itty-Bitty in the arm, without inflicting any pain, of course. "Can I have one? Can I take one home?"

Overhearing this interaction, Bufurug hissed at Midori, "Those are people just like you and me. You can't 'have one.'"

"Well, I'mma ask 'em to join the circus with us, then."

"Midori, behave yourself.”

A green-scaled kobold in black pants, a white shirt, and a black bow tie approached the group. Midori raised her arm and pointed her index finger at him, her mouth agape, about to say something about how adorable his ensemble was with the darling bow tie and OH MY GODS ARE THOSE TEENSY LITTLE EMERALD CUFFLINKS? but Bufurug pushed her arm down and gestured to her to keep quiet before she could say anything.

"Welcome to The Miners’ Den. I am Vruti; I seat you at your table. We hope you are hungry. Food is fresh and locally sourced. Meat is hot off the skewers." Vruti gestured invitingly to the table. Seven of the group rushed over to throw themselves into seats, blindly grabbing what morsels were closest and tossing them either into their mouths or onto the plates in front of them, as was standard meal procedure at the Celestial Menagerie when the fare was more than simply stew ladled out into bowls. The other customers looked at them with various levels of disgust.

Bufurug spoke levelly yet firmly as he unhurriedly walked over to the eighth chair, "Friends, we are out in public. And in public, one is expected to adhere to at least a minimum level of table manners. Stop and look around you. These fine people are savoring their food, enjoying it. We are in no rush. We have enough food for all of us. Take a look at what is laid out for us. Pass the serving trays around the table in an orderly fashion. Put whatever looks good to you in a flatbread and wrap it up. Take small bites."

Looking around the table, the party saw platters of roasted red meats and poultry, smoked sardines, warm folded flatbread, chopped fresh or pickled vegetables, crumbled goat's cheese, and bowls of dips and spreads. Each setting had a mug of water and a mug of a pale, crisp lager, the remaining beer waiting to provide refills in the cask on a stand at the side of the table. After Bufurug's admonishment, they reigned in their impulses and behaved like civilized customers.

Midori had put a variety of ingredients into a flatbread, wrapped it up, and took a bite. The beef and lamb slices were flavorful and juicy, with a little crispiness around the edges. Tomatoes added more juiciness and pickles provided some crunch. The crumbled cheese and fluffy white garlic sauce added saltiness and sharpness. Altogether, it was a flavor profile that she had never tasted before in her life. "Whoa! This sure beats the mystery stew back at the Menagerie! Hey, Bufurug, why didn't we ever eat this stuff back there?"

"Well, Midori, economies of scale and the effort of preparing a meal for dozens of people who want to eat at the same time. It's different, here. We're paying for flavor and quality, and the kitchen crew has been working since morning preparing for this meal. The Menagerie had us maximize filling our stomachs while minimizing cost." Bufurug finished his wrap and drank down the contents of his water mug. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some questions for the hostess upstairs." Bufurug left the table while the others continued to eat and drink.

One of the kobold servers refilled Midori’s water mug and she thanked him in Draconic, “Si vinxa.”

Surprised, he replied, “Vs'shtak? Wux renthisj Vs'shtak? <Draconic? You speak Draconic?>”

“Axun,” Midori confirmed, “si yora svadrav si jahus vi sihe persvek Minkai. <Yes, I learned when I was a child in Minkai.>

The kobolds gathered around Midori and started asking questions in Common and Draconian simultaneously, not pausing to wait for answers. "Where are you from? Tir wux tepoha vi mrrandii? Tiric nomeno annish ekess qe lekiqa? Sjek ilfis kackic vi ticket ekess wer circus tir astahii mahhn gethrisj shafaer? Svabol tir kakalack siofme yth varmunch hefoc? What is the circus like? Kii tir yth rigluin kemir bras? Do you need more roasted chicken? Svabol shilta yth anku astahi? Svanoa tir jekivemivi xurwk suorraic? Kii ui coi relgra tourist zissknir sjek yth shilta ti jotop sva astahi? Svabol ui wer ultro di ir cha'sid svrakir?"

It is quite possible that Midori misunderstood some of these questions, but she tried to answer to the best of her abilities. And yes, she did need more roasted chicken.

Soon, Bufurug returned to let his comrades know that Myron “Thunder” Stendhal himself would be driving out to this village tomorrow on a supply run and would gladly offer a ride to the group.”Please, you’ve all had an ordeal, so get some rest and relaxation until mid-morning tomorrow. I’ve booked us a room with blankets and pillows for sleeping. Let’s gather again in the common room for dinner and breakfast.”

After lunch, more kobolds came through the common room with trays of artisanal jewelry to sell. Most of the circus folk turned down their offers, but Midori’s attention caught on a particularly striking black silk choker with a green gemstone. She had the coins available, which she had never had growing up in the Celestial Menagerie, so she purchased it right then and there.

On leaving The Miners’ Den with Itty-Bitty to go explore the village, Midori looked down at her tattered barker's outfit. "This won't do. I don't want Papa Thunder to see me like this after all this time. An' it reminds me of workin’ at the Celestial Menagerie. Let's go spend the day shoppin’!"

Itty-Bitty replied, "I dunno, Squirt. That’ll take all day."

"All right, how about a shoppin’ montage instead? There's always time for a quick montage!"

When they had found a suitable clothing store in town, Midori tried on several outfits in various colors and designs. She eventually settled on a peasant outfit with a green skirt and a white top under a brown bodice.

After their shopping foray, Midori and Itty-Bitty returned to The Miners’ Den in time for dinner.

The party sat at the same table from lunchtime, which was set with a dip made from fish roe and potatoes with flatbread on the side, fresh broiled fish and octopus, and spinach-feta pie. Carafes of house wine sat at both ends of the table.

After the party had eaten with minimal chatter, one of the kobolds led the group to the sleep chambers, where most everybody fell asleep almost instantly, exhausted from the past few days. Midori, however, stayed up to take a long, warm bath before turning in for the night, using up an entire bottle of shampoo in the process.

The next morning, they woke up to a breakfast of toasted bread, soft cheese, eggs poached in tomato-pepper sauce, and steaming mugs of black coffee. As Midori was finishing her meal, she heard a shout from upstairs: “It’s Myron’s wagon! He’s here!” She swallowed her last mouthful, gulping down some water, and threw some coins on the table, shouting “Thank-you-very-much-for-everythin’! The-food-was-great! I’ll-be-back-sometime-soon! Byeeee!” She then ran up the stairs and out the front door to where the wagon approached The Miners’ Den.

The wagon slowed to a stop and Myron stepped down onto the roadside.

"Papa Thunder!" Midori shouted as she ran toward Myron, tears streaming down her face. "I've missed you so much! How long has it been? The years have been such a clouded blur!" She jumped toward Myron into a tackle-hug that spun him right around as he hugged her back.

"Oof!” Myron exhaled forcefully. “Hello there, little kit! It's been a while, for sure. You were under Dusklight's influence for half of your life. I'm amazed that you were able to get away! She had threatened to kill you rather than let you come with me when I left. Bufurug told me a few details of your escape, but said that he'd have to regale me with the tale later."

"What, Bufurug?” Midori scrunched up her face pensively. “You just got here and he's been with us all night. How...?"

"Your friend has a hidden talent. He can walk the fire's pathway and transport himself between large enough fires to cover, well, pretty much any distance. He appeared in our cooking fire about lunchtime yesterday and gave me the basics. So of course I made plans to come out here straight away! You're family!" He gestured to the rest of the gang. "You're all family! Now that you've escaped Darklight's clutches, you're welcome to come live with us if you'd like. All of your skills would be a welcome addition to the Circus of Wayward Wonders!

"It will be like coming home. Over the last year, other escapees from the Celestial Menagerie have joined up with us: the Kanbali family, the Dwarven Throwers, Elizia Pumperknickle, the Flamboni Sisters, and some others. They'll all be immensely pleased to see that you managed to escape as well."

As everyone loaded into Myron’s wagon and they started on the drive to Abberton, Midori began to sing:

🎵🎵🎵

Now we're in the back seat of Papa Thunder’s wagon And he's driving to the Circus of Wayward Wonders And now we all know that this is where we belong And our new family’s going to be so strong

🎵🎵🎵

Chapter 1: We Are On a Diplomatic Mission to Absalom

Chapter 2: The Circus Arrives Without Warning

Chapter 3: Hi-Diddle-De-Dee, a Carny's Life for Me

Chapter 4: Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys

Chapter 6: The Circus of Wayward Wonders

#pathfinder #pf2e #extinction curse #character backstory #original character #kitsune #ai artwork

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