It tugs, sometimes. Curious and foolish.
That traitorous heart mana of his, reaching out, drawing in, seeking connection in the way that's in their blood, their soul, their nature. Synchronicity.
Rei's not known it, before.
Where other demons might be attuned to family, Rei has no one to claim the spot. So, his heart mana sings, unblemished, its lonely little sonata, the song of his homeland. All there is to him, granted by air and earth and starlight.
He has so much to give, and yet, it isn't good enough. Discordant, they say. Human, they snarl, disgust evident in their tones.
Thus, growing up Rei learns to compose himself. Pushes himself to the brink in order to rewrite his heartbeat's melody. Puts himself out there, gets stronger, richer in experience, whenever he draws back. Over and over and over again.
Until one day, pushing himself past reason, he almost doesn't return.
But while he hasn't been looking, a new melody has taken residence by his side. Soft and steady high notes, barely perceptible.
Morofushi Hiromitsu, faded, yet giving himself so generously.
Rei hears him, takes him in and amplifies the notes he's given, until others may do so, too. Until Hiro may do it himself.
Their hearts mana, separate but inseparable, resonating in response.
And Rei's called back home.
.
Rye is low notes, a deep bass, slow and steady.
He could enrich their harmony, if only he wasn't so gratingly offbeat.
Rye's unrefined and ever-contradicting himself. Cold and uncaring, yet bleeding red like the rest of them. A long-ranged combatant, always too close. The smartest fool Rei ever has had the displeasure of meeting.
He takes Rei's heart mana greedily, gives it back tenfold.
Then he takes Scotch's, and their tentative song, not yet given voice, dissolves into dissonant whispers.
.
When they meet again, Rei doesn't want to feel Akai's heart mana for the longest time.
It's too painfully familiar, echoes of the past still trapped reverberating within. Misery-in-resonance almost dusts Rei.
It's his duty to be here, and so he stays, but there's others to preoccupy himself with.
So, he remains a careful distance away from Akai. Doesn't see the muted melancholy wrapped around him until it's too late, until Akai's almost gone dark and quiet.
When he heals Akai, he pours all of his heart mana into him. Their hearts still sing the same tune, after all these years, discordant notes and all.
.
The journey is too perilous to allow them senseless grudges. Their lives are one. If either falls, the story ends.
They rely on each other's mana like air, sharing desperate breaths like drowning men in a land that wants to drag them under.
What even is left of their individual songs? It doesn't matter, anymore. They've shared so much it really is one and the same, disjointed notes smoothed out through time and touch and trial, into an elegy for Scotch.
.
As they finally reach tentative harmony, they rip themselves apart.
.
There is dissonance in Demon Lord Furuya’s heart. A furious ache that even Hiro's return can't soothe.
But he has a duty, to his land and his people. He can't stop to rest. Besides, the one to replenish his heart mana, he who's grown so good at it over the years, has left, exiled by Rei's own hand.
Akai is a fool, but so is Rei.
He clings to the thrum of Akai's low warm notes, barely an echo within himself.
.
Da capo al coda, the cyclical rhythm of life remains the same.
Rei's still not good enough.
He's bested their best. He's saved the realms. And all that matters, in the end, is that they see his heart mana, and find it lacking.
But he's no longer the lonely manaspawn he once was. His song no longer just his own.
He's holding the position through skill and strategy, through force of personality. With the help of friends and allies gathered on his journey.
They'll have to listen to his tune, this time.
.
The key, of course, is an argument.
Their feverish crescendo crashes into mellow adagio - along with their lips.
Rei knows, then: if no one else accepted him, the boundless love in Akai's heart would be enough to supply his heart mana for as long as he lives.
It's exhilarating, to share every last bit of himself, to accept all of Shuuichi in turn. Synchronized in full, for now and as long as they live.
Pulsating, between them, the potential to compose a new melody, together. Point and counterpoint. Bright and warm and vibrant and home.
.
When he takes Akai's hand, leads him to the dancefloor, the festive joy of friends and family soaking the ambient mana with joyous ringing, it's enough to put pressure even on Rei's heart mana.
He can't help thinking that this should've been so much easier. But theirs has never been the easy way.
And it's not the conclusion, but the overture to their new life, together.
The waltz of their future, a thunderous symphony.
.
@floofiestboy's Demon King Furuya AkAm AU is giving me too many feelings. Go read it here.
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The other day you posted about shy boys and I have some thoughts about shy boy Choso if you don't mind. Also, this ended up being longer than intended, sorry 😬
Imagine, if you will, sitting on the couch in your jammies with your bestie Choso, your bestie that you know has a thing for you but won't make a move no matter how many hints you drop that you like him too, your bestie who blushes and changes the subject whenever you talk about sex/dating and the like, he's sitting between your legs laying back against you. You have your feet on the edge of the couch with your knees up beside him and he's resting his arms on your legs.
Imagine making him lift up his head so you can take out his hair buns to run your fingers through his hair and graze his scalp with your nails causing his head to fall back against your shoulder humming at the feeling.
Imagine snaking one hand over his shoulder and resting it on his abs and rubbing your thumb back and forth feeling the definition of his muscles through his shirt. "Just getting comfy," you say when he asks what you're doing.
Imagine the small whine that comes from him when you remove your other hand from his hair. His breath catches in his throat though when your hand comes to rest near his waistband. "Just keeping warm," you whisper in his ear when he asks what you're doing for a second time this time in a slightly higher pitch.
Imagine seeing the blush creep up his ears when you start mindlessly fiddling with the drawstring of his pants. It's not your fault it came undone, the knot wasn't done very tight in the first place.
Imagine his breath stopping completely and his hands starting to grip your legs when your finger tips slip under his waistband, not moving just sitting there.
Imagine seeing the tent in his pants steadily grow as you start to scratch gently at the skin just above his cock.
Imagine him squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head no when you breathe "tell me to stop," against the shell of his ear.
Imagine finally grabbing his cock and having to remind him to breathe because his fingers are leaving marks on your shins.
Imagine the mewls that you pull out of him as you stroke him so slow that he has trouble keeping his hips still.
Imagine having to shush him when you speed up, he's louder than the movie you two were watching.
Imagine giving Choso a reach around and playing with his hair again while telling him how good he's being for you.
Imagine Choso coming in your hand and you bring it to his mouth for him to lick clean.
Imagine, if you will, shy boy Choso panting and rubbing your legs up and down to try and calm himself down after the most erotic experience of his life. He's been so good for you, you should get him a glass of water and a snack when his breathing evens out so he can replenish.
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In Grant's earlier appearances, he's written with a tic of using "wuhl" in place of "well" as an interjection. This would seem to imply some sort of accent, and I was curious what the implication was, because by all accounts, he shouldn't have a strong regional accent, if any. When his solo begins, he has moved eight times in the last four years, and probably more times before that. That's not long enough to pick up anything consistent.
Bear with me, I'm going somewhere with this.
"Wuhl" is a pronunciation that (from what I understand) in the US is associated with the rural Midwest or the South. Grant has just moved to Marietta, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta) when his solo begins, and before then, the Emersons lived in Dayton, Ohio. Which other states they've lived in is never mentioned.
So if he has any accent at all, it would most likely be from a place he lived in when he was still quite young. Which would rule out Dayton and Marietta. Not unlikely he might try to pick up on speech mannerisms in each new school to try to fit in, but the thing is...he doesn't use "wuhl" with Georgians. He doesn't always use it consistently; "well" appears in his vocabulary too.
In the instances of "wuhl" that I found, he is speaking to different people (his foster uncle Neal Emerson, someone connected with the lab that experimented on him, Ray Terrill, Kyle Rayner, and Roy Harper), who hail from a variety of locations. So what's the common thread?
These are all moments of vulnerability.
(Damage #9, 12, 14, and 16 / New Titans Annual #11)
In these panels, he is
Trying to get answers about his parentage from his foster uncle, who also happens to be a supervillain, and bringing up a potentially awkward theory of his that his uncle might be his real father.
Attempting to threaten a powerful woman who could give him answers about his past.
Pleading with a rather ticked-off Ray, whom he has met only once before, for his help with a dangerous venture.
About to admit to Kyle that he actually wants more danger on their mission in space because he's more comfortable in a war zone where "nobody's scared of me [...] they know a great weapon when they see one. And I don't have to worry all the time about hurting someone."
Trying to explain to his critical team leader why he was practicing using his powers (which inevitably got out of hand)--things got better later between him and Roy, but this harshness is typical of how Roy initially treated him.
With the possible exception of the panel from #12 (he's trying to bluster his way into getting information, so it's likely the seeming confidence is an act), he's feeling awkward about something in all of these cases. Note the body language--typically self-protective and/or compliant. And this is when "wuhl" slips out.
My guess is that it's a regionalism that he picked up when young (though there's a possibility it could be a Georgian thing he acquired more recently) and was educated out of using in general. He's usually quite strategic in how he interacts ("So if you cave, go all the way. Put on your best cheeser and be ready to beg!"), but reverting to sounding like a bit of a hick might be a sign of losing control over how he's coming across because of heightened anxiety.
"Wuhl" disappears from his speech entirely as of Titans 1999, in which he's (mostly) in a more stable environment, and continues to be absent through his time with the JSA as a young adult, when his speech gets a lot more profane rather than diffident and polite.
(Thank you to @brown-little-robin for her expertise on accents I'm not familiar with!)
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