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vashtijoy · 5 months

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fic excerpt: goro and his mother

I keep needing to refer to this one, so here it is. WARNINGS for childhood abuse (poor, poor Mamakechi is not at her best here).

* * *

The summer Goro turns six, his mother packs their few things into plastic laundry bags, and she ties up their futon and quilt with string, and the two of them leave their single room in Shinjuku for a single room some way to the east, in a place called Yoshiwara. Asakusa and the huge red lantern of Senso-ji Temple are nearby to the south, but Goro and his mother don’t live anywhere so rarefied.

The other rooms in the house hold students, casual workers, foreigners. Goro peeps out of their door to talk to them all. Some ignore him, and he ignores them in return. Others are nice—the older boy who lends him manga, the girl who gives him sweets and ties ribbons in his hair, the foreigners whose words he only sometimes understands. And then there’s the old lady who lives on the top floor by herself.

Her name is Migata-san. She has her own kitchen and her own bathroom, when the rest of them have to share, just like in Goro’s old home. She wears a puffy, quilted vest all the time, and sits in front of her TV. Goro doesn’t have a TV any more; in the winter his mother took it away and it never came back. And since the landlord—who is strident and impatient and everything Migata-san is not—shouts at him when he sees him, Goro often finds himself creeping straight upstairs to Migata-san’s tiny apartment.

His mother leaves him there every afternoon anyway. He reads anything he can find, or takes his borrowed manga, or he sits in front of the TV, and Migata-san feeds him riceballs and cake. The TV rotates through daytime dramas, talk shows, adverts and news, but when something good comes on, Migata-san will let him watch it. Fly, Feather Swan! No, Grey Pigeon, I won’t forgive you!

“I could do that,” he tells Migata-san, watching the Feathermen fly about against a painted-looking stormy sky, and she laughs at Goro while he scowls.

“Oh, no,” she tells him, in the stupid grown-up voice. “Those things only happen on television. How about some milk?”

He accepts the milk, still sulking. But he doesn’t drop the idea.

* * *

When his mother finally comes home in the evenings, she’s tired and seems sick; things aren’t like they used to be. Instead of talking to him while she makes soup and rice over a tiny electric ring, she brings frozen boxes from the konbini and puts them in the microwave. They eat side by side in silence, sitting on the rolled futon.

Goro eats his frozen curry steadily, glancing sideways to his mother. She’s picking at her food like she doesn’t want it. “Why are you sad?” he dares to ask, afraid of upsetting her.

His mother doesn’t look at him. “I’m not sad, Goro-chan. Eat your food.”

He looks back to his bowl. The curry is bright orange. He picks some into his mouth: little red chopsticks, with the rubber grip holding them together. It tastes of a lot, but he doesn’t complain, not when she’s sad.

Are we going home soon? He can’t ask her that, either. He tries to think of something to tell her, making his slow way through his curry. Nothing that will make her lonely. Nothing that will make her cry. Nothing that will make her—

“I’m going to be a superhero,” he says brightly.

She glances to him. She looks right into his eyes and she smiles. “Is that what you’ve been doing today?”

“Mm-hm,” he tells her, riveted to that tiny, flickering smile. “Then you won’t have to work all the time, right? I’ll do everything. I’ll look after you and I’ll fight evil”—sharp eyes staring from a soapbox, a face he used to point out on the TV before the TV vanished, a name he still remembers with a child’s fascination—“and I’ll keep you safe for always, and I’ll always win!”

He runs out of breath and laughs, caught up in the brilliant future he’s painting for her, that he more than half believes in. He only remembers the point of it all when she laughs too, leaning back against the wall. “My little hero,” she tells him. And, still as if she’s terribly tired, she reaches for Goro’s blanket—a new, soft, blue blanket, small enough for him to wear around his shoulders, one of the new things that has made its way into their room.

She removes the brooch pinned at her collar, a glittering snowflake left from their old life, and she pins the blanket around his neck, folding the excess down into a collar. One thin hand gentles his hair aside, strokes his face; he presses against her like a kitten, and she lifts his bowl from his suddenly precarious lap.

Goro feels her happiness like his own. “There,” she says, glowing. “Now you have a cape.”

He beams at her. “Is it a bird cape? I want to be a bird superhero. Like Feather Hawk.”

“Ah, that depends,” his mother says, taking his chopsticks and propelling some curry into his mouth. “Can you fly?”

Goro opens his mouth to reply, and she closes it with her free hand; that’s another thing that’s new. He chews dutifully and swallows. “Of course I can fly,” he dictates. “All the Feathermen can fly.”

“Are you sure?” she asks him. “Maybe you aren’t as good as Feather Hawk, hm?” And then she pops another scoop of curry into his mouth, so he can’t even protest, other than through closed lips; she laughs and kisses him on top of his head.

“I am as good as Feather Hawk,” he informs her when he can talk. “I’m better.”

“Of course you are,” she tells him, with another kiss, feeding him the last of his curry. Her own bowl lies half-full beside her. “You’re my little boy. And you’re going to save the world.”

* * *

After that, Goro plays hero a lot. He wraps himself in his blanket cape and shouts Feather Wing Star Formation!, until the landlord knocks on the door. His mother sleeps all morning, while Goro reads the manga she brings him herself now, and she vanishes to work in the afternoon, when Goro goes upstairs to Migata-san; upstairs to wonder where his mother is, why he can’t stay alone in their room when she works any more, like he always did.

One morning, while his mother is dead asleep, Goro finishes his manga and looks around for something else to read, eventually pulling his mother’s glossy magazine from the table. He isn’t supposed to read it, for reasons that to him seem wholly arbitrary, so he’s careful to leaf through the pages as quietly as he can.

The magazine is creased and old-looking like his manga, and full of tiny text, much of which Goro cannot understand. So he guesses the words he doesn’t know: stories about fashion models and clothes and makeup and dragons, although something tells him he’s read “dragons” wrong. The whole thing smells like his mother. At least—it smells like his mother used to smell, like her perfume. These days she just smells of soap and sweat.

She doesn’t send Goro out by himself at night any more, either. That’s probably good, he thinks uncertainly; it was scary to run down the back alleys by himself, scarier to hide behind the bins so the police wouldn’t see him. But he misses the bathhouse. He misses Boss, who'd let Goro sit up front as his assistant, who’d set out piles of coins for him to count and watched him in the bath.

Looking down unhappily, he spies a piece of paper poking out from under the unrolled futon.

Part-curious, and very bored, he gives it a tug. It moves. Another, more careful tug, and the paper is in his hand. It’s a letter in his mother’s writing. A date, on the left—he knows from Migata-san’s TV that it’s yesterday’s—and a name, lots of big kanji, he can’t begin to make them out. But he sees his mother’s name right next to it, Akechi Mari, half of his own name right next to her loopy kana. At the top, there’s something about frost, and then the writing gets much worse—fortunately most of it is still kana.

The letter talks to somebody called Masa-sama. She talks about their room, he thinks, and about her job; she makes them sound bad. We have no money, he reads, over and over. Goro is a beautiful boy. He’s obedient and clever. Any man would be proud to call him his son. He reaches out, with one tentative hand, to touch those words.

The letter has been crumpled into a ball, and then unfolded; he tries to flatten it, with careful strokes of his baby hands. He reads it again, and again, and again. Any man would be proud to call him his son.

He has no idea his mother is awake. Not until a hard hand grabs his shoulder and shakes him, tearing the letter from him. “Give me that!” his mother yells as she hits him, right around his head, hard against his ear with the flat of her hand. Goro screams and falls to the floor, clutching the side of his head, and as he dissolves into tears and confusion he sees his mother crying too, tearing the letter like a typhoon, smaller and smaller and smaller pieces that she throws and screams at and hurls into the bin.

* * *

Before long, Migata-san comes downstairs, and she knocks on the door, and without a word she takes Goro upstairs, still sobbing, while his mother sobs in a heap on their floor. He sits on his usual cushion, still hiccuping sobs, as Migata-san clucks to him and washes his face and hands.

“There we are,” she says, beady eyes like a bird. “How about some hot milk? And a cake?” Goro nods his head yes, not meeting her eye.

He’s clever. You’d be proud of him. Was that letter to his father?

Your father is a monster! he remembers her shouting, back at the old room when he was small. She had hit him then, too.

Why is his mother writing to a monster? When even talking about him makes her so upset she cries and she hits Goro? They must be in terrible trouble. Is that why she’s asking Goro’s father for money?

… has his father got money?

Goro doesn’t realise that he and his mother are poor. But he knows they aren’t rich, that his mother works every day, works so hard she sleeps all the time and has no time for him. He adds it to his picture of his father: a monster, a rich man. A man who’s somewhere else when he should be with Goro and his mother. A man his mother calls Masa-sama, like he’s a king.

And that evening, when he’s finally home, when his mother is in the toilet and not coming out, he sneaks the fragments of paper with his father’s name out of the bin.

#persona 5 #things i write #goro akechi #mamakechi #masayoshi shido

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betsib · 3 months

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Wrote a lulaw / lawlu fic where Law ends up running an orphanage.

#lulaw #lawlu #lawlu fanfic #one piece #things i write #i keep forgetting to post my fics here

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turbulenthandholding · 1 month

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Thank you for your patience...chapter 5 exploded and was taking a very long time to finish...so it has been split into two. The chapter count has subsequently gone up once again.

Thank you, as always, to @anxietycroissant, who is an absolute joy to me and whose internet-bestie-mind-melding has made this so much fun to write (and so much better)!

#things i write #thh writes #sydcarmy #sydcarmy fic #sydcarmy fanfic #the bear fic #the bear fanfiction #chapter 5 has been powered by Nothing to be Scared Of by Kacey Musgraves

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beardyboyzx · 11 months

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waving to the hard times by beardyboyzx

wc: 80.6k | rating: NR

relationships: Harry/Louis, Zayn/Liam, Louis&Liam, Louis&Zayn

main tags: dystopian AU, A/B/O, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Angst (don't forget to check all the tags!)

written for round 6 of @onedirectionbigbang

with amazing poster by @aestheticlarrie

“When you took power, you promised the people equality, freedom from any form of discrimination, and the peace we were severely lacking. Today, once again, you're proving yourself to be a fake, a clown who rose to power just to think about himself.” Louis turns to look at the General once again and finds himself staring at the way his face seems scrunched up in pure and unadulterated rage. “But we — the people, have had enough of you and your barbarity.” Taking a step forward, the person raises his carbine and points it at the balcony. The crowd gasps and Louis takes his gun out of its holder and points it right back at them. “We've had enough. We're not gonna ask you to stop anymore. We're gonna make you.”

Twenty-five years ago, a group of alpha soldiers led a revolution to dispose of the beta oppressive monarchy. Louis Tomlinson, The General’s alpha nephew, is set to follow in his footsteps and eventually lead the Country. When the arrest of a beta brings a silent resistance group to show themselves and threaten The General, Louis finds himself questioning the government's true nature and the equality of the law, in a quest that will change him for good.

read here

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xinhua-jun · 3 months

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https://www.tumblr.com/darlingjunebug/728466035752271872?source=share

it's skull, skull is the third party who gets involved bc he's the only who has the emotional intelligence to notice the problem and the lack of self preservation to put himself in the line of fire

There are some pros and cons to being a civilian suddenly thrust into not only the cursed mafia world, but also the cursed mafia world.

Pros: he gets paid to do what he loves—to play out his stunts in a setting where he doesn’t have to hold back so as to not to raise civilian suspicions about his condition, while also getting all of the acclaim when his subordinates genuinely shower him with it.

(Was it a mindfuck when some clown just showed up in his living room trying to reclute him? Yes. Is it dangerous? Yes. But if there’s anything the great Skull-sama loves, it’s a good challenge!)

Cons: once in a while he has to spend time in the vicinity of some less-than-desirable individuals, who consider him—him!—to be the less-than-desirable individual. The nerve!

(He’s not factoring Kawahira’s little misadventure, specifically, into this; getting turned into a toddler isn’t any weirder than being able to regenerate his body and coming back to life in his books.

Now that they’re out of the woods and he can laugh about it, he can begrudgingly admit—in the safety of his mind—that Checker Face did it for a noble cause, despite going about it in a not-so-hot fashion. If Skull were a millennia old being, he would play Russian roulette with some douchebags and give them body dysmorphia just for shits and giggles.

Skull will, however, complain about the acquaintances it left him with, as much as he wants, for as long as they’re assholes—which is shaping up to be for a very, very long time.)

The delightful but ultimately exasperating shit show that are one Sawada Tsunayoshi and Reborn-senpai does not fall into either of those categories, but in a secret, third, second-option-adjacent thing: idiots in love who, despite being more in sync with each other’s emotions than anyone could ever wish to be with their partner’s, couldn’t be more out of touch with their feelings if they tried. (And Skull has seen some paradoxes in his time, okay?)

All of this is relevant because, ultimately, despairingly, he’s gonna have to intervene. Jesus fucking Christ.

None of Tsuna’s little Elements, let alone any of Skull’s former colleagues—or anyone else who could, for that matter—is gonna do jack shit about it. They’re all either too emotionally constipated themselves, too scared of Reborn to dare going against him, or too willing to let them ‘go at their own pace’ (as if that will ever lead anywhere!).

So. It all falls into his hands to do something about it.

Does Skull win anything by meddling? Not in the slightest. On the contrary—

“I do not get paid enough for this shit,” Skull groans. “I do not get paid at all for this shit.”

If anything, he’s risking death by Reborn-senpai!

But he owes it to Tsuna, because despite being obviously influenced by Reborn in more ways than anyone would like, he has never, not even once, been unkind to Skull. Even before the whole Representative Battles happened—and that’s a whole other debt he needs to repay.

Unlike anybody else who has ever interacted with both Skull and Reborn, Tsuna has never once lacked basic human decency. (Skull wishes he had lacked basic human decency; he wouldn’t feel so morally obligated to protect the kid’s heart then.)

Enma pats his back in comfort when Skull hides his face in the other’s shoulder. Earnestly, he says, “I think you’re doing something truly honorable, senpai,” because he’s seen those two and knows what Skull has to deal with; more so than Skull, actually, because while Skull can just fuck-off whenever they get unbearable, Enma lives here and still has to interact with them on a daily basis.

What the fuck.

Skull raises his head long enough to look at him. “How do you deal with it, Enma-kun?”

Like the true child soldier he is—and he’s not gonna open that can of worms at the moment; Jesus, why did he even have to think about it?! One emotional crisis at a time, please!—Enma stares off into space before solemnly saying, “I grew up with Adel and Julie,” like that answers anything.

It kinda does, funnily enough.

“Ne, ne, Enma-kun,” Skull wheedles, getting an idea.

But Enma shakes his head, smiling apologetically before he can even say anything else. “I can’t help you with this,” he says, soothing the sting of his betrayal by running gentle fingers through Skull’s nape. “I grew up with Adel and Julie,” he reiterates meaningfully.

It takes Skull a moment.

“That bitch,” he says with an offended gasp. “She told you not to get involved, didn’t she?!”

Enma tugs gently at a lock in reproach. “Be nice to my sister.”

Skull pouts. Enma’s eyes soften. The fond amusement in his expression makes Skull’s stomach flutter.

(Maybe he has indigestion or something? He’ll have to pick up some Otha’s Isan on his way back.)

“If it makes you feel better, I will cheer you on every step of the way, okay? So hang in there, senpai.”

That does make him feel better.

If nothing else, Skull will at least have a cute little kouhai to come back to and be comforted by when this inevitably blows up on his face.

“Well,” Skull says, revisiting his earlier thoughts. He leans into Enma’s touch, feeling rejuvenated. “If there’s anything the great Skull-sama loves, it’s a good challenge!”

#🎐#khr #skull #r27 #s00 #if you squint #(I know that’s Squalo’s shorthand but I only ever used the Arcobaleno’s initial so‚‚‚ rip)#that one sneaked up on me ngl but I’m not mad about it #anonymous #things I write #won't you stick around with me?#skull de mort: matchmaker extraordinaire #skull has no self preservation and all the intention to help his (begrudging) loved ones #hahahahahahaha #thanks for the prompt nonnie #sorry I’m just answering now!

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quidnunc-life · 1 month

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ten! first! lines!

@leenik-geelo tagged me to post first lines from ten of my fics! let's go!

There were lots of good things about being a private investigator: working whatever hours you wanted, indulging the overly nosy aspect of human nature, having reason to purchase fantastic trench coats. (letting me in or letting me go)

“It’s going to rain,” she tells him, apropos of nothing. It’s May in Omsk, utterly picturesque, blue sky and fleecy clouds and the river Irtysh throwing dappled sunlight in every direction. Even the back alley he has her cornered is positively scenic, as far as alleys go. (all the magic i have known)

It’s 11:45 on New Year’s Eve, and no, Clint doesn’t know where Natasha is, and yes, he knows they’re often together, but they’re not right now, obviously, and it’s not like he’s her babysitter, is he? (the time of night some people call morning)

It begins, as too many things in his life do, with Dog Cops. (and at night be warm)

“She’s in Venice,” Phil tells him; but Clint has been chasing the faceless Black Widow through Europe for two years now, and he’s learned better than to take the certainty in his brow seriously. (con te partirò)

Everyone knows who Natasha Romanoff is. (who wants to be a billionaire)

Objectively, it’s Clint’s fault. (fast, thorough, sharp as a tack)

When Janet suggests a team bonding event, Natasha thinks she means… you know, normal stuff: an art gallery, a movie; hell, even bowling. (some moments more spectacular than others)

There’s a diner at the end of the block, and that’s what it’s called. (minor arcana)

Sometimes, you lean against a brick wall outside a coffee shop to take a selfie with your coffee, and nothing happens. In fact, go ahead and replace “sometimes” with “usually,” or “99% of the time.” It’s highly unlikely, after all, for a wall to be anything other than what it appears to be. (listen, there's a hell of a good universe next door)

aaaaand some bonus wips, should anyone want to motivate me:

Although it’s not the career Clint Barton intended to have, he is, it turns out, an incredible assistant. (a "billionaire" sequel whose working title is "a fake marriage that definitely won't become real, no sir")

If Pepper wasn’t so desperately happy, Natasha would cheerfully murder her. (a flatshare au. working title: damn you live like this???)

tagging: @cassiesinsanity @alphaflyer @cloud--atlas @poppypickle @inkvoices @aurorashard and anyone else who wants to!!!

#writing #things i write #fic

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buckrogers · 1 month

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sketching bucky always being one of steve's favorite things in the world to do and there being so many from the days before the war when he'd chance awake early enough that buck would barely stir when he wriggled out from beneath the covers and shivered his way to the toilet, coming back and finding him huddled deeper into the warmth steve had left behind, nose pressed into steve's pillow with one arm draped over the side of the mattress, snoring softly -- steve's exasperation at him stealing the covers (and steve's side of the bed) fading so quickly beneath the weight of fond affection and the sudden twitching need in his fingertips to draw him, just like this with a bare shoulder peeking out and those dark curls drifting over his brow ...

cut to present day and it's still steve's favorite thing to do, but the opportunities for it don't present themselves the same way and steve's been so careful not to push too hard, not to overwhelm buck before he's ready with thoughts and feelings about their lives before the war but he still stirs earlier of the two of them and it's barely dawn when he rolls over the morning after arriving for another clandestine fly in to wakanda and finds buck resting on his side, hair falling over his cheek the same way it used to, longer now he's been recuperating and that same yearning strikes --

it's what bucky opens his eyes to, the scratch of pencil to paper and steve's eyes on him and maybe it should be just another thing that confuses him or pushes on all those tender bruises in his mind but it ... doesn't, as it turns out, it feels a little like coming home and the smile that breaks, slow and sleepy and satisfied across his face says as much; is its own kind of homecoming for steve.

inspired in part by this post by elkleggs of wartime sketches of bucky drawn by steve

#my stuff #things I write #just headcanons and musings about my boys #otp: but i knew him #stucky #steve x bucky

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madhare0512 · 2 years

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personal BAU headcanons i've developed over the years:

- JJ, Emily, Reid, and Garcia have chronic pain that comes and goes, sometimes it's trigger out. it most notably happens when it rains back in DC

- The Reid Effect still works, but as Reid's gotten older, the effects have become less severe. Cloony and Roxy have been the only dogs immediately immune

- the entire BAU team has a very messed up internal clock from traveling to different time zones so often and without rest, with the fact that they keep such odd hours as well,

- Reid is extremely protective of the team, having seen too many people come and go over all his years with the BAU. the team have a joke that once Reid has accepted you, you're protected, but it rings a lot truer than any of them can see

- Garcia is also very protective of the team, but she has less pull and cannot protect them as well as Reid could, so she points out names and lets Reid go from there

- Hotch has tenitus, it will never go away

- if someone higher than the unit chief goes into the field with the team, the team has a habit of looking to their unit chief for confirmation to their orders. 90% of the time, it's because the person higher than the unit chief is auditing/trying to prove a point

- new agents get their cues from Rossi, JJ, and Reid, as the longest standing members of the BAU Main Response Team. Rossi knows this, JJ and Reid do not

- the team can sometimes be found in one of the unused offices on a pillow-and-blanket fort sleeping

- the team can, will, and has closed ranks against anyone who goes against the team in a way that isn't Right

- Prentiss loves her team and she'll do anything to protect it, but the team doesn't know about the less than legal not-so-moral things she did in the wake of Ian Doyle and the Black Swan was never caught or identified

- Luke and Morgan have met up, Morgan has "passed the buck" so to speak and asked Luke to look after Reid as his brother. Luke asked him if he thought that would knock him out, but Morgan just smiled and said nothing could replace him as Reid's brother, another brother would just be added to the tally

- Garcia, Prentiss, JJ, and Tara sometimes have girls-night, they may or may not invite Rossi and Reid to these nights, entirely dependant on if the two want to hang with them for the night

- the team has unofficial venting sessions for bad cases and rough days. the team can and will drop everything to be there for each other (with families if necessary)

- the team has knife, close quarts combat, and long-range weapons training, both offense and defense, courtesy of Prentiss

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vashtijoy · 1 year

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ohhhhh would you mind sharing your akechi post-canon ideas and aus? 👀👀

Ahahaha oh god THANK YOU FOR ASKING

so with @nardaviel, I have this whole ... thing, where Akechi comes back from the third semester and finds himself alive, using the deleted kakekomidera scene, where the two people who remember him from childhood talk about him at the refuge. He heads back to Tokyo and turns himself in to get Ren out of detention, pretty much as on 12/24 though Ren doesn't know he's there, and then he spends a month in jail being interrogated and staring at the walls and quietly going mad.

At this point he gets swept up by Mitsuru, possibly through Sae (who knows about the shadow operatives), and offered a place with her. He takes great pleasure in telling her to shove it up her ass, and unfortunately at this point there's a whole "or we could ask Amamiya-kun" thing, and tl;dr a highly resentful Akechi ends up working for Mitsuru—probably in a very grey and joyless capacity for a while, because you'd have to be out of your mind to trust him with anything. The clip on 3/20 at the train station is him being transferred from police custody to, essentially, Mitsuru's custody. He's traded what was at least independence of a kind in prison for putting himself into the hands of another rich, powerful asshole who wants to use him, for the sake of the one person he cares about, and the irony alone is almost enough to make him throw himself in front of that train Ren's sitting in.

Meanwhile, Ren thinks Akechi is dead, and is having his whole thing, off in the ass end of nowhere by himself.... and two years pass, during which he returns to Tokyo to study. And that's when Ren Finds Akechi Again, in the street, and punches him in the face, because why the hell not. And then, after some fallout and Ren nearly getting arrested again, they slowly have a chance to find what they might have been.

It also includes Futaba having both of their phones bugged and intruding on every text conversation they ever have, Akechi having an ankle tag for years and some sophisticated electronic locks on his doors, some extremely nice grounds with flowering trees and streams and little bridges and shit, Haru somehow being the one to find Akechi first and keeping it to herself, the most nervous bookseller in Jimbocho, Ren taking over management of Leblanc, a ton of "I'm 20 and I've done everything I'll ever do", Prisoner Angst, I'm Not Dead Angst, Akechi's seething hatred of Mitsuru and his certainty that she is a Maruki-in-waiting or at least the centre of another grand conspiracy, a lot of takeout, some very well-compensated gate guards, and a stillborn plan for Ren and Goro to skip the country entirely and hide out in Argentina or somewhere.

And, here and there, on occasion, they get over themselves enough to make out.

Since you were kind enough to ask, here's a relevant fic snippet from my collection, below the cut.

. . .

The next Sunday, Akechi heads to Jimbocho, to go through the second-hand shops. It’s fine. Weird little antique shops selling fripperies from the 50s and 60s; curio shops full of absolutely tacky trash, one with its window displaying nothing but ceramic bears; and the bookshops, of course, the reason Akechi is really here. Though he toys with buying one of the ugly ceramic bears, just to smash it.

There’s also an otaku shop, full of tiny Western figures that you’re supposed to paint, the sort of thing Akechi thinks he’d be good at, if he gave a fuck. But he doesn’t go in; the shop is full of awkward-looking students his own age, stereotypical otakus. Even besides that, Akechi dislikes students; they remind him that he’s not in university himself. Like he’d expected to be. Or to live long enough.

So he gravitates back to the bookshops, leafing slowly through old texts with their subdued covers, or hardbacks with gilt; there are even some Meiji-era wasobon, in a glass cabinet, with their glued-paper spines and their titles on glued labels. He stares at those for quite a while, head tilted, wondering what they’d feel like in his hand. When he turns away, he feels much smaller, like when he was ten and he’d ride the bus here rather than go home.

It takes him quite a while to settle on only one purchase; he goes from shop to shop, keeping lists in his head, ticking off options here, discarding them there. He doesn’t realise he isn’t scowling, and he doesn’t think of it as a nice afternoon. But he also doesn’t think about the absolute fuckfest last week in Inaba, or how off-balance he’d felt when he stepped back into the cognitive world again for the first time, only to feel his ankle tag shift away along with the rest of his clothes.

If anything, he feels unsettled. Like nothing bad’s happening, and so that must be bad. He heads absently out of the last bookshop, with his lone purchase taped into a washi paper bag, thinking he’ll try one of the espresso shops that also litter the area, because coffee and books are so inescapably combined—

—when a hand like a steel claw closes on his wrist.

Akechi drops the book, spins all at once, still fast with a killer’s reflexes. He finds himself staring into a taut face, furious beneath its tangle of black hair, eyes sharp and accusing, crystals of black graphite shining in the sun. Amamiya Ren is staring at him, touching him, for fuck’s sake, and all at once Akechi feels like his guts have turned to leaking, toxic mercury.

“Akechi?” Ren is saying, in a barely-there voice.

“That’s my name,” Akechi says, considering the likelihood that he’ll have to break Ren’s arm to make him let go. “Let g—”

He doesn’t see Ren’s fist. It flies into his right cheek, totally untelegraphed, and he hits the street with a grunt. Fucking Joker, every time, ugh, he should have seen that—

“Ow,” he mutters. Passersby are clucking to each other, so disruptive of them; he hears worried footsteps at the door of the shop he just left. But mainly he hears Ren, bending over him to talk in a relentless undertone. “I thought you were dead,” he’s saying, all the worse for the lack of deliberate malice. “After everything, Akechi. You let me think you were dead again.”

Akechi lets his head drop back onto the kerb, because fuck getting up, he’ll just lie here in the gutter. “You sound so surprised.”

“You—” Ren jerks forward, looks like he thinks about throwing a kick. So it’s fortunate this is the moment the police arrive, a fat one and a tall one; honestly, Akechi thinks they breed them that way, in pairs. He feels a stab of vindictive satisfaction as the fat one grabs Ren by the wrists, until the colour drains from Ren’s face like someone’s pulled off one of his feet.

Akechi closes his eyes. “Wait,” he says, getting up with a wince and producing his police ID, haha, because he’s a shadow operative even if he’s the worst they have and a liability; he almost works with the police more than he works at the Kirijo compound, by now. The two beat cops go a bit bug-eyed, the idiots. “I’ll handle this,” Akechi says. “He’s just a little upset. Won’t happen again, will it?” He smiles at Ren, with a flash of sharp teeth, with the bruise rising on his cheekbone: play along.

Ren’s eyes burn, and for a moment it looks like he’ll say something graphic in fluent gutter trash, rather than obey; Akechi relates with his whole being. But then Ren looks down, sullen, and shakes his head: no. Akechi beams for the cops.

“You see,” he says. “Sorry to have troubled you both. He’s very emotional, it’s not really his fault. Thank you for your work….” And they float away, charmed by a few utterly rote words from a stranger with a confidential department ID. And then….

And then that just leaves Ren. Who is staring at Akechi in bitter silence, and obviously, beneath his flat expression, raging.

Someone appears at Akechi’s elbow. It’s the proprietor of the bookshop. “Your book,” he says nervously, handing Akechi the paper bag he dropped.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you,” Akechi says, taking it. The package is a little dented at one corner, but otherwise fine. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience.” He bows, and the shopkeeper bows and hurries away, and Akechi could just die, again, it’s all such a fucking—

Except that Ren is still there, staring at him with Joker’s eyes; with all that fury and force and—and something else, something brighter and deeper and so much worse. “Where are your glasses?” Akechi finds himself asking, switching his thicker, cheerful mask for his much more comfortable flat one.

“I don’t need them for you,” Ren says.

Fuck. “Well,” Akechi says, “I’m not dead. As we’ve established. And you’re not arrested. So I suggest we both go our—”

Ren steps forward, interrupting him. “I can’t believe you’re still doing the same old shit,” he says. “They let you work for the police? Are you going to be on TV again, next week?”

That’s too much; far too much from Ren, who has no idea of what he escaped, no idea Akechi paid his debt this way. His voice turns brittle. “Interesting that you assume I had a choice, Amamiya.” Ren flinches, peeping out through his own mask. Akechi lifts the book.

“I hope you haven’t damaged this.”

He wants to close his eyes. Instead, he turns away and starts walking, in silence. Ren ought to fuck off, but he’ll certainly follow; he’s just wired that way. The Jimbocho street feels soft and shaky, like Mementos did, except now Akechi’s too used to solid ground and it feels like his ankles will twist from under him at every moment.

Ren tags at his heels like a dog. “I’m not going anywhere, Akechi. You’ll have to kill me.”

Akechi pauses, almost glances back. “I can just arrest you.” Technically; somehow he’s never been put in a position where the right move would be an arrest.

“Yeah,” Ren is saying. “You just proved you won’t do that.”

Akechi presses a knuckle between his eyes, as he screws them shut. “What do you want? How did you even find me?”

“You don’t think I read?” Ren says, defensively, not looking around at the three bookshops within ten metres. “I just didn’t read around you.”

“I know you read,” Akechi says flatly. “I saw everything you did.”

He still hasn’t properly turned. He feels Ren’s eyes on the back of his neck, through his hair, through his shirt collar; he thinks he’d feel them through a brick fucking wall. “Hifumi saw you,” Ren says.

That’s when he turns, incredulous. Togo had seen him? And known who he was? “I’ve never spoken with Togo-san. How did she remember me?”

“Don’t ask me,” Ren says, with a weird light in his eye, like he’s pleased Akechi turned back to him. “Seems like it’s just a thing. My confidants—do you even know about those?—they all remember.”

For a moment he’s silent. “When everyone else has forgotten.”

“Yeah,” Ren says quietly. His hands have gone into his pockets. He’s taller than he was; his eyes are on a level with Akechi’s, now. Or is he just not slouching?

Akechi sighs. It makes sense. Togo, who Akechi had no connection with; who had no reason to share any of Okumura’s discretion. All of Amamiya’s little projects, remembering Akechi laughing like an idiot, playing the fool, bringing himself down on television.

He feels like he can’t think straight, like he always did. Like he wants to stay put, learning and listening, picking through every little detail Amamiya might or might not have dropped. “I’m sorry Mementos is gone,” he says. Ren looks back at him, unreadable. “Perhaps we could at least have beaten the shit out of each other.”

“Yeah,” Ren says, not laughing. “That might have helped.”

“It did help,” Akechi says abruptly. “Both times, in fact. Because I really never liked you, Amamiya.”

“I know,” Ren tells him, unaffected. “And here we both still are, I guess.” He stands there like someone’s dropped a block of concrete on the pavement. Like Akechi really would have to kill him, to make him give up or go away. And part of Akechi still wants to, while part of him wants this moment to linger. The two of them—one a hero and one, well, not exactly a hero—who entered the fire from opposite sides, and came out changed, together, and alone.

A coin flips. He feels Hereward’s resolve inside him.

“I was going for coffee,” he says, still curt. “Come, if you want. Or stand there like an idiot, till you get arrested again.”

He starts walking in the direction of the nearest coffee shop; it was that or let’s smash a ceramic bear. Ren follows. “A coffee shop?” he asks, at Akechi’s elbow now. “Is this your revenge?”

“Ren,” Akechi tells him, perfectly serious, “you have absolutely no idea.”

#asks #persona 5 #shuake #goro akechi #ren amamiya #akira kurusu #things i write

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betsib · 2 months

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We were let loose to post early, so here is my kidlaw piece for the @lovinglawzine

(I recommend checking out the full zine, there's so many great works in it! Link to it here.)

#kidlaw #things i write #one piece #one piece fanfiction

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turbulenthandholding · 4 months

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This utter indulgence of brain-rotted fluff is my love letter to many things: the Sydcarmy fandom; Jason Isbell’s song Stockholm, for its inspiration; my adopted hometown of Chicago (and its largest airport); and the lovely city of Copenhagen, where I spent three beautiful days back in June of 2017.

#sydcarmy #sydcarmy fic #things i write #thh writes #my love letter to the fandom #and the most self indulgent thing ever #and it's my first posted writing since 2016 holy shit #surge rates fucko #may 2024 continue to be the year of the bear for me

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beardyboyzx · 7 months

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so pretend (pretend) by beardyboyzx

wc: 1.8k | rating: NR

relationship: Harry/Louis

tags: enemies to friends (to future lovers), pre-relationship --- don't forget to read the other tags!!

written for @wordplayfics, prompt: forge

Louis has thought about it as soon as he found out Styles was back in the Country — ever since he made sure Styles was still in England, really. Or: the White Collar/Catch me if you can AU nobody asked for.

read it here

#allwaswell16 #hlficlibrary #hlcreators #hltracks #1dficvillage #1dsource #tracksintheam #trackinghappily #trackinghome #ao3 feed larry #thelarriefics #ficsfor4am #alwaysxlarrie #things i write

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xinhua-jun · 7 months

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Ooohhh are you taking prompts? If so “What, did you think I kissed you all these times because I was doing it for the shits and giggles?” “…Let’s be real, you did have a lot of fun shoving your tongue down my throat in public.” for the pairing of your choice? If you want🥰

[prompts] [AO3]

LOL I just saw this (hellsite 🙄) and I was so confused ;; I forgot I had those prompts queued 😂❤️ but they’re good prompts!! so here you go~ thank you for the ask mi cielo 💜 I hope everything is going well!!

Arthur is having a wonderful time.

He shouldn’t have expected it to last.

They’re celebrating another successful mission, at one of Saito’s many mansions. They had a great dinner. Now he’s drinking one of Yusuf’s amazing cocktails, surrounded by friends and enjoying their chatter. It’s such a good atmosphere that he lets himself, foolishly, be lulled into a false sense of security.

So of course that’s when Ariadne brings it up.

“So,” she says, in that tone that tells Arthur whatever’s about to come out of her mouth next is going to test his love and adoration for her. He’s proven right when she follows it up with: “Since when are you two dating?”

He almost chokes on his drink.

“We’re not dating,” Arthur says, as delicate as possible, but still firm.

“Oh. You’re not?” Ariadne says, at the same time Eames goes, “We’re not?” next to him, just as surprised as her.

Arthur loves him even as his heart squeezes.

He’s trying to make things less awkward, even as his own comfort is compromised.

“Alright.” Cobb claps his hands together. “Why don’t we give them a little bit of space.”

Arthur has to remind himself that Cobb is a great friend, really he is. He just has the worst sense of timing when they’re not on assignment.

They’re all out the door before he can do anything to stop them—which, might as well. What’s he going say? ‘I’ve been trying really hard to ignore that I’m in love with my best friend while he isn’t, and now you’ve gone and made it weird’? Yeah, right.

Besides, it’s not Ariadne’s fault. Cobb’s, maybe, since he made it all serious before Arthur could play it off. Certainly his own, for being such a bad actor.

There’s a reason why the Forger is–

Eames wraps light fingers around his wrist. “Darling?”

Arthur hums noncommittally, taking a sip of his cocktail.

“Was it the kissing?” Eames says softly.

‘Was it me doing my job that gave you the wrong impression?’

The cocktail is really interesting, now that he notices. He will have to ask Yusuf later how he can balance that many colors without having them mix, and still make it taste nothing like the alcohol they serve at the pubs.

“Okay.” Eames’s voice is—off, just a little, which is what draws Arthur’s attention.

Eames is looking at their hands, but Arthur can tell he’s not really seeing them. There’s the little furrow he always gets between his eyebrows whenever he’s thinking really hard about something important.

Oh, no. He’s trying to let me down gently.

“Listen,” Arthur puts his free hand on top of Eames’, allows himself to linger because this might be the last time he ever does. “I know you don’t feel the same way about me. You don’t have to let me down gently–”

“Wait,” Eames interrupts him. “Darling, darling, darling. What? Let you down gently? Why would I do that?”

Arthur huffs out a laugh. “It’s okay, Eames.” And really, it is. Arthur has had enough time to come to terms with it—if not with the immensity of his feelings, with the fact that Eames, for as much of a mischievous streak as he has, would never do anything to hurt him. That’s all that matters, really. “I’m a big boy. I can take it.”

And he can. Eames might not be in love with Arthur, but he does love him. He proves it every single day, in small and big ways. Bringing him coffee just the way Arthur likes, helping him research their targets, pulling him in on the fun whenever he can allow himself some mischief in some forgotten corner of a dream, bringing him souvenirs from all his trips… Arthur has had a very fulfilling life, with this job, surrounded by friends, and especially right next to Eames.

Eames who stares incredulously at him. Eames whose eyes widen like he’s having a sudden realization. Eames who lets go of his hand, only to cradle his face gently. Eames who leans in, Eames who is kissing him–

Eames is kissing him.

It’s a slow, tender kiss. Nothing like the playful pecks, or the noisy smooches, or the heated make-out sessions he sometimes engages Arthur in when the dream allows it. This is soft and heartfelt and sweet, and just as able to make him weak at the knees as any of the others.

Arthur, too, has an epiphany.

“My dear,” Eames begins, once the need for air makes it difficult to continue. His already plush lips are kiss-swollen and pink and Arthur just wants to reel him back in. “Did you think that when I kissed you all those times, I was just doing it for the shits and giggles?”

Arthur laughs, just as breathless. “Let’s be real, you did have a lot of fun shoving your tongue down my throat in public.” Arthur searches Eames’ eyes, “In dream public. You were always in-character when you would kiss me, and never did it out of an assignment.”

“Sweetheart.” Eames groans, but he can’t stop smiling, either. “While very rewarding, you know I don’t need to be kissing you to play a convincing role.” His thumb swipes gently under Arthur’s eye. “Most of those characters weren’t even anywhere near the target’s vicinity.”

“I will admit I found it a little strange and daring, even for you,” Arthur concedes. “But I just thought you were challenging yourself, to see how much control you had over your characters regardless of the distance.”

The look Eames gives him holds unmistakable fondness. “I was trying to give you some space. I wasn’t in any hurry, so I told myself I would leave it up to you and that we could go at your own pace.”

Oh.

Arthur is such a fool.

“Oh,” he says dumbly, maybe for the first time since he was a gangly teen.

Eames has a way to make him feel like a gangly teen: imperfect, unstoppable, brave. Full of life.

“Now that I’ve made my intentions clear,” Eames gives him a look, then a grin. “Arthur, darling, can I kiss you?”

Arthur can feel his ears burn. His breath hitches. “Yes.”

So Eames does.

#🎐#dream husbands #inception #things I write #elle #I just think oblivious Arthur is just so #[chef's kiss]#it’s ok Eames loves him #now I wanna write one of those 5+1 ahhh #5 times Eames kisses Arthur on a mission and 1 time Arthur kisses him first #maybe later~

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