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nugnthopkns · 3 years

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eyes full of stars

word count: 3.1k

warnings: insinuated!fem reader, cursing, alcohol consumption, slight sexual innuendo (kind sorta maybe, minors please be aware)

recommended listening: cowboy like me | taylor swift

a/n: it’s cold and snowy. to combat the winter blues i wrote about a sunny minnesota summer with brock :))

You can’t remember the last time you’ve seen Brock this carefree.

The season was hard on him. There were large periods where he didn’t put up any points, and trade rumors started to circulate. Halfway through, before the playoff push even started, the negative social media comments came rolling in. You frequently saw fans request a trade or say that the organization should regret drafting him. Brock did his best to brush everything off, but it was beginning to waer on his mental health. You’re devastated when they fail to make it to the postseason, but you know it’s for the best. The injured team will spend the offseason recuperating and be ready for the next one. Besides, it means you and Brock will get to spend more time on the lake.

So here you are, packing the car for the twenty-seven hour drive to Minnesota. Brock insists on driving, says it’s relaxing, but you aren’t sure you agree. Prone to car-sickness so fierce you can barely look out the window, you’d much rather fly. Everything is exasperated by the fact you’re a nervous traveller to begin with, afraid of taking a wrong turn or missing an exit. You’re a terrible road trip partner but at least Brock could talk to the dogs. Coolie and Milo loved car rides, and you can typically hear your boyfriend having full on conversations with them as you fade in and out of consciousness.

“Ready to go babe?” Brock asks as he closes the trunk. The question is delivered with a bright grin, and despite your anxiety you return it with ease.

“I don’t really have much of a choice do I?”

He shakes his head, chuckling as he moves towards you. Sliding his hands into the back pockets of your jeans he kisses you lazily. It’s comforting and all-consuming at the same time; doing a great job of occupying your mind with thoughts of him instead of the journey ahead. “I suppose not,” he says, planting a final kiss on your forehead. “It’ll be fine. You can take a Gravol right before we cross the border and you’ll be asleep before we hit Seattle.”

It’s the best plan of attack, so you agree immediately. After taking one last run into your shared apartment to use the bathroom and make sure everything is in order, you make yourself comfortable in the passenger seat of Brock’s jeep. Music filters through the speakers at a low volume, and you focus on the retreating skyline of Vancouver. You’re excited to get back to Minnesota, to relax and see your boyfriend in his natural habitat. Countless days are about to be spent lounging lakeside enjoying each other’s company. It will also be nice to spend time with Brock’s family: they’ve been incredibly welcoming over the years and you can’t wait to catch up with them. You know Brock’s itching to spend time with his nephew, and just to be at home.

Just as Brock said, you’re asleep before Bellingham. It’s fitful, and you’re frequently woken up by the dogs barking a little too excitedly in response to something Brock said. However, it does a good job of keeping you from emptying the contents of your stomach onto the floor. Somewhere in Idaho, a good seven hours after you left Canada, you awake for the final time.

“Look boys, Mom’s finally awake!”

You laugh at the comment and lean over the center console to ruffle his hair. It’s still long from the season, and curls slightly around your fingertips.

“You’re hilarious.”

Brock takes his right hand off the steering wheel, unravelling yours from its resting place and entwining your fingers together. He places a kiss to the back of your palm. “You know I’m just teasing,” he whispers. “I know these drives are hard on you. Thank you for doing it twice a year.”

Instead of answering verbally, you squeeze his hand tighter. Though it’s true you hate driving through five states, you’d do it twice a week if it would make Brock happy. It seems a bit much to convey with a single gesture, but you can tell from the smile that graces his features that Brock understands. The two of you sit in silence, enjoying the scenery and trying to scout for a rest stop. Coolie and Milo are getting antsy and you’re also due to stretch your legs.

After letting the dogs run around to release some energy and using the bathroom, you start the final leg of the day. Missoula, Montana, is the destination. Not quite the halfway point, but close enough that you could tackle the rest of the miles tomorrow, the city has a wide variety of pet-friendly lodging. You insist you drive the rest of the way, giving Brock a well deserved rest. Looking at the interstate for hours can cause serious highway hypnosis. Not even twenty minutes after getting back on the road he’s asleep, snoring softly as he rests his head on the window.

You take a moment to admire your boyfriend. He looks so relaxed and peaceful, and the forehead creases that are starting to develop from over analyzing hours of tape disappear. Brock looks years younger, and you know the youthfulness will creep back into him the longer you’re in Minnesota. You can’t wait to see him without any cares again.

Less than two hours later, the hotel creeps up on your left. Pulling into the first available parking space, you turn the car off before waking Brock.

“Brock, we’re at the hotel,” you say softly, jostling his shoulder. “Let’s get checked in and then we shower.”

The mention of washing off a day’s worth of travel has him letting the door fly open. You had made sure to pack your overnight bags in an easily accessible spot, and work at getting them out while Brock wrangles the dogs. For being cooped up all day, they’re extremely well behaved. Once cleaned up you imagine you’ll take them on a long walk and grab some food.

“Hey, give that back. Milo!” you hear Brock yelp, and peek around to see what’s happening. The younger pup has Brock’s bucket hat between his teeth and is in the process of tearing across the parking lot.

With a giggle you call him back. “Milo, come here baby,” you say. Without a second thought, the dog bolts towards you, knocking against your shins when he fails to stop in time. You lean down to scratch Milo’s ear, and as soon as you ask him to drop the object he places it in your open palm. “Good boy,” you coo, letting him lick the side of your face.

“He’s your dog alright,” Brock huffs from where he’s standing, Coolie running circles around his ankles.

You toss the hat over the roof of the car as you laugh at him. “You’re just jealous he listens to me.”

“I sure fucking am. He’d be an absolute nuisance if it wasn’t for you.”

The rest of the night is spent unwinding from the long day. Dinner consists of the greasiest burgers you can find, and you roam around the city hand in hand, the dogs leading you. By the time you get back to the hotel you’re spent. Sleep takes over rather quickly, and you’re dozing off before Brock gets back from brushing his teeth. Once ready for bed, he slides his body against yours. The pair of you fit together like a puzzle, and after a quick kiss you let sleep consume you.

The second day of travel is much the same, except you do a better job of staying awake. You take a different anti-nausea medication and frequently switch with Brock. Conversation flows easily, ideas for summer excursions and repairs that need to be done around the house. The Boeser’s are kind enough to lend you their lake house during the off season, but the property can be a lot to manage. Brock takes it all in stride, and somehow actually enjoys spending hours mowing the grass. He says it’s relaxing, mind numbing work, so you let him handle it. Country music flows from the car speakers, and eventually talking turns into a full on concert. Milo and Coolie do their best to harmonize with Brock, and it’s too cute not to post somewhere. You sneak your phone from your pocket and manage to catch some of it on video, posting to Instagram immediately. Those from the Canucks organization you have on social media will love it; Brock’s teammates will most definitely chirp him for being tone deaf.

It’s late by the time you pull into the driveway of your temporary home, almost eleven. Grabbing only the essentials and leaving the rest to be unpacked tomorrow, you unlock the door before flopping on the couch. The dogs follow suit, laying on top of you. When Brock walks in he shakes his head, but still leans over to kiss you.

“Make sure you text your mom and let her know we made it,” you call to his retreating figure. “And let her know we’ll be over in the afternoon once we get situated.”

You swear he flips you off, no doubt poking fun at your maternal instincts. “Yes ma’am,” he replies.

“Ma’am?” you shriek. “I am not fifty. You’re so gonna get it Boeser.”

After gently nudging the dogs off your legs you’re chasing after him, laughing all the way. Brock’s a lot faster than you, being the athlete he is, but you don’t give up hope. In a last ditch attempt to get him back, you launch yourself forward, square into the middle of his back. The change in weight distribution has him falling to the floor, sprawling the width of the hallway. Both of you are giggling messes, delirious from lack of sleep and the knowledge you get to spend four months of uninterrupted time together.

“I love you, you know that right,” Brock murmurs into the crook of your neck. He dots chaste pecks along the skin and you sigh at the feeling.

Pulling him closer, you make sure to properly enunciate your words as you respond. “Yes sir.”

Brock eyes darken visibly, and he shifts his body so he’s resting on top of you. “You’re in for it now,” he groans, dragging himself to his feet. You quickly follow, meeting his lips in an eager kiss. The pair of you stumble the rest of the way to the bedroom, bodies intertwining like ivy vines, and Brock makes sure to kick the door shut to ensure your pets don’t interrupt the salacious activities he has planned.

☼☼☼☼

You settle into a routine fairly quickly. Mornings are spent alone while Brock works out, and afternoons are for lounging in the sun. The hours after the sun fades away are spent huddling around a bonfire with friends, and midnights are for just the two of you. Sometimes Brock lets himself rest and spends the day in the middle of the lake doing his best to fish, leaving you to spend time with his mom and sister. They’re lovely; warm and welcoming, making sure you’re never too lonely or bored. You and Brock also spend a lot of time with his nephew, doting over the toddler. Seeing your boyfriend with him makes you want kids, but that’s a conversation that is yet to be had in any serious light.

Sometimes you join Brock when he does typical professional hockey player in the summer things. It turns out you're quite the golfer, and have put him to shame many times. Countless days are spent helping him fix the roof of the lake house because he insists on doing it himself even though he knows nothing about roofing. At least seven phone calls to his father and a desperate run to the hardware store later, it’s completed; sealed and free of cracks. Though you’re a terrible fisher, Brock tries his best to teach you. Truth be told, you don’t have any interest in the sport, but his tongue pokes out slightly when he’s thinking about how to explain a concept and you think it’s adorable.

Coolie and Milo are loving being able to roam free, and you both spend a lot of time outside with them. You’re only ever really in the house at night, reading or playing games on the patio furniture Brock’s mom picked out. It’s peaceful; existing like this. You swear you could do it forever.

Being home allows an invisible weight to be lifted off Brock’s shoulders. There’s a pep in his step, and he’s always smiling. Even the intense at-home workouts can’t seem to bring him down. You’re delighted, how could you not be? It’s as if the only things that matter to him are enjoying a few beers lakeside and coaxing you out of shorts in the dark. You suppose that’s the truth.

☼☼☼☼

It’s incredibly warm out. The sun beats down on your back as you turn the pages of your novel, half listening to the conversation Brock is having with his friends. A group of you are on the boat, enjoying one of the last full days of summer. Later in the week you and Brock will pack up the car again, making the long trek back to Vancouver. You’re sad time has passed so fast, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t excited to be back in the city. It’s your home, and the boys seem to be really fired up for the new season. You have a feeling some really good hockey is going to come out of Rogers Arena.

“Yo Y/N, who’s the better driver. Me or Boes?”

The question pulls you from the fantasy taking place on the pages, and you look to see who’s speaking to you. It’s Brock’s dearest childhood friend, someone you consider family at this point. “It’s absolutely not Brock,” you shrug. The comment earns a loud laugh from everyone and you find yourself joining in.

“Ouch babe, that hurts,” Brock says as he slides into the free space next to you. Casually wrapping a strong arm around your shoulder, he leans down to whisper into your ear. “Looks like you need to be taught a lesson.”

His words have a vaguely sexual connotation, and you look around nervously. Your swimsuit won’t cover the flush that will be sure to rise on your skin if Brock tries anything. Everyone seems to be engaged in their own conversations, but you still feel queasy about getting caught. Though Brock’s friends are the type to laugh it off, you’d be absolutely mortified.

Before your brain can overthink anything else, you’re being lifted from your seat. It only takes two seconds for Brock to hoist you over the side of the boat and throw you into the cool water. You land with a glorious splash, but take your time coming to the surface. Partly to bring your temperature down, partly to make your lover squirm.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” you yell to him from below, but the bright smile you flash him lets Brock know you don’t mean it.

He sets his hat on top of your book before climbing over the edge. “Shut up,” he fires back, diving gracefully to join you in the water.

A small splashing match breaks out, and soon everyone else is in the water, picking sides. You swim until your skin is wrinkled beyond recognition, pruned and puckered something akin to a raisin. Only once the sky begins to redden do you head for home. Brock keeps the boat at cruising speed, and you sit comfortably in his lap. Once back on land, dinner is quickly thrown together. A mish-mash of what’s left in your fridge and what others have brought, but it works. The boys huddle around the grill and everyone else swoons over the dogs, who are on their best behaviour.

Later in the night, once the dishes are cleaned up and some guests with day jobs have left, you settle into Brock’s side at the fire. Not caring if you get chirped for the PDA, you hold his face in both your hands and rest your forehead against his. The scruff that’s grown in since the last time Brock shaved tickles slightly, but you’re too in love with him to care. It’s been so refreshing to see him relaxed, acting without a care in the world. Hopefully the attitude he currently has will stick and not disappear once you hit the Vancouver city limits.

Brock takes a sip of his beer before offering the bottle to you. You gingerly place it to your lips, making a face at the taste. He laughs at your reaction, pushing a few loose strands of hair behind your ear.

“Still tastes disgusting,” you mutter, reaching for your own drink to wash away the taste.

The fire crackles gently behind you but you barely register the sound, in your own little world where everything is perfect. It’s you, Brock, and the dogs living in a house similar to the one you’re currently residing in, living life to the fullest.

“You gonna come back to me, space cadet?” Brock chuckles, tracing the outline of your nose.

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry,” you apologize. “Was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Us. The future. Living in a lake house just like this one and spending all our time being so in love with each other that our friends constantly make fun of us. Maybe having kids in a couple of years. How I love seeing you like this; so at peace and full of life.”

In lieu of a response, Brock kisses you passionately. It’s a soft kind of passion: one that holds you tenderly and whispers sweet nothings in your ear. He tastes like the Coors Light he’s been drinking, but somehow the idea of beer is much more appealing when mixed with Brock. You lose yourself in him for a while, relishing in the gentleness of his hands resting on your waist. Eventually you return some of your attention to the others, but even then you can’t find it in yourself to focus. Your mind is filled with nothing but love for Brock.

It’s seems that he’s feeling the same way, because he continually leaves kisses across your shoulder blade. “I really, really love you,” Brock confesses, and you feel him smile through the thin material of your worn hoodie.

You intertwine your pinky with his and let them sit comfortably in your lap. “I love too. So much that it’s all consuming.”

Brock often leaves you breathless in more ways than one, but sweet sentiments like this will always take the cake. Especially when they happen on summer nights where he’s free to be his authentic self.

☼☼☼☼

taglist: @jamiedrysdales @kiedhara @tortito if you want to be added shoot me an ask :)

#why tf did i spend so much time detailing the car ride lmao #brock boeser imagine #brock boeser x reader #brock boeser fic #vancouver canucks imagine #hockey imagine #hockey fic #nhl imagine #nhl fic #cwrites

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thetravelerwrites · 3 years

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Dr. Mael Halvorg (Part 3) Lemon

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Male Part-Fae/Female Part-Fae Additional Tags: Exophilia, Monster Boyfriend, Fae, Naga, Reader Insert, Genetics Content Warnings: Children, Pregnancy, Incubation, Oviposition, Egg Laying, Birth, Surgery, Male Infertility Words: 4029

Dr. Halvorg learns what could be causing his infertility and makes arrangements to try and correct it. He and the reader become closer, and the reader attempts to do something to help him feel less lonely and unfulfilled. Please reblog and leave feedback!

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Halvorg went in for the tests that same week, returning afterwards subdued and blushing slightly. You assumed he’d never given a… sample… before.

“How’d it go?” You asked him.

He rubbed his neck bashfully. “It was… thorough.”

You snickered. “At least it wasn’t a biopsy after an abnormal pap smear. Those are traumatic.”

He looked aghast. “I can only imagine.”

“Did they say when the results would be in?”

He shook his head. “No, they’re supposed to call me when they come back. Could be a week or so.”

You patted his arm softly. “How are you feeling?”

He sighed heavily. “Worried. This could change my life or confirm my worst fear. Either way, I’m… well, to be honest, I’m a little scared.”

“I understand,” You replied. “Well, no, I don’t. My family is disgustingly fertile. If I ever tried to get pregnant, I’m sure it wouldn’t take me long.” You looked up at him with sympathy. “But I do feel for you.”

“I appreciate that,” He said solemnly. He looked at you curiously. “If I might ask, how old are you?”

“I’ll be one hundred and seventy four years in August,” You said.

“And you’ve never considered having children in that time?” He asked.

“Not really. I figured I had enough nieces and nephews that I didn’t think it was necessary. I mean, I’m not against the idea of having children, I’ve just been career oriented for most of my life and never really settled down in any place for very long. I’ve never been married, never had any serious relationships, never dating with the intent on finding ‘the one.’ I figured if I wanted that, it would come in time and I would let it happen naturally and there was no need to rush it. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” He said. “That’s how I used to be for a good three centuries. It wasn’t until I did marry and tried to make a family and failed, again and again, that I sort of became… obsessed.”

“How many times have you been married?”

“Thirty times, I believe.”

“Were they all human?”

“Most of them were,” He said. “There were a couple of tieflings, a half-orc woman, a faun, a selkie, and a dryad. I stayed with them all until the end of their lives, except the last one who left me. I’m nothing if not devoted.” He cocked his head. “Well, I divorced the dryad. She wasn’t happy that I couldn’t conceive children and berated me for it.”

“Oh, jeez, what a bitch,” You said, frowning.

He snorted. “I may have used similar language at the time.”

“I can’t imagine you calling someone a bitch,” You said, side-eyeing him.

“I was a different man in my youth,” He said, smiling. “I’ve got some papers to file. I’ll see you later.”

You waved him off, watching him walk briskly and frowned. He’d lost so much, been disappointed so often, given up on the things he wanted for himself to help others. He was using what he had to give others what he wanted, and as noble a pursuit as that was, it was also rather sad. And what if he got the news he was dreading the most. He’d be devastated.

Was there anything you could do to make him feel better? Was there something you could give him that would make him feel less… incomplete? The only time he seemed genuinely happy was when he was with the children. What else could give him the same joy?

The boy. It came to you suddenly. What about the boy he thought was his son? The one he raised until his mother left with him? Could you find him? Was he alive?

At lunchtime, you sat down with Amai in the cafeteria.

“Can I ask a favor of you?” You asked.

“Sure, what is it?” She responded, sipping her coffee. She always craved coffee when she was incubating and downed gallons of it after laying.

“The boy Halvorg raised, what was his name?”

“Robert, I think?” She said. “I can ask Yenuno, he knows.”

“What year was he born?”

“Uhhh… 1901 or around there.”

“What was his mother’s name?”

“Martha--why are you asking about this?”

You sighed. “I want to find Halvorg’s son. He may be dead now, but I have to try. Halvorg is so unhappy, he’s just gotten really good at hiding it. I want to give him some kind of closure.”

Amai winced in sympathy. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Spending all these years around him, I can see how much he’s hurting, even if he tries to mask it.” She sighed. “I have some contacts at the census archives and I can make some inquiries. I’ll check the lineages websites and find as many records as I can.” Amai snorted. “Maybe he’ll be less uptight.”

“Amai!” You retorted.

“Sorry, sorry!” Amai held her hands up. “I’m sorry, it’s a reflex by now, sorry. This is serious. I’ll look into it.”

“Thank you,” You said with a warning tone. “This is serious.”

“I know,” Amai said, her face more solemn. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you,” You repeated. “I’m sorry to put more work on you, though.”

She tsked at you. “Please, I always take maternity leave during Yenuno’s time incubating. I generally have nothing to do but keep the big guy company while he’s stuck in one place. It’ll give me something to do.”

Halvorg got the call a few days later and informed you of the appointment time. You offered to drive him, and he gratefully accepted.

“Are you alright?” You asked him.

He took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. “I don’t know. This is either a new beginning or the end of the road. I don’t know how to feel.”

“I’ll be with you, no matter what,” You told him.

He grimaced in a failed attempt to smile. “Thank you.”

The two of you sat in the waiting room for a moment before being called back into an exam room. He sat there in his chair and fidgeted nervously. You put your hand on his and held it. He looked up at you with fear in his eyes and didn’t shake you off.

The doctor knocked on the door and let himself in. Halvorg straightened up, releasing your hand.

“Alright, Dr. Halvorg,” He said, sitting at the table. “We Have your results back. Blood and urine came back normal, and there’s nothing abnormal on your x-rays.” He flipped on the computer screen on the desk in front of him and pulled up Halvorg’s file. “However, there was abnormalities in your sperm sample and the MRI.”

“What type of abnormalities?”

“Well, first of all, your semen sample didn’t have any sperm in it.”

Halvorg looked confused. “What?”

“It’s a condition known as Azoospermia. It’s basically when there’s a blockage somewhere that’s trapping the sperm, which is why there weren’t any little swimmers in your sample.” The doctor clicked on one of the tabs and opened an MRI of Halvorg’s pelvic area and pointed out the anomalies. “The MRI confirms it. There doesn’t appear to be a connection between your epididymus and your vas diferens, and without that connection, the sperm is completely blocked. There’s also a blockage from your testes to the urethra. You appear to have been born with all of these blockages.”

“How does that happen?”

“As to that,” The doctor said, looking at the paperwork he came in with. “Your genetics test came back, and it appears that you have a mutation of Cystic Fibrosis. Thankfully, with this mutation, there are no other typical symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis besides the infertility.”

“Can it be corrected?” Halvorg asked anxiously.

“Yes, microsurgery can correct it. Before we do that, we’ll need to take a sample directly from the testicle with a needle to see if you’re producing sperm at all and look at the count. If we determine that the general sperm production is not the problem, then we’ll proceed with surgery.”

Halvorg sat in a stunned silence, gripping his knees tightly.

“So… it’s possible that I could have children?” He asked.

“There is a possibility,” The doctor said. “We would have to wait until after the surgery and take another sample. I don’t want to get your hopes up too soon, the sperm count could be low, they could be abnormal. There are a bunch of things that could go wrong.”

“But there’s a chance?” Halvorg asked, his eyes as wide and vulnerable as a puppy.

“There’s a chance,” The doctor replied.

As the two of you left the clinic and headed to your car, before you could get to your door, Halvorg gently took your arm, swung you around, took your face in his hands, and kissed you full on the mouth. You made a sound of surprise, but you didn’t push him away.

He lingered for a moment or two before breaking away and saying, “I’m sorry, I know that was extremely unprofessional and probably unwanted, but I don’t know how to thank you. I owe you so much, I can’t begin to express how grateful I am.” He gulped and looked at you earnestly, breathing out a shaky breath. “Do you remember when you asked me to dinner?”

“Yeah?” You asked, confused but intrigued by the sudden softening of his prickly exterior.

“Does the offer still stand?”

You smiled at him slowly and took his hands. They were trembling. This was the first time in a century he’d asked a woman out, after all.

“Yeah,” You replied, stepping closer so that your body lightly brushed his. “Yeah, it does.”

He smiled wide and kissed you again.

Maël went in the next day to have a sample taken, and was thrilled to learn that he did have a decent amount of sperm production. He scheduled the surgery immediately. The recovery time would be at least six weeks, and it was advised that he didn’t try to have sexual relations for another two weeks after that. Plenty of time to feel out your new blooming relationship and get more comfortable with each other.

Thankfully, you had a week to actually go on a few dates before he went under the knife. He took you to Dunmountain on a weekend trip to the museum and the opera. It was the first time you’d done anything like this recreationally in a really long time, and you loved every second of it.

Even though you were sharing a hotel room and a bed, he didn’t attempt to be intimate with you, and you didn’t push him. It had been a century since he last took a woman to bed, and you imagined he felt a little nervous about it.

You didn’t go out of your way to tell people that you were together, but it wasn’t a big secret either. Yenuno and Amai were overjoyed for the two of you. Maël had told Yenuno and Amai about the surgery, but he claimed it was a hernia. You weren’t sure if he would tell them the whole truth. Not unless he got the results he wanted.

By the time he healed completely, it would be about time for the eggs to hatch. Yenuno was already restless and it had only been a month.

You drove Maël to the surgical clinic on the day of his surgery, sat with him in pre-op while he waited nervously and just talked him through his anxiety, holding his hand when they put the IV in. They gave him some medicine to help calm his nerves, and he began to grow sleepy. You stroked his head and watched his eyes fluttered closed. They wheeled him into surgery while he was still snoozing.

The procedure didn’t take very long, only about an hour, and you waited to be called back. A nurse came to retrieve you and took you to his room.

He lay there in bed, drifting in and out.

“Hey, sweetie,” You said, rubbing his arm. “How are we feeling?”

“Sore and thirsty,” He croaked.

You picked up the cup with water in it the nurse had provided and helped him take a sip.

“I’m not surprised you’re sore,” You remarked, setting the cup back down. “A whole bunch of people fondled your balls for an hour.”

He wheezed a laugh. You loved it when he laughed. It changed his whole face. “Did they say when they’d release me?”

“As soon as you can pee on your own, they’ll let you out of here. They said there would be swelling so it might be a while before you’re able to do it, though. I’ll wait.”

He held his hand out for yours and you took it.

“I feel like all I do these days is thank you,” He said. “I wish I could do as much for you as you’ve done for me.”

“You don’t have to do anything for me,” You said. “I’m a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man. But I’ll keep you around. You’re cute.”

He breathed another laugh through his nose. “I’m glad. I’ve become rather fond of you.”

You kissed his knuckles. “Likewise.”

He managed to relieve himself right after dinnertime, and was declared clear to go home. You drove him back to the facility and helped him to bed. He was asleep before you left his apartment.

Heading back into your own apartment for the night and sat heavily on your couch. God, you needed to do laundry. It had been a chaotic few weeks.

You started picking up clothes that were strewn haphazardly over furniture, and while picking up a pair of jeans, a small book fell out.

Oh. Right. Maël’s research notes. You’d meant to give it back. Well, Maël was going to be recovering in bed for a few days and likely sleeping most of that time. You could give it back when he was back on his feet. You placed it in the drawer of your nightstand, stared at it for a minute, and went on to start laundry.

And promptly forgot about it for a second time.

Maël slowly healed, though he walked a little stiffly for a few weeks and was careful when sitting. He was a little more irritable than normal, but you imagined he was trying to adjust and was also still worried about whether or not the surgery had worked. He wouldn’t know for another several weeks.

The children kept bringing him flowers they found in the forest to cheer him up, which always seemed to lift his spirits. You spent the evenings with him, talking and cuddling and kissing. You felt like a teenager again, and you hadn’t been a teenager in over one hundred and fifty years.

You were starting to regret the timing of the surgery, though. Sometimes the making out would get pretty hot and heavy, and you had to force yourselves to stop for fear of injuring him.

One night after you’d been dating for just under two months, he was kissing your neck and began to unbutton your shirt. You stopped him.

“You haven’t been cleared for intercourse, have you?” You asked him.

“No, not yet,” He said, breathing heavily and biting his lip. His white-blonde hair was out of it’s normal clean braid and falling around his face. “But I can do something for you.” His hand drifted down your abdomen and between your thighs.

“Oh,” You said, smiling a little. “Are you sure?”

He slipped his hand into your panties and stroked you, and your breath caught in your throat.

“I haven’t done it in a while,” He said, trailing open-mouthed kisses down your stomach. “But I think I still know how to do this.”

He got up from the couch and pulled you by your legs gently so that you were laying flat, pushing up your skirt and pulling off your panties. He knelt back down on the couch, yanking off his tie and unbuttoning his shirt. He slowly spread your legs and pushed your knees upward. He started kissing and sucking the inside of your thigh while circling your bud with his thumb. You moaned and lay back into the cushions, giving over to the sensations.

As he kissed his way toward the apex, he slipped his middle finger inside you and thrust it gently in and out. You whimpered and gripped the couch, your hips grinding against his hand.

“Maël, please,” You breathed.

He growled low in his throat, sending a shockwave through your spine.

“Since you said please,” He whispered teasingly, and pressed his tongue to your clit. Your toes curled at the contact and you grabbed a handful of his hair.

“Oh god,” You whispered. “Maël.”

He placed his whole mouth over you, licking and sucking, adding another finger inside you. He certainly did remember how to do this.

“Fuck!” You said through gritted teeth, followed up by a shuddering moan, raising your head to watch him. He looked up at you through his long lashes and doubled his efforts, sucking your labia into his mouth and pulling, adding a third finger. “Fuck, I’m so close.”

Still sucking, he grinned up at you and quirked an eyebrow. He withdrew his fingers and used his hands to push your knees into your chest to open you up wider. You grabbed his head with both hands and rocked your clit against his tongue.

You came as though hit by a bus, loud and violent. Your butt lifted off of the couch as you pulsed in ecstasy, screaming. You hoped the walls of his apartment were soundproof. You couldn’t believe that he’d made you come in under a minute.

“How? How did you do that?” You wheezed.

He chuckled darkly. “I was married thirty times, darling. If I don’t know what I’m doing by now, I shouldn’t be dating at all.”

You just sort of laid there like a starfish while you got your breath back and cooled down. Maël went to fetch you some water and a snack. Eventually, you found your underwear and put it back on. Once your heart rate had slowed, he pulled you into his lap and kissed you slowly until you fell asleep. The next morning, you woke up next to him in his bed. You were tucked up under his arm and he was sleeping peacefully, a small smile on his face.

Suddenly, both of your cellphones buzzed at once. Maël snorted awake and untangled himself from you, picking up his phone, looking at it, and jumping out of bed.

“What’s wrong?”

“The eggs are hatching!” He exclaimed hastily, pulling clothes out of drawers and putting them on hurriedly. You threw your clothes on and joined Maël’s mad dash for the door.

When you got to the receiving area, the kids were milling around inside, instructed to stay away from the cottage until the babies were born, but they were craning their necks to see what was happening.

Amai was in the shelter with Yenuno and several members of the hatching team, looking into the circle of his tail. She looked up and saw the two of you running up and shouted: “Hurry! They’re almost out!”

You and Maël darted up the ramp and looked down into the coil. All three of the eggs were cracked open and little arms and tails were poking out.

“Vitals?” Maël asked, donning a surgeon’s paper outfit and instructing you to do the same.

“Vitals are elevated but within acceptable range,” One of the nurses said.

“Good,” Maël said. “Alright, we just have to stand back. They’ll do most of the work.

Amai and Yenuno were watching the eggs hatch with awe on their faces. You supposed watching this never got old for them. You wondered if they would miss this now that they decided to stop laying.

Slowly, the little wiggling figures freed themselves from their shells and were crawling around on their hands, looking up at their parents. Maël used that distraction to examine them.

“No way…” He said in a hushed tone. “I don’t believe it.”

“What?” Amai asked a little shrilly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Maël said, grinning up at her. “They’re all girls.”

“What?!” Yenuno and Amai said in unison, looking at their new little ones.

From what Maël had told you, the ratio of male to female births of Blue Gill Nagas was disproportionately skewed in favor of males. One in twenty eggs contained a female. Having an entire clutch of females was extremely rare.

Yenuno and Amai cried with joy and excitement. They’d been hoping to have at least one more little girl. To get three in one go was overwhelming.

Maël supervised the clean up process, and when they were ready, Yenuno and Amai brought the three baby girls out and introduced them to their siblings. You watched on the ramp with Maël, smiling, and took his hand. He squeezed yours in return. Looking up at his face, you could see he was crying, too.

This is what Maël wanted. He wanted to be the first to say hello to his own child, to be the first to hold them, to be the first to tell them he loved them. He wanted to kiss their brow and dance with them when they were crying and sing them to sleep at night. To get on the floor and play with them and put bandaids on their knees when they scraped them. He was desperate to experience that again, like he had with his son.

After the hatching, Maël went to file the new birth paperwork and Amai and Yenuno and their children were spending the next few days together. That left you with nothing to do.

Back in your apartment, you lay in your bed, thinking about that morning over and over. The babies busting out of their shells, the look of joy on their parents’ faces, the mix of happiness and pain on Maël’s.

You sat up to get your lip balm from your night table, and again found the book. You really ought to give it back. You’d been absent-minded about this for too long.

You opened it, flipping through pages until you landed on the date you first arrived at the facility. Intrigued, you read it.

“Amai’s friend finally made it today. It was exciting to meet her; I’ve been following her career for so long. She’s done so much for the non-human community. Amai didn’t tell me how breathtakingly beautiful she was. My heart stopped when I saw her out of the window. I haven’t felt attraction like this in centuries.”

Oh. Oh god. This was his personal diary. You knew you should stop reading it, but couldn’t. You had no idea he’d felt this way.

“I think I’m flirting with her, but I’m not trying to. I can’t help it. She’s funny and intelligent and everything I love in a woman. She’s gorgeous. I don’t know what to do. I’m trying so hard to stay professional, but I can seem to stop smiling around her.”

The next entry was the day you asked him to dinner.

“She asked me out on a date tonight. It was so hard to say no, but there’s no point, is there? She won’t want me if she knows I can’t have children. She’ll either leave me or mock me. There’s no point. I’ll avoid her. That’s all I can do. It’s best if I don’t get closer to her. Even friendship is dangerous. I’m already half in love with her, and I don’t think I could take it if we started a relationship and she ended up pitying me or disgusted. I can’t do it again.”

There were no more mentions of you in the book after that. You didn’t realize you were crying until the tears hit the page.

It was then that you made a decision.

You took out your phone and dialed your gynecologist’s office. “Hi, Grace, I’d like to schedule a consultation with the doctor about canceling my next birth control injection.”

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

#Exophilia #Monster Boyfriend #Fae

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http-worm · 3 years

Text

Love

Bokuto x Reader

Genre: angst with a happy ending

Word count: 2.3k

Warnings: mentions of insecurity

Synopsis: Love is a fickle thing; blossoming in one moment and withering in the next. Just when you thought your first love with Bokuto would forever wilt, a chance encounter might lead to new beginnings.

I once thought we could take on the world.

Have you ever been in love before? Have you ever felt the euphoria of coming home to a special someone waiting just for you? What about wholly giving yourself up to someone else? To cherish them and hold them above even yourself? Have you ever been in a love so bountiful you never needed more?

I once thought we had a perfect love.

To some, love seemed like a burst of fireworks; colors exploding in a symphony of emotions. Happiness, ecstasy, fulfillment, confidence, a sprinkle of jealously, and a never-ending pool of other feelings. It was different for everyone as well: some may feel possessive, others may care too much or some too little. It can be suffocating as much as liberating.

Where did things go wrong?

To you, my dear, your love was a quiet one while his a crashing wave of energy. You were often described by your peers as a flower while he was referred to as a roaring lion. You kept your head down and stayed quiet, he lifted his head up and laughed as if it was the last laugh he would have. And yet, the pair of you fit together almost like a puzzle.

When did the love end and contempt begin?

You reminded him when it was time to be calm and quiet. He reminded you that it was okay to let loose and grin bright enough to make the sun jealous. All in all, a perfect pair.

I should’ve tried harder.

You enjoyed how hyper he was and how he always made those around him cheer up. You adored his smile when he saw you; how he would run to your side to twirl you in his arms, unable to contain his joy.

I should’ve done more.

He enjoyed how you were content to rest in his embrace for hours on end and ask him to hold you longer. How you would sit on counter-tops, the floor, tables; avoiding sitting normally in a chair for, as you would put it, “it’s far more comfortable like this!”

I should’ve spoken up.

If he wasn’t waiting for you outside of class then you were for him. You waited for his volleyball practice to end, greeting him with the smallest hint of a smile as he took your hand to walk you home.

I should’ve told you.

While he was vocal about his love for you, it was harder for you to find your voice. Instead, you told him when you held on a little tighter during hugs, lingered a little longer in his doorway. Your love was told in leaving scattered items around his home as an excuse to come back later.

Did you know I never stopped loving you?

When you were sick he would rush to your home and care for you, hands moving rapidly as he told you about his day and begged you to get better so you could go out soon. When he was sick you would sit dutifully beside his bed, speaking in a hushed tone and getting whatever he needed.

Despite my actions, my cruel words...

You wore his jersey on game days, standing in front so he could see you clearly. And when you cheered, although not to the extent as your peers, he could hear you above all else. He complimented you when he watched you work your magic on a canvas, colors intermingling to become a picture straight from your thoughts.

I still love you.

But love can change in an instant. And the moment that Bokuto’s endearing habits became annoyances, it was like a punch in the gut.

I’m sorry.

Love and hate tread on a paper thin line so light that not even a bird can perch on it without the threat of falling off in a moments notice. It’s opening yourself to new possibilities that you may come to despise in the future. His loud laughter at random times of the day that you once found endearing? Obnoxious and annoying, the onset of a migraine. His tendencies to hug you a little too tight? A bother that has you pushing him away too soon. It’s not a single-player game either; at least not for you and Bokuto.

We didn’t know what the future held.

At first he shrugged it off when you told him not to worry when you were upset, but now it was frustrating to not know what he did wrong—if he did wrong. Seeing you sitting on the counter was once amusing, bringing the crinkle of a smile to his lips, yet now he can only say “why don’t you sit normally in a chair?” With the smallest frown.

We didn’t think it was this.

Frustration upon frustration pummeled a saccharine relationship built with walls of sugar, leaving holes in your defenses while trust crumbled over time. The same love that once gathered you in her arms is the same entity which stared you down with a hateful gaze, whispering words of loathing while you shivered from the embrace of contempt. Love destroyed what was once thought indestructible, ending a two-year long relationship with a single sentence.

Do you remember our promise?

“We aren’t good for each other anymore.”

We’d stay together no matter the conflict.

You didn’t know what hurt the most: his quiet acceptance as he nodded his head in agreement... or how he acted as if nothing was different the next day, simply replying “we had a mutual breakup!” when asked the status of your relationship. Despite being the catalyst to your breakup, you seemed to be the one hurting the most.

I wonder... do you still think of me?

Love is a poison as much as it is an antidote. It cures loneliness and sorrow but brings about pain and distrust. Like a rose it hides its thorns, pricking you when you grab it and realize too late the pain it inflicts upon you. When your in love, it’s like being in a different reality. Everything is brighter and more cheerful, a rose-colored filter covering the world around you. It makes you sacrifice yourself for another person, to the point where you have nothing left to give. Love is foolish. It causes you to make stupid decisions in its name, telling you it’s for the greater good.

Because I always think of you.

When was the last time you had a proper conversation? Before your breakup? The only times you had spoken after was when greeting each other in the halls. It was laughably pitiful in your eyes. You went back to quietly drawing in the corner, heading straight home after school. He went back to being loud and cheery, putting a smile on everyone’s faces. And when graduation came around, you went your separate ways.

Almost every day, in fact.

As years passed, you found yourself busying yourself with work. Drowning in a chest-high flood of deadlines as you drew day after day for your Webtoon, you forced yourself to keep distracted. It did little to work. After all, your story, while a work of fiction, was influenced by moments in your life. Saccharine you called it; a story about how some things in life are so sickly sweet it causes nausea. It was almost a theme in your life: events much too good to be true coming your way only to wrench out your heart and leave you bleeding on the pavement.

Have you read my story, I wonder?

You see his games on TV now and again. Despite all your efforts, you can never seem to look away for long. You remembered how much you loved him. How much you still love him. Even with his body covered in a layer of sweat did you find him beautiful, and now you wanted to hear that hearty laugh of his up close once again. Even after all this time does your heart yearn for him, cracking as you remember the idiocy of your youth. If only you spoke up more, if only you told him what was wrong. If only. If only.

If you have, maybe you’ll know how I really feel.

You were given the opportunity to see one of his games. Akaashi contacted you, wondering if you’d like to catch up while watching the MSBY and Adlers match. “No, no. I don’t think he’d want to see me, even after this time.”

Although... I desperately want to see you again.

“He still thinks about you.”

And you never did respond back.

Do... do you really?

Fate has a funny way of messing with us. Despite all your efforts to never have to face him again, to never face your insecurities, the universe decided that enough is enough. So now you found yourself face to face with Bokuto, sheltered from the rain in a small cafe, eyes unable to stray from one another. What seemed like hours to you was only seconds in reality before he opened his mouth to speak. “Hey, y/n.” To your surprise, there was no contempt in his voice. No anger nor hatred. In fact, his voice was soft and had an endearing lilt, almost as if you were high schoolers again. It took you far too long to process that he had used your first name, and by the time you did, a rosy flush covered your cheeks.

They always say our first loves never last.

“Koutarou,” his name felt at home on your lips and you could see he felt the same at how his face lit up, “it’s... good to see you again.” Again did you stand there in the silence while staring, your eyes searching for even the smallest hint that maybe, maybe he thought about you as much as you did him.

I don’t quite believe in that statement.

Bokuto had been miserable after your relationship fell off. He masked it with a false optimism, telling everyone that everything was alright to protect you. He knew that if he said something had actually happened people would flock to you and gossip would spread her ugly wings, taking flight from one person to the other. Even though you were no longer together, even though you had argued and fought, he never wanted you to be under a spotlight that you never asked for. Much like how you distracted yourself in art, he did the same with volleyball. While it seemed like he was unaffected to you, he was merely putting on a brave face so you didn’t have to feel guilty.

You were my first love, and we fell out of it.

He asked you if you wanted to wait out the rain with him. You agreed, and he took you to a booth in the cafe where you sat in awkward silence for a moment. He was prepared to take the first steps like he did all those years ago, but you wouldn’t let him. Not again. Because if you wanted to make things right, you’d have to push aside your insecurity and apologize.

But...

“I’m sorry.” It fell from your lips like autumn leaves, taking a moment to settle between the two of you as he processed what you said. Before he could answer your apology, you continued. “I’m sorry for how I left things. I’m sorry for never telling you what was wrong. I... I never knew how to express myself and I took it out on you.” Your eyes began to tear up as you spoke the words you’ve wanted to tell him for years, heart spilling from your mouth. “I was cruel. I was cold. You were my everything and I pushed you away because I was insecure.” It was only a fraction of what you wanted to say but your choked sobs forbade you from speaking more. You broke down further when the man across from you smiled and reached over, taking your hand in his.

If you’re as willing as I am...

“You aren’t the only one who needs to say sorry.” You blinked at him in surprise as Bokuto chuckled, looking rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “I was immature. I got hotheaded when you wouldn’t talk to me instead of being patient. I brushed you off when I should’ve payed attention. We were both in the wrong.” His finger ran over your thumb, looking at your intertwined hands with such a gentle fondness that you wondered how you ever let him go in the first place. “Maybe... maybe you’d like to try again?”

Our first love can start again.

Love is something that you don’t need to completely devote yourself to. Your partner will need their own time, and so will you. You will each need your own space, and you will each have your own opinions. Arguments will happen, but you will need to calm your anger and talk it out. Love is not eternal. You will fall out of love. Things you once thought endearing will become annoying, things you once enjoyed will become a bore. There one moment and gone the next, love is a fleeting feeling that people experience in many ways. It is something that will come and go, and it is something that you will have to wait for. The wait is worth it. Love is worth it.

Although I don’t believe it ever truly ended.

For you and Bokuto, love is each other. You lost that love once as immature kids, but now that you’ve found it again, you don’t plan on letting it go. A castle built from sugar becomes reinforced with steel walls of protection. This time, the fortress of your love will not crumble.

I’ve found you again, and I will love you again.

And I will not let you go this time, my love.

#koutaro bokuto #bokuto #Bokuto x reader #koutarou x reader #haikyuu Bokuto #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyu #haikyu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fluff #worm cinema #theatre 1

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scandeniall · 3 years

Text

story of us

pairing: suna x reader

the story of ur relationship <3; alternatively (more) dating sunarin headcanons but this time is somewhat of an order and talks good and bad 2K+ worth lol

a/n: i had more planned but half of these have been sitting in my notes for months and its kinda fucking long already bc he lives rent free!!!

warnings: uh the usual aged up (in ur 20s time skip type beat), language, yeah

Meeting

Now when y’all met suna was not looking to love at all. That man was just living his life and so where you. The two of you pretty much meet through komori. You’re a friend and it’s his birthday so him and a few of his friends go out for drinks bc why not. Young hot pretty financially stable v-ball players. Nah no ones there for any type of hookups literally just there celebrating a great guy.

They rent out a section at a relatively nice bar tbh. Not the cheapest and you can actually hear conversation. But also not a super expensive one where the patrons are middle aged with jazz music and the occasional track to relive “youth.” Komori’s a sweetie and will come outside to get you when you text that you’re there. You’ve met washio and ofc sakusa Before so you greet them casually then you turn and there’s Suna and a few others you haven’t met.

That greeting isn’t anything special I promise. Just “hey I’m so and so” and vice versa. It’s one of those meetings where you just think “he’s cute” but it’s such a fleeting thought. Y’all don’t even really talk that first night tbh. At the next practice Suna mentions offhandedly that he didn’t know komori was dating someone and komori is like: huh? Yeah sorry. I love (Y/N) and all but were just friends. Suna just shrugs not really caring to be honest until Komori just asks what did he think of you.

“Don’t really remember much man. Seemed cool though” he didn’t think he’d really see you again. Yeah you were close enough to have been at Komori’s birthday but if that was his first time ever meeting you, he figured you weren’t from around there are present very much. Yeah he was wrong.

Suddenly you were on Komori’s snap story more often, or maybe he’d just been noticing more. Too bad he couldn’t even remember your name 💀. Then it turned into you occasionally popping up where he was. He’d been told your name at least 5 times already but wouldn’t remember it the next day. Whenever he’d see you again he’d get a strained look like: “what is this mf name again” just laugh and tell him again bby.

That changed at some random house party by another mutual friend you two apparently had? You two were the only people just around the fire pit trying to catch some warmth in the chilly night. He’s probably just on his phone head bobbing his head to the muffled music from inside. And you’re just like “remember my name yet?” All jokingly. This sparks the tiniest bit of interest in him and he lets out a low chuckle and just admits “not at all.” I also feel like this is the first time he really looks at you and he’s like 🤨, wait you’re actually kinda cute.

That night y’all just kinda talk and vibe. The conversation comes easy as you two jump back and forth from talking about the music playing to sneakers which he brings up to stuff that you like. He’s actually really easy to talk to. So easy that u can forget about him not remembering your name despite meeting several times. You mention that you’d hung around komori before while they were gaming and that he seemed pretty cool. That leads him to asking “how do you know him anyways?”

“I used to date Sakusa”

Mentally he’s just like— ‘yeah I’m not getting involved in this. Time to go.’ Until you just start laughing.

“I’m kidding. He’s not really my type. We met after being paired together for a project in school.”

The two of you spend quite a bit of time just talking that night until you are joined again by some friends and it’s deadass like y’all weren’t just talking for almost an hour straight.

Getting Together

The process of getting together is like a cat and mouse game. You two start getting closer than friends and then something happens and you’re not talking for weeks. Whether it be life just getting busy, and then someone ending up on some random tinder date or so be it. Definitely one of those things were somehow someway y’all end up just hanging on one of your couches watching a movie. At some point there’s definitely a hint of sexual tension but neither of y’all act on it (later on you find on his finsta that he used to post several “i wont you 😔” memes Folks can’t tell if hes joking or not (hes not))

You probably gotta tell that man you like him so if that ain’t you I’m sorry. Y’all not dating 😹. It’s something casual, y’all going to pick up some snacks for a movie night and why this mf keep looking at you out the side of his eyes instead of the road. You def texting the groupchat asking if you should confess. They tell you to boss up and just do it baby.

You literally end up confessing in that parking lot. Like right when he shuts the car off and starts swinging his keys on his finger and you kinda just blurt “I like you. Like like you.” He just kinda nods before his eyes widen. “Wait are you fr?” Like no you’re joking tf. It gets a lil awkward so you just go to get out the car and he’s like “I like like you too.”

I definitely don’t think either of you ever officially asked the other out it’s just at some point the understanding that you two are a couple. Like when you’re hanging out just you two hes more touchy, and then y’all start kissing and holding hands at some point. Then when you’re with friends he almost exclusively sits next to you and your friends notice the whispers in one another’s ears at the loud bar that seem just a hint too intimate for ppl who are just friends. Then y’all start arriving and leaving places together and people just at some point get the message (it’s later confirmed by you tweeting some shit like: I hate Rin why is that mf my boyfriend)

As far as anniversaries y’all draw straws to pick a day in the ballpark of the time y’all both think you became official. That’s the day you stick with even if it’s not true.

Relationship Flaws

A fault in the relationship is sunas kinda poor communication when it comes to things that matter. How he feels. Arguments. Love sure as hell don’t come east with anyone but when your partner won’t let you in? Yeah that’s like hell. That’s something you struggle with. And then on your end, it’s the impatience with him not letting you in. You try to wrongfully rush it.

There’s definitely been arguments that stem from him just being upset about something unrelated to the relationship then coming to you for comfort without actually telling you what’s wrong. He kinda just wants to lay with his head on his chest but at some point that’s not enough. Y’all are in a relationship and should be able to talk about your bad days too.

You’re not innocent in this issue either because sometimes it comes off too pushy. Yes it’s from a place of care but sometimes that silent comfort is necessary. The walls will break in due time and y’all both know that deep in the back of your minds But then there’s a part that’s like— yeah we can’t let this become the norm

“Rin, can you please talk to me”

He will have literally told you “whatever” and that he “can’t deal with this rn” several times as he just shrugs and is like yeah “I’m gonna just go home. I’ll text you later” with an awkward ass pat on your shoulder if it really ruined his mood. If he’s leaving before he gets super upset and uncomfortable just some half assed kiss in your cheek

Another thing is I feel like he could be passive aggressive and let’s be real other folks doing it causes you to do it to. Y’all probably drag eachother on your finstas where you can both see it lol

But when it comes to making up he cracks first and apologizes when he started it. Or as y’all get more comfy with communication. If it’s not anything major he’ll just hit you with a text like “I’m bored come hang”

More Relationship Things

I feel like he love/hates driving. Likes the ride not always driving though. So if you ever proposed a late night drive he’d be down (if you offer to drive). He does let y’all take his car though. He reclines the seat pretty far back. Alternates between just closing his eyes vibing w/ the music or kinda just looking at you (he the type of bf that makes u nervous no matter how long y’all been together)The way he looks at you makes you nervous cause that man is fine as hell and you can just feel his eyes on you.

He films you on Snapchat and sends the video to you like “you look hot”

If he’s not ‘resting his eyes’ he’s mumbling along to the music because he has the aux. if y’all music tastes are different he occasionally throws in something you really like bc he likes how you perk up at one of your fav songs

Moving on. Y’all dap eachother up after s3x because it’s “modern romance” (boy stfu). You two came up with a sex playlist together and it’s on both of your phones. Sometimes one of you will add a troll song that the other doesn’t know and put it in the lineup. (Stole my heart by 1D has definitely played before and you were practically in tears laughing at his reaction. That was one of those songs he was like ‘yeah alright i think we’re done).

At some point you two develop your own handshake and it’s cute. Whenever either of you have to travel without the other that’s always the last thing you do before you leave eachother. There’s vids of your friends daring y’all to do your elaborate ass handshake drunk and doesn’t matter what’s in your system, you both know it like the back of your hand.

I think he values quality time a lot so there’s so many nights where you’re both just chilling in his room just doing your own things. He could just be at his desk watching some game highlights and you’re just doing hw on his bed with your own earbuds in work all spread out and he’s content. He’s also attentive so if he calculates that you’ve been working too long he’ll just take ur earbud like “hey let’s go get something to eat.”

People definitely think he’s the lazy one in the relationship but it’s 100% not true. Like stated above, he’s very attentive and can pretty much gauge how you’re feeling in the blink of an eye. He knows when you need alone time but won’t go without reassuring you that he’s here whenever you’re ready. When you do just need him he’s there without a second thought. If you’re more touchy he’ll have your head in his lap his arm running up and down your as you tell him what’s wrong. He knows when to joke about a minor inconvenience and over the course of your relationship knows when to cut the jokes and be serious with you.

He’d never admit it but he knows your coffee order by heart (he keeps up his image my asking wtf do you get everytime. Just let him LOL). He the type to peek at what you plan on wearing and ‘accidentally’ color coordinate then pull some shit like “why are you copying me”

Y’all def shit talk together. See someone doing something completely out of pocket in public— straight to ur phones you go (pack it up shade room). To the public it just looks like you aren’t paying any attention to one another on your dates but y’all are. Just over the phone so u don’t piss off ur target 😌

Y’all are very comfy in your relationship that you just say stuff. Y’all don’t even think.

“Rin, what if i crashed us in this car rn 😹”

“Do it. Might be fun”

When you two finally move in together it’s almost like how your relationship starts. Slowly more and more spares of stuff for you end up at his. He does sorta make the move near the end of your lease and is just like “you’re here more than me anyways.” (hes nervous but swears he’s not. Bby you’re literally shaking). Him moving you in is like hell. This mf takes sooooo long to help with boxes. Picks up 1 then sits for like 15 minutes. You ask for help the first few times and he’s just like “I got you” while continuing to scroll his phone.

Sleepy Shoulder kisses in the mornings. Only form a greeting you get but it’s ok

this is like my 100th dating suna hc and im still going this is SICK. it was so hard to not drop old refs bc i still believe in them 100% yes i do!!!!

#haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #suna rintaro x reader #suna x reader #haikyuu imagine #suna imagines #hq imagines #haikyuu headcanons

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reveriequill-rai · 3 years

Text

Shroud: Withered Soul

A/N: Sorry it’s been a while. As of right now I’ve just been uploading stories I’ve written in my newspaper club, and now that I’ve graduated I hope that can now expand to short stories generally. I’m not gonna promise that posts from now on will be more consistent, but I would like to at least speed up my uploads a bit before they actually wind down, as I imagine I will be working on more stories in the future. Everything being uploaded right now is previous work, but nothing too old--probably like, from last year tops. This was completed sometime in May, I believe.

This is an introduction to a character I created called ‘Shroud,’ an amateur self-proclaimed ‘detective’ who exclusively investigates occult-based crimes and malefic.

Content Warning: death, descriptions of corpses, graphic descriptions of violence and pain, cults

[My blog will usually contain PG-13 stories, and as of right now I am writing some darker content, but I will tag anything that may be especially disturbing or uncomfortable. I’ll include this warning in my bio, too.]

----------

The corpse in front of me wasn’t all that disturbing by itself. I had seen dead people before–comes with the territory. I had been dead before. Murder rates in Twilight were, naturally, much higher than any other district in New Fable–especially further south of the district where I was–considering how much wild magic was around, and not even the police force sent here from the northern district of Bastion could do anything about it. So the corpse itself didn’t bother me, all things considered.

What did disturb me, though, was a number of other things.

For one, the corpse just being there was a problem. They weren’t stopping, and they were getting far too close to home.

Its eyes were still open, for another thing, and nearly colorless, and looking at me specifically, and I can swear to you that had not happened when I first laid eyes on it. Even worse, like me, the man lying dead in front of me appeared to be wearing a few bandages like I was, perhaps just recovering from an injury.

And for yet another thing, and perhaps the worst part of this, was the connection I felt with this dead man. Something about the state he was in struck a familiar chord that only I and a select unlucky others knew. As if we were kindred spirits–undergoing the same fate, yet with (probably) different outcomes.

I had been at this–whatever you would call tracking down cults as someone with zero prior detective experience with the help of almost no one–for…a few months now? And I’ve made a bit less progress than would be expected from someone who has seen just about everything the darker sides of magic had to offer. I did have one solid lead, though, and hopefully one that would lead me to exactly who I was looking for.

“Everyone move,” I ordered, pushing my way through the crowd.

Ignoring their complaints, I made my way over toward the body and began to examine it, hoping for any hint of who had done this, and more importantly, if it was exactly who I had suspected. There didn’t appear to be much damage, but what first caught my attention was the note tucked into the man’s pocket. I took it out and unfolded it, and immediately flinched.

Demon tongue.

Hellish whispers ran through my head, and I wasn’t sure if they were just in my head or not. It was hard to tell these days.

I honed in on the note, written on some old paper as if torn from an ancient book. The more I stared, the louder the whispers got. I ignored the throbbing in my head as best as I could–humans were not mentally equipped to engage with the infernal language at all, and I much less so. My hands shook as I read the brief message, which I must have read dozens and dozens of times already; I wasn’t counting and didn’t care to.

Some people studied demon tongue despite…well…everything, even the illegality. It probably didn’t matter to them. It didn’t matter to me, either, but someone had spoken to me in demon tongue before–though, in their defense, likely not out of their own volition–and the trembling and rapid heart rate was not worth the ability to communicate with infernals. (Nothing was, honestly.)

For these reasons–and also not wanting to be arrested or have my mage license revoked–I personally didn’t speak or write demon tongue, but I at least knew a little bit and could recognize some of the infernal runes. And those runes were enough for me to know that this was the exact same message that the abyss had been trying to send me in my last moments.

—

Can’t run home, I thought. They’ll follow me.

Just gotta run until I find a phone booth.

I ran until I finally spotted one on the street corner near a bridge. I let out a sigh of relief, taking a quick moment to catch my breath. Then, I quickly crossed the street and ran toward the phone booth, quickly dialing the police station.

“Hello?” I said into the phone as quietly as I could manage. “My name is [……………………………] I’m at the corner of Coral Avenue by the Armada IV Memorial Bridge. I’m being pursued by a group of kids in demon-charmed cloaks and shawls, please I need your help they have knives and they’re trying to kill me-“

The tears stinging at the edge of my eyes began to overflow as a human voice at the end of the line responded in perfect, uncharacteristically calm demon tongue. It was a short sentence, repeated over and over again, but with the little knowledge I *did* have, I could translate it by about the sixth loop:

“You are going to hell.”

I hung up the phone immediately, resisting the urge to yell, “I KNOW” directly into the phone.

Humans can’t speak demon tongue here. It’s illegal.

So how did an officer know demon tongue?

—

Unsurprisingly, the body was still in semi-good condition. After all, little damage was done to the body—only the soul. The only physical marks I could make out were marks around the wrist and neck, likely to restrain the victim. Couple of bruises here and there, too, but nothing was broken.

This…disturbed me, to say the least.

Cults around here were usually known to be violent. After all, a lot of them stood for violent causes–executing the ‘impure,’ plunging everyone into the dreams of a volatile eldritch creature, usurping the throne and forcing everyone to convert, rallying the youth to their bloody cause with claims that they alone possessed special powers…I had heard it all, all of them violent to some degree. But the ones that had gotten me…they seemed to worship oblivion itself. Or maybe whatever was in it. That was beyond even my knowledge.

But…even then, they still had arguably the least violent cause. The deadliest, yes–they seemed to just be destroying souls–but strangely not as bloody. Yet their means of carrying out this objective has historically been, well, bloody.

Or maybe that was just me.

Either way, this victim had certainly not gotten the worst of it. There were no twisted limbs, no bloodied nose, no wounds from blade or bullet, basically no magic-driven attacks aside from the terminating consumption of the soul…only marks of the initial restraint, bruises from the subduing, and the abyss claiming and destroying the soul.

I could almost picture it in my head: they likely jumped him in the middle of the street, kicking him around a bit to possibly weaken him, throw him off balance, but not too much as to rouse resistance, then restraining him–to the floor? A wall? I couldn’t tell, but there were no rope burns so they must have done this by hand–and calling, somehow, for their god, for lack of a better word, to devour its newest victim’s soul.

What did he see as he died? Did their eyes turn as colorless as his would become? Had they shown any sign of enjoying his torment? I doubt it; it didn’t seem like a very ‘fun’ kill. And likely not as personal as it was for me.

They were getting much better at their kills. It probably wasn’t as fun, but more precise.

And a lot less violent than I had gotten.

—

I caught a glimpse of the charm from earlier out of the corner of my eye, but just as I looked it vanished. Just then a cold breeze hit me as the door behind me opened, and I was yanked out onto the street, leaving the phone dangling by the cord. The book dropped from my hands.

The four delinquents appeared in front of me from nowhere, likely having turned off their Moonlight Shroud charms.

“Gotcha,” Ransley said, smiling as he picked up the book.

“Give it BACK!” I roared, lunging for him. Ransley hit me hard across the face with the book, sending me flying a few feet back onto the brick road. Quickly I realized that my safety was not worth keeping that book. I didn’t know where or how Ransley learned to hit that hard but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. As he and the others examined the book, I began to scurry away as Ransley gave an order to the others:

“Get him.”

An instant later, I heard something click far behind me, and a sharp pain ripped through my knee. I collapsed to the floor, letting out an agonized cry. I examined my knee, and saw a hole much bigger than a bullet hole should be. I looked up at my attackers.

A gun?!

“What the HELL?!” I shouted. “You’ve already got what you want! LEAVE ME ALO-“

Ardent appeared behind me and punched me square in the face. I held my probably-broken nose as a muffled shriek of pain escaped me. Each of them vanished and took turns raining blows and slashes on me as I tried to step back and run. They gave me almost no chance to react. My body ached everywhere; the knife wounds, though shallow, stung just as bad, if not worse, as any bee. I could barely stand. I used my remaining strength to try and push them off of me whenever I felt them, but I stumbled each time I did, giving them room to knock me around further. Finally I collapsed, and Ardent grabbed my shirt and dragged me to the bridge.

“W-wait-“ I cried, still wincing and crying from my bruises and decayed knee. “STOP IT!-”

—

I examined the bandages on my hand and knee. The ones from that night must’ve been amateurs, or at least new to the cult’s way of doing things.

Focus, Shroud.

The victim’s eyes were still open, and almost completely empty.

Almost.

The body must not be entirely empty, then. This wasn’t exactly a kill—whoever this person was, they would not be dead for much longer, or at least depending on your definition of ‘dead.’

How long ago had this attack been, then? I touched the skin—still warm-ish. This had to be recent.

By that logic, if this was meant not as a lethal attack, but as one of induction into their group…

I wasn’t sure how long I had been out, but I at least knew it wasn’t for very long.

So…I didn’t have much longer, then.

I instinctively jerked away from the body. Would he come back? He wouldn’t be under anyone’s control, at least for the first few minutes–how long does it take to kill someone? Would it be long enough for him to kill me?–no, he probably wouldn’t go after me; I had barely any soul left for him to long for…unless he’s just that desperate enough to take scraps from a near-husk.

What would he do when he came back? Would he wander around, lost, confused, until they welcomed him with false promises of salvation and freedom from the ‘burden’ of having a judgement-tied soul? Would he be violent, as they had been to him?

Then again…I came back after one of their attacks, but with a will of my own. Did they want me to come back? Why would they want me of all people to come back?

—

“You know how much trouble you caused us, […….…]?!” Ransley shouted as he kicked me in my injured leg. “Don’t act like you didn’t have this coming, you little weasel.”

“I didn’t-“ I tried to say.

Ransley propped me up on the sidewalk, just by the edge of the bridge, right above the river. He placed his hand on my bruised shoulder, looking at me with a bone-chilling grin.

Again, I got a good look at his eyes. This time, everything except the pupils was entirely white. As I looked I almost felt like I was staring at something beyond; further, even. But the harder I looked the more I could see how much nothing there was. And yet, in spite of that, this nothing seemed to be staring back at me.

The others had the same white eyes too, looking on with a horrible satisfaction.

“What…” I barely managed to say, “…what are y-you…?”

“Free,” Ransley answered, without his usual cruelty and instead with an uncharacteristically sanctimonious tone. “And with our help, so too will you be free.”

With a hard shove, I was pushed off the bridge.

I grabbed onto the edge with my hand, barely having the strength to pull myself up.

“T-this is insane-!” I cried. “Ransley! Please! Y-you can keep the book; I won’t call the police, just help me up-“

Ransley frowned and put his boot on my hand. He leaned in as he brought his foot down harder, crushing my hand. Bone splintered and crumbled under the weight of the shoe, and I let out a shriek as a cold look crossed his face.

“You really should stop holding on so much,” he said. “That’s your problem. That’s why you’re here. Just let go, and face oblivion.”

Ransley took his foot off finally, but my hand had run out of strength. I slipped, and fell into the river.

—

Either way, I had to work fast.

“Hey, kid!” Someone from the crowd called. “What’re you doing? Leave this to the professionals.”

I turned around, and maybe it was the speed at which I had whirled around to face them, or he did just flinch.

Was it my eyes?

“The police won’t find them,” I explained. “I know what I’m doing. I’ve studied demonology for a few years.”

I went back to the body.

“You mean you know who did this?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I answered. “I just wanna be sure…”

I pressed down on the bruises on their shoulder and arms. Hollow. I felt no bone or extra layer of skin or muscle underneath.

Just as I suspected, I thought. Soul devouring.

My only question now was, how much of the soul was left?

—-

The bridge wasn’t particularly tall; just enough for any small cargo ships to run under. But the fall felt much longer than it had any right to.

I never hit the water. I was swallowed by something but it certainly wasn’t the river. It was as cold and sharp but nothing wet ever touched my skin or clothes.

I did not fall into water. I fell into something foreign, something dark, something alive, something evil.

Its eyes were beady and attentive, focused, eager, and it had long rows of sharp fangs. It appeared to smile at me, expecting me, welcoming me. Whispers in demon-tongue surrounded me, and I overwhelmed myself trying to find a single word I could understand. The only thing I could catch was “going to hell” again…was this it? Was this hell? What circle was this?

I was immobile, unable to look away from the creature in front of me, unable to scream as it opened its fang-filled mouth. I couldn’t even let out a scream of protest; no, not against this, as it brought down its jaws and took a large bite out of a deep part of me even I could never access. The pain from my bruises and wounds no longer burned; only ached, as if the pain had been there forever.

I was hollow. If there was anything left, I barely even felt it. My wounds glowed a hot white color and became shallow. I felt nothing but an aching nigh-emptiness that seemed to have no origin I could place; no past; only a present and a long future.

I didn’t know how long I was in that void. But as much as I despised that thing for robbing me of my life, I was grateful that it chose to let me go.

—-

 I took out my pen from my pocket and a couple of mini-candles from my satchel. I flicked a lighter and lit the candles, surrounding them at different points around the body. I began to draw an evocation circle around the body. I’m not sure what had stopped this cult from performing forced evocations as opposed to beating everyone into submission until they blacked out enough to face the abyss and have their soul devoured, but I wasn’t about to find any sense in a group of people who literally worship the abyss.

I took my time with the intricate webs of the circle, carefully connecting whatever remained of the soul to the points where I would draw in the runes, and connected those to the candles.

I then drew in symbols in the language of the spirits at the different sub-points that would draw up souls from the afterlife, adding a desperate prayer in each pen stroke that I evoke the right thing and not something unwelcome. I had to steady my hand as I did this, reminding myself that this was merely a human soul who was recently killed, so the chances of him having ended up in hell – was he that kind of person? – were slim; they had to be, of course they were; there was no need to panic so stop panicking. Yet knowing I was drawing the same symbols, the same webs, lighting the same candles as the deadly evokers around town who would break into people’s houses and draw evocation circles under their beds to call up who-knows-what from the pits of hell to torment the living…to think I was drawing the same circle that I checked for every night when I went to sleep…

The pen snapped in my shaking hand against the concrete, getting ink all over my hand. I swore, and rubbed some on my finger tip so I could start to finish the circle.

“What the hell are you doing, kid?!” someone cried, making me jump. “You’re tampering with evidence! That’s illegal!”

“You’re gonna screw up the investigation!” someone else shouted.

I steadied myself from being startled.

“This…this is the investigation,” I replied bluntly.

“Wh–okay…? Are you a detective or something?” the first guy asked.

I shrugged.

“I think so,” I said.

“You think-”

I could hear further shouts from the crowd as I turned the body over to draw the rest of the circle underneath, but I held up my hand to stop them from getting closer.

“Just let me work!” I cried without looking back.

That’s when I noticed some of the rapidly-decaying skin near the shoulder and side of the ankles. The skin had withered and given way to bone, the effect cutting through flesh and muscle. Even the bone had begun to decay.

Well, so much for minimal damage.

I unzipped the victim’s jacket and pulled back the shirt just slightly to get a better look at the damage. The withering had spread further—the entire shoulder seemed about ready to decay. I took a camera out of my bag and took a picture of the decaying wounds.

With the remaining ink, I drew another sigil on the bandage of my injured hand, a heart-shaped eye-like symbol with two lines running up my index and middle finger. It was a painful process and I was just careful enough to have the pen not tear through the bandage, and I placed my shaking hand on the decaying shoulder and closed my eyes. I saw all of the injuries on the man’s body, including where he had been injured–he had a broken arm that had almost finished recovering, and a fractured foot that was also healing, but wasn’t as near completion as his arms. Either way, both of these had stopped healing, and had actually gotten worse, with the bones beginning to decay in both areas.

What was the point of beating people up, breaking them, letting them decay, and then expecting them to join you after you had broken them? My attackers probably went through the same thing as this man had–as I had, if this cult was larger than them. So why do the same thing to others?

But that was just it, though, wasn’t it?

They knew what it was like to be soulless, and only they knew not only how to recover from the injuries suffered, but how to disguise themselves as living to avoid trouble with the law.

I looked again at the bandages on my hand, and unraveled it slightly, careful not to let the crowd see. There, too, did my flesh begin to decay. This was the primary issue with not having a soul: without the very essence that gives us life, our bodies aren’t capable of self-healing anymore. Any injuries are permanent unless fixed by a doctor, or if we tend our own wounds.

Fortunately my bones—at least in my hand—hadn’t completely withered away. I managed to revive just in time, fortunately.

Just in time.

——

I don’t remember much about the day I woke up. Just the excruciating, aching pain.

What I did know was I had washed up on the shore of the city, and I couldn’t stand up for a very long time. A burning sensation enveloped my entire hand and knee, and I felt a throbbing sensation in both areas. The bruises from the beatdown stuck on me like a leech, but most vividly, my chest felt hollow. And it hurt. The emptiness gnawed at the inside of my chest, and it, too, burned and ached. Like a stomach ache in the wrong place.

With my good hand I crawled my way off of the shore until I found a lamppost. I grabbed onto it, and propped up my good knee. I swung my arm toward the lamppost, grabbing onto it with my bad hand, shocks of pain running through my body. I tried to haul myself up, but the weight of my body caved my knee in, and I collapsed. That’s when I got a good look at my hand.

Bits of skin had completely come off, seeming to have withered away. Pieces of bone underneath had chipped off.

I grew nauseous and I felt the blood drain from my face. I let out some inhuman noise that I reckoned was some attempt at a scream but came out as a cross between that and a moan of agony.

How had this happened?

It was a horrible sound, but at least I had been found. Otherwise, who knows what would’ve happened?

Or who else would’ve found me?

——

Finishing the circle grew tricky as my hand trembled, though I was unsure if it was from the injury or from the reality of the process itself.

“Kid, we don’t even know who you are,” the guy from earlier said. “Are you even a licensed detective?”

I ignored him and wiped some of the ink from my pen on my hand, pressing my hands together to activate the circle. As the soul fire candles flared, what little color was left in their eyes drained slowly, and a small, glowing, deteriorated wisp of a soul rose out of the victim’s body.

This was all that was left…

Somehow this dead man was just the same as I, who could still breath, still walk, still talk, still live—but only just.

What had this man’s soul seen before it was decimated? If, in fact, the same people who killed me are responsible for this, did he, too, see the same grinning face in the abyss that I had? Was he as afraid as I was? Or did he accept this as death?

I took my mage’s license out of my pocket and showed it to the crowd.

“I’m a licensed magic user,” I said, “is that enough?”

“…that’s not a detective license,” the same guy said. “I’m calling the police.”

“Great!” I said. “Tell them the Brotherhood of Abyss Walkers did this.” At this point it was all but confirmed.

“The…what?”

“The cult that keeps tormenting this forsaken town,” I explained. “The one behind all the unexplained murders.”

The guy—along with the rest of the crowd—stifled a laugh. Some of them couldn’t hold it in.

“There’s no cult in New Lumanore,” someone else said. “Our security’s airtight; no way they would’ve been able to form a guild without a license.”

“Just call the authorities, Aaron,” a lady in the crowd said. “This kid isn’t worth persuading.”

“W-wait-“ I said before letting out a resigned sigh. I packed up the candles and pocketed my pen, and took off. I knew who the culprit was. What the police had to say didn’t bother me.

They’ll believe me when I put the culprit behind bars.

—————

In previous investigations I managed to pin down the general area where the Abyss Walkers operate. Prior murders took place at least within a mile’s range of Eclipse Avenue, an area further south of New Lumanore. It was a relatively quiet and empty area; there were quite a bit of shops and buildings of unknown function that no one ever seemed to go into, not even during the day.

The entire place screamed occult activity.

Sure enough, just as I hit the corner of the avenue I caught a glimpse of a Moonlight Shroud charm, pinned to the outwear of a hooded figure. They were walking along the other side of the street, hanging close to the bare wall of a wide building.

Once they were some distance along I crossed the street quickly and began tailing them.

Confrontation wasn’t new to me, just…unfavorable. Is that why I trembled? Either way I knew the procedure: Walk with the same beat. Same path, same pattern of step. Stop when he stops. Walk like this until the shadow is close enough for contact.

Once I did I took out a capsule from my coat. It contained shadow ink, allowing me to either create my own shadow, or to hide within someone else’s. I didn’t have enough of a soul to perform any magical feats on my own–whatever I could do would probably just come out as sparks–so this was the best I could work with. Unfortunately the capsule was nearly empty, and I made a mental note to contact my supplier after I was finished. In the meantime, I used what was left to lather my hand in ink as I silently crept behind the lone cultist, and pressed my hand against his shadow. I latched on and eventually got pulled in. Inside the shadow realm, I had a black-and-white view of the street from inside the wall. I couldn’t breathe, though, and I couldn’t hold my breath for very long so I knew I had to jump him sooner rather than later.

I took a coin out of my pocket and tossed it outside behind the cultist. He stopped and turned around, as expected, and I took the moment to lunge out and grab him by the throat.

—————

The cultist narrowed his eyes, and an amused smirk came on his face.

“Hey…” he said. “I know you.”

I flinched. How?

He kicked me off and stood up.

“You…you’re the kid we got that book from!” He chuckled. “You don’t quit, do you? This is really what you chose to do after death? Vigilante work?”

I felt the blood drained from my face.

“…what are you talking about?” I lied. “What book?”

“The demonology book, stupid,” he said. “The thing damning you to begin with. You forgot already? Or did you lose your memories alongside almost all your soul somehow?”

I clenched my fist, resisting the urge to charge at him again. I couldn’t take him in a head-on fight. I was too weak for that.

“Tell me,” he said. “How’s it feel? Being so close to freedom, so close to ridding yourself of that moral creed weighing you down…no fear of rapture…just your life and your…well, I suppose now broken…body, and your heart and mind.”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

“Good thing you came back, though. We’ve been slacking on our initiations recently…Ardent went a little too hard on too many people. We’re behind on our quota.”

“Wait a sec…” I took a step back. “What do you mean ‘too hard?’ Aren’t they supposed to come back?”

“The idiot decided to use magic to slow the initiates down,” the cultist explained. “As if that wouldn’t damage the soul at all. I’m sure you of all people know. You’ve taken enough beatings form him, right, D–“

I punched him in the face. The second I made contact I realized I had used my bad hand without thinking. Bone snapped, collapsed, and even shifted through the hole in my hand. I let out a far-too-loud shriek of agony as I recoiled and caressed my hand, trying to relocate the bone.

The cultist looked at me and laughed, and I raised a finger on my good hand and threatened him:

“Don’t try that again,” I said. “I’ve still got one—ahh…—perfectly functioning hand.”

“Fine by me,” he replied. “You hit hard for a dead person…”

My hand still ached from the punch. I imagine it probably hurt me way more than it hurt him.

“Do you mean to turn me in, Shroud?” the cultist hissed. “Just try it. I know who you are. They’ll find out you’re undead and investigate you to hell and back. Whatever decimal of a soul you have left won’t save you. Not even close.”

“I can’t trust you with that information even if I let you go,” I said. “But even if you do…I’ll know sooner or later if you’ve said something. You best not try it if you don’t wanna die twice.”

The cultist grinned.

“I’m shaking,” he said, deadpan. “I’ll just come back again.”

“What, are there no revival limits in your little group?”

“Nope. He’ll bring us back again and again as long as he needs us.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“Oh, you’ve only been resurrected once, you big baby,” the cultist said. “You’ll get used to it.”

“I’m not joining you.”

“You have no reason not to,” the cultist said. “We can fix your broken body; make you look and seem as alive as the next person. Those remnants of a soul may not matter to the police, who’ll mark you as soulless anyway, but you know who it does matter to?” He pointed at the sky and at the group. “Them. Someone like you, who’s spent hours learning about heaven’s enemies…you think you have any chance of reaching heaven? HA!”

I fell silent. Just when I thought being registered as ‘dead’ to everyone you know meant they wouldn’t bother you about being a (rookie) demonologist anymore. That reminder worked my last nerve, yet every time it was brought up I could never muster up a proper defense.

“…I’m aware,” I mumbled.

“Besides, I’m sure you’re just livid at the police, who never caught who got you. I’m sure you’d like your vengeance against them for failing you…we can help you out with that, if you’d like. After all, why should we fear death, or judgement, from this life or the next? Like I’ve said, we’ve got no soul to weigh us down to heaven or hell. No death, no judgment. Just you, whatever you wanna do, and a welcoming oblivion who’ll spit you back out as many times as needed. As long as you keep it fed, that is.”

“It doesn’t matter if the police know or if they don’t know,” I said. “I know. And I’ll know more than they ever will. Besides, why the hell would I trust you to give me closure about my death–the death YOU caused?!”

The cultist frowned.

“And that’s just the trouble, isn’t it…you’re just about soulless, and the only soulless person New Lumanore who isn’t with us and…for what? You lose nothing by joining us!”

“First of all,” I shouted. “I am not soulless. Your stupid demon didn’t take all of it.”

“Yeah. Still not sure why that happened,” the cultist replied, “but who am I to question the great abyss–”

“Oh, shut up. And second of all–just in case you forgot–YOU KILLED ME! I don’t owe you loyalty, or gratitude, or mercy…I owe you nothing.”

“You may be upset now,” the cultist said, “but you’ll learn to thank us later.”

“I will not.”

His frown turned into a scowl. He took out a small cylinder from his pocket.

“I was gonna use this the day of the attack,” he said, “but I didn’t see any point. Seemed like the others were doing just fine without the staff.”

Sure enough, the cylinder popped open into a metal bo-staff. He walked towards me, twirling it through his fingers.

“You’ve been chasing the wrong thing, Shroud,” he said. “You think you need vengeance, but what you really need is security. We all know what being soulless is like. You’re weaker, you can’t heal your wounds, you can’t do magic, and it’s pretty obvious when you’ve just come back from the dead. I don’t care what three-percent of a soul you do have; it’s nowhere near enough for you to enjoy all the privileges of being fully human. Face it. You’re basically the same as us.”

As I stepped back, he stopped spinning the staff and instead gripped it with both hands.

“So you can either let go of those remnants you have the audacity to still call a soul, then come with us and let us give you the safety you so desperately need,” he said, rearing the staff back, “…or we’ll just break you further and let oblivion do what it wishes with your remains.”

He started to bring the staff down.

“WAIT!” I yelled, bringing my hands to my face.

Surprisingly enough, he actually froze, the staff a couple inches from my face.

“Okay…I get it…” I said. “You’re right. I won’t turn you in. Just…promise me you won’t tell anyone who I am.”

“What’s stopping me?” the cultist asked, cocking his head slightly and raising an eyebrow.

“Look. I didn’t turn you in,” I said. “You owe me.”

“No I don’t. I’m not tied to anything but oblivion.”

I let out an annoyed huff.

“Like I said. I’ll know if you exposed me,” I reminded him. “I don’t care if that scares you or not, just…let me go.”

“Let YOU go?! You jumped ME!”

“And I had—I…thought…I had the right to. Look…I’m backing down. You go about your night. I go about mine. We don’t speak of this.”

The cultist hesitated, then put the staff away.

“Fine,” he said. “But we’ll still come back for you. Whether or not your initiation goes smoothly is entirely on you.”

With that, he pulled out the same charm he had on the day of the attack, and vanished.

“See you around,” he said.

That was the last I heard of him that night.

Once I thought I was safe, I let out a loud groan of annoyance.

I had him. He was literally a few feet away. If I *just* had more shadow ink that would’ve been it for him.

But…he was right. I was at every possible disadvantage. And I couldn’t work like that. I shouldn’t have jumped him. I should’ve just taken note of his appearance and went from there. That was foolish on my part.

But…I did have his appearance now.

But he had my identity.

I still wasn’t at a complete advantage. And I couldn’t work like that. I had to lay low, and rebuild. My hand was wounded and I was lucky I didn’t get my skull bashed in. There was no way I could have recovered from that. But I wouldn’t give up. I had a lead and I wasn’t letting go of it.

I didn’t care about their ‘freedom’ or ‘not being tied down’ or anything like that. Fact of the matter is, they were hurting people, and their demon lord had more control over them than they’d realize.

They were beyond redemption. The demon didn’t bind them through any soul manipulation or contract–it was some weird combination of free will, gratitude, and the threat of permanent death.

These cultists had to go, and quickly. They had to pay, and dearly.

I know I’m weak, but once I’m back up and running I would do as much damage from the shadows as humanly possible.

They weren’t bound by any rules, so why should I have to be?

I didn’t care how many times I would get hurt. They ruined my life, and I was going to pay them back tenfold.

#original story #fiction story #creative writing #dark fantasy #urban fantasy #violence cw #death cw #cult cw #death tw #violence tw #cult tw

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team-cap-for-the-win · 3 years

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Let's talk about Steve Rogers, his journey in the MCU, and what changes I would make to maintain narrative coherence

Warning: long post, brief mentions of war, PTSD and depression

Just want to put a little disclaimer that this is in no way me declaring the definitve way it should have gone. Just giving some personal pointers and tweaks that I believe would make for a more compelling and satisfying story.

Let's start off with The First Avenger. This movie is fine, it does well with establishing Steve as a character, and hits emotional beats. Here's my hot take on the first Cap movie though (and what could have been in the later installments).

(I know, I know, these movies were meant for general audiences, but hear me out.)

If it had focused more on the horrors of war and how it destroys people, how the atrocities comitted forever changed soldiers' psyches... It could have had a pretty strong anti-war message.

Steve's story could have been a real metaphor for how young soldiers become so alienated from their former life that they feel like they cannot return home anymore. How war had taken everything from them, their youth, their future, their friends. When I watch the ending and Steve finds himself in the future, it's like he's in an alien world.

And he can't. Go. Back. He'll never be able to go back. He can only go forward. But how do you live in a world that feels strange and foreign to you, in a world that doesn't need WW2 soldiers anymore? How do you live in a world where you do not belong? Of course this would have required more turmoil on Steve's end. Surely he had seen (and maybe done...) terrible things that would cause him to have PTSD, or he could have clinical depression from his ordeals instead.

Now, the MCU does drop hints that Steve's not okay, but it doesn't go very far. It wouldn't need to be shown too much, but at the very least there could be scenes of positive coping mechanisms - like seeing a therapist, for an instance. That would make for good rep for mental ilness; while there could be some ugly bits shown too, because that comes with it, it is important to hammer home that it isn't something that defines Steve and he can put effort into living better.

(Here I shall take a moment to note: we were so close to getting more stuff like this in the movies. For instance, there's a bunch of deleted scenes from the first Avengers movie which whow how lost and sad Steve really is. Winter Soldier very subtly points to the direction that Steve isn't happy and doesn't know how to achieve happiness. And another instance I can think of is in the beginning of Civil War, where Crossbones brings up Bucky and Steve freezes up. If that was framed differently, it could put another layer to the entire conflict...)

Once again, all this would make a for a great story of recovery and healing, as Steve adapts to his new life and finds friends and love again.

Another thing to factor in is Bucky: a ghost from Steve's past. If we had gotten Serpent Society, we could have got a lot more content regarding their relarionship. In my humble opinion, it would have been really good if Steve had to accept that the old Bucky was no more, but that it's not necessarily a bad thing. Likewise, the old Steve is gone too. But they can make it work. And start over.

Ultimately, he would not return to the past, because that's something he was forced to leave behind. He can only go forward, remember? That's what all of us can do. All of the stuff that I've mentioned leads to the conclusion that for his story to make narrative sense, he would stay in the present.

Which brings the big question. How do you gently scoop him out of the MCU after Endgame without killing him off?

I considered two options:

Somewhere along the way, he gets deserumed, and while he can't really do field work anymore, he's still a strategic genius and he can do a lot to help out others. He chooses to live, and his life is something he gets to experience off screen. Bonus if he starts dating Sharon.

Much like the first option, but he stays as he is. He decides to live, and maybe goes on a soul-searching journey before figuring out what comes next, gets together with Sharon - once again, this can be left wide open, and we as the audience let him experience his life on his own.

Of course; this creates some issues. For one, Steve is a person that doesn't quit fighting for others. And two, it would be difficult to explain his absence in the future Marvel movies.

But all of that could be technically shoved to the sidelines as the new characters come into focus, and we, as the audience, suspend our disbelief in favour of narrative completion. If we can do that for characters like Bruce Banner, why not Steve?

And hey, I never said he has to disappear completely. He can still be mentioned, working for SHIELD, or maybe even have cameos if Cevans was up for that.

If the story was structured this way, I believe it would be more hopeful and powerful. Even lost, battered souls like Steve can find their way again with the help of others. Back away from the edge and enjoy life... live.

And I think that would be beautiful.

TLDR; Marvel let me rewrite the MCU because I think doing it somewhat this way could have improved the narrative coherence of Steve's story and give a more sarisfying conclusion to this character.

#mcu critical #endgame critical #steve rogers #captain america #personal #meta #mcu rewrite #pro steve rogers #long post #i hope you like this because i gave it a lot of thought #also that bit about soldiers being unable to come home #that may have been influenced by me reading All Quiet On The Western Front recently #it's a very good and sad read that i highky recommend

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kyotarou · 3 years

Text

what we had

gn reader

characters: miya osamu

plot: after years of being together, you and osamu fell out of love. now, osamu feels there’s something missing in his life. he agrees to let atsumu set him up on a blind date, and to his shock, it’s you. as the date progresses, you both reminisce about the past and the unspoken regrets you hold.

word count: 2.7k+

warnings: TIMESKIP SPOILERS, angst with a happy ending, somewhat unrequited love, swearing, osamu being a bad boyfriend

(artwork does not belong to me, i only added the text)

You no longer slept in each other’s arms. You and Osamu gradually drifted apart on the mattress to the point where you now slept with your backs facing each other with a significant gap in between. Things were quiet. It wasn’t the peacefulness you thought you’d reach. It wasn’t that you despised him, or you felt uncomfortable. Simply put, you fell out of love, and so had he. Neither of you were brave enough to bring it up, so you held onto the hope that something would reignite the spark you had for years. But two painfully long months passed, and it was the same feeling, or lack thereof. It felt more like living with a roommate than your boyfriend.

One morning, after you had breakfast filled with the same, monotonous small-talk, Osamu set down his utensils and looked you straight in the eyes, the first time he’d done so in months.

“I think we should break up.”

You thought it’d be painful, that the realization your love had fizzled out would finally hit and you’d be flooded with regret. Instead, you felt relieved, and you nodded, knowing it was time to go.

Fast forward two years. With the help of his friends and family, Osamu built Onigiri Miya from the ground up. Business was booming and he had a wonderful team of employees to back him up. He was content with life, but it was still missing something. Osamu hadn’t been in a stable relationship since your break up. Dates after dates, no one stuck. When he thought he finally found a suitable partner, he found out they had an obsession over his twin, Atsumu, and Osamu was merely a gateway to get closer to him.

It was in times like this he thought about you the most, the stability and love you once had since high school up until your twenties. Although you ended on good terms and promised to stay friends, he hadn’t spoken to you in person since the day you moved out and bid him goodbye. He assumed he’d at least run into you on the street or at the store, but nothing. It was as if you disappeared. The first time he heard from you since the break up was when you sent him a text after the grand opening of Onigiri Miya.

[Congrats, Osamu. I knew you could do it :)]

[Thank you (Y/N). It means a lot.]

He wondered if he should’ve messaged you more, maybe ask how you’ve been or if you wanted to catch up. But he pondered for too long, and he realized it would be weird to text you so late at night. He turned off his phone, but the thought of how you were doing still lingered.

Osamu never would have agreed to go on a blind date if he weren’t this desperate. It was Atsumu’s idea, of course. Atsumu saw an ad for a new dating app on a billboard while on the way to one of his matches. The app was catered specifically for blind dates. When his twin offered to help set up a date, every fiber in Osamu’s body begged for him to say no, but he’d been single for too long, and Atsumu’s jabs at his poor love life weren’t helping. He agreed, on the condition that he could beat Atsumu if he purposefully set him up with a bad partner.

Osamu entered the cafe in a hurry, phone in hand. Atsumu scheduled the date for 4:00 PM, and it was now 4:30. Osamu had forgotten all about it, and on top of that, he had to cover the shift of one of his employees who was out sick. He rushed home, threw on his nicest shirt and pants, hoping his date hadn’t left.

His eyes darted around the crowded cafe for a person in a grey jacket, as stated in their text to his brother. He looked, but the hustle and bustle made it harder to focus. There were blue coats, red sweaters, black suits, but nothing grey. His gaze fell to the corner of the room, and his heart stopped.

No, it can’t be…

You sat at the very back of the cafe, away from the other patrons. You sipped on your vanilla latte, which was cold by now, and waited patiently for your date. His brother, who set it up, texted you that he’d be late because of work. Thirty minutes wasn’t too bad, but you hoped whoever showed up made it worth it. You only got the general details of your blind date; he worked in the food industry, had a twin brother, and he used to play volleyball. Reading those notes made you think of a certain set of twins, and you wondered how you would react if it was indeed Osamu. But the facts were so basic, it could’ve applied to anyone.

Maybe you shouldn’t have thought about it so much. None other than Osamu Miya slid into the seat in front of you, trying his best not to make it awkward. You choked on your coffee and quickly dabbed it away with a napkin.

“Hi. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah…” You glanced at his phone, which was on the table, and saw the app open to details of your date. Below that were the three facts you gave to who you now knew was Atsumu.

Over the past two years, Osamu compiled so many questions for you. Now that you were here, face to face, they all disappeared from his mind. He had no clue what to say, and judging from how you were avoiding eye contact, you didn’t, either. He didn’t think it would be that awkward—you did end on good terms, after all. But the tension between you two felt as if the cause of your break up was endless shouting when it was very much the opposite.

Sometimes, Osamu wished it’d been like that so he’d have an excuse as to why he let go of the one person he valued most. When he told his family about it, they were more heartbroken than he was. His mother cried for days, and Atsumu was angry that Osamu didn’t work hard enough to reignite your love.

“Couples’ counseling exists for a reason!” he screamed.

Osamu shrugged in an attempt to look nonchalant, but in his heart, he knew Atsumu was right. You never brought it up, never tried to talk it out. He waited for a sign, for some outside force to magically tie you back together. He let it play out without putting in an ounce of effort. In the end, he took the path he convinced himself was best. When you agreed without a hint of sadness on your face, and he noticed how relaxed you seemed, all the guilt came crashing down at once. He told himself he didn’t love you anymore. He told himself it was for the better, that good things would come his way. So, why is it that when you were in front of him, he wanted to say, I love you?

You had no clue why you brought up the idea of visiting the places you used to go as a couple. And it shocked you, even more, when Osamu said yes. Now, you were at the train station, eating the custard buns you used to buy after school. The inside was just as sweet and gooey as you remembered. For a moment, you felt like high schoolers again. Osamu had a bottle of green tea, the same brand you bought for him years ago. Though you smiled at your youthful past, you couldn’t shake the memory of the day you last saw Osamu.

It was at this station where you said your final goodbyes. The sky was a mix of pink and orange, casting an ethereal light over you as you waited for the train. Osamu remembered wanting to ask you for a goodbye kiss as closure, to end your relationship on a good note. But what more did he need? He didn’t love you anymore. Kissing you would be like kissing a stranger, and the last thing he wanted was to make you uncomfortable. And yet, he couldn’t stop admiring your lips, imagining the plushness of it against his, the feeling that had made his heart race for years.

The train came to a stop, and its doors hissed open. You grabbed your bags, bid Osamu goodbye, and boarded. Through the window, he watched you settle in your seat. He thought you’d turn around and watch until he faded into the distance like everyone did in the movies. It was he who watched until the train disappeared into the tunnel. The entire time, you were on your phone, and he knew he was already a distant memory.

The train took you to the neighborhood where your old high school stood strong. Even in the dark, Inarizaki looked no different than it did when you and Osamu attended. You passed by the boys’ gym, and your mind began to play the familiar sound of squeaky shoes and the excited cries of the team. While Osamu idled around campus, he realized you stopped near the club room building. He couldn’t tell if you were sad or pleased as you stared at the water fountains, wrapped in nostalgia.

“Ah,” he clicked his tongue. “This is where-”

“-I confessed to you,” you finished.

It was clear as day. You and Osamu were second-years in the same class. You harbored feelings for him since junior high but never dared to confess. But you only had a year left until you graduated, and your friends convinced you it was now or never. So, you asked Osamu to meet you before afternoon practice by the club room building. You shoved the love letter in his hands before running off, shouting, “Do your best!” over your shoulder.

That night, you couldn’t sleep. Your heart couldn’t stop pounding at the thought of facing him the next day. You nearly screamed when your phone rang. It was Osamu. You didn’t want to pick up in fear of rejection, but the thought of what if? inspired you to answer.

“Hey,” he said. “I just read your letter. Is it true? Do you really feel that way about me?”

You nodded before realizing he couldn’t see. “Yes, it’s true. I like you, Osamu. A lot.”

“I really like you, too, (Y/N). So, so much.”

Though the phone call was the start of your relationship, it wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t meet him by the club room. To be in that spot years later felt unreal, like you were confessing to him all over again. Together, you talked about college, marriage, children, and growing old. You planned your whole life with Osamu only for it to end the moment you found stability and peace. You wondered where you’d be now if the break up never happened, if you managed to reignite that spark. Would he be your husband? Would you have kids?

Osamu wandered off to another part of the campus. Although the space felt empty without him, you were glad he couldn’t see the tears streaming down your face.

The bridge was filled with bittersweet memories. Before things became motionless, you and Osamu used to argue over the littlest things, from washing dishes to turning off the TV. Small sparks set off a bigger blast. A snide comment would turn into a fit of shouting until you were too exhausted to continue or one of you left. When Osamu stormed out of your shared apartment, you knew he’d be at the bridge. Something about the serenity of the water below made you forget all the anger, and you both apologized.

“I’m sorry, Osamu,” you whispered after a particularly nasty fight. “Please, come home. I miss you.”

He’d give you a warm hug and kiss you on the lips, stroking your back and telling you he was sorry, too.

Osamu never realized how you were always the first one to say sorry until now. Despite him being the one to start fights, he never once apologized until you did. He left you waiting, begging him to come home. How often did you fear he wouldn’t come back? How many times did he make you feel like you were in the wrong? The insecurities you told him about, the idea that you weren’t worthy of his love, did he make you feel like that?

Maybe you realized you were too good for him. Maybe that’s why you stopped snuggling him in your sleep. Maybe it was him all along, the one who set off the wrong sparks and snuffed the one that mattered most. Now, Osamu was looking for a sign once again. If you stayed silent, all that happened was water under the bridge, and there was no point in bringing it up. If you spoke, Osamu would hold onto the hope that the flame of your love would burn once more. He counted the seconds, growing antsy as the numbers increased. You could say anything, and it’d be enough for him to hope. Hell, you could comment on the weather, and he’d take it as his sign.

Please, please, he begged in his mind. Something, anything, just one word-

“It’s a lot more peaceful here than I remembered.”

Holy shit.

You stared into the starry sky. “Being here used to give me the worst anxiety. It’s almost like a tradition to apologize here. This place should’ve given me hope, but all those times when I’d find you here, I’d think to myself, ‘This is it, this is the end. It’s over.’”

You answered his unspoken questions. How could he have been so blind? He should’ve known that a simple 'sorry' wasn’t enough to lift the weight off your shoulders. What kind of boyfriend lets their partner bear all the burden? And to think your breakup was mutual—no, he convinced himself it was a relief when in reality, it only felt like that for you. He couldn’t blame anyone other than himself for the karma he rightfully deserved and received. The emptiness he felt, the hole in his heart-

“I still love you.” He looked you in the eyes for the second time that day. “I still love you, (Y/N). I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never realized how much I hurt you. I’m sorry that this is the only time I’ve apologized first on this damn bridge, and we’re not even together anymore. I am so, so fucking sorry.”

“Osamu…”

“God, I hate myself. I’m a piece of shit. I let you carry all that pain around and didn’t do anything to help. I didn’t even ask if you were okay. What was I thinking? But I still love you, (Y/N). I feel so fucking empty without you. All this time, I’ve been pretending I’m okay, but I’m a mess. I love you, I love you so much it hurts, and I know what you’re going to say, and it’s gonna be the worst pain I’ve ever felt, but I deserve it.”

Your bottom lip quivered. “Osamu, I’m sorry.”

Here it comes.

“I’m sorry you’ve been feeling this way.”

Any time now…

“But I can’t return your feelings.”

There it is.

Osamu nodded solemnly.

“However-” your voice trembled and your vision blurred. “I’ll admit, I miss what we had. It was the happiest I’d ever been in my life. I miss all the dumb shit we used to do in high school. I miss the stability after graduation, even if it was short. I miss everything, Osamu. Especially you.” You wiped your eyes. “It’s hard to forget someone you’ve loved since junior high. I don’t think I’m ready to let go, not yet.”

Osamu stood in stunned silence as you let out a weary laugh through your tears. You took his hands in yours. His fingers fit perfectly in your palm, and your thumbs rested in the familiar dents between his knuckles, like you were molded for each other.

“Osamu,” you whispered. “I can’t say ‘I love you’ right now, but I think I can soon.”

It took a moment for him to process your words. When he did, his eyes gleamed with excitement. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

You nodded. “Let’s give it another shot. Let’s fix what we had.”

Osamu smiled and nodded back. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

#osamu miya #osamu miya x reader #osamu miya x you #osamu miya x y/n #osamu miya fanfic #haikyuu #haikyuu fanfic #osamu miya oneshot #miya osamu oneshot #miya osamu x reader #miya osamu x you #miya osamu x y/n #hq osamu

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afairytalestray · 3 years

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The Dawn of the Age of Skimblegus

One of the most underrated ships in all of Cats.

Part 9 of my Cats pre-canon headcanon series (masterpost here), coming at you after delay caused by me taking forever to write this rather long instalment basically from scratch! But anyway it’s here now, and we’re back on character backstories, this time: Skimbleshanks, Asparagus, and a wee bit of Tumblebrutus being a mischievous sunshine smol. This one is maybe the longest one I’ve done yet; this was entirely unintentional and unplanned - it literally came to me as I was writing it. There is far too little Skimblegus content out there so I am creating the content I want to see! Just a content warning to start with: this one gets a bit dark - there’s a character death. Nothing too gruesome, but it is there. However, due to who I am as a person, it does have a happy ending. Without further ado, please enjoy!

Skimbleshanks, despite having god-tier dad skills, never actually has any biological kittens of his own. He’s something of an uncle figure to many of the Cats in the Junkyard (and the future adopted father of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer - coming in a future post), and is perfectly happy with his lot. In his youth, he was very much a free spirit. He had itchy paws, and when he discovered the trains he became obsessed with travelling up and down the country on them. His time on the trains became a delight to the human rail workers and regular passengers, and he became quite well-known as the Railway Cat - the workers even set him up his own little office (like Tama!). At first, he split his time fairly evenly between the trains and the Junkyard - as much as he loved to travel, there was one thing he loved more: his best friend Asparagus (Jr.).

Skimbleshanks and Asparagus grew up together and were nigh inseparable from each other for most of their kittenhood. Skimble couldn’t tell you when exactly his feelings shifted from platonic to romantic, it was a very gradual thing. Asparagus can - the first time Skimble went away on the trains for more than a day, he realised he missed him more than a normal amount and it quickly clicked into place. It was normal for Skimble to set off in the morning and bounce back in the evening, but this time felt like forever. Never being a shy one, Asparagus resolves to tell Skimble when he returns. Even though he doubts Skimble feels the same way (Y’ALL), he hates keeping secrets from his best pal, and he’s confident their friendship is strong enough to survive it.

But when Skimble came back the next day, he just couldn’t do it. Skimble was high as a kite; he went on for an age about all the things he saw, how amazing the trip was, how amazing all the trips were, how the longer ones were so exciting, how he wants to go here, there, and everywhere etc…. And all Asparagus can think about is that they seem fundamentally incompatible. Asparagus has always been a homebody. He’s quiet, likes the comfort of his own den, always being close to his family, and has never had that adventurous streak that fuels Skimble’s every move. And the thought that even if Skimble did feel the same it wouldn’t work, that is far too painful to entertain. He would want to be close to Skimble, but knows he could never be happy constantly flitting from place to place. He also could never ask Skimble to give it up knowing how happy it makes him. So, Asparagus makes the call to swallow it all down for now, and then let it go. This choice, unfortunately and unintentionally, causes a bit of a gap to grow between them, as Asparagus struggles to act normal around him and needs a bit of space to get over the feelings.

At this point, Skimbleshanks is aware of his own feelings, but for the life of him can’t work out how to express them. He desperately wants to, and is constantly thinking of new ways to do it, but keeps binning them when they’re not totally perfect. It has to be perfect! He also notices that Asparagus has been acting weird around him, but can’t get him to talk about it. It worries him, but he doesn’t want to push the issue, and he has his trains to distract him after all. A week or so later, he sets off on a multi-day trip, resolving that if Asparagus is still off when he gets back, he’s going to trap them both in the old wardrobe so they can hash it out properly, Skimble can confess and then they’ll all live happily ever after.

There was nothing that could’ve prepared him for what he came back to.

Asparagus was right back to normal, albeit with the small caveat that he had met someone. A queen, a pretty ragdoll queen who was calm, clever and cautious, a little shy and reserved. When Asparagus excitedly introduced them Skimble felt his heart break, but he plastered a smile on his face and let Asparagus tell him all about how they met and how crazy their instant connection was. Asparagus had never meant to meet someone else, but he thought the best way to get over Skimble was to try and make some new friends, so despite his dislike of interacting with the general public and talking to strangers, he trotted on over to one of Bustopher’s clubs where he met Caorann. They both had a lot in common and hit it off right away, both of them bonding over trying to hide in the same corner since neither of them were comfortable in a room full of unknowns. Genuinely, the only other Cat Asparagus had had such a fast and strong connection with was Skimble, and since he had resolved to let his feelings for him go, he thought it would be a good thing to see where this might lead. The two of them fell in love quickly.

Skimble wanted to be furious, he really did, but he couldn’t. Caorann was nervous around him but always very sweet. Although she never knew about Skimbleshanks’ old feelings for Asparagus, she knew he was very important to him, and always strived to make a good impression. He was miserable and wanted to hate her, and at first couldn’t see how the two were a good match. But he could never bring himself to even dislike her, because it became very obvious very quickly that the two were more than a good match. Skimble, bless him, had never really considered the long term ramifications of being in a relationship with Asparagus, and was abruptly slapped in the face by all the same things that had occurred to Asparagus before: that the two were very different, and that their lifestyles just weren’t all that compatible. Caorann was a good match for Asparagus: neither of them were particularly adventurous, their idea of a perfect day involved little more than basking in a quiet patch of sunlight, and they shared the same lack of concern for the bustle and goings on of life outside their little happy bubble and the same desire to be comfortably settled. Fundamentally, at that time, Caorann was the better choice. Despite that, Skimble can’t help but think he might have given it all up for a chance to be with Asparagus.

But that hurt too much to think about, so Skimble went back to his trains, unable and unwilling to break Asparagus out of a happy relationship with someone else, but it never quite brought him the same joy as before. But it was a whole lot better than constantly seeing the Cat he loved in love with someone else, so he spent more and more time away from the Junkyard. The hurt lessened, after a while. It never really went away, but he found he was able to genuinely be happy when Caorann became pregnant, and vowed through joyful tears to be the best uncle in the world for little kitten Tumblebrutus when he was born.

On the day it happened, Skimbleshanks had recently gotten back to the Junkyard when a loud screech and a wail shattered the calm of the evening. Running towards the sound, the source was a sight that still gives him nightmares to the present day: baby Tumble screaming and crying as he lay trapped under the motionless bodies of his parents. It came out later that the three of them had gone on a family walk together, and on their way back as they crossed the road to the Junkyard, a car suddenly skidded round the corner and hurtled towards them as fast as lightning. Without thinking, Caorann and Asparagus threw themselves in front of their son. It worked. Little Tumble was almost completely unharmed, but Caorann was killed instantly, and they thought Asparagus had been too. However, as they were moved off of the road, they noticed Asparagus was breathing. It was extremely weak and laboured, but he was breathing.

Skimble can barely remember the weeks that followed. He only has flashes of burying Caorann, mostly remembering how it was wrong that Asparagus wasn’t there. All he can really remember was that everything hurt and was awful, and that he did whatever he could to help Jennyanydots, who took sole charge of Asparagus’ care (she and Jellylorum were already fully trained healers then, but Asparagus is Jelly’s little brother, and it was very difficult for her). He also tried to help look after Tumblebrutus, who was too young to understand what was going on. It took Asparagus a fortnight to wake up properly, and several more weeks to be able to move about independently again. When he woke up, he was deeply altered. He was in terrible physical pain, but also became emotionally despondent when he learned about Caorann. Skimble stayed by his side the whole time, trying to coax him into talking, maybe even smiling, and very gradually they made progress. Asparagus mourned his partner deeply, and was only able to pull himself out of it when he realised that Tumble needed him. It took a long time, but eventually Asparagus came back to himself.

To most other Cats, at least. Skimble was probably the only one who saw that Asparagus still had moments of deep sadness. To the others it just looked like he had zoned out for a moment, but Skimble knew those were the times when he was thinking about Caorann. These moments got easier for Asparagus to deal with over time, and although at times he missed her, it became pleasant for him to talk about her with Tumble, and he could remember their time with happiness instead of sadness, and eventually even realised that he was ready to try being with someone else.

The problem with that though, was that the accident had greatly damaged his body. He has chronic pain; he can no longer really dance like he used to, and can’t move around very far - leaving the Junkyard is no longer really an option for him. To his surprise, his old feelings for Skimble started to resurface. Although, he shouldn’t really have been surprised. Skimble had hardly left his side at all since the accident happened (the trains are in CHAOS), he’d been there through all the setbacks and progress, his meticulous nature shining through in his diligent care. He was such a constant in his life to the extent that Tumblebrutus was genuinely shocked when he learned that Skimble actually wasn’t related to him in any way (he basically sees Skimble as a second dad). However, Asparagus is more decided than ever that they wouldn’t work as a couple, seeing as how now he couldn’t join Skimble’s journeys even if he did want to. Skimble, though, is the deepest romantic at heart. He never stopped loving Asparagus, but knew he was needed as a friend first and foremost, so that’s what he was. He always says to himself that if they were ever to be more, he would never want to replace Caorann, so it would only be when Asparagus asked. So naturally, nothing ever happens.

Until Tumble puts his paw down. As he gets older, he struggles to understand why his two dads aren’t together. He knows about his mother, of course, but believes with his whole heart (correctly) that she would want them to be happy. He begins to plot ways to get them together, but doesn’t make much progress with the two stubbornly resistant Cats until Mistoffelees helps him.

When Misto arrives in the Junkyard he’s looked after by Skimble, who introduces him to Tumble. Misto is painfully shy and quiet, but with Asparagus as his dad Tumble is very used to quiet Cats, and Misto becomes a tentative friend. By the time Misto is mated, more confident and moving out from Skimble’s care, he wants to thank him for everything he’s done and how kind he’s been, and asks Tumble for help. Tumble immediately tells all about how grossly in love his dads are, but that they aren’t together for some reason despite his best efforts. The two of them decide that the dawn of the age of Skimblegus is nigh, and come up with a plan.

The next day the two of them separately lure Skimble and Asparagus to a secret location under the guise of “it’s a surprise”, which works despite its simplicity as Skimble is very fond of Misto and Asparagus is Tumble’s loving father. The secret location is revealed to be a nice picnic setup, and the boys each leave their respective parent figure with the cryptic message of “do yourself a favour and tell him.” Skimble and Asparagus decide to play along, but all mystery is very quickly dropped, as the picnic is very clearly romantic and intended to be a date. Things are a bit awkward at first, but the two soon fall into their usual easy rhythm. That is, until Asparagus jokes about this being Tumble’s idea of a date (“I mean, it’s not like it’s bad or anything, but like, yeah…” “Haha, yeah, as far as romantic gestures go it’s pretty good.” “It is kinda romantic, isn’t it?” “It is a bit, but like, that’s not a bad thing of course!” “Of course! I can think of far worse dates to be on!” “And Cats to be with!” “Is this… I mean, are we, you know, on a date right now?” and so on).

And then finally, finally, it all comes out. Skimble finally reveals that he’s been in love with Asparagus his whole life, but never got the chance to tell him before, then didn’t know if he could or should after everything; and Asparagus says that he loved him before and again now, but just doesn’t know that it would work. It all gets very sappy and mushy, but they ultimately decide to give it a go. And it works! The two of them have always gotten along like a house on fire, but now it’s more, and better! Tumble is ecstatic, and of course takes all the credit for himself (with the exception of the 20% he grants Misto). Skimble does go back to the trains, he’s missed them, but now he spends maybe only ⅓ of his time there, and the other ⅔ in the Junkyard with his beloved Asparagus. They’re both extremely happy with the balance, and always spend hours catching each other up when Skimble returns. Although Skimble is very much still an adventure-seeker, now that he’s a bit older and more mature he definitely enjoys a long nap curled up with his partner! They’re a happy, healthy couple who support each other, make each other laugh, and make the worst dad jokes you can possibly imagine.

#cats the musical #skimblegus #skimbleshanks #asparagus #tumblebrutus #long post is long #my headcanons #character death #skimblesparagus #asparagus jr #skimbleshanks x asparagus #asparagus x skimbleshanks #skimbledad

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waywardwrestlewritingwaif · 3 years

Text

F**k and Run

Inspired by the Liz Phair song of the same name. Such angst.

Pairing: Kenny Omega x OFC

Word count: 2,636

Content advisory: sexual references

I woke up alarmed/ I didn’t know where I was at first/ just that I woke up in your arms/ and almost immediately I felt sorry

This. Is. Not. Your. Room. It is not your bed. These are not your sheets. And that odd ochre shade of paint on the wall that greets you when you open your eyes, a color that seems like a projection of the hangover you’re feeling, is most definitely not your choice of decor. You can tell by the light streaming in from somewhere behind you that it’s morning but outside, someone is blaring WAP. That can’t be endearing them to the neighbors, whoever they are, and it’s certainly not making you feel any better because thinking about moving, bouncing, riding… It’s not what you want right now.

You can tell, though, that it was exactly what you were doing a few hours ago. You have all the pleasant aches that come from a lusty romp and as you cast your mind back, you realize that you’ve been in this room with its bright morning light and ugly paint before. You don’t need to roll over to confirm the identity of the warm body pressed close to yours because you can feel the fragments of the night shaking loose. This is a very mixed blessing.

You’d met up with Susan after you’d both gotten off work and headed to the Canopy Bar. No, under the circumstances, it wasn’t a great idea to hit a bar filled with people, many of whom were tourists and almost none of whom were wearing masks, but it had been ages since either of you had gone out and it was like your bones were aching for it. Besides, the hotel was miserable, with clients getting angry at having to sanitize hands and wear masks, while others got mad because the restaurant didn’t require people to have masks on while they ate. You and Susan had gotten your first vaccine and even though you knew you were supposed to wait until you got the second before re-entering the social world, impatience and youthful stupidity had taken over.

So the two of you ditched your work clothes and headed down the beach to the covered open-air bar that always seemed to mean a good time. They had heaters at the tables to disguise the fact that it was not exactly beach weather but after a couple of cocktails, it might as well have been the 4th of July.

You feel the body behind you shift a little, his face close to your hair. He gives a contented little sigh and slides one arm over your hip. His fingers press against a tender spot that you assume he made the night before, when he’d been digging into your flesh so hard, slamming into you as you rode him, that you thought he might break the skin. He’s still half asleep. At least half. When he wakes up, it’s going to be a different thing.

Kenny. You don’t need to look at him to picture that deceptively angelic face with its sparkling blue eyes, or his body that looks like it descended from Mount Olympus. And you certainly don’t need help remembering his name, which is more than you can say for him, which is, funnily enough, the thing that started the chain of events that ended with you back here again.

You’d spotted him with some friends at the bar, which seemed strange because you remembered from the first time you met him that he wasn’t a drinker. Like, at all. But he was clearly relaxed and enjoying himself, enjoying how he was so obviously the center of attention at his table, and in particular that he was the focus of a very beautiful, elegant woman seated directly across from him. One look and you knew he was on the make and you felt the bile rise in your throat because as far as you were concerned, you hadn’t finished the cycle of things between the two of you. There wasn’t actually anything sustained between the two of you, of course, but it definitely felt like there was something unfinished.

Whatever happened to a boyfriend?/ The kind of guy who tries to win you over/ Whatever happened to a boyfriend?/ The kind of guy who makes love ‘cause he’s in it

You’d met Kenny a little over a month ago at The Canopy Bar and the two of you had ended up going back to his place. And it had been good. Damn, it had been good. He’d been effusive with his praise and compliments and he’d been sweet as the two of you drifted off to sleep. When you’d woken up, he’d taken you to get coffee from a pick up wagon and the two of you had hung out and chatted about pet stories and his time in Japan, a place you’d dreamed about visiting for years.

Had you been thinking “relationship”? No. But it didn’t feel like a one night stand and god knows you’d gone through enough of those in the past couple of years to judge. You’d texted him a day or two later and suggested meeting up for a coffee at a place you liked and he’d responded within a couple of hours that he’d like that. You’d ended up setting a non-date date for the following week, which turned into you sitting at an outside table at the cafe for three hours. You’d tried texting and calling and had heard nothing. After about half an hour, you’d realized that you should leave and get on with the process of feeling resentful at being stood up. But you’d lingered because it didn’t feel like things were over. It felt like the night you’d spent together had been something a little bit special.

Of course, you hadn’t been so sad as to keep trying to contact him after he stood you up, but you felt the memory of what had happened sticking to you like nettles. You just hadn’t had the opportunity to do anything about it last night and what you’d done about it, powered by a few stiff cocktails and a sense of indignation was march up and sit down next to him.

“Well look who’s here,” you sneered, wanting him to know that he had some making up to do. “What the hell was with you no-showing?”

“Oh yeah, sorry about that,” he shrugged. “I was busy or something and I figured it wasn’t a big deal.”

“You know it’s considered polite to let someone know when you can’t make it to meet them.”

“Yeah, I guess that was shitty of me.” He gave a cheeky grin. “Sorry about that.”

He looked like he’s about to turn back to his friends and the doe-eyed beauty who looked a little too amused at how upset you obviously are, so you gripped his bicep to keep him focused on you.

“Seriously, what made you not show up? If you didn’t want to meet me, you could have just said so. Or you could have canceled.”

“I mean it, I’m sorry.”

He was infuriatingly nonchalant about this, which made you angrier than you had been when you came over. In fact, it seemed like he was getting a bit of a kick out of the fact that you were angry.

“This is Hikaru,” he said, motioning to the woman on the other side of the table. “Hikaru, this is… Shit, I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

You felt a surge of fury and humiliation mingled together, twisted with the fact that you could tell he was lying.

“Ha ha. You know my name.”

“No, really, I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten it.”

Even through your alcohol-fueled haze, you felt like you had a very clear grip on the moment. You could tell looking in his eyes that you were right: he knew perfectly well who you were and what your name was. But he was committed to the pretence that he didn’t. Maybe it was because he wanted to be left alone with this new girl. Maybe it was because you were making him nervous.

“Whatever,” you growled. “You can go fuck yourself.”

You made your way back to Susan and thought about running away with your tail between your legs but almost immediately dismissed the idea. To hell with that guy. You’d been having a good time before you saw him and you weren’t going to let him ruin that. You couldn’t start ceding public spaces to assholes. So you hit the dance floor with your friend and the two of you enjoyed the attention you generated, the eyes trailing over you, even the drunk college boys who tried their damnedest to be charming.

After a while, you were aware that someone was lurking nearby, close to you without trying to engage you, seemingly happy to dance by himself and lap up the attention he was getting. His friend Hikaru wasn’t with him, although you saw her a couple of times during the next couple of hours, always looking at him, always looking like she was waiting.

Finally, he was close enough that he leaned over and spoke directly into your ear.

“Guess I’m heading out. Thanks for the laugh, though, stranger.”

You whirled, half inclined to punch him in the nose.

“What the fuck is your problem? You think you can just be rude and act like that to me and it’s funny?”

“Ok, sorry, it was nice seeing you again.” He gave a little laugh and wiggled his eyebrows as he started to move away, his expression somehow inviting you to follow him.

Susan grabbed hold of your arm and tried to steer you away but you disconnected from her, assuring her that you just needed to say a few things to this jerk.

So you trailed after him, yelling some insults and waiting for him to hightail it. But every time you’d dragged your feet a little, he’d slowed down too.

“Ok,” he sighed as you stepped away from the bar and onto the beach, “you’re right, I remember your name. I was just being a shit.”

“Yeah, I noticed. Was that because you were trying to hit on Hikaru?”

“No. I think she has a bit of a thing for me.”

He started walking in the direction you remembered he lived in.

“You coming?” He called back, obviously loving how aggravated you were at his cockiness.

You almost felt bad/ you said that I should call you up/ but I knew much better than that

Finally, you roll over to look at him. He has his hand over his eyes to shield them from the light streaming in. The window is a semi-skylight built into the roof of the place. The light it gives is probably gorgeous when you’re not trying to sleep off a hangover. He gives you a tired smile without looking you in the eye and pulls you close to him for a few seconds.

“I have to get ready for work. Sorry about that.”

“No worries.”

He sits up and as he does, it occurs to you that he’s actively avoiding looking at you, like you’re going to turn him to a pillar of salt or worse.

“It was cool seeing you again,” he says quietly.

“Yeah. I’m sorry about the yelling and everything.”

“I deserved it.”

“Yes you did. But I’m sorry if it makes things awkward for you and your friends.”

You sit up, letting the bedcovers fall from your body as you survey the room for your hastily discarded clothes. Angry sex is disorderly sex and there are bits of you strewn around the place. It takes you a few seconds to realize that he’s just standing at the top of the stairs leading down from his sleeping loft, watching you.

He makes as if he’s about to say something but it dies unspoken, so there’s just a long, strange look between you. And this time you’re absolutely certain that this does not feel like a one night stand, or a two night stand, for either of you. There’s an electricity that passes from his eyes to yours and back, the kind of thing that gives you butterflies in your stomach. The kind of thing that’s going to continue to bring butterflies when you think about it over the coming weeks or longer.

“I’m just gonna jump in the shower for a couple of minutes,” he says finally. “You want to have one?”

“No, I’m ok. I’ll just grab one at home.”

He nods and leaves and you wonder if you’re even supposed to be here when he gets back. You slowly gather up your belongings and get dressed, enjoying the little twinges you feel stretching your muscles out. Those make your stomach flip too.

You make your way downstairs, hoping that you can at least snag a cup of coffee before leaving but the second your feet hit the final few stairs to the ground floor, you wish you’d stayed in his room.

There are a few men milling around, a couple of guys with shaved heads and goatees, one of whom looks like a runaway extra from Sons of Anarchy. With them is an older, well-dressed man wearing sunglasses even though he’s in the house. You can’t decide if it’s just discomfort or if you genuinely dislike them at first sight. One thing is for certain, they seem unsurprised to see a woman appear from above.

“Hi,” you rasp, unsure if you’re supposed to introduce yourself or allow them to pretend you’re not there. It seems like they’d prefer the latter option. “Is there any coffee?”

“Yeah, kitchen,” the older man directs you thrusting his chin in the right direction.

You pour yourself a generous mug and decide that hiding out in the kitchen is the best plan for now. After a few minutes, you hear Kenny’s voice greeting the others, sounding just a little surprised that they’re there. They all seem boisterous and loud but you hear the voices drop for a second just before Kenny replies, “In the kitchen? Ok, just give me a minute.”

You gulp as much of your coffee as you can and square your shoulders so that you look more like someone who was just about to leave as he enters the room.

“Hey, sorry if they surprised you,” he offers sheepishly.

“No, it’s no problem. I helped myself to coffee, I hope that’s alright.”

“Oh, for sure. Take your time.”

“No, no, I was just leaving. I have a bunch of shit to do today.”

“Yeah, for sure, me too.” He pauses before giving you a quick hug, pulling back just at the moment that it feels he’s about to let himself melt into it. “So we should totally do that coffee date sometime.”

“Definitely. You know, whenever your schedule is…”

“For sure. I mean, I’ll call you.”

And as your awkward, staccato conversation stutters to a silence, your eyes meet again for a long moment and it’s like you’re both mourning for something that needn’t be as doomed as it is.

“Thanks for last night,” you tell him, as cheerfully as you can manage.

“Hey, thank you. It was great.”

He shows you to the door and leans in to press a kiss to your cheek as you step over the threshold. The gesture seems to hang in suspended animation, your faces pressed together and your lips resting on each other’s skin. But then the moment passes and it’s like the butterflies in your stomach rise and flutter away all at once into the bright morning sun.

I can feel it in my bones/ I’m gonna spend my whole life alone

#kenny omega imagine #kenny omega fanfiction #aew fanfiction #aew imagine #wrestling fanfiction #wayward wrestle writing

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pearl-pilots-in-chains · 3 years

Text

Ice Cream Expertise (All the Little Lights #1)

Fandom: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ships: Kawoshin

Rating: G

Summary: Shinji is faced with a dilemma of sorts, and is characteristically indecisive. Fortunately, Kaworu is there to give some helpful advice. Or maybe just call himself an ice cream expert. Let's be honest, it's a bit of both.

Notes: This is intended to be the start to All the Little Lights, my attempt at a relatively happy Evangelion high school AU featuring the pilots we know (and maybe love) actually getting to live a normal life (including all the cute gay romance they deserve). That said, it also works totally fine as a one shot. Considering it's an AU, there's going to be some rather interesting deviations from canon, some of which are alluded to here. So, if something seems off, that's probably because it is.

As usual, any errors, grammatical or typographical, are mine. I apologize in advance.

This was originally posted to my old AO3 on May 21, 2020. I hope you enjoy it!

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Shinji Ikari was not having a good day. No, perhaps that was an understatement. He was having a distinctly bad day. School had been tedious to say the least, considering that testing week was approaching, and the teachers seemed to be doing their best to “prepare” the students using every form of academic torture known to humankind. Okay, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it had been a hectic hell all the same. Not to mention the fact that his best friend Touji was going through a rough patch (not the first one, mind you), with his girlfriend Hikari, which led to a tense mood within their friend group outside of class as well. Adding onto this was the fact that he was getting worried about his sister (what wasn’t new?) Rei, who had been especially quiet the past week or so, even by her standards. That was usually a sign that her depression was going through a rough spot. He had wanted to mention something to his mother about it, considering she usually had better luck at getting through to Rei than he did when his sister was going through a difficult time, but unsurprisingly, he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He was gone too often, and his mother was gone too often. There was all of a one to two hour period when they were both home and awake on any given night. Rei always ending up alone probably doesn’t help her state of mind improve either. I wish she had more friends. People she could connect with.

And, of course, to top all that wonderful baggage off, he had had work after school, which had gone lovely. Just lovely. A simply wonderful group of customers had come in, and stayed for a better part of three hours, ordering intermittently while they all talked (way too loudly, in his opinion) at their shared table, which, in a predictable move, they hadn’t even bothered to clean off. He was a barista, not a waiter, despite what some people seemed to think. To make matters worse, they had been laughing so hard partway through their “discussion,” that one of the party had practically flung her iced latte through the air by accident (how someone could do that by accident, was a whole other topic for conversation), sending its contents flying halfway across the room (in a bafflingly impressive display, he had to admit, as irritating as it was). Of course, he had drawn the short straw and been the one tasked with cleaning it up. His boss seemed to get a special satisfaction out of giving Shinji all the “fun,” jobs. Okay, maybe Mr. Anno’s not that bad, but he still gets a kick out of watching me suffer. Or something like that.

Shinji sighed as he pulled his car into the store parking spot. As he exited it, he glanced down at his phone. 7:16. That meant he should have enough time to get home and get dinner going before his mother got home. These days, it seemed as though she worked progressively later and later. It had been a couple months since she’d been home before 8. She was almost certainly still out at the base at that moment. Whatever project she’s working on now is one of the more intensive ones.

He headed for the doors. He was planning on making stir fry, which meant that he needed to get soy sauce for sure, since he knew they had run out from the last time. He thought they had most of the rest of what he needed at home. So, this should be a quick run. Just in and out. After a day like today though, he was tempted to grab something sweet. Come on, after this whole mess, I think I at least half deserve something to take my mind off of it. Just a little.

Inside, he made a bee line for the condiments aisle. Alright, first things first. Get what I need. Then, maybe, I’ll just check out what they have. He grabbed soy sauce, and then wavered for a moment, trying to decide just for what he was in the mood. Okay, just something little. Nothing too big. I am going to be cooking, after all. Hmmm . . . I mean, it’s probably not the best idea, but . . .

Making his decision, he set off for the frozen section. Once again, he paused when he arrived at the aisle, looking through the glass freezer doors at the available options. I’ll just get a pint. That should be more than enough. Even if Rei goes for some too. ‘Cause mom hardly ever eats anything sweet, so I doubt she’ll have any. He tilted his head, tapping the soy sauce bottle against his thigh as he considered the selection. Why are there so many flavors? I didn’t even realize they sold Pumpkin outside of November. And Lime-Raspberry? What would that even taste like? Who comes up with these things? I’ll go for something classic. I could always do Vanilla. But, that’s a little boring. I don’t even really like it that much. Chocolate’s always classic, except that Rei doesn’t like it. And her favorite is Cookie Dough, which I don’t like the texture of . . . there are way too many choices here. Running his eyes over the racks, he did a quick count. Forty-two different flavors. Why are there forty-two different flavors? I wonder if anyone’s ever tried them all. Then again, that might take a while. And be kind of pricey. Dammit, I’m getting distracted again. The only conclusion that Shinji was coming to was the fact that he liked ice cream far too much, and was wasting far more time than he should be trying to pick out something. Maybe I should just get the soy sauce and head home. He peaked down at his phone. 7:29. Yeah, I’ve already been here longer than I should be.

A voice interrupted Shinji’s thoughts. “So, what’s your drug of choice?”

Shinji head snapped to the side, his concentration broken. “What?,” He asked, a little surprised.

The source of the interruption was standing a little further down the aisle, casually leaning on one of the freezer windows, his head cocked to the side, watching Shinji with a friendly smile on his face. Shinji thought the interrupter looked to be about the same age as him, though that fact was complicated slightly by the fact that though his face was youthful, his hair was an ashen grey. He must dye it. Is grey hair a style though? The interrupting individual sported a pair of black jeans and a band shirt for a group whose name looked vaguely familiar to Shinji. Porcupine Tree . . . I feel like Rei might listen to them. Maybe. Not to mention the fact that the newcomer had red eyes. Red eyes. Okay, so maybe this is a look he’s going for. I mean, those are definitely contacts, right? Unless there’s a genetic mutation I’ve never heard of, I don’t think humans can be born with red eyes. Which means that they’re contacts. Which means that the hair is almost definitely dyed too. I’m pretty sure that’s not what ‘scene’ looks like . . . there’d be brighter colors . . . and I don’t think it’s emo either . . . I’m pretty sure his hair would be black then . . . huh . . . maybe that’s goth. Yeah. Let’s go with that. In addition to making him second guess what scene fashion looked like, Shinji’s visual analysis of the interrupter also led him to a more definite conclusion. That regardless of what category his fashion fell under, he was pretty cute. Seriously Shinji, focus here, and stop thinking about how some random boy in Safeway who asked you what type of drugs you like is cute. Don’t be an idiot. Sure, you haven’t been on a date in months, ever since Martin broke up with you, but he was a manipulative jerk anyway— Shinji realized the interrupter had started talking again, which snapped him back into reality and out of his wandering mind.

“Yeah. What flavor is your favorite. I mean, out of the forty-two, there has to be one you’d pick, right?”

“Oh. Yeah. Probably cookies ’n’ cream,” Shinji answered, feeling more than a bit confused. On an afterthought, he added, “You’ve counted all the flavors too?”

“Not a bad choice,” the boy said with a firm nod. “Although, I’m more into mint chocolate chip myself. And yes, I’ve counted them all. It’s an important part to being an ice cream expert. Keeping track of the available flavors at the nearest store.”

“Okaayyy.” Shinji’s tone betrayed his uncertainty concerning just how he should deal with this stranger. “Ice cream expert?”

“Yep, that would be me,” the boy replied matter-of-factly, as though the question was a pointless one. He strolled over to Shinji and extended his hand. “Kaworu Akagi, ice cream expert, at your service.”

Shinji shook the offered hand, deciding he should be polite, despite the fact that his perplexity had not been substantially diminished in any way. This guy is . . . interesting, to say the least. As their hands met, Shinji was struck by the strange, but intense, sense that this wasn’t his first time meeting Kaworu.

“Shinji Ikari.” Against his better judgement, he decided to follow his introduction with, “Have we met before?”

Retracting his hand, Kaworu pursed his lips, ostensibly mulling over the question in his mind. After a few moments, he shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least, not that I can recall. I just got into town a few days ago. Why do you ask?”

Shinji shrugged, trying to play off his earlier question. “Oh, I think you just reminded me of someone I used to know.”

Kaworu nodded, seeming to accept this answer. “Ah, that makes sense. So, have you come to a conclusion, or would you like a second opinion?”

Shinji raised an eyebrow. “About the ice cream, you mean?”

“Indeed. That is the topic on the floor, as they say,” Kaworu responded nonchalantly.

Shinji blinked. “Who says?”

“Why, they do of course.”

“Oh. Umm, alright.” Shinji looked back through the window, surveying his options once more. A obvious choice didn’t present itself. “Well . . . I suppose a second opinion probably wouldn’t hurt.”

“Great,” Kaworu stated, his tone even and pleasant. “Any occasion in particular you’re buying for?”

Shinji shook his head. “Nope, not really. Just . . .” he hesitated, uncertain how much he wanted to tell someone who was still basically a stranger to him. “Just a bad day,” was what he ended up deciding on.

Kaworu pretended to stroke nonexistent hairs on his chin, nodding slowly as did so, in an amusing imitation of the stereotypical philosopher. “Hmm . . . ice cream for a bad day, you say?”

“Uh. Yeah. I guess so.”

“I’d have to recommend Cherry Chip for that. It’s a guaranteed mood improver from my experience. It is nearly impossible to feel down while you’re eating Cherry Chip ice cream.”

“Really?” Shinji’s ice wandered down the display, finally locating the flavor in question. Fortunately, they had it in pint size, which meant that the option was on the table. He couldn’t think of any reason not to go for it. As far as he knew, Rei liked Cherry Chip. At least, he thought she did. He wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever seen her eat it. For that matter, he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever eaten it himself. Which means it might be pretty good, and I just don’t know it yet. You never know. “Really. Trust me, I’ve tested its potency. It won’t let you down.”

“Alright. Why not?” Shinji opened the door and grabbed a pint of Cherry Chip. He examined the container in his hands for a few seconds, before looking back up at Kaworu, who now seemed to be smiling in encouragement, which had the effect of making him look even cuter than before. Come on Shinji, don’t get distracted! Sure, he might be attractive, but he’s also a self-proclaimed ice cream expert. . . not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing yet, to be honest.

“That’ll do the job,” Kaworu remarked, in a straightforward tone that made it sound as though he was utterly confident in the truth of his words.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Shinji furrowed his brow as another question popped into his mind. “Hey .. . you said you just got into town a few days ago. How is it that you already know all the different flavors they have here?”

“It was one of the first things I scoped out after we got into town. Always important to know what kind of ice cream game you’re going to be dealing with. Plus, I had plenty of free time once we finished unpacking, considering I won’t be in school up here until the fall.”

“Ah, okay. That makes sense.” Almost on a whim, Shinji was tempted to ask Kaworu where he had moved from, but decided that could come across as prying a little too much, since Kaworu hadn’t offered that information. As it was, Kaworu gave a partial answer to the question without Shinji even verbalizing it.

“School down south ends earlier. Though, to be fair, it also starts earlier there as well. We left a couple days after my semester ended. Which means I currently have relatively few obligations, other than locating and obtaining a job for the summer.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Shinji still wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, but he decided to field a question of his own. He figured it could come across as a polite inquiry, rather than being nosy, taking into account what Kaworu had just revealed. “So, what brought you up north?”

“My mother got transferred out to the base,” Kaworu returned offhandedly.

Shinji tilted his head in response to this answer, the gears in his brain turning. Well, that’s interesting. He almost wanted to make some sort of follow-up remark expressing their similarity in that regard, but he decided that might be a bit too much to say for the moment. Instead, he merely offered a casually, “I gotcha.” He continued with an amiable, “Well, welcome to Asherdale,” along with a more ironic, “It’s halfway decent, once you get used to it.”

Kaworu’s face broken into a grin at the humor, an expression that Shinji couldn’t help but feel made him look all the more attractive. Oops, getting distracted again. . . don’t do that . . . too much.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Kaworu said warmly.

“No problem.” The thought suddenly entering his mind, Shinji shot a momentary glance down at his phone. Hmm, what time is it? The answer was 7:37. 7:37?! I’ve been talking for eight minutes?! That felt like four or five at the most. I have to bail, now, if I’m going to make it home in time to get cooking.

He looked back up at Kaworu, who was still watching him, his gaze soft, the smile still on his face, his head tilted to the side. Shinji had the strange feeling that if it had been anyone else, the observational pose the boy had struck would have looked unusual, to say the least, but somehow, on Kaworu, it didn’t look half bad. It gives him a kind of elegant aesthetic . . . okay, where did I come up with that? I definitely need to head out.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry to leave so quick, but I need to get going.” Shinji cringed a little internally, hearing the awkward tone in his voice. You could have said that in a way that didn’t basically announced the fact that it made you flustered. Great going.

“Understandable. You wouldn’t want that ice cream to melt before you get the chance to test out its powers.”

“Haha, yeah, you know it.”

Kaworu nodded, imply that yes, he did indeed know it. “Why don’t I give you my number?” He remarked. “That way, you’ll have someone on hand for any future ice cream dilemmas.”

“Ahhh . . .” Okay, that was actually kind of smooth, in an odd way. And . . . it’s not like it could really hurt anything. I mean, he didn’t even ask for my number. Which means he’s not even necessarily flirting with me. It’d probably be a bit of stretch to say he is. After all, if I have his number, and he doesn’t have mine, that means I can choose whether I want to text him or not, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Which isn’t really a good way to flirt with somebody. I think I’m stalling again here . . .”

Shinji noticed Kaworu was watching him again, waiting for a response. “Sure. Sounds like a good plan.” He pulled out his phone and hastily created a new contact, before offering it to Kaworu. “Here, you can put it in.”

Kaworu nodded, his smile remaining intact, and typed in the digits, before handing it back to Shinji. “It was nice to meet you, Shinji Ikari,” he commented affably.

“You can just call me Shinji,” Shinji quickly responded.

“Alright then. It was nice to meet you Shinji.”

“You too . . .” Should I use first and last name like he did the first time? Or just go with first name. I don’t want to offend him, if that’s the sort of thing that’s important to him. After all, he does seem a bit, umm, particular.

“You can just call me Kaworu,” the boy suggested, his smile widening.

“It was nice to meet you Kaworu,” he finished lamely. “Guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yes, maybe so.”

Shinji nodded again, spun on his heels, and promptly made for the registers. Well, that went excellently. You meet a boy who’s kind of cute, even if he is a little eccentric, and straight off the bat, you’re second guessing yourself and fumbling for words. Fantastic.

Shinji shot a brief glance back as he reached the end of the aisle, to see that Kaworu was now retrieving an ice cream carton of his own from the merchandise freezer. Shinji turned away again before the boy could look back in his direction. Don’t want him to think I’m staring at him or something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shinji collapsed back onto his bed with a satisfied sigh. He was glad to have finally reach it, after the nigh-interminable day. Well, maybe not quite interminable. But definitely overlong. Without much thought, he grabbed his phone from his nightstand and spun in about in his hands a couple times, feeling the sensation of the textured case against his skin.

Dinner had been a success, such as it could be, anyway. He had impressed himself with just how fast he managed to throw things together when he went into slight (well, maybe more than slight) panic mode.

The ice cream had been a success as well. He had to admit, Cherry Chip was a pretty good flavor. He still wasn’t sure whether he had tried it before or not, but he was glad he had definitively tried it now. Rei had also enjoyed it, which was an added plus. In fact, their mother had even had a bowl, something altogether unexpected. Apparently, Cherry Chip ice cream was one of the sweets she would indulge in. Didn’t see that coming. All in all, the majority of the pint was no more.

Powering on his phone, Shinji was faced with another choice for the evening. Unlike his earlier ice cream deliberation, however, this cerebration was of a cursory duration. After a few seconds, he had composed the text, and was hovering over the send button. Alright. Let’s do this. He tapped the icon.

Shinji I.: Thanks for the recommendation. It was a good choice! Lol. This is Shinji, btw.

The response to his message came swiftly. Wow, he must type fast.

Kaworu A.: Happy to be of service. I’m glad it worked out.

Shinji found a smile edging its way across his lips. Maybe, in spite of everything, today wasn’t such a bad day after all.

#evangelion #fanfic #kawoshin #shinji ikari #kaworu nagisa #shinji x kaworu #neon genesis evangelion #eva #fanfiction #high school au

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starryocean · 3 years

Text

I completely forgot to do this a few days ago, but I actually finished reading So I’m a Spider LN vol 11. Thoughts below. No spoilers in comments, please.

So, it’s actually kind of funny, because this was the exact sort of content I needed out of the later volumes. I’ve been kicking around an AU idea in my head for a week or so now, and I actually needed exactly what the novel gives--a sort of expansion/overview of the sorts of things Julius did up until his adulthood and the Demon War. It also helps to very nicely connect the past and the present together, so that you can go back and read Shun’s perspective again and kind of have all this nice context for certain things now.

So, yeah, I liked that a lot. Funny how the thing that most of the Amazon reviews seem to hate about this entry is actually what I loved about it. I also liked some of the bits that showed that Shun very obviously was not a normal child right from the start, and people could tell. Like, telling Sue Japanese legends and myths, claiming he saw it all in his dreams, being very emotionally mature...that was some good detail work.

It also affirmed my headcanon that Hyrince and Julius knew each other from a young age. I actually don’t remember if it was stated before or not, but I do think I remember something about Hyrince being nobility. Maybe in the web novel? Because I did read part of the web novel before I got into the LN, and I remember being surprised at how much changed...

There was one big thing that I didn’t like, though. Namely, the Youth chapter. Including a tentacle rape monster that canonically targets young women over men got a really big eye roll and “seriously?” from me, especially since Okina Baba has been good about subverting expectations, as I’ve said multiple times before. So having that sort of thing show up was a pretty huge let down.

Then, the conversation that I know most people on tumblr are going to hate as soon as they read.

Like, I kind of agree with the concept in principle: teenagers need to be able to know they’re not wrong to have sexual desire, and they need to be able to express it healthily and safely without fear of being prejudiced or shamed or preyed upon or what-have-you. But the execution of this sort of conversation in the text was...bad. It relied on a lot of anime tropes and cliches that ultimately dragged down the central theme. That, and the whole “I’mma keep it real with you Shinzo Abe the 57th Prime Minister of Japan, this will not improve Japan’s declining birth rate” aspect.

I did like that the adults in the room were trying to be supportive of these idiot teenagers, but what with the way it was written, it fell flat and came across as borderline inappropriate.

Another thing I didn’t like is again tied to the sexuality thing: namely, Julius talking about the size his female friend’s chests. I get it, he’s a teenager at this point. And yeah, that’s a common trope in anime, I get it. But it’s very very tiring to come from a conversation that completely mishandled its subject and then go into an already unfunny/dumb trope on that same subject. And I’m tired of seeing it in anime in general. I honestly thought Spider was above that. I guess not.

It did somehow segue into getting Sanatoria more characterization than just “Boobah Lady” though. I really liked the way the author handled Sanatoria’s reactions and her trauma about seeing someone literally eaten in front of her--it felt very real. Of course the sounds of chewing could be a potential trigger for her, after witnessing something like that. Ariel really is playing up her cruelty, here, but I think I understand why. A kind leader would not be able to get away with forcing the demons into war again, after they’re suffering so much. She would be overthrown, or at least there would be way more attempts to try that would drain on their species even more.

But a feared leader can prevent more overthrow attempts from happening, since Ariel’s style makes it clear that the war is happening, one way or another. This causes more people to give up while they’re ahead, such as Ricep earlier and Sanatoria here. And considering her strength, she’s able to back up her threats, making examples of the ones who don’t fit her plan.

Note, I’m not advocating for this kind of leadership. It’s a terrible way to rule, and it’s presented as a terrible thing in the text. But I understand why she chose this route, and I have to wonder just how much damage will be done to the demon race by the end of it. I hope their people make it out okay, and I really hope the story doesn’t play into it’s genocide themes that it has going on with both them and the elves. I really, really hope that the elves don’t get genocided, just because Potimas is leading them.

Because, again, what about the elves that don’t know the depth of what’s going on? Do they deserve to die? They may have helped, but they assume they’re doing the right thing, and can’t be shamed for wanting to help save the world. That’s not a bad thing to want, even if you get misled on what needs to be done to do it. It’s not their fault. Potimas is a bad guy, yeah, but his whole species can’t be blamed for his crimes.

anyway, looking forwards to the next volume, maybe we’ll finally figure out what happened after Shun passed out upon maxing Taboo.

#phoenix says boring stuff #so im a spider so what #so im a spider spoilers #so im a spider so what spoilers #kumoko #kumoko spoilers #kumo desu ga nani ka spoilers #kumo desu ga nani ka #kumo desu ga #kumo desu ga spoilers #reading tag

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vonessars · 3 years

Text

❖ 𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒃𝒐𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒓 𝒑𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈, (𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒔 𝒏𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒎 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕.)

With ample time to observe how the passing years make their impact, Hanneman arrives at a casual hypothesis that the flow of emotions toward one’s birthday can be understood as cyclical.

The excitement that comes from the innocence of youth eventually turns into aspiration, steeled by forward-facing gazes into the promise of grandeur offered by adolescence. This eventually metastasizes, into the anxiety found among the ‘ageing’ population who fret over how much time and good health they have left to achieve what they desire. Inevitably, one then arrives at indifference, only so when one can wear the years lived in fine lines and creaking joints without worry. Then, he supposes, should you outlive that indifference, you will land back at excitement.

Excitement for still being around, even, if it isn’t too crude to suggest. Then, on goes the loop, at an ever-quickening pace until the end comes.

When he leans back in his desk chair, stretches arms above his head and hears the familiar pop of tension resolving in his back, Hanneman knows he is firmly in that range of indifference. For the day will pass with little fanfare and that is typical of any recent birthday; even preferable, though hardly an insistence made. He maintains to any who will ask—and particularly those who do not!—that to run from age is a fool’s errand! But the welcomed peace and humbled quiet of this day stands in stark contrast to the bustle of birthday celebrations of yore.

Birthdays always are much quieter when you have left an entire past-life behind you.

With that always comes a pervasive twinge of regret, reminder of a wound never fully cauterized despite proclamations to the contrary—and Hanneman wonders for a moment whether fleeing the life once lived is truly so different than seeking to escape something like ageing. Both surely hold commonalities: a desire to escape of what is to come; a yearning for resolution, for reinvention and rebirth; fresh starts from foolish bids, certainly not the least of these!

However, it—well—it must be so that denial fuels one and the courage to leave spurs the other makes them fundamentally different. ‘Rather a rash, unfair conclusion,’ Hanneman finds himself critiquing his train of thought, ‘But certainly favourable; paints past actions as sterling, undeniably sound.’ The resolution isn’t much of one at all; choices of the past contribute more than enough to both senses of fleeing time’s passage.

Though this body of his ages another year, Hanneman von Essar of Imperial acclaim died years ago by his hand; a choice made to leave all behind and bury it in a blaze of sharp words spat out to denounce the life that took away just as much as it ever offered.

Similarity, there, can be drawn to his critique of those who refute age. They choose rejection instead of reconciliation; fleeing rather than finding some way to salve the hurt from the inside, and repair. The same puzzle simply in a different form, different stakes.

(And so, maybe that leaving is not so unlike than any other kind of fleeing one can do about the passage of time, and to call one courage and the other denial is quite unfair of him

Hypocritcal, even, he imagines some colleagues might insist!)

Years past can be turned around in the mind unproductively for an eternity, Hanneman knows—and by now, he likely has if one were to compile how many memories creep back in as fragmented reminders of grief, unhealed, turned instead into fuel. What remains a comfort, at any rate, is that he has the sounds of the Monastery around him that rouse out of such thought spirals sooner rather than later; noise pollution of a more productive kind, Hanneman knows, and so this birthday is hardly quiet, but subject to an evolved soundscape.

Frivolities of a grand party now exchanged for training drills held on the campus greens that can filter through even locked-tight window. Footfalls that carve out the daily routines of scholars, instructors, and devotees alike which inspires an unwavering devotion to one’s cause, regardless of what brings them here—does so more than the clink of fine glassware, and toasts made by fickle friends who come to better their interests, under the sterling veneer of celebrating one more excellent year. He will take the soud of colleagues and students alike wearing familiar paths into stone floor over that, gladly; he regrets not that choice.

...From that, a tentative reformation of that earlier hypothesis. Arrived at as he listens, endeared, to the roar of a class below who is no doubt prevailing in their instruction—should the loud, raucous whooping be any useful indication.

Perhaps, in this proposed lineage of emotion, there is a coda in which that cycle breaks and indifference to shifts instead to contentment, ushering forth a settled sense of peace rather than the snare of cycling through birthday emotions endlessly.

(If that is so, then Hanneman knows he has only found the opportunity for such observational insight by finding footing here for many, many birthdays to feel that emergence first hand

Hanneman tuts at the noise below, and tucks back into his work, contented.)

#[ 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 ]#[ no cws/tws i think save talk of ageing ]#[ just under a readmore bc he's wordy ]#[ oh hanneman ]#[ you may complain about 98% of garreg mach ]#[but you love 500% of being there ]#[ anyway happy birthday sir ]#[ blows kiss 2 the sky for hanneday ]

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banalbones · 4 years

Text

The Petite Prince: Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Princes Don’t Need Help

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8

SideStory

Summary: Roman is a child. Virgil is spending time with said child, and said child likes Logan’s Crofter’s.

Words: 2179

Ships: Familial everything, except roceit. Eventual familial roceit

Genre: Fluff with a side dose of angst

Warnings: A few swears, tell me if there’s any more!

Taglist: @pricklyfish777 @sunflowerblondeuwu @itriedandimtired @draw-your-perfect-world @cemmy @battlebunnyteardropsinthesun @nonbinary-lizard-2 @fanforeveruniverse @i-cant-find-a-good-username

_________________________

Virgil was content.

After hours, hours of searching for the precious little bean, here he was in the emo’s arms.

Finally.

The small royal giggled as Virgil made a silly face at him.

Scary reputation? Who’s she.

The baby reached up and tugged at the anxious side’s hair, marvelling at the pretty purple color, pulling at his own chocolate curls in comparison.

“Woah!”

Virgil felt his heart melt as the petite prince tugged his hair again, happily beaming and showing off his gap tooth.

He knew that the others were watching the exchange, but, for the first time in his ‘life’, didn’t even care.

Then Roman’s face scrunched up in concentration, and he let go of the emo’s hair.

“Liv’ roo!”

Virgil smiled softly.

“The living room?”

“Liv’ roo!”

So. Cute.

___________________________

Okay can I just interrupt for a second?

You already have, but go on.

Why do you all keep emphasizing how cute he was?

Because I was absolutely adorable.

Because he was absolutely adorable.

…

Fair enough.

___________________________

Patton was still chatting with Logan, about brownies and endorphins and all the like, but he still felt sad.

Patton was the literal dad of the group, and yet when one of his kiddos turned into a literal kiddo, he could do nothing about it. Well, for now at least.

Logan had told him that Roman had most likely felt extremely overwhelmed, causing him to regress further, and therefore should not be exposed to one of the main reasons he had felt overwhelmed by for a bit.

The logical side had faltered near the end, which the moral side took as a good sign.

Maybe he doesn’t think I’m too big a ‘main reason’.

Patton held on to this hope.

Because any hope, no matter how trivial, was hope.

____________________________

Remus really hadn’t wanted to give his little bro over to Virgie, and was considering to just, well to just not, but the look that Nerdy Wolverine had given him had convinced him of doing otherwise.

Whatever. I guess they still think I want to kill my brother.

Which he didn’t.

But again, whatever.

The Duke ignored the sting that the thought had left.

Whatever.

____________________________

Back in the living room, Roman was grinning wider than ever.

It was working! There was waaaay less sad, and even better than that, he had helped.

Ooh, look at the pretty lights! And the pur-pur hair! Wait, he had already seen the pur-pur hair. It was still pretty though!

The room was being decorated with nice bright colors and fairy lights. Big him (and Little him) loved those!

“So. What d’ya wanna do?”

Roman turned and looked at Virgil, a tad confused, before shrugging.

“You choo!”

Big me never got to choose. Wow! Fluffy blankets!

The little prince missed the shocked face Virgil had worn at his response, and his confused face before that.

“Disney?”

“Yeah!”

_________________________

Why had the bean looked so confused when I had asked him what he wanted to do?

That was a question that would surely echo throughout Virgil’s mind for the rest of the movie marathon, and most likely after it as well.

Looking to the adorable little royal, Virgil smiled an anxious smile.

I hope he’s okay.

Virgil looked at the wide green eyes, engrossed in whatever the Disney movie at the moment was. He was so small, but that was to be expected of a now fifteen month old baby.

The paper crown slipped down over the prince’s eyes, blocking his view of the film. He huffed and pushed it back up with his tiny hands.

“Need a little help there?”

Vigil was still smiling as the bean harrumphed, rather dramatically.

“No.”

“You sure about that? The crown keeps falling.”

“No.” he retorted, stubborn as ever.

The crown fell again.

This time tears filled the prince’s eyes and he pouted angrily.

“Stay!”

Virgil reached over to fix it, only to have his hand swatted away.

“No! Prin’s don’ nee ‘elp!”

Princes don’t need help? Well that doesn’t seem… healthy. What if the bean isn’t healthy?! Well, its obvious he’s not- he is regressed, but what if- I should probably try to stay calm. For his sake.

It was funny, the literal embodiment of anxiety trying to be calm.

The crown fell again and tears rolled down the youth’s cheeks.

Virgil wrapped his arms around the bean, attempting to comfort him. He did want to find out what the small royal had meant, but he couldn’t bear seeing an upset little royal.

The bean must not be sad!

And so Virgil kept hugging the little prince, trying to ignore the phrase.

Princes don’t need help!

Great, two things that would probably haunt him forever.

_________________________

Roman dried his eyes in VeeVee shirt, already regretting the tears.

He was supposed to make them happy!

Sad=bad!

And so, the petite prince took a deep breath, and cuddled closer to Virgil.

_________________________

Both boys had forgotten about their movie marathon by now, content to just cuddle there forever, but then the baby prince had an idea, an idea that would hopefully make VeeVee happy.

The hoodie itself was reeeeeally nice and soft and fluffy and warm, and the prince wasn’t even wearing it!

If it was that nice on the outside, what it be like on the inside?

And so Roman had two options.

Option one: snuggled inside the jacket against Virgil’s chest,

Option two: snuggled in the hood.

It was a very hard choice to make, but the small royal eventually clambered to the top of the emo’s head, getting ready to drop down into the soft embrace of fabric.

Virgil was extremely confused throughout the whole of it.

Roman giggled, and then he was laying in the warm, warm hood.

Oh look! Pur-pur hair!

And so the prince was cosy and the emo was amused.

“Adorable.”

_________________________

Logan walked into the kitchen the next morning, ready to enjoy his sweet, sweet Crofter’s, when a giggly Roman and a smiling Virgil entered the room.

Now, this would not have struck Logan as odd if it weren’t for the fact that the tiny prince was sitting in the anxious side’s hood, his little arms wrapped around Virgil’s neck.

Logan.exe is experiencing a malfunction. Overload of cuteness has temporarily shut down subject’s brain.

Now, Logan wasn’t a robot, or anything of the sort. He was a metaphysical human being. But in that moment he just ‘couldn’t’.

This is odd, I’ve seen and identified the child as ‘cute’ before. Why am I so overwhelmed by the cuteness now?

Virgil must’ve noticed Logan’s mini meltdown, as he snorted and said “You good there teach?”

“How is he so adorable?”

Virgil was about to respond but got interrupted by the little prince.

“Mama!”

Logan.exe is experiencing a malfunction. Overload of cuteness has temporarily shut down subject’s brain.

Twice in a minute. That was most certainly not normal.

But it wasn’t necessarily bad, either.

________________________

Roman, even as a baby, loved attention, and teasing people. So when he noticed he had a chance to get attention and mess with Mama, of course he would do it.

His spot in Virgil’s hood was very comfortable though.

It could wait until after breakfast.

The little prince hugged Virgil’s neck tighter, and pointed at the jar of Crofter’s next to Logan.

Well, he could still mess with Logan from up here.

________________________

You were literally fifteen months old, and yet you still felt the need to be annoying?

Hey! I didn’t want to be annoying, I just wanted to mess with you.

Sure.

And also eat your Crofter’s.

As you would usually say, heathen.

________________________

“You shouldn’t be eating this. Too much sugar could be detrimental for your teeth.”

Logan, in the end, gave in to the whims of the adorable little child and let him eat the jam.

…

Logan and Virgil were mostly silent throughout the meal, happy to listen to the small royal’s babbling.

And then there was a tug.

The left brain boys had completely forgotten about Thomas.

Virgil looked to the logical side, panic evident in his expression.

“What the fuck do we do?”

Logan had on a similar expression.

“The more pertinent question is do we tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

“About Roman. He doesn’t know that sides regress.”

“He doesn’t!?”

“No.”

“How come I thought he did?”

“You were usually the regressed side.”

“That doesn’t mean anythi-”

Another tug.

Roman let out a whimper.

One of them had to go, but the other had to stay with the prince.

“Roman can’t sink down, he isn’t touching the floor.”

“Guys!”

They heard Thomas’s voice this time.

And so, in a heat of the moment decision, Virgil gently but quickly lifted the bean out of his hood, handed him to Logan, and sank down.

“I’ll come up with an excuse!”

_________________________

Logan sighed, and looked to the petite prince now in his arms.

“No he won’t.”

The scaled-down side nodded his head in agreement.

Logan smiled at him and with a quick flick of the wrist, summoned a book.

It was a small picture book with a few words littered throughout.

The nerd knew that normal fifteen month olds would not be able to read at all, but they weren’t exactly real, and so didn’t follow the ‘natural process’ of aging accurately.

Roman squealed as the book landed in front of him, a golden light illuminating his tiny features.

Wait a… gold light? Where is that coming from?

Very odd.

A few moments later the princely side, after being few pages in, started humming.

And then there were birds.

And rabbits.

And squirrels.

And deer.

Where are all of these coming from? Should I be concerned?

Logan stared incredulously at the child, who didn’t seem to notice his new company.

Curious.

…

And then the humming stopped.

Logan, who had summoned his own book to read, looked up to see a frown on the youthful side’s face as he seemingly struggled to read a word.

“Do you require any assistance?”

The royal shook his head fiercely.

“No! Prin’s don’ nee ‘elp!”

Oh. Oh dear.

“Why not?” Logan decided to say, in a deliberately soft voice.

“B-b-bi’ me!”

Big him?

Logan was tempted to get another side’s help, but decided against it.

He could help the child himself.

“You should never be ashamed of needing help, Roman. Everyone needs it sometimes, even me.”

Roman looked up at him with tear filled eyes.

“Rea’y?”

Logan smiled.

“Yes, your highness, it is true.”

The miniscule royal frowned.

“Bi’ me ner g’elp…”

Logan was having a tough time translating.

“Big you never wanted to get help?”

The prince shook his head.

“Go’ elp.”

“Big you never got help?”

Roman nodded.

Did he not?

“How come?”

“Asd, bu no.”

“He asked but no?”

The royal nodded again.

That is quite concerning.

“No’n elp ‘im, so no nee’ elp!”

Logan really needed a dictionary.

“No one helped him, so ‘no need help’?”

“Ee d-d’ided no nee’ elp.”

“He decided he didn’t need help?”

“Ya!”

Well.

Logan definitely needed to have a long, possibly uncomfortable discussion with the rest of the sides.

As Virgil would so eloquently put it, ‘We fucked up.”

_______________________

In Remus’s room, the day before…

Remus had joined the conversation with Logan and Patton after Virgil and his RoBro left.

He had also found out everything that had happened.

And he was not happy.

_______________________

Janus was happy.

Very happy, in fact.

The slimy snek boy knew it had literally been a day since it happened, but still.

He had gotten accepted!

He had revealed his name!

And it was great. Extremely freeing to know that he finally had nothing more to fear.

Except Roman. Except Virgil.

He pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind.

He was Denial after all.

No one has spoken to you since then. Not even Patton.

He pushed those away too.

Happy. Happy. Happy.

You were too harsh.

He forced out a smirk and ignored it.

All he did was call your name stupid.

Happy. Happy.

He didn’t even mean it. You know when people are lying, and he was.

Happy.

He didn’t mean it, but you did.

Jesus Christ Superstar!

All Janus wanted was to be happy and feel nice feelings after being accepted!

These thoughts were pushing through an indestructible wall of denial, something only Remus could d-

Remus.

You and I are going to have a problem.

____________________

In Remus’s room, the day before…

Patton had been happy to chat with Remus as well as Logan, (or so he told himself) and so when the Duke had asked what had happened with him and Roman, he had been fine with telling him.

Well, would have been.

Logan had interjected before the moral side had had a chance to open his mouth, and Patton inwardly shrugged and listened.

It seemed so much worse when you put it like that.

And so when he had seen Remus’s stormy expression, he had been worried.

Well, shit.

______________________

Thank you for reading this chapter of the Petite Prince!

Another competitor has joined the arena!

Also before you say (if anyone was going to say anything) ‘oh my god! Patton swore!’ I personally do hc Patton as someone who swears. Not like ‘oh god’ or anything like that, but since Thomas swears, I think all of the sides do.

#sanders sides #thomas sanders sides #tss #the petite prince #roman sanders #baby roman #virgil sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #remus sanders #janus sanders #im probably going to add remy #not as a side #but you'll see

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vtmb2s · 3 years

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Past 1, 3, 6, 8 for Jason my beloved and Present 5-8 for Jenny annnd Future 2, 5, 7 for Helena! 😏

─ JASON

1. Briefly describe the way their parents grew up, and how it affected the way they raised them.

Both his parents were two regular middle class new yorkers, Frank (his dad) grew up in New York's suburbs and had a very conventional upbringing, he was the middle child of three siblings and thus kind of ignored so he usually just minded his own business... that very much carried over into adulthood, he was very reclusive and didn't really bother spending much time with his family -_-

Jason's mom, Gina, was a 2nd generation italian-american who grew up in a huge family with a billion siblings and cousins who are all very different from her husband. She liked it in the beginning but she became more and more unhappy and kind of underwhelmed. She really projected all her dreams of ever becoming someone on her kids that failed with her because she was stuck in a boring marriage with the most unambitious and boring man ever 😑

3. Describe their family. Who raised them, and who had the most impact on them? Did they have any siblings? Who were they closest to? What were the family dynamics like?

This ties in with the previous question but Frank was a bit of a loser, not particularly attractive and more timid & shy.. he was a very unambitious guy who worked a boring office job all his life without any intention of climbing the ladder. He really spent most of his time off work with his boring little loser hobbies :/

Gina was a much more spirited and lively person than her husband, Jason takes a lot more after her than his dad. She wasn't a great mother by all means due to the fact that she was unhappy in her marriage and with her life and kind of took that out on her kids, in a way where she placed certain expectations on them which Jason never really met. They weren't particularly close due to Jason's more.. rebellious nature he had as a kid, which in turn made him cause more trouble because that was the only way his parents gave him any attention at all :/ He also has an older brother, Richard, who their mother very obviously favored. Frank didn't really give a fuck about either of his sons -_-

He had a very close relationship with his mother's family though, particularly with one of her brothers. Carlo (said uncle) was a lot like him and never had any kids on his own so he became somewhat of a father figure to Jason :-)

6. Did the location they grew up in affect them significantly? Do they still go there?

He grew up in some little house in New York's suburb, not the prettiest house there because they didn't make enough for one of the nicer looking ones. He's not that fond of the boring suburbs (even in Boston), he spent more time in the city with his relatives and preferred that over his actual home. Other than that it didn't affect him much 🤷‍♀️

8. What was their childhood/teenage bedroom like?

A small little room with an ugly sports wallpaper that his parents never bothered to replace as he got older. It always looked a little messy and had a few mismatching mid-century decorations and furniture in there. As he grew older he started to cover the walls with random posters he had, to hide the ugly baseball wallpaper.

─ JENNY

5. What kind of people do they usually interact with? Who are their friends, the people they look up to/trust, and who are their “associates”?

She interacts with all sorts of people in New Bordeaux' criminal underworld - if you do anything illegal chances are you'll know Jenny. As for her actual friends, she's friends with the 3 other criminal 20 year olds in town, Danny, Lincoln, Ellis, unfortunately Giorgi (frenemies would be more fitting) and Lena. Her closest and best friends would definitely be Gavin (of @dannyburke fame)and Juliet (of @jennystahl fame) though, they're also pretty much the only ones who would fall into the "people she trusts" category... they're the only ones she'll have long weed induced therapy sessions at 1 am while the monkees are on tv.

6. What is their current relationship with their family?

Complicated... the love is there and all that, it's more of a business relationship though rather than a parent-child thing, especially with her dad. It's nothing that she ever questions (until aforementioned therapy sessions with her friends), she grew up in an environment where affection isn't really something she sees often and almost all her friends have messed up relationships with their parents too so while there is some resentment she never really questions that the way they raised her might not be ideal :c

The relationship with her siblings is complicated as well, especially because they're both a LOT younger than her. She was an only-child until the age of 13 and moved out of her childhood home when they were eight and six years old so there's this weird disconnect but there's a relationship nonetheless, which is weird. Eldest daughter AND only child disease 😓Not to mention that her parents are looking to make her little brother head of the family because he's a boy or whatever.. drama!

7. Do they have a partner? How did they meet, and what’s their relationship like now?

Yes.. she and Ellis met on some random job in the Hollow in 1963 that her dad was taking her along with (he and Sammy did random deals together and were also good friends 😌) and Jenny was like wow how boring. What if I just talk to this this guy's sons instead.... she thought he was some annoying teenage guy and only really talked to him whenever necessary (when her dad's business trips to Sammy's got REALLY boring). She forced herself to hang out with him more after Lincoln went to Vietnam and realized he's not so bad so they became friends :)

In actual game canon nothing really happens because he dies, Jenny just becomes sad that her friends were killed (him, Danny, Sammy and maybe Michael too because of Juliet connection.. she doesn't give a fuck abt Giorgi anymore that little rat can die) and wonders if she liked that goofy little guy with the ugly shirts, but in any case it's too late now.

We're doing au's here though (also this is as of '68) so in the good timeline they get together in 1968.. sort of. It's not a friends with benefits thing, more that sort of relationship that you know will end sooner or later for various reasons, so you're kind of living in the moment and have fun while it lasts. It IS genuine and not just about hooking up from time to time of course, it's just not the kind of thing that was built to last because it's based off of a dumb 20 year olds friendship and one of them (Jenny) doesn't really plan on sticking around in New Bordeaux. But well, who knows what will happen 😏

8. What hobby or pastime of theirs do they consider most important to them and why?

Well, she's big on making music, she plays the guitar and sings (she has a pretty nice voice c: ), she grew up in a pretty fucked up environment so that was her sort of escape in her youth, to be a normal kid who's playing the guitar very very badly. She doesn't play it badly as a 23 year old anymore of course and it's a little thing she shares with her best friends so that means a lot to her 😳

─ HELENA

2. Are they content with their future situation? Is there anything they would change?

Well, she's certainly not happy with the whole vampire situation - her dreams of becoming famous for acting were pretty much ruined, now she's legally dead and nothing more than a photo on true crime blogs and conspiracy theory websites... Famous but for the wrong reasons, in a way she's more bitter about "dying" before she had the chance to become famous than about the whole vampirism thing herself. There would have been something incredibly poetic about a beautiful young actress dying at the height of her career, now she's just some random nobody :/

It could be worse though. She's known among L.A. vampires for her lack of loyalty to any of the factions (despite her working for the Camarilla earlier) and her just helping whoever she feels like which is fine to her, most of them will just leave her alone. In any case, she's not in Los Angeles anymore after the events of Bloodlines!!

5. Did they get married or have a family? Why? If otherwise, why not?

See she would like to get married eventually, making a promise to love someone and be with them for eternity (literally... because... vampires) is incredibly romantic and she would love that (THIS is her wedding... not really because she's not that cringe but also.. yeah), so who knows what might happen.

Family though, no!! Starting one isn't possible, at least not with biological children since she's a vampire. It doesn't bother her that much, she always did envision herself with one child in the future but she's not desperate to be a mother anyway so she doesn't beat herself up about it. She does wonder what it might be like to have children and laments it from time to time (she's a little overdramatic) but overall she doesn't mind that much.

7. Are their friends still a part of their life? Are there people they are no longer in touch with, or newly important people?

Yes, sort of! As I mentioned before she's not in L.A. anymore post-bloodlines and she never had many friends there to begin with so she keeps in touch with the few she has there. She miiight make a few new (or old) connections once shes out of Los Angeles too, who knows!

#THANK U ❤❤❤#three hotties..#i got SO many for Jenny i'm gonna end up having to replay mafia by the time i'm done with this #queennymeria #ask #c: jason #c: jenny #c: helena

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