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axther · 4 years

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Heyo! i reread your rules and i was wondering if i could request a little something? maybe Hatsume(if you write for her, if not it’s okay!) and Jirou with a Support Course s/o? i thought the idea was really cute^^ Thanks for your time! -LesBean Anon

the return of the queen

Hatsume

Teamwork made the dream work, or so they say.

Hatsume knew otherwise. For as long as she could remember, she always worked by herself. She was fully capable of getting her designs written so they would satisfy her customers and be sent to the people who made it. But then Hatsume realised; someone had to make her babies.

So, she decided, she would watch them make it. She didn’t know who it was. She didn’t trust them.

Across the campus, there was a workshop for the kids with quirks that were meant for support and making support items. It was legendary in that none of the creators let anyone else in the Support Course in, much less so the General and Hero Courses. They were insanely protective over what they made, and it was bad enough that even teachers avoided the workshop.

But Hatsume feared no man, not for her babies.

The sky was beginning to go orange when Hatsume started strutting to the workshop. Steam and smoke clouded the air around it, but she could see cluttered pieces of metal around the ground. She even recognised a few scrapped versions of her jet back and hydraulic bracers. Several students passed by as she took in the sight, whispering to each other.

“No way,” One of the muttered, someone with a clear dog quirk. “They’re not gonna let her in.”

“Did you hear? Vlad King tried to go in to get one of his students, and they ganged up on him and literally kicked him out.” The other, with a head shaped like a baseball, tittered back.

“Yikes.”

Hatsume huffed. There was no way that someone was going to get between her and her babies.

She shoved open the door and realised quite suddenly that there was no smoke or steam inside the building. Somehow, it was all condensed to outside, and Hatsume couldn’t help but feel curious.

There was the distant banging of metal on metal, but it was the only sound besides the humming of machinery and coolers.

And it was clearly the sound of the only person there.

Hatsume walked down the hall, eyeing shut and locked doors with interest before seeing a large one, like a factory entrance, open. Golden-orange light spilt out, and she peeked in.

The inside was enormous, with a forge as the centrepiece and different sized water tanks all around it. There was a large anvil, but the best part was the funnel that was filled with molten metal. It was bright orange and lowered so it would be poured into a mould.

But best of all was the gorgeous creature pouring it.

She was tall, much taller than Hatsume. She lifted her arm to strike down onto the mould, and her arms showed muscles that would’ve made moderate bodybuilders cry. She fit what hair she could into a cap, and when she turned to take a drink of water, literal steam hissed and left her mouth.

And speaking of mouths, Hatsume had to clamp her’s shut.

The sound made the girl stop her drinking and turn, a mouth full of water before she let it out as steam through her nose. Hatsume blinked.

“Who’re you?” The girl murmured, and Hatsume quickly realised that the girl was almost rearing up, and also had a massive hammer in her hand. “What do you want?”

“I’m Hatsume Mei!” She spat out as quickly and confidently as possible. She didn’t notice the girl begin to relax but continued babbling. “I make support items, and I wanted to see who makes them, and wow, you have really nice proportions and do you think that maybe sometime you could model for me? You’re about the size of a full-grown adult and it’d be nice for me to have a person to work with for future reference, oh, and I know that I’m bursting in on your place, but I just wanted to see my babies and the place where they’re made and I was wondering if you knew who made them, it looks like here isn’t where there’s a lot of precision work, so if you could just point me in the direction-”

Before Hatsume could finish her rant, a handful of papers were shoved into her face. Hatsume recoiled but realised several things at once. One, the girl’s hands were scarred and absolutely fantastic, and two, the girl was holding Hatsume’s own designs for her Auto Balancers.

“Hatsume Mei. 1-H, right?”

“You’re…?” Hatsume, for once, was shocked silent.

“I’ve worked on all of your creations that you sent in through here.”

“What? All of them? In a forge?” Hatsume could feel euphoria beginning to bubble within her. “How?”

“I always took the projects until they just decided to hand them all off to me. I might not look it, but precision work is my thing.” The girl remained cool and collected while Hatsume began jumping up and down.

“No way! You assembled all of my babies?!”

The girl said nothing, but smiled and turned back around.

“Then the High-Density Weights?! Are they here?”

The girl pointed a hand at a nearby table before taking the cooled metal and throwing it into a nearby shute in the wall. She tugged the funnel back down and started pouring again.

“These are perfect!” She held the weights up, and she nearly dropped them. “You really are the best!”

The girl smiled. “Thanks.“

“And what are you working on now?”

“The Auto Balancers. Since they need to be able to detect whether or not a fall is intentional, I need to hand-make the springs. But right now, I’m getting the panels done.”

“Ahh.” Hatsume hummed. “I could marry you.”

The girl hesitated, for just a moment, before going back to the panels. “Thanks.”

“Actually, you could say we are! We’re my babies moms! Our babies!”

“Sure,” The girl giggled. “And do you know your wife’s name?”

Hatsume stopped staring dreamily at the girl’s back and stiffened. “No.”

“Y/N L/N. Or Hatsume Y/N. Or are you L/N Mei?” Y/N said, a teasing smirk on her face.

Hatsume went right back to snuggling into the chair she was in and ogling at her new wife. “I can be whatever you want.”

“Oh? Then you can stay here until I’m done and go with me to that cafe that just opened, right?”

“Oh?” Hatsume felt a blush crawl up her face. “Well, I did promise.”

“Don’t worry.” Y/n winked at Hatsume, who was ready to melt. “I’ll pay.”

Hatsume knew, then; teamwork definitely made the dream work.

Jirou

Jirou Kyoka had hobbies.

One of those hobbies was music. Another was talking to her classmates. But her favourite was watching her girlfriend.

This could be considered at nothing unusual. But seeing as her girlfriend was the number one producer of Support items in the Support Course, it meant that Jirou would be sitting inside a boiling hot room with steam all around and the constant banging of a hammer onto an anvil. Most people wouldn’t be able to bear it, and would just wait after school.

But Jirou found a certain beauty in it. And in her girlfriend’s back.

If there was one thing that Jirou had to be proud of about her girlfriend’s body, it was definitely her back. It reminded her over a swimmer’s back, fluid but definitely there. But she loved her girlfriend anyway and liked keeping her company while she finished with her projects.

Which was why Jirou sat in the Support Course’s workshop at four in the afternoon, letting her day waste away in favour of watching her girlfriend.

The sun seeped through the window, and there were some birds singing outside. Somewhere in the halls of the workshop distant music played, and there was a strange sense of peace over Jirou. She watched as Y/N murmured over a stack of designs, a finger on her chin and lost in thought. A classmate of hers, a young woman with her dreadlocks in a ponytail and green at the tips, knocked at the huge sliding doors.

“Hey, L/N, I’m heading out. Make sure to close up. Night, Jirou.” The woman waved at Jirou, who said ‘night’ right back, but all Y/N did was wave a distracted hand. She was clearly occupied, so the young woman simply left the doors cracked and walked away. Jirou turned back to her girlfriend and tried to find something to do, but slowly, the heat and setting sun and the sound of cicadas outside began lulling her to sleep. Her head slipped once, twice, and then there was nothing.

——

When Jirou woke up, she was staring at the sky.

She wasn’t walking, but felt an insurmountable warmth, like a heated blanket. She looked down and saw her legs, and then a dull orange glow. Jirou blinked once, before looking a bit further up.

Y/N was carrying her, her head high with vigilance and a look of stern concentration. Her girlfriend’s heart was literally glowing like molten lava, and some of the veins in her arms were molten, too. The whole of her hands was orange but pleasantly warm. She wondered for a second why Y/N would have to activate her quirk, before realising that they both were soaking wet.

“What happened?” Jirou murmured sleepily, before sighing and nuzzling into Y/N’s chest.

“Stayed late. It started raining, and you were asleep, so I figured that I would carry you and make a run for your dorm.”

“Hmm. Iida wouldn’t let you in.”

“He has, before. Only when you’re with me, though.”

“Hmm. Why’re you warming me up?”

“The rain would’ve woken you up.” Y/N looked down with a soft smile. “You were cute, so I wanted to keep you warm.”

Jirou smiled. “You dork.”

“Yes.” Y/N sighed. “I’m your dork, though.”

Jirou yawned, taking a deep sigh and feeling sleepy again.

“Take another nap. When we get in, I’ll need your keys, but that’s all.”

“Okay, babe.” Suddenly, Jirou snapped awake. “The movie! Our date!”

“It’s okay, Kyo.” Y/N finally looked down to nuzzle Jirou, and she couldn’t help but blush. “We could both use a nap. We can always catch another movie.”

Y/N placed a small kiss on Jirou’s forehead, and slowly but surely, she was welcomed into the arms of sleep again.

(Later that night, Iida would be making his rounds only to find Jirou’s door cracked open. He opened it slightly, but quietly shut it again after seeing Jirou and her lover sleeping, with Jirou laying over Y/N’s molten heart.)

#requests #I lovem y girls so mu ch #jirou kyoka #bnha x reader #mei hatsume #mei hatsume x reader #my hero academia x reader #jirou kyoka x reader #sailor lesbean

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poetryforplebs · 5 years

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Petals and Scales

The sun beats down like a drum, light kissing down Medusa’s neck, over her back, and pecking the scales over her leopard-patterned tail. When he comes to her, the waves of the surrounding ocean drum a constant thrum against the cliffs and she is stubbornly scratching out a place for the new arrivals of wild flowers. Medusa lets her claws dig into the wet clay, and doesn’t bother turning around at the loud clanging of armor over rock or the shadow of a lean young man that settles over her watering pot.

“I take it you’ve come to kill me?” she grunts and wipes the back of one muddied hand to her forehead. Balancing the slipping coils of slithering snakes she’s propped on top of her head in a semblance of a bun. Medusa is met with silence and sighs, “Could you maybe wait until after I’ve finished this row? While I work, you can try actually drawing your weapon or perhaps drone on about your plan. Whatever it is that heroes do now this century.”

The shadow shifts hesitantly on their feet, and it’s a long minute before the slide of polished metal on metal fills the air before cutting through the air towards the back of Medusa’s neck. Her snakelets hiss and her tail strikes out and sweeps the legs harshly out from under her attacker. Hits the ground in a puff of dust as she climbs over him letting her eyes open wide to see… hands tightly pinned over a face.

She grips the toned arms tightly and tugs. ”Don’t give up now! You came to kill me didn’t you? You and everyone else that’s cluttering up my hide away,” She lifts the tense and shaking boy. Her tail curling tightly and giving a warning squeeze around a toned torso,”Here, I’ll hand you your weapon and then at the very least you’ll be in a more statuesque position, I’ll put Pygmalion to shame.”

“I could…” he struggles a moment, one hand shoving at the tan tip of the tail wrapped around his throat, “pose for you if you’d like me to, if it’ll make it hurt less.”

The struggling breath of the young man mingles in the air as Medusa releases a sharp gasp. This is no young warrior come for her head and hide, no. That would be easier. Her eyes slide toward the ground, the cracked leaking watering pot and discarded weapon. A broken sword, jagged break more than halfway up the blade and what is left is rusted and dull. This is no weapon with which to fight a monster made by a god, this isn’t even a weapon with which on her weaker days she would’ve tried to end herself.

She drops him like hot coals and turns back to her fallen watering pot, ”Go home little warrior, I don’t need any more clothing racks.”

“Wait! Please, you don’t understand!” Rolling to his hands and knees, he crawls after her, careful of the freshly planted seeds. He follows her up the bright flowered hill, “You’re Medusa, you hate all men, you turn them to stone. You have to–”

“I don’t hate all men, and I don’t have to do anything,” she hisses. ”If you want an angry and bitter woman that hates all men, go to Circe. At the least she’ll bed you before she kills you.” She gathers her deposited tools and wraps them up in the worn linens she’d laid out to cushion tired hips and keep clean a freshly scrubbed tail. The dirt and flower petals are kicked to the wind as, with a flick of still-writhing snakes atop her head, she begins the climb up the craggly, flowered hill to her cave. The serpentine follows a rut long carved into the earth the young man scrambles blindly after her.

She ignores him, for the days and nights that he is there. The toned and tanned boy curls up just inside the shade the lip of her cave provides, the floppy wheat yellow curls brush the top of a youth softened face. The statues’ empty, judging eyes watch anytime she looks upon him for longer than a second as she comes and goes from her home. The little intruder is beautiful in the sort of way that poets sing about and reminds her bitterly of the peasant girls that visited her during her days of priestesshood. Tittering and giggling about the beauty of the hero of the week, or which god had visited what royal. She despised him.

The first little offering of food is no bigger than the offerings she used to leave to her goddess Athena, a few fruits and scraps of meat. It’s personal, and not meant to sustain forever. He refuses to eat anything at all. Each varied plate she leaves for him is left to dry in the sun or to cool in the night. He never moves, or at least he never moves where the arms of the sun are able to brush against him. He lingers in the shade and stares out at the sea, or he lies staring at the stars and sobs quietly into the night. It’s those nights she uncoils her tail and reaches with it until she can wrap it around his ankle. It’s a small comfort, but she sighs to know he accepts it.

It’s out among the garden that he crawls out to meet her, hands and knees crushing wildflowers and grasses alike. She takes a deep calming breath in and waits for him to sit beside her. A quick glance has her sharp eyes meeting fraying cloth, she relaxes in relief and surveys the moon as it bobs on the ocean with a tired eye. ”I was younger than you when I was the center of a god’s wrath–attention. How long has he been after you?”

He shifts on his knees. ”I didn’t,” he shudders and tries again. “I don’t know what I did to seduce Apollo.” The name of the god is whispered with fear as if terrified it would summon Apollo himself. “My mother told me stories of what happens to those he takes interest with. I don’t want to die like that, quietly, beautiful…a pretty flower.”

Her locs hiss in sympathy as the wind cards its fingers through the garden and into their hair. ”I was not always a protectress to those the gods chose to bed unwillingly. I was a priestess, until the day Poseidon—“ the heartache rushes back just as strong as the day it occurred, holding her throat closed as she forces her eyes down.

A searching hand taps at her scaly thigh, shaking with nerves until she entwines their fingers and holds their hands on her lap. She breathes, ”He used me to desecrate my goddess’ temple and, as her last mercy upon me, she made me into this.” She gives his hand a careful squeeze. ”You fear turning to petals and colors, I was turned into scales and sinew. Now, I tend to and watch over all those that could not escape in one form and have found safety in another.”

“The flowers,” he stills on his knees.

“The originals are protected,” she’s quick to reassure, “but yes, all of the flowers were once in the same position as you.”

The soft and under-worked hand in hers squeezes suddenly as he leans carefully into her, “Promise me something, should he come for me here, if he dares come here. The moment you see him you have to–”

“I don’t have to do anything. But, you are on an island of a protectress so I suppose I should live up to the name. Go to bed, the sun will be up soon enough.”

The sun takes its time climbing the sky each morning. Medusa sits out and tends to her flowers closer to the cave where she carries on conversation and jokes and meals with her friend who takes solace in the shade.

The morning was disturbingly hot when Apollo comes for the boy. The flowers wilt, and the grasses droop, every bug goes silent. The sun rises and shines like it’s already noon day, long rays stretching up the hill and pawing their way to the many shadowed crevices of their home. The burning heat lands on worn scales causing them to writhe in discomfort and shift the lean and sleep soft body next to her closer. Both friends jerk awake as the heat wave increases and their skin begins to burn.

The voice of a god is smooth as honey. Apollo is no different as he crafts his words, ”I have come for you, little warrior, it is time we be reunited. I have hunted you to the ends of this earth, it is time I acquired my prize.”

Medusa and snakelets hiss in frustration, clawing and dragging the little warrior further into the cave blocking as much of the blistering godly light as possible,”He will not have you, he will not take you from this place.” Her wide tail swings around, wrapping around a white statue draped with her gardening tools and launching it out of the cave and toward the voice as sweet as sin.

There’s a reverberating chuckle over the sound of the shattering marble. ”Athena was too kind, letting you live after desecrating her temple with Poseidon. She should’ve just killed you.” Medusa launches statue after statue, careful to keep her back to her friend, eyes scanning for the sun god through the blinding white light at the mouth of her cave. ”I will rectify her mistake if you don’t hand over what is rightfully mine.”

“He is a man,” she cries out, “he belongs to no one!”

“He is a tempter and a thief. He has stolen a god’s heart. I am here to right the wrongs he has brought against me by running away.” The light brightens and the distinct scent of burning greenery wafts through the cave, “Come now, Monster, your fate is not meant to be at my hand.”

Medusa gags on the smell of her scorching garden and flesh. The blisters begin to swell on her chest and her tail as it skitters across the floor to find anymore projectiles. She wails when she can not see past the pure white that burns all that it lands on. The light engulfs both of them until finally they can see the burning outline of a beautiful man, the white light softens to a butter yellow as he steps into their ruined home. He gives a careless look around and scoffs at the insignificant, charred indication of two lives carved out together.

“Let me have him, stupid serpent, live in peace amongst your sorrow and wrath,” Apollo reaches a shimmering hand out and trails it down her cheek burning a trail over a slowly dying snake. ”You must learn not to meddle in affairs of the gods, after all you’ve been through.” The death shudder of one loc seals the fear for the rest as Medusa’s hair seethes and cries in pain striking at the god.

It’s a great heave, she closes her eyes and strikes. Her burned and peeling tail wraps firmly around the celestial body, muscles straining and tearing. Medusa roars, ”I do not have to do anything! I will turn the sun to stone sooner than betray those that come to me!” She sends the sun god flying into her makeshift kitchen. Pots shatter, tapestries blaze, and the sun god snarls.

It’s a firm hand that lands on her shoulder, careful to guide her to turn away from the threat and towards the shaking body behind her. ”Please,” the little warrior pleads, eyes shedding long held tears of resignation from under their covering.

Medusa sucks in a shaking breath and releases a sob as she cradles her friend close, presses her forehead to his and reaches to release the cloth blindfold. They bask in each other for a moment, before the sound of a raging god falls away, the ocean silences its roaring. They open their eyes.

@ursapharoh05

#ursapharoh05 #submission #March of Mythology

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comfortablynumbonthepuzzle · 6 years

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No Scissors Required (Byeler Fic)

Description:

Joyce is changing Will’s sheets when she finds a tear in the bottom of his mattress. Upon further investigation, she finds he’s hidden a notebook, and even though she knows she shouldn’t, she opens it, finding some incriminating photos of a certain male celebrity and even more incriminating drawings of a certain male best friend. Joyce knows she shouldn’t meddle, but she can’t help it. Sometimes a mother knows best.

Angsty but has a (kind of) happy ending.

No Scissors Required

It’s 4 pm on a Sunday. As the daylight slips away and with it the promise of a productive weekend, Joyce is attempting some form of damage control.

She’s doing okay: she’s got dinner on the stove, a load of laundry whirring in the dryer, and neat stacks of envelopes, bank notices, and coupons divided on the kitchen table, waiting to be opened and handled and filed appropriately. She’ll get to that, of course. Right after she’s had a cigarette.

It’s one of those rare afternoons where it feels like the dust has settled, and that she’s finally got a handle on things. A small, spiteful part of her wishes Lonnie could see her doing so well. She then thinks of Hopper, feeling equal parts buoyed and daunted by the potential in their future, then, remembering Bob, instantly guilty. She tables that thought for now, but resolves to call the police station first thing tomorrow morning, certain she can conjure up something to be worried about by then. Hopper will know it’s a ploy, but he’ll appreciate it. He can’t seem to work up the nerve to call her unless it’s under silly pretenses either.

Will’s studying in the dining room. He told her for what, but she can’t keep track. Everyday, it’s something new, something for “organic chemistry” or “advanced calculus” or “studio art” or “classical poetry” (meanwhile, Joyce herself can’t remember ever taking anything but ‘math’ and science’). She trusts him to handle it himself; is continually amazed by his composure, his perseverance, his seemingly infinite capacity for information and instruction; balks at how much he seems to absorb. School is the one realm in which she won’t meddle; the one thing that seems to have stayed the same, even after everything. If anything, Will’s become more involved, taking on more responsibility, working harder, longer hours. Still, he sees his friends regularly, and though she wishes he’d spend just a bit more time having fun, she figures it’s all a necessary distraction.

She can barely see him over the piles of books and paper, just the top of his head bobbing every now and again, more aggressively when he’s erasing a mistake. She feels such strong fondness for him. She and Will have always been close, and continue to be even as Will and his friends careen ungracefully into adolescence, but still she finds herself, like any mother, wondering: What is he thinking? What is he feeling? What does he worry about? Is he okay?

He’s fourteen now, in his first year of high school, the same age she and Lonnie started going out. True, we didn’t date consistently until much later, she concedes, and for the briefest of moments her mind flashes back to Hopper. She wonders, not for the first time, if maybe Will’s found himself a- well, not a Lonnie.

But she knows the answer. Will spends too much time at home, too much time studying, too much time with her, or Jonathan, or his friends. And even if he didn’t, Joyce knows that Will is too careful, too cautious, too used to hiding his feelings. But she also knows it’s more than that. Will’s never expressed interest in anyone, at least not to her. In fact, as long as Joyce can remember, Will has looked so discomfited at any mention of romance, at any allusion to any sort of love life he may or may not have, that Joyce has stopped bringing it up. She’s even considered that maybe he’s not interested in that sort of thing at all.

But Joyce knows that’s not true. She just knows. And she’s tried, albeit in roundabout ways, to address whatever it is that flusters him. She speaks in cautious, neutral terms. She avoids pronouns. She never asks direct questions, instead making statements, testing the waters, waiting for him to agree or disagree. Things like, she’s kind of cute or he’s got nice eyes, don’t you think? or I just read in the school newsletter that the Snowball’s coming up. (Normally he responds to her questions with noncommittal shrugs but that one earned her a sharp so what?). And, she’s not sure why she feels so compelled, but she tells Will she’s proud of him as often as she can. She tells him how much she loves him, and how she’ll continue to do so forever, no matter what. Still, Will won’t budge, and Joyce worries, worries, worries.

The timer on the stove goes off, and Joyce jerks her head towards the sound. The laundry’s ready to come out of the dryer.

She’s unloading the warm sheets into a basket when she notices a loose thread hanging from the corner. She pulls at it, hoping it’ll snap, but it only ensnares more fabric. Annoyed, she begins to rummage through her sewing box, looking for scissors. They’re nowhere to be found.

“Will?” She calls.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have the scissors from my sewing kit?”

There’s a pause. “They’re in my room,” Will calls back, sounding slightly guilty.

“Baby, I thought we agreed you would use your own scissors for art projects?”

“Sorry! Yours are better.”

Balancing the laundry basket on her hip, Joyce walks into Will’s room, where the scissors in question are resting on his desk atop a nondescript pile of magazine paper scraps. Joyce notes the mess: clothes litter the floor, Will’s bed is unmade, and there are open books everywhere.

“Will, honey, your room’s a mess!” She calls.

“Sorry! I haven’t had time to clean it.”

Joyce feels a pang of guilt. “I know. I know, you’ve been working so hard lately.”

She sighs, eyeing the unmade bed. Normally, Will prefers to clean his own room. Joyce figures it’s a consequence of all his time spent in Hawkins Lab being poked and prodded and examined; that he’s eager to preserve his privacy and personhood in whatever little ways he can. Joyce doesn’t mind. She indulges him when she thinks it’ll help him cope, and knows, secretly, that if not for Will it would probably never get done.

The longer Joyce stands there, surrounded by teenage mess, the more she feels the urge to do something nice for him, for studious, brilliant, thoroughly decent Will, who’s studying so hard just meters away. So she decides she’ll clean his room, just this once. Because, she reasons, he shouldn’t study for hours and have to return to clutter. Surely he won’t mind. She begins to strip his bed of its bedding, replacing it with the soft, warm, forest-green sheets she’s just removed from the dryer, taking pains to smooth out every crease. She likes this, trying to make things comfy. It makes her feel most like a mother.

She’s pulling the fitted sheet over the fourth and final corner of the bed, when it comes loose on the left side of the other end. Joyce tries to pull it back over the edge, but it won’t budge. Frustrated, she lifts the mattress up, trying to get leverage. And that’s when she sees it.

There -- inconspicuous, but there nonetheless -- is a long slit cut into the underside of the mattress. Joyce almost doesn’t know what she’s looking at, until she reaches out and touches it, and realizes that the edges of the crater fold back. She reaches inside, and her hand makes contact with something thick and paper. A book, maybe? Her heart begins to thud as she pulls it out.

It’s a notebook. Nothing special. Just a beat-up, spiral notebook with a red cover. She knows she shouldn’t open it. She knows it’s a violation of Will’s privacy, that it would be wrong to trespass like this, that whatever is in there is clearly meant for Will’s eyes and Will’s eyes only. But Joyce can’t help thinking: What is he thinking? What is he feeling? What does he worry about? Is he okay?

So she opens the notebook. A stack of photos falls out, scattering all over the cluttered floor.

Joyce curses to herself in a whisper-shout, dropping the notebook, closed, onto Will’s bed. She drops to the ground, frantically assembling the photographs, trying not to make a sound. And she’s so caught up, and there are so many of them, that it takes a few seconds for her to even look at them properly.

The first one she sees doesn’t strike her as odd. It’s a black and white photo of River Phoenix, standing on what seems to be a balcony in New York City, looking over his shoulder at the camera. It’s a good photo, she thinks, but she isn’t sure why it’s been hidden. Confused, she looks through the photos she’s already collected, then at the other ones still around her on the ground. She begins to notice a pattern: some are in color, some not, but all are of River Phoenix. River Phoenix with long hair, with short hair, with hair wild and big, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. In one, he’s holding a guitar, and his shirt is only buttoned up halfway. Joyce stares at that one the longest. They’ve all been cut out of different magazines and newspapers (is this what he’s using my scissors for...?), meaning they’d been collected from different sources, over some length of time. But why? Why these photos? What exactly does he do with - And then it clicks, and Joyce knows exactly what she’s looking at.

Her fingers begin to tremble. She glances at the red notebook perched on the side of Will’s bed, just above eye-level. She grabs it and stares at it for what seems like forever, until finally resolving to open it. What she finds when she does is almost worse than the photos.

What she finds is sketchaftersketchaftersketchaftersketch of a face she knows all too well. It’s Mike Wheeler, as animated in Will’s drawings as he is in real life, displaying the full spectrum of human emotion. Will has drawn Mike sitting down and standing up, from all sorts of angles, and in a comprehensive range of styles. There’s cartoon Mike, for example, the protagonist in what looks like the beginnings of a comic book set in Hawkins High, drawn impeccably in sleek black ink. There are rough, imprecise renderings done in charcoal pencil that smear and blend into one another. There’s one particularly impressive full-page pencil sketch of Mike talking into a walkie talkie, his hair wild and big, wearing wire-rimmed glasses. It’s not just sketches, though - Will’s masterful drawings are interspersed with doodles and phrases written in his distinctive chicken-scratch. Mike’s full name is spelled out several times, alternately in cursive and in block letters. And all of Joyce’s suspicions are confirmed, all at once.

Joyce can’t help it when her nose starts to sting and she feels tears. She’s not angry, no. Not disappointed. Not disgusted. Joyce, in this moment, feels a sober sort of pride. She’s proud to know that Will feels love, in the same way that any parent rejoices when their child first begins that tricky, exciting ritual. For a few seconds she’s reminded how grown he is, how frighteningly close he is to leaving her. But this is what she’s always wanted for him, for as long as she can remember. She thinks, horribly, of the times she’d lie awake at night, imagining a future where Will is happy and in love, praying that it offers him some respite from a world full of Lonnies. She wonders if Mike knows about the drawings, or the sentiment attached. She figures he doesn’t, and if he does, it’s probably not because Will told him.

So she’s sad, too. She has sensed, from a very young age, that Will was different, and that his path would be a little darker, a little more treacherous. For the first time she really understands that Will knows this too. After all, there’s a reason the notebook is in the mattress. It breaks her heart.

“Mom?” Will’s voice calls from the living room. Joyce freezes.

“Mom?” Will calls again. Joyce curses to herself, rushing to tuck the photos into the notebook and shove the whole thing back into the mattress.

Will walks into the doorframe just as Joyce finishes making the bed.

“Yes, honey?”

Will’s brow wrinkles. “Did you change the sheets?” He asks.

“Um, yeah.” Joyce says, trying to conceal how hard her heart is pounding.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Will says sharply. Then, softer: “I mean. Thank you. But you really didn’t have to do that. I like doing it myself.”

Joyce shrugs. “I know. I just thought you’d appreciate a mother’s touch.” She’s trying very hard to add humor to her inflection, not sure if he’ll buy it. Will smiles, forgiving. Joyce wraps her arm around him, kisses his temple despite the eye-roll it gets her, and grips him just a little too tight.

She feels guilty for the rest of the day.

----

It’s 1 am on Sunday morning, one week after Joyce first discovers the notebook, and the boys are all asleep on her living room floor.

They’d all gone to see Back to the Future at the Hawk earlier that night, returning to the Byers’ house afterwards to continue the fun. Once the shrieking and the laughter die down, and Joyce feels confident that they’re asleep, she ventures out in search of a glass of water. She moves quietly over the carpeted floors, but stops at the threshold of the kitchen. She can hear faint whispering, barely intelligible, coming from the behind the couch.

“I guess I’m just relieved,” she hears someone say. It’s too raspy to know who for sure. “There’s a part of me that hasn’t accepted that we’re finally together after all this time.” Joyce knows that voice. That’s Mike.

“Yeah. Me too.” This voice is weaker, sleepier, and she immediately recognizes it as Will.

Who? She thinks. Who’s together after all this time?

“...especially because I thought it would never happen.” Mike again. What would never happen?

“What would your parents think?”

“I’m not going to tell them.” Wait a second. Are they-?

“Well, yeah. But if you did?”

“Are you kidding me? They’d flip.” Is Mike-?!

“Really?”

“Uh, yeah. Can you imagine my dad’s reaction? With everything that’s going on in the country right now? Honestly, some shit is just too weird. Even for Hawkins.”

“What about at school? Are we supposed to pretend?” Joyce is frozen, she can’t believe what she’s hearing.

“Do we have a choice?” Mike says, softly.

“I guess not.”

“I guess we have to wait and see what Hopper says.” Hopper? Joyce thinks, confused. What the hell does Hopper have to do with anything?

“Does he want us to call her Jane, or El?”

Jane?

Mike laughs. “She’ll always be El to me.”

And then Joyce realizes that they’re talking about Eleven. Of course they’re talking about Eleven.

Mike starts to speak again. “But everything will be how it’s always been. You know, at school. Nothing’s going to change.” His voice is laced with something cautious. Will laughs softly, as if trying to bury it, whatever it is.

“What are you talking about? Everything’s going to change.” And Joyce swears she can hear the regret in his voice.

----

It’s 6 pm on a tuesday, three days after the sleepover and ten after Joyce first finds the notebook, and Joyce is finishing up a shift at Melvald’s.

She feels happy. She’s got a lot to look forward to. Jonathan is bringing home takeout from the diner, club sandwiches and french fries, and Will will come home excited and talkative after A.V. club. (And, of course, Hopper happened to stop in today, looking for hair clips for El. He of course played it off like he was overwhelmed, but it was impossible to miss how happy he was to again be participating in the rituals of having a growing daughter. What about these ones? He’d asked. Joyce tells him that the ones he’s picked, bright pink with acrylic bumblebees, look a little young for her, don’t you think? Oh. Well, you know, it’s been a while. Well, you know her better than I do- I only have boys. She does like pink. Then get them! He smiles. They smile. Bitchin’.)

Will and Jonathan will be home a little later than usual, with Will coming from A.V. club and Jonathan from work, so she has just enough time before they arrive, Will first and then Jonathan, to set the table and smoke a cigarette in the quiet emptiness.

Their family dinners, infrequent thanks to work and academic commitments, always seem to make everyone happier. Joyce remembers Sunday morning after the sleepover, how Will looked more subdued than usual, how he hugged Mike goodbye somewhat tersely and watched him ride his bike down the driveway until he disappeared, and thinks: he needs it.

She waves goodbye to Donald and heads toward the exit. The automatic doors open when she nears, but Joyce stops short at the threshold, staring at the magazine rack.

It’s 6:18 on a Tuesday, three days after the sleepover, ten days after Joyce first finds the notebook, 18 minutes after she has what she hopes isn’t a terrible idea, and Joyce is waiting in the kitchen for Will to get home.

She’s standing in a part of the dining room where she knows she can’t be seen from the door, watching and waiting for it to open. She’s relieved when it does and Will walks in. He kicks off his shoes and sheds his jacket in seconds, and Joyce is warmed by how eager he seems to just be home. “I’m home!” He calls, but Joyce doesn’t say anything. Not yet.

Will lets his backpack drop to the ground with a thud and collapses onto the couch. He sits there a minute, idle. Come on. Joyce wills. Pick it up.

Almost a minute passes, and then Will seems to notice something on the coffee table, something Joyce can’t see from where she’s standing. His eyes are wide as he looks around, thisaway and thataway, to check if anyone’s there. Cautiously, he picks it up.

It’s a copy of People Magazine, with River Phoenix on the cover. It’s not Mike, Joyce thinks, but it is something.

Joyce watches as he flips through it, and when a pink blush creeps over his cheeks, she knows he’s reached the centerfold -- a glossy, full-page photo of River Phoenix, without a shirt on, posing behind a wire fence.

And it’s perforated. Able to be ripped out of the magazine neatly and cleanly, to be hung up on a wall or folded into a spiral notebook and shoved under the bed.

No scissors required.

Notes:

1. The last time I wrote fanfiction was in high school and I can say with some certainty it is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever produced, so ridiculous that when I went looking for it a couple months ago I knew I just had to distribute it to all my friends alongside a “reader’s companion” (yes- a reader’s companion to my erotica) highlighting everything cringeworthy. Point is I'm new to this, pls be nice!

2. This is not erotica. They’re 14. Not. Erotica. Not even close. Not even a little.

3. I know it’s a bit anachronistic. River Phoenix hadn’t even starred in Stand By Me by the time this fic is supposed to take place, but I really think that Will would be into him because he’s artsy and sensitive and beautiful, AND because he and Mike remind me of Chris and Gordie.

4. thanks eversomuch to @otpgod1 for their kind words of encouragement in publishing this!

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hermionously-blog · 7 years

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Changing Fate: a Hamilton Retelling, Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 2: You’re reading it :)

Conversation buzzed around them, as men in velvet and silk coats talked quietly about business and horse-racing, and women in satin dressed with long, large skirts chatted merrily about local gossip. Mulligan threw dinner parties often, and they were always well-attended with the local gentry who loved nothing more than an evening of light conversation and pleasantries. Today, though, and for the last few weeks—though Alexander didn’t know it, being a newcomer—the atmosphere had been different, like the cheerful exchange of formalities and the discussion of who was marrying who was a veneer over the quieter conversations that had begun taking place in the corners of the rooms and in the shadows of doorways. These conversations always seemed to lag as strangers passed by, and then start as soon as they were out of earshot. So Alexander did not hear any.

If he had, he would have been disturbed. Revolution is usually bad for business.

“Ah, monsieur. So pleased to meet you,” a voice purred behind Alexander, and he turned, wineglass in hand, from the conversation he’d been having with Hercules to greet the owner of the voice. It was a tall, lanky man, dressed fancily, almost foppishly, and with an easy smile.

“I don’t believe I yet have the pleasure of knowing your name, sir,” Alexander said smoothly.

Hercules grinned as he introduced them. “Lafayette, this is my new business partner, Aexander Hamilton. He’s from the Caribbean up here on business. Alex, this is my half-brother, Lafs. He moved to France with my mother a few years back when she found out that America didn’t have as many dress shops as she’d hoped. He’s back here on vacation. And still refusing to drop the accent, I guess.”

“Vhat Ahck-zent?” Lafayette asked, eyes wide in puzzlement.

“Lafs, that’s not even a French accent,” Hercules chuckled.

Alexander chuckled, too. “I didn’t know you had a brother, Hercules,” he said.

“Then you’re in for another surprise,” a young man with curly hair and freckles said as he joined them. “My name’s John Laurens, and I’m also Herc’s brother. Laf’s, too, for that matter.” He shook hands with Alex.

Alex withdrew his hand quickly, and after a brief smile and greeting he turned to ask Lafayette how the weather was in France.

It absolutely would not do to fall in love---no, not love, don’t be ridiculous, Alexander, you’ve never fallen in love at first sight before and you’re not going to start now---would not do to be attracted to his new business partner’s brother. That would just be messy, like Laurens hair which was pulled back in a low ponytail from his face, which was a very good one, all warm eyes and dimples and freckles covering smiling cheeks---

“So Alex, how’s the weather down in the Caribbean?” Lafayette asked, interrupting Alexander’s thoughts.

“Oh, it’s nice in my opinion, but I am admittedly rather biased since I did grow up there. And, never having been off of the islands before, I don’t have much idea how it compares to the weather in the rest of the world,” Alex answered with a laugh.

“I hear there are a lot of hurricanes, you ever get any?” Hercules asked.

“A few, yes.”

“They ever do any damage?”

Conscious of Lauren’s soft brown eyes on him, and Hercules’s gaze fixed on him as he waited for an answer to his conversational, innocently posed question, and Lafayette looking steadily at him from behind his raised wineglass, Alexander thought it rather funny how often he seemed to be having to change the topic tonight.

Outside, under the light of a streetlamp, Maria Reynolds adjusted her hair. It was getting dark quickly, and soon the dinner party that Peggy had said Hamilton would be at would be letting out.

She stepped out of the light and looked up at the sky, just a quick glance, then stopped and stared. It was one of those nights when the stars seem to clutter the sky, more numerous than the glints of moonlight on the waves in the harbor. There was no breeze, and the street was almost silent except for the muffled sounds of merriment inside the nearby building, which, under the cloudless night sky, seemed to take on a dreamlike quality, as if the world was just muffled sounds drifting on the wind to where she stood, still and small and quiet, looking up at the incomprehensible vastness of galaxies farther away than the human mind could reach, shining down on the tiny city where humans lived and died and fought wars and fell in love in less time than it takes the light of the nearest star to shine down from where it lies.

Then the door of Mulligan’s house opened, and a figure stood silhouetted against the sudden wash of light and noise for a moment, then closed the door and hurried down the steps.

Maria hurried forward, figuring that the first guest to depart from the party would be the trader from the Caribbean, since Peggy had said Mulligan rarely invited business partners to dinner and would likely ask the trader to leave early so he could relax with his brothers and friends.

“May I help you?” the man said with a friendly smile, as she walked up to him.

She didn’t recognize him as one of the men who had flirted with her before, and every man in town had flirted with her before, often to her annoyance. It must be the newcomer, Hamilton.

“Oh, if you could. My friend was supposed to pick me up here in her carriage ages ago, but she must have forgotten, and now I have no way at all to get home, and my home is absolutely on the other side of town!” Maria said, eyes pleading.

“You could borrow my horse, if you like. I don’t live far, and I don’t mind walking. Then you can give me your address and I’ll pick the horse up tomorrow, or you can bring it here tomorrow and Hercules will stable it until I come get it,” he said helpfully.

“But I’d be so scared to ride home after dark all alone. It’s not safe anymore with all those nasty English soldiers lurking about. Just the other day one tied a bottle to my little dog’s tail and chased her down the street, laughing! I had to rescue the poor dear, she was so scared.”

“Given what they do to humans, I’m not surprised,” the man said angrily, then looked at Maria. “Alright. I’ll take you home on my horse.”

He led her over to one of the tethered horses, and she swung onto the saddle behind him and clasped her arms around his waist for balance. This was going well.

As they set off down the street, the horses hooves striking a sharp staccato on the cobblestone that set a dog nearby barking in the cool night air, she smiled.

“Oh, but I haven’t even been introduced, have we?” she said. “My name is Maria Reynolds.”

“Mine is John Laurens. Maria’s a lovely name,” he replied, eyes on the road as the horse trotted along, turning a street corner.

It wasn’t Hamilton. Damn.

Still, she could salvage the situation. After all, this man was presumably wealthy and well-connected, too.

“Thank you,” she said, and reached up and softly touched his arm, brushing his coat sleeve with her fingertips. He didn’t respond, so she leaned the side of her head against his shoulder and sighed, a wistful and carefully-practiced sound.

“I love the nighttime, don’t you?” she asked, her voice soft and barely audible over the striking of the horse’s hooves and the wingbeats of birds that flew away disturbed as the stillness of the night was broken by their journey. “It’s so peaceful. It reminds me of when I was a girl, and would sleep outdoors with my cousins sometimes on fresh spring nights, and listen to the crickets chirping. It was so lovely. Of course, I never hear the crickets these days…” she trailed off, and waited for the expected question.

“Why not?” Laurens asked.

“Oh, it’s….it’s too loud in my house. My husband, he….he shouts a lot, and gets so angry, and doesn’t leave me alone until I’m too tired from having insults heard at me to stay awake and listen to the crickets, like I used to.”

“He sounds like a jerk. You should shoot him, and claim you thought he was an intruder,” came the reply.

She blinked in surprise, but quickly recovered. “But then I’d be all alone, with no one to protect me. And,” she continued, her breath barely a whisper as she played her winning hand, “no one to love me.”

She slid her hand up and brushed his cheek, with its light coating of peach fuzz, then traced her fingers along his curly hair…

And he laughed.

“Are you flirting with me?” he asked, his voice incredulous.

Damn the little bastard. He wasn’t even the right guy, and now he was asking her if she was flirting. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work. She could still save the situation, but she was tired, and a bit annoyed that her acting wasn’t having more of an affect, so she just replied, “Well I was trying to,” irritated.

She could hear the smile in his voice as he answered. “It was a great try, don’t worry. I’m just not interested. But I’m flattered by the attempt.”

“Don’t be. I was just trying to recruit you to join the revolution.”

“……See, I think you’re joking, but honestly I’ve been thinking about that for a while now.

She straightened up. Perhaps tonight wasn’t lost.

Thomas Jefferson walked down the street, watching the sunrise and whistling a hornpipe he’d learned asea from his years as a sailor. He walked jauntily, hands in pockets, his steps long and loping and his hair bouncing. He was feeling good today. Gregarious and sociable. He’d woken up early after a good night’s sleep, his landlady’s breakfast hadn’t been burnt and was surprisingly edible, and the cat that slept outside on the steps of his landlady’s house had actually let Jefferson pet him for a few seconds before hissing and stalking away.

Perhaps, given that was the first time he’d pet it, he shouldn’t have tried to scratch its tummy. Oh, well.

He walked along, passing a freckled man and a strikingly beautiful woman walking the other way, energetically discussing what sounded like plans for a revolution. He whistled. The woman glared, but the man grinned at him and waved.

Huh. Okay.

He smiled and chuckled to himself. The fresh glow of the morning sun, a breeze in the air, birds in the sky, talk on the streets of revolution—what could be better?

He wanted to find a friend to talk about revolution with, too. It was a good day for making friends. He waved to a passing woman, who pointedly ignored him. He doffed an imaginary cap and walked on.

A few blocks down the street, a man was kneeling, vigorously scrubbing cobblestones with a bucket of soapy water and a sponge. Jefferson stood by him and watched benevolently for a few minutes.

Finally, the man looked up at Jefferson, passing the back of his hand over his forehead and accidentally leaving a dirty streak. He looked annoyed. “You’re in my light.”

“Exactly how the English stand in the glow of their gold and prevent even the distant light of it from reaching the poor, downtrodden masses of America,” Jefferson rejoined.

The man looked puzzled.

Jefferson grinned. “My name is Thomas Jefferson.”

The man scrubbed a cobblestone and ignored him.

“No, really, the honor’s all mine,” Jefferson said.

The man scrubbed another.

“I know, I know, you feel you need to continue to work lest you fall behind and not get paid and starve or whatever. But fear not! A new dawn is breaking!”

“It broke twenty minutes ago, and you’re standing in its light,” the man muttered. Jefferson ignored the remark.

“A new day is starting,” Jefferson continued. “A day when the rich shall fall, and the poor shall rise. A day of brotherhood for all men—well, most, at least—when the lowest-born son of a farmer shall dare to face the sons of kings and proclaim that he is their equal. A day when the peasant shall snatch power from the emperor, shall dare to say “I shall decide my life. No emperor, or monarch, neither a rich man nor a warrior, can decide my destiny. Only I, and I alone, will control my fate.” A day when the land will flow with plenty, for at last the harvest will be shared. A day when peace and wealth shall rain down from the heavens, and all men will partake in the bounty. But this day,” he said, and crouched down to stare directly into the man’s eyes. “This day shall not come if its bringers are too busty cleaning cobblestones to herald the dawn.”

Slowly, the man set down his sponge. He looked Jefferson straight in the face.

“You’re a bloody idiot. And get out of my light,” the man said.

Jefferson stood up and stalked away.

James Madison picked up his sponge, swirled it in the soapy water in the bucket, and scrubbed another cobblestone.

#hamilton fanfic #my writing #alexander hamilton #lafayette #jefferson #mulligan #eliza #angelica #peggy #laurens #maria reynolds #madison #king george #au #alternate universe #fiction

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sunbrights · 7 years

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dvd commentary: viewfinder

(For anon, because I also have a special place in my heart for "viewfinder", and I wanted to talk about it more.

This isn't going to go on AO3, for a few reasons that I'll spare you guys from getting into, but I know that Tumblr isn't very kind to long text posts. If this is a pain to read let me know and I'll try to find another alternative!

I hope you guys enjoy!)

I originally wanted to write "viewfinder" as the first of a series of quickfics exploring friendships that have a lot of potential, in my opinion, but don't get a lot of screentime for whatever reason. I really enjoy both Peko and Mahiru as characters, though, and the longer I went the more I wanted to do a deeper dive, which is how it came to be what is now.

(I still want to do something similar to what I was originally planning, though I don't think they'll be quickfics anymore; probably longer oneshots like this one. I do have another fic planned in the same vein that's intended to be a sort of companion to "viewfinder," though that might be a while out.)

Essentially, I was interested first by the fact that Peko mentions Mahiru a few times in her FTEs, which leaves open the possibility for them to be friends even if it's never looked at explicitly in the main game. There are a lot of peppered references to both Peko's and Mahiru's FTEs in here as a result of that (which may or may not have already been obvious). Second, I was interested in the impact on Peko of having to kill her, outside of the consequences for herself and Fuyuhiko in the context of the killing game, especially if the two of them had been friends beforehand. Striking a balance between those two concepts, tonally, was really tough, but in the end I decided I didn't want to leave either one of them out.

Nitty gritty commentary under the cut!

** **

Koizumi has taken at least four photographs of her since they arrived on the island. One was a group photo, taken the first day; the other three were taken covertly, when she thought Peko wasn’t aware. (Peko cannot afford not to be aware.)

I really agonized over how many photos Mahiru would reasonably have taken at this point. I think this number (and the one later, when Mahiru shows Peko all of them) changed at least five or six times. Why?? I have no idea. Weird hang ups in editing hell.

She does the same with the others, with similar frequency; most of them rarely notice, if ever. Peko allows it because she sees no reason not to, but she does consider the possibility of Koizumi having goals beyond a few candid photographs.

(She brings this up to the young master, and he rolls his eyes.

“Koizumi’s a fucking goody-goody,” he says, feet kicked up on the edge of his desk. “She’s not worth worrying about. If it bugs you, tell her to knock it off. Otherwise, I don’t give a shit what she does.”)

The next time Koizumi takes a photo of her, Peko is out splitting coconuts on the beach. It starts out as just her, Mioda, and a handful of others, but once they start shouting about the quality of the coconut juice, it isn’t long before the rest of the class begins to file in.

This section was tough to get right, and a lot of it ended up getting cut; I almost ended up cutting the whole section (I did a couple times, I think), but I'm glad I was eventually able to get it where I wanted it. The coconut special event in particular felt like a good starting place to me because it's the earliest point that we see Peko bonding and socializing with the others, even if she didn't really intend to.

At one point Souda, Hinata, and Mioda hold six coconuts out in a line; Peko slices through all of them in a single swing, and hears the familiar snap of Koizumi’s shutter behind her.

The others all whoop as the tops of the coconuts hit the sand. Koizumi rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling even as she steps back. When they start handing out the remaining shells, Peko brings one over to her.

“I was wondering,” she says, after Koizumi has taken the first sip of her juice, “would it be all right for me to see that photo?”

“The one I just took of you? Sure, if you want.” Koizumi pulls on the strap of her camera to swing it back up towards her. It looks unwieldy to hold in one hand, but she does it without much effort at all. “Don’t worry, you look really cool in it.”

The digital display of the camera is grainy and cluttered with functional symbols, but the most important parts of the image are clear. Peko discovers that she isn’t the subject of the photo, as she’d assumed— instead, she is the dynamic foreground to the actual subjects: Souda, Hinata, and Mioda, their hands held out and their faces lit up in varying degrees of awe, fear, and delight. The line of Peko’s shoulders and the draw of her blade act as a frame for the smiles of her classmates.

(Peko can also tell that her form is off: she’s holding her right shoulder too high, and it caused the cut in the final coconut to be uneven. It’s hardly Koizumi’s fault, but having such laziness immortalized will bother her for days.)

“What do you think?”

“It’s... surprising.”

“‘Surprising’?” Koizumi draws the word out. It’s the wrong one, going by the way her brows pinch together. She twists the camera back towards herself to squint at the display. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Peko struggles to elaborate. It’s difficult to find the words to describe something when she isn’t certain of what it is in the first place. “It could have simply captured the trick they asked me to perform,” she decides on, “but instead it captures the feelings of everyone involved.” She hesitates, then clarifies: “I like it.”

Peko's much better than Hajime at giving the kind of feedback Mahiru likes to hear. She's a thoughtful character in general, but I also think she'd be familiar with what helpful feedback sounds like, sort of a counterpoint to her own criticism of herself above.

Koizumi looks up at her, eyebrows lifting. “Yeah.” She smiles, and it’s easy and friendly. “Yeah, that’s it exactly, actually. Thank you.”

Mahiru's smiles get mentioned a lot in this story, which is intentional; Peko's hyperawareness of them is meant to play into her own self-consciousness over struggling with smiling herself.

“You’re welcome,” Peko says, even if she doesn’t understand what she has to be thanked for. Koizumi seems pleased regardless, and she leans over to show Peko the other photos she’d taken so far.

There’s no harm in letting her keep taking them, she decides.

They have lunch together, sometimes. Both she and Koizumi tend to eat earlier than the others, so the hotel restaurant is often empty; on the days when neither of them are away doing other things, they sit out on the balcony and Koizumi shows her the photos she’d taken that morning.

“You know, I actually had something I wanted to talk to you about,” Koizumi says one day, dimming a photo of Togami and his spread of breakfast from her camera’s display. She pulls a small, squat album out of her camera bag and lays it out on the table between them. “Here. These are all the pictures I’ve taken of you so far.”

By Peko’s tally, Koizumi has taken six photos of her: the four she’d already been aware of, the one of her slicing the coconuts, and an additional group photo since.

In this album, there are eight.

I feel like a talent like Mahiru's has to be multifaceted; she's creatively and technically talented, obviously, but she also has to be adept enough to physically take photographs in a way that captures moments without imparting an observer effect.

That, and I think it creates a point of commonality between Peko's talent and Mahiru's (Peko being constantly aware of herself and her surroundings vs Mahiru separating herself from her surroundings in order to document them) that helps make them peers, in a backwards sort of way.

“I feel like I must be getting something wrong,” Koizumi says. She leans her chin on one hand, and the puff of her sigh scatters her bangs. “No matter what I do, I can’t seem to get the right shot of you.”

Peko touches the edge of a photo of herself leaning on the hotel restaurant’s railing. She tries to remember when it possibly could have been taken. “I don’t understand.”

“Well… Okay, look at this one.” Koizumi taps her nail against one of the group shots on the page: all eight girls standing together, smudged with chocolate and flour. “You had fun that day, right? At least, I thought you did.”

“Yes,” Peko answers. She studies the photo, trying to understand the flaw. The form is excellent and the colors are bright; it’s everything one would expect from Koizumi’s talent. “I… enjoy baking, sometimes. It was a welcome distraction.”

I like the idea of Peko enjoying cooking, especially baking, in spite of her not liking sweets. (The logic being that it's something fun she can do, and the results can be shared with people she cares about to make them happy, too.) Y'all probably can probably see that cropping up in a few stories of mine.

“But you’re the only one not smiling in the picture.” Koizumi flips the pages of her album back and forth. “See? You’re not smiling in any of them. This one kind of comes close,” she touches an image of Peko sitting together with Tanaka and Mioda while the Four Dark Devas of Destruction explore a sand castle, “but I’m not sure it counts. You look happy, but you’re not really smiling.”

This is the first reference to a FTE, specifically Peko's third one:

PEKO: Mahiru told me that... I'm the only one who doesn't smile for her pictures.

Oh. It’s about that. Peko closes her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “It wasn’t my intention to ruin your photos.” If Koizumi’s goal is to capture moments of positivity in their circumstances, it makes sense that Peko wouldn’t fit into that vision. “If you’d rather I avoid being in them from now on, I understand.”

“What?” Peko feels Koizumi’s hand clasp around her wrist. When she opens her eyes, Koizumi has her other hand splayed out over the open page of the album. “No, no. That’s not what I’m saying at all, Peko-chan. I just thought... maybe there are other times when you’re having more fun, you know? Maybe I should take pictures of you then instead.”

I think ultimately Mahiru's photos celebrate mundane joy in her friends' lives; I don't think she'd want them to be a source of anxiety for anyone, especially not a friend.

Even through Koizumi’s fingers, Peko can see how the photos of her don’t fit in well with the ones on the opposite page. There is a clear interruption in the theme of the collection. Looking again, she doesn’t know how she didn’t notice it the first time.

“It isn’t that,” she says. “Smiling can be… a challenge, for me. It may be more efficient for you to focus on the others.”

“Oh.” Koizumi’s forehead creases in what Peko assumes is a combination of sympathy and confusion. “Well, that’s okay. It’s not really about the smiles themselves, anyway. It’s more… whether or not you’re happy in the moment.” She smiles then, one that’s small and apologetic, and for a moment Peko can’t fathom it ever being that easy. “So don’t worry about it. Okay?”

Peko says, “I’ll try,” and means it.

She still thinks about it for the rest of the afternoon.

Koizumi takes fewer photos in the days after Hanamura’s execution. It’s understandable; there aren’t many causes for any of them to be smiling in that aftermath. She spends most of her mornings and afternoons out away from the others, but when Peko asks to see the photos, she declines. (“I’ve never been proud of my landscapes,” she admits. “It always feels like there’s something missing.”)

Little crossover tidbit: Natsumi preferring to take pictures of nature in "by the claw of dragon" is a reference to my headcanon here that Mahiru doesn't enjoy it much.

The next time she arrives at the hotel restaurant early enough for lunch, she’s the brightest Peko has seen her in days.

“Peko-chan! Look, I have a surprise for you.”

She slides onto the opposite bench and sets her lunch aside, an afterthought. “I was right, I think.” She unzips one of the outside pockets of her camera bag to produce a photo, newly printed. “I just needed to get the right shot of you.”

Having said the above re: Mahiru not wanting her photos to be a source of anxiety for people, I do think that she would keep trying, and that she probably would have been one of the best people (next to Hajime) to help Peko get past her mental blocks.

Peko doesn’t understand. She’d only been practicing with Hinata for a couple days, and his comedic timing leaves much to be desired. “Is that…?”

“It sure is.” Koizumi’s smile is proud and eager. “Here, see for yourself.”

She slides the photo across the table, and Peko draws it toward herself with the tip of her finger, careful not to smudge.

It’s a picture of her from earlier that morning. Her, and the young master.

“What do you know, right? I was so worried he was going to ruin it.” Koizumi sets her chin in both hands, and Peko can see the way her smile flattens out sardonically. “But it turns out even Kuzuryuu can take a nice picture every now and then.”

It is a nice picture. The angle is high, and neither she nor the young master have noticed the camera; Koizumi must have taken it from the restaurant stairs. She vaguely remembers the moment: she’d passed him on her way out of the hotel, and had only paused to say good morning. She remembers him, half turned towards her with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders and his smile relaxed. In Koizumi’s photo, she smiles back.

His singular order from the very first day had been to maintain the illusion that they were only classmates. They look it, in this picture. He’d be satisfied with it, she thinks.

Not sure how obvious this is, but the picture described here is intended to be the one Fuyuhiko mentions during chapter 5, if you talk to him in the hotel restaurant before going to the ruins with Sonia.

FUYUHIKO: It's the first time... I've seen a photo of Peko and me where we look like equals... FUYUHIKO: Tch, Mahiru... When the hell did she even take this photo?

“Sorry,” Koizumi says, after a moment. Her voice is gentler, and when Peko looks up her brows have drawn together, concerned. Oh. She’d misinterpreted Peko’s silence as offense. “I didn’t mean to— just be careful, Peko-chan, okay? I know you’re trying to help him and all, but that guy is bad news. You shouldn’t get involved with him.”

I figure that if anyone would have picked up on the fact that Peko is the one constantly "bumping into" Fuyuhiko and ferrying information back and forth to him, it would be Mahiru.

“He is… abrasive,” Peko allows. (She has rehearsed this answer in her head many times.) Koizumi’s brows disappear behind her bangs. “We shouldn’t let our guard down. But I think with time he might be open to cooperation.”

“Peko-chan.” Koizumi’s voice is still gentle, but has dropped low enough to not quite be called a whisper; it borderlines on conspiratorial. She chooses every word with careful deliberation. “This is the only picture I’ve been able to take of you smiling, even a little bit. Ever. Okay?”

Peko wills herself not to react, even as she feels her face and fingertips go cold. If she has in any way compromised—

“I’m not going to pretend I get it. Because I swear to every god there is, I don’t.” Her smile turns lopsided and embarrassed, and all at once Peko understands the sort of assumption she’s made. Her cold cheeks suddenly flush warm. “Seriously. That guy? Really?”

She has not rehearsed an answer for this.

Something in her expression must balk, because Koizumi holds both hands up, defensive. “No, it’s okay. I’m not going to ask, just—” She bites her lip, and Peko sees the way she rehearses her words in her head. “A guy like that, the kind of world he comes from? He’s not ever going to change. He’s too wrapped up in himself and his image to bother. Maybe he’s not dangerous yet, but he’s definitely not worth your time. Or anybody else’s, for that matter.”

Combine the above with how aggressively Mahiru and Fuyuhiko butt heads right out of the gate, and I ended up with this conversation. Mahiru wants Peko to be happy, but she also doesn't want her getting caught up with someone she sees as unreliable, self-absorbed, and dangerous. The friction that comes from that in Peko and Mahiru's friendship is inevitable, in my opinion, especially since Mahiru doesn't have all the context.

“We are in a dire situation,” Peko hears herself say. “Our only hope of success is through cooperation.”

Koizumi’s expression twists. “No, no. I know. You’re right.” She turns the photo on the table back toward her, and looks at that instead of at Peko. “But you have to admit, he’s not exactly falling over himself to cooperate with us, either.”

The young master wouldn’t disagree. Peko only shakes her head.

“I’m just saying, as a friend? You don’t need to bend over backwards to help someone who obviously doesn’t want it.” Koizumi picks the photo up by the corner, and is careful not to bend it when she puts it back in her bag. She zips the pocket closed with more force than she needs to. “Let him deal with his own problems.”

And a little dramatic irony, for flavor.

She is wrong, in more ways than she’ll ever understand.

That morning, the young master knocks on her door first.

Not pictured: me grappling with the timeline of chapter 2 to make any of this work, after I realized just how short it is between Fuyuhiko playing Twilight Syndrome and Mahiru's death. Say what you want about his yakuza talents, my boy can crank out a revenge plot like it's a frickin' office memo.

The photos must have been taken in the heat of the moment, but their composition is still stark and harshly beautiful. The framing of Natsumi-sama’s blood-spattered corpse makes excellent use of the rule of thirds.

Peko says, “Koizumi,” before the young master has had a chance to say anything at all.

When he throws the open envelope across the length of her cottage, the rest of the photos spill and scatter across her floor like fallen leaves.

Peko offers to be the one to deliver the message, but the young master insists he do it himself. She watches the mailbox instead, to ensure his message is heard and understood.

By noon, the mailbox is empty.

Koizumi doesn’t respond immediately. It’s understandable; if the young master doesn’t remember the incident, it’s unlikely she does, either. Peko watches for her anyway, and late in the afternoon, Koizumi sits on the deck of her cottage with the largest of her photo albums in her lap.

Peko knows it to be the one with the final prints of her photos, after she’s had time to crop and color balance them. Her face is lined with concentration and stress, less like reminiscing and more like personal critique, but Peko has made enough threats in her lifetime to see the fear around every edge, in the shakiness of Koizumi’s muscles and the tightness of her mouth.

If you've read some of my other stuff, you might have seen that I like to write in very, very close third person. That makes communicating the arcs of characters who aren't the POV character (through the filter of the POV character) a fun challenge for me, and this is a good example of me trying to do that with Mahiru. I wanted to highlight the point after Mahiru has seen the pictures but before she's played Twilight Syndrome, when she must have recognized the pictures as hers but been shocked and afraid by the contents. Peko interprets it a little differently.

The message has both been heard and understood.

That confirmed, there is no reason for Peko to interact with her any further, now that she’s been identified as an enemy of the Kuzuryuu Clan. Clearly, Peko has made a grave error in underestimating her as a potential threat; any further mistakes would only exacerbate the damage.

However, since arriving on the island the young master has had only one, singular request.

This is intended to be the first conflict between Peko's duty as a "tool" and the new friendships she's been making -- she uses her duty as an excuse to keep hanging out with Mahiru, right after she points out to herself that she shouldn't.

Peko holds out her hand to get Koizumi’s attention.

“I wasn’t back in time for lunch today,” she explains. “Could I look at your photos with you now instead?”

Koizumi still smiles, even if it’s thin. “Yeah. Here, come sit with me.”

Ordinarily, Koizumi is happy enough to talk through her photographs while Peko observes, the whens and whats more than the hows and whys. (“My work needs to speak for itself,” Koizumi had said, the one time Peko had asked, “If I have to explain it, then I didn’t do my job right.”) Today they sit in silence while she pages through the album, one by one.

Many of these final prints are ones that Peko has yet to see. Owari and Nidai, bloodied and grinning, grasping each other’s forearms. Saionji with two packets of gummy bears flared out in front of her face like twin fans. Souda with a screwdriver in one hand and Nanami’s Gamegirl in the other, and Nanami sitting beside him, reaching for it with both hands. Hanamura in the hotel kitchen, flipping flapjacks in a pan while Mioda cheers in the background.

You might have noticed by now that I had a lot of fun coming up with different scenarios for Mahiru's photos in this fic. I was always a little sad we didn't get to see more of them!

(There is exactly one picture of Koizumi herself, where she isn’t in a group. The photo isn’t candid, but she doesn’t look prepared, and the framing is sloppy. When Koizumi reaches it in the album, she’s quick to turn the page.)

This is intended to be the picture Hajime takes of her in her final FTE:

MAHIRU: So... I was thinking about taking at least one shot of myself while I'm on this island. MAHIRU: The me... who's here like this...

“I know that it’s not the most groundbreaking subject matter ever,” Koizumi says eventually, “but that’s fine. People don’t need their lives to be groundbreaking, or dramatic, or- or tragic for there to be beauty in them. You know?”

She turns the page, and her fingers land on a photograph of Hinata caught mid-sentence, his mouth open too wide and his eyes halfway through blinking. It makes her smile, a real one that isn’t pained or forced. For that moment, the lines of stress and fear on her face smooth out into nothing.

And again, this is intended to be the photo Mahiru takes of Hajime in her first FTE:

MAHIRU: Well, I guess this is good enough. Yep, that sure is a dumb-looking face.

“Yes,” Peko answers. “I think so.”

Koizumi’s allotted time runs out. The young master is not inclined to give her more.

More evidence of me playing fast and loose with said unreal ch 2 timeline.

This whole section actually wasn't in the original draft of this story, and I waffled a lot on whether or not I should include it; I wanted Fuyuhiko's influence to be felt, but I didn't actually want to include him in the story itself too much. In the end I decided I needed it to bridge the arc I wanted for Peko in the story, which I'll get into in a minute.

“I’ll go with you,” Peko tells him, when they’re alone.

“No.” He’s bent over his desk, which is neat and nearly empty now that Koizumi has the photographs. All that’s left are the letters he’s just written, folded and stacked and ready to set a plan in motion. He won’t look at her. “No. Your plans aren’t changing, okay? Go- go do your thing with the girls. I’ll be done before then anyway.”

That is not an option. She can’t agree, so she doesn’t.

“I’m going to talk to her,” he goes on. His voice trembles under the weight of all his anger and anxiety. “And if that bitch has something to answer for, she’ll fucking answer for it. That’s the only thing I can do, right? That’s what Natsumi deserves.”

Peko hears it, the way his resolve doesn’t shore up the way he wants it to. There are fractures in his certainty of what he’s been taught, and every day they get a little wider; his heart is too big and beats too strongly for them not to. He struggles with it, but there is strength in struggle, not shame.

One of the remaining blank sheets of paper crumples under his left hand. He hears the fractures too, but they sound different to him than they do to her.

There is so much weighing him down.

She wants to take it away from him, or at least help him shoulder the burden. But Koizumi’s philosophies, Hinata’s advice and encouragement— all of it fails her in the moment, when it matters the most. She remembers when they were small and cold and lost in the mountains, how his face had pinched with fear and tears, how she’d failed him then, too.

Like I mentioned earlier, I was interested in Peko and Mahiru's FTEs, especially in the larger context of the main plot. If you WERE to finish Peko's FTEs before the, uh, cutoff point, for example, her later ones would necessarily need to fall around/during all the behind-the-scenes fuckery happening in chapter 2. So, with that in mind, here's this from her fourth FTE:

PEKO: Mahiru showed me her photos the other day. They were filled with images of smiling faces. PEKO: I don't know how else to say this, but... they were very nice photos. I learned that smiles give people power. [ ... ] PEKO: If I had been able to smile and tell him that everything was going to be okay, even if it was a lie... PEKO: I might've been able to take away his fear.

The other piece of this is the fact that Peko wants to protect Fuyuhiko, but she doesn't do it by stopping him from killing Mahiru, which would protect everyone. In this story, I wanted to open the door to the possibility that Peko may have wanted to try and convince him away from it, through her interactions with Mahiru and Hajime and the others, but struggled with it because of the nature of her "role." In my mind, this is the point where that door shuts again, and she falls back on what she knows.

She says, “Young master—” but he’s already standing.

“Don’t call me that. Just- go, all right? I don’t have a lot of time.” He tucks the letters into the inside pocket of his jacket. “We’ll talk when it’s done.”

"I don't have a lot of time" was an inside joke with myself about how dumb the timeline of ch 2 is. That shit really got to me, y'all.

Koizumi is pale that morning. It makes her concealer too dark against her skin, and when she lowers her head shadows still steal into the bags under her eyes. Her hands shake when she waves at Peko from across the pool.

“Morning, Peko-chan.” Koizumi breathes in deeply, for no reason Peko can see except to steady her voice. “You’re still going to the beach with everyone today, right?”

Peko nods.

“That’s good.” Koizumi nods, too. She keeps nodding, and looks down at her hands. “I’m glad. It sounds like it’ll be a lot of fun.”

Mahiru is in a pretty dark place at this point, but her priority (like it is with Mikan and Ibuki) is still that her friends are happy and have fun. There's always tomorrow, right?

“You won’t be coming with us?”

Peko knows the answer. She asks the question anyway, because she must. Because as much as she feels for Koizumi’s position, the young master’s safety comes first, and his will comes second. There is no choice to be made.

Again: she wants to protect him, but going against his wishes to do that isn't an option. The rest of this is intended to be Peko turning to fully embrace the "tool" mentality she thinks she's supposed to have after slipping from it.

“No. I’m sorry, I wish I could.” She is hugging her arms close to herself. Her fingers tighten around her elbows until the skin under her nails turns white. “I just... I have something I need to take care of. But you should go have fun, okay?”

“You’ll be missed,” Peko tells her. It isn’t a lie, except by omission, but she still feels like something has been wedged deep beneath her sternum. “We’ll take photos. For your record.”

Peko's not talking about the beach trip. In case anybody wasn't sure.

“I’d like that. Thanks.” Even now, even with all this, Koizumi is still able to smile. For all her practicing, Peko is sure she’s learned nothing at all. “Have you seen Ibuki-chan anywhere?”

In the end, Koizumi never sees her approach. It’s a stroke of luck Peko doesn’t deserve, but the outcome would not have changed regardless. She will protect who she must protect. Kill who she must kill. If she can do nothing else, she can do that.

The young master reaches for his weapon, and she is there.

There was originally a transitive verb in the second clause of this sentence (I forget exactly how I phrased it) that didn't get changed to what it is now ("she is there") until the final edit. Ultimately I changed it because I wanted to emphasize Peko's attempt to take agency away from herself, especially in the context of the narrative she pushes in the trial later.

#this was actually quicker to do than i expected #so i think i'll also do one for shelf sea #since that got requested too #it feels a little like drawing back the curtain to show you guys the patchwork mess underneath tho #nerve wracking!!#i hope this is sort of what you were looking for anon!#dvd commentaries #meta thoughts #not a fic

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