hantaslittlearsonist

[hantaslittlearsonist]

You always thought the circus was where you yearned to be. At least, until it finally let you in—and introduced you to Hanta Sero.

[circus AU where seamstress!reader and acrobat!sero realize that their lives have been running parallel for a long time, and it’s up to you to weave them together]

part 2: veiled by the daytime sky.

sero hanta x reader ch 2/6 | 11.4k words | masterlist | ao3 cw: slight spoilers for the war arc/fights if you squint notes: ch songs are birds of a feather by billie eilish, saltwater room by owl city

you watch the circus performance of a lifetime.

✰.

"It's all so familiar yet I know I've never been here before. I feel so at home."

-Sophie, from Howl's Moving Castle

You wake up in your own home.

Despite the excitement and thrill of the night, the buzzing through your body came to a halt when your dance with the stranger ended. You tried, gave a valiant effort to continue, but your heart felt heavy. You were missing something—a partner. In an attempt to sooth your melodrama, you purchased another round of taiyaki, hoping to suffocate your delusions with the fluff of pastry and dense red bean paste. When that failed, all you felt was the pull to be home, comfortable in your bed. You heeded Chiara’s offer and took the metro home, ignoring that you’d have to get your garment bag and box in the future regardless. Then you took the train back, showered your fastest shower, and laid in bed curled around your precious book, fingers threading through the pages. It felt more real, somehow, after running into that man.

You turn over in your bed, squinting at the morning light crawling through the room. You blink a couple times, trying to smear your vision to clarity as you notice the grey of the sky. When your focus sharpens, you catch light tufts of snow gently falling.

It’s enough to have you leaping out of bed, hopping and stumbling as you untangle the giant comforter from your legs. When you free yourself you run across the room, planting your hands on the windowsill and pressing your face against the glass. Joy blooms in your chest, watching puffy whiteness cling to the pavement and grass.

You think today will be incredible.

It’s also a working day, you decide, to spend your morning on the start of your next order: another opera gown. You make your breakfast unhurried before slipping on a coat and into the garage. The door to the driveway opens with its usual squeaky greeting, and you step outside with a smile. Your hands raise, outstretched to the sky to catch the softly falling snow. You tilt your head upwards, scrunching your nose when a bundle of flakes lands on the tip.

It takes a while for you to start working, first pulling out sketches from the meeting with your client. You spread them across your work table, shoving unnecessary ones aside, some of them falling to the ground. Next you scan them for the measurements you jotted down, outlined with a bright yellow square. Notes for colors and textures are scribbled underneath, with a crude sketch of lace swirls. You rummage through your rolls and scraps and samples, looking for fabrics that match best. You take a picture of three similar options, asking your client for her preference. You set an alarm before switching off your phone and pulling out the dress pattern, to start on the bust.

You work steadily, taking your time to cut and pin swathes of sapphire blue. Next you sew, listening to the comforting hum of the bouncing needle, your hands gliding smoothly beside it. These movements are technical, practiced, running on muscle memory. You are another type of sewing machine, one that measures and cuts and hems, one that will later embroider and meticulously weave details into the fabric—but you are still another machine, in the end.

It’s easier to work on autopilot somedays, like today, when you’re still trying to grasp that your last project came to an end. You have different fabric in your hands—no longer fiery red and blood-maroon. You’re cradling a different story, a new client, a new destination. But you work as per usual, going through the same motions, the same patterns, the same focused, uninterrupted state of concentration.

The air is chilly, biting against your hands and seeping through your jacket. But you leave the garage door open, soaking in the light diffused through clouds, the crispness of winter flavoring your work. Stray flurries breeze into the room, greeting you for a moment before they unravel into small puddles on the concrete.

A soft smile sits on your face as your mind wanders. You love winter, the coldness initially foreign and villainous when you arrived in Italy. You’re used to the tropics of Costa Rica—hot, humid air and black sand beaches, crystal blue water with the warmth of a hug. You hated these wet winters and the dry heat of Milan summers, how they deepen your ache to go home. But you’ve come to love the new layers of your seasons, the arrival of one always blooming excitement for the next. 

But your hands go numb, and you have to close the door.

The alarm sounds, pulling you from the depths of your focus. The last piece of fabric slides through the needle before you lift your foot from the pedal, to halt the machine. You swipe your thumb to end the alarm before briefly scrolling through your notifications. Your client responded with her preference: a thin and lacy fabric, the one you’re almost out of. You make a note to pick up another bolt today.

You don’t bother with cleanup, leaving scraps of fabric and papers and spools of thread across the surface of your table. Instead you stand and stretch out your arms, rolling your shoulders beneath the heaviness of your coat. There’s an ache in your neck from hunching, worsened by the stiffness from the cold.

Dressing today is a rare challenge. Normally it’s a sequence of intuitive decisions, hardly a thought entering your mind when you toss on garments. But today is special; today is the first showing of Gōyoku—the first production by Hoshi no Sākasu that you get to see, and with your first costume in a circus production ever. You didn’t expect to feel this indecisive, with uncertain hands carding through your closet and drawers, nothing catching your eye. You pout at your lack of inspiration.

A flicker of feathers catches your eye, glimmering like a wave from the back of the closet. You pull the hangers aside to reach for it, frowning in confusion. When you manage to pull it from the rack and hold it in the light, you laugh. It’s a long piece, the fluff and volume of a black feathered boa. The thought that crosses your mind feels impulsive, sabotaging even, but you’re already giggling at the thought of wrapping yourself in it. Your mind races with possibility: a flapper dress, blazers with giant shoulders, giant sunglasses. They’re re-entering the fashion scene, appearing on the streets with skin-tight dresses, but you want something more casual.

You settle on creamy linens, white with the faintest touch of warmth. They sit heavy on your skin, thick enough that you consider going coatless. Knowing you’ll be cold, you snatch a matching coat to settle on top. After looping your star garment around your neck, black feathers stark against smooth fabric, you turn to the mirror and laugh. Chiara would groan if she saw you, but you work in costume before fashion. Looking ridiculous is part of your job.

You take your time entering the city, leaving early to stop by a bakery and fulfill your craving for panzerotti—the call of fried pockets of mozzarella and tomato—buying some extras and a few different tramezzini to share. Kendou sends you a pin when you let her know that you’re close, leading you to one of the trailers behind the auditorium tent. You walk giddily, smiling at the sparse snowflakes still feathering down.

The piazza is quiet when you walk through through the main entrance, the sides now blocked from the night festivities. There are few people: stray observers and occasional staff members. The guard by the security clearance lets you through with ease. Another guard notices you straying towards a secondary fence, tracking the pin with a frown, and helps you navigate to the trailer once you offer your ID card.

You are led to a white rectangular trailer, one of three in a line. You check the pin once again before walking to the one in the center. Unsure if you should step in without warning, you knock hesitantly on the door.

Only a few seconds pass before the door swings open. You blink in surprise when you’re greeted by the man you met last night, now dressed down from his festival costume. His hair is ruffled, bangs scattered sloppily across his forehead, and his stubble is gone. You swallow as you take him in, the softness on his face, along the edge of his jaw, as wears a matching surprise. He’s flustered, but there’s a shine in his eyes as he watches you. What is he thinking, to look at you like this—like you mean something? He has an air of mystery that tugs at your heart, a yearning to ask endless questions about him, to know who he is. It’s paired with an ease that convinces you he would answer; he would tell you all you wanted to know.

You fight through your smile to speak. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

He opens his mouth to respond, and you’re eager to hear it, but Kendo’s face appears behind the man’s shoulder. “Hey! You found us! Come in, come in.”

Mystery man steps aside to let you pass, just close enough that you brush his shoulder. Your mind flashes to the night before, his hand on your waist and then entangled in your own, spinning you while your wings flapped over your shoulders. You try to blink away the thought, but it persists. 

You catch Momo sitting by the vanity, waving with a cheeky smile. You frown at her expression.

Kendou speaks again, gesturing to the man. “This is Sero, by the way. One of the performers.”

You nod, then smile towards him as you introduce yourself. He grins brightly, not a trace of uncertainty in his eyes. It’s a stark contrast from moments ago. Another mystery. 

“Nice to meet you properly,” he says.

“Sero was just about to get ready,” Momo says. Her eyebrows are raised into her bangs, glancing towards Kendou with a look you can’t read. 

You hear Sero’s voice hitch, like he’s about to say something, before he sighs. “Yeah, I was on my way out.” He looks at you regretfully. “It was nice to catch you.”

You nod, offering one of the small sandwiches from the bakery before he leaves the trailer. He takes one without looking—prosciutto, with tomato and olives and Swiss cheese—before gently closing the door. When you turn to Momo in anticipation, ready to help her into her dress for the show, you’re met with a mischievous grin. You frown again.

“What?”

Her lips twitch. “Nothing.”

You look at her expectantly, unamused, but she doesn’t budge. Kendou smiles, making you equally skeptical of her, before speaking. “We have a bird to dress! Aoyama will be here any minute with the skirt, and then we’ll get to work with your supervision.”

You nod, understanding that you’re meant to be the supporting role for the other costume artists, for them to figure out the kinks of the dress by the time they’re on the road. It’s bittersweet, to spend a few more days with your creation before it sets off without you.

A man appears shortly, noisily strutting through the door of the trailer. His outfit is entirely reflective, the iridescent shine of a CD, and you assume he must be Aoyama. You grin at the sight. Kendou is quick with the introductions. “This is Aoyama, the other costume manager. Aoyama, this is the costume artist—”

You shake hands as you finish her introduction. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

He winks while responding. “As it should be! I love your boa.”

You suppress a laugh. “And I love your outfit.”

“Heat transfer vinyl,” he sings, pressing a hand to his chest. “Do feel free to ask where you can purchase it for yourself.”

You laugh, telling him to give you the details later. 

The air of the room shifts, everyone settling into business as Aoyama sets down the hoopskirt and Kendou pulls the dress from the closet. The trailer is surprisingly large despite being a room on wheels, offering a wide breadth for Momo to step into the frame and have the other two fuss over her. They check with you on its placement before gathering the dress. Your fingers itch to join theirs, to fix the stray bends of fabric or straighten how it lays against Momo’s skin, but the hands of the costume crew trace over those spots eventually. 

When the headpiece is set in place and you get to see Momo in full costume—her hair falling in loose, long curls, eyelids powdered the same blush as her lips, an elegant jewel strung around her neck—you swallow. Seeing your finished pieces, dressed on the figures they were made for, will always clench at your stomach. It brings a rush of euphoria over you, followed by a sweeping emptiness.

You do a onceover to look for anything out of place or concerning, but they’ve laid it perfectly. Your chest both lightens and pangs. The dress will be in good hands.

“If we’re settled I think it’s time we take our star to the main room, yes?” Aoyama asks.

You nod slowly, pressing down the ache. 

Kendou smiles softly. “It’ll be okay.”

“I know, I know. I have attachment issues.”

She laughs and slaps at your shoulder. “I would too. Now go busy yourself until the show starts.”

You help them pin the fabric at the back of Momo’s dress before exiting together. You stop at the back entrance of the tent to say a temporary goodbye, handing over the remaining triangle sandwiches. The crew members slip carefully through the canvas, holding the thick material back to avoid brushing against Momo. You avert your eyes, only catching a glimpse of feathered costumes drifting in the background.

The next half hour is a struggle, time passing slowly in your giddiness. You stand in the cold for the first few minutes, remembering how snow fell softly from the sky just hours prior. The sticky remainders flatten under your shoes with a soft crunch. Your mind drifts to the grueling months leading up to now, iterating the dress and the push and pull between what you, Momo, and Kendou all envisioned. The sky is still hazy, a bright white mist covering the blue buried above. You imagine a plane beyond the fog, Momo and Kendou sitting together by the window, waiting in anticipation to see your mockup in action. 

You smile wistfully. It already feels so long ago, that flood of excitement and the fear of not finishing in time—hours stretching on with you hunched over the gown. It was a painful sort of urgency: the need to be finished, all the while your hands only ever moved at the same steady pace. And now you suddenly have the next step to focus on—the show for tonight, or the next gown you need to sew. Where does the time go? Is it buried in the folds of your projects, sewn into the fabric like a quilt? Are you giving your own life away when you pass on the garments—holding all those moments in their fluid spaces?

Sometimes you wonder how you got here, always moving and moving, never taking the time to look back, to reflect and connect all the pieces of your journey to who you are today. Sometimes you feel like you never made a decision, that these events unfolded on their own, little seeds that blew in the forceful wind of life, hiding in the crevices until you finally turned to look at them: sprouted and standing firm in the ground.

Too firm, too rooted, to move.

Tired of your sentiments and the creeping chill, you decide to enter the shelter of the stage tent. The main entrance is littered with people checking in, clumps that thin into long lines. A metal guardrail separates you from the ticketing to enter the tent, so you approach one of the security members to ask for help. When you show him your ticket and ID card, he leads you to another entrance, skipping the line entirely. 

You reach the edge of the interior where the concessions are prepared, sandwiching the stairs to the seating. The crowd thickens as showtime approaches, the lines for food and drink quickly elongating. You’re prepared to skirt around and go directly to your seat, not tempted by the wafting scent of buttery popcorn and the sweetness of pretzels, but your eyes land on that fluffy fish-shaped bread from the night prior, and your feet take you to the line before you mentally make a decision. Luckily it moves quickly and you soon purchase two taiyaki, placed gently in a crinkly paper bag. You hold it gently, the heat spreading through your hands. 

The seat number on your ticket indicates that you’re in the section closest to the front, but in one of the furthest rows. It’s the seat you requested, centered to get the ideal view and close to the stage, but slightly elevated for the best angle to view the performers. You walk unhurriedly to your spot, taking a booklet offered by the attendant in the aisle. Once seated, you run a finger over the glossy paper—the striking art of a fiery phoenix—then press your thumb against the edge of the cover to open the first page. You scan your eyes over the introduction, three separate paragraphs for the original Japanese, followed by an English and Italian translation.

Gōyoku—meaning ‘Fierce Wings’—is the action-packed story of the impossible creatures of the sky. For just one moment, in the wake of their greatest desperation, these winged beasts are able to be glorious, fiery gods. Follow the journey of a guardian hawk as it battles fearsome foes, inspires his apprentices, and eventually burns out in his diligence to protect the new generation.

You smile with anticipation. The next page contains a list of names and roles: the director, producers, and stage crew displayed in neat rows, with details written in a small font beneath the individual names. You catch Aizawa’s, the romaji bringing a grimace to your face when you once again remember your first encounter. You flip the page, eyes recognizing a list of acts, and then immediately skip to the one after. The back has a list of acknowledgements and gratitudes, to donors and inspirations for the show. You blink when you see your own name on the bottom, with a small paragraph describing your work and why you were chosen for the production. It pulls a tight smile across your face.

You close the booklet and eat one of the taiyaki.

At four on the dot, the lights dim. Most people are in their seats, some stragglers still filtering in. Your eyes trace the room, packed full with spectators. Nearly every seat is filled, a mix of ages, singles and couples and families. Your eyes widen when you catch sight of the little girl from last night, the same pinched face of her Hyottoko mask. You’re tempted to wave, to see if you can catch her attention, but she’s up in a row towards the side of the stage. There’s no reason for her eyes to swoop in your direction. 

But they do, to your surprise. First in glee, excitement, and then in surprise. You look at her confusedly, slightly tilting your head. Her parents are watching you too, with the same expressions. Other people in their seats look your way. Your heart starts races, wondering what about you has grabbed their attention—

A pair of hands cover your eyes from behind, jolting you in your seat. They’re paired with a deep giggle, almost dark and maniacal. You grin in embarrassment.

Crowd work. You’ve seen the cartoonish forms of circus clowns engage with the audience before, oftentimes its own act in the show, but you’ve never been subjected to it yourself. Your heart races from the attention, anxious at being part of the spectacle. Part of you  Suddenly the hands trail downwards, to your large boa, and pull it away, bringing a waft of cool air to your neck and shoulders. You blink in surprise, head turning to follow it.

You see a blond man nearly skipping down the aisle, your boa swinging in his hand. He’s dressed in a tight black suit, tipped at the wrists with tufts of feathers. The fabric of his clothes are sewn with analog watch faces, set at a variety of times. His face is obscured by a bird mask, only revealing a wide, cheeky grin. He makes a show out of floating your boa around him, posing as if he’s unsure what it is, before wrapping it around his own neck, letting out a fit of ridiculous laughter and then skipping through the seating. 

You wonder if he was informed that you were in the audience, if this was planned. 

Your grin spreads easily across your face, watching as he turns back with a wink before bothering other audience members. He stops by the girl, where she sits in the front row of the next section, and makes a show of looking curiously at her mask. He reaches for it and she giggles, holding it against herself in defense. The suited bird cocks his head, then pouts before sighing and strutting away dramatically in defeat.

Commotion from the other end of the room turns your head, to another figure working the crowd. This one is a bubbly woman, with a costume of bursting pink feathers and purple, shimmery patterned cloth. She wears a giant smile as she hops along the seat, looking curiously at the audience members. When her mask turns so you can see the face, you are struck by the illusion of darkness beneath her eyes, completely blacked out. A pair of sharp but narrow horns sprout from the edges, giving her an alien quality. Like her show partner, she giggles happily as she skips along.

The pair charades their way to the front, keeping the eyes of the audience focused. When they meet each other on the stage, they communicate with overexaggerated gestures and gibberish noises. The blond one does a twirl, raising his hands to bring attention to your boa with a wide smirk. The pink one gasps and reaches for it, only for the blond to huff and jump away. You watch with amusement—and apprehension, hoping your scarf will survive the show.

The sound effects of the characters start to blur into a song as they move around the stage. A light melody settles in, synchronized with their steps skirting back and forth. Just as they dart into the center, a loud bang resounds from the speakers. The characters pause, dramatically turning around the stage in defensive stances. The girl looks up and points, hopping in excitement. Her partner tilts his head, offering a polite clap with a shrug.

You follow her finger, watching as a hoop slowly lowers from the ceiling. It spins slowly, cradling a man. He’s almost lounging, lazily lying with his back on the bottom, neck cradled to the side. One leg dangles while the other is bent into the frame, foot toeing against the edge. You are close enough to see his face, the confident smile that pulls at his lips. His eyes are closed, outlined with red markings. His clothing matches his hair, golden and ruffled, white feathers accenting his wrists and ankles. He wears a transparent golden mask, open to let his expression shine through. 

The music continues gently as the hoop lowers. The bird characters on the stage cheerfully try copying his pose from their standing positions, the blond shaking his head at the woman as he lifts one of her arms higher. Your eyes travel back to the lyra, to the man’s face, his eyes peeling open. He slowly sits up, trailing his arms around the perimeter of the hoop. His face morphs into curiosity as he takes in the crowd, then the birds beneath him. A sharp grin spreads across his face while he leans forward to watch them closely.

In a flash the hoop falls—you think more than his body length—and it pulls a sharp inhale into your chest from surprise and fear. The performer leans back with the movement, as if he’s going to plummet to the ground, but he catches himself with the underside of his knees. The two below shriek in fright, before scattering across the stage in opposite directions, disappearing into the back. As this new character—you assume the hawk in the booklet summary—comes to the end of his fall, he stretches his arms, reaching to catch the scattered jesters. Bright red wings sprout from his back, feathers swaying with the jolt of the fall. They’re giant, especially to have been so well concealed.

The hawk draws out the lowering of the hoop, removing one leg to fall into a split, holding his ankle by his head for the sake of showing off. Then he releases it to snake back up the hoop. His arms follow, pulling him back into the frame. He tangles himself through the edge, making a show of his flexibility, before sitting in the center. He grabs the frame below him before rolling forwards, swinging as he dangles in the air from his hands. The wings burst open once again, fiery red flaming behind his figure. The lyra is lowered enough that his feet barely skim the ground. He swims his legs through the air as if walking until he can touch the floor securely.

And then he runs.

You’ve seen aerial object acts before, always an impressive series of poses and fluid movements entangled in the air. But the speed of this act is unheard of. The performer's body swings and swipes through the air like a knife, so sharp you think you can hear the whoosh as he moves. His wings continue to open and close at the perfect times, unfolding when he holds a specific pose, lengthening in tune with his routine and the quickening music. Even when he is curled into the lyra, they compliment the positions of his body. You realize they work through a mechanism attached to his arms, opening opposite to his elbows. You watch captivated as he gracefully slides across the wheel despite his speed, all the while it glides in a circle or twirls along the rope anchoring it to the ceiling. Your stomach drops with his precarious balancing and the surprise drops, always catching himself in the nick of time.

As he slows and the act winds to an end, he pulls himself back to the center of the hoop. He nestles into another lounging position, mirroring his entrance. The lyra rises and the music lulls, signaling the end of the act. Scattered claps sound around you, snapping you from your daze. You join the applause as it rolls through the audience. It was a stunning opening, setting the stage for what’s to come.

In the midst of the clapping, the music unexpectedly fills with faster, darker sounds. As deep bass thrums through the room, three figures wrapped in black silks unravel from the ceiling. They fall in sharp, jagged movements, rocking as they tumble through the air.

They slow as they finish their descent to the floor, and then to eventually rest on the ground. The silks lift into the ceiling, leaving the performers behind. They lay still for a couple moments before twitching, muscles and joints moving in rapid and jagged jolts. Slowly they rise to stand, legs and arms angled to appear twisted. You take in their costumes, tight tan fabric purposefully wrinkled along their bodies, with small, uneven lines of feathers—one figure’s pink, one green, and the last yellow. Their masks are small on their faces, disheveled and anxious. You think you recognize two of them, the small women from the day you dropped off your dress, the ones you saw last night in the festival. 

You watch curiously as they begin to struggle towards one another. They remind you of baby birds, naked and frail. Your eyes widen at the thought, putting together that they have fallen from the sky.

Their act is one of contortion, bodies twisting and bending in impossible shapes. They mold into one another, arms and legs tangling in a rolling knot. The show of flexibility is broken with a series of theatrical performances, futile attempts to fly or crawl over each other. It’s as haunting as it is awe-inspiring, striking you with distress and pity. It’s an incredible use of the act. The story is clear with these characters, their desperation for safety, for freedom. You feel sorry, yearning to offer help.

As their bodies slow in a display of exhaustion, they pile in the center of the stage. You see them breathe together, expanding steadily as one entity before compressing again. The moment is tender, intimate. Drawn out unlike usual performances. You know this is the end of the act, that you should applaud, but you don’t want to break the softness. The others in the audience seem to feel the same.

A fourth figure appears, sliding from the side of the stage and in the back. He’s tall and lean, toned stature showing through the tight fabric of his costume. It’s similarly wrinkled as the contortionists, but with a mix of purple and beige fabric. Faux scorched skin, you realize, as if stapled to itself. His costume is the least orderly, with black and red and white feathers clumped in his hair, indistinguishable.

In one of his hands is a staff, with a wheel of spokes standing from both ends. He twirls it slowly, tauntingly, as he starts to circle the bodies in the center. The lights dim as he stalks them, turned so his chest and head face his prey. The music plays eerie, sharp notes that clash with one another. Then it halts.

In an instant a flame bursts across the stage, tracing the circle of the man in purple. Your brain whirrs in attempt to understand how the act unfolded: all you can think is that his staff may have been leaking fuel along his path, unnoticed in the darkening stage. It doesn’t explain how the fire came to be, or how the staff lit itself.

The fire spinning is an act of intensity, a gut-wrenching scene of the larger figure taunting the small. He plays the role of a villain with ease, convincing even when you know it’s only for show. His body is one with his staff, rolling and twisting the length over his limbs. It runs along his shoulders and neck, twirls over his chest and through his legs, hooked over the top of his foot to be thrown back into the air. The two points of light dart throughout the stage, illuminating his face and chest and limbs for less than seconds at a time.

After one particularly fast and complex combination—topped with a downwards yank of the prop, releasing long swirls of flame into the air—you see another figure enter the stage. He has a smaller frame but a  similar intensity, as though stalking towards the predator. As he nears towards the light, you realize it’s Todoroki, his split-dyed hair unmistakable. His costume is deep blue with a high collar, the exact sort of fit you imagined when you first saw him. You grin.

He suddenly thrusts himself towards the remaining streaks of fire on the ground, pressing his hand against the flame. You watch in shock, expecting him to pull away in pain, but instead the heat is smothered in an instant. The bundle of contortionists spill across the floor, writhing to the side of the stage. They continue their struggle to freedom, their jagged movements persistent as they escape to the edge of your vision.

Todoroki finishes the rest of the flames while the taller man chases him with the staff. They leap and dodge one another, a choreographed fight that involves many close calls. Your heart leaps as you watch the edge of the staff swipe close to Todoroki’s face, illuminating his sharp but delicate features. He is unmasked, the deep red of his scar visible to the crowd.

A billow of fire erupts from his mouth, shooting past the spokes of the staff and into the air. It casts a torrent of orange glow across him and his opponent, flooding himself and the burned creature in a beautiful, warm light. It shines bright enough to see the details of the stage and audience for one brief moment. You realize Todoroki was holding the fuel in his mouth throughout the entirety of the fight thus far. Impossible. 

The fight continues, Todoroki and his opponent dancing with fire. It’s mostly a series of choreographed strikes and dodges, almost a game or dance as they circle one another: the staff one weapon and Todoroki’s breath the other. The flames on the end of the prop begin to wither as their movements speed, nearing the end of their performance. Todoroki closes it out with one final exhale, blowing blinding clouds of heat in an arc towards the audience. You blink back in surprise, warm air brushing against your face.

They stand in the center, bodies tense and shuddering with deep inhales. Their exhaustion plays into the reality of the fight, ragged breaths and hunched shoulders visible from afar. You think they look pained, that their struggle is beyond the performance.

The next act transitions easily, the fire show morphing into a chase with new characters—in full bird-shaped headpieces and wing-like cloaks—eventually through the air on a series of springboards soaring, twisting, flipping, and jumping propelled by each other’s landings. Two characters in particular catch your eye, with deep green and red costumes. You’re reminded of Midoriya, and think the height and frame of the green bird could align.

Your eyes widen when a giant net rolls across the stage behind the heavy duty seesaws. The fire artists slam down on the boards in sync, the new bird figures soaring. When they rise just enough to clear the net, it’s swiftly rolled underneath them to catch their landing. The springboards are then pushed out of the stage, marking an end to Todoroki’s performance.

The people at the base of the net—women in leotards, different shades of purple, paired with skirts full of feathers—lock the wheels before climbing the ladders up the side, joining the previous characters onto raised platforms. The two men untie the threads around their necks, slipping the capes from their arms and followed by the headpieces—now left only in lean pants. After setting them on the back of the platform and walking towards the edges at the center, you confirm that one of them is in fact Midoriya. The other has hair that matches his red costume.

The trapeze act should be impossible, especially with Midoriya and the redhead having just completed an entirely separate act. But it’s flawless, impeccable, unthinkable. The following acts are executed with seamless transitions that lead through a cohesive plot—a juggling act with a man who moves as if he has six arms, and a dual cyr act with men of a drastic height difference, the smaller one gliding easily and with incredible balance, and the taller spinning across the stage at incredible speeds.

At the end of their act, when the two roll out of sight, the lights and sound dim to darkness. A roar of applause passes through the crowd, this being the first real quiet gap between acts. There are cheers and hollers and whistling for several moments, an extended display of love. When the noise finally begins to fade away, a spotlight glows in the center of the stage, slowly illuminating a figure in red. You take a deep breath to ease the constriction in your chest.

It’s Momo.

In the excitement of watching, you momentarily forgot that she was performing, that you made her costume, that you’re a part of this show too.

She’s beautiful, standing tall with an air of elegance—a poise that commands the room. Behind her is a pair of feathered musicians: a purple-haired woman and an older blond man, with an electric violin and cello respectively. They draw a slow melody through the room, crisp notes floating through the speakers. Momo steps to the front of the room smoothly and carefully as if floating, the edge of her dress brushing right above the ground to cover her feet. You hold your breath as your eyes track the details of the costume, every ruffle of fabric and bounce of feather. 

The costume looks perfect on stage, not a ruffle out of place. You realize it’s the first time you’re seeing her wear it from a distance, to appreciate the hug of her waist and the curves of her figure. The darkness of the fabric is regal against her skin and her confidence. The sheerness of the chiffon brings out her grace, with a sparkle that brightens her edges, the glow of an aura. The orange swathes that trail behind her are like glowing footprints, the markings of a deity—the evidence that she walked across our earth.

Momo’s performance is beautiful, starting as a series of long, drawn out words in well-enunciated Italian. They’re sorrowful, a series of questions that ask where her friends have gone, if they’re safe. If they’ll come home.

The music increases in sound and intensity as she continues, words moving quickly through verbal images of where they could be, what they might be facing. Her voice is rich and smooth as it traces through forests and fields, of predators and monsters. Each note slides beautifully into the next, weaving between heavily grounded and delicately airy. She’s a master with her instrument, the strings of her vocal chords under her total command.

The song finishes with a plea for help. She moves her arms in fluid motions as she reaches towards the crowd, hands twisting and fingers curving as they move towards the sky. You exhale with melancholy at her display of emotion, the pain that strikes the beauty of her obscured face. Her movements become angry and desperate, sharp and jagged when she snaps her head and adds a rasp to her voice, a complete turn from smoothness of her original voice. When the build up to her longest note begins, you hold your breath in anticipation for her to spin.

The dark fabric of the dress skirt, with its layers of maroon, lifts to expose its white underbelly. A flock of matching white doves escape through the gaps, circling counterclockwise with her movement—pulling gasps from yourself and other audience members. She twirls for several rotations, the orange trails of chiffon spiraling beneath her as the birds disperse and rise until they disappear into the ceiling. As soon as the final bird is out of sight, she collapses on herself. Your stomach clenches in worry. She cradles herself against the ground as her note ends, the music following and coming to a lull.

A giant smile overtakes your face, tears brimming the edges of your eyes in joy. You did it, you hear through your mind, unsure if the words are for yourself or Momo. They asked and you delivered.

The crowd applauds once again when the lights dim. You wipe your eyes, months of work and stress feeling so incredibly worth it now that you’ve seen the final piece: a multitude of masterpieces and crafts that will be displayed again and again. Yours. Momo’s. The costume, the vocals, the music, the magic.

Your heart can be at ease.

The lights don't dim entirely, the faint outline of the musicians and Momo still visible. However, four more figures appear, dark silhouettes. They stand closer towards the audience, in front of the spotlight’s reach.

The act that follows is one of whimsical illusion—likely serving as an interlude. Two of the new characters walk into the light, revealing themselves to be the pink woman and the time-covered man from the beginning. They skip sprightly along the platform, followed by the two other characters that you realize are meant to symbolize their shadows. The shadow-characters carry large sheets that billow in their grasp. The blond’s shadow lifts their sheet over the violinist, smoothing her form in the draping fabric. Then they tug the top, enough to rustle the sheet, until it suddenly crumples to the ground—flattening as if there was no one there to begin with. The shadowy figures clap with joy, while the original clowns react with harsh gasps and frightened faces. 

Eventually the cellist is smothered under the sheet, and then Momo. You suspect it’s a typical trick of the floor, opening at just the right time for them to fall through. You hope your dress is still intact, that it survived the fall.

The illusion takes a darker turn, the shadows now chasing their physical forms. The smaller of the shadows succeeds first, vanishing the pink woman. After she disappears, her shadow jumps and spins in glee. You blink when she faces the front once again and is fully visible. The same happens for the blond who stole your boa—still snug around his neck as he is captured and melted into the floor, to reveal the face of his shadow.

The rest of the act is less predictable, the characters moving between the visible and obscured. There are more warpings of illusion, sleight of hand perfectly executed, but also tricks that you can’t fathom. At one point the man appears to step right through the woman, and later she skips behind the man to vanish entirely, appearing behind him a minute later on a different part of the stage. You watch with wide eyes, watching for any movement of the floor, but it never happens. You wonder what the people behind you see, if it’s a matter of angles.

For their final trick, they lay themselves in the center of the stage, draping the sheets over themselves. The pile sits still for several moments before it stirs—leaps to reveal three entirely different figures. The one who stands is a man with a large headpiece, the black head of a bird that engulfs his own. Emerging next is a woman swathed in white fabric, like a fairytale damsel. Her hair falls like a curtain of ivy along her back and shoulders. The last figure sits up slowly; a man with black hair and a costume of darkness, catching shimmers of light speckled across his suit, splotches of yellow feathers sprouting at his shoulders and elbows. As his head turns you can see his eyes through the mask—

They land on you.

Your breath hitches. It’s Sero, the one you danced with and the one you briefly encountered before the show. Despite the distance, you recognize the intensity of his gaze, one you could almost read as longing. When he looks away you feel a wave of relief, but it’s short lived. He continues to watch you, to come back to you.

Three pairs of thick, silk ribbons rain from the ceiling, and you immediately think back to your first impression of Sero—that he would look breathtaking draped in silken black fabric.

He does.

Despite the act being split between three performers, with moments to spotlight each of their solos, you can’t look away from Sero for more than seconds at a time. You catch enough of the other two to differentiate their styles—the woman’s display of flexibility and intricate wrapping techniques, and the man’s show of speed and intensity, body whipping and whorling through the air. 

They’re beautiful. But Sero, Sero flows along the aerial silk. 

Not a single movement is choppy or without grace, body as fluid as the threads of fabric in his grasp. His solo is one that centers his relationship with his act, how he tangles into its hold, how he can move his limbs in imitation of the unstructured garment—his body an extension of the silk, another curtain draping from the ceiling. He breaks from the cloth to suspend himself in the air, feet stepping as if he were walking through floating platforms. He swims upwards through the ribbons, body liquid and shimmering as he slides back down, rolling through tangles and knots, all the while fluffing up pockets and loops of fabric, billowing like the tail of a fish as it waves through the ocean.

Watching him move is like being hypnotized, like you’re seeing something you shouldn’t, because it doesn’t exist. The world behind him fades, time slows. It’s just you and him, like last night’s dance, his fluid and rolling movements as he guided you along, sending tingles through your chest and torso and arms. You have chills, shivers of warmth. It’s indescribable. Now you’re the one yearning to watch him, hoping he’ll meet your gaze again every time it breaks.

By the end of the act you are entranced, obsessed. Your heart is heavy knowing that his performance is over and you will have to watch someone else.

The rest of the show is still objectively stunning, filled with numbers that go beyond any performance you’ve seen before. Following the aerial silks is a man who walks his way on stage on his hands, then up a series of steps to a handstand board. You watch him perform his own act of contortion: slow and methodical and with extreme displays of balance, holding himself in precarious positions. He doesn’t touch his feet to the floor once, until the next act starts and sends sparks throughout the stage. It’s a show of explosive poi, a ball of sparkling fire tied to each hand at the end of a string, twirling around its equally volatile user. Another battle-like scene plays out.

Afterwards is a balancing act, with a man in a costume with a giant tail—the additional challenge seemingly impossible when he stands on a series of rolling objects that add up to more than his own height. The show ends with the display of two giant puppets: mechanical birds floating in the air, rooted on the back and shoulders of performers ambling around the stage. One appears sizzling with electricity while the other looks jagged and sharp, made from scraps of metal. They are joined by the bird characters from the beginning, your boa still around the neck of the blond man, as they’re led through the audience, leaning over to let the crowd gently touch the faces and wings.

When they climb back onstage the music shifts, signaling the closure of the story and show. Applause begins immediately, the crowd standing as soon as the first performer—the hawk—stands at the front for a bow, blowing kisses. He’s followed by the three contortionists before they step back for Todoroki, continuing as each act has their moment of acknowledgement. When Momo steps forwards you yell her name, jumping carefully between the others next to you to get her attention. She grins and bows, blowing a kiss to you directly. You pretend to catch it.

You yell again when the aerial silk group steps forward. Sero smiles happily before the crowd, bowing shallowly so he stands upright first. His eyes find yours and this time you’re ready for it, widening your grin when he meets your gaze. His hand lifts hesitantly before it twitches in a small wave. He stands for a moment too long, and another performer has to pull him back to the others. You smile stupidly, biting the inside of your cheek.

You linger when the crowd filters up the stairs and towards the exit, the room now brightened and flooded with excited chatter. Kendou told you to meet her after the show, but not where or how. You stay in your seat until the aisles clear, swiping through your phone to see if Kendou sent any updates. Once there’s an open path to the stage, you walk down towards one of the security guards to ask for permission backstage. Your ID and anecdotal evidence are met with skepticism, the guard blinking unimpressed by your efforts. Not wanting to waste your time, you turn to exit with the rest of the audience.

A soft yell of your name pulls you to turn back. You don’t catch the source immediately, but eventually your eyes land on wild green curls peeking from the curtain. You brighten and wave.

He frowns and shoots a hand out, beckoning you to join him. You shake your head and point to the security. The large Italian man sees this and then turns in confusion, bristling when his eyes land on Midoriya gesturing you over. He averts his eyes, facing back towards the front. You frown in confusion, not sure if that means you can pass.

Midoriya continues to wave for you, so you cave. Your first step on the stairs stage is cautious, gauging the reaction of your obstacle. After confirming he won’t interfere, you take them two at a time, scurrying to the curtain to slip through the gap. 

The wardrobe and backstage section of the tent has transformed since your first visit, now lined with floor padding and filled with a multitude of props and structures. It’s much livelier, packed with clusters of people in conversation, cheerfully stretching or lounging. Near the exit is a cage for the doves, their chirping softly floating through the background. You drink in the details of the scene, how people rest with one another. Todoroki and Sero stand in a quiet conversation, Ochako and the blonde girl she performed with are laying together on one of the sofas. Momo is absent, along with Kendou. Aoyama is present, helping the hawk character from the first act remove his wings.

You think they look close, comfortable around one another. You can only imagine the sort of tight-knit relationships that bloom from working on these productions for so long—training day after day on risky props, some of them constantly putting their lives in someone else’s hands.

You register someone speaking to you: Midoriya, having been rambling for some time now. You chide yourself for getting lost in thought.

“—but, what did you think?” he asks. You missed the entire prelude, but you have faith in your enthusiasm to deliver a good response.

“Midoriya, it was amazing,” you say with full honesty. “I think you were right—your show will ruin me for any other circus. The transitions between the acts were incredible, and it brought the storyline together so seamlessly—much more cohesive than any other production I’ve seen before. And, oh my god everyone is so impressive. The acts were so much longer than typical shows, and—you! How can you manage back to back performances?”

The thoughts spill out of you, your excitement uncontainable as you think about the production as a whole, recounting the many ways in which it surpassed your expectations. Midoriya beams as your response. His cheeks flush at your praise, but he collects himself as he explains the two acts and their importance to happen directly after one another. He goes into detail about balancing muscle strain: the springboards are exhausting for the legs, but the trapeze is demanding on his arms. He and his stage partner—Kirishima, you learn—manage to make it work through sheer determination.

“He’s one of few people who could make it work,” he tells you, eyes sparkling.

You’re about to respond, to ask for details on how they fleshed out the act, when a softness flutters past your face to land on your neck and shoulders. You reach for it, gently grasping your feathered boa—long forgotten while listening to Midoriya. You turn, expecting to see the blond man in the suit, but instead find Sero behind you.

He smiles with the same ease and confidence of your first meeting, mouth stretched lazily and eyes relaxed. He must be feeling good now that the first show has passed successfully. You feel warm.

“Sorry we held your boa hostage,” he says. You can see the thief behind him, watching with a curious smirk.

No good response comes to mind, your heart busy thumping when your eyes dart back to his. Your mind flashes with that beautiful silk fabric draping over him, his fluid motions as he himself through it like his body is equally malleable. The effect of his performance—that awe and fluster—still sits in your chest. You’re drawn to him, intrigued to know more.

“You were incredible,” you tell him. His eyes grow, mouth gaping in surprise. “I’ve never seen someone move that way on silks. Is it your main act?”

You don’t expect his shyness. It only appears for a moment, shoulders starting to hunch before he stands straight again and smiles brightly, with confidence.

“Yeah! Since I was a kid. I’ve trained a couple other acts—mostly balances and other aerial props. But aerial silk is the best.”

You nod readily. “Of course, it’s my favorite to watch.” It’s ultimately a dance with fabric, one of your first loves.

“Really?” Midoriya asks. “I didn’t know that.”

You laugh. “Why? Because it’s not in my interviews?”

He laughs nervously, hand coming to scratch the back of his head.

“Verde!” you hear Momo call, grabbing your attention. She comes behind Sero, now changed into a casual shirt and pants.

“Momo!”

She engulfs you in a hug, her body pressing into your side as you wrap your arms over her in return.

“Momo, your singing is beautiful. And the birds were stunning. I can’t believe we did that.”

She smiles, eyes shining while her hand grabs your forearm. “We did.”

Once again, as you did a few days prior, you have a longing to talk with her more, deeper. You want to share what it means to you, what you think it means to her. You want to let yourself blur the edges of her position as the performer and yours as the designer, to think about who you are together. But there are still prying eyes, an audience who won’t understand. You glance at Midoriya, his face full of warmth and joy. Then they drift to Sero, and catch a twinge of surprising melancholy.

The performers happily chat with you, some new ones butting in to introduce themselves. You finally get the name of the blond who took your boa: Monoma, who also laughs at your choice of outfit. You get to meet the third woman in the act with Uraraka and Asui—Toga. Names filter in and out, acrobats and production members stopping by. Catering arrives, a selection of classic dishes from one of the high end ristoranti nearby. The aluminum trays are opened to reveal a pasta dish, its fresh scent of pesto and vegetables familiar.

Some performers rush through their meal and leave, or move to the mirrors to retouch their makeup. For the next show, you realize. There are two every night, with a two hour break before the end of the first and the beginning of the second.

Midoriya and Momo part to retouch their costumes, and Kendou orders you to stay put—that she’ll retrieve you if necessary. You’re left with Sero, somehow rating pasta shapes. 

“Hey,” he suddenly says while you’re still mid-thought—musing whether farfalle or penne would work better for this sauce. You sense a topic change. He looks nervous, chewing his lip before speaking. “Are… Do you—”

He glances to the side and pauses, instead switching to a small smile.

“Hey ‘Roki.”

Your eyes linger on Sero thoughtfully, wondering what he was trying to ask, before greeting Todoroki. 

“I wanted to tell you that we’re about halfway through the book,” he says seriously, like he’s delivering an important message. “We just finished the chapter where Santi is pulled into Marco’s world.”

You beam with delight. He’s at the same part you’ve reached since you started reading it again, after dropping off Momo’s dress. “Oh yeah? What do you think? When I was a kid I would read that part almost every night before bed.”

Todoroki nods. “That chapter is my favorite so far. The imagery is quite vivid, and I found myself getting excited—like the kids.”

You hum in agreement before laughing. “I always had so much energy after reading that I couldn’t sleep. I have a dress inspired by that scene, I’ll have to wear it for the final show.”

“You know the book he’s reading?”

At the sound of Sero’s voice, you turn to him and nod. “It’s my favorite, since I was a kid.”

“Really?” he asks, face suspended in disbelief. “Me too! I’ve never met someone outside of my family who’s heard of it.”

Your eyes grow to match his, the two of you now staring at each other curiously. 

“Me neither,” you answer. You don’t even remember how you acquired it, whether by gift or if it was something that had always lingered in your peripheral until you finally took notice. It’s a mysterious little book, with almost no online presence. 

“Do you speak Spanish?” You ask, recalling Sero’s dancing. 

“Sí. Mi mamá es de Ecuador,” he explains. “A small town on the Northern coast.”

Ecuador. You’ve been before, to the capital for a parade. You smile at the memory. “Sudamerica? I’m from Costa Rica. Also on the coast, almost directly west of San José.”

He grins. “We’re both on the Pacific, then.”

You let your gaze linger on his face, the eager shine in his eyes. You want to ask more, to talk about family and life and culture. You get the sense that he does too.

“I thought you said you only knew a little Spanish?”

You blink in surprise at Todoroki’s voice, face heating at your lie. “I got nervous?”

He squints. “About speaking your native language?”

The disbelief in his voice makes you laugh, recognizing your own absurdity. “Maybe? I don’t speak often these days. It makes me sentimental.”

Sero hums. “Sí, speaking Español can make me miss home. Being in Italy has been strange.”

You agree—the transition was a difficult one for you when you first arrived in Milan. You could estimate most of what people said, but had no idea how to respond. You remember awkwardly stumbling through conversations, dealing with nearly a year of clumsily translating before you could speak with ease.

You continue your chatter about the book, enjoying Todoroki’s observations and thoughts. He’s serious about his reading, even for a children’s story. Sero is too, but he becomes quiet, focused on listening to your discussion.

A call for the performers ends your conversation, leaving you to yourself as they gather to run through the schedule. You hang towards the exit of the tent, curious to see the logistical side of the production. You feel a poke at your arm.

“Are you staying for the festival afterwards?” Kendou asks.

You shake your head. “Only for a little. I need to grab some fabric on my way home, but the shop closes at ten.” 

Kendou pouts. “You should come tomorrow.”

“I will,” you promise. You’re planning to come most nights regardless. “Do you think we could talk? About the… job?”

Her eyes nearly sparkle, like the twinkle of sunlight across ocean waves. “I can’t during the festival, since I’m working every night. Can you come during the show again? Aoyama can cover for me.”

You nod. “Yeah, is one better for me to come than the other?”

“Please—You’re welcome here whenever you want.”

“Don’t say that,” you answer. “Or I will be here everyday. You’ll get sick of me.”

She laughs. “Good. Maybe that means you’ll accept our offer by the time we leave Milan.”

You bite your lip at the comment, forcing your smile away. It’s a conflicting place to be, with your heart beating proudly but aching at the same time.

The show is flawless once again, still breathtaking even after seeing it hours before and only rewatching snippets through the screen backstage. You have the urge to interrogate the performers after their acts, brimming with questions and comments. But you notice their tiredness, always coming back panting, immediately chugging water or laying down. You watch Todoroki slosh a cup of mouthwash before sitting next to you with a bottle of juice.

“Your act is the most insane,” you tell him.

He nods.

You’re later joined by others, including Midoriya and briefly Momo, the chirping of the doves re-entering with the end of her performance. When the aerial silk performance starts, your eyes are once again glued to Sero. He’s still devastatingly beautiful during his number, aweing you with his routine. You don’t think you could ever be tired of the way he moves. You want to talk to him, to talk more about his art and of home, but he disappears when he finishes. You shovel down your disappointment. He’s most likely resting, or has other things to worry about.

When the show ends, there’s hardly a moment to breathe before the cast is changing costumes, from feathered birds into their eclectic festival jesters. You can only stay for another half hour, so you wave goodbye to those still in your vicinity, letting Midoriya know you’ll be back tomorrow in case you don’t see him tonight.

The festival is the same as the previous night, littered with lines of market stalls displaying work by local artists and artisans: Milanese food, traditional textiles, niche jewelry. You walk by Hoshi no Sākasu’s tent, the waffly scent of taiyaki a comfort in the chill of the evening. An array of Hyottoko masks are on display, their cheeks large and noses long, eyes varying from pinched closed to painfully wide. You want to walk slowly, take in the string lights and the classical guitar, but you force yourself to move along. The boutique that sells the lace you need won’t be open tomorrow, and you want to get started on the sleeves of the dress in the morning.

None of the performers make an appearance by the time you finish walking through a line of stalls. You carry along, turning through the next row and passing a table of wine sampling—a mix of sparkling and red. You pause and step back to ask for a sample of the Champagne blend, the little paper cup rough against your fingertips as you take a sip before continuing your stroll. 

By the time your sample is finished and the cup is tossed in the garbage, you’re walking through the last row of markets, nestled furthest from the street and closer to the duomo. It’s quieter on this end, away from the music and the clinking pans. This section hosts mostly artists, you notice while passing a display of watercolor paintings. They’re vibrant and rough, capturing candid moments of people, energetic gestures brushed onto textured paper. The woman in the booth is old, with crinkled eyes and grey hair tucked behind a cloth. She watches you blankly.

“Buonasera,” you say, smiling gently. She grins back, eyes nearly disappearing with the rise of her cheeks.

You continue forward, eyes catching a smear of crimson in your peripheral. You frown, stepping towards the center of the path to get a better look. It’s another market stall, but draped over with a deep red fabric, the folds swaying as people walk by. It sits unassuming in this quiet realm of the fair, with no indication of what sits inside. You figure it’s a closed stall, a vendor who couldn’t make it tonight. But your eyes catch the edge of the flap; it’s lined with green feathers. You look at it skeptically, not trusting yourself to make a logical assessment of what it’s for. The color is so vibrant, that punchy chartreuse that you always use. If you were more delusional you would think that it’s… for you.

You pace forwards, zooming by tables of pottery and sterling silver jewelry to reach the front of the tent. The slit in the fabric feels like it’s calling for you, waving slightly in a chilly breeze. The tips of your fingers brush the feathers, their softness tingling against your fingerprints.

A peek won’t hurt.

You slide the flap back gently, just enough to widen the opening and glance inside.

It’s dark, too dark. There’s only the blackness of the space you can’t see. The faint light trickling in doesn’t reach far, and it sits through the air like particles of dust, dull stars in a night sky. You start to lower your hand, deciding it’s an empty stall after all, when someone in the market bumps into you. You falter, losing balance and stumbling forwards to catch yourself.

The tent illuminates.

You gasp in surprise, the space inside appearing much larger than what the exterior suggested. Warm air coats your body, a surprise since you didn’t feel it spilling out the entrance. The air is thick, almost salty with humidity, and the noise outside completely fades away. It’s just you in a quiet room, with a warm dim light that coats a series of bookshelves. They’re littered with trinkets, unorderly but with the homey energy of clutter. You blink at the sight of a large, unbroken conch shell.

It calls for you, your fingertips delicately pressing against the bumpy surface as you lift carefully. By instinct you hold the opening to your ear, immediately sighing with a smile at the sound of ocean waves. You close your eyes, imagining clear blue water and white bubbles of seafoam, spilling out onto black sand.

Then there’s a series of bird calls, the screeching of scarlet macaws as they soar through the air. Your eyes widen, pressing the shell further against your face and covering your other ear to listen closely. You catch the faint sounds of wind and rustling palm leaves in the distance. It sounds just like home, like the coast. You pull the shell away skeptically, the noise cutting into silence, before pressing it to your ear again. The sensory immersion floods back full force, birds and waves and wind surrounding you.

Your eyes land on a jar on another shelf, half-filled with cacao beans. Reluctantly, you return the conch to its place and lift the jar, glass with a metal lip sealing it tightly. You give it a couple shakes, the soft rattle making you smile—memories of abuela cutting open a long pod, you and your sister greedily eating the sweet, white flesh of the fruit on the outside, spitting the remainder on a sheet for abuela to ferment.

You undo the clasp, glass top clinking against its body. You’re hit strong with the initial scent of vinegar before it fades into the rich aroma of dark chocolate. Again you think of home, one of your tíos helping you grind the beans by hand, twisting the crank for you when you wanted a break.

There are other trinkets, ones you don’t understand but wonder if they have their own story—who would pick them up with a similar fondness you carry now. They’re clustered tightly across the other shelves: a little smiling buddha with a round belly, a toy bird, playing cards, scented candles, candies, a carved wooden frog, rings embedded with jewels, a pocket watch, another jar, this one filled with mandarin oranges. You let your eyes roam around, taking in more trinkets and stories that you don’t understand. You pause at a bundle of shiny silk fabric, black as the sky tonight.

You lift your hand to reach for it, but your phone rings.

Cursing to yourself, you put the jar on the shelf and pull your cell from your pocket. The sound is your alarm, set thirty minutes before the boutique closes. Grimacing, you quickly debate your options: to stay and continue exploring your trinkets, or having to rush to get the fabric you need. Your heart yearns as you set the jar on the shelf. You tell yourself that you’ll come back tomorrow, that the more headway you make on the dress, the more you can play afterwards.

Before you exit, you sweep your eyes through the room once more, promising to the trinkets and yourself that you’ll return. You step outside reluctantly, swarmed by chilly air and the yearning to run your hands along those shelves and stories.

[hantaslittlearsonist]

suck, and i cannot stress this enough, my cock to the fucking base

[hantaslittlearsonist]

These eyes belong only to Geto Suguru, whoever sees them will not be lucky enough to come out alive. While everyone bows and chants ‘Love to the strongest’, Master Geto tenderly strokes the head of a man they are afraid to even glance at

evil Gojo au is back

[hantaslittlearsonist]

Dabi <3

Manga panel redraw (I’ll never recover)

[hantaslittlearsonist]

IMPOSTER

possessed scholar!husband x reader |3.9k| 18+

In an unforeseen act of self-preservation, your family marries you off into an exorbitantly wealthy family, to a reclusive and reticent scholar who provides you little affection. He is suddenly called away for the handling of his late uncle's final will wishes and estate. He returns to you not himself, and with unquenchable lust.

warnings; dead dove do not eat; extreme dubon, explicit sexual content, mentions of (not explored, not described): orgies, heatplay, robbing a mortuary & drug use, masturbation w/ metal dildo, mirror sex & masturbation, hypnotism, power imbalance, murder, body horror, gruesome imagery, classism, detail & prose heavy, roughly proofread.

this is a concept piece, possibly preluding a full story! if you have any interest in having me build a larger piece out of this concept, PLEASE reblog + interact and let me know! I'm only going to go forward with it if folks express interest!

read to the end for author's notes!

In the airless dark of your bedroom at night, you knew the man lying next to you under covers was not your husband. Once he had been, but now he no longer was.

The revelation had come to you before noticing the stillness of his broad frame in bed, certain stiffness which seemed more alike to rigor in a days old corpse rather than a man wrapped in the comforting spell of deep sleep.

His breaths were silent, if he even breathed at all, reminding you of childhood where the floorboards wouldn't creak so loudly if you sucked all the air out from your lungs into your throat, snagging it, holding it firm. Suddenly, you'd be lighter; effervescent; floating across the wooden slabs towards the kitchen past midnight, or out the front door during the years where testing your parent’s patience and fraying the head maid’s nerves was your favorite thing to do.

You’d learned later on, after the loveless vows and complicated legality behind joining your two families, that your husband had a knack for slipping away at night as well. Only, he wasn't at all the sort for flirtatious gallivanting and loquacious rendezvous with secret lovers in dim rooms, smells of mildew masked by a numbingly sweet, perfumey fog.

He was reclusive and reticent; one of those outstandingly brilliant scholars who believed the rest of the world was below him because he hadn't found an equal in conversation or thought. Social obligations—no matter the occasion or person—pained him to where he intentionally brought you as a buffer between himself and whomever was trying to speak to him.

Some of the talk was so astronomically beyond you that parroting the long-winded answers he spoke softly into your ear back to his audience made you burn under the collar from embarrassment and his proximity to you. His peers could not understand why he simply wouldn't talk for himself; meanwhile, they also wondered why someone without their level of formal education had even accompanied him.

At night, he became one with darkness and retreated to the depths of his study across the massive house you shared together. It was part of one of his family’s various estates dotted across the country and his favorite, due to its location near the university where he worked (at his leisure), and its closeness to his only relative he actually cared about.

“My uncle—he has passed. Of complications caused from tuberculosis, I've been told. I was the only family member placed in his will, therefore it falls to me to settle all remaining affairs he may have overlooked,” he said, letting you help him into his heavy, wool coat he left on a hook near the front door. At his side was a hulking suitcase; one he often used for trips that were days—weeks away from home, from you. “He was a far more private man than I, so there's no telling what I'll come across while I'm there. I cannot tell you how long I'll be away. I'm sorry.”

You expected nothing less from him. This man who had only ever touched you once, on your wedding day. He did everything that he was supposed to: tonelessly regurgitate scripted vows he committed to memory, hold your hands, and kiss you at the altar for more than two seconds but less than five, and then gently lead you away once both families were pleased with the performance.

Right after, now as newlyweds, he poured bourbon into exquisite crosshatch crystalware and examined the glistening amber under wan lamplight. He apologized for kissing you, that he wouldn't have had at all if it hadn't been so important for your families.

At the time, it made you feel very ugly and undeserving of the silk and ornate lacework decorating your body. The gold band fitted around your finger was a lofty symbol of acquired wealth, heavy and unforgiving.

“Write to me every once and a while,” was all you could think to say at present, managing your composure well enough as he gripped the handle of his suitcase and leaned into its heftiness on that side. “It'd just be nice to know how you're doing. If you find anything interesting. When you'll be coming home. It gives me something to look forward to.”

“I'll try to,” he said, but looked through you, pierced you, as though trying to see something else. You saw this look most often at events or parties where he'd fixate on a specific point (usually you) and seem to recede inside himself, into his thoughts, perhaps trying to dissect them or make them congeal into something linear.

“Uncle was an eccentric man. There's no telling what he's left behind for me to find. I must go. Be well, my dear.”

Once again, he left you behind without remorse.

Four months passed with agonizing, gripping slowness from the crisp mornings of late autumn into the icy vise of winter and a shimmering white-blue landscape outside your windows.

In those days, you occupied yourself as best you could with guests and alcoholic merriment, whisked yourself away to parties and dinners after wringing out the invitations from friends, and spent many sleepless nights sprawled across the floor beside the fireplace coveting self-pleasure.

You imagined it was your husband there with you, immediately a renewed man after his return and finding you boundlessly desirable, fucking you with his cock rather than the freezing metal dildo you thrust inside yourself.

Even once you were finished, fucked out by your own hand and the object gaping you wide, you kept masturbating until you lost sensation, the motions and metal numbing you inside—until the intimacy and thrill of self-discovery had lost meaning to you.

Sometimes, you were found the next morning by a maid like that: thoroughly debauched with the phallus having rolled away nearby or still shallowly pressed inside. You only needed to threaten her livelihood once for her to never speak of it, pretend each time she hadn't witnessed a regrettable case of personal depravity.

It'd eventually become a frequent enough sight to her that she knew better than to look directly at you when she entered the room. Rather, now, she carried a laundered pair of trousers in with her. They were draped neatly over a bent arm, along with a warm and soapy rag in her hand, which she used to lightly clean you of dried fluids. Afterward, she helped you into the new garment.

“You have received a letter from the Master,” she said unexpectedly one morning, after fastening your pants and tucking your blouse inside them. “It's strange, though, because it doesn't feel like a letter. Not enough… substance. Shall I open it for you?”

“No! No, that's alright.” You took the long, pale envelope from her once she revealed it to you, realizing that she was right. There was nothing to it. Light as a feather, but completely sealed on the back with his personal emblem hastily stamped, or more appropriately, smeared, with red wax dribbling away from center towards the bottom of the envelope as if sudden jerkiness had unsteadied his focused pour.

You flipped the thing front to back several times, testing the way the opposite ends fluttered from nothingness within, and glanced aside to your maid.

She looked to be just as thrown.

“You're sure this is from him?” you asked, bemused. “Who delivered this?”

“Why, a courier on horseback, of course!” she said with conviction, so you knew she wasn't lying to you at that moment. It wasn't her habit to weave tales to get a rise out of her employers, anyway. “I even spoke to the courier for a while because I made a comment about it being so light. He wasn't sure about it, either, but the description of the man who hired him matched the Master almost exactly.”

You had found a letter opener on the desk nearby and made a quick cut under the wax to break the seal without ripping the envelope itself.

“Almost? What does that mean here?” you raised the intact flap with the messy seal attached, freeing all of the residual tracks of wax from the paper so that they fell to the hardwood below like pebbles shaken out of a shoe after a stroll through the yard. “The man was either my husband or he wasn't.”

The maid tried to subdue her intrigue of the envelope, turned, and moved onto bunching up the soiled sheet you'd spread out on the floor last night. “Please don't misunderstand. It was him. But, the courier described him as ‘a very interesting and friendly fellow to converse with’.”

“What?”

You were responding to two things simultaneously right then: what your maid had just told you, and the fact that the only content inside the envelope was a single shred of paper torn from an unlined journal.

The maid fluttered back over to your side as you plucked out the slither of paper, letting the envelope fall freely from your hand to the floor. Leaning into your proximity, she read aloud the same three words that your eyes skimmed:

“Father Marius DuMonde.”

Just as you had done before with the envelope, you flipped the scrap back and forth as though trying to magically flip something into existence. Your husband's handwriting was recognizable in the lettering, but it was impatient; scrawled across a page in one journal in his vast collection like he hurriedly walked past, and then ripped it out.

Nothing else was revealed to you in the seconds after, nor in your long, contemplative stare.

“Who is that?” you asked the maid to alleviate a fast yawning gap of uneasiness beginning to make you fidget and fluster. “A priest?”

The maid beamed in awe of your fast deductive skills and nodded eagerly. “It would seem that way! The city has more places of worship than it does homes for the hungry and sick. Although, I suppose a church offers some of those services.” However, the lightness sank out of her face when you didn't reciprocate that enthusiasm whatsoever. “You’re unhappy? What's wrong?”

“My husband is a scholar. A rigid man of science,” you said, bending over to pick up the discarded envelope to closer examine the disastrous wax seal. “He denounces faith in all forms. Why did he write a priest's name to me?”

That maddening thought followed you for days afterward, sufficiently distracting you from all the regular vices you'd come to rely on to fill the void of your husband's absence. Fulfill the needs he'd never tried to meet even while he was around.

You spent your days brooding in the window seats in whichever room was warmest, molding against their domed shape while leaning a cheek flush to frigid glass, eyes bloodshot and watering against the sun’s searing neon reflecting off of a lawn of undiluted, glittering white.

Seldomly, a finch or small vermin would come into your view—hopping or lunging through the snow, making tracks, digging holes, disturbing your beautiful wonderland and almost arousing you into unreasonable outbursts which then inevitably became the servants responsibility to contend with, should any be nearby to provoke you.

It was the early evening during one of your normal watches, just after dinner and a glass of red wine, when a great clamor carried swiftly to you from the foyer of the main entrance. The servants’ voices were a feverish amalgam of nonsensical babbling, high-pitched, and accommodating in a way that made you think of groveling dogs with flattened ears, wagging and tucked tails, bellies upturned to their masters.

“Come! Come quickly!” called your maid from the sitting room door, her shrill, excitable voice a violent jostling in your head, scrambling your thoughts and anger with it. “Master has returned! He's asking for you.”

You delayed the reunion, waiting several minutes after she had gone before standing. You realized that the anticipation you felt swelling in your chest, rising like growth—a malignant tumor into your throat, thickening your tongue and fouling your taste and smell, was because you were uneasy, haunted by the cryptic message he had presumably sent you weeks ago.

A while later, you entered the foyer to see most of the staff had already dispersed and the ones left behind were your husband’s most loyal. There among them, speaking so unremarkably, so casually in a way you'd never witnessed, was your husband. His good spirits and animated gestures as he handed off all his things to many hands were an odd sight, staggeringly unlike his typical dour.

So, the rumor was true. There was something discomforting in that.

Whatever topic he'd been engaged in fell wayside once he took sight of you: standing, waiting, subtly shifting your weight, picking your overgrown cuticles to remedy how nervous you truly felt in that moment. You'd always been a little uncertain of how to deal with him as he was hardly affable, but this—

���Oh my… there you are, my sweet!” his voice was exactly the same, but his way of speaking was too jarring, almost lilting. Unnatural. No one else seemed to notice. “I was worried you may have been cross with me for being away for so long. As it turned out, uncle had far more beneath the surface to find than I once thought. But, all is well! The old man has been laid to rest forever. The estate is in the right hands. I've come back to you.”

Could this man really be your husband?

He came to you in brisk strides with a certain clumsiness to the way he moved, somewhat off. You thought about seasoned drunkards who could walk along a path, but never on a straight line without gently swaying on and off of it. Mostly in control, but never so well to appear normal.

But, you didn't detect that stiff, hot, fermented reek of alcohol on his breath nor any subtle odor sticking to his clothes as he gripped you tight in an embrace. The only one he'd ever given you. Where you should have been over the moon in joy at his profound change in heart, the little sweetness was like an anchor—arms of a sinewy willow pinning you to an even stronger trunk.

“God, you're breathtaking.” He even sounded winded as he spoke, lifting your face up with both hands to see his dark, dark gleaming eyes. You startled from his cold touch, fingertips pinpricks of pure frost and ice as they pushed into your skin, but you felt trying to reach much deeper than that. “Come with me, my love. Let me show you just how much I've missed you.”

As if fantasy had become real, he fucked you relentlessly that night next to the fireplace, consuming you so completely that every orgasm made your insides churn in agony.

He laved at you with his entire mouth, tongue and teeth hardest at work while his hands bruised and fondled you, fingers thrusting up into your tight hole oozing his saliva and your arousal. It was shameful to think that it took this sort of handling from another person to get you off, squeal like a sow.

He fucked you however he could, wherever he could. Rutting you from behind and against furniture, pressing your bare chest flush to frosted over window panes to make your nipples erect and ache from the cold biting them.

Then, you were settled on his lap in front of a mirror hanging adjacent across the bedroom, his thighs spreading you wide open before your own reflection where you watched his cock plunge deep, filling you to the base of his shaft, balls slapping your sticky skin.

“Touch yourself, darling.” His throat rumbled, turning over stones and shards of glass, overall sounding very husky. There was something of wheeze that trailed the end of his every word, like he’d been patched for a long time. “Touch yourself. Watch yourself while you do it. Fuck yourself like the whore you are.”

Although the things he said were horribly uncouth, unbefitting of a man of his status and who you'd known him to be, there was great allure in hearing him, obeying his wants. You'd only had one glass of wine that evening, but your head and body warmed and buzzed like you'd had several.

His voice was a raspy whisper in your ears, seeping deep into your mind; spreading; fitting the grooves of your brain like the slow sprawl of sap through the gaps in bark. You were hardly yourself those minutes, those hours onward where you witnessed your reflection stroking throbbing parts, moaning, weeping, cumming until it hurt, and then doing it all over again.

The person in the mirror seemed to be someone completely different, whether simply disassociation from yourself or some hallucination evoked by exhaustion and ecstacy. Your husband had faded into the background, his voice creating sounds and noises, holding the cadence of language while seeming entirely unprobable, unknowable to you.

You couldn't understand him, yet you could, and the things he said were vile and disgusting and moralless. He told you of every way he'd like to fuck you, watch you be fucked; but, mostly, he wanted you to fuck yourself with the bulbous bedposts, the metal phallus held under lashing flames to be inserted next to his own cock.

He suggested orgies where the servants could take turns with you. He had almost convinced you to call for your maid so he could watch you suck on her breasts and lick her clit, while he rammed you from the back. He suggested drugs and whores, robbing the mortuaries, and worse and worse and worse and worse…

The next morning, you were stiff and immobile, bedridden unless two servants came into your room to help you squat on the commode. Your abdomen was tender and your genitals were untouchable, forcing you to lie in bed without undergarments to alleviate the raw chafing that could happen with fabric.

“I'm sorry, my darling. I—I lost control of myself. I got carried away,” your husband confessed later on, his sallow complexion keeping a weird, waxy sheen to it. A mask that fits, but not quite perfectly. Some of his former somber nature had returned to him as he sat on the edge of your bed, caressing the side of your face. He was still ridiculously cold. “Forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. I didn't realize just how desperate I was to see you again until you were in my arms. And then—and then, it was like it was all a dream.”

You thought the very same. You could believe he forgot himself in an uncharacteristic blaze of lust, as men were never taught to be any other way, and most men couldn't fathom the level of restraint he’d had until last night.

Everything else, you'd wanted to believe, was simply imagined after drinking more than you once thought and getting inside your own head full of sinful indulgences.

Still, one thing bothered you: Father Marius DuMonde.

“I need you to go to the city and find him. And show him this paper. Explain to him everything that you know, you hear?” You'd handed your maid the old envelope and scrap of paper, and handed her a generous bag of coins from your own safe.

She looked at you, everything else, in bewilderment. “Don't ask questions. If you're able, bring him back here. Beg him if you must. If it's all nothing, he will simply be an honored guest we feed well, house, and send off gracefully the next day. Should it be something…”

“Are you afraid of him? The Master?” asked the maid, perhaps out of faithfulness to him. Perhaps out of devotion to you the most. “What do you think happened at his uncle's estate?”

It would all be speculation and unjustified gossip without proof, of which you had none. So, you told her that you couldn't be sure of anything right now. “Wait until sundown. Take the old pony in the stables, the one that usually lags behind all the rest. Be silent. Be careful.”

The maid did as you asked and left right before the final light was extinguished by indigo nightfall. You were able to move to one of the windows, seating yourself gingerly, watching her lead the sluggish old pony into cover of tree tops and then nothing else.

But, five days later, the maid hadn't returned from her mission, nor had you received any correspondence from her, nor the priest that she was supposed to retrieve.

A week after that, it was revealed to you that neither she or the old pony had made it out of the woods. The details of the old pony were so gruesome you couldn't bear to remember them.

But, the maid was found nearly decapitated, head twisted around to face backwards, her pale skin hideously purple and black and swelled where it had been stretched like a strap of wrung leather. It was mentioned she had been disemboweled as well, but you promptly burst into tears and ran from the room before the visiting coroner could finish speaking, leaving him to discuss the rest with just your husband.

That night, you lay next to your husband in bed. The deep silence of night filled your ears with static and crunching cotton, whereas a hum resonated inside your head, your chest, seeping into your bones like a cold blanket of rainfall.

The black air took on weird shapes: imagined appendages curling, reaching across the ceiling towards the bed, towards you. Your eyes couldn't focus enough to ward them off, nor the depth of dark your husband's silhouette had at your side.

He was faced the other way, his clothes back to you, completely unmoving. You ventured closer to listen for the thin breathing of sleep, the automatic rise and fall of his body, and yet he could've been mistaken as one of the dead. As dead and gnarled as your maid.

“Who are you?” you asked him. Asked the swirling nothingness in the room. “Where is my husband?”

“You've nothing to worry about, my sweet,” he said readily, so clearly anticipating to have your voice ring out at some point in the night. “He is here with me. Such a selfish, unlovable man. I am the one worthy of this vessel and you. Not he.”

Then, he rolled on top of you and kissed you deeply. Your bedclothes were shucked from your bodies and he pushed your thighs apart to seat himself inside of you. He took you with greedy thrusts, face fitted against the arch of your neck where his breath left a moist film across your skin, but the rest of him was freezing.

Your whimpers of pains were dwarfed by his hot moans into your flesh, teeth suddenly sharper and sinking deep when he bit into your neck. You were trapped staring at the ceiling, wrapped in agony and pleasure, feeling his body under your fingertips beginning to distort and change into something far more monstrous.

a/n; this is heavily inspired from me reading the exorcist, recently. the section with the maid's head swiveled around was a nod to the scene with director having "fallen" from a height and dying similarly. a lot of my most recent reads have been extremely graphic, so my writing has been reflecting that and it's been interesting!

quick q&a!

is father marius dumonde the same father marius from your vampire priest fic? yup! if I go forward with writing the longer story, father marius will be a central character later on, and father shaw will make a reappearance as well.

what would the main differences be in a full story vs just this piece?

a) the husband would be given a more solid identity, appearance, and name. he'd have more depth to build an emotional rapport with his character.

b) existing scenes would be expanded, smut scenes grittier and more graphic, more development between mc and the husband, the maid would have a more important part and given an identity. essentially, most elements from this price would be fleshed out and expanded.

c) I intend to add a "mystery" element to this where mc tries to unveil what happened during the husband's stay at his uncle's estate.

d) I would open up multiple polls to help influence different aspects of the story such as the husband's name, appearance, overall disposition, whether the majority would vote for a happy ending with the husband vs the ending with the demon.

if you're interested in seeing a full story, make sure to reblog and share your thoughts with me!! I'd love to hear feedback on this to know what you'd like to see in the future!

[hantaslittlearsonist]

ROOT ROT

possessed!scholar husband x reader|3.7k| 18+

following your cold and reticent husband's return from settling affairs with his deceased uncle's estate, he has changed and done things unheard of. once a great lover of botany and entomology, he has razed his garden to the ground as proof of his love to you. this man—this thing—os not your husband.

warnings;; pseudo-victorian setting, dubcon, mentioned dp, mentioned temperature play, cumshot on body, cum eating, other explicit sexual details, mentions of drug use (opium), unrequited love, hypnosis/trance, some horrific imagery, detail & prose heavy, roughly proofread.

this is a companion piece to imposter. you don't have to read it, but if you want a better idea of what is going on, I suggest you do!

a/n; I reappear after a month hiatus with this piece. I have questions and notes at the end of the fic that I'd love to have feedback to!

please reblog this if you've read it, guys! help keep your favorite writing and authors on this website by reblogging their work!!

“He is simply not himself!”

Bartolomé Medina knew his best friend better than you knew your husband, so you believed him when he said that your husband’s newly acquired, increasing eccentricities were not some fictitious imagining of yours.

Although, Medina himself could not explain the unexplainable and all of the oddness without growing visibly flustered.

A bit flushed in the face, singeing the roundness of his ears. He'd stamp out your justifications for strangeness in the same way he did the fine cigars he'd been accustomed to sharing with his friend, yet had not for quite sometime now.

“And you say his garden is dead?” Medina looked stricken with dread, suddenly ill by repeating something so blasphemous. “Now, my dear, please don't mistake my shock as disbelief. I very much believe in what you're saying. I've seen Solomon and his weirdness! Why, just this morning over breakfast, at a time where you were still tucked away in deep sleep, he wouldn't drink his coffee. So bizarre! That man knows the thousands of tastes and varieties of coffee beans, and he spat the very stuff out on the floor like it'd never once touched his tongue!

“But his garden? A botanist without his garden is like a bird without wings. A dog without a tail to wag. A newborn without his mother’s teat! Vulgar, I understand, but you see my point.” He drank from a heavy glass in his hand. The inside had nearly spilled over at one point with light brown which glittered gold under the overhead light, smelling slightly sour and earthy. “To think that Solomon would let it all die. Something is wrong. Something has happened to my only true friend and to your husband.”

You did not drink with any enthusiasm or anguish from your own cup, rather you used those seconds of delicate sipping to gap the conversation, separate yourself from it all for just a moment. You'd had your time to grieve and contend with knowing the man you had married and come to love was not the same one who kept you awake at night.

Solomon had once been a reclusive and reticent man, the only son of David Agrippa and sole heir of the Agrippa Diamond Mines and Jewelry Galleria. He'd never been able to replicate his father's ardor for business and entrepreneurship, choosing towards academic ventures of entomology and botany and most of everything belonging to the natural world instead.

Among his most prized things was a sprawling, domed greenhouse made of large sheets of pale blue-green glass soldered with metal which shifted rose-gold in bright daylight.

“I loved his garden, but I didn't much like to be in there with him,” you confessed, forgetting your manners as you kept your cup still against your lips, mumbling your words. “He liked to tell me about the plants and flowers he grew. Most of it I could never hope to understand, but… I loved seeing him come alive. He seemed to glow when he could tell me things, so I got into the habit of listening to him when he wanted to speak.”

Medina, not yet drunk or driven to any untoward behavior, set aside his empty vessel with jittering ice cubes and looked at you admiringly. “You said that you didn't like being in there with him? Why?”

“The bees. The bugs. The humidity. The fertilizer he liked to use because of the nitrogen content. He told me that it mattered what he used and couldn't just break up soil from the yard.” You said, tilting your cup.

After taking another sip, you determined you hated the taste of the liquor and how it slid down along your throat like fire trailing an oil spill, yet clung there with residual, syrupy stickiness that nearly made you gag.

“Why did you keep going inside?” Medina asked tranquilly, much of his previous frustration softened, body and soul warmed by the alcohol and how fondly he regarded your sweetness towards his friend.

You thought very little before answering, “I wanted to be where he was. It didn't matter to me if that meant his greenhouse or the coldest part of the arctic.”

That was the truth of it. Once you'd received the first crumbs of understanding who Solomon truly was beneath his stolid exterior built brick-by-brick from tragedy and grief and a lifetime of emotional ineptitude, you would've gone to any length to see more of him. To see his pale eyes gain a wild, flickering candlelight of passion, and the faintest of trembling smiles disguising how deeply your questions had aroused his soul.

In those moments, he revealed to you the things he loved the most and what you envied the most: the natural world.

The flittering, fat-bodied pollinators whose entire world were yellow and red flowers with succulent centers and lush, girthy leaves where they'd rest their weary, iridescent wings and could never understand your husband's appreciation of them.

The thousands of specimens he'd collected from every corner of the world and articulated thoughtfully against wood and felt. Their dead little limbs were pinned in place; perfect mimicry of how they would've been if still alive and crawling. He’d had them all meticulously framed and arranged across the walls in his office; trophies of his success, of his studies and hard work.

The innumerable plants and flowers he trimmed and watered in his greenhouse and the ones not contained within it. Some species he had planted in the yard, others in the cool shade of the nearby woods where they smothered native varieties with tendrils-like vines and climbed upside trees. More aquatic species were placed by the edge of the lake, growing into the water; buoyant; a woman's deep dark hair reaching forever for the surface.

He had turned the lonely, sprawling estate into a monument of life, of love that did not belong to you. And for that, sometimes you hated living there. Hated the things that he loved.

Choking the plants, poisoning their roots with any number of things from your father’s pharmacy crossed your mind more than once.

Feeding the bees something enticingly sweet and deadly; filling the greenhouse with noxious gas at night while they slept on their big leaves and your husband in his bed. It would've been such an easy thing for you to do—own your husband's grief as you held his face in your hands and comforted him in the morning when all had atrophied and rotted.

But, those feelings had become a reality you truly never wished to have seen after Solomon returned from his deceased uncle's estate months ago.

He was not the same man.

“Tell me what happened.” Medina’s voice buzzed in your ear from nearby, closer than it had been before. Your hand was caressed by tight warmth—his holding yours, his handsome face looking up at you from where he had crouched in front of your chair. “Tell me everything you've seen. It's of grave importance that you remember it all, as curing Solomon from his affliction relies solely upon you.”

You could not deny his earnestness, the squeeze of his fingers. A promise that he would not be easily shattered by what you had to say, and would think no less of his friend for it. Within his sincere stare, you saw the gleam of another, secret promise. The likes of which you pretended not to see, that he'd never speak of out loud.

“I…” you distracted yourself with the embroidery on your clothes, pinching loose threads and beads. “It was subtle, at first. I noticed some of the bees were dead on the ground. And then some plants had started developing spots. Leaves turned brown and yellow and fell off. A lot of them withered, even though their soil was still damp when I checked…”

And then, the morning came where you witnessed Solomon among a carnage of broken stalks weeping foul-smelling sap, leaves he'd ripped apart with his own hands, and some of his larger flowering plants with fiery manes completely severed. Their bountiful heads lay at his feet, flattened by the heel of his boot as he walked aimlessly, snipping and tearing indiscriminately.

“My god, Solomon! Stop!” you stepped around the countless tiny, contracted bodies of bees and other pollinators to reach him. He let go of the gardening shears as you grabbed them. “What are you doing?! What have you done?! Decades of work! Gone! Are you mad?!”

“Well, you've gone and ruined my surprise for you. I've been working on it for hours. I didn't expect you would be awake so soon.” Solomon said, sounding much like himself despite the savagery he stood surrounded by. He smiled at you in an unfamiliar way, as if trying to navigate his facial muscles around a mask. “Isn't it simply wonderful?”

The sweltering humidity trapped within this greenhouse of death had turned the air stagnant and foul, heavily pungent of detritus and mildew. Across all zones of the greenhouse, once painstakingly organized and labeled for the purpose of easier cataloging, no slithers of greenery or color remained. Each step you took in any direction seemed to sink you deeper into the decay, wet gurgling underfoot as you crossed stumpy mounds of plants and flowers he'd destroyed and thrown into piles.

“How could you? My husband spent almost twenty years building this garden and studying it. This was his life’s work!” You wished you could force life back into the severed plants; pray that the ground of yellow-brown waste would suddenly freckle with tiny, green sprouts and grow with thick stalks and thorns to keep his hands away.

“I am your husband.” Solomon took the gardening shears from your hand and tossed them aside. He leaned into your body, nose and lips pressed into the fabric covering your neck. “I've only done what you wanted. What you wished you could've done yourself, but never did.”

You flinched against the movement of his hands smoothing down your waist to the notches in your hips. Sliding inward, he unfastened the hook-and-loops and buttons holding your trousers up to push them down your thighs along with your undergarments.

“I know your thoughts and what you really think. I've been listening the entire time. I've always been listening.” Solomon let his hips roll along the back of his hand while he used his fingers to lay long, languid strokes on you. “It was tiring, wasn't it? Always competing for love and affection in a place like this. You were never going to have what you wanted. Not with this place still standing. Not with his ineptitudes and selfishness.”

His touch weakened you indescribably; like the caress of heat from the fireplace against your bare skin once the opium had taken effect. Swapping tiny pills on wet tongues with your maid until they'd dissolved into saliva and into your cheeks. You explored one another's bodies thoroughly on those cold nights, silky with sweat from the fire and exertion.

Yet, this was not the same as back then when the sexual appetite of two teenagers transcended societal morals.

Solomon encompassed you in a feeling; consumed you without ever digging into you with his teeth or nails. He could whisper hideous secrets and depravities to you to tip you over into searing euphoria. He had once penetrated you with a hot metal phallus resting on top of his own, thrusting with both until the metal cooled, and you still came anyway.

He'd put worse inside your body and done far worse than that in only a few short months since returning home, yet he never tired of the torture and you remained malleable and enthralled by it all.

“God, you are beautiful. And you are mine.” Solomon had maneuvered both your bodies to the ground, atop of the soggy detritus. Your back was exposed to the mush, leaves, and crushed flower petals, weight pushing an indentation in the loose soil. “This is the fruition of your desires, darling. Don't you love it? Destroying what he loved so you could have it all?”

The one who came back to you was not Solomon; the one fucking you into waste and dirt was not Solomon, either. You told yourself you needed to love imposter as well, because he looked like your husband; wore his signet ring, too.

At night, you imagined only his softest expressions behind clenched eyelids when he wanted to have his way with you, as something else entirely took his place. A creature so diabolical and unsightly that the servants now awaited your screams to rouse them awake in the murky midnight hours.

Every time they arrived with their candlesticks and oil lanterns, the thrusting spectre receded into the dark as a black mass hardly distinguishable from shadow.

Only Solomon would remain, and he was swift to send the servants away before they could see your improper, disheveled state sprawled across the bed sheets.

In the daytime light, his face stayed familiar and comforting to you and you could bear to see him, form some coherent words.

“Someone might—might see us out here, Solomon. Mr. Medina is supposed to—oh, oh, mmm—he’s due to arrive at any time.” You were given several long kisses, which turned into severe caresses of hot breath when his thrusts turned savage, cock reaching so deep you were starting to feel numb below the waist. A feverous response. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck…”

He adjusted himself to lay on your chest, the sweat on your bodies offering an effortless glide and new angle for his cock that made your moans deeper and dire. Such sounds, whether in agony or pleasure, were melodious to him. Addicting drags from a pipe in an opium den; an alcoholic's first sip at breakfast; a cheating man's night with a new lover.

“Wouldn't you like for them to see that? For someone to witness you being fucked into the ground? Surrounded by everything their master loved?” Solomon tucked his face into the curve of your neck and groaned, hips slow and stuttering. “Bartolomé would be the one to find it most tantalizing. His only friend in the world ruining the only person he's ever loved. Wouldn't that be a sight? We could invite him to watch.”

At the time, it had been quite jarring to learn Bartolomé harbored those silent, ardent feelings for you. It had sufficiently pulled you from whatever trance Solomon had lulled you into, reacquainting you with all the sounds of sex and the filth clinging to your skin. It was as though your mind had been locked into a mostly airless, noiseless void that he controlled and released at will.

You held tight to his shoulders as he molded you deeper into the muck and plant litter. The squat, friable walls of soil holding your shape like the cushions in a tomb, whereas Solomon was the man lowering you into the dark earth; the last to see your face before covering it in clay and dirt.

He was in your ear with loud moans that resonated through you, simultaneously as carnal as a beast amidst its seasonal rut, and velvety as the feathery smooth glide of fingers down your spine. His throat rumbled against you, resembling the intensity of a purring housecat nestled near your head in contentment.

At his tipping point, he removed his cock from your body and used the slippery stuff glistening off it to stroke himself; weepy, deep red tip to the base. You received the aftermath of his release in thick ropes across your abdomen and chest, the warmth of it already cooling on your skin while he continuously kneaded the head to force out what remained as if they were dewdrops made from pearls.

“How do you think Bartolomé would fare seeing you like this?” Solomon swept two fingers through the cum in an elegant curl to smear it around his cock. The viscous white thinned into pale gloss on his girth and a sticky residue inside his hand.

Your lips parted to give an answer, but his fingers and taste were faster than your words.

“And… that is all? Truly?” Bartolomé asked, shattering your visions of the recent past as he revealed a compact silver case from inside his vest, pulling a cigarette from within it. “You simply walked into the garden one morning and saw that he had destroyed everything? He gave you no explanation whatsoever?”

The imposter had stolen much of your dignity over the months, but enough of it remained for you to omit every significant detail from your story. You'd only told him that Solomon had cut the heads off of rare flowers, mumbled in a disorienting way, and gave you no difficulty with the gardening shears.

Bartolomé went away from your side for an open window across the spacious sitting room, matching his cigarette and blowing gray plumes out into the dense summer air.

“This is concerning.” He spoke loud enough for you to hear, even with his thumbnail tracing the underside of his lower lip, muffling him somewhat. “Solomon is considerably worse off than I first thought. We need to investigate this, retrace his every step since the moment he left you that night for his uncle's estate.”

“Oh, Bartolomé, that will be very unnecessary.” Solomon announced himself as he walked in through the open doors, offering you a tepid smile, which came nowhere close to reaching his eyes. Your chair jostled slightly as he stood behind it, a weighty hand landing on the tall back above your head. “Why trouble yourself with employing some ludicrous scheme when you could, ah, inquire as to what haunts you instead?”

Bartolomé tamped out his cigarette on the windowsill and pocketed it. “You are ill, Solomon. You may be suffering from some form of hysteria. It's time you visited a doctor, my old friend.”

“Well, that just isn't true.” Solomon kept the neutrality in his tone, but you tracked a rumble of agitation; a warning not far off. His hand followed the curvature of the chair down to the arm that you leaned against, fingers touching your shoulder, lightly kneading you through your clothes.

He was sure to be in Bartolomé’s eyesight as he did this, further aggravating the heavy disquiet. You didn't dare to move out of reach of his touch.

“But, it is true, Solomon!” Bartolomé insisted, gesturing toward the window. “What of your garden? All of your life's work now means nothing, you damned fool! You've snapped, old boy. See a doctor before you do something you regret.”

“That garden was more a source of misery than it was a boon. At any rate, I'm quite finished listening to you harp at me for one night, my dear friend.” Solomon lightly stroked down your cheek with bent fingers, coaxing you to look up at him. “It's time for bed, darling. Us impropertious brutes have kept you up for too long.”

You hesitated, and then stood when Solomon took your arm. “Alright.”

“As usual, your accommodations should exceed expectations. I'll have a servant wake you for breakfast again tomorrow.” It was too soon to call those Solomon's departing words to Bartolomé, as he stopped with you in the doorway, your hand caressing the meat of his forearm. “You know, Bartolomé, I would recommend marrying soon. There is no greater feeling than having the one you love so close to you, don't you think?”

Bartolomé became unreadable as he fished a hand into his vest pocket for the cigarette case again. You were led away for the bedroom before anything else could be said, but you knew that Solomon had struck a nerve.

“That was cruel.” you said.

Once in the bedroom, your back was pressed flush to the door while he unfastened the buttons to your outerwear and the blouse underneath it. Solomon kissed your lips slowly, first, before moving underside your jaw after shucking you down to your undergarments.

“And you are mine. You made your vows to me. Remember that, my sweet.”

You watched him strip out of his clothes and then stroke the length of his cock until it was hard.

“I married someone else. Not you.”

As he dimmed the lights within the space, sweeping the bedroom under a shroud of near pitch black, your annoyance shifted into a swell of anxiety both freezing cold and burning hot. Your body pulsed in rhythm with your wild heartbeat, throat clenched as tightly as infantile flower buds.

You waited for Solomon to touch you, startling once he finally did. His fingers had elongated and sharpened, his touch now far more delicate and methodical.

“Don't worry, he’s still in here with me.”

a/n; so, some notes real quick

do not count this scene as canon bc idk how much I'm going to take from it to incorporate into the actual story. like, certain things will be there fs, but a good chunk won't.

tbh, this didn't go as hard as I thought it was going to. by comparison to the actual story, this is pretty tame. but I've already relented that the full story is just hopelessly slutty and pornographic lmaooo

bartolomé medina was actually included late into my current version of the story outline. I wanted a somewhat paralleling foil character for solomon, and he's who I came up with. in a lot of ways, bartolomé and solomon are very similar, which is why they get along so well as friends. but, they're also starkly different in other aspects (e.g. wealth differences, careers, bartolomé forces his sociability and personality, whereas solomon can't be fucking bothered). tbh, I love bartolomé as a character and this oneshot does not do him justice—at all.

sadiya, mc's maid, is actually the most important supporting character in the entire story and is completely different from her first appearance in imposter. like, completely. I'd like to do one more concept piece where I can actually introduce her.

men moaning is one of the hottest things imo. get out of here with that silent ejaculating bs.

NOW, ONTO QUESTIONS!!!

what are your thoughts on me incorporating the idea that bartolomé is in love with mc into the actual story? there is a possibility of an ending with him if enough folks show interest before the final chapters. or, would you prefer it strictly focused on solomon, the demon, and mc? this subplot would not come to fruition as a side romance or "cheating" plotline. like I said, bartolomé exists mainly as a parallel and foil for solomon.

are you guys interested in smut scenes with actual, explicit details of the demon in his true form (he ain't pretty y'all. this story is majorly psychological for a reason). but, if you kinky fucks want it, I'm happy to oblige.

would having a bolder mc who experimented with things (mainly opium) and has a bit more of a sexually promiscuous background take you out of immersion and be a deterrent, or would you be interested in me continuing that route? be honest.

I dropped several hints in this piece on the inspired identity of the demon in the story. have you guessed who? 👀

how depraved y'all want me to get with the smut scenes fr???

[hantaslittlearsonist]

Hellooooo

Could you do questions 5, 9 and 16 from the writer ask game please?

Xo, Trip

5) What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

For the longest time I've really wanted to do a League of Villains AU based on the novel Ender's Game. I feel like the themes line up in an interesting way and I think it would be cool to write. Unfortunately, I also think it would be DOA around here and I've sort of gotten out of the habit of writing full fics that are just for me to read.

9) Do you write every day? If you wrote today, share a sentence of what you’ve written!

I absolutely write every day! And courtesy of this question the first ever snippet of the mismatched AU is hitting the air:

"If that's his thing, doing a mass casualty in a major city seems like -- not very smart," Spinner says. "We weren't even close to figuring out what was causing the switches. Why tip his hand like that?"

Tenko knows. "Because he wants us to know it's not an accident. That somebody's doing this," he says. Spinner goes pale. Midoriya's face is already white. "He wants us to be scared."

16) At what point in the process do you come up with titles?

It varies a lot! Sometimes I have the title when I start the fic - Skin Hunger was like that. Other times I'm sitting in front of the Ao3 textbox with nothing but the title in between me and posting the fic. I can say that coming up with a title is rarely a stress-free process.

Thank you for the ask!

bored + anxious fic writer asks

[hantaslittlearsonist]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY IDIA I💙U!!!!!

[hantaslittlearsonist]

i love reader. idc if she’s a bimbo or a crybaby or a little unhinged. good for her tbh. i love her in all shapes and forms. she is barbie. she is a doctor and a student and a barista and she can take five dicks at the same time. what a beautiful world we live in.

[hantaslittlearsonist]

[hantaslittlearsonist]

Fine, I’ll do it myself 🙄

HEAVILY INSPIRED BY: GSONY24

[hantaslittlearsonist]

[hantaslittlearsonist]

rip my glorious daddy issues ceo 💥💥💥

[hantaslittlearsonist]

i hate it when it feels like a character has been designed specifically for me to like them . because then i do like them and it feels like i walked straight into their trap

[hantaslittlearsonist]

i hate it when it feels like a character has been designed specifically for me to like them . because then i do like them and it feels like i walked straight into their trap

[hantaslittlearsonist]

they’re on a date

i think hawks would really fit 80’s clothing and dabi needs to be in 2000s grunge