#(there's layers to him offering that that makes it funny‚ i promise. he offers concoctions based on a person's personality? i think??? he

[yakny]

Knight Bobo, wearing some of the patterns I drew :D!

[esseegg]

Four Words and Then Some - Dabi [Reader-insert fic]

Summary: There are few things that faze Dabi. Nonchalance and apathy are what he’s best known for. When he meets someone of similar manner, however, he can’t help but feel a tad curious. He can’t help putting labels beyond your demeanor — anything to remember you by.

Word Count: 1846

Note: gender neutral Reader. not quite romantic, although one could argue its implications. written before the Dramatic Dabi Reveal™ in recent manga chapters, so this embraces more of the mystery that initially surrounded his character.

Warning: mentions of murder, alcohol, and sex.

There was only a handful of words that Dabi could use to describe you.

The first was “immoral”.

That was the first look he saw in your eyes that night. Under the pelt of the rain, you watched — watched as his scarred, bloodied hand clasped over an innocent person’s mouth. A show of blue humored your eyes not in the open, but within the screaming walls of his victim’s throat.

The man collapsed, just inches away from your feet. Before Dabi could purr a despairing taunt, a promise that you’d end up the same, you cut him off with a scream. It was the innocent’s — turned dry by scarring flames, turned hopeless by the press of your heel.

As you dug your heel into the victim’s throat, you tipped your umbrella in Dabi’s direction. From below the shadow of your umbrella’s weeping canopy, your smile twinkled ever so humbly. 

“Thank you,” you uttered.

He just wanted to scorch a loose mouth. He didn’t know you had bad blood with the guy.

The second was “cocky”.

When Dabi asked if you knew who he was, you affirmed that you did. As he rose to his feet, your arm rose with him. Somehow, your umbrella still accounted for him.

“You aren’t afraid of getting burned?” Dabi sneered.

Flames hissed above the rain’s pulse, drawing a line along the dips and curves of his neck. A stray flicker reflected in your eyes, and he caught sight of a heart-seizing intensity.

“Not really.” Your airy chuckle extinguished his flares of blue. “The public’s noted you as a more.. erratic person among your associates.”

You tilted your shield back, letting the rain’s barrage on him resume.

“You don’t exactly have the highest body count among criminal kind. At least, when you’re acting alone.”

Dabi eyed the canopy that no longer wept for him. Lifting a hand, he ignited a flame beneath its edge. You spared it only a glance before tossing the whole thing aside.

The third was “blunt”.

“You’ve never been reported to appear in this area before,” you remarked. Your hand, no longer occupied, simply took refuge in a slot of your jacket. “Do you mind if I ask what for?”

You had friends nearby, as well as a relative just a few blocks away. Although you thought it pointless to steer a villain’s will, you wished it kind, nonetheless, if he were to leave your relations alive and well.

The way you gestured with your shoulders, mixed with the lazy perks and dips of your lips — Dabi couldn’t help but laugh. Although it came off as more of a scoff, you noticed.

“Relax,” the villain drawled. “Burnt cities aren’t the agenda. Your folks will be safe, unless they have a quirk in my interest.”

“Is that what happened to this guy?” you asked. Only then did Dabi realize — your foot was still on the bastard’s throat.

“You could say that.”

“Hm.” You took your foot away, irked by the raspy gasps that followed. “I’m not surprised.”

The fourth was “beguiling”.

After his third torching of your shared victim’s throat, you asked if he intended to stay the night. He thought he knew a tease when he heard one.

“That sounds like an invitation,” he hummed. You didn’t flinch nor tense as he neared, and in good fun, the tip of his nose tickled yours.

Liquor or sex, Dabi predicted. One or the other — maybe both if he was lucky. You didn’t seem below two shots or a few, and the rain hugged your form with a shameless, flattering grace.

There was a lighter’s tease in your eyes too, one that begged for another flick of the thumb. Roll the wheel, your eyes seemed to say. Spit sparks of blue on your skin; start a flame that’d eat you out, pain you, pleasure you, until you were ashes on a bed. He’d feed you the last shot of your cheap shared liquor, distastefully warm by that point. Then, he’d leave. That’d be a night, certainly — just the kind of night he–

“It’s not.” Turning your head away ever so slightly, you bared a look of total disinterest. “I was hoping you’d leave.”

So much for that night. Whatever, Dabi scoffed.

He fished out his burner phone, paying you no mind as he dialed his associate’s number. The tone droned in his ear, monotonous like the rain, quiet like your soles on concrete as you strayed to pick up your umbrella. You only cared to shake off the drip of puddles, rather than the grime that stuck.

The fifth and final word was “comforting”.

"You have zero caller credits left on this device. To purchase more, visit one of our locations at– Beep!"

The phone smacked concrete, cracking upon impact. After his snarl had sputtered, making it no further than the barrier that was his lips, you spoke.

"Is everything alright?"

Dabi’s eyes darted over, meeting the shadow of that weeping canopy again. Your buttery tone, light and airy, put the image of a smirk in his head.

"What do you think?" he sneered.

Your eyes sheened like all-seeing moons above the night's drizzle. White — from what he could tell — hazy and plain.

"Do you need a place to stay?" you asked. “I have a couch you could borrow.”

Dabi paused, confounded by the offer. He looked to the sky, as if his answer had been tucked away up there. Looming over urban silhouettes, the clouds wallowed in their sorrow. Silver linings were impossible to find.

The villain sighed. Eventually, he replied, “Alright. It’s not as if I’ve got anywhere else to go.”

The canopy twitched, revealing a quiet surprise in your eyes. Dabi chuckled, sparking a funny, fleeting life in your eyes’ shine.

He’d remember that. He’d remember many things about you.

He’d remember the pale vinyl flooring of your apartment and how mud stuck itself between boards’ gaps. He’d remember that ugly, aged yellow of your lightbulbs, which loved to cackle and gossip whenever he turned his back. He’d remember the weak, chilling pulse of your shower head: a nice gift after blue had licked his skin raw.

When he came out of the shower, Dabi found a flaccid pillow on the couch. From the kitchen, he could hear the clinks of a spoon dipped in warm milk. When you caught his stare, you spoke.

“Insomnia.” You shook the mug as if it were a glass of wine. “Just a comfort habit of mine.”

As the night dragged on, he slowly understood what you meant.

While he rested on the couch, slowly sinking into its tough, ridged cushions, you lingered in the kitchen, concocting drink after drink to accompany the fiction in your hands. Every few minutes or so, he’d hear the crisp flick of another page, the kind that often sliced through the drone of the rain.

Then, out of nowhere, the spoon-clinking and the page-turning quieted.

“Aren’t you tired?”

Your voice mingled with the muted racket from outside. He almost didn’t catch it.

“Do you honestly think a villain’s gonna take a chance at a stranger’s home?”

Dabi’s voice cushioned his words, turning curtness to breath and derision to wisps. The scratch of your mug and the kitchen counter followed, as did the flutter of pages and the last hiss of your kitchen light.

You strolled out of the shadows, placing the mug at the foot of the couch. Before he could question you, you plopped onto the armrest. In response, Dabi scrambled up, tucking his feet away from you, while blue raced along his fingertips.

“Relax,” you uttered. “I’m just here for the better light.”

A shitty excuse. You both knew it.

“If you want better light, I’d look somewhere else,” the villain retorted.

Propping himself up, he nestled into a crook of your couch. You didn’t mind, even as he angled himself for a perfect view of whatever threats you might attempt.

Threats. Right.

He’d remember that thought. He’d remember all that he could before that night’s end.

He’d remember how your pages turned to whispers. He’d remember that irking clonk between your foot and the couch, then the silence after he spat something at you. He’d remember your yawns, long and perpetual — shamelessly dramatic.

That was you: a peculiar thing of the owl’s night with dark, curious eyes and airy smiles. Eerily still yet alive, you lived in your own little world that Dabi had simply intruded upon, when he could’ve sworn that it was the other way around.

In your world, hearts were slow, yet steady, safe, and content. The darkness was kind, drooping over his eyes and working his limbs loose. Bulbs became stars, humble and pleasant within the morning’s grayness.

When the villain awoke, he was greeted by fleece, sewn together from the night’s black. The sky seemed full of silver, accompanied by a light, shimmery mist that turned your window into a colorless mirage. In the new light of the sunless city, there was you.

Your body teetered, looking ready to topple off the armrest at any moment. Meanwhile, your book slumbered against the slope, having long since closed by the will of its bindings. By your feet, which dangled innocently, your mug laid on its side. It had dried over in a layer of crusted liquid that spanned out and seeped into the vinyl boards.

At all of you, the villain huffed. You bemused him. Yet, in the back of his mind, he couldn’t bring himself to question you — any of you. You felt like a dream, after all, utterly surreal.

He was certain he’d be that way to you too. You’d question a lot of things.

You’d wonder if your mug sprouted legs last night. Otherwise, it would’ve never made its way to your sink.

You’d hug the fleece that had hugged so snuggly about your shoulders and question it. Before last night, blankets never flew.

You’d ask if your book was always so fickle. Rather than stay by your side, it got up and moved to the kitchen. It would’ve found its way home, on a shelf or the like, but it forgot that home a long time ago.

Worst of all, your umbrella, which you had hung onto the front door knob to dry, was now gone — actually gone. You’d wander the halls, search the rooms, and even call Dabi’s name to ask where it had gone.

There’d be no point, though. In the end, you’d know.

Somewhere, far away from the place you called home, your umbrella was wide open and smiling beside the atmosphere’s light, joyful cries for a brand new day. All the while, the canopy, spotted with mud and baring a singe along its edge, casted a warm, comforting shadow over its new owner.

Dabi thought it foolish to bring the item along, but he did. As he walked, he twirled the canopy and grinned, happy to thieve a sliver of the subtle peace that you had blessed him with.

Thank you for reading! Likes, Comments & Reblogs are much appreciated <3

[belladxne]

i will see you where the shadow ends | chapter 5

[see notes for ao3 and ff links]

part of the put your faith in the light that you cannot see series AU: Breath of the Wild pairing: KiriBaku word count: 6,400

chapter 5: i will hold on hope, and i won’t let you choke on the noose around your neck

Eijiro wakes the next morning to Inko having laid out two simple white shirts and a pair of trousers for him—he can tell as soon as he runs his fingers over the shirts that unlike what he’s wearing now, they’re made of soft and comfortable material. It feels sturdier, too, but that may just be because anything’s bound to feel sturdier than clothes left to rot for a hundred years. Beside them are a padded doublet, clearly designed for warmth, and a pair of thick gloves.

He looks up to see Inko humming as she merrily gathers food for breakfast—eggs and rice. He’s relieved to see she looks none the worse for the wear after losing out on her bed for the night.

“Where did you get these?” he asks, curiously. It’s… not exactly like there are any merchants or tailors able to get up onto the plateau. Inko hums, distracted, before she glances up and seems to remember what he’s talking about, and a bright smile crosses her face.

“They’re old. They were all too big for me, so I took some time last night to tailor the shirts and trousers to something I thought might fit you better.”

“Oh,” he says, looking down at them. He’s focusing real hard on not having a repeat of yesterday—he’s so immensely thankful, but he’s gonna try not to get emotional about it. Well, too emotional about it. Well, okay, he’s already really emotional about it, but he can at least try to not get choked up. “I—thank, you, so much, I really don’t know how I can—”

“If I hear another word about repayment out of you,” she scolds teasingly, but Eijiro can tell she doesn’t have any sort of threat to actually finish the sentence. Still, he gets the message, laughing softly.

“Okay, okay,” he relents, “I just—I really do appreciate it.”

She knows, of course. He’s just glad he’s said it enough to make it clear.

After they finish the omurice Inko’s made, the two of them both get ready for the day. Eijiro’s got a few plans, but his main priority is finding somewhere private and getting this scratchy hell shirt off of himself.

As Inko’s tugging on her boots, she makes a face, more confused than bothered. She pulls the offending boot back off, turning it upside down and giving it a shake, and a familiar-looking seed comes clattering out onto the stone floor. Inko doesn’t pay it any mind, but Eijiro blinks.

“Is that a Korok seed?” he asks, thinking of the five he's collected so far. He hasn’t seen any seeds just loose before—they’ve all come directly from the hands of a tiny forest spirit, delighted to have been found in their odd little hiding spot.

“Hm?” Her tone is distracted, but when she follows his gaze realization crosses her face. “Oh, yes.”

“You see them?” He’d thought—the first Korok he’d met seemed so surprised when he’d seen him. Eijiro thought most people couldn’t…?

“Oh, no, not very often,” Inko replies as she pulls on her other boot and stands, straightening her clothes out. “I think they have more fun playing their games and causing mischief if they keep themselves hidden. But they do seem to like me an awful lot; they’re always leaving me funny little gifts. The seeds only started about a week ago. Why, would you like it?”

Huh. She talks so casually about it, like she has no idea how out of the ordinary it is. Of course, he thinks if he were a Korok, he’d probably think Inko was great, too, but still. It’s a little odd, but it doesn’t take much of his focus as they both carry on with their day. He’s in too much of a rush to find someplace to change to dwell on it.

The verdict when Eijiro does find a more secluded area and get into the new clothes is oh, thank the gods, this is so much better, holy shit. His pants actually reach his ankles. The plain, undyed shirts she’s given him are probably better suited to being undershirts, worn under a tunic or something, but they’re so much better than something itchy and falling apart at the seams.

He might burn the old one, honestly. Or he guesses he could keep it as a rag. Cutting it up could be cathartic.

With that out of the way, Inko had suggested he try fishing, and he at least wants to make sure he leaves her something to have for lunch before he spends all day hiking up cliffs and mountains and undertaking trials. He knows Inko has banned all talk of paying her back, but he figures this is the easiest and sneakiest way to make sure she gets something for her troubles.

He’s just a little proud of how crafty he feels, concocting this plan.

Eijiro finds himself aware of three different facts by the time he’s returning to Inko’s house with two freshly-caught Hyrule bass in hand, and he’s not sure how many of them should have already been obvious.

One—Koroks really are absolutely, ridiculously everywhere. He accidentally found one in the water while he was fishing, and there’s even one hiding out on top of Inko’s house. She must not have been wrong when she said they liked her. He’s genuinely not sure how it took him so long to start running into them yesterday, because it feels like he’s stumbling into one every other step now.

Two—the longer he spends around the plateau, the more he’s forced to realize… there’s something odd about Inko. Like, really odd.

For one, she’s everywhere. Almost every time he’s turned around on this plateau since yesterday, she’s been there. Every time he’s been anywhere near the campfire outside the Shrine of Resurrection, she’s been at the campfire. Every time he’s been anywhere near her house, she’s at her house. When he raised the tower, suddenly she was at the tower. When he did his first shrine trial, she was at the shrine. She pops out of nowhere sometimes, and more than once he’s thought she moved awfully quick for her age.

Then there’s the odd amount of information she knows—and that’s just including what she’s told him. She’d said she didn’t know much about Sheikah buildings, but she’d seemed to know that his slate had been what activated the tower—and then she’d pulled out all sorts of information on his slate, too. And fast travel! She’d also been able to tell him the shrine only started glowing at the same moment the tower had risen, but she’d come from the opposite direction of the shrine.

And there was the day before, too… she’d been so frazzled as soon as he was going to the shrine surrounded by the old machines, and just as much so afterwards. Like she’d known what he was going to run into—why else would she be so scared for him with that shrine, but not the other?

He thinks maybe he’s just being paranoid, like when he’d jumped to the conclusion that he’s dead, or been fully convinced he’d gotten possessed, but he can’t shake the feeling that there might just be more to Inko than she’s admitting. It’s not like it matters, though—he can’t mistrust her, even if it is true. She’s done too much to help for him to ever be able to believe she could be untrustworthy.

And three—his little scheme to repay Inko right under her nose was doomed from the start.

He was going to just leave her the fish and go forage something for himself that he won’t have to cook to take up the mountain, but the second he offers her the fish, she puts him to work. She’s not letting him go up the peaks at the southern end of the plateau unprepared, she informs him very adamantly, and so instead she takes the next hour and then some to walk him through the recipe and cooking processes of several more dishes.

She tells him all about how when spicy peppers are cooked right, they make the body run warmer—and makes sure he sees how she does it when she cooks them into a meat and seafood fry with the last of the fox meat from last night, and an abundance of seafood rice balls. She wraps them all carefully in parcels made of paper, to keep them until he needs to eat them.

He’s a little afraid his mouth won’t survive the dishes, with all those peppers cooked in, but she swears that between them and the warm doublet and gloves she’d given him, he’ll be comfortable for as long as he has to spend on the snow-covered cliffs. He’s grateful, but he’s also been foiled as she uses all of the food that he’d meant for her to help him.

He’s going to do something nice for her to make up for this all, he’s really going to. Eventually he’ll find an act of kindness she can’t counter!

As much as he wishes he’d been able to get away with his little plot, he’s barely five minutes up the path behind the Temple of Time before he’s so glad for the spicy dishes. The padded doublet she’d given him didn’t cover his arms, but he thought he’d been smart about accounting for that—as much at it had pained him, he’d put his first, awful, itchy shirt back on and then layered both of his new shirts over it.

Unfortunately, the layers only did so much, and he could feel the wind whipping through them and biting at his arms. But Inko had had his back—so he’d pulled out the meat and seafood fry, torn the paper back, and gone to town on the meal as he walked along the riverbank.

Yes, his mouth was absolutely on fire like he’d feared, and he might be crying, like, just a little bit, but he’s sweating within minutes. He’d be kept warm as long as he hurried and was smart about rationing the food, exactly as she’s promised. If that came at the expense of looking ridiculous as he walked along with his mouth wide open in hopes the frigid air would soothe his burning mouth, then so be it.

When he reaches the bridge he���d seen on the map, he has a problem. He hadn’t noticed that the bridge is collapsed—the supports are all still there, but most of the planks on his side of the river have fallen through. He spends just enough time despairing over the prospect of having to go all the way back to try and go around the river the other way to feel frustration welling up intensely, but then, of course, he remembers.

He can fucking do magic now. He had to walk past the giant, ruined metal doors of a collapsed gate just beside this bridge to even inspect the damage—after the hour and a half he’d spent puzzling out every potential creative usage of the magnesis rune in the shrine yesterday, he can’t believe it takes him as long as five minutes to think of laying the two massive doors over the gaps in the bridge.

It’s not the neatest job, or the most stable, but it gets him across safely enough. He does allow himself to be a little proud of his problem solving.

He’s all over the southern side of the plateau for the next few hours. The worst of his difficulties are over after the bridge, and the path to both shrines are mostly straightforward apart from a couple of surprise Koroks—seriously, even in the cold, high altitudes? They’re forest spirits, where’s the forest here?—and a handful of monster camps.

At Keh Namut Shrine, Eijiro spends over an hour figuring out all the applications of the cryonis rune—which allows him to make solid pillars of ice erupt out of any source of water. Even if his water source is shallow, barely ankle-deep, the pillars are always at least eight feet tall, and the great blocks of ice will even erupt sideways out of waterfalls. This… he thinks this one might be the most useful yet.

He can use it for a vantage point, for cover, to get to things out of his reach, to lift things out of the water, as stepping stones or bridges… and, if Inko’s idea to get him off the plateau doesn’t work, he might just be able to use it to hop down the waterfall that spills off the plateau, pillar by pillar.

He finally feels like he’s made tangible progress.

Owa Daim Shrine, across the plateau, isn’t so simple to reach. He’s left with only one spicy seafood rice ball by the time he’s painstakingly scaling down to where the shrine rests, halfway up the cliffside, but he’s relieved at least that the temperature becomes more bearable on its own the lower he goes. He can save the rice ball for the return trip and move quickly.

Inside the shrine, the pattern holds, and he’s gifted another rune: the stasis rune. The description the slate gives him of this rune takes longer for him to puzzle out than the others—it uses phrases like ‘storing kinetic energy’ and ‘stopping an object in time’, the first phrase confusing him for lack of surety at its meaning, the second confusing him for lack of ability to visualize its possibility.

Thankfully, the trial the shrine offers, just like the others, is nothing if not a perfect set of puzzles to allow him to figure it out. The rune has a wide range of uses—securing safe passageways from moving or unstable objects, halting oncoming projectiles and other dangers, and making temporarily immovable obstacles for others to traverse, to name the ones he grasps quickest.

The most important use, however, is the one where the stored energy comes into play—it takes him a little to work it out, but once he does, he’s able to send even the most giant of obstacles flying out of his path. And to use them as projectiles. Even large, heavy stones can be moved by something as insignificant as arrows shot from a distance, as long as he hits it with enough of them for the force to compound. It’s awesome, and it gives him the same giddy delight that the magnesis rune had.

When the last of the monks hidden away in the shrines on this plateau fades to nothing, Eijiro can’t really deny that this spirit thing they keep doing to him is really getting to him. He might not be possessed, sure, but the bizarre feeling that’s overtaken him after each ‘gift’ has only gotten stronger with each instance, and it’s not fading.

There’s—something, he’s not sure, an energy maybe, that feels like it’s thrumming under his skin and the sensation is so unsettling. It’s supposed to be the strength of their spirits, or whatever they’d said, but he doesn’t feel stronger, necessarily, just—just—just very noticeably affected!

He can feel whatever it is and it’s distracting. He’s not sure how it’s supposed to help him.

It’s late afternoon by the time Eijiro emerges from the entrance to the shrine, and he’s confronted with the obvious evidence that his most worrisome of theories is true. Inko is not a normal old woman; can’t be.

She can’t be, because there she stands, on the wide ledge that houses Owa Daim Shrine, and there’s just no way a simple old woman could be here. There’s no possible explanation for it. She’d either have had to cross a wide chasm behind her house and then scale the cliffside up to reach him, or hiked the unforgiving eastern slopes of the plateau and then scaled the cliffside down. Neither is a reasonable task for a woman of her age.

So—so there it is, then. He knows now. There’s something odd about Inko, something she’s been keeping from him about her nature. He’s obviously not so surprised as he could be, but it’s still—it’s still—hard to process that the woman who’s helped him so much has been lying to him. All he can manage is a quiet, “Oh.”

“Hello, Eijiro,” she greets him, but her heart is clearly not entirely in it. There’s something in her tone—she obviously knows as well as he does that this marks the end of—of whatever simple and easy experience they’ve been having together so far. A change is coming whether she chooses to explain what she’s been hiding or not, and they both understand that.

“So, you’ve finally explored all the plateau’s shrines,” she notes, a gentle and rueful smile just barely touching at her features. Eijiro can only nod as he shuffles his feet, watching her with equal parts expectation and dread. “You worked hard to reach them all. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks,” he manages, tone barely audible.

Inko sighs. “That means it’s time, I think, to finally give you an explanation. I can’t keep shielding you from the worst of it forever, and I think you’ve more than earned the right to hear… well, everything.”

Eijiro doesn’t know how to respond, there’s too much going through his mind—he opens his mouth to say—to ask—something, anything to grant him some clarification, but the words get caught in his throat. He stands there with his mouth opened somewhat helplessly, but it seems Inko wasn’t intending to wait for a response.

“Meet me at the temple of time,” she requests gently. “I’ll be waiting for you there, and I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

“Why—” There’s so many questions he needs to ask that all start with that word, that they all tumble over each other before he can sort them out, but the most pressing of them is, of course, why can’t you explain it here? He wants to ask, but Inko smiles apologetically, and she—

—she just fades.

It startles him, when he suddenly realizes that he can see through her, just a little bit—and then just a little bit more, and then all at once he almost yelps as she starts to glow and eerie flames spring up around her. It’s not like watching the monks turn into motes of light that disperse up and away; she stays in one piece, but the light emanating off of her and the color of the flames hovering near to her are the same otherworldly blue-green glow.

Shaken, Eijiro stares blankly at the spot where she disappears for a few moments after she’s gone, before slowly he sinks down to sit on the surface of the shrine. It’s only a minute, that’s all he needs, but—but he closes his eyes and uses all of that minute to try and process, and work through as much of what he’s seen since awakening as he can.

The temple somehow seems more daunting when he emerges onto the path that leads from it, rubbing at his arms.

He takes a steadying breath, eyeing the decayed machines that dot the front of the structure around its entrance, and then shifts his gaze to the side of the building instead. On the side facing him, one of the massive, soaring windows that reach the entire height of the temple is empty—both of glass and the metal bars that make up the decoration and frame of the other windows.

The temple is huge, so with the window being one of the ones nearest to the back of the structure, it’s a good distance away from the closest machine. And Inko hadn’t said he had to come in the front door of the structure, so—he doesn’t feel any shame in beelining towards the window, hoisting himself up, and toppling with at least some amount of grace into the sweeping structure.

The space is incredibly open—not just due to the high, vaulted ceiling or the lack of walls in the giant structure, but because a massive hole has been ripped out of almost the entire front half of the opposite side of the building. He only barely notices that, though, because the feature that claims his attention—nearly all of it—

—is a stylized, towering winged statue of Bakusatsuo that dominates the space. It’s stationed to his right, against the back wall of the temple, and it must be fifteen feet tall, at least. And it’s glowing. Faint, iridescent light seems to be shining straight up from the bottom and Eijiro just… is drawn to it.

He hasn’t even looked around for Inko yet, but his feet carry him towards the figure without him really having to think about it. It’s a crude and simple likeness of the god in the way all the shrines to him across the country are, not proportioned in such a way as to actually resemble a real being, and the statue’s hands are spread out to its sides, palms up. The expression isn’t incredibly detailed, but Eijiro thinks most people would see it as calm, if not quite serene. But Eijiro—he swears its eyes follow him as he approaches, and he would swear the look carved into its face was almost tender.

He climbs the steps that lead up to the statue and instinctively drops to one knee before it, though he doesn’t bow his head in prayer. He keeps his eyes upturned to meet the figure’s gaze as the faint light at its feet seems to flare, almost like it’s reaching for him, and Eijiro swears he feels something like fondness radiating off of the statue, towards him.

You’ve done well, comes a faint whisper at the edge of his mind, and it—it sounds so much like the voice in Hyrule Castle. It’s so similar but—but it’s not quite the same, and Eijiro feels his jaw drop.

A warmth settles over him that somehow feels like the voice sounds, and that bizarre energy he’s felt humming under his skin finally dissipates. It’s not exactly like it goes away, more like it—like it finally settles, almost. It feels like the strange force that’s been lingering there finally seeps into him fully, and finally feels like it’s part of him. He realizes, when it finally happens, that he does feel stronger. Heartier, like Inko had said. Some of the aches and soreness that have built up in the past couple of days fade, just a little, as he stares at the statue in awe.

Go, and bring peace to Hyrule…

Like that, the glowing fades, and Eijiro almost feels like he imagined it all. That’s… he’s pretty sure Bakusatsuo just spoke to him. The god. The patron god of Hyrule. Beloved of the Three Goddesses and protector of the entire realm, and he’d spoken to Eijiro. With clear affection in his tone. It’s… unreal.

“Eijiro!” Inko’s voice hails him, startling him out of his moment of shock. He stands, the motion stiff with his distraction, and it takes him a few moments to locate her once he’s turned around. Of all the places to spot her, it turns out she’s peering down at him through the gaping hole in the partially collapsed roof.

“You’ll have to meet me up here, I’m afraid,” she calls down to him, before both her luminous figure and the tongues of blue-green fire that hover around her retreat out of his sight.

Eijiro stares at the spot he’d last seen her and he gives a shaky sigh. He doesn’t know what’s coming, but he wants to, very badly. So he’s going to find out.

There’s a ladder that runs the height of the building.

Even though it stands just beside the collapsed temple wall—on the far end from the machines, thankfully—it remains intact. Stable, even, though he figures out about a third of the way up that he needs to let his dragonscales overtake his hands if he doesn’t want to get splinters.

Inko is visible immediately from across the definitely unsound and precarious roof, waiting in the tower of the steeple at the front of the temple, still emitting that eerie light.

Balancing his way across the peak of the roof, he pulls himself up the rubble into the steeple to meet her, and despite having all this time to figure out where to begin, he’s—he’s still at a loss for words. Inko seems nearly as unsure how to start as he is—or simply reluctant. Either way, she heaves a mild sigh and attempts a sad smile.

“You’ve done so well since waking up, Kirishima Eijiro. I hope you know that,” she says, voice emphatic if a little quiet and somber. He startles at the full name—it’s—he hadn’t even given thought to whether Eijiro was his given or family name, let alone what the rest of his name might be. He’s had so much else on his mind. And this whole time—this whole time, Inko has known it? And not said anything?

“You don’t know me,” she continues with her eyes downcast. “At least—not very well, my son only brought you around a few times, and we never really spoke. But my name is Midoriya Inko. You should know, Eijiro—I know I’ve told you some, but the kingdom is not like it was when you entered your slumber. The Kingdom of Hyrule… it doesn’t exist anymore.”

Eijiro swallows, but he nods when her eyes flick up to gauge his reaction. The ruins everywhere—the monstrosity enshrouding the castle—the scarcity in meeting or even seeing other people—it all points to the same conclusion. He doesn’t remember much—anything, really. He can’t say if he’s ever been to any of the ruins that dot the landscape as far as the eye can see, can’t say if he ever knew anyone that lived in any of them—but he can say that he knows, knows deeply and inherently the wrongness of it all, to see or even think about.

The kingdom, or lack of it, isn’t how he’d remember if he could, and he knows that.

As Inko speaks, a transformation seems to come over her—she looks the same, and yet, there appears another version of her like a second image overlaid atop. Decades younger, maybe only forty or so.

“The Great Calamity was merciless when it swept out over the kingdom. There was nothing in its path that it didn’t devastate a century ago. I was one of the few who were lucky—the Sheikah village was remote and hard to reach, and well out of the Calamity’s focus. I lived a long, full life after it was said and done, but I couldn’t bring myself to move on, because… well, I’m getting ahead of myself.”

Inko heaves a sigh once more, and the look she gives Eijiro is apologetic. “There’s a lot I haven’t told you, but you have to understand. What you’ve been through—it was awful, Eijiro, and it would traumatize anyone. It would have been unfair and dangerous to overwhelm you with too much horrible news so soon after you woke, with your memory still fragile. I’m sorry.”

“I...” Eijiro manages, but his voice is weak. Overwhelmed is exactly the word for it, so he understands, but he only has more questions because of the time spent keeping things from him. He just wants to know already. “It’s… it’s okay.”

“Such a sweet boy,” she echoes the sentiment she’d told him last night quietly, before seeming to steel herself as she turns away to face the view of the castle through the steeple’s window. “But you’re ready, now, I think, to hear what happened one hundred years ago. All for One… that horrible monstrosity we can see from here—the stories said that long ago, that demon king was born into this kingdom, before he transformed into… into that.”

“I… I remember the legends, I think,” Eijiro tells her honestly. “That… that he’d barely been more than a fairy tale, a scary story people told, but—but didn’t really believe until… more recently.”

It’s so frustrating, what he does remember and where the blanks are instead. He remembers the tales, remembers that there’d been a shift from them being treated as fiction to being treated as an impending reality, but he doesn’t remember when or why.

Inko, for her part, nods, and seems to pick up on his frustration. “There was a prophecy,” she informs him, “Maybe twenty years or so before the Calamity came to pass. We knew it would be coming back, but the prophecy also promised a way to stop it, lying dormant beneath the ground. The Sheikah, the royal family—the entire kingdom came together, to try and find the aid the prophecy mentioned, and they were quick to find several ancient relics made by the hands of our distant ancestors.”

“The Divine Beasts,” Eijiro supplies, though his tone isn’t certain. But—but he knows this information, he thinks.

“Yes. Four giant machines, to be piloted by warriors,” she says, affirming the information that he thinks he has in his mind. “And, later, we discovered creations our research eventually taught us were called Guardians.”

The lifeless robots, decaying and overgrown with nature, which dot the plateau flash into his mind as his breath catches and his fists clench. As soon as she says the name, he’s sure of it.

“They were meant to be an army of mechanical soldiers, that fought autonomously to aid us. We realized—in the ancient legends we’d heard echoed so often, many of them told of these machines. That meant all of the legends—the prince with a sacred power, and his appointed knight who was chosen by the Sword that Seals the Darkness, who were the only ones who could truly seal All for One away with the aid of the relics we were discovering—all of it must be true.”

Yes, he knows those legends. Everyone knows those legends—there were far more of them than simply the ones centered around these ancient creations.

“One hundred years ago, there was a prince who would come to wield that power,” Inko continues, before she turns her head to meet Eijiro’s eyes, “and a skilled knight who fought at his side. The path laid before us was obvious, even without the prophecy. There were too many legends that echoed it all. So four Champions were chosen from across the kingdom to pilot the Divine Beasts, and together with the prince and his appointed knight, we were so sure we would be able to turn back All for One’s assault the moment it began. We had—we had all the pieces in place, after all.”

With that, Inko’s voice suddenly breaks. She turns away from Eijiro once more, with her hands pressed to her eyes. “We didn’t know—we couldn’t have—we never realized, All for One had spent all of those thousands of years plotting to—we never imagined it would appear from below Hyrule Castle itself, or take control of the Guardians and Divine Beasts. All that time spent restoring the machines to—to protect, and—”

Eijiro’s heart breaks with how devastated she sounds, and he stumbles forwards a few steps, reaching out a hand to—to—he doesn’t know, but he just wants to help. He wants to fix this, though he knows there’s no changing what’s already happened. He doesn’t remember any of this, but it hurts to hear, hurts to imagine.

“The Champions were killed, so many in the castle, in nearly every town nearby—and the appointed knight nearly lost his life in protection of the prince. He almost didn’t survive his wounds, he was in no shape to continue the fight. If the prince hadn’t survived, and returned to the castle with—with another chosen of Farore—if they hadn’t gone to fight the beast, alone, there would have been no hope for those who survived.”

Taking a shuddering breath, Inko chokes off the beginning of a sob, and Eijiro stumbles the last few steps forward to place a hand on her shoulder. It’s little comfort after everything, but she sags with the gesture.

“Eijiro, that other chosen of Farore… he’s my baby, my Izuku, and he’s risking his life to help Prince Katsuki hold All for One off. And the courageous knight, the one who kept Prince Katsuki safe until the very end, so that he could make it there at all…. Oh, Eijiro, honey, it was you. You were so brave, you did—you did so well, but even you couldn’t endure such an onslaught.”

Despite the tears still flowing freely down her face—and, shit, he realizes now that his own cheeks are wet, though he doesn’t remember any of this—she lays her hand over his on her shoulder, and the gesture somehow feels comforting even though he was the one trying to comfort her.

“You were carried here, to the Shrine of Resurrection, and spent one hundred years healing. I couldn’t rest with my Izuku still trapped in the castle, and I couldn’t bear to think of you awakening here alone, with no one to turn to, so my spirit settled here naturally when I died. I’ve been looking after you as best I can. And… and the voice you’ve been hearing, guiding you since you woke, that’s Prince Katsuki himself.”

Eijiro’s eyes pull from her face, and he finds himself looking out towards the castle with a feeling of desperation. Katsuki. That’s the name he can put to the voice. Katsuki, fighting with Izuku. Katsuki, who asked for his help.

“He’s still there, with my baby, fighting to restrain the Calamity, and—oh, Eijiro, honey, you’re so young to ask this of you, all three of you boys, you’re all so young—but they won’t be able to hold out for much longer before they’re going to need you. You’re—you’re the only one who can help them stop the Calamity from consuming all life left in the land. It’s so unfair to ask this of you, I—I can hardly bear to, but please save my son. Please bring my Izuku home, and destroy All for One before it can destroy anything else.”

Clearing his throat and swallowing roughly, Eijiro manages, “I will. I’ll—I’ll do it.”

This only makes Inko cry harder. “You shouldn’t have to. I’m so sorry.” She turns and embraces him suddenly, and the feeling now that she’s revealed her nature as a spirit is odd. Somehow warm and cold at the same time, but it doesn’t matter—he wraps his arms around her tightly. When she speaks again, her voice is muffled against the doublet she’d given him.

“You can’t go to the castle yet. Even Prince Katsuki wouldn’t expect that of you. There are things you still need to know, and—and All for One still has control of the Divine Beasts, and all of the Guardians. Please, please promise me you won’t make straight for the castle.”

“But...” Eijiro’s voice is still wobbly, and his hands are still too occupied to try wiping at his eyes. “I have to help them. Where else...”

Inko pulls back as he trails off, and she does her best to draw to her full height and look stern through a faceful of openly flowing tears. “You won’t be helping them or anyone else by charging off towards certain death before you’re fully recovered from your slumber. You should make for Kakariko Village, down the eastern road that cuts between the Dueling Peaks. The young man who leads the Sheikah, Aizawa, was an advisor to the Prince, and he’ll be able to give you counsel on the best steps for you to take. You’ll want to speak to him.”

Eijiro’s brow furrows, and he casts a look at the castle. Katsuki needs him, had asked him to hurry. “How long do I have? Before they run out of time in the castle? Do you know?”

“Long enough,” Inko says firmly, though the effect is somewhat undermined by the sniffle that follows. “Prince Katsuki would expect you to be smart about this, and he would know that will take time. Meet with Aizawa.”

Every fiber of his being wants to charge off, but… as painful as it is to promise, he tears his gaze from the castle to meet Inko’s eyes, and nods numbly. “Okay. I will.”

Relief floods Inko’s features. “Thank you. And you—you’ll need these.” She turns, then, to grab something he hadn’t noticed before; a pack that’s considerably less aged than his current one, with lots of different compartments. Flapping one such compartment open, she withdraws what she’d been seeming to work on the night before, and holds it out to him.

What he’d mistaken for a blanket, he now sees could never have been one—it’s too small, and the fabric is more like canvas, though it’s not quite as stiff. Still, he can tell that air won’t flow through the fabric easily, and even water would have a hard time soaking the material. He takes it from her, noting two wooden handles that run the length of its sides. “What’s…?”

“It’s a paraglider,” she informs him, managing a small smile. “It will support your weight and let you glide down from the plateau. And this bag is enchanted by Koroks. It belonged to my son, but he didn’t think… he didn’t think he would need it, to go to the castle. Each of its compartments can hold much more than it should, and it will be nearly weightless.”

He looks up from the gifts to meet her eyes once more, and the tear tracks on both their cheeks are still wet as he breathes, “Thank you. For everything.”

Inko’s smile grows, and she begins to fade once more as she presses the bag into his hands. “The best way to thank me is by staying safe. Take care, Eijiro. I’m so proud of you.”

Fifteen minutes later sees Eijiro standing at the very eastern edge of the plateau. The sun is setting, and the wise thing to do would be to rest for the night and set out in the morning, so he isn’t traveling in the dark.

Eijiro can’t wait. Impatience hums in his veins, making him twitchy and full of restless energy. Katsuki needs him, Inko’s son needs him, and he needs to be doing something. He won’t be able to stand the wait. So Eijiro takes a deep breath, new bag strapped to his back and paraglider clutched tightly in his hands.

And he leaps.

[thgfanficinspo]

New chapter of my Odesta fic is up - please read!

(FINNICK)

They summon me, Blight, Cashmere, and Enobaria to an interview with Caesar Flickerman to discuss what happened with our tributes yesterday. They wanted Johanna to be on the panel, but she’s hung over and Caesar can’t stand her in general, so Blight takes over. I’d prefer Enobaria be replace, too – ideally by Lyme, but she’s too sympathetic for these blood-and-gore interviews. She doesn’t play up her victor persona.

I’m hung over, too, but there’s no getting out of this, especially after Snow cut me a break last night. Somes brings me some sort of concoction to calm my stomach after I barf in the kitchen sink. He’s one of those people that isn’t bothered by vomit at all, and I wonder if it has something to do with his life before he was an Avox. I know the ones from District 3 are usually electricians or techies; District 6 ones work in garages, doing repairs on trams and cars. I know the ones from the Capitol are usually servants, forced to wait on their former peers so they never forget their new status. 

I down the drink in one go and hand him back the empty glass. “Is this what you make for Broadsea?”

He nods.

“Does it work?”

He bobbles his head in a way that I think means, Not really or Sometimes.

“Fantastic.”

My stylist keeps quiet again. She’s usually very chatty and I usually don’t mind, but it was a rough night. And a rough morning.

When she’s done “sprucing me up” – a phrase Johanna taught me – I thank her and promise to be in a better mood next time.

She puckers her lips, which have been surgically altered to form a heart shape, and gives me a disproving look. “Mm-hmm.”

I like her much better than the last one.

I’m the third to arrive after Cashmere and Enobaria. Caesar greets me with an oversized smile and a handshake. “Finnick! Wonderful to see you as always. How have you been?”

I put on my best smile. “Can’t complain. And you?”

“Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful! I was just telling Cashmere here how exciting these Games are already.” He leans forward slightly and lowers his voice as if to tell me a secret. “Between you and me, I was a little disappointed with the lack of action last year.”

“I think Timothy would disagree,” I say.

Cashmere whips out a few of her beloved blackberry cigarettes and offers them around. “Want one?”

“Sure.” I pluck one from her outstretched hand.

“Thank you, but I’m afraid blackberry isn’t my flavor,” says Caesar.

Enobaria spits, “I don’t smoke.”

Blight shows up out of breath. “Sorry. Overslept.”

We settle in around the table as Caesar starts his vocal warmups. I put out my cigarette as makeup artists apply an extra layer of powder to Blight’s sweaty forehead.

“I saw a kitten eating chicken in the kitchen.” Caesar over-pronounces each word. “I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.”

“Could we get some coffee maybe?” I ask no one in particular.

One of the production assistants comes bounding over with a huge mug. “Sugar, sir?”

“Yes. Lots of sugar.”

“Can I get a water?” Blight asks.

The assistant smiles politely, but the look in her eyes suggests she wants to smack him. “Of course.” How dare he interrupt her conversation with the illustrious Finnick Odair? She could be the woman to finally make that philanderer settle down! But now she’ll never know because some idiot wanted water.

“Betty bought some butter, but, said she, the butter’s bitter. If I put the butter in my batter, it will make my batter bitter.”

Cashmere lights another cigarette which we share. We take turns dragging and blowing out ribbons of pale purple smoke. Cashmere can blow out perfect blackberry-scented rings. I can't eat blackberries anymore because they remind me of Cashmere, of her cigarettes, of the way she tastes when we're forced to kiss.

“But a bit of better butter will make my bitter batter better. So Betty bought the better butter, better than the bitter butter, put it in her batter, and made her bitter batter better. It was better Betty bought some better butter.”

The assistant gives me and Blight our beverages as the director counts down. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One.” He points at Caesar to let him know he’s live.

“Good morning, Panem!” Caesar begins. “Yesterday, we witnessed the first major showdown between tributes following the bloodbath. Career tribute Piers Whitaker of District Four died trying to protect his counterpart, Annie Cresta, from his Career allies. Annie wounded Gad Centaury of District Seven, leaving his allies no choice but to kill him. Let’s take a look at that footage one more time.”

I concentrate on drinking my coffee while they play the clip.

Caesar directs the first question to me. “Now Finnick, I think what everyone at home is wondering – what do you make of Annie Cresta’s actions? I must say I was surprised. She didn’t strike me as being capable of such . . . violence.” He probably wanted to say savagery or barbarism but the whole thing is savage and barbaric. Needed to come up with a different word. “As her mentor, can you offer us any insight?”

This would be a great question for Johanna, who played the weakling when she was in the arena at first, but shocked the world with her violent attacks on the other tributes.

“You never know what someone is capable of until you put them in a situation like that,” I say. “I think that since we made it through those situations, victors know ourselves better than most.”

Caesar is nodding his head as he listens intently. “Mm-hmm.” He turns to Enobaria and asks her what she thinks of that statement.

Enobaria is a psycho but somehow doesn’t even make my list of the top five worst victors. What really puts me off about her is her teeth. In the final battle of her Games, she was pinned down by a boy twice her size and couldn’t move her arms or legs. The only weapon she had was her teeth, which she used to tear his neck wide open. That doesn’t bother me: she did what she had to do to survive. What does bother me is the fact that she had her teeth filed into fangs as an homage. I don’t know if she did it because she thought it would be a funny or if she plans to weaponize them again in the future.

“I agree,” she says to Caesar. “And I think all of our tributes are starting to understand who they are after this.”

“Oh, certainly. But what I want to know –” he puts his fingertips on the table and leans forward a bit “– is what do we think of Annie defeating Gad like that? Blight, any thoughts?”

Blight’s right in the middle of gulping down orange juice when Caesar asks the question so Cashmere answers instead. “Caesar, there’s always a longshot in the Games, and they always get farther than we expect. If you ask me, I think Gad was a bit too confident in his abilities.”

“There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance,” Caesar says. “Don’t you think so?” he asks me with a chuckle.

“Me? Caesar, I wouldn’t know anything about that.” I flash a shmoozy smile at him.

“Finnick, so saucy!” Caesar’s oversized teeth steal the show when he opens his mouth to chuckle.

I excuse myself to the bathroom, where I vomit up Somes’s tonic and everything I’ve eaten in the last three days. I’m washing my mouth out over the sink when one of the televisions in the bathroom – they have televisions in nearly every room – cuts to a shot of Annie Cresta opening her eyes.

(ANNIE)

I’m on the docks. I know that because I’m wet and I’m all nestled up in ropes. And I can smell the wetness. The water against the concrete edge of the port. I don’t like that smell. I don’t like it anymore.

My eyelids are heavy. There’s gunk in the corners the way there is sometimes when somebody wakes me up in the middle of the night. But it’s not the night. I don’t think it is. The air at night feels difference from this. The air at home feels different from this. So do the ropes on the dock.

I make my eyes open. I’m not on the dock by the water. There is no dock and there is no water. Concrete and rain and vines and the vines have me all tangled up and I don’t know where I am.

I know I should stand. Should walk. I’m not supposed to stay here but I can’t remember why.

Sit up. But my head hurts. Let’s go back to bed. No, no. Can’t do that. Get up up up. Gonna fall back down – no, hang onto the vines that feel like rigging and don’t fall down again, Annie!

My mother, she butchered me My father, he ate –

Silver thing floats down and lands at my feet. Parachute. A gift! I open it up as fast as I can but it’s nothing, just the cannister itself. A water bottle! I can use it for water.

But I had a water bottle. I just had it I just had it it was just I was just –

Can’t breathe. Hands on me squeezing me squeezing my neck and Piers is screaming and my thumbs are in his eyes and I look down at my hands and there’s jelly on them but not jam-jelly it’s jelly from the eyes from his eyes from his eyes from his eyes and Piers is screaming and I cover my ears to block out the sound but there’s still jelly on my hands and it gets on my face and in my hair and I try to clean it clean it but it won’t go away I try to scrape it off on a concrete wall and I scrape my skin off too.

My mother, she butchered me My father, he ate me My sister, little Ann-Marie She gathered up the bones of me

And tied them in a silken cloth to lay under the juniper            Tweet, tweet! What a pretty bird am I!

(FINNICK)

There are bruises across her neck in the shape of Gad’s hands where he choked her. it looks excruciatingly painful. The damage is enough that I doubt she’d even be able to swallow a sip of water.

I wince when she begins to sing, partially because of how painful it must be and partially because it’s – well, terrifying. Her squeaky, scratchy voice sends chills down my spine.

My mother, she butchered me My father, he ate me My sister, little Ann-Marie She gathered up the bones of me

And tied them in a silken cloth to lay under the juniper            Tweet, tweet! What a pretty bird am I!

She abruptly covers her ears like she’s trying to block out a sound, but the microphones in the arena don’t pick anything up. She tears her hands away and looks down at them. They’re still stained with blood.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” She starts clawing at her own hands like she’s trying to peel something off – the blood, probably. When that doesn’t work, she presses her palms into a nearby cinderblock and drags her hands down it so hard that she scrapes off some of her skin and smears blood on the block.

My mother, she butchered me My father, he ate me My sister, little Ann-Marie She gathered up the bones of me

And tied them in a silken cloth to lay under the juniper            Tweet, tweet! What a pretty bird am I!

She lies back down among the vines and curls in on herself.

There’s a knock at the bathroom door. “Mr. Odair?” It sounds like the production assistant from before. “They want you on stage.” I don’t respond. “Mr. Odair? Are you in there?”

I shut my eyes and sigh. “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

Blight and the others are leaving just as I come back to the stage. Caesar is looking at the monitor on the desk in front of him with a very strange expression. I know we’re not being recorded when I sit down and he asks me, “What on earth is she doing?”

“Singing, I guess.”

The song ends and Annie burrows into her little nest and falls asleep again. Caesar lets me go after we establish that the song is an old nursery rhyme and Annie’s in shock, and that there are nine far more interesting tributes to focus on, like the ailing tribute from District 2 or the boy from District 10 who captures and eats small mutts.

Maybe when Annie wakes up she’ll be normal again.

[reapers-carino]

Can you by chance. Write me a story of Meihem. But it's were Mei cleans up Jameson. Like he has a nice suit on and bathed. Yes bathed and she shows him off to everyone and roadhog last?

“Jami-Jamison sit still please!”

Mei’s voice was exasperated as she tried to get her fidgety boyfriend to stop moving and splashing as she scrubbed shampoo into his soot-laced hair. She was being careful and gentle, not wanting to pull out any more of his constantly shedding, thinning hair out. The petite woman stood outside of the bathtub in her room, Junkrat’s sitting form still coming up to her shoulders as she bathed him. This is what it had taken to get Junkrat into the tub, the promise that ‘she’d join him’. And join him she had, just not as naked as Jamison would have liked; already bathed and dressed in her namesake deep blue tanktop and a pair of shorts that Jamison had offered to take off for her. She declined.

Instead, Mei had motioned for him to enter the tub she had already filled with piping hot water, just the way he liked his showers, and had an array of bath bombs set up outside of the tub as a affectionate atonement for her deception. Jamison had pouted fiercely, arms crossed and grumbling about how his ‘lil snowflake’ has tricked him. He kept up his behavior until she had begun to scrub heartily at his back, drawing purrs from the lanky Junker, his body turning to putty for the rest of the bath. Mei was thorough, scrubbing dirt, soot, gunpowder and whatever manner of mess clung to his skin. It took time and elbow grease but soon, Mei had managed to find what really lay under all those layers of unclean. His skin was tanned, if not a bit red from her aggressive washing, and he was covered from head to toe in freckles. Mei’s fingers had lingered, quietly assessing the freckles with intense curiosity before Junkrat would grab her hand and nip at her fingertips only to be blushily admonished. Now she had finally made it to his hair.

“Can’t help it, darl”, Junkrat exclaims, fidgeting a bit more before tossing up his arms. “Tickles! That ‘n I feel…naked!”

“You are naked”, Mei answered back, expression deadpan but tone holding a hint of a chuckle.

“Yeah I am”, Junkrat answered with a waggle of his bushy brows, tittering as Mei flicked him light in the back of the head. “I mean without me dirt! Just don’t feel natural!”

Mei understood, she really did. The Omnium explosion had torn a hole in the ozone layer above continent of Australia, leaving the land highly susceptible to adverse weather conditions and a concerning lack of protection from the sun. Heat prevented clothing being used as a skin protectant so instead dirt, mud and various homemade concoctions guarded them from debilitating sunburns. Mei had done her research, her expertise in climatology granting her insight into the possible ripple effects a severe climate changes might have on a society. The Eastern coastal cities used technology to bubble their city, the less sophisticated Junkers used dirt. But they weren’t in Australia anymore.

Roadhog had taken to daily bathing as if it was an old, dear friend, the elder Junker always clean and smelling of whatever perfumes or colognes or deodorants caught his fancy. Junkrat, however, had never been a daily bather, had never known the joys of relaxing in a hot shower or tub. The demolitionist would lament how Roadie would ‘hold him down in the water and scrub ‘im like a dog’, often followed by the agitated statement of ‘just wash your own ass and I wouldn’t have to’. But bathing was out of his comfort zone, the dirt and soot on his skin kind of like a comforting blanket when he wasn’t ‘home in Oz’ anymore. He had gotten better since he had been at the Watchpoint though. Mei’s soft reminders of he couldn’t lay in her bed if he was dirty combined with Mako’s nurturing threats to drown him again actually coaxing the man into washing at least twice a week of his own volition. Now the only smell that seemed to linger with him was that of gunpowder and firewood, even when he was covered in a fine layer of dust. Tonight’s event, however, demanded absolute cleanliness.

Tonight was the first official formal gala for the newly legalized Overwatch. It was an all hands on deck event, even the uncouth Junker required to be on hand site, to let the world know about their brand new, legal reputation. Best behaviors were expected and anyone stepping out of line would be reprimanded. Normally this wouldn’t be nearly as threatening or terrifying as one might think, but when Ana was the one doling out the punishment it was no joke. Mei sped up the washing of his hair as much as she could, the dirty burn blonde locks turning gold-platinum in the bright light of the bathroom. Wiping her forehead, she took a half-step back to appraise her hard work and couldn’t help the blush that rose to her cheeks as she surveyed him.

She had always believed that Jamison ‘Junkrat’ Fawkes was attractive but seeing him clean and pristine was something brand new. In the oddest of ways, he was devilishly attractive in his duality. He was raunchy and dirty and passionate and excitable and a chaotic force that gave hurricanes a run for their money, but he could also be gentle and tooth rottingly sweet and tender. Nibbling lightly on her bottom lip, Mei could feel a blush rise to her cheeks, only growing darker as Jamison stood up with a flirty smirk on his lips. Mei’s hand clapped over her face, less in embarrassment and more in exasperation as the Junker shook his hips, his dick slapping his thighs audibly. How he managed to do that in a tub, mostly filled with water without either of his prosthetics would be impressive if it wasn’t so damn raunchy.

“You are impossible”, she sighed, dropping her hands from her face and rolling her eyes at him, not fighting the slightly amused smirk that crossed her lips. His toothy grin didn’t waver, but the movements of his hips stopped as he Mei moved closer and reached out to him.

“Knew ya couldn’t keep your hands offa me snowflake”, Junkrat teased as Mei’s arm easily wraps around his small waist, helping to hoist him out of the tub and setting him down on a chair she had brought into the room.

He practically purred like a pleased feral cat, shaking his shoulders as Mei gently pat him down with the towel, drying his skin gently and carefully. Next came a layer of unscented body lotion, a spritz of a special cologne and a gentle combing through his hair. Junkrat blabbered on and on as Mei groomed him tenderly, his golden eyes glittering as he relaxed underneath her tender touch. The Junker made a mental note to return the favor but for now he would bask in the delightful feel of her hands all over his body. As Mei backed away from Jamison, he couldn’t help the cheeky grin and unbalanced pose she struck for her. The petite Chinese woman’s hands jump of to her lips, stifling the giggles that he was able to so easily pull from her lips. Mei’s giggle was like music to his ears, soft and tinkling and punctuated with a slight snort if something was especially funny to her. Hearing her laugh was one of his greatest goals and he was pretty successful at it most of the time, stroking his pride and filling him with as much warmth as a napalm.

“Ey Mei”, Jamison questioned as his eyes darted around the bathroom, searching for something and not finding it. “Where’s me arm and leg?”

“Oh I have a surprise for you”, Mei exclaimed, clapping her hands together in sudden remembrance. She held up a finger before rushing out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, returning with something held behind her back. “Ta-da!!”

She thrusts her arms out, a grin on her face as she revealed her gift for him. They were newly built prosthetics, streamlined and completely black with bright neon orange lights and joints as highlights. The arm was extremely similar to Symmetra’s, but it had obviously been sized and created just for Junkrat. His peg leg was done in a similar fashion, the shocks and joints and cushioning covered while still tapering off into a thin, high shined black peg. A nervous smile settled on Mei’s lips as she waited for Jamison’s reaction, eyes dropping sheepishly to the new prosthetics.

“I-I hope this is okay”, she exclaimed, face growing redder as she locked her focus on the limbs. “I-I know you made all of yours but I-I thought th-that maybe a formal pair might be nice! S-So Satya helped me to design so-some. But it’s okay if you don’t like them! I ho-hope I didn’t overstep…sorry.”

When Junkrat still hadn’t replied, Mei peeked up at him through her lashes, her face and neck burning as she finally looked at her boyfriend. His bottom lip was quivering, a watery smile on his lips, tears of joy actually rolling down his cheeks.

“For me”, Junkrat questioned, pressing a hand against his chest and grinning wider and wider. He roughly pushed the tears away, sniffing hard and giggling softly. “Thank ya, snowflake!”

“You’re welcome Jamie”, Mei said warmly before slightly shaking the limbs. “Let’s finish getting ready!”

“Whoa…nice look Junkman!”

“No fricking way….nice going Mei!”

“Impressive…”

“Nice looking, my friend!”

Junkrat was fighting a mix of emotions; to puff out his chest and bask in the glory or to shy away because all the attention was making him sheepish. Mei held onto his hand light, smiling up at him in a way that managed to push the anxious buzzing from his stomach. She really had gone all out to make sure the both of them looked their best. She had her hair half up, half down, a small bun held back by a white chrysanthemum pin while the rest of her hair fell in soft waves around her shoulder and face. Her dress was a crimson floor length halter top a-line with a knee high slit that showed off her toned calves and cream colored heels. Her makeup was soft and sweet, a sweeping of pink blush and a deep pink gloss across her lips. Junkrat had gushed, slack jawed and starry eyes as Mei had gotten ready that evening, fawning over her with what felt like hundreds of compliments. She was sure that she had heard how beautiful she was and how lucky he was to have her and how everyone would look like shit in comparison. While Mei was nothing to sniff at, everyone was gawking at Junkrat.

Mei had gone above and beyond to make the younger Junker look just as amazing as she always thought he did. He wore a black tuxedo and white dress shirt, tailored and fitted to fit the lithe frame of the demolitionist; orange tie, handkerchief and dress socks a pop shocking pop of color against the monochrome outfit. The right leg of his tux had been rolled up, showing off the new, sleek black and orange prosthetic he had been gifted, Mei gently holding onto his black hand. His light blonde hair had been combed back and gelled into a coif, giving his angular face a stylish, sharp look. With all the dirt gone, hair styled and dressed in actually fitting clothes, the Junker looked his age if not a bit younger. He looked attractive and clean and completely unlike the Junkrat they had grown used to, Junkrat practically glowing with pride at all the compliments being bestowed upon him.

“Oh Mako”, Mei said with a grin, adjusting her glasses needlessly once more as she peered across the room. The man had placed himself in a corner, away from all the action and attention that was buzzing around towards the front of the hall. Smiling apologetically at her friends, she began to push through the small throng of agents that stood in front of them. “Sorry sorry, we will be right back.”

“Oy Hog”, Junkrat exclaimed, a part of him perking up as soon as he caught sight of his bodyguard and best friend. “Whatcha think mate?”

Mako was without his mask, his silver bushy brows lifting in surprise as his dark eyes studied his employer. Roadhog glanced at Mei before giving a slight wink, grunting low in his throat and giving a slight shrug of the shoulder. The both of them giggled softly as they watched his shoulders sink before Junkrat moved forward and placed one heavy hand on Jamison’s shoulder and the other on Mei’s

“Nice”, Roadhog said simply, the single worded compliment making the younger Junker’s eyes light up, a tittering giggle leaving his mouth. “Good job Mei.”

“Oy it’s my face mate!”

“And she actually made it look halfway decent.”

“Fuckin’ ru–”

“What was that?”

“N-nothin’ mate! I got it, thanks for the compliment!”

Mei covered her mouth, tickled pink and proud at the highest of compliments coming from the other Junker. Squeezing Jamison’s hand lightly she smiled sweetly at him, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand tenderly.

“You look very nice.”

Junkrat’s eyes lit up even brighter, giving a sharp toothed grin to his petite date.

“Well thank ya darlin!!”