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dontfeeltoohot · 2 years ago

Note

Sick Eddie in a bad mood, any AU?

Ahhhh thank you! I love this prompt 😭

This turned into MUCH more than I originally planned. This is a new AU (not sure what to call it yet), with modern Eddissy. Eddie is owner of Munson Automotive, Chrissy is a kindergarten teacher. Gareth, Jeff, Tim and Max all work at the garage, while Steve, Robin, Peter, and more work at the school.

TW: Brief mention of death/stroke. It is marked by ‘**’ before the paragraph!

I hope you all enjoy! And thank you @softsnzstuff for letting me babble about it and ask you opinions. I can’t wait to answer the prompts you’ve sent.

X X X

By the time Eddie’s making his way to his beat up van; and isn’t that ironic since he works on cars all day, he’s freezing cold, tired, achy, and wants to go to sleep. Tim had called out sick, though the manager hadn’t been surprised with how much he’d been coughing yesterday- uncovered. Gross. Jeff was still gone on vacation with his girlfriend, which left just himself, Max and Gareth.

Normally, they could handle it easily, the shop’s not that huge and most of their customers are regulars. But today Eddie’s tired, and he’d not been the best owner, letting the other two work on cars while he’d tried to get through paperwork. That had proved to be a challenge too, with the headache he’d been nursing half the day before Max had come in and shoved the tylenol bottle at him.

“You have that look. Just take the damn pills.”

Cranking the heat up and grumbling to himself, the mechanic shivers and reverses out of his usual parking spot, ignoring how Benny waves goodbye. Sniffles have been coming more and more frequently, and his skin feels oddly sensitive, as his jacket shifts against his clothes and rubs his arms uncomfortably. Brown eyes feeling heavy, Eddie rubs his face as he slows to a stop at the red light.

Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.

Incoming Call: Chrissy 👸🏼

Eddie taps his answer button and Chrissy’s voice comes over the vans speakers.

“Hey baby!” Her voice is far too chipper, and it somehow grates on his nerves.

“Hey Chris, what’s up?”

“Can you run by the store? I was going to make spaghetti tonight but ran out of onions.”

Every fiber of the musician wants to say no. He doesn’t want to go to the store and deal with traffic and people.

“Can we just do something dif-“

“Eddie, no, Jake’s coming over, remember? It’s Tuesday…”

And fuck. It is Tuesday, which is the day Chrissy’s little brother comes over for dinner. But really, what makes him so special that they have to have spaghetti?

“I…didn’t forget. But why do we have to have spaghetti? We have stuff to make Pad Thai…” Eddie starts making his way to the next lane over, already knowing deep down he’s going to have to go to the grocery store.

“That doesn’t sound good, plus Jake asked if we could have it.”

“Right, ok, I’ll be home soon. Text me a list,” the words come out abruptly and he ends the call before she can get another word in.

The amount of cars in the Whole Foods parking lot is rather ridiculous for a Tuesday night. Eddie still doesn’t understand Chrissy’s determination not to eat crap, and to try for all organic stuff, but she’s his wife, and he backs her on everything. Even $10 juices, apparently. He feels his phone buzz in his pocket as he walks inside, pulling his ‘Munson Automotive’ sweatshirt tighter to his frame, the frigid air whipping against his cheeks.

Grabbing a shopping cart, the long haired man sniffles and starts making his way through the sliding doors, pulling out his phone to see the list.

Onions

Tomatoes

Basil

Bread - for garlic bread

Pick some ice cream, love youuuuu! ❤️

Blinking, Eddie swipes at his nose and sighs, feeling the headache rebuild at the base of his skull, throbbing into his ears. It makes his entire head feel tight and he moves his jaw around, hoping to release some of the uncomfortable tension. It doesn’t help. He gets through the first few items, then a call from his wife has him pause at the end of the spice aisle.

“What’s up?”

“Hey, can you grab some more of the coffee creamer too?”

Nodding and forgetting she can’t see him, he tries to move out of the way for a middle aged woman, who goes the same direction.

“Excuse me..”

“Sorry, was just trying to step out of the way…”

The woman rolls her eyes and Eddie has the intense urge to flip her off. Instead he’s interrupted by Chrissy on the phone.

“-die did you hear me?”

“Creamer, got it,” he huffs, rolling his eyes, hanging up once she does the same.

As he rolls through the aisles trying to find what they need, he once again runs into bitchy-lady (he’s decided that’s her new name), who gives him a pointed look when he coughs into his arm, wincing at the sudden sore throat he’s now sporting. She moves in front of him to grab bread, knocking her cart with his and scoffing. He knows it’s childish, but he hits her cart back, maybe just a liiiiittle to hard, and she whips around.

“Is there a problem?”

“I don’t know, is there?” His eyebrow raises and he stands a little taller.

Eddie’s not a true confrontational guy. Sure he talks a big game, but he hates when people are angry or upset with him, and he’s a peacekeeper between his friends and band mates. So the fact he’s getting snippy with this middle aged Karen isn’t a good sign, but in the moment he can’t bring himself to care. Bitchy-Lady huffs and rolls her eyes, before giving him the fakest smile he’s ever seen.

“Of course not.”

Nodding, Eddie leans in front of the woman to grab the bread he and Chrissy use, sniffling and ignoring the noise from next to him, when he blocks her view entirely.

“Maybe we’ll bump into each other again,” he smirks, voice laced with sarcasm as he drops the bread into the cart and heads towards the freezer section, white knuckling the long handle bar.

Looking at the ice cream only makes him shiver harder. His sweatshirt sleeves are down over his fingers, brushing his chains as he looks at his options. Jake doesn’t like chocolate, and Chrissy hates vanilla. His brain whispers that they’re too picky but he waves the words away, even if he wants to agree. He goes with cheesecake instead, knowing both of the Cunningham’s enjoy it, even if he himself doesn’t. Not like he’s hungry anyway.

As he’s walking back out to his van with the bags, his phone buzzes again, but he ignores it, hands full. When it pauses and the restarts, the musician rolls his eyes and yanks open the passenger side door, setting the food down in the chair before yanking his phone out of his pocket.

“Yeah?” Eddie winces at the irritation in his tone.

“Can you grab orange juice too? We’re all out.”

“Fuckin’...yeah, that’s fine, just have to go back in. The ice cream will probably melt.”

Eddie doesn’t mean to be so prickly and sensitive, but everything is grating on his nerves, his body hurts, and Chrissy forgetting things is making him want to scream.

“Ice cream will be fine honey, it’s not like it’s hot outside.”

“See you soon,” the long haired man grumbles.

Twenty minutes later, Eddie’s entering his and Chrissy’s small but cozy house, all but slamming the door behind him. His nose won’t stop running, and really he should have grabbed a thing of tissues, but Christ knows he wasn’t going to go back in for a third time to the hellish landscape of Whole Foods. Walking into the kitchen, he can vaguely smell something being made, though he’s not sure what since he’s got half the ingredients in his hands.

With another shiver crawling up his spine, he sets the bags down and looks at his wife who’s in the middle of browning meat in a pan. Exhaustion feels like it’s weighing the long haired man down, so he sniffles, swipes at his nose, and then leans over to press a kiss to Chrissy’s head.

“Hey baby, got your stuff,” he gestures to the island in the middle of the room.

“Great! Can you work on chopping some onions for me? I want to get this stuff cooking before Jake gets here.”

“Chrissy...I need to shower, I’m gross from work.”

Normally, Eddie doesn’t mind helping in the kitchen, even if he’s come straight from work. Today he’s ready to fight back and disagree with everything everyone says, and the thought of a nice hot shower only makes the feeling intensify. The blonde turns to look at him with a furrowed brow, eyes sweeping him up and down.

“What?”

“...nothing. Jeez you’re grumpy today, was work alright?”

“It was fine. Look...I’m gonna take a shower, then I can come back and hel-”

“It’s fine, I’ll do it, just go get cleaned up,” she offers, looking like she’s barely containing an eye roll.

Not needing to be told twice, Eddie books it out of their kitchen and up the stairs to their bedroom, already dreading taking his sweatshirt off. By the time the bathroom is steamy from the showers hot water, the guitarist is starting to tremble again, bare skin exposed before he steps in and lets the spray hit him. The moan that drops from his mouth is embarrassingly loud.

He loses track of time. After washing his hair and body; making sure he doesn’t smell like car oil and exhaust, he leans against the wet tiles and shuts his eyes, focusing on the feeling of the water running against his back. Eddie’s not exactly sure how long he’s been zoning out, but a knock at the ensuite door makes him jump, adrenaline releasing into his body.

“Jesus Christ Chrissy! What the hell?!”

“...sorry? Hurry up, Jake’s almost here. You’re taking longer than I do.”

The words make Eddie bristle, but he can’t place why, exactly. When she’s gone, the twenty seven year old coughs and rubs at his nose, harder this time, the steam knocking congestion loose. A tickle is teasing his sinuses, and his big brown eyes flutter while the water starts to grow cool.

“hhiiGkSH’ew! hihKTschew! snf! iiGhXshEW!” He doesn’t bother covering, instead just aiming his head down and away from his body.

Stepping out of the shower means the cold that’s been clinging to his bones; soothed only by the hot water, is now back, making him shiver. Eddie dries himself off, brushes his hair as well as he can, then heads to get dressed, towel low on his hips. Sweatpants and an old shirt of Wayne’s sounds the coziest, but with Jake coming, he begrudgingly slips into jeans instead, pulling a sweatshirt on over a threadbare Blue Öyster Cult tee.

Chrissy has her soft, pink sweater on she’s had for years, and when he gets close enough, the mechanic wraps his arms around her and rubs his face into the material. It’s warm and soft and feels unbearably comforting.

“Eddie baby, I need to finish seasoning the sauce,” she says, and though her tone is light and a giggle follows, the man drops his arms by his side, feeling like a scolded child.

“When’s your brother getting here?”

“Any second…are you ok? You seem on edge…or upset. Are you sure nothing happened at work?”

A strand of hair gets fiddled with as he shakes his head, swallowing and wincing.

“Tim called out, but it was fine. Mostly did paper work while Red and Gareth worked on cars,” he shrugs, rubbing at his septum with the crook of his finger subtly. “Jeff gets back in a couple of days, though he probably won’t shut up about Denv-“

A knock at the door interrupts him, and Chrissy beams, setting the wooden spoon she’s been using to stir the pot of sauce down. Eddie makes sure she doesn’t see the annoyed look he can feel his features make, not wanting to upset her or make her think he doesn’t want Jake around. He enjoys Chrissy’s little brother, even if he’s a bit loud and rambunctious. Eddie can’t blame him- if he grew up in a stuffy, pretentious home like the two of them had, he’d be far more of a terror than he is now, too.

Hearing the siblings exchange greetings, the long haired man rubs at his nose again, pressing it to the inside of his sleeve cuff, hoping to get rid of the itchy feeling. All it does is wipe up the slight mess that’s been accumulating around the edges of his nostrils. Now he’s going to need to wash his damn sweatshirt.

“Hey Eddie!”

“Hey man,” he nods at him, seeing the twenty three year old’s brought a bottle of wine.

The one time wine doesn’t sound appealing.

Rolling his neck around, an ache catches when he leans to his left, right around his lymph nodes. Pressing his fingertips to the area, he scrunches his nose up and wishes Jake was gone. Chrissy could give him a massage where he must have tweaked his neck while working.

Feeling chilled, he goes and fiddles with the temperature, bumping it up a degree. As if Chrissy has a second sense for anything to do with the thermostat (he swears she does), she pokes her head down the hall and narrows her eyes.

“If you’re messing with that it better be to turn it down!”

“One degree up won’t hurt you,” he shakes his head, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“It’s not even that cold! Put on socks if you’re cold.”

Eddie runs a hand down his face, trying to remember this is just one of her things, the temperature of the house. He’s always been cold natured, and while he’s normally ok being slightly cold, tonight he’s far too shivery. He walks back down the hall towards his wife, ignoring her look of indignation.

“Eddie!”

“Chrissy!” He retaliates in a mocking tone. “I’m cold as hell, ahhnd-snf! and I don’t want to freeze my balls off….” The last words linger in the air only half spoken, as his nostrils twitch and he brings the crook of his arm to his face.

“ihGkTSCHuhew! hih’IHTchew! snfsnf! Sohhr-ihKSHuhEW! God, sorry,” Eddie sniffles wetly, rubbing his nose against his arm quickly before dropping it.

“Bless you. Put another shirt on, it’s going to get warm soon anyway, now that we have an extra body taking up space.”

“Jesus Christ, Chrissy! It’s not that big of a deal!”

The words are louder than he means them to be, his body is tense and his muscles ache from the sheer stress of it all. He doesn’t understand why she can’t just let one degree go. He feels like an ice block, and maybe putting on socks or another shirt would help, yeah, but now this is about getting what he wants.

Chrissy’s eyes widen slightly, and her left eyebrow raises, her arms now crossing in front of her chest. She looks entirely too ‘mom ready to yell at her child’ but Eddie doesn’t care. Another shiver wracks his frame and he too folds his arms in front of him, though it’s more to try and preserve heat than anything else.

“Everything okay?” Jake’s voice rings out, then the man walks to the hallway, looking at them with a furrowed brow.

“Everything’s peachy, Jacob.”

A scoff from Chrissy has both men looking in her direction.

“Really? You’re going to put your storm cloud over Jake too? If you’re in that bad of a mood, why don’t you just take a few minutes? Because you’re putting me in a bad mood, when I’ve had a good day.”

Snapping his mouth shut and pulling his lips in a thin line, Eddie nods. Sniffling, he bites at his thumbnail and then after a moment he speaks, breaking the tense silence.

“Fine. Don’t wait up for dinner, I’m not hungry anyway.”

With that, the twenty seven year old turns around, then walks into their bedroom, shutting the door behind him. If it’s a little more forceful than usual, no one says anything, at least not that he can hear. Once he’s alone, the musician lets out a breath and his entire body sags, fight leaving him. His throat hurts, his head hurts, his entire body aches. He’s starting to not be able to breathe through his nose and his sinuses feel like they’re buzzing.

God damn it. If Tim’s gotten him sick he’s being banished from the garage, Eddie decides as he crawls into their bed, pulling the covers close to him. It’s dark enough outside in late November that the room is practically pitch black now, which makes the sleep that's tugging at him come easily. He’s asleep in minutes.

X X X

Chrissy knew something was up the minute Eddie walked through the door that afternoon, his entire demeanor wrong- pent up and prickly. It’s apparent now, that maybe she should have asked Jake if they could reschedule, like Eddie had suggested hours prior. She doles out two plates; making sure to give her brother extra sauce, and then sits down across from him at the table they have near the kitchen.

“Is…he okay? I haven’t really seen him act like that,” Jake frowns, glancing over at the now empty hallway. “He’s not like that all the time is he?”

“No! No, he’s not, he never acts like this honestly,” the strawberry blonde sighs and twirls a noodle onto her fork. “I don’t know why he’s so grumpy today. I asked if something happened at work but he said it was fine.”

“Maybe he’s just having a bad day,” the blonde shrugs back, taking a large bite of his spaghetti.

“Yeah, probably,” the teacher huffs, dragging her foot on the ground beneath her seat.

It’s quiet for a moment as they eat, and then-

“It’s just…he doesn’t get upset over stuff like that. Sure he’ll be dramatic, but usually it includes him playing up theatrics and grabbing a blanket to wrap himself in. Not getting genuinely annoyed.”

Jake nods, listening and thinking.

“When did his uncle die, again? Maybe it’s close to that time? And he’s upset?”

“Wayne died nine months ago. So yeah, he could be upset, but not more so than usual, I wouldn’t think. I’m gonna let him have some time, and after we finish I’ll go check on him.”

When they finish talking and eating, Chrissy feels less wound up. She goes to take their plates but her brother puts his hand on hers, shaking his head.

“I got it. You go check on the rain cloud,” he teases, making her smile. He’s good at that.

“Fine. But just this once. You’re still a guest.”

“I’ve never been a guest in this house. But nice try sissy.”

Laughing, Chrissy heads down the hallway and towards the closed bedroom door, pausing outside of it to listen and see if she can hear anything that’ll tip her off on what her husband is doing. She assumes he’s watching tv or maybe writing lyrics, but it’s silent on the other side of the door. Holding the handle, she pushes the door open and freezes, eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness, making out his silhouette.

Eddie is hunkered down under their sheets and blankets, his sweatshirt hood up around his face, curls falling out from either side. Quietly; curiously, Chrissy walks to the left side of the bed and peers down at the mechanic, then sits on the edge of the bed, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Eddie, baby?”

The brunette stirs and shifts, inhaling and exhaling through his mouth, a small noise making her heart swell at how soft he looks. Sometimes she forgets he’s not all rough and tumble, at least, she has the past few months. Wayne dying took a toll on him, on them, their marriage, the garage, everything. Her husband had shut down, stopped eating, stopped socializing, stopped doing anything but working.

And working, well…it had been Wayne’s garage. And everyone knew that it would be handed down to his nephew who’d worked there since he was sixteen, but no one expected it to be so soon. A stroke, the doctor had said, as she and Eddie stood in a quiet hallway, getting confirmation the fifty year old had passed. She’ll never forget the way her husband had gone white, how he’d grabbed onto her so tightly she thought he was going to actually pass out.

Rubbing Eddie’s shoulder gently, she gets the man to stir more, and as she leans over and turns the bedside light on, he opens his big brown eyes, blinking rapidly to adjust to the brightness. Now, she can see what’s going on, and why her husband’s been grumpy. His cheeks are flushed and there’s dark smudges under his too dull eyes, lips less pink than usual.

“Hey handsome,” she murmurs, pressing her palm against his forehead and then cheek, warmth pooling off of them.

“Hey.”

His voice is croaky, though she’s not sure if it’s from sleep or sickness. He holds in a cough, pushing it down, then sniffles and rubs his face with his hand.

“At least I know you’re grumpy because you’re sick, and not because of something that happened,” she says gently, fingers playing with a stray curl. “Scale of 1 to 10, how icky?”

It’s something Wayne used to do, when she; or once in a blue moon Eddie, would get sick, once he warmed up to her. With her own parents out of the picture, the older man practically adopted her as one of their own, even before she and Eddie were legally married. She can recall easily getting taken back to her husband's old trailer he still stayed in with his uncle- to watch over him of course, and how Wayne had come into the bedroom and asked her questions.

Eddie must recognize the words instantly when she asks them, because his eyes shut and he presses his lips together tightly.

“Seven.” His voice is wobbly, and when he looks at her again, there’s a wet shininess to his eyes.

“Ok, I’m going to grab the thermometer, and I’ll be right back. I love you Eddie.” Chrissy presses a kiss to his head, smiling when he nods.

“Love you too baby. Sorry I was such a jerk.”

“If you had told me how sick you felt I would have conceded just this once,” she teases, happy when she gets a tiny smile out of him.

“Thought I was tired. Pretty sure Tim got me sick.”

“Fire him.”

“Mm, thinking like a Munson,” he jokes, sniffling and swiping at his wrist.

“Thermometer and tissues. I’ll get Jake to run to the store for us. I’ll be right back ok? Just rest.”

“Guess for you I can do that.”

She giggles and heads back out to find her little brother, already planning on making soup and grilled cheese, making a mental list of what they’ll need.

#my fic #prompts #moderneddissyau

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mrshigurumasshop · 2 years ago

Text

Deem It the Pregnancy T-Shirt… Jujutsu Kaisen Men

feat. ~ gojo, geto, toji, and nanami (modern au)

about ~ you find one of their shirts and proudly deem it the pregnancy t-shirt with your favorite memories wearing the deemed shirt

content warning ~ just fluff really, everyone is soft versions of themselves, fluffy, pregnancy tings with a hint of angry reader but it’s the hormones. Reader is uncomfortable in all of them bc let’s be real most of the time being pregnant can make you uncomfortable. Toji’s somehow went on longer than I intended

This isn’t proofread because I’m tired. Enjoy!!

Gojo Satoru…

You found the shirt while he was at work. you were about 16 weeks (4 months) into the pregnancy when it was your turn to do the laundry. ‘Toru’s shirt was just a regular dark navy blue shirt that you knew would be big enough for you to fit in it the rest of your pregnancy. So you deemed it the shirt!

When Gojo came home after a rather long day of work, he was more than happy to come home to the sight of his shirt covering your tiny tummy at the time.

“Hi, ‘Toru,” you smiled at him as you were cutting some veggies.

“Hi sweetheart,” he smiles back in awe as he walks behind you to wrap his arms around your body being mindful of your growing tummy. “I see that you’ve raided my drawers, hm?” he smiles into the crook of your neck with a gentle kiss.

“Yep! It’s the t-shirt now,” you giggle happily.

Gojo lifts his head in curiosity as he repeats what you said in question. “What does that mean?” he laughs.

“I don’t know,” you shrug nonchalantly as if you didn’t just sound so proud of yourself 20 seconds ago. “I just found it doing laundry and I wanted to wear it,” you smile up at him.

He looks down at you with the same smile he always has towards you since you guys met with such admiration. “You look better in it anyways,” he says before drowning you in kisses.

Usually he’s one to tease the living crap out of you - nearly putting you into a moody but playful state but he’s just so fucking happy to have you as the mother of his child and his wife.

Since then you never took it off. It was the t-shirt for a reason. You wore it at home, to the store, and even to your doctors appointment. Obviously, you’d wash it a lot more than the other clothes already sitting in the hamper because you just couldn’t get enough of it. At first, Gojo couldn’t see all the way through as to why it had to be that shirt when there are others that were there waiting to be used but he didn’t pry into it because it made you happy. He was a firm believer in the saying ‘happy wife; happy life’.

It was also the shirt that you wore on your casual dates with him pairing it with skirts or leggings. It was a perfect shirt in your eyes so you rarely didn’t use it. You had almost burst into tears though when Gojo accidentally got some soy sauce on the shirt because you knew it was going to stain no matter how fast he ran to the bathroom to scrub it off.

You were pushing a good 25 weeks and at that point you did start getting uncomfortable in most of your clothes so his t-shirt was like a comfort blanket to you so you never wanted anything to happen to it without your knowledge. But with Gojo seeing you standing there in your sports bra and leggings with sniffles and a few tears falling already, he nearly bursted into tears too because he hated seeing you cry. Especially when all he wants you to be is comfortable and happy in his clothes.

“No, no, sweetheart don’t cry,” he pleaded.

“B-But…,” you stuttered trying to catch your breath.

“Baby… Hey, come here…,” he coos as he walks towards you to give you a kiss. He cups your cheeks while his thumbs dance around your skin to stop the tears.

“‘Toru, that was my favorite shirt,” you were practically sobbing even more if there was such a thing at this point but you couldn’t control it. You just loved that damn piece of fabric so much.

“I know, I know,” he pouts as he kissed your nose, “But it makes it more memorable, yeah? More special for both my girls.”

You nodded with sniffles as he leaned down to press a loving kiss on your lips. “Can you try washing it again?” you mumble.

“Of course, baby”

3 years later, you were wearing it again for your second pregnancy with your little boy.

Geto Suguru…

You were around 20 weeks pregnant with your baby boy when you found an old high school blue sweatshirt of Geto’s in some boxes you were sorting through. It was nearing the end of November so at this point it was getting more than chilly so you deemed it the sweatshirt!

Geto knew of the boxes full of his old high school memorabilia that his parents had dropped off during the day while he was working. He didn’t make much of a big deal out of it till you showed up to his art classroom at the elementary school with his old sweatshirt on.

“Now what is this, baby,” he laughed as you smiled and waddled a bit towards him, “You taking my high school stuff now?” he teased.

You rolled your eyes with a laugh, “I’m borrowing, first of all and second, I thought this could be my pregnancy sweatshirt.”

Get hummed in response not bothering to question it because he knew what you were talking about. He happens to hear your friend rambling on about how she founds hers while you were on Facetime with her.

Then he bent down to kiss your tummy that was barely sticking out of the huge sweatshirt with a smile. “You look beautiful in it anyway. You and the baby pull it off well,” he mumbled against you stomach making you smile again.

“He missed you,” you whispered to him as you ran your fingers through his long hair.

Geto’s smiled even wider as he felt the baby slowly begin to turn. “Well I missed you to little bean,” he said before standing back up on his feet then giving you a kiss on your lips. “And I missed you to, baby,” he said happily.

And since then you never took the damn thing off. Geto had washed it daily since he started to pick up more of the chores towards the end of your pregnancy because of how early you were getting the contractions. The doctor had put you on bed rest till it was time for you to go into labor and the sweatshirt was the only thing keeping you sane throughout the pain you were going through.

The contractions were pretty long but were very far apart so you know you weren’t there yet to push the baby out but it didn’t change the fact that you felt so tired at this point. And having a cold made it worse.

Geto had walked in to see you curled up on your side with your pregnancy pillow wearing the sweatshirt you proudly picked as your comfort. “Hey,” he smiled at you as he sat at the edge of the bed next to you. You faintly smiled back but the contractions that was nearing made your face pull into a painful expression.

“I’m so tired, Sugu…,” you whispered to him due to your sore throat as you pulled the sleeves down towards your hands.

“I can only imagine, my love. Just rest, okay? I’ll make you some miso soup,” he said with a kiss on your forehead. “Are you cold? Do you want more blankets?” he asked as he massaged your thigh.

You smiled and shook your head. “No, the sweatshirt is keeping me warm,” you softly giggled.

Geto rolled his eyes because he was lowkey jealous that you preferred that damn fabric over him to keep you company but it made you happy so it made him happy as well. “Good,” he smiled.

5 years later, he sees his little boy happily wearing the very oversized sweatshirt on him with your smile.

Toji Fushiguro…

You were going through a rough time during your pregnancy so it was hard for you to be comfortable at all. That was until Toji gave you one of his black t-shirts after the waiter at the restaurant accidentally spilled water all over you.

“That little fuck,” Toji groaned as you both walked into your home, “He’s a waiter, shouldn’t he know how to carry a tray of drinks?”

You giggle as you rubbed your stomach while waddling through the kitchen to get something to drink. “It’s okay, honey. I was actually more comfortable in this shirt if that’s makes you feel better,” you smiled at him.

It did in fact made him feel better because he was so gravely concerned about you and how uncomfortable you are all the time. “Good,” he smiled as he walked towards you, “I would e hunted that waiter down for making you feel worse.” He kissed your lips as you laughed against him.

“I think I might keep this shirt, you know,” you smiled up him as he wrapped his arms around your body.

Toji rolled his eyes because that would be like the 100th piece of clothing you stole from him since before you guys even got married. “You want more of my stuff than you already have?” he groans making you laugh again.

“Yes, my love. But this one will be my pregnancy t-shirt,” you cooed to him.

“The fuck is that?” he questioned.

And boy, did he get that answer few weeks after that conversation. You never to the stupid shirt off even if he asked you if he could wear it for work. You straight up told him with a firm ‘no’ with a scowl written on your face. You wore it everywhere… It was getting a little annoying on Toji’s side because first of all, it needed to be washed and second there were stains all over it.

So, he finally took such drastic measures to at least wash it for you while you were in the bath. He knew that you’d be in there for a while because it was keeping you relaxed after having morning sickness at 30 weeks. It came out of no where after not having it at all during your first trimester so it put you in a bad mood.

Then your mood had gotten worse when you left the tub rather earlier than you usually do because your little girl was turning too much for your liking. You came out of the bathroom in your robe into the bedroom and much to your dismay, your deemed t-shirt was missing.

“Honey!” you shouted frantically as you wobbled around the room.

Toji booked it into the bedroom from the living room hearing the stress in your voice. “Baby?! What’s wrong?!” he said as he started to frantically look around the room as if it was on fire.

“Where’s the shirt??” you asked with near tears forming as you kept waddling back and forth from your room to the walk in closet. “I-I left it right here!” you said sadly.

Toji sighed with a small breath of relief realizing nothing is wrong but he couldn’t ignore the amount of emotions you were going through. “Sweetheart, it’s okay. I put it in the washer because it was dirty,” he said to you.

You snapped your head towards him with shock written on your face like a very dramatic wounded lover. “Why?!” you raised your voice as tears spilt like a broken dam on your face.

“W-Wait! Why are you crying?? It’s just a shirt,” he said as he frantically walked towards you.

“It’s not just a shirt,” you said in disbelief and a scowl nearly being borderline permanent on your face. “Why would you say that, Toji! It was the only thing I was comfortable in and now it’s not gonna smell like you,” you cried out loud.

Guilt rang through his body like a doorbell hearing your sobs. He just wanted it to be clean for you because you wore it everywhere and everyday. It was borderline line getting stiff as a board before he threw it in the wash. “Y/n, sweetheart,” he said in a gentle voice, “It’s almost done washing then I’ll pop it in the dryer right away, okay?” he asked as he began to wiped your tears away with his thumbs.

“You’re such an ass,” you sniffled to him.

“I know, baby. I’m the most unruly man on the planet and I don’t deserve such a beautiful wife at my side,” he smiled at you as you giggled with your tears slowing down. “I’ll throw myself in prison for treason,” he said dramatically.

You laughed again with your sniffles following after. “M’sorry…,” you mumbled as you buried your face into his chest.

“Don’t be sorry, my love. You deserve everything you want,” he said as he kissed your forehead.

Couple months later, you were still wearing the shirt as you were breastfeeding your daughter. Toji had to look away because he got jealous.

Nanami Kento…

You had asked Nanami to buy you cherry popsicles on a boiling hot day. And being 27 weeks pregnant and sweating profusely was ruining your so far easy pregnancy. Till you found one of Nanami’s blue button up shirts.

Nanami walked in to see you opening the balcony door in nothing but your underwear and his button-up shirt with your hair thrown up into a messy bun. God, you looked so beautiful in his eyes that he couldn’t stop staring at you.

“Darling, I brought your popsicles,” he said walking towards you with a soft smile.

You threw your head back in in great-fullness with a wide smile. “Oh my god, thank you, my love,” you said to him as you grabbed the box full of them from his hand. But before you could walk away and open them, Nanami gently intertwined his fingers with yours, pulling you towards him. You looked at him with a soft smile and tilted your head, “What is it, love?” you asked.

Nanami shook his head softly as he brought your hand up to his lips. “I love seeing you in my shirt. I think you should dress like this more often,” he cooed.

You rolled your eyes playfully and leaned up to kiss him. “It’s comfortable in the scorching hot day,” you giggled, “I’ll be keeping this for myself.”

“My white-shirts aren’t enough?” he sighed with the same smile.

“Never,” you laughed and kissed him again.

You wore the button-up for most of the summer leading into the fall as your due date was coming up fast. You worked from home most of the time so you always felt comfortable with the cool fabric against your skin. Nanami never complained about you always wearing in even thought it was starting to get to the point where’s it’s seen better days.

He knew that once you started getting closer to your due date, it might get harder on you. He did what he could to be home with you to tend and spoil your needs so he worked half days at home and half days at work. But today, he ended up having to stay in the office because of a international meeting coming up.

Since he has taken such great care of you, you took thought you’d bring him a late lunch despite your contractions that were growing a little longer. You didn’t think much of it because you were still a few weeks away so you just walked it off like it was nothing.

You knocked on his office door and he answered right away saying you could answer. “Hi, baby!” you cheered.

Nanami sighed a breath of relief seeing your beautiful self waddle through his office door. It made it day seeing you in the deemed pregnancy shirt. “Hi, darling. What are you doing here?” he asked as he got up to greet you with a kiss.

“I brought food because I know for a fact that you skipped lunch,” you playfully scolded.

“Caught me red-handed,” he chuckled as he grabbed hem of the button-up shirt you tucked into the white skirt you paired it with. “Beautiful as always,” he mumbled in admiration.

“Thank you-,” you stop mid-sentence with a gasp and what sounded like a bucket of water pouring onto the wood flooring. You and Nanami looked at each other with wide eyes then slowly moved your gazes down to see a literal pull sitting in between your legs. “K-Kento…,” you gasped again, “Was that…,”

“Your water broke,” he finished your sentence then looked up at you , “Darling… The babies are coming.” He laughed with a smile.

“Holy mother of god…,” you mumbled as a small contraction started to creep up on you.

“Okay, I have the bags in my car so we can head out to the hospital. I’ll call right now to let them know we’re on our way,” he said as he shuffled around the office gathering his things. “Darling?” he called out to you due to your quietness.

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go,” you laughed nervously as you rubbed your stomach, “I can’t take a shower first though? I feel like I peed myself.”

He laughed with you and clasped his hands with yours. “I have wipes and extra clothes for you, my love. And all your toiletries as well,” he said.

You smiled at him and cupped his cheek with your free hand. “We’re gonna be parents…,” you whispered to him. He nodded in response with a smile. “Okay, let’s go because I just realized that I have to pop two babies out,” you said as you waddled away from him out of the office.

Nanami laughed as he watched you frantically waddle away with the stain of your water breaking between your legs. You’d slap him for thinking it was cute.

21 hours later, your baby girl and boy were born and just like Toji, Nanami got a little jealous seeing you feed the babies while wearing his shirt.

Tehe, I had a lot of fun writing this! I hope you enjoyed!💗

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dresshistorynerd · 4 years ago

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So I saw this illustration recently floating around here and it’s so riddled with bullshit I decided to go through it with meticulous detail. Also it’s whole point is bullshit, but we’ll circle back to it. I have to note I’m not dress historian and don’t know all the nuances related to history of undergarments, and wouldn’t have even room for that in this post. And the illustration is completely devoid of them anyway.

So strap in and jump into the rabbit hole with me! Let’s start with the accuracy of the figures illustrating the undergarments. I don’t know why the 18th century stays (corsets come later) look like that? They are so wrong in so many ways. This is what 18th century stays looked like.

They did not flatten the bust at all. On the contrary, they pushed the bust up. It makes the stomach flat, but bust very much not. The boning was made from whale bone, reeds or slim wood bents most often, which are all very bendable and soft materials. Which means it was firm but not hard or restrictive. They mostly just smoothed the torso and supported bust. Also none of these illustrations have shift or chemise under their corset/stays, which was extremely important part of the undergarment (they protected the skin from corset/stays and it from oils of skin).

Now I’m questioning weather the makers of this info graph have seen Regency dresses. Firstly they claim that the ideal figure was “natural waist” when you can see that the waist can’t even be seen under the dress. There’s literally no waist. I would rather say the ideal figure was long tube body and boobs (emphasis on boobs). They also say the “corset” (still stays) stops bellow the bust line, but if you have seen a Regency dress, you know the bust is basically on the chin. (There were some stays that actually stopped under breasts, but the ones with cups where much more common as they were better at getting the fashionable silhouette.)

You don’t achieve this look without some heavy lifting done by the undergarments.

Here’s what they looked like. (Picture is from Abigail Polston’s blog.) They were basically push up bras. They didn’t have boning at all or sometimes a couple bones, but were usually made at least partly of stiffened fabrics. Between the breasts there’s a wooden slab that keeps the boobs separate and the stays from crinkling. They only smoothed out the rest of the torso and their only real purpose was support the bust and lift the hell out of it.

The next figure has so so many things wrong about it. In 1830s the stays were basically same as Regency stays. In 1840s the stays started to have a little more of the Victorian hourglass shape, but their construction was still similar. Though at the same time corsets started to live along side stays, till in the 1850s they took over the undergarment business. Here’s an example of 1890s corset.

Victorian corset is result of very complicated engineering. The shape is achieved with very ingenious patterning and strategically placed bones. Maximal shape with minimal boning. When you go back to look at the 18th century stays, which are covered in bones and then check out bow little there’s bones in the Victorian corset. The shape subtly changed thorough the rest of the century, but the basic construction and hourglass figure stayed the same.

Now the description says tight lacing became popular and it’s not entirely wrong. Tight lacing became a thing. In the previous centuries it wasn’t really even possible in same sense, because the materials used were too soft. Well some rich fashionable women still did it in 18th century (with regency stays it just wasn’t possible), but because of the materials, they couldn’t restrict bodily functions like breathing (looking at you PotC). Victorian corsets however usually had couple of iron bones, the rest being the soft whale bone, giving them more ability to shape the body. Tight lacing however was not common. Some rich, young and fashionable ladies would do that, but it was seen broadly negatively at the time. People talked about the health consequences and perhaps more than that, saw it as very vain. Tight lacing every day for a long time had negative health consequences, but vast majority of women didn’t do that and they were nothing nearly as dramatic ass people claim. Corset’s magic wasn’t it’s ability to reduce waist, but rather accentuate bust and hips. It was all about the illusion. Padding was added too on top of the corset. All women used corsets and it didn’t restrict them from doing all kinds of stuff, like working in a factory, or climbing a mountain.

I don’t really have anything to complain about the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s. They have at least the right shapes and don’t have weird claims. Now, I’m not very knowledgeable in any decade after 1920s, but I know at least that bullet bra were already a thing in the 40s? You can see it in 40s dress silhouettes too.

After all this wildly inaccurate info, the whole point of the info graph is that lingerie is going backwards and apparently it’s a bad thing. It gives the impression that undergarments were bad in the ye olden times, then they got good and apparently they are bad again. I think the funniest part is when it says in the 80s bit that “lingerie no longer a way to control the body but to empower women”. Empower how? How were 80s bras more empowering that previous or following bras? Also it says that the ideal figure was “any”. Now, I’m not that familiar with 80s, but if you look at the fashion then, you definitely notice a common silhouette: broad shoulders and natural waist.

After that apparently shaping bras are used to make the bust look bigger, which is bad I guess. Worse than padding on shoulders for some reason?

It is not outright said that the undergarments of earlier periods were used to control women’s bodies, but it’s implied. That’s a really common misconception, but not really true. In the 17th century women didn’t wear stays, but the bodice was heavily structured and boned. When mantua (loose robe draped on body, think of robe á la francaise) entered the western fashion (around 1680s), women jumped on it. Stays became very quickly very popular, to give the fashionable silhouette even without the rigid bodice. Stays and mantua combo was more comfortable and more adjustable to changes in body so it took completely over the fashion during the 18th century. And when corsets became a thing in the Victorian era, most corset makers were women. Women invented a lot of the engineering that went into patterning corsets.

Corsets and stays were not some torture devices. They were flexible, constructed with the right measurements and their purpose wasn’t to reduce the measurements of the body, but rather create optical illusions and support the bust and the back. Many people who have used recreations of historical corsets say they are in many ways more comfortable than modern bras, which shift all the weight of the bust on shoulders. Corsets and stays distributed it on hips instead. Perhaps the biggest actual health concern with a regular use of corset especially (excluding tight lacing and stays didn’t to my knowledge have this problem at least to the same extend) is it supporting the back too much, making the wearer’s deep muscles wither. So in a way, they were too comfortable. Victorians were aware of that, and upper class women, who didn’t do manual labour, were encouraged to excercise to keep their torso in good shape.

Now at some point when making this post, I started to wonder who made this illustration and why. It does seem, if not well researched, at least professional. After googling the label in the bottom left corner, I found this.

The poster is saying it’s terrible when fashion tries to shape your body with clothing and it has the solution for you. Shape your body literally with the serum they are selling. They even say in the 2000s section that big bust is the desired shape, which now looks a lot like marketing. Though it doesn’t seem like they are selling it anymore. Their website is down and I couldn’t find any info on them. The whole product seems a little suspicious. It’s apparently a cream containing estrogen you put on your breasts and it should make your breast grow. Now I’m no expert, but that’s not how estrogen works. Any cream that claims it has some hormones that will change your body or skin? They don’t work. Don’t buy them.

I think this illustrates very well why I disagree so much with the idea that shaping your silhouette with clothing was so terrible and it’s good that we moved away from it. Fashion always has a silhouette, it’s part of the overall look. When the silhouette was still achieved with undergarments, your body shape and size didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the size, it was about proportion and you could create that with corsets/stays, padding and illusions. Nowadays you see sometimes thin celebrities praised for being fashionable when they wear boring clothes which show their stomach, and people have started to question if they actually have style or are they just thin. And often bigger people are ridiculed for wearing the exact same thing. Now it’s the body which is fashionable, not the clothing. And it leads to companies like these trying to push people to change their bodies.

Now, I don’t think any strict fashion or beauty standard is ever good, even if it could be achieved with clothing alone. But I think there’s something to be learned from past, to maybe not reserve fashion and style only for a specific type of body. I don’t think it’s ever helpful or healthy for a body type to be trendy. There’s always all types of bodies and they all deserve to enjoy style, if they wish.

TL;DR: Add tried to sell their boob cream by spewing inaccuracies about historical undergarments.

#fashion history #fashion #historical clothing #historical fashion #history #dress history #historical undergarments #beauty ideals #body ideals #long post #dress history research

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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“I can’t believe I have to write this down right now, but my dear friends, medieval people bathed regularly. Yes. I assure you. I am very serious. It is true. In fact, medieval people loved a bath and can in many ways be considered a bathing culture, much in the way that say, Japan is now. Medieval people also very much valued being clean generally in an almost religious way. This is not to say that getting clean was as easy for medieval people as it is for us now.

But medieval people were very clever and had ways of getting around that. So, say you are an average-ass medieval person. That means you are a peasant, because 85% of the population or so were peasants. This meant that you were working very hard doing manual labour in a field. How would you stay clean? Well you would probably wash daily at home. This usually involved filling an ewer with water, heating it and then poring it into a larger basin which allowed for ease of scrubbing….

Say that you couldn’t or didn’t have time to heat up water though, what then? Well people would just bathe in a local water source… So, fine, regular people figured out how to get wet, right? Well, the other thing that is important to note here (and I can’t believe I am saying this), when washing at home medieval people used soap. Yes. I am serious. They did. In fact soap is a motherfucking medieval invention. Yes. It is. The Romans – whomst I don’t see a bunch of basics going around accusing of being filthy – did not, in fact have soap, in contrast. They usually washed using oil. Medieval people? Oh you better believe that they had soap.

It was first introduced from the East, like most good stuff was at the time, but it took off rather quickly. Your peasant ass would likely have been making soap at home, and books of secrets often included various recipes for soap, all of which can still be made today. The general ingredients were usually tallow, mutton or beef fat, some type of wood ash or another, potash, and soda.

However, soap could also be purchased. As early as the seventh century soap makers guilds began to spring up , trading it as a high value commodity. If you were fancy enough to be buying soap you could also get the good imported stuff initially from Aleppo, which was traded heavily and involved laurel oil rather than animal fat. After importing rather a lot of this to Castille, in the twelfth century the denizens there got to thinking that they could probably create a similar product using the local olive oil. Voila! Castille soap was born and also became a popular trade good.

Even if you couldn’t get the good fancy soap, many people would scent the water that they bathed in, often with thyme or sage. People often used herbs not just for washing, but in deodorant as well. Yes. They had deodorant. It was often made of bay leaves, hyssop or sage. In fact, one of the more popular medieval deodorant recipes came from Dioscorides, a Greek physician active in the first century AD. His De Materia Medica was super popular throughout the medieval period and advised readers on how to make a deodorant using salvia and sage.

Medieval people also regularly washed both their hands and faces both before and after meals when in between baths because – stay with me here – they knew that dirt and grime could be hazardous to their health if ingested. Yes. They did. They really really did. In fact, the whole washing after eating thing was an explicit health concern, because as medieval medical writers such as Magninius Mediolanesis noted, If any of the waste products of third digestion are left under the skin that were not resolved by exercise and massage, these will be resolved by the bath.

Our girl Hildegard of Bingen even had a recipe for face cleanser because apparently she was a skin-care bitch. She advises that, one whose face has hard and rough skin, made harsh from the wind, should cook barley in water and, having strained that water through a cloth, should bathe his face gently with the moderately warm water. The skin will become soft and smooth, and will have a beautiful color.

So yes, medieval people, even regular old peasants were pretty clean types of people. In fact, they were so clean that for them bathing constituted a leisure activity. So the average person would likely wash daily at home, but once a week or so they would treat themselves to a bath at the communal bath house. That is where the party was at.

…You, my gentle readers may have picked up on something here, and that is that our girls the sex workers be showing right TF up in the public baths. This meant that whether or not you admitted them made the difference between whether you were keeping a bathhouse or a brothel. Here in London, of course the Stews in Southwark were essentially brothels where you could also have a bath (and were largely owned by the Bishop of Winchester (as you do).

Having said that, there were plenty of people who went to bathhouses just to go to bathhouses and by 1292 in Paris, there were at least 26 running that could give you just a bath. Medieval people related to this very much as we do having a spa day, and medieval bathhouses often included steam baths along with big wooden tubs where you could sit down and enjoy a meal. In order to stand out from the crowd, the Parisian bathhouses would even employ criers to advertise themselves.

And, I cannot stress this enough, this was just for regular ass people. Rich people? Oh, you better believe they were bathing, and often had dedicated rooms for washing unlike the poors. They also might go places simply to bathe, like Bath in England, or the thermal baths in Pozzuli in Campania, which was so famous it had a whole ass poem, De balneis Puteolanis written about it. They could also afford that nice soap and perfume and all that good stuff. In fact they were so into poncey baths that most medieval knighthood ceremonies involved having a scented bath.

So OK, clearly, fucking clearly medieval people bathed and were clean and into it. So why am I telling you all of this? Well the idea that medieval people didn’t bathe is a persistent myth that some basics on twitter will come at me with at least once a week. Why is that? Well part of it is a modern misunderstanding of the idea of bathing. It’s true that we have medieval sources which warn against “excessive” bathing. But here’s the thing, that wasn’t really about being clean, it was about hanging out naked in bathhouses with the opposite sex. They didn’t want you to not be clean, they wanted you to not be going down the bath house and getting your fuck on.

And yeah, some holy people didn’t bathe, notably saints who would forego bathing themselves but bathe sick or poor people. But if you bring that up you are missing the point. Medieval people thought that bathing and being clean was really nice, so giving it up and living with your stank was a sign that you had given up on the corporeal world and only thought of heaven. It was holy because it was uncomfortable, like wearing a hair shirt, or eating vegan, and hitting your chest with rocks and sitting in the desert trying not to wank. You know, standard saint stuff. It is mentioned because it is uncommon and uncomfortable.

These things, while they make sense in context are often taken by people who have never learned a damn thing about the middle ages and read in the worst possible light. If you intrinsically believe (and it is a belief) that the medieval period is the Dark Ages, and very bad, then you read stuff like this and just assume people are gross and dirty, even if there’s no real evidence of that.

You know what else helps? Well, in the modern period sometimes people were gross. In both the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, there were times when some doctors claimed that bathing was harmful. This was often linked to the idea that bathing with warm water would open the pores and allow contagion in. And here’s the thing about that – a lot of people just don’t know what the medieval period is, but they are pretty sure it is when stuff was gross. So if they hear about doctors telling you not to bathe they are like, “LOL medieval people were gross”, even if that is going down smack bang in the modern period.

Now on the one hand we can see this as a historical quibble. After all it’s not like I don’t have a history of getting big mad about someone incorrectly relating to the medieval period. But here’s the thing, allowing myths like this to perpetuate allows us to keep upholding harmful ideas about the medieval period that furthers our colonialist ideas about history, and simultaneously allows us to gloss over all the harmful and gross stuff that we as modern people do. If we always blame medieval people for everything difficult it allows us to deny their humanity and write off a thousand years of thinking and culture that still influences us now. So, like, could you not?

- Eleanor Janega, “I assure you, medieval people bathed.”

#eleanor janega #hygiene #medieval #history

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sadviper · 4 years ago

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Woo Do Hwan: Interview with Kankoku TV Drama vol. 97 (Aug 2020)

Once again, much thanks to @staidwaters for graciously reviewing and correcting!!! This was a really hefty interview, hope you enjoy~

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Woo Do Hwan

Sword, bow, and horseback riding for the first time

A “Monstrous Newcomer” in a career-making, historical drama debut

In 2016, in the movie “Master”, Woo Do Hwan played the role of Lee Byung Hyun’s subordinate. Even though he appeared onscreen for just three minutes, he left a strong impression, attracting attention. Since then, he starred in “Save Me” (2017 OCN), taking on the nickname of “Monstrous Newcomer” and setting out on a brilliant career path. The next step he takes will be his first historical drama “My Country” (2019 JTBC).

Tackling a historical drama is an ideal chance for young and promising actors to grow; they have a rare chance to study in depth with multiple superb veteran actors over the long filming period. Woo Do Hwan did not miss this opportunity. His new work “The King: Eternal Monarch” (2020 SBS) leverages 120% of what he learned from “My Country”, and his popularity is surging.

Struck by a midwinter waterfall, the most dreadful and frigid opportunity to showcase yourself

--What kind of work is ”My Country”?

WDH: Each of the characters clash with the others for the sake of their personal convictions. This drama depicts their love and friendships. The country they are each reaching for … in a way, you could say they seek the same goal. Everyone wants a country in which they can live happily, but each person has a different path to that goal. This work skillfully depicts the conflicts that arise in the midst of this.

--Please introduce the role that you play.

WDH: Nam Seon-ho is an illegitimate child born to a family of nobles (yanban), and he has suffered greatly because of his birth. The poor guy is only able to relax his guard and laugh when he is with Seo Hwi (played by Yang Se Jong) and his younger sister Yeon (played by Jo Yi Hyun). However, even under such circumstances, he holds onto his ambitions. He doesn’t want other people to experience the same kind of pain that he has endured, so he strives to become the right-hand man of Yi Seong-gye (played by Kim Young-cheol), the future founder and king of the Joseon Dynasty. However, it doesn’t go as expected and I end up in opposition to Hwi, my dearest friend.

--What things did you pay attention to when creating the role?

WDH: Since it’s a period drama, it was difficult to get used to the way of speaking and tone of voice. It took me a while to get the hang of it. Now I have the opposite problem, I’m doing my best to shake off the historical tone (laughs).

--The gorgeous hairstyles and clothing were a sight to behold.

WDH: Honestly, at first I thought “Long hair probably won’t suit me…” (laugh). So early on, I participated in many concept meetings and tried out different hairstyles. Even with long hair, there are many different hairstyles that can be made, such as wearing with armor or tying it up. I collaborated with the director to choose the most suitable style according to the situation in the drama. I was able to try on as many outfits as hairstyles, but I really enjoyed being able to wear the special costumes such as the armor and the inspector’s garments; things we normally don’t get the chance to wear.

--How did you practice horseback riding, swordsmanship, and archery?

WDH: Before filming started, I studied martial arts for about two months. Filming lasted nine months, so in total I was focused on this work for a whole year. While filming action, it’s important to skillfully capture the scene, but the most essential thing is to not to get hurt. For that reason, the cinematographer, my co-stars, and I always had to be in perfect sync. It took time to match movements for the sword fights.

--You became the topic of much discussion when you revealed your magnificent physique in a waterfall during the opening of the drama. What are your secrets for managing your fitness?

WDH: I train on a regular basis. If I only started working out when I knew there were going to be scenes with skin showing, it’d be stressful trying to build up my body in a short period of time for shooting. After all, I don’t know when or where I will have to strip down for a scene! (laugh) Usually I play a lot of soccer, and I’ll go to the gym to train if I have time. If I take care of myself properly as a habit, then I don’t need to worry if my body looks good or if I should put in more effort during acting; I can just concentrate on my performance.

--Was the director’s reaction a good one?

WDH: He was extremely happy, hahaha. They keep trying to make me take my clothes off, so I was like, “Come on, give me a break!” The road to the filming location for the waterfall scene was rugged and steep and it was incredibly cold; it was the most difficult scene. Se-jong even said “I never want to go into water that cold again”.

--A lot of viewers said that “Nam Seon-ho is the most pitiful man in the world.” How do you personally feel?

WDH: I wanted to present Seon-ho as a tragic figure, so I was glad that the audience saw him the same way; it encouraged me to put in even more effort and I worked hard to build up his character. Seon-ho constantly stands on the boundary between life and death, living a life where he might die at any moment. He never manages to accomplish any of his dreams, and it is only at the very end that he realizes what is most precious to him. However, even though Seon-ho is a tragic character, if we just focused on the sadness the drama would be hard to watch and it wouldn’t be interesting at all. Therefore I wanted to show many things with him, such as him being a powerful figure, and the loneliness his power hides.

He was able to finish the drama because he was with Se-jong, his co-star of the same age.

--At what points did you sympathize with Seon-ho?

WDH: There is always a conflict in Seon-ho’s life in that he always has to sacrifice something in order to get something he wants. Seon-ho’s situation is an extreme case, of course, but I think that in our lives there are many moments like his, even if they are small and trivial. Moments when we desire what we can’t have, or throw away things we shouldn’t throw away. There are also moments when we all have to give something up for the sake of a goal that we are reaching for. In the midst of that, I worried about the things that I should protect, so I deeply sympathized with Seon-ho, whose ideals and emotions were in conflict with each other.

--Your portrayal of the character’s emotions was well-received. When was Seon-ho the most emotional?

WDH: It would be when he heard that Seo Hwi was alive. I had a deep rapport with Se-jong in all my scenes with him. From a certain point onwards, the events in the drama truly felt real, and I fell more and more in love with Se-jong (laugh). I deeply empathized with Seon-ho’s emotions, which made me want to perform even more intensely in this work.

--Concerning expressing emotions, are you the type to do a lot of preparation beforehand? Or are you the type to perform what you feel on the spot?

WDH: I think I am half-and-half. Beforehand, I’ll think, “So we’re filming this kind of scene today”, why is this happening, and what was the situation before this scene? However, it’s difficult to continuously hold onto emotions because there are rehearsals and blocking out our positions with the director. So I will concentrate on creating the emotion in the moment when acting.

--And what about your mutually dependent relationship with Yang Se-jong, who played the role of Seo Hwi?

WDH: I believe it would have been very difficult if Se-jong hadn’t been there. I relied on him a lot. The make-up room was set up in a large van onsite, and while our hair was being done, we would go over our lines. If one person said their lines, then the other person would just naturally respond with their own lines. We are the same age, not just in the drama but also in real life, so in both the Goryeo and modern eras, we were always communicating well, back and forth.

Se-jong always helped me, and even though we were together on location for very long periods of time, not once did we fight or have a conflict of opinion. We spent our time together as good friends, always being considerate of each other.

--There were many scenes of Seon-ho and Hwi’s friendship that brought out tears, but was there a particular scene where you especially felt the friendship between the two?

WDH: All those scenes where we rescued each other. Especially that scene in the latter half, where Hwi took Seon-ho out of Yi Bang-won’s (played by Jang Hyuk) house; that was memorable. Then in the first half, during the massacre of the Liaodong Punitive Expedition advance party, there’s a scene where we cross swords in the midst of combat and I recognize my dear friend Hwi. That scene was very good and had a big impact.

--What is your impression of Seolhyun (AOA) as Han Hee-jae?

WDH: Seolhyun was truly a “celebrity” to me (laugh). She is one of Korea’s top idols; I’ve seen her movies. When I heard that she would be co-starring with me, I was very much looking forward to it. Once we were actually performing together, I was amazed that her acting was even better than I expected. Seolhyun was the youngest on location, but she had a very mature attitude during filming. In front of a large crowd of her seniors, she played a bold and strong woman. I was impressed.

--The antagonism between Seon-ho and his father was one of the highlights of the drama. How was it like to co-star with Ahn Nae-sang, who played the role of your father?

WDH: Ahn Nae-sang sunbae was like a real father, a very interesting person. Although he’d say “Seon-ho is an impertinent son” (laugh), he worked well with me, and did a lot for me. During breaks, he tells jokes and lightens the atmosphere on set, but once filming starts, his gaze radically changes and he becomes a terrifying father. He’s not someone who hands out advice left and right to juniors, rather, he is a person who reacts kindly and looks after us.

Extremely jealous of Se-jong’s Japanese fanmeet

--What are your thoughts on successfully wrapping up your first historical drama?

WDH: I wore hanbok, long wigs, and armor--I got to experience all of these things for the first time. I’ve also never done things like swordsmanship, archery, or horseback riding, so each one of those was a new challenge. Because I have never lived in that time period, I worried about how I should portray it. Despite that, I enjoyed everything. The remote locations that I visited were very beautiful, and during breaks it was a wonderful experience to enjoy the scenery and watch the seasons change instead of sitting in the dressing room. I’ve heard from my seniors that once you’ve done one historical drama, you’ll want to do another, and now I know what that feeling is like for myself.

--What was the most memorable location?

WDH: In the opening scenes, I often went to the countryside, but first I filmed the waterfall scene and the cliff scene. That cliff scene was absolutely terrifying. I scaled the cliff and did the action scene, but I thought...I might actually die if I fall (strained laugh).

--Watching the behind-the-scenes footage, you seem the quiet type but at the Japanese fanmeeting, I feel that you were skilled at speaking onstage. What is your actual personality?

WDH: Do I look like someone who doesn’t say much? I’m definitely not the talkative type, though. Hahaha. I talk a lot when I’m with Se-jong, but the interesting thing is, how much Se-jong and I will say changes depending on the day. On some days Se-jong speaks more than I do, and on other days I won’t shut up (laugh).

--Since filming continued for about a year, was it difficult to break free from the role of Seon-ho?

WDH: Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought about Seon-ho without today’s interview. However, Seon-ho’s sword is in my living room, so whenever I see it, I’m going to remember (laugh). But because I can’t use historical speech in the drama that I’m currently filming, I try to forget as much as possible.

--Currently you’re in the middle of filming the drama “The King”, right?

WDH: In “The King”, one person plays two different roles. The show depicts parallel worlds. In one world, Lee Min-ho sunbae plays the emperor and my character, Jo Yeong, has been by the emperor’s side since childhood and is the captain of the Royal Guard. In the other world, I am Jo Eun-seop, a social service worker whose personality is the complete opposite to Yeong’s. I’m having a lot of fun filming this, so please look forward to it.

--What does “my country” mean to you?

WDH: I believe it’s the people around me. I have family, I have friends, and I also have colleagues. A life where I can live happily with all of them, that is my dream country, I guess. No one goes on without desire, so I want to live together while caring for each other.

--You’ve been called the “Monstrous Newcomer”. With this kind of recognition, do you feel pressured?

WDH: I’m always under pressure. However, I tell myself I can’t lose to it, I have to work harder to overcome it.

--Finally, a message to your Japanese fans.

WDH: 2020 was the year I definitely wanted to meet all my Japanese fans, but filming for “The King” started earlier than expected and hasn’t finished yet. I was incredibly jealous when I heard that Se-jong held a Japanese fan meeting at the end of 2019. When “The King” finishes, I would like to meet you all. Until then, please take care of yourself and be happy. I will do my best to finish my work and greet you in good form. If you haven’t seen “My Country” yet, I definitely invite you to watch it. I also hope you look forward to “The King”.

You can direct fan mail to:

KEYEAST / 30, 11-Gil, Hakdong-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06042 Korea

#woo do hwan #my country the new age #mctna #japanese translation #interview #韓国TVドラマ #the king eternal monarch #tkem

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boxoftheskyking · 4 years ago

Text

Pick Up Every Piece, Part Four

Ugh this took forevvvvver

I know that the MDZS map is like based on actual China, so my apologies to whatever Yiling is based on. I need a shithole for this story, and Yiling’s it.

In which Lan Zhan follows A Story

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

----

Early November 2000

Lan Zhan is headed back to Moling. It’s not a trip that he particularly enjoys, anymore. He takes the train these days, since he got rid of his car.

He used to drive the 45 minutes there twice a week when he and Liu Shirong were first dating, before they moved in together in Caiyi. There used to be a sense of anticipation, enjoyment, each landmark and familiar turning a step closer to someone he wanted to see. An arm across his back, a kiss to his jaw, Shirong reaching up on tiptoe to greet him. He’d pick up Shirong at school and they’d wave out the window at the little kids in the schoolyard. Bye, Teacher Liu! Moling was an escape, an innocent place, somewhere far away from the darkness and dirt he spent his days sifting through.

Dear Shirong. He’s a good man. Short, kind, a silly gasping laugh. Desperate for children. He has two now, and a husband. Lan Zhan has lunch with him occasionally.

Now that he thinks about it, their last lunch was over a year ago. He supposes that doesn’t count as “occasionally” anymore. He could reach out first, if he wanted to. But he’s never been the type to reach out. Shirong has a life, a family, all the things he always wanted. All the things Lan Zhan couldn’t give him.

“I cannot imagine myself with a child,” he’d said when they broke up. He hadn’t intended for it to actually be a breakup—he hadn’t really thought that far ahead. But Shirong had visited an actual agency the day before and handed him a brochure, and Lan Zhan had left the apartment and driven into the mountains in a blind panic. He’d ended up stopped outside someone’s cabin, all the way up their driveway, and parked outside this stranger’s house until he’d gotten his breathing under control. That’s one of the reasons he’d sold the car. He’d never done that before, taken off like that, trespassed on private property, so getting rid of the car was the safest option.

Precept 45 of the Lan Clan: Do not act impulsively.

Precept 213: Be strict with yourself.

Precept 341: When faced with temptation away from the righteous path, remove the source of temptation.

His brother finds his interest in the old clan rules an amusing idiosyncrasy. Even his uncle, strict as he is, finds the rules nothing more than an heirloom, evidence of some kind of hereditary virtue but nothing relevant to the modern day.

It’s not that he follows them. He just likes to know them, to turn them over in his mind. As options. When faced with a decision, there’s a comfort in turning to generations of dead Lans for guidance. Some people like astrology.

There are a lot of Lans, these days, enough that he’s never met a good number of cousins. There’s plenty of Lans he’s barely related to at all, at this point, but the name still has a good reputation. It’s the opposite of what the Wens have to deal with, those who weren’t involved in the insurrection. Everyone knows the old clans are ancient history and you can’t judge someone on their family name. But still, no one named Wen is going to find work in Lanling anytime soon.

The point is, the Lans have survived and multiplied, so whatever kept them going in the old days can’t be completely useless.

His original interest in the rules was mostly as a journalist, which he’d hoped his uncle might understand. Every rule implies a story. A reason. Thousands of them mean you can triangulate an entire context. Who were we? How did we get here? What did we lose, and how?

Precept 9: Do not speak dishonestly.

Precept 77: Do not make promises that you cannot honor.

“I cannot imagine myself with a child,” he’d said.

Don’t worry, Lan Zhan, we’ll figure it out together. “I’m not sure I want to imagine myself with a child.” It will be different when it’s ours. You’ll see. “The more you talk about it, the less sure I am.” That’s okay, Lan Zhan, I can be sure enough for the both of us.

“I don’t want this. I don’t want this with you.”

Precept 424: Do not be needlessly cruel.

Lan Zhan had killed men during the war. Cultivation was useful for long-range attacks, but he still found himself in the situation of killing up close, of watching the light leave an enemy’s eyes.

He saw the light leave Liu Shirong’s eyes. For a moment his instincts had jolted, shocking through his nervous system. You’ve killed him. You activated your core, by accident, and you’ve killed him.

But it wasn’t the end of Liu Shirong’s life, of course, just the end of his love for Lan Zhan, the end of their life together, the end of whatever future he’d imagined for them. Lan Zhan had meant to release him gently, like a small rabbit with a newly-healed leg, back out into the world he came from. But he’d crushed him instead, under his clumsy feet.

Do not be needlessly cruel.

There are pools of guilt around Moling. Every place that he recognizes, everywhere they went together, even if the memories themselves are good. The guilt gathers on his clothes, soaks through to the skin, makes him cold.

It’s not that he misses Shirong. Perhaps he should miss him more than he does. It’s been nearly three years since they split up. It should perhaps hurt more than it does. It’s embarrassing that it took longer for him to get over Wei Ying—a relationship that never happened.

The worst part of the breakup didn’t even have to do with Shirong himself. He hadn’t made a special call after Shirong left, or even after he officially moved out a week later, but he had mentioned it when Lan Huan called him as usual on the second Tuesday of the month.

“Oh, I’m sorry, didi,” Lan Huan had said. “I know you did love him, in your own way.”

In your own way.

Is he not— Did he not—

Had he never—

He is nearly to Moling. The train track curves here, about fifteen minutes out, and the rails were laid in crooked. It’s a jolt, every time. It’s easy to see who the regular commuters are, whose coffee sloshes over, who widens their stance in time, who looks suddenly out the window, worried. Sabotage on the tracks, maybe, or someone under the cars. The younger people don’t look worried, only bored.

The landscape is odd, he realizes suddenly. He’s been staring vaguely out the window, letting his mind wander, but where he’s used to a few farms, a man-made lake, and mostly open country there is torn up ground, heavy machinery, and miles of chain-link fence. Did he not notice this on his last trip? Had he been reading?

Out the window he sees a large sign on the fence announcing, “Future home of Jin Industries Moling Satellite Campus.” Typical.

In your own way.

He never asked what Lan Huan meant by that. Lan Zhan has won multiple awards for his reporting, for his ability to encourage others to talk. The right facial expression at the right time. A direct, polite question with just the right emphasis. Merciless is what they say about him, sometimes. He’s like a swordsman in an old movie, Nie Mingue used to say, in a way that sounded like a compliment. He moves so quick and so sharp, you don’t even know he’s cut you until you’re around the corner and your head falls off.

He’s poking at it like a sore tooth, needlessly. His golden core makes itself known, just a little sense, a small awakening. It’s always ready to defend him, even so many years later. He does nothing with the awareness, of course. No cultivation is authorized outside of combat. But his core was never removed, never shut down. Can’t put the hot sauce back in that bottle, Jiang Cheng had said once.

The train slows, stops.

“Moling station. Depart here—” The pleasant voice is cut off by a beeping. Lan Zhan stands and shoulders his bag.

“Attention passengers,” a crackled voice comes over the loudspeaker, far less pleasant than the recording. “Due to a security concern all passengers must depart the train at car fourteen. Doors will not open except for car fourteen. Departing passengers, please make your way to car fourteen.”

Lan Zhan looks around the car, then sees a “3” on the far wall. He sighs and follows the few people who are struggling with the connecting door to car four. The chimes that gently demand Get off the damn train are going. He has to speedwalk down the aisle, which is undignified, and everyone looks up at him with that poor bastard expression reserved for torn grocery bags and flat tires.

He makes it off the train a second before the door closes and it pulls away.

“Close one!” an old man grins at him, more humor than teeth.

The police have roped off most of the platform, everyone standing around looking at each other. A few are smoking. Lan Zhan goes over to the rope, coming up next to a kid with one of those handheld electronic games. The kid’s staring around at the cops while his game beeps vaguely in a lonely sort of way.

“What’s happened?” Lan Zhan asks him.

The kid answers without looking at him. “Abandoned bag. Nothing’s happening.” He sounds disappointed.

“Hm.” Sure enough, there’s a nondescript green backpack slumped on a bench.

“They always say it might blow up, but it never does.”

“Not so much these days,” Lan Zhan agrees.

“Like, if it was gonna blow up they wouldn’t be smoking near it, right?”

Lan Zhan smiles despite himself. “Good eye,” he says. His golden core is settled within him, curling beneath his breastbone like a sleeping cat, uninterested and unconcerned. No danger.

There had been a certain amount of withdrawal, after the war. And grief, and nightmares, and a limp for a while. But the end of regular cultivation, of relying on his golden core as a seventh sense, a second consciousness, a second self, the end of healing himself from the inside, of Wangji at his back and power at his fingertips . . .

It’s not entirely the government’s fault, if he’s being fair. Governments have always thrown away veterans, no matter who is in power. Always have, always will. Use you up and spit you out with maybe some benefits and the number of some overtaxed and underpaid case worker. And cultivation, being both new and more ancient than anything, was an unknown since the beginning. There are no peer-reviewed studies on the long-term effects of using a golden core. If Jin Guangyao hadn’t been doing his own research with the Wens for all those years, only to defect back to his father’s side when the tide began to turn, there wouldn’t have been a cultivator corps at all. So Lan Zhan can’t put the responsibility on any one person’s shoulders.

But it still claws at him, sometimes. His core wants out, wants to stretch, to strike, to light something up. It’s like wrapping his head in blankets, sometimes, stifling and muffled and hard to breathe.

Jin Zixuan likes to talk about it, how it feels. Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng do not.

He checks his watch and picks up his pace, passing by another building down the block under renovation with a Jin Industries sign. The logo is close enough to the Sunshot flag that the government connection is implied, but different enough for plausible deniability.

Lan Qiaolian is leaning on her car a few blocks away, exactly where she said she’d be. Lan Zhan appreciates it—they’ve met only once, and he doesn’t trust his ability to pick her out in a crowd. She’s a short woman, but solidly built. Doesn’t look like a Lan, is what his uncle would say.

“Lan Zhan!” she waves to him and drops her cigarette on the pavement. “Thanks for coming.”

He nods and takes his place in the passenger seat. The drive to the Moling Children’s Center is quiet for a while. The Center is near Yilong’s old gym; he remembers the road.

“You had a meeting with the detective?” he asks, though he knows the answer.

“Yeah. Still stonewalling me. Everything’s fucking confidential. They say they’ve canvassed the neighborhood, everywhere between the school and the bus stop and home. But it’s like everyone saw him walking home with his cousin, his cousin turns around for a minute to chase a damn neighborhood cat up a tree, and Sizhui is just . . . gone. How does a kid just disappear like that?”

“But this lead?”

“The administrator I talked to at the Center said they might have something, some record of where he was born. Maybe someone from his birth family has been looking for him, would take him? There’s just— Even if the records do exist, if they weren’t destroyed, I don’t know who has access. And he’s just a kid, you know? I’m not special. We’re not special. So I can’t think of anything but the worst. You know what happens to kids, especially if they take them West, I know they sell—”

“You don’t know,” Lan Zhan cuts her off, gently. “No one knows. No reason to go down that road unless the evidence points there.”

Lan Qiaolian rubs her face. “I just don’t know what the evidence is.”

“We’ll find something. I have a hunch.”

He does not have a hunch. He doesn’t believe in hunches. Or, rather, he didn’t before he started cultivating. Now he believes in the extra-sensory perception of his golden core, which he has been ordered—and signed pages of documents agreeing—to never use it again.

Either way, he’s learned that the general public like hunches. It’s comforting, apparently, someone taking the lead off of no information. It doesn’t make much sense, but most reassuring things don’t.

“I can’t help thinking—” Lan Qiaolian trails off, tapping her thumb on the steering wheel. “Maybe he left because of me.”

This is not a comfortable situation. Lan Zhan should respond with Of course not, don’t think like that. But for all he knows it could be true. He doesn’t really know Lan Qiaolian, and he certainly doesn’t know Lan Sizhui.

All he knows are the facts. Lan Qiaolian began fostering Lan Sizhui a year ago, when he was eight. It was just the two of them until a few weeks ago when Lan Sizhui went missing. It’s not his job to find missing children, but they are technically family, and if there’s some kidnapping or a dangerous part of Moling where children are falling into holes in the ground, that’s a story.

“Why would you think that?” It’s not as gentle, maybe, but it’s useful.

“I got laid off a few years ago. A lot of us did, mass layoffs.”

“Construction?”

“Yeah. Everyone from site managers to the detailers to— well, everyone. One whole firm shut down. So I thought, you know, I’d be home for a while, I got some unemployment, so maybe it would be a good time to finally start fostering. You know? I could stay home until he got adjusted, then when he started school I’d have found something new.”

“And he was happy?”

Lan Qiaolian smiles. “He’s always happy. He’s a real happy kid. Whatever he went through when he was little, he doesn’t seem to remember. Makes friends easily, fine by himself. He’s a dream. But maybe he was just good at showing me what I wanted to see. You know? Coming from a traumatic background like that, being in the system. You know, kids learn how to survive.”

“If he seemed happy, I’m sure he was.”

She sighs. “I just— The work never came back. The last six, seven months I’ve been calling everywhere I can think of. Even considered moving. Nothing. And so it’s been tight, even though it’s just the two of us. I figured with my husband’s life insurance we’d be fine until I found something, but I didn’t anticipate it taking this long. I’ve got some unemployment, but the support payments from fostering messed with my benefits. And so it’s been tight. And maybe he— You know, the secondhand clothes, no takeout, no games. Not getting to go on the school trips because I can’t pay the— I can’t help thinking, maybe all that time in the system, he must’ve been dreaming about a home, you know, what it would be like. And then when it wasn’t—”

“That’s a lot of conjecture.”

She laughs. “True. I just— The brain, it spins. You know?”

“Hm.” Lan Zhan looks out the window at the familiar neighborhood, then startles a bit. “Did they tear down the market?”

Qiaolian glances over. “Oh, yeah. Couple months ago. No more independent groceries in this part of town anymore. Not that most people could afford it at the end. They tried to stick it out, but the big chains moved in after the war, got those tax breaks.”

“Ah. ‘Economic revitalization.’”

She laughs again.

“So, if I can ask,” he starts, glancing out of the corner of his eye to gauge her response. “On the train I noticed building sites. Jin Industries?”

Her jaw clenches. “They’re not hiring.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“We’ve all tried. They’ve bought up half of Moling, and whoever’s running the construction’s not hiring local. Union’s totally shut out.”

“Really?”

“I’ve tried, okay? I’ve called so many—” she cuts off with a frustrated noise.

“Forgive me. It wasn’t a criticism. I’m just curious.”

She nods curtly. “We’re here.”

The administrator who has agreed to meet with them has black toner smudged up the inside of her left forearm and a framed picture of a cat on her desk. She offers Lan Zhan room temperature water in a cracked coffee mug.

“So you’re my eleven o’clock, right? Okay, right.”

“That’s an old flag,” Lan Zhan says, nodding up at the wall behind her. “I haven’t seen that design for a while.”

For the most part, it’s a standard Sunshot, but in addition to the golden hand and red sun, thin black lines reach up the palm like branches.

The administrator looks surprised, turning around to it. “Oh. Yeah, I guess. I don’t know, I don’t have time to keep up with all that. We have to pay for our own, you know. We’re required to hang a flag in every room but the bathroom, but it comes out of our general operating budget. The official ones aren’t cheap.”

Lan Qiaolian chuckles. “My cousin got it tattooed right after he got discharged. He was pissed when they got rid of the black squiggles in the update. I told him, that’s why you gotta think for more than a week before you make a permanent decision, you know?”

The administrator smiles politely. “Anyway. Let me see here.” She starts digging through her pile of folders. “Lai, Lai—”

“Lan,” Lan Zhan corrects.

“Sorry?”

“The name, it’s Lan.”

“Right! Right, okay, Lan. Lan . . . Here we go. Lan . . . Qiaolian. Foster mother. Yes?”

Qiaolian nods.

“And you are?”

“Family,” Lan Zhan says.

“Right. Okay, let’s see. Lan Sizhui, age nine.��

Lan Zhan leans forward. “Anything you can tell us about where he came from, his life before Lan Qiaolian met him?”

She clicks her tongue and runs a finger down the page. “War orphan, typical story. Moved around, a bit once he got to Gusu. No injuries or disabilities. Hearing and sight all good, average height. Slightly underweight, but that’s not unusual.”

“When did he arrive here?”

“At our facility? Looks like ‘98.”

“So he wasn’t here long before you got him,” Lan Zhan looks to Lan Qiaolian.

“Yeah, I guess. We don’t really talk about his past. That’s what the counselors recommend. You’re supposed to wait until they volunteer, you know? You don’t ask first.”

“Any idea where he came from? Birth family?”

The administrator clicks her tongue again, flips a few pages. Lan Zhan catches a sight of a grainy printed photograph, a kid looking around six, big chubby cheeks and shaggy long hair.

“Came in through law enforcement. No note of any charges or juvenile detention, so likely if he had surviving family they lost custody due to a criminal conviction. Looks like the child didn’t offer any details to counselors or placement. Um, looks like Sizhui was the name he got here.”

Lan Qiaolian frowns. “You named him? That’s not his birth name?”

“Common practice, especially if we have multiple kids with the same given name. He never gave a family name—Likely he either didn’t know his parents or forgot after being in the system for a while. A-Yuan is what he was called when he got here.”

“Yuan,” Lan Zhan turns it over in his mouth. “Something Yuan. Any record of where he was born?”

“Mmm, can’t be sure. But he entered the system in Yiling.”

“Yiling?”

“Yep. First registered into care in Yiling, 1995.”

Lan Zhan looks back up at the flag. The others must be thinking the same thing. Yiling in 1995, the Sunshot Massacre. But that’s a ridiculous thought—there were no survivors then, and plenty of other battles, bombings, one-off murders in the area at the end of the war.

“No family names though?” Lan Qiaolian asks. “Any record of someone who might be looking for him, might want him back?”

The administrator suddenly yawns hugely, covering her mouth with both hands. “I’m so sorry. No, no siblings, no recorded birth family. I’m so sorry, I haven’t been sleeping.”

“It’s all right,” Qiaolian says.

“I live over on the East side. They’re building some new damn complex, pounding in pilings at all hours of the night.”

“At night?” Qiaolian asks. “Why?”

The woman sighs. “I don’t know. Lights coming in the windows at one in the morning. I had to dig out my old curtains, thank goodness I still have them. Wake up in the middle of the night thinking the bombing’s started up again, ha, the banging and the lights. We’ve been complaining, but the company offered all the neighbors a settlement stop reporting it. Two months’ rent, we couldn’t turn it down.”

“Lots of construction,” Lan Zhan says, carefully. “Unusual construction.”

“I wouldn’t know,” the administrator shrugs. “I just hope they finish up quickly. My cats are getting stressed to death.”

“Have you noticed— Never mind.” Qiaolian chews her lip.

“Noticed what?”

“The site over by me, there’s a lot of trailers.”

“Like trailers you live in?”

“They look similar—usually there’s a double-wide or two for an on-site office, break area, you know. The site by us there’s a dozen at least. I just find that odd.”

“I haven’t noticed. Maybe. I don’t know, I try to ignore it. Whatever office complex or hotel or whatever it is, I don’t need it.”

The administrator flips through the file again. “I’m afraid that’s about all I can give you. Yiling might have more information—I think the children’s home there moved a couple years ago so files might have been lost, but it’s worth an ask. Signature on the transfer form looks like a Xie Ling. It’s not a huge town, anyway, could be someone remembers the kid, or the family. Local police or courts maybe, if they keep decent records.”

Lan Zhan and Lan Qiaolian exchange a glance.

“Sounds like I’m going to Yiling,” Lan Zhan says.

“You don’t have to—”

He shakes his head, then hands his card to the administrator. “If you think of anything, or hear anything.”

She takes it. “Gusu Herald? You’re not going to mention the flag thing, right? We’re compliant with everything, this one’s just a mistake.”

“I doubt you’ll even be mentioned. I’m just following the story.”

She looks doubtful. “Okay. We’re compliant, though.”

“I work for a newspaper, not the government.”

She snorts. “Yeah. Okay. ”

It twists a little in his stomach, but he nods at her politely as they leave.

The hallway takes them past a large window showing some kind of playroom. Three adults huddle around a low table, arguing in hushed tones, while a child who looks around four plays by himself with a few scratched up toy cars. The child has a cast on one arm, rolling one car at a time solemnly around on the carpet. He looks up as they pass him and tracks them all the way down the hallway. Lan Zhan can feel his eyes on the back of his neck even as they go out into the sunshine.

“Did Sizhui talk about anybody here?” Lan Zhan asks as they get back in the car. “Any friends at the group home, or children he knew when he was younger?”

“Not really. I was worried he’d have a hard time making friends, because he always seemed so content playing by himself. It’s why I was so glad he had Jingyi, his cousin. He’s the same age. He’s the one who was with—” Qiaolian breaks off, blinking hard. “Sorry. Long day.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” he says. He should say something else like It’s okay. It will be fine. We will find him. But he doesn’t, because that would probably be a lie. His silence rises like water in the car, over his mouth, his nose, stifling.

Do not be needlessly cruel.

“Yiling,” Lan Zhan says, to fill the space.

“Fucking Yiling,” Qiaolian agrees.

“I’ll go this weekend.”

“What? You can’t just take off across the country.”

“I haven’t taken vacation in three years. I can go.”

“Lan Zhan—”

“I will go. I’m not saying I will find him, but I will go.”

Lan Qiaolian doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride. When she drops him at the station, she just nods, lips pressed tight together.

“I will call you,” he says. She nods again and he gets out.

He stops by the payphone on the way in to the station to call the office.

“Can I talk to Lan Shu? Yes, thank you.” He waits while the call is transferred down to the basement. “Hi, Lan Shu. Have we got anything from Yiling? Anything we’ve covered. Is there a local paper there? I haven’t—”

Lan Shu snaps her gum on the other end of the line. He pulls the receiver away from his ear, wincing. It’s a very wet sound. “Yeah, I got some. I’ll check our clippings, but they’ve got some shitty local rag. A weekly, I think.”

“Please pull that for me. I’m looking for 1995, don’t know what month.”

“Eh, looks like it’s only been running a couple years. First edition I have is April ‘98.”

Lan Zhan taps his finger, thinking. “I’ll take everything you’ve got. Any of our coverage from ‘95.”

“So, Sunshot.”

“And anything else we covered.”

Lan Shu laughs around her gum, “What else is there? No one gave a shit about Yiling before Sunshot, and nobody’s given a shit since.”

Lan Zhan sighs. “Just pull what you can find. Please. I’ll be by in an hour and a half.”

He hangs up before she can snap her gum again. It gives him a headache, the wet sound.

He grabs a copy of the Herald for the train ride back. Instead of reading, he flips through the entire paper looking for one word: Yiling. He finds three mentions: once as the birthplace of a soccer player (a rags-to-riches story), once as the site of a hailstorm in the weather section, and once, as expected, in reference to the Sunshot Massacre.

He hasn’t thought about it much before. He’s never been to Yiling, but there’s never really been a reason. Even before the war it was a small, poor, middle of nowhere town with low property values, high crime rates, and the worst literacy numbers in the country. It was shitty, but not in an interesting way. Qinghe was always shitty but exciting—drug kingpins and porn producers and a famous red light district. It’s become more respectable since the war, though it’s kept some of it’s sleazy veneer. Lan Huan likes to visit, says there’s a good arts scene, but Lan Zhan has never been tempted. He traveled a lot during the war, but since returning home he’s never really felt the urge. For a while it was justified. Recovery. But five years? Maybe he’s more than comfortable, now. Maybe he’s stagnating.

Lan Shu gives him two-and-a-half years of weekly papers in a brown paper bag and slim folder of photocopied clipping from the Herald’s own files. He hauls it all home on the bus piles them neatly by year on the coffee table, then settles in with a cup of tea to read. There are empty gum wrappers in the bottom of the bag.

The Yiling Observer is a quick read, only eight pages in its first edition. There are no bylines, oddly, no editors listed, no photographs, just one phone number and a street address in the masthead. The stories are . . . not quite what he expected. No gruesome crimes or depressing statistics. Just coverage of a local amateur basketball tournament, a car accident that took out a storefront, an interview with a grandmother about her vegetable garden. Small stories, almost defiantly local, but clearly and concisely written. Professional. A recipe for xiao long bao attributed to a Mrs. Yi.

He flips to the back page, under the fold. Whatever it says in bold.

This is your humble author’s own column, where our fearless and frightening editor has given me these few inches to write whatever I like. Hence the name, Whatever. Today we’re going to talk about the Sunshot Flag, or as I like to call it, “Hey, let’s slap reminders of a war crime up on every building in the country, that’s a great idea.”

Lan Zhan snorts. Whoever the writer is, they’re not wrong. He gets up to heat more water and adds to his list of things to do on the kitchen counter. Read all of the newspapers. Call the HR department and schedule a few days of vacation, maybe a week. Wait until his uncle sees it on the out of office calendar and calls him in a huff to explain the story. Book a train ticket to Yiling. Make an appointment at children’s services. Find a hotel. Ask Lan Huan to water his plants. Do laundry.

He feels better with a list, like all of the static of potential responsibilities has focused into a clearly intelligible sound inside his skull.

He goes back to the paper.

And before you complain—and I know some of you will—you’re the one reading my paper. Maybe someday you’ll have better options and can use this only for lining your bird cages, but for now I’m the best you got. That’s Yiling, baby.

Part Five

#assorted writings #pick up every piece #the untamed #cql #mo dao zu shi #postwar journalist au #i hate plot

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irresistiibles · 3 years ago

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the wardrobe / 𝐚𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐢 𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐨

“so what do you have planned for us today? let me guess. shopping, makeovers.”

describe your muse’s aesthetic in five words or less.

could be a sugar mommy

does your muse spend a lot of time on their outfit and appearance? how long do they spend getting ready in the morning?

a good half an hour to an hour is spent getting ready if she has any sort of work or a business meeting, but asami is the sort of person who can look very put together very quickly, she just doesn’t like to rush.

does your muse consider the way they dress to be trendy? would other people agree?

she wouldn’t use the word trendy, but she believes she can dress herself well and i think other people would generally agree.

how often do they buy new clothes? are they the type to keep a outfit for years or replace it after one wear?

asami does enjoy shopping, and also wears the same clothes too many times people will say things. she became a ceo at a very young age when everyone was looking at her to mess up, so she’s very conscious of anything that could make people question her, so having nice and relatively new clothes feels important. she’ll do like a big shopping trip once a season but likes going into stores when she has the chance to browse literally whenever.

is your muse the type to accessorize? how much?

if gloves and goggles count than yes. that or her helmet for the motorcycle. beyond that she’ll wear jewelry for certain events but not on the regular. she doesn’t like things that can get easily caught and stuck.

how much time do they spend on skin care/makeup/grooming?

ehh a decent amount. she likes to wear at least a light amount of makeup basically every day and is absolutely the type with a specific skin care routine she follows every morning and night.

if money and societal expectations were not a concern would your muse dress differently than they currently do? if so, how?

not really? i think she would wear more casual outfits just because she wouldn’t have to worry about dressing for work, but those outfits would be the same casual looks she goes for every weekend, they would just be out more frequently.

would your muse wear the same outfit two days in a row if they knew they wouldn’t run into any of the same people?

no. she is the type who likes to wash her clothes after every wear this is gonna be a pass.

have they started dressing differently since arriving in washington? was the transition difficult? do they prefer the clothes here or back home? if your character is unaware feel free to answer as if they are aware.

a little just because the setting is more modern than the world she is from, but it’s mostly just an adjustment of her previous style to one that is fitting here.

my added general description.

asami has a lot of money and will spend some of it getting nice clothes. she almost definitely has more than she needs but she does try not to be too excessive with it. though she does like the way she dresses she gets a little tired of having to be in business outfits so often. she likes to do physical work on cars and motorcycles and that’s when you’ll catch her in her most down to earth looks, even in her business outfits though she is the type who will only wear things she feels like she can move and run and even fight easily in. her casual outfits can be a big switch from the more expensive carefully put together looks she’s usually in since she definitely owns a variety of biker jackets and gloves and will immediately go for that sort of look whenever she can (they’re still put together though asami is not the type to just throw on clothes without thinking at all about if things match). she is absolutely the type who can run in heels, though she’ll only wear them for super nice events. she absolutely prefers boots. she does like to feel like she looks pretty and has her shit together though, and doesn’t see the problem with that. if people get judgey and make an impression of her based off of that that’s their problem.

#hwtask10 #( musings && asami )

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bella-caecilia · 4 years ago

Note

#9 Modern Cobert 😘💕❤️all your work dear 💕💕

Thank you a lot! <3 I actually had a plan before starting to write this one-shot but somehow the characters acted on their own accord and I’m not quite sure how it turned out… Unintentionally many feels in that piece of work, aahhh! Forgive me, please

9 – wiping away someone’s tears

Robert was leaving the bathroom after taking a long shower. There still were some droplets of water in his tousled hair. He enjoyed the feeling of fresh clothes on his skin. He was about to start whistling a little tune when a low noise confused him. He approached the living room, whose door was ajar. A snivelling was now audible. When he pushed the door open a crack and cautiously stuck his head in, he spotted Cora on the settee. Her face was buried in her hands, her shoulders were shaking from the sobs that escaped her. Robert could see the bowl of cereals in front of her on the table. It was sitting in a pool of spilled milk.

With increasing sobs, Cora took down a hand to hold her prominent belly. The eight-month pregnancy belly was accentuated nicely by her figure-hugging light blue dress.

It had been their biggest joy when they’d found they were indeed pregnant. They’d trying to conceive for a while and finally decided that it would happen when the time came and that they wouldn’t push the issue any further. When Cora had started detesting the smell of bacon in the morning, they’d joked it must be because she was pregnant. They laughed it off. When she’d felt nauseous on their short holiday in Scotland, she’d blamed it on the travelling. Even when her monthly missed, she found a plausible reason that wasn’t called pregnancy. She’d told herself it was because of the stress at work. Only a regular appointment at her gynaecologist opened her eyes. Robert and she had been most elated about the somehow unexpected news and they were in large anticipation since then.

“Cora…”, Robert tried to keep his voice down so as not to startle her. Nevertheless, she jerked around with wide eyes and tear streaked cheeks. He took the few steps towards her swiftly.

“Oh, don’t mind me”, Cora whispered, “I’m just being silly.”

She rubbed her cheeks and blinked her eyes. Robert spotted the glistening tears on her full lashes and sat down on the edge of the settee beside her. His hand reached out to caress her upper arm gently.

“You’re not being silly, dear. Tell me what happened”, his tone was soft. He knew Cora was a person that was openly emotional, but most of the time her emotions were of a happy nature. He rarely saw her sobbing.

“I… I spilled the mi-milk”, new sobs escaped her mouth and she covered her eyes again.

“Oh, sweetheart!”, Robert cooed and wrapped his arms around her shaking form, but Cora wasn’t done yet.

“How can I be a mother if I can’t even carry a bowl of cornflakes without spilling it? Robert, how will I be able to take care of a baby if I can’t take care of myself?”, she pulled back while rambling.

“Shhh… come here”, Robert whispered and pulled her back into his arms. She rested her temple on his chest and clutched his shirt by the row of buttons. Robert’s hand stroked up and down her exhausted back and he kept making soothing sounds. Her back was aching more and more as her pregnancy progressed, but she rarely complained. Cora’s sobs subsided and her breathing eased.

“I told you I was being silly”, she murmured into his shirt. She inhaled the smell of the freshly washed linen of his shirt. Robert cupped the back of her head and moved to look at her face. She lifted her head and he took her chin with his thumb and index. His eyes transfixed hers and the clear blue of her unguarded gaze disarmed him. How could eyes be so blue and so raw? Her look was awaiting and he snapped back to the present.

Robert let go of her chin and wiped away her halted tears that made the soft skin of her cheeks red and rough. She sighed at the warm contact of his fingers.

“Cora. Listen to me”, Robert insisted but he already had her full attention.

“Let me tell you one thing I know for sure and you just have to believe me that it’s absolutely true”, he explained slowly. His eyes were locked with hers all the time. He waited to continue until she nodded.

“There is no question in you being a great mother, no question at all. Don’t doubt it! I see it every time I look at you, carrying our baby. You already are the most perfect mother to our child. And should I tell you why?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re giving the little one all your love already and that’s all a child needs.”

Her face displayed a brimming smile, “Thank you, Robert…”, she murmured.

After a moment she added, “But Robert? There is no such thing as a most perfect mother. Perfect is already the superlative.” She teased which was a good sign.

He smiled at her silently, not reacting to her statement.

“And you know that it was probably just hormones. But it was nice to hear you say those lovingly things”, Cora grinned.

“But we know these hormones can also do things that lead to most pleasurable results.”

“Robert, don’t be vulgar. Do you want to say that you accept your wife’s grief if you can also satisfy your baser urges?”, she rebuked. Her warm expression had faltered lightly and her brow was furrowed.

“What?”, he blurted irked, “Where does that come from now?”

She heaved a sigh and rubbed her temple, “Excuse me, I’m being unfair...”

“It’s just, I thought you enjoyed our increased… well… couplings”, Robert uttered while massaging his thighs with slight irritation.

“Yes, yes of course. I’m initiating them most of the time after all. I’m just a bit stressed out at the moment.”

Cora turned and poked at the soggy cornflakes in her bowl with her spoon, “I know I’m a nuisance to be around”, she continued in a low voice.

“Most of the time you’re not”, Robert smiled warmly, trying to salvage the situation.

“I don’t want you to be forced to tread on eggshells”, she apologised while looking at him with a sorry expression.

“And if I have to be treading on eggshells to be around you, then so it be”, Robert declared with open arms, “But, you know that this is actually a rare situation. I only remember you, radiating delight and bliss.”

“Oh, Robert, now you’re flattering. And I’m sure we’ve talked about me enough. We’ve to clean up this mess now”, she pointed to the puddle of milk.

She wanted to let go of the nasty topic of her mood swings once and for all. She didn’t understand why she reacted the way she did a lot of times. She didn’t mean or actually think the things she’d said and she didn’t know why she couldn’t control it. But the more she stressed the topic the worse it got. The solution was to distract herself. She already had some things in mind that would do the job, after they’d sorted out mess of her breakfast.

#cobert #cobert drabble #modern cobert #cora crawley #robert crawley #downton abbey drabble #prompt me

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clarste · 5 years ago

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listen-and-reflect replied to your post:

Um, just wondering, why aren't you around much...

… I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on Arknights. I’ve paid no attention to it whatsoever, but if it impresses you, I’m curious.

To boil it down to its component elements, I’d describe Arknights as “urban fantasy catgirl tower defense gacha.” If any of those words viscerally disgust you, there’s probably not much I can do to convince you otherwise, but personally that was enough to intrigue me. And what I found when I tried it surprised me in a good way. Honestly I’ve been struggling for like a month for how to talk about this, but for the purposes of this post I’ll boil it down to three major elements: Aesthetics, Worldbuilding, and Gameplay.

First of all the Aesthetics. Might as well start with a picture or three:

For the record, yes, 90% of the characters in this game are women, and there’s no explanation for that, that’s just how it is. I am 100% fine with that because I am a Touhou fan. Anyway, what I want to draw attention to is the way these women are portrayed. IE: they are posed/costumed to be seen as “cool” and while they certainly aren’t unattractive, it isn’t in a horny way that emphasizes their breasts or butts or anything. It’s not a perfect “practical clothing only,” I mean high heels aren’t great for fighting and there are other characters who show more skin, but the philosophy carries through in all the official art: these are cool, capable women who are never once reduced to sex objects for the male gaze. I respect that.

Also you don’t get to marry any of them which is a huge plus in my book.

It’s hard to say any more on that without moving on to the Worldbuilding. Basically, the world of Arknights is both blessed and cursed with a magical rock called Originium which is the source of all their problems. First of all it’s a miraculous power source, the resource that fuels the engine of modern society. Not only that but it can be used as a medium to cast actual magic spells (which is of course a well-studied phenomenon that’s treated as a science). On the other hand, its very presence warps the environment, causing large-scale city-destroying natural disasters on a regular basis. And more importantly for the conceit of the narrative, it can get in your blood, eventually causing an incurable disease called Oripathy which involves your body slowing turning into crystal from the inside out. Basically magic rock cancer. Later stages of it involve visible “crystal lesions” growing on the skin, but even internal growths can have serious medical problems. This is sometimes shown in character designs too:

This is important to the worldbuilding because “The Infected” are a major source of discrimination and political unrest. Oripathy is only mildly contagious (you’re more likely to get it from mishandling the rocks directly), but the stigma of it is such that anyone with Oripathy is immediately quarantined, exiled, or worse. Both the player characters and their enemies are generally Infected, with the “good guys” (scare quotes intended) being a medical institute that takes in patients to treat the symptoms and vaguely hoping for a cure someday, while the “bad guys” are revolutionaries violently overthrowing the society that treats them as subhuman. There are analogies you could make to HIV, leprosy, or heck even current events with COVID-19.

Anyway, I say all this so I can turn to the in-game character profiles and how they’re structured. Specifically, they’re all medical reports written by the doctors of your institute (who are themselves playable characters who are Medics in-game):

(Incidentally everyone uses codenames in this game). Anyway, my point is that these are not neutral, objective “word-of-god” profiles, these are the facts as they appear to some particular person in-universe. In Touhou terms, these are written by Akyuu: some clinical facts mixed in with rumors and speculation. And I absolutely love that.

More than that though, we get this amazing invention:

Why yes, that is an in-game chart of all the characters’ relationships, grouped by people who belong to the same organization, that fills in as you play. And yes, raising trust with characters by using them does fill in the names of people close to them who you haven’t met yet, as well as new connections to unknown people. Who is friends with Croissant?! I must know!

Er... Anyway, I think having this chart in-game is quite frankly a genius move on the part of the developers, since it gets you immediately invested in seeing how the characters are connected. But wait, there’s more! When you pull a dupe from the gacha, you get a little token that can be used to upgrade a character slightly, pretty normal. But even these little tokens have tiny bits of story on them!

These are the items that are important to these characters, and they can change the way you see them. Every little thing in this game has story attached to it! It’s incredible! And they actually tell stories with these things. There’s one in particular that fascinates me (and others), but unfortunately I have exactly 0 of the characters involved so I’ll have to pull quotes from the wiki.

There are three characters from a faction called Rhine Lab: Ifirit, Saria, and Silence. The details are pretty vague, but basically Ifrit is an Infected child with incredible Originium channeling powers who’s been experimented on, and Saria and Silence are two doctors who were involved in those experiments but had a falling out after an experiment gone wrong. But how does the game tell you this? Well, lots of ways. Saria’s profile is the most explicit:

The relationship between Lady Saria and Rhine Lab is very complicated. Though all Rhine Lab Operators who work with Rhodes Island show some amount of respect for Lady Saria, Rhine Lab's Medic Operator, Silence, shows nothing but hatred for her. At the same time, Lady Saria appears unsurprised by Silence's feelings toward her. Whenever Lady Saria attempts to talk with Caster Operator Ifrit, Silence gets in the way. According to available information, the animosity between Saria and Silence stems from an experiment at Rhine Lab led by Silence. The experiment was an unfortunate failure. Lady Saria acted alone in suppressing the experimental materials that had gone out of control. Similarly, because of this experiment's mishaps, Lady Saria left Rhine Lab. It is not known why she chose to cooperate with Rhodes Island after leaving Rhine Lab.

But then you have Ifrit and Silence’s tokens:

A long novel telling a legendary story. It is badly burned and you can only barely make out the words.

A patterned feather decoration. This ineloquent researcher from Liberi shows her sincerity by gifting her own feathers.

But oh gee, guess who are wearing feather tokens in the designs? (it’s Ifrit and Saria)

Also here’s Silence just so you aren’t left wondering what she looks like:

Anyway, the point is that the writers know how to throw tiny bits of characterization and hints of an untold story into literally everything in this game, and that is exactly what I live for.

Oh yeah, there’s also Gameplay.

Game’s pretty fun:

I enjoy it as a game too.

#not touhou #arknights

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burnedbyshoto · 5 years ago

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And They Were Roommates - Part Three

modern!AU - Part Three

Part One⋆⋆ Part Two

todoroki shouto x female roommate!reader

warnings: angsty, fluffy, sweet smut, mentions of alcohol

word count: 7,075

A/N: so this is the end of this series that i did for reaching 100 followers, and now i’m at 200+ and my heart is just so happy that you guys are here with me!!! thank you so much for every like and reblog, you have no idea how much i cry whenever something reaches 20 notes LOL. so anyways, please enjoy its a lot... sorry... i got carried away, but the two third of the story is entire plot related then yall animals will find what you’re looking for at the end!!!! love you all :D

You were not all right.

After falling asleep crying in your room, you had woken up the next morning feeling completely overcome with sentiments you had only considered to be nothing but drunken lust hammering away at your heart. But you were wrong they were true feelings. You couldn’t stay at home, not when you could still hear the moans and screams of Hotaru-san echoing in your mind. Not when he ignored you for a week and was ready to jump back in after sleeping with another.

You could not take it, you wanted to kick Todoroki out of your apartment, but all you had been were drunken fuck-buddies. That wouldn’t be right of you, so instead, you seized the only duffel bag you owned from when you were extremely active at the gym and filled it up with clothes. Making sure to grab enough clothes so that you wouldn’t have to borrow any for at least a week, you pulled on a hoodie, uncaring that you were still wearing the same clothes from yesterday and entered the bathroom to grab your toothbrush and brush your teeth.

Making sure to finish up quickly, you found yourself scurrying back to your room, grabbing the duffel bag and quickly walking out. Your heart pounding as you heard the squeaky door of Todoroki’s room opening. You blundered when putting on your work shoes but still managed to open the apartment door and left making sure to lock it as you left.

Pulling out your phone you sighed, you guessed it was time to text your best friends who were willing to take you in until you could handle seeing your apartment again. You almost cried when you got an almost immediate reply from none other than Yaoyorozu Momo saying that you could take the spare room in her house. So you took off, heading straight to the train station.

⋆✭⋆✭⋆⋆✭⋆✭⋆

“Sweetie, do you need some tea? How about some coffee?” Momo asked as you tossed your duffel bag on the bed.

“I’m fine, Yaomomo, and honestly I can’t thank you enough for letting me crash here.” You rubbed your eyes as a stifled yawn left your mouth, “I have work in a few hours, so I think I’ll wait for the caffeine until I can’t focus anymore.”

You stretched your hands above your head as Momo played with the edge of her business skirt, her eyes observed you, and you just knew that she was trying to figure out what exactly was wrong. You attempted to smile at her, trying to release the tension in the room, but your cheeks quavered entirely too much when you held it longer than a second.

“What time are you off of work, the other girls hope to come over, and perhaps we can have a fun night in so you can feel better!” Momo exclaimed her hands clutched tightly in front of her chest, and you swore you could see stars shining in her eyes. “It has been so long since all seven of us have been together, since you’ve been working so long, and of course, spending those nights with that mystery roommate of yours.”

That hit a nerve, and your face completely fell, and a proud yet sad smile came to Momo’s face, “So the sleeping with the roommate finally spoiled, you’ll have to tell me about that later, okay?”

You laugh slightly as peered at the official I.D. badge on Momo’s work shirt, “I promise, now can you go to work? You’re going to be late!”

Momo sighed, contemplating if she should truly leave or not, but you looked like you wanted to be alone right now. Especially if you were going to be working in a bit as well.

“Okay, well, I’ll see you tonight!” Momo retreated leaving you in your misery to wallow.

Seeing that you had an hour and a half to get to work, you grabbed the spare towel Momo had given to you and went to the bathroom that was connected to the bedroom, god how were your friends all so rich? Why did they even associate with you for that matter?!

You found yourself soon relaxing under the hot jet of water, letting the steam fill the room as you watched water drops fall from your eyelashes. You ran your fingers through your scalp at a slow pace, rubbing circles and paused as you felt hot tears run down your face. Stepping under the jet of the water completely, you washed the shampoo out of your hair as you watched the sud filled water mixed with your tears go down the drain. Sniffing you tried to finish the rest of the shower as slowly as you could, relaxing slightly at the smell of the strawberry shampoo and conditioner that Momo had in this shower.

Gradually you felt better, shutting off the water and wrapping the towel around you. Grabbing another towel, you wrapped your hair up grunting as a strand fell into your face. You quickly dried up, and pulled out your makeup pouch, filling out your eyebrows carefully, satisfied you then went to applying a nude shade of eyeshadow, adding a quick wing, mascara, and of course the red lip as you finished choosing not to do foundation because your skin was perfect today. You stepped back pouting at yourself slightly trying your best to not remember the pouty red lips of Hotaru-san, the red of Todoroki’s hair as your breath hitched again.

Shaking your head, you walked out of the bathroom and grabbed your work outfit putting it on after hanging the towel, and you froze while you buttoned up the shirt as your phone buzzed. You grabbed it, assuming it was the chat with your girlfriends given they had blown it up after you had asked for help.

todoroki: you forgot your name tag, do you need me to bring it to you?

attachment-photo.img

You cursed out loud rubbing your temple, you could always just steal one of your coworker's nametag, for the time being, no one needed to know your name anyways.

you: no.

Your hands trembled as you pressed send and put the phone down, finishing dressing as you heard another buzz, but you willed yourself to not pick up the phone. Instead, you walked over to the mirror, and let the towel on your head unwrap as your h/c hair fell. You manipulated your hair to best suit it not falling into your face and deciding everything was okay, grabbed your purse and phone and walked out.

It didn't take long for you to cave and look at the text, however.

todoroki: okay, see you tonight. I bought your favorite.

You felt yourself needing to throw up as you remembered it was Sunday. But you slipped your phone back into your pocket, deciding to leave him on read and went off to work, unsure of the trials it would bring today.

When you got back to Momo’s house, it was thirty minutes later than it should have taken as you had instinctively returned to your apartment, only to halt and turn back as you exited your regular station.

“I’m home!” You called out as you slipped on the slippers that had your name embroidered into the heel, smiling as you saw seven pairs of very different shoes waiting at the entrance of the house.

You heard the scurrying of footsteps and your grin only increased as seven women embraced you in the middle of a hug, “Y/l/n, how I missed you!” Hagakure squealed as she was the one who managed to reach you first.

“Yeah girl, we have so much to catch up on!” Jirou’s voice laughed in agreement from somewhere outside of the circle.

“Let’s not smother the poor lady,” Mina exclaimed pushing her way towards the front of the circle, managing to get her arms securely fastened around you, “Right after I’m done with my hug of course!”

“Mina, I don’t think y/l/n wants a hug from just you!” Uraraka teases as Mina huffs releasing you.

“Are you okay, why were you looking for a place to sleep?” Tsu asks as she approaches you, a concerned look in her eyes as her hands grab your own.

“I-It’s a long story.” You whisper as you take a hand from Tsu’s hand to wipe away the tears that form, and suddenly you’re back in the middle of a hug being walked slowly away.

The seven of you eventually ended up in a circle in Momo’s entertainment room which was filled with pillows, blankets, alcohol, and pizza. Some random rom-com movie was playing in the background as the seven of you chattered away.

You had originally met them all during a Mixed Martial Arts for Females Only Class at the gym you attended last year. They were all friends previously, and you just seemed to click perfectly in their little group. The girls were also co-workers, all working in the same–or at the very least related–company. You were applying to the company that Uraraka and Tsu were at, but given that you had no ties to the hiring committee, you weren’t able to secure an interview until yesterday. You knew that they also had a tight group of male friends who worked there as well. Momo had told you that they worked with a bunch of guys they had known since high school.

You were also aware that four of them had married within the group, but you weren’t friends yet when all of this happened.

You were sipping your wine when your phone buzzed with a text notification, it was past eleven now.

“Is that, what’s his last name again, Todoroki?!” Momo exclaimed, her cheeks flushed even with the tiniest sip of wine.

You glanced at the notification and nodded your head, you had managed to finish the entire story to them, only saying what his last name is given it was extremely common. You had even admitted to them that you had gained feelings for Todoroki, and were positive they were real or else this emotional turmoil would not be happening the way it was happening.

“We got you, girl,” Mina exclaimed grabbing the phone as Hagakure, Momo, and Uraraka surrounded her to read the message, “Ahem, from Todoroki: are you almost home, I’m getting worried. It’s late.”

You snort softly rolling your eyes as you swallow the rest of the wine in your glass and lay on the nearby pillow as the girls whisper about whether they should respond. They eventually decided to leave him on read, won by your final vote. You just did not wish to give him the comfort of you being safe.

“Okay, so let me get this straight, this Todoroki hot-as-fuck roommate had sex with you more often than horny rabbits within months, and just dropped you for some other gorgeous bimbo?!” Hagakure cried out, her hands running through her hair in complete dismay of that thought. “Was he using you? You didn’t give him a special price for the room if he slept with you?!”

You shook your head laughing slightly, oh if only that was the case. “No, Hotaru-san was sweet, plus I am not sex crazy enough to give a rando from Craiglist a discount on my apartment just because he’s attractive.” You shake your head as you reach out for a slice of pizza.

“Hotaru….san?” Jirou blinks rapidly, her eyes wide as saucers. You huffed, annoyed that you had accidentally let the women name out having not intended to let that information out. “Guys is y/l/n talking about our Todoroki and Hotaru?!”

You sit back up, pizza slice in your mouth, your eyes narrowed at Momo and Uraraka who seemed the most freaked out at this revelation.

“No, it couldn’t be, right?” Momo whispered.

You’re confused as suddenly everyone is scrambling with their phones scrolling most likely through photos or texts.

“Hotaru-san was gushing today about finally getting Todoroki-kun to be interested in her,” Hagakure noted, her face in a grimace.

“Y/l/n…” Tsu croaks slightly, “Is your roommate name Todoroki Shouto?”

You froze, staring at the six sets of eyes in front of you, each calculating, each somehow hopeful you would say no, but hoping you would say yes.

“…y-yes?”

“OHMYGOD–”

“Do you understand how big of idiots–”

“How many other y/l/n’s do we even know–?!”

“They were saying the exact stories–”

“We are stupid, we never connected–”

“Oh stupid, stupid Todo–”

You blinked feeling overwhelmed as all six girls were talking over one another, the conversation seems to exclude you from the discussion.

“Wait, wait,” Momo tried to succeed in calming everyone down, “Is this him? Can you point him out?”

You looked at the image Momo thrust in your hand. Your eyes swept the image that contained around twenty people, realizing quickly that this was probably the famous Class 1-A as all six girls were in the middle, their smiles wide, looking notably younger.

You found yourself stopping on Todoroki, his expression emotionless as he seemed to be dodging the hands of an enthusiastic classmate beside him. He looked the same, just taller, more mature. You zoomed in on Todoroki and returned the phone, “That’s him.”

“Wow, who knew he had it in him to sleep with two hot girls at the same time…” Jirou stated breaking the silence that hit this party as everyone desperately tried to understand what was going on.

“It wasn’t a threesome…” You mutter, misunderstanding what Jirou meant due to the alcohol flowing through your veins.

“We’ll paper wrap his office for you,” Mina declared, her fist clenched and her eyes on fire, “Hoes before bros!”

“HOES BEFORE BROS!” Everyone shouted in agreement, and you smiled earnestly and tears began falling down your face in happiness over your friends' support. You choked back a sob as you nodded.

“T-Thank you!”

⋆✭⋆✭⋆⋆✭⋆✭⋆

One Week Later

You hummed slightly as you buttoned up a freshly washed work shirt. Yesterday you had received a call from your dream job’s company with good news, and it made you ecstatic! You weren’t starting until next week, but you had submitted your last day at your job and was ready to say goodbye to it forever.

“Ne, y/l/n,” Momo called, poking her head in through the door, and you looked at her, “I’m having a dinner date here tonight, uh, do you mind if you don’t come home? At least not until later?” Momo’s face turned red at her confession and you smirked slightly.

“That’s no problem.” You laugh as you fluff your damp hair out, puckering up in the mirror before turning to walk to the door, your purse sling on your shoulder, “I’ll get out of your hair tonight.”

“You’re a lifesaver!” Momo cried as she embraced you, and you laughed hugging her back.

“It’s the least I can do, besides, I need to go home anyway. All my business attire is there and not here.” You stated as the two of you broke away, as you began walking towards the entrance of her house to guarantee you would get to work on time.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Momo asks her eyebrows scrunched together, she was trying to keep the worry out of her tone, but it was spelled all over her face.

You shrug your shoulders, “I’m hoping he won’t be home, or maybe he’ll have Hotaru-san over and will be… occupied.” You chose your words carefully as you slipped on your work shoes, but you shook your head, “Nevertheless, I’ll gladly go back to give you the house! It is your place, please don’t feel bad!”

Momo nodded in agreement, although she didn’t look too convinced, “I’m sure one of the other girls would take you in, and I could always buy you more work clothes!”

You knew that all those girls were able to take you in, minus the two that had a date tonight, and you did not feel like stepping into a house where two of them were happily married, or the other with a newly engaged fiancee, but you did not say that to Momo.

“Okay, but I have to go now!” You rushed, as you hugged her goodbye, starting out the door at a breakneck pace.

“Okay, bye!”

“Bye!”

On the train to work, you looked at the text messages from Todoroki for what felt like the millionth time. You hadn’t responded to him yet, not to the worried text, not to the apologies from him, for he didn’t know what was wrong, just that you left. You wanted it that way too.

todoroki: I’m sorry for whatever it is that happened, just come back home?

That was from two nights ago and also the last text he had sent, but you could care less as you grumbled to yourself continuing to go about your day in denial about how much you wished this past week was nothing but a dream.

You went about your day just fine, nothing was out of the ordinary. As the end of your shift drawled to a close, you found your anxiety heightening. You wanted to go home, you wanted to sleep in your bed, wake up to the sun shining in your face, but you couldn’t take the sight of Todoroki either. Not yet.

You slowly clocked out and began your journey home, and to be quite honest, you could barely remember going anywhere, just knowing your feet had taken you to your apartment door. Putting in your key, you unlocked the door and stepped in.

It was quiet, and there was no shoe belonging to Todoroki at the entrance, so you let out a sigh of relief putting on your slippers and picked up your shoes, not wanting to leave them at the front.

You walked to your room and opened the door, closing it behind you. There was a musty air to your room most likely having not been touched since you had left one week ago, and you opened your window, spraying a bit of air freshener to alleviate the thick feeling air. Checking the time, it was only eight, and so you were going to be here until midnight before making your way back over to Momo’s house hoping she would be done with her date by then.

Wasting no time, you began grabbing your business skirts, business shirts, blazers, and even pantsuits. You pulled out your heels and any accessory you thought you could use, unsure when you would be back. You folded everything and placed it onto your dresser just so that it was off your bed.

As much as you hated being home, you were grateful for having washed your sheets the day before you had left and you had not slept under the covers the last night you were here, the sheets were still relatively clean. Maybe you’d take a nap in a few minutes.

You walked out and into the living room, going to search for an old shopping bag to put your things in. Going to the supply closet in the entryway, you stood on your tip-toes to reach the bags on top but froze as you heard the front door open.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” You curse as you jump to grab the shopping bags. You smile victoriously as you grab one, ripping it out, and shrieked only to have them all fall on top of you.

You watched in mortification as the supply closet door opened and Todoroki stared at you, his mismatched eyes boring into your eyes as you stood there clutching a whole bunch of bags. You stilled as Todoroki walks over and grabs the extra bags and lets you keep one, you shift away from him as he puts them up and you just want to run away.

“Thanks.” You mutter, turning on your heel and walking away as quickly as you could without running.

“Wait, y/l/n, can we talk?” Todoroki asks, easily keeping up with you despite your best efforts. “Look, I know you were crying the last night you were here, and I know that you were at Yaoyorozu-san’s house. Will you talk to me?”

You scoff making sure to look at him before rolling your eyes, “So what? You can apologize about whatever it is you think is wrong?” You asked hi.

“I would like to, yeah.”

“Okay,” You hiss stopping in your tracks as you turn to face him, your face contorted with anger and sadness, “Let’s start from the beginning then? Apologize.”

“I’m sorry, y/l/n, I don’t know what I did wrong….” Todoroki admits, but that’s not good enough for you. Why did he have to have the awareness of a rock?

“What do you think you did wrong?” You asked anger flushing to your cheeks as you felt ready to combust. Oh emotions, how terrible they were.

Todoroki stayed silent and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“I’m sorry, but this is golden!” You laugh as a brief moment of insanity washes over you, “This is the first thing you should be apologizing for! A-Am I honestly that hard to talk to unless I’m drunk?” You wanted that to sound angry, but as the words left your mouth sadness and hurt washes over you.

“No, not at all.” Todoroki disagrees, but you shake your head, a sniffle leaving you.

“We have never made a single sober conversation,” You point out, your eyes searching Todoroki’s own, “Everything between us happened when we weren’t in control, do you even remember what we’ve talked about when drunk? I remember every conversation, and I can tell you that everything you’ve told me and they were things that made me feel like we could have been friends and more, but you never gave me that opportunity.”

Todoroki has gone silent again.

But you weren’t quite done. “I fucking have feelings for you, for crying out loud! I have these damn feelings for you and I don’t know what to do with them because we were fuck-buddies, and fuck-buddies only! Do you even realize how fucked up that is?! I’m in love with some guy I can’t seem to get to talk to me unless we’re borderline blackout drunk. We slept together for months, Todoroki, months! That’s not healthy for roommates!” You’re panting slightly as your thoughts race.

“Don’t get me started on the entire me saying I love you, I was drunk and perfectly content with the relationship we had, and it wasn’t something that meant anything at the time, but you had to go and fucking ignore me for the entire week. Like what absolute bullshit Todoroki, you could have at the very least told me that it was over. But you didn’t! You screwed me over! And fuck, you brought another girl home when I wasn’t home, and you slept with her. Don’t deny it, I heard the two of you… then you asked the same night if I wanted a drink… am I honestly only someone to be desired as long as you’re drunk?” Your voice is a whisper, it’s small and weak, trembling with your loss of vigor and hatred of this situation as you continue to look at Todoroki who could do nothing but stare at you.

You roll your eyes as minutes go by of the two of you just standing there staring, “I’m going to finish packing, I don’t know when I’ll be back after today, but don’t worry I won’t kick you out of the apartment. You can even invite Hotaru-san to move in if you desire.”

You turned on your heel, ready to march to your room but a hand grasps yours. Todoroki’s hand it warm and large on your wrist and you turn your attention to him, tears in your eyes as you want to just retreat into your room.

“I have a hard time opening up to people, and from the very first meeting, I wanted nothing more than to get to know you because you just had this alluring energy to you. But we had such conflicting schedules that I never saw you. Then it was four months since I had moved in and only things I knew about you were the obvious ones I could see around the apartment.” Todoroki whispers having not found his conviction yet, and your heart clenches in the tiniest bit of joy, something that you criticize yourself for in your mind. “I knew that you only drink citrus green teas, that you enjoy the scent of lavender much more than the average person, and that you have over a million products but only use three.”

So, I tried to get to know you through being drunk because I’m much more loose-lipped and I open up easier when I drink. I did want to help you change that really bad day to a good one that first time, and I knew that getting to know you would make me feel better so I assumed the same would be true for you, but I denied my attraction to you and before I knew it I was sleeping with you, and I wanted to stop, but you were just… intoxicating.” Shouto continues, his head is dropped to his chest, his hair was slicked back and so you can easily see the chaos on his face. “And I didn’t know how to fix it, because I knew you remembered, so I figured if we got drunk one more time and I opened up, and we didn’t sleep together things would patch up and we could move on. But my denial was greater than I thought… and at some point, I didn’t know how to speak to you unless I was drunk.”

You stared at Todoroki who was now staring at you again, his eyes just screaming his confusion at you. “When you said I love you, it scared me shitless when I woke up that morning because I didn’t grow up in an emotionally healthy family. And I panicked, for that I’m sorry. But your confession made me face my feelings for the first time, and I convinced myself it was only drunken hormones, so I tried to see if that was true by making the stupidest mistake I could… Hotaru-san is a nice girl, who had an interest in me, and I used her… but after that night I realized I was just being in denial, but it seems like you heard us and I’m sorry for all of this. I truly am, and I know that my timing is horrible, but if you’ll take my confession let me know… About the sex and my actions, despite both the good and bad… should I apologize or should I confess to you, because there is nothing more I can do.”

Your mouth opens and closes multiple times as you try to find something to say as Todoroki stands there. You want nothing more than to have liquid courage right now as tears form in your eyes, “Will you give me a moment?” You ask, and Todoroki looks at you, panic evident in his eyes, but he nods nonetheless.

“Of course,” He says with a tight smile, leaving you standing in the kitchen as you turn and move to put the bag in your room.

You stand in your room thinking about everything. The six long months of knowing Todoroki Shouto, his confession, his apology, and for the first time listening to your emotions as you slowly put your clothes into the shopping bag. What did you want?

Him.

You longed for him.

You wanted Todoroki.

You walked back to the living room where you knew where Todoroki was waiting for you, and you stared at him, your chin quivering as you watched him look up to meet your gaze.

He rose to his feet, his eyes never leaving yours, “I want you to confess.” You breathe and Todoroki seems shocked.

“I’m falling in love with you, y/l/n y/n,” Todoroki confesses softly and you laugh slightly, tears falling from your eyes, but you walk towards him and he meets you halfway and for the first time sober, your lips are connected. Your hands move up to cup his cheeks as he pulls you in close, his hands firmly placed onto your lower back.

It’s a slow kiss, and as you’re on the balls of your feet so that the kiss could continue effortlessly. Your head tilts to the right allowing a better angle to be kissed at. The two of you pull away slowly, both of your eyes slowly opening to look at each other in a whole new light, and a blush heats your face as your hands fall to cover your face.

“You’re beautiful…” Shouto murmurs as he pulls your hands away from your face, and he bends down and presses a kiss to your neck, and you gasp lightly at the feel of his warm lips on your neck. Your eyes flutter closed as his lips left soft tiny kisses trailing back up to your lips, and you were ready.

Your lips met again, and this time you wrapped your arms slowly around his neck, and you pull him in closer and his hands are slowly moving up and down your back, making you shiver as his fingers brush against an exposed piece of skin on you back.

You feel yourself stepping towards the bedrooms, and Todoroki–no, it’s Shouto–follows through with your actions and picks you up gently. A soft giggle leaves your lips as you wrap your legs around his torso, your eyes opening to see Shouto’s eyes still closed despite the fact he was walking with you. “Pay attention to where you’re walking, Shouto,” You whisper into his ear as you pull away from the kiss, “I wouldn’t appreciate being slammed into the wall right now.” Your teeth nibble softly onto Shouto’s earlobe and you smile at the throaty groan that leaves Shouto’s lips.

He opens your door room as you continue kissing down his jaw, and as soon as he closes the door behind the two of you, Shouto’s lips are back on yours greedily seeking more contact, and you don’t hold back as you kiss him back with equal fervor. You feel the mattress of your bed hit your back as you continue to kiss him, sitting up so you could move back to let Shouto onto the bed with you. You smile once again as Shouto’s hand rests on the bed frame behind you, while the other one lays on the bottom of your back again.

Your hands are interlocked behind Shouto’s head as his tongue grazes your bottom lip. You moan softly as you head tilts and you open up your mouth so that your tongues meet halfway. You start moving to unbutton your work shirt and Shouto hastily pulls away and your eyes open, his mouth is stained with your work red lipstick as he looks concerned, “Are you sure, y/n?” Shouto asks, his hands suddenly on top of yours. “I don’t want to rush you to having sex with me again…”

You stared at him, a soft smile coming to your lips as you sit up, making Shouto sit on his haunches as you move to your knees, “You have never forced me to have sex, and I want this, I want you.” You whisper to Shouto as you press a soft kiss to his lips.

Pulling away, you unbuttoned your shirt and dropped it on the floor next to you, your breath hitching as Shouto stares at your nearly naked upper body, and you blush, “Take it off,” you mutter tugging at the hem of Shouto’s t-shirt, and he slowly moves to take it off.

God, Shouto’s body had to be a sin as you watched him take off his shirt and you stared at the rippling muscles on his body, something you had never truly appreciated before. Tone and lithe. He was beautiful.

Shouto’s lips are back on yours as you kiss deeply, your head tilted to the side as his fingers gently grasp your chin, the other one slowly making its way to your bra clasp. A shaky moan leaves your mouth as the bra falls from your body, and Shouto moves his body so that you’re now forced to be lying on your back. The tips of your well-aroused nipples brush up against Shouto’s naked chest and the both of your release a throaty gasp as you pull him closer to you.

Your leg hooks lazily around Shouto’s waist, and a sigh leaves your lips as Shouto gently grasps the back of your leg, running steady consistent strokes from the back of your thigh to your ass.

A fire is building up in your gut as your hands work their way down to the buttons and zipper of his pants. You manage to get Shouto’s pants off without ever breaking the kiss, but now you were on top, straddling his lap as he sat against the headboard, his hands gripping your waist.

Without the pants on, you could feel Shouto’s arousal as you slowly moved against his dick with only your pants and both your underwear interrupting the two of you being completely naked. You pulled away from Shouto and giggled as he attempted to follow you with closed eyes as you had to brush your hair out of your face, suddenly feeling hot.

“Y/n…” Shouto just about whined, and you smiled softly at him, finding it endearing and the slightest bit hot when he used that tone, his hands were on your breasts, slowly stimulating your aroused nipples as he slowly massaged them making sure to brush your nipple with his thumb every so often, and your head tossed back as you bite down hard on your lower lip. That was your undoing as Shouto easily rolled you back over to the bottom, a smirk on his face as he kissed you ever so lovingly, and you felt him pulling off your pants leaving you in a pair of pink undies to which he had noticed. “Those are cute.” He comments as he presses a kiss to your collarbone.

“Damn right they are,” You breathlessly retort as Shouto chuckles, pressing a kiss firmly against your lips as he raised your hips so he could slowly grind his crotch into your own, and you bit harshly onto your bottom lip as you stopped a cry of pleasure from coming out.

“No, don’t stop yourself, please,” Shouto begged against your lips as he once more performed the same hip roll.

“Fuc-Fuck!” You cried out as your hands grasped his lower back to keep the friction between you at a high.

“Fuck,” Shouto curses as he tugs your bottom lip in between his teeth as his hand's grip onto your hips tighter. “You’re amazing.”

“Aha, and you haven’t even fucked me yet.” You reply with a laugh as Shouto’s lips meet the valley between your breasts and a low moan of pleasure vibrates through your throat.

“True,” Shouto agrees as he removes both your underwear and you gasp as the cold air of your room is hit upon your heated sex, and you clasp on your lip to keep yourself from premature orgasm from the sudden temperature change. You watch with hooded eyes as Shouto places a condom on. His dick was stupidly thick and was probably about seven inches, but it still made you excited. You rest on your elbows, a smile on your face as Shouto moves his messy hair out of his eyes. As you stare at his slightly sweaty face covered by strands of different colored hair, your heart just about bursts.

“Make love to me, Shouto,” You say aloud as Shouto stares at you, the condom now in place.

“I plan on it,” He smiles and he grabs your ankle, pulling you closer to him, and you shriek with laughter until his lips engulf your sounds. “Are you ready?” Shouto asks as he teases your entrance with the tip of his dick.

“Whenever you are,” You whisper into his neck, preparing for the initial pain.

You let out a cry of pleasure and pain as he slowly enters you, and you pant heavily trying to contain your tears as he manages to push all the way in. Your eyes clench as you bit your lip, your head buried into his neck.

“Are you o-okay?” Shouto stutters very clearly still adjusting to having his dick in you.

“Yeah, just no lube, and you’re impressive, and I’m t-tiny.” You manage to sigh out and eventually you collapse onto the bed, looking up at Shouto who seems to be concentrating hard.

“You’re just super t-tight.” Shouto gasps as you wrap a leg around his waist.

“If you can last long intoxicated, you can manage now.” You tease slightly as you wince at the fullness of having a dick within you again. Damn, having sex while intoxicated was a whole other experience.

“O-Okay, you okay now?”

You nod your head and Shouto moves his hips back, and slowly almost painfully slow, returns them to the original position, and even with the smallest movement, a lewd moan escapes your lips. Shouto continues going in and out, his hips slowly moving while you start to meet him with every thrust.

Whispers of encouragement escape both your lips as his slow pounding in you continues.

Shouto picks up your legs so that they’re both wrapped around his waist, and he comes to lean over you. At the new angle, your head is thrown backward, and you let out a string of soft curses. “Yes, baby, that feels so good.” You cried out in encouragement as you bit down on your lip harshly.

Your lips are soon sought after by Shouto’s as sheen layers of sweat cover both your bodies as the consistent moving of both your hips never falters.

Shouto’s pace never truly gets overwhelmingly fast, but soon you can hear the sounds of your bed hitting the wall, and a cry escapes your lips as Shouto’s finger grazes your clit.

“Say my name…” Shouto grunts as he presses harder on your clit and you can feel the coil within you getting tighter, but at the moment all you can give is wordless cries, “Say it, y/n.”

“Shou-Shouto!” You scream out as you shake with an overwhelming need to climax, but Shouto’s finger leaves your clit and goes to keep your hands above your head.

“Are you e-enjoying this?” Shouto teases as he slams into you at full force again, “Are you feeling good?”

“Oh my god, yes Shouto I’m feeling gOOD!” Your voice shrieks as his hands leave your wrist to gently pinch your nipple and clit. You go speechless and your mind spins as he pulls one of your legs onto his shoulder, and all you can do is gasp as the new position lets you see the stars.

“I'm going to cum,” Shouto gasps, and you pathetically nod your head in agreement as you pull him in for a kiss.

You can feel Shouto’s consistent pace get faster, his hips buck into you at a speed he hadn’t dared to reach at this time. “C-Cum, Shouto.” You gasp as his thrusts are getting sloppier, and a grunt leaves his lips and you know he’s done, but he knows you’re not.

Despite cumming, his dick is still hard and still buried in you, “Let’s finish you up?” Shouto asks as he doesn’t wait for your agreement as his finger is now pushing on your clit hard enough to send your toes curling, and you scream out his name as the coil in you tightens further and the flame in you scorches you from the inside out.

“Come on, y/n, cum for me please,” Shouto begs in your ear. You can feel yourself spiraling as your vision keeps going dizzy as Shouto presses open mouth kisses down your neck, his hips relentlessly pounding into you as you fail to keep up, his fingers dancing against your clit, and a noiseless scream leaves your mouth.

You came, and your entire body feels like it is being electrocuted as Shouto slowly pulls out and collapses next to you. “Oh fuck,” You moan having finally gained your voice back, and you look over at Shouto who is just grinning at you. “What?”

“You’re beautiful when you climax.”

“Shut up.” You grumble embarrassed as you cover your face with a pillow.

“Does this mean I can fuck you without being drunk now?” Shouto asks playfully as he wraps an arm around you.

“Well you did confess, and I did accept it…” You ponder as you look at him again, pressing a kiss to his lips. “But I might give up sex for a year.”

“Hm, that’s true.” Shouto agrees as he gently kisses you back.

A smirk comes on your face as you come up with an idea, “Well, you can always convince me otherwise…” Shouto pulls away from the kiss, looking at you suspiciously.

“How?”

You roll out of bed, wincing slightly at your soreness from having sex, but go to your closet and pull out two things. “Comply.”

You show him a blindfold and a binding rope, and he smirks, “Only because I want to see you on top.”

“Oh baby, you’re not gonna be seeing anything.” You respond as you tie up his hands to the bed frame, and Shouto looks at you a bit worriedly as you kiss him softly, “Don’t worry, I always play fair.” You whisper as you slip the blindfold over his eyes and step back.

“Y-Y/n?” Shouto stutters as you giggle pressing a gentle kiss to his torso, his body reacting entirely to the small touch.

“This will be fun.” You say as your fingers trace down his muscular frame and stop inches from the base of his dick.

hehe hehe, end! this was really a blessing to write and i enjoyed it sososo much! and i personally am a slut for in denial lovers, like yum, give me more!!! and of course, to give you the reason why the title of this series is called And They Were Roommates was because of the vine, so enjoy the bonus :D

bonus!

“Wait, who the fuck is Todoroki dating?!” Kirishima exclaimed as he sat with the six girls and a few guys as they gossiped about the two of you.

“Y/l/n y/n, she’s the new girl who's starting over with you, Uraraka-chan and Tsu tomorrow!” Hagakure explains for the millionth times.

“And they were roommates?!” Kaminari cried out feeling overwhelmed.

“Oh my god, they were roommates!” Mina exasperated as she rolled her eyes. “Get with it, or get out!”

#todoroki shouto #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #bnha writing blog #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha todoroki #bnha imagines #mha #mha x reader #mha imagines #mha todoroki #todoroki fluff #todoroki angst #todoroki smut #ATWR

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sapphicmsmarvel · 5 years ago

Text

Feysand: Punching Bags

Modern Feysand AU

Feyre breaks up with her abusive boyfriend and goes to a boxing gym to work out aggression. She meets the trainer Cassian who then realizes, hey, you’d like my brother.

Also: “Hey kiss me, my ex is here.”

All of the bat boys are actual brothers and Mor is all their cousins.

No azriel and mor love story for that reason.

and can we talk about how i got this idea from talking to my therapist

Stupid dick.

Those were my only thoughts as I got out of my car to go into the boxing studio.

Work out your aggression, Alis, my therapist, said to me. You went through an abusive relationship, Feyre. It’ll help get that resentment out.

I sighed again, pulling on the door handle, I could practically smell the sweat. The place was called Blood Rite. Nesta and Elain grimaced at the name after I told them where I was going. There was another thing that caused aggression; judgement from my sisters.

There were two black haired tan men at the counter, one had shaggy hair that didn’t go past his ears. The other had long hair that was pulled into a bun. I walked up to the counter, the bun-man greeted me, “hi, welcome to Blood Rite, how can I help you?” “Hi, I spoke with someone on the phone that said I could just….come in and punch?”

He smiled, Jesus he was pretty. “Yeah, just a 50 dollar fee and you can punch till your heart's content.”

“Thank you,” I paid, I was about to go to the locker rooms when he called out.

“Miss? We always ask names here, I’m Cassian, this is Azriel.” The shaggy haired one smiled and waved.

“I’m Feyre.”

“Nice to meet you, Feyre.” I smiled in response. and went to the locker room with my bag. I wasn’t used to smiling at males again, Tamlin didn’t like it and I didn’t want to get hit. I sighed in frustration, I know I couldn’t have left in that situation. But it was still frustrating. I threw my bag into a locker, slid my phone into my leggings pocket and plugged in the headphones.

I wrapped my hands and began punching, I punched before Tamlin, it was one of those things he “didn’t like me doing”. At first, I didn’t notice the controlling aspects. He blamed it on his ex, Ianthe or whatever.

Punch. Punch. Punch.

I didn’t wear the right clothes, I ate too much, I didn’t eat the right foods, I didn’t smile enough, I was too nice, too flirty.

Why was I not good enough for that piece of shit? What did I do? What did I do to make him so fucking angry that he hit every goddamn day of our relationship?

Every cell of my body was on fire with different emotions, my hands felt numb, it wasn’t because of how much I punched, it was because of the anxiety coursing through my veins. My legs were itching to have kicked him in the balls, at least once.

I could still feel his hands on me, how he’d grab my shoulders and yank me back to him if I walked away. How every time he was behind me, every hair on my body stood up.

Someone touched my shoulder.

Without thinking I spun around and punched them in the face. Then I saw the tan skin and long black hair, Cassian fell to the ground groaning. I ripped my earbuds out of my ears, “oh my god, I’m so sorry!” He groaned, “fucking hell, you throw a punch.” “I’m sorry,” I winced, I offered up a hand to help him up, he grabbed my hand. “Oh thank god it’s not bleeding,” I said.

“It’s alright.” He said, “but damn you throw a good punch.”

I winced again, he continued, “but I was telling you, we’re closing.”

My cheeks went crimson, “aw shit, what a way to end your night.”

He shrugged and smiled, “no problem, but I can tell you’re going through some shit, there’s a great place down the road, you seem like you need a friend.”

This dude would totally be a serial killer. “Sure,” I said, “What’s the name, I could meet you there?” Eh, what else did I have to lose? I was living in my sister's basement.

“Great, there’s this place called Rita’s down the road, I’ll be there in ten, I have to close down the computers and turn on the whole security protocol.”

I nodded, “okay, see you there.” I ran off to go get my bag, I went to my car and hoped to god that I didn’t get killed tonight.

------------------------------------

Rita’s was a bar. I quickly looked up their menu on my phone, Cassian said he’d be here in ten because all he had to do was close down the computers because Azriel took care of the money.

Ugh, they had truffle fries, what a blessing.

I saw him walk up to the doors and wait, I looked at the clock, he was right on time. I swallowed down the bundle of nerves, what if Tamlin showed? My stomach fell to my ass.

I swallowed my fear and met him at the door, he offered me his arm, and I took it, smiling. We went and sat at a table, a waitress came, we ordered.

He sighed and looked at me kindly. “So, you want me to ask the hard question or the easy ones?”

“Give me an example of both.”

“Easy: what’s your favorite color?” not red, “Hard: what made you so angry that you punched me that hard?” He asked, concerned.

My stomach sank, “blue.” I answered the first one.

He nodded, “Mines red, favorite food?”

“Truffle fries.” I said, “Chicken wings. This place has the best truffle fries.” He said wistfully.

“Yeah, I saw their menu online, definitely going to enjoy those. So do you own the gym?”

“I run it with my brothers, Azriel and Rhysand.”

“Ah.” I said, awkwardly closing the conversation.

It was awkward now, making friends was never my strong suit, it was Elains.

“You should really talk about what’s bothering you.” He said gently, I nodded, “no judgement?”

“Nope. But you’re so much like my brother, not talking about shit, afraid of being a burden.”

I huffed a laugh, “wow, you really attacked me with that one.”

“Hey, I know shit. So tell me.”

So I did, I spilled my guts to a complete stranger, I told him everything. From Tamlin and I meeting, first date, first signs of abuse. Everything. He held my hand.

I made a friend.

---------------------------------------------------------------

A few more months went by, Cassian and I had a routine of me going to the studio every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night. Cas staying an hour after hours for us to talk, work out, whatever and then getting food after.

But tonight was different. Cassian invited me out with his friends, who apparently have been dying to meet me after accidentally giving him a black eye. Azriel and him talked me up, I have never met Rhysand, he only came in on weekends and weekends were the days I dedicated to myself.

But I’ve heard the other regular girls gush about him.

I wore skin tight black jeans, black shirt with no sleeves that was skin tight and had a cut out by my breasts. If I lifted my arms, the shirt exposed my midriff. Tamlin had forbidden this shirt, so I felt it was needed to break it out again. My muscles from working out and punching shit showed off quite nicely and I had heeled black boots.

I shoved my phone in my pocket, grabbed my leather jacket and headed out. I thought I had managed to avoid my sisters’ gazes but nope, Nesta is like a hawk.

“Where the hell are you going looking like that?”

“Out.” I said as I grabbed my keys.

“Feyre.”

“Nesta.” I said, warning in my voice as I turned around to face her. I wouldn’t be backing down, I will never back down again.

Elain turned the corner, her eyes widening at my outfit, “where are you going?”

“She says she’s going ‘out’.” Nesta said.

Elain hummed, “well, have fun Fey.” She smiled, a genuine, real smile, grabbed her hot chocolate and left the room.

I looked at Nesta with a ‘ha’ expression and opened the door to the garage, but not before I heard her go, “be safe.” I sighed as the door shut, if I went back in, it’d kill Nesta’s pride, me knowing that she cares. I brushed it off, I was going to have fun tonight with friends. Well, friends of a friend.

Good enough for me.

------------------------------

Rita’s was packed, I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel in anxiety, okay I got this.

I pulled out my phone to text Cassian, I’m here.

Three dots popped up, fuck yeah, i’m on my way to the parking lot.

I smiled and got out, it was warm for March but the sun was gone so it was chilly again. Clutching my jacket closer to my body, I walked to the doors.

I ignored the creeps outside, Cassian came out and greeted me with a hug, “heya Feyre.” He waggled his eyebrows at the rhyme.

I rolled my eyes, “that was awful.”

“Get used to it, the group is ready with stories and puns for you.”

“Is it too late for me to leave?” I joked as he pulled me into the building.

“Yup, you’re stuck with me and now them.”

My heart warmed at being accepted so quickly, Lucien didn’t accept me quickly. My heart then cooled at the thought of him. I missed him.

“What’re you thinking about?” He said as we walked to the back of the club. “It’s just...been awhile since I’ve been out like this.” I shrugged.

He nodded and squeezed my hand in comfort.

We found the group in the back, well, I’m assuming they’re the group based on the fact that Azriel is there too. When he saw me he smiled (which was rare and I was so happy to see it), he got out of the giant booth to hug me, which again, surprised me but I was glad for it.

“Everybody, this is Feyre.” I waved awkwardly as both brothers had their arms around me.

“I’m Morrigan,” said the beautiful blonde.

“Amren.” The other woman said, she was beautifully terrifying,

“And I’m Rhysand.” Said the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. He had the most beautiful eyes, Jesus christ. Were they violet?

I knew there was good genes in that family (hello look at Cassian and Azriel) but fucking hell. I smiled at all of them, don’t be an idiot, Feyre

Cassian let me slide in on the left side first of the u shaped booth, then he slid in after me. I was right next to Morrigan who hugged me, “I’m so glad to finally meet you!” She squealed.

“I can’t believe you punched Cassian.” Rhysand laughed downing his whiskey.

“She’s working on her anger management.” Cassian joked.

“Watch it, I can punch you again. And this time, it’ll be on purpose.” I gave him a look that had him howling.

The others started laughing which eased the knot that was formed in my belly. Morrigan began telling more stupid stories about Cassian. Turns out they were cousins, Jesus everyone is related except Amren.

Eventually, Cassian and Morrigan worked together to drag Amren and Azriel out onto the dance floor.

“I can’t believe we kept missing each other.” Rhysand said.

“I know,”

“Was it worth the wait?”

I pretended to think about it, “hmm, I finally met the great Rhysand and he doesn’t ask me to dance? Not really.” Okay, I need to stop drinking.

But he smiled, those violet eyes twinkling. “I guess that means I can’t disappoint.” He got up and offered me his hand, I smiled and took it.

He led me onto the dance floor, “just an fyi, I haven’t danced on the club floor in about three years.” I warned. Another thing Tamlin ruined for me.

“Well, then, let’s dust off those moves!” Last Friday Night by Katy Perry started playing.

I nearly rolled my eyes but then Rhysand started twirling me around, I started laughing. He then did some weird disco which nearly killed me. He pulled me into his arms, him and I danced together, his hands on my swaying hips, it felt freeing. We kept laughing and I felt light.

Haven’t felt this in years.

I saw a flash of familiar bronze hair, my stomach sank, it was Lucien. ANd next to him, Tamlin. Motherfucker. I quickly turned into Rhysand who noticed immediately, “what?” He whispered.

“Keep dancing,” I said breathlessly, “him and his friend are over at the bar.”

“Who?”

“My ex. Blond and redhead guys, blond is my ex.”

“The ex?” He referenced, Cassian told me that Rhysand had asked about my story, and he told it with my permission.

“Yes.” I said, nerves fluttering in my stomach.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. But they’re looking.”

“Fuck. Kiss me, please?” “Darling, you don't have to ask. Been thinking about it all night.” I turned my head, he went down and met me. This kiss was seering. My fingers wove themselves into his hair, my fingernails scraped his scalp and he groaned into my mouth. His hands slid up my waist, he gently squeezed my mid riffe, his fingers cold against my hot skin.

We pulled away, he checked, “they’re gone.” I smiled, “thank you.”

“Anytime.” He smiled back.

The group found us, it was obvious we had kissed, both our lips were swollen, his hair was a mess thanks to me, and his hands were still on my wrist.

They were about to say something, when Juice by Lizzo started playing. Cassian shouted and dragged me to go dance with him, I grabbed Rhys, who grabbed Az, who grabbed Mor and she grabbed Amren. All of us ended up in a dance circle just being idiots.

Mor and I duetted the bridge of the song, “somebody come get this man, I think he got lost in my dms!”

“What!”

“My dms!”

“What!”

“You better come get your man, I think he wanna be way more than friends!”

“What!”

“More than friends!”

We danced a few more hours away, when the others got tired, but I didn’t wanna go home. It was 2 in the morning but I felt alive. Rhysand and I went down to a diner, the others were ready to throw in their dancing shoes but since I wanted to stay out; which never happened, Rhysand stayed out with me. I didn’t have to worry about coming home to an angry man who would beat me.

I felt so free.

We pulled up to a 90s themed diner, the car ride wasn’t awkward but it wasn’t at ease, that kiss loomed over us.

“I’m sorry about that kiss,” I said, once we were seated, my conscious just wouldn’t let me wait till later.

“It’s okay,” he smiled. “I didn’t mind it.”

I smiled. The waitress came over and we both ordered milkshakes. “I craved milkshakes like crazy whenever I went out.” I said.

“When was the last time you went out like this?”

I sighed, trying not to let the smile slip, “three years. But hey, I made some pretty amazing friends tonight, and I met you.” Vodka makes me ballsy, never again.

“I’m different from a friend?” He asked, smiling.

I nodded, “I don't kiss my friends.” Not like that, at least.

“So is this a date?” He asked, quirking his eyebrow.

I nodded, “I think so.”

“Thank God, cause seriously, you’re beautiful.” He said, “and I’m a lucky man.”

I smiled, little did I know, this was the beginning of the rest of my life.

#acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #cassian #azriel #morrigan #amren #feyre archeron #rhysand #feysand #elain archeron #nesta archeron

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whumpqin · 5 years ago

Text

The Party, Part Two

This is very long and if you look hard enough, you can see my actual tears on this. But, regardless of the length, I put a lot of effort into it! Hope you’ll enjoy :)

CW: Modern slavery, creepy/intimate whumper(s), group whump, public whump, collars, pet whump, dubcon mention, conditioning, brainwashing, touch starvation, noncon touching, dubcon kiss on the forehead, flashbacks, knives, bleeding, punching, hot wax torture, waterboarding, electric shock, begging, whipping, cigarette burns, and maybe other things I have forgotten! message me if further tagging is needed

Taglist! @spiffythespook

@ashintheairlikesnow‘s Karen is vaguely, VAGUELY eluded to in this!

Word Count: 8,826

The party was in full swing at 7 o’clock PM, most of the guests arriving just on time fifteen minutes before. Quickly the ballroom had filled, the guests enjoying what Emerson had made of the room. It was easy to pick out who was new and who wasn’t, the former looking around before settling into a corner while the latter found whatever was comfortable and raised their voice above the clamor of so many people.

Everything was so loud. The voices of the crowd while they laughed and joked to each other, the sound of footsteps, of heels, if he wasn’t trying hard enough it was easy to get lost in the noise. Emerson was quickly beginning to feel overwhelmed, wishing briefly that he didn’t have to hear any of it at all. He reminded himself that this was just the prelude of what was to come, and that the silence would be so, so much more worse than the noise.

He served drinks at these parties like always. It was what he was supposed to do before the main event of the party in an effort to show off the merchandise - show him off. Master Henrick told him to put on a smile and be polite to the guests so that they might be more interested in buying more requests.

Emerson couldn’t resist feeling so nervous against all of the eyes staring at him, at his collar, at them knowing what he was.

He kept his hands from shaking as he weaved between people, kindly offering drinks to Master Henrick’s guests with a forced smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. The guests’ eyes all drifted over him carefully, hungrily, as he bowed his head and slipped away before they could touch him. That, of course, wasn’t allowed. As it was, their gaze told him all he needed to know, how unsafe they were. A threat. He wasn’t sure where the thoughts came from, but he was thankful that he could read people’s stances well enough to know to leave.

The feeling that prickled underneath his skin still remained however, stopping just at the feeling of the dog collar that Master Henrick had put on him, seeping into the elegant gold metal that had his name etched into it. He didn’t want to be here, but it was requested of his Master. He must always listen to his Master.

Emerson drifted to the next group of people like he was weightless - and part of him very much felt weightless - upon noticing that one of them didn’t have a drink in her hand. He offered wordlessly, forcing that same smile on his face as he looked her in the eye. Polite, but only just. Her gaze drifted over him, down his shoulders and torso and then back up to the collar that hung like a thick metal chain against his neck. He could tell that she knew how tense he was, from the way she paused upon looking at the tray.

“Aren’t you a pretty thing,” she cooed, voice soft as she reached a hand forward to caress his face. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in person, yet.”

“Pl-please, ma’am,” Emerson said with enough thickness in his voice that his fear was easily heard. There were just so many people, and all their eyes briefly flicked to him once he spoke. “Wait until the show to touch me.”

“Oh, well, I thought you might need a little comfort. You look like you’re amidst wolves, not friends!” It’s because I am, miss. The woman took the drink from his tray while her other hand moved up to touch his hair. It took nearly everything Emerson had in him not to lean into the comforting touch. “You should relax, darling. You’re plenty safe with us.”

“Still, ma’am. If you want to touch me, it requires payment in advance.” His voice came out strained, and he was sure that the woman didn’t hear him.

“Oh, I’m sure Mr. Alexanders wouldn’t mind me looking at his dear pet, would he? Let’s get a look at you.” Her hand perched on his chin, tilting his head to the side.

Emerson swallowed, forcing his gaze to remain soft. Remember to be polite to our guests, Em. I don’t need any of that attack dog bullshit that you’ve got in your head. Just you and your body.

“You are right, ma’am. Master Henrick does not mind. I… I’m flattered you are so willing, but please inquire with him about touching me.” Fingers danced over his skin, and thoughts of she’s a threat and need the touch clouded his head, long enough for the woman to slip her hand against his throat.

Emerson’s eyes flashed open. No one but me gets to do any real damage to you. That’s like giving away ownership, isn’t it?

“Ma’am, stop,” he said, grabbing her wrist and drawing it away from his neck. “In order for the merchandise to be touched like this, it requires payment. If you wish to do anything more, please direct your focus to my Master. I’ll come with you, if you’d like.”

Those worse came out more confidently than his other ones, a practiced phrase in case something like this happened. Master Henrick gave him the words so that he could weaponize them against the guests, Emerson’s only defence against them. He was thankful for his Master being so possessive.

He was also thankful that Orifel wasn’t here to listen to how he talked about himself.

Orifel stayed upstairs, sleeping in a room that is locked with a special key that only Master Henrick has, denying access to any of the guests and Emerson. But Orifel was safe, and that at least was something that could be agreed upon. Master Henrick and Emerson both hated sharing, hated the idea of the guests looking at him in the same way they did with their “merchandise”.

The woman’s lips pursed as she shifted her weight to her other hip, looking him upon and down as she considered his words. Deciding if he was worth paying the extra money to touch him. Emerson hunched over just slightly so he didn’t seem so tall to her. Submissive and pliant, ready to do what she asks of him.

She finally clicked her tongue. “Fine, come on then. We have some payment to discuss, hm?” She reached forward and grabbed his wrist, pulling him forward through the crowd. Her cohorts followed close behind, though Emerson couldn’t catch all of their gazes as he struggled to keep up with the woman’s unreasonably fast pace, especially considering her high heels.

Heels that clack against the floor, signaling a fate that would be worse than death. He does not remember her and he does at the very same time-

Emerson forced his head to rise above the crowd to see Master Henrick up ahead, and his heart leaped into his chest at the relief. He was talking to what seemed to be his business partners - people he had seen around the house more than once, who were always wearing those fancy suits and ties. They always looked like they had somewhere important to be.

He remembered Ori calling them Shadowmen, because all they do is follow Sir around, because he’s the most important one. If he wasn’t there they probably wouldn’t know what to do! And he feels the ache over wanting to hear his voice again.

Henrick was much more put together than what he had seen this morning, tousled hair now slacked back into its regular, formal style. He had changed suits too, now wearing all black with a red tie to match. It hides the blood better from my experience, Emerson recalled him muttering before.

It was much different than Emerson’s own simple clothes. Simple dark jeans and a nice, halfway buttoned shirt. His shirt was supposed to be buttoned all the way, but a wayward guest decided that he “needed a little air”, and caught him before he could get away from them.

“Mr. Alexanders!” the woman called, immediately stopping the conversation in progress as she walked right up to Master Henrick. Emerson couldn’t stop the gentle glare in her direction at the nerve of interrupting him in a most-likely important conversation. Had he done the same, he would have gotten a whip across his back or worse.

“Yes, Miss Whitfield?” Master Henrick answered back in a similarly formal tone, an echo of tenseness to signal his annoyance. His brown eyes settled on Emerson, drifting over him slowly as they assessed the damage that the guests had done to him so far.

“Your pet mentioned that I could pay for his… company, until the show started. How much is it?” Miss Whitfield drew a finger across Emerson’s cheek, and he leaned into it without thinking. “I would very much like to have him around. I’m sure my compatriots would as well.”

Master Henrick’s eyes twitched. One of the Shadowmen opened his mouth to say something, but was stopped by Master Henrick’s hand as it was held into the air.

“One moment, Irvin. I’ll get back to our discussion, I promise.” He lifted a hand, crooking his fingers towards him as he stood. Emerson wriggled his hand out of Miss Whitfield’s grasp and stepped forward into the hand. “Emerson, you’re already a mess. Can’t you keep it together for just an hour?” His voice was playful, as Master Henrick buttoned his shirt back up and carded a hand through his hair, lovingly piecing him back together enough to be presentable. Everyone watched in silence, the simple act of possession as Master Henrick placed his hand on Emerson’s shoulder and flipped him around, tightening his fingers around its perch. “Payment is upfront, I hope you brought your money with you, madam. It’s 500 dollars cash per person that plans on touching him. And trust me, I’ll know if someone who hasn’t paid has touched him.”

Master Henrick tilted Emerson’s chin up, moving his gaze over to Miss Whitfield and her group. A wordless command to look at their faces and memorize those who were about to pay and to watch for those that didn’t.

Miss Whitfield stared them down for a moment, finally taking a moment to look at her small group. One of them flicked their heads away, and she sighed. “Let me discuss with my partners.”

She then flipped around and led them away into the crowd, likely to find a nice space to count their money or relax for the evening. Emerson hoped it was the latter.

He couldn’t deny the satisfied feeling in his chest as he was drawn backwards and down into Master Henrick’s lap. The fear that he carried was replaced with comfort as familiar hands ghosted over his skin. Lips pressed against his forehead in a soft kiss. A reminder.

You’re mine. Don’t you ever forget that.

“What was it that you were saying, Irvin?” Master Henrick urged, tilting his gaze over to a blonde man who was watching them with cold, blue eyes. “I believe it had something to do with the services my pet can give you? I’m sure now by looking at him you’re a least a little more intrigued, yes?”

“I… yes. I suppose I am, Mr. Alexanders. How much would it be for the full works, private room and all?” Ah. Emerson stared at the Shadowman, looking over his features and adhering them to his memory as best he could. He was going to have to keep Irvin in mind for later. From the way his gaze couldn’t quite drag itself away from him, he had a feeling that he would be seeing him again very soon.

“Hm… for everything, it would be 10,000.” Master Henrick let out a cackle as Irvin blinked several times. ��Don’t worry my friend, I don’t expect you to carry that kind of money on your person. You can wire it to me after the events are done, if you’re still interested.” Emerson felt fingers toy with his hair, drawing it into lazy curls. He leaned into the touch without much resistance, relishing in the feeling for as long as he could. “My Emerson is very good at what he does. I’m sure he won’t disappoint if you do intend on purchasing his companionship. Isn’t that right, Em?”

“I’m an active participant in fulfilling my owner’s desires,” he said instantly, not quite thinking the words through. Emerson blinked, as he thought about the words that would be better to say, ones that Master Henrick had told him to repeat and repeat. “Other people are included, of course. I don’t mind them as long as Master Henrick consents to it.”

He batted his eyes as he stared delicately at Irvin, perfectly held in Master Henrick’s lap just like a good pet should be. All of his body language said that he might even dare to be interested in such afterparty activities. In reality the thought disgusted him, Emerson hated the idea of being used in that way if they weren’t Master Henrick or Orifel. But he had to put on a good show for his Master. That’s what the whole point of the party was.

Emerson felt an uncomfortable shift in his chest, fear once again rising as the man drifted his gaze up and down his body. Thinking about what could be. Fantasizing. Like he was some sick toy to be used. His stomach rolled.

“I… suppose we’ll have to talk more after the show, then,” Irvin finally said, dragging his gaze away enough to look at Master Henrick.

“Suppose we shall, then.”

Master Henrick continued to lightly toy with Emerson’s hair until Miss Whitfield returned again, with enough cash in her hand to make Emerson’s eyebrows raise. She marked all who had paid - around five people - and gave exact change. Upon confirming, Master Henrick reluctantly pushed Emerson off of his lap.

“Very well then,” he said, looking up at Miss Whitfield with a cool expression. Emerson didn’t like that one, it always meant that he was angry or frustrated. “He’s all yours until the show. Remember not to injure him or do anything suggestive, those you’ll have to pay extra for. Have fun, Emerson.”

Emerson held out his hand, and Miss Whitfield took it with a smile. She led him back to the area that they had been lounging in before. She directed him to sit into a chair, and he obeyed, putting his hands into his lap. Miss Whitfield brushed his hands to the side and sat down in his lap, wrapping her arm around his neck to stay balanced.

“I’m sure this doesn’t count as suggestive,” she said, drawing her long nails across his jawline to make him shudder.

“No, ma’am,” he responded.

From this angle, he could look at all the people who paid to touch him. In total there were five people, a few women and two men. Two pairs with rings on their hands, and then Miss Whitfield. They all seemed to be different sizes, but Emerson was just a few inches taller than all of them.

One of the other women approached to curiously touch the side of his face. “Alexanders sure does know how to pick his boys. How old are you, anyway?”

“I am 25, ma’am. I have resided with Master Henrick for over two years.” The answer was so well practiced against his tongue he barely needed to think about it.

A man spoke up next. “I’m sure you love it here, don’t you…” he squinted down to his collar. “Emerson. From what I’ve seen of the house, it’s a lovely place to live.”

“I do, sir. It is very nice here. Master Henrick takes excellent care of me and-” He choked back the words before they slipped out, before he had made the grave mistake of saying too much. “An-and I can, I can never repay him for his kindness. Please,” Emerson raised a hand towards the man. “Feel free to do what you wish as long as it doesn’t injure me or is suggestive, like my Master said. I like the touch.”

Effectively dissuaded, the man’s eyebrows raised as he was clearly pleased from the behavior. He set his drink down and took Emerson’s offer, taking his hand and rotated his arm until his forearm was exposed. The man traced the delicate skin, making some unseen pattern up his arm until it found a circular burn mark.

“What happened here, dear Emerson?”

“A cigarette from the last show that was streamed. It will scar for a bit, but it shouldn’t last too long,” Emerson promised. Some of the guests disliked scars against his skin, the idea of the surface being marred with unneeded marks horrifying to them. Others preferred it, seeing it as a sign of ownership. It was hard to tell which a person preferred.

The man clicked his tongue, similarly to Miss Whitfield. “Shame. If it were up to me, I would love to see these marks all over your skin.”

Emerson’s gaze traveled to the main stage, readily able to be viewed at this vantage point, finding the table with all of the various implements that Master Henrick had laid there. He wasn’t allowed to touch them, but had taken a look to familiarize himself with what was presented as requests.

“If you would like, Master Henrick allows guests to purchase requests for what they would like to do to me during the show. Cigars and cigarettes are available.” His words were robotic, like a fucking advertisment that he might see on TV. Always shilling something out of his mouth.

The man hummed in acknowledgement, a glint in his eye that made Emerson so desperately want to pull his hand away from him. He stayed still.

The other man piped up. “You know, Alisha and I have been thinking about getting our own box boy for a while now. This one makes it look so easy.”

“You should,” Miss Whitfield responded, unbuttoning portions of Emerson’s shirt that Master Henrick had taken the time to rebutton for him. He felt a brief spark of spite wave through him, and he leaned into the touch of the other unfamiliar woman to dissuade it easily. She was now carding her hand over his hair, picking out bits of waves and smoothing them down for him. “I’ve heard that training’s real easy on them. The people at the WRU do good work. If I wasn’t in the process of moving myself, I would definitely have a boy of my own. They’re so very pliant, and they do just about anything that you want them to.”

“Mm,” the man who had been tracing Emerson’s arm hummed. “I’ve heard some of them can even be trained to be guard dogs, of all things. Personal bodyguards without all of those pesky wages, and they’re happy to do it. It’s what they sign up for, after all. Right Emerson?”

“Yes, sir. All pets are of legal consenting age and make a choice to pursue a change of circumstances including no longer retaining legal ownership of themselves,” he murmured. He was quick to notice them staring at him, taken aback by the robotic words that he had been trained to say.

It was just easier to say it like that. He didn’t need to think that way, about the overwhelming sensation that rested across his entire body. That way he could stay good without needing to, and Emerson could slip away without worry.

He swallowed. “I mean, all pets willingly sign up to the WRU. They take in those who cannot take care of themselves and give them a new purpose. Very charitable.”

The words tasted like acid against his tongue. What a fucking lie. But Emerson wasn’t about to go against what they told him to say. There were fates worse than death.

There were demons that walked in the dark, sharp shadows and thorns that infected everything they touched-

He was getting a headache already.

The man standing afar with his supposed wife nodded, clearly listening. “Well, it sounds like an adoption service from the likes of it. Maybe we’ll have to invest in one ourselves, honey.”

The man up close glanced over to them. “Perhaps you should have a look for yourself then, let the boy show you exactly how he’s like. Come, sister, you’ll have to share your new toy.”

Miss Whitfield gave an exaggerated eye roll before pushing Emerson back up to his feet. “Alright. I suppose I’ve had my fun with him. Look, he’s even blushing!”

Emerson looked down to the floor, suddenly unable to meet any of their gazes. It wasn’t like it was his fault.

He tried to remind himself that this is exactly what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s being good right now. Doing exactly what Master Henrick wanted of him to get the rewards that would come later. And god, did he want the reward. He’ll do anything to see him again.

Alisha, who had been standing afar next to her husband, finally finished her drink and stepped forward. She eyed him carefully, reaching up to tilt his head side to side in order to get a good look at him. He remained as loose as he could without falling into the floor, resting his head willingly into her hand and moving with her. Pliant, as Miss Whitfield would have said.

“I’ve heard that they have jobs. Like the bodyguard thing that Clayton was talking about. What do you do, sweetheart?” Her voice - he hadn’t heard it until now - was light and sweet, like honey. Venomous honey, if her presence here was anything to draw information from.

“My designation is a Combination. I have a variety of skills in order to serve my Master.”

“Skills like what? What all can you do?”

Emerson smothered the part of him that was embarrassed. Reminded it that it could be so, so much worse. “I cook and clean primarily, but I can also perform other work to my Master’s specifications, as well. I can also… provide a variety of services for more intimate encounters, as well.”

“I see,” commented the only man who Emerson still didn’t quite have a name for. “Well, I don’t think we’ll need anything for intimate reasons, but I’m sure we could use someone around the house to help. Thank you, Emerson.”

“You’re welcome, sir,” he nodded his head for politeness’ sake.

“Having fun?” The low voice silenced all six of them, and Emerson tilted his head to see Master Henrick standing, taller than even he was, watching the scene unfold before him.

How long has he been standing there?

“Oh yes, your pet is very well behaved, Alexanders!” Miss Whitfield exclaimed. “You’re certainly got yourself one of higher quality, haven’t you?”

“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said, drawing close enough to take Emerson’s face.

The gaze they exchanged whispered a speech that neither of them were willing to say aloud. Emerson swallowed, and Master Henrick’s fingers dipped down to feel his Adam’s apple bob at the motion. A poisonous glimmer flashed in his eye for just a moment and then it was gone, as he turned to the small group.

“The show is about to start. Please, take a seat and relax, unless you wish to join in on the fun. That is what this is about, after all,” he said, in a tone that reminded Emerson of a showman. All fake and meant only to entertain those witnessing him. He just wished he could remember where he got the word “showman” from.

“Actually, Alexanders,” Clayton said, holding a hand up to get his attention. His voice was raised in a higher, more diplomatic tone. “I would like to join, I think. Request of my own. I do hope it’s not too late.”

Master Henrick smiled. “Of course you can. You’ll have to be last in line - I run a first come first served policy, after all. More requests means more fun, right Emerson?”

“Of course, Master Henrick. Anything for the guests.”

“Good.” Master Henrick took his hand and pulled him close. “Come on then, we have a show to perform.”

He led him away from those awful, awful people, and set him in front of the stairs leading to the main stage. Master Henrick tousled his hair and straightened it how he liked it, then moving to unbutton Emerson’s shirt the rest of the way with soft hands.

“We wouldn’t want to ruin this shirt, would we?” he murmured, voice low so that only Emerson would be able to hear him. “Even if our guests can’t help but try to take it off.”

He peeled the shirt off of his skin, folding it and setting it to the side. Emerson shuddered at the loss of heat, leaning into Master Henrick’s touch as he was flipped around and led onto the stage. Their feet found the same positions that they always did, Emerson waiting in position 1 while Master Henrick addressed the crowd of people that were beginning to turn their heads towards them.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he called, dragging some of the stragglers’ attention to him. “Thank you so much for joining me this evening. I’m sure you’ve all seen my pet serving you drinks, my dear main event.”

Master Henrick motioned to Emerson, and all eyes briefly landed on him. He swallowed, battling against the fear to run away like a rabbit who stumbled into a room full of wolves. He couldn’t take the eyes.

He hated that everyone was looking at him.

“We have quite the show lined up. Humble requests from you lovely people. First up is Mr. Hansen, who has requested to use the selection of knives that I have. If you would, please come forward and choose. The rest of you, enjoy the show.” He beckoned a man forward as he stepped over to the table of implements.

Emerson had seen Mr. Hansen before, on the messages of their streams and on occasions when the parties were held. He liked blood and knives and to be called Saul, but never really talked or wanted to be talked to. He preferred to hear Emerson scream.

Regardless of whether he wanted to or not, that was certainly going to happen.

“Position two, Emerson,” Master Henrick ordered.

Emerson knelt immediately, never moving from his spot. Hands folded neatly into his lap while he took in a deep breath to still himself. He forced his gaze forward into the silent crowd, able to hear the echo of Saul’s boots walking up to him.

Hands drifted over his torso, the metal of an elegant pocket knife making him shudder at the sensation. The anticipation was the worst part, agonizingly scraping against his skin without doing any actual harm. He swallowed again, trying to chase away the trembling that was working from his hands down his arms.

Finally, it dipped into his skin, making a clean cut on the left side of his chest, just above his heart, drawing to his left shoulder. Emerson gasped, not holding back the hiss he let out through his teeth as the sting shot across his torso. He didn’t squirm, didn’t move. Tears were already beginning to well up in his eyes from the pain.

God, what a fucking crybaby. You gonna cry again, you useless mutt?

The headache-inducing thoughts were the worst of them all. Instead of listening to them, he focused on the blood that was dripping down his chest onto his stomach. Listened to how the guests were gasping, whispering comments of look at how still he’s being and how beautiful does he look to one another. They were quickly drowned by the thudding of his own heart as he saw the knife lift and slide against his skin already, picking another spot to strike.

This time, it connected two cigarette burns on his right shoulder. Master Henrick muttered something under his breath that he couldn’t quite catch as Emerson let out a shrill keen of pain. Emerson’s head tilted back, but Saul grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced it forward again, only making the headache grow worse. He knew very well that he’d have a migraine by the end of this, but that would be the least of his problems.

I wouldn’t have to do this if you’d just show some respect, ‘552.

A third cut rested neatly at the top of his back. Emerson’s back arched unwillingly, strangling groan forcing the growing dam of tears under his eyes to burst as they streamed rivers down his face. His head was drawn back, and Saul’s eyes met with his own. He tried to plead without words, even knowing they weren’t going to do anything. It felt better than doing nothing at all.

“Damn,” he breathed. Emerson couldn’t tell if he was enjoying this or if there was a genuine hint of displeasure in his eyes. “Guess I owe you some more money, Henrick. He ended up cryin’ after all.”

“Told you,” Emerson heard Master Henrick call from behind him. A few people in the crowd chuckled at the short lived banter.

The next two cuts were drawn across his chest where Saul had left gaps of unbroken skin. The new cuts dripped blood like he was some sort of sacrifice, and Emerson grimly wondered if that would have been better. At the least, he had been able to keep himself from crying too hard and save his energy for later. His sensitive skin was hardly able to take the whisper of a knife without shattering completely, though now the ache in his head hurt worse than the cuts themselves.

“Alright, alright. That’s enough. Any more and you’re gonna have to pay extra,” Master Henrick called, and Emerson nearly cried at the mercy. Saul drew away, letting go of his head and allowing it to hang for just a moment.

It was only a shred of relief, the calm before the storm, but Emerson reveled in it for as long as he could. He heard Master Henrick call someone else up, a Mr. Weaver. He was a large man with a notable sick smile on his face. Everytime he had been offered tools, Mr. Weaver waived them off, and tonight was no different. Instead, he approached Emerson.

“Hm, let’s see… Turn to me, and... What was it Alexanders? Position one?” Upon hearing the command, Emerson stood to his feet, legs spaced out slightly and hands at his side. “Ah, there we are. Stay still.”

He tried. He really did. But when he saw Mr. Weaver crack his knuckles and approach, Emerson still cringed away when he realized what he had been planning.

He couldn’t get away from the first blow no matter how hard he tried. The fist connected to his midsection, and Emerson gasped desperately as all of the air was pushed out of his lungs. His hands shot upwards to grab for balance, but Mr. Weaver pulled away before he could grab onto his shoulders, and he sunk to the floor on his knees.

Mr. Weaver growled in his ear for him to stand back up, and he did as he was told with a small whine. He still managed to hit Emerson on the right side of his face as he swayed, making him stumble a little too close to the stage’s edge. He could have sworn that he felt his face crack, but he wasn’t sure if it was real or an imagined part of him breaking under the stress.

The first hit he could take, but the second on his left sent him reeling, and he collapsed to the ground as he lost his balance. A few in the crowd gasped in awe as he spat out blood from his split lip. All Emerson could think about was whether or not his face had actually been hurt, but when he reached a hand to check all he could feel was the sharp pain that blossomed across his face.

He cringed away from his own touch with a whimper, unable to even move from the pain. Mr. Weaver grinned at his pain, shifting weight to one leg so that he could approach-

“That’s enough,” Master Henrick said. “You only paid for three.”

The air of possessiveness hung like a thick fog, as Mr. Weaver slowly looked back to Master Henrick, who crossed the platform with ease to bend down near Emerson. He pressed fingers against Emerson’s jaw, who whined as more tears were sparked from the simple touch. Then, with a satisfied, perhaps even relieved smile, he slowly coaxed Emerson up and to the middle of the stage.

“If you don’t plan on paying extra, then please, make room for our next guest.” This close, Emerson could hear the comforting roughness in Master Henrick’s voice, the slight strain of raising it above the gentle clamor of the crowd as they whispered about what just happened. He wondered, briefly, if his voice hurt from raising it so much.

Emerson threw the thought away. He’s not hurting worse than me, he thought bitterly, eyes twitching into a narrowed glare for the briefest of seconds when Master Henrick wasn’t looking.

“Lucas! I believe you’re up next. Take care of my pet for me, will you?” The strain was gone as his voice lifted like he was talking to an old friend. Master Henrick drew away from him, going to meet a man with honey-brown hair as he took the stage.

Lucas looked to him with cold, brown eyes. They were sharp, like Emerson’s, and told him exactly what kind of request this would be. He held a lit candle glass in one of his hands, it nearly filled to the brim with liquidized wax.

“On your hands and knees for me.” His voice was deceptively sweet, said with a quiet smile.

Emerson obeyed, facing downwards. He couldn’t tell exactly where Lucas planned to pour, so all he could do was wait for something to happen to him. Already he was feeling the phantom burns crawl and lick over his skin, and that made everything worse. He resisted the urge to beg, and merely watched the tears fall helplessly to his eyes.

A sudden burning sensation on his back made him scream. It was like sludge against his skin, pooling and slowly dripping off of him. Emerson dug his nails in as his back arched, desperately trying to stay in the position that he was in so that he could be good. It settled into a throbbing pulse, and he took the opportunity to pant and sob as much as he could before the next droplets of wax hit his skin.

By the time that Lucas was finished, Emerson had fallen to the ground writhing against the wax on his back. There had been two other waves, each of them making him scream as loud as he could. He knew his voice would be broken by the end of this, and he suddenly didn’t care. It hurt so bad and so much it was all he could do.

Hands carefully peeled the wax off of him quickly so it wouldn’t stick to his skin. He hadn’t even noticed that Lucas had walked away until he felt cold, merciful water draw over the burn wounds and cleaning them off.

Emerson was hauled back up to his knees with a strong hand in his hair, lifting his tear-streaked face for the crowd to see. Emerson watched them marvel, take in his pain like it was some sort of circus act.

He didn’t even know what a circus act meant, but it seemed appropriate for the situation, somehow. Something important. One of the wrong thoughts.

Emerson’s head was tilted back. He looked up and into the warm brown eyes of Master Henrick, who took a moment to take in the sight for himself. While not particularly a sadist, Master Henrick did enjoy himself a good show. Enjoyed Emerson’s performance too, even if he wasn’t acting.

He wished that he was acting.

“These next two will be done by yours truly. I hope you’ll enjoy.” Then, in a lower voice, “Stay just like that, Emerson. Close your eyes.”

He did exactly as he was told, despite the growing fear in his chest. Cloth was pressed over his face, like a hood for the executed.

And like a good obedient pet, Emerson awaited the slaughter.

It wasn’t violent this time, unlike the others. Instead it began as a slow, refreshing trickle of water. It quickly turned into a torrent, filling his mouth and nose until he couldn’t breathe anything but. Emerson gasped and choked immediately, cold water rushing over his torso and making him let it into his throat. His hands reached upwards on instinct to stop the obstruction.

Master Henrick grabbed his hands suddenly, pushing them away as he drew away the cloth. He pressed Emerson forward and allowed him to cough up the water in his lungs, chest heaving as it splattered against the platform itself.

“One more. Back up to your knees,” he ordered, pulling him up by the arms that were twisted behind his back.

One more. He could cling to that, if he tried hard enough. Just one more bout of suffering and then he could have a short rest. Or at least, he could hope.

The cloth was pressed over his face again. The trickle came, turning into the torrent that had him choking for the air that he needed. This time there was no fumble, and Emerson found that he was unable to move anything except for his head. But even the struggling motions of his weak body were nothing for Master Henrick, who was much stronger than he was by comparison.

When he felt his consciousness growing dimmer and dimmer, Emerson was let go to gasp for air. He heaved with desperation, trying to chase away the foggy feeling that was coating him like the water. It only hurt more when he remembered he had something else to do. One more.

Emerson needed to keep going for just a little bit longer.

He forced himself back into a kneeling position, sobbing through it all. He couldn’t hide his wails anymore, and instead just prayed inwardly that Orifel couldn’t hear him. Emerson wouldn’t be able to take the knowledge that he could hear, if all he heard from down here was screams.

I know… I know you can’t help it, but it scares me when you scream. I want to help but I just… can’t. Just be good for them, okay? Then you won’t get hurt.

I… Okay. I’ll… I’ll try. I’ll protect you, don’t worry. We’ll stick together, like 7452s should.

“Aw, look how good you’re being for me,” Master Henrick cooed, resting a warm hand against Emerson’s face. “Just three more, Em. That’s all we have left and you’ll be done.”

He dreaded what the other three could be, but his heart leapt at the idea of being done. Of being finished with this and being allowed to crawl upstairs and lick his wounds like an animal. Still though, his heart thudded in his chest, making him feel like it was ready to burst out of his chest at any given moment.

Then it skipped, one-one two instead of one two, and his world exploded into fantastical stars and lightning.

Emerson’s mouth opened into a silent cry as he collapsed, convulsing against the floor as the ghost of a shocking device left his shoulder, leaving the electricity that coursed through him as it danced across the water against his skin. Even though it was no longer touching him he twitched and gasped, unable to regain control of his limbs. His heart skipped again, falling into a rhythm of onetwoonetwoonetwo without any hope for rest.

There were still two things left and at least one shock left to go. Master Henrick knew his limits, knew he could take at least two shocks. Emerson jerked his head forward, twitching, as his eyes landed on a rod in Master Henrick’s left hand. The prod that he had ordered off of some website, the one that was used when Emerson or Orifel had really made him angry. He had only used it once recently, as punishment for begging not to do a session. After that he had… he had...

Don’t you dare take him from me.

Ooh, you got anything behind that bark of yours? Here, why don’t we use this to help you learn your place. I’m sure you remember this at least, dontcha ‘552?

...Please, please don’t-

A hand not quite Master Henrick’s reached forward, pressing the prod into his side. Emerson’s back arched without him meaning to, all muscles going tense from the electricity that shot through him. A strangled scream worked from his lungs, mouth agape in a horrific expression as his eyes rolled backwards.

The all at once it was gone. Emerson’s body went limp as the twitching following, moving his body against the ground like he was being poked and prodded. He couldn’t move.

I need to move I have to protect if I can’t move I can’t protect no no we don’t protect, we don’t but I do or he’ll get hurt all over again, please, please-

It took him a moment to realize that he was begging aloud. “Please, please Master, please it hurts, it hurts I-I can’t, please Master Henrick, I can’t I’ll be good…” the words feel from his mouth, whispered and barely audible to the crowd.

He was scared. So scared and terrified that he was going to be shocked again. Emerson was willing to do anything for Master Henrick if it meant that he wasn’t going to be hurt again. Fear continued his blabbering, unable to direct it towards anyone. Still he tried to gather the voices around him, trying to make them understand how good he’ll be. He’ll be so good, he’ll be polite, he’ll learn his manners like he’s supposed to and he’ll stop snapping and learn how to cook like they want, if they would only just listen to him.

If they would just listen to him maybe he could beg enough that Orifel would be safe from their hands. That’s all that really mattered, in the end.

Emerson squeezed his eyes shut, tears trailing down the sides of his face while he lay on his back. He doesn’t recall particularly how he got there, but he could feel the burns against his back ache ceaselessly, joining the cuts across his chest.

He focused on how many more were left. If the shocks had stopped and they were moving on, that meant two. Two more things and then he was free. Then he thought of Irvin, Master Henrick’s business partner, who he would have to see after he had been patched and drugged up-

A desperate sob fell from his body. Then another. And another. He couldn’t stop himself, until it turned into a hopeless wail. Emerson wasn’t sure how quiet he had to be or if he needed to be quiet at all, and instead just let the pain roll off of him in the form of noise in an effort to lessen the aches.

“Hey.” The rough voice and gentle hands on his face made Emerson’s eyes flash open, wildly looking around until he saw Master Henrick’s face. Thumbs wiped away his tears, smooth against his face and providing the comfort that he craved. It was good touch, something he’d be so willing to fall into if it was just him and Master Henrick. “Emerson, look at me. Good. Just a little longer and you can rest. Think you can stay good for just a little bit more? I’d hate to have to punish you for embarrassing me.”

“Please, Master… I’ll, I’ll be good. I’ll be good, please, just tell me what’s next.” He was breathing quickly, hardly able to get enough air to speak properly.

But Master Henrick smiled, and that was all that mattered.

“It’s just a few lashes. You’re good with those, so I know you’ll do wonderfully. Come on,” he said, lifting Emerson up by his shoulders. “Hands up. Good. Stay like that.”

Rope was wound around his wrists, hoisted up to hold him in the air. It was probably a good idea, considering his legs felt like jelly at the moment. Though if he tried and wanted to, he could hold himself up by the tips of his larger toes. He could at least control where he was facing.

He craned his head backwards, seeing another man with a familiar whip in his hand. He didn’t care about the features anymore, just the tools. Emerson hung his head and waited for the bitter sting against his back.

He knew whips very well. It was a popular request, and nearly every session Emerson had to take at least a few lashes against his back. So when the snap of the whip landed across his back, he was able to just merely cringe and groan. The sharp bite lasted for just a moment, replaced by the burning sting of the wound the crackers of the whip had made.

Then there was another, and another overtop of that one. Light keens drifted from him as the last ones stung against the burns, adding another layer of pain that was growing unbearable. Emerson was well aware that once the adrenaline of the show wore off that he would barely be able to function. He was already dreading tomorrow, even though it was hard to think of it existing just yet.

The fourth lash hit just the wrong way, and Emerson cried out in pain as his back felt like it was on fire, burns stinging with a renewed fury. It hurt so much that he couldn’t resist the keen of pain that echoed into the room, silent as the crowd just stared and stared in sick wonder.

He hated them. He fucking hated every single one of them. His teeth gritted in anger and pain as they washed over him in waves. He had always hated Master Henrick’s guests.

Maybe it was just the stress getting to him, finally breaking him down after hours of mental torture, topped off with the physical strain of the show. Maybe it was just a passing thought, the fear and pain making him want to lash out at the people who helped Master Henrick afford to take care of the three of them. He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.

Emerson closed his eyes and prayed that he could stop thinking.

He wondered if he was actually religious before he became a box boy. Probably not.

The fifth lash stung against his skin, drawing another gasp away from him. Emerson sent a pleading look behind him, watching as the man began to raise the whip for another strike.

Master Henrick grabbed his arm before it swung down. “Not so fast. You want to strike him more you’re going to have to pay, just like everyone else.”

“Then here.” The man dug into his pockets and shoved a handful of cash into Master Henrick’s hands. “I’m having fun, Henrick. That should cover enough lashes until I’m satisfied, yes?”

Emerson looked to Master Henrick, desperately hoping that he would say no. But he was much smarter than that. Money was money, even if Emerson was being pushed to his limit.

Just a little bit longer, he reminded himself.

The lashes came and went, stinging more and more as they dug into his skin and drew blood. Emerson was sure that his back was ruined from the way that it hurt, the way that it felt like he’d been stripped of any good feeling and replaced with pain and blood as they mixed together and tormented him. It was hard to imagine that there could be anything beyond this, a potential tomorrow or even a few hours after everything had been said and done.

Mercifully the whip stopped striking against his skin. With the brief pause and distant muttering, Emerson sighed in relief and slumped against the bindings that were holding him up. He could take the pressure on his wrists for a little bit, just enough to rest.

He was already so tired.

Emerson was lowered onto the floor, left lying on his side. It was the only position that didn’t aggravate all of his wounds. A simple mercy, but one that drew several words of thankfulness out of his mouth. He knew it wouldn’t last, so he made use of the time that he had and relished in the feeling of the simple cold on the platform floor.

“Emerson.” Upon hearing the name, his name which for a moment he didn’t remember, he opened his eyes to see brown dress shoes pointing towards him. His gaze drifted up and up until he spotted a familiar face. Clayton Whitfield. He had a bright cigarette in his hand, breathing down enough smoke to make Emerson cough at the feeling. “Hello again. Remember what we talked about before?”

Somehow, someway, he had. He managed to remember the unpleasant conversation about how Clayton wished that he owned Emerson, if just to line his skin with several marks from a cigarette. He nodded with a small whine.

“Good. On your back then. Tilt your head up so my sister can see that pretty face of yours.” Clayton’s words were gentle as he settled down into a halfway kneel. Emerson briefly wondered about the blood on the floor, whether Clayton’s pants would get stained from it. It gave him plenty of humorous energy to imagine him freaking out about it later.

With a great amount of effort, Emerson shifted so that he was on his back, head upwards and facing the crowd. From this rather confusing vantage point he couldn’t quite pick out Miss Whitfield, but he knew that she was in there, somewhere, probably watching this with great joy.

There was nothing more than a pitiful whimper as Clayton pressed the cigarette against his clavicle, with a quiet sizzling noise as it was put out. Emerson’s eyes filled with fresh tears as it was drawn away, adding the burn to a list of other aches that welled up in his body.

It was funny, this almost seemed strangely intimate and gentle compared to the litany of other kinds of torture so far. Clayton pressed the cigarettes down against Emerson’s chest with a smile, brushing away the ashes when he pulled away. He lit the cigarette again, or retrieved a new one when it refused to light. Every single one drew away a whine from Emerson, sometimes even a cry if he found a more sensitive spot.

“Annd ten. That’s about all I can do. Thanks for the time, Emerson. It’s been wonderful to watch.” Clayton brushed his cheek gently, before getting up altogether.

Emerson refused to move. He didn’t think he could.

“Well, that’s all we have for you tonight. Thank you so much for coming, and please, feel free to partake of the food and drink while I see to my dear Emerson here. Anyone who wants to spend a little more time with him should stick around. I’ll get to you as soon as I am finished with him.” Master Henrick’s voice was not as booming as it was when they had first started, but it still carried just the same. Emerson could tell the tenseness in his voice, rough bits not just from vocal strain. Knew them from personal experience.

Hands found their way underneath him, fingers unable to dodge lash wounds and making him keen from the pain. It hurt so much, and he was so tired, that all Emerson could do was whine pitifully and hope that Master Henrick could help him.

He was lifted upwards, hanging limply in Master Henrick’s arms as he was slowly carried out of the room and away from the party.

“You did so good for me, Emerson,” Master Henrick praised when they were away from the clamor. “So good. I’ll have to reward you when you’re better. How does that sound?”

“Good, Master…” He swallowed weakly, wincing at the pain in his throat. “I’m tired, Master Henrick. May I… may I rest for now?”

“You may. I’ll wake you when your services are required, okay?” There was an edge of softness to his voice, enough to make Emerson’s eyes hurt from wanting to cry and not being able to shed any more tears. “Rest, Emerson.”

It was the only order he could obey reliably, now. Emerson let his eyes drift closed, finally able to fall away from his body and into a peaceful sleep.

27 notes · View notes

vitosscaletta · 4 years ago

Note

>:) Personality + Background for Helena, Basics + Appearance for Erin

YES thank u... vampire time

Helena

PERSONALITY

What’s their alignment?

Probably neutral good ehehehe

What are their hobbies and interests? Do they have any particular “favorites” (food, books, and so on)?

Her number one passion is acting, it’s not really a hobby since she does it professionally (or is trying to lol).. She enjoys learning history though, especially the mid-18th century :^) Also music, corny movies, she’s also a huge sims fan >:)

As for her favorites uhhh her favorite band is My Chemical Romance DUH, fav movies are Shakespeare in Love, Valley of The Dolls (yeah ik it sucks),... Shark Tale.... aaaaand her favorite food is fries. Or it was, she can’t eat it anymore :(

What are they bad at?

Within the game’s mechanics and all that.. she’s not much good in a fight (thank u faelike background). She’s still significantly stronger than the average human of course, but very fragile for vampire standarts :/ Noodle arms bitch

Do they have any vices/addictions/mental illnesses?

None that I can think of

What are their goals and motivations?

Before her embrace it was to become a famous actress.. which isn’t possible anymore, she’s still craving that kind of lifestyle though. She grew up not being very well off and not being very popular either, so it’s kinda... wanting to be someone important? Like that Will Smith fish from shark tale :)

What are their manners like? Any habits?

She’s rather well-mannered, not exactly posh but she doesn’t do anything weird in public either.. usually.

What are they most afraid of?

irrelevance... something like that :/

BACKGROUND

Where were they born? What was their childhood like?

She’s originally from San Francisco, grew up with a single mom and her younger sister. They weren’t very well off so her mom had to work a lot, it was pretty much just her and her sister :/ She wasn’t very popular either so she made only few friends in school, it was lonely :(

What’s their family like?

Her mom Jenny is a nice lady, very goal-oriented.. she was very popular in high school, which is how she met Helena’s dad. He’s originally from germany and comes from a long line of vampire hunters and religious zealots (Society of Leopold hoes..), doesn’t really know anything about it though. His family are just a bunch of weird catholics. They had two children, miss Helena & her little Sister, Elizabeth before he divorced his wife and fucked off 👋. He cut off all contact and doesn’t pay child support bc he’s a freak. Also Elizabeth is currently studying law somewhere, their mother insisted they make something of themselves >:(

What factions or organizations are they a part of? What ranks and titles do they hold?

She’s with the camarilla, mostly due to the fact that Christian is in it too. She came to them all starry-eyed because the other members were all sexy, powerful and rich vampires which is pretty much what she wants to be like lmao.. She works directly for Lacroix, kinda like the fledgling except with better pay, slightly less shitty jobs and a tiny bit more respect (only a tiny bit everyone still thinks she’s dumb af). She just has to run small errants lol. There’s no official rank or title though lol.

She’s not really loyal to them or anything and quickly becomes disillusioned by it all. Vampire society is fucked up... she kinda starts spending more time with the Hollywood anarchs because toreador solidarity, doesn’t join their cause though. The anarchs can’t stand her lmao. She’s really mostly independent...

How do they fit into their “story”?

She’s just your good ol’ regular La Croy foundations employee, she was initially my fledgling but I don’t want Christian (her sire) to die, I suppose she’s just like.. there.. idk its kind of a wip

Where do they currently live? What’s their place like?

She has that little apartment in downtown LA during the events of bloodlines :^) It’s a nice place, modern interior and all that... she does miss her old apartment with the victorian furniture though :(( Post bloodlines she probably leaves LA after the whole thing with Lacrosse lol... she’s friends with Ash now they can go on a road trip or something

How do they eventually die?

she doesn’t... shes a vampire >:)

Erin

BASICS

What’s their full name?

Cassandra Erin Winters :~)

What does their name mean? Why were they named that?

Cassandra (from greek “to excel, to shine “) is a little nod to the seer Cassandra, who appears somewhere in her bloodline :^) In-universe it’s one of those names that appear throughout her family.. there are a bunch of important great-grandmothers, aunts and other relatives so her parents named her that to make it look like they’re an important dynasty or something. Rich people bs. Erin is an english derivative of the irish word for.. Ireland lmao. It was just one of those names that were popular in the early 80′s and her mother liked it, there’s no real reason behind it!

Do they have any nicknames?

jhdfjhfd Cammy by Damsel even though she helped them out 😒 also “Newbie” by her bf sdkjskjdf romance ❤

How old are they?

22 in 2004, I suppose she’s 37 in 2020 aka during the events of bloodlines 2

When’s their birthday?

December 13th, 1982

What’s their zodiac sign/element/birthstone/etc.? Do they believe that holds any significance?

I had to take a whole quiz for this but she’s a Sagittarius 😌 I’d say it definitely does lol... she reads her horoscope almost daily

What’s their species/subspecies? Do they have any special/magical abilities?

Vampire lol... specifically of clan Malkavikan. As for magical abilities yknow, typical vampire stuff, plus the voices & Malkavian insight and all that. Her abilities are Auspex and Obfuscate :^)

What “class” do they belong to (for fantasy characters)? If none, what weapon do they favor?

No class but her favorite weapon was the axe she found in the haunted hotel

APPEARANCE

What do they look like?

goddd.... small, pretty blonde, pale skin bc she’s dead, yellow-ish eyes (used to be blue)... big eyes, sliightly overplucked eyebrows bc it’s 2004 :( she’s still cute though

Do they have a face claim?

Mostly Bella Heathcote and Christina Ricci in one image I found on pinterest lol.. I never have faceclaims that are 100% what they look like :(

What’s their style like? Clothes, hair, makeup?

goddd jt was pretty much regular late 90s/early 2000s popular girl before her embrace.. short skirts, juicy tracksuits, tube tops, those awful tinted glasses, coats with fake fur. Her hair was often in those late 90′s updos with a few streaks hanging loose in the front... makeup is just regular looks from the time, lipgloss, frosty eyeshadow and all that 🤢 she’s a big fan of turtleneck sweaters though 😌

It’s still the same but a bit more fucked up post-embrace because she’s just like go crazy aaahh go stupid aaahhh and digs out some of her weirder clothes because half of these vampire bitches wear dumber clothes than her anyway... an old white lace dress that looks like it’s from the early 1900s or something like that... her standard outfits are still low-rise jeans with tank tops and those giant early 2000s shoes though, she just adds in a few weird looking clothes for fun sometimes

How do they carry themselves? What’s their default expression?

Honestly she looks like this emoji 😳 most of the time, Malkavian voices, weird doomsday visions and all that... She had a very cheerful attitude before her embrace and it still shows sometimes, most of the time it’s kinda weird though :(

Do they have any physical ailments or disabilities?

nope!

#jennystahl #thank u hehe...#c: helena #c: erin #miss helena..

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dwellordream · 3 years ago

Text

“...First, let’s talk about materials. We can rule out a Steppe Nomad inspiration for any of this right off. The Eurasian Steppe is very large and covers a range of arid climates (that is to say, parts of it are colder, parts of it are warmer), but they all have spinning and weaving technology, by which the supple hairs of woolly animals, or plant fibers like linen, or cotton, or even natural protein fibers like silk can be fashioned into fabric which is more flexible, comfortable, breathable and temperature controlled than the raw leather we see in the show.

...there is a distinct lack here of lots of leather, except in the sort of things that lots of cultures use leather for (boots, fittings, saddles, bags, tents). Instead, clothing is mostly made out of nice, comfortable, breathable textiles, because of course it is. That is not to say, to be clear, that leather or hides or fur were never used – fur especially was used; merely that they were generally used to supplement clothing primarily made out of textile.

...Now Plains Native American clothing does make much greater use of animal skin as a clothing material, but there is an important distinction to be made here. The problem here is with the plasticity of the term ‘leather’ which can technically include a wide range of products, but in practice is understood to mean exactly what the Game of Thrones costume department and literally every piece of official artwork of the Dothraki understand it to mean, which is the product of tanning processes.

I am not an expert, but as far as I can tell, Native American clothing was not made in the same way; animal products were used in a process I have seen described as ‘brain tanning’ (rather than using chemical tannins) and the final product was then smoked. The result – which is often called ‘buckskin’ regardless of the animal source for the hide – is very different from the leather we see in the show.

This is, in terms of material, very clearly not what the ‘vests’ the Dothraki in the show are wearing. Buckskin would also be used to make trousers, as opposed to the “horsehair leggings” of Martin’s wording, which also strike me as deeply improbable. Haircloth – fabric made from horsehair (or camel hair) – is durable, but typically stiff, unsupple and terribly itchy; not something you want in direct contact with your skin (especially not between your rear end and a saddle), unless you just really like skin irritation. It is also a difficult material to get in any kind of significant quantity – and you would need a significant quantity if you intended to make most of your trousers out of it.

...Well that’s for materials, what about patterns? Once again, we can quite easily rule out anything steppe inspired. Again, the Eurasian Steppe is big and has lots of variety, but relatively long robes are generally the norm in terms of dress; where long robes were not worn (see our Scythian above), the common pattern was heavy sleeved garments and trousers with very complete coverage. A common example of the type of long robe-like garments is the Mongolian deel, a long sleeved robe or tunic which provides a lot of protection against the elements. In the case of elites – and Daenerys is, initially, mostly around elites – these could be made of expensive silk or brocade – but poorer versions might be made of wool.

...And there is good reason for these relatively high-coverage garments. Plains or Steppe peoples naturally tend to live on, well, plains and steppes – that is large expanses of semi-arid grasslands. The very nature of that terrain configuration produces fairly extreme seasonal temperature variations (that is, very hot summers and very cold winters) as well as extreme daily temperature variations (that is, hot days and cold nights) because such places are far from large bodies of water and also don’t have tree-cover, both of which serve to moderate rapid temperature changes.

Consequently, as anyone who has lived in a plains state in the USA (or on the Eurasian Steppe, though that is fewer of my readers, but for my brave handful of hits from that part of the world, hello and welcome!) can tell you, you need clothes that can be layered and which can be both warm in the winter and cool in the summer. For us moderns, we mostly do this by owning multiple season-specific wardrobes, but clothing is expensive in pre-modern societies, so multi-purpose garments, or garments that be layered, to turn a warm-weather outfit into a cold-weather outfit are important!

There’s no reason to suppose the Dothraki Sea would be any different: it sits at about the same latitude as King’s Landing so there is little reason to assume it would be warm all-year-round. Parts of the Eurasian Steppe stretch decently far south, sharing a latitude with northern Italy and Spain; nevertheless they do not enjoy the same Mediterranean climate because they don’t have the same exposure to the weather patterns created by the sea. The southern end of the Great Plains stretches down all the way into Texas, but still gets properly cold in the winter with temperatures regularly dipping below freezing in the winter despite the latitude. For a people who are camping and working outside all of the time, warm clothing is going to be a must.

...There is tremendous variety here, but I don’t think any of it could be aptly described simply as “Men and women alike wore painted leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings.” Now, if you looked hard enough could you find something that resembled Martin’s leather vests, bare chests and horsehair leggings somewhere in the clothing of Native Americans across two continents? Probably, but among the specific Native peoples that Martin cites as inspiration, it does not seem to be at all common. And if that description was wholly unconnected to anything in the real world, we might well stop there and conclude that, well this is just the ‘dash of pure fantasy’ that Martin was talking about (although as we’ll see, it is going to be quite a bit more than just a dash). But I don’t think we can stop there, because (removing the medallion belts) Martin’s description does adequately describe something that exists in the real world: Halloween costumes purporting to depict Native Americans.

...The vest-and-pants style of Native American Halloween costume seems to be rather rare now, but it was, at least to my memory, much more common in the 1990s, when A Game of Thrones was written (initial publication date of 1996). You can see them, for instance, on many of the background extras in the famous Thanksgiving scene from Addams Family Values (1993) and that vest style was also a part of the outfit for the also-quite-unfortunately-branded YMCA Indian Guides/Indian Princesses program (rebranded as the ‘Adventure Guides’ in 2003 after decades of Native Americans complaining about it) which was also fairly popular in the 1990s.

Now, I am not saying that Martin planned to construct his Dothraki out of Native American stereotypes and bad Halloween costumes. In fact, I am fairly confident he intended nothing of the sort. But in the absence of doing some effective research (and it is going to become increasingly apparent that at least effective research was not done) there was quite possibly nothing else to inform the effort other than what was ‘in the air’ of the popular consciousness. Of course the danger of those often simplistic public stereotypes is that people often do not know that they have them, assuming instead that the vague impression they have is essentially accurate (or at least, close enough for a regular person). And that’s a real problem because it reinforces the popular stereotype, especially given Martin’s reputation for writing more ‘historically grounded’ fiction. And that is a problem because…

The clothing that the Dothraki are described and visually shown wearing is clearly intended to convey things about their society. Returning to our visual comparison above, it is easy to see that the actual clothing of both Eurasian and American ‘horse cultures’ was often bright, highly decorated and generally eye-catching, featuring complex patterns and shapes. It was both nice looking, but also spoke to the humanity of the people that made it and their very human desire to look nice and have nice looking things. By contrast, the clothing of the Dothraki is presented as simple, rugged and unadorned.

...I want to stress this to make the point clear: people in the past liked to look nice! Much of the popular perception of pre-modern clothing assumes lots of dull, drab colors, undecorated or merely adorned with rough pelts, but this is almost entirely a Hollywood construction. The Romans didn’t exclusively dress in white (indeed, the toga candida, the white toga, was an unusually formal thing to wear, like a politician��s suit-with-flag-pin), medieval peasants didn’t wear drab brown (they dressed in bright primary colors mostly), and as I hope the historical pictures for this essay show, both steppe nomads and Plains Native Americans wore nice clothing with lots of patterns, color and decoration. These men next to Khal Drogo are his elite guard of ‘bloodriders,’ the companions of a ruler who wields tremendous power and wealth! And yet they have opted to wear mostly undecorated bland brown leather.

Just to underline this point, think about what a fine set of clothing communicates to an observer (for instance, one of Khal Drogo’s thousands of mounted warrior retainers who are present at this event). Imported goods, like metalwares (which nomads won’t generally be able to make themselves) or fine imported fabrics demonstrate not only trade contacts but also often that the leader has useful ties to foreign leaders (since such things were often gifts or tribute from foreign courts). Garments whose production, due to fine patterns, complex weaves, intricate beading or quillwork, would take many, many hours of production demonstrate that the leader has a lot of subordinate people in their household (in many cases, that would mean women), which both implies the ability to give these people as gifts (either in marriage or because of their non-free status) and also the access to resources (in this case herds of animals) needed to sustain so many people – in short, the sort of leader who can reward faithful warriors richly.

And of course a leader who outfits his closest retainers – his bloodriders, in this case – with such wares (especially expensive foreign metal military equipment) demonstrates both access to military capital and also the ability to reward his trusted lieutenants. In short, the Khal whose person and immediate retainers are decked out in finery looks like backing the winning side, which is a very important thing to assess as one of his warriors. So even if not one of Drogo’s men cares about their personal appearance at all, it is still politically important for them to dress for success.

Which then demands the question, looking at the very fine clothing of historical horse cultures that supposedly provided the inspiration for these Dothraki fellows: Where is the exquisite bead work? The fine quillwork? Where are the carefully made fringes? Where is the silk brocade? Where are the detailed, complex patterns?”

- Bret Devereaux, “That Dothraki Horde, Part I: Barbarian Couture.”

#the dothraki #bret devereaux #history #fashion #grrm critical

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