#I’m going to go sit in a hole | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

heyyallitssatan · 10 months ago

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I have made a fic

Theres the ao3 link if you want it, and the fics under the cut

She was always cold these days.

Frozen limbs, a sheen of frost always coating rarely uncovered skin.

It used to hurt, being so cold all the time, but it didn’t anymore. She didn’t feel it anymore, she didn’t feel much of anything anymore. All her emotions, frozen over, a thick layer of ice exacting them, never to be released.

It hadn’t always been like this. Once, she felt things freely, she felt her hands and toes and her lips weren’t permanently purple.

But that was before, before her mother burned her baby brothers face, before she was dragged off to a mental hospital kicking and screaming, before she gave her life to her brothers, before she became the mother hers could never be, before her life became theirs. But most of all, it was before Touya, her other half, her twin, her warmth, died in a blaze that left behind only a too small jaw bone.

Now was different, now was now, and now she was always too cold.

Her toes were the first to go, probably, but her fingers were the first she noticed.

It had been a year since Touya’s death, she was pouring her father tea when she dropped the pot and broke the cup. Her hands were numb, they always were since that night, and she couldn’t keep a hold of it. She was scolded, and disciplined, for her mistake. She spent hours relearning ho to hold a tea pot so that it didn’t matter if she could feel it or not.

It was almost a full year later when she realised it was her hands and feet she couldn’t feel anymore, she could move them, feel the movement, but she couldn’t feel touch, or warmth, or anything but that numbing cold climbing up her arms and legs.

She stopped using her quirk to do things after that, vowed against it, but it didn’t help. Frost slipped from her numb fingers to crystallise on her glass, her socks froze to the tatami mats of their home, and she didn’t notice.

She learned to watch her hands, and her feet, wherever she went, making sure she kept a fight hold of her quirk.

Her breath was next. She didn’t notice until Natsuo mentioned that her breath was clouding by her mouth, just too cold for the air. She checked, and realised her lips had turned purple at some point, nothing extreme, just a tint to her lips that wasn’t quite natural. She realised her skin had taken on an unnatural blush. She was sixteen when she started wearing make up.

She was twenty now, and the numbing cold had climbed up her arms and legs. Everything below mid thigh and shoulder was numb now. She had taken to always wearing thick covering clothes. She wore thick pants and long skirts no matter the weather. Sweaters and long sleeve blouses in the middle of summer. She had always been cold natured, no one noticed.

No one noticed, until she started wearing gloves. They were nice, expensive, and specially made to keep out the cold. If they could keep it out, they could keep it in. People noticed, gloves were too weird, but she was always cold, maybe it was okay.

She couldn’t keep her hands from frosting over anymore, and they always looked a bit blue, she thought that was more worrisome than gloves.

She was right.

She had taken to the hottest showers she could get, and when that wasn’t enough to warm her limbs, she went further. She had the body for a fire quirk, the heat couldn’t hurt her. She started boiling water in the middle of the night, when everyone else was long since asleep, it wasn’t like she could join them anymore. She was always careful to take the kettle of the stove before it could squeal, she cared infinitely more that her brothers got enough sleep than if she got warm. She’d finally take her gloves off, and pour the water over her hands in the sink, fill a small tub to set her feet in, all the while rising steam warmed her lungs.

It was as close as she could get to being warm again. It was as close as she could get to Touya again. Though, she supposed his body was just as cold as hers now. Those were dark thoughts, thoughts she only gave voice to on late nights like these, when no one was around to see the tears freeze to her waterline.

She was always cold, always numb, but she could still feel some things. Love for her brothers, all of them, was the first thing on that list, and sometimes the only thing.

Tonight was one of those times, when she was watching her Father and her baby brother fighting Touya. That was Touya, he was alive. He was alive.

That was all she could think about, he was alive. She lost control of the frost, it was covering the floor her feet were on, the couch she was sat on, little bits of it had started creeping up Natsuo.

She didn’t notice until he yelled at the cold. What did he know about the cold?

For the first time in a long time, her ice cracked.

She couldn’t bring herself to care that he was a villain, she couldn’t care about all the people he’d killed in the process, she couldn’t even herself to care that he’d attacked their Father.

She cared that he’d attacked Shoto of course, but that could be addressed later, after she’d seen him in person, confirmed it was really him, that he was really alive.

She never let herself consider it before, not even in the dead of night when no one was around to see the tears that never fell, it was the only thought she could never let herself give a voice to.

But it was true, he was here, he was alive.

He was gone again.

He left after the stunt, as quickly as he came. But she knew he was alive now, she found him once, she could find him again.

She hated her Father most of the time, deep down under cracking ice that let thoughts like that seep through now, but she couldn’t argue that his connections were helpful, and so was his money. She could afford to pay them to help her, and then to pay them again to keep silent. She couldn’t tell anyone what she was doing, Father would be so angry, and so would Natsuo. She didn’t know how Shoto and Rei would react, but she couldn’t risk that they’d tell the others, she had to do this alone. But what else was new.

She found him easy enough, about two weeks later. It was easy enough she didn’t think he was really hiding anymore. If he didn’t want to be found he wouldn’t have, he proved that many many years ago.

She sent him a message, through a hired hand, telling him to meet her at a nearby cafe, one considered neutral ground, where heroes and villains and vigilantes could meet without worrying about sides and fights. It was safe for them.

He met her there, he expected she’d been the one to send the message, the only one who would’ve wanted to meet him, the only one brave enough, even if she never saw herself that way.

He saw her, sitting at a little two person table with a coffee in hand. She drank too much coffee when they were younger, after Rei was taken, and he can’t imagine she dropped the habit, and if the shaking of her hands is any indication, it’s only gotten worse.

He sat down next to her, and she stared at him for a minute, not saying a word, but she didn’t smile at him, not a rare real smile that she showed only in the safest most vulnerable moments, not even the fake smile she used to placate Enji and calm Natsuo and Shoto. They never noticed, never noticed that that smile didn’t make her eyes twinkle quite the same, didn’t make her nose scrunch up just a bit. It fooled everyone else, but he had been there since she was born, he grew up with that smile, and he knew the difference.

Now she only watched him, and him her. She pushed a coffee toward him, and he broke his gaze just long enough to take a sip. He judged her coffee habit, but he wasn’t much better, at least when they younger, and she knew his order by heart.

That wasn’t his order, at least not his old one, rather it was closer to his order now. A White Russian, and it looked like she was sipping on the same.

“Since when do you drink?”

“Since Shoto and Natsu left and it’s just me and dad in the house.”

He huffed a humourless laugh, and so did she. Frosty breath fogged in front of her as she did, and that’s when he took note of the thick sweater, and winter pants, and gloves, all in the middle of August.

He was always hot, and honestly he was itching to get out of the meagre layers he was in now. He didn’t know why she was wearing so many thick layers, sure she was always cold, but he was pretty sure she was never ‘parka in summer’ cold. When he said as much she just huffed another laugh and shrugged.

He grabbed her hand, and she flinched, and that almost hurt, but it wasn’t the flinch of a civilian who just got grabbed by an S rank villain, it was the flinch of an abused little girl that hadn’t expected anyone to touch her. Scratch that, it hurt worse.

He wasn’t a family man, he hated Rei for abandoning them, He hated Enji for obvious reasons, he didn’t quite hate Shoto, but he was certainly angsty that he replaced him, and at best he felt indifference towards Natsuo. For some reason, he could never find it in himself to hate Fuyumi. Even at the lowest, when he hated the entire world, he couldn’t hate her. He could only remember how she patched his wounds, cooled his burns, loved him through everything, despite everything. He didn’t have room in his charred heart to live anymore, but she was spilling over with it, love for her brothers, her students, anyone who walked through their home. She even found it in herself to love some part of their parents, a part long gone, but she remembers it, loves it.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever be that strong, that brave. He left, he was a coward. But she stayed, protected her brothers, took care of them, carried the burdens of her family all alone.

He was built for the cool calm of the ice, but he got fire.

She watched him closely, her brother, Touya, Dabi, she didn’t care what his name was now, he was her brother, and he was alive.

She saw how his skin was stapled together, skin grafts and burns patched together. It almost looked like her first attempt at quilting, before she realised she was better at crochet. It was ugly and uneven, but she loved it anyway.

She saw the heat that radiated from his skin, a heat she had felt when they were young, heat that warmed her too cold skin, that fought the frostbite that threatened to over take her at every turn, when she couldn’t control her quirk as well. She missed that heat, until it grabbed her hand, warmth seeping through her glove.

She flinched, and she saw the hurt that crossed his face. She never meant to abuse that look, never meant to hurt him. She wasn’t scared of him, how could she be?

He was her brother, even after everything, he was still that. And she loved her brothers so much. More than herself.

She loved Touya, she loved that he could get angry. He could show his anger in ways she couldn’t, he was free and expressive in a way she couldn’t be. Her thoughts and feelings were numbed, hidden under layers of ice, but not his. They burned hot and bright and he made you see them, see him.

She wished she could be so visible.

But he cracked her ice, with each day she saw the breaks get wider, deeper, and things started leaking out. Her hatred for their father, something she buried so deep inside she could never feel more than the barest irritation at him, a super volcano hidden beneath the ice, ready to explode.

She doesn’t think she’ll ever be so strong as to let herself blow up, not like him. She wishes she could.

She was built for raging fire, but she got ice.

He grabbed her hand, much to both of their surprise. He pulled off her glove, and she let him. He winced at the sight of her hand, cold and pale. She was watching him, holding her hand so gently in his, but she didn’t react.

“I can feel it,” she whispered, like she feared if she spoke any louder it would stop, like she only knew how to speak softly and calmly, but her face betrayed nothing. She had schooled her expression into blank calm so long ago it seemed she had forgot how to make anything else.

“What?”

He sounded angry, his voice always sounded angry, burnt thought scratching against his vocal cords, matching his permanently scowling face, made that way through surgeries or circumstance, no one knew.

“I can feel your hand, it’s warm,” her voice finally expressed something besides soft and calm observation, something akin to awe, surprise maybe?

She hadn’t felt warmth, or anything really, in her hands in so long, she couldn’t remember it.

He seemed to understand, he knew how her quirk worked as well as she did, and he knew what it felt like to use his quirk without her there, burning from the inside out. He imagined freezing was similar, her nerves were dead, just like his.

She felt his heat bleed into her hand at the same time it seemed as though the cold seeped into his.

They sat like that for only a moment, before it began to hurt. Permanent frostbite meant permanent numbness, and as she warmed up for the first time in years she could finally feel the pain that followed numbness. She knew he felt the same.

It had been too long, they had been without their balance too long, and now it hurt too much to go back.

They sat for awhile, but they didn’t say much, there’s was too much to say, too many years to relive, but nothing felt important enough to say.

Fuyumi knew she wouldn’t stop his goals, she didn’t try. He knew he couldn’t get her to come with him, he didn’t try. They should’ve tried.

They left, unfinished drinks still sitting on the table.

They didn’t say goodbye, they didn’t say anything. They just walked away, in opposite directions. Neither of them favoured literature, neither of them ever read Orpheus’ story, neither of them had ever learned his lesson.

They both turned around, wanting just one last glimpse of their sibling, their twin, their balance, before they left for good, before this became their new before.

They turned, and looked, and ran.

They hugged, the only ones who could touch each other with freezing or burning, the only ones immune to the pain the other lives everyday with. They couldn’t hug for long, their balance wasn’t right anymore, it hurt too much, too many jagged edges cutting against each other, two extremes that never should have met, but never could have left each other alone.

They hugged, it hurt, they didn’t stop.

They whispered, in equally trained voices, with equally drilled expressions, each others names, the only names they ever really felt like they owned.

“Ya-nii”

“Yu-nee”

Then, after a moment longer, they pulled apart, blood evaporating on skin, tears freezing on waterlines, they turned and left. And they both smiled, as close to the real smiles they wore as kids as they thought they would ever get again.

Touya wasn’t made for love, he was made for rage, clawing at his throat until he let it out.

Touya wasn’t made for love, but maybe there was an exception.

Fuyumi wasn’t made for rage, she was made for love, care and protection overflowing from her like the tears she couldn’t shed.

Fuyumi wasn’t made for rage, but the cracks were growing, and lava lived beneath her ice.

They were polar opposites, one left and the other stayed. One killed, the other saved. One burned, the other froze. But they were cut from the same cloth, a cloth woven of love and rage, and when you looked closely, ice burns as bright as fire.

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foldingfittedsheets · 6 months ago

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When I was working at the sex shop I was pulling poverty wages. I loved my job but I was on food stamps and still barely getting by. When they hired the stores first male employee and he started at my pay rate after I’d been there for three years I quit.

I was initially really nervous when I saw the post for the mattress job. It listed a pay scale that I couldn’t even conceptualize and I appeared qualified. When I got an interview I was over the moon but also petrified. Reactions to my line of work often varied but most people were very embarrassed or skeptical. I worried about how I’d address it in the actual interview.

I lived far to the north of their headquarters and drove almost two hours to get there. When I finally arrived it was in the nicest thrift store clothes I could find, but I shrank inside to see a room full of older white men in nice suits waiting to be interviewed for the same job.

Why did I bother? I was decades younger than anyone else in the room, shabbily dressed, and I suspected I was the only afab person in the entire building. I stewed in my insecurities until I was called in.

The second I met my interviewer I was instantly put at ease. The man had the energy of a therapy dog, he was abound with positive, good natured energy. He was also incredibly beautiful. I grinned back at his welcoming smile as we said our pleasantries. But still. This very beautiful polished man seemed very innocent. How would the sex shop question go?

“I see here you worked at STORE?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

“And that was sales? Or you just rang people up.”

“No, it was sales. I’d help people find products, we were encouraged to upsell, there was sales spiffs, and most importantly we educated customers on products to help them find what they liked best.”

He grinned approvingly and asked, “Can you give me an example of a time you successfully upsold a customer?”

I paused, wringing my hands before I asked, “How vague would you like me to be…?”

“Not at all!” He assured me. “Go for it!”

“Well. A man came in looking for something to make his fingers vibrate so when he was touching his wife it would enhance that sensation. We had cheap $10 cockrings that I showed him first. But we had a rechargeable waterproof one made of nicer material, and after I showed him a demo he bought that one.”

“How much was that one?”

“$110”

“Wow! You had an upsell of 100% from what he came in looking for! That’s incredible!”

He was so truly genuinely stoked and not at all embarrassed that for the first time I saw a tiny glimmer of a future where I didn’t have ramen and peanut butter tiding me over between paychecks.

He asked me to wait then came back to tell me he liked me so much that he wanted to send me right into another interview, if that was okay. He didn’t want me to have to drive back later, it was terribly considerate and exciting. I beamed and told him it would be lovely.

I then had the second worst interview I’ve ever had. The worst goes to the time I applied to be a store manager for a pet food place years later. The district and store manager interviewing me passed notes and texted while I was speaking. When the district manager called to inform me I didn’t get the job I told him I’d never have accepted anyway because I’d never had such a disrespectful interview.

The new man sitting behind the desk radiated an aura of a brick wall. As someone with anxiety I’m highly keyed into the emotional states of people I’m talking to. To receive no feedback at all was my personal hell. After a perfunctory greeting he asked me with no inflection to sell him a pen.

I gathered the shreds of my courage and attempted the Herculean task he’d set me. Through my whole improvised spiel he resisted all attempts at engaging him, regarding me with a cold apathy as I touted the benefits of my fictitious pen.

Halfway through I broke into a cold sweat. My smile didn’t waver but it grew strained as I projected friendliness and warmth into the black hole of his heart. My thoughts scattered and my sales pitch grew redundant in the face of his nothingness. I finally concluded with a hard close and he simply nodded.

He glanced at my resume and commented, “You didn’t ask me to touch or hold it. Though I suppose I can understand from your previous line of work why you wouldn’t.” I shriveled and died inside knowing that I encouraged people to touch dildos all day long and had been too frazzled to offer him the pen.

He bid me a cool farewell. I made it to my car before I started sobbing. I had never been so rattled. I couldn’t understand what I’d done to make him so unfriendly or if my threadbare clothes were what had made him treat me like dirt. I drove an hour and a half to get home, weeping intermittently.

I was therefore taken by complete surprise to receive a call the next day inviting me on board for their five week training program. The first man who’d interviewed me gushed on the phone about how the second guy had loved me and that I was going to be fantastic.

I was in shock. When I showed up to training the second interviewer was charming my new classmates, beaming and laughing. He was an utterly different person. To my dismay I learned he was the trainer for my district and would be my point of contact if I made it through training.

He joked with me later that his interview facade was just a tactic to see how people held up under pressure and I filed him into a category of my deepest enmity. I never forgave him for how small he made me feel that day, but I never showed him the depths of my fury.

I aced every test and went on to be valedictorian of the eight people who had survived the rigorous training process to earn a sales position. When I got my first paycheck I bought myself new clothes, the first non-thrifted things I’d owned in years.

#ramblies #ffs foibles #writing #story #interview #job interview

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