#LORDY TGAT WAS A LOT TO ORGANIZE

[cowardlybean]

MP100 Writing Scraps!!

all Reigen and Mob related, NOT ship. if you’re curious about context just shoot me an ask :3

[Context: Mob is speaking to a doppelgänger of Reigen.]

Shigeo watches passively as Reigen lights a cigarette, cupping his hand around the lighter’s flame as if to keep it out of Shigeo’s sight. Between two fingers he brings the cigarette to his lips with practiced mundanity—Shigeo knows that shishou used to smoke, and he’s well aware of the consequences of addiction, yet the sight creates a shiver that skitters up the boy’s spine and curls around his brain stem. It’s wrong, to put it plainly. Wrong.

“You don’t smoke, Reigen-shishou.” The words escape his mouth pushed out by the invasive scent of smog. A part of him—the rightful part of him, he’s sure—hates to correct its behavior. It—what’s imitating Reigen-shishou—has learned so much more from him, now only tripping over the intricacies of Reigen’s behavior. Shigeo would ignore the longer pause inbetween each blink, the way in which he’s lost his characteristic fluidity similar to cutting a video’s frame rate. Knowing it would improve with time brings no comfort.

“Noted,” it, he, Reigen-shishou—one of the three applies—responds simply. He takes another drag and the conversation is left at that.

It was impulsive to begin with, anyway, successful only in reminding Shigeo of who—what, maybe—he’d lost. He can build it back with the time and effort. Time and effort are what Shigeo’s relationships are made of, each and every one.

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[Context: amnesia]

Arataka is well aware he’s lost a larger chunk of his mind than just his memories. His dreams meld with his waking mind, grand tales of spirits and inexplicable creatures expelled by bright colors blooming forth from some childish part of his mind, no doubt exposed and leaking out in viscous, syrupy waves after the fracture in his skull. For a short, short while he’d regale the nurse assigned to him with these tales, gesturing with his hands for detail despite pleas to stop, else he rip out his IV. Only in the early stages of his consciousness, of course, before the common sense had come to him that normal people don’t start conversations talking about their playfully imaginative dreams.

Instead, like an old man on the path to expiry, Arataka spins his tales to his one frequent visitor.

Mob is somewhat of an enigma himself. Only able to visit so frequently on the technicality that, while he was not related to Arataka by blood, the man was his legal guardian at the time of the accident. Arataka came up with the name “Mob” on the third day—the boy looked bland enough to deserve it—and much to his surprise it was met with some sort of hopeful enthusiasm that Arataka had remembered something. He didn’t care enough at the time to let the boy down gently, drugged up to hell and back on pain meds, and even still he was met with patient kindness.

It was frustrating at times, to be coddled like a child at the lack of his cognitive ability—especially regarding his vivid daydreams that were solely chalked up to brain damage.

Mob would listen, though. Leaning forward in his seat to listen as Arataka spun colorful stories with his tongue, it felt akin to story time in primary school. Mob would ask questions, smile at the jokes Arataka cracked, and return with stories of his day shoddily scrawled out in his own style of storytelling, easily taken off track. There’s a plethora of reoccurring names only a few of which Arataka can recall the significance of in Mob’s stories, the fault of disjointed retellings—though, Arataka supposes he’s not much better, with a severe lack of namable characters and a large variety of dramatic descriptions instead. It’s quite the contrast between the two.

“There was a boy—around your age, little younger, some school uniform that changed every time I glanced at it like I couldn’t remember the details—and he had a green balloon with him. No, wait, less like a balloon and more like a- an orb or something… not completely round but more whispy, yknow? And on it was a pretty jolly face, rosy cheeks, pinkish lips and smile lines—but he didn’t put that jolly face to good use no, no he’d sneer and frown and say all these snarky comments—now this all sounded like I was 60 feet underwater, mind you. But the kid, y’see, he was more gentle, he actually used honorifics unlike his companion, and just like his suit his voice would change too, every time he spoke it was a new kind of pitch or tone,” he’d explained once before, describing the image of two figures that had lingered in the doorway to his room—early one morning as he had still been scrubbing the sleep of his eyes, so he’d said.

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[Context: it’s implied that Shigeo has just read a suicide letter. however unbeknownst to him, it’s been forged. Reigen’s alive]

“…ah?”

A small little noise, unintentionally having leapt from Shigeo’s throat, so inconceivably meek—it’s all that his feeble mind can produce from the moment his eyes begin to scan the paper thrust into his hands. A purely physical reaction, his head hasn’t quite caught up with the words on the page.

Outside of the confines of his psyche spinning down the drain, an endless carousel, Shigeo dimly registers the voices of his companions as they all begin to spiral as well. Arguing, voices choked with tears, some withdrawn, some reacting brashly, all in response to a reality that this paper seems to solidify. A reality written in Reigen-shishou’s handwriting.

A realty that Shigeo instantly wants to deny.

Shishou wouldn’t resort to such a fate, not alone, never alone. Company is where Reigen-shishou flourished—he had more than ever before, more people who loved him in each their own ways. The fact came without the man’s admission: Reigen-shishou had been lonely for a very long time. It seemed so unlike him, so unnatural to imagine a man who practically glowed in the light of the sun to go lie down in the shadows to die.

Shigeo finds himself hit with a vengeful wave of guilt at his denial, disruptive to his remembrance of Reigen in life. Who is he to deny such a sorrowful death? There must have been a deep, deep sadness in his Shishou’s heart, the likes of which buried too far down for Shigeo to uncover.

But… out of anyone, hadn’t Shigeo known Reigen-shishou the most?

There were things shishou was hesitant to share, even after years of having known each other. Not to mention the lies that Reigen-shishou had built by hand, serving to protect him irrationally. How much of what Shigeo knew as Arataka Reigen was truly him?

They never were on a first name basis. Out of respect on Shigeo’s part, quite obviously, despite claiming to no longer be a mentor he still very much so played that role. But Reigen had never called him “Shigeo”, it was all Mob and Kageyama in the early days, never “Shigeo”.

Had he wrongfully interpreted their relationship as closer than “shishou” and “deshi”?

All those times he had fallen asleep in the man’s office space, referred to Reigen as a family member for lack of time to explain to a stranger, called on the man for something as mundane as help with homework—was it all a misunderstanding?

“Get a clue.”

Having learned to speak the man’s colorful language fluently—though, not quite able to replicate it—shouldn’t he know better than to take this message at face value? It was written in shishou’s tongue, but would the man really do this?

Did Shigeo really even know him at all?

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[Context: Reigen’s cursed. Like really bad. sick fic but worse. TW for sickness symptoms, blood, rotting, overall just gross. Don’t worry this one is sweet at the end.]

The door protests as it opens with a long and drawn out creak, more like a whine, opening its gaping maw that led into Reigen’s apartment. Shigeo stood still in the entrance, his shadow interrupting the beam of light that blanketed only a small part of the room. His eyes strained to catch any semblance of movement, but to no avail.

It’s per the lack of light that he does not close the door behind him, something he would normally do if not so engrossed in the moment. There’s no sign of Reigen-shishou apart from discarded take-out boxes left on the coffee table, though Shigeo cannot tell how old they are. The sour smell that strikes his senses next tells him that he does not want to know. It’s sickly, thick, and ruddy, dripping down his throat like a nosebleed.

“Reigen-shishou?” He calls out into what seems more of an abyss than a home at the moment. For a second, he’s under the assumption that there will be no answer, that silence will echo off the walls and envelop him in dread, that Reigen simply wasn’t present. But that isn’t the case.

Instead, there’s the shift of fabric, a lethargic movement accompanied by the snap of joints. On the floor, between the coffee table and the couch, as though it had rolled off and hadn’t moved since, rotting in that spot and melting into the floorboards. Shigeo can recognize a human shape, a human presence, living, in some sense of the word. He feels as though the term hardly applies as he reaches out to feel its aura with his own, frozen to the spot where he stands.

At contact, there’s familiarity, familiarity that is followed shortly after by some foreign, cancerous mass of an aura, comparable to bloodstained phlegm in the way that it pulsates sluggishly—and it’s as Shigeo recoils in horror that he finds himself hoping desperately that this is not his shishou.

It rears its head, thinning blonde hair atop it uncomfortably similar in color to that of Reigen’s. Each wheezing breath it takes seems to wrack its body with a shudder, the only sound that can be heard apart from Shigeo’s own heartbeat in his ears. There’s something viscous about the way it moves, slowly and weakly, that makes him take a step back. Dread sits like spoiled milk in his stomach.

There’s a multitude of moments he could have used to get another word in, all of which pass by like sand between his trembling fingers. The thing with a face horribly similar to Reigen-shishou’s turns, facing him with not quite focused eyes. Shigeo bristles at the sight, instinctively coiling his aura around himself tightly as if it will do anything to protect himself from the presence of something so sickening.

Mouth slack-jawed and eyes half lidded, skin sagging from the bone and blistered numerously, the thing with Reigen-shishou’s mutilated face meets his eyes. The worst of it was the rotting hole in his face, the lack of a nose and the chunks of flesh where it had stood—Shigeo gags at the sight.

He’s seen worse, worse spirits for certain, and worse corpses if he were to consider 6 months of a world that did not exist. But mimicry is what dismays him, unable to comprehend this what he’s seeing is truly Reigen and not a sinister presence in the man’s home. As such he raises a hand swathed in energy, though it shakes and he stumbles backwards in his shock and terror, falling to the floor with a hollow thud.

There comes a heavy breath from the thing before him, outlined with phlegm and ooze. Shigeo reaches from his place on the ground, level with the being, stretches his palm, and lets the energy build and build—god forbid the exorcism take more than one blow.

But he stops, breath caught in his throat, as a sound breaks his terrified stupor.

“M-o-b…” Reigen-shishou strains, the name melting thickly from his lips as would blood—but its him all the same, the cadence drenched in suffering but still his. And in that moment, Shigeo wishes to cry, guilt snuffing out his energy like candlelight and the sting of tears the residual smoke. He’d denied it in his fear, denied the notion that Reigen-shishou was sick out of nothing but his own fear of what he couldn’t—wouldn’t comprehend.

“Shishou,” he breathes, and this time the name is not a question. Reigen’s response is a weak smile, one that doesn’t quite suit him, though relief makes Shigeo’s heart ache anyway. “I’m s-sorry shishou.”

Hiccups break apart his words as hot tears begin to roll down his face, the taste of salt on his lips only reminding him of blood. Reigen’s face contorts into worry, though the expression makes him look pained, and yet he gestures to Mob despite it. On his hands and knees Shigeo drags himself over to his shishou—empathy is no gift when face to face with pain, he realizes, biting back a wince with every movement Reigen makes.

Yet despite everything, Reigen opens his arms. A slow movement, drastically contrasting the way he would usually pull Shigeo into a squeezing hug, and the boy doesn’t quite know how to react just yet.

“It’s okay,” shishou mouths, voice absent. “I’ll be alright.”

And despite the lie, Shigeo buries himself into the man’s arms, sobs now shaking both of their bodies. Comfort is a two-way street, it always has been for them. Shigeo doesn’t miss the tears that fall on his back, most surely from Reigen, wetting the fabric of his shirt—but that’s never mattered less.

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[Context: double death scare!! don’t worry, this is just the comfort part.]

Small, shaking hands grasp the fabric of Reigen’s suit jacket, a welcome sign of life. Reigen grasps on just the same, once-deft hands stumbling through the simplicity of an embrace. He can feel each hiccup, each sob that wracks Mob’s body— and Reigen knows, he can feel that Mob is not frail, the boy has grown so very much over the years, yet the thought of another tragedy nags at the back of the mind. Reigen presses his hands firmly onto Mob’s back, words of care he’d surely stumble over translated into physicality. He’s thankful for his verbosity in gestures, when at times like these words fail him.

A guttural wail, so jarring against his own subdued sobs and piercing through the haze of grief. The limp body in his arms sagging in his grasp, melting, a face that could so easily be mistaken as one of peaceful rest deformed beyond recognition. Panic, fear tightening in his chest as the boy in Reigens arms melted into sticky black tar.

A hitched breath catches in Reigens throat. Its sharp exhale gently blows the hair atop his (alive) student's head, brushing Reigen’s chin where it rests upon the boy's head. It’s not uncomfortable, nor is the heat that Mob radiates in the embrace, because life breathes beneath the surface. Reigen shifts his hand upon the boy's back, rubbing small circles ever so gently.

With what Reigen had seen, had experienced, he can only hope that his heartbeat where Mob lays his head upon Reigen’ chest, and the gentle rub on the kid’s back are welcome solace. That wail, he’d come quickly to recognize, was so painfully young. Hell, Mob was so painfully young. Too young to hold the weight of such powerful psychic abilities, too young to bear witness to horrors far beyond what Reigen had seen in movies at that age, too young to…

Reigen swallowed thickly, as though the thought would go down with it. As if beckoned by his train of thought, Mob shuffled in his master's embrace. He realized shortly, that his hand had fallen still, faintly shaking in its position upon Mob's back.

Mob tilted his head, ear pressed firmly against Reigen’s heart— his tears had left a damp spot in Reigen’s suit, but he didn't mind. Reigen sighs from deep in his lungs, the weight of his student welcome against his chest— truly, it was no wonder why some people loved weighted blankets.

Much to the man’s surprise, it’s Mob who speaks first and not Reigen, a reversal of their usual dynamic. His voice is small and hoarse, laced with grief Reigen wishes he’d never have to hear from his boy.

“I thought it was my fault.”

Such a simple statement, yet sharp enough to pierce Reigen’s heart. The implications speak more than either master or student could ever— Mob, ever the kind soul he was, didn’t deserve the guilt he was burdened with. Especially not the burden of a crime (or, quite possibly, the death of someone Mob could consider family, though Reigen dares not to overstep).

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WHEW ALL DONE. if you made it this far i’m impressed!!!! i left out a couple things that may make it into fics one day but here’s the majority :3

also. i should have mentioned these are not in recent order. or any order for that matter. the last one is the oldest though