#Maybe ill write a fic about that too but with her name and more fleshed out backstory

[the-bear-and-his-sunbird]

After ten years of not writing fanfiction, Baldurs Gate 3 has me in a chokehold. Inspired by one of the songs Halsins VA Dave Johnson put into his Halsin playlist, i made this. If you want the full experience listen to "I want to be your only pet" by Bombay Bicycle Club.

The whole playlist ist gold to be honest, so if you haven't do check that out.

The Tav is based on my Character Òrfhlaith (say it like Orla) who started as a Sorcerer/Bard and respecc. into Sorcerer/Paladin. For the sake of the story, the Tav is not named and only described with she/her pronouns and the title songbird.

English is not my first language, so if you find any spelling errors or grammatical mistakes, please do point it out.

I Want to be your only pet (I want to let go and forget)

Paring: Halsin x female!Tav (Halsin POV)

Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Yearning.

If you prefer Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55315462

Warnings: Mentions of past Trauma, sight violence, explicit description of blood, hinted panic attack, explicit sexual thoughts. Minord DNI!

Description:

“My Bear, my bear. My sweet, sweet Bear. I will protect you. I will see you safe. You have nothing to fear as long as you are with me. And if I cannot promise you anything, I promise you this: You are safe with me.”

Little snippets of Halsin learning to let down his guard around Tav and his every growing yearning through Act I- III.

After the group freed him from the Goblin Camp, which was honestly a miracle in itself, they went on to save the Grove. Halin still could not believe it. After all the moments worrying, hoping, praying he would find a way to ward off all harm, it was done. The Grove was preserved and on the way to begin anew, whilst the Tieflings were on their way to Baldurs Gate. Not that he would call it safe in any way. Even if he wished them a happier ending, he feared for their lives on the road to the city. Halsin prayed that Sylvanus would watch over the group of refugees. Especially whenever he thought about them having to pass through the shadow cursed lands on their own.

When they finished saying their goodbyes, Halsin asked permission to stay at camp. In his heart he knew that they would need his help to pass through the shadow curse. After all, he had seen it put into place, living with its weight for over a hundred years. If his knowledge could help them towards their goal, he would be glad for it.

Their way would be long and traveling with them would mean leaving the grove behind but for all that it was worth he was relieved to give up the title of Archdruid; it had clung to his shoulders long enough. If he was being honest, he never was really good at it. Sure enough, he understood enough of politics and leadership to keep everything running, but it teared at him. Every nag and every whisper a shred of himself fell away. People like Nettie made it bearable, but he knew that due to his position there was a distance between them that could not be bridged. So he quietly yearned for nature's sweet caress again, when he would run out in the early morning hours his paws on the soft, wet ground, looking for berries and honey. Hunting at night. Unburdened from the limitations, being Archdruid gave him. No, he was not sad at all, to let all that go. and Francesca would lead the Druids to a new beginning. Remind them of the true intentions they should strive for.

The first days in camp were truly magical, though so very different than the hundred years before: Being able to enjoy the sunbeams on his face, the crisp air of morning, knowing that no one would ask him to lead the way. No one to depend on his judgment and whisper about his decisions in the hidden corners, when they thought he would not hear them. The people in camp gave him space to go after his day, not wanting his leadership nor needing it. They shared their meals with him and though some eyed him suspiciously, no one bothered him. Mostly he was left to ponder over the shadow curse and the illithid infection.

Though she came to him every now and then. Halsin could tell that she was the leader of their, rather chaotic, crew. When she spoke, they listened. Some rather … reluctantly at the beginning. But nevertheless, they accepted her plans and did what they could to support each other on the road. And she was patient with them in return. At least more patient than most of the people he knew. Even when she had to end the quarrels between them seemingly every other night, she only used harsh words in situations deserving of them.

That did not mean that she was above frustrations: One time, after a particularly bad fight between Gale and Astarion (the rogue accused the brown haired man of having stolen a copy of one of his books to eat it, telling him to use his own damn library for dinner) where they nearly set the campground on fire, she had set them straight sternly, her brow furrowing, using a surprising colorful vocabulary.

Halsin admired her vigor to go on, no matter how bad her group returned at night. Often she would go to every person in camp chatting for a few moments, her face still swollen and bloody. Most of the time, she would swiftly discard her armor and put on some (relatively) clean clothes, yet sometimes she only undid the heaviest part of her armor, chucking it away carelessly, as she went on to greet the first person. She asked them about their day, offering them counsel if needed. Every time she also appeared at his side at the end of her round. Her eyes shining with a warmth that he could only describe with a warm summer's evening.

He came to like the routine. The few first nights she would ask about his comfort and share a few kind words with him. Later, when they neared the shadow cursed lands, she requested advice trying to find the best route. While he explained she listened intently, nodding while he was mapping the ways and when he finished, she thanked him for his words before she left. It was nice. Not having to answer for every decision that was made, but his words being heard and acknowledged. It made him feel warm.

After that she returned to her usual routine. Asking him about his well being with a soothing voice, smiling at him like the fresh morning sun. One particular evening, after she left, Halsin could not help but keep thinking about the way she leaned her head when she was listening. Or how her eyes focused when she was mulling over ideas.

He found her attractive, he did not need to deny it. But the way his attention seemed to stick to her, like a fly on a honeypot, made him uneasy. There was a time and place for such thoughts and he did not believe the current situation to be one of those. So he stuffed the thoughts of her laugh and her eyes far away and carried on.

Halsin heard her sing, one time at camp. Wyll was sharing a story about the fine dances back in Baldurs Gate and bards that could induce you with whatever feeling they pleased, with just a few strokes of their instruments. The Warlock recalled the way one particularly skilled bard sang a ballad full of yearning and heartache, that he never heard again. Halsin heard her surprised exclamation, telling the horned man excitedly that she knew that song by heart. Wyll had politely asked her to sing it for them, only if she did not mind. And she did not mind at all.

Her voice sounded a bit coarse at the beginning (there were not many occasions to sing anymore) but soon her voice unfolded like a flower petal in bloom. Halsin could have sworn to Sylvanus, her voice sounded like a songbird, both sweet and rich. Soon she was weaving a net with each syllable, entangling the listeners with her honey voice. Turning his head he could see entranced eyes, some humming along softly and tapping their feet. A gentle breeze passed through them as the song ended. Gentle quiet settled over camp. For a moment everyone seemed to be lost in their own thoughts before Karlach asked for another song, excitement barely contained. With a glint in her eyes, the songbird began to sing a folkish song. One that was easier to follow and more well known, stomping along to the beat. And soon enough a few of them joined in. All in all it went on to be a surprisingly jolly evening. From his spot on a thick branch, Halsin watched them sing and dance around, grabbing onto the unwilling campmates pulling them along, much to their pretended dismay.

She had suddenly stood before him then. Hand outstretched, eyes shining like the sun itself had made its home there. With his heart pounding in his chest, Halsin stared up to her.

“Will you be joining us?” She asked in a melodic tone. He wished for nothing more than to keep her voice around for the rest of the night.

It would have only taken him a word. One word and he could have joined their merry dancing, their laughter. But he did not dare to. Not with the memory of the Shadow Curse hanging on his shoulders, whispering every single failure he could count into his ear. Not with Thaniel lost, not with the unspoken promise of saving him or die trying. With a heart so heavy it could drag him right into the ground, Halsin shook his head. “Another time. But thank you for your invitation. It is greatly appreciated.” Her smile faltered. He could have sworn to see a flicker of concern in her eyes. With a pang of regret the Druid tried to say something soothing- He did not mean to steal the sun from her eyes.

As he was trying to find his words, she smiled again. “All is well, my friend. You take your rest and tomorrow we will see to the Shadow Curse.”

Her eyes laid intently on him, unfaltering. He could swear he saw a different kind of fire there. “We will see it broken and Thaniel freed once again. I swear." The way she said it filled Halsin with hope. She seemed so sure of it.

Before he could say anything in response, someone from the group (he could swear it was Shadowheart, rare laughter spilling from her lips) was pulling her away from him again. He watched her pick up her laughter full of sunshine again, holding the hand of the young cleric. Under the sea of stars she radiated light and warmth, turning in a circle, stumbling over her feet and catching herself, before holding onto someone elses hand. Halsin wondered how it would feel to catch her, to make her laugh and bring the light into her eyes. Holding her close to his chest as he traced the rivers of starlight on her skin. To bite her tender skin, taste her, devour her. Halsin inhaled sharply, willing the golden sparks on his skin away. He reminded himself that such were no thoughts to have. Now was not the time to relax and to come undone. Not before he had freed Thaniel and lifted the Shadow curse. This was his duty before everything else. She would help him. That was a small relief in the suffocating fear that had nested itself in his heart so very long ago.

With a sigh he looked at the wood he was chipping away at. He had to be alone for a moment. Grabbing his utensils, he stood up, swiftly waving goodnight towards the group as his feet carried him back to his bedroll. Staring up towards the stars, he wondered if he should carve a dancing bird.

After they saved Thaniel and killed Ketheric Thorm the land bloomed once more, roots emerging from the earth tasting the sun's kiss once again.There were no words in the world that could describe how he felt then. Everything he worked for, all that he wished for over 100 years, came to life. Just like that. The land that had clawed at them mere hours ago, now flourished in the light of the sun, reaching for it like they were drowning. Halsin felt like the weight on his shoulders had lifted a bit. Years of feeling like there was not enough air, now seemed to ease, as every inhale came a little easier to him. For a moment he let himself rest and gazed at the scenery around him, when a high pitched yelp ripped him out of his thoughts.

Startled, he turned towards the sound: Karlach had gathered everyone in reach of her in her arms, squeezing them tight to her chest. His Songbird laughed as she was swept up in the embrace of the tiefling woman, laughing freely. He cherished the starry eyed look she had, as she looked back on the land, her chest swelling with pride. There was seldom a moment when she looked so full of wonder, so carefree.While she smiled often before the others, when no one looked, her eyes turned grim, as a heaviness Halsin recognized all too well took hold of them. Shoulders sagging as if the burden of the world sat on her shoulders. It was a relief to see her unburdened, even if only for a moment.

When his gaze lingered on her face a second too long, their eyes met and time seemed to still, nothing existing besides them for a moment. Then she shot the elf a questioning look. Shame bloomed in his chest, as Halsin had realized he got caught staring like a fool and then kept looking at her still. Suddenly he wished to make himself as small as a mouse. But to his surprise she merely reached over to him and pulled him into the hug

“You are officially one of us now.” She said sneaking her free arm around his chest, squeezing him towards her. At least he thought it was her arm.

“Next time join us earlier.” So she must have thought his stare stemmed from lacking inclusion in the group. Halsin hoped, she would not find out the real reason he had been staring.

That evening the group celebrated once again. It was rather modest, as the weeks before had depleted their ressources greatly. Still, the relief after surviving moonrise tower seemed to give them new energy. Now the whole group seemed to buzz with excitement for the next chapter to come. As they drank and talked, Halsin could feel himself relax more than he had in years before- His Pipe pressed between lips, letting out a puff of fragrant smoke and watching it swirl into the bright night sky, whittling tools in hand again, chipping away at it slowly. The ground under him was soft and warm, bustling with life, ready to begin anew.

He chuckled as the songbird watched her in an armwrestling competition with Karlach, Wyll and Lae’zel on the side, discussing their forms, throwing in a bit of advice every now and then. Even if she was strong, Karlach bested the songbird easily, apologizing the whole time. Halsin could swear he saw a coin switch hands in the background. Whoever did not bet on Karlach was foolish, that woman would best everyone in camp, including himself. As Gale and Astarion started to bicker again, the songbird stood up and shooed them to do “something useful for once” with a grin. She loved them, he could see it clear as day. Seeing her made his chest uncomfortably tight.

Later that evening she came to him, out of breath, sweat glistening on her skin. She had been playing with the dog and the owlbear again. Eunning away with Scratches' ball before getting tackled, when she did not manage to run fast enough. She pointed her finger to the spot next to him.

“Is this seat taken?” She inquired, her skin flushed and eyes twinkling.

He smiled. “ No. If you want to rest here for a while, you are more than welcome.” The elf shifted to the side, allowing her to sit down next to him. She quickly made herself comfortable on the floor and crossed her legs. Her gaze shifted to his hands, holding his piece of wood.

“Can you teach me how to whittle? Every time I see you, I wonder how you do it and … I thought that this night is as good as any to ask you. If that’s not too much to ask” her voice seemed to waver at the end.

Was she nervous? Halsin wondered if he was intimating her somehow. Before he spoke he softened his tone on instinct.

“I don’t know if there is much to say about it. Most people tend to perceive it as boring, anyway. But nevertheless I’d be honored to show you, if you really want to.”

She shrugged. “Well most people can stuff it.” A huff escaped her lips when she saw the surprised look Halsin gave her.

“You do well to know what you like: They cannot take that away from you. No matter how much they sneer about it, this is yours. And besides: whittling is a hobby as good as any other.” He contemplated her words for a moment.

“Sometimes I think people look at me and think my feelings can’t be hurt” Halsin stilled for a moment “Thank you for your words. I appreciate them greatly.” She shot him a smile as the elf picked up his utensils again. While he was showing her what to use and how to begin, she listened attentively, asking for clarification a few times. When she leaned over, he could feel her warm breath on his skin. Hastily he cleared his throat and went on to explain.

“For me the vision of what I’ll carve comes when I’m already in the process. But for the first time, it would be a smart choice to already have an idea in mind.” He handed her a piece of wood, which she started turning in her hands over and over again, contemplating. Holding up his own work so he could show her.

“You could start with a spoon if you’d to begin very simple. Or if you would rather enjoy something artistic I could show you a fox or a bi-”

“A Bear.” Taken aback, Halsin looked over to her. She did not falter, as she continued. “It is you who is showing me how to do it, no? I met you as a bear the very first time. And …” She hesitated. “You do inspire me, you know? So, I would like to do a bear.”

By Silvanus, the bear would like to do you , he thought. Alone the notion that she was inspired by him of all people. Did she even know how extraordinary she was? But that was a thought he would keep to himself. So instead he said: “A Bear it is then.”

He showed her the outlines of the piece and what she would have to expect, while she was whittling. Soon they both worked in silence, elbows touching every now and then. Halsin sneaked a glance at her face: She made her focused face again, eyes solely on the wood in her hand, crouching over it, trying to find the best position for her blade. The tall elf chuckled and looked at his work again. His wooden bird came along just fine. The upper side of the outstretched wings was already apparent with its head thrown towards the sky, beak open as if right in the middle of a song. He wondered if he should carve the legs to be standing solidly on the ground or rather ready to set to the sky, when Galel came to them, asking for support on “urgent matters”.

“Thank you for your time.” came her voice from next to him. She gently brushed the shavings from her legs before standing up. “Will keep showing me how to whittle? I had a lot of fun,” her eyes held a cheeky twinkle “even if some people will call me boring now.”

With a short laugh he responded: “Well I hope you do well to know that you can be boring with me anytime.”

“Well. Until we meet here again, to be boring together.” She cackled and waved him goodbye, walking alongside the talking wizard. As Halsin watched her leave, he wondered why his chest was so tight again.

Sighing, he gathered the wood chips on one pile, cradling the rough wood between his big hands before discarding it.

It was not that he wanted to harbor her for himself. Far from it. She was a beacon of light in these dark times, one that everyone was sure to enjoy having around. And she seemed to like the company of her friends so much. But still his heart betrayed him. He would have loved to sit alone with her a moment longer, her light breathing next to him and their skin touching gently. Maybe she would lean over again, so he could smell her hair. In the short moments when the wind blew just right, her smell carried over to him: fire and berries. He wondered how she managed to smell like that. Maybe he would have asked her about it. Maye she she would have accidentally brushed his hand and he would have gathered his courage, reaching for it, holding it tight. A shudder ran through him. Maybe it was better that she left. He wondered how much longer desire in him would have stayed silent, when it wanted nothing more than to hear her breath coming quicker, tasting the sweetness of her skin, telling him that she needed him like a song- He shushed himself, swatting at his thoughts like they were flies. He picked up the wood she left for the next time. Weighing it in his hands, he looked at it. A Bear she wanted to whittle. He chuckled sadly. As if she had not been whittling away at his guard for such a long time.

Whilst on their way to Baldurs Gate, she came to his tent every evening and they calmly whittled away. Most of the time, both of them sat in silence. But sometimes they would share a few words, talking about their interests and stories, sharing comfort in their presence. One quit evening, when the others were gathering some supplies on the road, leaving the camp in a state of unusual calm, she opened up to him about her insecurities. Telling him about her experience as the group leader, comparing it to her wildly different life before.

In the spur of the moment Halsin asked her if she wanted to go back after this was all done. The whittling stopped, while her brow furrowed. For a second he was afraid that he overstepped. Was ist too personal? Did it bring up troubling memories for her?

But she laid her hand on his arm and found his gaze. “Actually I prefer it now. Even in these dire times.,” in her eyes a sudden bitterness pooled. ”I got all of you now, after all. That is more than I had before.” As her gaze shifted towards her workpiece again, Halsin noticed her hand lingering on his skin before pulling away to adjust her grip on the wood. The spot on his skin her hand had rested upon, felt empty now. He turned his head towards his own project again, not wanting to inquiry any further.

It was peaceful for a few days. So peaceful that he nearly forgot all the horrors that the world entails. Soon they reached Rivington. Their excitement for the city had already turned to anxiety as they reached the city gates, being denied entry as all the refugees were. For Halsin this Situation was unbearable. Seeing all these people in little makeshift tents, sleeping on the cold hard floor, having barely enough food to feed all the children. hated the city for its uncaring nature. Seeing all of the city's misdeeds he wondered if they felt any shame at all. All this time he held himself to such high standards, as he tried again and again to be deserving of the title as Archdruid. The leaders of this city could leave a legion to starve right before the city gates and be praised for it.

Since they took Yenna into their camp, he tried his best to keep his composure. The young girl was already scared enough and did not need to see the adults around her losing their nerves too. So he tried his very best to appear calm and collected, while a storm raged under his skin, growing stronger every day. One hungry face at a time.

The final breaking point approached in front of the circus gates. Halsin had seen the posters advertising the circus time and time again. A clown they all seemed to be excited for. Telling him about the jokes he would tell and all the attractions that could be seen. He did not truly understand the concept of that yet but he was willing to try, if the group decided to visit.

But in a cruel twist of fate, it seemed they did not need to go to the circus but rather it came to them. When it started to dawn, his group decided to pack up for the night, making their way down the roads of Rivington. A rather big crowd had formed cheering a sturdy human man on as he cracked his whip, forcing the animals to dance on small stands, as a middle aged woman played a fast song on a wooden flute. His blood ran hot through his veins as anger seemed to swallow him whole. He could feel the bear in him stir, ready to attack and tear the flesh of this disgusting person's bones. The noise around him made him nauseous. Halsin didn’t know why the fighting started. One moment he was thinking about ripping and screaming and the other he saw his songbird emerge from the crowd, weapon in hand, fighting a cloaked figure. Jumping forth as fur emerged from his skin, he did not care who started it at all. He was glad for the fight.

After the battle was won, Halisin stayed as a bear, wishing for the comfort this shape brought him. His strong body shifting on his paws, every smell more intense but also his mind quieted a little. Everything seemed more manageable like this. But now even as a bear his heart pounded and his breathing did not seem to slow. As Halsin stood still, he noticed that his body was shaking like leafs in the wind, the memories of long bygone times whispering in his mind, demanding to be seen, no matter how much he seemed to push them away. He growled and made his way back to camp with the others. He needed to be away from everything for a while. No one should see him losing control like that.

He did not care what looks he became as he nearly ran through camp, ignoring his name being shouted. There were only his feet, pounding on the ground, coming quicker with every moment until he was sprinting into the first spot of trees he could see, not stopping until his feet reached water. The Lake. Exhaling he pressed his snout into the water only coming up for air when he felt like his lungs were about to explode. He did not want to be alone like this. But also he could not go back, have them ask questions about why. Especially when he did not seem to know either.

A thump behind him alerted him prompting his muscles to tense on instinct. He sprung around, jaws open to expose his sharp teeth. She stopped in her tracks, carefully holding up her hands.

“Halsin? Do you need help? Are you hurt?” Her voice was gentle but Halsin detected an urgency behind it. Looking for a reaction, she slowly stepped close to him, kneeling down an arms length away, her right hand outstretched towards him and stilled. Uncertain his eyes flickered between her and the trees. The light had already vanished, casting her silhouette in blue and gray hues, as she silently waited for him to breach the distance. He realized that she was leaving him the choice: To either come to her or run away if he felt the need.

Desperation clawed at him. Why did he even hold back? What was it good for in the end? She was here now, offering comfort. He would be a fool to deny her. So he took the last step towards her and laid his face into her hand. A sigh escaped her lips, that he could only describe as relieved. Soon enough her fingers started carefully stroking him. Minutes passed, his breathing coming slightly slower than before, his mind gradually clearing from the fog of panic he was lost in.

“Oh my sweet friend.” she whispered, her steady voice not much about a whisper. Her right hand was still on the side of his face, gently caressing him. He did not want to bear the burden anymore, to shoulder it all alone. All the memories of hardship and loss, the memory of himself sitting behind cold and rotting Goblinbars and, before that, behind a closed bedroom door, his eyes tracing the pattern of the carvings on the door time and time again until they burned themselves behind his closed eyes.

It broke him when he saw the eyes of the animals. He knew the look all too well.Some of them had no hope of escaping anymore. Those who did looked like they paid greatly for their resistance: Time and time again under the cruelty of their so called masters. One day even those who held on the longest would give in. They would become the broken puppets the Circus desired. Their fur dulled, their scales spotty. Dancing to some people's badly played lute. Carving patterns into the iron rods. He could have sworn that they would carve and carve like he did-

Halin shuddered and pulled his fangs back. If he would not be in his bear form already, it surely would have been broken free by now. He could taste the blood in his mouth, could free it dripping down on the cold forest floor. Halsin wanted to pull back. He did not want her to see him like this, afraid and grappling for control. He felt his trembling in the trees around them.

When her other hand appeared on his head, he finally looked up. His eyes adjusted in the dark to really look at her. After the fight, she had thrown the upper half of her armor away and traded it for a dirty shirt which by now had been stained with no small amount of blood. With her arms outstretched towards him, he was able to see the smears and stains that appeared blue and purple on her skin and hair. Blood both from her own wounds and those inflicted on others were running over her skin like a river delta. Even though she smelled like blood and sweat and leather, the wind carried the faintest whiff of berries- It startled him. After all this her hair still smelled like herself. It was absurd.

Halsin wondered if he began imagining things. Nevertheless, his tension eased a bit as he allowed himself to step an inch closer, nostrils flared. She smelled lovely, more now than ever.

“Let me help you. My gentle bear, let me heal your wounds.” She whispered again, her hands stroking his fur, beckoning him closer.

My Bear, she had said. If his mind had been clearer, he would have asked her about it. But right now Halsin gave in and pressed his head even harder into her hands. He did not want to think anymore. He wanted to relax into her warm touch and forget.

She pulled him close, guiding his head onto her lap, as she sat on the stained earth below them. Halsin let himself fall to the floor, his strained limbs protesting. The Bear groaned as he adjusted himself to laying on the floor, without bothering his wounds too much. As soon as he stilled, one of her hands started to caress his neck, the other gently touching his snout. It had stopped dripping blood, but he tasted it still on his tongue. He winced again, wishing to wash the foul smell of these people away.

"Shhh." She hummed “ It’s alright. You’re alright. Let me take care of you.” Her hands suddenly stilled. “Can you show me where you are hurt?”

In my heart he wanted to say. But the bear was not able to speak and he was glad for it, his treacherous thoughts would not reach her ear. Instead he forced himself to turn himself on his side, so she could see his stomach. His already dark fur was clumped with strands of blood and dirt, in the night it seemed to be almost black. When he had pushed himself on his hindlegs to strike at his opponents, his soft underpart was exposed just long enough to strike him.

In the darkness she reached over, her hand already glowing. Bowing her head onto his, her forehead silently connecting with him, she whispered sweet nothings into his ear. Halsin felt her magic on his body as it encouraged flesh to mend and skin to heal. To him her energy felt like hope in new beginnings. Like the soaring of wings. It felt like being home again. Almost felt like the relief he felt after they saved Thaniel. She truly was his sun, with the way her entire being seemed to emit warm light, his beacon that guided him through the darkest of times. Everywhere she went, it felt summer had begun anew.

Only moments passed until his body was healed, but her hands stayed on his fur long after it. Several minutes went by in silence, with only their breathing filling the space between them. After a while she groaned and repositioned her leg, wincing. Guilt exploded in his chest as he looked up, slightly pulling away from her, reading her expression. She gave him a tired smile, bloodied lips stretching to reveal her dimples. Halsin realized how exhausted she really looked, not only from the battle but rather carrying the weariness of all the weeks in her eyes. And still she went to care for him, before all others.

Halsin wanted nothing more than to keep her to himself, to shield her from all her sorrows and to be held by her in return: To find comfort in each other. The desire to hold her tight seemed to burn through his chest, gnawing his way up until he felt like he could choke. Who was he to ask anything of her? He tried pulling away from her completely, but her hand on his back tightened

“Don’t go away. Please. I don’t want… “ She trailed off. Halsin saw a flicker of anxiety on her face. “Stay, please. Just for a moment.”

She let go, stretching her arms out wide in front of him. An Invitation. Halsin noticed that her eyes held the same request, like the day she asked him to dance and like so many nights before It would only take him so little to accept. He forced himself to push his worry down, as the Bear pushed his head into her hand. In an instant she pulled him close into her chest, pressing her face into his fur. The bear inhaled sharply as her arms tightened around him in a silent plea. It felt like she tried to wrap her entire body around him. Carefully he lifted one of his blood-soaked paws and wrapped himself around her, gently pulling her into his chest. Now she nearly laid on him, her body rising and falling quickly with his ragged breath. It still was very fast.

As if reading his thoughts she murmured: “Breathe with me.” Pushing himself back on his hind legs, he pulled her even further onto him, which earned him a soft laugh from her, and rested his head carefully on her back, observing her steady breathing. Trying to detect a pattern, he started to exhale and inhale in rhythm with her, his heart slowing down little by little. Relief washed over him, gentle but strong, like an ocean wave that came upon the shore. A part of him wondered if she knew how much this calmed him, breathing together as the gentle night breeze carried it away.

Hasin felt her hand begin to draw patterns on his chest, trying to untangle the knots in his fur whenever her fingers catched a particularly bad one and finally closed his eyes. Nothing could coax him away from this moment, having her in his arms, her warmth seeping into his fur, holding a light within him that kept his sorrows at bay. If the world would have ended in this moment, he would not care for it.

After what felt like hours of peaceful silence, he felt her stir again. She hesitated for a moment but then turned her mouth towards his ear and spoke.

“My Bear, my bear. My sweet, sweet Bear. I will protect you. I will see you safe. You have nothing to fear as long as you are with me. And if I cannot promise you anything, I promise you this: You are safe with me.”

Halsin felt like his heart wanted to explode in his chest. Warmth began spreading in his body, sending a pleasant feeling into his exhausted body. My bear. The first time he heard the word could have been a mistake on his part, born of wishful thinking and the blood flowing from his wounds. But she said it again. And again. My bear. Oh to be hers indeed.

Halsin wished her to hold him like this every night, have her close, let her stroke his hair and tell him that there is nothing to worry about, like a prayer that only he could hear. To have her say that he is safe with her again and again until he started believing it again. And he would swear to her that she is safe with him, promising it with every breath, kissing it into her skin. He would be pulling her in his arms softly as either elf or bear. Holding her and letting himself be held. Feeling her body against his, shielding her from harm. Halsin desperately wanted to worship her every inch, calling her all the wondrous things he could think of.

Showing her how much he needed her in any way possible, hearing her scream his name into the night, her moans just as beautiful as her songs. He longed to leave his mark upon her skin, to show everyone how desired she was, for nature had made her so very beautiful, inside and out. If she did not know by then that she was like the sweetest honey to him, he would make sure she knew every day and night.

He scolded himself for being selfish. But her words, the way she called him mine; he wondered if there was any possibility she could return his feelings after all. That she felt the same way he did, when she gazed at him. Why else would she call him my bear? But uncertainty rang loudly in his ears. What would he do, if he was wrong about it? She called the others my friend and some even sweetheart. What if he misunderstood her intentions and she left him, disgusted by his brazen words? No, disgusted by him.

Then he would never be able to look at himself again. Only imagining that she could sneer at him and turn away hurt him beyond comprehension.

Tonight he could not muster the strength. Too sweet was her embrace, too comforting her words. And he was so tired of pretending he possessed strength that had left him years ago.

Nestling even further into her skin, he savored every second. He just wanted to breathe in her scent and pretend that his feelings were returned. Pretend that he was wanted the same way like he wanted her. Pretend that there were better days to come for him, where he could be himself with her. Building a safehouse for everyone who needed it so that no one would ever fear for their lives again. He imagined never carrying so much weight again. But those were far away dreams. No, tonight Halsin could not shoulder the dark shroud of reality. Instead he vowed to ask her about it, to finally ask her if she felt the same. Tomorrow.

If he only knew, how much she yearned to do the same.

[ihaveforgortoomany]

Greetings Comrade! Proceeds to flesh out the dumb au running in my head.

Heres a more complete layout of the Possessed! Vertin AU (maybe another name) (this is long)

Didnt expect a squad swipe lmao. Generally I imagine everyone more or less come out alive since its Vertin, even if shes being possessed by Arcana and has assess to her skills she wouldnt be able to properly utilise the mass power of Arcana

(So think Engima's statement on humans attempting to use the ritual initially, like overloading a household appliance: here Vertin is a tiny light bulb hooked to a plane's engine. Arcana made Vertin use Schneider's gun, while probably a way to manipulate Vertin, I think Vertin is limited in Arcane range)

(Also it draws out everything and yes I spent too long thinking about this au)

So uh heres a couple stuff on that battle between Vertin and the suitcase. (Not all because thats 60+ people and we know not everyone is there and its a surprise attack)

Most severely injured: Madam Z (no one goes unscathed, well mostly) Sonetto, probably the main team so think Regulus and Druvis

Scenerios: (i think if its Arcana shes probably gonna mess with everyone because its Arcana)

(If you have Schnieder alive in this scenario then Arcana is deffo recreating that scene again but ten times worse)

Idk why this thought has been running around but: Kakania hostage situation, because ofc Arcana can manipluate probably the most unstable member of the suitcase Isolde and therefore force everyone into a stalemate.

(This is bordering fic wow) consider this the scene in Book 6 but Kakania's life is on the line, maybe shes disarmed and coincidentally her gun ends up with Isolde and Marcus is there. (Yeah i write essays not fics so do what you will).

Arcana possessing Vertin probably just gives her access to all her trauma so probably threatens Madam Z with it (Breakaway Incident stuff).

Outcome Im suggesting here is that Vertin is restrained, and as a last ditch attempt to save Vertin is AS, since we know multiple ppl can enter the same one with Lilya and Sonetto doing that training one in Book 4 - this is Mesmer Jr's part in this.

(Why not immediate execution? Remember this is pandora's box you are threatening to release, its no longer 5 or so people, is much much more and more sources and abilities available - a stalemate between the suitcase and Foundation is agreed to attempt to save Vertin or execute her if anything goes wrong)

This becomes basically a Persona plot (or PTN Black Ring or Limbus the Sinner's memories when they approach a Golden Bough) , enter Vertin's mind and eradicate Arcana in there. Maybe the AS takes the form of Three Doors, probably have Sonetto, Regulus maybe Lilya and / or Matilda enter. Maybe go all crazy and say they meet the voices (the Old Man and Grandma) chilling out in there, maybe their existence retains shreds of Vertin holding on. Maybe in memory both Matilda and Sonetto find out the truth to the Breakaway Incident.

Im an optimist! They do remove Arcana (ofc she doesnt die) but this is a pyrrhic victory. More is lost than gained, whatever happens next is unclear, whether Vertin will be sane or Team Timekeeper could be restored. (Ill leave it open ended enough maybe someone can transcribe this plot into a fic, because deffo I cannot)

Have fun

Greetings!

I offer the possessed! Vertin AU (inspired by @cheemken 's AU and ideas on Twitter)

Arcana already wants Vertin for some reason so this post 1.9 is an AU that somehow Vertin is infected during that final battle and slowly loses to Arcana.

Kinda the Manus infected Vertin possession by Arcana where she slowly infects Vertin, like the subtle infection where only people like TF, Madam Z, Sonetto and probably Mesmer Jr and Matilda notice personality changes in Vertin until right in the middle of Foundation Headquarters all hell breaks loose. Maybe a critical point with Constantine bringing up the Breakaway Incident that finally sends Vertin over the edge.

Consider an all out battle with suitcase and co. Plus the threat of a higher up using the Scorching Heart Incantation to just eliminate Vertin as she becomes the greatest threat to the Foundation.

(Vertin gets the Manus drip ofc ofc)

Outcome? Up to you.

(I really can go really angsty with this, like Sonetto getting injured by Vertin probably will send her over the edge)

But again up to you 👍

Bites you, hard.

Comrade, what the fuck is this? (Starts thinking about the outcome)

You know me, lover of Slight angst and hurt/comfort.

On the POSITIVE side, like the good ending, Vertin is able to get out of Arcana's possession. After the whole fight against everyone in the suitcase - final boss style, Vertin's connection with Arcana breaks because Arcana wants it to. Much like with Schneider, after having destroyed so much, injured so many people and ruined everything for her and the others, she is released.

There's Sonetto lying on the floor, holding the wounds caused by Vertin's arcane skills given by Arcana, deep wounds I must add. There's Mesmer Jr in a corner, unable to participate because she doesn't trust her Arcane ability and then there's Matilda, unconscious maybe alive maybe dead, the reason why Sonetto is still alive is her.

And there's The Foundation pointing their guns at Vertin, there's Madam Z unable to do anything, there's Tooth Fairy with a face worse than simple pain. Everyone has no idea what to do, then, she gets taken by the Foundation.

The people in the suitcase are being taken care of, Team Timekeeper no longer exists because there is no Timekeeper, they become soldiers of different branches of the foundation. There's a couple of dead bodies in those. Those who tried to get close to Vertin to stop her never made it too far, the healers are doing their best to bring them back, healing the wounded and treating the traumatized.

It's a mess, really. And Vertin is sealed until they're able to take care of Arcana, and maybe, she might not be released.

But it's the good ending, because she's alive and despite what has happened, there's still a silver chance to repair what has been broken, to severe that connection with Arcana.

And perhaps the deaths of her close friends, Matilda who gave her life away (we all know that if she had the chance to save Sonetto she would jump), she would feel insanely guilty.

As for the bad ending, however... Not a lot get the privilege to live. Vertin doesn't go back because she's Arcana's priced pawn, and she needs her for more moves. So they're gone, most of them either way. The British branch of the foundation in shambles, those who managed to survive are trying to save Vertin. It's too late though, Vertin will never be the same as long as Arcana has her claws around her.

It's the end.

[bruhlsbees]

kachow— (???)

okay, but, reader usually being extremely clingy and super lovey-dovey. and always calling Alex, or maybe Niki pet names, never by calling him by his name. and one day being distant and calling him by his name and he's just so confused??? and wonders wtf he did to upset her, but she's just playing w him and waiting for him to call her out on her attitude???

kachow || niki lauda x fem!reader

summary: after a week of being ignored you act out during a press conference to get niki's attention

pairing: niki lauda x fem!reader

word count: 2,519

warnings: smut smut smut, reader acts like a brat and niki likes it, orgasm denial, overstimulation, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), slight breeding kink, y'all this freak nasty what can i say, minors dni, 18+, nsfw

a/n: this is my first time writing for niki and i had a lot of fun!! makes me even more excited to write my niki fic!!

Niki Lauda was a serious man.

Things always had to be better than perfect for him, especially on the days where there was a race or press conference - those days, and the days leading up to it, it felt like a miracle if you could grab his attention for more than five seconds. He was so worried about making sure that he was in the right mindset for the race that he would forget about everything else, including you.

And this time was no different. The past week you woke up alone, went to bed alone, and most hours when he was free and home, the time he could’ve been spending with you, he was on the phone strategizing with Clay or someone else on the team about the track he would be racing on. So to say you were pent up was an understatement. Not only were you irritated over the busy week that left you alone, but you were also jealous - jealous of your husband’s career that let fans see him more than you - and to be truthful, you were horny as hell.

Were you thrilled when it finally hit that the love of your life was a formula one racer? That the tracks he raced on could be dangerous? No, absolutely not. You never thought that you would marry someone whose profession was racing, but it was Niki, and for some reason - the two of you clicked. But what kind of wife would you be if you took his passion away from him? Not a rather empathetic one.

But you had enough. A week was far too long and when it finally came to the day of the press conference, you decided that it was time for your husband to get the short end of the stick, to taste your anger.

Your attention had been fixed on the clock hanging up on the back wall for the past forty-eight minutes...drowning out the reporters, fans, and Niki, you sat in your thoughts to pass the time by, not bothering to keep up the doting wife facade.

It was noticed quickly, however, by those attending the press conference - although it wasn’t until Niki grabbed your thigh under the table causing you to jump that you realized they were talking to you.

Leaning forward, your mouth bumping against the microphone, the harsh ring from contact echoing the room. You shot back a little, adjusting the microphone before clearing your throat.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

Laughter erupted through the room, causing you to smile weakly before listening to the reporter’s question.

“Mrs. Lauda, it’s been noticed that this week, and today especially, you have looked particularly down. Is there a reason for this? Is there a Baby Lauda on the way? Are there any issues in the bedroom or just in general between you and Niki?”

You, joined by Niki and the rest of his team that sat up in the front along the table all fell back in shock, surprised to hear such a bold question from a reporter.

It was a bad idea, you knew it, but you were so upset by the week, the reporter, everything that it just slipped out, without a second chance to stop yourself.

“I hate to be the one to say it, but it doesn’t look like Baby Lauda will be coming anytime soon,” When the murmurs began to pick up, you smiled glancing over at Niki who looked at you confused before continuing on, “As you all know my dear husband is incredibly busy with the season. He’s gone most of the day to make sure he wins and by the time he gets home I’m already in bed,” You paused again, smiling wickedly at the crowd before finally finishing. “There are no issues because there is nothing going on in the bedroom to begin with-“

“Alright, thank you Mrs. Lauda! I think that’s it for questions today. Thank you all for coming!” The mediator of the press conference rushed, standing now up at the main podium in the middle.

The awkward clapping picked up over the room while the rest of Niki’s team departed. You followed in suit, keeping in the back while the rest of the team went through the dressing room and out back towards the bus. Before you could take a step out of the dressing room, you felt a sudden tight grasp on your arm. Spinning, you looked and saw Niki in front of you, face red and seething.

“Are you ill? What the hell was that? Do you know how bad that just made me? I’m going to look like a horrible husband! Is there what you want?” He shook your arm violently, tugging you back towards him each time you tried to pull away.

“Answer me, dammit!”

You jumped back slightly from the sudden outburst that came from Niki. Of course you knew that it made him look back, but it wasn’t anything detrimental to his career…was it? He kept his gaze locked on you, waiting for you to respond. What Niki hadn’t been expecting though was the smirk that toyed on your face.

“I’m sorry, but I’m lacking the sight to see what is so funny?” His eyebrows were knitted right together, his nostrils flaring.

“Nothing funny at all, Niki. I was just thinking, you know, if you’re so worried about what the stupid press thinks, why don’t you prove them wrong?” Your free hand ran up Niki’s chest, toying with the buttons of his shirt before your eyes flicked up towards him.

At this point he didn’t look angry anymore, but pent up, frustrated with what had happened but also because it took two to do the devil’s tango - and he was missing you, whether he would admit it or not.

Then it hit him, what you were doing. Messing with him to get his attention. Niki had to admit, it was a smart move, but he was smarter and if you were thinking that you would get away with it and what you wanted, you were wrong.

His own smirk toyed on his face before he looked around the dressing room. Nobody was around and they had a few minutes to spare - because after the stunt you pulled everyone knew not to interrupt with whatever argument between the Lauda’s would spew. It wasn’t the most private, but he would make it work.

“Prove them wrong? Is that the image you are painting for me now? Niki Lauda the bad husband?” He tugged you closer to him, your face only inches away from him, you could feel the air that came from his nose hit you in the face, “Is that what you want?”

“What makes you think you weren’t already a bad husband?”

The only thing you heard was the ringing in your ears. It was deafening, the silence between you two after your joke. Your face slacked though after a while, thinking maybe you went too far.

“Niki, I-“

Before you could get your apology out, Niki grabbed onto your face with one hand, squishing your cheeks together before pulling you with him towards the couch. He turned you around and pushed back onto the couch, watching as you fell back with a huff. Niki grinned down at you before sitting on his knees, pushing your legs open.

“I’m a bad husband, yes? Bad husbands don’t let their wives feel satisfied, do they?” His thick accent was muffled in your ears by the sound of your own whimpers, watching as he reached his hands under your dress and hooked his fingers around the band of your underwear.

Niki pulled your underwear down your legs, growing frustrated when they got tangled with your heels before muttering something under his breath and tearing them into two, tossing the ripped fabric off to the side. Your mouth hung open, glaring now at him.

“Why did you- oh!”

You fell back into the couch when you felt his mouth on your cunt, his hands gripping onto your thighs to keep them open as you tried to close them around his head. Your hands were gripping the sofa cushions, moaning out as you felt Niki’s tongue swipe up and down.

As he continued to eat you out, sucking at your clit until your legs were shaking around him, your eyes began to fill with tears, feeling overstimulated with everything that was going on. Your hands sank down from the couch and down where Niki was in between your legs, your fingers running through his recently washed and styled curls.

“Niki...baby…” Your eyes rolled back into your head, whining as your climax began to rise. If you weren’t so high from the mind blowing head that Niki was giving you, you might have been able to get a cohesive sentence out.

Smirking against your cunt, Niki pulled away to look up at you, your own wetness dripping down his chin, hitting the spot on his chest that was exposed from where he didn’t button his shirt up. While he stared up at you, he took the time to slowly run his fingers along you, his thumb pressing down at your clit to rub in circles while his index and middle finger sank into you.

Hiding his grin from you, Niki turned and pressed a kiss to your thigh, biting down on the soft flesh before moving up, pressing his forehead against yours to keep your gaze locked on him.

“What does my pretty disobedient wife want? Does she want to cum around my fingers? Make a mess all over this disgusting couch?” His own ragged breath was picked up, his warm breath against your cheek as he moved his face to press against your ear, his teeth nipping at the spot behind your ear, listening to you moan and wither under him.

Your hips began to buck forward into his hand, desperately begging for more. Your hands were gripping at the front of Niki’s shirt, face pressed against his as you tried to listen to him. You didn’t want to cum around his fingers, but around his dick - his wonderful dick that you had missed all week.

“No, Niki...I want your...your…” Before you could get your words out your body flinched, toes curling as you felt your orgasm rise even more. You were so close, yet felt so empty at the same time. This wasn’t what you were thinking would happen, you were hoping he’d fuck you good, not tease you.

Usually Niki would help you out, finish your sentences for you, but he wanted to tease you good, give you a taste of your own medicine. He waited and listened, continuing to fuck you with his fingers while you desperately grabbed onto him, whimpering and whining out so pathetically.

“Say it and maybe I’ll give it to you...but only if you ask nicely.” He teased, kissing down your neck, using his left hand to open up the front of your dress, pushing your bra up roughly before latching on to your right nipple, sucking down hard.

At this point you weren’t sure how to get it out. Your words were stuck in your throat and he was overstimulating you at this point, but when he latched onto your other nipple, gripping at your right breast with his left hand, you finally had enough.

“Niki, please, oh please just fuck me already!”

Your desperate plea slowed Niki’s motions to a stop, his fingers coming to a standstill and his mouth pulling away from your breast, looking down at you.

“Am I a bad husband?” He asked, staring into your own eyes. You shook your head, your hands coming up to his face.

“No, Niki, you’re a wonderful husband...the best husband.” You breathed, leaning forward to kiss him. He didn’t kiss you back, not wanting to think he was so easily won over, but smiled against your kiss, feeling you pull away before he adjusted his spot above you.

“Say it again,” He demanded, beginning to pull at his belt and tug his pants down enough to pull his now hard dick out. “Tell me that I’m a good husband.”

You felt his dick rub against your cunt, his tip teasingly sinking into you before pulling out just as quick. Wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him close to you until his forehead hit yours again, you held his left cheek with your left hand, your right hand in his hair.

“Niki, you’re a good husband.” The quiet confession seemed to finally be enough for Niki to give you what you wanted. Snapping his hips forward suddenly, with one solid thrust he was in you, pounding you into the couch as he grunted, his hands at your hips to keep you locked onto him.

The feeling of his dick in you now was enough to send you over the edge. Clinging onto him while he rutted inside of you, the sound of his hips connecting with yours and your own wetness slapping against both of your skin filled the room along with the sounds of your moans and pants. It was rougher than usual, hurting only slightly, but you enjoyed it.

“Look at you, my pretty wife so drunk off my cock.” You heard Niki say, leaving wet kisses along your cheek and jawline, his own thrusts slowing as his legs began to shake.

You whined at the comment, moving your face to bury it in the crook of his neck while you came. Before you could sink your mouth onto his shoulder, he grabbed your face in his hand and pulled you back.

“No, you’re going to look at me when you cum. I want to see your pretty face while you cum around my cock.”

The tears continued to fall down, although you were not sad - you were hitting your breaking point, the tension in your stomach practically suffocating you. But you obeyed, locking eyes with Niki’s that were darkened by his pupils, his honey irises outlining his eyes.

He must have been close too, given how sloppy he was becoming. Niki kept his eyes locked on you as his pace quickened again, going faster than before until he let out a final grunt, cumming deep in you. You reached your own orgasm only seconds later, moaning as you clung to him, hugging him tight as your legs wrapped around his hips, shaking still from the intensity of your orgasm.

As you both came down from your high, Niki kept his position on you, not moving while he caught his breath. You pulled back from him when you felt him finally move, pulling out of you slowly, grinning down at the sight of you.

“I think we will have some news for those reporters here soon,” He said suddenly, your head tilted to the side in confusion. He shook his head, leaning forward to kiss your forehead before finally getting up to get around.

“I think Baby Lauda will be coming sooner than we expected.”

[echo-bleu]

hello! I saw one of your previous asks and I was wondering if I could ask you for some writing help too! I have an autistic character that i love, but I'm not sure how to convey that this character is autistic in a way that feel aunthentic and organic instead of stereotyped, specially since she's a girl and I haven't seen many (accurate) representations of autistic girls in the media. I've seen videos about autistic people and they've been very helpful on what not to do, but + I would still love

to get some of the 'do's' what i have so far is that she has a Fixation on the sea, she has a hard time reading sarcasm and/or emotions in others, and she has an overall seemingly 'detached' personality (even if I wouldn't call her that, since she cares about the people she loves, she's just bad at putting it into words). I jsut want to make sure i'm on the right path! thank you so much for listening and I hope this is not a bother!

Hi Anon! I’m not bothered at all and I’m happy to answer this kind of ask. As always, I can only speak for myself, but I’ll try to give you a few pointers. (The previous ask mentioned is this one.)

First, it’s lovely to hear about an autistic girl! I’m not sure if you’re speaking about an adult or a child/teenager, but either way, it can be interesting to read about how autism can look a bit different in women. The gender distinction that has often been made is something I don’t agree with because I feel that it’s an unnecessary shortcut, but a number of autistic people, in majority women and people socially perceived as female, learn to “adapt” more to neurotypical standards by masking their autistic traits a lot, and might not be detected as autistic until adulthood. Masking takes a lot of energy, which can translate as feeling “socially exhausted” all the time and lead to burnout. This article list traits that can be found that are less common and obvious. It is far from perfect imo, but it can give you new ideas!

You didn’t really say if your character is a main or a side character (which changes the amount of detail you’ll want to go into) but so far to me you seem to be on the right track! Having a hard time reading people is something a lot of us struggle with. It might not just be sarcasm, btw, understanding metaphors and jokes can also be hard. That doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have a sense of humor: it’s entirely possible to be able to use sarcasm and struggle with noticing it when it comes from other people, and a lot of autistic people have a very developed and specific sense of humor that can be seen as odd.

The “detached” personality is something you may have to handle with care because lack of empathy is a harmful stereotype. Maybe look up the difference between cognitive and affective empathy. Some of us do struggle with empathy, many of us struggle with expressing it in a way that’s comprehensible to neurotypicals, but it doesn’t mean that we lack it. It’s fine for your character to struggle with it, but be careful that she doesn’t end up seeming cold/robotic if she’s not the POV character.

Now for some “do’s”: I’m only going to talk about autistic traits here and assume that you’ve fleshed her out with an actual personality outside of her autism, just like you would any other character.

- I agree that it has to come up organically, but it would be a lot better in terms of representation to make her explicitly autistic, ie use the word autistic. It doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the story. If you’re in a fantasy setting or for some other reason you can’t use the actual word, then describing something like neurodiversity would be a good way to make it explicit. In fanfic, I personally think that tagging “autistic [character]” is enough if the fic is short(ish) and the word isn’t used in the story but the character’s autism is fairly clear, but in an original story, you don’t really have that possibility.

- Something I like to do when coming up with original autistic characters is to choose a few specific stims from them, that regularly come back in my descriptions. It falls under the same umbrella as choosing mannerisms, it gives characters their own specific flavor. You can choose a happy stim, a nervous stim and a bored stim, for example. Autistics stim a lot and in a lot of ways, but I think most of us have a few stims that come back often. It can be things like chewing on a toy/finger, flapping in a specific way, rocking on their heels, twirling hair, fidgeting with a toy or jewelry.

- Sensory differences. It’s also something that you can choose for your character: maybe she likes to listen to music very loudly, and often speak a little too loudly, or on the contrary she’s hyperacusic. She might wear sunglasses outside, or need lights on all the time. She might need subtitles to understand a movie, or be super distracted by sparkly things. She might not make eye contact, or make it too much, or seem to make it by looking somewhere close to the person’s eyes. She might find touch painful or difficult, or seek it constantly, or both (can depend on the moment, how tired she is, or if she trusts the person).

- Like I’ve said before, meltdowns/shutdowns are a delicate thing to portray if you’re not autistic yourself, but overloading can and does happen without going all the way to either of them. It’s actually fairly frequent, and happens when there is too much sensory (or emotional) stimuli at the same time or a too long day or something. From the inside, it can look like struggling to think, feeling like your skin is crawling, feeling like everything is too much, and struggling to initiate actions/figure out the steps to do something. From the outside, it can look like the person is rejecting touch, needs to isolate themself, is irritated, might struggle to speak/be very quiet. As long as the character isn’t mocked for their behavior, I think it’s something you can portray without too much risk.

- A specific interest about the sea is a nice idea! The sea is a very large subject, though, so she’ll probably have a predilection for some things. Is it water currents? Fish species? Underwater plants? Beaches? There’s a lot of options to choose from here.

- Maybe think about co-occuring conditions, because most of us have at least one. Some are very hard to distinguish from autism itself, like dyspraxia or ADHD, because they’re linked or similar to autistic traits. A lot of us are also disabled in some other way:  for example there’s a clear (though unexplained) link between autism and hyperflexibility, which can lead to joint pain, gut issues and chronic illnesses like EDS. Many of us have mental illnesses, growing up autistic in this world is honestly traumatizing and it’s hard to find autistics without some kind of C-PTSD or anxiety (on that subject, this post points out that the current diagnostic criteria can probably only diagnose traumatized autistic people anyway).

- A pretty good portrayal of an autistic girl (and to my knowledge the only one where the actor is also autistic) is Matilda in Everything’s Gonna be Okay. I didn’t actually watch until the end and I’ve been told the last episode isn’t great, but the start was pretty good. She’s a teenager, and at one point gets a girlfriend who is also autistic and has a service dog. In Elementary, while Sherlock is only autistic-coded, there is at one point (season 4 I believe) a recurring character named Fiona who I thought was a pretty good portrayal as well. She’s an adult, and she’s stereotypical in some ways but it’s better than most portrayals I’ve seen or read.

I would advise you to have a look through the blog @cripplecharacters. They answer asks about disabled characters, and I know they have answered a number of questions about autism and have at least one autistic mod. Their answers are usually very interesting!

[ronalddear]

Bathroom.

hi again! This is another drabble/missing moment set during dh after the wedding. Again this is only my second time writing any fic so it's very amateur.

This was requested by @nuttybeardetective , and was inspired by this post of mine. Ron is vaguely prudish in this but seeing as this is only my second time writing, I don't think I'm ready to write full-on smut yet. hope you enjoy <3

WARNING: none except for language, because it's Ron ;)

WORDS: 1515

The dim cold ambience of Grimmauld Place did nothing to soothe the uneasiness of the wedding attack and Ron was utterly fed up. One week after their untimely arrival at the grim house enticed them to try and settle into their temporary 'home'. At least physically anyway, Harry was now occupying Sirius' room in reserved isolation and after another night of sleeping adjacent in the drawing-room, he and Hermione had wordlessly agreed upon sleeping in their respective rooms that they'd occupied during the summer before 5th year, with some unannounced hesitation on his part.

The minuscule amount of clothes he carried was unpacked, his worn toothbrush now stood in the cup designated on the 2nd story bathroom, opposite his bedroom. The kitchen table was now draped in Hermione's lists and notes of all sorts, a map of the Ministry adorning the centre. Yet Ron felt as if mentally he was still at the Burrow, packing the extra healing supplies from the bathroom cupboard or stood in the stuffy kitchen, duplicating his mother's kitchenware to stuff into his rucksack.

The immediate thought of the burrow made his stomach drop and his head spin. The forced confinement made him feel ill. It felt as if he was in deep quarantine and had no knowledge of the world outside. This scared him so intensely that his paranoia was at an all-time high after a week without family communication. Surely the whole Horcrux-hunting fiasco would last longer than a week? A couple months maybe? Could he go that long without his serene home, the sunny hillside near the refreshing pond, and his family, who were at risk of being imprisoned or killed because of their non-prejudiced beliefs?

His stomach dropped again and his shoulders sagged under the scorching heat of the water flowing across his frame. He discovered that hot water was helpful for him to relax, only temporarily of course but it was much better than the frigid water in the small shower the burrow housed or the short-lived heating charm that made him feel as if he was showering in lukewarm tea rather than a proper hot shower.

His only downside was that his creamy skin was almost brick red, yet somehow his freckles showed through like a common childhood disease that Hermione had mentioned getting in her early years. He could not remember the name. His hair laid flat on his head, a darker red when wet but now longer than a quiff, he ran his gangly fingers through it, sweeping it back but failing to contain a few stray pieces, which dangled near the curve of his cheek and tickled his ears.

Goosebumps spread across flesh the instant his heels touched the cool tile. The sudden temperature change brought about a shock and he scrambled for his towel to aid his chill. After hastily wrapping it around his waist, he clumsily aimed for his vest to wear until he got to the room so at least he wouldn't freeze to death. Vest in hand, the metal toothbrush cup clanged off the side of the counter, making a ruckus in its wake.

Vest now over his head and arms, bunched just under his chest. the cup was replaced to its original spot and a good few swears had escaped his breath. He bent across the counter to clear the mirror of the steam that emanated from the shower when he felt the slightest brush against his bareback.

"Shit!"

"Sorry!'

His hand frantically searched for his wand to provide defence but unless towels came with pockets then he was out of luck. Hermione's alarmed voice stabbed through the bathroom and the echo lingered for a bit, just enough until he processed that she was in front of him. Her eyebrows were raised and her mahogany eyes were wide after she jumped away from him suddenly.

"Um..Hi.” she started with a great inhale.

Ron's heart rate hadn't returned to normal and his mouth was agape at the sight of her so suddenly appearing in the bathroom. Where he was. Alone. Until she came in of course. So now it was just him and her. Alone. He suddenly became very aware that he had just come out of the shower and was revealing a particular amount of torso, which was probably solid red now with a litter of freckles that he didn't fancy too much himself.

"Uh hey?" he started, completely at a loss of how to conduct the situation, while he sheepishly smoothed down the vest along his stomach. She couldn't have come in here to discuss Horcruxes right? Actually, he wouldn't put it past her to do just that, to be honest.

"I uh.. well I came to shower and I realised that you were still in here, still are in here so.. but yeah your vest was rolled up a bit sorry, just wanted to.. uh fix it, yeah, sorry." she stumbled over her words a lot, something he'd never heard from Hermione but she seemed to speak extremely fast yet agonisingly slow and deliberate at the same time.

She was breathing in deeply again and his eyes fell to the stray tight curls that graced the nape of her neck which her haphazard-looking ponytail exposed. The bathroom was quite dim and the yellow glow from the dingy lights fell just barely on her dark skin. Skin. His eyes travelled a little further to see she was wearing a vest herself, no a camisole, he didn't know what it was but his gaze was hooked on the space between her shoulder and collarbone. He had the urge to touch it with his lips.

He quickly averted his eyes as to not embarrass himself but they glanced over her bare legs in moderately short cotton shorts and he sucked his breath in so hard he was now bent at a slight curve, stomach clenched and breath hitched. He was quickly overwhelmed at the intimacy the situation opposed. Hell, he couldn't believe he was describing an interaction with Hermione as intimate. His ears were on fire surely, he'd need an Aquamenti to put them out if he survived.

"Oh", his voice heightened toward the end and he internally cringed so hard he thought he was going to combust.

"Yeah", she whispered, her eyes were on his arms, his brain scars were fully displayed and swirled across his recently filled out arms.

"I thought you were using the bathroom near your room?" he spoke softly and slowly, drinking in the sight of her lips, which she was toying with impatiently, now flushed.

There was an urge to cover his arms but he resisted and tried to focus on a chipped tile near the door. He failed as soon as she spoke once more, her voice clearer this time and with, almost, determination?

"I think I like this one more." she spoke, referring to the bathroom seemingly but her eyes were nowhere but him.

She intentionally made eye contact and his heart dropped to his lower stomach, his chest unnaturally warm. Wasn't this room cold as shit before? He was smart enough to know that bathroom was the last bloody thing she was talking about but words failed and he was more than happy to let her steer the conversation.

"Can I ask why?', he managed, his mouth was dry and he was sure he's never wanted anything more than for her to touch him, anywhere, she could slap him if she wanted and he would relish her skin on his.

Their breaths were erratic now, you'd swear they'd run a marathon twice over. Her chest was rising and falling agonisingly slow. He was still bent a bit so he was leaning towards her and she seemed to have gotten closer since she jumped back earlier. When did that happen?

"It's a bit more spacious I think, prettier interior as well", she whispered, swallowing halfway in between and added in the last bit staring so far into his eyes that he swore she was probably seeing through his head.

Pretty. Did she just say pretty? He was pretty sure she said pretty. No one had called him that before and if she had just called him fucking pretty he was going to die on the spot. Her words kept repeating in his head, soft and intentional. His entire body was frozen and he knew that the ground wasn't cold enough to make his legs tremble the way they were now. She gazed up at him and he swore he saw a glint of satisfaction after his reaction.

"Right, well, I'll let you have it then..Enjoy.", he applauded himself in restaining his voice from wavering at the end.

She gave a small thanks and he started to walk towards the door, her to the shower. Her bare shoulder touched his elbow at the exact moment her eucalyptus shampoo wafted towards his nose and he swore he almost whimpered. Their eye contact was only broken by the door closing and Ron almost collapsing on the other side.

PLEASE REVIEW! <3

[teamhook]

Finding Hope :: A CS August Rush AU birthday fic

Hellol! Okay, before I go on. I swear this will be the last WIP I start. I had to. This story is for my favorite dork @hookedonapirate cause I love her to death. She had asked me to write it before but at the time I was writing the Forever My Girl CS AU.

Happy Birthday!! Hope you like your present.

Thanks to my beta @ultraluckycatnd she is the best!!

FFN

AO3

A love for music unites an unlikely pair. The rhapsody they unknowingly created will give life to the hope they still have in their hearts.

Killian Jones and his older brother Liam had arrived from London with nothing more than the clothes on their back to pursue a music career. The lives of the Jones brothers had been difficult since the beginning. Their mother died at a young age and their father had decided he was not made to be a family man.

The Jones brothers had formed The Outlaws with some fellow expatriates they met along the way. The venues they played weren't the best, but they managed to make a name for themselves enough to have steady gigs.

Emma Nolan had grown up with loving parents but after an unfortunate accident, she was left alone. Afterwards, her grandfather took her in. George Spencer was an ill-tempered man. He wasn't a doting person, which caused Emma to become closed off. She focused on solace in the cello. Thankfully, the man valued pomp and grandeur so, at the thought of his granddaughter attending Juilliard, he eagerly made it possible.

On a rare night out with her best friend Elsa, they decide to go to listen to a little-known rock band called The Outlaws they saw fliers for. It was love at first sight. The lead singer mesmerized the young cellist with his voice. The girls waited for the band to finish their set to introduce themselves to them. Elsa and Emma fit in with the band perfectly. The Jones brothers had quickly gravitated towards the blonde beauties.

Emma and Killian had slowly drifted away from the group. It ended up being the most magical night for the young lovers above New York's Washington Square.

Months later, Emma finds out she is pregnant. Somehow, she already loves her kid so much. Her grandfather makes his displeasure known, however, every moment of her pregnancy.

The day her life changed was gloomy and rainy. After an argument with George, Emma had gone to the store to buy some last-minute things for her baby. The drunk driver came out of nowhere. When she gives birth prematurely, her grandfather takes advantage while she is unconscious and gives the baby girl up for adoption. The moment Emma wakes up, she is told the news that her baby is dead. The news shatters her musical dreams and any hope of happiness.

You're not special. You're just like the rest of us... alone, nothing but an orphan.

The music... Can you hear it? Listen... I can hear it everywhere.

It's in the wind ...

in the light...

It's all around us.

All you have to do is open your heart and listen.

Sometimes the world tries to knock the hope out of you.

They tried to stop me from hearing the music...

I believe in music the way others believe in fairy tales. When I'm alone it builds inside me eager to erupt into a melody. I like to believe that what I hear came from my parents. That the music I hear is the same one they heard the night they met...

Maybe that's how they found each other and that's how they'll know I am theirs and find me...

Hope Swan had grown up in foster care. As a baby, she had been adopted but returned once the couple was blessed with their own flesh and blood. After that, she bounced from foster home to foster home.

In her shared room at the group home, she's currently at, Hope records herself humming a song that keeps playing in her mind, but is rudely interrupted by her roommate who mocks her. "You are not special. You're just like us, an unwanted orphan."

The girl walks away, slamming the door.

Hope's eyes water at the mean girl's words. She knows it in her heart that she is wanted and someday she will find her parents. She continues recording her humming of the song in her heart.

Hope is now eleven years old. She stands in the back of the group as one of the younger girls is adopted by a couple. Maybe she should be bitter and want to be adopted but if she was, she would never find her parents. They're out there and she will find them.

Hope runs away once more from her group home. Living on the streets she makes friends easily, but is still guarded. She knows that someday her parents will come looking for her. All she wants is to go home.

As she wanders the streets, runaway Hope Swan is getting closer to find her home. She knows she will find her family. All she has to do is listen to the music in her heart and follow it.

A kind man, Merlin, is assigned Hope Swan's case. She wasn't a trouble maker, but she was reportedly closed off with the couples. He is notified that she has run away. She has a history of running away. The picture of the young girl saddens him. He wishes he can find her and place her in a good home. She is a pretty girl, with blonde hair, vibrant sea-blue eyes, dimples, and a slightly dimpled chin. He posts her picture on the board.

Emma Nolan had moved away after losing her daughter. Her little girl, her grandfather told her the baby was a tiny girl. The heartbreak led her to become a music teacher to kids. She was always surrounded by children and music. That was the way she chose to honor her child. An unexpected call from her grandfather's doctor makes her break a promise she had made to herself years ago. He is the only family she has left.

Once she arrives at his house, she is summoned to his death bed.

His eyes tear up. "I thought you wouldn't come."

"I don't hate you Grandpa, but my heart hasn't healed. Time will never heal this wound," she sniffled.

He closes his watery eyes. "I think I can help with that."

Emma gets closer to his bed, confused. "How can you say that? My child is gone! You didn't want her, so you threw her away while I slept. You took that away from me. I couldn't hold her!"

"Emma, enough!" he screams, then immediately starts coughing from the effort.

"I'm sorry, I made a mistake. I know now that family is precious, that image doesn't matter. Emma, I have a confession. I hope it's not too late and that you will find it in your heart to forgive me."

Emma stares at him.

"She's alive. Your little girl is alive."

"What? How can you be so cruel and say that to me!" Emma says with disbelief and tears pooled in her eyes.

"Because it's the truth. She is alive. I gave her up for adoption, and I was the one who signed the papers. I was your next of kin since you weren't married."

Emma gapes at the old man as she let her limp body drop to the chair next to his bed. "You gave my daughter away as if she was property because I embarrassed you?"

George Spencer can't keep his eyes on his granddaughter. The once-proud man weakened by age and disease casts his eyes down in shame. "In my safe, you will find the documents."

"What good will that do me?" Emma asks.

"Emma, my attorney can help you find her," he says quietly.

"But-"

"Emma, if your parents were here, they would tell you that you should never lose hope," he says.

Emma stands up. "You're right, I'm going to find my daughter."

George sighs as he falls into a deep sleep, his machines flatlining. The nurse that had given them privacy to talk rushes in as soon as the machine goes off.

Emma finds the papers and with trembling hands, calls Mr. Gold, the attorney.

The man is a ruthless slimy bastard. He tries to convince Emma that her kid is better off where she is. Of course, he would say that seeing he had helped her grandfather do this to her; he was just covering his ass. She doesn't care about that. All she wants is to get her kid. She has a daughter and she is out there. She hopes to God that she is being taken care of.

Killian Jones had moved to California not long after The Outlaws broke up. He had given up his dream of singing, but somehow had managed to gain a thriving career as an agent.

He had also distanced himself from the memory of Emma. After the band broke up, his brother and former bandmates had moved to Boston. Killian thought the further away he could get would be better, though. He tried forgetting her, but he knew he could never forget her. It was only one night, but he would belong to her for the rest of time.

Liam had called him a few days prior to ask if he wanted to join them in a reunion of sorts. They were going to play at the little place where he had met Emma. The joint was going out of business so in an effort to raise money to save it, The Outlaws had agreed to come out of retirement for one night only.

Killian had yet to agree, but 'what if' rattled in his brain. Something inside him tugged at his heart. A man unwilling to fight for what he wants gets what he deserves, Liam had told him over and over. He decides he will do it. He will fly to New York and look for Emma. He prays to every deity he can that she is not married. It's a selfish thought, but he couldn't bear it if she isn't meant for him.

Killian picks up the phone and dials his brother's number. "Liam, I'll be there."

"Brother, you'll do it? What happened to never setting foot in New York?" Liam asks.

"Liam, are you going to question my decision? I thought you would be happy," Killian says through gritted teeth.

"I am, I am. I'm just surprised. Killian, this doesn't have anything to do with her, does it?"

"Brother," Killian sighs, "Even if it was, I don't have a way to contact her." Sure he was lying, but his brother didn't have to know all his reasons.

"We are driving out there," Liam says.

"I'll fly. I will text you the details once I've made arrangements," Killian says.

"Alright, see you then," Liam adds. "Brother, it's going to be good seeing you after so long. I miss you."

Killian sighs. "I miss you too."

The line disconnects. Alright Emma Nolan, what have you been up to? he thinks as he enters her name in the browser's search engine. He had thought of looking for her before, but he had never found any sign of her online. He knows her family has money but somehow she has managed to stay hidden. The only information that would come up was of her grandfather's business deals. His heart tells him that this time, though, things would be different.

Sure enough, he finds one headline: "George Spencer dies at home after a long battle with heart disease."

Killian reads the headline carefully and his heart sparks with hope to see Emma again. The newspaper lists her as the sole survivor of her grandfather's Estate. That means she would have to be at his home. He winces at the thought. He knows that his method to approach her while grieving will be considered to be in bad form, but if it is the only chance he has, he has to make the best of the situation. He takes a deep breath and alters his flight plans so he can arrive a couple of days earlier.

Mr. Gold had changed his tune when Emma didn't fall for his manipulations and offered his services. Emma reluctantly accepted his help. He told her to give him a couple of hours and at that time, he would have information to make her search easier. He quickly found out that her daughter had ended up in foster care. He gave her the name of the caseworker assigned to Hope Swan. That was her baby's name. Emma tries to ignore the fact that her daughter is in the care of the state. She wonders what she looks like? Does she take after her or him? Killian Jones, he had never left her thoughts, but before it was painful to think of him because inevitably her thoughts would end on her daughter. Emma smiles, realizing how fitting the name Hope was for their daughter. Emma thanks Mr. Gold and goes to see Merlin Wilde.

Emma arrives at the CPS office. Her nerves are getting the best of her. She approaches the information desk. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Mr. Wilde?"

The woman looks bored. "Do you have an appointment?"

Emma shakes her head. "No, I'm sorry. I must speak to him, though."

The woman rolls her eyes. "Fill out the sign-in sheet. I will see if he can fit you in today." She gets up and heads to a door behind her desk.

Emma is about to sit down when something catches her eye. Pictures of missing kids. Runaways. She gravitates to the board. Her heart is beating so fast as her eyes land on a name, Hope Swan. Emma smiles as she stares at blue eyes that reminded her of the pair that stole her heart all those years back. The sound of someone clearing their throat startles her.

"I'm sorry for startling you, Miss Nolan. I'm Merlin Wilde." He smiles at her as he looks over her sign-in sheet and signals for her to follow him.

"Oh, no it's okay. Yes, I wanted to speak to you in private. My situation is not a common story," Emma says as she follows him to his office.

They enter his office and he kindly motions for her to take a seat.

Emma looks around the office. She tries to get a feel for the man. He seems kind, but looks can be deceiving.

"Miss Nolan, how may I help you? Is there a child in a situation you are concerned about?"

Emma nods. "Mr. Wilde, yes, in fact, that is the reason why I'm here."

"Alright," he starts taking notes. "May I have the child's name?"

"Hope Swan," Emma says. "I'm her mother."

Merlin looks up from his computer. "I'm sorry," he says as he types rapidly on his computer keyboard, before looking up quizzically. "Her case says she is in the care of Mrs. Emerald."

"I'm afraid you misunderstood me. I'm Hope's biological mother." She takes a deep breath. "I was young and unmarried when I got pregnant with her, and my grandfather didn't think having a child was appropriate." Her eyes begin to sting because of the tears. "He took it upon himself to decide that giving my daughter away while I was unconscious because of an accident was the appropriate decision to make. Until recently, I thought Hope was dead. I'm here because I need your help getting my daughter back. I understand she is in foster care, so it shouldn't be a big deal, right?"

Merlin keeps his eyes on her and laughs. "She is a good kid, the people that had fostered her before never had a complaint about her. She loves music and she always hummed a melody to herself. She was just not open to letting them in. It's like she knew she didn't belong there. I'm afraid that has caused her to run away on several occasions. I was just informed she ran away from the last home."

Emma's eyes tear up. "I loved my daughter from the moment I knew she was there. I used to play a song on the cello for her that her father sang the night we met. Until the day I thought I had lost her, I played the same song. I need to find her."

"And we will, Miss Nolan. I have put up fliers all over the city."

Emma nods. "I will look for her myself. I plan on hiring a private investigator. Could I have a picture of her?"

"Of course, Miss Nolan. I will do all in my power to help get your daughter back. I'm going to go looking for her at Washington Square Park. That is a hot spot for runaways. If you would like to join me? We might get lucky," he says as he hands her the picture of Hope from her file.

Emma smiles. "Sure, I will. Thank you for asking."

Hope is sitting on a bench at Washington Square Park and then she hears some music playing. Instantly, she is drawn to it. A boy around her age is playing the guitar. She smiles wide and sits down to enjoy the show. People surround the boy as he plays and they drop change on a baseball cap on the floor. Once he finishes playing, the boy picks up his cap and puts the money in his pocket. He grabs his guitar and thanks the crowd before leaving.

Curious, Hope follows him to an abandoned theatre.

Killian arrives on the first flight of the day. He rents a car and makes his way to the Nolan Estate. He is a nervous wreck. What will Emma think of him showing up unannounced? He hopes she will be happy to see him.

The boy Hope was following introduces himself as Henry. She likes him. He is nice and he promptly explains that all the runaway children live there. They had been taken in by Walsh Oz, the "Wizard". The man provides a roof over their head and food.

"Don't worry, Hope. He will teach you how to perform in street corners to pay for your part. If you're lucky and any good, he will let you use one of the park's spots," Henry says. "When he gets home with food, I will introduce you."

Hope thinks to herself it couldn't be that bad. This way, she won't be picked on for playing music.

Henry smiles fondly at Hope. "So why did you run away?"

Hope smiles back. "I'm going to find my parents. How about you?"

"My adoptive mom didn't love me." He shrugs. "Hope, I know you will find them."

Hope beams. "Thank you, but how can you believe so?"

Henry smiles. "I have a feeling that you will find them and then you will have your happy ending."

The Wizard hadn't always lived in condemned buildings. He once had been a success in his art but lost it due to some scandal years ago, but he could still spot talent. The young girl Henry had brought to him had loads of talent. She had played a song that most of the other kids couldn't play. The girl was magical. She appeared to be a musical genius with savant-like abilities and perfect pitch. He knows he could make a good living off of that girl. He smiles wickedly as the girl plays with his prized guitar, Roxanne. "Well, looks like we found our top earner thanks to Henry," The Wizard says to the group. He pulls Hope to the side. "Alright, you are going to be in my old spot at the park and you will be using Roxanne." He scrutinizes her. "Now what should we call you?"

"My name is Hope," she says.

He walks back and forth contemplating and shaking his head. "I know, I shall call you Odette."

Emma and Merlin arrive at the park. They split up in the hope to cover more ground.

Merlin posts missing posters of Hope on every corner he can; he even hands some to the people walking by.

Emma is walking around the corner when something catches her eye. They have some posters for an upcoming event displaying some talent from Julliard. She smiles wistfully, she misses her music. She takes out her phone to call an old friend. Elsa had ended up at their old school as a teacher.

Somehow her connection is stronger now. She has a sudden need to play. She feels it will help her connect with her daughter.

Tag list:

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[phantomrose96]

Origin of a Non-Hero

Pro Hero Deku is not that tall of a man… In a simple white t-shirt and khakis, he’s not imposing at all. His 14 year old son, though much scrawnier in frame, is only an inch or two shorter than him.

Pro Hero Deku is not a cruel man. To the contrary, he cares too much, about all things at all times, about everyone and everything he can save if only it could come within his reach. The family counselor knows this. The counselor is surprised that, of all the world’s burdens Deku carries, it would be his family that slipped through his grasp.

Pro Hero Deku’s arms are gnarled and scarred, endlessly broken and re-broken in his youth from trying too much, and caring too much, and fighting too much for the sake of others. So why do they seem so awkward, so unpracticed, so unused to being wrapped in a hug around his son? Why was this boy the last thing for Pro Hero Deku’s arms to reach?

The counselor asks. The raw hurt of the session starts anew.

(This fic is long, heed the Read More)

...

11 people shared the same rigid wooden bench as Shikinori Midoriya. From the glances he stole, all 11 of them were handcuffed. An equal number of armed guards stood at the ready, crowding a waiting area meant to accommodate no more than 10 people.  Shoulders rubbed shoulders. Sweat trickled from necks and hairlines. Dampness clung to skin and scales and fur and whatever other quirk-manifested coverings the 11 handcuffed men, and 11 guards, and Shiki bore.

A puttering fan spun in the corner, sad and wheezing and ineffective against the body heat of so many. Shiki kind of resented the fan for all the nothing it was accomplishing.

He leaned his weight into the sturdy bench arm to his left, opting to crush his guts into the furniture rather than lean on the man beside him, who was more knotted muscle and snake tattoos than he was man. Shiki looked again and concluded the man may even be more snake than man. Two sharp fangs stuck out from his mouth and tented his upper lip. His unmarked skin shimmered, a rippling repeated pattern of flesh-covered scales. His tongue shot out and licked the air, forked. Slit-pupiled eyes made momentary, awkward eye-contact with Shiki, and Shiki quickly pretended to be staring elsewhere.

The man seemed familiar. Some villain from some news headline. But Shiki couldn’t place a name, so he didn’t bother thinking about it more. He stared ahead, eyes drifting out of focus, hot. Uncomfortable and hot. Damp and stick-to-his-clothes-sweaty. Just…hot. Unnecessarily so. Maybe he shouldn’t be here. Maybe it wasn’t worth it. Maybe he’d been impulsive, and foolish, and should leave before he gets in any deeper.

The door beside Shiki creaked open. A wizened man with tiny, deep-set, watery eyes motioned him in. Shiki all but jumped to his feet. He tugged at the spots of his shirt that clung sweaty to his back, and he followed. The temperature dropped at least 20 degrees once he crossed the threshold into this new room. The door clicked shut behind Shiki. He startled, and felt a ripple of disquiet shiver down his spine, but Shiki chose not to dwell on it. He was more drawn to investigating the new room, which, he quickly discovered, came with its own kind of sensory-terrible-silence.

The waiting room had been terribly silent – chatterless and buffed with the sounds of breathing, wheezing, throat-clearing, shifting, shuffling, and the tinkering tangle of chains. This time it was an ambient buzz that blanketed the new room, thick and oppressive and syncopated, like a fly trapped in a jar. Shiki traced it to the fluorescent lights overhead. Under their pallor, the watery-eyed man looked half like death. He sat, and motioned for Shiki to sit too in the wooden chair directly across. A table separated them. On Shiki’s side, there was a set of iron cuffs drilled into the table-top, the sort where, if Shiki threaded his arms forward, he could be bolt-locked in place.

Shiki did not acknowledge the cuffs, and neither did the watery-eyed man. They made eye contact, and Shiki instantly understood: this man did not care about him. This man did not care about any of the other people in that waiting room. What gave it away was unclear – maybe the stiffness in his jaw, or the piercing deadness to his horrible ice-blue eyes, or the sterile too-large lab coat crumpling the man’s figure, or maybe none of that. Maybe it was pure human intuition, an instinct honed for survival, that one feels when encountering another human so bereft of empathy that it sticks along every individual neck-hair.

“Sit,” the man said. His tone was sharp, as though he’d been forced to repeat himself. That was somewhat true. He’d already motioned for Shiki to sit. Shiki had been too distracted by the cuffs on the table to comply. He was still distracted now, but he sat this time.

“I’m Dr. Matsuyama,” the man like death continued. He pulled a loose clipboard from the shelf just beneath his side of the table, and he dragged a slightly-trembling hand from his pocket, gray and liver-spotted, trailing an uncapped pen. His eyes became more like pits in this light, but Shiki could see a blue in them that was definitely inhuman. Which wasn’t saying much, since most of the population walked around in definitely inhuman ways. It was quirk-related, no doubt, but endlessly eerie to stare at.

There came a shuffle from the shadows, a shift in the back-left corner of the room that startled Shiki. He looked, and now locked eyes with a man dressed to the nines in an ill-fitting suit. The man pulled at his own lapel, straightening it, as though reading Shiki’s mind about the ill-fitting suit detail.

“Don’t mind Dr. Himura,” Matsuyama continued. “He’s leading the study, so he is observing. I’m conducting this session.” Matsuyama set pen to paper. “What is your name?”

“Shikinori Midoriya,” Shiki answered. “I go by Shiki, among friends.”

“Is there a reason for that?” Matsuyama’s voice had a papery tremble to it, like air whistling through the slit of a barely-cracked window. Listening to it was uncomfortable. Shiki could feel it like a shortness of breath in his own throat.

“Just preference.”

Matsuyama wrote something down.

“How old are you?”

“22.”

“Your quirk?”

“Gravity nullification.” Shiki raised his hands up, palms spread toward Matsuyama. “I can negate the gravity of anything I touch with my fingers, palms, or pads of my toes. Basically any part of my body that has this ridged skin.” He wiggled his wide-spread fingers. The weird fluorescent lighting threw the ridges into stark contrast, valleys of blackness ribbing his fingers, engulfed like Matsuyama’s eyes. “The quirk works on any sized object, but the time limit is shorter for bigger objects.”

Matsuyama let the silence linger as he wrote. His writings filled several lines this time, as Shiki had little else to do than watch the trail of the pen.

“Is your quirk patrilineal, matrilineal, or both?”

“Matrilineal.”

“How does it influence or impede your daily life?”

“It doesn’t much, really. I don’t need it. I don’t really use it. It’s forgettable.”

“What are the negatives to living with your quirk?”

Shiki shrugged. “None much, really, since I don’t use it.”

“Then what brings you here?”

“I mean, just that. I don’t need it. Does it have to be deeper than that?”

Matsuyama wrote. And he wrote for longer than before. Silence draped them again, and it amplified the buzzing from the lights. It was hot again, Shiki realized with agitation. His seat placed him right below the lights, a veritable stage light, targeting him to bake. His neck prickled with sweat. Buzzing. Like a fly in the jar. Fly in a jar, fly in a jar, that flies against the walls each which way and can’t get out, because there is no out, because the jar is sealed, and being unyielding to gravity is no help when the walls close on every side.

“…here?”

“Huh?” There’d been a question. Shiki had zoned out for--

“Did anyone offer you money to come here?”

“Not beyond the 1,500 yen per day,” Shiki responded, collecting himself. “You know, that you guys offered, that 1,500 yen, to cover transport and lunch. But nothing else. No.”

“Did anyone blackmail you to come here?”

“No.”

“Are there any extenuating circumstances to explain why you’re here?”

“None.”

Matsuyama stopped writing. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of Shiki’s neck, lost somewhere between his shoulder blades. He shifted, and rolled his shoulders a little, and edged his hands away from the wrist restraints on the table.

“Do you have any thoughts of self-harm?”

“No.”

“A history of violence?”

“No.”

“Do you consider yourself to be a danger to yourself or others?”

“No.”

“Any history of drug abuse?”

“No.”

“Alcoholism?”

“No.”

“Anxiety or depression?”

Shiki faltered. “I saw a therapist for a bit, a while ago, back when I was a teenager. But it wasn’t anything, like, extreme. You know? Just, stuff.”

“And how do you define ‘stuff’?”

“It—he was a family therapist. My parents are divorced so like, you know, I was a kid – well, a teenager – but that’s still a kid. I mean we saw the therapist when I was a teenager, but my parents divorced when I was 10 before I was a teenager so – the therapist – he was just for, you know, typical stuff. Typical divorced kid stuff.”

Matsuyama wrote, and wrote more, and at length, Shiki said nothing.

“How’s your relationship with your mother?”

“Fine.”

“How does she feel about your participation in this?”

“I dunno, really. I mentioned it to her like once but like, a while ago, before I decided on whether I wanted to do it but like… I dunno. That shouldn’t matter, right? I’m an adult.”

“How’s your relationship with your father?”

“You know, fine.”

“And how does he feel about your participation in this?”

“Like I said, does it matter?” Shiki pressed. He leaned forward, because he could feel his shirt sticking again in back. Under his arms, too. He was grateful for the dark color of his clothing, since Shiki knew from a glance to frumpy Himura that the harsh lighting was unforgiving on sweat stains.

“Is he against it?”

“He doesn’t know about it. Like, he’s busy. And I’m an adult. And it’s not like it’s his quirk or anything since I inherited it from my mom, and it’s my body so I think I should be the one who gets the final say in whether I do this or not don’t you think so?”

Matsuyama left the challenge unmet. It rung through the room around them and petered out to silence. Just an echo left dancing in Shiki’s head. Matsuyama wrote. He only wrote, and Shiki’s heart beat in his own ears.

“My job is to make sure you are of sound mind… uncoerced… unhindered by any self-destructive motivations...” Matsuyama’s pen did not break pace while he spoke, like an automaton. Like a puppet. Endlessly forward, unholy eyes shuffling along line by line. “The Quirk Ethics Board is strict. Dr. Himura has spent the better part of five years at odds with them to get this study off the ground. Be grateful to him, and be patient with me.” And his horrible eyes flickered up, pinning Shiki to the spot. “I can disqualify you, if I think you’re lying to me. So please, some patience, and some cooperation.”

Shiki’s whole body flushed with a shiver, and he realized that perhaps Himura was not the man he should be suspecting of a mind reading quirk.

He leaned back in his spotlight chair, and took a few deep breaths, and wondered how heated his cheeks were. Embarrassment always spiked a blush in them, and Shiki was ashamed to have let his composure slip.

“Your father… wouldn’t you like to tell him, first? There’s no reversing this. We encourage everyone who comes through this room to inform all family, all loved-ones first.”

“No. I don’t want to tell him. Because I know it’ll make him cry. And if I lose my nerve, and back out, I’ll probably never have this opportunity again. I need this decision to be my own.”

Shiki averted his eyes, away from Matsuyama, glancing left and finding himself staring back. A mirror spanned the length of the left wall. A few feet worth of cinderblock stretched from the floor-up, and the ceiling-down, meeting at a mirror that lobbed Shiki’s own reflection back at him. Freckles and green eyes and tousled chestnut hair and cheeks heated with shame and embarrassment.

A one-way mirror. Shiki wondered if there was anyone standing on the other side of it, watching, judging.

The silence lingered, heavier, denser somehow. It took Shiki a few moments to process what had changed.

The scratch of Matsuyama’s pen had vanished. He was not writing. He was staring, instead, at Shiki. Plain to see in the mirror. Waiting for Shiki to face him again. Reluctantly, Shiki looked.

“Your father… is a busy man, you said. He must be very very busy… Shikinori Midoriya.” Matsuyama shuffled his papers into place, and set the clipboard down on the interrogation desk. “If your name, and your appearance, and the leagues and leagues of advertisements, and news headlines, and television specials I see every day paint an accurate picture of who, I suspect, your father is.”

Shiki breathed out, jaw clenched, feeling that familiar dread settle in. He heard a noise from Himura, like a tiny pip, a single note of recognition that Shiki had become well attuned to: that sound of someone putting the dots together, the look in their eyes as they roved over Shiki’s face, as though suddenly giddy to understand his freckles and green eyes and curly hair.

“Midoriya?” Himura leaned forward, pushing himself off the back wall and shuffling a bit forward. His eyes were wide and probing, mutedly eager. “Oh I see – yeah – I see it – you look just like him – but – pardon my interruption, son, but –   why would you ever consider participating – here in my study – why I can’t dream of – I don’t think I could be responsible for -“

“Don’t,” Shiki shot back. He braced his back against the chair once more, letting the wave of dread pass. “Don’t… Don’t finish what you’re going to say.”

“The boy is right, Himura,” Matsuyama said, and he did not look at his colleague. “This is my interview. And you are only here to observe. You are out of line.”

“R-right,” Himura breathed, flushing red, yet still clearly riding out his confusion, his giddiness. He pulled a small kerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the sweat along his receding hairline. “My apologies, M-Mr. Midoriya.”

“Just call me Shiki…”

“Yes, Shiki, we should get back on track,” Matsuyama proceeded. He picked his clipboard up once more and flipped another page. Shiki tried counting the number of sheets that wrapped spiral-like over top. More than he had realized – 10 or maybe 12 pages thick, at this point. Matsuyama’s pen tip tapped to paper once more. “I want to be clear: you are entitled to have your own reason for following through with this. But you may not hide it from me and expect to participate. I am the deciding factor here. Do not lie.”

With that, Shiki felt the last of the vigor in his spine drain away. He slumped forward some, and avoided eye contact with Matsuyama, and Himura, and his own reflection in the mirror which he resented so strongly at this very moment.

“So tell me, boy,” Matsuyama paused to pull in a rattling breath, “why do you want us to erase your quirk?”

“It’s complicated,” Shiki muttered.

“I’m quite good at complicated,” Matsuyama countered.

“It’s… My dad… You figured it out already, right? Izuku Midoriya… He’s the #1 Hero.” The words felt plastic, leaving Shiki’s throat. Artificial. Manufactured. A thing repeated en-masse by television hosts and podcasts and commercials and fan events and—

Shiki breathed.

“He wasn’t always. …Well, duh, I guess, of course… That sounds obvious to say but I mean it as – as in that – back when I was born, Dad was the #361 Hero. At least in the one ranking suite that stretched all the way to the top 500 heroes. Most ranking organizations only did top-250 at best. And the National Rankings only do top-75. He was a still a sidekick then. So was my mom. She didn’t even appear in the top 500. And I think being pregnant with me, and me being born, and taking care of me – I think that set her back even more.”

Shiki leaned forward, elbows set to the table, eyes boring deep into the scratched and stained wood. There were deeper gouges near the sharp corners of the arm restraints.

“When I was old enough to start remembering things is around when I got my quirk, because most of my oldest memories are of my mom playing gravity games with me in our apartment. She’d make my toys float and I’d make them float too and she’d bop them, like with her head, bop them all around and I thought that was the funniest thing. I used to think everyone could cancel gravity because that was so much of my world, just me and my mom.”

Ochaco Midoriya was just barely 23, and her hair had grown long enough to wear in a bun every day. Her off-the-shoulder white shirt spelled out URAVITY in bubble letters across the front. A short release. Only 100 shirts sold, half of them to friends and family. Her son Shiki lay on the carpet, small pudgy hands grabbing at fistfuls of air above him, reaching for her, his footy-jammied feet kicking. His fingers were ridged. He’d have her quirk someday. She pulled out the stuffed frog from behind her back (FROPPY logo emblazoned on the tummy) and papped it gently forward. Into the air. Where it hung and spun, lazily adrift. Shiki let out a shriek of joy. Ochaco smiled, and cupped Shiki’s hands in hers, and kissed them.

“My dad… um… he was out most of the day, almost the whole day, on weekdays at least, when I was young. And I was proud of him for that especially when I got old enough to understand what heroes and villains were because like, that was my dad, out there every single day putting in more effort than anyone else, you know? It never even seemed that weird, to like, that I didn’t have him around. I had Mom, and Dad was a hero.”

The little leaguers were all 5 or 6 years old, adorned in fluorescent pinnies and tiny little soccer cleats. They ran the way little kids run – with too much force in every stilted step, no grace, all fierce concentration, feet slamming heavy into grass and balled fists swinging. The ball came above their knees, and they kicked by running into it full-force.

Tatsuya bodied the ball into the opposing goal, and he was met with a chorus of applause from his mother and father on the sidelines. It was the first time Shikinori Midoriya noticed – Tatsuya had a dad. He looked, and saw so many dads. And it was strange. Weren’t they heroes? Weren’t they busy?

Ochaco stood alone. She waved a big wide sweeping wave when she noticed Shiki looking. She whistled for him. The ball knocked into Shiki. He forgot to wave back.

“I remember… Most of my memories of him, from when I was little, were on weekends. But not always, I mean not all weekends. He patrolled through weekends too. But if we got a weekend off, then we’d do some activity with him. Me, Mom, all of us together. It was my favorite. But weekdays, I never saw him. He left before I woke up and came home after I was in bed. I stayed up sometimes, in secret, to listen for him at the door. But a lot of nights I fell asleep first, or some nights he never even came home. I actually, I think I started to see him more on television, from news reporters, than I did in person…”

A head-to-toe child’s onesie which was a flannel plushy mock-up of Pro Hero Deku’s uniform. Shiki wore it, bunny ears and all, sitting in his mother’s lap in front of the television. Ochaco sat with her back against the couch, on the floor. The sun had set around them. The news had trickled on to its fourth recap of Deku’s apartment arson rescue.

~”A civilian recording that is SURE to capture a nation’s heart! As Pro Hero Deku emerges from the blazing building with three tenants, mother father and child, slung across his back – look – there! Oh what a winning smile that boy’s got, hasn’t he? Saving people with a smile! It makes me nostalgic for the age of All Might, to our viewers old enough to remember the Symbol of Peace before his retirement. Maybe Deku is someone who can spark that hope back into the new generation, what do you think, folks?”~

“15 more minutes, Shikinori, then it’s time for bed,” Ochaco told Shiki, bouncing him on her leg.

“But I wanna stay up for Dad! I wanna tell him we watched him on the news!” Shiki pointed a stubby finger to the freeze-frame of his father on the television, all tousled hair and sweat, bearing the weight of three others on his back, a veritable Atlas, smiling. Smiling smiling. Shiki gave the same smile as his dad, beaming at his mom.

“You’ll see him tomorrow; you can tell him then.”

The smile dropped from Shiki’s face. He looked forward to the television again. “I’m not gonna see him tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Tuesday and I don’t ever see Dad on Tuesday.”

~”I hear we’ve got an interview with a civilian who was on-site during the disaster. We’re cutting to him now!”~

“…30 more minutes, okay then, Honey?” Ochaco said. “We’ll wait up 30 more minutes for Dad.”

Shiki’s hand twitched. His eyes were locked on the shackles, and slowly, experimentally, he rested his wrists in the cuffs. Could the table hold him down with his quirk?

“And by the time I was 7, he broke into the top-100 heroes. Within another three years, he was top-50. Newspapers called it mind-blowing to see someone like that jump the ranks so quickly.  He blew past Ground Zero and Ice Razer, who you know are like, #2 and #3 now. It was crazy. Like, he got way more attention for how quickly he was jumping than for his actual rank. The papers said he was working inhuman hours. That even heroes with time quirks and clone quirks couldn’t be as everywhere as he was… I have clippings saved. Or I did. I might have gotten rid of them when Mom and Dad divorced.”

Shiki clinked his wrists against the shackles, metal wrist watch ringing hollow against the cuffs.

“Which is, that was something I found out on my 10th birthday. They didn’t mean for me to know but I was staying up past my bed time to play the new Hero Smash game they got me – the one Dad was finally in -- and I heard them arguing just a bit too loud about something, and them arguing was kinda common at that point, so I paused the game to listen and… yeah… divorce… It was, you know, a pretty tame divorce, I think. Like, I can’t really complain about it, compared to some of the stuff other kids go through. Cuz Mom and Dad still acted friendly and tried to settle things on good terms but, you know, it showed. I’d go into Mom’s room and hold her, some nights, when I heard her crying. And she’d sob and say ‘I still love him’ and I never knew what to say back, but, I’m –that’s, anyway. Anyway.”

Ochaco Midoriya, 32 years old. She kept the last name. It would be easier, in terms of legal hassle, and it would be easier on her son, who she had full custody of.

Her empty bed had been the norm for years, now. Deku had gotten into the habit of working through the nights, stealing naps on his cot at the agency. But now it was the cold reminder, the knowledge, that he wasn’t ever coming back to this bed that stole Ochaco’s breath and made it short. Made her heart squeeze. Forced noises past her lips that she tried to keep in.

“Mom?” Shiki’s eyes, wide with concern, at the side of her bed. He held his hands together, ridged fingers, ridged palms, the little fingers she used to kiss.

He reached a hand out, and patted her shoulder, tip toes, leaning over the bed. He should be crying too.

Shiki pulled his hands back, rubbing at his wrists. His cheeks were flushed, embarrassment creeping through his system as his own words echoed back at him. Those things he’d rarely told anyone. “Am I… is this too much detail? I can dial it back. It’s just, um, I feel like the context is important for you to like… know why I’m—not write me off as—”

“This is fine, continue. If you say anything unnecessary, I can simply not write it down,” Matsuyama waved his free hand dismissively. The pen in his other hand danced, still, across the page.

Shiki cleared his throat. “Anyway, I lived with Mom after that. And when I was a little older she told me more about it and basically just. ‘He loves All Might more than he loves me,’ she said. Not the person, but the… idea. Like the concept of All Might. It’s who my Dad was so driven to be since the very beginning and… My mom couldn’t take being secondary anymore… And I realized then that, I was part of that too. I didn’t need saving, so I came second. My mom put her hero career on hold to raise me but he, um, he just couldn’t do that. Who he was as a person was so, unfixably tangled up in becoming that All Might in his mind that, he couldn’t sacrifice that. Not for me. Not for my mom.

“And when they finally divorced, and he moved out and into this just… terrible tiny unfurnished apartment, which I only saw twice – two years apart – and both times it looked the same. Nothing in there. Almost like no one was really living there. A futon and a closet and a rice cooker in the corner and boxes and All Might merch on the wall.”

Shiki was 11, sitting on a packed cardboard box against the red-brick wall of his dad’s apartment. Still-packed boxes lined most of the walls, like a misshapen and dull lego construction. Red brick, brown cardboard, All Might smiling from every wall. It was an apartment unlived-in, and that aspect was nearly unfathomable to Shiki. His dad had been moved out for over four months.

“Pretty great, huh?” Deku said, gloved finger pointing to the wall of All Mights. Deku’s smile was bright, his excitement genuine. “The one on the far left was a limited release from 50 years ago. One of my super-fans tracked it down for me and mailed it. Can you believe it?”

Shiki nodded. All the posters looked the same to him.

“But um, after the divorce is when he really skyrocketed. Everything before was child’s play. I was… dizzy. I was 11, and starting middle school, and had just lost my dad only to have him be everywhere but… not my dad. Not there for me. But everywhere, on billboards, in newspapers, on television. Kids at school would hear my last name and they’d ask ‘Midoriya – Like Izuku Midoriya? Like Deku?!’ and I’d have to just say yeah while they applauded or like, even smacked me on the back sometimes like I had any choice in that, and would ask questions about him that, I couldn’t answer, cuz he wasn’t my dad anymore. His fans in my class knew things about him that I didn’t. Sometimes little things like favorite color but sometimes big things, whole things from his childhood that I never heard about. They’d ask me things about him and that’s when I realized I didn’t know my dad at all.”

Shiki glanced up, and saw Himura look away in embarrassment.

“He’d been kidnapped, as a kid, had saved Ground Zero twice, took down a murderer with Ice Razer and Ingenium, had his mentor die during a rescue mission. I had to hear these things from people I didn’t know. And I felt just, selfish, every time I learned something new. Especially the things that happened after I was born. Because how do you sit and hear someone tell you a story about the time your dad saved their grandma from a collapsed bridge and just… how can you justify feeling resentful about that? How selfish do you have to be to think, ‘he should have been spending that night at home with me and my mom, and not saving your grandma.’ I hated it. I started to hate hearing about him.”

His hands were shaking now, slightly, Shiki realized. His breathing too came in too fast and too raspy. He set his wrists back in the open restraints, and breathed out.

“And just… by the time I was 12, Dad made Top 20. And then when I was 13, he was Top 10. …And I think at that point he really, truly didn’t feel like my dad anymore. Because he was just, some God to the world. Someone people fawned over by the millions and, just, that was better, actually. Because I could really just act like he wasn’t my dad, had nothing to do with me. Maybe I was at peace with that. I could do the 20-minute phone calls once a week and be courteous with him and answer questions about school and just, move on…”

Shiki walked the same street every day to school, the same route with the same turns, the same backpack slung over one shoulder. But the scenery changed. New advertisements. New billboards. New screens projecting, dancing, twirling, screening, screaming. Deku brand hand cream. Deku brand baby clothes. Deku brand clutch purses. Headlines with stills of Pro Hero Deku printed on the front page. Upcoming: interview with Pro Hero Deku! Everywhere. Growing like mushrooms. The likeness almost like the one in Shiki’s mirror every morning. The likeness of a man quickly fading from memory, quickly replaced by advertisements and stills over flesh and blood. Shiki felt eyes on him, every day, from people who saw the resemblance. Or maybe not. Maybe he imagined it. Maybe no one was looking at him at all.

The wrist restraints were cold.

“And I started to see Mom less and less, around that time. I was old enough to take care of myself mostly so she, she took up patrolling again. Started rising the ranks quickly too… Mostly because the tabloids loved her, and circulated her name as much as they could, as the ex-wife of Deku… They said horrible things that I—still I—even thinking about them just. Vile horrible things about her and Dad, and why Dad left her, and why she left Dad, and ‘Deku fans’ piling on her calling her trash and filth and whore and, insulted her for keeping his last name until, eventually, she did change it back and… I stopped reading those but… that’s how hero work works. Whatever gets your name out there, and gets you recognized, so that your rescues get camera time and screen time and … She at least got to make her own name, once she got recognized. Her own rescue efforts spoke for themselves. Saved over 75 people from the rubble of a collapsed building and, s-she broke top-100 that same year. I wanted to be happy for her. I wanted to… but the house was so empty.”

13 year old Shiki unlocked the front door. He flicked the lights, and they blazed through the pitch blackness beyond the foyer. There was a sterile cleanliness inside, the subtle sting of lemon in the back of his throat. Between his mom’s new notoriety and his dad’s hefty child support, they could afford a personal cleaner now. Twice a week. She must have come. The apartment was spotless.

Shiki turned on the television and rooted through the cabinet and emerged with a box of cereal. He didn’t bother with a bowl. He sat on the couch instead, scrolling his phone with one hand, grabbing fistfuls of cereal with the other. The news mentioned ‘Uravity’ and Shiki turned it up. He listened to the reporters until they spiraled into her failed marriage with Pro Hero Deku, and Shiki listened no further.

He focused on his phone instead, cereal crunching. Most of the forums he followed were Uravity forums. He paused on a particular cross-posting, shared by someone irate over the click-bait bottom-feeding publications that drew readership with manufactured drama. Shiki read the headline. ~”‘She took our son!’ Pro Hero Deku sobs in a raw tell-all about the woman who broke his heart and tore apart his family to launch her own career.”~

There was a boy pictured in the article. The boy wasn’t even Shiki.

“I was 13 still, and we were moving from the apartment into a nice house, because Mom’s salary and Dad’s child support were now more than enough for a proper place. A nice place. And I did most of the house cleaning and packing myself since Mom was now so so busy… And I found, in the attic, my old box of toys, the gravity ball toys the—the ones where—me and Mom used to bop them back and forth and I… think I just… I threw them away. And the old newspaper clippings I kept about Dad. Threw them all away. Never made it to the new house. I hated them. I hated them.”

Shiki pressed his back against the attic wall, suddenly short of breath, static suddenly in his legs and rippling down his spine. He slid down, slowly, streaking the layer of dust along the wall, just like his hands had streaked away the dust on the boxes, gray lint filling the ridges on his finger tips. He stared at the layer of yellowed newsprint, the top article boasting ~”No Longer Just A Side-Kick? ‘Deku’ Makes His Agency Debut!”~

It filled him with revulsion, with a choking hurt in the ways that modern news headlines didn’t. He had forgotten the feeling associated with these old headlines. That old forgotten excitement of knowing that news outlets had come to acknowledge his dad’s existence.

Not his dad anymore. Not his. Izuku Midoriya lived in newsprint now. The media owned him, had stolen him slowly. A superhuman. A god. Not a husband. Not a father. Not Shiki’s.

“He called on the phone once a week. Just once a week, to talk about nothing. Until I was 14, that is. Once I turned 14, suddenly Dad was eager to be on the phone with me. And he’d act like he was interested in talking to me about normal stuff, but it always came back to U.A. Always U.A. Asking if I wanted to. Asking if I’d thought about it. Asking if I had any questions that he or Mom could answer about the school.”

Shiki’s voice caught.

“…Still… still makes me angry. And he just didn’t realize. I realized he had no idea. At all. Whatsoever. That what he’d done was… might have been wrong. I realized and it blew my mind. That nothing he did was ever, ever malicious. He was, is, thought he was a good person. Working so hard to save everyone. Absolute strangers. As many, as much, as endlessly eternally as he could. And he… thought I idolized that. That I looked at him and Mom and wanted to… do them proud and follow in their footsteps. And I saw him through… his own eyes I guess… and he was the world’s hero and the next All Might and the rising Symbol of Peace and he didn’t think he’d abandoned me, or Mom, he thought he’d just left us to catch up… I think he talked my mom back into heroing. Because they stayed friends, or ‘friends’, whatever you call two people who get along great so long as they ignore all the hurt between them. And… he… wanted me to enroll in U.A… THAT… was when I finally snapped at him, and we got family counseling.”

Silently, Matsuyama set his pen down, and he slid across the table a box of tissues Shiki had not noticed him take out. And Shiki took one, shocked to pad it against the stream of tears he hadn’t noticed rolling down his cheek. He stole one more glance into the mirror, ashamed of the puffy-eyed and blotchy-cheeked reflection. His dad’s freckles. His mom’s chestnut hair. He was designed piece-meal from them. No part his own. No part himself. The buzzing, overhead. Fly in the jar. Uncaring of gravity. Eternally confined to the jar’s unseeable walls.

“I saw Dad in person, for the first time in 2 years, when we went to that counselor.” Shiki let out a strained laugh. “I had literally… misremembered things about him. I had remembered him being taller but, the media just loved to prop him up at certain angles that made him taller. In street clothes, in person, he almost didn’t look like Pro Hero Deku. …And even smaller, when he cried. Because he did cry, during counseling, like honestly cried. And he apologized. I’d never – I didn’t think I would ever get an apology from him. Or like I couldn’t ask for one, didn’t deserve one, because that would be selfish. But he owned up to it… Dad cared. Dad was sorry. Dad had no idea I was this hurt. Dad thought I idolized heroes too and that he was making me proud. And I thought it would work. I thought we would finally fix this all.”

Pro Hero Deku is not that tall of a man… In a simple white t-shirt and khakis, he’s not imposing at all. His 14 year old son, though much scrawnier in frame, is only an inch or two shorter than him.

Pro Hero Deku is not a cruel man. To the contrary, he cares too much, about all things at all times, about everyone and everything he can save if only it could come within his reach. The family counselor knows this. The counselor is surprised that, of all the world’s burdens Deku carries, it would be his family that slipped through his grasp.

Pro Hero Deku’s arms are gnarled and scarred, endlessly broken and re-broken in his youth from trying too much, and caring too much, and fighting too much for the sake of others. So why do they seem so awkward, so unpracticed, so unused to being wrapped in a hug around his son? Why was this boy the last thing for Pro Hero Deku’s arms to reach?

The counselor asks. The raw hurt of the session starts anew.

“I was finally able to tell him just, how invisible I felt to him. How selfish it made me feel. He listened. He cared. He stopped shilling for U.A. I went into a normal high school, one without a hero track. And the first weekend of the school year, Mom, me, and him went to an aquarium, and dinner at a fancy restaurant, and a play in the evening. I don’t like plays but, I liked that play. A lot.”

Shiki crumpled the used tissue in his hand, and then hid it beneath the table. It was wet and tainted and felt unclean in his hand, but there was no garbage can in sight, and he had nothing else he could do with it.

“And that was when Dad slipped a rank, that next month. From #7 to #8. It shouldn’t have mattered so much but, it did. He’d never fallen rank before… No actually, even worse, he’d never even stayed the same rank from one ranking release to the next. He was always climbing. For almost 20 straight years, always climbing, and this was the first time, the very first time he… Dad didn’t mention it. I didn’t mention it. But in my mind I’ve always blamed this as the like, as the turning point, toward turning back down. In reality I don’t know that for sure. Maybe our whole family was just, always destined to slip back on old habits, right from the start. It’s not like he or Mom ever went back on any promises or anything. But more like… Dad slowly stopped proposing weekend activities, and so did Mom. Until it was just me putting in that effort, and I couldn’t be the cause of him falling rank anymore. I couldn’t be the bad guy.”

Shikinori Midoriya’s blood ran cold. Red. The name, the arrow, downward-pointing, -1. Red. Red where there had only ever been green. “#8” in red, which bore no value and no merit beyond the unsightly embarrassment of being below #7.

There were sharks in the water.

Shiki knew it would be only hours until the most predatory, the most inflammatory think-piece writers pounced. Until hero forums buckled under every single anonymous layperson’s expert opinion on where, and how, and why Deku had stumbled. Was his rescue count down? Was his collateral coefficient up? Were merch sales dropping? Had his new figurine bombed? Had a hostage died? Had he yelled at a reporter? Was it the joint rescue with his money-grubbing ex-wife? His incident resolution was abnormally low two Saturdays back. Why? Where had he been? What was he thinking?

Shiki read the theories. He told himself to stop, but the scroll loaded endlessly. Some fans honed in on that weekend – the aquarium trip – fascinated by the dip in resolved incidents, circling like vultures, pecking, tearing, probing. They found an Instagram post from a fan spotting Deku in the crowd of the hammerhead exhibit, and the link got passed around like an electric current.

Had this happened a month ago, a year ago, Shiki might have just watched it unfold disaffected. Shiki’s chest ached now. He hurt for the man his mind had reconciled as his father, for the man who mimicked the guppies and pressed against the glass in the aquatic tunnel, cheeks puffed and scarred hands flapping by his ears. Shiki ached for the genuine laughter from his mother, who still loved this man and his guppy imitation. He ached for the reminder of what his family was, and what it wasn’t, and what it was punished for even trying to be.

“His agency and Mom’s started collaborating a lot. They were good together. Like really good. The two of them together, I saw a new story almost every week. Maybe I was even a little jealous but… it wasn’t something I wanted to be a part of, anyway. So I was fine with that. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t – and don’t – want to be a hero.

“I just kind of… tried to figure myself out as a person, by myself, during high school. I kept a low profile. Joined a math club. Only really talked to a few people most days. Had like, two people I sort of saw as friends. I started going by my mom’s name, Uraraka. Never told people who my parents were. And I think that was for the best, because I was still in school – I was 17 – when Dad claimed the #1 spot. …and I swear I would have had to transfer schools if my classmates knew I was Deku’s kid.”

“Front Page” did not begin to describe the explosion, the eruption, the maelstrom of obsession that gripped an entire nation’s heart and soul when Pro Hero Deku unseated the previous #1. The new report came just days after Deku performed his 10,000th recorded civilian rescue. In honor, dedicated fans had gone and compiled every drop of video coverage that ever graced Deku’s career. It was chronological, starting with grainy film 20 years’ outdated of a still-scrawny U.A. sidekick pulling a man out of rubble, and progressed like a time-lapse from there. A rescue counter sat super-imposed on the bottom-right, documenting the rescues as Deku grew taller, broader, more confident, more practiced, faster and stronger and beaming – always beaming – with a smile to instill hope in an entire nation. The whole montage was two hours in length, and it skyrocketed to the #1 trending.

A half-dozen other videos followed in its wake: a clip of Deku shaking hands with the President who pinned a simple, proper, dignified medal to the front of his costume. A shaking, trembling, sobbing hug with the skeletal and spindly public figure of Toshinori Yagi – previously known as All Might – who teared up along with Deku on stage. Chants of “Symbol”. Chants of “Peace”. Chants, louder than all others, of “Deku”.

Everywhere. Everywhere. Replaying. Tagged. Suggested. Trending. Featured. A kiss with Uravity, tender and subtle and full of passion. A handshake with Shota Aizawa, his first teacher, his long-time peer. Endless interviews with rescued victims. Tear-jerkers. A man named Kota recalling how Deku, at 15, saved him from a certain violent death. A woman named Eri detailing how Deku had taken her in his arms and rescued her from the depths of Hell.

Thousands others followed. Spine-tingling recounts from voices, with breath and warmth and life, who wouldn’t be alive without Deku. They heaped their praises on a man so endlessly driven, forward forward forward, that he could save 10,000 people, and 10,000 more, and everyone, and everything he could touch.

Shiki skipped school the whole next week. Hardly anyone noticed.

“So I got away. Far away. I figured out college all by myself, and got accepted to my top choice 1,000 kilometers away from Tokyo, and it was perfect for me, because maybe then I could figure myself out for a bit, away from everything. Mom asked me to reconsider when I finally saw her in person four days after I’d accepted. She’d been on a sting mission for two straight weeks. They saved fifty people. It earned her her spot as the #15 Hero. My dad had saved twice as many people in that time. Not that I heard it from him. I heard it on the news. I didn’t speak to him again until after I graduated.”

Shiki breathed. “College… was good. It was far away enough that I stopped being afraid of people recognizing me at a glance. I made real friends. I had real relationships. Got to know my professors. Took up tutoring and loved it. I… did things on the weekends, like with friends, went places, saw things, I was happy. Genuinely happy. All these things I never realized I was missing as a kid because I never realized I could have an identity outside of being just… Deku’s reject son. I stopped fearing that and started to be me. I traveled during school breaks. Took some pottery classes. Just… breathed.” Shiki’s hands fidgeted. “At least… until I graduated. And I realized there was a whole cliff I was standing over that I was just avoiding. I didn’t have a job lined up. I tried. For absolute certain. I lost count around the 75 application mark. Nothing. My college friends moved away. My funds were drying up. …I moved back home.”

One duffle bag, slung across his right shoulder, was all Shikinori Midoriya brought home with him. This big house from his teenage years was empty. Endless untouched rooms. Pristine duvets across the beds in all 5 bedrooms, including master. Empty dressers. Empty drawers. Not so much as fingerprints on the front doorknob. Only his mom lived here now, and Shiki fought with the blooming certainty he felt in his gut that she spent almost no time here at all.

Uravity was now the #7 hero. Her merch sales were particularly popular with girls ages 5-12. The money she raked it was enough to put her parents up permanently in a beach house in Hawaii. Money would likely never be a worry for her for as long as she lived. She likely never sold this home because it simply wasn’t worth the hassle.

Shiki set his bag down in his old room, bigger and cleaner and newer and nicer than his college apartment, and so much more a cage than it had ever been before.

Fly in a jar.

“Moving home was… a rough choice. I thought a lot, before that, about just asking Mom and Dad for money. They could definitely afford it. But I couldn’t… be that again, the reject son, some unwanted parasite, pilfering money. I just needed enough stability to get back into the job hunt and get back on my feet. I told Mom that much. I didn’t tell Dad. Didn’t even tell him I’d moved back home but, he found out from Mom. He wanted to see me. Wanted to talk to me. I’d ignored all his calls in college… I decided to bite the bullet and just, go into his office and see him. Let him lay eyes on his failure son. Get it over with. I told him about college, and about my job hunt, and just needing enough time to get back on my feet. And you know what he said?”

Matsuyama glanced up. His pen still trailed. “What did he say?”

“’I could use another accountant at the agency, even a receptionist, if you don’t want to deal with crunching numbers. Given some time and training… I could even use another side kick.’” Shiki looked up, locking eyes with Matsuyama, and blinked away the tears blurring his vision. “Math… was my best subject in school. I want… to be a math teacher. I’ve been sending out a hundred applications for teaching positions. Dad doesn’t know that. Dad… is still living in this world where everything is heroes. And of course he is! He’s lived there his whole life! He never left it! And he’s still waiting for me to join. Waiting for me to change my mind. Like time is the only factor. That world stole my parents and he… and he still thinks that, things can be fine, he can get his way. He thinks, I’ll do what my mom did, and play catch up to him. That I’ll come into my own. That I’ll join him in his hero world. Him and Mom both. That I would want anything to do with heroes. He won’t believe otherwise.”

Shiki struck an open palm against his chest. “Well he’s not getting that. He’s NOT getting this quirk! Not now! Not ever! I’m GETTING RID OF IT. I want to be part of Dr. Himura’s Quirk-Erasure study because, until I’m fully stripped of my Quirk, my Dad and my Mom won’t get it. I know – all those guys out in the waiting room? I know they’re all villains. Probably this whole study is villains, yeah?! They’re all people who’ve been offered reduced sentences if they willingly give up their quirk in this study. Maybe you have a few normal people with dangerous quirks who want to be rid of it but me. My quirk. I stand out, I know, I get it. Because gravity control is cool. And it’s harmless. So why would I want to get rid of it, permanently? This is why. Because everything I’ve spouted off, it, all that probably sounds like some villain-origin-story, yeah?? ‘My hero father never loved me so now he will pay.’ No. No heroes and no villains I’m sick of all of them. This ends here. This ends with me! No more heroes, no more villains. No more POWERS in the Midoriya blood line! This is a non-origin story. This is the origin of me! This is the start of me taking back what heroes took from me!”

Shiki’s breath caught in his throat. He felt the tears wetting his cheeks and knew he had no power to stop them this time, not with the mangled tightness in his chest, not with the hurt bubbling long-repressed to the surface. So he wiped hastily at his eyes, and he stared down at the desk below him.

“I’ve thought this through. I know what I want. I’m not being coerced. I’m of a sound mind and body. I just… want a normal, happy, powerless life. I want to be normal. And I need this final leap, to prove to my family once and for all they can’t have me. I need this control. I need this trump card. I need this final, unchangeable, irreversible option to make them get it. That they can accept me quirkless… or they can not accept me at all.” Shiki lowered himself, and set his eyes to his lap. “Please… Please, I’m begging you.”

Matsuyama let the pen clink to the table. Shiki could not get an accurate count, but at least 40 pages had been flipped over the clipboard’s spiraled top. Matsuyama unfurled these pages, and steadied their alignment, and tucked the board beneath his arm. His chair scraped back with an unholy shriek, and he stood.

“Thank you. We will let you know in due time about your candidacy in the study.”

Matsuyama motioned for the door.

“Wait…” Shiki swallowed. His mouth had gone dry. His ears were ringing slightly. “Can’t you tell me now?”

“The decisions have not been made. How can I tell you now?”

“What about just me then? Y-yes or no?”

“You will be informed in due time.”

“When? How soon?”

Matsuyama motioned again.

“Yes or no? Please. Can you let me be part of this or not?”

“The next patient is coming in, Shiki. See yourself out.”

…

Inko Midoriya’s apartment was small, and it was stayed, and it was comfortable. Her son had offered her time and time again to move her into a nicer place, but she always declined. This apartment was where she’d raised her family. These walls had memories. This was her home.

It felt almost like a memory, just now. Out of the corner of Inko’s eye, seeing the young man with curly hair and green eyes seated at her kitchen table was achingly familiar, the ghost of family dinners with her son.

10 minutes had passed since Inko pulled the rack of cookies from the oven, a warm miasma of buttery sweetness, and laid them out to cool. She grabbed one now, quick touches, experimentally, until the heat didn’t quite burn her fingers, and placed it on a plate. She did the same with a second cookie, and carried them like a server to the table where she took the seat opposite Shiki. He watched her, and accepted the cookie with a quiet ‘thank you’, and merely stared at it. He let the warmth wash across his face.  

“I’m happy to have you back around Tokyo, you know,” Inko said quietly. She looked down at her own cookie, smiling slightly, and picked it up. “Happy to have someone to bake for.”

“I’m happy to see you too, Grandma. It’s been a while.” Shiki bit into his cookie. It was warm, and soft, and achingly comforting. Shiki wasn’t used to the taste of homecooked anything. It squeezed something in his ribcage, made him hurt in a gentle way. “It’s delicious,” he whispered, and raised the heel of his palm to wipe the wetness there.

“You can… you know you can stay with me, Shiki. I’d be happy. I want you to. I know it’s not as big a place as Ochaco’s home, but, Izuku’s old room is still here. There’s still… You could still…”

Shiki shook his head. “If I stay with you, it’ll be so much harder to leave. I’m still job hunting. No guarantees I’ll end up anywhere near here.”

The silence spread between them. The warmth of Shiki’s cookie wafted away, sapping off, like steam curling from a lake.

“…You don’t want to end up living around here, do you, Shiki?”

“Not if I can help it,” Shiki answered.

Inko turned in her chair, and motioned her hand toward the rest of the cookies cooling on the rack. Quirk activated, she pulled them each closer, and let them each fall onto the empty plate that sat between her and Shiki. Still gooey, they seemed to melt into each other, taking form of those beneath them. Inko nudged the plate closer to Shiki, encouraging him to take another.

He did. He bit the cookie. Warm.

“…I’m sorry, Shiki, about the study. I know you had your heart set on it.”

Shiki shrugged. “Matsuyama said there weren’t enough slots. He said he needed to prioritize better candidates. People who would really benefit from losing their quirk.”

Silence, again.

“It wouldn’t have changed things, you know. If it makes you feel any better, Shiki. You having a quirk was never the problem."

Shiki paused mid-bite. The lump in his throat made it too hard to swallow.

“How do you deal with it, Grandma? You’ve been dealing with it so much longer, right? Because I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

Inko gave him a small smile that didn’t quite touch her eyes. “You’re right, but… I don’t think I have a good answer for you, Shiki. It’s lonely here. I miss him. I’m afraid for him. But maybe I’m just, maybe I’ve just gotten used to it. It’s been like this ever since he enrolled in U.A. Since he was little. It was what made him happy. I’m his mother, and I’m supposed to set aside my own feelings for my child.” Inko nudged the cookies toward Shiki again. “But you, that burden should never have been on you. Especially not as a child. I’m sorry, Shiki, I’m so sorry.”

“So he’s… always been like this, is what you’re saying, yeah? It wasn’t—it’s not just me he doesn’t want—”

“No. Not you. Definitely not you, Shiki,” Inko insisted. “It’s who he is. Who he’s always been. …Who he’ll always be, I think. Even when he was 3 or 4 years old, so small he fit in my lap… He’s… so incredibly kind, and so incredibly driven, and it’s a combination that breaks a mother’s heart. Because it meant he was always sacrificing himself for others in danger. Doing what All Might would do. But All Might doesn’t have a family; he doesn’t have children. I wonder, sometimes, who All Might left behind, to become who he was. If that’s who we are.”

Shiki put his cookie down. His hands curled in, and he looked at them, ridged fingertips, ridged palms, obligated to use them heroically or not at all. Marks he never asked for.

“But why did he have to be All Might? Why him? Why us? Ice Razer and Creati have a daughter. They dote on her. They love her so much it’s embarrassing. I’ve met her, once, at a reunion thing that Mom and Dad had. And I was angry at her. How much she smiled. How you can just see how proud Ice Razer is, in his eyes, every time he looks at her. Ice Razer was on track to be the #1 hero, ahead of Dad, and he’s said publicly that he no longer cares about his ranking if it means being there for his family, because his dad never was. Dad didn’t… Dad never… He was putting in 120 hour weeks, at the time Ice Razer’s daughter was born, when I was sitting home waiting up for him, because old news headlines estimated that All Might put in 119 hour weeks in his prime, and Dad had to be that. Ice Razer visits his mother! When was the last time Dad came to see you, Grandma?”

Inko Midoriya responded with only a sad smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Ground Zero and Red Riot. Their adopted son, I’ve met him too. You wouldn’t think Ground Zero of all people would be any kind of good father but… he is… apparently… And that’s… fuck, you know what? That’s all I want to be. A good dad. That’s all! I want to teach math, and I want to fall in love with a girl, and marry her, and I want to be there. Just be there. For my kid. I want to spend every weekend with my family. I want to be around for every dinner. I want to help with homework. And I want no one – no villains and no heroes – to ever know my name. Is that too much, Grandma? Is it selfish of me to want that… and to want Mom and Dad to still love me too?”

Shiki’s voice cracked. He hadn’t meant for it to. He hadn’t meant for his composure to slip, or for those final words to come out. He hadn’t meant to open up that hollow ache in his chest, where that fear sat deep and rotten.

His next words were wet. “Is it too selfish of me to just want them to be proud of me?”

“Oh, oh Shiki…” Inko shoved her chair back. Hands extended, she rounded the table, and she wrapped her arms around Shiki. Kind hands, kind like Shiki was not used to. His vision blurred, and he pulled a hand up to wrap around Inko’s arm, and he leaned into her.

“I told him, Grandma…” he muttered, voice still wet. “…I told Dad that I got accepted to Matsuyama’s study. I told him I already went through with it.”

“What?”

Shiki shook his head. “I know it was wrong. I just… I hoped. I don’t know. I just wanted him, maybe, for once… I don’t know…”

“What did he say?”

Shiki shrugged, his movement muted under Inko’s hug. “I don’t know. I hung up. I just hung up.”

…

The beach air was cold, and it was briny. Wind curled off the lapping waves, spritzing All Might’s face with a spray of ocean water that was not wholly unpleasant. It reminded him of a time long-since passed.

The sound of footsteps met his ears. He did not turn, not immediately. All Might breathed in the ocean air a little longer.

“How… how have you been?” The voice – the man beside him – asked.

“Oh, you know. Same old same old. I’ve got this pesky ache in my knee that’s catching up to me. Recovery Girl recommends I start doing some swimming exercises. I’ve been considering it. It might suit these old bones.”

“Oh! I know a few gyms nearby with pool facilities. I-I can get you into them, you know, for free. I’m sure I could—”

All Might held a hand up. “What, do you think I don’t still have connections of my own, Young Midoriya?”

“S-sorry.”

All Might turned properly now, catching sight of Izuku Midoriya, a man so accomplished in the public eye looking familiarly helpless at his side. This beach held memories. Izuku was hardly recognizable from the first day All Might had brought him here for training, and in other ways, he looked exactly the same.

“You called me here to talk about Shikinori, right?” All Might continued. He stared back out at the sea, dark and getting darker. The sun has set 10 minutes prior. “You said he lost his quirk.”

Izuku remained quiet.

“He… had it taken away. He chose to do it, he said.”

“Why?”

Again, silence settled between them. All Might looked back, scanning Izuku’s face, taking in a look mangled with confusion and concern, unsettled and helpless. Not the beaming face on television. Not the endless smile to instill fear in the hearts of villains.

“…I think it was because of me,” Izuku finally answered.

Waves, lapping to shore. All Might found himself watching them again. “A quirkless life is not so bad. These past 30 years have been peaceful for me.”

Static settled in the air around them. Rolling ocean. Gentle wind.

All Might let out a small sigh. “What advice are you looking for, from me, Young Midoriya?”

“I… need to know if this is okay with you. If my plan is okay with you,” Izuku answered.

“As your concerned mentor, I’ve found I don’t like most of your plans,” All Might answered. “What is your plan?”

“Shikinori lost his quirk because of me… I wasn’t there for him. I wasn’t… I wasn’t a good father to him, I think. I was waiting for him to come to me but. I messed up. I need to go to him now. I can think of only one way I have to make it up to him.” Izuku looked up. Conflict pulled at his pained expression, and his fist curled. “Maybe, if I give him One for All, I can fix this.”

Another spritz of ocean spray hit the shore. All Might could feel the salt crystalizing on his face.

“I was right. I don’t like your plan.” All Might turned, and took a step toward Izuku, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “No. That’s my answer. No, I do not approve.”

Izuku seemed to buckle, just a little. He curled one hand in and rested it on All Might’s, still on his shoulder. The shadows of nightfall hid his eyes, but not his mouth, pained and strained at the corners. “Then what can I do to fix this?”

“Why do you think that giving Shikinori One for All would fix this in the first place? Do you really believe that his quirk is the root of the problem? Do you?”

Izuku’s hand trailed down. He shook his head, slowly. The words that came out were pained. “Ochaco and I… are back together again. We’re making this work. We’re… we’re putting the pieces of our family back together. We just need Shikinori. I just want him back with us…”

“…I told you this 20 years ago, Young Midoriya, and I’ll tell you it again. And it will hurt worse now to hear it, because you didn’t follow my advice the first time--”

“I thought I could do both.”

“—You cannot be the Symbol of Peace and have a family. There aren’t enough hours in a lifetime. …I left people behind—”

“I know.”

“—people I cared about. People who cared about me. I hurt them, and I knew I hurt them—”

“I know.”

“And that was my choice. I made that decision. Because protecting the peace of the whole world… that was more important to me than the people I hurt. I carry the burden of that decision every day. …I told you, 20 years ago, that you had to make that decision too.”

“I know, I just thought maybe, with both Ochaco and me—”

“And you did. You did make that decision. You’re the Symbol of Peace, and I’m proud of you for that, …and you’ll have to carry that same burden, too, of that decision you made.”

Izuku’s hand was curled around All Might’s sleeve now. He was smaller now than the man who first arrived at the beach, and so, so much smaller than the Symbol of Peace lauded in headlines across the nation. His shoulders trembled. Tears dripped down the curvature of his nose, lost to the briny sand below.

All Might continued. “This is one piece of advice I can give you… Stop saddling Shiki with that same burden… Don’t give him that weight to bear. Don’t trap him in the world of heroes. Let him go.”

Izuku pulled in a shuddering breath, and he steadied his shoulders.

“…I failed him, didn’t I, All Might…?”

Another lap of waves at the shore, forging eternally onward. There was an ache in All Might’s knees, a rattle to his old bones, a pain that never ceased throbbing in his side. He wondered how long ago it had been, exactly, since he first made this decision himself. How many pulls of the tide since he last saw his mother. How many moons since the earth had reclaimed her. How many breaths of wind had passed since the very last time she thought of him.

He wondered, not for the first time, if it had been selfish of him to trade her, and everyone else away for the protection of all the people he’d never known or loved.

All Might reached down, and he pulled Izuku into a hug. Come daylight, Izuku would have to smile again, on every television and every billboard and every broadcast and every rescue. For now, All Might figured, it was fine to let him cry.

“…Yes. I’m sorry. I’m to blame for this too. I pulled you down this path. But… yes. You failed him.”

All Might ran a hand over Izuku’s hair as his cries grew louder. All Might wondered if Izuku had ever held Shiki like this. He wouldn’t know. All Might wasn’t a father. All Might had no son. Whether that was selfish or selfless, he still did not know.

The wind picked up to a howl, and it swept into shore, and it drowned Izuku’s cries beneath it.

By tomorrow, Izuku would be smiling on the news.

By tomorrow, Shiki would be on a train to an interview far north in Akita.

By tomorrow, Inko would be alone again.

[mchalowitz]

the woman is the king, part three

summary: a throughline of the matriarchal scullys; be they ethereal, sharp-witted, and ill-omened.

i’m very excited to finally share this! definitely the most difficult part to write so far and i hope everyone enjoys it!

part 1: melissa / part 2: dana

part 3: emily

read on ao3

@today-in-fic

———

Two years on, sometimes Scully believes she will be able to survive without her other. A forgotten voice travels from immortal nirvana to her brother’s residential line. She wonders if what she tells herself is true. 

1994; the lost year that exists between them. On an evening in March, returning from a field assignment with Mulder, Melissa leaves a message on her answering machine that Scully can still easily recite. 

Things are too hard right now, Dana. I’m safe, I’m with friends in California. I’ll call soon. I love you.

Dana would never have been the golden child. No one surpasses a squid, especially not a fed with some shifty assignment. A shifty fed fares better than a filthy sinner. Charlie wears excommunication with unsweetened pride. And Melissa, the silly new ager, well, she could take no more.

No one thrives at the center of a Scully family scandal. Scully tries to create a rational narrative. It is 1994. Melissa is pregnant; she doesn’t want the baby. She knows plenty of people on the west coast. It was believable. 

Her beloved sister, Dana, is abducted, and in the four weeks she is missing, Melissa gives birth, and the baby is adopted. Dana resurfaces in a hospital; left practically for dead. Her sister returns to stand vigil at her bedside. 

It becomes a question of mindset. Maggie believes Melissa would have told her; Dana disagrees. Subversion of expectations was the ultimate sin for a Scully child as it was a denouncement of the parenting of William and Margaret. She can attest to her mother’s softening on certain expectations since the death of her father. She still disagrees. 

No time for sulking, only pushing through. Working the case through Christmas clearly infuriates Bill. He keeps it to hushed whispers and snide remarks out of Tara’s earshot. Scully often wonders how privy Tara is to anything going on in the Scully family. 

Her infertility stings when she looks at her sister-in-law. With her cancer now in remission, the other medicals horrors Scully faced start coming back to the surface. It is another slap; the thought that her sister gave away such a sweet little girl while she will never carry a child. 

Scully is a mother. She struggles to quantify what Emily is. 

Emily, a living and breathing child, with the face of a Scully, is a violation of her body that someone stole from her, and yet must be fiercely protected. Perhaps Emily is the missing piece. 

Scully hurriedly fills out the application for temporary custody. It consists of the normal, straightforward questions found on any application, until her hand is hovering over that box. Single or married. 

The only thing happening in sunny San Diego is a completely mundane family Christmas, as far as Mulder is aware. Her words froze during her singular phone call. It seems like reaching out now is more of a bombardment than a simple debrief.

Scully is not in a position to presuppose the enigmatic thoughts of Fox Mulder. Yes, it was by his own volition to marry her and she can even believe that Mulder does love her. It is a mutual respect and a fond devotion. It is not spousal love; not a man that loves his wife. 

If she checks the box, Mulder would have to be a father figure to Emily, and it is not her place to make that decision for him. Their marriage was playing house because she was destined to die and Emily does not deserve to be a flour-sack baby in their labyrinthian game. 

Her pen swipes across the paper. Single. 

--

Mulder starts with M. Mmm. Emily tells him so.

Emily leaves the crayons and paper to go to the bookshelf. Mulder is sitting in the chair by the window and she gives him the book. She points to the yellow bird on the cover.

“What’s his name?”

“I think that’s Big Bird,” Mulder tells her. 

Her Daddy only reads her one book at a time, Mulder reads her three. She goes to the bookshelf for more when Dana comes up close to her. “Emily, Mulder and I have to leave now, but we’ll come back tomorrow.” 

Emily looks at Mulder, holding the book, and he says, “I bet you can find a good spot to keep it safe.” 

She nods and sets the book against the bed, fixing it when it slides down. Dana and Mulder leave. A lady makes her pick up her crayons before dinner.

“I’m tired,” she insists, holding the lady’s hand on the way to eat. 

“First dinner, then bed, Emily.”

--

A duality develops in relation to another atrocity to her body. It is a swift punch to the throat; knocking the breath so deeply out of her lungs. It is also as mundane as adding milk to the shopping list; it is only another thing. 

Her brother’s phone line carries mysteries from one location to another. Landline abandoned, traveling well above the speed limit, Mulder drives toward the children’s home. 

“I could have handled it,” she asserts simply. 

“I know.”

Mulder, with his complexity of a hero, and innate ability to act so hoggish. Scully wonders if he really believes that. 

--

Her blanket at home is pink sparkles and has Barbie on the pillows. Emily doesn’t like her new blanket nearly as much. It’s just plain pink.

The lady from dinner tucks her in. “I met Mr. Potato Head,” Emily informs her. 

Emily doesn’t like the other kids in the new place, especially the boy that calls, “That’s not true! Mr. Potato Head isn’t real.” 

“Yes, he is!” she argues. She struggles to sit up with the blanket holding her back. “I met him and he looks like this!” She puffs out her cheeks, making the same face. 

“That must have been very exciting, Emily,” the lady adds softly, tucking her in again. 

The lights turn off. Emily closes her eyes. She feels cold. 

--

In the work Mulder does with Scully, it is often based more on speculation than he would ever like to admit to anyone. It disgusts him to know that if Emily were any other file in his cabinet, it would bring him joy to map out theories and spar with his partner over them. With the empty coffin staring back at them, Mulder can easily assume a thought is something neither of them want to enter their minds ever again. No hypothesizing to be done here. 

Following the funeral, the San Diego bureau fares slightly kinder than their city’s court system. Their California contact, while deeply apologetic for the tragedy that has occurred here, informs them the field office won’t be actively pursuing the case. Aside from following up on a few leads pertaining to the deaths of Roberta and Marshall Sim, it will likely be deemed a cold case. 

“I’m very sorry, Agent Scully,” the agent says, padding his final blow. Emily’s case will not be investigated either. Both Mulder and Scully understand the algorithm that goes into the decision of pursuing an investigation. If the case fell into the FBI mainstream, Emily’s chronic health issues, use of experimental treatments, and her parents’ full cognizance to the risks wouldn’t stand a chance against the process. 

And if there was anything to investigate, it has already been destroyed by powers far outside the reach of some dinky field office anyway. Whatever the reasoning may be, another Scully woman is still failed by the United States government. 

Scully wants the first flight out of San Diego back to Washington and he is more than quick to oblige her. While she very clearly loves the new addition to her family, the sting is just as obvious. 

Two hours down in the air, three more to go, and they have barely said a word to each other since take-off. Scully’s head is turned toward the window when he reaches for her hand. “Scully,” he speaks, very quietly. 

“No,” she responds with a shake of her head, her voice tight. 

Another long stretch of silence and Mulder thinks she maybe falls asleep, which would be a welcome cause for silence, because he isn’t convinced she’s slept more than an hour or two in days. He is about to request a blanket when her forehead presses into his shoulder and the contact reveals her body shaking with the exertion of holding everything inside yet again. 

It’s his fierce need to protect her always that causes him to envelope her body with his. Her arms wind tightly around his neck. Her attempts to muffle her sobs in his jacket is only partially successful. 

A flight attendant taps him on the shoulder and asks him, “Is everything alright?” 

“Everything’s fine,” Mulder blatantly lies. “But maybe we could get a glass of water for my wife.” 

It's a rare euphoria to speak those words; his wife. Dana Scully is his wife. A mostly unmentioned fact that gives him a childishly nervous feeling in his stomach. While it never retreated in his mind, it appears to be returning to the forefront of hers. 

In the winding process of applying for custody, a second application exists. Scully’s final plea to unite her with her own flesh and blood. Another document that states definitively that they are married. Mulder underwent a grilling from the judge; a practical bullying on the semantics of their marriage. 

One’s subconscious works powerfully, in his experience, and when he sat in this same position on Scully’s couch six months ago, the answer came to him so clearly. It wasn’t only for her benefit as a life experience that everyone should have the opportunity to have if they so choose; cancer only sped up the timeline of an inevitably. Mulder has never taken a mightier leap with her and she accepted. A singular score for Fox Mulder. 

It’s treated as though it never even existed; his presence in that way completely reverted. He wishes he had more of a chance to prove himself worthy. He wishes he was a less of pussy to actually do it. He will, he’s going to. If she is ever willing to forgive him for all of his transgressions. 

Mulder carried the knowledge of her ova and of what was likely (and now, very clearly) done with it with a heaviness that rivaled the many other weights he lugs around inside him. Scully’s hope for recovery was dwindling then and it was only another way to hurt her. 

It felt criminal to hijack her happiness when she went into remission and her bliss honestly fed his soul. Now, he only piles onto her pain. And if he was any kind of man, if he was someone deserving of someday being a person she would maybe, eventually, love for real, he would have been a lot fucking better. 

The flight attendant delivers a glass of water and a box of tissues on a plastic tray. He takes both and offers the glass to Scully. She scoots forward to the edge of her seat, her back straightened, and it reminds him of Bellefleur, and of that young agent in her red robe, and the fear of simple bug bites. It was the moment of cosmiticity bursting into existence between them. 

Scully sips water, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. His eyes never leave her for the rest of the flight. He drives her home under the glow of streetlights. 

“I can keep you company, if you want,” he offers after insisting he carry her suitcase inside for her. “Might even be able to catch a replay of the Rose Bowl if we’re lucky.”

“That won’t be necessary,” she replies. One hand holds the door and the other is braced on the frame; a universal sign to get lost told through her body language. “I’m going to take a few days. I already let Skinner know.” 

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she agrees. “Goodnight, Mulder.” 

“Goodnight, Scully.” 

Once the door is shut, he hears the lock click into place. It pains him to walk away. 

Mulder calls Scully in the morning as promised. He calls every morning after. It just rings and rings. 

--

No one is expecting her back in the office until Monday, but by Thursday it becomes increasingly clear that a return to normalcy is what she requires. Scully can only stare at California girls immortalized by ages in threes on her mantel for so long. 

She trades in her bathrobe for a beige skirt with matching jacket and she slugs down the last of a cup of coffee while she packs her briefcase. The landline rings in its cradle next to her hand. Her stockinged feet slide against the kitchen tile as she turns to answer.

“Hello?”

An unfamiliar female voice carries cheerily into her ear. “Hi there, this is Amanda over at Liberty Fertility Center. I’m looking for Fox Mulder?” 

"This is...” Scully starts, and then she pauses, staring up at the ceiling before answering with a restrained sigh. “This is his wife.” 

“I’m following up on a call we received from your husband earlier this week about a sample being stored at our facility and possible ova analysis. He left this as the call back number.” 

Scully clicks her tongue against her teeth, nodding slowly. She barely focuses on the conversation and when it ends, she retrieves the phone book, slamming it down on the table in place of her briefcase. She dials the first promising number in the correct category. 

Heat overtakes her melancholy. Scully is so, so tired of Mulder blanketing his wrongdoings under the guise of protecting her. It has always, ultimately, been her choice to walk alongside him; it was his choice to marry her. He still fills their partnership, their marriage, with secrets. He still withholds. 

She can only imagine what is being done to her ova sitting in some facility.  Mulder didn’t even have the decency to tell her any even remained.

Scully arrives at the office on Friday and Mulder is immersed in a sea of paperwork and photographs. It is only eight in the morning and he already has his jacket slung over the back of his chair, his sleeves rolled up over his forearms. 

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting you until Monday,” he grins with surprised delight. 

Mulder follows her with his eyes as she steps up to his desk. She leans down, kissing him soundly on the mouth, and she observes his dreamy stare when they part.

“I need my ova, Mulder,” she states. Scully pulls a business card out of her pocket; the law firm she called the morning before. “And I want a divorce.” 

[akirameta84]

original chuunibyo au post but condensed down for me to easily read/reference (and edited because the spelling errors piss me off every single time okay)

(this is bad btw and not very accurate to the actual plot points i fleshed out later with audrey but its the rough thing and when i link the post from the posted fic i dont want the fucking spelling mistakes and ill shut up now)

(i gave up fixing mistakes halfway through and just fixed names okay)

okay so i had this randomly while reading and like now im too invested.

So like, imagine saiki has chuunibyo just like kaidou in middle school and his parents are just like?? yeah its chuunibyo but he has powers?? and so we cant tell him its fake really? and like nobody believes he's actually an esper because cmon, its obviously 8th grader delusion. and he gets to high school and him and kaidou get along so well. and one day, jet black wings and whatever saiki calls himself are, idk, stopping dark reunion and saiki shows his actual powers and so kaidou goes even further into delusion. i imagine they make all the same friends but like they all just put up with it.

that was long but seriously imagine

 akirameta84

reblogging cause i had MORE TO ADD

okay so, his meeting with toritsuka. toritsuka has no clue about the chuunibyo, and saiki is like how did you hear of my totally secret abilities?? and first of all, the spirits told him, and second, literally everyone knows cause he won't shut up about it but obviously doesnt believe it. and honestly toritsuka has no clue whether saiki is actually an esper or just had really bad chuunibyo. then they meet at school and toritsuka sees him with kaido and is like yeahhh he's prolly not legit. until saiki ends up threatening him in the bathroom and reveals his telepathy and toritsukas like you're kidding right??

thank you for coming to my ted talk im so gonna write a fanfic for this at some point

 akirameta84

"I wear a blindfold over my eyes because i was inflicted with a deadly curse, and even a glance can leave you paralyzed in fear, and-"

Kusuke, slapping him: "Put on your glasses and go to school, you can't go blindfolded"

I feel like in this universe i somehow started, Kuusuke wouldn't be like he is in the original show, instead he's a lot calmer and actually cares somewhat for his brother. Why?...I just like that trope. anyways, he's the reason Kusuo hasn't accidentally made a real show of his powers. He just tiredly puts up with him, and made a point to come back from London every now and then to make sure Kusuo wasn't on the news or smt. Kusuo also told Kaidou that Kuusuke tries (and succeeds, with the limiters) to limit his powers, and they come up with the only conclusion, that he's a part of DARK REUNION. and kuusuke is just..done with this shit tbh

honestly im a little obsessed with this universe now

 akirameta84

is it more you're looking for??? hehehehe

so saiki doesn't use the hypnosis that make his devices seem normal, at all. prolly cause it makes Fuchsia Deathbringer (editing note: idk if ill use this but i still think its neat) look 10x cooler. and yes, I've decided that's what he calls himself. i came up with it at 3am lmao. anyways, obviously his friends find his gear weird but considering kaidou wears similar things they're just all like..okay yknow what? just gonna...pretend its not there. kuusuke has to constantly stop him from removing his limiters because he believes they're dark forces of evil restricting him, when in reality they're the only reason the world is intact.

 akirameta84

oh no she's adding to the chuunibyo post again oh god-

kokomi and chiyo both develop their crushes on him, but kokomi's desire to make him say oh wow fades away quicker, and maybe the crush itself, cause damn he's not all with it. on the other side, maybe she finds the chuunibyo endearing, similar to chiyo with kaidou in canon. speaking of chiyo, in this au she apparently has a thing for boys with chuunibyo huh. her crush on saiki starts when him and kaidou are talking about dark reunion or smt and she imagines being rescued by him all princess like. she tries the classic tricks, but he avoids them. why? because he has no time for people interrupting his plans to stop the worlds end, duh.

this whole post is not gonna be seen but who cares cause now ive got fic ideas laid out lmao

 incorrect-saiki

I love how detailed this is and it’s great

What place does Nendo have in this au? I imagine he’s seen Saiki’s powers and believes him and so he either believes Kaidou or taunts him to show his powers like Saiki has

 akirameta84

omg im so glad you think that >.< actually hadn't thought about nendo yet.

i love your idea of him taunting kaidou. saiki of course defends him saying that he can't show his powers because removing the seal on his arm is too deadly. however, deep down, i think saiki knows that kaidou doesn't actually have powers, but whether he's ignoring that detail his mind came up with to spare kaidou or his own fantasy's he doesnt know. anyway, saiki is still nendo's buddy pal whatever, and saiki deems him a lackey. just a lackey. poor nendo. but he's okay with it, cause he can still hang out with his buddy and the runt to get ramen.

 incorrect-saiki

Oooooo I love to think that Saiki is in deep denial about Kaidou not having powers and can sense that he doesn’t. He won’t listen to it and will say to himself that Kaidou’s “limiters” (bandages) are just blocking it because he doesn’t want to face the fact that he’s all alone in terms of his powers. He could destroy the world in just three days and no one else knows how that feels so he feels desperate to have at least one person who understands him, even if he knows it’s a lie.

 akirameta84

some angst and i LOVE IT

my crack fanfiction now has a smidgen of angst prolly gonna get added in it damn

 incorrect-saiki

I love Saiki angst and now that’s like the main thing I can think about with this right now. When Saiki finally stops talking about his powers (after coming to terms with Kaidou not having any) people think “oh he’s finally growing up and getting better” but nope... he is going down a long and depressed hallway because he’s a god and is the only one

 akirameta84

ah yes my favorite trope, make the characters realize something horrible and have them suffer through a depressed like state and the horror of them realizing they're alone in the struggles (spoiler, they aren't technically, they have love from people who will support them even if nobody can relate)

haha time to make him suffer

[404-not-found-xix]

3, 5, 17, 24

<3 <3 These are fun, thank you @themastermindsqueen for the ask!!

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

- This one is a tough one for me because I’ve been thinking about it since last night. A while, I think it was you? Or someone else I know? Gave me a great fic idea and it ran out of my mind. Something about Elliot and another character getting closure. 

I do like the idea of writing a fic where Elliot shares that he was sexually abused by his father, Edward Alderson. I would bring in Darlene and Mr. Robot since they’re so crucial to this. Darlene needs to know, she needs to know the truth about her father. I think it could give Elliot the cathartic healing he needs by sharing his experience with Darlene. She would start to see the truth behind Elliot, growing up as a kid, and the signs Edward displayed as a predator. Elliot would cry and they would talk. Really, Elliot would lean into trusting and sharing with his sister which is something they desperately need. For the both of them.

Maybe this is the fic idea? My gut tells me so. Still, it flutters in mind. It’s not quite the itch! We’ll see in time~~

5. What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

- I would say Brian Kelly from Gleaming The Cube. I’m such a Christian Slater fan and I’m a wholesome bean. Who doesn’t love teen angst, kindness, warmth, and a bit of rebellion? He’s really such a nice kid trying to avenge his brother’s death, Vinh. 

I wish I could hug him and throw him up into the air and shower him with love. Such a good guy, I wish I had someone like that in my life. In-person!

On the MR side, I would say Elliot. But he’s so difficult to write- he’s emotionally reserved and cut off. I usually sway to writing from Tyrell’s perspective because it’s easier for me! He’s irrational, delusional, and clearly has bipolar disorder. In the Mr verse, it’s easier for me to emotionally register into a character like that because I know what’s like to fall apart and have the world you thought you knew to be lost. And he’s grabbing onto a waypoint- Elliot- that he bases his worldview on him. It’s not healthy but luckily we all grow. I’m playing to my own tune and jamming hardcore. *Insert guitar solo*

24. Would you say your writing has changed over time?

Yes! I started off writing through poetry and roleplaying on Tumblr. Writing on AO3 is actually new to me. I’ve shifted from a short plotline to more fleshed out and developed characters. I try and make the world more immersive through sound and the character’s emotional development. I’m still working on the second part, sometimes I want to push things along and get to the more important stuff. But! It’s crucial. Hopefully, people can see that it’s something I’m developing. Maybe I need to publish more fics! I probably do lol. They’re coming along, I needed a break from writing. I want to come back to it. I want to finish the stories I’ve written.

Below: Trigger warning: Sex, rape mention, bloody smut, physical violence/abuse?, scat, hardcore pornography discussion.

17. Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

Yeah! I think my writing gives off a different perspective of myself than what it is. I’m actually a quiet person unless I know you and then I can get very chatty. I’m also very sex-positive (not to drum up drama, I’m not interested in that) but I think the discussion of healthy boundaries is important. Even as writers. That’s why (personally speaking, not a shot at anyone) I don’t write real people fiction smut. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of uncomfortable sexual desire and so, for me, this is my personal boundary line. I can write, I can express desire in a way that is also removed from the actors themselves, and they aren’t experiencing uncomfortable feelings unless they go hunting for it.

Other people got their own boundaries and feelings on the matter and that’s okay. They’re valid! It’s just not for me and that’s okay. It works for other people! 

On the other hand, I fucking planned to make my Bachelor of Art thesis on pornography and the way women are treated in pornography. And it wasn’t for the faint of heart- I’m talking scat porn, mutilation, beating, and drug use. The question of consent and regulation was a big question posed in my thesis- because when you have a half-conscious, cut up, bleeding person (really regardless of gender here) you gotta wonder why a person would do this for money. What are their circumstances? Is this their independent choice? What does this say about us, the people who consume it? The ones filming it- are they responsible for this person in any way? Is this *waves hand at the content* ethical? What does it do to us- the ones consuming it? Because there is a growing audience for it, and the internet only makes it more accessible. It’s going to go away either, it’s always been there. But what do we do about it? If anything at all?

And it’s all free baby. You can find this stuff through an easy google search and there are hordes of videos. You can even find people fucking dead bodies. Shot, bleeding, and they’re being fucked. Raped? Who the fuck knows!

So, it’s all about the discussion. Everyone has their right to do what they want, but sometimes I step back and go, “Whoa, is this even right?” And listen to my gut feeling. But I also do a ton of research to understand both sides. I’d rather learn and fully understand before I take action and have a hard stance as opposed to shutting something down before knowing more.

Also, this why I’m not trying to stir the pot. I like to talk and understand things. The world is far more grey than we make it out to be. It’s complicated! And that’s okay.

And hey, I’m the one making that content too! It says something about me and that’s okay. I throw guns and hitting in my own smut/artwork. I’m not an angel myself and I’ve consumed some dark content in the name of desire. It says something about me and I’m alright with that. Like I said, I’m not trying to create drama. I have the right to express myself and talk.

Motivations- fuck, I want more shows like MR. Hard, gritty, and rebellious. You can be mentally ill or really, a whole fucking person even in the moments when we feel guilty for being ‘broken’ or ‘crazy’ and still be a person. Mentally ill people can still have desire and do wonderful, powerful things in their life. No one is better than the other. We’re equal. 

Also, the show has incredible writing. I don’t want it to end- but I bet you could guess that one, huh? 

[sasskarian]

Your Danse fic though! Can you do something for "My heart is thrilled by the still of your hand?"

oh, nonnie, have I got a ficlet for you. 

Note: I still maintain that this is all @asaara-writes​ fault. TWs for illness, wounds, and needles.

*** Hozier Prompts! *** Read on AO3! ***

Danse has been a soldier too long to be a deep sleeper. 

That’s the first thing the Brotherhood trains you out of. The indoctrination comes later, because only a good soldier can be indoctrinated, and a good soldier has to wake up at the first hint of danger. So when he hears the first whimper from across the room, his eyes snap open. The night is quiet, except for Evelyn’s breathing. But even as he watches in the dim moonlight of the gutted building they’re squatting in for the night, her arm spasms— and the dog bellies up to her, nosing at her with a low whine. 

Now that he’s awake, he can hear the uneven, ragged edge to her breath in place of the normal steady and slow he’s used to. Switching on his low-light red headlamp, he makes his way over to her bedroll. Dogmeat looks up at him, snuffling at the quick pat Danse gives him. The closer he gets to Evelyn, the more alarm fills him until he’s kneeling next to her and trying to stay calm. Sweat beads on her forehead, rolling down her damp skin in rivulets he might find aesthetic under literally any other circumstances. In the places it’s already hit her flight suit, dark patches lay like lightless pools against her chest. 

Even as he watches, she convulses once, twice, and then a third time before falling so still, Danse checks to make sure she’s still breathing. Every good field medic has scanners built into their suits but Evelyn has something better. He tilts her Pip-Boy, fumbling with the tiny controls until, in frustration, he shucks off the heavy gauntlets and gloves of his power armor. She teases him about all but living in it, and his gut clenches as he convinces the Pip to show her vitals. He taps it, wondering for a moment if it’s malfunctioning, but the high pulse rate and low oxygen levels stay exactly the same. 

Injury detected, it reads. Deploy stimpak?

Injury? His eyes sweep over her, pinning on a darker spot than the rest and rolls down the collar of her suit, hissing. Imprinted on freckled flesh is an almost perfect set of bite marks, flaming red and hot to the touch. Danse tries, desperately, to remember when she could have been bitten. Was it the fight near the old bookstore? Or down outside of Goodneighbor? In his memory, he hears the clang of armor hitting the ground, and a pained goddammit! But when he’d looked, Evelyn had been reattaching her pauldron, a smoking mutant hound at her feet. 

I’m fine, she’d reassured, reloading her gun— the one he’d given her, some absurdly pleased part of him noted— before heading out. It’s a lie he should have known, recognized, after telling it so much himself.

How long had she been out of her armor? How long did radiation last after a radstorm? Danse searches his brain for answers but none came. Lists of symptoms, survival chances, those things dance in his brain, but the best he can do is shrug out of his own armor (that she wasn’t coherent enough to tease him about it stung) and sit on the side of her bed. 

“Come on, Evelyn,” he murmurs. Shaking hands pry out a bottle of purified water and a cloth from their supply pack, trying to clean the bite of dried blood. As he puts gentle pressure on the wound, dribbles of pus and debris come away on the rag and he rips it in half, trying to prevent contamination as he cleans her, holding on to his forced calm by the tips of his fingers.  

Danse’s scores in field medicine had been average across the board, but with his team more versed in it, those skills are rusty and fuck, he wants to kick himself for it. 

“RadAway,” he tells himself, searching the field kit. Attaching the IV to the bag is easier than finding a place to hang it; he settles on taping it to the hip-brace of his armor with the medical tape Evelyn had insisted on. Finding a vein is harder. He bit his lip as he presses on her arm, thumps it with his fingers, curls her hand into a fist. Nothing seems to work until finally, the smallest hint of blue in the dawning light shows in the back of her hand. 

Evelyn jumps and moans as he swabs the area with the cleaner side of the damp cloth and slides the needle in, her eyes fluttering. The first signs of the medicine helping come around eleven that morning, her crumpled features smoothing out a little. It’s subtle, but Danse can tell; he’s spent the entire night cataloging her every exhale and movement. Dogmeat has somehow ended up half curled on his lap, half draped over his mistress, his heavy rump giving a tentative wag when Evelyn’s breathing begins to even. 

The last of the RadAway drips from the bag, traveling down the long, thin tube to her arm, and Danse slides the IV from her with relief. Next is hydration: a stimpak will have to wait, since he isn’t sure what the mixed medications might do. But as he shifts, leaning over her to drip lukewarm water into her mouth, her hand shoots out and grabs his. 

“Nate?” Her voice cracks, ragged and wet-sounding, and oh, how his heart clenches. “I’m so cold, Nate.” 

He— what does he do here? Dozens of suggestions zip through him, at least half fueled by the heat of her hand on his. “It’s okay,” he finally manages. “You’re a bit sick. Just rest.” 

“Mm.” She curls into him, her cheek nuzzling against his thigh; Danse stares, frozen, disbelieving. “Stay? I’ve been having the worst dream.”

There’s only one answer to that, and his voice is soft, almost wondering, even as the soldier the Brotherhood raised to need nothing beyond himself quails and shivers in his cage of steel. “Of course,” he whispers. Slow, so slow and tentative, he brushes through the coppery hair spread across his lap. Danse can’t remember the last time— if ever— he’s touched someone without his gloves, and the silky slide of her curls through his fingers rocks him down to his bones. 

And that's when he knows he’s in trouble. This— the soft afternoon, with wasteland birds warbling and the touch of her hand on his— is boggy ground. He is her Paladin, her commanding officer. She is his soldier, but… she’s also a friend. In this, though, the way she rests against him, warm and shivering and somehow more real than anything else he’s felt before, Danse is knee-deep in emotion and sinking fast. 

It’s past midnight before her fever breaks. Danse has long since given up on propriety, stretched out on his side next to the bedroll to help keep her warm. Dogmeat drapes over both their feet, snoring softly in the night, and the only stretch of time measured is in the small beep the Pip gives for the alarm he set. Slowly, so he doesn’t disturb Evelyn, he reaches into his pocket for the stimpak syringe and eases it into her injured shoulder. She tenses in his arms, burrowing her face deeper into his chest, but doesn’t wake. 

(It shouldn’t feel good, right? Is he a selfish old bastard, for enjoying this simple human contact?)

Still moving slow, he nudges Dogmeat into waking. “Your turn, boy,” he says, almost soundless. The dog is smarter than most humans Danse knows, though, and he trusts him to stand watch and wake him if something goes wrong. But they’ve picked their camp well, so he doesn’t expect much trouble: Ferals were cleared long ago in another patrol, and there’ve been no signs of mutants for at least a mile. So for a moment, a desperately needed moment after almost two days of trying to keep Evelyn breathing, Danse lets his eyes droop. 

Sleep has almost claimed him when she stirs, breathing her husband’s name against his neck. Guilt lazily slides through him, that her delirium has slapped a dead man’s face over his own in her mind and he hasn’t corrected her, but shock freezes him solid when her lips brush his. Once, soft and sleepy, and then again, more firm; not quite a demand, but when her hands slide to his jaw, he knows he is definitely awake and not hallucinating from exhaustion. He pries her hands from his jaw, ignoring her quiet whine, and settles them between his chest and hers, shuddering when her fingers curl into his undersuit.

“Missed you,” she mumbles against his mouth, her breath a thousand soft pleas against his skin. 

“You’re still sick,” Danse says, summoning the words from somewhere deep inside, a place where willpower reigns over guilt and loneliness. “Rest now, Evie.” 

When she finally settles against him, her ankle resting trustingly between his and her hair tickling his nose, Danse squeezes his eyes shut against the prickling that is most definitely not tears. Paladins don’t cry, and especially not over lovers they can’t have. Loving Evelyn would be a betrayal of her trust, of his military discipline, and disrespecting the memory of her husband. (Wouldn’t it?)

But a smaller, sly part of him knows that he’ll tuck this memory in the depths of his heart: the way she feels, the heavy, reassuring warmth of her body against his. How she fits in his arms, and the silken, forbidden glint of sunlight on her curls. How soft her lips are, even in this dried out desert of horrors.

He’s not in love. He’s not. 

But his final thought, before finally dropping into sleep, is a faint wish that maybe he could be, if he let himself.

[scriptaed]

ink nemesis. 05

Genre: Angst/Fluff || paparazzi!au; fake dating!au;

Pairing: Reader x Yoongi

Length: 7.8k

Synopsis: As an aspiring writer drowning under the public’s radar, a click of the pen is all you need to accept your supervisor’s offer to co-write an article for the SS - Secrets Spilled, a regular section of your company’s weekly tabloid; but fabricated stories and invasive details aren’t all that you write when you discover Min Yoongi’s dirty little secret. 

Help.

The ones who need it the most, speak it the least; not you, though, certainly not. You’re an exception, a loophole in the system they call humanity and its fragile emotions. Stone cold, apathetic, incapable of sorrow—somehow, under the cruel hands of reality, you’ve conjured a facade, a true master of a weighted heart and a bottled mind. 

No one knows you. No one understands you. No one wants your company unless you’re needed.

Rather, you won’t let anyone know you, you won’t let anyone understand you, and you won’t let anyone take advantage of you. 

Because how could you dare enable them to belittle you? You’re a self-proclaimed warrior in an army of one, fighting for the dignity of one, dying in the name of one: yourself. To wage a war against the rest of the world with a weapon fractured by faults as to be named honesty is to submit defeat; so you conceal the cracks and force in whatever you can to provide a temporary fix with permanent damage. 

You’re strong, you’re intelligent, you’re independent. 

Ill spite, malevolent comments, self-absorbed requests, they could never faze you. 

You’ve cultivated this art yourself, see? Your chest no longer aches, your mind no longer lingers, and your heart is numb but nonetheless persists to beat blood into your flesh. Emotions are mere words you could once sympathize with in the days of yore now overtaken by the present you. 

Frozen cold but begrudgingly living, you’re still a human.

Are you human? 

Your end lies after this frosted, forsaken era, a time you had sworn to never allow to be shed the light of day; but you had underestimated the addiction that vulnerability entails, for in the presence of him, you find yourself coveting for more. 

One moment, one touch, one kiss at a time, he disassembles the stone wall of your own prison. You could still remember it clearly. The graze of his touch thaws your icy skin, from your fingers to your arm, forming a trail of swirling, mystical circles. The warmth of his delicate, slender fingertips and the comfort of his palm resting on your cheeks elicit a fervent burn to your already rosy cheeks. The gaze of his secure, intent eyes that meet your wavering ones convey a thousand words more than any picture could. 

It’s okay to be weak. It’s okay to not understand. It’s okay to rely on me. 

It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to admit defeat. 

Even if they try to stomp on you, even if the entire world parades in the aftermath of your end, with me, you’ll always be okay. 

It is only now, as you lie on the bed side by side to this man whom had only been an infinitely distant star, do you believe that soulmates in the midst of countless constellations could truly coexist. 

He is the star whom you had always wished to whisk across your dull skies, after all.

There’s no doubt about it. He’s shy and a tad awkward, but in this very moment, he doesn’t dare take his eyes off his celestial pair and neither do you. The scene still electrifies your very being. Your insides stir at the vivid memories of his hand clutching yours after the two of you exit the daze in the aftermath of your kiss of faith and hastily leading the retreat back into your apartment. 

You could still whiff the petrichor along with his faded hint of minty, fresh cologne intermixed with the musky scent of his studio. You could still hear her gasp accompanied by the thud of her grab onto the concrete. You could still catch sight of her familiar silhouette, fading farther into the distance as he whisks you away, the two of you stumbling into the elevator and impatiently jabbing at the button to enclose the doors as well as your privacy, giggles, and breathy, fleeting kisses; even if the following hours of confiding in the silent embrace of another all occurs in a blur, you could still live vicariously through a moment too dreamlike to be true for an extinguished star like you.

On this bed and on this very night, serene on a high of this surreal spur of the moment, you finally believe you could reveal your authentic self. 

You hate your work.

The coworkers who only acknowledge you in search for aid after you had outscored them on monthly evaluations, the authorities who only take interest in you when you churn out works that rode the waves of ephemeral trends, the public who forgot you within the blink of an eye because you could not serve their exact orders, and the company that keeps you within the confines of your damn contract despite being promised freedom as a creative writer—all of your insecurities come flooding before your eyes.

As you turn to divert your attention from the ceiling to the now asleep boy, you wonder how you could halt the return of ice that creeps along your melted chambers. 

Would Yoongi treat you the same? Would he discard you when his interests prove to be fleeting and you could entertain him no longer? Had you fallen for the genuine him or had he put up a facade like your own? 

Is it okay to be happy? Is it okay to be in this unrealistic and unhealthy relationship between yourself, the predator of a paparazzi, and him, the prey of a star? Is it okay to love elsewhere outside of writing? The subconscious squeeze of his hands that wander over to yours subconsciously in the midst of sleep tells you: it’s okay.

Like each other’s liquor, finely aged by the warm embrace of another lonely soul passing by the cold, cruel skies, you’re gracefully lulled into deep slumber, wondering, wondering, wondering...

-

A chaste kiss held to your forehead as he holds both sides of your head securely, whispers of his trek to work, and tucks a blanket over your cradled body were only enough to stir you gently in slumber; for when you awaken by the sunlight that floods through the curtain you had drawn open along with the windows at dusk, a rarity in this chamber, the plush of his lips are as ethereal as last night. 

A hoarse groan follows your lengthy yawn when you discover you had somehow slept through the violent buzzing of your phone. One eye just barely peeled open and the other kept tightly shut in the blinding wrath of your screen, you reenter the interwebs with inadequate precaution so unlikely of you. 

The dozens of messages from clout-chasing coworkers whomst names you didn’t even know until the news between you and Yoongi had broke out were one thing. You had been so desensitized to the nagging idea of being used and tossed to the side at the convenience of others that you roll your eyes and scroll past without a second thought. 

The messages you receive on your personal writing blog, however, are a different matter. 

[Anon 7:01 PM] When is the bots update?

One minute right after you posted your longest work up to date of which you had poured your heart and soul into. Not even a single nod to its existence. Not even a courteous waiting period of five minutes.

One minute.

[Anon 8:20 PM] Put your god damn works under the read more line. It’s so annoying to scroll past

It isn’t your fault the “read more” option malfunctions on various devices.They wouldn’t care to listen, though. You’ve explained a myriad of times but received radio silence in return. 

[Anon 8:03 AM] OMG i can’t believe you finally updated bots! i won’t lie, i was upset when i thought it was discontinued. welcome back, writer! 

Welcome back? Writer? 

You had never left; and even if it had been several months since the last update of said series, it had never been indicated as discontinued. You had been here, writing, and interacting every single day of the past two months. Where, why, how would they assume you had left unless updates were the only factor to the status of your blog?

You have a name. Maybe you’re just looking into things now, surely. Perhaps it’s the grogginess of the morning haze that has left a bad taste on your tongue, but writer? Your name has been plastered all across your blog. It’s the very first line of your header on the top of your page, for Heaven’s sake! 

You had to have been overthinking things and conjuring conclusions that had never been implicated between the lines in the first place; but you couldn’t help it, not after your hours upon hours of work had been discarded, ignored, and kicked aside. No one is obligated to read all of your works. No, but all you desire is mere acknowledgement. You want to believe this is a rare mistake, yet why is this just one of the many incessant, perpetual trends of your blog as of late? 

Is this your fault? 

And why are you feeling so guarded, accused, betrayed, victimized, and so utterly frustrated, when, clearly, someone is supporting you? 

The pain gnaws at your constricted chest, so you handle it with the only coping method you know: writing.

[Reply] first off, thank you for supporting bots :”) i’m glad to know of your enthusiasm for this series. however, as much as i know you didn’t mean any harm with this comment, i do have to confess that this comment kind of irked me;; i get it if you’re upset because one of your favorite series hasn’t been updated in a while (2 months, really, which isn’t as long as i’ve seen some other series go without updates), but i’ve already said multiple times that the series is not on hiatus. i’ve already said i was working on it, and if i wasn’t, it was because i was busy with life and academics, which are my utmost priorities, or i was investing time on other fics. 

which leads me to say, i didn’t come “back” with the update of bots. no, i’ve always been here and i’ve always been writing. in fact, i posted a 33 THOUSAND words long oneshot for namjoon just 4 weeks before updating bots. and it’s not just bots, it happens for every ongoing fic that somehow overshadows all of my other side works. 

again, i know that these aren’t your intentions and i’m definitely reading into some comments, but with all the messages i’ve received, the interactions i’ve faced between my various fics, i feel like i have to voice my thoughts on my own blog. 

i’ve held back and bottled up my own emotions on this blog for almost 3 years now, but i’m just going to say this: i am a writer and i am human. i am not a writer of just one fic, of just bygones of the sun, of just the labyrinth, of just paper hearts, etc. i am NOT defined by just one work. i am so utterly grateful for the support any of my fics receive, and i’m not saying that people need to read all of my works (you’re obviously not obliged to and i’m thankful if you read even just one work), but i’m just asking for you guys not to just acknowledge my existence/worth only when your favorite fic is mentioned.

At the end of your spill, when all is said and done, you fail to publicize your heart by the simple click of a mouse like the many times before. It’s revitalizing to finally put the amassed angst in your chest into words, but the guilt of burdening others with concerns that no one deserves to bear plagues you on the daily; so there it stays, hidden and buried in your drafts for the long years to come. 

With moments of dread like these, however, there never fails to be dozens upon dozens more that awaits to whisk you away into brighter days within the comforts of your inbox. There were countless readers who would send you unconditional support through thick and thin. You could never understand how kindhearted they were to you, someone they’ve never seen, heard, and sometimes never even spoken to. Were they trying to take advantage of you? Are they trying to coax you into a perpetual cycle of writing absent of rest? Why were you always searching for a fault when so many have displayed nothing but patience, love, and understanding to you?

Just why could you not let anyone in? 

It’s an ongoing battle between you and yourself, one proven to be fruitless a myriad of times before. You let out a hefty sigh, persisting to express your gratitude, genuine and cautious to omit one half the truth, when a certain comment sends your heart racing. 

[MP3 7:56 AM] The pianist sounds like an enigma. Reminds me of this one girl I’ve been crushing on lately. Can’t wait for the story, genius. 

The ear-to-ear grin adorning your lips don’t come to attention until your phone rings and the butterflies in your stomach scatter as you���re snapped out of your short-lived reverie. A relieving yet oddly disappointing name plasters across your screen. 

“Yes, Solji?” 

“Y/N? Where are you right now? Are you home? Where’s Yoongi? Is he next to you?” you can hear the shaking of her head as she forces an abrupt halt to her blurted questions. “What I mean to ask is are you okay?” 

“Whoa, calm down, are you using me as a guinea pig for your future child or something? Ooh, someone must have got it on lately,” you hope your wiggling brows could be captured by the suggestive tone of your voice. “Don’t worry, I’m doing fine—” you sigh “—you’re the only one who actually worries for me at work. Thanks, I’m at home right now. Yoongi should be at work—wait, how did you know he was with me?”

“The paparazzi somehow caught you two last night in front of the apartment and now pictures have leaked and literally everyone’s talking about it at work. You’ve been living under a rock the entire last night, haven’t you? Or did you two…” she gasps. 

“No!” you exclaim almost to vehemently. You clear your throat and repeat with a lowered voice, “no, we didn’t do anything last night. We just...” 

Your cheeks burn red, despite the truth in your statement. 

“Girl, you better give me the entire story in full detail later,” she presses as the excitement manifests in the squeak of her voice, “but for now, you should drop a visit to the company as soon as possible. Even if you’re on a break, boss still wants you to attend our monthly meetings.”

“Ew, you mean those gatherings filled with passive aggressive jabs and snotty, arrogant colleagues?” you groan grotesquely. “I guess I don’t have the luxury to be fired just yet. Fine, whatever pays my rent.” 

“Don’t worry,” Solji’s familiar laughs envelop you with warmth, “I’ll be there too. I got your back.”

“Thanks, moooom,” you drawl. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Byeee,” she adds in a quick tease, “oh, and don’t forget: no glove, no love—” 

—she hangs up. 

Well, at least one person still remembers you, even if it’s to nag you about something that you would never even dare to fathom in the first place. Shaking your head, you laugh to yourself when your phone starts ringing again. 

This time, however, the name doesn’t disappoint. 

Your thumb accidentally accepts the call way too soon and you find yourself on the line with the very person who had your blood pumping just a second ago. 

00:00:01… 00:00:02…

“...hello?” 

His voice tangles your throat and you’re forced to clear it before hesitantly raising the phone to your right ear. You can’t sound too eager nor nervous, otherwise that would send the wrong signal—damn it, since when did you pay any attention to Yoongi’s impression of you?

“Yeah, what do you need—” oops, that’s too rude “—I mean... is something up?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he struggles to get his words out, “I, uh, left my… jacket at your place.”

You quickly scan through the mess of your apartment only to find his jacket neatly folded and conveniently placed right before you at the end of the bed. 

“Oh, found it. Do you need me to bring it to you—”

“—no,” the abrupt silence after his adamant refusal catches the both of you off-guard, “no, I can just… come over and grab it. Or, uh, you can keep it.” 

You could just imagine him shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly, gradually catching onto his antics.

“Okay, I guess I’ll just keep this hundred thousand dollar jacket here,” you chime. 

“Oh?” you could hear him kicking his feet onto the desk. “You’re keeping my jacket as keepsake?” 

“And why would I do that?” you scoff.

“Because you miss me.”

His firm statement comes with ease and oozes with so much irking confidence that you force yourself to hang up before the fluttering in your stomach overtakes your very being… that is, until the phone rings again. 

“What?” you groan. “I told you I’m keeping your jacket and not because I miss—”

“—did you check your blog today?” 

“Huh?” he takes you by surprise. “Yeah, I did. Why?”

A momentary silence befalls his lips. “Oh, well, did any comment stick out to you?”

“Hm…” you play along. “No, not really. Is there a specific comment you’re referring to? Have you been checking my blog, Min Yoongi? Hm? Thinking about me?”

“Yes, I’m referring to the comment I made under ‘MP3,’ you dumbass.”

“In that case, yes, I did,” you snicker before hanging up, “maybe you should check my response later.” 

Your phone rings again. 

“Ugh, what now? You’re being so clingy—”

“—are you free tonight for dinner?” 

“Dinner?” you repeat, taken aback. “Dinner as in… date dinner or just dinner dinner…?”

“Well, I was just thinking dinner dinner,” he mulls, “but I guess we could call it a date if you so want.” 

“Shut up,” you can’t help but laugh, “it’s a date then. I have something to do at work but I’ll let you know where and when to pick me up later.” 

“Oh,” he pauses and follows up with concern, “do you need me to come with you?”

“No, it’s not like I’m getting fired or anything,” you snort, “thanks, though… it means a lot. See you soon.”

The phone rings again right after you hang up.

“What?!”

“Nothing, I just missed your voice,” he says nonchalantly and probably shrugged before murmuring darkly, “oh, and, I’m the one who gets to hang up.”

The dial tone fills the silent air. 

-

Oh, how had you ever forgotten the pain of commuting to work, especially when making an unexpected detour under time constraints?

[Xiao Lin 1:29 PM] Hey Y/N! Sorry for hitting you up out of the blue but can we meet up really quick? I have something important to show you. 

The acquaintance’s text had you nearly sweating bullets, for she had persistently insisted on meeting this very moment—an hour prior to work; because according to her, whatever she has in her hands could be a pivotal moment in both his and your careers. 

What could she possibly have and were you right in suspecting her friendly mien?

Your toes scrunch in the tight fit of your pointed heels, fearing for dear life at the pace you were striking the ground. Incessant gusts of wind from passing cars and buses dishevel your hair but you pay no mind to the distractions, striding down the bustling streets with tunnel vision settled on the coffee shop a few blocks from work. 

A series of bell chimes capture the attention of the girl who had sat in deep contemplation with eyes under her jet-black bangs, staring at nothing and mind evidently elsewhere. 

“Y/N, you’re here,” she gives you a small, gently pressed smile, beckoning for you to sit in the chair across the table. “How have you been doing lately?”

“Hey, doing just fine,” you prim, quickly shuffling into the seat. “So what is it you wanted to tell me?”

Her eyes widen at your haste, blinking blankly for a few seconds before reaching into her purse perched to the chair beside her. The long, luscious locks of hers fall gracefully into curtains that shield you from glimpsing at whatever she’s pulling out. Your heart is suspended at the brink of a cliff when she suddenly pauses, stares at the cards in her hands, and takes a deep, determined breath in and out. 

Alas, she unveils her weapon.

There, spread neatly across the table, is a series of photos capturing the intimate moment you had accidentally intruded on during that fateful night. 

“This girl here,” the white paint of her nails highlight the silhouette beside Yoongi on the balcony, “is the CEO’s daughter that I mentioned to you before.” 

Xiao Lin’s gaze peers at you from under her bangs, intently observing your every movement. 

You gulp. You struggle to breathe. You don’t want to give her anything that could jeopardize your career and most importantly… him. 

Why, though? Why are you protecting someone whose photos elicit the painful drop somewhere deep within you? Why are you conveying nothing but jealousy and insecurity from the flashbacks that play right before your eyes? Throughout the fantasy that has been the last few months, somewhere along the way, you had let him slip through a fault in your defenses, even under the once so vigilant watch of yours. 

“Okay,” you finally muster the courage to lift your gaze to meet hers, “and why are you showing this to me?”

“Y/N, aren’t you dating Yoongi?”

Well, are you?

“Yeah, but these don’t have any context to them. For all we know, maybe this photo is old and she could just be his ex.” 

“I’m afraid not,” she presses her lips into a frown. “This venue is the same day the news about you and Yoongi broke out. They’re wearing the same attire as in their press, as well.”

Your brows furrow at her persistence. “Where did you get these photos anyway?” 

“One of my sources happened to snap a shot and showed me just last night… including this picture,” she slides forward a familiar scene you had bore witness to—your hands cupping his cheeks, his back facing the camera as he leans into you, and the woman’s figure watching from afar. “Don’t worry about it, though. I made sure to delete the photos from all her devices, and even if she slips, no one’s going to believe someone without previous credit to back her up.”

“Well—” you’re completely petrified by the attack “—I’m sure there’s a misunderstanding.”

“Y/N…” she says hesitantly under her breath, “did you know about this…? I’m required to report everything to my company by contract, especially since this involves relations to our CEO, but I’m telling you this first because I don’t want to hurt one of my only friends.”

Friend? How could she call you her friend after cornering you like this? She must have something up her sleeve. She must. 

“I don’t there’s anything I could add,” you deadpan with eyes glaring at her. “People are gonna take those photos and run away with whatever wild stories they can capitalize off of anyways, regardless of my commentary.”

“That’s why I’m asking you… do you not want me to release these photos?”

“You’d do that…?” you frown, cautious in wading the waters. “Why risk your career for me?”

“I’m not so dirty as to throw my friends under the bus without a thought,” she laughs and pretends to zip her lips shut. “Alright, my lips are sealed, then. Oh, also another thing…”

You keep her under your wary watch, still dubious, “yeah?”

“I’ve heard through the grapevine that Bang PD has been in talks with the company an immensely popular tabloid, SS, writes under… which, from what I remember, is your company. I heard there’s a certain writer there whose stories they want to use for BTS’s concepts.”

“Oh,” you cock your head, “and why are you telling me that?”

“I’m just saying,” she leans back into her chair as she watches you gather your things, “be careful no one’s taking advantage of you, especially after those photos.”

“Alright, well,” you scramble to find a safe response in the mess of your state, “thank you for having my back, but it really isn’t something you should be meddling with. I really have to get going now—”

“—wait,” a delicate hand clutches onto yours before you could depart and you whirl around to peer down at her. With orbs reflecting the sun rays in its dark chocolate hues, she speaks. “You know I’m putting my entire career at risk by working behind my company’s back.” 

“...yeah,” your eyes narrow at her, “I’m thankful for that.”

“But you know the kind of industry we work in, right? People aren’t afraid to stab others in the back as long as it profits them, so we always have to be vigilant.” 

“So…”

“So,” her words never linger on her thoughts, “I’m saying I need assurance from your side that you won’t turn your back on me, either.” 

“Lin,” you let out a breath of disbelief, “why in the world would I tell your CEO about this?”

“I don’t know,” she says firmly, “but that’s the thing, we never know until we’re on our knees, regretting every decison we’ve ever made.” 

“Lin, please—” you’re at a loss for words “—please don’t hurt Yoongi. Don’t release those photos. Please. I’d do anything.”

“Anything that gives me leverage, Y/N.”

Her stern gaze bores into yours. 

What could you possibly tell her? That your relationship with Yoongi is fake? That would only be throwing Yoongi and the entirety of BigHit under the bus. You can only imagine the despair that would come from betraying him like that. 

“I don’t have anything, Lin,” your voice cracks on the brink of tears. “I seriously don’t have anything. Please let him go. Just this once. Please—”

“—Y/N,” she murmurs with those pleading eyes, equally desperate as yours, “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Yoongi. BigHit. His members. The company. Solji. SS… you could tell her about SS. 

“I’ll—” you hesitate with bated breath “—I’ll tell you my real pen name.” 

“Your pen name?” her eyes widen at your suggestion, accepting the weight of your proposition by the wavering of your breaths. “Okay.” 

With your career, past, heart, tears, and soul, your every being is encompassed by these two words. Should you let her have her way? Hand over the key to control your state of mind? Let the potential infiltration of outsiders to intrude on your one companion in life?

Should you give it all up for him?

“Ink Nemesis,” you mutter, feeling your heart drop. “My pen name is Ink Nemesis.” 

The recognition of your alias in the tabloids manifests in her brightened expression and you had never struggled to inhale with such magnitude like you did at this moment. 

“Alright, nice to meet you, Ink Nemesis.”

She smiles.

-

Something smells in this meeting room. It’s a perpetual stench that reeks your surroundings that you would do anything to bolt from your chair.

Bullshit. 

“What’s with the long face?” one of the girls asks you with fake concern plastered all over that overly done face of hers. If it weren’t for the incident just an hour prior, maybe your thoughts wouldn’t have been so malicious; but you can’t help but wonder how you had ever put up with her attempts to get on your good side when monthly evaluations were just around the corner. 

“Nothing,” you mumble, sitting even more upright when you notice her own pretentious posture. 

“Aww, did someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?” another girl bumps your leather chair with hers. “Mr. Min Yoongi’s, perhaps?”

Oh, there’s the other girl who never really cared for your existence or anyone’s except her so called “squad” for that matter… until someone’s work garners enough momentum to be worthy of her attention, that is. 

“Yeah?” you snap and everyone jumps at the raise in your voice. “Well, whose bed did you wake up in this time?” The silence is overbearing enough to have you mentally regretting your temper in guilt. “Haha… just kidding.”

The group of girls force a nervous laugh before rolling back to their respective spots and gathering their files. 

“Ooh…” Solji mumbles under her breath beside you. “It’s 2019, Y/N. Slut shaming isn’t acceptable anymore.” 

“I know,” you grunt, storming out of the meeting room as Solji follows in your trek. “I messed up, okay? I’m just having a shitty day.” 

“Oh?” her playful expression immediately transitions to one of concern. “What’s wrong? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, unless you, their supervisor, can tell them to shut the hell up and stop acting so fake,” you roll your eyes and punch your timecard. “It’s just that they’ve never cared for me as a person until my works did somewhat well, and the only time that happened is when I hop on the bandwagon and write because I want to be praised and receive attention and not because I want to write. I can’t even be creative because then no one will ever even read my shit.”

“Is that why you’re still writing for SS?” Solji quickly punches her timecard and paces after you as the door slams behind you. 

Cars honk at every corner, buses puff at every stop, and lights beam in all orientations of the city as night befalls it. Her questions lingers in your mind, even as you march through the sidewalks and into the neighborhood a few blocks from the company. 

Why are you still writing for SS? Sure, the stream of comments are addictive not to say the least; but what you’ve always vied for is the euphoric rush of anticipation, the power that runs through your veins, knowing just how much control you had at the tips of your fingers. You had exclusive information and everyone is all ears. You could release a simple audio and set millions abuzz. 

At long last, the world is yours and you’re not theirs. 

“No, not exactly,” you finally answer. 

“Good then,” Solji huffs when she finally catches up with you at the end of the block, “because you should stop updating SS. I don’t want you involved with it anymore. I’ll have someone else in charge or maybe I’ll even pick it up again, just not you—”

“—what? No,” you vehemently shake your head, “no, why?” 

“Because he’s your boyfriend, Y/N. Did you forget that all of a sudden or something? It’s unhealthy to be writing as a paparazzi for your boyfriend. Does he even know about this?”

“Yeah, he knows I’m one…”

“For the SS?” she articulates.

“...no,” your voice is nearly inaudible until you erupt in protest, “but you can’t do that. You can’t just take it away from—”

“—yes, I can,” she raises a brow at your behavior, “it’s my tabloid.”

A sharp intake of breath cuts your words off as you submit to a temporary defeat in silence. A breeze passes by, carrying your locks gently in its waves along with the dampened traffic in the distance. 

It seems like the entire world is stripping you of your joys; because even Solji, the one motherly friend you could always rely on, is turning her back on you now. 

Your colleague senses the tension in the stagnant air and speaks once again, “what’re you doing here anyway—”

—a black car pulls up and you don’t hesitate to enter when you recognize the familiar silhouette of his through the tinted windows.  

“Do you always enter any stranger’s car—”

—Yoongi’s remark is interrupted by the shrieks belonging to a certain someone at the curbside. You had almost forgotten the reason SS was even created in the first place. 

“Oh my GOD! I’m-I’m such a big fan, I’ve loved you since you were a trainee a-and, I just can’t believe!!!” Solji manages to shrill as she jumps up and down, completely overjoyed.

“Do you know her…?” Yoongi whispers, slight concern intermixed with bashful gratitude adorns his face as your supervisor continues to jump in circles.

“Yeah, she’s, um,” you stubbornly give in despite your grudge, knowing fully well how much this moment must mean to her, “she’s like a mother to me. She’s a huge fan. Probably your first, actually.”

Solji’s head violently bobs in agreement and Yoongi could only chuckle at her enthusiasm. Removing her hands from her cheeks that are streaked with her tears, she manages to scavenge through her pocket to find a notepad and pen. She wipes away the mascara streaks and fruitlessly attempts to regain composure. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t want to act like a crazy fan. I mean, I’m not a crazy fan, but could you… if it’s not too much of a bother… sign this…?”

“Yeah, of course.”

It’s difficult for you to hide the grin twirling at the corner of your lips as he reaches over you to further fuel the elation Solji must have been squealing over. Once the star finishes his business, Solji ducks to meet the two of you on eye-level, continuously expressing her gratitude to her idol for his time when, out of the blue, she redirects her remarks to you. 

“Thank you, Y/N. Please understand I’m doing this for your own good,” she presses a bittersweet smile, even if you avoid her gaze by looking straight out the windshield. Chortling, she takes a few steps back onto the curb and waves you two goodbye, “have a nice date!”

The engine purrs to life as the window scrolls up and you’re left comfortably alone with Yoongi—until Xiao Lin’s voice echoes in the back of your mind. You had just given your entire life for this man whom you don’t even completely understand just yet. Lin has a point: who is that woman to him and why hasn’t he told you about her? 

Could you really trust the last remaining figure, a man of many secrets, in your life?

“What does she mean ‘doing this for your own good?’’ he quirks an inquisitive brow while keeping his eyes on the road. 

“Nothing really,” you mumble, looking out the window at the skyscrapers blurred by the warm golden streetlights. 

“Really?” he muses. “She seems like she really cares for you. I’m grateful.”

“Grateful? Who’s this cheesy man and where did you take my Yoongi?”

Yoongi chuckles at your retort before reaching behind your seat to reveal the bouquet of pastel colored flowers. He tips the adornment in your direction, beckoning for your acceptance. “Congratulations on being fired.”

“Ah, yes, there he is,” you roll your eyes briefly, despite the apparent smile that stretches from ear to ear as you take the bouquet into your hands. You could tell he must have ordered for an excessive number of flowers because the ribbon hangs on for its dear life to keep the bouquet unified. Your eyes flutter closed and you relish in the fresh, floral scent.

But he’s lying. He’s keeping something from you.

Alarms sound off to interrupt the ephemeral moment of genuine bliss. It always does this. You always do this. Why can’t you just take things as it is? Why suspect him? You’d be better off living in ignorant bliss. Or is it your innate method of preventing the dreadful anxiety that comes with the painfully endless falls off the highs? 

“Yoongi.”

“Hm?”

“Do you…” you struggle to speak, tongue-tied. “Do you… know anything about your CEO and how he’s coming up with your concepts?”

“Him? Coming up with our concepts?” his voice raises in surprise. “The boys and I come up with them ourselves. Why?”

“Nothing.” 

Your attempt to conceal your utter relief is in vain. 

“That’s a whole lot of nothing’s today,” he chuckles, catching a glimpse of you sniffing the bouquet before deciding not to press further. “Do you like the flowers?”

“Yeah, they’re pretty,” you turn to meet his cheerful gaze illuminated by the flood of red from the traffic light. “Why’re you suddenly acting like you’re my boyfriend?”

“Am I not your boyfriend?” 

He returns his attention to the street when the red shadows on his skin flicker green.

“You never explicitly said anything about it.”

“Why should I?” he muses as his hands find yours by the gear stick. He then intertwines his fingers with yours. “I feel our connection. You feel our undeniable connection. Do we need any words to define us?”

Words to define us. Words to commit. Words to omit the truth in the wake of a lie. 

“We do,” you firmly state and he turns to cock a brow at you. “I need to know who I’m with. I need the complete truth or else I can’t give my all in this relationship.” 

“Okay—” the both of you could feel the drop in temperature and the rise in tension “—what do you need to know?” 

“Do you know the daughter of the CEO who sponsored your movie premiere?”

“What premiere?” 

You raise your voice, “the night we met.”

“Oh,” the firm grip of his hands go limp and something mercilessly hammers against your chest, “no, I don’t know the CEO’s daughter personally.” 

Lies. Utter lies. He’s fucking lying. 

Why? Just why?

Do you tell him you know more than he thinks you do? Would that be a foolish tactic?

“Are you sure?” you press.

I’m giving you one last chance.

“What’s up with you, Y/N?” Yoongi frowns, brows knitted. 

“Nothing!” you nearly yell. Yoongi doesn’t react in the least bit. He retains that damn stupid cold facade of his, even as he lies. “Look me in the face and promise me you’re going to give this your all.”

Because I gave you my all. 

“Y/N, what even,” he mutters under his breath, turning to stare at you straight in the eye. “There’s nothing going on between us—”

“—turn the corner,” you demand lowly. “I want to go home.”

“Y/N, is there something I need to know?” he exasperates, groaning when you fail to meet the frustration in his eyes and obliges to your orders. “What the fuck is going on—”

“—what’s going on is that you’re fucking lying to my face!” 

Your screams stun him into silence. His lack of a response boils your blood. 

“I told you to tell me the truth! I literally shoved the answer to your face and gave you multiple chances to confess!” you struggle to catch your breath, chest heaving up and down. “At least say something damn it!”

The car comes to an abrupt stop. He doesn’t waste a second and shoots a stern gaze your way. His once cool temperament has been replaced by the fire set ablaze in the grinding teeth of his, jaws jutting and eyes darkening. One hand of his still clutches the steering wheel so tightly you could see veins popping under his white collared shirt. 

Both participants evidently fear the heated argument soon to erupt. 

“I don’t have any feelings for her,” he enunciates. “I only like you. I swear.”

“You still lied to me.”

“I’m sorry,” he takes a deep breath and sighs, eyes never disconnecting from yours. “I’m really, really sorry.” 

“Do you know—” you pause in a fruitless attempt to save yourself from breaking out into tears; instead, you choke over your sobs and despise the look of concern adorning that fake frown of his “—do you know how much I gave up for you? Do you know how much I left behind to protect you?” 

“What do you mean—”

“—I gave up my career, Yoongi!” you bellow. “I belittle myself, I’ve become hooked on the idea of fame, I’ve become the very person I feared. I’ve bargained away my only companion for you and you betrayed me!” 

“Y/N, just tell me what happened and I can fix it.” 

He sounds genuine, but is he? Can you trust him? Can you trust anyone but yourself?

Can you even trust yourself?

“You can’t,” you fail to inhale silently in an attempt to conceal the shaky breaths of yours. 

“And why not?”

“You can’t because,” your hands rummage through your purse for your phone so hastily that you almost cut yourself with your own nails, “because I told the one person I warned myself over and over not to trust but did anyways all because I loved you.”

The both of you are taken aback by your sudden confession; and if it weren’t for the condition that you’re in right now, maybe this would have been a monumental moment you would’ve spent hours and hours reliving and relishing through your memories. 

“I loved you,” you repeat, eyes shaking,” and you hurt me.”

He hurt you. Maybe he didn’t mean to. Perhaps this is partially your fault for neglecting to fill him in on your side of the argument. This could be the moment you tell him about that night you caught sight of him with her on the balcony or about how you had just revealed your pen name and signed your career away if Lin were to use it against you for his sake. 

But he hurt you.

People have trampled over you and you’ve had enough. 

How do you hurt the people who have hurt you?

How did Yoongi hurt you?

You don’t realize the blinding screen of your phone where your blog and its eight tabs are on full display until Yoongi squeezes your left arm. The imprecise, hasty jabs of your fingertips at the screen render your phone unresponsive, only furthering your fueling frustration as you clutch the device to the point of numbing your hands. 

Delete. Delete. Delete. 

“What are you doing, Y/N?” he seems to have collected himself in comparison to your wrath. 

“I’m deleting my shit,” you grumble through gritted teeth. 

“I know you are,” he emphasizes, “but why are you? I know how happy your blog makes you. Why are you doing this? What’re you going to do about all the people who love and support you?”

“Why do you care?” you snap, stopping momentarily to shoot a death glare at him. “It’s not always a source of happiness for me. To tell you the truth, you brought me happiness when this blog couldn’t. You, Yoongi. How am I supposed to trust them if I can’t even trust the one person I thought would have my back?” 

He’s silent. He’s holding back.

“How am I supposed to handle all this… all this pain? How do I—” you pause “—how do I get back at the people who hurt me? How do I regain control of my life?”

Silent, again. He’s biting his tongue. 

“I take back the one thing I had that they wanted from me. The one thing they can’t have. Then, I’ll finally be in control again—”

“—what kind of fucking control is that?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I said,” the flames in his orbs have ice crawling along your skin, “what kind of fucking control is that? How can you call yourself in control when people have literally forced you into taking down the works that provided you solace? How can you call yourself in control when you’ve allowed people to get into your head and push you to this state of darkness, to the point that you want to hurt? You have this stupid fucking complex about you and I get it. I really get it, but do you ever plan on acknowledging it or do I have to shove it in front of your face for you to understand?”

“What? What is it that a successful boy like you could understand about a girl born with nothing like me? Huh?” 

 Yoongi doesn’t hesitate to bring forth reality. Cold, cruel, just like your world.

“You think the whole world is against you and you’re nothing but its poor victim; but have you ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, others are suffering under your hands as well? That, maybe, there are people who are genuinely kind and those people deserve so much more of your fucking time than those dumbasses who don’t deserve the light of day. Won’t you trust in the people who light up your world like you’ve lightened mine? Won’t you?” he flinches at the waterworks that stain your cheeks. “Are you going to love yourself by accepting yourself or are you going to keep picking at the faults of others and acting blind in front of your own? When will you let down those walls, Y/N?”

An epiphany dawns upon you when you find your gaze fixated on his, locked and challenged; and for a second, it’s almost as if you’re staring at an older self in the mirror. 

“You’re right,” you grab your purse and phone, kicking open the door. “There’s nothing left to love, not even myself.”

“That’s a lie,” he shakes his head, “at the very least, you should love yourself.”

“How can I?” you give him one last tilted, pressed grin before slamming the door. “How can I when even I have lost sight of myself?”

You can tell his heart shatters by your confession. His face turns pale, his lips part but fail to utter a single word of assurance, and he simply lets you go. Turning your back on him, you smile to yourself and take long, painful strides toward your front door. 

Why does it hurt so much to bring him pain like you so wanted? 

You’re on your way to self-discovery. All you need is to be alone again, like you’ve always told yourself to be, like you’ve always known would be best for you. 

Your mind works on autopilot, as if distancing yourself from others is merely second nature to you by now. The accursed picture still haunts you even as you shut your eyes. 

[99% uploading]

Now, finally, surely, you’ll be a hundred percent free from burden and the hands of……..

...

[uminohotaru]

Chapter 2: The story of the lingering night

Summary:

Takes place directly after The Story of Flowing Water. Tahomaru returns for his father's funeral after having spent the winter with Nui and Jukai as a simple villager. Tahomaru's perspective.

Notes:

Finally, I'm posting the continuation. Actually, it was written long ago, back in summer-autumn of 2019, but at that time i was still unsure whether i am truly going to proceed with this fic. My head started to develop a large plot full of new adventures, but my RL was so busy and hectic i couldn't balance the both. Then, about half a year went down the drain in depression and other issues. One of those was desire to hide from any human contact (i felt so much like Taho in the previous chapter lol). So, this whole year, i've been writing down small bits that appeared in my head from time to time without any clear purpose to post them, until there was enough material for a dozen of chapters at least. I am the type to get stressed easily by schedules and expectations, so this relaxed approach was refreshing. At the same time, the lack of schedules and expectations resulted in the work hardly progressing. Was it even something worth writing, or i shouldn't waste my time, i began to wonder (well, if i could, i would've probably ditched it around the time i realized it's going to be so long. But no use. It haunted me and wouldn't let me go). Fuck it, i decided at last, let's just post it and come what may.

Tldr: this chapter is only the beginning of the mess, and the things won't be progressing fast, all because i love the characters and the world of Dororo too much, and wanted to indulge myself for as long as i can :D You may notice that each chapter is preceded by a short introductory scene after which goes the title. This is the anime pattern i wanted to follow (like, a short scene - OP - episode itself) for no particular reason. I will try to post a chapter per week for now (say, on mondays), since ~6 chaps are already written completely, and then we'll see how it goes.

~ The story of the lingering night ~

Fwoosh. A flare of orange in the dark. He brings the fire to the wick, protecting it with his palm. This one… is for the child who was lying on the barren ground, his ribs sticking out, one of his arms devoured by the hungry dogs feasting on the dead flesh like heinous vultures… He squeezes his eyes shut, but it doesn’t drive the image away. Nothing ever will.

Tahomaru, a blunt pain in his chest, resumes his way up the long corridor—an illuminated path he is arranging to welcome his enemy—and stops before another lamp. This one… is for the woman who sat by the wrecked house, her features indistinguishable, rotted to the bones by the illness. Maybe it is for the best that she had fallen in the battle before the plague could turn her face like that, too, he can’t help but think.

“This one… is for the little girl in her arms,” he whispers, his throat squeezed tightly, as he ignites another fire.

Hundreds of faces light up before his eyes, flashes of warm fire against the blackness. So bright and so fragile. His memory holds way more faces than there are lamps in this castle. They all had died so the one could live on. If the deal was wrong, shouldn’t they have existed in the first place? Should they have never been born? Is it the law of the merciful gods his mother has always been praying to?

Another flash. He is setting his life aflame with his own hands. A few moments later, this fire will spread all over the castle. It will become the funeral pyre of the Daigo domain. He doesn’t know it yet.

Or maybe he does.

“My brother and I were taken hostage by the enemy when we were young. Had the Daigo land not flourished, we would not be here.”

“This one is for Hyogo. This one… is for Mutsu.”

Twin flames of fire behind his shoulders, one on the left and one on the right, illuminate the room.

Tahomaru stabs his sword into the floor and squeezes all his eyes shut, centering himself. This is his home. He can sense the familiar presence behind and knows that they are here, with him, silently watching him. And yet, now, he is alone. Alone to face the demon.

The lights go down. Tap, tap in the dark. He’s here.

Here, in the core of the Daigo castle, in the room where they both were born, their paths are colliding for the final clash. Here, only one of them will remain.

…They could have been brothers. They could have grown and played here together. This is what he used to imagine, in those rare moments between sleep and wake, when his mind was wandering, untamed. The remnants of the naivete of the stupid boy who had died by the Banmon. Tahomaru knew better now than to fall into the trap of illusions; for in this story, there were no “if’s”. Had the demons not gotten his brother, Tahomaru would not exist either. Or if he had, he would not be the same: just a boy who looks up to his elder brother, sharing with him the burden of responsibility; a boy who is cherished by his mother, as there would be no reason for her to hate him. She would not look through him as if he were a ghost. He would not be dying inside each time, desperate to understand what he had done wrong. Maybe he would not even be called like that, for Tahoumaru, “Many Treasures”, is the name suited for an heir, not a second son.

The Tahomaru he is was born upon the sacrifice of his brother. Now, it is for their swords to decide whether that was wrong. And if that was—then he will go down with his people whom he has sworn to never forsake.

Day and night cannot coexist. Just like that, their paths can never merge.

The enemy, whose dark shadow appears against the dim light of the entrance, two bloodied blades in his hands, certainly believes the same. Continue on AO3 ->

[illegiblewords]

5 Questions for Writers!

               5 Questions for Writers                                                        

I got tagged by @kunstpause, it looked like fun so figured I’d go for it! THANKS TO KUNST!

Tagging @wouldyouliketoseemymask, @nilim, @azwoodbomb, @peregrineroad, @frostmantle, @autumnslance, @strangefellows, @redbud-tree, @nozomikei​, and @rivenroad​. No obligation to anyone but full permission to steal granted to anyone else who might like to. I’ll literally be delighted if you pick this up spontaneously and blame me as an excuse lmao.

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

I made long answers so have a cut!

1. Do you have a favorite character to write? Who and why?

It depends heavily on what fandom and where I am mentally, but I’ve figured out I tend to love writing angsty lameass dudes with blonde hair who are prone to doing really silly things despite taking themselves entirely too seriously. Honestly, I have a pretty huge track record at this point. Harvey Dent, Vexen, Dmitri, Lahabrea, probably more besides. Every one of them fits the right balance of lameass to angst. I like seeing them grow and find fulfillment as people and they are very very cute while still having an edge of badassery and cleverness. Also they’re funny.

Lahabrea is my favorite at the moment, and him reaching that position is an accomplishment considering how stiff the competition is in FFXIV. Loser tricked his way to the top while I was busy laughing at him.

2. Do you have a favorite trope to write? Or one you want to write?

I really, really, really love redemption arcs and people recovering from fucked up experiences. Latter case especially I love seeing characters in those situations successfully connect to the people and world around them, especially if they get to grow together with a partner. I also LOVE “hero saves the villain and villain takes it to heart”.

(You may be sensing a theme here haha.)

There are a few reason these concepts resonate with me, the first being I think they’re really hopeful, inspiring, and something I always wanted to see growing up but rarely did.

People fuck up in life. People get hurt in horrible ways that bring out the worst in them. Sometimes when that happens they dig themselves deeper and deeper into ugliness. The more a person’s bad side comes out, the more hopeless it can feel. And for mental illness especially I’ve found this can be a major issue.

Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has flaws, but I think there’s something really significant in seeing someone who has hit rock bottom, who can no longer imagine a way out, get offered a hand for support and take it. While recovery and redemption (not synonymous of course) ultimately need to be carried by the individual struggling, I really can’t understate how important it is to know in those situations that you’re not alone and someone believes in you.

I think a big part of why this theme is important to me is because mental illness, both genetic and due to trauma, is something unbelievably difficult and painful not only for the sufferer but those around them. The most mentally ill characters in fiction tend to be villains, and are disproportionately more likely to be suffering severe trauma. It frustrated me since I was pretty young to see over and over again cases where a mess could have been avoided if there was any support system in place.

Seeing compassion and connection given that kind of power means a lot to me, as does recognizing that villains are people before they are villains. It’s also very reassuring in the sense of “If this person fucked up that badly but still tried to better themself, I can too. And odds are I’m also worthy of love and compassion, even when my issues make things harder for others. I just have to keep working to improve.”

3. Share your favorite description you’ve written?

Eff.

Straight up I think I’ve written too much to have just one favorite description. It’s been a lot of years and I have hundreds of fics and I’m lame. So I’m going to put a few of my favs.

Anytime there’s a gap in block quotes it’s a different section within the same fic.

22 - A Batman Fanfic

He trembles beneath the weight of their expectations but his smile never fades flashes before cameras microphones under his nose crowds screaming questions bleeding together he answers like clockwork the District Attorney who must bring justice to us all paying tribute to false idols with golden hair and silver tongues we the people bow down in worship to this guardian of the law with words and deeds I believe in Harvey Dent so he swears in hallowed halls to bring prosperity to smite the wicked to damn the criminal with authority invested in him by Gotham’s dutiful children and himself.

***

On the precipice of victory we stand united our voice raised like a torch like a spear like a golden arrow against the beast of Lerna we are gods and monsters we are so much more than good and evil we are order in the court cauterizing corruption our head held high and mighty manifest in Harvey of the doubletalk Harvey who writes himself into the fabric of Gotham’s history Harvey who will not bend before the Roman we command you the unworthy we condemn you the unrighteous we will not be merciful and you will fall before our eyes.

***

I am Dionysus divided at the altar of Tyche O Fortuna O Fortuna give me guidance in the light of the moon you dance sacred silver dollar I see and obey the wax and wane your whim Wheel of Fortune the card I am dealt your servant your slave venerated puppet of flesh blessed is your wisdom bestowed upon I am your disciple wine-mad twisted chanting your word becomes law holy splendor against gavels desecrating your name defiant in denial extend your will through me and we shall strike the innocent enlighten the ignorant or spare them all for now.

Doppelganger - A Spider-Man Fanfic

She asks him to tell the story of himself, and like Scheherazade he begins anew each day.

As with many other things, this comparison is imperfect. The Ravencroft Institute is hardly a palace and neither of them could pass for royalty. She sits in a chair across from him over a carpet the color of sawdust. Her walls are lined with insects pinned on display. Not many butterflies, quite a few beetles. On a bookshelf Dmitri sees The Metamorphosis nestled between non-fiction texts more relevant to her profession. He thinks maybe it's an inside joke she has with herself, but doesn't say so.

He's received an invitation to call her Ashley instead of Dr. Kafka and doesn't know whether to accept. It might be to make him more comfortable. It might be something else. In her late fifties Kafka is built from delicate features, and he suspects the lines around her eyes mean they crinkle when she smiles. Short black hair, beige suit, only jewelry a pair of diamond stud earrings. Dmitri thinks she looks like a mother, but not his.

Her weight sinks into leather, darker than the floor. The couch he rests on matches. He finds himself leaning forward with one elbow propped on his thigh, the other locked in a cast suspended by his neck. There is something reassuringly empty in the gray fabric of his uniform, cheap and utilitarian and harmless. Dmitri’s wrists are thin, but then he's lost a lot of weight recently. He probably wouldn't be able to run as fast as he used to, but then circumstances would be the same anywhere he went so that really doesn't matter. His espionage days are over. His free arm is shedding in flakes but at least his skin is dry. Clean.

Dmitri no longer looks like anyone, unrecognizable to himself. A face without much in the way of edges, short nose. Weak chin. Mismatched eyes that shift between green and blue and brown and every other natural hue as moments pass into minutes pass into hours. Dark blotches interrupt his forehead and chin. They will peel in new patterns across a span of days. For the most part though, he is pale enough to trace veins where his body seems on the brink of spilling out.

It's been a while since he shaved his head and the hair that grows back is almost foreign. An unruly mess of black, blond, brunet, and red—strands as unlike in texture as anything else. The mask that made him Chameleon was white plastic embedded with hardware. Left deformed after trying to resemble others in flesh too many times, it allowed him to duplicate any face, any body he could remember. More than holograms, the most complete sensory illusions technology could perform.

Without it, Dmitri feels stripped.

When Kafka looks at him she’s receiving constant signals and missing none of them. The moments he needs to turn away, flat monosyllabic turns of phrase he chooses or resorts to or blankly accepts as his own. It doesn’t have to be this way. It isn’t comfortable and he doesn’t even trust it’s not calculated. But she’s going to notice no matter what he does at this point, and lying about it doesn’t do anyone much good. They both know why he’s here.

***

“We were poor. We worked hard to keep ourselves fed and clothed and less than an embarrassment. I probably could have worked harder. Mother,” he begins before stumbling over himself.

The story he’s telling isn’t hers. Whatever else she was, Sonya Smerdyakov wasn’t Mrs. Bates. He remembers her voice as the beginning of an echo, forever following someone else’s lead.

And so he followed her.

She was bright like a light going out. She was gentle without being kind. Her fingers were short and delicate and she touched him as little as possible. He found her attention in the way she avoided his name.

***

In the privacy of his room, Dmitri began talking to himself.

Celebrities. Teachers. Children. The flat, steady rhythm of his father’s voice. The words and intonations favored by mother. Sergei’s laugh. He lost himself in a fantasy of conversations, strode through space to mimic confidence he didn’t feel, flashed teeth in front of his mirror like other people.

Once, Dmitri raised his voice. And when his older brother came, eyebrows knitting in confusion, he found himself full of stammered explanations, hands fumbling at his elbows, stumbling over his tongue to make sense of it.

Just making stories for himself. A game with no ending. That was all.

***

He would have died in that town under the eyes of speechless parents. Dmitri remembers the confusion that took his peers when he found a job for people who spoke for themselves. They thought he might be growing up.

He could lie. And when he began he understood it would always be a game with no ending.

Dmitri lost himself in a fantasy of conversations with real people and a voice that didn’t belong to him.

They asked a stranger to sign their yearbooks without even realizing it.

And then he was eighteen, and he left to continue elsewhere.

He didn’t announce his departure.

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It was probably a dream.

Lukewarm water crept down his throat, nearly making him choke. A skin pressed to his lips, insistent. He coughed, and for the first time there was moisture enough for resistance.

The face that obscured his vision was shrouded in white cloth. Cenric found he couldn’t focus on it. Mismatched eyes, one light and the other dark. Impossible to say if blindness caused the inconsistency.

A string of shells dangled from the figure’s neck, rattling gently. The skin pulled back for a moment. Careful. Patient.

It returned only once he'd grown quiet. Cenric drank for as long as he could. Impossibly, a great deal remained by the time he relinquished his hold.

There wasn't enough of him present to say thank you. Cenric barely registered being dragged, being carried onto a cart. Awareness was altogether gone by the time they started to move.

***

…to the blessed traders who enrich our lives we’re bound to pay with our lives in turn aether born fire-walker your will sees us to rest we entrust ourselves to your sight forged of oschon for peace and prosperity and an ending you do not weep for father azeyma lives in the earth with you her fan brings no breeze the air is hot and thick and breathless your domain a silent place that does not stir have you forgotten the sound of your own voice have you known what it is to live and fail have you been alone do you know what it is to die how can a god pass judgment without being judged nald’thal lord of departures of flame and sand whose coin purse overflows who knows not what it means to starve what it means to spoil the legacy of one who loved you nald’thal who holds shells and souls and precious stones as if their worth were equal nald’thal who cannot know mercy without knowing pain who are you to weigh mortal affairs?

***

In darkness he unwinds the black bandana, steps first from his slops and then his kurta. Yuyudana has provided robes, which rest neatly on a small rock nearby. It crosses Cenric’s mind that the bones of his knees, his hips, his wrists, even his face have all started to protrude strangely. He looks less hyuran than before, maybe less than he ever has. Closer to something priests would exorcise than anyone deserving aid.

He wonders if this idea has occurred to them.

The water, when he advances, is cold. Goosebumps raise across his skin as slowly, gingerly, he wades in to his waist.

Cenric ducks under.

His hair is a long and tangled wreck. Being wet only disguises this slightly. It drifts past his neck, comes to float near the surface. Cenric holds himself in silence, eyes open, watching the silver scatter of light over stones and plants and fish. He remains for as long as he can bear.

His vision stings afterward. Gasping, he can’t tell if the cause is exposure or something else. For a time he simply waits, breathing hard through his nose, hunched so that his lips are partially submerged.

He thinks of nothing, pretends that this time instead of no future he has no past.

Only one moon remains. Maybe the sky aches for losing Dalamud, but better that than the blow which scarred Eorzea.

Stalemate - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

He is presented with impressions of a horse, gaunt and fetid and decayed. Spreading ruin wheresoever it goes. Occasionally it sloughs off portions of its own flesh, which collect flies and blacken any land that surrounds. On its back rests a world, and alongside it does the herd struggle under their own burdens. But even beasts of such endurance have limits. Theirs are reached. When the rotten steed lags, its companions cannot afford to falter. Cannot turn. Without its ability to bear loads, this aberration has no place. Falling is inevitable.

Yet a heart still beats and lungs yet swell.

The Ascian shivers in his grasp, but does not attempt escape.

Here, something festers. Something bleeds. An old wound exacerbated over time.

Fevered, coated in a film of self-disgust, the core of Lahabrea convulses.

 Don’t…

 Don’t leave me like this…

***

Teeth and tongue. Lingering, wet, disembodied. Another finds his hip. Another his thigh, slipping beneath what clothes remain.

And another.

And another.

Warm, human, seeking. The Warrior tightens his hold, uses the moan crawling from his own chest as incentive. Barred by naught but fabric, driving close as he can manage. Lahabrea makes a strangled sound, his gasp crushed empty. A new mouth finds the dark knight’s ear in response.

These are parts of him no one dares touch, no one dares acknowledge. Slick now, attended with something like reverence. Supplication.

He resolves to fuck the Ascian senseless for this, presses his intent deep into Lahabrea’s aether. He is going to steal all his fancy words away. Make him squirm.

“I… I…” Tight, airless, like a plucked string. The Warrior feels Lahabrea’s voice reverberate against the roof of his mouth.

The feeling is difficult to describe. Cracked ice. A fraying rope. Such is Lahabrea's response, fumbling and disoriented as it is.

The Warrior lets go.

4. Share your favorite dialogue you’ve written?

Just imagine me weeping over here lmao. Same deal as before, I’VE DONE TOO MUCH SHIT.

Spare Change - A Batman Fanfic

"Stop," he gasps, "I wouldn’t—"

"You would Harvey. You did. It’s what makes you such a damn good instrument. You had to test yourself, prove that you’re not a real person.” He can feel fingers grinding against bone. His knees bend. Harvey kneels, shuddering, gazing up into the destruction of his own visage. Two-Face meets his eyes, blue on blue. “People are weak. People are ruled by what they want and don’t want. You’re capable of anything if the wind blows just right. You can’t even stop yourself.”

"I wouldn’t," he repeats, numbly.

"Did you," demands Two-Face, forcing him down further, "or did you not flip for their lives, Harvey Dent?"

"We…We aren’t the same people anymore."

"Of COURSE we’re the same people!" Another shove and he’s on the ground, Two-Face sitting on his chest, teeth bared, coin clenched tight between them. "Do you really think you can close your eyes and pretend you aren’t capable of these things? They’re alive," and there is something hideous in his expression, something certain, "because they were lucky. No other reason.”

"The coin is gone! Even if I wanted to listen to it—I can’t!”

"If you’re so sure," says Two-Face, "then how about you improvise?”

And with one motion the silver dollar is under his tongue, forced back so hard he feels himself gag and begin to choke before his eyes open.

The Inquisitor’s Letters - A Dragon Age: Inquisition Fanfic

To His Worship Inquisitor Mahanon Lavellan of Skyhold, My name is Isell from Amaranthine and I’m seven. My mum is helping but says I can send you all by myself. Thank you for fixing the hole in the sky and also the one by the dead man’s house. There were demons but they’re mostly gone now and people are going outside now. Da says Amaranthine has been through too much and can survive anything and he says you’re an elf like us and the Hero of Ferelden was an elf too. He says people used to think elves can’t be heroes but now they don’t. Have you met the Hero of Ferelden? Also I heard that even though you’re Dalish Andraste helped you in the Fade and that humans let you be in the Chantry because anyone Andraste likes must be a really good person. What’s Andraste like? The Chant says a lot but it’s different meeting someone I think. Also I think I saw you a little before but Mum wasn’t sure because you had a helmet on and we were far away and there were a lot of people but I bet it was you. Da wasn’t sure I should write because he says the Dalish don’t like city elves like we are but I think you must be nice and Mum agrees with me. I’ve been playing demon hunters with my brother Arrion (he’s just five still) and Da said templars are who fights demons usually and elves can’t be templars. People thought elves couldn’t be heroes and inquisitors though and we are so I bet I could too. Is it hard fighting demons? Da says they’re real scary but I’m not scared. Thank you for helping us and everyone and I hope you kill lots of demons. Sincerely, Isell U’venlan

From Umbra - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

Cenric sits on the floor, draped in a white cotton tunic. It might have been snug on a Roegadyn but anyone else would find ample room. Behind him, Memesu stands on a cot holding shears. Gold earrings dangle on either side of her face.

“I fought at Carteneau, you know,” she mentions casually. There is a soft hsssssshhhh. Click.

Hair hits the floor. Coils.

He starts to shake his head, aborts the gesture partway through. Stills. “…you saw Bahamut?”

Memesu snorts. “I’m sure everyone this side of Hydaelyn saw Bahamut.” Click.

“That’s probably true,” he concedes. The dragon is what everyone knows, everyone remembers. He can't imagine the proximity. “What about the Warriors of Light?”

“Pff.” Gentle tugging at his scalp. Cenric does not open his eyes but leans into the motion. “I wasn’t of rank to see their like. Not that I’d remember. Stop moving.” Click.

Cenric hesitates.

“What do you remember, then?”

For a time, the only sound comes from blades and a thousand strands cut short. This lasts for several minutes. Cenric resigns himself to secrets.

Then, “I used to think I was special too. As a twin. My sister was Memeni. We studied together.”

 Was.

The exhale hits him slowly, quietly.

“She died?”

He can feel the shrug in her hip against his shoulder.

“It was Carteneau,” says Memesu. “Of course she died.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Click. “It had nothing too do with you. If you keep trying to claim responsibility for every misfortune you find, you’re going to get self-important.”

Cenric only grunts, quiet and non-committal.

 Click.

 Click.

 Click.

“Carteneu was so much worse than people remember. Only four years later and already we hurry to dispose of details.” There is a hard undercurrent to Memesu’s voice, but what contact she makes remains light. Careful. “I remember the arcanist from Limsa who didn’t dodge a magitek canon in time. Miqo’te. Spells come faster in that discipline, so there’s less stress on distance than thaumaturgy. Girl got careless.” Click. “The mess smelled like rotten eggs and charcoal. Her face was… melted.” Click. “I try not to look in those situations. They only make casting harder. But she was so close.”

Cenric doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word.

Memesu continues. “One of our own gladiators, an Ala Mhigan, took to mutilating any pureblooded Garleans he could catch. The man had a string of eyes hanging around his neck. I’m pretty sure one enemy officer wet himself before he started to beg. Not that it particularly mattered.”

 Click.

“Memeni… didn’t anticipate what she was getting herself into. She saw magic as a way of being useful to craftsmen. My focus has always been theoretical. Right side.” Startled, Cenric lets her guide his jaw to get a better view of his profile. Click. Click. “Meni used to think I was a priss. She preferred to develop magitek kettles alongside alchemists. See if she could find a way to capture light like the Mhachi did. She still enjoyed fishing when she could, even though it smelled awful. Never outgrew the braids she wore growing up. ” Memesu sighs. “…just understand she died afraid, in pain, and with things left undone. My sister didn’t even resemble herself at the end.”

Cenric is very still. Thinks carefully.

“…I wish it could have gone differently,” he says at last.

Memesu’s mouth slides up in a small, crooked smile. She tousles the neat, ear-length hair before her. “So do I.”

Eclipse - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

It ends at Elidibus’ untimely arrival.

“Lord Zodiark,” he says, so smoothly that were he not searching for it that the anger would be undetectable, “appreciates your attentions.”  His gaze does not waver from Lahabrea as he speaks. “But there is work to be done and I’m afraid there are words I would have with your Speaker.”

They disperse.

Nabriales, careful and curious, folds himself out of sight beyond the chamber then makes his way back to its edge.

Lahabrea, farthest from the exit, attempts to steal some small dignity. Turns to face Elidibus.

The Emissary makes him wait. Expressionless red masks matched by those who wear them.

Then, with more speed and force than typical for his demeanor, the Emissary closes distance to trap his colleague against the wall.

“It was my error,” hisses Elidibus, leaning in, “to have stayed silent upon rescuing you. A mistake I will remedy now, so we can be on no uncertain terms.”

Lahabrea lowers his eyes. Nabriales notes that despite the dread they all share of such reprimands, the man does not brace.

“You know as well as I that these words offer less succor to our Lord than action,” continues Elidibus, his fury quiet and no less sharp for that, “just as we both know your thoughtless action is the cause of repeated missteps these past centuries. Make no mistake—for all the strides you’ve made, your fixation and your impatience have cost the rest of us considerable time.”

Silence.

“Do you truly think this is your best service to Him?” asks Elidibus. “To us? Compromising your ability to fill the hours? Even Emet-Selch agrees these displays are disgraceful. You have ever borne them poorly, but being a 'paragon among paragons' naturally you continue ignoring your own better judgment with ours to continue this exercise in futility. Idiot.”

A twitch of the head. Almost a flinch.

It is one of few moments Nabriales has seen the Emissary express his anger so openly. Even after the Thirteenth fell to Igeyorhm’s error, Elidibus allowed the Angel of Truth to lead and voiced his own reproach with a more typical icy demeanor. Scathing though it was.

“I can be of use,” says Lahabrea softly. “Only three of us remain, and I—“

“You,” Elidibus snaps, “cannot follow the most simple instructions for the good of us all. Not for Him, not for Amaurot, not even for yourself. Your pride has made you not simply an embarrassment but a liability.”

Neither man speaks for several moments after that.

And then, at length, Elidibus exhales.

Says the Speaker’s name.

Receives his attention.

“What would you have me do?” the Emissary asks. His tone now is almost weary. “Clearly it would be unreasonable to trust you’d simply listen. Must I mind you like a child?” This is what breaks Lahabrea’s composure.

Knowing the man’s temper, Nabriales had expected him to lash out. Even on the back foot their orator is perfectly capable of defending himself from insults.

Instead, he embraces Elidibus fiercely—face just within the bounds of his pauldrons. Jaw locked shut firmly enough to hurt. Expression downcast.

Elidibus remains perfectly still at first. In the absence of conversation it is possible to hear the rush of Lahabrea’s breathing. Only through the nose, withheld briefly between each inhale as if that offers some means to steady himself.

As if that would make it better.

Tentatively, Elidibus holds him back. Lahabrea's fingers contract, and though he remains upright when his knees begin to give it is the Emissary who helps him kneel.

“Easy,” he murmurs, and Lahabrea removes one hand to run it reflexively over his face—coming against the mask.

Nabriales finds himself staring, searching. A puzzle with missing pieces whose image he may yet divine

“It was not,” says Lahabrea roughly, “my intention to…”

Elidibus reaches beneath the other man’s cowl, finds the hair and skin beneath. Draws him in once more.

Naught that would be shared with or among the Sundered. Nothing so personal as that.

Nabriales has worn his own share of flesh. Bedded lovers, adopted companions and families of vessels to fulfill a purpose. Passable enough, perhaps, but never for him. Not in truth.

It’s as if he looks upon two strangers.

Parched - A Final Fantasy XIV Fanfic

The door closes behind them. Lahabrea, projecting his preferred likeness over the host, waits on a couch within.

It’s admittedly a surreal sight. Ishgardian finery with its gilded edges, its elaborate wallpapers and marble floors. A collection of creams and blues and greens, fine furniture with velvet seat cushions. All ostentatious in the extreme… and then Lahabrea. Masked and cowled. Pouring three glasses of La Noscean arrack.

Elidibus freezes, and though none of them can see his eyes the confusion is clear enough.

“What is this?”

“Your turn,” says Emet-Selch, lightly but less flippant than he might have been.

Lahabrea proffers a cup from where he sits.

Elidibus neither moves nor speaks.

Emet-Selch approaches. Takes the drink. Presses it carefully into the other man’s hand.

“Don’t think,” he says smoothly,” that I won’t let you drop it.”

Mercifully, Elidibus has a good grip.

“Sit,” says Lahabrea, gesturing with his own glass to the sofa across from him.

Elidibus sits.

Emet-Selch sits.

Takes his own glass, perhaps a bit pointedly.

Elidibus’ mouth is pressed tight. It opens briefly, as if to speak. Shuts again.

“Explain,” the Emissary manages eventually.

Lahabrea meets his co-conspirator’s eye. Downs his arrack in a single attempt.

It is a long attempt.

It lasts several moments.

The other Ascians watch.

“Elidibus,” says Emet-Selch as Lahabrea endeavors to catch his breath in the aftermath, “Lahabrea and I are concerned that you may be experiencing some difficulties in recent years.”

“I’m fine,” replies Elidibus coldly. Holding his drink. “Why did you think this necessary?”

“Because—“ wheezes Lahabrea.

“Because you’re practically a mammet,” says Emet-Selch, picking up Lahabrea’s glass. Moving it just out of reach. “Truly. It’s been what, two hundred years? Three? Neither of us can remember the last time you so much as spoke of matters unrelated to the Rejoining.”

Lahabrea reaches. Elidibus pours his arrack into the other man’s glass before nudging it back toward him.

Elidibus makes eye contact with Emet-Selch.

“I remain focused,” he says evenly. “Nothing more.”

Emet-Selch gestures to the bottle.

Elidibus sighs.

Refills his own glass.

“There are matters I must attend myself. As is the case with each of you.”

“Undoubtedly,” replies Lahabrea more evenly. “But with few exceptions, you haven’t done so.”

A hard stare from behind the mask.

“What would you have me do? I can’t very well take time off.”

Emet-Selch sips.

“A negligible amount of time,” he says, “taken sparingly, may be forgivable.”

5. Scene you haven’t written, but want to?

Lmao see this is a plus side/minus side deal. Minus side, it’s being asked just before I embark on a MASSIVE ASS FANFIC. And I basically am excited for all of it. Plus side, there are things I refuse to spoil.

So... putting it vaguely, in no particular order:

- Lahabrea and Hydaelyn meet a second time after Praetorium.

- Moonfire Faire

- Thancred

- Conversations over mulled wine

- Silvertear Lake

Some of these are sex scenes. Most aren’t. But I am very hyped.

[dwellordream]

I’ve been reading haunt/hunt and I absolutely love how you wrote Nell and her story as well as how you flesh out all the female characters in your fic! So far chapter 45 probably made me the most emotional that I have a lot of feels about it. I’d love a Director’s Commentary and your thoughts writing it, especially the dream Nell has about Bethany and the whole grief and rage and pain that comes with it. Also, Walda’s side during her conversation with Nell would be interesting.. thank you!

thank you! I really dreaded all of Nell’s chapters at the Twins because I’d already gotten some backlash over the plot that culminated with Robb’s ‘death’ and her ending up a captive, and I figured frustration was just going to build the longer I spent writing Nell basically treading water at the Twins trying to figure out how she was going to escape. ultimately I’m pleased with how these chapters turned out but at the time I was always a bit anxious and tense when writing and posting them, because I was worried it was just going to be people in the comments going ‘this sucks. why am I reading this, again?’ (not that there isn’t room for criticism of those plot points, I think the pacing of Haunt/Hunt is a bit janky overall, but... not all that much I can do about that at this point haha) I knew the major setpiece of the chapter would be the sept at the Twins, the same one where Edmure and Roslin were just married, the same one that at the Freys presumably pray in... septs are always foreign places for Nell because she wasn’t brought up in that faith, never had a septa, and there was never a sept at the Dreadfort or Barrowton.  the obvious contrast here is that the sept is a holy place but it’s also at the site of a massive betrayal, and in the midst of this service Nell is plotting and scheming. there’s also the fact that this takes place shortly after Joffrey’s death, and so the Freys are mourning one boy-king after having just slaughtered another. Nell is so shocked and in grief that she can’t even summon up much triumph at Joffrey’s death, as she acknowledges that they will just crown Tommen instead, who is just a child being manipulated by the adults around him. I think it also highlights a main point of the fic- Haunt/Hunt is not a retelling of the entire ASOIAF story, it’s just narrowly focused on the North and the prominent characters there. I feel bad sometimes because I sometimes think readers are expecting me to suddenly pivot to characters like Dany or Cersei or the Martells, and while obviously their actions have consequences for everyone in Westeros, they’re not really the focus here. finally we get to the convo between Fat Walda and Nell. Walda is obviously very wary of Nell, given recent events and the fact that she’s married to Nell’s father. Nell sees Walda dressed in Bolton colors and thinks about how she used to take such pride in her house, and how when she first met Robb she was pretty snotty and felt him childish and beneath her. she feels horrific guilt over even being married to Robb in the first place, wondering if he’d married someone else he might still be alive and winning the war. she also feels so lost without the one person in her life besides Dana who she felt like really chose her and loved her in spite of her flaws.  Nell and Robb’s love story is really crucial to the story as a whole and it obviously still plays a major role even after he’s dead.  we then flash back to Walda, who, despite everything that’s happened and her torn loyalties, does genuinely sympathize with Nell and promises to keep Lysara safe. Nell is less than impressed with this, but does warn Walda about Ramsay- although it’s not just from concern for Walda, but fear for Lysara’s safety. she also warns Walda that Roose loves no one and nothing but himself, and whether he treats her well as his wife or not, he can’t be relied upon to keep her safe from Ramsay. Walda does, to her credit, take Nell seriously, and reveals her pregnancy, while confessing that Roose hasn’t, in her opinion, been all that cruel to her, adding that he is a much finer match than she could have ever hoped for as a Frey. many people acknowledge that canonically Walda seems quite pleased with Roose as a husband, praising him in her letters and seeming eager to have children with him and rule the Dreadfort. I wanted to keep some of that while acknowledging that, well, this Walda was also friends with his daughter... who’s just been betrayed and imprisoned and had her husband murdered... and is about to have her daughter taken from her.  Roose isn’t a good or kind person and I think Walda recognizes that while at the same time feeling that, well, he may be a murderer and a rapist and a traitor, but he’s not constantly bullying and insulting her, he doesn’t beat her, and any children she has with him will have a claim to the at-present most powerful house in the North. so is she in love with him? no. but she is used to having to be very pragmatic, given her upbringing. jumping to the dream sequence (actually the last time we’ve seen Bethany in a dream in this fic, I believe) it’s kind of a call to arms? it’s just the culmination of all Nell’s rage and pain and sorrow, triggered by the new loss of her daughter. she dreams she is back in her mother’s bedchambers in the Dreadfort, watching her waste away from illness, and for the first time she really goes off on dream!Bethany, voicing the pain and fury she still feels at being left motherless. to have Bethany die after promising Nell that they’d be happy and go live with her aunt if Roose died in the Greyjoy Rebellion was especially brutal for her. Bethany apologizes to her- something that never happened in real life, as Nell never had any adults apologize to her for her upbringing or the trauma she experienced- and encourages Nell to keep fighting and not give up, pointing out that she tried to teach her to be strong and determined, even in the face of evil.  to be honest, “I died for nothing, aye,” Bethany acknowledges faintly, too shrouded in smoke to be visible clearly to Nell now, although her voice is longer than before. “Yet before I died I lived for you. I lived for a child I thought could be more than the sum of all my rage and pain and regret. A child I thought could grow into a woman who might do things I had only dreamed of. And I have been wrong on many counts, my Nell, but never that one.”  is one of my favorite parts of the entire fic. I think the ‘oh, *insert character* died for nothing’ or ‘the moral of the story is the world sucks and kindness is weakness’ is something that gets thrown around a lot in the ASOIAF fandom, maybe due to the influence of the TV show, maybe not. but I really disagree with that. for all the horrible things that happen in the series I think the ending will be one of hope, not defeat or ‘accepting the world as it is’. change can happen and it can be positive, and not all sacrifices are in vain. Ned Stark didn’t ‘die for nothing’- he died to save Sansa’s life and he taught his children really important things about respect for others and keeping your promises and protecting those weaker than you. we see his influence in Robb always trying to do what’s best for his people, Sansa being kind to others in spite of her suffering, Arya still defending the weak even at risk to herself, Bran trying to use his powers for good, Jon always trying to make the hard but fair decision at the Wall. they may not always make the right choices and they do fail, frequently, but the point is to try, not to always be victorious.  in the same token, Robb didn’t ‘die for nothing’ in this fic- he dies fighting a war to return home and help his people, he dies with Nell and Lysara’s names on his lips, he dies always trying to protect the ones he loves, and I think that’s the actual point, not that he was ‘stupid’ or that Roose ‘outplayed him’. life isn’t a game and it’s not supposed to be treated as such. what matters is what Robb did while he was alive, the people he helped and the lives he changed. Nell is 100% a better person for her relationship with him and the growth she went through as she matured and took on more responsibilities. she is 100% a kinder and more compassionate person because of her relationship with the Starks, and Dana, and her ladies at Riverrun. she had to choose to change and step into her role as queen, but Robb really gave her a lot of confidence in herself and her abilities.  so yeah, I think the overall message of chapter 45 and the fic in general is “it doesn’t matter how you die, it’s how you lived.” Robb’s death doesn’t wipe out everything he did before that. the loss of Lysara doesn’t erase the love Nell feels for her. even when things look dire and life is shitty you can still take it one day at a time and keep striving for something better. Nell has to recognize that while Bethany’s death was painful and tragic and unexpected... she did help shape Nell into the woman she would become and her ultimate wish was not that Nell would be exactly like her, but that Nell would be better than her.

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

dick grayson fic rec post

i’ve read a fair amount of dick grayson/nightwing-related fic over the last few months–and have so many favourites that i revisit frequently!–that i thought it was about damn time that i made a rec post. feel free to add on any gems that you think i’ve missed.

s/o to @cautiousamber who actually inadvertently got this ball rolling, and who is just awesome in general.

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these fics are listed in no particular order. almost all of them are sourced from ao3 and a lot of them feature dark themes, blood and violence. i’ll put fic-specific warnings next to each title, but make sure to check out the tags on the fic itself before reading in case i missed something that you’d rather not read.

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like a rubber band until you pull too hard by @perissologist Summary:  Morgaine le Fey curses Dick Grayson to absorb the pain of everyone he loves.

Warnings: Violence, blood & gore, whump, some swearing. Also, it’s Jason Todd/Dick Grayson, tho that’s not the focus and more or less subtext until the last few paragraphs of the fic.

this is a gloriously simple h/c premise that packs in so much potential that i’m still kicking myself for not thinking of it before. the writing is wonderful, the interactions between dick and his family are heartfelt without being sappy, and the writer treads a fine, fine line between jason’s general standoffishness and the aching core of his love for his family so damn well. 

Half Lost, Half Found by takadainmate Summary:  Driven underground, Batman fights to keep Nightwing alive.

Warnings: Violence, blood & gore, graphic descriptions of injury, some swearing. And it’s, uh, incomplete, and likely to remain that way.

this… THIS is the fic that truly inspired me to make this post, because everyone needs to read it. rich in detail and full of glorious h/c, it manages to give us a nuanced, dynamic portrayal of bruce and dick’s relationship even while ratcheting up the tension as batman struggles to keep a gravely injured nightwing alive and save them both from Peril. it lacks the final chapter where (presumably) they are rescued and finally get a chance to recover, but i would 100% recommend reading what’s there even if you aren’t a fan of incomplete fics.

Black and Red by Eboni_A Summary:  Jason Todd is the Boy Terror to Dick Grayson’s Boy Wonder and proud of it. Where Dick is graceful, Jason is brutal, but they work together like clockwork. When a serious illness takes Dick down, Jason makes it his duty to watch over him. Jason loves his adopted brother and will kill to protect him.

Warnings: Violence, chronic illness, blood and gore, swearing, dick is fourteen and jason is twelve and they go through a lot of Shit. first person perspective.

this is nominally set in the young justice universe but there are a lot of changes–with jason todd adopted far earlier than he has been in other batman media and working as a batman sidekick of a different name while dick is still robin. given i’m not a big fan of reading robin-era fics (literal children in Peril makes me squirm) or first-person perspective, this fic still managed to win me over with how well-rounded and sympathetic it made an angry and prickly jason todd feel. dick also has to deal with a fairly serious medical issue, but despite spending most of the fic in hospital, his humour and charm and bravery shine through.

Collar Me (Don’t Collar Me) by CaramelMachete and spread_my_wings Summary:  A basic patrol ends in a common injury. However, complications may turn a simple broken arm into something potentially career-ending. Dick copes as best as he can. Until he doesn’t. His family tries to help.

Warnings: blood and injury, serious complications of said injury, descriptions of surgical procedures and discussion of permanent disability. some swearing. a work in progress.

i am obsessed with this fic. spoiler: the complication is compartment syndrome, and the way the fic approaches not just dick’s ways to cope with this, but other members of the batfam and several of dick’s friends ring very true to their characters. it’s emotional without being melodramatic and wonderfully written. an update on this fic ranks among the highlights of my day, honestly.

through sandstorms and hazy dawns by Makalaure Summary: “Robin,” Bruce grinds out, “stop talking. You need to stay sharp.”

Dick knows he is walking a fine, fine line. “Aw, come on, B,” he says, going for cheerful but feeling like something in him, something he has kept carefully in check till now, is about to snap.

Warnings:  mature themes, mentions of forced prostitution, homophobic language, implied paedophilia, implied past abuse, and exoticisation. panic attacks.

this is a beautiful fic, dealing with all the highs and lows of the earliest stages of bruce and dick’s relationship–both of them utterly out of their comfort zones but learning all the same. being batman’s first robin is so much more of a struggle than dick ever lets on later in his life, and in spite of everything, their growing love for and wonderment at each other shine through like a beacon.

Yellow Submarines by jerseydevious Summary: A collection of Batfam prompt-fics.

Warnings: there’s some swearing, violence and blood in some fics, but mostly harmless, i think.

not all of these are dick-related, but each and every one of these 52 fics have made me cry like a lost child. i love this author’s batfam–they’re softer, more open, and utterly unafraid to love each other with all their heart. it helps that the writing flows so well, too–there are some phrases here that will stay with me for a very, very long time.

Atropa Belladonna by Embleer_Firth0323 Summary:  A routine traffic stop sets off a domino effect that will forever shatter Officer!Grayson’s entire world–transforming a once temperate existence into a lurid nightmare of obsession, deceit, violence, and finally murder.

Warnings: Rape/non-con, abuse, suicide. suicidal thoughts, violence, blood and gore, multiple character deaths (none of the batfam), discussions of pregnancy and miscarriage, swearing, first person perspective. i’m sure i’m missing some warnings; please check the tags for the fic. there are also chapter-specific warnings in the notes that precede the chapters.

HOKAY. this is a VERY long, very soap-opera-y retelling of the infamous tarantula arc from the comics. somehow, it is even darker, but hopeful in that all of the damage it inflicts on dick and those close to him is actually acknowledged and addressed. the world around this particular version of dick is rather nicely fleshed out and full of likeable people… bar catalina, of course. catalina flores plumbs the depths of awfulness and digs even further when it comes to her relationship with dick, but even at her worst, her anguish and trauma is always palpable. it’s a long, difficult, but extremely engrossing read. 

i would recommend reading this author’s other novel-length fics as well, but beware that they deal with very, very heavy topics, and not always with the deftest or most sensitive hand.

Come One, Come All and The Only Thing To Say by incogneat_oh

both of these are really cute fics where members of the batfam care for/spend time with an injured!dick. they are sweet, rich in detail, and honestly a delight to read. warnings-wise, i can’t think of anything beyond the odd swear-word.

Little By Little by paramountie Summary:  Six times Tiger found himself stuck in Bludhaven.

Warnings: swearing, blood and injury, mind control, violence. Tiger/Dick. 

this fic builds on all the the strengths of the Grayson comic series–a breezy tone, spy/thriller content, and tiger and dick’s fun dynamic. this fic is very funny and kind of heartbreaking in turns. my only caveat is that this dick tends very much towards the happy-go-lucky, quippy, emotional, a-bit-of-a-disaster characterisation that tends to plague him in fanon–but to be fair, that is the persona he put up while at Spyral in Grayson.

O Clouds Unfold by lowflyingfruit Summary:  Over the years, Alfred tries to introduce the younger members of the Batfamily to the noble sport of cricket.

Warnings: none that i can think of, really.

THIS FIC DELIGHTS ME ON SO MANY LEVELS. little snippets of alfred bonding with bruce’s adopted kids over the years by trying to introduce them to cricket–alfred’s voice is consistently amazing, and it is charming af from beginning to finish. 

i’d recommend all of this author’s batfam fic tbh.

Tectonic Doom by paganpunk2 Summary:  Dick and Tim head out for a week of brotherly bonding in the wilderness only to find themselves caught up in a scheme to put humanity on the ‘extinct’ list.

Warnings: violence, blood, injury and gore, minor character death

this is a lovely, long, plotty fic–with a wonderfully imaginative premise that’s brought out in rich detail, with so much glorious, glorious Dick/Tim bonding. there are way, way too few fics that focus on these two.

Ducklings on the Freeway by pentapus Summary: Jason worries about the younger Robins. He doesn’t worry about Dick – Dick’s untouchable, and even if he wasn’t Jason wouldn’t care.

(Or Dick gets hurt, and it freaks Jason out more than he expected.)

Warnings: swearing, injury. Jason/Dick, but more subtext than anything.

jason’s voice in this fic is so perfect–the tentative ways in which he reconnects with his family, and especially dick, while still dealing with a fuckton of trauma and resentment ring very, very true. and tired-but-knowing!dick is a delight as always.

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this is maybe ~33% of the recs i had in mind, but this post has gotten long and i’m tired, so. i’ll add more later. if you have anything that i’ve missed, please feel free to add it to this post!