#Nursing a Headache

[aheckinmess]

Stormy Salsa [Aizawa] (Fluff)

(One-shot 19/? in a collection of My Hero Academia one-shots posted regularly on Saturdays - and sometimes Sundays.)

Read on AO3.

Tags: Shouta Aizawa, Shota Aizawa, Pro Hero Eraserhead, Aizawa x OC, Eraserhead x OC, Original Female Character(s), Ichijiku Aoki, Aizawa is a Sweetheart, Aizawa is a Good Significant Other, A Rainy Evening, Also There's a Cat Involved, Dancing in the Living Room, Nursing a Headache, All the Little Intricacies of Everday Life

Word Count: 1,000 words

Summary: Ichijiku, feeling whimsical, pulls Shouta into a dance in the living room after nursing a headache.

Ichijiku (Tigress)

“Shouta, can you hand me the ice pack?” I groan, rubbing my temples. “This headache is killer.”

“Okay, Kitten, do you need the essential oils too?” He asks, rummaging in the freezer and wrapping it in a towel. The moment he sets it against my head, my muscles relax under the balm of the frigid relief it provides.

“That might help, yes.”

Some essential oils, the ice pack, and one nap later brings a clearer, less painful mind. The couch groans with me as I sit up to the sound of falling rain. Despite having just woken up, the gentle pitter patter against the roof lulls my eyes closed again until an orange blob nudges me awake.

“You feeling better, Kitten?” Shouta’s blurry visage draws closer until I put on my glasses. The orange blob turns out to be Cloud. 

“Is it raining?” I yawn, stretching high with a wince at the ache in my neck. Cloud nuzzles against my hand and purrs when I give him the affection he so desperately desires.

“It started up about half an hour ago.” He chuckles as he tucks my hair behind my ear. “You dozed pretty well. Do you feel better?”

I nod and heave a sigh as I lean into his hand.

“Did I snore?” I ask.

“Nothing loud, but yes. You whimpered a bit and I worried you were having a nightmare, but you settled quickly.” He kisses my forehead.

“Mmph, I don’t remember any dreams.”

“Good to know.” He combs his fingers through my hair. “Are you hungry?”

“I think I’m okay right now.” Another yawn and I make grabby hands at him. “Cuddles?”

He chuckles and instead of joining me on the couch like a normal person, he flops right on top of me. His heavy weight against me soothes the tired aches of everyday living as his brand of playfulness reminds me of life’s simple joys. I only hope I can provide him some of the same relief.

“Oof! Hey!” I laugh, tickling the back of his neck.

“Gah!” He scrunches his neck and wriggles back momentarily before his fingers find my sides in retribution.

I lose the tickle war the second he touches me. My body twists violently as a shriek tears past my lips. Wiggling fingers flutter up my sides like butterfly wings, causing my laughter to echo through the house while I suffer for the sake of allowing him his fun for now.

“Shouta Aizawa! You traitor!” I squawk, lurching up on the couch and leaping away. Unfortunately, his reflexes prove inhumanly quick and there’s no doubting the strength of his muscles as he keeps me in place. “Nooo, Shoutaaaa! Stooopp!” I whine.

“Why would I do that when I get to hear your sweet laughter?” He teases, getting my weak spot behind my knee. 

I cringe and try to squeeze myself off the couch as my body contorts involuntarily. I slump off the couch as intended, but Shouta slides off right after me, pinning me to the ground and continuing his tickle assault before he finally stops to kiss my forehead. While I catch my breath, he presses his forehead to mine and smiles at me.

“You know I love you, right?” He coos, stroking my cheek. 

“Yes, I know.” I huff, scrunching my nose at him before leaning into his hand. “I love you too. Why else would I let you tickle me?”

“I’m glad.” He says, before tickling my ear and the back of my neck and sending my back arching straight up. He moves just in time to keep my head from bumping his.  “You love me enough to put up with this?” He taunts.

“I’d rather you didn’t but yeeeaaahhhhahaahahahahaha!” I dissolve into laughter.

When he finally relents, it takes me a few minutes to compose myself. My sides cramp by the time I’m done, but I still wrap my arms around him for a tight hug when the giggles fade. 

“Shouta, will you dance with me?” 

“Dancing? In the living room?” He strokes my cheek. “I guess that can be arranged. What kind of dance?”

“Nothing fancy. Just a simple waltz or sway…so long as it’s with you.” 

He stands and takes my waist and hand, effortlessly twirling me around as I rest my head against his chest. His heartbeat coaxes me around the floor with him. Normally, dancing would make me feel self-conscious, but Shouta makes me feel safe enough to indulge. 

Only a few minutes into our dance, the sound of pouring rain echoes through the house much louder than moments ago. Distant thunder urges me to pull him towards the back patio, where we sway gently and watch the summer storm in companionable silence.

At least until I smirk up at him with a crazy idea.

“Come on,” I tug his hand and open the door, stepping out into the rain and immediately getting soaked. “Let’s dance out here!”

“What are you…” He watches me step out and blinks slowly. He crosses his arms and shakes his head. “We can’t do that here.” 

“Sure we can!” I lean my head back and twirl in circles. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“You’ll have to excuse me, I believe it’s still inside with the cats.” 

“Pretty pleeeaaase, Shouta-kun?” I look up at him with my most potent pair of kitten eyes.

He drops his arms to the side with a heavy groan. He pauses long enough that I think he’s going to dismiss me as insane and stay inside. But suddenly, he huffs and rushes out to scoop me in his arms and spin around with me cradled against him. I look up at him with a vibrant smile. 

“Hey, Shouta?”

“Hm?”

“You know I love you, right?” 

“...occasions like this sometimes bring it into question.” He winks, before setting me down and resuming our waltzing position. “But yes, I do.”

“Enough to dance with me in the rain?”

“Enough to dance with you in the rain.”

Want more Aizawa? Try: Movie Magic - The Tiger Tango

[raepliica]

serving merylwood again...🍽

[drenched-in-sunlight]

somos livres como girassóis de Van Gogh

(we are free like Van Gogh’s sunflowers)

[mothlord00]

spoilers for celestial meridian's chapter 2!

[sorry, edit because i forgot to add who owns/writes this au D: ]

au is celestial meridian by @pluck-heartstrings!

oh my gosh i love eclipse. he is a needy cat that begs for attention and then rips your hand to shreds when you finally pet it. he is so so cool but he's totally sighing loudly whenever there's no one to traumatize and impress. PLUS oh.......... the constant noting of the heir's beauty? OH HE WAS SO SAD WHEN THEY RIPPED AWAY FROM HIM!! MY HEART!!! gosh i just wanna stick him in a jar and observe him......... fascinating specimen......

and the heir???????? incredible. i want to know EVERYTHING. ooooooh they are SO mysterious. AND they make eclipse seem like a little scheming creature in comparison, with how put-together they always are. oooooooouuuugh.....

[tinylongwing]

Vide Noir's dual narrative structure

All right, here it is, me making good on at least one of my meta threats. Lord Huron's album Vide Noir can be interpreted as an album with two parallel, contrasting narratives - that of the lead protagonist Buck Vernon, as well as that of Johnnie Redmayne.

Disclaimer: this is an interpretation I think is pretty sound and well-reasoned, but I make no claim to any of this being proven canon information.

---

For those unfamiliar or who need a reminder, the primary narrative is this: the year is 1967, and we start near the end of Buck's journey, as he awakens from being black-brained (Lost in Time and Space). Having just suffered an overdose on the drug vide noir, his memories are slow to return to him, but return they do - his fiancee, Leigh/Lee Green (from here on Leigh but both spellings have been used), left him without a word one night, and he decided to follow, heading west to Los Angeles from their home town of Detroit, Michigan. He's been struggling to find her, checking every bar in the city in case she was booked to sing at one as her move was the result of her chasing her dream of becoming a singer. He doesn't remember a lot about himself, really, after that overdose, but he remembers her, and his love for her makes him desperate to find her.

We're then taken back to the night he left to find her (Never Ever) and his journey is mostly linear from there - he meets a fortune teller, Lady Moonbeam, who tells him that pursuing Leigh will end in his ruin, but he refuses to accept her advice and pushes on (Ancient Names I & II). He laments that he's been some kind of fuckup, that maybe he chased Leigh away through his own behavior, but that he still loves her and begs for her to return (Wait By the River). At some point around here he also learns of the drug vide noir and contemplates using it himself for clues.

(Note that unlike in the movie, in the album, nothing suggests that Buck suffered from a murder attempt by Z'Oiseau's henchmen but that instead he may have overdosed himself in an attempt to find Lee. However, there's plenty of reason to suspect that the film is the canon interpretation here anyway and the henchmen kidnapping Buck just doesn't make for a song I guess.)

One way or another, he winds up black-brained, where some deep existential truths of the universe are revealed to him (Secret of Life - namely that everyone and everything dies in the end, and that a human life is brief, fleeting, and ultimately meaningless within the context of the universe as a whole). He somehow reawakens rather than dying (Back from the Edge) and, again, understands that nothing he does will ever matter, has never mattered*, but that *even though* he's suffered greatly already on this quest, he's still committed to trying to find Leigh, pitting himself against that careless universe (The Balancer's Eye).

So he keeps searching (When the Night is Over) until he finds a clue, or a helping hand of some sort, that leads him on the right path to his beloved Leigh (Moonbeam). We get one more reminder of the forces at work here - vide noir is some awful stuff, it nearly killed him, Leigh herself is hooked on it now, it shows you terrible truths and nightmares beyond human comprehension (Vide Noir) - and when all is said and done, as Buck thinks he's about to "rescue" Leigh from her fate and bring her back to his fantasy of a perfect happy life together, she rejects him. He came all this way through time and space, and she doesn't love him at all in the end (Emerald Star).

---

I consider this the primary narrative here because it makes use of all the songs on the album, it has a clear start and ending and a mostly linear structure, and the album basically serves as a soundtrack to Buck's fool's errand. The film agrees - every scene is centered around his journey, after all. But we have context from Lord Huron's other albums, as well as the lyrics and musical stylings of multiple songs on Vide Noir, that show us that Buck isn't necessarily the only narrator on this album. Strange Trails, of course, came out three years prior, and features songs by multiple fictional bands performing songs which serve as narration for a diverse cast of characters. Unlike on Strange Trails, where each track has a writer or band specifically named and assigned to it as well as a character narrative, Vide Noir does not give us such conclusive information, but we can still put clues together to understand at least some of who the in-universe performers might be on Vide Noir.

Most likely, multiple of these songs are by the Buck Vernon Band - this is pretty obvious. Buck's semi-autobiographical music is all over Strange Trails, usually referencing a girl he loves, sometimes referencing that the girl left him, often giving her different names, all starting with L (Fool For Love's "Lily", and "Louisa").

But the other band that we can easily identify as performers on Vide Noir are the Phantom Riders. For those who need an introduction, this is the band composed of four members of the World Enders gang, with Dale Redmayne at the helm as lead writer. They were seen previously on Strange Trails as well, with banger surf/rockabilly hits like Hurricane, Until the Night Turns, and The World Ender. As a storytelling tool, they are primarily brought in to tell us about the man-turned-undead horror entity known as The World Ender himself, and then otherwise mostly we get their songs about Dale's brother Johnnie Redmayne, who is introduced to us in Strange Trails as a fun-loving and presumably fairly young guy, a thrillseeker and hedonist, who lives for the moment as if the world could end any day. The Buck Vernon Band jumps in between some of these songs with an interjection to tell us that wait, Johnnie is dead, or was, but he got back up. In Dead Man's Hand, Buck speculates that Johnnie could have been murdered or may have killed himself, accidentally or intentionally, upon first seeing him. It's in Vide Noir that we actually learn more about the circumstances of Johnnie's death.

Before we get to that, let's first identify which Vide Noir songs are by the Phantom Riders. This isn't all that hard to do. Any song that references The World Ender is presumably theirs - that gives us Secret of Life right away ("I sit alone in the dark, and I try to remember the words you spoke when you summoned the Ender"). This is reinforced in the Alive From Whispering Pines webseries, episode 423 - Secret of Life, when played, shows a skeleton prop the band has jokingly referred to as Cobb Avery on their social media posts in the past, and after the song ends in this episode, the tune continues in a slowed and distorted fashion through a clip of a WBUB movie version of Dead Man's Hand showing Johnnie rising from the pavement when Buck is about to bury him.

Ancient Names Parts I and II are presumably written by the same band as a two-part song. In the Vide Noir film, the Phantom Riders are performing Part II in the underground club. Additionally, in Alive From Whispering Pines episode 426, after Tubbs Tarbell is done reminiscing about the band and their nihilism, Ancient Names Part II is the next song covered - and often in this series, the structure of the segments between songs are intentional and related to either the song they precede or the song they follow, so it's likely that the placement of the Phantom Riders' appearance followed by a track they're associated with is meant to help confirm them as the performers. In addition, Ancient Names Part I references a fortune teller, and we know from the film that the fortune teller in question, Lady Moonbeam, is associated with the World Enders and knows the Redmaynes.

The last track on Vide Noir that is most likely theirs is the title track, Vide Noir. We have two points of evidence for this - one lyrical ("Many evils have I enjoyed, prowling the night raising hell with the boys" which feels like a pretty direct reference to the World Enders' nighttime violence) and one musical - the main melody of Vide Noir is identical to that of Ancient Names (and Fortune Teller's Theme, actually). In Strange Trails, using the same melody for multiple songs was an easy way to tie Frankie Lou's songs together, and here we can see that it ties two Phantom Riders tracks together directly, indicating that not only are they both by the same band, but that Vide Noir is a followup to Ancient Names part I, in which our fortune teller did warn us things would go very, very wrong.

(And besides all of that, the Phantom Riders tracks on Vide Noir all tend to be similar in musical style - psychedelia-flavored garage rock with a heavy bass line, in contrast to other songs on the album.)

With those songs identified, we should also be aware of just how much Lord Huron seem to love their dual narratives. In Strange Trails, we have a really concrete example of this with The Night We Met. This song was in-universe written by Frankie Lou, presumably about her doomed relationship with Z'Oiseau and how much she wishes she had never met him to begin with (as she echoes in her dialogue in the Vide Noir film when speaking to Buck in her dressing room). However, the music video for this song shows not Frankie and Z'Oiseau, but instead Buck, driving west, while reflecting on his own failure to keep Leigh, wishing he could go back in time and fix things, and meanwhile kind of hallucinating her as he goes. In the album Long Lost, we get another dual narrative in I Lied, which is performed by Donny and Midge but is also sung by Leigh in Vide Noir, foreshadowing her breakup with and lack of love for Buck. There are certainly other dual narratives in both of those albums to be found as well - so what we should keep in mind here is that often, songs can be written and performed by a character or band in order to narrate for themselves or someone close to them, but that just as in our real-world movie soundtracks or our favorite character playlists on spotify, those songs can be applied to other characters in different (but somewhat similar) situations than the ones they were written for.

So! We have four Phantom Riders tracks on Vide Noir, all of which were presumably not written originally in-universe about Buck Vernon, because why would they be, Buck and the World Enders only briefly cross paths and at the very least we know that Ancient Names Part II was written well before he ever met them. Instead, it makes the most sense if like the bulk of the Phantom Riders songs, these tracks serve Johnnie's narration instead.

---

If that's the case, what does that give us? Winding around and through Buck's journey is this second storyline. Johnnie Redmayne, having used and enjoyed vide noir himself abundantly ("I had a vision tonight that the world was ending" as one probable example), decides it's time to get his hands on bulk quantities so as to get the Enders in on controlling the flow of the drug in LA rather than letting Z'Oiseau maintain a monopoly, thereby also increasing revenue for the members of the gang.

It's Moonbeam who warns him to knock it off first. We know, thanks to the film, that he'd spoken to her at some point about his plans to investigate the source of the drug at Tobey's arcade and try to get his hands on some to sell. Whatever his exact plan was, in Ancient Names Part 1, Moonbeam warns him that pursuing this is going to get him killed. Vide noir isn't just a drug, it's something extremely dangerous, tied to dangerous people, and he needs to get away from "her" (and note that frequently throughout music history, drugs have been personified as a "her" or an unnamed lover, whether for poetic reasons or to evade censorship that might come from talking directly about drug use - and Cursed, off Strange Trails, is one more in-universe example, where "her" refers both to Leigh Green and to drug use, specifically vide noir).

Immediately afterward, Ancient Names Part 2, in addition to serving as a very classic sort of World Enders nihilism anthem, can easily be interpreted as Johnnie saying "fuck that, I do what I want, you only live one life anyway and even if it kills me, I want to make my mark before I go out." Death is something hypothetical - sure, it'll get him some day, it gets everyone, and maybe Moonbeam is even right, but he isn't going to let her warning stop him.

On Strange Trails, Buck and Johnnie cross paths at Dead Man's Hand. On this album they only cross thematically, and the pivotal moment of intersection might be Secret of Life. This song may be the point at which Buck learns some forbidden secrets revealed by taking vide noir as discussed above, but its lyrics speak a lot more specifically to Johnnie's experience, implying some connection between him, vide noir, and the World Ender.

It may be that as we see with Buck in the film, perhaps Johnnie too has suffered the effects of being black-brained prior to taking it due to the time and space-bending effects of the drug (notice, for example, in Strange Trails we get Johnnie's story in a scrambled chronological order) and here he's confronted with the harsh truths of what those past visions of his possible future mean for him: he has been set on a path that is no longer avoidable due to his eventual future overdose. So perhaps it's at this point that he acknowledges that he is going to die sooner rather than later and that his life and death will not have meant anything to the greater cosmos, but this information, which was new to Buck, is not something Johnnie fears. Johnnie is hardly new to this point of view. He's seen past echoes of the knowledge imparted by vide noir throughout his life, both in his future visions of the end of the world (again see Until The Night Turns) and in the knowledge passed on through other World Enders, including their own motto ("The fair, the brave, the good must die", or in Secret of Life here, "The darkness comes for all of us").

(As an aside, there's still a lot to unravel with Secret of Life that I haven't touched on here. It's a fascinating song with some really mysterious lyrics. I've speculated at length in the LH discord about some additional interpretations this song could yield but won't veer off topic here.)

And yet despite what looks like a very certain and dire end, Johnnie maintains hope that perhaps he, too, will live past this. Because if Cobb Avery did, why can't he? This is part of the gang's core mythos - their founder is a dead man. He clawed his way back out of the grave for revenge, they thought it was just so fucking cool that he was unkillable that they had to join him, and together they dismantled the Winthrop Corporation, one murder at a time. When the police finally caught up to him, they lynched him - but the noose did nothing, for he was already dead, and now in the form of a skeleton, he called the gang to his side (see Strange Trails: The World Ender comic book). In the ensuing chaos, he flees, the gang heads west and relocates to east Los Angeles, and in the time contemporary with the events of Vide Noir, he is still present among them but this appears to be unknown to the public (Daily Trails prop, by Kim Berens, used in both Vide Noir and Alive From Whispering Pines where it was modified to Ten years later).

Whether The World Ender is readily visible to and known by most members of the gang at this point is unknown, but we know that those who were black-brained can see him (in the film, Buck sees him approaching, bumps into him, plunges into a hallucination of his own future, and when he comes too, the Ender is gone). Given the Secret of Life lyrics, it's reasonable to guess that Johnnie at least can see the World Ender just fine and one way or another, in speaking with him and in conjunction with consuming vide noir, has learned enough secret knowledge to make some kind of choice - and this is what later enables him, too, to drag his way back to the world of the living.

Fate catches up to Johnnie and as we learn in the film, his death was at the hands of Z'Oiseau's henchmen for trying to gain access to dealing in vide noir. Like Buck, he is black-brained - forced to swallow enough of the drug to kill him. And so the track Vide Noir opens with the Fortune Teller's Theme previously heard in Ancient Names Part 1, and that tune is woven through the track - Moonbeam's "I warned you, I told you so" to both of these fools who disregarded her advice. Although, again, the lyrics are clearly meant primarily to narrate for Johnnie - "Many evils have I enjoyed, prowling the night raising hell with the boys, getting high on a pure black void" sounds a lot more like what Johnnie gets up to than Buck. We are given a glimpse of his last words and final thoughts as life slips away and his consciousness is sent straight to the final edge of the cosmos.

---

So ultimately, this is what we're left with:

Vide Noir is an album that tells the story of Buck Vernon, whose fiancee has left him. His journey culminates in a near-brush with death, in finding Leigh, and in learning that she does not love him and that he's nothing, his life is worth nothing more than dust and that none of it mattered or will ever matter, that once he eventually dies he will vanish and be forgotten in time.

Vide Noir also tells the story of Johnnie Redmayne, who for once tries to do something that isn't just for his own hedonistic pleasure but that might actually help bring in money to support his friends and family, but he's too headstrong and impulsive to listen to the warnings he's given, and is killed in the attempt.

One lives who probably shouldn't have and comes out at rock bottom and now has to work out how to move on from here, and one dies a nihilist who should presumably just accept the inevitability of death, but has the knowledge and absolute stubborn determination to enable his eventual return, following in the footsteps of Cobb Avery.

And what happens to both of them afterward? Well, we don't know. Hopefully some day (SOON?? BEN PLEASE) we'll get the opportunity to find out!

[bragganhyl]

If you're still doing prompts, 'show me how much you missed me' for Aloth and Watcher?

Thanks, Anon, sorry for literally taking forever I... *makes idk noises*

But anyway, here is a thing about Aloth getting head.

Word count: a little over 3.3k, warning for descriptions of sexual acts below the cut

Despite her best efforts, Gaura’s footsteps were heavy, and the clanking of her greaves was loud as she walked aboard her ship. She arrived late at night, only a few of her crew were still up to greet her. It has been four days since she and her companions ventured into a desert valley, trying to retrieve an artifact for the Surviving Face of Toamowhai, as a means to take on their challenges in the Crucible. The journey, however, was grueling. Harrowing, even. Only the Watcher made it out of the valley unscathed. Edér and Rekke recovered relatively quickly, and rejoined Gaura after some rest in the Temple of Toamowhai. Konstanten and Aloth, on the other hand, suffered more severe injuries. She sent them back to the Defiant and placed them under Xoti’s and Eld Engrim’s care. It was time to see how they have been faring – and to ask for forgiveness.

When Konstanten crushed his hands, neither he nor the Watcher could call on the ether through their chanting. Gaura patched him up as best she could and he followed along, with the rest of the team aiding him whenever the need arose. Luckily, the desert gave them no trouble, until late in the evening, when the group sought refuge in a cave. The Watcher’s flaming hair was the main source of light in there. Aloth followed her closely, feeling safe in her presence.

Only to fall and injure his head regardless.

Gaura’s stomach formed a knot as she reminisced – the way he could barely string a complete sentence together, his paleness, the way her light suddenly became too bright for him to look at. Then the wizard lost consciousness. And Gaura was powerless to help him. So she took the course of action that promised the greatest chance for the wizard’s survival: she left. She left and she could only hope her instincts were correct. She left and hoped that Konstanten could guide him back to the Crucible safely, if they were not. Once she arrived there with her remaining, battered companions – along with the ruby pendant that served as a lure and a guiding beacon in the valley – she took it upon herself to lead Aloth and Konstanten back to the ship. Even with the rest he took, and the chants that Konstanten could once again sing for both of them, the wizard’s walk betrayed his dizziness. The Watcher didn’t talk to him or Konstanten during the trek back to the Defiant, she busied herself singing healing chants to them as they walked, harmonizing with the dwarf. When they parted ways, Aloth took her hand, and held it tight as he left a tight-lipped kiss upon it. She didn’t feel it through the gauntlet. But she did feel the wizard’s fear in his grasp.

As she made her way below deck, Gaura could feel the flames on her back lapping against her armor vehemently. She took a deep breath. The knot in her belly loosened somewhat but it only left a bitter taste in her mouth. And her footsteps were still too loud for her liking. Her pets in the menagerie stirred, she heard them before she saw them. And then as she took a peek towards the bunks of her crew, a familiar face looked back at her from the other end of the ship.

Aloth was reading by the light of a candle when he glimpsed the Watcher. A warm and excited smile spread on his face as he sprung from his bunk. He eagerly rushed towards his lover before the soft snoring of the rest of the crew reached his ears and he remembered that they weren’t alone. He stopped for a moment, his eyes fixed on the sleeping crew shrouded in darkness. Then he turned his attention to himself, to his trousers and undershirt that he quickly smoothed down before he looked at Gaura again. There was an indescribable sense of tenderness in the look he gave her, that sent flutters down the Watcher’s fiery hair and a shiver down her spine. Guilt grasped her throat as she recalled leaving the cave but she merely swallowed and flashed a strained smile at him. But her throat grew only tighter once Aloth started moving again, quietly like a shadow, struggling to contain his joy.

‘Gaura,’ he whispered when he got within arms reach of her. He hesitated, seemingly unable to decide how he wanted to greet her properly. His relief was palpable, however, even in his silence, even as he remained motionless, only letting his gaze wander along her features, cherishing every last detail of her face.

The Watcher let out a quiet sigh, easing the suffocating tension within her. The wizard approached her without any apparent dizziness, and he could look at her directly even up close. That was a good first sign.

‘How are you feeling?’ She asked, just about loud enough that she wasn’t merely mouthing the words.

‘A lot better now that I see you unharmed,’ he cautiously reached forward and lightly cupped Gaura’s face. For a moment, his hand just lingered there, gently warming the Watcher’s cheek. Then she felt a single caress of the wizard’s thumb and Gaura let out a staggered, heavy breath. She closed her eyes as guilt and relief battled within her, blindly turning towards the hand on her face, planting one rushed, sloppy kiss on Aloth’s palm after the other.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered between kisses, swallowing the urge to cry with each word. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

‘As am I.’

Gaura’s eyes snapped open hearing that. The joy that was streaming off of the wizard was now replaced by a familiar sense of sorrow. She blinked at him, perplexed. He let his hand drop off her and his gaze followed it. He took a deep breath as the Watcher weaved her fingers into his.

‘Let’s continue this in my cabin,’ she suggested and Aloth gave her a few quick, eager nods.

She guided him to the seclusion of the captain’s cabin, and only let go of his hand once the door behind them was closed. Aloth stayed by the entrance, his focus was on the Watcher’s face, waiting for a word from her. Gaura, however, closed the distance between them, pinning Aloth against the wood behind him. It took her every ounce of restraint within her to kiss him as gently as she did, to fight the urge to nip at his delicate lip, to resist bruising him with all the things she was feeling for him in that moment and in the last few days. The wizard quietly moaned in her mouth. His hands found her hips and pulled her close, he arched himself towards her as his breathing grew labored with his need for her.

‘I’m sorry for leaving you behind,’ Gaura pulled away and offered her hands to Aloth, who quickly dragged her gauntlets off them. The Watcher kissed him again, lightly, apologetically, soothingly. She let her hands roam his chest, her self-discipline melting away with each long caress along his sides. Eventually she slid them under his shirt, and softly hummed into their kiss when she felt his skin warm against her palm. ‘I should’ve taken better care of you,’ she spoke against his lips, as her fingers dug into his chest and stole his breath away.

‘I should have been more careful as well,’ Aloth pulled away reluctantly to undo the straps on Gaura’s pauldrons. His fingers worked swiftly and efficiently even as his desires were clearly written on his face. He faltered as the second pauldron dropped to the ground, however, his eyes reflecting nothing but guilt for a brief moment before he closed them.‘I couldn’t bear the thought of you alone in that arena… if you got hurt and I wasn’t there when you needed me…’ he shook his head, trying to chase away the guilt rising in him.

The Watcher chuckled softly but mirthlessly. ‘I always need you, my valiant arcane knight,’ she left a kiss on Aloth’s scarred forehead, another on his cheek, another on his closed eye, ‘but I had things covered. I am here now, and I’m alright.’

The wizard looked at her once more. He smiled at her faintly as he reached for her hand through the fabric of his shirt and guided it to his heart. It was beating strong and healthy. It was beating fast for her.

‘I am here, and I am alright as well.’

Gaura let out a soft laugh that was shakier than she would have liked. Solace was finally setting in within her. She allowed her head to rest against Aloth’s, while he continued removing bits and pieces of her armor blindly. Soon, only Gaura’s legs were covered in metal still, and the wizard’s fingers were tracing the cracks running along her torso, tantalizingly gleaming through her shirt.

‘I missed you,’ he said, turning the Watcher’s attention to him again. His gaze lingered on her eyes for a mere moment before it wandered to her lips. ‘I’d like…’ he took a staggered breath as he leaned closer, ‘I want you.’

‘Are you sure?’ Gaura asked tentatively, hoping for that sweet and resolute “yes”, even though a rational part of her reminded her that he’s been recently injured and they would need to rise early the next day.

Aloth nodded, his nose brushing against the side of hers. ‘I’d like to feel you close. You were on my mind in every waking hour while I rested here… as much as I enjoyed the comfort of my solitude, I… I can’t help but crave yours now.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Gaura pulled away, allowing the wizard to cast protective spells on himself. When he was done, she placed her hands on his waist and allowed them to trail downwards, past his hips, down to his thighs. Aloth instinctively wrapped his arms around her neck just as she picked him up. She rested him against the door, chuckling at his gasp. She pressed her lips against his throat as if she could kiss the breath caught in there. She spent a moment adjusting her grip on him while he held on to her a little tighter but easing into her touch still. She then turned towards the cabin and began walking. Her footsteps were loud still, but she had a hard time caring about that with her beloved in her arms. Aloth smiled down at her, softly, wearily. He remained close, where he felt safe. The wizard left a peck on her forehead just as they reached the bed and she carefully laid him down. ‘Was that comforting enough?’

Aloth laughed, flustered. ‘Indeed, it was. But you can’t fault me for wishing for more,’ a sly grin brightened his face as he sat up, his eyes fixed on Gaura’s who followed along with his movements. She stood back and watched as he reached back for his shirt and pulled it off him, over his head. His movements were deliberate, as if he still tried to prove to her that he has healed. The Watcher leaned down to smooth down his dark, silky hair that he ruffled as he undressed. Her hand lingered at the back of his head while she admired him: the way he looked up at her in adoration even as he set his shirt aside, the way his cheeks flushed under her gaze, the way his lips parted every so slightly in anticipation.

And her eagerness got the better of her at the sight.

As she claimed his lips, Gaura pushed Aloth down on the bed again. Her tongue swirled around his, slowly, giving him a taste of what she will do next. She pulled away, leaving quick, but lingering kisses on each corner of his lips. The wizard angled his neck, trying steal – or at least plead – for another one of her kisses, but the Watcher merely laughed, sweetly and quietly.

‘Stay down, my love,’ as she spoke, the hand on the back of Aloth’s head moved, slowly trailing a path down his neck to his collarbone. ‘Let me remind you why you missed me.’

‘That confidence was one reason,’ he chuckled. Goosebumps formed on his chest as Gaura’s hand kept wandering downwards, lightly like a gentle breeze. She would linger at seemingly arbitrary spots. She would guide her hands back up to show some special care to his sides, his pecs, his belly. ‘Your tenderness was another,’ he breathed the words as the Watcher leaned over him and left a sloppy kiss right beneath his jaw. Her tongue was hot against his neck as her mouth traced a line along his throat. With every teasing moment her touch grew firmer and in turn, Aloth’s heart beat faster with need for her. ‘And your passion-’

His words got stuck in his throat when he felt Gaura’s palm against his bulge. A light brush was followed by firm caresses and it took all of Aloth’s fortitude to resist squirming under her touch, to resist bucking his hips, wordlessly pleading for more. The Watcher let out a melodious laugh. Her teeth lightly grazed his collarbone and the wizard finally exhaled, quiet notes of his lust mingling with his breath. He was rewarded with a soft squeeze and Aloth found himself clutching the sheets under him.

‘You are so lovely,’ Gaura placed a kiss on the wizard’s lips as she pulled her hand away from him. Aloth let out a sound – a complaint, a surprise and a plea bundled in a single note. The Watcher chuckled as she pulled back. ‘Show me how much you’ve missed me.’

The wizard took a moment to regain some of his composure. He didn’t realize how hard he’s been grasping the bedsheets, his knuckles felt stiff even as he reached down for his trousers. He refused to look away from the Watcher, even as he lifted his hips and clumsily dragged his clothes lower. In turn, Gaura kept her gaze on him as well. She only turned her attention to his lap briefly, before she flashed a smile at him. Aloth’s chest felt lighter at the sight and he started questioning whether he could ever come up with a fantasy that would match her radiance.

‘I missed this view,’ Gaura said as she climbed off the bed and knelt in front of it instead. The wizard jolted up, seeking her visage. ‘Almost as much as I missed your brilliance.’ She pulled his boots and trousers off him, hurriedly, impatiently. The kiss she left on his knee afterwards was surprisingly soft in comparison. Her eyes fluttered shut as she guided her mouth to the inner side of his thigh. Each bit of contact was an anchor and a lingering reminder: they were there in the safety of the cabin, they were fine, they were together. She allowed her hair to blaze against his other leg while she slowly kissed her way towards his cock. She wanted him to feel the heat of her passion and the motions of her serenity.

Aloth struggled to keep himself quiet as the Watcher teased him. His resolve failed him completely when she ran her tongue along his length. His moan put a smile on Gaura’s face. She took hold of his cock while her tongue danced circles around the head, just the way her kiss promised. The wizard collapsed onto the bed when her mouth finally closed around him. Aloth clamped a hand on his mouth while the Watcher took more and more of him down her throat, following a sweet and steady rhythm, almost as if she aimed to invite his thrusts. Her free hand moved to his hip, she caressed him with her thumb in accord with the movements of her head. One motion to soothe the wizard while the other pushed him towards coming undone. Tenderness and passion. And everything else he missed about her. The wizard pushed himself up to sit. Gaura glanced up at him, the notes of her muffled chuckles sounded beneath the noises escaping Aloth.

‘I… I love you,’ he breathed the words shakily.

Gaura pulled away, leaving Aloth wanting for a single fleeting moment, before her hand began moving around him again. She left a quick kiss on the wizard’s lips, then echoed his confession back at him in a whisper. Aloth, however, wasn’t ready to let her go just yet – he reached for the back of her head and pulled her right back onto his mouth.

‘Say it again,’ he sighed in between kisses, ‘please.’

‘I love you.’

The wizard loosened his hold on her and rested his forehead against hers. Gaura felt his breath carrying his moan on her face. She laughed and caressed his nose with hers. Aloth in turn slid his hand down her scalp to her neck, then to her shoulder, clutching the fabric of her shirt as she rubbed him faster.

‘Let me go,’ Gaura whispered, ‘let me taste you again.’

Aloth hesitated for a moment, then obliged her. Still, he reached for her hand as she descended between his legs again. He wove his fingers with hers as she took him in her mouth, trying to ground his senses while she was pushing him closer to ecstasy. He couldn’t tell how long he sat there, fruitlessly trying to hold on while the Watcher was pleasing him. He wanted to tell her how she made him feel but the words couldn’t form in his mind. He wanted to tell her of her beauty, her tenderness, her sense of rhythm but he could only allow his body to answer her touches. He collapsed onto the bed when he came undone for her. Moments stretched into eternity and Gaura finally leaned over him, kissing him deeply, her hand still holding his. Aloth felt the touch of her lips on his forehead next.

‘Rest easy, I’ll be right back,’ she said as she pulled away.

Gaura made her way to her footlocker. She barely took the rest of her armor off when she heard a familiar spell being cast behind her. A moment later she was wrapped in Aloth’s embrace.

‘You make me forget why I enjoy being alone,’ his breath tickled the nape of the Watcher’s neck.

‘You remind me why I enjoy solitude,’ she turned around to face him, ‘in your company, of course.’

The wizard smile wearily and tucked a flame behind her ear. ‘Back in the cave, I… I couldn’t bear looking at you…’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Gaura interrupted him before he could lay any blame on himself. ‘You were hurt.’

Aloth didn’t answer at first. His smile slowly faded as he turned his attention to the Watcher’s hands. He gingerly reached for them.

‘If we have to be apart, I’d rather have that be by our choice. And yet I can’t ignore how much hope you give me,’ he looked her in the eye again, ‘I… I’m starting to wonder if I can ever make that choice again.’

Gaura gave him a faint, reassuring smile. ‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t think I can make that choice either. I certainly don’t want to.’

‘Yet you leave me alone whenever I ask.’

‘How could I say no, when you ask so nicely?’ The Watcher chuckled. Aloth reached for her cheek, prompting her to press his hand harder against herself. She shut her eyes tight, and focused on searing the feeling of his touch into her mind. As she has done dozens of times since they first kissed.

‘Then, if I may ask,’ the wizard stepped closer to her and guided her free hand to his hip, ‘don’t leave me alone tonight,’ his lips were brushing against Gaura’s, ‘please.’

The Watcher answered by letting Aloth guide her back to bed. And then by spending night reminding him and being reminded by him of all the things they missed about one another.

[salsedinepicta]

Extremely tired but I had a ✨vision✨ inspired by ten years as a commuter and I just had to sketch it. He started snoring/drooling a little bit after 0.25 seconds but somehow Hawke still found it sooo endearing.

+ bonus / relatable aftermath

[dont-offend-the-bees]

I would love for Ponyo AU to hear more about a) the seaside town where Edwin lives or b) how the Night Nurse and Kashi met (something which is never addressed in the Ponyo film actually, I think) - apologies if this constitutes a spoiler for future chapters!

Thank you, my friend! Apologies for the delay in answering, life sure keeps life-ing all over me 😑

I did think about choosing an actual British seaside town to set the story in -- we do have plenty of them to choose from -- but ultimately I decided that in the name of the sort of, dreamy imprecise magical whimsy of the piece, that having an exact town you can point to on a map wasn't really what was needed or wanted.

Edwin lives in a Pushing Daisies-esque small beach town named something whimsical like Bottleby-Upon-Tweed or West Wombling or some such achingly British nonsense, and it's all brightness and noise and candy striped colours in the summer and a desaturated frame of salt-roughened old celluloid in the winter. Those two mirroring states are sort of reflective of our POV characters. The POV of the overall fic is a little muddled, there may be parts where it leans more heavily into Edwin or Charles (the growing up sequence ended up almost entirely Edwin, which I regret a bit now!) but there will often be asides to both in the same section because in my mind they're sort of learning to see the world not just through their own eyes but through each other's; Edwin, who's tired of this grey old place and these grey, miserable people, and Charles, who sees the world on the shore as this big exciting adventure. It's an odd balance and one I defo didn't nail in chapter one because I was still sort of percolating ideas, but there's a tribute to both of their viewpoints in the way I'm trying to build this fictional town around them out of drab and dour things like cold cliffs and beach litter and panopticon-esque family homes that watch you with their beady window-eyes, and out of larger-than-life adventure set pieces like killer seagulls and travelling circuses (woops chapter 2 spoiler!) and the same house again but as a castle on the hill, a stronghold. Essentially, the town is a Frankensteined scrapbook of your quintessential English beachside town, cobbled together by two children with very different memories of how the summer holiday went!

And as for Night Nurse and Kashi, well, I won't go into what the later chapters hold for them, but I have no idea how much of their backstory will make it into the fic, so. In the interest of anyone who wants to keep that part of the fic a complete surprise I'll pop it under a cut!

N.N. and Kashi aren't the focus of the fic, so I wouldn't say I've thought through every aspect of their relationship/backstory, however as soon as their role in this fic revealed itself to me I did get way more invested in them than I planned! In this fic, N.N tends to be referred to as either the sea witch, or the witch of the waves (slight Howl's Moving Castle nod, there!), but she has another name, and a relatively well-known role in ancient Greek mythology. What her history is exactly has been somewhat lost to time, oral histories and retellings being what they are, but she was once a powerful sorceress with a gift for transforming people who crossed her into animals. She's had various romantic entanglements and a number of children, all lost to her now.

She'd always lived by the sea and done a number of dealings with some famous -- or infamous -- sea-dwellers, so it was a happy coincidence that one day she happened across a strange and friendly man on the docks. He was an odd man, seemingly totally unbothered by the pain and strife in the world; and she, being a woman who'd lived through a great deal of tiresome human loss and pettiness (of literally mythic proportions), found herself drawn to him. He turned out to be a minor god of the sea and a self-described inveterate wonderer, always swimming from ocean to ocean, never having had enough of all the world can show him, but his kindness and his refreshingly direct manner of speaking seduced her, and she gave up on the world of men for good to live on the bottom of the sea -- and grew to adore it so much that she's now quite sure that the world could do perfectly well without the land or the humans in the picture, actually. They love each other very dearly, in their strange way, they're honest with each other; and she's never begrudged him his lifestyle, or his adventures, or his infrequent and unpredictable visits.

...She does take SLIGHT issue when that ridiculous overgrown seahorse of a man blows back into her neck of the woods with a winsome smile and a fresh batch of magical immortal fish-children smuggled under his arm like souvenirs from abroad, but. Fortunately for him she's been a mother before and even finds herself missing it on occasion; although the sort of broods this man produces are FAR larger than any she's had to deal with in her human years. No wonder she's just a tad stressed.

[flying-cat]

Every single day I'm seeing like 7 different types of breaking news and it always feels like this

"BREAKING NEWS: ELON MUSK HAS MURDERED 70 ORPHANS IN NEW YORK CITY WITH THE REASON THAT THEY WERE INFECTED WITH THE WOKE MIND VIRUS"

Me and any other NORMAL person: That's really fucked up you can't just kill orphans

Trump and Elon's ass kissers: KILL MORE ORPHANS! KILL MORE ORPHANS! KILL MORE ORPHANS! ELIMINATE THE WOKE MIND VIRUS! THEY'RE INFECTING THE GOOD LITTLE WHITE ORPHANS WITH THEIR WOKE MIND VIRUS! (They don't want to directly say that the other orphans just weren't white and that's why they had the "woke mind virus" apparently)

[cubtales]

i forgot how dreadful parties can be ᐢ⩌⌯⩌ᐢ

[heartshattering]

/// health anxiety tw

when you know the best thing to do is "lay down in the dark with your eyes closed and wait for your meds to kick in" but you start getting paranoid because what if this time you just. die. (no it doesn't have to make sense)

[braisedhoney]

okay hear me out.

“i would die for you” but in a i would sacrifice my next quiet sunrise for you kind of way. in a i would easily trade my next glass of refreshingly crisp cold water for you kind of way. in a i would take the blanket from my shoulders on a humid but cold night and wrap it around you while you sleep instead kind of way. in a i would sacrifice the first moment i spent looking up at the night sky away from light pollution and give it to you instead kind of way.

“i would die for you not because my life has no value, but because to me, yours has so much value that it is worthy of that and more”. that kind of way.

idk if that’s my favorite character dynamic (i am a sucker for angst) but it’s up there. somewhere.

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

decided to treat myself last night and took one of those lactase tablets or whatever that's meant to help with lactose intolerance and then ate a three cheese pizza

i think it just brought my really bad lactose intolerance down to a normal level

i'm straight up not having a good time

[psychoticwillgraham]

love my left forearm trying to go numb while i'm trying to write :))) (edit: left shoulder now too)

[justamedicalbat]

Finished my exams today, but I had to draw my therapy cat to lower my cortisol levels because they are through the roof.

[mimikusu]

I know I'm not vibing with the crowd here...

... but I have such a soft spot for someone who seeks loneliness when sick.

Thinking about a character, who's called in sick to stay home and in bed with a slight fever, maybe. However unfortunately, their advice is needed and so their colleague drops by to go over some papers and graphs.

The poor sick soul is hardly able to keep up, sneezing and sniffling their way through a lot of statistics, trying desperately to be helpful. Finally, the issue is solved. They huff a sigh, rubbing their tired eyes and with an apologetic smile, they ask their colleague to leave: "If you don't mind, I'm eager to get back to bed..."