#OH AND MORPH USED HIS ANIMAL EMPATHY AGAINST HIM

[xx0fuck3drott1ngthr04t0xx]

(spoiler warning for the morph s2 tas plotline in caption and tags)

pov: your shapeshfter bf gets an evil brainworm imlanted in their head by their abusive manipulative adoptive dad so you gotta find em, and you go all the way to south america to find em disguised as a bartender, but when you tell em to come back to you, they start a fight n fuck with your head by insulting you while shifted into your gf, and then run off still disguised as said gf

[the-silentium]

In Emergency Only

Masterlist

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Words: 2120 words

Warnings: TUA season 1 and 2 spoilers, violence, blood, sexual innuendos. 

Requested by: Anon!

Your last fic about Five was so good!!  Loved your unique twist you added and the interactions were so believable. Definitely one of my fav fics! If requests are open, could you do one of the same reader reacting to Five fighting and kicking ass, would they fight too or just hang out in the back and wait? Big fan and I love your work

A/N: Still 30 years old Five here! Same Reader and Five as in Doppelganger! Sorry for the title, I really had no idea. Oups.

The music playing in the background brought a smile to your face. You loved to learn more about different cultures and their different people dancing the Polka almost made you regret the reason of your little visit. You swore that this woman, the Handler, had Five in the middle of her palm, enraging your boyfriend to no end, but he sucked up his ego and accepted her deal to save his family. 

You followed Five through the enormous cabin. The architecture was truly beautiful, catching your eyes quite easily. You were occupied by admiring an intriguing animal carved into the wood that you didn’t see Five stopping in front of a vending machine and slammed into his side. He was quick to get a hold of your arms before you fell to the ground and hurt your behind, pulling you into his chest with a seductive smile on his kissable lips. 

“Distracted?” 

You rolled your eyes at him before pecking his lips. “I just like slamming into you.” Five’s groan made you chuckle before you turned your attention to the assortment of snacks displayed behind the glass. 

“See something you want?” Five buried his face into your neck, tickling you with his warm breath. Giggling, you pushed him away and pointed to a chocolate bar in the middle of the display. It has been a while since you last ate some, so you figured why not? You knew that you were sitting this one out, so eating would not be a problem. 

“Please?” You offered him your best puppy eyes, although you knew that it wasn't necessary. He asked you first after all. 

“Sure.” He pecked your lips one last time, turned to the machine while digging some money in his pocket and inserted the coins into the slot. He pressed the letter and number assigned to the candy and karma decided to hit you by stopping the spiral metal thing before the sweet could fall down. 

Frustrated, Five tried typing in the code again, without success. You knew that at this point in time, Five was getting pretty impatient. The last days haven’t been easy on him, especially when you almost got shot by one of the Swedes and every one of his siblings was scattered around town and not listening to him, causing Five to get irritated pretty easily. 

You grabbed his arm to calm him down when he started to push the machine and pulled him along with you to the cake further down the hallway. The only way to calm down Five was to allow him to successfully grant your wishes of eating something and the cake would do just fine. 

You quickly dipped your pointer finger into the icing, turned to him and when he opened his mouth to voice his anger you shut him up by putting your finger into his mouth. His pissed-off expression soon morphed into a cocky one when he noticed the red coloring your cheeks, proceeding to see if the color could reach your neck by sucking harder on your finger. Embarrassed by his antics, you retrieved your hand and hid your face in his chest. 

“This icing is heavenly.” He chuckled before reaching for something behind your back. “Look up.” You reluctantly did as told, dreading what you would find. Instead of being hit square in the face by a hand full of icing like you feared, a single maraschino cherry dangled between Five’s fingers, two inches away from your mouth. Instantly, your mouth started to water, the sweet ingredient had always been your favorite part of a dessert. “Open up.”

You would have blushed if it wasn’t for your excitement of eating the prized cherry. You didn’t hesitate to tilt your head and open your mouth to the incoming sweet, a delighted moan filled Five’s ears when you grabbed the fruit between your teeth and chewed.

“Now that’s a sound I like to hear.” The bliss of the cherry moment now over, your blush came back full force at his innuendo. You weren’t used to his flirty attitude, he was gone for 17 years and as young teenagers, your relationship wasn’t really oriented in that direction. You had to remind yourself that he was, in fact, 58 years old regardless of his physical appearance. 

A kiss fell on your cheek and Five let go of you to make his way to the fire axe on the opposite wall. 

“Do you think preventing the end of the world is enough of an emergency?” 

You smiled at his question and nodded once in approbation. “Definitely.” 

He winked at you before grabbing the axe with both hands and walked into the room. He passed in front of you and you took care of closing the door after yourself, this time your job was to keep watch and stop anyone from entering the room. Because it was the Commission’s board that was targeted, Five had thought it wise to take the matter into his own hands and keep you out of it. 

You weren’t against it, the memory of the barrel of an automatic rifle pressed at the back of your head was still pretty vivid and every time you thought about it you had goosebumps. In other circumstances, you were sure that you would have participated in some kind of way. Maybe with a knife or something, the fire axe was definitely out of your mental capacity. 

You had helped Five in some of his fights before. Not every fight, but some of them. You were impressed by the amount of bloody fighting your boyfriend could be engaged in and were truly amazed that every time he would get out almost without a scratch. 

Back at Griddy’s, you had to hide behind the counter where Five teleported you and wait until he had neutralized every armed guy in the room. You knew how to defend yourself, having followed some training with the Hargreeves when you were kids, but your skills were useless when guns were involved. This was the very first time you had seen the extent of Five’s ability. Never would you have thought that his space-jumping would be that effective. 

Then there was the fight with the Swedes in the Mexican consulate. The absence of guns gave you the opportunity to land some punch to the tough Swedes hitting the shit out of your boyfriend, the perfect distraction for him to throw the white-haired out the window. You hissed out of empathy for the guy before fist-bumping with Five and space-jump outside. 

Screams erupted from the room Five recently entered. Curiously, you made your way to the open doors to assess what you were sure was a gory scene. In the 2 seconds it took you to reach the doors, Five had already neutralized 4 of the board members and was quickly axing his way further into the room. You’ve never feared blood, your uncle had a butcher shop and you helped sometimes to put the meat into packages, nothing too dangerous, and while you helped you had seen the carcass of different animals being emptied from their organs so you were certain that you could handle whatever was happening in the next room. 

A blue spot flashed before your eyes and Five appeared at the same time a man hit a wall and fell down with a lamp. You rolled your eyes when Five took the time to take a sip from a glass, the next thing you knew a guy was hanging from the ceiling and three more board members were dead in a pool of blood. As much as you hated the view of dismembered bodies, you had to admit that Five was pretty efficient in his work. You managed to make eye contact with your boyfriend when he stopped for a second behind the last Commissioner, Five shooed you with one hand so you obeyed. If he thought that you couldn’t handle it, then you couldn’t. End of story. You had to admit that the sound of the axe hitting the bones was pretty disturbing, the sound occasionally made you shiver in disgust. 

You had your back pressed to the closed doors separating the bloody scene worthy of a horror movie and the welcoming Polka party, patiently waiting for your boyfriend to return victorious when a man with a fish tank as head stopped running when he saw you. If possible, you were as stunned as he was. You weren’t prepared to face a non-human person and he clearly wasn't prepared to see someone guarding the exit. 

However, he was faster than you to regain his senses and try to push past you. His sudden movements made you jump, his hands were almost on your arm when Five appeared in front of you and pushed the weird robot-man-fish away from you. 

“Surely we can come to some form of agreement that benefits both parties.” Your eyes widen at the voice, not expecting the fish to be able to talk. You tilted your head to the side so that you were able to see over Five’s shoulder and take a second look at the panicking talking goldfish. “Quid pro quo? What do you say?” Oh. His hope was cute. 

“Why not? Here’s your quid.” Five hit the human body’s leg with what you noted wasn’t the fire axe but something that looked like a cricket bat. “Here’s your pro.” He hit him again on the opposite leg. “Here’s your quo.” Five charged his hit as much as he could without hitting you with the bat, the fish’s pleas reaching your ears, then Five smashed the tank as hard as he could. The glass exploded, water got everywhere, the body fell to the ground in a thud and the goldfish dropped to the ground. 

As Five took a deep breath, you carefully stroked his back in a soothing manner before crouching to retrieve the gasping fish. You already had a bag ready for it, looking around you found a vase proudly showing off its beautiful purple flowers. You disposed of the flowers and poured the vase’s water into your plastic bag. Turning around you met your boyfriend with the fish’s tail trapped between his fingers, its head facing the ground. Hurriedly, you made your way toward them as you felt bad for the little thing convulsing out of the water.

“Poor little fishy! Put it quickly in the water!” You couldn’t help yourself and enveloped Five’s hand with the bag so the fish could be in his appropriate environment. 

“It’s far from being a ‘poor little fishy’ you know? It planned for the apocalypse to happen and ordered hundreds of people’s death.” He said letting go of the fish’s tail. 

You closed the bag so it wouldn’t escape and smiled sheepishly. “I guess I still can’t accept that a fish can talk. Or be at the head of an organization of killers.” You brought the bag at eye level to analyze the goldfish closer and sure enough, the fish was staring right at you. “I guess it does seem intelligent-” You paused as the fish nodded at your words. You controlled your surprise and smiled sweetly at him. “Can we name him sushi?”

The fish started to swim in circles, hitting the bag from time to time making you laugh at his apparent anger. A hand got a hold of the bag, taking the little burden out of your hands. At this moment you noticed that Five’s eyes were dull, their bright spark gone with every life he took. Worry etched your features, you reached for his empty hand and squeezed lightly hoping to give him some sort of comfort. He shot a small smile your way despite his eyes still being emotionless. 

Your heart broke for him, all this time he was forced to kill against his will and it ate at his soul. Oh how you wished you had a special ability like him and had the capacity to remove all of the darkness hurting his mind. Without warning, Five pulled you to his chest and jumped to an alley. The unexpected spacial-travel made you dizzy for a few seconds. You had done it enough time before to be used to it and be spared of the once usual wave of nausea following a jump. 

You knew that the Handler would come here sooner than later, so you engulfed your boyfriend in a hug regardless of the blood covering his clothes. Deposing a light kiss on his less stained cheek, you smiled lovingly at him. 

“It’s almost over. Then we’ll be only the two of us.” 

His forehead met yours and a sincere smile stretched his lips. “I can’t wait.”

[marshmallowprotection]

:3

Yeah its always fun to push characters to their limits hehe >w> as for rigby... well, i cant think of an in-battle scenario off the top of my head, but just in general if someone triggered her, she just panics. Lashes out. Has accidentally hurt Ryder before because she used her powers against him by accident, which then morphed into an occasional fear, then seeped into her nightmares, until it became one of her major anxieties.

Don't touch her. She's terrified of accidentally hurting someone she cares about simply because they put their hand on her shoulder when she was on edge.

Sometimes, when she's at ease, and depending on who she is with, that will slip to the back of her mind and she wont care about a bit of contact here and there. And the only person she lets hug her is her brother -- when she's relaxed. And she still gets a little nervous about it, but she wants him to be comfortable and happy, especially when he pulls back and gives her smile and praises her on her improvements, even the smallest things (she acts like she hates it but its clear that shes a flustered, confused mess whenever he does that).

She loves seeing him smile. In her own words, she's almost obsessed with the expressions he makes, from an artist's/photographer's pov (she's both). He is her favourite thing to photograph. She loves how gentle he is -- a stark contrast to herself. It kind of bothers her that he looks up to her, because she doesn't really see herself as a good person, but she also loves it at the same time.

Honestly, who doesn't love Vasyl. Like, I want him to be my brother. He's such a sweetheart, LOVES animals, like he'll bring in injured birds off the streets, nurse them back to health and set them free again. He'd adopt every cat if he could.

Depsite his gentleness, he's still quite energetic, but it's a sort of calmer energy; it's not overwhelming, I mean. But his gentle demeanor and his love for nature and his general timidity... hdbdjdvsj he's so soft i love him.

That's one thing I think Rigby and Saeyoung could bond on -- that protectiveness, that intense love for their younger brothers, that self-sacrificing nature that kicks in.

[417]

Oh yeah, most definitely.

I think that's the most fun you can have, when you put a piece of yourself into a character as well as find out what intrigues you the most pfyen about characters that aren't quite like you that you create. You definitely started with what you knew but you branched out and made something more than that. Like, you know you've made a good character when you know that you would be friends with them. That's just my only opinion on the matter, though.

Devoted and very dedicated to the people they care about, these two sound like the "same hat" meme. Though, it is hard to confront yourself through another person's so I'd imagine that they would both vehemently deny being similar to one another until their backs are against the wall and they have no choice but to admit it.

Saeyoung can admire someone who is selfless to the point of sacrifice. That's something that he just knows like the back of his hand. Can't say he would be happy about it in the ones he loves the most, it turns into a game of "I'LL DIE FOR YOU. NO. I'LL DIE FOR YOU." Intense but hilarious to see.

Her brother sounds really sweet. He clearly has a lot of empathy and he wants to care for everyone and anything. That does put him at risk if he is a bit too oblivious and happy to run into the fire for another person or animal. I do admire it, to be honest. I'm like that. Saeran would relate to that as well. Though, he's just soft for people with gentle hearts.

Opposites in many ways, but like yin and yang. They complete each other! I love family units like that. Who doesn't?

This boy is holding back his feral sister because she cares too much. God, it's like Edward and Alphonse Elric.

[becomestorm]

REN SEMBLANCE HC COMPILATION: EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION / EMPATHY.

the old semblance masterpost was written here over one year ago.

SECTIONS.

EMPATHY ( DEFINITION + SUB POWERS. )

BASELINE ( EXACTLY WHAT REN’S SEMBLANCE CAN DO. )

ORIGINS ( THE CONDITIONS + TRIGGER TO WHY REN’S SEMBLANCE IS EMPATHY / EMOTIONAL SHROUD. )

PERCEPTION OF THEIR SEMBLANCE ( REN’S OPINION, THEIR RULES CONCERNING THE USE, THE EFFECT IT HAS ON OTHERS. )

ABILITIES ( POWERS, AND SUB TRAITS AS A RESULT OF THEIR SEMBLANCE. )

NEGATIVE EFFECTS ( HINDRANCE OF EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT, MENTAL ILLNESSES, PSYCHOLOGICAL FEARS AS A RESULT EXTENDED USE. )

EMPATHY.

some general information on empathy according to the superhero wiki. empathy is the power to fully interpret and replicate the emotions, moods, and temperaments of others. sub power is emotional manipulation. it is also called empathic perception. the user of such a power can fully interpret and replicate the emotions, moods, and temperaments of others without reading apparent symptoms, allowing them to understand introverts or discover emotions one is actually hiding from another. they can attack someone in a personal and emotional way since they know exactly what emotion is flowing through themselves and can use this knowledge to play against them. some users may learn to read emotional imprints left into environment or objects. usually over time, an empath’s power grows to the point that they can manipulate emotions on others, and possibly use them to empower themselves. the user may learn to extend their power over a vast number of sentient beings.

ren has been seen ( and i headcanon / speculate is capable of ) some of these sub-empath abilities; ecological empathy, the ability to  sense the overall well-being and conditions of one’s immediate environment and natural setting stemming from a psychic sensitivity to nature. animal & plant empathy. emotion detection, the ability to sense emotions in one’s vicinity ( this was seen in volume four concerning tyrian’s bloodlust. this ability naturally heightens ren’s perception of other people in one area. ) empathic echoes, the ability to emotionally receive and send glimpses of memories or mental imagery associated with certain emotional states be they current or past ( there are some places and beings, eg. spirits or ghosts, that have constant emotional residue due to major events happening in that location ( eg. shion village. ) users are able to tap onto the emotional imprints and re-experience those residual memories. empathic inundation, the ability to overwhelm a victim with a flood of emotions and / or feelings ( this is basically the opposite of what ren uses it for now. ) empathic combat, ( i know this one sounds a bit stupid but — ) the ability to sense an opponent’s emotional / instinctual state in order to predict their attacks, and respond accordingly.

BASELINE.

ren’s semblance’s primary use is to mask negative emotions, which aids heavily in avoiding detection by grimm. it is not a combat oriented semblance, but it is a survival semblance. while not much use against human opponents, it renders them invisible to grimm. i headcanon that ren, with their capabilities as of volume four, can shroud at least four people on their own for a limited amount of time. their semblance looks like a pink shroud, and after that the user’s form is visibly desaturated.

i headcanon that ren’s semblance is “bleeding.” due to the trauma ren experienced immediately after it was unlocked, and how they exhausted their body for extremely long periods afterwards in order to keep it running at maximum output, their semblance has never actually turned off and remains “passive” at all times, slowly depleting their aura over time and explaining ren’s constant fatigue. although, their semblance can still be “focused” in specific scenarios ( combat. )

ORIGIN.

“ a common philosophy is that a warrior’s semblance is a part of who they are. some say your personality and character can define your semblance, while some claim that it’s the other way around. of course, there are still many that don’t see a connection at all. ” — ren, volume five, chapter four.

there has been talk of semblances coming to you, specifically and perfectly, in the moment you need it. nora’s came to her because she was struck by lightning, and she needed to endure it. jaune’s came to him because one of his friends was dying, and he needed to save her. ren’s came to them because they needed to remain calm and think clearly in the few moments when it would be the hardest thing they would ever have to do. ren falls into the category of people who have changed because of their semblance. even though ren’s personality is a result of their semblance ( due to the bleeding effects that have steadily altered their personality over the years ) the reason their semblance came to be the way it is was primarly due to what li and an did prior to their deaths. an was attempting to calm ren down. she was trying to assure ren that it would be alright, she believed that grimm would not find them if they remained calm. she did all this despite how scared she was herself. and li, even knowing that their peaceful life had come to an end, that his wife was dead, that he was dying too from his previous injury, he still calmly pushed all of that aside in order to get ren to relative safety. he remained level - headed, refused to allow his panic and fear to settle in and kept moving forward, only giving in at the end to begin ren’s hatred of martyrs. the embodiment of this strength and bravery was passed onto ren in the form of their semblance. ren’s ability is the amalgamation of their regret. “ why couldn’t i be more like my father ? ” / “ maybe if i had this ability back then, i could have saved mother. ” it’s a testament to their promise to protect them, and although it has hurt them in the past, it gives ren the ability to save so many other people and prevent the tragedies that befell them ( seen in volume six, episode one. )

prior to kuroyuri, ren was raised just outside it in the lie compound where they lived with extensive family. the lie family was a very proud and noble heritage, high class and incredibly wealthy. it was filled with huntsman and huntresses, entrepreneurs, ceo’s, doctors, lawyers, scientists, politicians, all very influential figures in an incredibly competitive environment. ren, with their soft heart and fragile personality, needed to adapt in order to gain some semblance of affection from their family, that of whom already ostracised them because of their birth circumstances. in order to compete in an environment like this one ren needed to “reflect” what other people wanted to see in them. this is where the emotional manipulation aspect of their semblance rises.

ren would be a very different person if not for their semblance. i see ren, someone who is isolative in personality and awkward when it comes to social interaction, having a power that makes them empathic and basically capable of cheating at any social interaction ( and still refusing to use it based on their morals and other people’s privacy ) as completely oxymoronic, and it is one of my favourite things about them.

cut for length.

PERCEPTION OF THIER SEMBLANCE.

ren is very capable of reading someone’s emotions down to the degree of it, and by association make educated guesses on what they might be thinking. it is possible that seeing this, despite their conversion to statistics in their mind, just makes human beings more confusing. they are completely aware that reading someone, and manipulating their emotions is a huge invasion of privacy and a violation of something very sacred ( the human will ) and so attempt to keep the ability strictly for combat and rescue situations only. ren has been used as a numbing agent, as well as an emotional manipulator before ( in order to make people feel happy, euphoric ) by those willing to take advantage of a young orphaned child, so they never tell anyone what their semblance is unless they absolutely have to. ( and it just doesn’t go over well most of the time. what if you told someone ; “ oh hey, i have the ability to overwrite your will and manipulate what you’re feeling. ” yeah, it’s not a great icebreaker. )

empathy could theoretically give them an edge in every social scenario they wouldn’t know how to navigate otherwise. it’s incredibly rare of ren to hesitate, or stutter. most of the time it’s attributed to the fact that ren rarely speaks and they take time to compose what they’re going to say. when addressed it’s clear they know what to say, when to say it, how to say it, and that doesn’t only come from observing their environment and the people around them, but from understanding a subtle vibe in their environment.

because ren’s semblance “bleeds” others have noted to feel a calming presence around them.

in pro hunter verse, ren’s semblance is used more for manipulation, than shrouding. their management of their mental illnesses have greatly improved. their control over their bleeding semblance has strengthened greatly, and they are in a better place psychologically speaking. just like ren’s semblance initially morphed their personality into the ability’s most frequent use, to negate negative emotions, it has now been altered so that people are more susceptible to ren’s suggestion, whether ren is attempting to manipulate them or not. this comes in handy considering ren is not only sent on grimm hunting missions, but also those associated with tracking down criminals and acquiring intel and the like. ren’s presence, and their mood, is simply infectious and this makes others more susceptible to giving them the information they want.

ABILITIES.

although ren’s main use of their semblance is to shroud and negate the negative emotions of themselves and other people, they will eventually be able to manipulate their psychological states in the opposite way too, as in, make someone feel more of a specific emotion.

because ren is capable of getting a very good read of their opponents and adversaries, it is possible to tell when someone is lying to them. this is only applicable if they’re focusing their semblance however, otherwise they just have a very strong sixth sense that something isn’t right. ( i understand that this is a form of godmodding, so the outcome of a situation changes depending on circumstance. if you’re someone that ren trusts, and you lie to them ? they’ll believe you. if you’re someone that’s ren’s acquaintance, then they will doubt you. if you’re an enemy, then ren will doubt you even if you’re telling the truth. )

ren has the ability to numb physical pain. their empathic powers rely mostly on the manipulation neurological signals in the brain, and since physical pain and emotional pain are closely linked, they have some power over this domain too. however, ren can only trick your pain receptors into thinking you feel no pain. you still have the wound, and ren’s semblance can not heal any damage.

ren’s sensory perception and sixth sense is phenomenal, not only because they’re a naturally alert person, but because of having a subtle psychic connection to their surrounding environment ( including flora, fauna, and empathic echoes. ) they can sense when other life forms are around them, and also what they’re feeling ( like nora, having a slight emotional breakdown prior to the vytal match / like tyrian, in regards to his bloodlust when tracking down ruby. ) their empathic echoes allow them to sense feelings and emotions left behind in an environment, like a haunting ( dead and dying villagers left behind in villages like shion, and oniyuri. )

ren can shield three to four people with their semblance on their own, including themselves, but not for very long and it does take up immense strain depending on how strong the negative emotions are.

ren’s semblance and their negating of emotions hides people from grimm, but i headcanon that in future verses ( or boosted by jaune’s semblance in a different way, through potency and not the affected area ) they are capable of increasing the physical desaturation aspect of their semblance to not only become invisible to grimm, but to people as well.

NEGATIVE EFFECTS.

ren has never been able to turn their semblance off completely, except when they have been drained of aura. following the events of kuroyuri, the trauma as a result of losing both parents and their home rendered ren unable to handle the shock unless their semblance was on. the only time that ren remained a functional person in front of nora was when their semblance was running at max capacity, so for a while all she knew was this calm, collected, facade of a person. because the use of their semblance would use up their aura, ren was subject to dizzy fainting spells throughout the entirety of their childhood. this was how they learned to better work on their aura consumption.

ren suffers from claustrophobia, as a result of being able to feel the mood of the people around them, if there is too much tension or panic within one area and ren is not concentrating hard enough they will start to absorb that panic like a mental sponge. ren also suffers from a fear of suffocation and when they feel like they cannot escape then those fears tend to coincide, making them feel trapped and inducing panic attacks until the ‘apathy’ part of their semblance triggers.

ren fears that enough influence from their semblance will allow them to develop a psychopathic nature, especially when going into very long states of shock, and periods in which their semblance robs them of all emotions. ren has exhibited these traits before, whether intentional or not, in an attempt to survive : a lack of guilt, a lack of empathy, callousness, their continuous strides to avoid developing deep emotional attachments to others ; how their childhood conditioned them to prioritise narcissism, superficial charm, as well as exhibiting traits like frequent dishonesty, manipulativeness, and in states of high distress, reckless, risk - taking behaviour. ren’s early childhood ( prior to kuroyuri, and not by their parents ) exposed them to abuse of the verbal and physical kind, where adults would judge and ridicule while cousins crossed the line between play - fighting and actual fighting ( a lot of them were growing up to be huntsman and huntresses, so the abuse wasn’t always intentional. ) the separation from a lack of parental involvement both prior to kuroyuri and afterwards has increased the chances of this kind of condition developing.

because of ren’s earlier point of a common belief being “ we are the way we are, because of our semblance ” and ren’s semblance continuously leaking / bleeding, they are unaware how much of their personality is themselves, and how much of them is their semblance. on top of that, considering the world they world ren was born into ( high society, image first, a need to keep up appearances in a rough and competitive environment prior to kuroyuri ) ren was continuously, and subtly changing their outward personality appearance in order to better suit the attitudes of those around them. they became what they needed to in order to be loved, and after kuroyuri, ren became what they needed to in order to survive, which mentally fucked with their head. ren showed a reflection of who the other person wanted to see and this, in addition to suppressing their emotional responses the majority of their life, severely stunted ren’s emotional growth. 

speaking of emotional growth, because of ren’s semblance and the way it functions, the five points of ren’s emotional intelligence have been skewed, altered, and stunted. while they do seem competent on the outside, the basis of their thoughts have very shaky foundations and could change at a moment’s notice due to ren overthinking things.

firstly, self awareness ( “ recognising internal feelings, ” ) ren’s is abysmal. they absolutely hate to reflect on how an emotion is affecting them. this often leads to them bottling the emotions up into a molotov cocktail. they believe that ruminating, combined with their capacity for self reflection have a great capability to make them spiral into doubt, anxiety, and further depression. ren is so aware of other people. they can read other people better than they can themselves, and it shows with how insightful they are with their own observations, but never the analysis on themselves.

how they manage emotions ( “ finding ways to handle emotions that are appropriate for the situation.” ) ren’s initial method to managing emotions was to reflect what people thought would be the best version of them, this severely stunted their personality development, and has led to the immediate response to shut down their emotions instead of sorting through them. it’s incredibly unhealthy. they don’t talk about their problems, choosing to repress them instead. ruby and jaune still aren’t aware of why destroying the nuckelavee was so important to them because they just don’t talk.

handling motivation ( “ using self - control to channel emotions towards a goal. ” ) ren actually isn’t as goal oriented as one would assume ? they put up the facade of being put together but it’s more complicated than that. ren’s sense of being able to break down tasks is good in theory, but not in execution. on top of that, since they have bad self analysis habits, they’re not good at pinpointing specific goals for themselves. “ attaining a hunter’s license ” has been a main one for a while because it’s vague. it’s so vague and ren can clamber towards that goal easily but they had no qualms abandoning that goal in order to help their friends chase cinder down. ren functions on emotion and instinct, more than a sense of logic when it comes down to what is most important. they will break their own, careful and meticulously built rules at a moment.

empathy ( “ understanding the emotional perspective of other people. ” ) oh wow. so going up to a previous point ? that ren believes some people are the way they are because of their semblances ? ren absolutely believes that they would be a completely different person if it weren’t for their semblance. surprisingly enough, their empathy semblance and it’s capability for apathy - induced shut downs has been the most detrimental part of ren’s emotional growth. they are now both afraid of expressing, and experiencing emotions strong enough to make them question their own wants and desires. they believe that emotions, when applicable to themselves and sometimes others, is weakness. the fact that ren is proud of how all of their friends are progressing and sees their development is because ren doesn’t pay any attention to their own. ren experiences empathy to the point of it being painful, which is one of the reasons their semblance triggers when ren goes into times of increased emotional distress. ( that it didn’t trigger during the nuckelavee fight was because they wanted to feel all the anger it had caused them over the years. )

handling relationships ( “ using personal information and information about others to handle social relationships and to develop interpersonal skills. ” ) i could count on one hand how many people have seen ren cry. honestly ? even when i was shipping with multiple people, some of them never saw ren cry. ren’s crippling anxiety when it comes to letting other people close enough to hurt them has become immense, and as they grow older, that part of their personality becomes more prevalent, as they will eventually stop going on team missions and proceed with huntsman work on their own. they become harder to contact, and besides anyone the occasional text message, it becomes hard to determine whether they’re still alive or not. they have isolative personality traits to the point where they are afraid of becoming too important to someone else. one of the reasons that ren remains dense and oblivious to nora’s affections is because they cannot actually fathom someone liking them romantically. ren tends to dissociate themselves from a situation, they can’t believe that they are actually forming real relationships and instead choose to observe it as if they were a third party. nora scares them. they have always needed each other, and she took care of them when they couldn’t, but they keep a distance from her in hopes that if they leave she will be fine without them. it’s the same for anyone ren becomes close to. it’s like there’s a mental escape hatch in their brain, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. despite that, they can’t help but become closer to people. ren’s namesake means “love of humanity” and despite the fact that they are reclusive by nurture, ren will always be drawn to the relations that they can make with other people, no matter how small. they love people.

the capability of ren doing something dark when all of their empathy has been turned off is immensely scary to them, more than any of the repercussions of an action. they are afraid of who they could become. ren has a good grasp of what is socially accepted, and what is morally right despite their constant questioning of philosophies, but a lot of that goes out the window during their episodes of dissociation. although the light use of their semblance can remove fear, and force them to keep moving on despite their hardships, the heavy use of it completely rids ren of emotion and with that comes their ability to sympathise and empathise with other people. when their semblance gets to the point of overcoming pain, then there is no consequence to what they do, and it’s just frightening to them, what that kind of state induces. ren could theoretically turn off their emotions, and commit atrocities, they could steal, commit acts of violence, malice, malevolence, murder, without thinking of any of the consequences and that scares them. ren would also be capable of shoving their will onto someone else, even subtlety. if a situation where psychopathy like that were to happen, they wouldn’t know whether ren is lacking in controlling their emotions, or whether it’s their semblance taking over. they struggle to tell whether they are actually a good person or not, or whether they are subtly convincing other people they are.

in times of extreme emotional distress, ren’s semblance will trigger on its own. this allows them to go into a calm state but if it happens outside of combat, the results can be disastrous. their emotions completely shut down, and they are left a lifeless shell. this is especially frightening because if ren’s been crying or in pain prior to the trigger, then they’re still crying and in pain, they’ve just lost all capability of expressing this. their body which is supposed to be protecting them, but it in fact tricks them into functioning despite whatever wound they’re carrying. it catches up to them when they regain their senses. when ren loses their ability to feel emotions, then physical sensation comes next. it shuts off the pain receptors in their brain but the damage doesn’t heal. they hate using their semblance outside of combat because they know it’s a crutch, and not working through and processing your emotions is an extremely damaging process.

i have a headcanon here detailing why ren knows sign language, and they have always been a child that bordered on being selectively mute, but after kuroyuri ren suffered from traumatic mutism. post kuroyuri, if ren did not have their semblance running, then they found difficulty in functioning and communicating properly without becoming scared, skittish, or a hollow shell. this isn’t actually a negative because their semblance saved them in this instance, but it’s still quite heartbreaking. ren refrained from talking and could only really communicate with hand gestures ( that of which nora supposedly didn’t know at the time. ) they spoke a grand total of eighty words in the year after kuroyuri fell.

another headcanon here details the origin of ren’s scars. ( mentions of self harm and suicide in that post and ahead. ) a small amount of ren’s scars are from self harm, although, they’re not entirely from feeling suicidal. because ren has suffered from bouts of dissociation due to their semblance, and because these bouts of dissociation not only numb their mind, but - if severe - tend to numb their pain receptors as well, ren has found that one of the only manual ways to end these bouts of dissociation is to physically harm themselves. the scars remain because ren’s semblance - induced apathy relies on aura, and once they’re gone, then ren has no instant healing factor, and the scars are left behind.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

The Seal Lullaby: Chapter 6

Cannot believe I’ve been writing this for six weeks

This one is very, very angsty, so consider this your warning. As always, a huge huge thanks to @minky-for-short @childofdustandashes @oversaturated-ocean @purearcticfire and @lookatvanessasface

I’ve met so many lovely, lovely people through posting and writing this fic and I love you all, @brainypaperbullets @hollywoodx4 @arya-durin-51 and the ever complimentary @kilocurican

I really hope you guys like this

“See? I told you he’d have your eyes.”

“Damn. Thought fate would have given the poor kid a break after he got my nose too.”

“Oh, shut up! It looks so sweet, don’t give the little guy a complex.”

“Yeah well, he’s been saved, he’s got your face. Handsome devil.”

“I’d be slightly more worried about the fact he’s got your appetite. And your sleep schedule. And your blabbermouth.”

“God help us all.”

Alex and Eliza loved to play this game, in the early mornings or late evenings or whatever time they found themselves lying side by side on their bed with little Philip on his back and encircled by his parents’ bodies. The conventions of normal time, words like breakfast and noon and dinner and bedtime, had kind of blurred into meaningless ever since they’d had their baby. To the point where Eliza had found Alex putting a pizza in the oven (he’d been given his kitchen privileges back and was actually turning into a very good cook) at two in the morning and had thought nothing of it. It was kind of fun, actually, to not have any ties to structure or schedule, to just float in their own little bubble, them and their little treasure, beholden to nothing and no one but themselves.

“I don’t quite know where these came from though,” Eliza hummed, gently ruffling Philip’s head of tight, dark brown curls that stuck up after a good night’s sleep and after he’d been doing his favourite activity of rolling around on the floor of his father’s writing room while he worked, and bounced adorably when he got excited or happy or fidgety. Right now, they were fluffed up around his sweet, attentive face as he yawned and fought against his impending nap, to not much avail. But he had his mama and pops right by him, he was warm and smelling all soft and soapy from his recent bath, the room was illuminated with the orange glow that was only ever found in the early evening as day slipped to night. He wasn’t fighting too hard, it was mostly for show.

“I do,” Alex murmured after a few moment’s pause, his eyes fixed on his wife’s fingers gently combing through their baby’s curls in such a gentle and protective gesture.

His guard was down, the simple warmth of the moment pulled the words from where they were living in some sleeping part of his heart and out from between his teeth.

There was weight to his answer, it was obvious and Eliza was careful in asking for more.

“You do?” she breathed quietly, her eyes flickering up to him and back down again, making it clear that he didn’t have to go any further if this is a part of his past he’d decided he doesn’t want to let go of just yet. She never wanted to feel like she was dragging anything out of him.

But, as it happened, Alex gave it freely, perhaps after an increasingly sleepy Philip reached up and took hold of his father’s finger as it hovered over him, clutching at him for a little comfort as he drifted. That gave Alex the gentle little shove he needed.

“My mother’s hair was like that,” he whispered into the heavy curtain of sundown draped across the room, “She had curls exactly like that. I guess they skip a generation.”

Eliza tried not to show too much of the bolt of surprise that went through her at Alex’s whispered explanation. She tried.

But Alex only gave her a wry little smile, he couldn’t exactly blame her for being shocked.

“You…you saw your mother in her human form?”

Alex didn’t look at her, his eyes were fixed on some point above her head though she had a feeling it wasn’t the wall hanging he was seeing, the one she’d been spending her lazy early motherhood days crocheting, when she wasn’t making little Pip new cardigans and hats and socks (he got them dirty very easily, he was a big fan of knocking things over onto himself and whichever of his parents or aunts were in reach; he was making quite a sport of it).

No, something every different, something from far away and another time was reflected in his dark pupils.

“I did,” Alex murmured, nodding a little, barely seeming to notice as Philip began to lazily gnaw on his finger, “She was a human for a while actually. Two, maybe three years. I-I don’t keep time so well when I’m…”

The slightly panicked gasping that overtook his voice, stealing the end of his sentence, terrified Eliza and she scrambled to bring him back, cursing herself for ruining their perfect evening by pushing for information.

“Baby, it’s okay, you don’t have to…sweetie, please, deep breaths.”

Alex followed her direction, shaking his head. Even Philip started to cheep softly, his little face mirroring his mother’s concern in a kind of way. He slobbered on his father’s finger even more, mewling around it, like that was his way of helping.

“No, it’s okay, it’s just been a while since I thought about this,” Alex’s eyes grew more far away but his breathing eased and he regained his voice, “It’s kind of…um, the memories aren’t so good? Like they’re…damaged. I guess because I was young and…different brain, kind of.”

Eliza shifted closer to Alex, one of her legs snaking around his, bridging the gap between them in a simple gesture but, in the language of their marriage, it meant a lot.

A shadow cast itself over her husband’s face but it was the brush of her thigh on his and the gentle babbling of Pip, a noise that was quickly becoming a welcome part of the background of their lives, it was these that helped him keep talking.

“I was only small, maybe nine? Ten?” he looked like he was really struggling to drag the correct facts out of the fog in his brain, like there really was some wall dividing his life now and his life then that he couldn’t quite reach over to see what was real, like all he had were the snatches of past conversations he could overhear. Or not a wall, not exactly. A surface of thick, muffling water.

“Small, anyhow. And it was one of the worst winters I think we’d ever seen. Had to travel too far to get too little food, it was freezing, storms…”

Eliza shivered, he said it so matter-of-factly, like such suffering was just a factor of whatever life he’d been living. She tried to imagine having to carry her son through an existence like that, knowing that they were surrounded by so many potential slips and stumbles and staggers that would just take her baby from her. Just like that. Without a thought. Just another casualty of nature.

“What was her name?” she found herself asking, wanting to have a way to think of this woman she was feeling such heavy, constricting empathy for.

“Rachel,” Alex’s mouth seemed to struggle with the shape of the word. Like it had more meaning than he could really cope with.

“Rachel,” Eliza bore the burden of the name with him, slipping under it with an easier, more awed tone, to help him hold it up.

Alex nodded, “And she…we ended up somewhere near the coast of South America, we’d used pretty much the last of our strength to get us to warmer waters. I remember…” his expression tightened, the sour memories bleeding across his tongue, “I can remember feeling her ribs poking through her fur while I slept against her.”

Eliza blinked, absorbing that awful image of a child having to watch his mother wasting away. She didn’t need Alex to tell her that his younger self had felt those hard bones press into his back, harsh and uncomfortable, but nowhere near as much so as the knowledge that the bones were likely there because his mother was giving him most of her share as well as his own.

Another thought surfaced, along the back of that one. She remembered the way Alex always seemed to glory in the fullness of her body, kneading where her thighs and hips and calves curved outwards, feeling the softness there as they made love with a kind of rapture. All the parts of her that made her cringe when she caught sight of them in the shower, in the fogged-up mirror as she changed, Alex would bury his face against them and murmur how beautiful they were, how gorgeous, like they were his favourite parts of her. She’d blush and smile and cling to every word.

And now Eliza was starting to understand a little more.

“So,” Alex went on, his usually animated and bouncing voice, a thread of a million tones and inflections, now flat and quiet like he was recounting one of the uncomfortable and grim parts of history not taught in schools, “She decided that the best way, the only way was to shed her skin and get some food from in town, steal or beg or charity or…whatever, I don’t know. All she knew was that there was no food in the sea, so she had to look elsewhere.”

Eliza nodded, assuring him that she was still listening even when she didn’t know quite what to say. Even Philip’s murmuring quietened, like he was listening to his daddy’s story.

“She made me the best nest she could in a small crag in the rocks near the shore. She told me to wait there and she would come back after no more than two night falls. She was only going into the local town, not far. She…she promised.” His voice wavered and caught on some snag. Like a child still feeling the sting of a broken promise from someone they trusted.

“Oh, Alex,” Eliza bit her lower lip, feeling his pain passed like an electric charge from his skin to her own.

“A man saw her. He took her skin,” Alex now looked angry, the shadow morphing into something more like a storm cloud, “Just like in the stories, he took her skin…”

It was obvious in the way he spoke that what this man did was on a level almost unspeakable, a bitter and vicious crime that shouldn’t even occur to the mind of someone sentient and respectable, let alone happen. Eliza felt a small click in the base of her brain, two pieces of information snapping together. This happened in the legends she’d read about Selkies, before she’d known they were true. They all spoke of Selkie ladies held prisoner on land by lecherous men who locked their magic pelts away, like ripping the very heart out of them, stranding them in a land where they didn’t belong all for the sake of some twisted and warped idea of love that was actually possession in a cruel disguise.

“Oh no,” she murmured, a hand flying to her mouth.

Alex looked like a man tasting acid, “That…that fucker held her prisoner for so long, she tried to many times to escape but he’d always catch her and…hurt her. When she finally made it back to me, she was covered in bruises and her teeth, he’d knocked out her teeth, Eliza…”

Tears were stinging her eyelids, she didn’t want to weep openly in case she scared little Pip but God, this was hard to hear.

“I’d given up hope of ever seeing her again,” Alex seemed unable to stop, even now as his voice cracked and wobbled, “I waited and waited but she never…she never came, I was so close to starving…I have no idea how I survived, fighting I guess, scavenging off gulls. I stayed near the coastline because I kept hoping, even after so long I’d lost count.”

Eliza closed her eyes, heart hammering, not sure how much more she could stand to listen to.

“But then one day she did come back,” his eyes settled, just a little, “Like she’d promised but…everything was different. We were both covered in scars, she was never the same, I was never the same. It changed everything.”

“Oh,” Eliza mumbled, her voice thick.

“We never went near another human place after that. Every time she heard anything that even sounded like his voice, she panicked and we had to move. Mama always thought he’d keep looking for her, wherever we went. We stuck to the open water. She thought we were safe there until…”

Eliza didn’t want to ask him for more but she knew she had to. This was a wound she needed to leech, it had been festering for too long, she could tell. After this, she could help him stitch it up and things would get better.

“Until what?” she whispered.

“Until the boat,” Alex answered, his voice clipped, “We didn’t know they’d extended their fishing route so far, we thought we were out of there way but one day there they were. It was me they caught, the net was like barbed wire, it made me bleed.”

A cold and sharp realisation lanced through Eliza, “Is that…?” A shaky hand reached out, gently indicating the white, faded line of an old scar that had bisected her Alex’s right eye for as long as she’d known him. She had no idea what forged the connection in her mind, that scar had always just been one feature of many, part of the landscape of the face of the man she loved. She’d never given it much thought but she saw it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, she knew before Alex gave his sad, quiet nod of answer.

Eliza made a small, strangled noise, reaching out and running his finger carefully along the line of the scar tenderly, like she could brush it and the horrible trauma it represented away. Or, if not that, at least reassure him that now it was nothing more than a healed mark, something she loved.

“They wanted my pelt,” Alex shuddered, feeling like he was working his thumb against a scab that held nothing but endless beads of blood underneath, “They wanted to rip it off me, hang it from some wall, throw it on the floor just because it was beautiful and it was mine and they wanted it. Humans are always like that just taking for the sake of taking.” His voice snapped and Eliza winced.

“But mama, she vaulted over the side of the boat after me, she attacked the one who was holding the knife to my neck, she bit and she clawed at them, half out of her own skin…I’ve never heard screams like that…I thought for a moment she could win but…”

His bottom lip was now shaking so hard his words were almost nonsense but it was almost like Eliza could hear them in her own mind, past his hitching breaths.

“I went over the side, someone’s boot in my ribs. I couldn’t swim for a while, I just sank. And when I got my mind back, the boat was gone. And…”

The end of the sentence didn’t seem to be coming, Eliza moved to hold him and reassure him that it was okay, he didn’t need to say it. But then the words broke free in such a broken, distraught gasp that gave way to tears like a cave crumbling in on itself that Eliza couldn’t move.

“And there wasn’t even enough left of her pelt for me to keep.”

Eliza tried not to disturb Philip as she climbed over to Alex’s side of the bed. Fortunately, the little baby had nodded off during Alex’s story, curled up hugging the pillow that smelled of his mama. Eliza couldn’t help but pray that he’d nodded off before the end of Alex’s story. One of the good intentions that paved the way to hell, perhaps, but she couldn’t help but hope. Part of motherhood, she was realising, was clinging to every single second where she could continue to protect her son from most of the world, whether that was the right decision or not.

For more than a few moments, Eliza was terrified that Alex had slipped away too far for her to reach but after a few minutes of stroking his hair and murmuring through her own tears that he was safe, his memories where just that, past pain that could hurt but not finish him, he was back to himself. The tears eventually ran out, the trembling stopped and he was left just clinging to his wife and taking deep, shaking breaths. But he was here.

“Oh Alex, baby, I’m so, so sorry,” Eliza whispered, the words sounding so painfully weak and watery, powerless against the scars he carried.

“No,” he murmured, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes to try and take the sting of drying tears away, “No, I n-needed to tell you…t-tell someone…been holding onto that for too long.”

Eliza sighed gently, climbing off him carefully and taking his hands, drawing him over to the window seat, the one she’d purposefully piled high with blankets and cushions so Alex could perch there on the nights he couldn’t sleep so he could watch the sea rolling and thrumming its endless rhythm out on the beach. That never failed to calm him down. And it worked now, he sighed with all the relief of a man seeing the calm, still skies beyond the storm clouds, pulling his knees to his chest and letting the panicked energy run out of his eyes like watercolours, forehead resting against the slightly warped glass. Eliza sat across from him, her legs filling the spaces his left, her expression loving and heartbroken and worried all at once.

Words weren’t necessary for a while, the mostly silent room broken up only by the quiet snuffling of their baby son, blissfully asleep and unaware, the near constant rattling of the cottage’s old pipes that they barely even registered anymore and the muffled voice of the sea, that all said more than either of them could. Somewhere in the middle of it, Alex’s hand found Eliza’s and after five minutes had still not relaxed or let go.

“I’m glad,” his voice was quiet and crackling but Eliza heard it.

“Oh?” she blinked at him through the gloom, only just realising that the sunset had shifted into night while they’d been distracted. Their bedroom was suddenly very dark, the moonlight the only thing that sliced through the shadows.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded, finally tearing his gaze away from the sea and back to her, “I’m really glad he has her hair. I wouldn’t want her to be forgotten, I want…I want some part of her to still be here.”

Eliza could understand, she gave him a proud, small smile, squeezing his hand and nodding.

“She gave her life for me, I can’t try and forget her. It’s just not fair, the way I tried to push it all away,” he shook his head, guilt straining the edges of his mouth and eyes.  

“Alex, no,” Eliza moved forward, “Baby, don’t think like that. Look at everything you’ve done; how much you’ve made of the life she gave you. She would be so, so proud.”

Alex looked hopeful but uncertain, “Really?”

Eliza nodded, firm, “I know it.”

He pressed his lips together and looked over to where their son slept, curled up in the middle of the vastness of their bed, snoring in perfect contentment. He looked back to Eliza, his sweet, beautiful Eliza who’d given him her heart.

His family. Small and a little strange but his.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, nodding a little, talking more to himself than anyone else, “Yeah, I think she would be proud of me.”

-

Watching Philip grow was a wonder.

Sometimes Eliza would be leaning against the counter in the kitchen, a quiet moment at the beginning of the day or the end, seemingly always with the sun half covered by the horizon in some respect but no less warming. She’d be feeding Philip, something she always loved doing, holding him so close to her skin and having his hungry little snuffling against her and his hand tracing the line of her collarbone as if for comfort. And she’d think how big he was getting, how his eyes seemed so aware and intelligent as he took in everything around him. She’d notice how he was a little heavier than the last time he fed, a little longer in her arms, his hair a little wilder, actually brushing his eyebrows. Her little man, her little ray of sunshine was growing up.

And didn’t that just break her heart in the best way.

Pip took his first steps a week or so into his sixth month. He woke up one lazy Saturday morning in his mama’s arms, exactly where he loved to be when he first opened his eyes, but where was Pops? Mama explained, through a yawn as she rolled over and hid from the truth of the alarm clock in her nest of blankets, that Pops was taking a shower after his morning run along the beach and would be back in just a few minutes. Pip could tell she was right, he could hear his Pops singing that song from the mermaid film he loved so much, the one the funny red crab sang. That was Pops’ bath time song. But Philip wasn’t great at waiting, even if it was only for a few minutes.

Eliza had dozed off within a minute though Alex’s cry of surprise definitely woke her up, he reached a pretty damn high volume. Apparently, Philip had taken it upon himself to stumble on over to the bathroom himself, wanting to see his daddy now, not realising that Alex was going to hit the roof when there was suddenly another, babbling, quiet little voice singing Under the Sea along with him.

It was Philip’s turn to be confused when Mama and Pops suddenly started crying and laughing and hugging him.

Not that he minded of course.

 His first word was a little debatable, on whether you thought animal noises constituted a word. A favourite nickname of Alex’s for his son was his ‘little lion cub’. Probably because he was noise, probably because of his fluffy mane-like cloud of hair, probably because most nights he could be found sat on his father’s lap while Alex read one of the many books he treasured all the more for their tattered edges and scuffed leather covers, his favourites being the ones about flora and fauna from far off places he’d never been to. One of their best games, the one that made Eliza laugh the most as she watched them fondly from the wingback she always sat in to sew, was Pip poking at the illustrations on the page with a pudgy finger and Alex dutifully, enthusiastically, imitating the noise it made. And Philip’s very favourite, the one he chose to point at most often out of all the meticulous, hand sketched plates Alex liked to imagine had been done by some glasses wearing, lined faced scholar while tropical storms battered the canvas of their tent, was the roaring, almost regal looking lion. More often than any other, he’d be chuckling so hard and beaming so wide that he nearly fell to the floor as his Pops hooked his fingers into paws and bared his teeth, snarling fit to beat the big old lion that came on sometimes before the movie started, with the swelling music, and made Pip jump.

So really, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise on the afternoon that Alex scooped Philip up from the floor, where he was building the biggest tower of blocks he could possibly make, simply for the pleasure of knocking it down again, explaining that it was time for lunch.

“Come on,” Alex smiled gently, trying not to laugh at Philip’s crinkled, cloudy little face at having his game interrupted, kissing at his nose until he was smiling again, “You must be hungry by now, my little lion cub.”

Pip blinked, his face breaking into one of his sunny smiles, the ones that stretched nearly the whole width of his face and turned his eyes into sparkling dark chips of opal. He lifted his hands and crooked them into claws and pulled his lips back from his teeth, more than a few gaps between them, and gave a loud growl.

“Rrrrrrrrrrawr!”

Alex nearly dropped him he was so surprised but seconds after that he started laughing, utterly delighted, heart pounding with the realisation that the very purpose of his son’s first words had been to make him laugh. Eliza got a demonstration as soon as she came home from work, swinging him around in her arms and peppering his cheeks with so many kisses that there were plum coloured lipstick marks over nearly every part of his face and he was giggling breathlessly.

After that the words came thick and fast, ‘mama’ and ‘pops’ in almost the same breath, ‘birdie’ for the rather tuneless coughing of the gulls outside his bedroom window, ‘sticky’ for the way the sand clung to his little starfish hands when he’d eagerly bury them in the ground on his and Pops’ morning walks, ‘Legs’ for the stuffed giraffe he’d been given the day he was born and remained his most treasured toy right up until he was sixteen and still kept him on his bedside table, huffing if anyone dared move him.

That was like the floodgates opening. After that, it felt like Pip grew several inches every single day, he got everywhere on his own two legs, he started wearing little woolly jumpers and cord trousers rather than his onesies and dungarees, he chattered away in full sentences. And every single day that passed Eliza and Alex only grew more in love with him, their little boy who had been such a surprise but now they weren’t sure how they’d ever lived without him.

To the two of them, it was honestly a bit of a surprise that it took until one night a few weeks after Philip’s first birthday, when Alex and Eliza were cooking dinner, moving around each other and their tiny kitchen in a complex, polyrhythmic dance that they were well practised in, though always taking a few moments’ break to watch Philip plod around the garden in his brand new rain boots, peering into the dew soaked clumps of grass for snails with broken shells or bits missing in some way or another that he could carefully pick up and carry back to the waiting bucket full of leaves and soil, with the words ‘Snail Hospital’ carefully printed on one side in Eliza’s neat penmanship.

Alex made a small, fond noise of surprise as he found Eliza’s arms wrapping around his middle, her forehead pressed to the space between the blades of his shoulders. He had a feeling he knew why, she’d been watching their son with an expression close to happy tears for a while now.

“Hey,” she murmured, her breath warm on his ever-chill skin.

“Hello there,” Alex smiled back, not picking the knife he’d been slicing mushrooms with back up again, getting the sense that she wanted his attention.

He could almost feel her smile against his back. Her hands went wandering, sliding down to follow the narrow valley of his hips, sending warmth forking through his muscles wherever her hands brushed. That warmth had potential, he could feel it clear and acknowledged as hairs standing on end.

“I can hear you thinking,” he hummed, tone light and conversational, his own smile growing.

“I might be,” Eliza replied in the same voice.

“Well, are you gonna share?” he chuckles, “Cos I’ve got to get these in the rice or they won’t cook in time. So, y’know, talk or let me earn my keep.”

Eliza chose to duck under his self-deprecating humour, putting a slight shift in her body, some trick of the magnetism that ran between the two of them to compel him to lift his eyes to their little Philip, his head now entirely lost inside a clod of ammophila, nothing but his back half showing as he risked life and limb to rescue a slug that had become stuck upside down.

“Alexander?” Eliza murmured, kissing his back gently.

“Yeah, honey?”

“What would you say to having another one of those things?” she whispered.

There was a moment of confusion in Alex’s mind, before they watched Pip’s head reappear from the grass, soaking wet and with clumps of mud in his curls but the satisfied smile of a job well done, and he realised what she meant.

He felt all of the breath leave him, like it had been knocked out of him by her words alone. All he could do was find her hands with his own, wrapping their fingers together and squeezing tight, blinking back tears.

Eliza grinned, holding his hands back just as tight. She had her answer in the way she heard his breath catch and his teeth snag his lower lip and his eyelids flutter. She knew what he’d say before he made his emotion laden tongue work.

“Yeah,” Alex murmured, “I’d be up for that.”

It could be said, after that evening, in the years following their quiet conversation in the kitchen, Alex and Eliza became a little addicted.