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creativeskullcreations · 4 years ago

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Outside chapter 17: Dinner at Home

New chapter, new plot. Plus got to see a little bit of Danny in this 'verse. :D

And plans are in motion now. What's gonna happen? Stick around to find out.

Stacy sighed as she got into the truck, undoing the professional looking bun her hair was in. Scout popped out of her bag when she set it in the passenger seat, gasping over-dramatically.

"Oh stop that. You're fine." Stacy told her, buckling herself in. She started the car, and got ready to back out of the parking spot.

"Says you! You aren't spending eight hours a day in a fucking bubble!" The puppet flopped out of the bag. "Are we going home yet?"

"No, we've gotta go grocery shopping." Scout groaned and threw one arm over her eyes.

"Aw man. I hate Walmart." She grumbled. "There's always too many kids staring at me."

"It'll be fine. We can go look at movies again before we get the food."

"Okay fine." Scout climbed up the door to look out the window. "But I want Pop Tarts this time! Real ones!"

"I think I can do that." Stacy agreed as she pulled into the parking lot. She reached over and grabbed her wallet before grabbing Scout, letting her settle into the hood of her jacket as they entered the store.

They checked movies, though there was nothing new out yet that they hadn't seen, and then went on to collect the items on Stacy's list. A quick checkout later and they were finally on their way home. It could not have come soon enough for Scout.

The way home from Walmart wasn't too long, maybe a ten minute drive on a bad day. So they got home quick enough, and Scout watched as Stacy started to juggle the many bags. She ended up having to sting them onto her prosthetic in order to get them all into the house, but did succeed in getting all the bags to the kitchen.

Will was downstairs, as he usually was at this time of day. Though, whether he was working on computers or his... hobby, was anyone's guess. Scout certainly wasn't going to go down there to check, either way. Instead she Jumped to her room, which was almost more of a closet with how small it was. But, it held a bed(in her own size!), a charging station for the Switch, and sometimes Stacy's laptop when she could be bothered to drag it in there. The walls were lined with multiple shelves with rope ladders connecting them, giving her a lot of storage space. Most of it was still empty, but she had collected a few things over the past several months.

Including clothes, apparently. Stacy had expressed concern with Scout running around with Mortimer's face on her shirt, and had enlisted Lisa to make her some new ones. Not that Scout could take her "shirt" off, of course, but she could wear other ones over it. Her favorite so far was a green one that said "eat dick and die". It was the best one, no contest, but Stacy wouldn't let her wear it outside the house.

"It's crude, and while I know you love that stuff it's not a good idea to wear that to my job. Someone could go to HR about it." Her Host had told her. Scout thought that was just stupid, but had agreed not to wear it to the workplace.

Stacy, meanwhile, worked on putting groceries away. It was good practice for her arm, especially in not crushing the groceries. She managed to mangle to bread only a little bit this time, and figured she was probably doing better than she usually did. Scout reappeared a moment later, wearing the green shirt Lisa had made her. She handed over the Pop Tarts to the puppet, who immediately tore into the box to grab one of the foil packets.

"It's almost suppertime, so don't eat too many of those." Stacy warned her, only to be met by a muffled grunt in response. She sighed, and just collected the stuff she needed; Kraft macs n cheese, premade burger patties, and some green beans for a vegetable. Maybe not the best dinner, but Will was still working and they needed some food.

As she got the stove going, a pan of water for the mac set up, and the pan for the burgers got oiled. She selected three patties and put the rest back in the freezer for another day while things heated up. The beans she dumped in a third pan on the back of the stove, adding a bit of salt for taste.

Scout watched all of this while softly crunching on the Pop Tarts. Months in the Host World, and she still didn't understand why Stacy wanted to cook. It was much easier and quicker to just grab one of the snacks laying around. Then again, maybe it had to do with that "nutrition" shit Will had told her about once.

As Stacy cooked she started typing out a message to Will on her phone, mostly to let him know dinner was done. He may have been just right in the basement, but she didn't want to go down there if she didn't have to. But as things finished cooking and she started to set the table, Will still hadn't come upstairs or even answered her text. And so, with a sigh, she covered the food and made her way downstairs.

"Will? It's time for dinner." She called as she reached the bottom of the stairs. No answer, but the muffled beat of heavy metal and the high pitched whine of a buzz-saw. She went through the door and was greeted with a mess. A wooden doll was stretched on the exam table in the middle, and Will was standing over it with the buzz-saw, shouting over the pounding music and whining noise.

"Hey, bitch! Make your boyfriend turn it down!" A red haired doll in a welded shut dog crate yelled over the music. She ignored it and instead punched a nearby gong with her metal fist. The resulting metal bang startled Will enough that he almost dropped the saw. He looked over and, once he spotted her, rushed to shut everything down.

"Yeah babe?" He asked, like he hadn't been threatening a sentient doll. The puppet in question was gagged, but sending a quite fierce death-glare at him.

"It's dinner time. Finish up here and come up, I made burgers." She told him, smiling a little as his face lit up.

"Score!" He quickly shoved the saw away before turning to take the doll off the table and put it into a cage. It swapped it's glare to her as he shoved it inside the crate, but Stacy just stared stonily back at it.

"Yeah, you keep trying that buddy. Nothing stops these two assholes. Ow!" The red headed doll sent Stacy his own death glare as she kicked his cage, knocking him over.

"Keep quiet." She growled out, not even looking at him. "Be thankful you're not tied up too."

"Yeah yeah. Go back to your favorite toy, Bitch." He huffed out. "Can't believe you keep that thing living up there with ya. If you had any kind of integrity, she'd be down here, in a cage, with the rest of us. Ow! Fuckin' shit would you stop that?!"

"Chucky, be quiet." A nearby doll in a ripped wedding dress scolded. "You know better than to antagonize her."

"What, it's true! That thing up there is just like us, but she gets to live in the lap of luxury! Hey!"

Stacy propped a foot up on the cage, tipping it onto it's edge and leaning down to glare at the toy inside. "You wanna stop talking now? Or do you want me to come back down here after dinner, Mr. Ray?"

The dolls said nothing more and Stacy righted the cage as Will finished up. The went back upstairs, locking the door behind them.

On the table was Scout, with half a burger patty in her mouth. She froze when the two Hosts walked into the room.

"Scout, seriously?" Stacy asked. "You're supposed to wait for us before you start eating."

Scout spat out the half eaten patty. "You were taking too long. I wanted to eat."

"You still should have waited. We only took a couple of minutes."

"But I didn't want to wait."

Stacy just sighed, and grabbed a bun out of the bag to squirt some ketchup onto. This was a fight just not worth getting into, especially when it wouldn't change anything.

Instead they made up their buns and sides, and were sat down to eat. Will prayed, and Stacy waited for him to be done before digging in. Scout didn't even wait, and just finished off her meat patty before digging into the macs and cheese.

The trio ate in silence, too hungry to talk at first. But eventually Stacy swallowed a bit, and decided she was sick of the quiet.

"So, you make any progress with the Gardner job?" She asked Will. Doll torturer or not, he did still have a "real" job, same as her.

"Eh, a little. Gotta ask who usually uses the computer, though. It's full of viruses from porn sites."

"Ew. Do they have a kid, or just a really stupid adult?"

"They've got a twelve year old girl, so she's the most likely suspect." Will swallowed another bite. "Miss Gardner is always away and working, like, three jobs so it's gotta be the kid or a friend she has."

"Who would go on a porn site? It's just naked sweaty Hosts, they're gross."

"Uh..." Stacy wondered how to handle this. And then wondered if Scout had ever gone on one of those sites, to know about that part. "It's... just a thing. Some people like to look at." She coughed. "Don't question it."

"Sure." Scout comped down on a green bean, and Stacy gave a soft sigh of relief. Scout was bad enough with her language already, and Stacy didn't want to risk her learning more words and terms.

Dinner ended soon after that, with Will loading the new dishwasher when everyone was done eating. He went back downstairs to finish up what he'd been doing. Stacy and Scout meanwhile went to play video-games. Well, Stacy played, while Scout watched her do quests from her lap.

"Go down that tunnel! Go! The left!" Scout pointed forcefully, waving her arms when she was ignored.

"No, that's where we came from." Stacy sighed, annoyed yet also a little amused. "Would you rather be the one playing?"

"No. I can't hold the controller." The Puppet waved her off before suddenly yelling. "You're not looting the bodies!"

"And you won't shut up." The Host muttered, looting a single body before going back to chasing the objective. "Are you sure you don't want to play?"

"How would I even fucking do that? Don't answer that."

"Okay." Stacy fought a few more Drauger. She thought about mentioning that she wouldn't really mind it, if Scout wanted to play, but decided against it. The body swap was still a sore subject, and she didn't want to ruin the good mood.

A ping from her phone, and she paused the game to answer a text from her brother. Being the nosy Puppet that she is, Scout tried to see what she was typing. "Who's that? I thought you didn't have friends."

"It's my younger brother, Danny. Doc wanted me to talk to him more, so I am."

Scout blinked. "You have a brother?" She thought back, tried to think if she'd ever seen any pictures of Stacy's family, but couldn't remember. Will she knew had a picture of his mother, but other than that neither Host talked about their families that much.

"Yeah." A couple of swipes, and she lowered the phone to show the Puppet a photo of a younger boy. He had the same reddish hair she did, but with much paler skin and brighter blue eyes. He was also wearing an absolutely atrocious looking sweater. "He's about eight or nine years younger than me, depending on who's had a birthday at that point."

"Oh..." Scout stared at the picture. "Why is he wearing headphones?"

"Those are part of his cochlear implants. He's deaf." She swiped back over to messaging to finish her text. "But he got the surgery at a young enough age that you pretty much can't tell. He's just got a little bit of a weird sounding accent."

"Oh, cool." Stacy finished her text and went back to the game, Scout watching quietly this time. "I have a brother."

Stacy fumbled an attack, but recovered quickly enough that she didn't die. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Yeah. And three sisters." She squirmed a little, playing with the hem of her shirt. "... They probably all have Hosts by now. They were a lot better at... fitting in, than I was."

"Oh." Stacy paused the game, considering. "I'm... uh, do you you wanna talk about it?"

"Nah. I just thought you should know about them." She settled back, and Stacy unpaused the game. "I doubt I'm ever going to see them again, anyways. They were all assholes."

"Sounds like it, if they were able to "fit in" over there."

-------

Canon huffed, doing her best to try and suck in air. This was the... she didn't know how many times she'd been almost torn apart by the spells Mortimer was working on. Not really, of course, but it certainly felt like it. Like there was a scalpel carefully slicing into each stitch, cutting the small threads one by one.

"Hmm, looks like things are going well. I think I'm just about done with this spell." The magician commented, ignoring how the smaller Puppet lay limply on the floor. "Yes this plan has come together splendidly! Soon your sister will be right where she ought to be."

"... Great..." She groaned, trying to force herself upright. She failed, falling back to the floor with a soft thump. "I... can't... wait..." She had to finish the rhyme, at least, no matter how much it hurt.

"Indeed." He smirked, then grabbed a phone off the wall. "Oh Riley, we're just about ready to start! All we're missing now is the star! So gather your tools and a henchman, and go warm up the car."

"Preparations have already begun!" She relayed with an excited giggle. "Oh, this is going to be so much fun!"

#hello puppets #outside #fanfiction #stacy stein #scout #riley ruckus #canon #will carson #mortimer handee

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shiftytracts · 4 years ago

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This was gonna be a scenario post, hence the A and B format, but got so long (2.4k) it almost counts as a story. I’m less sure it counts as emeto--it’s all nausea/general digestive upset, no actual vomit. Also mentions scat and weight gain, but those tags would definitely constitute false advertising; they’re more like incidental story elements than kink elements.

A’s on new meds, whose side effects include slight but near-constant nausea. They wander one morning through the dark, brown-carpeted house they share with B (their SO) and another housemate (C), coffee cup in hand, still slightly sweat-sticky from bed but without the time to shower. It’s a small, thin-walled house, and C’s not up yet, so A and B keep off their shoes for as long as they can, trying not to make too much noise. A muffles their burps into the crook of their elbow. B makes eggs and toast for both; A’s gotta wolf ‘em before their appointment, but wishes they hadn’t—or at least that they’d skipped the orange juice, and maybe saved brushing their teeth for after breakfast. They head to their appointment with their heart pounding in their gut, queasy and bloated and short of breath, bubbly stiff cramps forming in new places every time they bend a different way, belly rumbling so much they wonder if B can hear it, if they can see it shake, can see A’s navel through their t-shirt.

(“Be honest”—A implores, when they wander back from the can to the kitchen sink where B stands washing grease off the breakfast plates—“do I look like a total fatass?”

(“What? No.” B laughs, rhetorically, and adds, “Why?”

(“Well ‘cause I sorta feel like one is all,” A says, peremptorily stroking up and down past their navel, but regretting it when this uncalled-for jiggling further upsets their stomach.

(“Aw. No, you look fine,” B assures them. They look back to their dishes, then at A again with preemptive shrug: “I guess if they were really looking someone might figure you’d had a big breakfast, but.” A yanks at their shirt, hoping to obscure this; “Don’t do that, you’ll stretch it,” B reminds them.)

A tries to crap before they leave but no dice—not time yet. Nasty cramps and cold sweat all through their shrink appointment. Comes home, gives vent to the pyroclastic flow, then collapses supine on the bed and unbuttons their shorts. Takes a nap.

Despite their best efforts B’s doings in there an hour or so after that wake A up; they direct A to the water glass they set by the bed. “Oh. Thanks,” A yawns, and asks if B’ll hand them pajama pants. B smiles and complies.

“Not going out again then, huh? Not feeling well?”

A shrugs. “No, I’m okay now, just kinda.” They try to make a hand gesture for tired or loopy, but judging from B’s lack of answering nod they figure this doesn’t suffice as explanation. “Might later though, I don’t know.”

“Mm.”

“Should eat something, probably.”

“Ah, yeah—get back on the horse?”

“Haha yeah.” Meanwhile A rubs their belly up and down as though to sound its opinion on the level of drawstring tightness they’ve selected. B sits next to them for a sec, puts a hand on their back, pecks their jaw.

“I guess you are a bit chubbier now,” B admits, feeling guilty for how they dodged A’s question on that score this morning.

“Seems that way,” allows A. This, they’re pretty sure, is the previous med’s fault. They wouldn’t’ve switched were that its only sin, of course, but the thing had the gall to be useless aside from its side effects of weight gain and insomnia. “Is it gross? Should I.”

“What? No,” B says again, and laughs rhetorically as before. “‘Gross’? Of course not.” B bats A’s jaw, very gently, playfully. “No matter what happens, I’m just happy you’re getting help.”

A’s answering smile lasts maybe a quarter of a second. “Thanks.” All the same they stand and spread their arms out to either side, to give B a better look. “Sure you don’t mind?”

B smiles, shakes their head chidingly, incredulously. “Why would I mind? It’s kinda cute, if anything.” To prove they mean it they go around behind A, rest the side of their face on the back of A’s neck, snake their hands around to A’s front and slot each one atop their waistband so B’s palms fit in the hollow between pelvis and flab. Roots around til they find the end of A’s shirt, pushes it out of the way, un- and re-does the drawstring so their pajama pants sit at a more flattering height. “That too tight?”

“No, it’s kinda grounding actually,” A shrugs. “Thanks.”

“Mhm. Now go eat something.”

A eats some leftover rice with soy sauce—C ordered way too much rice with their takeout two nights ago, and left the extra up for grabs. Then A figures they can handle two Oreos. Can’t stop burping after that, but only feels a little queasy, little squirmy. Lies on the couch with their laptop, alternately studying and playing Tetris (they’re a week or two into the fall semester; today’s Friday, which they have off from both classes and work). Until C gets home, at which point Mariokart happens. This makes A feel sick, though, not sure whether in a too much food or not enough kinda way, so they take their computer and go back to the bedroom, telling C they just want to remove themselves from the social distraction. Maintains this ruse until about halfway down the hallway, then lets go the foodbaby they’ve been suckin’ in and moves their free hand up and down it as they round the corner into their bedroom doorway. B’s all dressed and ready for their friend’s party now; has to go soon. They’re crisscross-applesauced on the bed looking at their phone, but they look up when A comes in. “Hey.”

“Hi! Feeling better?” B asks, with a slight frown that suggests they know the answer.

A busies their hands with setting their laptop on the bed so they can say, “Nope—queasatronic,” without seeming too self-pitying.

B nose-laughs but says, “Aw. I’m sorry.”

A shrugs, sits. “Eh.”

“Want me to stay home?—I could—?”

But this time A says, “What? No. ‘Course not, you should go. I’m fine, I’m.” (Shrugs, realizing already that this’ll sound like a guilt trip and wondering whether they secretly mean one. But they’re too bushed to think of another ending to the sentence.) “I’m used to this; don’t need a babysitter. You should go.”

“Okay. Thank you. If you’re sure.”

“No, please. Seriously.”

“Alright. What time is it?” B chirps, then presses the top button on their phone and reports, “5:24—yeah okay, I should go. Take care, feel better. Need anything?—I could stop at CVS, or.”

“Uh…” A mimes thinking about it, then spaces out for real.

“Well, you can text me if so,” B laughs.

“Cool. Sure. Have fun.”

“Thaaanks,” B says, swinging themselves by the hand around the doorjamb as they slip out. A arranges themselves supine again, hands folded on their stomach. Lets out an unimpressed sigh as though in summation. Doesn’t really wanna take a nap, but they try playing Tetris again and feel too icky when they try to focus their eyes on the screen. Closes their laptop but does not remove its warm weight from their lap, even though in the 5pm heat its plastic sticks to their wrists. Burps, mouth open, not loudly exactly but sorta high-pitched—as though they were an adolescent boy with a soda can, they scoff. Then wonders if they have any more diet ginger ale. Wanders out to the kitchen, in the extra wall space between which and the dining room (B calls it a “breakfast nook,” but A just assumes that’s a joke they don’t get) they keep their soda cans stacked on the floor next to the milk-cratey recycle bins. There is indeed one left. They grab that and a cup (and two ice cubes outta the tray in the freezer), too lazy to fetch the one B put water in for them earlier, and remind themselves to text B that they’ve run out.

C’s still out there, and notices A’s choice of beverage. “You alright?”

“Yeah, just. Guts’re on the fritz again.”

“Hm. Sorry, pal.”

“It’s cool.”

“You gonna be able to find something you can eat?”

“What?”

“Tonight, I mean. Is there food you can eat?”

A shrugs. “Still some rice left I guess.”

“I ask ‘cause I’m going to the store in an hour, so. If you want some saltines or something.”

“Oh.” A laughs; adds, “thanks. Think we still have some from last time though.”

“Okay. Well, if you think of anything you want.”

“Sure. Thanks.”

“No problem; good luck.”

At this departure from Hope you feel better A laughs slightly. “Thanks.” Heads back to their room, drinks their soda and melty ice. This is the hottest-ass part of the day, so when it’s gone they balance the still-cool glass on their clavicle. They feel much better now, if sorta bloated and fizzy. Quease level comparatively minimal. Figures they should eat again while they’ve got the, uh, guts for it.

Once they start on their second round of rice A finds they’re pretty hungry. Adds soy sauce a lot more zealously, this time, and risks the last leftover spring roll as well but regrets the grease. Has to make up for it with the unsauced bits of rice clinging to the edge of the styrofoam box—you know, like, a palate cleanser or whatever. They hiccup a little, then belch when they bring their plate to the sink, from the contact between gut and the edge of the counter: hadn’t thought about the extra room they take up now. Rubs a peremptory circle into the left side above the navel but finds they feel alright, for now—then 20 minutes later heads into the can, expecting lava from how their stomach cramps and rolls, but gets out only some air and a few wispy pebbles. Notices with greater dismay, then, on the way back to their room, how their belly queasily sloshes around when they walk. Doesn’t seem to have shrunk much.

In B’s mirror, back in their room, A finds they look pretty gigantic, too; they changed into a looser shirt after the first one got too sweaty, and in this comparative tent all you can tell is that the gut’s the widest part of their profile. They set their hands down on it to bring it down to size, and are dismayed at how little difference this makes. Does feel nicer that way though; leaves ‘em there as they trudge slowly back to their side of the bed, and pushes slow circles into each side. Sits heavily on the edge of the bed, hunched over a little. Can feel the tightness in their stomach that means either it’s going to rumble in that long drawn-out violating way where you feel like it’s loosing all your secrets or that you’re going to belch so loud you’ll wonder if you have to puke. Waits, then gives up on waiting and slowly, laboriously lies down. Stretches a little, tempting fate, but it kinda hurts: ties a weird knot high up on the right when they loosen back up. They put three fingers on it gently, and try to iron it out back and forth. Ah!—there it goes. Stomach starts growling, seems to shake everything up, then once that uneasy shifting’s done with it still keeps up the sound what seems a ludicrous, embarrassing long time. When that’s done they sigh and then burp a little. Laughs at themselves for this display. Carefully carefully carefully turns onto their side, facing away from the door, and tries to sleep, a protective hand curled around their stomach.

When B gets home much later that night they wake up a little (“Oh. Hi. How was the thing.” “Hey! Sorry to wake you. It was fun; I think it went well.” “That’s good.” “Mhm.” “Anyway good night.” B laughs: “Haha okay. Go back to sleep A.” They mean to reply at your service but instead say, “Open sesame”; B laughs and pats their hair so it itches their nose. When A swipes at it snot comes loose. They decide not to open that pandoras wormtails); figures they’ll fall back to sleep quick until the consciousness of nausea slides back into place, at which point they try to roll onto their back and find themselves ludicrously heavy. It takes several tries, and all their breath. They groan with bored self-pity, forgetting they’re not alone in the room.

Meanwhile B struggles out of their clothes and into pajama pants and an inside-out (but not backwards) tank top in the dark. “You okay?”

“Blugh. Not great.”

“Aw, still?”

“Yeah… nah,” A says, blinking, confusedly forgetting which answer is appropriate. “I gotta pee,” A decides. This helps a little, since it wakes them up all the way and therefore allows them to disentangle the need to pee from their other woes. In the bathroom mirror they look mostly deflated up top but still extra puffy and round lower down; at least it doesn’t hurt their stomach to stand up anymore. Only hurts like a menstrual cramp does after you take ibuprofen, but the quease that in that case is only incipient is much worse here. At one point they cough, and dread this “pandoras wormtails” too when it alerts them to all the mushy brittle things in their throat and chest. This also makes them start burping again, so that that’s how they end up greeting B when they get back to the doorway of their room: fist over their mouth, wincing a little, leaning into the wall for balance. B’s a good sport though. They face each other in bed and B lays both their warm hands on A’s stomach, whimpers in pity at how blown up they can tell it is.

“I’m sorry you don’t feel well,” they say in that affectionate half-asleep tone that always comes out querulous.

“It’s cool,” A says back.

B sloppily nods so that their jaw thuds against their pillow, hair spilling into their eyes, and tells A, “Just try to go back to sleep; feel betterinthmorning probbleby,” trying to get all the words out before a yawn.

#emetophilia #emeto cw

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always5hineee · 4 years ago

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Infallible- Chapter 12: Grocery Run

Word count: 1651

Chapter warnings: Mild language

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The feeling got worse as Jisung continued. She started being able to feel the disagreeable sensation in specific parts of her body, just as he had described. It was mostly just unsettling because of the sheer abruptness, though. It would be pulling on her bones one second, then ripping at her liver the next. By the time she had adjusted, it had moved on. His hands were laying flat on her body, one on her abdomen and the other on her upper chest between her collarbones. His eyes had since slid from hers and were now shut, concentration twitching on his face.

Every now and then, she gasped out in surprise or pain at a new feeling, causing Felix to get jumpy. Every time it looked like he was going to intervene, though, Bang Chan would touch his wrist, warning him against interrupting. Han began breathing almost as heavily as her, digging his nails into her skin as Felix watched in abject concern. Just as she was considering telling him to stop, the pain completely faded. Simultaneously, Jisung flew off her body, slamming back into the wall behind him with a pained noise.

Vision clearing, she sat up, shaking her head in an attempt to organize her thoughts. Felix had run to her side, Minho not far behind, while Changbin and Chan ran to help Jisung. He held a hand to the back of his head, groaning at the blow.

"Are you okay?" Felix asked her, looking at the crescent shaped nail marks near her neck. They were reddening, but not profusely bleeding. She nodded shakily.

"Yeah, I-I'm fine. What happened?"

"Yeah, what's going on?" Minho glared at Jisung. Looking at him, Y/N finally saw just how battered he was. In the invisible explosion, his wings had fallen out of his control, making them visible to her. They were much bigger than any of the other angels, which seemed strange to her. Not only that, but they were a sleek black, feathers falling around him like strange, dark flower petals. The hooked weapons that had been affixed to his sides has caught on his black pants, pulling out a few threads.

"Well, I found Hyunjin's soul." Han muttered, wiping a little bit of black liquid off the corner of his mouth before she could tell what it was.

"And?" Bang Chan asked.

"I tried to pull it out, and it was all actually going pretty well. Unfortunately, the more unwrapped it got, the more agitated it was. I think once Y/N's soul reacted to her pain, it moved to protect her."

"I... how?" She asked. "Can it do that without Hyunjin telling it to?"

"The soul is, in essence, Hyunjin himself, so yes, it can. It's completely wrapped itself around your soul." He said with a sigh.

"What does that mean?" Minho growled. "You can't do it?"

"No," Han glared in return, "In fact, now that the whole thing is a consistent shape, it'll be easier to use as a method of tracking."

"Which is why he just beat the shit out of you." He muttered under his breath. Ignoring him, Han nodded to Chan as the archangel helped him up, folding his wings back into his body as Y/N watched with awe.

"Are you okay?" He asked her, waving a hand in front of her face and laughing. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Or an angel." He joked.

"Are you?" She said in response, laughing weakly as well.

"I'll be fine." He waved a hand. "I'll get him back for it later. Even if he didn't mean to." Thinking briefly, he posited, "At least we know that Seungmin would have trouble getting to your soul, even if he did manage to lay hands on you." That statement brought the reality of the situation crashing back to her, smile falling a little.

"Nice one." Minho muttered under his breath.

"Hey, what do you say you grab something to eat before we start to track Hyunjin? Wouldn't want you to go through an angel door without eating." She tilted her head.

"I would think that I'd want my stomach to be empty for that ride." She thought aloud. "And I thought angels didn't have to eat?" She asked.

"We don't." Chan said.

"But we can-" Han interjected with a protesting tone. "And I like to. So, let's go!" He walked over to her fridge, opening it up before she could stop him. "Damn, there's like, nothing in here. Don't you keep cake around?"

"Why would I have a cake?" She asked in confusion. It wasn't her birthday.

"Humans are so weird. Let's go out!"

"I don't know if that's a good idea." Changbin said, offering his first real hard opinion since she'd met him. "We don't know what's happening with Y/N's soul, your wings could pop out again, we all carry weapons, it's-"

"Aww, come on Changbin, don't be such a downer." Jisung rolled his eyes. "I'm metaphorically starving, and Y/N has to eat sometime. I know this really nice place, like ten minutes away, it's-"

"This isn't a game!" Minho argued. "We don't have a lot of time, and you're not being helpful."

"Calm down, you two." Chan said, feeling like he'd repeated himself for the hundredth time today, the millionth time this century. They eventually came to a compromise. It was too risky to go out all as a group and eat in a restaurant or anything, but they could go to the grocery store and pick up whatever they wanted so they could eat in privacy.

She definitely didn't want to go through an angel door for something so menial as a grocery run, so they settled for walking. Han was basically running his mouth about how he wanted to fly the whole time, at least until Felix mentioned that he thought walking had a certain charm about it. He reminisced about how when he first became a guardian angel, he had accidentally lost Y/N because he wasn't flying near enough by, so he resorted to walking next to her. Her face grew hot as she thought about all the dumb shit he must have witnessed her do. Shaking her head, she chose not to think about it anymore as they arrived at the store.

Chan looked mildly intrigued by everything, while Changbin was practically grabbing anything he could get his hands on to look at it or read the label. Apparently seraphims didn't get much time playing around with humans. Jisung and Minho were staring each other down out of the corners of their eyes, only breaking for the former to find a cheesecake he liked and the latter to run to the freezer section to grab a pint of strawberry ice cream. Angels also apparently loved desserts.

Once she and the other boys had grabbed what they wanted, she led them to the self-checkout register, already sighing internally at having to cover the costs of their little excursion. As she range everything up and pressed the pay button, though, Felix interrupted excitedly.

"Ooh! Chan! Do that thing that you can do!" Chan looked confused for a minute, before his eyes shifted.

"Oh, sure." Lifting up a hand, several high value bills appeared in his hand, with almost no transition, it was like they'd just... appeared. Looking at him in awe, she grabbed them, morbidly curious to see if the machine would accept them. To her surprise, it did, ringing her up and dumping out the change.

"People don't get suspicious of that?" She asked incredulously.

"Well, I don't really show it off." He laughed. "Plus, it was worse before. You should have seen the riot the first time Minho walked into a store and just... walked out with the stuff."

"I thought it was all free!!" Jisung mocked in a high pitched voice, earning himself a more-than-playful punch to the upper arm.

"Shut up."

"Let's get out of here before we cause a scene?" Chan offered, directing the group of practically-children out of the facility. They walked down the road to a nearby park, sitting atop a low rise brick wall to eat. Minho ate like an animal, shoving his face with as much as he could possibly fit at one time, causing her to roll her eyes. Jisung wasn't much better. Chan and Changbin were well composed enough, and Felix was barely touching his. Normally she'd attribute behavior like that to nausea, but that wouldn't exactly make sense in this situation.

"Y/N, can I try yours?" Jisung whined, already having finished his own food, looking over in hope.

"Hey, I'm the only one who actually has to eat," she joked. "Go get more if you need it!"

"Aww, come on, just a bite?"

"Fine." She relented, amused as he opened his mouth, waiting.

"What are you, a baby?" Minho grumbled. "I thought you were supposed to be some powerful soul-angel." His tone was scathe and mocking, but Jisung ignored him as she laughed, feeding him a bite off her spoon.

"Wait, that's actually really good." He said, eyes wide.

"Can I-"

"No." She smiled, "You said one bite." She took one herself as he lamented, actually considering going back into the store for more. Minho started bickering with him again, Chan intervening every now and then to settle their mini-fights. Looking over to her other side, Felix was still staring, silent.

"Hey, is everything okay?" She asked, sliding over so that they were closer together, creating a little bubble away from the group. He looked up, a bit startled by her seemingly sudden appearance.

"Uh, yeah, I'm good. Just thinking."

"...Okay." She said, not wanting to push him. "If there's anything you need to say, though, feel free to... you know. Talk." He looked at her for a few seconds, then slowly nodded.

"Uh, alright... yeah, sure."

Go to Chapter 13

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ranku-abadeer · 7 years ago

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I’ve been thinking about Grue lately. (Big spoilers)

I hear a lot when he comes up about how he’s an under-developed character, even to the point where people question how his trigger event lines up with his power. (yes I’m aware that Wildbow has said that he lied about his trigger, I’m referring to people who claim that he made up the entire thing) And honestly, I’m thinking that his character building is a lot more subtle than people give him credit for, and a good portion of that character building ties right in to the details of his power and the story he told about his trigger event.

So I guess this has been a long time coming, it’s time for me to give Grue the treatment I gave his sister.

First off, I want to establish an idea. Brian Laborn has what you could possibly call two distinct “personalities”, not in the traditional sense, but rather that he has two distinct sides to him that actually don’t overlap much but yet compliment each other in an interesting way.

There is Brian, the relatively laid back, hard working, compassionate, guy who learns quickly, and gets bored once he starts hitting diminishing returns. The guy who would do anything for his family members, and gets offended when Taylor says he sounds noble for saying so. The guy who is willing to become a career criminal in order to get into the position to become his sister Aisha’s legal guardian.

The guy who gives that “boyish smile” that Taylor fell in love with.

And then there is Grue, the methodical, practiced supervillain who thinks nothing of breaking the jaw of someone who was unwillingly recruited into the ABB. The guy who uses intimidation tactics and is concerned with his reputation and always votes for the plan that minimizes the risk to their team, even if the reward is a fraction of the other option. The guy who takes charge of his team and will go after any weakness that he sees in a confrontation. The “macho” guy who would cover up any weakness he sees in himself or else it will end up being taken advantage of in a confrontation.

The guy who can calmly have a verbal sparring match with supervillains who have multiple kills under their belt, and then lash out as soon as no one is looking.

These two sides of him don’t really clash, but instead sort of flow between each other. This isn’t too surprising, after all, just about every cape has some form of crisis of identity, after all Taylor herself has issues with blending the ruthless nature of “Skitter” and the heroism of “Weaver” when she joins the wards.

But Brian had this identity crisis a while ago, he’s been a cape for 3 years before the story began. He found his “middle ground” between these two personas, but the thing is... this “middle ground” is actually fairly lopsided. In the battle between his identities, Grue seems to have won.

He seems like a fairly open guy at the beginning of he story, but the truth is that he’s not always telling the truth. He hedges when Taylor mentions his combat training, he trails off when he can tell he’s outnumbered in his team, he doesn’t really share his feelings, and he avoids his problems.

In fact, he avoids a lot of things, his emotions, discussing his family, risks in his career, and the eyes of those who hold any sort of power over him. And he forgets that people can see how much he’s avoiding being seen. Taylor does note after all that when he’s at meetings among villains and when he’s stressed out by the attention of someone that he produces visibly more darkness around his body. She says it’s to make himself look bigger, I say it’s to hide.

Let’s look at his trigger event, or rather, what he said his trigger event was.

“We weren’t close. It wasn’t really possible, since I was living at the south end of the city and she was up here. But one night, I got a text from her. Two words: ‘Help me’. I called, but the line was busy. To this day, I don’t know why I took it so seriously, but I got over to my mom’s place as fast as was humanly possible. Ran out the front door, sprinted two blocks to Lord Street, downtown, and grabbed a cab. Left the cab driver shouting for his money as I charged through the front door of my mom’s place and found my sister.

“She’d been crying, but she wasn’t saying what was wrong. I didn’t bother asking a second time. I gave her a hug, picked her up and started to leave. A man I didn’t recognize got in my way. My mom’s new boyfriend.

“I knew he was the reason she had texted me for help, from the moment I saw her reaction. Maybe I’d suspected there was something going on even before that, from the way her emails and texts had changed in tone. It would explain that gut feeling I’d had that made me get over there as fast as I did. I saw her shrink back, I felt her hold me tighter, and I went cold inside.

Immediately after this line, Brian pauses for a long enough period of time that Taylor thinks that he had finished his story already before he starts on a tangent for “context”, describing how his father taught him to fight. That pause was meaningful, he was stopping to think about how continuing to talk would make him appear weak, because he just conveniently sounds very bad-ass when he gets back to his story.

I didn’t say a word, didn’t make a sound. I put my sister down and beat my mother’s boyfriend within an inch of his life, my mother screaming and wailing the entire time. When I was done, I picked my sister up and returned to the cab. We went to my father’s that night, and we went to the police station in the morning.”

“When you throw a punch barehanded, it doesn’t leave your hands pristine. A few good swings, you connect solidly with someone’s face, someone’s teeth, and it tears the fuck out of your knuckles. It was at my father’s place that night, washing and cleaning my hands, when I saw it. It wasn’t just blood leaking out of my torn up knuckles, but there was the darkness too, like wisps of really black smoke. You hear about the trigger event, you might think it’s all about rage or fear. But I’m a testament that it can be just the opposite. I didn’t feel a fucking thing.”

Now let me just go ahead and say, those lines in bold are all lies. According to Wildbow himself, Brian was abused as a kid by one of his mom’s boyfriends, and when he came to help Aisha, he saw the exact same man and knew that he had done to Aisha what he had done to Brian.

Now let’s look at some details about his power. He generates clouds of darkness that block out all light and sound and muck with your sense of touch and these clouds do not affect him at all. But there’s also another detail that gets forgotten due to how rarely it comes up.

Scentless man makes Brutus nervous because he is big but he has no smell. But he is Master’s alpha so Master stops and listens.

-Brutus

Darkness boy isn’t around anymore or I’d be able to smell him.”

-Stormtiger

I could smell his sweat, with the faint traces of his deodorant beneath. It was funny, because when we’d settled in, I hadn’t been able to smell anything.

-Taylor

When Brian is using, or has recently used his power, he has no scent. But the thing is, that all 3 of those people have displayed being able to smell things inside his darkness, only Brian’s scent is gone when his power is being used, no other smell is affected. It also just happens that the first person to bring this up is a dog who throughout the chapter repeatedly mentions smelling emotions from other characters.

So when faced with the person who had hurt him when he was a kid, who had been hurting his sister, he gets a power that lets him hide himself. A power that means people can’t see him shrink back or flinch, a power that means you can’t hear him scream or whimper, a power that means you can’t feel how badly he’s shaking, and a power that means no one can smell his fear. He’s a perfect stranger trigger....

But there’s more to it, He’s not the one who needs to hide, not really. He’s a fit teenager, he’s had experience in the boxing ring, he doesn’t just know how to throw a punch, he knows how to take a punch. But above all else he wants to keep those close to him from experiencing the things he has, which is the perfect stress for a shaker trigger. So of course his power doesn’t blind him, he still hears the screams, he still sees the violence, he still feels every tremble of his body perfectly, but everyone else is shielded from it. He didn’t break when his mom’s boyfriend beat him, he broke when his mom’s boyfriend moved on to beating his sister.

He didn’t break when Bonesaw had cut his chest open and crucified him in a walk-in freezer with his organs on display and added nerve endings stretched across the room, making him feel immense pain any time someone even entered the room. He even remained stubborn and refused to use his power to keep Bonesaw from getting the data on his power that she wanted, it didn’t matter how badly she tortured him, he could take it.

But the second his team are dragged out in front of him, with taylor’s skull cut open and Bonesaw straddling Aisha while holding a circular saw?

Then it stopped. I could hear a strangled noise.

“Aw. Look at his heart beating! So fast!”

...

Another strangled noise, trying and failing to form words. It was so forced and ragged that it made my own throat seize up in sympathy.

Then Bonesaw starts taunting him. She tells him about how much suffering they have already put his sister through, how they had her begging them for help a while ago and he only just found out about it.

He made a sound that might have been a growl or a howl of rage, but there was no volume to it, and it was more high-pitched than anything else.

Once he finds out how his sister has been hurt badly by those who have hurt him, he howls in rage.

I felt a hand pat my cheek.

...

“It’s just so funny, watching him react. His heart beat faster when I touched her.”

and then she calls out him reacting to her threats and Burnscar readies to attack his friends and his darkness pools out and he has a second trigger.

Now compare this to his first trigger. My interpretation of the exact scene would be that Brian recognized the man who had abused them both, and he taunted them, talking down about them both. Brian most certainly reacted to how he talked about Aisha. Brian was terrified of the situation, But he wanted to be a shield, he trusted his body and knew what he wanted to do, to beat the abuser’s face in, like how he punched his mom’s boyfriend in the face until his knuckles bled, and how he pulped burnscar’s skull against a counter-top, and above all else he didn’t want people to see any sign of weakness from him, and he wanted to shield those he cared about from the violence around them. And most importantly he wanted them to not see how violent/abusive HE was capable of being. Which I believe is part of one of the biggest details about a line that he says in arc 2 and expands on in arc 5. A line that I actually have never seen anyone bring up in discussions about him.

“I hate this, Rachel. That you make me do shit like this. That when I say things like that, I sound like everything I hate most in this world.

That right there. His issues with abusive family members aren’t just limited to his trigger event, this at times leads to extreme self hatred, because he is aware of how similar he is to the people who haunt him at times, he’s even caught himself lashing out at Aisha in similar ways before, and that was a pivotal moment in his life.

“I know, but you’re not getting it. I was the type to go after someone if they showed a vulnerability. Wasn’t until I’d had my powers about a year, Aisha tells me I was being an asshole, just like one of her stepdads used to be. So I tried to be better, but I always wanted to protect her, always wanted to help others.

He’s deeply afraid of being like other people in his family, and it’s not just his mom’s boyfriends that bother him. He seems to have other traumas specifically related to his mom that eat at him that he doesn’t tell anyone about, even to the point where Aisha is less bothered by their mom’s issues than he is.

“And mommy’s on a bender,” Aisha said. “Don’t think it’ll end anytime soon.”

It was odd, but Brian looked more upset at hearing that than Aisha was about saying it aloud. Hadn’t he grown up with his dad?

15.1

“Look, Mr. Laborn, we have to consider Aisha’s perspective. She’s a serial runaway. She clearly doesn’t see your father’s place as a home. Extra care should be given to ensure she sees this as one. Assuming she winds up here and not at her mother’s.”

“My mother’s,” Brian’s expression took on a more serious cast.

“I’m aware of your concerns on the subject of Aisha’s mother, Mr. Laborn.”

6.3

All together it’s clear that even pre-Bonesaw, Brian was a deeply traumatized individual who was just good enough at putting up a false face and avoiding his traumas enough that no one could use it against him. Good enough even that us readers could barely see a sign of it.

Except his fears still get expressed notably no matter how much he hides them, in fact, they get noticed because he hides them. Every time he is faced with his traumas and fears he defaults to “orders, rules and self-discipline” according to tattletale’s power, and he is always noted to make himself appear larger to the point where his body language is impossible to read.

When faced with the members of Empire-88 accusing him of being aggressive on neutral ground, he swells up to “look more imposing” or possibly to hide his body language from the neo-nazi’s who have a history of attacking his family and have almost certainly targeted him in his civilian identity at some point. When he is spit up by Echidna he becomes a blob of shadow so shapeless that Taylor can’t tell what position he was sitting in. And then when he sees Bonesaw standing across from him at a meeting between major cape groups, his darkness was literally writhing as he struggled to not look at her, which his teammates immediately knew was him withdrawing and burying all of his emotions, every time he does it, his team notices and quickly figures out the reason.

The one time he doesn’t do this is after his second trigger, where he is on his knees, visibly sobbing in front of his entire team, the one time where the pain is so raw that he can’t hide, his default instincts of self discipline fail.

His power helps him hide, but not well enough to keep those close to him from knowing his reactions. But still well enough to keep everyone, including the readers, from seeing too much of the traumatized scared teenager who knows he is in way over his head named Brian, and instead to see the intimidating supervillain with an impressive track-record named Grue.

#parahumans #worm #wildbow #worm spoilers #grue #Brian #It's been a long time since i've done an analysis like this #holy crap this ended up longer than i had planned #really hope this isn't too much of a ramble #i'm tired and have been writing this for...#wow #about 4 hours #maybe more

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facets-and-rainbows · 7 years ago

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Blue Exorcist: Home Sweet Home (Part 3)

Part 3 of the translation. Come watch tiny Rin be adorably incompetent at caring for the sick!

[Part 1] [Part 2]

Part 3

I’ve been given a really important mission…

As he watched his father leave, Rin’s heart was pounding with excitement. He balled his hands into fists in front of his chest.

Normally, even for simple errands, Yukio would be handed the money and the shopping list, because “If I give them to you, Rin, you’ll buy things we don’t need.” It was totally unfair treatment and it hurt Rin’s pride as the big brother.

This was the first big job he had ever been trusted with. There was no way he wouldn’t give it his all.

Okay, this is my chance to clean my name, he decided, with a half-learned grownup-sounding phrase in his heart. If his father had been there, he probably would have said “You mean clear your name. What good would it do to clean it?”

Rin looked over at his brother and the monks, all of them red-faced and completely wiped out, and tried to remember what his father usually did when Yukio had a fever.

He was pretty sure his dad soaked a cloth in ice water and put it on Yukio’s forehead. When he did that, Yukio’s fever would go down so fast you could almost see it. That cloth was magic.

“First, I have to cool down their heads.”

Rin headed for the monastery’s kitchen. He looked around for a big bowl to put some cold water in, but he could only find small ones, so he grabbed a handy bucket that was sitting right there. He filled it up with cold water.

“Ice, Ice…” He picked up the heavy bucket in both hands and dragged it over to the refrigerator.

The all-male household had an industrial fridge. It had a lot of years under its belt, and it constantly made a low noise and vibrated. The noise was especially bad at night, almost like the fridge was moaning.

Yukio had been deathly afraid of the noise all the way up until they entered kindergarten.

Yukio was afraid of everything. Until just recently, he hadn’t even been able to walk to the bathroom by himself—he said there were ghosts and demons hiding in the darkness.

“I have to protect Yukio. I’m his big brother,” Rin said to himself, a dutiful look on his face. He stared up at the towering refrigerator.

The old-style fridge didn’t have a freezer drawer—the freezer was way up above his head. Poor short Rin had to get a chair, stand on top of it, and stretch as far as he could just to open the freezer door.

When Rin pulled on the handle, a rush of cold air whooshed past his nose. He winced at the cold, but he didn’t let it stop him from dropping the ice into the bucket from way up on the chair. A lot of water splashed onto the floor around him when he did that, but at least he had his ice water.

The bucket was even heavier now. He lugged it over to the bathroom with both hands. The towels were too thick for him to ring out, so instead he grabbed five thin rags that had been placed on the windowsill to keep the condensation from collecting there. He tossed them into the bucket.

The bucket was so heavy now that he was whispering “heave-ho” to himself as he carried it, and he stopped to take a break in the middle of the hallway.

“Being a doctor is hard,” he muttered, wiping the sweat from his brow.

But he looked a lot happier than those words would seem to suggest.

“Ugh…mmmph…”

Yukio had been tossing and turning with the fever when he felt something cool on his forehead.

The coolness felt good on his feverish face. But for some reason there was also an unnamable smell, sort of like mildew and sort of like sour milk.

Frankly, it stank.

Yukio opened his eyes and saw his twin brother’s face. He blinked blearily.

“? Nii-san?”

“Oh, Yukio. Are you awake?”

Rin grinned. When he pulled his hands away from Yukio’s forehead, his fingertips looked red with cold.

“How is it? The cold feels good, right?”

“Huh? Y-Yeah…”

Yukio nodded, trying to endure the smell. He turned his eyes upward to look at his own forehead, and saw an old rag. It was obviously the source of the stench.

No wonder it stinks…

Even worse, when he looked off to the side there was a bucket sitting there for some reason. Yukio was pretty sure it was the bucket they threw away kitchen scraps in.

But Rin looked really proud of himself, and Yukio couldn’t quite bring himself to give his honest opinion.

Yukio turned to his brother and gave him a (slightly forced) smile.

“Thanks…Nii-san…”

But it probably would’ve been better if it wasn’t a dirty rag, he added in his mind.

“Heh heh heh. No problem.”

Rin scratched the bottom of his nose, happy at his brother’s words of gratitude, and then went around to put dirty rags on his other four patients.

“Ugh…urrrrrgh…mmpf…ghh…urk…”

A pained whimper escaped the lips of Maruta, who was sleeping next to Yukio. Looking at his tortured sleeping face, Yukio felt sorry for him.

Izumi, Kyoudou, and Nagatomo seemed to be awake and struggling with the same dilemma as Yukio.

“Rin…thank you. You’ve done more than enough—you should go watch TV or something. Right, that battle anime you like! Isn’t that on right now?”

Nagatomo made a valiant attempt to get Rin to stop of his own accord, but—

“I can’t! Taking care of you guys is my mission, so I don’t have time to watch TV!”

Rin flatly refused him with uncharacteristic earnestness; he dashed out of the room, out of breath, saying “Okay, next is…” He was like a tiny runaway train. He had no brakes, and he would just keep going until he ran out of steam.

“’Next’? What’s he planning now?”

“So…I guess it’d be bad if we took these things off of our heads?”

“I…guess…urgh, it stinks…”

They all lay in their sickbeds trembling with fear until Rin returned some ten or fifteen minutes later. For some reason, he was carrying five leeks and a brown jar. He had, tucked under his right arm, a book of home remedies that his father the doctor had bought at a used bookstore in the True Cross Shopping District.

Home remedies—it was more like a book of superstitions. One time Yukio had looked over his father’s shoulder at a page that said to “apply a well-cooked leek to the affected area” as a treatment for hemorrhoids.

Yukio had a bad feeling. In fact, he had nothing but bad feelings.

Nagatomo, Kyoudou, and Izumi had sensed danger too. They pulled their heads under the covers like baby turtles and started dramatically pretending to sleep. The sounds of high-pitched fake snoring echoed from each of their futons.

Yukio was about to join them, but he was too slow—his brother was already crouched down next to his futon.

Rin set his bundle of leeks down on the floor and took a bright red pickled plum out of the jar. It was a big one, and so bright that Yukio could almost taste how sour it was just looking at the color. The bits of purple-red shiso leaves stuck to it only accentuated the sourness.

Yukio’s mouth folded into a pucker automatically. Rin’s mouth was doing the same as he held the plum.

“Everything’s gonna be okay, Yukio. It said if I wrap a leek around your neck and stick this pickled plum on your forehead, your cold will get better super fast! Pretty amazing, huh?

“Y-yeah, that’s amazing. But don’t worry about it, Nii-san. I’m actually already feeling better.”

Yukio shook his head side to side.

But that kind of indirect refusal would never get through to his brother. Rin, wearing a completely flawless innocent smile, just said “Don’t be shy!” and wrapped a leek around Yukio’s neck. He’d even gotten a cooked leek. The outer layer stuck right to Yukio’s skin.

“Urk…” Yukio squawked like a frog again as the leek tightened around his neck.

Next, Rin went to stick the pickled plum to Yukio’s forehead, but his hand stopped in midair. He frowned and went “hmmm,” his momentum fading.

Now that the leek had been added to the sour milk smell, Yukio had given up on breathing through his nose and switched to his mouth—though it still smelled a little even then. But he noticed his brother acting strange. And even with the fever and the awful smell, he was smart enough to know why right away.

There was no room.

I get it. The rag is already taking up my whole forehead.

Rin wouldn’t have a spot to put the plum on. Yukio breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that he might at least get the rag taken off. The pickled plum would be better than the rag. At least it wouldn’t stink.

“Nii-sa—“

“I know!”

But of course, his brother had to be maddeningly clever just this one time.

Rin’s face lit up and he snapped his fingers—unsuccessfully. He folded up the rag smaller and set it right in the middle of Yukio’s forehead, with a pickled plum on either side.

“Good!” he said, exhaling contentedly.

What do you mean good? Nothing about this is good, Yukio would have thought, had he been maybe ten years older. As it was, he was still young and innocent, and all he did was look terribly sad.

“You sleep tight, okay?”

“…”

Poor Yukio just nodded silently at Rin’s big-brother attitude.

He had been sleeping—maybe not too comfortably, but sleeping nonetheless—before his brother came and put a dirty rag on his forehead. But now he couldn’t sleep if he tried, not while he was being tortured like this.

Meanwhile, the three adults who had hurriedly pretended to sleep, plus Maruta who really was asleep, all had their futons forcibly yanked off so they could face the same fate as Yukio.

And then, to make things worse, Rin rolled up his sleeves and said “Okay, what should I do next?”

The monks paled.

“Please, please just sit still!”

“That’ll help us rest the most (mentally)!”

“I’m begging you, Rin! Have mercy!”

“Dad gave me a mission. I have to take good care of you!” Rin declared, shrill and defensive. He yelled “Ou!” to pump himself up and dashed out of the room. Everyone sighed deeply in their futons. They looked even more worn out than they had that morning.

In the following hours, the patients in their beds were assaulted by all sorts of trials and tribulations. All the windows were opened wide to the freezing cold, turning the whole room into an icebox. They each had to take their medicine with a suspicious cup of hot water that seemed to have dandelions from the yard floating in it. Beethoven’s ninth symphony was blasted at full volume, on the theory that “clasicle” music (Rin couldn’t spell “classical”) was good for colds. Their mouths were stuffed full of jaw-bendingly sour mikans…

But they didn’t resent Rin, who was a little ball of good intentions and responsibility. No, all their resentment was pointed squarely at Shirou, for telling him all this good-for-nothing information for fun.

“…Let’s slip something Fujimoto-sensei hates into his bowl at every meal.”

“Oden is off the menu for the rest of the year! And don’t even think about daikon!”

“I’m going to hang his futon out to dry in the shade from now on.”

“Fill his hot water bottle with cold water!”

The grown men were getting all wrapped up in planning their childish revenge. Yukio didn’t even have the strength left to try to defend his father. All he could do was endure the stench, which was growing worse by the minute, and the plums, which tumbled annoyingly off of his forehead every time he moved a muscle.

His father’s smiling face flashed across his mind. Even though he hadn’t been away for long. Even though he had Rin and everyone else right by his side…

Maybe the cold had weakened him mentally too?

I wish I could have some of Dad’s hot ojiya… he thought, keeping it to himself so as not to worry everyone.

He closed his eyes, and the darkness he hated so much closed in. The dark world where demons lurked. And all he could do was be scared, so scared…

Hot tears started to well up in the corners of his eyes.

He felt like a weak pathetic crybaby next to his strong brother, and it made him sadder.

[Go to part 4]

#in which Rin Tries His Best #and everyone else starts wondering if the whole eternal torment thing is genetic after all #blue exorcist #Ao no Exorcist #blue exorcist novel #home sweet home #translation

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