#ch: ray | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aprcates · 2 months ago

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It is, of course, fitting that the first proper post on this account is about my darling dearest girl. Headers to be updated with her full name once we get that far — I’ve wanted to go on this tangent but never had a space for it. On that note: spoilers for her backstory below the cut, and the typical triggering topics that surround that (human trafficking, grief, etc.)

ON THAT NOTE . . .

Something that’s been really itching my brain is portraying her specifically in this context, knowing that she has the knowledge she does about Daveth, about Iohra, about Nafel.

Before sessions, particularly these, I have been looking back on how I played her in V1 of Elthrae and trying to look at what can be the same and what has to change as a byproduct of what’s happened so far. She was a lot happier in V1, I think; but that’s because she didn’t know everything that awaited her in Draea. This time she does, and Ray has always had problems with optimism. She’s too aware of how temporary things are.

So no, she doesn’t want to sing, or get drunk, or lean into celebrations. Of course last time she was nervous about the caverns — but she knew what the end of that would be. This time there’s more waiting for her on the other side and she doesn’t see where the end is.

It's a give and take certainly; in V1 she was a lot happier at this time, a lot more indulgent. Yes, let's get drunk and sing at the top of our lungs and tomorrow I can return to my worrying, but I look forward to what awaits me on the other side of that mountain pass. However, when we reach that other side I will be blindsided, I will be confronted with all that I was running from in an unapologetic and harsh way. In V2, she isn't nearly as indulgent, because for the past several weeks this has all been eating at her. I want to sit in this and not sour your fun now, but I will have to later. I'm not happy, but I'm trying to be. However, she also knows what's coming, can brace herself for impact (even if some of it, like Nafel, she will never be wholly prepared to face for the first time no matter how many versions of the story there are!).

I've always said I Know the End would be the song to play if Ray were to die but funnily enough I think she's in the throes of that now. How the instrumentation in the bridge feels so much like a brace-for-impact. Which is what she's doing now.

I also think this is kind of coupled with the fact that out of the entire party, Ray has given... the least of herself. Of course, we have the moment with Marzena, but even then it was a fairly vague explanation (not that Marzena would ever expect Ray to detail everything about her abuse). Ray has allowed her personality to shine without giving much of her life — she's mentioned "an uncle" who maybe she doesn't view in a positive light, and of course the party knows she has voices in her head, but that's not something she talks about in any way that's substantial beyond jokes every now and again.

How do you go from giving nothing of yourself, to having to tell them virtually everything?

Ray has a lot more to think about by the time she reaches Treston, in comparison to last time. It makes it harder for her to enjoy these moments that she does have to relax. The world is always ending and she's always trying to put out the fires and it's never enough.

It's all frightening but she doesn't want the fear to show on her face. And sure, she can get a hundred different pep talks from the people she loves the most in this world but at the end of the day she will always be all-consuming in her troubles until they finally hit her and she knows definitively if she will sink or swim.

It's hard to be happy when she knows that a monster lurks just around the bend — and no matter how hard she tries, these people will follow her straight into its claws even if she doesn't want them to.

#elthrae.txt #ch: ray

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hachiibun · 2 years ago

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❗ PLEASE NO REBLOGGING TO NON-KINK BLOGS ❗

I'm honoured to have collaborated with the incredible @onetrickponi to celebrate a certain gravity-manipulating shorty's birthday! This has been in the works for a while now, and we're both really excited to finally share this with everyone!

Without further ado, we'd like to present Vigil.

— ♠ —

“I’ve always wanted to die in a church.”

Beside him, Chuuya snorts. “I thought you wanted to die in the Ooka.”

Dazai wrinkles his nose. “Not since it became a tourist trap,” he replies. “That wouldn’t be a peaceful death at all.”

“The amount of thought you’ve put into this disturbs me,” says Chuuya, his own nose creasing. His, however, is due to a low seated, buzzing itch along the bridge of his sinuses that has been lingering since breakfast.

Chuuya won’t give it the satisfaction of culminating into a sneeze, however; instead choosing to quash the soft tingle into oblivion with the sheer force of his willpower alone. Anything else would be unacceptable.

(—as well as fucking candy to the idiot next to him, if Dazai ever gets wind of…whatever this is.)

Chuuya swallows against a spark of itch that ignites in his nose and grits his teeth. When he thinks he can speak steadily he points to the pews with a gloved hand. “Find the flash drive,” he orders. “We’ve got a window of thirty minutes at—the fuck are you looking at, shithead?”

Dazai cocks his head to the side, blinks, and answers with, “Just admiring your striking resemblance to a cherub in this light.” It’s smooth and practiced, like most of Dazai’s bullshittery.

“Why, you–” Chuuya cuts himself off and exhales slowly through his nose. He tries not to wince at the slight whistling sound it makes. With a sharp sniff he stalks off to the sanctuary and begins sifting through the drawers there. Dazai scurries off to the apse with an excited noise, muttering something about how angelic his corpse would look strung up along the mosaics.

Chuuya’s nose gives a foreboding quiver.

It isn’t like Dazai hasn’t ever heard him sneeze, or vice versa. They’ve been working together too long for that. They’ve seen each other express every bodily function possible to man (in addition to the ones that aren’t).

And Chuuya might have even been okay with his current predicament, had it not been for a quip Dazai made last week about Chuuya being a “weakling.” It had stung because Dazai, whose lack of self care is, frankly, appalling, can operate seemingly unbothered by even the most serious neglects of basic needs. Chuuya’s seen him run at peak wit on days of sleeping ninety minutes a night, seen his hair and skin glow on a diet of crab cakes and sake…while on the other hand Chuuya’s the one with the—

Don’t say it. As if ignoring the problem will make it go away. It hasn’t worked with Dazai, so Chuuya is a fool to think it will work with his increasingly sensitive airways.

Chuuya rifles through some bibles, sparing a glance or two at Dazai before deeming it okay to swallow a couple of sneezes and throat clears into his sleeve. He’s perfected the silent stifle over time, which is a feat in and of itself since Chuuya tends to sneeze harshly, loudly, and in multiples. Perhaps the intensity is Corruption at work, but regardless, Chuuya enjoys scaring the living daylights out of people. Usually.

The flash drive is proving to be elusive. The Port needs it, badly, if they have any chance of winning over the west side gangs of the Pier. Chuuya jams a gloved knuckle against the side of his nose as he hitches, squints, and glares at the church pews like they personally offend him.

“Oi, Chuuya,” Dazai whisper-calls from somewhere behind a cupboard. “I think someone’s coming. You find it?”

“No,” Chuuya snaps. The dust of old, flaky books is making his already irritated nose twitch. He shakes his head and the tickle abates. Cocking his head he realizes that Dazai is right; the sound of slow footfalls is getting closer to the vestibule. “Shit.”

Dazai scurries lightly over to where Chuuya is glowering at nothing in particular, and takes him by the arm. “There’s a little den area over there,” he nods to a veiled corner, “where we can stay hidden until whoever it is leaves,” he says.

“Or we can just come back in the morning,” replies Chuuya, snatching his arm away.

“Mori-sama will be disappoinnnteddd,” Dazai sing-songs. Dammit. He knows how to hit Chuuya where it hurts and they both know it.

Chuuya sighs. “Fine.” He stalks over to the den and crouches in the darkness with Dazai just as the cathedral doors swing open. The gibbous moon twinkles through the stained glass windows enough for the two of them to make out one of the western gang’s right hands.

Dazai crouches low and squints through the shadows. “Maybe he’ll show us where the drive is,” he whispers.

“Shut up, slug.”

Dazai holds up his bandaged hands in a familiar, placating gesture. They watch the guy glide down the stone nave, rummage around some boxes along the altar’s steps, sift through a stack of papers, and make himself comfortable on a nearby cushion.

Well, there goes Chuuya’s hopes of a night in. And now with Dazai sitting so close, he’s bound to find out Chuuya isn’t in as good of shape as he claims. Chuuya’s not going to waste all of his energy hiding it, but he’s also not ready to be discovered because he couldn’t keep his damn nose under control.

He’d never hear the end of it from Dazai.

So when he feels a trickle of damp at the edges of his nostrils he takes a slow breath in and times a much-needed sniffle with their visitor’s dropping of a folder. Dazai shoots him a curious, but unsurprised glance, which Chuuya pointedly ignores.

The sneeze teasing the swollen membranes of his sinuses, however, is much harder to ignore. Chuuya knows he can stifle it, but he also knows that doing so won’t exactly solve the problem. The irritation needs somewhere to go, or it’ll just build fruitlessly until he lets them out proper.

He breathes carefully, making sure to hitch silently as he bunches up a handful of fabric from his jacket. Chuuya ducks his head in preparation for the sneeze (or sneezes, if this is indeed a…cold).

Dazai raises an eyebrow as he watches Chuuya curl into himself and shiver with two inaudible stifles. When Chuuya uncurls Dazai can see the bleary, hazy look of someone who still has desperately to sneeze but is trying very hard not to.

“Can you stop, Chibi?” whispers Dazai. Chuuya shoots him a look that is equal parts furious and embarrassed. It’s adorable. But…

“Frankly, I’d rather not get caught because you couldn’t tame your little nose there,” Dazai continues. “Are you suuure you’re good?”

Chuuya gives a curt nod. Which should be reassuring, but Dazai’s smile falters because this is actually very bad. He recognizes the lack of quip, even while hiding like this, means that Chuuya does not trust himself enough to speak. He’s seen it before.

Dazai flicks an errant strand of hair out of his eyes and sighs. “Maybe we really will die in a church, if you keep this up.”

Chuuya’s returning grin is feral. “Y-you wish.” No way in hell will he allow Dazai the satisfaction. The carpets blanketing the enclosed den mean that they can whisper without much of an echo. It’s a small relief, since Chuuya can feel the congestion crawling and pattering away in a far back place of his nose, dormant but threatening.

He focuses on how intently Dazai is eyeing him, knowing well what Dazai isn’t saying. Engaging would be easy, but it would be messy and they’re supposed to be currying favor with the west side gangs, not killing them (or in Dazai’s case, very emphatically bonking them on the head).

Chuuya’s right eye waters with the sharpness of the tickle, as the itchiness swells and becomes decidedly less dormant. He bites his lip. If this keeps up his nose is going to turn into fucking Krakatoa.

Dazai watches Chuuya massage his flaring nostrils through the fabric of his gloves and grins with as many teeth as he can muster. Chuuya’s losing battle with his nose is even more hilarious than the fact that he’s currently sitting on a pile of Communion pamphlets.

It won’t be long now, what with the way Chuuya has gone stiff and rigid. Dazai counts backwards from five in his head. He gets to two before Chuuya’s lip trembles as the itch erupts and overwhelms him.

“Gnt!” Chuuya’s able to pinch that one into submission, though it makes his head throb and the pulsating trickle along his nose intensify with unsatisfied need. “Gnt! Nt! H’Gnt!”

He starts to lower his hand, before—“Gnt!” Jesus fuck, can’t he be done?

The answer is no, apparently, because Chuuya feels his eyes begin to flutter shut and his chest start to jump with silent, building hitches.

Before he can sneeze again, however, he feels a tap on his shoulder. It successfully distracts him from the budding sneeze as Chuuya whips his head around to stare at Dazai’s familiar, shit-eating grin.

Dazai uses the finger he’d tapped Chuuya with to beckon. “C’mere.”

Chuuya sniffs carefully and squints. “Why?”

Rolling his eyes, Dazai grabs him (gently, Chuuya notices, which okay, is a little odd) and smashes his face into his long overcoat (a little less gently).

“Mnflgl?” Chuuya questions.

“Sneeze, Chuuya,” Dazai orders. Chuuya tries to shake his head because one, Dazai’s forgetting how harsh his sneezes are—sure to give them away, and two, Chuuya might hate the guy but he’s not going to sneeze on him.

Dazai seems to read his mind. “The fabric will muffle the sound,” he replies. “And you’ll pay for my dry cleaning.” Chuuya can hear his smirk. Asshole.

But he also wants very badly to sneeze. No; at this point he’s desperate to sneeze. His nose feels like one of his gravity bombs, pulsing, thrumming, and the itch is all consuming. It would feel so good to just let a few out. He really shouldn’t.

“I know you need to,” whispers Dazai.

So, against all logic, Chuuya does.

“Hep-MPPH! MPPHT! H’MPPH!” Somehow, the fabric dampens the sound better than Chuuya thought it would. So he decides he can sneeze a little more.

“Hh…hh…MPPHT! PHT! MPPHT! Hp!…H-Hep-MPPHH!”

He’s beginning to feel dizzy. It’s worth it, though, as the stuffy, spider-crawling prickle along his nose subsides for the time being. God, he’s never had to sneeze so badly in his life. Makes sense it’s now, when he needs to be quiet.

And Dazai—the utter prick—is patting his head, like Chuuya’s some sort of mutt. “You’re a mess, you know that?” he’s saying, fondly, as Chuuya shakes with sneeze after sneeze. It’s a wonder the gang’s right hand hasn’t discovered them yet.

Slowly, Chuuya comes up for air. He thanks some leviathan god that it’s dark, so he doesn’t have to look at what he’s done to Dazai’s coat. He’s not even going to look at Dazai, because this is probably one of the most humiliating things to happen to him in…well, not as long as Chuuya’d like to admit. This is Dazai, after all.

“Bless you,” Dazai says quietly. Chuuya’s head snaps to him because Dazai sounds wrong. Odd. Genuine. Ah, that’s why it took so long to place. Dazai rarely does sincere, and the few times he expresses genuine emotions tend to signify nothing good at all.

“Thank you,” Chuuya mutters between a clenched jaw because he may have made a mess of himself but he still has manners, goddammit. He blinks the remaining wetness from his eyes as he peers at Dazai for a suspended moment.

“Oh, and if you’re curious, the guy left five minutes ago.”

And the moment is over.

Chuuya jumps up. “You utter assho-ho–” He’s cut off by the familiar needling sensation at the back of his nose. Oh no you don’t. Jamming a fist under his septum hard enough to bruise, he points a finger at Dazai.

“I despise you,” he hisses. “All thihh…th…hih…”

Dazai holds a hand to his ear. “What was that?”

Chuuya shakes his head with a tickly sniff in hopes that his nose will make up its mind and move from where it’s currently settled—in the burning, stinging place between sneeze and not sneeze that’s driving him even more up the wall than Dazai is.

Dazai cocks his head at just the right angle that a piece of hair falls into his eyes. “That sneeze looks troublesome,” he observes. “Is it stuck? Like Chuuya’s growth spurt?”

Chuuya growls and kicks a nearby chair leg for good measure, now that they don’t have to concern themselves with being quiet. The sound is hollow and echoes across the large cathedral chamber.

There’s a wrinkled, damp spot on one side of Dazai’s overcoat that Chuuya pointedly avoids looking at. The crazy bastard had let him do that, all for, what? Funsies? To torture him? Chuuya will unpack that for later. It never bodes well to try to make sense of Dazai’s brain. Besides, the much-needed sneeze is still eluding him. If he could just–just…

“Hih…Hept! Hh…Fuck! Shit!”

Dazai sighs. “Okay, I can’t watch this,” he says, striding over to Chuuya. “Stay still, Chibi.”

Chuuya glares at him, irritation evident in his eyes and in his raw, wide-blown nostrils. “If you’re doi’g anythi’g other thad helpi’g, Dazai, I will obliterate you,” he says darkly, throat crackling and sore.

Dazai grins wide. “Relax,” he says. He wiggles a finger. “I know Chuuya’s sneeze spot.”

“What the fuck even is a—” Dazai presses a finger to the bridge of Chuuya’s nose, in the center, and gives it a circular rub back and forth. Chuuya stumbles back and manages a wavering, shaky curse in French before he snaps forward with a fusillade of unrestrained sneezes.

“Hih-ASHHHu! Hep’ASHHU! AHSSHU! AHSSH! AHSSHH! AHSSHU! Merde!…Heh-heh…hih’ASHHU!”

Chuuya sneezes and sneezes, for once uncaring about decorum. It’s a miracle his hat doesn’t fly off. He’s so overcome with finally scratching the itch in his nose that he almost doesn’t feel the tap at his shoulder. Dazai’s extending a packet of tissues that look like they were newly purchased.

“Goodness! I don’t know whether to bless Chuuya or call an exorcist,” he remarks.

“Shut up,” Chuuya mutters around a tissue. With that annoyance out of the way, it’s seeping in just how awful he feels. He sighs, heavy, and rubs at a temple. “Nom de dieu…”

“I really don’t know how someone so little can sneeze with such ferocity,” continues Dazai, ignoring Chuuya. It’s easy to say the man was put on this earth for the sole purpose of making Chuuya’s life miserable. “Hih…ASHHU!” Chuuya’s head gives a throb and things slide out of focus for a minute. He coughs, rough, and pushes some sweaty hair away from his face. How unsightly.

“Oh, and Chuuya?” Dazai makes a burlesque of leaning in and peering at him. “The next time you’re sick, call in, okay?” And then he reaches one lanky arm over and pats Chuuya’s head.

“I never said I was sick,” Chuuya snaps, jerking out of reach. Dazai makes to poke his nose again, but Chuuya evades him with a hoarse snarl. “Stop.”

In response, Dazai gives him a condescending look that Chuuya knows well. It’s the one where he purses his lips and crinkles up his large, dark eyes. The one he knows infuriates Chuuya the most. “Please,” he says, waving a hand. “I knew before we even got here. Just wanted to see how long you could keep it up.”

Chuuya opens his mouth to utter some expletive, he doesn’t know which one yet, but the sneezy feeling decides to return—bristling like a thousand tiny whiskers along the rims of his inner nose. Stifling it to refute Dazai’s point will only make his head pound harder, so Chuuya wrenches to the side with a sneeze. Which, naturally, makes him cough.

“Hmmm, you really don’t sound good, Chuuya.”

“Fuck you.”

Dazai makes a face. “Ew, no thanks. But since you’re already paying for my dry cleaning, why don’t I treat you to a nice bowl of leek soup and tea?”

Dazai is so confusing at times Chuuya could strangle him. Or at least blame him for the acute emotional whiplash.

“Hh’ASSHu! AHSSH! J'en peux plus…” Chuuya twitches his nose to the side and straightens his hat. “Whatever—let’s just find that drive and get the hell out of here so I can go to bed,” he grumbles. It’s not exactly a refusal (because tea does in fact sound nice), but Chuuya is more than done with this place.

“You mean this?” Dazai wiggles a little USB between two bandaged fingers. Chuuya sputters. “Yup. Found it ages ago and switched it with a fake.”

“AAH?!”

— Fin —

#snz #snz kink #hachiisnzart #ch/uuy/a n/akahar/a #b/ungo st/ray d/ogs #o/sam/u d/az/ai #hachiibunart #ppls fics #onetrickponi #my GOODNESS poni your writing #give all the thanks to poni for the wonderful fic and patience waiting for me to finish #seeing all the ppl into b/s/d nowadays is so lovely #i'm still v much into the series and especially this angry shorty #hopefully it shows in my part >;)

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