#file this under: fics that were definitely written in the covid era

[elfstuck]

Gettin the Band Back Together

Finally watching the Homestuck Recap and trying to catch up. (It is 8pm on Apr 13 for me, as I write this. I want to post something for Homestuck Day that's not just 'hey I am aware it's Homestuck Day.') I have not given up on this blog, but as you can see, it is not at the top of my "do this now" priority lists.

(Since I last did serious blogging here, I have created two (tiny) solo TTRPGs, watched BNHA and Untamed and read ridiculous amounts of fic for both, and gotten a Real Job. With. Like. Union benefits. Also my father died in the early Covid era (not of Covid) and this made the whole lockdown thing much easier to handle because I had no interest in being social for at least six months after that.) (And every week, my Google calender says "Reminder: Homestuck liveblogging!" which has served as a weird touchstone for normality throughout the hellscape years.)

GENERAL NOTES: I want ZERO SPOILERS. NONE. I have a friend (@chibipaw) to help me by reading my inbox, but that just means "she will delete stuff that has spoilers" and I won't see it. I have a broad definition of spoilers. Like. I do not want to hear "oh you'll see that one again" or "wait'll you see what happens when they meet." I was not happy to be told that the people chatting with Our Protagonists were the trolls I'd heard so much about. Don't assume "everyone knows that"; I have managed to block out an incredible amount of knowledge about this fandom.

I am here for the tentabulges. Eventually. I will be reading all the depraved fic. Eventually. I ship them all. Eventually.

…I may ship them all before eventually.

Lemme see if I got this:

It's John's 13th birthday. It has been John's 13th birthday for longer than John has been alive.

His neighborhood got blown up. But he's safe (…for some values of "safe") in the Medium, where things are weird.

Kernelsprites. More than one of them.

Rose is playing with the server version of Sburb

Dave is arguing with trolls

Jade is doing something with a dreamscape something or other

Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey

Wayward Vagabond yay

Midnight crew. Midnight crew song. (Not actually part of the story.) (I want Midnight Crew song fanfic.)

Prospit. Derse. Multiple peoples with the same initials in different settings.

Chess war something (I have kinda stopped paying attention to the recap.)

Multiple strange worlds: Land of Wind and Shade; Land of Light and Rain; Land of Heat & Clockwork, all of which I want custom dragons for. This is complexified by the fact that Flight Rising expanded its color scheme while I was reading Homestuck, and also there are now swarms of new dragon types so I will have to rethink my plans for LOWAS and LOHAC dragons. I don't think I've seen Jade's realm yet.

Trolls with initials that are all "lower case letter followed by capital letter," with meanings that maybe attach to zodiac signs. (PLZ NO SPOILERS I already know too much.)

Flash has died but I have the Unofficial Homestuck Collection and also there's something kinda-sorta like Flash support in Firefox now although I may not have all the features I used in the past.

I have lost both my place in the story and my awareness of context so WHO CARES HERE WE GO.

…Is this too long? Should I bump the actual liveblogging to next post? Should I put it under a read-more tag? I have lost all sense of how I normally pace these things.

gC gives John (eB) a map. An FL4 map. Because that was a thing when Homestuck was written. FL4 files are no longer viable ways to give information. However, given what I know of HS trolls, that would not prevent them from using it.

(Huh my HSLB folder already has a "Google LOWAS.png" file which means this is probably ground I have already covered. Oh well.)

GOOGLE LOWAS

John goes to gate on top of mountain, sees pretty swirly colors that are LOLAR, and crashes into Rose's room. Talks to Dave on Rose's computer.

…Yeah, this looks familiar. Huh.

Look this is the last pic from my regular liveblogging days:

if someone could give me a link for that page, I'd be grateful. In the meantime, I'll go through from where I am and try to catch up. I probably backed up some deliberately but I am now entirely lost.

John is chatting with two Daves. One in orange. One in red. There are timeline issues. I think.

John goes poking through Rose's room. (The wone with MEOWMEOWMEOW all over the walls. Rose: Not the sane one.) He grabs some books with his captchalogue. Or into his sylladex. Dammit, I have forgotten the terminology attached to my favorite feature of this game. Story. Webcomic. Whateverthefuck this is.

Gets the codes from the books.

…and then we're back to… Dave in Derse? Dave and Rose in Derse? Back to John, getting his birthday gift from Rose: some kind of purple-black stuffed rabbit. More bunnies in boxes for John. John is happy with all the bunnies in boxes.

(Huh I already had a 'Chaos Dunk' image too, but not the animated gif. Apparently years of ignoring this have not changed my ideas about which images are interesting & worth sharing.)

This section has NEW RELEVANCE since I am now into Untamed fandom and gifts of rabbits are emotionally meaningful in ways that they were not when I started reading Homestuck. If John loves receiving bunnies, does that make him a Hanguang-Jun analogue? I will have to explore this idea.

John leaves a salamander for Rose in thanks.

There are pesterlog conversations of which I understand almost nothing. Timey-wimey shenanigans. Gonna hope I can pick up the gist of it later because I am not rereading the whole damn thing up to now to get context for these, which I kind of had before but have long lost.

There is a jam session with Dave and Rose in Derse, with 5 musical options. These are selectable by having Dave press buttons. Or by clicking on them directly in the new app.

These open in separate tabs in the Homestuck Collection. Right. The other reason to work my way through Homestuck: The music is awesome.

Of these, I like Derse Dreamers best.

Huh. the Collection and the website have DIFFERENT CONTENT wtf. Website: Page 1720. Altered from the original - the sound button is at the top because Flash support is now all wonky. Fine. But the second picture here isn't in the collection. (I am fine with this. I don't like the second picture. But it means, sigh, I really will be needing to go back and forth between the Collection app & the website. Ghah.)

Plz throw thoughts at me so I will be inspired to keep doing this.

Only. Not spoilery thoughts. Please.

[wishiwasntstillhere]

artless in my affections––but i'm learning, i promise

Touch, too, is a language. And Kyoya is far from fluent––but. Tamaki.

He holds out his hand between them.

Tamaki’s head turns. He looks at the hand, then up at Kyoya. His face is uncertain, confused, and so Kyoya pours everything into his answering gaze.

Eyes wide, Tamaki takes his hand. When Kyoya lets him, tension rushes out of him, like a sigh he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He brings Kyoya’s hand up to his face, closing his eyes, and breathes out quietly down Kyoya’s wrist.

Kyouya matches his fingers to the curve of Tamaki’s cheek and says, “You can have more than this.”

Pairings: tamakyo

Warnings: None. 

completely nonsexual, but also incredibly intimate. hurt/comfort. the most touch starved fic EVER (also on ao3!)

Kyoya’s watched Tamaki, the little things he does, the way he touches people. His touches never linger too long and he doesn’t touch anyone too sensitively, but there are certain spots his hands return to every time. When he hugs the twins, his hands go up into their hair, cradling a little spot on the back of their necks. On the rare occasion Mori seems in the mood to be touched, Tamaki’s hands linger on his arms, and a certain place between his shoulder and neck. Haruhi and Honey get enveloped in hugs too, a swallowing of limbs. He likes to card his fingers through Honey’s hair. He likes to rub circles in Haruhi’s back. He likes to hold hands.

And Kyoya… well. When Tamaki touches Kyoya, he does all of those things. After the first few weeks of Haruhi-excitement, he finally backs off from her clear discomfort. Then Kyoya is back to being the person he touches most. 

Tamaki gives shoulder massages, hand massages, hugs, cuddles, random pats and rubs and brushes of his fingers and Kyoya for all this time has not understood. He has been too busy wondering if all families are like this, wondering why it feels so pleasant but so strange to be touched, wondering if he might just be broken.

In the aftermath of the Ouran Fair, however, he thinks he understands the tiniest bit better. 

Tamaki is a master of language. French flowers from his tongue. Pianos sing beneath his hands. And people always, always yield to his eyes. 

These are not languages Kyoya had ever thought to learn––but then he had. Over time, he’d begun to recognize French endearments and exasperations, classical themes and countermelodies, and each exact shade of violet and movement of lash and lid that Tamaki used to express what he did not say.

Touch, too, is a language. And Kyoya is far from fluent––but. He’s learned, as always, from Tamaki.

Tamaki emerges from the river carrying Haruhi. He’s swarmed with hugs, despite being wet, despite Hikaru’s broken arm, and he’s the last one to let go. As the hosts watch the fireworks together, Tamaki is holding hands with Haruhi. His face is open with light, and he leans back against them all. 

When the fireworks end and it comes time to go home, Kyoya makes the first move. “Stay with me tonight.” 

Tamaki looks back and nods mutely.

As the car pulls away from the school, Tamaki stares out the window. He seems far away. Melancholy. 

The thought comes to him: We can start now.

Kyoya is nervous. But. Tamaki. 

He holds out his hand between them.

Tamaki’s head turns. He looks at the hand, then up at Kyoya. His face is uncertain, confused, and so Kyoya pours everything into his answering gaze.

Eyes wide, Tamaki takes his hand. When Kyoya just lets him, tension rushes out of him, like a sigh he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He brings Kyoya’s hand up to his face, closing his eyes, and breathes out quietly down Kyoya’s wrist. 

Kyouya matches his fingers to the curve of Tamaki’s cheek and says, “You can have more than this.”

Tamaki opens his eyes and they’re guarded. He doesn’t understand, or he doesn’t believe. That’s okay. That’s okay. They have time. He’s bought that time for them. He’s not fluent yet, but Kyoya will learn to make promises in this new language, and Tamaki will believe, and it will be okay.

They talk of things both light and heavy. They speak, in glancing blows of truth, of what’s happened over the past few days, hours.

The club was furious for you. The girls were worried, but they were okay. Those parents you charmed even asked after you.

Eclair wanted… She was actually in love with me. Or the idea of me. But she was so angry with me, whenever I spoke of Japan or talked of you. I wanted to answer your calls, but she threw my phone into the fishtank.

That truth hits Tamaki a little too hard. He tries to laugh it off, and Kyoya shakes his head at him. He scoots across the seat and puts his arm around his best friend, who sits up stiffly like he doesn’t know what to do. Kyoya guides his head down to rest on his shoulder, and starts carding his fingers through Tamaki’s hair.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” says Tamaki, trembling. It could be the rumbling of the car on the road. It isn’t. “I don’t want this if you’re doing it out of… I don’t know. Guilt, or pity, or something.”

Kyoya shakes his head again. He can’t explain it. He can’t. But his hands squeeze at his shoulder, his arm, and Tamaki sighs and snuggles closer.

They eat dinner in Kyoya’s room, and leave the plates outside his door. It’s November, so he turns up the heating. Tamaki watches the whole while from the couch, perched on his knees.

“Let’s get changed,” says Kyoya. So they do.

For once Kyoya does not put on his pretentious matching pajamas. He gets them both the softest tshirts he can find and a set of bottoms each. Kyoya’s smaller than him, just a bit, so the shirt stretches tight across Tamaki’s shoulders. The pants don’t go down to his ankles, either. Maybe Kyoya should keep a set of larger pajamas on hand, from now on. He says this aloud, absentminded.

Tamaki is looking at him strangely, kind of wonderingly.

“Come with me.”

They go upstairs to the bed. Tamaki’s slept here before. Their second sleepover ever, he’d had an awful nightmare and bugged Kyoya into letting him. But this is different.

“I don’t understand what you want,” says Tamaki. His voice is small.

Kyoya’s not good at saying these kinds of things. He knows it’s important to tell him, at least this one thing, out loud. His breath catches anyway. 

But. Tamaki.

“I want to touch you. Nothing more. Nothing less. Is that okay?”

A sharp soft little intake of breath. Then, “Okay.”

“Lie down.”

Tamaki smiles, then, and lies down. With his best friend spread eagled on his bed, watching, he starts to feel a little hesitant. But then Tamaki rolls onto his front, face turned away from Kyoya and he remembers. He is Tamaki: he is forgiving when it comes to learning languages. He is understanding. He can start small.

He settles in behind Tamaki, and lays his hand on the center of his back. He drags his hand across, pressing, then lets his fingers trail gently between his shoulder blades. Tamaki shivers. Kyoya repeats the motion times two, times three, four. He can see Tamaki sinking into the bed, feel his spine trembling and heart thrumming. On five, Tamaki’s body stills with a content sigh.

This is something Tamaki has missed. This is something Tamaki wants. 

It’s something Kyoya wants, too. He tells him in delicate kanji traced across Tamaki’s back. Tamaki hums like he understands. He hopes so. But they have time yet.

He rakes (gently, very gently, more like combing, more like stroking) a hand from the crown of his head to the small of his back. Tamaki almost ripples in his shudder, and Kyoya finds himself smiling. He finds, actually, that he wants to pull up the soft too-small t-shirt and lay a kiss at the base of Tamaki’s spine, and doesn’t know why. The answer is something along the line of just because. He doesn’t. Not yet. But he transfers the impulse into something mischievous, and takes both hands dancing up Tamaki’s sides in a quick swipe.

Tamaki spasms a laugh. “Hey!” But it’s all in good humor.

Kyoya rubs circles into the lower part of his back, massaging a little. Then he eases up, and his fingers drift aimlessly toward Tamaki’s side, maybe heading upward again. Then Tamaki shifts. He turns over onto his side, back still to Kyoya.

The tiniest sliver of his hip is exposed, and Kyoya wonders. But he lays his hand on fabric first, feels his ribcage through that shirt. Tamaki is not quite trembling, but… Kyoya slides his hand down his side, palm pressing warm into him. He urges security and calm into Tamaki with flat-handed heavy caresses, then he lets his fingers work more lightly, wandering along his side. He steers clear of skin, watching Tamaki’s stomach jump at spots that tickle.

Then Tamaki’s elbow starts moving back, and his own hand covers Kyoya’s. For a breath, it’s Tamaki’s hand over Kyoya’s hand over Kyoya’s shirt over Tamaki’s skin. Tamaki tugs his hand down slowly, til it’s cradling that little sliver of hip, and Kyoya understands. He slides his hand under the hem, and strokes Tamaki’s bare skin carefully, tenderly.

They sit in silence, for a while, Kyoya’s hands reading Tamaki’s shifts and sighs and hums for where they go next. It’s innocent, artless bliss.

After a while, his hand stills. Tamaki is holding his breath, he can feel, though his hand still pulls on Kyoya’s to keep moving. But Kyoya wants more than Tamaki holding his breath, turned away. Reckless, gentle, he tugs Tamaki by the shoulder, turns him so that Tamaki’s tearstained face is visible. He opens his arms.

A choked off cry. Tamaki dives into the crease of his neck. Kyoya holds and holds and holds, and Tamaki shakes and there are tears dripping onto his skin. His nose is cold at that juncture of shoulder and neck, his breath on Kyoya’s collarbone. He rubs Tamaki’s back in those careful circles. He slides his fingers up into Tamaki’s hair. He gets it, suddenly, how natural it is. On their own, his fingers seek out that place across the back of his neck, and stay there, stroking gently. It’s simply where they belong.

I was going to see my mother. They said they had forgiven her, Tamaki weeps.

I know. I know. Kyoya holds and holds and holds.

Slowly, quietly, the tears trickle to a stop. Tamaki isn’t asleep yet, but he breathes different, now. He breathes like he’s trying to inhale Kyoya, like he’s trying to capture this moment in his lungs, like he wants to keep it in his ribcage, nestled up against his heart. Kyoya knows the feeling. This is what it has been like, all these years, having this loving, generous, irrepressibly cuddly octopus around. He hasn’t known what to do, hasn’t understood or trusted it, but he has wanted wanted wanted.

“You can have more,” says Kyoya again, cradling that spot at his neck. It’s an apology of sorts. He hadn’t realized. All the signs were in front of him, but he hadn’t known just how touch starved Tamaki was. For all Tamaki liked to touch others, he’d wanted to be touched too.

Tamaki murmurs something into his skin. It’s hushed, not out of timidity but intimacy. As he speaks, his lips brush Kyoya’s throat like a melody of kisses.

“Yes,” Kyoya promises, lifting his head some so he can press his own kiss into Tamaki’s shoulder. Tonight, this is the closest he can get to a confession. “You can have that too.”