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alienaiver · 1 year ago

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formally starting chapter three of amethyst haze, so here's a sneak peek thats been in my draft document since the beginning !!! :3

Shinsou tells them how he’s going to meet up with you again this Sunday. Aizawa’s back stiffens but shows no other reactions. Yamada beams, “isn’t that adorable! It’s so rare to hear you talking about dates!”

Shinsou chokes on the piece of potato he was about to swallow at Yamada’s choice of words. Eri hands him his glass of water with an innocent smile but when he looks at her to thank her, she smiles mischievously, gleeful that her brother’s now the child whose love life their dads are obsessing over. He sighs and rubs the space between his eyebrows, “I’m not sure what it is yet, but calling it a date might be far-fetched.”

Aizawa grunts and takes his glass of water to his lips, “that may also be for the better.”

Now everyone’s looking at him. There’re different stages of confusion to be read in every family member’s face; Yamada’s being the most prominent one. Shinsou almost looks disgusted at the uncalled for comment.

“Why?” Yamada inquires, confused and unsure about what could’ve warranted such a response from his husband. Aizawa remains unfazed as he puts the glass back down, “it can be tricky to date such a big and devoted fan.”

“Aaah.” Eri lets out, performatively giving her father the feeling of being understood, though she hardly sees the issue either. From her point of view, the fact that her anti-social big brother is going out to do stuff besides a few beers occasionally, is a pretty amazing development.

“Huh?” Yamada says, nose scrunching up. Shinsou holds back a snort before he calmly replies, “I never thought you’d be the type of person to oppose that kind of thing.” Aizawa lifts his eyes only to look at his son sitting across from of him at the table, “and why is that?”

“Because you adopted one.”

This makes poor Eri, who was on her way to take a sip of water, spit the water back down the glass. Yamada howls out a laugh with his head thrown back. Aizawa’s eyes widens for a moment, surprised by the answer before he looks back down to his plate.

“There’s a big difference. I was an adult when I took in you two.”

Shinsou’s argument is not wrong and Aizawa knows it. Shinsou had, before even meeting his soon-to-be mentor, owned more Eraser Head merchandise than anyone else and even owned things Aizawa didn’t even know had been produced in his hero name. Shinsou had later confessed to having made it himself.

“Which is arguably a much bigger deal, isn’t it? Also you were about the same age as I am now.”

This actually seems to stump Aizawa, the comment about age. Shinsou hadn’t foreseen that to become a winning argument. Yamada wipes a stray tear from laughing before he squeezes Aizawa’s shoulder affectionately, “dear, you and I both know that Hitoshi’s a great judge of character so I hardly believe that we need to”-he stops to let out another laugh and looks at Shinsou-“God I’ve missed listening to you two bicker, I swear. You got that humor from me!”

Shinsou shakes his head and laughs, before scraping up the last of the curry from his plate, avoiding the carrots purposely. He clears his throat, “a-anyway. It’s not like we’re dating… I’m sure most of their interest in me is in my work and my persona, y’know? So there’s hardly any need for concern.”

#honestly shinsous comeback is the funniest ive been all year im not gonna lie #i think amethyst really has some great humor as well!!! the good thing about these longer fics is that i can fit the humor in well with the #serious bits !!! :3 #also aizawas just a worried dad <3 #also calculated amethyst haze to be four ish chapters! chapter three is like. 1/3 parts 'finished' with lots of draft scenes!#four is still very much in the rotisserie work part #nohr.bnha #nohr.txt #amethyst haze #nohr.writing #shinsou hitoshi fluff #bnha fluff

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sabraeal · 1 year ago

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Keeping Up With the Joneses, Chapter 3

[Read on AO3]

Written for @aeroplaneblues for her birthday! This is our second year of our birthday exchange, for which she made me this delightful piece of Spy x Family AU Obi & Shirayuki, and I was able to make this chapter. This is a little later than originally planned-- I did NOT get to have the easy writing days on vacation that I planned-- but coming in at only a week and change over schedule, I'm beating my usual spread

There is a boy in the cupboard.

Or, at least, there was. Now he’s spilled out on the floor at her feet, lost in the hollow shell of his sweater; the saddest thing to ever claim the distinction, wool so thin and threadbare any grandmother might despair. And yet, against the mess of drab brown fabric and drabber scuffed floors, his eyes shine out like a beacon. Too large in his face, like all these children, hunger and neglect making cheek cling to bone and hang on for dear life. Too bright for a home as hopeless as this. Too blue.

He can’t be much more than four. Old enough that he should know how to speak, how to sleep in a big boy’s bed and turn up his nose at every vegetable. Young enough that he should still be clinging to his mother, a set of too-large eyes peering over a gingham-clad shoulder, but instead he’s here, in a shelter for orphans made by the war, and—

And she’d been nearly the same age when she’d stumbled down the back stairs of her childhood home to find bags packed at the door. Her mother’s old tartan ones, brought out only once before the pneumonia had taken her, just a winter back. Her father had loaded her onto a cart with strangers, wild-eyed and wary, and told her he’d be along soon. Think of it like a big sleepover, he’d said, smile not quite reaching his eyes.

Eyes so different from these ones: a deeper, muted green, against a brighter, paler blue; the sort that shine when the sun catches them. Unclouded, like sapphire. Pale, like topaz. Ones just like her mother’s.

That would work, wouldn’t it? Blue eyes, from her mother. Green was so rare after all. And he was small for his age, the way she had been— still was, though she’d keep that assessment out of her report. A few years of good meals and a steady home life would probably fix that, but then, well, so would a tall father. Boys always grew so much; no one would look twice at a tall one with a small mother. And the dark hair, so thick it mats instead of simply tangles—

Well, another thing to lay at his father’s feet. His absent, tall, dark-haired, no preference for eye color father.

Ah, but…he’s too young. Shirayuki settles back on her heels, smile stiff. It kills her to think that a boy as young as him could prefer hiding in cupboards rather than playing with other children, that she’s close enough to reach out her hand and save him, but she can’t because— because—

Because King Shenezard’s twins are six. And this boy is—

“Six!”

Shirayuki blinks, meeting that steady stream of blue. “Excuse me?”

“I’m six,” he tells her, rolling over onto his knees. “Six years old.”

The warden here— ah, the caretaker, as her contact had so generously called him, despite the lack of care the peeling paint and dusty floors implied— stoops down, a suspicious scowl thinning his already narrow mouth. Mr Fuchs, as his paperwork said, the sole proprietor of Little Day Orphanage since its inception after the war. And yet when he squints down at this child, head cocked so skeptically, Shirayuki wonders if he could even tell her this boy’s name. “You are?”

The boy frowns, mouth a furrowed mirror of his brow. “Of course I am.”

“Oh.” His proportions might say different, but, well, he hardly has a reason to lie to her. Not when she hadn’t even asked. “Are you? That’s a lovely age.”

"Convenient, too.” The old man coughs when he catches her look, scrubbing a hand over his bald pate. “Er, I mean, since that’s what you were looking for. School age. Ready for learnin’. Which is just what this one is.”

He reaches out, one broad palm aiming to clap that small back; a sweet gesture, if the boy didn’t flinch the moment Mr Fuchs lifted his hand. “If you’re looking for a smart kid, then you don’t gotta look at any of the rest of these brats. He’s the brightest one in the bunch by a mile. Can read and everything.”

“Oh, is that so?” It’s an effort not to speak through her teeth; one she manages simply because the boy is watching. “Do you have a book you like? The ones with pictures are always so nice. Maybe you could read one for me?”

The space between his brow dints, the way it always did before eyes teared and fists shook, but there is no mother to hold and soothe him, no father to convince him to do what he’d told. It’s cruel to test him, to dangle this promise of home and family above him when he still has so much hope left. But Mr Fuchs hardly seems like a man who would hesitate to employ hyperbole, and her mission is clear: she needs a child who can pass Eden Academy’s rigorous exams. And as sweet as this boy looks, as much as she would love to sweep him into her arms and scurry him out from this awful hole…

Well, she doubts if there’s any of Eden’s future bright-burning stars to be found in a place like this. Few minds catch fire without fuel to burn, and every child here is simply embers trying to survive until the next piece of kindling.

The dint deepens into a furrow, turning his expression from anxious child to frustrated accountant. As if a picture book might be beneath his dignity as a professional, er…six-year-old. He does not scramble to his feet, oh no, he rises with all the gravitas of an elder scholar, striding from the room on legs that are barely long enough to hold him steady. It would be sweet, if Shirayuki were not so sure that she had lost her chance to see if he really was the cleverest child in this home.

“Well,” Mr Fuchs clucks, hardly disappointed. “Ain’t that just the way. Boy’s always been a bit big for his britches, though. Might have dodged a bullet, if you ask me. Too smart by half.”

Too smart by a half was the exact sort of child that would fit the brief, the baseline of the Director's impossible standards. Potentially the only one in this terrible place that would have met them

And she had let him slip right through her fingers. Izana would be positively unlivable.

“Plenty of other kids though.” It’s a conman’s smile this man tries to give her, a charlatan’s confidence that she’ll buy his snake oil by the case. “You know what they say. Kid’s true potential is all about a mother’s love.”

That’s certainly not what ‘they’ say, but there’s no point in quarreling with him; only three rooms into this tour and she’s quite certain they’ll never see eye-to-eye on the topic of cleanliness, let alone child rearing. Instead, Shirayuki stitches the corners of her mouth up into a smile, hoping it looks more natural than it feels. “If you say so.”

“I know so.” One of those liver-spotted hands reaches out, skin yellowed with the beginnings of jaundice, and she realizes he means to hold hers. To take her palm into one of his and pat it, as if she were some nervous mother-to-be in a maternity ward, needing assurance no matter what the source.

She tucks both into her pockets. “Then perhaps we should—?”

One moment the door is empty, and the next the boy traipses through it, cutting them a wide wake as he arcs to the center of the room. His head, so large for his body, swings one way, then the other, and with one put-out sigh, sprawls on the floor.

It’s not quite an invitation, but it’s…curious. Shirayuki shuffles a few steps closer, enough that a subtle lean gets a mostly unobstructed view over his shoulder.

It’s a crossword. The one from this morning’s paper, three of the rows already filled by an adult’s unsteady hand. Shirayuki hadn’t gotten around to trying her hand at it this morning, but a quick glance is all she needs to know that they’re wrong. For one thing, Three Across— jewelry that hangs around the neck— was looking for pendant, not necklace; a fact that should have been apparent when the solver had to scratch the ‘e’ into the black space beside it.

Obvious enough that even the six-year-old snuffs when he sees it, carving the correct answer over it in pencil.

It takes him seven minutes to fill the grid. It takes twice that for her to check his work.

“Wow.” It’s a murmur, a whisper, but when she glances up, it’s straight into those bright eyes, waiting for her to finish. “Wow,” she says again, louder, for him. “This is really impressive, er…?”

“Ryuu.”

“Ryuu. That’s a nice name! A strong one.” It would sound natural with Lyon. “My name is Shirayuki.”

Shirayuki is hardly a child; she doesn’t expect the boy —Ryuu— to turn around and compliment her about how pretty it is, or how much he likes snow, but, well…

She expects a little more than a stare. It’s almost impatient, as if she was wasting time reciting facts; the sky is blue, water is wet, my name is Shirayuki. It would have been nice to be able to do something like this the right way, to be able to visit over a series of weeks and form something like a rapport, an ability to trust her, but Izana’s timetable hardly includes the time for paperwork, let alone emotions. Still, it would have been nice if he could at least smile—

Suddenly, he does. One side twitching, then the other, forming around the word, “Shirayuki.”

It doesn’t quite fit on his face, but she hardly notices. “Ah, yes…?”

“Are you going to bring me home now?”

“It’s not much,” Shirayuki warns him, her smile as shaky as the keys in her hand. They’d rattled the whole way down the hall, loud enough Ryuu wondered why the neighbors hadn’t poked out their heads. At the orphanage, they would have; every jingle, every yelp, every cough had been entertainment, so long as it hadn’t been happening to you. “I only moved in a few days ago.”

There’s no need to be worried. Her key scrapes right past the lock, bouncing off the door. There’s plenty of room. Another try skids right off the knob. Anything would be an improvement over that terrible place.

He nearly corrects her: there are worse places. Ones with white walls and lights so bright they burn. Rooms where the only furniture is a tray of strange implements and a chair that unfolds to lay flat. A place where there’s one window, but you can only see through from the other side. Where even though you’re alone, you know you’re being watched.

But it’s better that Shirayuki doesn’t know about places like that. Even if she turns out worse than that old man, at least she’ll never think to put him back in one.

Her key finally slots into the lock. He can’t see, not through her back, but he knows, both from the metallic jingle it makes, and the way her mind eases with her shoulders, no longer a crackling static but a faint hum, like the moment before the television turns on.

“There we go,” she sighs, guiding the knob through its twist. “Guess I’m a little excited!”

I should tell him I’ve always wanted a child. He’s never met anyone who thinks as loud as Shirayuki does, as clear. The other children always thought in pictures over words, and the old man had been like listening to a radio with a broken antenna, just a series of fuzzed out voices heard between deafening static. That might provide a more stable environment. This is hardly an ideal situation, but he should at least be comfortable.

Ryuu would be happy enough with another cabinet, so long as he didn’t have to deal with all the other children running around, pulling on his hair and tearing his sweaters and calling him ghost boy or creepy kid or whatever unimaginative insult they could cook up in the moment. He nearly tells her, so, but then the door opens and—

And none of Shirayuki’s careful warnings could have prepared him.

“Go on.” She steps back, one hand splayed to keep the door in place. “Make yourself at home.”

It’s him that trembles now, taking one large step over the jamb to stand in some— some entryway? There’s a kitchen to his left, just big enough to fit two of him across, with room for another if they squished together enough. Plenty of cabinets too, but it’s hard to tell without looking—?

“Can I take your coat?”

He’s been clutching it, he realizes, hands fisted around the cloth at his belly so hard they’re beginning to ache. Not even at the pockets, but just above them. “Oh…okay.”

It takes effort, thought, to work his fingers loose. One at a time, uncurling, until the hem drops to just above his knees. Takes longer still for his clumsy hands to unbutton, but Shirayuki waits patiently, a smile on her face he’s already coming to like.

He’s barely shrugged it off his shoulders when she thinks, loud enough for the neighbors to hear, He needs new clothes. Those are too big. Everything’s falling apart at the seams.

These were also the only ones he could wear. Ryuu’s shoulders hunch, brushing the tips of his ears. Everything his size had itched, sitting so close to his skin he could feel each scratchy coil of wool. The old man never cared what they wore, so long as they were covered; it’d been one of the few nice things about living in the home.

“Your shoes can go here,” she says, pointing to a corner by the door. “If you’d like, of course.”

He watches her take off her own, revealing small feet covered in what looks like the end of a sausage casing. Stockings, he guesses. Nylons, like the ones he sees on TV, sandwiched between Bondman’s cliffhanger and resolution. For a modern woman! they would profess, showing a lady at a typewriter. That’s what Shirayuki must be: a Modern Woman. One that’s saving the world.

His shoes slip right off, barely tied tight enough to stay on anyway— needs new shoes too, something that fits— and it’s strange to have just socks on. The old man hadn’t been a stickler for much beside silence, but shoes had been one of them. So no one says I’m making you lot run around wild and barefoot like dogs, he’d grunt. The faster I can get ‘em out the door, the less time any nitwit who wants to take ‘em home has to have second thoughts, is what he meant.

Flat against the floor, his foot feels wrong. Like there’s something worming beneath it, right under his arch. He lifts his heel, just so it clears the wood slats, and oh, that’s better. Natural even.

“Go ahead,” she tells him. “Go look around.” It’s your home too.

Ryuu blinks. His home. “Oh. Okay.”

Stepping out past the entryway, he can see more of it: not just a kitchen and mudroom, but a living room too, with a couch and everything. There’s a dining table too, with chairs. Another hallway with— bathroom and bedrooms, Shirayuki supplies, just a few moments before she echoes it out loud. ‘Not much’ she’d called it, but— but—

It’s the nicest place he’s ever lived.

“Did you want to watch TV?” Shirayuki thinks mostly in words, but this time it’s a picture: the always-on box in the orphanage, sound set just above a whisper. The old man had kept it running all day, everyday, hoping it’d keep them entertained. Quiet. It worked, sometimes. Most times, the kids found their own way to occupy themselves. Picking on each other, mostly.

“You’re welcome to,” she says. I don’t know what kids watch, she thinks. “If you have something you like.”

Bondman is the only thing he bothers with— the only thing worth chancing a run in with the other children. It’s not on until after dinner, right before everything switches over to news. But…

But Shirayuki keeps thinking about his smile. About him traipsing over to the carpet and hunkering down, having one on his face. She wants him to be happy.

Or at least look happy.

He tries out one of those smiles again, still strange on his face. “Okay.”

It’s four in the afternoon when Obi discovers that his bedroom shares a wall with 5B’s living room. Something he probably could have figured out months ago, when he thinks about it; 5D’s always knocks hard enough to shake the rafter when he plays a nice victory record or two after work. Only makes sense that at three AM that might be coming from a bedroom.

In any case, he finds out now: through the pap-pap-pap of a cap gun. The recorded kind, like from those stupid kids shows they put on now. New neighbor must have one. Which means Obi the Office Worker is going to have to get more creative about catching up with z’s on company time if the Thorn Prince wants to show up to his gigs all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Obi sighs, wrapping the pillow around his head. Or the Thorn Prince is going to have to start taking on less overtime. Not an option, if he wants to keep himself the way he’s become accustomed. Government workers can’t afford apartments in neighborhoods this nice.

Company sponsored nap time it is. He’s just got to worry about tonight. Last thing he needs it to slip up because some kid couldn’t miss Zorro winning the day or whatever. Probably gonna cost him another shirt; dry clearing never really gets all the blood out. Maybe he should go over there, give this kid a little talking-to--

The pap-pap-pap cuts off. All at once, like a power outage.

Obi frowns, lifting his head out of the pillow. No sound at all, not even a villain’s growl. TV’s off.

Huh. Must have been a rerun.

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #spy x family AU #my fic #happy family #ans #there was one scene I was sad didn't fit in here but it's gonna be one of the first next chapter #so i can't be too sad #but i am excited to get into the first little mini arc here #since now Shirayuki's got her son home. and now she needs to get him into Eden #And Obi's going to have some real big questions about his new neighbors

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