#i mean it was a really good fanfiction

[iron-niffler]

just one more chapter then ill go to bed :)

*one 70k word fanfic later*

many, many mistakes were made

[nshi-ao3]

Another repost of a comic with better formatting for tumblr, that’s extra relevant right now haha

[theinternetisfulloftrash]

Welcome Home

Pairing: Dylan O'Brien x Reader (Female) Synopsis: Traveling. Any annoying but necessary part of any actors job for the non-traveling party. But the welcome homes? They are oh so fucking sweet. Tags: it's filth with some cute plot, shower sex, kisses, more banter than is reasonable in polite society Rating: Explicit (obviously) Author’s Note: Y'all listen. I know. Okay. It's been a while, and to be honest? I started this in fucking January, but hey. It's here now, right? We're all chill? No one's upset? Good. LOVE YOU!

He’d been away for days, but it felt like weeks. Your feed has been covered in photos of him. The algorithms have you pretty much figured out. You’d been keeping up with his interviews, watching clips of his adorably awkward award acceptance speech. It wasn’t a surprise award, but it didn’t matter that he was prepared for it. He was incapable of being acknowledged for his achievements without turning into the equivalent of a turtle hiding in its shell. You’d have reached out to hold his hand and ground him if you could, but you’d been here. Alone. Missing him. But all that was soon to change.

He was on his way home. Annoyingly, his flight had been delayed, but as you stared up at the JFK arrivals board and it read: ‘Arrived’, you couldn’t help the bubbling up of excitement and giddy nervousness. It seemed like Tony was picking up on it as well because he stood against your leg, pawing at your thigh until you picked him up. He’d been missing his dad and had taken more comfort in your presence since he’d left. 

Your ears perked when the announcement that the baggage from his flight was about to begin its rounds through the baggage claim area. Your phone vibrated in the thigh pocket of your leggings. You gave Tony a quick squeeze before setting him back on the floor and taking your phone out. You smiled at the preview of the text you’d just received before you swiped to see the rest. 

‘Your fine ass better be waiting for me down there.’ 

You smirked before typing out a teasing reply. 

‘Got stuck in traffic a few times but I’m here. I hate Newark btw.’ 

You watched the dots appear and couldn’t help the audible laugh that escaped when you read his next message. 

‘Newark!?’ 

You interrupted him with a quick ‘I’m joking!!!’ before you could see what he was typing next. Then after a brief pause, the dots reappeared before his reprimand. 

‘You know you’re this close to the find-out stage of fuckin around?’ 

‘Oh? What if that’s exactly what I want?’ 

‘👀’

‘Not that I want to rush through the fuckin around part 😏’  

“I’ll be taking my sweet fucking time…don’t worry.”

You startled at his audible reply and your eyes shot up from your phone and met his as Tony pulled at the leash in your hand to reach him. He looked a bit tired but happy. His smile was wide across his stubbled face, quirking up at the corner when you smiled back. 

“Hey buddy!” he said, handing you his pillow before bending down to scoop Tony up into his arms. “I missed you!” he swooned in the adorable baby voice he reserved for his furry son. “Did you miss me too?” He rubbed Tony’s head and then his tummy. “Such a good boy!” 

You smiled at the two of them, pulling Tony’s leash from your wrist and handing it to Dylan. Tony would be stuck to him like glue now. 

“Hey, baby,” he said softly before he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to your lips. One just long enough to make you the tiniest bit dizzy and eager for more. 

You blinked away distracting thoughts. “Do you have much luggage?” 

Dylan shook his head. “Just this,” he said pointing at his backpack, “and one bag on the turnstiles.” 

“Should be over there, they just announced it,” you said, taking a few steps toward the baggage claim area.

“Nice!” he said, hiking Tony up onto his shoulder a bit before he followed after you. 

His bag passed in front of him and he hefted it off the belt and popped out the handle and you took it from him so he could focus on the excited ball of fur in his arms. You set his pillow on it and wheeled it behind you toward the cab that was waiting out front. As much as you hated early morning airport runs, you were glad his 4 AM delayed arrival made the whole airport experience a lot smoother. Fewer people. Less traffic. You’d been able to get in and out without so much as a sideways glance from anyone else. 

“Hey you,” he said as he slumped in the seat next to you, Tony taking up the little bit of space between you. 

“Hey,” you said, smiling back at him. 

It was just after 5 AM and you’d only gotten a couple hours of sleep. Originally, he was supposed to have gotten in at midnight and had been scheduled to arrive at Newark, but his flight had been canceled. When he called you to let you know, you were already getting ready to catch the Uber you’d called to take you to the airport. You had a habit of being too punctual. But that also meant that you had a hard time settling and only managed a short nap before you got up to head to JFK. You were a bit tired, but feeling his warmth next to you for the first time in a while was enough of a comfort to fight off the droop of your sleepy eyes. You wanted to see his smile, the upturned tip of his nose, the lopsided smile he sported as he pet Tony. Sleep could wait. 

The drive back to the loft was rather uneventful. Traffic was light, you weren’t sure you’d ever made it the Carey Tunnel faster than you just had. When you hopped out of the car, Dylan gathered his bags from the back of the car and you headed up to the apartment. Home. It was always a comfortable place, but it was warmer when he was in it.

“Smells nice in here…” he said with a sigh, closing his eyes for a moment as his shoulders sagged in relaxation. “I missed it.” 

“And I missed you.” You stepped into his space and wrapped your arms around his waist and he quickly pulled you to his chest, looping his arms over your shoulders and pressing a kiss into your hair. 

“You did, huh?” he chuckled, the heat of his exhaled breath warming your skin. 

“Mhm…” you hummed, laying your cheek against his chest. The loft was dimly lit by a single lamp near the sofa in the living room and the streetlights that filtered in through the large windows. It added to the comfort you felt in his arms. 

“I missed you more,” he whispered.

“Impossible.” 

He sighed out a long breath, holding you tight to his chest before he pulled back, his hands clasped around your waist, eyes locked to yours. The warm, honey-brown hue of them sent a shiver down your spine, of course, it didn’t help that he’d begun to work his hands under the hem of your shirt, his fingertips pressing just a little more firmly into the bare skin covering your ribs when he leaned down to kiss you. 

His lips were insistent, the kiss at the airport clearly not satiating the need that had built during your time apart. It was a comforting reminder that his infatuation with you must be at least somewhat comparable to your own. 

You moaned when his lips wandered along your jaw and latched to your throat just below your ear. Not to be outdone and wanting a little audible thrill of your own, you were satisfied at the deep groan that emanated from the back of his throat when one of your roaming hands slipped down between your bodies to graze across the front of his thigh until it was cupping him through his sweatpants. 

“Definitely missed that,” he breathed out across your collarbone before pushing your hair back and sliding the collar of your shirt aside to access more of your skin. 

You laughed softly before it morphed into a half-whispered moan of his name when his teeth grazed along the sensitive skin above your breast. “Fuck…” you breathed, squeezing your hand around him eliciting an appreciative grumble from him that you felt vibrate the aching bit wet skin he’d been sucking on your chest. 

When you released your grip to slip your hand behind the waistband of his sweats, he grabbed your wrist. “Not yet…” he chuckled when he pulled back to see you scowling at him. “Don’t worry,” he said, smiling at you, brushing an errant hair back from the place where it hung in your eyes, “I’m gonna make you scream…” 

You swallowed thickly. 

“I’d just rather not reek like a man who’s known only seat 23A for 10 hours when I do it.” 

You chuckled softly. “Well…” you smiled back before reaching both hands around behind him, “then you better get this,” you squeezed his ass, “fine thing in the shower then.” You gave him a gentle spank. 

He laughed and pressed a kiss into your hair. “Thirsty little monster,” he said, running his hand down your arm. “Join me?” he said, pleading gaze meeting yours. 

You nodded and he took your hand, lacing your fingers together and leading you through the apartment toward the bathroom. The gentle squeeze of his hand in yours sent a satisfying ripple of warmth through your body. Just as you’d made it through the door to the bathroom, you tugged on his hand and swung his body to pin him against the counter of the vanity. 

He let out a soft huff at the gentle impact and smiled down at you as you grabbed at the hem of his shirt and yanked it roughly up over his body. His bare chest heaved as your eyes roved over him, your hands following your gaze across his pecs, through the soft hair, down his abs, settling on the waistband of his sweats before you began to crouch in front of him as you slid them down his thighs to pool at his feet. 

You looked at him from between his thighs and watched as his brown eyes turned near-black, crouching there longer than was necessary to achieve the task, fluttering your lashes at him.

“Fucking tease…” he muttered under his breath before he hauled you up in front of him and stripped your top off, tossing it across the room before he latched onto your throat and bit down. 

While you writhed in his arms, his hands warmed up your back until his fingers worked open the clasp of your bra. He slipped his fingers under the straps and slid them free of your shoulders and let the garment fall to the floor. 

“Mmm…” he mused, looking down at your chest before he leaned forward and captured your lower lip between his teeth and pulled it back slightly before releasing it to kiss down the column of your throat. He cupped you breast and brought his lips to the peak and flattened his tongue in a wide sweep before sealing his lips to suck your nipple until it was taut and pebbled.

“Dylan…” you groaned, your hands tangling into his hair.

He held you against his body and swapped your positions until your lower back was pressed against the vanity. He nipped at your chest before he finally pulled back and lifted you to sit on the counter in front of him. He quickly unbuttoned your jeans and pulled them from you, throwing them into a heap with the rest of your discarded clothing. Then he slotted himself between your thighs. “Shower’s right there…” he titled his head in its direction, “and yet here we are…” he smiled, his fingertips trailing down from your arms, along your ribs and waist until they teased at the elastic of the last piece of clothing you were left wearing.  

“Here we are…” you repeated, looking down your body at his hand as it slipped into your underwear. You fell forward into his chest when you felt his teasing, barely there touch where you were now aching to feel it. Your sharp intake of breath didn’t go unnoticed.

He leaned in and grinned against the skin of your throat before pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the tendon running the length of it. “Something wrong?” he teased, still not touching you the way you wished he would. 

“Please…” you whispered. 

The little amused noise he made only frustrated you more, because Instead of giving in to your need, he hooked his fingers around the band of your underwear and stepped back from you to slide them free from your legs. He twirled them around his long index finger before letting them slip out of his hands to the floor. His eyes roamed over you, exposed to him now, perched on the counter. “Fucking perfect…” he breathed, giving his head a slight shake.

You flushed under his attentive gaze, your own eyes catching on the obvious sign of his own interest tenting the front of his boxer briefs. “Talkin’ about yourself?” you finally managed. 

He smiled and shook his head. 

“You should be…” you sighed, “but you could stand to be just a bit more naked…” you pointed to his underwear. 

He laughed. “Fair,” he said before turning around to turn on the shower. He looked back at you, smirking as he hooked his thumbs in the band of his boxers. When he slid them down his thighs the need you felt for him was almost unbearable. He held out a hand to help you down. “Time to get you wet,” he said with a smirk. 

“Too late.” 

His brows shot up his forehead. “Fuck… me…” he muttered

You stepped past him, your hands gliding over his naked torso, and into the shower. “That’s the plan.” 

He followed after and closed the door, the glass quickly began to fog with the steam as you stood under the spray of the faucet. Even though you knew the water was hot, it almost felt cool on your heated skin. Dylan watched you as you ran your hands over your body before he reached out, gripping your hips. He shoved you back against the wall and his lips crashed into yours. 

You reached up clasped around his neck, your hands tangling into the wet strands of his hair, deepening the kiss and tasting the faint hint of mint on his tongue. His teeth grazed over your bottom lip, pulling it taut before he kissed along your jawline. 

He muttered something unintelligible under his breath against your throat.

“Soap’s over there,” you sighed, jutting your chin to the shelf in the corner. 

“Right… showering…” his teasing mouth paused and he pulled back from you. “You’re so fucking distracting…” he groaned, his grip on your hips shifting to your ass before he squeezed it in both of his palms. 

You grinned and wet your lower lip with your tongue. 

“Not helping.”

You laughed before you pushed him away enough to grab the body wash from the shelf and squeeze it onto his loofa. “Lemme help then,” you said, gesturing for him to turn around in front of you, the water now striking him in the chest. 

He didn’t protest, and quickly spun around as you took a small step closer, so your wet body was pressed briefly against him before you began to scrub his shoulders and upper back. 

“Mmm…” he hummed, rolling his neck. 

You tickled him enough to raise his arms so you could wash them both thoroughly. You smiled watching him noticeably relax his shoulders. You washed down his back, sliding the loofa down to the dips in his low back and over his perfect ass. 

“Taking your time back there…” he chuckled. 

“Stop having such a nice ass and maybe I’d make quicker work of it.” 

He shook a bit with a contained laugh. “Noted.” 

You finally relented, taking one last look at his soapy cheeks before you reached around to scrub his chest and stomach, not spending too much time before reaching down and squeezing the loofa at his belly button and letting the soap begin to run down his body. Your free hand followed after it until it was teasing at the coarse hair, brushing just where you knew he was dying for you to touch him. 

“Relentless fucking tease–” 

You cut off his complaint by wrapping your hand around his sudsy length and pumping him just once. “You were saying?” you breathed against his back before you kissed his shoulder blade before you pumped him again. 

He groaned, his head falling forward. “I’ll shut up… just don’t fucking stop.” 

You beamed with pride. It wasn’t like he never begged, but it was far less common than your own pleadings that more frequently bounced off the walls of this room. You rewarded its rarity by picking up the pace with your hand, pinning him against you with the other hand pressing against the front of his thigh, the loofa long forgotten at his feet. 

He stuttered forward, one hand coming up to hold his weight against the tiled wall the other grasping gently at your wrist, not stopping you, but guiding your hand. “Fuck,” he cursed, the last consonant of it coming out shuddered and low.

You were growing more and more impatient with each second. The ache between your thighs was forcing you to squeeze them together for some kind of relief. You moaned in frustration, your pace faltering. 

Dylan squeezed your wrist and stilled your hand. “Someone sounds needy…” he whispered, pulling your hand free of him and swapping your positions. He pressed you back against the wall and grabbed your body wash from the shelf, squeezing some into his palm. 

You watched him warm his hands together, lathering the gel into foamy suds in those gorgeous fucking hands that you knew he was about to touch you with. 

He smirked at the audible sound of you swallowing before he cupped one of your breasts, his other hand snaking around you, his fingers teasing the dimples of your lower back. He pinched your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, his nose nudging your chin up enough for him to run his tongue up the length of your throat before he kissed you. 

Your heart hammered in your chest, your skin pebbled with goosebumps, your body sang under his touch. You’d missed him. God, how you’d missed him. It should be against the Geneva Convention for him to be away from you this long. Torture, pure and simple. But this? This was as close as you could imagine to what it might feel like to be moments from dying of thirst in a vast desert only to stumble into the cool waters of an oasis.

He slid his hand down your body and, without a hint of teasing or pretense, rubbed your clit with the pads of two fingers. 

“Holy. Sh–!” you cussed, only getting half of it out before it devolved into a strangled moan. 

Dylan nudged at your chin as your head lolled in pleasure, his lips skimming across your skin, breathing out praise as he continued to swirl his fingers over the sensitive bundle of nerves that had you writhing against him. “Missed the way you sound…” he nipped your neck, “the way you feel…” he groped at your chest again with his free hand, “the way you taste…” he kissed you again, his tongue demanding entry into your mouth. 

His talented fingers had you approaching the edge, that warm feeling building up inside you, that pressure that made you feel like you were electrified. “Dyl… please…” you softly begged when he gave you a moment to finally breathe. 

His lips slipped from yours, your noses touching, both of you panting in the same air. Then you whined when you felt his fingers disappear from you. He stepped back into the stream of water and pulled you with him, kissing you everywhere his lips could reach as the hot spray of the shower rinsed you both clean of suds. 

You looped your arms around his neck and he gripped the backs of your thighs, hauling you up so you could wrap your legs around his waist. 

His eyes were wide with the same wonder he somehow still held for you even though he’d had you so many times there was no way to keep count. It made you feel warm and wanted. Desired and beautiful.  

“Could stay in this shower for the rest of my fucking life…” he said as he pinned your back to the wall and bucked up against you, slickening himself in the folds of your body, driving the head of his cock into your already sensitive clit. 

Your eyes rolled back at the contact, your hips rocking forward to meet the roll of his. “We’ll… we’ll get all pruney….” you finally breathed out. 

He laughed against your throat before he kissed, nipped, and sucked what you knew would be an impressive little bruise into your skin. “So be it,” he said, and then he shifted his hips, met your gaze, and slid into you to the hilt. 

The stretch, the fullness, it was almost as shocking now as the first time you’d felt him buried inside you. It was perfection, blissfully indecent perfection. You moaned his name, your fingernails clawing at his shoulders as he began to set a punishing pace, driving up into you hard, rutting his body against yours enough to stimulate you in just the right places, inside and out. 

“Shit!” you swore, letting your head fall back against the tiled wall. 

He fucked into you over and over as you felt yourself edging closer to the brink. You felt your thighs begin to shudder as his pace grew more erratic an unpredictable. 

“So fucking tight…” he groaned before he kissed the valley between your collarbones. 

The strangled need in his voice, the feel of his breath against your skin–all of it coupled with the delicious way the end of his length was pressing into that perfect spot inside you that made you feel like you were losing touch with reality–you were ready. “Fuck, Dyl–” 

He raised one hand to press on your chin enough to force your gaze back to his, the pad of his thumb dragging across your lower lip. 

You moaned and flicked at it with the tip of your tongue. “I’m so close… please!” you begged.

He drove his thumb between your lips and when you sucked it into your mouth, he slipped the hand on your thigh between your legs to rub his finger over your clit just when he drove a final thrust against your g-spot. 

You’d had your fair share of fantastic orgasms at this man’s hands, literally, but this one was up there standing proudly on the podium collecting its medal. It was a rush of pent-up need and desire that washed over you like a crashing tidal wave. Every single cell in your body felt like it was vibrating with pleasure. Your muscles clamped down on him as you felt him join you in his own release. The feel of him spilling into you, the sound of your name falling from his slack lips, making it all so much more intense. It was perfection. Pure and simple. Absolute. Unadulterated. Bliss.

Your chest heaved against his, both of you softly laughing between kisses before you felt him slip free of your body. His hands warmed up your arms before they cupped either side of your neck. 

“I love you so fucking much.” 

You smiled at him, leaning in to run your nose along his throat until your lips were at his ear. “I love you too.” 

He sighed and his lips found yours, but he held back from the kiss long enough to speak. “Hell of a welcome home.” 

[corviiids]

there are fixations where you're like oh my brain has latched onto something per my usual adhd patterns and then there are fixations where you touch a piece of media for the first time and immediately you're like ah... so this is what it is like, to meet your soulmate. and your soulmate. is a shounen manga from 2004

[dapper-lil-arts]

Darlings. is it gay when the phantom you created as a manifestation of your dreadfull loneliness takes the form of one of your closest friends.

Fanart of this pretty good horror rarijack fanfic, "The haunting of carroussel boutique" personaly i am surprised the writer didnt take the chance to point out how fucking funny this is. Me n kim started laughing about it during stream and i just had to draw this

[indigovigilance]

Fanfiction is a wonderful way to separate the art from the artist.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

"Come get your child." Robin stared incredulously at this...entity? Being? He was a child himself, how could he possibly have a kid of his own.

The creature huffed, seeming very put out by the young vigilantes confusion. "What is there to not understand? Your child has been running wild in the Infinite Realms for a while now. Ever since that portal exploded hes been taking his emotions out on everyone!" The thing said, throwing her hands into the air, "And you!" Robin stepped back a pace or two when he suddenly found a very sharp claw in his face, "I had to do a lot of searching to even find you! What kind of parent are you?!"

"I'm not."

The entity opened and closed its mouth a few times like a fish before suddenly becoming furious, "Its no wonder hes like this when his gardian has so little interest in him! Did you know the other day he plugged a liquor bottle with a cloth and lit it on fire? I don't even know where he got it, but he lit the cloth and yelled something like, "mazzle toff" and threw it at my own adult son!"

"..."

"When my little boy burst into flames do you know what he said to me?"

"...no, but I feel like you're going to tell me anyways."

"I'm sorry ma'am I wasn't expecting there to be that much fire."

"That much? So he fully intended to set someone ablaze but the amount of fire is what troubled him?"

"Yes!" She growled, exasperated, "Please come get your child as soon as possible! Hes terrorizing the whole dimension!"

Damian found himself staring at open space the woman had occupied previously before contacting Oracle through the coms, "Did you get all of that?"

It was Grayson that spoke, "Every word."

---

Aka Danny has a lot of misplaced aggression and kinda terrorizes parts of the GZ. Unfortunately for him hes a clone of one of the bats (weather or not you want it to be Damian, Project R or someone else that hes cloned from is up to you) and they're coming to him to assess if he's an evil clone or mindless or whatever.

Too bad Danny sucks at first impressions.

[muchmossymess]

Like they just did that and moved on

[hanzajesthanza]

i feel like i just got so used to ciri and how natural ciri and geralt’s relationship left, via being introduced to the witcher via witcher 3, and then reading the middle of the saga before i finished the short stories…

that i never really innately picked up on the fact that ciri turning out to be geralt’s daughter and not his son was… uhm, part of the entire surprise, let’s put it that way :’)

geralt and ciri are just soooo natural as a father and daughter duo that i can’t imagine it any other way, if ciri had been a boy this would have been way less remarkable as a series, there would be no witcher series as we know it. so to me ciri being a girl was the normal and default, expected way things were supposed to go.

even when i read a question of price-sword of destiny-something more for the first times, i was like “ok” when ciri being a girl was a switch of expectations: geralt (and, supposedly, the reader) having expected pavetta to have a son. like… “alright, it’s a girl, so what.”

i had to be informed about how this was an intentional shock… not only because i’m not a parent, but i mean, well, ultrasounds get mixed up all the time, right… it’s not so uncommon to have a kid and be surprised by the gender…

and because of this, i was more inclined to eyeroll at blood of elves being preachy with going over ciri’s biological sex what seemed like ten million times in chapters two and three… what with the whole “daughter has her first period” subplot, ciri upset over her lack of potential strongmanship, and the witchers mostly relying on triss for guidance in raising a girl. the moral being both “just raise her like any other child” and “be sensitive to her needs that you’re blind to…”

although i still think these segments have visibly aged and date the series (not inherently a bad thing, just a quality of it)… they do make more sense when i try to empathize more with the perspective of a new father… who didn’t know he was receiving a girl… who thought she died… who only got her back through a miracle… and having to raise a girl… that’s not a young child anymore, not yet a teen, but is very shortly going to start going through puberty?! it’s like growing up in the desert, just learning what water is, and then getting thrown into the ocean.

because “having to raise a girl” still doesn’t seem that strange to me, but then i remember geralt didn’t see a woman and only had heard about them as a concept until he was an adult (because “warrior-monk” realness), he grew up with a hole in his heart that his absent mother bore, he lives in a highly gendered society, he experiences hostility from everybody of course but especially from women and girls, who take fright at him for… specific reasons explained by the old women in edge of the world…

no, geralt’s not helpless, but i forget, because he acts normal, but… (i mean, although he has issues, he could have really gone off his rocker with regards to women, a little sacrifice confirms this and vilgefortz embodies this) i forget that geralt’s inexperience with women… mostly manifesting in anxiety and both uncertain and impulsive behavior… like ghosting with a nosegay of flowers, the “dear friend” and all… would affect his view of the gender as a whole, including how he sees ciri. and it does.

in his situation, yes, having to raise a girl does intensify the element of “what the fuck am i doing”. especially as a single dad.

and although i do like it when the pov shifts from geralt in the saga but just to another person in the room, for how he becomes more of a distant and enigmatic figure, seeing him through others’ eyes always makes fills me with this uncertainty. buuuut, i would fucking adore blood of elves chapters two and three through geralt’s eyes just for how much of an emotional wreck he must have been… and trying not to show it to her :(

[bookshelfdreams]

Hold Fast by hoc_voluerunt / @cuddlytogas

Stede Bonnet is free at last, and on his way back to his love. As "Captain Thomas Edwards", he'll learn a lot about sailing and emotional availability, and perhaps even make a name for himself as the man either brave or foolish enough to hunt the legendary Blackbeard. But rumour has it that Blackbeard may be the opposite of welcoming, if and when he ever catches up... Obligatory overly-long post-season 1 reunion fix-it fic, feat. slow burn reconciliation, more historical accuracy than you wanted, and plenty of piratical action.

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

Chapter 24

why did this chapter kick my ass?? damn!!!

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

soz for the unexpected delay i was moving + starting a new job + lost my grip on byakuya's slippery psyche

playing with my own headcanons for hiro and his backstory actually. bc. well. the original just is not very good at all now is it

tyyy @digitaldollsworld as always!!

Content warning tags: blood, mention of razor (not in intentional self-harm context), minor injury, nausea, panic attack, toxic obsessive stalker Toko, insecurity, mentions of self-starving

< previous - from start - next >

Byakuya drops his straight razor, and it splashes into the basin of his sink. Followed by a few droplets, hot and ruby-bright as it tracks down his jaw, vanishing almost instantly upon contact with the water.

For a moment, he doesn’t move, frozen, one hand still half-raised to his face, still curved in that loose grip. Then he braces his hands against the porcelain edge, knuckles tensing as he tries to keep them from shaking. The cut on his jaw stings, still slowly welling blood; his razor, silver and distorted, warbles in and out of sight with the water’s ripples, his eyes struggling to track its shape. He makes no move to fish it out of the water.

This was his second attempt at shaving. The evidence of his first attempt still throbs on the opposite cheek, near his ear. Despite moving glacially slow, other hand pulling the skin as taut and still as he could manage, the hard edge of the sink digging into his hip as he leaned as close to the mirror as he could, it was still proving to be a fruitless effort. The elegant blade that his mother’s family had gifted him, that he had been using since he became heir, was now simply too large and awkward for him to use. A task that should have been easy after all of Pennyworth’s guidance was now fraught with pointless danger.

…Maybe it’s not worth the trouble, he thinks, numbly. But the hollow, shattered defeatism that comes with the thought is so unfamiliar that it makes him grit his teeth, and then reach slowly into the tepid water to pull the razor out. His stubble was patchy already, especially near his jawline, and any more delay would almost certainly warrant someone commenting on it - maybe Hagakure, who couldn’t seem to keep anything to himself, or Celeste, who would delight in pointing it out while masking it as polite concern - but, at the rate he was going, he was going to draw more attention with a bloodied face.

His fingers scrape the basin, searching at a glacial pace until the edge of his thumbnail taps against the handle. He draws it out gingerly, shakes off the stray droplets, then wipes the blade with a silk cloth. Drying it carefully, meticulously - as Pennyworth had taught him, ‘it’s as good as useless if it rusts’ - before folding it and replacing it in the cupboard behind his mirror. He dries his face with the towel hanging around his neck, ignoring the way the Turkish cotton scraped against raw skin.

I could always just try again later, he reasoned with himself. Not so much as a surrender as it was a tactical retreat; and the results were bound to be better when he was calmer, more composed. He could still do it - he just needed some time.

And as for anyone who might notice it…

…Well. It wasn’t like he was spending much time around anyone else these days anyways.

—

Even if he wasn’t trying to seek out anyone else’s company, he couldn’t help but take note of their own routines, how they settled into their lives after feeling the world shake around them. 

It doesn’t surprise him that Celeste and Yamada have continued on as if nothing had happened at all. Celeste still maintains her airy simulacrum of a mysterious princess, occasionally inviting Byakuya to tea or dinner or a game of Othello, which he declines each time. Yamada, when he wasn’t offering himself up to be bullied and ordered around by her, would be in the newly-opened art room, and Byakuya could occasionally pass by to hear sounds of shuffling paper and the scrape of pens, and the harrowed, heavy breathing of a man possessed.

Ogami and Asahina are similar, returning to their athletic routine, though clearly more affected by the deaths of their classmates. They were attached at the hip before, but now Byakuya never saw one without the other, always in each other’s company, often holding hands - if Ishimaru were here, he might have decried it, ‘No PDA in the hallways!’ in that annoyingly shrill, school-bell voice - once, Byakuya had even overheard the two of them occupying the bathhouse together, when he had passed by with the intention of checking on Alter Ego’s laptop.

(He’d left quickly when he realized what they were doing, leaving the locker unchecked, his face hot and uncomfortable. It was all well and fine for them to cope how they pleased, but couldn’t they have some more decorum about occupying a public space? He was almost beginning to miss Ishimaru.)

…Speaking of Ishimaru. Even Mondo had found something to occupy his time with, these days.

It seemed that after that night with Alter Ego, something had shaken loose inside him, and he was an entirely new person. In some ways, he was even more troublesome than when he was depressed and languishing; loud, piercing, and always appearing when he was least expected, or at least it felt that way to Byakuya. Somehow materializing nearby, demanding to know what you were doing, why you weren’t adhering to some vague, obscure rule that he might’ve made up on the spot. An overgrown hall monitor that acted like every little infraction could mean life or death.

(It was all in the name of protecting the AI, but it was also getting on everyone’s nerves, and it almost made Byakuya regret ever involving himself in the biker’s business in the first place.)

Makoto and Kirigiri were doing whatever it was they were doing. Byakuya rarely saw them, and when he did, he never made any attempt to speak to either of them. It didn’t make much of a difference from his previous dynamic with Kirigiri, but with Makoto, it was almost like a repeat of what had happened just after the first trial. But this time, Makoto never made any attempt to approach him.

Which was perfectly fine by him. Regardless of Makoto’s intentions, his betrayal was unforgivable. There was no reason to associate with him any longer.

And lastly, there was Hagakure.

It’s not clear if the self-proclaimed clairvoyant had given up on Mondo, given the overnight change in personality (at the very least, there was no more need for a suicide watch anytime soon), but he seems to have latched on to Byakuya, for no clear reason. Frequently calling out to him whenever they crossed paths, dogging in his steps like a very determined stray. Chattering incessantly, even when Byakuya refused to deign any of his ridiculous stories with a response, often trying to herd him into the cafeteria so they could “lunch together, bond, maybe share a cup of joe? Even rich guys like joe, right?”

“...Did you mean ‘coffee’,” Byakuya replies in a flat, deadpan tone that was more resigned than irritated, during what must be the dozenth time that Hagakure had intercepted him, and maybe the third time he conceded to the other man’s insistence; if only because Hagakure had been particularly persistent recently, and would probably end up following him and broadcasting to Fukawa or Monokuma or anyone else exactly where Byakuya was seeking refuge, when not in his room.

(Not to mention that he was a little hungry himself, though he could only imagine the kind of common swill someone like Hagakure might consider coffee.)

“Hey man, to-MAY-toes, po-TAY-toes, right?” Hagakure just shrugs, and half-guides, half-pushes Byakuya by the shoulders into the cafeteria.

It’s midday. The place is empty, with even Celeste missing from her favored spot at her table. Hagakure shuffles him into the kitchen, tells him to wash his hands, and then-

-shoves two things at him. One, round, pale brown and still damp, with a slight papery texture beneath the moisture. The other, a piece of smooth, green plastic shaped like a ‘T’, with something silvery running parallel to the top. He skates his thumb lightly over it, and finds the edge of it sharp; a tiny blade.

“Whoa, careful! Don’t hurt yourself!” Hagakure tugs the tool back out of his hand, inspecting his fingers. “Like, come on. I even gave you the vegetable peeler, this is easy mode.”

“...What?”

Hagakure doesn’t explain right away, instead occupied with rolling up his sleeves, tying the brambled mass of his hair back with a strip of white. Arranged on the kitchen counter is a selection of tools, a colorful assortment of vegetables, and a hunk of something dark and pink, occupying the cutting board. There’s already a pot on the stove, and Byakuya watches Hagakure’s hand fiddle with some dark, invisible button across the top of the oven, and a telltale blue flame clicks to life. “We’re making gumbo! And you’re my assistant for the day.” He announces, with the same cadence of a cooking show host. He’s beaming, as if he hadn’t just said something utterly, completely insane.

“...What.”

It’s hard to make out, but he swears Hagakure rolls his eyes at him. Which would be infuriating enough to comment on, if he wasn’t also holding out the aforementioned vegetable peeler out, handle first, towards him. “Gumbo. It’s kinda like, curry I guess? But it’s a lot more soupy.” Apparently not put off by Byakuya’s unresponsiveness, he pushes the peeler into his slack hand. “I mean, I guess I’m not surprised you haven’t tried it. It’s not Japanese, or like…fancy, rich guy food.”

That snaps him out of it. “What,” He repeats, emphatically, with feeling. “Do you think you’re doing?”

“Um, like I said, making gumbo-”

“No, I mean-” Byakuya waves the objects in his hands, and feels only a little ridiculous in doing so. “I’m not- using these.”

Hagakure winces at that. “...No offense, Toga, but, uh…” He hesitates. “It’s…not exactly a good idea to give you a knife right now, you feel me?”

Byakuya can imagine his eyes tracing down his face, to the still-pink line on his jaw from this morning, and feels his face grow even warmer, with nothing to do with the open-flame stove not a meter away from him. “That. Is. Not. The. Point.” He hisses, emphasizing each word. “And - don’t call me that - you said we were here to get coffee.”

He spits these words like they’re poisonous, and Hagakure is still for a moment. He thinks that he’s managed to get his point across, but:

“Aww, Togster…you really did wanna get coffee with me?” Hagakure sounds genuinely touched, one hand pressed to his chest. Byakuya was about two seconds from throwing the stupid root vegetable in his hand against Hagakure’s equally stupid head. “We can have coffee after we make food. Besides, aren’t you sick of the meals we’ve been doing recently? Like I’m not a picky guy, but ramen and bread every day for the past few days is getting kinda…bleh, y’know?”

The worst part of this was that Byakuya agreed with him on that front. Even with his newfound habit of only eating when there was no one else around, or when Alter Ego threatened to stop reading for him until he took a meal, the selection was paltry to begin with and had only grown more unappealing with time.

“Your job is easy,” Hagakure continues, and grabs something hanging off the handle of a nearby oven, and drops it over his face, obscuring his vision for a moment. He jerks backwards in alarm as it settles to hang around his neck, only to realize that it’s an apron - a pale, mint-green thing that’s one size too small, with some still-visible stains splattered across it, and Hagakure had somehow gotten behind him and tied the thing in place already  - “You just gotta peel the potatoes, and I just gotta cut everything up. The roux’s already done, so all we gotta do is dump the ingredients in and let it do its thing.”

Byakuya is still reeling a little from being forced (though, there wasn’t much he could’ve done in protest, with both his hands occupied) into an apron. The things in his hands are so unfamiliar to him that they may as well be OOPart pieces in the making.

Besides him, Hagakure was whistling away, chopping meat with the silver blur of a large kitchen knife. Completely oblivious to anything around him; and Byakuya realized, he could leave right now if he wanted, and it wasn’t like the fortune-teller, of all people, could stop him.

He’s about to do just that when the other man looks up, knife stilling. “Something wrong?” He asks, with a tilt of his head. And before Byakuya could explain that, yes, there was something very wrong with this entire situation: “D’you need help?”

“No.” He says automatically, and immediately kicks himself for it.

“Oh, then-?”

“I don’t-” Byakuya says at the same time, and frowns sharply at the interruption. “I. Don’t do this sort of…thing.” It comes out a lot less assertive than he would like, and sounds a lot more pathetic than he means it to be.

“Oh. Well, yeah, I figured.” Hagakure shrugs, as he scoops up the mess of pink on the cutting board with the edge of his knife and drops it into a metal bowl. It lands with a loud, wet slap, and the bowl rings as it shakes against the counter. “No time to learn like the present though, right?”

Byakuya feels his eye twitch. In some ways, talking to Hagakure was more frustrating than negotiating with most white-collar businessmen, and more akin to arguing against a very enthusiastic wall. “I’m not supposed to do this kind of thing,” He tries again. “I’ve never had to prepare my own food in my life.”

It echoes what he told Makoto, that night he dragged Byakuya to the kitchen to prepare him a meal. But this time, it feels much less like a boast, and more like an admission. Like he couldn’t even do this much.

If Hagakure noticed the grimace passing over his face, he made no comment. Instead, he plucks the items out of Byakuya’s hands. “No time to learn like the present, my man.” He twirls the peeler between his fingers, and it spins, a foggy green circle. “It’s like a pattern, you pull the peeler down, turn it again, and repeat.” He demonstrates, hands moving quickly, with practiced ease. “Don’t worry if you miss anything. We don’t need it to be super clean, we just need most of the skin off.”

And he offers the peeler back to Byakuya, a gleam of white teeth on his face. Deceptively kind, poisonously pleasant. “Think you can handle that?”

Byakuya shoves his hand away, his patience thinning to a thread. “Take the hint,” He snaps, reaching behind himself to try and undo the knot. “I’m not doing this.”

“What? But it’s easy!”

“I don’t care,” He yanks at the ties, feels them come no closer to being loosened, and feels his face reddening with frustration, humiliation. He needs to leave, now. “I’m leaving.”

“Aw, Toga, come on-”

Byakuya reaches for the knife, left abandoned on the cutting board, and there’s a clatter as Hagakure backs himself against the ovens. “O-okay, okay, sure! Sure, jesus, okay!”

Byakuya rolls his eyes at the overreaction, already tuning him out, then starts awkwardly maneuvering the knife to try and cut the apron off. Arms twisting awkwardly to catch the bladed edge against the side of the knot. It’s not easy - he could swear, the blade seemed sharp enough when Hagakure was using it to dice meat, but now it slides clumsily against the twisted cotton, dull as a stone -

“Jesus,” Hagakure says again, but less panicked now that it was clear his life was under no immediate threat. “Okay, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I am not-”

“You totally are, man. Just - don’t slash me, please, and hold still -”

Hagakure gives him a wide, cautious berth, as if still worried he would suddenly turn into some violent, knife-swinging killer, edging until he’s out of Byakuya’s peripheral and standing behind him. A slight tug around his midsection later, and the apron is flapping loosely against his stomach.

To show his thanks, Byakuya sets the knife down before he pulls off the apron, not so much as handing it over as simply dropping it in the other boy’s direction.

He makes to leave, but Hagakure stops him - or tries to, throwing one hand out while scrambling to catch the apron with the other - “Wait, wait,” He still sounds jovial, but there’s a thin edge of nervousness to it now, residual after the earlier scare. “Listen, you don’t hafta help if you don’t want to, but like…can you just hang out? Here?”

“...You want me to stay. In the kitchen.” Where it was overly warm with a pot of water building into a steady boil, heavy with the smell of various condiments and spices, and pervaded by a general stickiness on the tile. “Why?”

“U-um, well…”

Byakuya sighs. He’s wasted too much time already. The coffee he was promised earlier was looking like a lost cause, and frankly, he wasn’t interested in eating anything anymore either. It would feel too much like accepting undue pity, somehow.

Apparently sensing his impatience, Hagakure finally blurts out: “Because-! I’m, um, scared! To be alone! So…”

Byakuya only stares. Even with his hair tied back, the shape of Hagakure’s head is still a round, dark splotch, albeit smaller than usual. And it bobs up and down like a dandelion as he ducks his head, hands clasped in an exaggerated plea. “Please, man, I literally can’t ask anyone else,” He begs. “Mondo’s all psyched-out and freaky serious now, Hifumi and Celeste were weirdos to begin with, and I’m sick of third-wheeling for Hina-chi and Saka-chi! And there’s no way I’m hanging out with Toko!”

He doesn’t mention Makoto or Kirigiri. Which, Byakuya assumes, makes sense, so he doesn’t bother to ask about it. “How do I know you aren’t trying to kill me,” He says instead, deadpan. 

Hagakure snorts. “Have you seen me?” And then immediately winces. “I mean - shit, sorry - but seriously, I’m pissing my pants every time Monokuma shows up. And at every crime scene, and every trial. You really think I could get over myself to off someone?”

“None of Monokuma’s motives struck a chord with you?”

“Well - I’d be lying if the first one didn’t make me nervous,” He nods. “But I divined how my parents were doing a bunch of times, and they were always alright, so that didn’t worry me too much. And the thing about secrets; well, mine is that I’m actually on the run from this yakuza boss I accidentally pissed off. I owe him a debt of eight million yen.”

Byakuya is certain he doesn’t miss the way Hagakure glances at him then, based on the way his ponytail twitches as his head turns imperceptibly. He decides to ignore the obvious bait, and moves on: “Fine, then. Then what’s your reasoning that I won’t try to kill you?”

“Oh.” Hagakure pauses. “...I didn’t, uh…think about that.”

Right. Byakuya can’t find it in him to be surprised about that either, though some bruised-up part of his pride does rail against the implication that he wasn’t dangerous. Like being blind meant he was harmless, helpless, defanged - he struggles against the implication, but only sickens himself more with the truth of it.

“I mean…do you want to kill me?”

Byakuya snorts. “I want to leave,” He leans back against the counter, feeling the hard, smooth edge of the marble dig against his back. “Obviously, I’m not crazy enough to spend the rest of my life here, waiting to kill or be killed.” He pauses. “And…I’ve been looking into possible causes for my…circumstance, and it’s looking more and more like it would require the work of a trained doctor, using specific equipment to resolve. Which this place,” He gestures around him. “Isn’t exactly equipped to handle.”

The other boy scratches his head. “Um, yeah. I mean I know that much. We all wanna get out and all, but like…do you want to kill someone to make that happen?”

Not in the slightest. He probably held responsibility for the deaths of multiple people at this point, but he had never had to kill them himself, nor witness the moment of their end. Dirtying his hands with someone else’s blood never appealed to him, and it was far more sophisticated to orchestrate someone else handling the messy work.

But his answer must show on his face, because Hagakure nods, satisfied. “Well, there you go! Also, I ran a divination on whether one of us would die today, and it’s not in the cards or the stars or divine intention, so we’re good!” He claps his hands. “Anyways. If you don’t wanna help, that’s all totally cool. All you gotta do is stick around.”

“You can’t be serious.” He scoffs. But he was getting sick of the earlier conversation - sick of talking about himself, sick of thinking about himself - so he stays where he is, crossing his arms as Hagakure busies himself with the ingredients. “How do your divinations even work, anyways?”

“What, you interested?” Hagakure flashes another white smile, and even through the haze Byakuya gets the impression that it’s a salesman grin. He could practically hear the cartoonish chime of a register. “My current going rate’s ten-million yen a reading, but for you I’ll throw in a buddy’s discount of twenty-percent!”

Byakuya gives him the most unimpressed look he can manage. “I’m not interested in wasting money on frivolities.”

“It’s not frivol-anything, man. They’re a hundred-percent legit! …Thirty-three-percent of the time,” He amends, sheepishly, at Byakuya’s withering stare. “But when they’re real, they’re real! With a hundred-percent accuracy!”

As he talks, his hands blur, moving with practiced ease. The small pile of potatoes changing from brown to pale yellow, to small, misshapen chunks, the green stalks of celery disintegrating under a knife, sharp-smelling and darkening the wood beneath it with its moisture. There’s a steady, fluid grace to it, and Byakuya watches on, feeling a sense of deja vu - faintly envious, partly entranced - the last he felt this way, he recalls, was being a child and watching his mother work in her studio, hewing faces out of stone.

He hasn’t thought about that memory in years, and he clicks his tongue sharply, irritated. Hagakure jumps at the sound. “M-maybe it’s more like a ninety-eight percent accuracy?” The fortune-teller tries, hurriedly. “Uh, it depends on how clearly I can convey it, I mean. Like how good the client is with understanding me…dialect differences and all that, though my English is pretty solid-”

“Why fortune-telling, anyways?” He cuts off Hagakure’s rambling. “I can’t imagine it’s an inherited position. You don’t seem the type to be taking up someone else’s legacy.”

“Oh! Well…” He turns to the pot, scrapes a bowl of brown slurry into its bubbling contents. “It was my dad who got me into it - not that he was a fortune teller or anything - but he knew stories about fortune tellers and priestesses and stuff, from where he grew up. It was pretty interesting, and I guess that’s what got me started.” He stirs, sniffs, tosses a handful of green shapes into the mix. “He actually bought me my first crystal ball, though it was just a cheap souvenir thing. I couldn’t’ve been older than, like, six or something.” He laughs. “Wow, I haven’t thought about this stuff in forever.”

“Am I dredging up bad memories?” Byakuya drawls, and Hagakure shakes his head.

“Nah, just old ones. But I got super into it; started begging my Ma to read me divination textbooks for bedtime, she thought I was going crazy. Dad just said it was normal for little kids to be a little crazy about something they like, though.” He shrugs. Another sniff, a sprinkle of red seasoning. “He was the first person I did an accurate divination for, actually. Like a real divination, not just for pretend.”

He goes quiet for a moment, wooden spoon scraping against the inside of the pot. Byakuya frowns. “And what did you ‘see’?” He asks, though only about half as sarcastic as he intended.

“Saw him in the hospital. And then leaving.” He replies simply. He turns, and scoops up the chopped ingredients in his hands, tossing them in with a hiss. “It was clear as day in that little glass ball, like I was watching a TV screen, except also kinda…I don’t know, wiggly? Like a dream. But I got shook up so bad I dropped it and broke the damn thing, and the next day my Dad went to the doctor for a check-up, and they shipped him to the hospital right after. Some genetic, hereditary thing, they wouldn’t even tell me what it was. I think Ma thought it’d freak me out if I knew, but I was just more freaked out not knowing.”

He reaches blindly behind him, searching hand patting at the counter, the cutting board. Byakuya hesitates, then grabs the bowl of chopped meat and passes it over. Its contents splash into the pot. “Thanks. Anyways, the weirdest thing was that I wasn’t, like, scared he was gonna die, or anything. For some reason I knew he was gonna make it, but I was more worried that he was gonna…hurt? Get even worse?” He pauses. “I kept on doing divinations afterwards with a tarot card set, just to see how he was doing, and each time it told me he was gonna be fine.”

His voice sounds a little thick, indistinct. Byakuya was beginning to regret bringing up this topic; he would hate it if he was suddenly expected to have to comfort a grown man. But instead of bursting into tears, Hagakure leans to the side, tucks his face into his elbow, and sneezes, gunshot loud. “Phew! Jeez, the paprika.” He sniffs, and Byakuya’s unease turns back into a comfortable sort of annoyance. “Anyways. Where was I…?”

“...Your father.” He hesitates for a moment. “When he passed away.”

“When he-?” Hagakure turns fully away from the pot to stare at him, mouth open, before breaking into a laugh. Doubling over so and wheezing like he just got punched. “Dude! No way, are you- did you really think that?!”

“What? Am I wrong?” Byakuya feels his face heating red again, with nothing to do with the steam. “Shut up. The way you were talking about it, you were acting like he kicked the bucket,” He snaps, and Hagakure stifles another laugh. “It’s the logical progression of things. You saw him get sick and die, and then-”

“No, no, dude, I said I saw him in the hospital, and then leave - oh, yeah, I guess I can see how you’d think that now.” He stands up straight again, swiping a hand across his face. “Oh man. No, I meant ‘leave’ as in literally leaving, like at an airport? He got better and swung back around, but got a job offer overseas right after, so he never really came back to settle permanently in Japan.” He turns back to the pot, turning the heat down low. “He sends postcards for me all the time, and he and Ma vacation together every year around the holidays.”

So that was it. Byakuya feels an irrational surge of exasperation, as if all his previous pity had just been wasted. “What does he even do? Your father?”

“He teaches quantum mechanics.” At Byakuya’s stunned expression, he snorts. “What, I’m not kidding! He test-runs all his lectures and speeches and stuff to me, and now I know way more about that stuff than I think most people ever need to!”

‘Prove it’ is on the tip of Byakuya’s tongue, but he holds back. He probably would never recover if Hagakure did somehow manage it and make him look like a fool. Hagakure stirs the pot in silence for a moment longer, before asking: “What about you?”

“What?”

“Your parents.” A shot of cold immediately runs down his spine. “Like, I know your dad’s a big rich unmarried bachelor hotshot, but what about your mom? Ah- ” Hagakure presses hand to his mouth. “She…is she, like…?”

“She’s not dead, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.” He replies, stiffly. “We’re estranged.”

“O-oh. Um. I’m sorry?”

“It’s fine.” He pauses, looks down at the tile floor. It was a mutual disavowment, around the time he made the decision to try for Togami heir. She was relieved to be rid of him, he was sure, and he was glad to be out of her house full of stone statues and hollow eyes. “I haven’t been in contact with her for several years. We’re as good as strangers.”

He really should just leave it at that. There’s no reason to elaborate any further, nor does he want to; he glares down at his feet, trying to count the tiles, and watches as the dark lines dividing them squiggle and disappear the moment he loses focus. And finds his mouth moving against his will. “My mother is Genevieve Delasol.”

“Cool.” A pause. “Wait, what!?”

Byakuya scowls and looks away as Hagakure turns back to him. “Like, the Delasol?! World-famous artist lady? With the sculptures? Miss Modern Michelangelo?!”

“Don’t call her that.” She had always hated that stupid nickname that the press forced on her, and so did he, though not for her benefit. It was a tasteless, and frankly disrespectful moniker. “But yes. Her.”

“Dude…” There’s awe in his voice, as if it were something impressive. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s not. She birthed me like any other human.”

“Still! Like, they talked about her in my elementary school art class. Her stuff is so-” He splays his fingers near his head, puffs his cheeks to mimic the sound of an explosion. “Like, I remember seeing pictures of her stuff for the first time, and it freaked me out. One of the older kids in the neighborhood told me she was freezing people into rock, that’s how real her stuff looks.”

“She’s a good artist, but she was an awful mother.” Byakuya says flatly, immediately draining the rest of Hagakure’s enthusiasm. “We’re not continuing his conversation.”

“Right, right. Um. Sorry.” He taps his fingers against the spoon, ladles some of it into a little dish to taste. “Okay, um. Could you pass me some dishes? From that cabinet in front of you - to the left - yeah, thanks.”

The concoction he scoops into the shallow dishes Byakuya hands him is…unappealing. At least visually - a muddy brown sludge that glops thickly off of his ladle - but it smells good, spicy and warm. One of the bowls is passed back, and there’s a conflict of sensation as Byakuya tries to decide if he’s hungry enough to risk it, something that he couldn’t even clearly oversee the process of making.

“You’re surprisingly well-versed in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, well. I get into hot water a lot when my fortunes don’t work out, especially with my, uh…higher class clients, so I had to get used to taking care of myself. Didn’t wanna bother my parents with it, ya know?” He flicks off the stove, covers the pot, and reaches to the right for the rice cooker. Opens it with a sharp smack to the lid. “Like, I don’t think I’ve seen my dad face-to-face in…it feels like two years. Maybe longer.”

He holds out his hand. Byakuya passes over his bowl, and he plops some rice into the center of it, before handing it back.

“I can’t finish this much.”

“Sure you can, you’re a growing guy.” There’s the roll of a drawer being pulled open, then a clatter before a spoon is being dropped into his bowl as well. “You better eat all of it, by the way. Every grain of rice has seven gods, so you gotta eat them all so you don’t get cursed.”

“...What kind of saying is that?”

“Dunno, but my Ma used to say it all the time. Come on, let’s go into the caf-”

He halts suddenly, halfway to the door. Byakuya nearly runs into his back, and just barely keeps from spilling his bowl. “What-”

“Um. Hold on.” The previous casualness of his voice is gone, and there’s a hard thread of unease running through it again. “Uh…wait out here for a moment, okay?”

“Why-”

“Dude, please. Just for a moment.” He sets his bowl down on the counter. “I’ll be right back.”

And then he’s out the door before Byakuya can make any protest, leaving him alone in the kitchen, now uncomfortably quiet without the soft hiss of the stove. He stands there, stunned, feeling a little bit stung - no, irked - at the sudden dismissal.

He wasn’t about to take orders from Hagakure, regardless of whatever weird pseudo-symbiotic-relationship the other boy thought they had going on. He walks towards the door, moving to elbow it open-

“I’m telling you, just leave him alone.”

He freezes, ducking his head down. Hagakure’s voice is high and scratchy with nervousness, but firm despite that. “For the last time-”

“I-I-I-” Someone else stutters. The voice is familiar, and Byakuya feels his gut drop in recognition. The last he heard it, it was seething with malice, spit like venom at his feet. “I j-just wanna l-look at him…”

Hagakure lets out a long-suffering sigh, indicating that this wasn’t the first time he’s had to deal with this. “Seven hells, Toko, I really don’t get you,” He grumbles. “You said you hated him, right? I mean, you said so at the trial, and you did…all that.” He coughs. “He wasn’t interested to begin with, and there’s really no way to turn it around after that.”

“I-It was t-to prove that we’re th-the same!” Fukawa shrieks, trigger-sudden and indignant. There’s a sharp thump as she stomps her foot, hard enough to rattle some nearby furniture. “If I d-didn’t do that, he w-would’ve never a-accepted what h-happened to him!”

Byakuya frowns at that, and sets the bowl aside in favor of sinking into a half-crouch, ear pressing up against the door, beneath the tiny window. What was she talking about? Not accepting my own condition? Don’t I know myself better than anyone else?

“That’s not up to you to decide,” Hagakure starts.

“I-It’s not up t-to you to p-protect him either!” She spits back. “Y-you’ve been keeping him a-away from me recently, wh-what’s with you? D-did you have some k-kind of awakening, or something?!”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that my type is none of your business - and anyways, ain’t it logical to wanna keep away from you?” He grumbles, then yelps. “C-calm down-! I just mean - you know, you…you don’t exactly give off warm and fuzzy feelings about hanging out with people!”

Toko barks a laugh, shrill and mirthless. “Wh-which makes him perfect for me,” And Byakuya feels disgust roll down his back. “I-I know I’m m-miserable, a-and unfriendly and unloveable,”

“Hey,” Hagakure says, a little more gently than before.

“B-but s-so is he! H-he’s just b-better at hiding it, p-pretending to be a, a perfect, white-horse prince,” She spits the words vehemently. “I-if he was p-perfect, th-then maybe, I c-could just be s-satisfied with - with being n-near him, with b-being used…”

She trails off. Byakuya fights the urge to physically cringe at the mere suggestion, instead gritting his teeth, nails scratching lightly against the door’s tacky surface. “B-but, he’s not perfect. S-so, that means I c-can reach him - i-it’s possible for someone l-like m-me to actually be with him,” She giggles, and the sound is far too childishly delighted to suit her mouth, and far too chilling to have innocent intentions behind it. “I-I dragged him off his p-pedestal, s-so now I can actually touch him.”

It’s vile, listening to her. The sound feels like a filth that clings to him, sliding into his ears, contaminating him from the inside out. Poisoning him, paralyzing him.

He’s only vaguely aware of his body sliding down lower, unable to maintain the awkward pose, curled over and unable to brace himself properly against the swinging door. He sinks into a squat, ears straining.

“...Um, ew.” Hagakure mutters succinctly. “Okay, first of all, no you can’t. Pretty sure Monokuma would have some problems about that, he’s all gung-ho about decency and stuff. Second, Toga’s still not gonna be into you. You blew that chance when you, uh…”

“When I w-what? S-strung up Chihiro?” She snorts. “H-he would’ve done the s-same if h-he was a-actually as perfect as h-he said.”

The contamination sinks deeper, claws curling cruelly into his chest. I would have never, He thinks through the tinny, lightheaded hum in his skull, but there’s a sickening sense of dread that twists in his stomach as he realizes he can’t even be sure of that. He might have. He would’ve had no use for Chihiro if he wasn’t blind, he would have barely even hesitated if the opportunity was there - to defile someone else’s corpse for nothing more than his own self-righteousness.

He’s probably had this realization already, but it’s revolting to hear it come from Fukawa. He should go out there, tell her to shut up, to leave him be-

“-a-and anyways, y-you still didn’t t-tell me why y-you’re so obsessed with p-protecting him.” She’s still saying, distantly, and it feels as if the door is suddenly several times thicker than it was previously, muffling the sound dramatically. “Y-you don’t have a-anything in c-common, I don’t s-see why you’d want t-to be near him, u-unless…y-you’re doing it for someone else, aren’t y-you?”

Hagakure doesn’t respond. Makes no sound to confirm or deny it. Byakuya waits, ringing intensifying, disease festering into his lungs. It was getting hard to breathe. His pulse thrums in his ears, too loud to think, not nearly loud enough to drown their voices out.

“I s-saw you with Makoto,” She continues, and the confirmation of Byakuya’s suspicion does nothing to make him feel better. “He- he asked you t-to do this, right? To protect him, h-how nice,” She snarls, disgusted. “L-looking out for his p-precious boyfriend, when he won’t d-do it himself-”

“That’s…that’s not it,” Hagakure protests, but he doesn’t sound convincing, voice so hesitant and soft that Byakuya barely catches it. “Mako-chi’s just…busy, right now-”

“Y-yeah, too busy trying to g-get out of here so Byakuya c-can get fixed, so he can s-stop f-feeling guilty - h-he doesn’t want to have to look at him, b-but he can’t help s-sticking his nose in anyways, he’s s-so sweet it makes me sick.” Byakuya legs shake, cramping, but he forces himself still, keeps his ear flattened to the door despite the nausea building in his gut, the light-headedness in his temples - “B-but it’s too much work t-to comfort him or drag him a-around, s-so he has to get s-someone to do it, right?”

He wouldn’t, is Byakuya’s immediate thought, but it’s weak, even in his own head. Makoto hasn’t sought him out all since that night in the bathhouse because Byakuya had requested it; had demanded that he leave him alone with as much vitriol and firmness as he could muster, and as with so many other things, Makoto had obeyed. But while Fukawa’s words are acerbic and biting, they’re also painfully, terribly logical.

He wonders now, how he must have looked to the others. Slowly falling apart, barely eating, rarely showing his face. So utterly different from how he tried to portray himself at first, an ill-fitted facsimile of how he used to be, how he should be; it’s no wonder Makoto would go behind his back to take care of him. Between disobeying him again and trying to keep him alive, the choice must have been easy.

The fact that that choice had to be made at all, however, made Byakuya want to…

There’s a thud as his legs finally give out, his knees smashing against the tile, but he hardly notices. Not while the sickness spreads, a physical decay in his torso eating away at him, swift and insatiable. He’s not hungry anymore, but he feels emptier than he’s ever been. 

The door swings open suddenly, bumping against his shoulder, and he sways, unsteady. Hands reach out, catching him before he can fall over.

“Whoa, hey,” Hagakure sounds muffled, underwater. He hooks his hands beneath Byakuya’s arms, trying to pull him upright, and only then does Byakuya realize that he’s not really breathing. Probably hasn’t been for the past few minutes. “Toga- I mean- you okay?” 

Of course not, he wants to snap, but talking would mean opening his mouth, and that would mean breaking down into tears like a petulant infant, so he clamps his mouth shut and tries to get as much oxygen as he can through his nose. Slow, stuttered, wheezing breaths, teeth sinking into raw, just-healing skin and breaking it bloody all over again. He leans away from Hagakure’s grip as much as possible and tries to brace himself against the wall, shaky hands against the cool bumps of the tile. Trying to count them, one by one.

“I,” He manages to grit out when he was marginally more calm, ignoring Hagakure’s worried clucking. His voice quavers, and he swallows hard around the shrapnel lodged in his throat. “I’m going to go.”

“Dude, come on-”

He lurches forward, clumsily dodging Hagakure’s attempts to support him, and walks as steadily as he can out of the kitchen. The moment he crosses the open space of the cafeteria and into the hallway, he breaks into a sprint for his room. As far away from prying eyes as he can manage.

__

(When he opens his door later that night, he finds a plastic container and a spoon sitting by the threshold, its contents long cold.)

(He eats it anyways and scrapes it clean, and leaves it sitting empty outside of his door again.)

< previous - from start - next >

[basicallyjaywalker]

All I Know

Good evening everyone, the time has finally arrived

@someloserinajaywig for you I present, the final fictravaganza fic: Zane angst. Zangst, if you will. I will admit this is not the best bc i'm not super familiar with writing a Zane POV BUT. I hope it is an enjoyable read regardless

Also, I didn't know if you had an AO3 handle but if you do and would like to have the fic gifted to you, lmk!

Prompt: Zane, The Run and Go by Twenty-One Pilots, and temporary amnesia

AO3 Link

Fic under the cut as well!

His throne was a glacier, built with his own powers, his energy, his essence. 

His throne room was the frozen ocean, vast and inhospitable. The only living beings that dared pass through were himself, his advisor, and the guards that made their rounds. Their punctuality was the only way he kept time anymore.

His empire was barren, overtaken by the ice. His ice. His subjects either learned to cope or succumbed to it. Their preserved bodies littered the tundra, a warning spread through whispers amongst the people. 

He was an emperor. A symbol of might, of terror, of strength. He was an iceberg. He was an all-consuming blizzard. 

He dreamed. 

He hated his dreams. He was always in a vast forest. There was always a snowstorm swirling, obscuring his vision. The air was always crisp, and if he focused he could catch something between sickly sweetness and earthiness clinging to the world around him. He was always acutely aware of the absence of something, though exactly what eluded him. He simply always knew there was always an emptiness within the world. 

Sometimes there were beasts with long limbs and hollow eye sockets, but they did not disturb him. They simply passed by, their towering bodies stretching up into the gray sky. 

Sometimes there was someone with him. 

A man with messy hair, white like fresh snow, dressed in the same color. He wore something over his eyes. The emperor felt he knew what they were called, once, but that couldn’t be true. Nothing like them existed in his empire.

Whenever he saw the man, the emperor would just watch him as he went about menial tasks. The man spoke, but the emperor couldn’t hear him, as if wind was constantly rushing right past his ears and drowning everything out. 

The emperor awoke from these dreams agitated. He tried to get his advisor to tell him who the man was, but he insisted he had never seen nor heard of him before. 

“A figment of imagination, your eminence. Do not let it trouble you.”

And so he did not. His advisor was always right. He had rescued the emperor from certain death after being ousted by the traitor. He restored his throne. He reclaimed his throne room. He returned the emperor to his glory.

---

Zane still had those dreams, even after his return. 

They weren’t uncommon before his tenure as the Ice Emperor. He often dreamed of his father and him wandering the Birchtree Forest where they lived. However, something felt wrong about the dreams he had during and after his time in the Never-Realm. He couldn’t explain it. It was like watching a different cut of a film he’d seen a  million times before. There were details missing, but he couldn’t remember them. 

He tried to reach into his memory banks for them, but was met with nothing. The previous version of his dreams didn’t exist anymore. All that existed was the incomplete, glitched version.

Every time he woke up from that dream afterwards, his face was wet. He hated it. He missed something that seemed to have never existed. More than that, he knew, he hated that he felt like it was his fault for forgetting. His own memories were obscured by a horrific episode of megalomania in which he had no choice. At least, that’s what the others said. Truth be told, Zane tried very hard not to dwell on the thought too much. He wanted to imagine he was forced into that role by the manipulation of Vex, but it was fifty years. He was a conqueror, a destroyer, for fifty years, and never thought anything of it? He’d crushed dissent at Vex’s suggestion, but it was still him who brought the hammer down. He froze the changelings because he was worried they would usurp him. Did it matter that Vex told him a lie and he believed it? Would it have been different if they did want to usurp him, destroy him? 

Perhaps that was why he tried not to delve too deep into his memories of that time. They remained only because he couldn’t wipe them without wiping everything else about himself, but sometimes he wished he could. Originally, his father built him with his memory switch to provide that fresh start, to allow him to forget inconvenient histories like his father’s death and their life prior. He built it to protect Zane from pain. He must’ve believed it was worth the cost, since he refused to remove it despite Zane’s request upon their reunion. At the time Zane believed it wasn’t worth it to avoid the pain if he had to forget all the good that came before, but sometimes, in the dark and cold nights where he couldn’t sleep because of the visions of Ice Samurai and innocents encased in bergs that plagued him, he wondered if his father was right. 

Then he would remind himself of his friends. He thought of Pixal and her warm smile, Jay and his neverending bad puns, Kai and his fierce loyalty, Cole and his firm reassurance, Nya and her cunning wit, Lloyd and his unconditional love, and Master Wu’s constant support and guidance. He thought of them and he knew he could never forget. Even if he could build a new life with them, flip the switch, remove it, then make up some grand lie about what happened, those memories were irreplaceable. 

The unfortunate consequence of wanting to remember his friends meant he had to remember every time he failed. 

He had to remember finding Pixal disassembled in the labyrinth beneath Chen’s Island.

He had to remember when Cole fell off the Bounty and into the uncertain shadows of the Oni invasion.

He had to remember Lloyd’s face as he begged, pleaded with Zane to remember who he was.

Every time he failed and someone got hurt. Maybe that was another reason he couldn’t just forget and start over. They couldn’t just reset. They still had to live with the consequences. 

So Zane would lay there in the morning, face wet with tears. If he was unable to forget, how come he couldn’t remember? His father’s voice and the look and feeling of his home when he was young were fading. What was the point of having a computer for a brain if it just lost memories like a normal brain?!

Then one night, he ended up in that place again. His home. 

Tall birchwoods towered into the cloud-speckled sky. Small rays of sunshine peeked through gray clouds, turning patches of snow on the ground into clouds themselves. Dr. Julien sat on one of these patches, with Zane beside him, shaded by the skyward stretching trunk of a tree. He could hear animals going about their lives around them. Squirrels scuttled through trees, cardinals flew through the air, and even a few bees came up and settled on the sparse greenery around them. 

Zane heaved out a single word. “Father.”

“Hello, Zane, isn’t it such a pleasant morning?”

“Father, it’s been so long.”

The doctor tilted his head. “What do you mean? I only left you and Falcon alone for a moment.”

“No, it’s that… Never mind. I simply missed you.”

“Well, that is sweet of you. I’m glad you decided to join me. Spring is almost here, you know. It’s always nice when a bit of life returns to this place. The primrose will be blooming soon.”

“Yes…” Zane took a deep breath. “Father?”

“Yes, Zane?”

“May I ask you something peculiar?”

“Of course, son. What’s on your inquisitive mind today?”

“What should I do if I ever start to forget things?”

He paused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean if years go by and I forget days like this, where we both sat together and talked? What if one day I forget your voice or your face? What if one day I forget… you?”

“Well… that won’t happen for quite a few more years. Why does it worry you now?”

“I’m simply curious.”

Dr. Julien hummed. He pulled his glasses off and painstakingly cleaned the lenses. Zane locked onto his every motion, inscribing it into the artificial synapses of his mind. If he knew how to in the dream, he would motion capture the process so that he could recreate it. 

“I suppose it’s something we all have to deal with. Our brains can only hold so much information. There are days I find myself slowly forgetting the details of my friends' faces, the voices of those I loved…”

“So what do you do?”

He shrugged. “There is nothing you can do. You can swear to yourself you will never forget, that you will commit every minutiae to memory, you will remember a person or place or story over and over until one day it’s simply… gone. I suppose that’s why they invented photographs. You can never forget if it’s preserved, but even those will fade over time, or you can forget the when and why and who of their taking. There are photos in my scrapbook of people I know I once knew, but whose names I can no longer recall… Zane? Are you alright?” Julien reached over, turning his son’s face and seeing the fresh trails coasting down his cheeks. He wiped them with the sleeve of his white overcoat. “I’m sorry, son. I didn’t mean to upset you. I believe I must’ve gotten too wrapped up in my own melancholy.”

“I don’t want to forget you, father. Never.”

“Zane…” Dr. Julien shook his head, his deep brown eyes full of softness. “One day, you will, and it will be okay. You may forget the details of my appearance, or all of our memories together, but you will always remember who I was to you. You will always remember your father.”

Despite the fresh tears still replacing the old ones on his face, Zane nodded. “You will always be a part of me.”

“Yes, I will, son.”

Zane woke up, the wetness of his face following him to consciousness. He sat up, wiping his tears with the sleeve of his pajamas. From the half-closed blinds, a beam of golden morning light shone directly on his bed. 

“I will never forget, father.”

[disgorgedfoetus]

big brother cloud strife 🗣️📢🔊🔊🔊🔊

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[problemswithbooks]

BNHA Ch. 429

So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.

I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga. But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.

I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.

Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.

As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.

In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.

It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.

Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.

This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.

So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?

Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.

That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.

We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.

The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.

If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.

[boxwinebaddie]

🎸 happy uncneen pepinursteppermint wintereve 🍬 ❤️‍🔥

❤️🤘 + ft. how i think my styles would say HYH