#laios and chilchuck have babies. bc duh it's me

[arathejedi394]

@junkyrdgh0st don't read this bc it contains dungeon meshi spoilers (READ DUNGEON MESHI ALREADY YOU CAN SPARE FIVE MINUTES A DAY!!!)

so like a couple weeks ago i started writing a dungeon meshi polycule fic (laios touden's adventuring party??? more like chilchuck tims's harem) and then i thought "hey i should really dive into laios's monstersona what if i gave him the ability to comprehend an eldritch beast older than time and then the ability to kill said eldritch beast all by himself when in comparison it's recommended to have like 10 damage casters with at least 5 support members for each to kill the exact same thing if you're not laios touden bc there is a guaranteed 50% casualty rate that would be fun!"

and then i wrote this scene between chilchuck and laios both working in the merchant caravan laios worked for after leaving the army/before going to the island where laios to convince chilchuck he can handle the dungeon which chilchuck thinks he can't "mostly i was killing things that take like 50 people to kill" and that freaks out chilchuck so he breaks up with him, then ends up going back to him three years later bc he's worried about what the dungeon is doing to laios, and ends up joining his party in order to put him back on leash. (no it's not just a metaphor laios is practically canonically a furry he is chilchuck's dog/puppy i haven't written a literal collar/leash scene yet but there will be at least two.)

so obviously i had to write a scene when they're both in the dungeon and they run into this thing older than time. so i did. and suddenly i realized the polycule fic i had started with the intention of having falin go missing and the remaining touden party all ending up in a pile on top of chilchuck who begrudgingly allows the cuddles, but what i really had was chilchuck realizing he's in love with a thing and dear god that thing cannot run loose in a dungeon i must put a choke chain on him and keep him on a short leash, meanwhile laios is too dangerous for his own good and needs to be kept on a choke chain. they have this really convoluted we're more than friends but also this is purely a friends with benefits situation but also i would die for you. i would willingly let things worse than death happen to me for you, and it sort of explodes bc dealing with the eldritch thing older than time gives laios super bad ptsd and chilchuck has to tell him their relationship is not just benefits in order to literally save him from his own mind, the only monster that's more dangerous than he is.

bc like,,, listen snippet under the cut. warning for dehumanizing laios. in a pitying way. bc the thing he's fighting can drive the human mind insane with one look and laios is the only person who's ever been immune. (also the thing is called a revenant i did not invent revenants they're like a common ghostie in a lot of cultures i think)

i've literally never started writing something, gotten a good chunk of the way in, and realized i had ended up writing something completely different than what i started with. it's kinda cool?? also the vibe of No Children by the Mountain goats fits really well and i like paraphrased it to match this chilaois plot, like it's chilchuck's pov thinking about laios. and it just makes so much more sense with this vibe to have it be strictly chilaois instead of chilchuck + a harem including laios, marcille, senshi, and platonically izutsumi bc they already had a dog and a cat was a perfect addition.

"I had hoped that since I found the strength to walk out, you’d stay the hell out of my way. I’d hoped that when you saw me again, years down the line, you couldn’t think of one good thing to say. for all my life, I had lied, and told everyone you were a bad dog, but i had always known i’d already sunk deep into you like a peat bog, and i am ready and willing to drown. I had hoped it would stay bright forever, but now i know the worst isn’t over, and i still don’t know what to say. my friends all say it’s darkest before the sun rises, but i’m pretty sure they’re all wrong. i know the sun doesn't reach underground, and now i know the fences we mended must have fallen down beneath their own weight. So now I hope the worst really isn’t over, I hope you blink before I do; I hope I never get sober. I hope we both hold on past the last floor, but I know it’s already too late. I know we’ll both be consumed. i am drowning. there is no sight of land, but i’m going down with you, hand in unlovable hand. and I hope you survive. I hope we both survive."

His whole Don’t get too personal with party members or wild animals rule is really biting him in the ass, because he suddenly wants to see how Laios manages to kill a Revenant all by himself for some reason, no matter how disturbing it looks to witness, regardless of how Laios had begged him not to look. He wants to see how Laios manages to move like an Eldritch beast older than time itself. He wants to see the Revenant get confused when it is suddenly faced with something that is more dangerous than it, when probably since it first crawled out of its deep dark hole in the earth, nothing had been able to match it evenly let alone best it. He wants to watch it start to feel fear for the first time in its miserable existence all because a wild thing like Laios Touden had entered its canyon. He wants to see Laios be a predator to something so much older than reality it can’t follow the laws of common sense, having never once learned them. He wants to see it because it sounds disturbing, because Laios had asked him not to look, like seeing a train about to crash and not being able to close your eyes for the sake of morbid curiosity. How will Laios explode when he and the Revenant finally collide? Those times when he gets that dark, deeply wild animal sort of look in his eyes are rare, and Chilchuck is both afraid of and attracted to them, constantly aware that he somehow holds power over a dangerous, deadly thing like Laios Touden through methods even he doesn't fully understand. Because even the wild thing in Laios Touden is willing to submit to him, happy to, and a wild thing that can kill Revenants without help shouldn’t be something that is willing to kneel before a man as small and physically weak as Chilchuck Tims.

Right now? Chilchuck realizes that Laios must be shedding his mask, completely. He’s becoming something that’s more him and nothing at all like him at the same time, and he actually wants to see what that looks like. Even when he had explicitly been asked not to look. Especially because he of all people had been asked not to look. He wants to know what Laios becomes when he’s the most himself he could ever possibly be.

How feral is the touch-starved, shunned and beaten, abandoned pup that still thinks he’s totally unlovable where it counts at the heart of Laios Touden? Truly? That was what Chilchuck had told Dandan Laios is, after all. A slightly too-feral starving dog with a bone, always afraid everything is going to be taken from him, and so unable to unlock his teeth once they have sunk into something. But how far down in Laios’s psyche does his hunger and unnatural instinct come from? How deep does that dungeon go, and what gold-eyed, forgotten, lonely beast lurks at the bottom of it, that sends even Revenants running in fear? 

What else would run in fear from a wild, unknowable, incomprehensible thing like Laios Touden? 

And why doesn't Chilchuck run in fear from him? 

If Chilchuck were there to see him take down such a dangerous, deadly beast with ease, would the animal inside of Laios that makes even a Revenant afraid recognize him still? Would it go sniffing his hand and whine for a pat on the head like Laios does when he’s (mostly) not feral, or would it turn on him, too? Would Chilchuck still not be afraid of him, once he saw what the thing at the heart of him truly is?