#my bsd phase is slowly returning and I’m both scared but happy

[redacted-gay-username]

I’ve accidentally gone back down the bsd rabbit hole, and it’s all soukoku’s fault. I fucking hate them—*proceeds to read skk fanfiction for 5 hours*

[archerazzure]

Back To Where We Came

Lucy and Atsushi journey to a place that holds reminders of strong memories for both of them, but this time is different.

Fandom: Bungou Stray Dogs

Length: 2,804 words

Pairing: Lucy Maud Montgomery/Nakajima Atsushi

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10521609

Written for BSD Rarepair Week Day 7

She stood in front of the mirror, fingers slowly combing through her hair. In the reflection she could see Atsushi lying on the couch, humming softly to himself. Smiling, she broke her hair down into three sections and slowly started braiding them together. “You don’t have to come with me.” Propping himself up on the arm of the couch, Atsushi smiled as he watched her. “It’s my day off, and I want to.”

Rolling her eyes, she continued to weave her fingers through her hair. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“That’s alright, I’ll be surprised.”

Wrapping a band around the end of the braid, she sighed and tossed it over her shoulder, before standing up abruptly and turning to face him. “Do what you want, but if you’re coming we need to go.” Nodding, Atsushi tugged on his shoes as Lucy grabbed her bag off the table along with the bouquets of roses, before both of them left her apartment.

Stopping on the edge of the sidewalk, Lucy adjusted her bag and the flowers before starting down the street, Atsushi matching pace beside her. “So where are we going?”

“Guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”

As the first sounds of children could be heard in the distance, she noticed Atsushi pause. And after a moment something seemed to click in his eyes as he looked over at her, clearly startled. “Where are we going?”

She sighed. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”

He seemed agitated. “Lucy.”

“Yeah, alright, fine. I’m visiting the orphanage.”

He just about lost it. “You’re what?!”

“Shh. Calm down!” She quickly placed her hand on his shoulder and glanced around, looking for the first sign that they’d attracted attention. The street was silent except for the sound of laughter. Good. Turning back, she scowled, “Ok, first off you didn’t have to come with me.”

“I didn’t know this was wher-” She cut him off.

“You didn’t ask. Second, you can turn around right now if you don’t like it.” Placing her hands, on her hips she waited, but he just stood there. “What?”

“I…” He hesitated. “I was hoping to spend time with you today.”

Lucy sighed. “I’m not changing my plans. They already know I’m coming.”

He stared at the ground. “That’s fine.”

“Is it?”

He didn’t say anything for several minutes, but eventually spoke up. “Are they… You know…”

“They’re not like ours.” She folded her arms over chest nervously; she hadn’t meant to scare him off, but she also didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. “That’s what I worried about too, but they’re really nice. And the kids are happy there.”

Atsushi nodded, and took a deep breath before holding out his hand. “Can I still come with you?”

Lucy stared at his offered hand. “What are you, a child?” Atsushi said nothing, but after a moment she sighed and linked her hand with his.

Holding hands, they made their way further down the block and stopped outside the open iron gates. Children raced around the courtyard in groups, laughter and screams of joy echoing through the air. Well they were certainly having a good time.

One of the girls glanced over and her eyes lit up, “Lucy!” Several more heads turned, and Lucy felt Atsushi tense up again as several children rushed towards them.

Unlinking their hands and taking a few steps forward, Lucy positioned herself between Atsushi and the children, already kneeling down as several of them tackled her in a hug. “Hello.” She wrapped her arms as best she could around the group and squeezed them, others having gathered off to the side, waiting their turn. “Goodness, you all seem excited today.”

“It’s warm again!”

“We can go outside!”

Most of them were bouncing up and down in place, and Lucy laughed as she stood back up, several children immediately attaching themselves to her arms and legs. She staggered, and had to place her hands on a couple of heads to steady herself. “I can’t walk with you all hanging on me you know.”

“Will you play with us Lucy?”

“Play with us.”

“Please!”

Laughing, she slowly worked her way through the growing crowd, patting heads and exchanging smiles. “Just give me a minute, alright? There’s something I have to take care of first.” They all looked up at her with various sad pouts. “Oh don’t be like that, go on.”

Some of the older kids nodded and slowly scattered the group. Most of them took off without much more persuading, some of the older children having to guide the younger ones away. However after a few minutes they had all returned to playing, and Lucy breathed out with a sigh of relief. Turning towards the main building, she paused and looked back over her shoulder, waving back at Atsushi to join her.

Jogging to catch up, Atsushi looked around cautiously. “So, that happened.”

“Mhm.” She hummed happily as they continued down the path towards the porch where two women sat.

“Do you come here a lot?”

“When I can.” Atsushi looked like he had another question, but the two women were already making their way out to meet them, so he fell silent.

She curtsied as they approached. “Junko-san. Kanae-san.”

The older brown haired woman, Junko, smiled. “Lucy-chan. We’re glad you could stop by.”

“As am I.” She offered the flowers, “I brought these for you. It’s not much, but I thought they might brighten things up a bit.”

“They’re lovely.” Junko took the flowers and both woman smiled. After a moment, Kanae nodded towards Atsushi, “Who’s your friends, Lucy-chan?”

He looked startled at being noticed. “Oh, N…Nakajima Atsushi. Nice to meet you.”

“Atsushi is a friend, he wanted to tag along today.”

“Nice to meet you Nakajima-kun.”

Kanae grinned and looked like she was about to say something else, but Junko just smiled and took her by the arm, pulling her away. “You two have fun.”

Lucy smiled, “We will.” Glancing over she noticed Atsushi frowning. “What?”

“What was that about?”

She raised an eyebrow. “What was what about?”

He shook his head. “Never mind, so what do we do now?”

“Well first, I think we should introduce you to the kids.”

He tensed. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean… what if they don’t like me?”

Lucy laughed. “Trust me, they like everyone. Now come on.” She dragged him towards the scattered groups, and within seconds she had all their attention.

“Lucy!”

“Can you play now?”

Smiling, she watched as they crowded in front of her. “I sure can, and I brought a friend with me too.”

“Ooh!”

“Is it the one behind you?”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“Will he play with us too?”

She silenced the group with a wave of her hand, before placing her hands on her hips. “This is Atsushi, he’s not my boyfriend and yes he came to play too.” Her answer earned cheers and shouts of delight, and beside her Atsushi looked a little pink as she elbowed him in the side. “Told you they’d like you.”

“R…right.” Atsushi seemed to recover from whatever was fazing him when he realized a young boy was hanging on his arm, staring up at him.

“Do you do magic too?”

“M…magic?” Lucy looked away quickly before he could make eye contact. She should have known they’d bring it up. Even so. “Who else does magic?”

“Lucy does!” One of the little boys near the front shouted it, and several of the others nodded. “We go and play with her and her friend all the time.”

Atsushi looked like he was going to say something, but Lucy cut him off as she forced a grin on her face. “Alright, who wants to play with Anne?” Cheers shot up from the children, and with a clap of her hands she quickly teleported them into her familiar space.

Present boxes and toys lined the walls, though in a different order and pattern than last time, but Anne was nowhere in sight. Though Lucy could feel her lurking off in the shadows.

Something grabbed one of her hands, and she looked down to see one of the children staring up at her. “Where is she?”

“I think she’s hiding.” Kneeling down, she scooped her up before speaking to the crowd, “Come on everyone, let’s go find her.” The crowd immediately split apart, everyone wanting to find Anne first. Lucy even watched in amusement as a pair of boys dragged Atsushi towards a corner of the room to help them search. Glancing at the girl in her arms, she smiled, “So where should we look first?” The girl pointed towards a stack of boxes against the far wall and Lucy headed towards it. “Good choice.”

They had probably spent twenty minutes searching before they all gathered in the center of the room, several of the children looking disappointed. Lucy wore her own pout. “So no one found her?” She received several head shakes as an answer. “I wonder where she could be.”

She put on an exaggerated, deep in thought expression as she felt Anne partly phase through the ceiling. Immediately the children’s faces lit up and they started jumping up and down and pointing. Lucy looked up and faked a frown. “Anne. You know you’re not supposed to hide up there. How are we supposed to find you?”

The doll hung her head and Lucy looked first at the children, then back at her doll. “I suppose we’ll forgive you, if you agree to play with us.” Anne’s head perked up and the children started hopping excitedly.

Setting the little girl down, Lucy watched Anne float across the room and the children chase after her with shouts of joy. Anne would pick them up and set them on various stacks of boxes that they climbed on like a playground. Some of them went rather high, but Lucy knew that they wouldn’t get hurt. Not only was Anne ever vigilant, but even if something did happen she could copy herself for an extra hand.

“Lucy?” She watched from the corner of her eye as Atsushi moved up beside her.

“The kids like to play with her. The first time it was an accident; I thought she’d try to hurt them, but she was surprisingly gentle about it.” She smiled. “And before you ask, both Kanae and Junko are alright with it! I…I’ve asked.”

He held up his hands defensively. “I wasn’t going to say anything bad about it. I mean, I think it’s great that you can have fun here. Especially after all the bad memories.”

“I’ve always had fun here, it’s just everyone else who doesn’t.” She sat down, taking in the laughter that echoed around the room. “Every hope I had up until the day I left that place, I had in here.” She looked around with a sigh. “I always buried them here, it’s sort of like a graveyard really. So many dead hopes.”

“A…are you alright?”

She glanced up to see the concern written all across his face. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

He quickly averted his gaze. “No reason.”

Grabbing one of the nearby stuffed animals, she threw it at him. “Not all my dreams are dead you know, and plenty of them actually came true. So stop looking at me like that.”

He was too slow to dodge, and Lucy laughed as she watched the doll smack him in the face. Recovering from it, he took a seat beside her. “I know, it’s just that I wish I could have done something to help you sooner.”

She snorted. “With the stuff you had to deal with? Don’t make me laugh.” Sighing, she gazed across the room. “I’m just glad these kids don’t have to deal with what we did.”

Atsushi hummed in agreement, then spoke after a pause. “None of them have an ability, do they?”

“None that I know of, but even if they did I don’t think they’d be treated any different. Junko and Kanae accepted me easily enough. I guess we just ended up in the wrong place.”

“Or maybe we ended up just where we needed to.” She looked up and he shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“I suppose so.” She opened her mouth to say something else, when a shout across the room interrupted her. One of the boys perched on the edge of one of the boxes, preparing to jump to the next one. The crowd of kids below looked excited and Lucy smiled, but she felt Atsushi tense up beside her. “Something wrong?”

“He’s going to fall.” His voice choked, and as she looked over she could see the fear in his eyes.

“Hey it’s fine, Anne’s got th-” He interrupted her as he bolted, light momentarily encompassing his limbs before he charged at an impossible speed towards the other side of the room. “Hey!”

She got to her feet quickly and raced after him, only to watch as the child slipped and landed tightly in Atushi’s arms. “Idiot!” She shouted after him as Anne phased through the floor, picking her up and carrying her faster than she could have run. Anne set her down next to the boys as Atsushi carefully uncurled and allowed the boy to climb free. “What do you think you’re doing?”

He looked up in panic. “What do you mean, what do I think I’m doing? He was going to fall.”

“And Anne would have caught him just fine.” She gestured to her doll. “I’m not stupid, I had someone keeping an eye on them.” Recognition seemed to click in his eyes, and she turned and gestured to the startled children. “You could have hurt someone just charging recklessly over here like that. I mean just look.”

Atsushi’s face fell and she watched him look at the ground, his hair covering his eyes. “You’re right. I am an idiot.”

That comment caught her off-guard, though it probably shouldn’t have. “Hey-”

“I could have hurt someone. This power always seems to hurt someone. I just-”

Reaching down, she slapped him, the sound echoing through the room. The children fell silent and Lucy tried her best to keep her rage from boiling over. “Don’t you start pitying yourself. You want to use your ability for something besides fighting? Besides defense? Then you have to find it. No one else can find it for you.” He looked up and she gestured towards the kids. “Don’t know where to start? Try them.”

Both of them looked over towards the quiet children, and after a moment the little girl Lucy had held earlier moved forward and pet Atushi’s arm. “Kitty.” Atushi looked startled, but didn’t pull away. Instead he sat patiently as some of the other child approached and started petting his fur as well; in seconds he had several surrounding him.

“It’s so soft.”

“Are you a magic kitty?”

Atsushi didn’t seem to know how to respond until one of the boys stopped in front of him. “Do you give piggyback rides?”

Lucy audibly laughed at the expression that crossed Atsushi’s face. “Umm… Not usually… I could try though.” Oh that got the kids’ attention. Within minutes there was a line, and with Lucy’s help, Atsushi was carefully positioning a kid on his back.

“Be mindful of the claws. A…and hold on tight, you wouldn’t want to fall off.” The child fidgeted excitedly and Atsushi took a deep breath; whether he was trying to reassure the child or himself Lucy wasn’t sure. Though the latter seemed more likely. “Alright, here we go.”

He started off slow, picking up the pace with each shout of “faster!” until he was moving at about half speed, faster than a normal person but nowhere near his max.

He did it for several children, and as he set down his most recent rider Lucy waved for the next girl. But she just stood there for a moment, then shook her head. Smiling, Lucy bent down to her level. “What’s wrong? Are you scared?”

She shook her head. “You should go first?”

Lucy blinked, then glanced up to see several of the other children nodding. “Now, now, I really don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Lucy’s turn.” One boy chanted. “Lucy’s turn. Lucy’s turn.”

It quickly spread over the group and Lucy just shook her head. “It’s fine, I don’t nee-” She squeaked as she was swept off her feet, and looking up, she realized Atsushi had picked her up. The children cheered but Lucy just glared at him. “You best put me down right now.”

He grinned. “But we don’t want to disappoint the children.”

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you-” She squeaked and wrapped her arms around his neck as he took off. “AtsushiI’mgonnakillyou!”