#they were right she’d never be as important to him as ren.

[z0mbiew00d]

Do you ever think about Cleo knowing she’ll never amount to as big of a part of Martyn’s life as Ren and she just accepts that and decides it’s fine she doesn’t need Martyn anyway.

He abandoned her on the first day, and even if he did come looking for them he’d always choose Ren over her, over anyone.

But it’s fine! She has Scott! If she can’t be a big part of Martyn’s life then he won’t be part of hers, he abandoned them she’s just returning the favour

[after-witch]

Damn Your Eyes [Chapter One] [Yandere Ren Hana x Reader]

Title: Damn Your Eyes [Chapter One: The Last Day] [Yandere Ren Hana x Reader]

Synopsis: Years ago, you were the captive of a serial killer named Strade. And you weren't the only one he kept. After Strade was killed by one of his victims, you ran away--and now your past is finally catching up with you. Chapter one is set during Boyfriend to Death.

Word count: 6352

Chapter notes: Yandere, kidnapped reader, past noncon, graphic violence, descriptions of blood, violence and gore, descriptions of death (not reader)

AO3 LINK

She was crying again. Well, no wonder. There were holes in her feet, dotting the top of her thighs. Blood had dribbled down from the gored holes in her flesh like little streams, then dried out. 

The thin, wavy dried out trickles made you think, abruptly, of unfettered period blood, then of Carrie by Stephen King. The scene in the shower, where she gets her period and freaks out. The other girls threw tampons and sticky pads at her and shrieked, chanting, bonded by a morbid commiseration of the entrance to so-called womanhood: Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up!

Plug it up, you thought.

But she couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Her hands were bound behind her. Did he tie them back like that so that she couldn’t try to hurt him, or because it gave him easier access to her flesh? Maybe a bit of both.

She looked uglier when she cried. Snot bubbled out of her nose and joined a dried streak of blood that went from her nose down to her chin. Her nose was probably broken, hence the blood; the flesh of it was black and blue and an awful shade of green.

One part of you longed to retrieve an ice pack from the freezer and hold it to the bruised, swollen flesh. Hush her cries. Give her an ounce of humanity that might carry her for another few hours, the way Ren once did to you. 

Another part of you, the new you forged under Strade’s knife (and boots and hammers and power drill) wished she’d just die already, so you wouldn’t have to hear her cry or be standing here obediently, waiting for Strade to come back down. You were probably going to have to participate in this next stream–why else would he call you down in the middle of one of his “projects”? 

Unless he was lonely. But even so, he could always kill two birds with one stone. You, here to give him company; and you, here to entertain his horrid audience. And himself, above all. Himself, always.

 The basement door at the top of the stairs creaked open and you heard his heavy bootsteps–thump, thump, thump–before he called out jovially.

“Are you still there, Liebling? You didn’t run off, did you?” 

As if you were stupid enough to do that. You were many things now. Stressed. Afraid. Desperate. Tired. More selfish. Maybe a little bit masochistic, a trick of your brain to keep you from totally losing your mind as you were tortured. All these things and more besides, but stupid was not one of them. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” You called back, lightening your tone. It was important not to sound too scared. Strade wanted you scared, yes, but he didn’t want you to be some obedient, squeaky little mouse. That was too boring. It was best to act as normally as you could, considering the circumstances. That seemed to please him more, at least on most days. Some days nothing you did was right and you went to bed with a swollen eye and broken fingers, eased by frozen peas that Ren snuck you from the kitchen before he went to sleep. 

You’re not the only one who noticed him coming down. The woman in front of you began to tremble and sob more violently, pulling at her bound wrists. It wouldn’t do any good. It never did. How long did she have to live? How long did any of you in this house have to live? 

By the time Strade made it down the stairs, her cries were practically at a fever-pitch. You didn’t want to look to see what he’d run off to fetch, but he didn’t give you a choice.

He called your name. “Come here, darling, I need your help with this.” And oh, you kept your eyes downcast until all you could see was his boots. But then it was time to look up, and you did, and no matter how many times you witnessed him preparing to torture another person, it still made your stomach roil.

He’d brought down a p[ot of boiling water, which he carefully held by the handle with both hands. Tucked underneath his armpit was the bag of frozen peas. The bag, you thought, because for as long as you’d been here, no one ever cooked them. They got passed around between you and Ren under cover of night.

Here they were, in the light of day. You suspect you wouldn’t want to re-use them after this. 

“Be my Lamm and take the peas, won’t you?” The sensible part of you eyed him warily; it wouldn’t be below him to toss the pot of boiling water at you while you reached for them, just to fuck with you. But you didn’t disobey him, either. You carefully leaned over and slid the bag from underneath his armpit, and held it in your hand.

He smiled. Grinned, really, which was a bad sign for the sobbing woman tied to the pole. His good moods and bad moods were both equally shitty, but in your unfortunately well-experienced opinion, it was his good moods that produced the most painful scenarios.

“Now!” He crouched down in front of the crying woman and grabbed her chin. She shrieked and tried to jerk her face away, but he held her tight. “I’m sure your wounds are sore, aren’t they?” She sobbed out something–meaningless pleading that you’d long since lost the ability to discern–and he tsked.

“Oh, poor thing. I know just what might help!” He snapped his fingers and looked back at you. “My lovely friend here will give you some ice to help you feel better. Won’t you?” He grinned wider and you nodded, feeling both scared and numb in a confusingly equal measure, as you crouched down next to him.

She yelped when you placed the frozen bag on a group of puncture wounds on her thigh, but you held it fast. It probably hurt more than it soothed. An icy bag right up against wounded skin didn’t sound pleasant. But maybe it would numb it a little. That might be better than nothing. 

“Perfect! Now…” He reached over and picked up the steaming pot of water, still bubbling from its boil on the stove. “Hold still, my Lamm… wouldn’t want to splash you.” 

It was so strange, the way that your time with Strade had made it possible for you to actually keep your hand there, despite the fact that you knew he was about to pour boiling water on the skin of this poor woman. Pour it right where it would surely splash on you a little, if not a lot. Probably a lot. Two birds, one stone, and all that.

It didn’t matter if it was strange. Your fingers flexed and your muscles tensed as you saw him turn the pot over slowly, and steaming water came flying down, pouring over the woman’s wounds.

She screamed. It was loud. It hurt your ears. The irritation of it distracted you from seeing Strade move the pot around so that the water trailed over the frozen peas–and your hand keeping it pressed against her–as he covered her thigh in the water.

“Fuck!” You said, biting your cheek hard. Your fingers danced on the bag but you didn’t dare pull away. You could see your own skin turning a shade of red. Her thighs had taken the brunt of it, though. There were even blisters forming on her skin already as she sobbed and cried and begged for someone, anyone, to help her.

You were someone.  You were anyone.

You couldn’t help her.

“Language, liebchen,” Strade said, teasingly. You mumbled out an apology, although you doubt he actually cared. 

He sighed when the pot was emptied, and tossed it on the floor.

“I don’t know… I just don’t think it’s enough. Do you?” He grasped your burned hand and you couldn’t stifle the sound of yelping pain as he gripped it hard. Your skin would blister too–it was already peeling a little. 

“What…whatever you think is best,” you stammered. 

“That’s right,” he said, grinning. He gave your hand a squeeze and you groaned. “I think I’ll work a little more on this project myself before dinner.” He let your fingers go, and you cradled your hand against your chest. “Have Ren take care of that. Come back down when it’s wrapped up.” his free hand grabbed the chin of the sobbing, bleeding, blistered woman again. “I think we’ll make a movie, and I need my prettiest co-star to help me out.”

“Of course.” You gave her one half-pitiful glance–the way her frightened, bloodshot eyes darted to you with a mixture of anger and pity made you want to hurl–and went up the stairs.

By the time you’d made it to the top, you already heard Strade pulling out his video equipment.

—

“It… doesn’t look too bad,” Ren said quietly. He held your hand underneath the sink, letting the cold water soothe your burn. But every time your hand trembled and the stream went just out of reach, it burned again, and you winced.

“Most of it hit her thigh,” you whispered. Though you didn’t need to, since both of you were well aware that Strade was busy in the basement. Old habits die hard, however. “She got it worse.”

Ren hummed. “They usually do.” He told you to keep your hand in place while he fumbled in the cabinet under the sink, looking for supplies. “I don’t know if he has–oh!” His ears twitched and perked up as he found what he’d been looking for.

It was a tube of burn relief ointment. He flipped it over and read the back, mumbling all the while. “It’s expired but…”

You smiled, just a little, and finished his sentence for him.

“Better than nothing, right?”

Ren smiled, and you caught sight of his tail curling behind him as he turned off the sink and told you to sit down on the toilet so she could wrap you up.

Was it wrong that some of the most pleasant moments in this house, if you could call them pleasant, were with Ren? Especially quiet moments like this, where he took care of you, or you took care of him. You were both well acquainted with fixing up the results of your time with Strade by now. 

He’d cleaned out deep cuts on your back, and you’d iced and splinted his broken toes. He let you curl up in his nest of a bed after a particularly awful night of torture, and you let him slide under your covers when he’d had an nightmare about the last time Strade made him kill someone.

It was transactional in some ways, you supposed. But when you saw his ears perk up or his tail swoosh or the way his eyes seemed to light with something genuine behind them while you talked with him, you realized it wasn’t all practical. It couldn’t be. Not when you were in this together.

Ren made quick work of bandaging your hand. The cream was smoothed over the reddened, flaking parts of your skin and he wrapped your hand up with a bandage. It hurt, still, but nothing to write home about. Hah! As if you’d ever be allowed to write home.

Hell, if by some miracle  you could write home, how would you even word the letter? 

“Dear mom and dad, last night my captor-who-also-fucks me made me keep my hand on a table while he hammered nails underneath my fingernails and asked me which one hurt the most. P.S. The milk in the fridge is expired and he’s threatening to make me or Ren drink it because of the waste.”

The thought made you snort. Ren looked up from his spot on the floor, where he’d taken to impromptu digging through the cabinet to look for some undisclosed item. 

“What’s funny?”

You mulled it over. Sometimes, you didn’t like to tell Ren what you were thinking. You trusted him, to an extent. You liked him, to an extent. You were friends, to an extent. How far did that extent go? It depended. 

He was here first, and sometimes, the tension between the two of you was too taut and fraught to ignore. There was always that underlying worry, an electric buzz you couldn’t turn off all the way: what if Strade decided he didn’t want two captives? Or what if he felt two was his limit, and he wanted to bring someone new in?

Which one of you would get the ax–literally?

But this was maybe not the type of thing that Ren might murmur to Strade in a moment of weakness. It was harmless, wasn’t it, to make a joke about writing home?

“I was just imagining what I might write home in a letter to my parents.” You flexed your bandaged hand. “I mean, if we were allowed to write home.”

“Like from a summer camp?” Ren asked. He pulled his knees up and rested his chin on them. 

“I guess,” you replied, smiling a little. “Although this would be one…” Fucked up, disgusting, hellish– “Specialty summer camp.”

Ren snorted a little. “Definitely not like the ones in movies.”

“Maybe horror movies,” you added with a grin. One of your front teeth–not from the center two, thank hell–was missing now, so you rarely grinned. But it felt different when it was just you and Ren alone. It was okay to let him see those imperfections, because he had them too. Maybe not missing teeth, but…

“Sleepaway Camp!” He blurted. “Or Friday the 13th…” 

You started to open your mouth, ready to tell him that you once saw a screening of the first Friday the 13th at a summer camp, when an all-too-familiar sound came wafting up from the cracked open basement door.

“Liebling! It doesn’t take that long to bandage a little burn! I hope I don't have to come get you.”

Ren’s tail went straight up at the sound of Strade’s voice. The sing-song nature of his words did not hide the danger in them. If you had a tail, yours would be standing stock straight too. But your body had to make do with your muscles tensing and your bowels clenching hard.

“I have to go,” you murmured, hopping off the toilet seat. 

You paused in the doorway. Ren had his knees hugged to his chest, his ears flat against his head. No doubt he was wondering if Strade would call him down, too. Or if he’d be pissed off about something and take it out on Ren later.

“Thanks for patching me up, Ren.” His ears twitched, and he glanced up at you. “Really, I mean it.” You smiled–grinned, showing off one of your missing teeth. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

His tail relaxed a little and he smiled back, an almost puppy-like grin crossing his expression for a moment, and it was enough to give you some vague emotional relief as you left the bathroom before Strade was forced to come up the stairs and retrieve you. 

–

She wouldn’t last another day. That much was clear. Her blood was everywhere now. On the floor. Smeared on her skin. On Strade’s hands–on yours.

Of course he’d made you participate. You were his lovely assistant, after all. Although he always said Ren was better at the work, when it came down to it. You were too prone to trembling and hesitation. To say nothing of your occasional habit of vomiting at the sight of anything more than blood–guts, in particular, were your weakness. 

Hers, too, by the way she quivered at the sight of the large hunting knife Strade twirled in his hands.

“I think this has gone on long enough. Don’t you, Schatz?” He looked back at you with a thoughtful smile. “Shall we end it?”

Without thinking much, you nodded. Yes, it had gone on long enough. Yes, you wanted her to just die already. Yes, you wanted to go over to the sink and scrub your hands until they were pruney and wrinkled and there was no trace of her visceral fluids on your skin.

“Go on,” he told you, gesturing at the trembling woman. Covered in cuts and gouges and burns. Where there had been dried blood earlier today, there were now smears of fresh gore. From Strade’s boots and the knife. Strade had even taken a blow torch to the burns caused by the boiling water, making them go from peeling and red to a series of gouged, pus-like craters in her flesh.

Cold seeped into your socks from the floor as you walked over to her. She regarded you with dull, dying eyes. She opened her mouth, maybe to say something, but whatever word she might have come up with wouldn’t come. Her swollen, bruised lip trembled as blood dribbled out of it. 

One of the handcuff keys was taped to the back of the poll. Strade always liked to keep extras around, in case he lost the original but still wanted to uncuff someone. He usually didn’t uncuff people unless they were being bound in some other way (usually not a good sign) or he was just about finished with them (definitely a bad sign); and in this case, you knew she was being released only to make killing her a little more fun.

Her hands flopped forward as soon as the cuffs were undone. There was a brief moment where you saw her regard her wrists, all reddened and cut from where the metal handcuffs dug into them. 

But the moment was over as soon as Strade stepped forward and pulled her close with a decisive yank of her hair. She yelped–you were surprised she had the yelp in her, her voice should have been shot from all the screaming–and he twisted her hair tight to keep her still.

“It’s been fun, but it’s time to go now. Don’t take this personally, hm? Or do, actually, it might make you feel better.”

She didn’t have time to respond. He rarely wanted them to say anything, you thought. It was just part of his internal script, a set of syllables that gave him extra pleasure as he snuffed out someone’s internal light. 

He stuck the hunting knife into her gut and twisted. She didn’t scream. She barely shouted. The sound, instead, was one of strangled horror. Like she couldn’t believe what was happening to her. He twisted again, and she grunted and gasped, a sound that was almost like a deep, gaping hiccup.

“Shh,” he murmured, a sick grin splitting his face. His eyes darted over her face, and you got a front-row view of how his expression was gleefully illuminated by the sight of her own life fading away. He enjoyed it so much, he even let go of the knife handle so that he could grasp her face with both hands and keep her dying gaze in his sights.

Who was she? What had she been, before the basement? Was she thinking about her friends, her family? Did she have children that were going to be left behind? Maybe she was in college, maybe she’d been studying for exams that would never happen. There would be uneaten prepared lunches in her fridge, a bookmark that would never move past a certain page. 

Her hands went tremblingly to the handle of the knife sticking out of her. She held the handle tenderly with bruised, bloody hands. Didn’t Strade see it? No, he was too focused on her face. But he didn’t even see the way her expression shifted. 

No, he saw it. But maybe he didn’t know what it meant, because he’d never been on the other end. The way she went from looking confused and horrified to determined. 

She didn’t act right away. 

You could have said something. You could have called out a warning. 

But instead you watched as the dying woman yanked the knife out of her gut, viscera and blood coming out with it, and stabbed it right into Strade’s neck.

He gasped now. A gaping, strangled sound. His hands went instinctively to his neck and it took him a few slow, trembling tries to pull it out. You saw the blood arch and spurt–an artery–and he fell to his knees.

The woman stepped away with what must have been her last ounce of energy. She had only enough life left in her to turn to you and smile–she was missing teeth, too–before she collapsed on the ground. She was still alive, but her shock would come soon after.

It wasn’t her you were watching, anyway. It was Strade.

His eyes darted to and fro until they landed on you. He had his hand pressed against the wound now, but it wasn’t doing much good. He would need a proper compress… an ambulance… surgery of some kind. 

You don’t know why you called him. To help Strade? To help you? 

“Ren.”

Not loud enough.

“Ren.”

Still not loud enough.

“Ren!” 

Before you knew it,  you were simply screaming his name, filling the basement with a different pitch of scream than it was used to. Your own voice was barely recognizable.

The basement door slammed open and you heard frantic footsteps pounding down the stairs. You saw Ren, only a blur of orange in your shock, take in the scene. His own mouth slowly gaped open, but unlike Strade and the unfortunate woman on the floor and your own panting lips, no sound came out.

Ren said your name. You think it was Ren, because Strade was surely in no position to talk. It shook you out of your stupor and you ran to him, clinging to his arm, crying fitfully. He wrapped one arm around you and the two of you stood, together, watching Strade bleed.

“What do we do?” The inside of your elbow pressed hard against Ren’s back as you held him. You wanted to snuggle, like the way you did on good nights. You wanted him to make it all go away. 

Maybe he sensed this. Because while the two of you had clung together in so many occasions, this time, he stood up taller. He held you tighter. And then he assessed the situation.

Ren watched Strade quietly for a long moment. Strade gazed up at him–at you, too, but mostly Ren–with wide-eyed helplessness. The look didn’t suit him at all. He seemed to know it. 

“Help me,” Strade managed. It almost didn’t feel like speech. Maybe the knife had grazed his vocal chords. 

Neither of you moved at first. There was a long moment in which either of you could have sprung into action; could have ran to the supply cabinet and grabbed thick gauze to press against the wound, while the other could have bounded up the stairs to call an ambulance.

But you didn’t. And Ren didn’t. 

And then Ren looked at you, and took a step backward. He pulled you with him, and you went willingly, taking another step, and another, until the two of you were standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“You…” Strade gurgled out the word, and blood came bubbling out in between the fingers pressed against his neck with it. “You…”

He didn’t get to finish. His eyes widened and you saw the light leave them before he collapsed on the floor. 

For the first time since you’d been brought here, the basement was truly silent. 

Strade was dead.

Neither of you moved for a while. And then you felt a hoarse sob coming on. Relief, terror, and shock coursed through you, fighting for the surface in a way that could only result in tears. 

Ren regarded you with an unreadable expression and slowly removed his arm from your shoulder. You whimpered–don’t leave me, you wanted to say–and he smiled, a soft, little thing. 

“Don’t worry. I’m just going to make sure he’s dead.”

Oh. That was a good idea. But what if he wasn’t? What if Strade got to his feet and oh, the two of you would be in for it. He’d probably kill both of you–or at least you–and it would be slow and awful and you’d beg, beg, for death.

“Ren,” you said, almost stammering, swallowing a thick lump in your throat.

He turned back towards you, curious.

You pointed to the table of tools at Strade’s disposal. “Take something. Just in case.”

Ren stared at the weapons that had been used to kill countless people. At the blades and torches and nails that had been used to hurt him, and you. Then he grabbed a heavy hammer and slowly approached the bleeding corpse (please let it be a corpse) of Strade.

Strade didn’t move as Ren approached him. Or when Ren knelt down, hammer at the ready. Or when Ren’s fingers slowly reached out and pressed against his neck, his wrist. 

“No pulse,” said Ren.

Ren set the hammer down and used both hands to shove Strade’s body until it was fully on his back. His eyes, dull and dead, stared up at the ceiling without seeing anything.

He was dead. Truly dead. 

Really most sincerely dead, your thoughts echoed in a half-mimic of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.

You barely registered Ren digging around in Strade’s pocket before he returned to you, wrapping his arm around your waist as he began to lead you upstairs.

“Let’s not stay down here,” he said. He gave Strade’s corpse one last look before staring ahead at the basement door. How many times had the two of you gone up and down these stairs at Strade’s whim? It always meant you would get hurt, or you would help Strade hurt others. It was never willing, going up these stairs. Never a choice.

And now the two of you were going up them together, Ren leading you, of your own free will.

Free will! What a concept. One you thought you’d lost forever. And yet here it is, given by the hands of a woman whose last days were filled with unnecessary, unfair agony. You wish you knew her name, so you could thank her properly.

Ren shut the basement door. It sounded louder than it ever had before. Or was it because the house was so quiet now? 

“Come here,” Ren said. And you didn’t know why he said it–shock, confusion, uncertainty still reigned–until you saw what was in his hand. 

His collar. It was… off. But how and–

Ren held up the key he’d taken from Strade’s pocket and shook it back and forth, like a well-earned prize. That’s what it was, in some ways. 

You stepped towards Ren and turned around, breathing heavily at the thought of being truly free from the collar. Strade only took them off the pair of you when you were showering and, once you had learned to behave well enough, when you slept. But they always went back on first thing in the morning, and their threat was an ever-constant presence in your mind, just like the metal was ever-constant around your neck.

Ren’s fingers brushed the back of your shoulder. You heard him breathing just as heavily. For a moment, he didn’t do anything. Wasn’t he going to��?

“Ren?” You asked, voice quivering. The air felt suddenly too heavy, your collar weighing you down more than normal. There was an awful thought, then: What if he doesn’t take your collar off? What if Ren is… what if, what if…

But then you felt the pressure from him sticking the key into the back of the metal contraption, heard it twist, and felt cool relief on your neck as Ren lifted the collar away from your neck and set it down on the coffee table. 

Both hands went to your neck. The skin was sensitive, bruised. A few days ago, Strade had come into your room at night for a session of “fun,” which ended with you being choked into unconsciousness. You’d woken up to Ren splashing cold water on your face. “Thought I’d lost you,” he’d said. 

The bruises Strade gave you would fade away in time. At least the ones on the outside.

And Ren…

You turned around and gave him a fractured smile. You leaned in, and Ren leaned in, and you hugged each other tenderly. Not just because it was the nicest way to hug, but because Ren’s rib fracture was still healing, and your back hurt, and both of you were littered with scars and cuts and bumps and bruises.

After a while, Ren pulled away. “Let’s… sit down.” 

He sat down on the sofa, which was dotted with sprinkles of Ren’s orange fur; no matter how much you lint-rolled the furniture, you could never quite get all of it out. 

Well, that didn’t matter now. You’d never have to clean up this living room, or the kitchen, or the brain matter and blood stains in the basement, again. You could go home.

And Ren could go home. 

And the nightmare would be over.

For now, you sat, side by side, on a sofa that had never seemed more ordinary. The house had never seemed more ordinary. Its secrets were primarily down in the basement. The rest of the house was bland and boring by comparison. Unless you counted upstairs, as it was not unheard of for Strade to take his particular brand of “fun” into your respective rooms. 

And now? It was quiet. Still. There was no chance that Strade would come walking up the stairs. No chance that you’d be called down them to torture someone.

Certainly no chance that he’d call both of you down, which never ended well. He liked to see Ren hurt you, because it seemed to hurt Ren. But sometimes, sometimes, you thought… there was a glimmer of something in Ren’s eyes in those moments. 

Something that reminded you too much of pleasure to ignore. Just a spark of it, but that was enough, when you were bound to a table and he was clawing open your thighs at Strade’s behest.

“Ren?” You forced yourself to stop thinking like that. That was the past. This was now. No, more than that: this was the future. A future without Strade, without this house, without pain. 

Ren looked over at you, slowly. The realization of what had just happened, and what it meant, seemed to be catching up to him, too. “... Yeah?”

Your fingers scratched at some of Ren’s stray fur on the couch. Some of the orange fur had already started clinging to your bandage. 

“What do we do now?” A simple question for you to ask. Several plans rushed through your head but it was hard to make sense of them. What was the best course to take; which authorities did you appeal to, when there was a dead serial killer and one of his victims in the basement, but your hands were on the torture tools, yet the same tools had been used to hurt you? 

You swallowed hard, shaking your head, willing the dizzying thoughts to quiet down.  “Do we call the police first? Or… an ambulance? Or–or–” 

Ren gripped the hand that idly scratched the couch. He intertwined his fingers in yours, and when you looked up at him, his eyes were wide. And just a bit wild.

“We could stay here.”

Your heart thudded. Once, twice. A third time.

“What?” You shifted on the couch, facing Ren more clearly. “We… we can’t, it’s–”

Ren squeezed your hand, a little too hard–the burn–and you winced. He didn’t let up, but he didn’t know you were hurting, did he? It was all just a rush right now, confusing, scary.

“We can,” he said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. His mouth broke into an almost childish grin as he continued. “Strade’s got a lot of money, we can use that to keep up the bills. Buy whatever we want. We won’t have to worry about anything!” His tail swished behind him, thumping into your side. 

When you didn’t respond–words weren’t coming–his grin deflated a little. “I’m… I’m a good roommate,” he said, ears flattening. “I’ll take care of you.” He squeezed even tighter now. “We’ll do everything together, and we don’t have to worry about Strade getting mad about it. We’ll watch movies or-or play games or whatever you want.” He swallowed and you watched his throat bob. “And I promise I won’t leave fur everywhere.”

“Ren–” It was your turn to give his hand a squeeze, and you took his other in your free hand and clasped them both. “I’m not worried about your fur.”

His ears perked up and his smile came back.

“It’s… we can’t stay here,” you said, voice wobbling but gaining more firmness as you went on. “We need to leave. We need to call the police.”

Ren’s ears twitched. He looked thoughtful, opening his mouth, and shutting it. He was just confused, that’s all. Like you were. He needed to be reminded that if Strade was gone, the both of you were free. You’d go home, and he’d go home, and you could call or text or email or something but…

“Don’t be stupid.” 

The firmness in Ren’s voice shook you a little. More than that, it made you worry. He frowned at the sight of your tense shoulders, the quirk in your mouth. “Think about it,” he said, gently saying your name. “Remember all the people who watch his videos? Don’t you know who’s in those chats?”

The reminder of the chatrooms came hurtling straight into your guts. The chat… the people there paid money to watch people suffer. Watch them die. How many times had they encouraged Strade to indulge in some fucked up torture? Hell, they’d asked him countless times to string you up, cut you open, pull out your guts while you were still alive. Strade had danced away the requests with a teasing lilt, but the threat was never gone.

Ren let go of your bandaged hand and gently cupped your cheek. He spoke slowly, almost sweetly. “They’re rich. Important. Mayors. Politicians. Doctors. Police.” 

The anguish your stomach began to stretch. Ren didn’t stop talking.

“They know both our faces. Do you know what they’ll do to us, if they find us?” 

Tears pricked, unwanted and unbidden, at your eyes. He was right. You couldn’t go to the police. You couldn’t go to the media. This could never get out. But that didn’t mean you had to stay here. More than that: you couldn’t stay here. 

It would be another type of collar, to find yourself stuck here with Ren. And the collar might not be electric, but it would be just as dangerous. 

“Okay,” you said slowly. “No police.”

Ren grinned hopefully.

“But,” you continued. “We can’t stay here. I want to go home. And you–you get to go home now, too.” Ren had never talked much about his life before Strade, but surely he had friends. A family. An apartment or a house. A life. Just like you. 

“You want to leave–” His voice was thin and there was a fissure in it, ready to crack.

The hand on your cheek pressed harder, and you felt the thin press of his claws against your skin. Your eyes must have widened or perhaps you flinched, you don’t know, but Ren saw–and yanked away.

“S-Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to.”

No, he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He was upset, he was scared, hell, you didn’t know whether you wanted to laugh or cry or start belting out show tunes right now. 

Freedom was confusing as hell. 

“I know,” you said, slowly. “It’s okay.”

Ren stared down at the ground. Then he stood up and fished Strade’s keyring out of his pocket and set it down on the coffee table with a jingling rattle. 

“I’m going to get us some water. And maybe a snack. We’ll… we’ll talk about this more. We can talk about it, and not make a decision right away. Okay?” He fumbled with both his hands in front of him, looking like the meek young man you’d met that first night, when he cleaned your wounds and gave you water to drink. 

You stared at him, perhaps for too long.

“Okay, Ren, we’ll talk about it,” you lied. 

You watched him walk into the kitchen, where Strade would never saunter in for a case of beer again. You heard him open the cabinet for an empty glass, none of which would ever again find themselves dashed into tiny shards that could be ground into your skin for fun. 

And then you leaned forward, grabbed the keyring off the countertop, pulled out the key to the front door, and softly padded your way to the threshold that neither of you had been able to cross in ages.

Your heart thudded. Your stomach heaved. But you unlocked the door and bolted, socked feet aching on the concrete sidewalk.

Ren said your name after the third step you took beyond the door of Strade’s house of horrors.

You could have kept running. Maybe you should have.

But instead, you turned around, to look at Ren standing in the doorway. There were no glasses of water in his hand–you don’t remember registering the sound of the sink at all, in fact. It was just Ren, with his hands at his sides, looking at you with an expression that was equally pitiful, agonizing, and worrying.

He said your name again.

You felt hot tears squeeze out of your eyes as you shook your head, turned around, and ran for your life.

[theminecraftbee]

actually while i’m on an analysis and also bigb train i want to talk a little about the bigb/cleo relationship because. it’s VERY EASY to just read it as “bigb betrayed cleo that one time three seasons ago and cleo has never forgiven him for this” but there’s way more to it than that and it’s so fascinating i want to shake them around like maracas.

like, okay, the initial betrayal is as much a failure to communicate as it is an actual betrayal. cleo says that if bigb had just TOLD HER she would have let him, and I believe this (loyalty is an extremely consistent cleo trait). however JUST EARLIER THAT SESSION she’d also been talking about how she wouldn’t trust someone with the boogeyman curse and can’t believe someone would betray their allies. bigb heard that, decided he couldn’t tell cleo (because she’d hate him for it), and panicked himself right into a corner where he ended up doing the thing that was WAY WORSE for that relationship. also left out is that part of why cleo got that mad wasn’t even bigb’s fault; she was ALSO mad because lizzie and ren sided with him over her, and she felt betrayed by everyone at once. which she then pinned on bigb. meanwhile, while bigb apologized, he never let go of the idea that he'd had no other choice, and never really addressed the unstated hurt of 'cleo also felt like her friends had been turned against her', so it never rang as sincere to cleo. so like, more going on there than just a betrayal!

but like, let’s talk about their relationship after that, shall we?

on cleo’s end, she’s a character who tends to hold on to relationships across seasons, for better and for worse. the widow’s alliance basically never ending; martyn and cleo and their inability to be normal about each other; cleo and etho’s quiet understanding; and, as one of these important tentpoles, bigb and cleo being unable to trust each other. she carried that hurt with her into the few interactions they had in double life, and that in turn helped to color everything else. see, cleo doesn't just hold on to relationships; she holds grudges, and bigb is the ultimate target of that. unlike some of her potential grudges, she's never had a scenario where she and bigb were on the same side in order to temper the grudge. she's also never gotten the boogey curse herself, making it even harder for her to temper it and understand.

so, even after things like limited life where she's started to be less Immediately Angry the moment she feels betrayed (thank you scar for being kind of a moron and getting cleo that lesson), she still holds on to the last life version of bigb in her head. also, because of that, it makes it easy for her to just... continue perpetuating that. she shuns bigb and assumes he has some reason she needs revenge again. that, in turn, pushes bigb to doing another thing she needs revenge for, so she tries to get it, so they keep spiraling downwards in a cycle of mistrust, because cleo has also made herself untrustworthy to bigb.

meanwhile, on bigb's end... he tried to apologize and she wouldn't take it! she sees all of this as an irrational grudge on cleo's part, and there's been very little to discount that. but also because bigb has a tendency to go off and do his own thing and hold himself apart from people, he has made very little effort to meaningfully fix this. in fact, because he assumes cleo will continue to hold a grudge, he continues to treat her a bit like an enemy, continuing to provoke her at multiple opportunities.

he can't make that relationship WORSE, after all, so there's no reason NOT TO continue to mess with her. she'll never trust him, so there aren't real consequences if he keeps burning her, because the only consequence is that she'll just continue to never trust him, right? it's a simple relationship! and in some ways it's comforting, even; cleo is someone he can never mess up with, because that bridge is already burnt.

and ironically? this makes their relationship surprisingly stable. they will KEEP ON sticking knives in each other, of course. even when they don't have a good reason for it, cleo will assume bigb must have done something and bigb will assume cleo will hate him anyway. but in turn, i think they VERY MUCH know where they stand with each other. and tragically, that means neither of them have an incentive to try to fix this. they're both very, very entrenched in how they see each other now, and either of them will see any attempted olive branches as another place for everything to go wrong. they're cleo and bigb, who don't trust each other because bigb killed her one time, forever. that's who they are. that's how they see each other. and it's not just because that happened; it's because they keep reinforcing it, over and over and over again, in a way that makes communicating that they could stop nearly impossible.

that and i think cc!bigb and cc!cleo out of character really enjoy continuing to have their cubitos have a stupid irrational grudge on each other because they think it's funny but that's unrelated to the character analysis,

[renstardust]

Catnap

Kylo Ren x Reader

Warnings: Stockholm Syndrome, Minor Violence, Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 2,445

***********************************************

Summary:

Kylo lets his girl nap on him, reflecting on their relationship while watching her sleep.

***********************************************

The vessel hummed with white noise, orbiting an uninhabited planet idyllically. Kylo was especially thankful for moments like this; he could rest for a few months, the galaxy in a stagnant, peaceful place now that the Resistance had backed off somewhere in the Outer Rim. His quarters were located in a discreet area within the Finalizer, a heavily guarded sector of the ship that could not be physically reached by anyone below a certain status. This meant that nobody other than his trusted knights, General Hux, or Captain Phasma could bother him.

Well, could bother them.

She stirred in her sleep, a soft pout gracing her lips as her lashes fluttered, her hands delicately clinging onto the silk, dark grey sheets. Kylo watched her closely through his lashes, sprawled on his back on the mattress as her little body melted on top of him. Their legs were intertwined as his fingers played with the ends of her soft hair, careful not to wake her.

Kylo took these moments incredibly seriously. From the exact amount of lighting in the room to the temperature she liked, he remembered every little detail and executed it to perfection. The windows would be covered by the remote-controlled drapes, concealing any starlight from entering. He kept only the dim floor lighting on; tiny, strategically-placed lights at the very bottom of a few of the metal panels which made up the walls, meant to be used as nightlights. They illuminated the black, glossy floor just enough to keep a person from running into anything at night.

The room was kept decently cold, something she’d never actually verbalized but Kylo knew she preferred it by the way her body would practically bathe in his body heat. He ran especially hot when he was around her, so much that they would sometimes wake up sweating, even if his quarters were lower than sixty degrees. However, he didn’t mind it since it usually gave them an excuse to shower together afterwards. And Kylo was exceptionally hands-on in the shower.

It wasn’t always like this though; the lazy catnaps, the long showers where they’d struggle to do any actual washing until right before they’d finish up, his girl straddling his lap and playing with his raven-colored strands of hair while he’d gaze down at her cleavage the entire time. All of this was fairly recent for them, a stark contrast to how things were when he first brought her home.

Kylo could recall the first time he saw her like it was yesterday. The First Order had just finished a raid on her home planet in typical fashion, executing those in power who refused allyship with them, along with any innocent civilians who got in the way.

“Supreme Leader, we’re waiting for you,” Hux stood at the end of the ship’s hatch, rolling his eyes. “I would much prefer to watch the rest of this insolent city burn from the view of the Finalizer-”

“Tell Ushar to start the engine, General. I’ll be right back,” Kylo’s distorted voice wavered from the modulator within his mask as he stormed back into the nearly-destroyed city. Hux assumed that he must’ve found something of great importance, distracting him enough to prioritize finding whatever it was instead of crushing the General’s windpipe for the foul tone he just used.

He followed the loud thoughts that flooded his mind - thoughts that did not belong to him, eventually leading him into a half-crumbled structure. Women’s bodies laid all around the interior, their already revealing clothing mostly torn or burnt off. The place must have been a brothel of some sorts. His gaze wandered beyond the silver ridges of his mask, settling on a girl who was balled-up in a corner of the damaged room he stood in, covered in dust and shaking like a nervous kitten. That was source of those loud, anxious thoughts that he couldn’t turn off in his mind.

Her warm eyes peeked up from her knees which she held close to her chest at the sound of Kylo’s boots, widening with fear. She recognized his mask instantly, of course, anyone in this galaxy who didn’t live under a rock would. Terror coursed through her veins, every story she’d been told of Kylo Ren: the ruthless leader of the First Order who killed innocent beings without mercy, flashed in her mind.

Kylo fought the urge to roll his eyes at that one.

“Let’s go,” He reached out, pulling her fragile body up and into his leather-covered grasp. She was dressed differently than the deceased women he had passed by, in a much more modest-looking uniform.

“NO!”

The girl immediately pushed back, crying out and thrashing as he threw her over his shoulder, leaving the building and walking back towards the awaiting Night Buzzard. He could feel her Force signature better than ever now as he held onto her. She was wavering between a line of average and force-sensitive, lacking in physical force ability but extremely sensitive emotionally. It explained those loud thoughts of hers, as they radiated beyond her own mind and into the Force itself, in a way. A highly sensitive force user within range like Kylo could read the girl like a book. She was scared, confused, and incredibly uncomfortable, not just with the situation at hand, but with herself too.

And Kylo had no idea what he was doing with her.

“There he is…” Hux mumbled under his breath, the engines of the Night Buzzard purring as the ship prepared for takeoff. “He’s nearly- REN! You went back there for a PET?”

Kylo ignored him, only focusing on the sound of the girl’s whimpers and pleads as she dangled over his shoulder, his left arm holding onto her back and his right hand gripping her thighs tightly against his chest.

“You held us up to retrieve a common whore-” Hux’s voice cracked, his words getting cut off by the all-too-familiar feeling of his larynx being crushed by the Force. He grabbed at his throat, his face crumbling as Kylo set the girl down on a nearby cot, looming over her intimidatingly.

“You will go to sleep.”

The girl sniffled softly, tears running down her cheeks as her voice suddenly came out in a calm, unnatural tone.

“I will go to sleep.”

She visibly relaxed, lying down on the cot and curling up in a ball, the invisible hold on Hux’s throat suddenly releasing. He desperately sucked in gulps of air, catching his breath as the ship began to exit the planet’s atmosphere.

“You know better than to interfere with my personal matters, General. I would hate to remind you of how disposable you are.”

Kylo soon learned that the girl was a sort of handmaiden for the brothel he’d taken her from. Stolen when she was just a child, by a crime syndicate that traveled within the Core Worlds, she had been taught to take care of the prostitutes every night after they finished up with clients, nursing them and helping them clean up their battered bodies. She had to beg the man who owned all of those women, including herself, for that position when she was only eleven.

Anything to avoid being beneath a stranger every night and to her surprise, he allowed her the alternative. Ten years later, she had to witness the First Order invading her home planet, stormtroopers slaughtering the same women she grew close with.

The old events echoed in Kylo’s mind, his gaze wandering to the ceiling of his quarters as he focused on the sound of the girl’s soft breathing. He’d always felt guilty about that day, knowing it was on his order that the only people she had were gone. However, he wasn’t sorry. Taking her probably saved her life.

Kylo had always been incredibly patient with her, which was one thing that threw her off the most. The first couple of months proved difficult; from the moment he brought her back to his quarters, she fought.

And fought.

And fought.

She started off by screaming at him constantly, sobbing until her throat would get too scratchy to speak. The girl refused food, even refusing to sleep in Kylo’s bed, curling up on the hard floor until he would move her body back to the warm sheets once she was passed out. She tested Kylo’s patience every second she could, running into and yanking at the locked door of his quarters whenever he’d turn his back. She would throw pillows, small chairs, remotes, even glasses of water at him, and Kylo would stand there, taking the brunt of her anger like it was nothing. He would stay silent in those moments, easily blocking each item with the Force and letting her wear herself out.

He knew that she had every right to be upset with him. She didn’t want to be his pet, or his companion, or whatever the hell he wanted her to be. And even though she knew deep down inside that she was in the safest, cleanest, most ideal place to be, she hated being in another situation where she was under the control of a man in power.

The girl threw one last pillow before sinking down with her back against the wall, panting heavily and pulling her knees to her chest. Her palms pressed hard against her eyes, desperate to rub away the white spots forming in her vision. She had barely eaten anything Kylo offered her in the past few weeks, and that hunger was starting to take a toll on her body.

“Are you through?” Kylo spoke her name sternly, following his question. A few beads of sweat rolled down her forehead, her cheekbones starting to look more sunken in than when he first took her.

“Fuck you.”

He huffed softly at her dry response, walking over and crouching down in front of her as she slumped her head back against the wall lazily, her eyes shutting. His large hands cupped her cheeks, and to his surprise, she didn’t try to pry his grip away from her. Progress, maybe?

“Your lips are pale, little one. You can’t keep doing this…”

She panted for a few more seconds until her breathing was steady, her face crumbling in his gentle hold as she chokes on a sob.

“I wanna go home, Kylo.”

“You are home, Princess. You know that.”

The girl scoffed softly, a lazy pout forming on her lips.

“You know what I’m talking about...and stop with those kriffing pet names.”

Kylo let out an exasperated sigh, staring into her eyes as they opened slowly, exhaustion prevalent in her innocent features. He knew that she knew, deep down, that her old home was gone. The brothel’s building was nothing but dust and ash by now, along with the rest of the city she once knew. That part of her life was never coming back.

“I’ll stop with the names if you start accepting the food I offer you, Kitten,” He cooed gently, changing the subject as his breath fanned against her face.

“Especially that one,” She scrunched her nose at the name, sniffling and rolling her eyes. “But fine. Deal.”

Her display of comfort surprisingly brought a smile to Kylo’s lips. He would address her bratty behavior with her in the future, but for now, it meant that she saw him as less of a scary monster and more as a human being. So, she could bring on the brattiness.

For now.

Kylo’s memories came to a disruption as the girl’s thoughts stirred, her little hands clutching at the sheets a bit tighter. He furrowed his eyebrows, threading his fingers more into her soft hair as he let her dreams invade his mind.

A meadow, lush and green and surrounded by an array of waterfalls came into his preview of her mind. Wildflowers dotted the tall grass in various hues of lavender and baby pink, the sun beating down as it blessed the area with its golden kiss of warmth. Kylo knew this place, a planet he visited several times in his childhood. His grandmother’s home planet. He wasn’t surprised by this, as the girl dreamed of this place frequently after seeing images of it on his datapad a few weeks ago.

The dream was repetitive with no plot, just a tranquil place her mind conjured up to escape to, taking the place of what used to be reoccurring nightmares of her past. Kylo planned to take her to Naboo one day, once he was certain that the girl wasn’t just staying with him because she had no other choice. He wanted to ensure that she was staying because she truly wanted to be with him.

The girl’s dream eventually faded away in his mind, her supple body stretching like a cat on top of him, the sweetest of yawns coming from her lips. She blinked her eyes open, adjusting to the dimness of the room before tilting her head up to gaze at him through those long lashes of hers. A smile inched onto Kylo’s lips, his fingers trailing along her back soothingly. He loved her, and every time he looked at her, it reminded him of the progress they had made together.

“Slept well, little star?” Kylo whispered lowly, raising an eyebrow as he took in those beautiful features of hers. Yes, he kept the pet names after all.

“Mhmm…” The girl hummed softly, shifting her body higher up on him so she could nuzzle her face into his neck. Inhaling that masculine, leathery scent she adored so much, her lips placed tender, lazy kisses against the crook of Kylo’s neck.

I love him so much.

Her thoughts echoed in Kylo’s mind, the girl too sleepy to be cautious of them. She did this often, slipping up and letting her walls drop whenever she was sleepy, or if she’d drink too many glasses of Corellian red wine with him every now and then. She had yet to vocalize those feelings towards him, but Kylo was patient. He’d spent so many months breaking her down, shaping her, helping her open up with him, and she was doing so well, being so good for him.

Because if there was one thing Kylo knew, it was that you can’t coax a feral cat inside, then suddenly treat it like a childhood pet. Because it will run away and you’ll be three steps behind, starting over with the same grueling process of taming it. Meaning that Kylo refused to get too visibly excited, knowing that if he embarrassed her, she would shut down again.

The thing is, Kylo was willing to wait a thousand years.

You were worth it.

[sparxwrites]

“D’you think we did the right thing?” asked Scott, out of nowhere, across the darkness between their beds. It was nearly midnight. They should both have been asleep. Neither of them were. “Ditching them. Our soulmates.” A pause. “I mean, I know they abandoned us first, and all that stuff with going to the Nether, and being irresponsible, but-”

But they’re still our soulmates.

Cleo was silent for a moment, turning the words over in her head. Turning her own feelings over, in her heart. “I think so,” she said, finally. “ I don’t... think I can love like that, anyway. Not easily. Definitely not on command. Maybe... maybe not at all. I don’t know.”

She’d never told anyone that before. Not anyone other than Joe, anyways, who she generally forgot to count as a ‘someone’ at the best of times. He was just Joe, who knew everything, and knew all of her by default - sometimes before she knew it herself. Quite often before she knew it herself.

(He’d patted her on the shoulder, and told her that love was a prerequisite of neither humanity nor post-humanity, and was also a social construct, and was also mostly a collection of molecules moving around the brain, and that the most important thing was being kind. She’d said she was pretty bad at that, too. Iinstead of patronising her by disagreeing, he’d said it was okay, he could love on behalf of them both, and if she provided him an itemised list of people he needed to love in her stead then he would get right on that. He’d been entirely serious.)

Scott hummed, quietly, and she heard him shift in his bed, a rasp of sheets against clothing. “Well, I can,” he said, almost petulant, and she exhaled relief at the normalcy of the response. “But- not with her. I don’t think- ...No. No, I- I know I couldn’t, with her. Martyn, maybe, I could’ve, but...”

Cleo barked out a humousless laugh. “I think I’d’ve done okay with Pearl, actually. She’s not quite so-” She grasped for the words. “Martyn, he- he wants love, you know? He needs it. He goes looking for it. Him and Ren, in the first one of these... And I can’t give him that. I can’t.”

“You want to swap?” asked Scott, and when she laughed again, he joined her - a wry, exhausted sort of sound, less humour and more resignation. “God. We’re kind of messed up, huh? The only two people on the server who couldn’t love the soulmates they were given.”

“Oh, yeah,” agreed Cleo with a heavy sigh, staring up at nothing in particular. “Yeah, maybe a little bit. But- we can be messed up together. That’s something. Isn’t it? We’ve got each other, at least.”

“Yeah.” Scott’s voice was soft, quiet, almost warm. There was another rustle of sheets - and then there was a hand questing across the space between them towards her, out of the darkness. On impulse, she took it. When Scott squeezed her fingers, something tightened in her chest in her chest in response. ”We’ve got each other. And hey- we can make our own fate! No soulmates required. How about that, huh?”

And for a moment, like this - together, defiant, hand-in-hand in the midnight dark - Cleo could almost believe in a world where denying fate was possible.

[naruwoe]

lead the way [naruto oc fic]

Melancholy au but Ren can see ghosts

Tw: Ghosts and the undead, and references to gore and how they died. Mentions of self harm and suicide/suicide idealization.

feat! @uchihashisuii‘s akari nara bc i care her

ao3 link

When Ren was small, his mother and father sat him and his brother down and gave them a talk.

His father stared out their kitchen window the entire time, while his mother held each one of their hands and told them softly about something that had happened to their family before Ren and Takeshi were even born.

“It’s important you know.” She said. “And that we don’t hide it from you . We want you both to hear it from us instead of other people.”

Something bad had happened, and a lot of people in their family died, because men in charge made bad choices.

Takeshi cries about it, grieving the aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents he will never know.

Ren sees them everytime he looks out the window.

“What’s your name?”

Ren’s feet take him on the familiar path. He’s not far from his home, the forest just right outside their door, and if his mother didn’t want him to explore she’d tell him so. A crow flies above them, flitting from one branch to the next, ever moving as they do.

“Shisui.” The man’s arms swing at his sides, and despite his eyes being closed, he doesn’t trip. 

“How do you know where you’re going?” Ren asks, carefully stepping over a root. Shisui’s cold hand helps steady him, and it chills his whole body.

“Instinct.” He says simply. “I probably know these woods better than anybody.”

Ren bites his lip, silently staring up at him. He’s old, older than ten that’s for sure. Ren grasps Shisui’s cold hand in his despite the chill, and a delicate black brow raises in confusion.

“Well. You should hold my hand anyways. You don’t wanna trip.”

Shisui doesn’t open his eyes, but Ren doesn’t need to see his eyes to know he’s confused. 

“…Thank you.” He says after a long moment, slowly smiling. “No one has held my hand in a long time. It’s nice.”

They walk in the forest for a while, just Ren and Shisui and the crow that follows them until his mother’s frantic voice calls him home.

“I’ll walk you back.” Shisui says, and leads Ren through the bushes and trees.

“There she is.” He says, stepping out of the forest at Ren’s side. 

“How did you know?” But when Ren looks up, Shisui’s gone, his hand left hovering where the other once was.

“Ren!” his mother cries and she scoops him into his arms. “You know you’re not supposed to go anywhere without me!” She pulls away, and he feels a little guilty making her worry.

“I wasn’t alone though,” his hand is still cold from where he held Shisui’s. “I was with Shisui.”

Her brow furrows, and she picks him up and cradles him close. 

“You’re freezing- It’s the middle of summer too, Takeshi’s already sick- Come on, let’s get inside okay.”

Ren says nothing, and instead curls into his mother’s warmth. 

The crow flies above them and from over her shoulder, Shisui hangs near the forest, a soft smile on his face and empty black eyes staring at him.

-

“Mom.” Ren asks over dinner that night. Ichigo sits next to her, all of two years old and refusing to eat the dinner she so carefully prepared.

“Yes sweetheart?” She says, not looking up at him, but instead carefully trying to spoon some of Ichigo’s rice into his mouth.

“Do you know someone named Shisui?”

Takeshi laughs as his father chokes on his tea, and Ren has to fight the instinct to giggle with his twin.

“Sasuke-kun! Are you alright?” His father coughs into his fist, and sniffles.

“I’m fine.” His dark eyes meet Ren’s and he wants to sink into his seat, just a little. “Where did you hear that from.”

“I read it.” He lies. 

His father’s dark brows furrow, and his mother looks confused between the both of them.

“Can you read?”

“I’m five.” His father just stares at him, as if that doesn’t answer his question.

“Dad,” Takeshi leans over onto the table. “Mom taught Ren and me how to read forever ago. We’re really good at it.”

It’s a tense few seconds, and Ren regrets asking in front of his father until the man just sighs, settling back into his seat. 

“Well…” His mother starts. “I don’t think I’ve ever known someone named Shisui. You said you read the name in a book?”

“Yeah. I think he was um, a ninja, so I wanted to know if you knew!”

“You shouldn’t concern yourself.” His father says answering for her. He pushes his plate back and stands away from the table. “I need to get going.”

“Sasuke-kun-” His mother starts, but from upstairs Ayame starts to cry. “Oh no- Don’t leave yet! Ren help Ichi, will you? I need to get your sister.” She looks tired. He swaps places with his mother as she frantically leaves their kitchen to go check up on the baby. 

His father doesn’t wait. 

“Way to ruin dinner Ren.” Takeshi murmurs from his seat. He pushes the meat on his plate with his chopsticks, and Ren tries not to take it to heart. Ichigo, thankfully, eats every bit that Ren spoons into his mouth.

-

It’s strange. He sees these people so clearly. They’re pale and cold, but their hands are solid when they stroke back his hair, or hold his hand.

“Sweet dreams my little one.” The woman kisses his forehead, the cold from her lips lingering on his face. 

“Goodnight.” He whispers back. From across the room Takeshi groans, rolling over in bed to glare at him.

“Stop talking to the air Ren. You’re so weird.”

-

Ren sits at the edge of the small dock overlooking the lake. Above him Shisui’s crow flies, and he hears the soft footsteps of the man walk up beside him. Gently Shisui sits next to him, his feet barely skimming the surface of the water.

“It’s a beautiful day huh?” He hums. Ren looks up at him and, yes, his eyes are still closed. Ren can see him better in the light. The paleness of his skin, how it looks like he’s crying, if not for how dark the ‘tears’ that ran down his cheeks were, how despite the heat, the arm that presses against Ren’s is frozen to the touch.

“You can’t see, how d’you know.” He pulls his legs closer to his chest, resting his head on top of his knees.

“Well the land of fire is a beautiful country. I don’t need to see it to know.”

“Do you see from the crow?” It caws as he asks, as if answering his question for him.

“Well that is certainly a thought. What do you think, Ren?”

He hums for a moment, looking out over the surface of the lake. There’s a small disturbance, as a wet head peaks up and out of the still water before going under again.

“I think you’re dead.” 

Shisui hums his answer and Ren turns his head to look up at him. Two empty eyes stare down at him. 

“You really think so?”

The sight alone should scare him. But.

“I’ve seen things for a long time.” 

Shisui leans back, laying on the wood surface of the dock. 

“There’s a lot of people who walk around the village and there’s something off with them. They always look hurt, or they’re missing something. There’s a lady who kisses me goodnight and sings songs to help me sleep, and sometimes when dad’s home she sits with him and holds his hand. She looks really sad.”

“Aunt Mikoto. She’s your grandma.”

“And,” Ren leans over the dock. The drowned girl looks up at him, pale eyes wide just under the surface of the water. “There’s a girl in the water. Sometimes I think she wants to drag me in. Mom won’t let us swim here.”

“Yeah.” Shisui kicks his legs back and forth. “She’s been here before me even.”

“Oh.” He hums, watching her disappear into the darkness. “That’s really sad.”

-

“Ren!” His mother calls. He leans around the corner, looking into the kitchen where his mother fusses with something. Baby Aya is securely wrapped close to her chest, sleeping softly. She’s so cute, soft downy black hair, cheeks round and pink. Ichigo fusses at the table and it’s a miracle it doesn’t wake her. 

“Yeah mom?” He stands at the doorway, hanging off it. Their heights are recorded, Ren and Takeshi and Ichigo’s in thick black marker. Ren looks forward to the day Ayame will be able to stand up and get her height marked too.

“Can you walk this to your Aunt Akari’s for me?” She drops the little package in Ren’s outstretched hands, a little box carefully wrapped in flower printed cloth. “It’s for Itsuki.”

“Sure.” He says, because his mom looks tired and ragged dealing with both Ayame and Ichigo, and Ren loves his mom. “Can Takeshi come with me?”

“Oh I’m sorry sweetheart,” She cups his cheek, bending down to give him a kiss. “He went to play at Seto’s.”

Ren smothers the disappointment in his heart and smiles wide at his mother. “That’s okay. Can I see if Kaiga’s home on my way back?”

“Sure sweetie.” 

She sees him out, waving at him as he takes the dirt road from their home down towards their village. The Uchiha property is large, their families land gifted back to them once his parents had both Ren and Takeshi. There’s the older part, the one dad doesn’t like to go to or talk about and won’t let him or Takeshi go near-

And then there’s the forest. 

Shisui appears beside him, eyes closed as always with his crow flying ahead. Ren curls his fingers into Shisui’s cold ones, and he grips them tightly, ignoring how it chills him to the bone.

“Everything alright?” Shisui asks, swinging their arms back and forth together. “You’re usually more chatty.”

Ren just shrugs, keeping his eyes glued to the ground. Even though Shisui’s dead, Ren feels more at ease with him here, rather than if he was alone.

“C’mon,” Shisui squeezes Ren’s hand, a soft smile on his face. “You’re sad about something. Tell me, promise I won’t tell.”

Ren snorts, just a little, and Shisui tugs him in response. “What’s so funny!”

“You can’t tell anyone anyways.”

“Pfft- I could tell your Grandma. Or maybe even your Grandpa! There’s also this really grumpy guy named Madara-”

“You can’t tell, but I’m rolling my eyes.”

“Ouch.” Shisui hums. “But really, what's wrong Ren? You can talk to me.”

Ren kicks a rock and watches it tumble down the path. “I just…” He thinks of his twin, and it feels like Takeshi is slowly pulling away. “I miss my brother.”

Shisui kneels down to Ren’s height, and when did they stop walking. 

“I’m sorry Ren.” Carefully he’s pulled into a hug, and despite the cold of Shisui’s body, he feels warm deep inside. “I don’t have a brother, but I can sort of relate.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I had a best friend who had to do something really terrible. What happened to us wasn’t fair. I had to be away from him and it was really hard.”

Ren pulls away and wipes at his face.

“I’m sorry Shisui.”

“It’s okay.” He ruffles Ren’s hair and smiles. 

“What happened to your friend?” The smile dims somewhat, and Ren knows he’s just saving face for him. 

“Maybe a story for another time. I just get what it means to miss your friends. C’mon, let’s keep going alright?” Shisui stands again, and Ren slips his hand into his.

Ren drops his hand from Shisui’s once they get into the village proper. There’s not many ghosts around there, or, none that Ren can really see. The walk to Aunt Akari’s was through the Nara’s forest, and while most outsider’s were not allowed entrance without permission-

Ren was pleased he was a special case. He passes Kazuo as Ren walks by, who steps off the path enough to make room.

“Heading to see Auntie ‘Kari?” He says, pausing just for a moment. A man hovers just behind the older boy with the same colored hair as Kazuo. 

“Yep!” He holds up the box his mother had given him. “Mom made some medicine for Itsuki.”

“Oh that’s good, think they were running out. Hey, stop by Uncle Shikamaru’s before you leave, ‘kay?”

Ren nods and watches as Kazuo takes off down the path. The man behind him stays there, just a moment, eyes locking onto Ren’s before following him. His eyes are a milky white, just a tad unnerving and it sends a shiver down Ren’s spine. Shisui’s hand is cold on his shoulder, the grounding presence Ren needs before he makes his way further down the path.

“Who’s Aunt Kari?” Shisui asks as they get closer to their home. 

“Oh, you’ll like her,” Ren says as they near the house. “You’ll see.”

He knocks on the door as a formality before pushing it open. “Aunt Akari!” He calls into the quiet house. 

“In here!” She calls back. Shisui stills behind him. There’s a flurry of activity in the kitchen, and Ren smiles to himself as he slips his sandals off and makes his way in deeper.

“Ren!” Aunt Akari scoops him up into a hug, literally sweeping him off his feet. Warm kisses are pressed to his head, and he stifles a giggle as she cuddles him. “What are you doing here?”

He holds out the cloth wrapped box out to her. “Mom made some more medicine for Itsuki.”

“Oh, you’ll thank her for me will you?” She stands, turning to put it on the counter, and suddenly Shisui is beside her. His fingers brush her cheek, and Akari shudders a little, hand coming to gently touch the same spot.

“It’s you.” He whispers, almost reverently. 

“Do you want something to drink, Ren?” She busies herself at the fridge, pulling out a pitcher and then some glasses from the cabinets.

“No thank you, I was going to visit my friend. Where’s Uncle Obito and Reina?” There’s a twitch to Shisui’s hand, and he pulls away.

“Oh they’re out bonding, you know, causing trouble, burning down trees, things like that.” She gives him a soft wink.

“Ren,” Shisui’s voice is soft, suddenly behind him. It makes him jump, which causes his Aunt to give him a strange look. 

“You okay sweet boy.” She kneels to his level, brushing his bangs away. Her brows furrow, and her hand is warm on his cheek. “You have a burn there- let me get some salve okay, that must sting.”

She stands, walking past him, and Shisui’s head follows.

“Ren, ask her,” He swallows thickly, gathering his thoughts. “Ask her what's under that collar. Please. I think she will, if it’s you.”

There’s a beat until she comes back, and she effortly swings him up and sits him on the counter. 

“Please,” Shisui pleads, standing behind her.

“Auntie ‘Kari.” he mumbles as she dabs some burn salve onto his lip.

“Yes sweet boy?” 

“You um, you always wear those turtlenecks. Why don’t you ever wear something else?” She stills a moment, and from behind her Shisui hangs his head into his hands.

“Well I just like them. Kinda like how your dad’s a fan of those high collared shirts and ponchos, or like how Uncle Obito’s allergic to shirts.”

She pats his cheek and helps him down. Her hand lingers at a spot, just below her neck, and her smile seems just a little more sad.

“Thank you for bringing me the medicine Ren, get home safe okay?”

“Okay.”

They part with a hug, and Auntie Akari watches him go down the path, until he rounds a bed and he can’t see her anymore.

“Sorry Shisui.” he says to the empty air. “I can try and do better next time.”

“It’s okay.” says the voice on the wind.

Above him Shisui’s crow flies ahead.

-

“Is your bird alive?” Ren is ten years old with skinned knees and cheeks tanned from the sun. He squints past the sun to look into the trees, where Shisui’s bird sits, dark eyes staring into the distance. Shisui hasn’t aged a day since Ren first met him, nearly five years ago. 

“I don’t know, is it?” Shisui asks back, and Ren makes a face at him, full well knowing he can’t see it. Or maybe he can. Ren tilts his head at the crow. It tilts its head back.

“Can you see me?”

“I can always see you, Ren.” Shisui laughs, opening his hollow eyes at him. “Just look at how big my eyes are!”

It’s a grotesque sight. Ren can’t imagine how much it must have hurt. The goofy voice Shisui uses though makes him laugh.

“Yuck!” He giggles, giving the man a soft shove. “You’re gross Shi-nii!”

Shisui stills. If he had eyes, the other would be staring straight at Ren. Now, empty eye sockets just lock onto him. “What did you call me?” He says, soft as a whisper.

“Shi-nii…” He bites his lip, frowning just the slightest. “Was that bad- I’m sorry, I won’t do it ag-oof!”

Freezing arms wrap around him, pulling him close into a solid chest. Shisui is cold, he’s always cold, and smells like the river. But he’s as real and solid as any other person Ren knows.

“Thank you…” He says softly. Ren returns the hug, just as eagerly. “I’ve never had-I’ve never been- thank you.”

-

There is a woman in their home. No one else can see her, but for him, and at nights when he tip toes into Minoru’s nursery, she’s there, humming a lullaby to help him sleep.

“I used to sing this to your daddy,” She says, stroking baby soft hair as Minoru fusses and whines. “He used to squirm around just like you.” 

If she hears Ren, she doesn’t let him know. Instead, he steps quietly up beside her and peers into the crib.

“Did you hear that, Mino-chi? You’re just like dad.”

Her cold hand settles atop his head, smoothing his hair down in soft strokes.

“Thank you Ren.” She says. Something breaks a little in his, just a chip. He wishes his grandparents were actually there, then maybe dad would be around more, maybe things would be different. Better.

Maybe Shisui would be alive too. 

“Ren?” His mother pushes open the door and in a blink, Ren’s grandmother is gone. “Were you talking to someone sweetie?”

“No mom,” He lies. “Just to Mino.”

-

There’s a man following his father. He’s shorter, just an inch or so, and his hair is long and tied back. He watches with a soft, fond smile as Takeshi takes off to meet their father. Ren can’t hear the loud excited words his twin shouts, but there’s the beginnings of a smile on Sasuke’s lips. 

Something dark curls in his gut, and he hates it. Why doesn’t dad ever look at him like that? 

“What’cha watchin’ Ren?” Shisui asks. His crow flies above them, cawing loudly and settling in a tree across from the pond. 

Ren just shrugs, and points to the trio. He’s not sure how Shisui can sense these things, how he can see despite having no eyes in his head, the way he knows where he’s going.

The man behind dad looks up, watching the crow, and then looks to where Ren sits, Shisui standing beside him.

He’s gone in a flash.

“Oh no…” Shisui sighs from beside him. “Oh Itachi…”

Ren can feel the air get colder as Shisui leans down, and whispers into his ear. “I’m gonna go check it out, okay? Stay home with your family, show Sasuke the baby.” And just like that, Shisui is gone too. 

Ren moves from his spot in front of the door, standing off to the side as his father walks up. He glances at Ren, placing a hand on top of his head before stepping inside. Ren scowls at his back. 

“Daddy!” Kaede cries from inside. Ren steps inside just as his youngest sister runs straight into their father’s back as he attempts to remove his sandals.

“Kaede…” He clears his throat, before patting the top of her head. “You’ve gotten big.”

“It’s only been a few months, daddy!” She yells happily, and didn’t that say something? Only a few months away from his children. Minoru was almost one, his mother was pregnant again, and his father had missed almost all of it.

Ren kicks his shoes off, and stomps past his father and up the stairs, ignoring the happy surprise of his mother, of Ayame, of Ichigo. He could feel Takeshi’s glare on his back as he left. Good for them. They could be happy together. 

Minoru’s nursery is empty when Ren walks in. His baby brother balancing carefully, chubby fingers held in a vice grip onto the rails. Ren smiled softly at him, and carefully picked Minoru up and into his arms.

“Dad’s home.” He whispered, taking a few steps back and sitting softly into the pile of stuffed animals that had been gifted to him. “Do you remember him I wonder?”

Minoru just coos, fingers reaching up to pull at Ren’s fringe. 

“Ah, ah.” He tuts, pulling his head back. “That’ll hurt.”

He stays there, cuddling with Minoru. His grandmother passes through at some point, tear tracks on her cheeks and she coos at the sight.

“You remind me of-” She stops herself, and instead smiles very sadly.

“Of who, baachan?” Ren asks, and winces when Minoru finally grasps his hair and pulls.

“Just some boys I knew, when they were very, very young.” She gently helps remove Minoru’s hand from his hair. “They were very dear to me.”

-

Ren’s baby brother Tai is born two weeks after Minoru turns one, and he stays in the hospital for a very long time. Mom stays there with him too, and dad with her. For the first three months of Tai’s life, he’s hooked up to wires and tubes that helps him live.

The entire time his grandparents stay with them. Ren’s mother’s parents, who fuss over Kaede and Minoru and constantly go back and forth from home to the hospital to make sure mom and baby Tai are okay.

Leaving Ren in charge. Nothing he’s not used to.

He walks him and his siblings to and from school everyday, and Setsuna always waits for him at the gate with her father and newborn baby brother.

Uncle Naruto always looks sad whenever Ren sees him, even though he tries to put on a brave face.

“How’s baby Tai?” She asks one morning as they walk into the academy. It’s always a little colder around Setsuna, and it always smells vaguely of smoke. Ren doesn’t like to look at the burnt figures of her birth parents, who always hover a few feet away. Her step-mother, baby Makoto’s mom, tends to go from Setsuna, back to his Uncle. Pale faced and sickly, she still wants to take care of Uncle Naruto and the baby.

Ren shrugs mutely. There’s a lot of them in the village, many who tend to stay in and around the academy. Kids like him who died young and don’t even know they’re dead. They scream and cry and beg for anyone to just look at them. He can’t.

“Obaachan said that they should be coming home soon but. I dunno.”

Setsuna’s quiet, her sandals squeaking against the tile floor.

“Papa doesn’t like having Mako far away. Kashi-jiji was supposed to retire this year but…”

“Yeah. I’m sorry about-“

“It’s okay.” She says, even though it isn’t, and Ren knows how much the loss of her second mother has weighed on her. “Papa says she’s not in pain anymore, so…”

He puts an arm over her shoulder and drags her into a hug anyways.

-

Ren doesn’t see Shisui, or the other man who followed his father home, until Tai comes home from the hospital.

He’s done his rounds. Takeshi sleeps with his door locked, so Ren couldn’t even check on him if he wanted to. Ichigo shares a room with the girls, and as always, Kaede sleeps curled up to Ayame’s back, snoring loudly with her covers kicked off. Different in every way to how Ayame sleeps shock still. Ichigo’s hand lay off the side, and Ren tiptoes in just to put the book he was reading before bed on his nightstand.

The nursery is quiet when he makes his way inside. Minoru breathes softly, and Ren leans over to move one of his plushies away from his face. Tai, when Ren steps to look at him, is still awake.

“What’re you doing up?” he whispers, fingers trailing over Tai’s baby smooth cheek. He’s a quiet baby, barely fussing, but always looking up and around with those wide little eyes.

“Looking at me I believe.” Shisui says, joining Ren where he leans over the crib. 

“Where have you been?” Ren raises an eyebrow at him, fave pinching together.

“What, you missed me?” Shisui laughs, and his cold hand ruffles Ren’s already mussed hair.

“Yeah, maybe I did.” he huffs. 

Shisui’s silent for a moment, before tugging Ren closer to his side.

“I’m sorry kid.” He says. The chill from Shisui’s body seeps into Ren’s. “But I had to… Had to talk with my friend. And then when your brother was born that was all sorts of complicated. Never seen so many of us in a room in years.”

“You were there?” Ren looks up at him.

“Yeah, and so were your grandparents and a few others. Even Itachi was there, though he stayed away from everyone.”

“Itachi.” The word is unfamiliar on his lips, but not to him. “He’s… my uncle, right?” 

“Yeah.” Shisui’s face softens, his shoulders drooping. “He’s skittish. Like a cat. You have to gently coax him out and make no sudden movements or he’ll run away and you’ll have to waste two months trying to track him down.”

“You’re serious?”

“Deadly.” Shisui laughs. 

Tai silently watches the both of them, wide eyes never leaving Shisui’s face.

“You think he can see you?” Ren asks after a moment. Shisui hums.

“Well, infants are known to be able to see spirits, I know. Takeshi used to see us like you do when he was a baby. Not so much anymore.”

That’s a surprise in itself. 

“Really?”

“Yeah, I kept to the forest but I know Auntie Mikoto liked to watch after you guys.”

“Huh.” Ren turns his gaze back to Tai. Watches as his little eyes begin to droop, how he yawns softly, and sleep finally takes him.

Shisui is gone when Ren looks back up. But outside the nursery window sits the crow with the dark eyes and feathers, silently standing guard.

-

Ren’s class is the last one to graduate from the academy before the new changes go into place. Kakashi-jiji gives a nice speech, talks about Ren and his classmates being the face of their next generation. Ren sits through the ceremony, his hands clamming in his lap and sweats into his hitai-ate around his forehead.

It ends soon enough, his classmates rushing to his parents. Ren follows just a step behind Setsuna and Reina, who walk and whisper to each other arm in arm. Takeshi lingers with his friend Seto, before jogging to catch up.

Ren has a large family. Even without the dead. His parents mingle together with Reina and Setsuna’s parents. Sasuke speaks softly with his uncle Naruto, and Setsuna’s aunt Karin and uncles Suigetsu and Juugo. Kakashi-jiji has Makoto in the crook of his arm while he talks with Reina’s mother, her father only two steps behind leaning heavily on his cane. 

Their siblings all run about, Setsuna’s cousin Yukio egging the younger children on while Ren’s mother fusses over Itsuki who had fallen and scraped his knee. 

Then there’s the others. His grandparents, Ren’s father’s parents, argue softly back and forth. A woman with bright red hair yells in delight, and Sestuna shivers as she rushes forward to coo over her.

“SETSUNA!!! We are so proud of you!!!”

“Kushina, dear, she can’t hear you, you know…”

“I know that! Still, there’s no harm in me saying it y’know!”

Ren’s grandmother laughs softly. 

“I don’t understand,” His grandfather huffs. “Hatake is raising the graduation age? I don’t like that.”

“Fugaku,” Ren’s eyes glance back and forth, from his grandfather to the yondaime. “I wish Kakashi was able to raise it earlier. It’s peace time, there shouldn’t…”

“Anything can happen Namikaze, you know that as well as I. What if there’s another-”

“Shisui,” His grandmother’s voice cuts through his grandfather’s. “What are you looking at dear?”

Ren walks straight into his mother’s arms. She laughs a little, and he tries to hide his face in her shirt, to block out the noise that steadily grows.

He can’t get the image from his mind though, Shisui’s empty eyes looking straight at his aunt. 

“Nothing.” Shisui says. “Nothing at all.”

-

Uncle Itachi never stays around for long. He disappears the moment Ren spots him, a cold spot that constantly moves. He’s always in the peripherals, standing at the end of the hall, walking ahead on the forest path, sitting on the opposite side of the pond. 

But always follows his father whenever he’s home. 

Ren sits on the edge of the small pier. The girl in the water is staring up at him, hair fanning out around her. Her eyes are wide and milky, like everyone else's, and Ren just wants to know what she and his uncle talk about when he sits there. He sees how she leans out of the water those days, how his uncle pushes her hair back and whispers softly to her. 

“You can tell me.” Ren whispers. “It’s not like I have anyone to tell.”

“Tell what?” Takeshi’s voice says loudly from behind him. The surprise makes him lurch forward, nearly falling in if not for Takeshi's hand grabbing the back of his collar. The girl disappears with a ripple of the water.

“Oh um, nothing.” Ren steadies himself, and pushes himself to stand. Takeshi’s taller than him, by just a little, and he hates it. Hates how Takeshi feels like it makes him better than his older twin, more superior just because he has a few extra inches of height. “What do you want?”

Takeshi looks him over, then to the empty pond.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Oh uhm,” He bites the inside of his cheek and looks away. “No one.”

“No one? You were talking to yourself?”

“No!” Embarrassment colors his cheeks, and he hates it. Hates how his little brother makes him feel so.

Little.

Takeshi laughs, something mean and bitter, and grins wickedly at him. “You’re such a freak.”

“I-I’m not-”

“Yes,” Takeshi cuts him off. “You are. You sit alone and mumble to yourself for hours- we’re too old to have imaginary friends nii-san.” He says it like an insult. 

Ren had tried to tell him once. When they were both little and still loved each other, maybe. But Takeshi had looked at him strangely and snapped at him to stop being weird, and the shame and embarrassment itself made Ren shut up.

“I-I don’t-” But there’s no defending himself, not really. 

“You don’t what? Talk to yourself?” Takeshi sneers. “There’s something really wrong with you I think. I don’t get what dad sees in you.”

His jaw tightens, his fists curl. Every inch of him wants to jerk forward and throw his brother to the ground. What dad sees in you. Ren knows the answer.

Nothing. 

With a deep breath, he uncurls his fists, he looks away, schooling his face into something not pinched in rage. 

“Whatever.” He spits. “Think what you want. I know what I see.”

“Yeah,” Takeshi laughs. “You think you do. You’re crazy, literally. Maybe if I tell mom she’ll put you in the hospital.” 

Ren’s chest heaves, his glare hot on Takeshi’s back as he turns and walks back up to the house.

-

They don’t share a room anymore. So Ren doesn’t have to worry about waking his twin when Itachi shows up. 

“I’m sorry,” He says softly. Ren pushes himself up from his bed, eyebrow twitching up.

“For what, Uncle?”

“I feel…” he tilts his head, studying Ren. “Like I’ve failed you. You weren’t even born yet, and I’ve let you both down.”

He smiles sadly, and tucks his legs up to his chest and pats the space next to him. There’s a slight dip to the bed, barely noticeable if Ren didn’t know who it belonged to.

“It isn’t your fault.” Ren licks his lips. “I can’t really be angry at you, for the stuff you did.”

“You should be.” Itachi says. “I took your family from you. I’ve hurt your father terribly.”

“And,” Ren presses. “It’s not your fault for how Takeshi treats me.”

The furrow to Itachi’s brow tells Ren he doesn’t believe him. 

“What I did to your father-”

“Uncle Itachi.” Ren stops him. “I really, honestly don’t care. Yeah, maybe you messed up dad’s life.” He shrugs, ignoring the way his uncle jerks, like he’s been hit. “I guess it explains things, but you’re not the reason he’s never around. Are you?” 

Itachi just numbly shrugs his shoulders. 

“Don’t worry about how my dad and brother treat me. Go hang out with Shi-nii, or the drowned girl in the pond. Or maybe Jiji and Obaachan.” He falls back against his bed, and faintly he feels cool fingers pressed to his forehead.

“Maybe. Goodnight Ren.”

He’s gone when Ren opens his eyes.

-

Training had ended in shouting, and Ren had ended up running from his father and brother, anger bubbling just below the surface. He kept his breathing even, and resisted the urge to claw at his head despite the anxious twitching in his fingers.

Pent up energy bubbled inside him, an anxious buzzing inside of him that screamed calm down or you’ll do something you regret.

Ren’s feet carried him aimlessly, and he didn’t realize he had entered Nara lands until he was standing at the fork in the path that would take him to his aunts. He blinked lamely, suddenly feeling far more tired than he expected. He took the path, and his aunts home stood solitary beneath the trees. 

“Ren?” Shisui stood abruptly from where he sat on the front steps. “What are you doing here?” Ren didn’t answer him and instead softly knocked on the door. 

“Coming.” his uncle called from the inside. Ren waited patiently for Obito to open the door. The man looked in surprise, blinking down at him.

“Ren?” He speaks softly, and grunts a little as he knelt to speak face to face with him. “What are you doing here?”

Ren swallowed thickly, taking in a deep breath. Even so, his voice shook when he spoke. “Is Auntie Kari here?” 

Obito’s eyes softened on him, and Ren’s uncle stood with a soft groan. Stepping back, he let Ren walk in. From behind him, he could feel how the temperature dropped as Shisui slipped inside. 

Obito shivered from where he stood, unaware of Shisui’s presence, and jerked his head towards the stairs. “She’s upstairs. Let me know if you need anything, okay kiddo?” Ren gave a short nod, slipping his sandals off, and made his way up to the second floor. Shisui trailed behind him.

A baby's shrill cries echo from down the hall. Ren knows for a fact that his aunt wasn’t pregnant, not since the twins were born. He steps softly, careful not to make much noise. Most days Reina was out of the house, spending her afternoons with her team. Sayuri herself was at school, along with Ren’s own little brother and her cousin. Ren peeked inside one of the doors, and sure enough, Itsuki was sleeping softly in his bed.

Akari is sitting in her bed when Ren pushes the door open. She doesn’t hear it, or even seem to see the small pink squirming thing laying on her bed. It’s wails echo in his head. Shisui is a cold presence behind him, and Ren doesn’t have to thurn and look to know that he’s floundering.

“What is…?” Shisui says softly.

“Ren!” Akari tucks her necklace back under her shirt. “Did your uncle let you in- hey, hey what’s wrong?”

She’s moving in an instant, and Ren squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to see it. It’s so loud, he can’t even think.

“Ren, sweetheart, look at me.” Warm hands cradle his cheeks, stinging the burns left behind by his failed katon.

He cracks his eyes open, his black meeting her brown. “Head h’rts…”

She swipes her palm over his forehead, pressing against it softly. 

“Your head hurts?” he nods. “I think we might have some medicine downstairs.”

He strains to listen to his aunt's words as she speaks too softly over the loud crying of whatever laid in her bed. She goes to move, but Ren stays rooted to the spot, his fingers curling in her shirt. His head thumps softly against her collarbone, and he squeezes his eyes shut, reveling in the warmth of his aunt.

“Too loud…” He mumbles. One hand slowly strokes down his back, while the other curls around the back of his neck.

“What’s too loud sweet boy? What’s wrong?”

“The baby!” He cries. Hot tears leak from his closed eyes. The waile on seem to grow louder, his heart beats rapidly. His head is about to burst and paint gore and viscera all over the walls. 

He just wants it to stop.

“Ren…” Ren says, feather soft. “What baby?”

It’s silent, save for the fast pace of his heart and their breathing.

“Th-the baby! O-on your bed it’s-“

Gone. He pushes past her, and stumbles, nearly falling onto the mattress himself.

“It was right here…”

“Ren…” His aunt sounds so sad.

“I’m not crazy!” He snaps, and every nerve feels like its on fire. He’s ready to burst, even the clothes on his back feel too much and too little all at once. “I’m not.” 

His voice breaks, tears falling freely now.

Akari wraps her arms around him, shushing his frantic sobs.

“I know you’re not, sweet boy shh I know.” She rocks him slightly, back and forth and he shakes in her hold.

“Please,” he begs. “Please don’t tell my mom.”

“I won’t, hush sweet boy it’s okay.” Her lips press to his sweaty forehead. Out of everything, it grounds him.

“Let’s get you something to drink, alright.” Her arm sits over his shoulders, and Akari pulls Ren close to her side as they leave her room. It’s soft, but Ren hears quiet humming when they walk past Itsuki’s room. He’s sure he sees Shisui, cradling something in his arms through the crack in the door.

“Shh… it’s okay, don’t worry. Daddy’s here.”

-

There’s a woman with the same ginger hair who follows Sayuri. Seto always goes home to the same two ghosts, twins, though one looks bitter while the other always smiles as he greets him.

Ren stays away from what haunts Uchiha ground, and while the Nara forest has its equal dead, they keep away.

Ren doesn’t hear the baby again.

His aunt Akari is a soothing presence every time. She helps his lightning style training, and together they stand in the yard beside her house and let their hands light up as he attempts to manage his electric chakra.

They cover basics he’s learned along with Kakashi-Jiji, and others. How to channel his chakra through the blade, how to make the pretty lights dance in his palm.

He always leaves these sessions sweaty and exhausted, but happy.

Reina waits in the hall when he comes in that day. It’s been… blessedly quiet. Free of Shisui or any others who see him and just know Ren is aware of them.

He smiles, softly, at his cousin, before letting himself into the bathroom and splashing water on his hot face.

“So…” she starts, leaning against the open door. “You and mom sure are spending a lot of time together, huh?”

Ren shrugs, turning the water off and drying his face. 

“She’s helping me with my lightning style while Kakashi-Jiji is busy.”

“Yeah.” She hums. “Your dad busy too or are you going to take mine also.”

He freezes.

“Wh-what?”

“Well you took my mom! I’m just wondering if dad is going to go with you so you’ll have the matching set.” Her dark eyes narrow at him. “I mean, I already don’t get to spend any time with them.”

“That’s not fair, Reina.” Shisui says, hovering from behind her. She can’t hear him. 

“I-I didn’t- I’m sorry…”

Her brown eyes meet his, and he lowers his head, looking away from her gaze.

“Like sorry is going to do anything.” She scoffs. She turns, and walks right through Shisui.

“That girl.” He shakes his head softly. “Ren, don’t take anything from it- Ren, hey buddy what’s wrong?”

He leaves, slipping from the back door before dinner is called. Ren stops visiting his aunt.

-

Months go by, then years. Every morning before he meets with his team, Ren wakes early. He makes breakfast for his family, lunches for his mother and siblings, and helps wake them up and get them ready for the day. 

The first time Tai really comprehends Shisui, he cries. The sound breaks Ren’s heart, and he and Shisui sit with the toddler on his bedroom floor and speak to him in hushed tones.

“We’re special.” Ren says softly, rubbing the two year olds back. “We get to see our family, even if no one else can. We get to be close to them.”

“Scary…” Tai sniffles, his head buried into Ren’s shirt.

“I know, it can be.” Ren kisses the crown of his head. “But it can also be very fun! Shisui is so important to me, I know he can look a little scary, but he loves us very much.”

“I don’t wanna scare you kiddo.” Shisui’s hand hovers over Tai, not making the push to touch, not yet. “I can stay away if I scare you. I wouldn’t blame you for that. But you need to know that I love you and I love your brothers and sisters very very much.” 

Tai sniffles, braving a glance at Shisui’s pale face. He keeps his eyes closed, because Tai doesn’t need to see that. Not yet. 

“Name?”

“Shisui.”

“Shishwee.”

“Close enough!” He laughs softly.

-

Ren is fourteen years old when he becomes a chuunin. He is fourteen when he dies. 

Takeshi hates him so much that he wants to kill him. What did Ren do to deserve this, other than love his brother?

His right arm is in tatters, the flesh cut to ribbons by Takeshi’s blades. His own tanto lays abandoned, sticking up out of the ground in the distance. His left leg is burnt badly by Takeshi’s katon. Every inch of him is in pain, and he heaves in each heavy breath. He just has to wait until help arrives. Help has to come, it has to. 

Where is Sasuke, when Ren actually needs him. His sharingan spins to life, red meeting Takeshi’s red. There’s an awful grin on his face, and he’s doing much better than Ren is, both in appearance and stamina.

Ren can’t bring himself to hurt his brother. Takeshi does not have the same reservations. 

Takeshi advances, sword raised, and Ren’s body jerks to dodge. He’s half a second too slow, Ren’s exhaustion finally catching up with him. 

The blade goes smoothly through his chest. He takes in a stuttering breath, and coughs. The blood trails down his chin, and it hurts. It hurts so much. 

Takeshi steps back, and Ren loses his balance, unaware of how Takeshi was supporting him. He falls, landing hard on his back, and a strangled cry leaves his lips. His sharingan spins idly, until finally fading, and he can see Takeshi clearly.

His own spins, morphing into something else, something different. The manic grin slowly morphs into horror, and he drops his tanto to the ground, looking at his bloodied hands. 

“Re-Ren-” His eyes meet his brothers. “What did I-”

Ren doesn’t hear the rest, instead, his eyes trail to the gray sky above him.

He’s vaguely aware of people approaching, of voices ringing out over the ringing in his ears, but he can’t hear them.

It looks like rain.

(This is what Ren does not remember.

He stares, looking out over his own body. He’s cold, and his hands shake. His mother screams his name while his uncle kneels by his side. 

Takeshi’s pinned up against a tree, their father’s arm braced over his chest and he screams something. Ren can’t hear it.

“Oh no.” The voice is so clear. Ren turns, and there stands Shisui, his uncle just a step behind him.

He looks.

Healthy. Whole. Two dark eyes stare at him.

“Shisui?” Ren shakes, eyes darting from his body back to the man he’s known almost his whole life. “Shisui what happened? What’s going on?” His legs won’t obey him, he takes two shaky steps and suddenly Shisui is sweeping him up into his warm arms.

“Shhhh, it’s okay kiddo, don’t look alright.”

“That’s me-”

“Hush Ren, it’ll be okay.” Shisui cradles him, pressing a warm kiss to Ren’s forehead. “I got you sweetheart, it’ll be okay, don’t look.” 

There’s a faint pain in his chest. Itachi comes around, placing a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it gently. His breaths come out shaky and fast, and he’s sure he’ll begin panicking any moment.

“Ren,” Itachi whispers into his ear. “I hope for your sake nephew, you don’t remember this.”)

-

He wakes up to white ceilings and a tube down his throat. 

“You were dead for a few minutes.” Tsunade reads off a chart. “It’s a miracle you’re alive right now.”

His mother squeezes his hand, her thumb rubbing over his palm. 

His throat is raw when he speaks, and he has to sip some water before he tries again.

“What,” He croaks. “What h’pp’n’d t’ T’keshi?”

His granny Tsunade was always honest. Always upfront. It’s what he loved the most about her. She wouldn’t spare his feelings and shy from the truth.

“It’s still being decided.” Ren’s mother chokes back a sob. “But he’s in custody right now.”

She reaches over, a wrinkled hand covering his.

“He won’t hurt you again Ren. I swear to you.”

When he is finally alone, after his mother leaves to go home, after his friends and family come by each giving Ren their best regards, does Ren let himself cry.

His leg had been broken severely along with the burns. His arm was wrapped in bandages and held close to his chest in a sling. 

“You might never be able to be a shinobi again.” Tsunade had said, when Ren asked her when he could go back out into duty again. “I’m sorry.”

“Ren.” Shisui appears sitting in the chair at his bedside. “How’re you feeling?”

“What do you think?” He says plainly. Rain trails in rivulets down the window. 

“I think you’re probably feeling really low, but I had to ask.” Ren spares a glance at Shisui. He looks the same, closed eyes with dried blood running down his cheeks. Pale skin. An air of cold that constantly hangs around him.

“You don’t remember anything, do you?”

Ren quirks a brow up. 

“Remember what?”

Shisui smiles softly. “Doesn’t matter then.” He reaches over to ruffle his hair, and Ren jerks away. Shisui’s smile falters, but it’s too small for Ren to notice. 

“I’ll leave you then. You need me, you know who to call.”

Shisui disappears with a blink, his leaving making the cold hospital room even colder. As if he sucked all the heat away with him. Ren closes his eyes, leaning back into his pillows. He remembers the blade going in, seeing Takeshi’s sharingan change into something else, something different, staring at the sky thinking that rain was going to come.

And a warm presence, with kind eyes holding him close. 

Just a fleeting memory.

-

Ren is discharged. His uncle and mother help bring him home, and neither his father nor Takeshi are there when they get back. He doesn’t ask his mother about it, doesn’t ask his uncle Naruto. 

Ren stays locked in his room. He takes his meals there, guests come in and out to visit him.

“We’re looking forward to your return, Ren.” Seto tells him one afternoon when he and Sayuri visit. 

“Yeah!” She grins, leaning over his bed. He doesn’t look at them, and instead keeps his eyes locked onto the trees in the distance, outside his window. 

The hanging man sways with the breeze. He could get down, if he wanted to, but Ren’s never seen him leave. 

“So cheer up Uchiha, team seven still has missions we need to complete. We need our leader, yeah?”

He doesn’t answer them. 

Tai toddles in every once in a while. He pulls himself onto Ren’s bed, and cuddles up into his big brother's side. 

“Shishwee misses you.” He whispers. “He wants t’ come an’ say hi.”

“He can.” Ren mumbles, and Tai shakes his head. 

“Noo… Shishwee says you’re pushing him away.”

Ren turns and looks down at him. True enough, it felt like it had been weeks since he saw his wayward relative. 

“Oh.” He mumbles. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

His aunt Akari comes by, Reina in tow. She sits on his bed and tucks him into her side, pushing his hair back from his sweaty head. Reina hovers in the doorway, looking a mixture of guilty and something else.

“How are you feeling?” She asks, her palm cold against his cheek. He shrugs numbly.

“As well as I can be.” 

She’s silent for a moment, and he lets himself relax into her hold, focusing only on the circles she rubs into his arms.

“Have you spoken with your brother yet?” She asks, and he tenses in her hold.

“Why would I do that?” He stares at his bed sheets. “He tried to kill me.”

“He kinda did…” Reina mumbles, and stiffens when her mother snaps her name. “What! He knows, no use lying to him!”

“It’s fine, aunt Kari.” He glances up at her. “Rei’s right. It’s the truth.”

“Still,” She sighs softly. “I was just wondering if you had spoken with him. Do you… want to speak with him?”

He’s silent, letting the question mull over in his brain. What would he do if he saw Takeshi again? What would he even say?

“I don’t care.” Ren ends up with. “It doesn’t matter anyways. He ruined my life.” He looks back, out into the window, and watches the hanging man swing in the breeze.

What would it feel like, to be swinging in the breeze like that?

Ren nearly dies a second time, going after Sayuri when the village is attacked. She’s one of his best friends, and he has to save her, has to help her. If he can’t save one friend, what use is he?

She screams his name when he’s stabbed, again, and he watches as the men dressed in black drag her away and into the shadows. 

Ren wakes up, again, in the hospital. The second time in as many months. His sensei steps away as their teacher, leaving Seto floundering without a team until his father steps up and takes Seto into his own along with Kaiga and Setsuna. 

Ren stops going out. He stays, locked in his room and watches at the hanging man swings. Shisui doesn’t come by, his uncle Itachi doesn’t come by, nor does his grandmother. He pushes them away, far, far away. His friends come by to visit, and every time Ren turns them away. 

His father visits once. Sasuke asks if Ren wants to see Takeshi, that maybe they can find some sort of healing. He doesn’t come back after Ren screams his throat raw at him. The anger is the first real thing he feels in months. 

“Maybe I am crazy.” he whispers to his ceiling, watching as the grain warps and creates pictures in the darkness. “Maybe I am going mad.”

Everyone wants to look after him now. It’s the worst, but eventually his mother goes back to work, and Ren tries, walking the length of his room to get used to moving again. He practices walking up and down the stairs until he sweats, and the pain he deserves. For being so weak, for letting Takeshi get the better of him. 

He has to be of some use while his mother is gone. His siblings are still so young, and Ren’s watched out for them his entire life. He has to keep looking out for them, because what else is he good for?

Every morning he goes through the trouble of walking down the steps, and making their breakfast and lunches. And every morning he sees them out from the front door, doing his best to smile and make them feel at ease. 

Everyday, alone, he sits at the foot of his bed and holds his tantou in his hands. He’s kept the blade sharp, and his right arm is a mess of twisted scars and burns. 

What’s a few more?

-

Ren and Takeshi turn fifteen, and then sixteen. Progress is slow, but Ren is able to go out and walk his brothers and sisters to school every day. He shops, shows his face to his friends and family, plays at being the older brother with his life in order than everyone thinks.

Everyday he passes the hanging man swinging in the breeze. Shisui hovers on the edge of his vision constantly. There’s always a frown to his face, his lips move as he tries to reach him, but Ren doesn’t let him come close. 

He wonders, what would be easier. Hanging? Or maybe bleeding out? There’s pills in the bathroom cabinet he could take, and Ren doesn’t want to be in more pain. 

He decides one morning, after coming home from dropping the kids off at the academy, that he’ll take a walk to the Nakano cliffside. 

The terrain is hard on his body, and he stumbles on tree routes. It reminds him almost of that very first time he met Shisui. A decade earlier, Ren playing in the forest on his own, and stumbling across a relative who died long before he was born. 

His heart beats fast in his chest. Wind whips at his hair as he leaves the forest, entering the cliffside. As a child his mother always warned him not to go there, that it was dangerous, and he could get hurt.

Good. 

He walks, and stands on the edge, staring down into the water below. It’s a far drop down. 

Ren had always been afraid of heights. 

His breaths come out in short bursts, his hands shake uselessly at his sides. He swallows thickly as he stares down, and the fear is cold in his belly as he sways.

Just one step, that’s all it takes. 

“REN!”

He jerks, stepping back and whipping his head around. Shisui stands, eyes closed and chest heaving. Above, his crow flies in circles.

“Sh-shi-nii?” The old nickname comes easily. “What are you-”

“Step away from the edge Ren. Please.” Shisui begs, braving a step forward. “Let’s go home, okay?”

Ren shakes his head, wind whipping against his cheeks. His tears are hot as the roll down, and when did he start crying.

“I want it to stop.” He says softly. “I can’t take this anymore.”

“I know, Ren, but trust me- you don’t want to do this.”

“HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT I WANT!” The volume of his voice makes Shisui jerk back, and Ren’s hands curl into fists. “How do you know how this feels. My brother KILLED ME!”

“I know Ren.” Shisui says softly. “I was there.”

His shoulders shake, the sobs wracking his frame. “I HATE IT! I hate this. I just want it to stop Shisui.”

Shisui’s hands hover uselessly, reaching towards him.

“And this is how you stop it Ren? LOOK AT ME!” A fist hits against his chest. “Nothing good comes out of this. You’ll just be dead and miserable and nothing will change.”

And then, softer.

“Do you really want Tai to see his big brother like this.”

Ren flinches as if he’s been slapped. 

Cold hands grasp his forearms and drag him back, away from the edge. All at once, he falls apart, legs giving out from underneath him as he wails loudly. Shisui holds him through it.

“How…” He licks his dry lips. “How did you find me?”

Shisui laughs softly, hands petting at his hair. 

“You always have a stronger connection to the place you died.” He says. 

“Here?” Ren blinks up at him. Funny, he was almost the same age as Shisui now. 

“Yeah, took a dive myself.” His voice is thick when he talks, and Ren’s sure if he has the ability to, he’d be crying.

“Wh-where?”

Shisui shrugs. “Oooh, somewhere further down I’m sure. I… put a lot of responsibility on Itachi. We Uchiha, we’re really screwy huh?”

“Takeshi was right.” Ren murmurs, curled up into Shisui’s chest. “I think I’m crazy.”

They stay there, until Ren’s cried out of tears. But instead of following Shisui, Ren grips his hand and makes him look at him.

“Where,” His throat scratches as he speaks. “Was your body ever found?”

Shisui is silent, and Ren fears he won’t speak. He starts to apologize when-

“No. It’s been sitting on a riverbank for years.”

“Can…” He licks his dry lips, and blinks back the tears that threaten to fall. “Can you show me?”

It takes the morning to finally find Shisui’s resting place. He’s just bones, long picked clean by scavengers time. Ren uses what was left of his shirt as a makeshift back. His hands tremble as he picks up each and every bone he can find, before tying it together. It takes the entire afternoon to return.

“Please,” Shisui asks when they’re almost back to the house. “Please tell her.”

“I will.”

It’s Reina whose waiting at their home when he returns. The sky is already a mix of oranges and pinks, and he shifts, looking at his cousin when he approaches.

“YOU!” She shrieks, stomping over. “Where WERE you! My mom’s out looking right now, she said Kaede came crying into the damn house! She even tracked me down so you have some expla- what are you carrying?”

Ren swallows, before giving her a smile.

“I gotta talk to your mom. Can you watch them a little while longer? I’ll make it up to you.”

She rolls her eyes and huffs, shoulders slumping. 

“Fine, but me and Setsuna are going to give them soooo much sugar they’ll be making you tear your hair out.”

“Thank you Rei.” Ren’s smile feels more genuine, and he leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek.

Akari Nara is not hard to find. She’s pacing in the yard of her home, chewing softly on her lower lip.

“Auntie Kari!” Ren’s voice is hoarse when he calls to her, but there’s a smile all the same.

“Ren!” His head is in her hands in an instant, and she’s looking over him, making sure he’s free of any injury. “Sweet boy, when Kaede came crying I thought something terrible must have happened! I looked everywhere, Obito told me to stay here in case you came home. He’s out right now-”

She pauses, eyes falling to the fabric he carries.

“What is that?”

He swallows, eyes glancing towards Shisui. 

“Ask her again, about what’s under her shirt. Please.”

“First.” Ren swallows. “You wear something, under your shirt. Can you… can you tell me, what it is?”

Her hand comes up to her chest, and she’s silent. He’s sure she’ll say no, change the subject again but.

With a sigh, she pulls the collar of her turtleneck down, and fishes out the necklace. A simple ring, tarnished slightly by the years, but its beautiful all the same.

“You kept it.” 

Shisui feels much more solid, appearing behind her. His hands reach up to trail down her cheek, and her eyes flutter closed, leaning into the warmth.

He looks almost alive. 

“This belonged to a man I loved, a very long time ago.” Her voice is thick with unshed tears and emotion. “I never got to- I didn’t-”

“I know,” Shisui’s says quickly. “Tell her I know. And I love her. Even still.”

“He knows.” Ren says softly, and she gasps, eyes meeting his. “And he loves you. Even stil.”

“Ren,” Her voice shakes. “This isn’t funny.”

“I know.” He says softly. “I think I’m crazy aunt Kari. I see things. I know things.”

“Oh sweet boy,” Her hand comes to cradle his cheeks again. “You’re not crazy-”

“I’ve seen Shisui since I was five years old. He watches over your baby. He loves you so much.”

The tears open like a damn, and Ren helps her sit before her legs buckle out beneath her.

“How do you know that?”

“Because,” Ren says softly. “I think I’m crazy.”

They’re silent, and he sits with her as she cries. Finally Akari brushes away the tears, straightening up from where she sits. 

“What’s in the cloth Ren?” She jerks her head towards it. He swallows again thickly, and sets the bundle of what was Shisui down. It’s tied tight together, and whatever she does with it, he hopes he isn’t putting more of a burden onto her.

“He asked me to bring him home.”

-

Time goes on, passing each day like sand through an hourglass. Ren hates himself, he wants to die, but he refuses to put this burden on Tai. He has a long way to go to love himself again. 

He starts training again, and within a year and with the help of his Sensei, Lee, Ren is able to go on missions once more. He spends time with his friends again. 

He sees his brother for the first time in almost three years. 

Everyday he walks past those who died before their time, who can’t let go. Everyday, he looks ahead to the next. 

When he visits his aunt, he can always find Shisui sitting at the little grave maker sitting in their yard, their baby cradled in his arms.

End

[anonymousewrites]

Of Pawns and Players Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve: Next Play Begins

            “Where’d you get that?” questioned Sukuna, raising an eyebrow as he saw the medical mask over Ren’s face.

            “Uraume,” said Ren simply, sitting down at the long dining table. She ignored how tall Sukuna was in his Curse Form, his four arms and two faces looming over her, and focused on the meal. There was already fruit, vegetables, and rice laid over it. Of course, the main dish was yet to come, but Ren had already decided she wouldn’t partake in it. She accepted Sukuna’s diet, but she would not eat it herself.

            “Hm.” Sukuna narrowed his eyes for a moment as several strange thoughts (at least to him) flitted through his mind. Ren decided to ignore the way hie eyes examined her and tried to read her heart. “I thought perhaps you would not join me.”

            “What would keep me from it?” asked Ren, scoffing. It didn’t matter how tired she was, how her body still didn’t feel clean of blood, or how a small part of her heart ached as she killed any love she had possessed for the people she grew up with. Those feelings were weaknesses, and Ren could not show that to Sukuna.

            The King of Curses smirked. “Nothing, of course. I am far more important than anything else.”

Ren hated that he was both egotistical and, unfortunately for her, right.

            She cleared her throat and mentally thanked Uraume as the monk walked into the room with a cart holding Sukuna’s main dish. Somehow, they had made the corpse into what looked like innocent animal meat. Ren wondered how easily she would have bitten in if she didn’t know what it was. No matter, she wasn’t going to eat it now. She’d leave that to Sukuna.

            Several servants began to pass out plates of food to their Lord and Ren. Her jade eyes flicked to where Uraume stood to the side. They were not moving to sit down, seemingly waiting for Sukuna to dismiss them. Ren didn’t miss the way Sukuna’s eyes glanced at the monk the same way, hesitant to say anything.

            So Ren did. If it turned out Sukuna didn’t like, then oh well for him. “Uraume, would you like to join us?” Sukuna looked at Uraume instantly to gauge their reaction. Ren thought she spied something akin to hope, as close as the King of Curses could come to it, in his gaze.

            Uraume looked at Ren. “I am simply a chef, a servant…” They glanced at their Lord with the same slight witfulness in their eyes. “But if Sukuna-sama allows it…I would be honored, of course.” They bowed respectfully.

            Ren waved a hand and smiled. “Well, I’d like you to join us. Sukuna can be so temperamental, and I enjoy calmer company.”

            Sukuna glared at her. “You’re lucky you’re intelligent, otherwise you’d be dead.” Ren hummed and took a sip of wine. “And I prefer Uraume’s helpfulness to your stubbornness.”

            “Then it works out, we both prefer Uraume,” said Ren, smiling.

            Uraume flushed in annoyance and at the flattery, though they didn’t believe it. Ever since Ren had come into Sukuna’s life, he had been strange. Though Sukuna was never kind, Uraume had become accustomed to being the person he called upon to speak with and shared his plans with. Now there was Ren, and although Uraume understood that her Technique gave her formidable intelligence and her beauty was attractive to Sukuna, they still disliked the situation.

            “Well, it seems Sukuna would like your company, too,” said Ren. “Come sit and enjoy your hard work.” She glanced at the meat. “Or don’t, I’m not sure where your tastes lie.”

            Uraume sat down, still slightly uncomfortable. “I keep to my vegetables and fruits when we have no animal meat on hand.”

            Sukuna grinned menacingly. “These humans were nothing more than animals.”

            Ren raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it rumored you were a human?”

            Sukuna glowered at her and took a decisive bite of the meat. “That was a long time ago, and I was always superior to regular humans anyways.”

            Ren frowned and put down her glass. “How did you become a curse? Are you a vengeful spirit?” She looked to Uraume. “Do you know?”

            “If Sukuna-sama does not say, then it is no business of ours,” said Uraume, avoiding the subject. They knew Sukuna didn’t speak of the circumstances around his transformation into a curse, and even if they were curious, they asked for no explanation.

            “I am the King of Curses. Revealing the nature of my coming into power would be foolish, especially to someone as ready to manipulate others as you,” said Sukuna.

            Ren was slightly hurt of how little he thought of her, but she said nothing about it. Instead she smiled. “Ah, but isn’t that exactly why you’ve kept me around?” Sukuna said nothing of any of the reasons, especially the ones he wasn’t ready to face himself. She sighed in faux-ruefulness. “Uraume, I don’t know how you put up with this manipulator.”

            “Sukuna-sama manipulates the weak. I am not, and neither are you,” said Uraume. Sukuna smiled proudly and took a sip of wine.

            Ren nodded. “I didn’t think you were.”

            “I keep you both around because you serve a purpose,” said Sukuna, ending the way Uraume and Ren were bonding and even being slightly complimentary of one another. He disliked it but couldn’t explain why. His grip on his knife tightened, and he couldn’t wait for someone to take out his frustration on.

            Ren opened her mouth to respond as Uraume had a small smile on their face at the most normal, casual conversation they’d had in years, but she suddenly narrowed her eyes. “I hear screams. I think some servants are dying.”

            Sukuna stood and grinned. “A fool is attacking the palace.” He had something to take his anger out on, and he was going to enjoy it. “I shall enjoy destroying them.” Drawing up to his full height, he walked out of the room with bloodlust in his eyes.

            Ren and Uraume watched in silence as he left. Ren turned to Uraume. “Does he do that a lot?”

            “Inferior beings often try to prove their worth against Sukuna-sama, but none can match him,” said Uraume.

            “Well, then, while we’re alone, I think we need to have a conversation.” Ren leaned forward and laced her hands on the table.

            Uraume watched her warily, unsure of whether she was about to threaten or…honestly, they couldn’t picture her doing anything else. So, they prepared themself to hear Ren remind them of how Sukuna favored her and they weren’t important, just a cook. The respect Ren had was a false one. Some of the servants had done the same thing, trying to become friends with Uraume if only to gain favor with Sukuna. Of course, it never succeeded, and they ended up dead, but Ren was of enough value to Sukuna that she could do it. So Uraume set their stalwart gaze on Ren and prepared for her words.

            “I’m not here to replace you.”

[brighteyedbushybrowed]

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐚 (𝐄𝐝𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐱 𝐇𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫!𝐎𝐂)

𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 - 𝐒𝐧𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐧𝐨𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠

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A/N: Listen, I’m not saying that Eddie Jonathan and my OC are my golden trio, but... 

Tuesday November 8th, 1983

“Renee.”

Renee and Eddie both moved over to where Jonathan was standing, a pile of missing posters in his hand and a camera hanging from his neck. He looked like he’d barely slept, his hair dishevelled and his clothes scruffy.

“How are you holding up?” she asked, unsure of whether it was the right thing to ask or if she was being insensitive.

The boy opposite her glanced down at the missing posters he was holding. Two black and white photos of Will sat beneath the headline ‘have you seen me?’, the main text of the poster detailing his appearance and who to contact with information.

“Mom’s not doing too good. She just wants Will to come home, you know?”

Renee stepped forward and held one of his hands on hers. “And what about you? This can’t be easy for you either, Jonathan. Why don’t we help hand out posters? We can put them up wherever they still need putting and while we’re at it we can look for him.”

He gave her a weak but grateful smile. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”

“Great.” The brunette took half of the posters, shuffling them into a more organised pile. “We can meet up with you in a couple of hours and let you know if we find anything.”

“Sure. Meet at my house after school? It’ll give us time to hang all of the posters and for me to go and visit Lonnie.”

She winced at the mention of Jonathan and Will’s father. “You think he might have taken Will?”

A shrug. “I can’t rule it out. I’d better get going if we’re aiming to meet up at 3pm.”

Worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, Renee watched Jonathan leave the school building and shortly after dragged Eddie out to his van. She knew her dad would probably be informed of her skipping school but looking for Will was more important than going to class. Personally, she felt that getting grounded for however long would be worth it if it meant they’d find him faster.

Once in her friend’s van, the brunette ran a hand down her face. She could feel the anxiety starting to seep in, her hands trembling slightly. What if they never found him? What if they found him and he was dead? What if someone had kidnapped him and was never seen again? What if –

“Hey, hey, give me those posters. You’re gonna rip them if you grip them any tighter.”

Renee released her grasp as if releasing a deep breath she’d held in her lungs for too long and started to play with the hem of her shirt.

“Ren, we’re gonna find him I promise. There were no track marks or anything to suggest Lonnie would have taken him in the night. He’s probably hiding out somewhere,” Eddie told her, his tone soft as he stroked her arm.

Her eyes focused on the roof of the van as she tilted her head back. “What if he’s dead, Eds? What if he’s dead and it’s all my fault for not escorting him home?”

Squeezing her eyes shut, she allowed the metalhead to pull her into a tight hug. His scent of cigarettes, cheap aftershave, and faint hints of weed drifted up her nose and reminded her to keep breathing slowly. She would be no use to Jonathan or Will panicking and thinking the worst.

Eddie pulled back, brown meeting blue as they locked gazes. “You can’t think like that. We have to keep hoping, for Jonathan and Mrs Byers’ sakes. Come on, let’s go put these flyers up.”

The van erupted into life and Eddie turned the volume up on his stereo. The corners of Renee’s lips tugged upwards slightly as the sound of the Ramones filtered into the vehicle. Even though she wasn’t hopeful that they’d find him today, she was a little less tense than she was prior to jumping into the passenger seat.

That feeling of ease soon began to dissipate again throughout the hours that they hung up posters and looked for Will. Every townsperson they came across either ignored them completely or gave them odd looks when a flyer was shoved into their hands. For a community that supposedly cared for one another, everyone they’d encountered so far couldn’t have cared less about actively finding the young boy. It made Renee’s blood boil to think that people thought there were more important things to do than look for Will.

That was when she began her new approach.

Every time she stopped someone to hand out a flyer, she made sure to make them feel as guilty as possible if they seemed like they didn’t want to join the search. From asking them what they would do if it were their child to passive aggressively suggesting that if they didn’t care they were a suspect, she ensured that each apathetic citizen became a concerned one or in the very least one that looked more interested in the case. Sometimes it paid off to be the daughter of the chief of police.

When she and Eddie ran out of posters to hang up and hand out, they got back in the van and started to search in various places that Will frequented in case there were clues they could find there. They even made sure to check people’s gardens in case he’d somehow managed to run away from whatever had scared him and hidden in the shrubbery. Alas, they found nothing that could point them in the right direction. Renee tried not to let it show on her face, but the way the metalhead held her against his side as they returned to the van let her know she was doing a horrible job of concealing her disappointment.

By the time they returned to the school, Jonathan was already waiting for them next to his car.

“Did you find anything?” The hope in his voice had her staring down at her feet, unable to respond.

“Not yet, no. We did manage to hand out and put up all of the posters though. That should get more people looking and more ground covered, right?” Renee was grateful for Eddie speaking up on her behalf. At least someone was acting calm and collected out of the two of them.

“Right, yeah. I’m gonna go out to the woods to look again later, maybe take pictures of anything suspicious I found. Do you two wanna come with me?” Jonathan asked.

The brunette looked up and forced a smile onto her face. “Of course. We could check out the woods behind the Harringtons’ house if you’ve not looked there already.”

Jonathan was hesitant but agreed. The three of them arranged to meet down the road from the Byers’ house that night at 8pm so they could walk to the Harrington’s fancy house together and search from there.

 ***

 “Higher! Higher!”

Renee laughed as she pushed the swing harder. Sara squealed with delight and kicked her feet as high up as she was able to. Her pigtails flapped in the wind with each rise and fall of the swing. From somewhere behind her, the brunette heard the shutter of a camera and her parents talking about something she didn’t care to take in.

“Higher, Renny!” Sara’s voice was a mixture of joy and impatience.

“Any higher and you’ll go flying off into space. I can’t push you any higher!”

“Girls, it’s time to go,” their mom called to them. Both of them groaned in complaint until their dad stepped in.

“You’ve both got school tomorrow and you, Renee,” he said, “still have homework to finish. We can come back another time, c’mon.”

The brunette brought the swing to a stop and hauled her sister off. Sighing sadly, she looked back on the park before running to join her family who had already started on their way to the exit.

The photo in Renee’s hand had old teardrop stains splattered at one of the corners. She wiped away the tears that threatened to spill over and taped it back on her wall with the other photos she had of her family and friends. Her and her mom celebrating her thirteenth birthday party. Her dad burning hotdogs on the barbecue. Her and Eddie high off their tits on a joint of weed that was stronger than usual. Jonathan and Will having a swordfight using bits of old pipe they’d found in the scrapyard. A slightly blurred Eddie pouting and making a love heart with his hands at the camera after they’d stolen some of Wayne’s vodka and got drunk together.

If – no, when – they found Will, Renee was going to try and take more photos of him. Maybe draw a few pictures of him too. He was almost like a younger brother to her, and she wasn’t going to allow the opportunity to treat him as such pass her by again once he was safe and sound and back home where he belonged.

The knock on the door startled the brunette from her thoughts. She shrugged into a battered old denim jacket that her dad had given her to keep and picked up her backpack before answering the door.

Eddie, still clad in his thick hoodie and woolly hat, flashed her a smile. “Are we ready for round two with the woods?”

“As ready as I’m gonna be,” she replied. “Let’s take your vehicle. If I leave mine here, dad might see it and assume I’m asleep in bed rather than galivanting off to look for Will against his wishes.”

“That’s my girl.” The brunette lightly smacked his arm at his words. “We’d better go now if we don’t wanna be late.”

Renee made sure the door to the house was locked and followed Eddie to his van. The cool night air nipped at her exposed neck and she suppressed a shudder, hugging herself while she waited for the metalhead to unlock his vehicle. The moment she heard the click of the van doors, she rushed to get into the passenger seat and slammed the door to try and shut out the cold. She was silently grateful when Eddie turned up the heating before driving away towards the Byers’ home.

As her friend drove, the brunette stared out of the window at the dimly illuminated trees, the branches bare and spindly in the orange lights. The street was all but deserted, undoubtedly because of what had happened to Will. Renee didn’t spot a single child playing outside in their front yards. It felt like an abandoned ghost town. It felt empty. In the year since she’d moved to Hawkins, she couldn’t remember a time where the streets were devoid of life before 9pm.

Jonathan was waiting already waiting for them when they arrived at the meeting spot about half a mile from his house. Eddie parked near the trees and passed Renee a flashlight, grabbing one of his own as he removed his seatbelt. They jumped out of the vehicle and the brunette made her way over to Jonathan who already had his flashlight turned on and his camera hung around his neck.

“So,” Eddie started, “Harrington’s house is nearby? Didn’t realise you both lived so close to each other.”

Jonathan shifted awkwardly from one foot to another. “Sometimes we can hear his parties from our house. Will usually sleeps right through it, but it drives mom crazy. It’s a miracle she’s not called the cops on him.”

Renee scoffed. “Bold of you to assume my dad would need someone to call it in for him to go marching over there and putting an end to his loud ass parties. There’s a reason he hates Saturday nights, and that reason is Steve fucking Harrington.”

As much as she liked to think she was a kind person, Renee didn’t extend her kindness to Steve Harrington. Ever since she started attending Hawkins High the previous year, she’d noticed that he was an asshole towards people like Jonathan. People who weren’t trendy, popular, or constantly gussying him up verbally. He was always calling Jonathan a creep and a freak, and his friends Tommy and Carol always joined in on the tormenting. There’d been a few times where the brunette had stepped in to stop things going too far whenever it looked like Steve was going to do shit like taking his belongings or shoving him into lockers. She wasn’t entirely sure what Nancy Wheeler saw in him. Maybe the sheer amount of hairspray he used was so noxious it had muddied her judgement.

“Enough about Harrington, let’s get going. We won’t be able to search for too long if we don’t want Ren getting grounded for sneaking out of the house.” Eddie patted Renee’s shoulder.

“Yeah, right. Let’s go,” Jonathan replied before leading the way through the woods towards Steve’s house.

It didn’t take long for the three of them to trek down to the Harrington’s. In fact, even through the trees Renee saw it before they even arrived at the edge of the treeline. The sounds of laughter and shouting emanating from the backyard alerted the trio to the fact that Steve had people over and they were hanging out by his pool. The brunette could just about make out the forms of Tommy and Carol next to the pool, Nancy and her friend Barb sat on the pool loungers nearby. She couldn’t see Steve, but that suited her just fine.

“Renee and I will check that area over there.” Eddie pointed off to the right with his flashlight. “You’ve got things covered here, yeah?”

Jonathan just nodded before he picked up his camera and began to take photos of the surrounding woodland. Renee thought nothing of it and trod through the dead leaves and mud with Eddie in the direction he’d gestured to, their torches trained on the ground in search of clues. They scoured the ground together in silence for a few minutes before she finally spoke up.

“So, uh, what does a clue look like exactly in this scenario?”

The metalhead frowned. “What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “Well, yesterday we were looking for Will’s bike and instead we just found a random twelve year old girl in the rain. Today we looked for Will himself. What are we looking for out here?”

He licked his lips, his breath forming a little cloud in front of him as hot air hit cold. “Anything we think could belong to Will, I guess. Footprints, belongings, scraps of clothing caught on bushes or something. I don’t know, I’ve not really looked for a missing person before.”

“Me neither.” They both looked at each other for a moment then laughed.

“You know,” Eddie said, “if you’d told me when we met last year that I’d be stomping about in the woods looking for clues behind Harrington’s house I would’ve thought you were high and talking shit.”

She smiled in spite of the situation. “And if you’d told me I’d be sneaking off behind my dad’s back traipsing around the forest with you and nothing but a flashlight for protection, I would’ve thought the same thing.”

“It’s weird how things turn out, right?”

“Absolutely. We should wander around the forest at night more often. It’s kind of exciting.”

He gasped dramatically, a hand to his chest. “Renee Lynn Hopper, are you saying you’re enjoying hunting for a missing child in the dead of night with the local stoner?”

She shoved him lightly. “You said it, not me. But yeah, I am enjoying spending time with my best friend in the dead of night as you so aptly put it.”

“Aptly? God, you read too much.”

“And you, sir, don’t read enough.”

The lights on their torches suddenly began to flicker before going out completely. Renee flicked the on and off button a few times, the light refusing to turn back on. She hissed out an annoyed ‘fuck’ and turned to her friend.

“You got any batteries on you?”

Eddie looked at her in bewilderment. “Why would I carry batteries with me? We’ll just have to try and head back to Jonathan and hope we don’t fall and hit our heads and die.”

Renee didn’t dignify the last part with a response and clung onto Eddie’s arm as they ambled haphazardly back in the direction of Steve’s house. More than once the brunette’s foot caught on a branch and nearly sent the two of them flying. Her grip on the metalhead’s arm turned into her looping her arm through his so that she couldn’t accidentally let go of him.

They returned to the familiar, looming sight of the Harrington’s house to find Jonathan aiming his camera lens up at one of the windows while down on one knee. Smirking, Renee put a finger to her lips as she looked at Eddie then crept up behind the other boy. She waited a moment before tapping his shoulder and letting out a quiet ‘boo’.

Jonathan jumped slightly and glared at her. “Jesus, Ren, you scared the shit out of me. Did you find anything?”

Eddie joined the two of them and shook his head. “Nah. Our flashlights died so we had to come back. Did you get anything good on your camera?”

Renee piped up before he could reply. “Get any interesting pictures of Nancy by the pool?”

“N-no, just pictures of everyone partying and stuff. There wasn’t anything around here of Will’s that I could find so I just tried to kill the time.” In the moonlight, she could vaguely see a flush of red burning the tips of his ears and his neck.

“You sure you didn’t get any pervy pics of Nancy and Steve?”

Renee’s jaw dropped when he went even redder and looked away.

“Oh my god, ew, please don’t develop those pictures that’s gross.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“Yeah, man. That’s not cool.”

Jonathan stood up and began making his way back towards his house. Eddie began to follow after him, but Renee stayed behind for a moment as a shudder ran down her spine. She glanced behind her but saw nothing out of the ordinary – just the now deserted pool in the Harrington’s back yard.

Biting her lip, the brunette turned back around and set off to catch up with the two boys.

[thatsadbietch]

A War Hero’s Cry (Persona 5/Royal)

Warning for some possible spoilers.  Nothing super important to the main plot but still, here’s the warning!

A/N: This is my very first P5 piece, I’m excited to share it! I love writing and want to get better at it, so I’m very open to suggestions or comments!

Warning for mild cursing.

Ships: None

Word count: 2,455

---

These were the types of mornings that kept him going.  The mornings where he didn’t have to shuttle into a cramped subway, only to arrive at his destination and listen to lectures about various topics on which he’d studied before.  It was also a time between targets, to play it safe and just wait for another shitty adult to show their true colors so their Palace and Treasure can be claimed by the Phantom Thieves.

These mornings, where Ren could enjoy the peace and tranquility that came with a skillfully made cup of coffee, the smell of curry preparation for the day’s customers, and the sound of Sojiro humming while he worked.  These mornings are where he draws that cool and collected mentality required to be the leader of such a talented group of thieves.

He inhaled, taking in all the sensations around him, but was slightly startled by the sound of the bell’s chime, signaling a customer.  Perplexed, as the store hadn’t opened yet, he turned to find Futaba wondering into the café.  He exhaled and grinned, able to tell right away she’d just woken up: her amber-orange hair was still disheveled from sleep and her eyes were still drowsy looking. Not to mention she strolled in with her slippers and a pair of plush-looking pajama pants, black with green stars printed on them.  They suited her.

She slumped up on the stool next to Ren and yawned in place of her usual loud and energetic “Good Morning!” while she rested her head on the bar.

“Well,” Sojiro started, not bothering to hold back a chuckle at the scene, “Look who’s decided to join us among the living.” Though teasing, there was a type of sincerity there that gave away the warmness he felt for his adopted daughter.  She groaned groggily in response, pulling her hood up over her head and face.

“Long night?” Ren asked casually.  He enjoyed Futaba’s company regardless; he’d grown fond of her quirks and eccentric nature, and became something of an older brother figure to her.  But he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t grateful that she was still calm and quiet at the moment.

“Mmmhmm…” she groaned in response.  Ren nodded and took a sip of his coffee, counting down mentally, “Three…two…one…” Sure enough, on “one” Futaba lifted her head, hood still lazily hanging onto the top, and she began to explain.

“Well last night I got bored, so I started browsing the Phan-site and looking around for potential targets and was trying to find out more about the mental shutdowns, but then I got a Discuss app notification from my Herd of Heroes team asking if I wanted to help them in a tournament.  Of course, I couldn’t just leave them, my strategy and expertise are the backbone of the team! So…”

Ren and Sojiro shared a knowing smirk.  Classic Futaba.  Sojiro shook his head in mock exasperation.

“Staying up all night isn’t healthy, you know,” Ren began, “You ought to think about fixing your sleep schedule.  For your sake and for your teammates, both on and offline.  Are you listening?” He asked, poking her side to make sure he had her attention.  But now she had his and Sojiro’s, as neither expected the high-pitched squeak she made.

Ren chuckled and raised an eyebrow.  “What was that?”

Futaba looked a lot more awake, now that her eyes were widened, almost panicked.  “N-Nothing! You just startled me, that’s all.  Don’t you know its rude to pick on people, especially when they’ve just conquered ten different Herds of Heroes? I’m a war hero!”

“You’re also a pain sometimes,” Ren teased, poking at her again and eliciting the same sound.

“Ren, quit it!” Futaba whined, wrapping her arms around her sides for protection.  But she was so preoccupied dealing with Ren’s antics, she didn’t notice Sojiro make his way around the bar and behind her stool, placing his hands threateningly on her sides.  She was already trying to hold back the titters that began bubbling up.

“Futaba, you’ve been kept up in your room so long, I forgot you were ticklish,” Sojiro started, swiftly willing his wiggling fingers up and down her sides. She couldn’t offer much resistance as she immediately burst out in giggles and tried to grab for his wrists.

“NOOHOHO, SOHOHJIROOHOHO!” Futaba whined, not being able to say much else. She helplessly cackled and tried to push his hands away, doing an awful lot of squirming in the process.

“I remember your mom telling me she’d chase you around the house sometimes,” he recalled.  While telling his story he wrapped his arms around her middle and held her back against is chest, both to better trap her in his ticklish hold and to ensure she didn’t fall off the stool.  Using this new leverage, he scurried lightly over her small belly and belly button, causing a shriek, another noise neither had heard from her.  Ren figured his peaceful morning was over at this point and just embraced the silly nature the room had adopted.

“SOHOOHOJIEHEROOHOO DOOHOHON’T!! BWAHAHA!” She continued to cackle and writhe while he nonchalantly continued his story. Ren could tell Sojiro was rather enjoying his position right now.

“You’d ask her to play so many times in a day, and when you wouldn’t let up she’d run around the house with you until she finally caught you. Then… she’d get you!” he finished, adopting a slightly more sinister tone for emphasis as he quickly shot his fingers up to the poor child’s underarms, switching rapidly from fluttering teasingly and vibrating his fingertips there. She jumped and squealed, but was unable to do much else in his hold.

“NOHAHAT THEERAAHEHEHAA! SOJIEHEEHAHA!” Futaba couldn’t even beg properly anymore as she threw her head back onto his shoulder, trying desperately to squirm her way out of his grip. “D’you have a strategy for getting out of this one, war hero?” Sojiro teased, causing a deeper blush on Futaba’s already reddened face.

“SOOOHOHOJEEEOROO, I CAHAHN’T!!” Not long after that did Sojiro let up, but held her still for a beat or two.  Again, to make sure she didn’t fall.  Futaba breathed rapidly and leaned back on Sojiro, who will never admit how much his heart swelled at the act. He chuckled again and released the child, ruffling her already messy hair.

Ren wasn’t quite sure what to do besides sit on the sidelines and watch the commotion unfold.  His own parents, while supportive and caring, were never really physically affectionate toward him. He couldn’t recall if he even was ticklish.  But he chuckled contently.  “So, about being a war hero…”

“YOU! Don’t even say anything! YOU started it and DIDN’T BOTHER TO HELP ME! Some leader you are!” Futaba exclaimed, clearly regaining her energy as she stood quickly and drilled quick and relentless pokes to his sides.  She’d only expected to get her point across but was so much more pleased when Ren sharply inhaled and flailed to keep her hands away from him.  Well, that answered his question.

“Mwehehehe… Perfect!” She snickered evilly.  Ren jumped back from his stool and realized he was cornered: Futaba stood between him and the front door, and the increasingly mischievous glare from Sojiro wasn’t at all comforting—it was clear he had no intention of helping Ren out of this.

Suddenly, the Phantom Thief leader did the unexpected: turned and fled up the stairs.

“HEY! Get back here, coward!” Futaba called after him, but wasn’t as fast, especially since Ren could easily climb two stairs at a time.

“I might be able to maneuver my way back down the stairs and out the door,” he thought, being sure to give himself some space as Futaba reached his room. Though he had the upper hand in skill, Futaba looked determined, almost as much as when she’s in a Palace.

“I’ll show you a war hero!” she declared, and lunged for the teen, who dodged her with relative ease. But it happened quickly: one minute he had a clear path to the stairs, and the next he was turned around with his arms pinned to his back.  Sojiro chuckled.

“I didn’t think the leader would be so predictable, but Futaba read you like a book.  I bet her team would be lost without her,” he commented.  “And don’t look so surprised.  I used to be with the Feds, remember? Catching runners just comes with the territory.” Ren swore there was some giddiness in Sojiro’s voice, he must be having fun with this. But the boy didn’t struggle against him.  In wit and leadership, Ren might have the upper hand. And he was strong, too, from all the training with Ryuji and previous missions. But in pure manpower, and given the position we was in, he hadn’t a chance against Sojiro.

“Hey, you’re being awful quiet for someone who just got captured,” Futaba remarked, getting Ren out of his head and back to the moment; the moment Sojiro lightheartedly pushed the boy onto his couch so Futaba could pounce and begin her ticklish assault, starting strong by pushing up the hem of his shirt and scurrying her fingers on his bare stomach.  Ren gritted his teeth, trying not to let out the giggles that were bubbling up. He went to grab at her wrists, only for Sojiro to grab his first and pin them over his head, allowing the redheaded tech-wiz full access to his torso.

“Damnhihit!” Ren muttered, trying to break Sojiro’s grip.

“Was that a laugh, mighty leader?” Futaba teased, sticking one wiggling finger in his belly button.  Ren inhaled sharply again and arched his back reflexively, ironically giving Futaba better access to the sensitive area.  But he shook his head violently and groaned to cover any indication of escaped giggles.

“Yeah, THAT’S convincing,” Futaba said with an eye roll, changing tactics by pinching along his sides until she reached his ribs.  The moment her fingers swiped along his bottom ribs, he twisted and struggled, trying desperately to throw her off of him.  But with her straddling his thighs and Sojiro holding his arms, that was not going to be an easy feat.  

“Well? Was it a laugh? Is the feared leader of the Phantom Thieves ticklish?”

“Doohoohn’t Futaba!” He muttered, unable to keep his giggling completely at bay anymore while he felt his face heat up in forming a blush.

“Now I think that was a laugh,” Sojiro teased, encouraging Futaba to go in for the kill.

“Dahahamit, let mehehe go, old maahan!”  Ren said.  Out loud. He did not mean to say that out loud.  He was trying so hard not to laugh that he didn’t (or rather, couldn’t) think, and the words just fell out.  Futaba stopped tickling and both children looked to Sojiro.  He just looked blankly at Ren, and took both his wrists into one hand.

“Oh ho, you’re about to get wrecked!” Futaba exclaimed giddily, waiting for Sojiro’s move.

“Sir, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorrEHEHEEHHEE! NOOHOHHOHAAHAHA!!”  With his free hand, Sojiro curled and wriggled his fingers into the teen’s rib cage, and the dam holding back Ren’s giggles burst into a loud, unhindered belly laugh. Neither Futaba nor Sojiro had ever heard their quiet and composed LeBlanc tenant laugh, not like this, and they both chuckled: it seemed it was contagious.

“S-STOOHOHOP LAHAHUGHING AT M-MMEEEHEHE! AHH! HAHAHA!” He begged, and screeched in surprise when he felt Futaba pinch and scratch his bottommost ribs on the side that Sojiro wasn’t absolutely tormenting.  

Sojiro switched up his methods a bit, now vibrating his fingertips in the space between Ren’s ribs and underarms, earning another shriek. “I can’t believe this guy is the one everyone’s fussing over.  He looks pretty harmless to me!” The caregiver taunted.  Ren shook his head, as if fighting the ever-darkening redness from appearing on his cheeks.

“So our fearless leader can be taken down with a couple good tickles, I see. Mwehehe, wait until I tell the others~” Futaba teased, and raked her nails from his ribs down his sides, and scurried them haphazardly all over his bare belly. Ren threw his head back in renewed cackles, his heels digging into the couch behind the sadistic girl.

“NOOHOO, DOHOHOHON’T T-TELL TH-THEEHEHEM! AHAHACK! SOJIHEHERO, I CAAHAHN’T AHAHA!” Ren begged as his guardian released his wrists, only to quickly attack the hollows of his underarms, kneading and vibrating in the region, and making the raven-haired boy go into hysterics, if he wasn’t already. He clamped his arms down quickly, trapping Sojiro’s hands.

“Well now my hands are stuck here.  I guess I’d better make the most of it,” he taunted further, snickering at the continuous stream of boyish laugher he was eliciting from the usually stoic kid.

“DOHOHN’T TEHEHEASE MEEHEEHE, PLEEHEEASE, NOOHOHOHO!”

“Oh, now he’s learned some manners!” Sojiro responded spiritedly. Futaba relented finally, figuring her request for revenge had been satisfied. Plus, Ren looked like he could use a little mercy right now.

“Ya know, you look kinda cute like this! Maybe if I can get a picture, or a video!-”

“DOHON’T YOU DAHAHARE!”

“I know they would enjoy this dirt I’ve got on you!”

“IHEHE’LL EHEHEND YOOHOHOU!”

“Ya know,” Sojiro started, “you aren’t in any place to be making threats. Or to be calling me old, only I can do that.”

“I SAIHEHED I’M SORRYEHEHE!” Ren spat out, his laughter starting to go silent. Sojiro chuckled again and finally released the teen from his grip.  They watched as Ren greedily gasped for air and rubbed his eyes to find he’d been crying mirthful tears.

“I guess I’m sorry too, I think I got carried away there.  You all right?” Sojiro asked, motioning for Futaba to get off of his legs.  He nodded, still breathing heavily, but starting steadying.

“Futaba was right, you are kinda cute like that,” Sojiro teased, and the teen covered his faced and groaned, followed by a muffled “I am NOT.”

“Don’t go pouting, you’re still in a pretty vulnerable position,” Sojiro replied, offering a quick poke to his side, causing a jolt and a lighter giggle. The guardian looked at his watch and sighed.

“Great, Ren, you made me late for opening up shop,” he muttered, but there was no malice behind it.

“Oh yeah, gotta open the doors for your daily swarm of customers,” Futaba commented half-heartedly.

“Hey! I have my morning regulars, young lady.” Sojiro retorted. “You need to watch your tone.  You saw what happened to the last guy that had something smart to say.”  Ren groaned, and finally sat up, looking at the other two people occupying his room.  He watched them continue their argument as he shook his head in exasperation with a grin.

[kitkatopinions]

The only way I can see RWBY recovering in quality is if the island arc in volume 9 ends with seemingly days passing in the island world and a time skip in Remnant. The world of Remnant and their friends have moved on from the loss of RWBYJ in Atlas and have been dealing with Salem for 3 years or so. Gives the world time to heal from the damage RWBY+ caused in Atlas and with the broadcast and realize how much they fucked up following Ruby Rose blindly. Solves the age gap debates of Rosegarden if that's the ship they want to go with for Ruby and Oscar. Let's Sun move on from Blake organically and allows Blake to come to terms with any romantic feelings she had for him and how that chance is long gone. An opportunity for Salem to take control in a way that might not have been possible were it not for RWBY+'s actions in Atlas. Shows that the protagonists can fuck up and suffer consequences.

Ahhh, see, I specifically don't want a time skip because I think it likely will be a way to remove the affects of a bunch of the stuff that I want pay off for. You say that having the world have time to heal from RWBY + actions would be a good way to show the consequences, but I disagree with that. I think that'd actually be the quickest way to make Ruby's actions not matter and not seem important. Having her forced to see the full effects of her actions as the suffering is unfolding in front of her would be a way to get her to actually see for herself that maybe she's made some massive mistakes.

Can I paint a picture for you?

Ruby, Yang, Blake, Weiss, and Jaune get back from the island quickly, only a day having gone by for the people in Remnant. The refugees have just arrived in Vacuo, they lost tons of people trying to get through the desert, everyone is staggering with exhaustion as they move through the Vacuo streets, parents carrying their sobbing children, there are people throwing rocks at Winter and people trying to beg her to save them because they saw her fly through the gates and guessed that she was magic, there's sirens over a comm system in the city, trying to alert everyone to remain calm that's been going on for the hours it's taken to try and get everyone in and calm-ish in the first place. On top of that, the gates are flooded with guards working around the clock to keep Grimm out of the city, some of the exhausted Atlas hunters have gone there as well, Ren and Fiona and Team SSSN are desperately defending the last few hundred stragglers as they arrive. Ruby, Yang, Weiss, Blake, and Jaune are shocked, dismayed, they manage to get to the Academy where Nora is there with Oscar and Theodore, Theodore trying to get in contact with the Vacuo council in clear distress. Oscar tells them that everything has gone wrong, that everyone is panicking, that Vacuo was already struggling with keeping the Grimm away from the city when Ruby's message came, and with the addition of the refugees, the Grimm are coming in by the hundreds - by the thousands - almost more than the Vacuo authorities can fight back. Ruby is so confused, she'd been trying to reunite the world! But she just brought panic instead, and she now has to contend with that while seeing the immediate aftermath. She knows Qrow is missing, she tries calling him on her scroll, hoping she just missed him among the refugees. She and Yang are going crazy with worry, they think he might've been stuck in Atlas, he might be hurt, he might be dead, he might get captured by Salem, and they both have to face that. Being assigned by Theodore to help get refugees to the homes they've been temporarily assigned to squeeze into, Ruby is confronted by grieving families who lost everything, parents who tell her their daughter was one of the Atlas soldiers who died fighting on the front lines at Atlas, a couple with four kids spit at her and refuse her help because to them, her broadcast felt like a death sentence for Atlas while she called for hope for the rest of the world like they didn't matter. As she's traveling, Ruby runs into Neon and Flynt. They're angry and bitter too, coldly telling her that Ivori and Kobalt died in the fight against Salem. Ruby leaves that encounter wiping away tears. She wants to break down, but then gets assigned her next family to move and has to push it down and get back to work trying to do her job. Meanwhile Weiss has to deal with a brother who still clearly needs someone to help and take care of him when their relationship is somewhat rocky. Nora and Ren have to have distance and sort through what they want in their relationship and we see that and the immediate affects of their breakup. Salem has two Relics and Ruby has to explain that to Ozpin and maybe admit some mistakes and apologize while it's still relevant enough to matter to him. Emerald sees the affects of a lot of what she's done and has to contend with the fact that Mercury will be in Vacuo and she has to choose whether to try and help him or fight him instead. Mercury and Tyrian have to react in real time to the fact that the Atlas plans went completely sideways and now there's tons of people from Atlas here ruining whatever plans they have for Vacuo. Team RWBY work with Team SSSN while his and Blake's relationship is still clearly going to matter to him and he wants to continue where they left things and she has to explain her shift in feelings. Oscar is still contending with the fact that he and Oz are going to merge someday, asking questions about that. Salem must regroup now with so few people, and Cinder is going to have to try and keep up her lies in real time. Neo (if she survived the

island) is going to actually have to either get scrapped as a character or grow beyond her motivation of just wanting revenge. Winter is dealing with powers that are still new (remember, Maidens being 'new' is supposed to mean something) and having her whole world crash around her, while also maybe finally interacting with the family members outside of Weiss who have just had their entire way of life gone and now must adjust to sudden poverty. Qrow, Robyn, and the Ace Ops might have a storyline where they deal with what just happened themselves, maybe launching rescue for some of the people who didn't make it through the portals (like Pietro and Maria.)

These are all really important things that we should be expecting pay off for that should get focus and development. Ren and Nora's relationship problems, Oscar dealing with merging with Oz, how Cinder is going to regroup now, what will happen with Mercury, what the Schnees will do now they've suddenly lost everything, how Emerald is going to go on from her 'side switching,' how Qrow and Robyn reacted and where they'll go from here, whether or not Vacuo can even take in refugees, what the people think of RWBY and what consequences they've had to go through, and especially RWBY seeing the aftermath of the things instead of being allowed to just move on to the next thing and write it off as a victory like they did with Haven... All of that is something that we're likely to miss if we have a big time skip.

What I really don't want is for everyone to get back to the world after three to five years have passed only to see that it's doing pretty okay right now. Vacuo thriving with the Grimm population under control, and everything a little crowded, but most of the Atlas population settled in their new homes at this point, many of the important relationships of the side cast have been solved off screen and Maria, Pietro, and Qrow are already in Vacuo and have already adjusted to their various losses (both real for Pietro and believed for Qrow,) while (like you suggested,) Sun has just moved on from his dead former love interest he never got closure with that he promised to see again, because it has been years, and BlackSun fans like me see him in some relationship with someone he's never had any growth at all with (or maybe Neptune, which is... the preferable option over someone Sun's never actually talked to before.) Now Ruby doesn't see that her choices have caused major problems, instead she sees a city doing fine and if anyone is angry at her for causing them problems three to five years ago, they're mean. She's been supposedly dead for years and that person is just fine now! How can they yell at her? Now she doesn't see people suffering and Grimm flooding, she sees that her plan worked out in the long run, everyone just needed to hold on and have faith. She doesn't see a giant economic crash and families uprooted and soldiers dead and Pietro's reaction to the death of his daughter and people panicking over Salem... Ruby sees people talking about Salem as common knowledge, amassing troops to go after her now that the 'hard times' have started to pass, and she's validated. She knew it would turn out, she knew if she just believed, things would start working out!

I don't think the writers could save this show with a time skip, I think they'd just use it as a way to jump past the immediate affects of Ruby and her group's actions and avoid organic growth and problem solving while 'not being unrealistic' about it. If they brought RWBYJ back to Remnant within days, weeks, or even months, people expect real repercussions for the things that happened in the previous couple of seasons. They won't be able to just pretend none of it happened - or they might, but then most people will (hopefully) realize that's stupid.

So their choices are 1. just waving everything away and pretending there aren't any consequences to actions, 2. bring RWBYJ back in days, weeks, or months and address and deal with problems in a way that feels natural, 3. have a time skip so they can bypass the affects and consequences and avoid giving pay off for much of the things that fans have been expecting and waiting around for.

[itsclydebitches]

Another thing about how rwby views trauma survivors reacting to their abuse or unfortunate background is that it frames the solution to healing is by serving in armed forces. Weiss and Blake joined Beacon to escape their abuser. Ren and Nora joined Beacon after the loss of their families. Winter joined the military to escape Jacques and I'm assuming will become the new Atlas general after Ironwood's death. The Huntsmen Academies are all framed as these safe havens (literally with Mistral) for anyone who can carry a weapon, meanwhile anyone who can't or doesn't want to join, or joins a group outside of the institution is depicted as bad.

To say that this is all muddied would be a huge understatement because even if we put aside the complicated message of, "Overcome your abuse by learning to punch back," at this point the combined huntsmen-military is no longer presented as a means of escape. Rather, between the rewriting of Winter's history – she has apparently been manipulated by Ironwood this whole time rather than choosing the military as a means of escaping her abuser – as well as the military aligned huntsmen – FNKI aren't heroes like RWBYJNOR anymore, willingly protecting their home, they're children who have been forced into this conflict – there's now this major divide between fighters-on-their-own and fighters-as-part-of-the-institution. We could even read this as extending to the huntsmen academies themselves, given that one has fallen, one was destroyed, and the other lost its figurehead. They used to be presented as havens for struggling individuals... now, not so much. The plot's message is not that heroes win by banding together through established structures that were designed to help those coming from bad circumstances (note how aware Ozpin is of these backstories: Qrow's bandit tribe, Blake's White Fang history, looking into Ruby's defense of the store, etc.), but rather you win by rag-tag individuals making decisions based on friendship.

Yet simultaneously, that divide is by no means neat and tidy (since plenty of stories have that latter message). As we've discussed elsewhere, RWBYJNOR is ingrained in these structures despite the story rejecting them. They got their initial training at Beacon (how many fans have argued that they learned enough there? That they're basically full-fledged huntsmen already? So, that school was pretty important, yeah?). They worked with Ironwood for months. They're using the prestige of their licenses to get people to listen to them. They're hijacking military equipment to give the world orders to prepare for an attack. Ruby became a general in all but title in that moment, in the same way that Weiss became the Remnant equivalent of a cop when she tried to arrest her father. Volumes 6-8 suddenly wanted to send an anti-military message without considering the context of their story (what does a military mean in a world where unambiguously evil monsters attack, as opposed to a world where these "monsters" are minorities?) and they failed to separate the heroes from the structures they so passionately reject. You cannot have the group stand in opposition to Ironwood and everything he represents while also encouraging the audience to oohh and ahhh at Jaune whipping out his huntsmen license to lead a group of civilians to safety. The supposed cruelty of the former and supposed heroism of the latter are meant to exist simultaneously, despite the contradiction. We went from the message that huntsmen academies, including Atlas', are a haven from abuse, poverty, etc. but now, suddenly, certain types of escapes are no longer morally sound. So just ignore how many of the heroes took the "wrong" path.

And then on top of all of that we have Rhodes. RWBY is pushing the individualism message hard nowadays – that a group of friends is better than a general and his soldiers just ignore that Ruby is their leader and they all follow her orders – yet it's Rhodes' individuality that is criticized in Cinder's flashback. He, as a single person, tries to take on the complex situation of helping an abused child and he failed. The fandom's reaction to his efforts is pretty telling because most kept falling back on structural solutions: "Why didn't he just call CPS? Why didn't he get her admitted early like Ruby? Why didn't he approach some superior to fix all this?" Most fans seemed to grudgingly acknowledge that kidnapping Cinder and raising this traumatized kid on the road while hunting grimm was... not the best idea, so they turned to the very things they've rejected in Ruby's part of the story: laws that people have to follow, schools with an hierarchy that can serve as support, someone above you whose orders you follow and whose seniority can help you in a tough situation. In Cinder's flashback people wanted Remnant to have structural solutions because, clearly, leaving one flawed man to fix this situation on his own didn't turn out so well. They (and the writers) just don't want Ruby to have to obey those same structures because Ruby is the title hero they've grown to love over eight years. We feel like we know Ruby and we assume that if Ruby is in charge she'd totally make the best decision. But Rhodes? He's a stranger, someone we see for less than ten minutes, so his flaws are far easier to home in on. Few are willing to acknowledge that Ruby is Rhodes on a much larger scale, trying things because she wants to help, but ultimately doing far more harm because she's incredibly inexperienced and is just running on her own, individual ideas, not any of the structures in place that are meant to deal with such crises. Rhodes' "Idk what else to do, so I guess I'll teach a tortured kid how to defend herself and hope for the best" is Ruby's "Idk what else to do, so I guess I'll drop Atlas on Mantle, leave with the Relics, move everyone to Vacuo, and hope for the best." The primary difference is that while Rhodes is punished through his death and the narrative makes it clear that this was the wrong choice (Cinder murders everyone and becomes a villain), whereas Ruby's screwups are continually framed as heroic. And that's because the show can't make up its mind about this structural vs. individual approach. Do huntsmen need to be held responsible for their actions, or do they need complete freedom to do the right thing with the belief that anything that goes wrong was completely out of their hands (Yangs' take)? Well, that depends entirely on which huntsmen we're talking about. RWBY's idea that some people are intrinsically good and others intrinsically bad means that the writing – and the fandom – can demand rogue huntsmen be held accountable while simultaneously cheering the group running away from arrest; curse Clover for following orders while simultaneously gushing over how loyal the group is to Ruby; condemn lies that Ozpin gives while simultaneously justifying the ones Ruby gives, etc. RWBY has no clear message, just the insistence that whatever our heroes does is good. The path they've taken, learning to fight to escape horrific situation is a good thing. The path Rhodes laid out, teaching Cinder to fight to escape a horrific situation, is a bad thing. It comes down to the characters, not the situation.

Finally, yeah, there's a complete lack of acknowledgment that either option – structural or individual – alienates those who don't know how to fight. This is seen most clearly in Whitley who asks why he'd want to be a huntsmen when he can afford an army, yet when armies are painted as unquestionably bad, the story won't admit that this leaves Whitley stranded. He had no way to escape his abuse like Winter and Weiss did. He had no way to defend himself when Weiss shoved a weapon in his face. The story never had to grapple with where it's left characters who can't fight and who shouldn't make the evil choice of relying on soldiers because Whitley unexpectedly got on Weiss' good side and gained her protection. It doesn't matter anymore because Whitley is a Good Guy now who the group will take care of. But if he'd continued to disagree? Gone to his room instead of calling Klein? If, in the future, he does something that annoys his sisters and they decide to ignore him like they did before? Well, Whitley is screwed. In a world besieged by grimm – with attacks growing with each volume – he wanted to rely on an army to help solve these problems. But then that was said to be wrong, the general died, and the army, far as we can tell, was left behind to die as well. So what's left? Rely on the huntsmen. Just hope that there are enough (there aren't), that you get a good one (not a Lionheart, or a Raven, or a Cardin, or a Dudley, or...), and that the good ones care enough to bother protecting you. Even if the story hadn't gone out of its way to show how terribly flawed individual huntsmen are – from Lionheart's devastating betrayal to Qrow teaming up with Tyrian – from a practical perspective it's just not enough. Volume 8 showed without a doubt that in a war like this, one built on a witch's ability to summon endless grimm, an army is necessary. Salem would have been into Atlas in a second without those soldiers holding her forces back. Yang, Jaune, and Ren wouldn't have gotten to the whale without that army. Yet the story never acknowledges this, instead pretending like the few individuals we see – the limited numbers the characters keep admitting are horrendously limited – could have somehow saved the day without that assistance. Everything we're seeing nowadays – which characters can use these institutions to escape abuse, which can lie to help the war, which should rely on structures as opposed to their own ideas and physical power – is a mess of inconsistent, often contradictory messages.

[writing-is-my-guilty-pleasure]

Patient || Kylo Ren/Ben Solo x Reader ~ Part 4

A/N: Part 4! Thanks for everyone’s patience (lol) with this part - Uni has been incredibly time consuming and I’ve just been too tired to write anything - so I’m trying to write a few things in advance on my Christmas holiday! I think there should only be one or two more parts in this series, and feedback is always welcome :)

Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 

Main Masterlist

Star Wars Masterlist

“What’s your reason?” Your eyes flickered up to meet Kylo’s after he spoke, trying to make sense of his question as your eyes unintentionally trailed over his face.

“My reason for what, Sir?” You eventually replied as you gave up trying to figure out what he was talking about. Why did he have to speak so cryptically? “You’re going to have to give me more than that – it could mean anything knowing you.” You smiled cheekily at him from your position at the end of his bed; this time he’d called you with a deep gash stretching up the side of his left leg. It looked incredibly painful, and you couldn’t comprehend how he was purposefully putting himself through this much pain just to see you – at least, that’s what you hoped he was doing, otherwise you were completely misreading this whole situation.

“You reason for joining the First Order.” Kylo spoke bluntly. “You’ve been fixing me up for months now, and yet I feel like we are still strangers to each other.” If you hadn’t just averted your gaze back to his leg, you might have noticed the corners of his lips twitch up into the slightest shadow of a smile – but it was gone as quickly as it came.

“Oh! Oh, right, of course.” You smiled. “Well, my father was the Chief Medical Officer when he was in the First Order, and on his breaks he’d always try and teach me as much as he could about medicine before my mother caught him teaching me things that were too gory or troubling for my ‘young eyes’.” You huffed out a laugh at the thought of your parents. “So I joined because I wanted to be a Doctor and to hopefully be the Chief Medical Officer myself one day – I love my father and I’d be proud to follow in his footsteps and be as half as successful as he was.”

“And I wouldn’t say we’re strangers – I mean I’m pretty familiar with your body by now.” Your eyes widened at the realisation of what you said, and you continued in slight panic. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it to sound like that at all, Sir, oh dear.” You sighed, deflated. “I look like such an idiot now.” You muttered under your breath, as you returned your efforts to applying some soothing balm to Kylo’s wound, and preparing the equipment you’d need to give him stitches.

“It’s alright.” Kylo peered down at his leg to try and see what you were doing. “I’m used to your tongue-tied manner of speaking by now.” You raised your eyebrows in surprise.

You let out a giggle at his attempt at a mild joke, and the rest of your visit was spent in friendly silence, dispersed with the occasional small talk.

 “Y/N!” You jerked upright in your seat, blinking rapidly as you came to your senses, the memory of one of your favourite interactions with Kylo fading from your mind. Yasmyn was staring at you in slight concern. “Are you alright? I’ve been trying to get your attention for a minute now.”

“Oh yes, sorry!” You sighed, running a hand through your hair distractedly. “I’m fine thanks, just a bit tired I guess.” You adjusted yourself on Yasmyn’s bed; the two of you were having your weekly girl’s night – or as girly as it could get aboard the ship.

“Something on your mind?” Yasmyn asked sympathetically as she finished braiding her long, dark hair. “Or someone?” She grinned at you, wiggling her eyebrows. “Maybe someone tall, dark and mysterious?”

“I wasn’t thinking about Kylo.” You chided firmly, trying not to let your blush be too visible. At least once every girl’s night the topic of Kylo Ren would be brought up, as Yasmyn was always eager to hear about what the you and Kylo had shared with each other, because ‘even though he’s practically the leader of our fleet, nobody knows anything about him, and the gossip on this ship is so dry, your relationship with Kylo is the only thing I have going right now’.

“I never said you were thinking about Kylo.” Yasmyn grinned triumphantly. “I only said you might be thinking about someone tall, dark and mysterious. I never said it was Kylo, Y/N. I never said-” She was cut off as you threw a pillow at her face in retaliation.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Another two months had gone by since Kylo’s incident with the ‘scavenger girl’ – although it was never too easy to tell the time in space, and you had gone from being someone relatively quiet and unknown except to those you worked with, to someone whose name was slowly being passed around the entire ship. This wasn’t your fault – you hated having more attention than was necessary – no, the only person you could blame for this sort of attention was none other than Kylo Ren.

Over these two months, he’d managed to amass a mysterious amounts of injuries – when you compared the sheer amount of times you’d been called in to the times he was off the ship or in training, you were finding it harder and harder to believe that Kylo wasn’t getting all these injuries on purpose. But try as you might, you couldn’t really complain about it, as every time that you were called to assist Kylo, the more you got to know him, and the more you opened up to him.

But the closer the two of you grew, the more the rumours started to spread around the ship; and they were very clearly not in your favour. Because the more you were sent to assist Kylo, the more your co-workers noticed, and the nosier they all got; every time you returned from a trip to Kylo’s room you were crowded with questions from those closer to you, and judgemental and resentful glances from everyone else.

By now, whether because of these rumours or not, you’d got a reputation for yourself, and had even been personally called by other high-ranking officers to personally assist them – if you were good enough for Kylo Ren, then you were good enough for them. And that was actually how you got yourself into the situation that you were currently in. You were currently attending a very important meeting regarding a mission that would put quite a lot of Stormtroopers at risk, so you had also brought various medical records and lists of all the medical equipment on-board the ship. You had also had to evaluate the percentages of how many soldiers would either die or be seriously injured, so the rest of the medical team could prepare the right amount of equipment.

When the meeting was originally arranged, it was supposed to be attended by the Chief Medical Officer, however he was needed elsewhere; he had an emergency surgery that he needed to attend, and he trusted you out of all the other medics to cover for him. Possibly because he knew Kylo…favoured you over everyone else.

“So,” General Hux spoke up, finally starting the meeting. “The attack on the rebel base will begin with at least a quarter of the soldiers on-board, as we currently only have a rough estimate of just how many rebel soldiers are hiding out in that base.” You nodded, typing out quick notes on your personal padd for later.

“We’ll most likely be sending about one third or our forces down to begin with – enough to scare the rebel forces and if needed we can send in reinforcements.” Hux moved tiny digital figures about on a screen, illustrating where each group of the forces would be positioned to attack the base. “The rest of the fleet will be on standby in case a new strategy is required and a temporary retreat is needed. I would hope that our forces aren’t pathetic enough for us to even consider retreating.” He turned abruptly, eyeing you haughtily. “Do we have sufficient medical supplies for the foreseeable casualties?”

You looked up nervously from your padd – you’d been making rough notes about this most recent plan so you could report back to your boss and he could begin to prepare everything.

“Yes, General Hux, I do believe that we have enough supplies.” You pulled yourself together, trying not to ‘um’ and ‘err’ your way through your sentence. “But of course, I will send all the necessary figures to my superior as I do not have full access to all our equipment, and in the case that there are any supplies we may be short on.” You added as an afterthought – if there was anything that needed to be ordered you didn’t want the responsibility to be solely yours. “One third of the forces was it? And the rest on standby…” You re-capped while scribbling down extra notes. “And my superior sends his most sincere apologies that he could not be here instead of me.”

“No matter.” General Hux waved away your apology indifferently. “As long as all information gets relayed I could not care less who is here in his stead.” And with that, he continued with explaining the various stages of the attack.

Then, just as you were retreating slightly back into the mass of officers crowded around the main screen, you heard someone speak under their breath; ‘Well, it won’t be long until she does have authority to all our medical supplies, considering she’s been sleeping her way to the top with Ren. And then who knows how irresponsibly she’d use our supplies.”

You stop where you stand, feeling a flush creep up your face, turning it bright red in embarrassment. You could see those nearest to you glancing in your direction with obvious distain and disapproval, as if they were imagining a future where you were in some ways their superior. You could hear whispers on every side, many of them agreeing with the nameless whisperer, and you finally opened your mouth to defend yourself, when-

“I hope you’re not insinuating that I, the descendant of Darth Vader, would be capable of behaving like a common whore on my ship.” Kylo’s cold, slightly robotic voice echoed loudly across the room, silencing everyone, including General Hux. Nobody dared to speak, and you stood frozen in a mix of fear and embarrassment. “Because that’s certainly what it sounded like, Lieutenant Kendell.” At this, a few people subtly turned their heads in the direction of the offending statement, and you turned to see a relatively weedy looking man visibly shrink away from Kylo.

“I- of course, no sir, I didn’t mean to offend you-” You watched him backtrack, stammering over his response as Kylo simply stood, watching him. “I-I simply wish to see our forces grow and thrive, and was only remarking that this medic would not be our best way of seeing this happen – I mean she may be far too inexperienced for such a role-”

“So you assume she is using me to gain status? Her family name far outranks yours in any case, Lieutenant, so such foolish thoughts are unnecessary.” Kylo interrupted, and the room seemed to grow darker. “You assumed that I would succumb to any such advances?” He took one single step towards the unfortunate Lieutenant. “You forget your place, Lieutenant. It would be wise not to do so again in the future. It would be unfortunate to lose a member of our staff because of such a foolish mistake.” With this threat hanging in the air, he turned, cape flowing dramatically behind him, to face Hux, who continued his speech.

As everyone began to settle down, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander as you replayed the conflict. You weren’t hurt by Kylo’s behaviour, more confused that he would go out of his way to seemingly defend your honour – you assumed he wouldn’t want people to know that the two of you were even relatively acquainted. You mulled over your thoughts, confusion fogging your mind as you absentmindedly followed suite and exited the room amidst the other officers, heading back to the med-wing.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Later that day, after you’d relayed all information back to your boss, and sent him the notes you’d made, you finally made the journey back to your room. Luckily, it was your day off tomorrow, so you could afford to have a nice, relaxing shower that would hopefully clear your mind of the stresses of the day.

Eventually, when you’d got out of the shower and put on less formal clothes, (not quite pyjamas – these were your own clothes so your evening consisted of leggings and an oversized shirt) you just so happened to check your padd for any messages from Yas, when you saw a message in your inbox that was unread. Upon checking it, your blood ran cold – it had been sent 8 minutes ago, and it was from Kylo himself. Not another officer messaging on his behalf, but from Kylo himself.

You sat bolt upright from where you had been reclining in bed, and double checked the message. It was from Kylo alright, and it had been sent-

“Eight minutes ago?!” You shrieked, hurriedly scrambling to your feet, shoving your feet in your usual uniformed shoes, pulling on a long cardigan and rushing out of your room. It took you longer than eight minutes to get to Kylo’s chambers, but it was a decent enough amount of delay from the time the message was sent to when you actually saw it, that Kylo would be sure to notice that you were eight minutes later than you should have been. He didn’t even set a time; he had simply requested your presence in his chamber, but the underlying message was that your presence was to be requested immediately.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

About fifteen minutes later, you skidded to a halt outside Kylo’s chambers, having run most of the way there. You frantically tried to catch your breath as you smoothed your hair, trying to appear as though you hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes worrying that your lungs were going to explode. You introduced yourself to the guards outside Kylo’s room, and no sooner than you spoke the door slid open, one of the guards gesturing for you to go through.

“You’re late.” Kylo stated after the door had closed behind you. He was standing at his window, back to you, helmet off.

“My apologies, Sir.” You began, taking a few cautious steps forwards. “I was…well, occupied at the time that you sent the message. Believe me, I would have come sooner if I had seen your request sooner-”

“Occupied?” Kylo turned to face you, his expression impassive as ever; his interrupting statement, rather than question lingering in the air. “I was under the impression that once your shift was over you no longer need to be occupied.”

“Um...” You flushed slightly, subconsciously running a hand through your damp hair. “Occupied…in my shower?” You avoided his burning stare. There was silence for a moment, as if Kylo was trying to determine whether or not he believed you without delving too deep into your mind.

“You are excused of your tardiness this time.” He eventually spoke, and you relaxed slightly.

“If I may, Sir, why did you want me here?” You ventured, rocking back and forth on your heels as you glanced around the (now) familiar room. “If it’s to do with the comments made in the meeting earlier, I apologise if I’ve done anything to-to damage your reputation-”

“If anyone was going to ruin my reputation, it would not be you.” He cut in coolly. “You are not exactly in a position to do so.” He gestured to a chair set out in front of his desk. “Sit. We have much to discuss.” You did as he said, shifting around on the surprisingly soft seat, trying to get comfortable. He too, sat down in a chair he seemingly pulled out of the shadows of his room.

“If you think it is better for not to…run into each other more often, Sir, I understand that.” You started, leaning forwards in your seat. “I feel like rumours about-” you paused, unsure if you could refer to whatever the two of you were as ‘us’, but decided to go with it anyway. “Us, have been following me for almost a week now and it could ruin any chance I have of becoming Chief Medical Officer because everyone thinks I just sleep around and haven’t earned my place because of my family name.” You continued in frustration. “And it doesn’t help that, no offence, you seem to acquire a range of injuries from who knows where, and nobody else seems to want to take up the job because they’re convinced we’re having an affair or something – I’m lucky my boss is sympathetic towards me otherwise I could have lost my job or been demoted by now.” The words seemed to tumble from your lips, unending.

“You think my situation is any better?” Kylo stood, beginning to pace around the room. “I have the power of the Force, I can easily tell what people are thinking, and they do little to conceal their thoughts in my presence.” He spun on his heel, his bulking form towering over you. “I will not be taken for a fool by those pathetic enough to believe such rumours. I will not let them defile my name and my presence, or yours-” he cut himself off as his voice grew louder in anger. You stood as well, anxiously wringing your hands.

“I appreciate that, Sir.” You said quietly. “I know what’s on the line for you, and I’m sorry that it got this far. Maybe it would be better for a different medic to attend to your many injuries.” You felt more dejected than you probably should – after all this was a professional relationship.

“That won’t be necessary. While I am sure your co-workers are capable at doing their job, I know that you are most familiar with what antidotes work with my body and what do not.” Kylo dismissed your suggestion.

“Well what do you suggest?” You asked, a hint of exasperation in your tone. “While I do enjoy your company, Sir, I don’t want our meetings to affect your image.” There was a pause as Kylo took in your words.

“No. I will not be bullied by my insubordinates.” You heard him say, almost to himself. “We shouldn’t even be having this conversation; I don’t need to please the rest of the fleet – I just need them to win me this fight against the rebellion.” He strode to stand in front of you, and you gazed up at him. “I should not have to change my behaviour for them, and neither should you.” You opened your mouth in protest.

“But Sir, I-”

“You are under my protection. If there is anyone giving you trouble, you will report it straight to me.” He stood tall, not like that was hard for him to do, and you swallowed heavily, in awe of the sheer power he radiated. “That is an order. Do you understand?” His voice grew quieter at the end of his sentence; but he was no less grand.

“Yes, Sir.” You replied, suddenly finding it difficult to speak clearly, a smile visible on your face for the first time that day. “Thank you, Sir.”

“I think we’re past the use of such formalities, considering that today you’ve been accused of sleeping your way to power and I have been accused of doing such with someone of a lower station.” He said smoothly, his face as clear of emotion as ever.

“How else should I address you?” You asked, slightly flustered. (And slightly stung by the ‘lower station’ jab but it was the truth.) This must be one of the most bizarre days of my life, you thought to yourself, mind racing.

“You strike me as an intelligent woman, Officer Y/N; surely you do not need me to spell it out for you. Obviously the usual title when others are present.” He said, now walking you towards his door, hands behind his back, his form looming over yours. “Just because I allowed you to address me as such in private, I must remind you I will not be as lenient when we are in public.” He said placidly.

You nodded in acknowledgement. Kylo it is then – that was the only less formal title that you could think of. “Of course. I wouldn't dream of doing any such thing, Kylo.” You saw the left corner of his mouth twitch ever so slightly at your words as he opened the door, allowing you to step through. “I do hope you don't over-exert yourself in training, or do anything to worsen your injuries.” You called as you started to walk back down the corridor. “It would be a shame to meet again so prematurely.” For one of the most feared men in the galaxy, he isn’t nearly as subtle as he thinks, your smile widening as you walk back in the direction of your room, and you could have sworn you heard a chuckle echo down the corridor behind you.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Taglist: @ah-callie​

(also tagging @joscelyn02​ - just in case you wanted to know when the next part was out :) )

[aros001]

First time read through light novel vol. 18. Random thoughts.

I somewhat suspect the author was hungry while writing this volume.

Also, wow, I knew Kizuna was short but the prior artworks never gave me the full idea of how short. She

is only chest-high compared to Naofumi and Glass (I suppose that could make Glass happy, though; ease of access for Kizuna and whatnot).

Given that, outside of the natural gluttons like Filo, S’yne, and the killer whale sisters, the only person on Naofumi's side with the "Eat food for EXP" matter is Itsuki, I think this is him falling dangerously close to thinking only in terms of game mechanics instead of reality, much like the other three heroes had been early on. Theoretically, yes, if you can gain levels and strength just by eating, why wouldn't you do a lot of it? But he's almost outright ignoring the physical discomfort and pain it's causing his allies and seeing only the numbers. Not to mention that he himself doesn't appear to be eating nearly as much, as he's focus on the cooking.

That said, it is cute that this is the first time in her life Filo is starting to feel full.

Chapter One: Sloth

OH SHI-! Oh, wait. Wrong franchise. We're good. I did not want to have to imagine Kizuna biting her fingers off (Kizuna: "My brain trembles!!!).

If Kizuna is indeed suffering under the curse of Sloth, I'm curious what triggered that specific sin for her. We only have the four heroes of Raphtalia's world to go off of but each sin applied to that specific hero for a reason. Naofumi: Wrath because of his hatred of what Witch and Trash put him through. Ren: Greed because he wanted more EXP, levels, and loot; a toxic extreme of his solo-adventuring. Itsuki: Pride because he believed only in his view of justice. And Motoyasu: lust and envy because of his obsession with Filo and being kept away from her. Kizuna's obsession with fishing, even when there's other important matters that need to be dealt with, I suppose could be considered lazy and thus lead to sloth as its extreme, but it feels a little bit like a stretch.

As he did so, the books from a nearby shelf whirled up into the air, forming . . . a dinosaur . . . perhaps. No, a dragon. The monster’s name was “Magical Tome Dragon.” Now things were really getting a bit crazy. A dragon created from books! Was this some kind of joke?

I want a Yu-Gi-Oh card of that.

“Don’t tell me, Glass is like the Raphtalia of this world? Could we really get that lucky?”

I mean, that's what the fandom likes to joke when it comes to her and Kizuna.

Breaking the sloth curse through Kizuna's love of fishing was about what I expected. Not complaining, of course. Again though, I'm just wonder what about her coincides with Sloth. She prefers talking it out and making allies as opposed to fighting but I wouldn't exactly call that lazy or slothful either.

Kizuna had a lot of folks like this among her allies—people who had started out as enemies but then became allies. If I fought someone as an enemy, there was generally no coming back—there were exceptions, like Sadeena and Shildina, so it was probably better not to generalize.

Glass and L'Arc are literally standing right next to Naofumi as he thinks this and Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki all tried to murder him at one point or another. S'yne was part of the gladiator fights too, now that I think about it, and while they never fought he and Trash were definitely enemies for a while. This dude turns more enemies into friends than freakin' Naruto. Being kind of oblivious is part of Naofumi's character but I suppose this could be seen as an interesting look as to how exactly he considers someone an enemy. If they fought him for reasons he eventually came to understand and sympathize with, then he perhaps doesn't consider them as ever having been a "true" enemy.

Aww, Glass is jealous of Tsugumi being close to Kizuna. And unlike Raphtalia with Naofumi, Kizuna doesn't have any kind of tragedy that keeps her opposed to relationship and would require Glass to be patient. I suppose Glass could simply be afraid of hurting their friendship by proposing romance or even that Kizuna doesn't swing that way. And this is from Naofumi's perspective, so Glass being gay could be completely off the mark. Still, it'd be nice to get a solid landing one way or another. Even Eclair unknowingly rejecting Ren at least give solid confirmation that he's into her and why they're not together.

“What! I’m the Hunting Hero! I don’t handle the cooking part!” Kizuna complained.

“And I’m the Shield Hero!” I retorted. Not the Stewpot Hero! If anyone called me that, I would kill them with cookery!

And technically, you're not even that right now. Not with that mirror on your arm. The mirror is cool and all but I am looking forward to Naofumi eventually getting his shield back. He just feels incomplete without it.

“Almost feeding time!” one of them said. Others proceeded to chime in.

“Yes . . . the time we’ve all been waiting for.”

“The moment we live for, basically!”

“Even if I only get to eat one mouthful . . . that is the fuel that will keep me alive!”

“I’ll never eat anything but his cooking ever again!”

“I think the schweiz is the best! It has to be!”

“No! The stietz!”

“Hey! No fighting! We’ve been warned about fighting!”

Did they stumble across a food cult?

“It isn’t bad,” Filo said. “It just isn’t as nice as yours, Master.”

“Well, okay . . .” I replied.

“All of the heroes have cooked in the village, Mr. Naofumi, but Filo and everyone else all feel the same way,” Raphtalia told me.

Filo also grew up with Naofumi's cooking since birth, so while he's already a good cook you get the added taste of home for her. I've said it before but out of everyone I consider Filo to be the most like Naofumi's daughter.

“Then you wish to settle the bill,” she replied. I thought it was free. As my suspicions intensified, the girl spread both of her hands and continued. “How was the food at Seya’s restaurant? It was so delicious, wasn’t it? If you wish to become a member, please leave all of your assets or hand over anything that can be turned into money. If you leave some personal items as collateral, you can have some time to go and fetch some offerings.”

Yep, that's a cult alright.

“Master’s food!” Filo said.

“They’ll get a surprise when they taste what you’re cooking, kiddo,” L’Arc said.

“Indeed. Your victory is assured, if that’s the best they can do,” Glass agreed. I was still concerned about how aggressive they were being. Were they hopped up on endorphins or something? They weren’t acting in character at all.

My first thought was that the OOC behavior was some side effect Naofumi didn't realize came with the Mirror weapon's power-up method, but then why wouldn't Raphtalia or Kizuna be effected when they have been eating the food too? Then I thought maybe they were more used to eating Naofumi's food in general and would have a tolerance to any addictive effects, but then why is Filo still effected?

“That’s the best dish Seya’s restaurant has to offer! Seya’s curry bag! And it’s Fifth Floor too!” one of the MCs shouted. I barely stopped myself from tipping over onto the ground. He really was just reheating a premade curry in a bag! So he was allowed to heat and serve already finished dishes? I mean, that might give me some ideas myself . . .

��The flavors that are normally lost in reheating have been sealed in the bag using proprietary technology! Now you get the maximized flavor from the moment you open the bag! This truly is the ultimate culinary technique! Everyone, watch this kitchen miracle closely as it unfolds before your astounded eyes!” The MCs continued their diatribe, but it just made it harder for me to keep a straight face. It was all a matter of perspective. Capturing the flavor in a bag was certainly a worse approach than making it on the spot.

“Naofumi . . . am I imagining things? It looks to me like he’s just adding or warming up instant ingredients using hot water,” Kizuna said.

So, like most other antagonists in this series lately, Seya is just an arrogant, entitled fraud high on his own stolen power. Why am I not surprised? Though he is giving me a bit of a Kazuma from Konosuba vibe with how he managed to figure out how to recreate items the old heroes would have talked about from Japan. It's odd to say he doesn't have nearly the same level of charisma as Kazuma give...well...it's Kazuma and he's deliberately written to be a massive scumbag.

I do like with his magic powers and awesome cape, Naofumi is basically the little muddy boy meeting a superhero, one who will save the day through cooking.

As for Kizuna . . . I handed her some of the fish we had brought in and had her cut it up. She’d finished with the poisonous fish already. Her life as a fishing fool was paying off now. She knew her way around a fish. The blood had been skillfully drained, and overall, she was a step ahead when it came to gutting and cleaning.

...You think the Hunting Tool can turn into something like the Wunder Boner

?

I explained pointedly, looking at Seya, Trash III, and the other MC. Trash III responded by flipping me off. I could taunt with the best of them, and I mouthed some swear words back.

I mean, one of my favorite scenes in Isekai Quartet was Naofumi and Shalltear sassing each other, so I can agree with that.

“Pollution?” Kizuna asked, looking puzzled.

“You didn’t notice that?” I replied. “Well, just watch.” She wasn’t the brightest bulb, that was for sure.

“Hmmm, I think I need to go wash up,” the rotund noble said. “I’ll be right back.” The judges proceeded to take turns visiting the washroom. Once they had all returned, it was time to eat Seya’s food.

“Huh?” Kizuna, L’Arc, and Therese were looking puzzled. The other diners around us too. I guess there was cause for a little suspicion.

...Did Naofumi give them laxatives?

“Ah!” Kizuna finally cottoned on. “So that’s why you used so many medicinal herbs in your dishes!”

“Exactly. The reason they all wanted to go to the washroom after eating was to expel the toxins. I also used other herbs to bolster the lethargic feeling that would bring on,” I explained.

He gave the judges f**king laxatives! That's hilarious! I get the actual explanation he gives is more complicated than that, relating to purifying and digestion and getting them to finally take notice of the toxins in Seya's food now that they're free from its hold, but it's funny to think that's basically what he did. He won a cooking competition through dishes that encouraged the judges to take a sh*t (or a p*ss, I suppose).

“Hey . . . you’ve been reading too many cooking manga. It’s an illusion that delicious and good things will be evaluated highly. What you need is popularity and demand,” I said. Of course, it had to taste good, but putting the emphasis on that as a bare requirement was also a problem. If you were planning on selling food in a restaurant, of course it had to taste good. Customers came because of other elements, because of popularity. If Seya’s restaurant collapsed here, it would cause trouble for all the judges. That was why I’d created an escape for them. In order to realize the future that boy wanted.

While we don't see Naofumi selling his wares so much anymore because he has far less of a need to, it is nice we do still get that cynical and merchant side of him. All that time didn't just go to waste and it's still a key part of his character.

“What, then? What do you want?” Seya asked.

“There’s someone behind all of this, correct? Someone pulling the strings. If you tell us all about that, we’ll let you go. Hey, I have an idea. Write it down on this piece of paper here. I want a record of this.” I said and passed a piece of paper to him. Seya’s expression immediately brightened.

“That’s all you want? Fine, I can—” But the rest of that sentence vanished into an awful grunt. The moment Seya tried to write a single word, his head simply crumpled in on itself. He managed a brief scream, and then his entire melon exploded. I didn’t want to traumatize my allies, so I quickly threw up a cage and blocked out the grisly scene. Then I gave a sigh.

Well...that was kind of f**ked up for Naofumi to do. Don't get me wrong, after what they had to do to get Takt to be willing to confess, this is much less horrific. But Naofumi did basically just give Seya false hope and then trick him into executing himself. I get why he did it and how dangerous the vanguards are, but it is interesting to think that while ROTSH isn't the darkest of the light novel series I've been reading, Naofumi, save for Ainz Ooal Gown, is definitely the most morally grey of the protagonists compared to Kazuma, Subaru, and Goblin Slayer.

“No matter how delicious the food is, if you eat the same thing every time, you’ll start to get sick of it. Once you get sick of it, you won’t overeat simply because you won’t want to. I’ve been applying that concept to my food,”

That is better than what I was thinking with Naofumi getting too into the game mechanics. And boy do I feel for his friends. It's the same thing that killed me off of soda for a few years. Obviously it's worse to starve than be overstuffed but it's still not a pleasant experience.

We were talking about the primary reason why Kizuna was summoned here in the first place. To put it simply, the idea was to revive the Demon Dragon.

YYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

And they Tanya'd him too; reborn as an infant of the opposite gender. So does that make Kizuna or Naofumi Being X?

“Seriously . . . it brings dragon tears to my dragon eyes to see you, the great Shield Hero who defeated me, now reduced to this.” The Demon Dragon placed her front paws against her head and muttered sadly to herself.

“I hope you aren’t looking for sympathy,” I said harshly.

“Just think about it for a moment. The same bunch who shouted about defeating me and saving the world are now back, having screwed everything up, relying on me—their sworn enemy—to save them! Take a look around. Does this world look like it’s at peace to you? Well?” the dragon said, really coming for me now. What was worse, I didn’t really have a reply. This world was still plagued by humans fighting each other and had been ravaged by the vanguards of the waves. Everything the dragon had said so far had been so on the money that Kizuna and Glass probably didn’t have any response either. “Can you see how this might feel like something from your own past? Having been chased as a criminal, and then having to clean up after those very weaklings who were chasing you after they had been beaten down by the waves and people from another world?” That punch really landed hard. I wanted to call it a low blow, but she was basically providing a stunningly succinct summary of my life in these other worlds.

Seriously though, after Kyo, Takt, and the various other vanguards, it is so refreshing to have a villain who speaks with some dignity and can actually make a decent point or two, rather than "I'm strong so I can do whatever I want! Losers!" In my vol. 16 random thoughts I compared Takt to All For One from My Hero Academia and I still feel the same way. The two are not that much different goal-wise. They wanted the world and had the power to make it theirs, thus their actions. It is an immature goal when you think about it but AFO did not act anywhere near as immature as Takt and it made him feel so much more intimating. He would sometimes mock his enemy but when he did they were deep cuts that he knew would get under the skin of someone he truly hated, like All Might, rather than just throwing out insults and acting like a brat. And the Demon Dragon is the same (the High Priest too, now that I remember him, even if I don't talk about him as much). I liked Glass as an antagonist because she was intimidating, spoke only as much as she needed to, and was very powerful compared to the protagonists at that time, getting Naofumi to fear facing her again and giving her weight to the story and for the audience. Finding out later her motivations gave her some depth and added grey to the situation. The Demon Dragon is not nearly as sympathetic, but he still works for a lot of the reasons she did. There's presence to him, er, her. It's not a brat who needs to be knocked off their high horse but a genuine threat.

And being able to work with the heroes weirdly makes that even better. The Demon Dragon calls a 100 year truce, not because she's on the side of good, but because she wants there to still be a world around for her to take over. She's completely open about her goal, which ironically makes it easier to trust her.

“That should do for now,” the dragon said. “Hmmm, and this is a female body. Excellent. Shield Hero, under the condition that you will ultimately mate with me, I shall provide even greater cooperation.” So that was how long it took for things to take a crazy turn.

Still a little weird that she wants to f**k Naofumi though. And when the anime gets to this part there is almost definitely going to be a fanfic or doujin. Actually, now that I think about it, there are going to be creators getting some mileage out of when the Demon Dragon tried to take Naofumi over earlier in the series.

“Can’t you make do with Kizuna? She’s one of the four holies from this world. You’ll just have to overcome the gender barrier,” I said.

“Why me?!” Kizuna exclaimed.

“What are you planning on doing to Kizuna?” Now Glass turned a hostile gaze on me too.

Ahh, Naofumi's such a d*ck, I love it. Also, now that's two rivals in one book for Glass. She's almost caught up with Raphtalia.

It would have suited us better if the enemy was a bunch of morons. It was annoying that life never worked out quite so easily. We had no idea how bad it was going to get with the waves, so we had to plan our moves carefully and move to prevent this “fusion of the worlds,” whatever that meant.

Wouldn't that be a heck of a comeback to my bitching about the villains? The ones behind the vanguards have been sending out their idiots first, the ones arrogant and drunk off their power, to soften up the heroes first and cause a bunch of damage but that they know will ultimately just get killed. Takt and the others getting offered up as sacrificial lambs basically because those like S'yne's sister don't like them either.

“I’m starting to feel sorry for Naofumi,” Kizuna agreed.

“He probably thinks you two are in the ‘harem,’” I told them.

“I really don’t like that,” Glass responded. “No, I don’t. I don’t like that at all.” I wasn’t sure why she said it three times, but I didn’t like it either. Just for the record.

“Naofumi is a friend and a comrade, but we’re not like that!” Kizuna retorted. I wondered if she really understood the situation. She was the type who needed things to be said directly to her face.

“A shame we don’t have Fohl here. Even L’Arc would have worked,” I said. Just a few guys mixed in might have broken the group up a bit and prevented it from looking like a harem.

“Naofumi . . . even if we did have some guys, it would probably just give them some different ideas. Like . . . boys love?” Kizuna said. It sounded like, whatever the composition of the party, they would presume a lewd relationship with me at the center.

You know, you never hear about this kind of thing with Ren and Itsuki. Motoyasu went out of his way to have a harem and he still doesn't get it thrown at him as much as Naofumi does. Maybe it's one of those "He protest too much" kind of mindsets, where the more Naofumi denies it the more people think it's true.

“You got lucky. If a wave had occurred with the world of our illustrious leader, we were planning on shattering you. That’s the problem with this system; that’s the only way to get the reward for destroying a world,” the sister explained. I’d heard this talk about rewards for destroying worlds before, I vaguely recalled. I had no idea where that reward came from.

So there's a third world mixed up in all this. Obviously there already was the implication of multiple universes with S'yne and such but now there's a big spotlight on somewhere besides Raphtalia and Kizuna's worlds, where the big bad supposedly lives.

“That’s pretty much what I was expecting. Shield Hero, let me tell you something interesting,” the Demon Dragon began. Then she looked at the Artificial Behemoth’s chest again. “That part there houses a corrupted holy weapon from this world, which has artificially turned the monster into one of the four holy heroes and has allowed it all the power-up methods. It’s basically the monster version of a holy hero.”

I'm somewhat suspecting it's the Blunt Force Holy Weapon, given how easily that beast is smashing through barriers.

The soul that Raphtalia had pulled from the vanguard of the waves was not much like the body it had come from. Instead, it was a gloomy, Japanese-looking guy who was probably in his thirties.

...

“The vanguards of the waves are people who have been reborn or transferred over here after being selected by the one who assumes the name of God. They are given all sorts of abilities, such as the power to steal holy weapons or seven star weapons. They come into these worlds and start causing chaos,” I explained.

“Reborn? You mean like having spare bodies, like Kyo?” Raphtalia asked.

“No, something else. Just their souls were led to this world from Japan, and then they were reborn here as someone from this world. With their memories of the past,” I said. For example, they are people who died in unfortunate accidents—people like Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu. This “god” would whisper to them that they had died an untimely death and offer to reincarnate them in any world they liked. They were already dead and so had no reason to reject such an offer. If they did, the “god” probably claimed to be taken with their resolve and promised to give them additional cheat powers, basically forcing them to accept. In some cases, maybe they were just forced to be reborn, no matter what they felt. I’d read books like that, loads of them. Now that they knew being summoned to another world was actually a thing, why not getting reborn or transferred over?

So I was right about Takt being some OC f**kboy! They're all OCs! They're people from Japan who died and now are getting to live out their sh*tty power fantasy fanfiction as their equally sh*tty original character! As a source of useful but disposable minions, that's actually kind of brilliant. We saw how bad Motoyasu, Ren, and Itsuki had been at the beginning (with Naofumi himself potentially on that path as well before he was betrayed) and they were chosen by weapons that actually have the world's best interest at heart. Take those same people and have a malevolent entity constantly feeding their egos and pushing them to do terrible things because "it's their right to do so" and "they're the real heroes" and you've got an near endless source of wrenches to throw into the works of those trying to stop you.

Of course, now I just have this image in my head that the World Eater is Aqua from Konosuba. Which would actually be kind of amazing, not gonna lie. A godly being reincarnating otakus from Japan into a new fantasy-based world for a singular purpose and giving them special powers and tools in exchange.

“What if . . . and just hear me out . . . what if this one who assumes the name of a god is somehow responsible for my game knowledge?” Itsuki quietly suggested. That sounded possible to me now. Even if being summoned was the correct process, having some prior knowledge would change your actions once you arrived.

Before, when the Shield Spirit had explained to Naofumi that he was a first pick choice and the other three heroes were their weapons' third picks, I'd theorized as to why and how the final selection ended up. Assuming the weapons were telling the truth about being able to grant any wish once the waves were over, it could be assumed they have some power over reality even in the four's home universe. So I'd theorized the weapons set up a window to snag their picks, with the shield getting Naofumi and the other weapons, by sheer unfortunance, had their picks keep missing the window and thus they became more desperate, thus why their third picks had to die in order to reincarnate because the weapons couldn't leave things to chance anymore.

Now, with the new speculation and info, we can assume the World Eater has some influence over other universes too, including the heroes' original ones. So two new theories come to mind.

The first, and one I find most likely, is that the World Eater is causing video games that are similar to the worlds impacted by the waves to appear in the original worlds of the heroes. In theory, the butterfly effect could cause a chain of events that'd lead to such games existing, so it's not like the World Eater is just dropping them into each reality. It would just need to nudge things in the right direction. If video game knowledge is actually detrimental to the heroes, then that leaves less choices for the Holy Weapons (at least in regards to what their ideal candidates would be) and opens up more choices for the World Eater, since it wants arrogant and know-it-alls like that for vanguards.

The second, which could still work with the first, is that the World Eater is aware of humans the Holy Weapons have their eyes on and is actively sabotaging them. A weapon has a first choice, so the World Eater throws the game or other things in their path to turn them into a less desirable option, possibly even vanguard material.

After all my comments about the recent antagonists, S'yne's sister is starting to grow on me. She's filling a similar role as Witch; manipulating and using people before ultimately tossing them aside. But like the Demon Dragon and High Priest, there is more of an air of dignity about her than with Witch. With the exception of her sister, she's not really talking down and belittling anyone to try and promote her own strength. Like Glass she feels like someone who is genuinely powerful and doesn't need to prove it. How she's using the enemies of the week is curious and perhaps even a little scary because it does feel like she's testing and experimenting and these losses are not really a loss for her. And there's the added mystery Sadeena threw in over what she really wants. Whether bad guy with a bigger agenda or a secret good guy, she's more enjoyable to read about, as opposed to the vanguards where the biggest enjoyment they offer is watching them get taken down, and even that's not much with all the whining and tantrums they have after they're beaten. She's different from Witch and Kyo. She's not completely high off her own power and doesn't refuse to recognize her enemies' strength. Her casually teleporting away for a bit when she realized the battle was turning in the heroes' favor gave a ton to her character.

I'm just looking forward to when she gets a name other than S'yne's sister or Moron Woman. I appreciate Naofumi's completely lack of caring for learning the names of people who don't deserve it, but if she's going to be a serious antagonist or secret ally, a name would help.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/shieldbro/comments/kdwai7/first_time_read_through_light_novel_vol_18_random/

[tragedieds]

alt title: i can’t believe i’ve never done one of these before

 i’m off hiatus! i’ll be slowly... u know... becoming more active on here and on discord as the days go on but this week was so rough. some good news: i somehow got 322 followers while on hiatus and i finally figured out what my next wip after tve is gonna be.

as for. u know. these violent ends:

i reached 50k! or, well. i will tonight. i’m not strictly following a three act structure until i start editing but i do feel the midpoint is coming and fast which means everything is going to become so awful so quickly

midpoint also means soon there won’t be any more fynn chapters bc :( u know. dead

i have to really think abt how im gonna pull this off bc fynn’s death and the reveal of who murders him has to be kind of the twist that sets off the third act and it has to be at just the right place. this reveal is smth i need to be as good as possible from draft one, even though no one else is rly gonna see it until draft two. its IMPORTANT TO ME OK!!!

it’s 208 pages double-spaced without any manuscript formatting. Big

i refuse to go back and edit 50k just yet but i do think there needs to be some massive pov edits. i keep writing in third person for fynn and present tense for ren, and they both work a lot better than what i have now

FYNN FINALLY SAID FUCK, 207 PAGES AND 49K IN 

there’s someone in fynn’s chapters who he has an unfathomable amount of chemistry with, which is very annoying bc that's not supposed to be a thing. anyway fellas is it gay to trust another man with both you and the girl you have a crush on’s lives? 🤔

i had some ppl ask me about this like a month ago: i don’t intend to publish these violent ends anywhere or query it. the only other people who’ll probably ever read it in its entirety are some betas, but this wip is for me, it’s very experimental and personal (and rn in its first draft form, borderline incomprehensible). i really only need to get it to a state where i’m happy with it. will it never see the light of day?? idk. maybe! but i don’t see myself debuting with it

i also promised some out of context lines i like so those are below the cut. sometimes first draft not totally Awful?

I raise corpses from their deathbeds. I consider nothing.

A woman possessed, metamorphosing into a creature she didn’t recognize, one that answered the dark, seductive calls of the things that housed themselves under shadows.

If you cannot run from fate, then bend it to your will.

If she had been marked by Death, then so had Yael. They were two sides of one rotting coin, both inimitable and terrifying.

He’d burrowed his way into her bones, took hold of her heart and declared himself an equal. Someone who understood. And she’d been foolish enough to believe him.

and my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE SENTENCES:

It seemed he liked to fuck with her. That was fine. She could fuck back.

[paper-n-ashes]

sparks and embers - chapter 7

Characters: Poe Dameron x Original Female Character, Kylo Ren x Original Female Character

Story Tags: Explicit (18+), Canon Compliant/Divergent (Set after TLJ), First Person POV, Love Triangle, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Porn with Plot, Hurt/Comfort, Kylo Ren hates Poe Dameron

Chapter 7 - The Transmission

Words: 5.6k

Chapter Tags/Warnings: Mentions of medical procedures, ANGST, description of severe anxiety/panic attack

Read on AO3 or Start from the beginning

~

Poe didn’t exit the study for a long while, finally hearing the creak of my office door as it opened for the first time in hours. Within that time I'd farewelled the last of my patients for the day and begun to prepare dinner in my quarters, feeling significantly more balanced as the evening wore on.

Mind over matter. That’s all I needed to remember.

It was BB-8 who rolled in to demand my attention first, knocking his body into my ankle as I stood chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter.

“Hello again,” I greeted, still marvelling at how sweet this droid’s disposition was. Placing my knife down, I turned to face Poe as he slinked into the space, taking a place at the dining table. He seemed tired, almost despondent, possibly even more solemn than he appeared when I saw his face last.

“How did the transmission go?” I asked, breaking the silence. From the energy drifting out of his shape, it was clear he hadn’t completely moved on from the sadness we’d shared during our last interaction.

“As well as it could have. They’re still safe, for now. Think I gave them all heart attacks when my transmission came through,” he responded, exhaling hard. “And you were right. There was a search initiated. But my last reported co-ordinates were over Hutt Space, so they never would have found me.” He looked puzzled then, and I mirrored his expression.

“What do you mean? That’s at least a day’s trip from here.”

“That’s exactly what I can’t seem to figure out.” He huffed then, exasperated. “I don’t remember getting any further than that. I hadn’t even nearly reached my destination.”

“Were you traveling Galactic North or South?” I screwed my face up immediately after asking the question, already assuming he wouldn’t give me an answer.

“Yeah, I can’t tell you that.” He looked down to his hands, wringing them restlessly. “I know I can trust you, but I just can’t risk it, for both your own sake and the Resistance. All I can say is that I wasn’t flying to anywhere near Raxus.”

I nodded, understanding. “Well, no matter which way you were headed, Hutt Space is way too far from here for a ship to be unpiloted.”

“Right. Something, or someone, must have changed my course while I was there. And whether it was the crash or some other reason, I’ve lost any memory from after I was flying over the region that might have explained the cause.”

A sparkle of thought flickered, looking down at BB-8 still stationed at my feet. Poe appeared to read my mind.

“I thought the same too,” he remarked. “But he has no data logs indicating any unauthorised navigation. I’m still concerned about how his internal circuits looked when I was repairing him - I don’t think that kind of damage was caused by the crash. If BB had something to do with this, if he’s been tampered with, I won’t be able to be sure until I can conduct some deep diagnostics back at the Resistance base.”

BB-8’s head fell in his own form of remorse, emitting a few low beeps I could only gauge as an apology. I leant down and patted him softly, feeling sorry for the droid. It felt a little unnatural for me to have any sort of emotion towards a machine. All the medical droids I’d worked alongside in the past had the personality of a decaying tree.

BB beeped back happily at me, appreciating my sympathy, when I realised abruptly what Poe had been implying. “Wait, do you think someone did this on purpose? Sabotaged your flight?”

He seemed hesitant to answer again, most likely debating internally how confidential this information was. But eventually he nodded. “It’s what Leia seems to think, and I’m tending to agree. It seems too orchestrated. But the more worrying concern is that only a select group of Resistance personnel knew about my mission, even less knew exactly where I was headed.”

Both the casual mention of Leia Organa, famed princess of an obliterated planet, daughter of one of the most powerful Sith to have lived, now Leader of the Resistance, and the notion Poe seemed to be hinting at, tilted me slightly off balance.

“You think a spy might have infiltrated the Resistance?”

“That’s the theory we’re running with for now. Whoever did this assumed a crash landing on an Outer Rim planet would have meant my certain death, and any evidence would have most likely never been found, especially with them looking in the completely wrong place,” Poe explained. He looked up from his hands, his eyes finally gentle again, the creases in his forehead relaxing. “They obviously never planned on me landing right on your doorstep.”

“The universe clearly wanted to keep you around for a little longer.”

“Lucky me,” he laughed gently. “Hopefully I don’t mess up whatever it has planned.”

“You’ll figure it out,” I said encouragingly, glad he had relaxed a little. But it was short lived.

His face became sombre again, gaze moving to his fingers once more. “Leia is keeping my reappearance quiet for now - her and our most trusted Resistance members, my friends, are the only ones who know.” I saw his jaw tighten, face tense, a controlled breath seeping past his lips. “They’ll be arriving sometime in the night to take me back to base.”

I knew it was coming. I was more prepared now, my resolve holding strong against the gloom I’d pulled into a locked box inside my mind, easily keeping it restrained.

“I bet you’re excited to see them,” I said kindly, hoping to pick up his mood.

Poe smiled softly to himself. “I’ve missed them,” he agreed, glancing up at me. “They’re pretty eager to meet you actually.”

I furrowed my brows, dubious. “Really? You told them about me?”

Poe looked at me incredulously, like that fact should have been obvious. “Of course. How else was I going to explain how I managed to survive that crash? Leia seemed particularly impressed. She's disappointed she can't give her thank you in person, being too valuable to send away from the base.”

My cheeks threatened to flush with crimson, wanting to shy away from the compliment. Relief was the more overwhelming emotion, glad I wouldn’t have to navigate my way through a conversation with Leia Organa, having no doubt I would make a fool of myself. “So, who is coming?” I wondered, interested in learning more about the people Poe considered his trusted friends.

“Well there’s Chewie-”

“As in Chewbacca the Wookie?” I interrupted. “The Chewie?”

Poe rolled his eyes playfully at my marvelling. “So I don’t need to tell you anymore about him then,” he continued, smirking. “There will be Finn, an ex-stormtrooper who defected to the Resistance, royally saved my ass when I was captured by the First Order. And then there’s Rey, who has been training as a Jedi, and technically pilots the Millennium Falcon now, although if you ask me, I’ve flown that rustbucket way more often…”

Poe kept talking, but my mind was barely able to focus on his words.

A Jedi. A Force user. Coming here.

This is bad.

I forced my face into a veil of interest about what Poe was chattering about as he remained oblivious to the panic that had erupted inside my chest. Eventually his words ran out, thankfully without ending on a cue for me to reply. It took all of my focus to keep my voice steady as I spoke. “I thought all the Jedi were gone?”

It was a question anyone would ask. Not too suspicious.

He appeared slightly confused at the point I’d decided to back track on, yet quickly seemed to realise I’d not had the same encounters with force users that he’d had. “We thought that too,” he remarked. Poe then relayed what was evidently an extremely condensed story of the re-emergence of Luke Skywalker, who had then begrudgingly taught Rey how to wield the Force.

It was an unbelievable tale, something any other being would be enthralled to hear. And honestly, I couldn’t believe Poe had made it so far as to have landed on my doorstep. But there was one thing my mind centred on amongst the rush of information.

She’d been trained by a Jedi Master.

I’d learned an essence of control over my power, whatever kind it was that I utilised, both before and after I’d run to Raxus. After realising the target it put above my head at a young age, I’d taught myself to restrain it, hide it away in the absolute pit of my consciousness, only summoning that which helped heal people in the most dire of circumstances.

When the wrong person caught me, when I’d let my power become unconstrained for only a few moments, I knew I had to deepen my command over it, in case I ever found myself in that situation again. And now, I was completely unsure if four more years’ worth of preparation was going to be enough to hide it from a trained Force user.

“Why is a Jedi coming to get you off this planet? Wouldn’t she have more important things to do?” I pointed out. Only when the words escaped my lips did I realise how rude it might have seemed to Poe.

Come on Alex. Simmer down.

He actually laughed, taking my perception with good humour. “You’re not wrong. But as I said, she pilots the Millennium Falcon now, which is the fastest ship we have available at the moment. And she insisted on coming herself. Said she owed me.” Poe appeared warmed by the sentiment, and I would have enjoyed his happier demeanour if not for my own internal fretting.

There was no avoiding it. Rey was already on her way here, and there wasn't an appropriate way I could prevent myself from meeting both her and the other crew members without arousing heavy suspicion. I was truly trapped, heart thumping along fast with anxiety, fearing I could be hours away from facing all I thought I had escaped from.

*

I made dinner for us both, Poe continuing to make idle conversation in our last hours together as we ignored the looming farewell.

Yet now I was more concerned with what I needed to confront before that moment. My mind was a mess of warring emotions behind the indifferent façade I held in Poe’s presence, wanting his departure to be both as quick as possible and dragged out as long as I could make it.

I knew he sensed some of the unrest behind my eyes, but he didn’t probe, probably hoping to maintain the easy-going nature of our last meal together, however fake it might have been.

It was long after we finished eating that I recalled the need to do one last assessment of Poe’s injuries, remembering something I’d promised to do before he left.

“Your cast!” I gasped, thinking out loud, startling Poe as he dried the last of our dishes. After turning around, smirking at himself for the way I’d made him jump, he rose the casted arm into his view.

“Oh yeah,” he realised, flexing the fingers. “I’d actually kind of forgot about it.”

“Well come on, one last assessment and you’re officially free of my care.”

I said the words with such pure intentions, yet it was starkly clear both of us were jarred by the reality hidden behind them - a cold, unbroken hush settling in the space. I noticed BB-8’s head movement from my periphery, once again calling into question our sudden stillness. He raced to my feet, squealing little beeps in an inflection I couldn’t understand. Poe’s expression swiftly turned aggravated at the droid, and didn’t immediately translate like I assumed he would.

“Is he okay?” I asked. “Did he say something important?”

Poe’s face forcefully relaxed in an attempt to seem unbothered by BB’s insistent beeps. “He’s just appreciative of how well you’ve treated me.”

I knew he was lying, but I could only assume it was better I didn’t discover what was really said. 

* 

Poe had perched himself back onto his hospital bed, and I could feel his gaze follow me as I placed the monitoring over his figure for the last time. The moment for conversation had obviously passed as we maintained a heavy silence during my final tests. He barely winced when I took blood, the results revealing all of his inflammatory markers had receded. The bruises had disappeared, the scars had begun to fade, even over his badly burned arm and torso.

I glanced to his face while taking some X-rays of his femur, pulling up the initial post-crash shots and scribbling down my final progress notes on the healing of the fracture. He seemed awed once again at the damage I’d managed to repair, and he turned thoughtful as he looked down at his perfectly functional leg. I could tell without words he was grateful, knowing we’d both experienced the outcome of those who might not have been so lucky as to keep their limb after such an injury.

I’d kept the casted arm until last, wishing to drag out these final moments, most likely the only thing he’d truly remember of our time together. A comforting thought simmered into my awareness, realising his deeper scars wouldn’t fade for years yet, somewhat of a memento etched onto his skin.

The X-rays were textbook. The fracture line had fused nicely, with almost no irregularity in the shape of the bone shaft. The cast had done its job, and now, there was no need for it to be connected to him anymore.

Just like me.

I pulled my thermal scissors from within my medical trolley, used specifically to melt through the hardened plastic I’d moulded closely to his forearm. It was over in seconds, slicing through the cast and peeling it from his limb, the skin underneath looking slightly clammy but otherwise acceptable. As soon as he was free from the plastic he begun to flex and twist his wrist, a small exhale of relief slipping out of his throat.

“Well that just about does it,” I stated flatly. “You’re all healed up.”

Poe looked away from his newly freed arm and locked his eyes with mine. “I know I’ve said this a million times, and it will never be enough, but thank you.”

I looked down from his gaze. “You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help you.”

He lifted his left hand to my chin, tilting my head back up to meet his stare again, holding it there while he spoke. “You’re really good at your job Alex, I hope you realise that. You saved my life. And I won’t be the last one you save, I’m sure of it."

His eyes were so penetrating, so impassioned, that it made me want to turn away. I didn’t like being praised like this. It made the flesh under my skin feel itchy. Somehow, through no power of my own will, I kept my stare locked to him, confined into place with his thumb softly resting on my skin.

He began to breathe slower, more cautiously. “If we…” he started, voice barely above a whisper. “If we never see each other again…” The words trailed off as he seemed to grapple with the future bearing down on us. My heart was pounding painfully in my chest, instigated merely by the sensation of his fingertips pressed to my skin.

Please. Please stop making this so hard.  

“I won’t forget what you did for me… I won’t forget you.”

Without conscious thought I felt my hand begin to rise, instinct pulsing within to pull him into another fervent kiss. Before he noticed the movement, I wrenched it down, closing it into a fist. It was my own voice that echoed in my head, louder and louder.

I will not let this ruin me.

It felt cruel, the way I abruptly stepped away from his touch, but it needed to be. I glared back at him, hoping my words, particularly the meaning behind them, would suffocate the flames of yearning I kept seeing in his irises. “You’ve been a cooperative patient Poe, and I’m glad you survived. But I wouldn’t wish on seeing you in the future. It would only be because you’re in need of my medical care again.”

Poe’s head snapped back, stunned at my reply and the harsh recoil from his hand. Clearly, he'd predicted a different reaction. “You don’t know that,” he urged. “I could come ba-”

I flew my hand up, palm forward, immediately indicating him to cease talking. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

He ruminated on my request for a few eerily silent moments before his stare turned fiery, irritated. “Why are you fighting this?” he shot, rattling me. “We both know there’s something here, something more than you’re willing to admit.”

His maddened tone made it harder to keep my stoic demeanour. “I told you why.”

“Wouldn’t it be more painful to leave each other like this?” he retorted, the muscles in his arms tightening. “Not acknowledging what I know you feel? Pretending it’s not eating you alive, like it’s doing to me?”

A beat of silence passed before I turned and walked away.

I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t keep my restraint if he continued interrogating me this way, revealing emotions a strangled part of me hoped he had. I wasn’t strong enough for that. I needed distance.

“Alex!” he boomed, hearing him leap off the bed behind me. “Tell me you haven’t felt it! Tell me you don’t want to give in to it!”

“I barely know you!” I shouted, swirling to face him again. “You are- were my patient! And you’re about to leave! You shouldn’t come back here, and I shouldn’t go with you!”

“You know more about me than nearly all of the galaxy! And that’s within five days!” he growled, offended. Poe took a tentative step towards me, letting some of the anger recede before speaking again. “I would come back for you. I would come back, if I survived, if you wanted me to. If you admitted what you’re keeping hidden, the feelings that made you kiss me.”

“Please stop doing this,” I begged, a hopeless attempt to keep him at bay, my resilience starting to fizzle away. “You seemed to understand yesterday. That it would be too difficult if we crossed that line.”

He shook his head in frustration. “I've already crossed it Alex." His eyes turned pleading, an intensity within them I was sure I hadn't witnessed before. "I don't want to ignore it anymore, what I feel for you. I can't keep holding back."

I pulled my hands into fists, resisting every temptation to throw away resolve and allow myself to experience the warm glow of happiness his revelation brought. There was no denying the way in which my walls started to weaken, mercilessly barraged by the raw emotion he was exposing.

Don’t give in Alexys. His life, and yours, depend on it.

The voice toughened my determination, enough to keep my willpower solid against the craving to surge into his arms. “I guess I’m just stronger than you are,” I muttered, turning again to prevent catching any type of reaction in Poe’s face. Even one glimpse would make me crumble.

I stormed down the hallway, desperate for the isolation of my quarters, closing the entry and setting the lock. Falling back into the door, my teeth felt like they were going to shatter if I clenched my jaw any tighter.

My brain focused solely on the rhythm of my breathing, centring on the quickened rate, trying to force it into a more calmed pace. Soon I began to concentrate on expanding my lungs, inhaling until the space was full of air, letting it sit there as long as I could hold, before allowing it to whistle out of my nostrils.

That’s all I permitted myself to think of, the slow inhale and exhale, imagining the oxygen particles seeping into my bloodstream, travelling to every cell in my body, keeping me functioning amongst the turmoil thrashing through my soul.      

*

Time passed. I wasn’t really keeping track on how quickly. Imprisoned in my own mind, pacing my quarters, continuing the attention on my breathing. It was the only thing that kept me stable, that pushed away the memories of Poe’s voice ringing in my thoughts.

Eventually my legs grew fatigued from the movement, and I placed myself on the sofa, dropping my head into my hands, grasping my fingers through my hair in frustration.

He couldn’t have just left it alone. He couldn’t have just ignored it, departed this planet and forgot all that happened here.

A memory slipped through the cracks, pushing its way out into the forefront of my awareness. One that refused to be smothered.

'I would come back for you.'  

I shook my head within my clenched hands, trying to physically rid myself of it. I wanted to claw my fingers into my brain, pluck the memory from my inside my head and banish it forever, never to torture me again.

Breathe. Focus on your breathing Alexys.

The voice caused a realisation to strike, how hard it had become, my ribs stuck in place, intercostal muscles rigid, refusing to let my lungs inflate. It felt as if gravity had increased its pressure over my body, making me crumple underneath its increased weight. The load was too much, my head screaming for oxygen. I knew what was happening, I knew I was in the throes of a crushing panic, helpless to stop the cascade of anxiety from taking over.

Instinct was quick to surface, telling me exactly what to do. What I’d done only once before.

I withdrew my fingers from their entanglement within my hair, placing the tips on each side of my temple, and within my depths, I set it free. The energy swiftly begun to course through my blood, bringing with it an incredible radiance that lit up my veins. It crawled its way through every capillary, every vessel, as if it was replacing my own blood with its glow.

Soon, it weaved itself through my chest cavity, relaxing the muscles clamping down on my lungs, the relief of an easier breath making me feel lighter. It's journey didn’t cease, surging through my neck to my brain, twirling in between the individual neurons, clouding me with a feeling of peace, serenity, the rest of the world blocked off from my senses.

I wanted to stay in this place forever. Every fear, every sadness, every frustration, all of it melting away into nothing. I felt whole, a brilliant euphoria shimmering from every part of my being.

Let go. You cannott linger here for too long.

My fingernails were suddenly pierced into the pillows of the sofa, panting, grateful I had something to remind me not to surrender myself to the dangerous void any longer. The energy recoiled instantly, my own invisible hands pushing it within the confinement I'd kept it behind for much of my life. I took a moment to push it even deeper down my consciousness, praying it would be too far for Rey to sense when she arrived.

The panic was gone, my chest moving in even time, an aura of composure enduring even with the healing energy locked away. But it also left me exhausted, my brain feeling slightly fuzzy with fatigue. Although for this, I was glad. Even a short time in the peace of sleep would stop me from thinking about Poe.

I had just risen from my seat, about to walk to the comfort of my bed for however long time would allow, when there was a solid bang at my door. I tilted my head in confusion at the noise, knowing Poe would have simply knocked if he wanted entry. Although right now, that seemed extremely unlikely.

When I heard an artificial squealing piercing the air behind the wood, it was obvious what had made the sound.

BB-8 was still beeping urgently when I allowed him entry into my quarters, whizzing past my legs before I even had time to greet him. I noticed the sound of the ‘fresher running as he rolled quickly to the space before my sofa, his head movements darting from me to the pillow where I had just been seated. He wanted me to sit down, that was clear, but I couldn’t determine why.

I did what was requested, settling back down, BB-8 at my feet, his eye appearing to whir and focus in on my face. He was quiet for a moment, doing what I could only imagine was a droid’s version of thinking, before his head darted away. Suddenly a burst of blue light flickered into the air, floating the outline of an image on top of the metal table that sat in front of us.

He was showing me a hologram.

It was fuzzy at first, slowly becoming clearer, displaying a scene I hadn’t been privy to this afternoon. The simulated image of Poe was sitting at my office desk, his own hologram transmission only just visible in the blue beam.

It appeared BB was showing me a long way into their discussion, Poe’s face stressed as he listened to the multiple figures in the holo, their lips forming words that only came out muffled.

“I don’t think you should be showing me this BB-8,” I fretted quietly, acknowledging how private Poe had been with Resistance information.

BB-8 beeped insistently, sounding like he disagreed, and continued playing the holo. The voices became more defined, eventually loud enough for me to make them out.

“We’ll have another X-wing ready for you as soon as you make planet fall,” an older woman’s voice explained. I could only assume it was Leia’s, holding a gentle yet authoritative tone. "Do you think you’ll be ready to attempt the mission again as soon as you return?”

Poe didn’t immediately answer, and I could almost make out the pain in his holo image.

“What is it?” another woman, a lot younger sounding, questioned. Her voice was more on edge than Leia’s, speech displaying an accent I wasn’t familiar with. This was most likely Rey. “Are you still too injured?”

“I’m fine,” Poe reassured. “Better than fine really. Alex… uh, Dr. Jago had me walking within the first few days. And everything else has healed well enough.”

Yet another voice, this time a man's, piped in. "You broke your leg and she got you walking that quickly? There’s no way.”

Poe rolled his eyes, the small movement still obvious in the flickering image. “Finn, you nearly died and you can still doubt the effect of bacta? That stuff fixed your shattered spine for maker's sake.”

“Still took more than a few days though,” Finn mumbled.

“It’s irrelevant,” Leia interjected, seemingly annoyed for a moment, before softening. “Is something wrong Poe?”

His eyes looked down from the hologram in front of him, hesitant to answer. “Is there…” he started, breathing in as if to gain courage. “Is there anyone else who could make that flight?”

All three of the figures recoiled in disbelief at the question.

“You’re the best pilot we have,” Leia said definitively. “There’s no one else who could navigate that route except you.”

“What about Rey?” he retorted, looking to her figure insistently. “She’s got the Force to help her.”

Rey sighed, troubled. “I... already tried. I thought maybe your navigation system may have malfunctioned, preventing any tracking, but that you’d still made it to-” BB-8’s hologram suddenly became engulfed in static for a few moments, leaving me unable to hear the destination of Poe’s mission. Eventually the picture cleared into the same scene, only a few seconds later. "-but I couldn’t make it through. It was too dangerous to traverse, even with the Force to guide me.”

“Why are you even asking us to find someone else?” Finn challenged. “You were more than ready to do it yourself a week ago.”

Poe gritted his teeth, looking somewhat ashamed. “I know.”

There was silence in the holo, and for a moment I thought this was all BB-8 wanted to show me. But Leia’s voice struck up again. "Finn, Rey, could you let me talk to Poe privately?”

From their small faces I could still see them look quizzically at each other, Finn appearing more puzzled by the request. But they left under the General’s orders, slinking past the frame of the holo.

“Poe… Tell me. Tell me what’s changed,” Leia urged softly. “You and I both know you’re the only one who can do this. And if there’s something worrying you, or making you doubt yourself, you need to tell me.”

He looked despairingly at her, uncomfortable with the prospect of hiding anything from his General. “I don’t want to admit it.”

Leia breathed out heavily. She began to pace inside the holo, arms folded in thought, before turning back to speak to Poe again, her face gentle. “It’s the doctor, isn’t it?”

It took an excruciatingly long time before Poe responded, finally nodding his head.

I felt every muscle in my body tense at his reply, heart thrumming to a faster beat.

“I thought so,” Leia whispered. “I... wasn’t expecting this.”

“Neither was I, General. I’m sorry.” The expression he wore, filled with such unyielding turmoil, shot a pang of cold ice through me.

Leia looked kindly to him, her face melting into understanding. “Oh Poe, you don’t have to apologise. You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last, to question everything for the sake of their emotions.”

“I want to do what we planned. I do. I’m ready,” he asserted, voice rising into confidence, only for his face to fall again. “But every time I think of leaving her…” His face became buried in his hands, frustrated, unable to finish his sentence.

“Does she feel the same way?”

“I don’t know,” Poe muffled under his palms. “I... think so. She’s holding back. Her loyalty to this clinic is annoyingly similar to mine with the Resistance.”

“So she wouldn’t consider coming with you, joining us? We desperately need doctors of her calibre.”

He pulled his face back up. “I asked. And she refused. She would never want to leave, fearing for the health of her patients without her here. Not to mention she’s staunchly against the war we’re fighting in.”

“She sounds like someone I would like to meet,” Leia smiled to herself. “So... That’s why you don’t want to return yet. Why you need someone else to complete the mission. You want more time with her.”

Poe nodded slowly. “I know we don’t have much time to get-” Another fuzz intercepted Poe’s speech, an additional piece of information too confidential for my ears. “-but I just… I just don’t want to go yet. If someone was able to go in my stead, then I wouldn’t be completely dooming us. I know it’s selfish… Irrational… But the thought of leaving her behind right now, on a mission I might not make it back from… It’s too much.”

“Oh,” Leia mouthed, her voice muted. “Do you… Do you think that you…”

She didn’t have to finish her question. Poe knew what she was implying.

“I… think I could. If I had more time, a chance to figure it out.”

His revelation made me stop breathing, a tear wriggling from the duct, crawling down my face.

Leia sighed loudly, her stress evident. “I wish I could Poe. I would want nothing more than to give you this, after all you’ve given for the Resistance. But you’re the only one who has a chance of completing this mission, and we are desperately running out of time and options.”

Poe clenched his eyes shut as she finished, his jaw tightening, lips fighting back a frown. He took a few moments held in this position before relaxing himself back into composure, his face serious and professional. “I understand,” he replied flatly. “I’ll get this mission accomplished General. See you back at the base.”

“I’m truly sorry Poe-” Leia began to apologise, only to be interrupted by his sharp tone.

“It’s fine. Tell the engineers to make sure the new X-wing is prepped before my return. I want to leave as soon as possible.”

Leia nodded, her expression remorseful.

Suddenly the blue, illuminated image was ripped from my view, the rest of my quarters coming back into focus around me.

My body was stuck, motionless in the now painful silence filling the air. Inside my mind there was chaos, memories of the hologram darting around randomly. I tried to capture at least one rational thought, to analyse the emotions bubbling up from within my chest.

He wanted to stay. For me. Everything he wanted to accomplish, for the Resistance, for his friends, for his parents, for the galaxy. He wanted to put it all on hold.

Just for me.

He’d been right. I was holding it back, the same thing he felt, and it was clawing at my insides, desperately wanting to be set free.

Purely out of my selfishness, my own excuses, the voice in my head threatening our lives. All of it keeping me from what I really wanted.

Him. I wanted him. To be close to him. Even if it was just for a little while.

You’re giving in? So easily?

Damn right I am.  

~

Next Chapter

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[pilot-boi]

Ocean Eyes and Wilted Roses

Weiss got rejected and was forced to attend the dance alone. That was fine, wasn’t like she was upset about that or anything. Nora didn’t like it when her friends were sad, and Weiss was probably her friend, and she was definitely sad, so it was up to Nora to change that.

(Same AU as Blooming, you DON’T have to read that first, but it would be appreciated if you did)

AO3 LINK

Everybody needs friends, but sometimes it’s difficult to accept when you have them. Birthday present for @harmonylight :D

Girls in brightly coloured gowns and boys in dark suits twirled their way across the dance floor. Candles sparkled in the glass chandeliers hanging above the dancing throng. Tall windows lined the walls of the hall, with the doors at the base opened so the overflowing and chattering crowd could spill out onto the lawn to get fresh air.

Everyone was laughing and talking and having a good time. Some dancing, some hanging half-way over the balconies above, some loitering by the punch bowl, but all basking in the warm glow of companionship.

All except Weiss.

From her spot on the sidelines, she had a clear view of all her friends. Ruby and Yang on a balcony above, just quietly enjoying each other’s companionship as they watched the dancers. Nora holding a bemused looking Ren by both hands as she spun them both around, her exuberance cutting a wide swath through the crowd.

It seemed like everyone was too worried to get close for fear of injury.

Weiss had seen Jaune and Pyrrha duck out of the dance hall a few minutes ago, the boy in his dress pulling a furiously blushing Pyrrha after him. The dress was a surprise, as was the lack of pining over her all night. But from the lovestruck grin on his face that she recognized from the too many times it had been directed at her, Weiss wondered if his days of hopelessly flirting with her were over.

But she suspected they’d been over since Jaune asked her for flower advice. That boy was a hopeless romantic no matter who he was pining over.

Her gaze shifted over the crowd, spotting Penny dancing with one of her guards, the General waltzing calmly with Professor Goodwitch, and the Headmaster keeping an eye on everyone, all with that mysterious smile of his on his face. She spotted Blake watching with fond amusement as Sun and Neptune argued animatedly.

Weiss was glad that Yang had somehow convinced Blake to take a break from her frenzied and exhaustive search, but she couldn’t deny the twinge of upset she felt in the pit of her stomach when Neptune flashed Sun a particularly brilliant smile.He’d come and talked to her for a bit, explaining what his hang-ups had been. Weiss was more than a little surprised that Jaune of all people had been the driving force to change his mind.

But then Sun had called him away for something. And with a shouted over-the-shoulder apology, Neptune had left.

It was fine. She crossed her arms, a sour expression on her face as she deliberately turned away. She was fine.

“Weiiiissss!!!!” called an over exuberant voice, jerking her out of her sulking for a moment. Her head jerked up to see a furiously waving and pink-cheeked Nora rushing over to her. Ren was nowhere to be seen, which was troubling. A Nora without supervision was a Nora who was likely to start breaking things.

“Hello Nora,” Weiss said placidly, eyeing Nora as the bubblegum-pink girl came to a halt in front of her. She hadn’t expected anyone to come over and say hi, not when there was dancing to do and friends to laugh with. She wasn’t bitter.

“Why’re you over here all by yourself?” Nora asked, bouncing on her feet to the beat of the music.

Weiss bristled for a moment, instinctually thinking that Nora was making fun of her, the great Weiss Schnee, for not having a date to the dance. But upon further examination, Weiss found only honest curiosity in Nora’s clear blue eyes. She should’ve known better, the redhead didn’t have an insincere bone in her entire body.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Weiss commented, once again glancing at the crowd to see if she could spot Nora’s missing partner. “Has Ren run off somewhere?”

Nora shrugged, sitting down in the empty seat beside her without asking if she could. Weiss didn’t know if she would’ve said no regardless. “He’s getting drinks for us,” Nora grinned, legs still kicking in rhythm. “Guess all the dancing must’ve worn him out.”

Now that Weiss could believe. Even sitting here, Nora was still moving, she could only imagine how tiring dancing with her must be. Weiss sometimes wondered whether Nora ever lost the energy she got from her Semblance, or if this was just natural.

“But that’s not important,” Nora waved off Weiss’s comments. “You never answered my question!”

Weiss avoided Nora’s curious gaze, choosing to stare determinedly at the crowd rather than at the redhead. She didn’t have to answer if she didn’t want to. Nora wasn’t her father, nothing was mandatory here unless she wanted it to be. It was just her luck that her gaze happened to fall on Neptune’s little trio at that moment, and Weiss stiffened.

“Oh…” Nora murmured, softly enough that she could scarcely be heard over the crowd and the pounding bass of the music. “That makes sense.”

Weiss tore her eyes away from Neptune to glare at Nora reproachfully. “What’s that supposed to mean?!” she snapped. The redhead was just smiling softly at the distant trio, and then turned a too-knowing look on Weiss. The heiress’s heart sank.

Oh. That’s what that was supposed to mean. She averted her gaze.

The music overhead shifted, changing from whatever the bassy energetic pop had been to something more slow and calm. The more boisterous dancers meandered off the floor, making way for blushing couples as the tempo slowed.

“Do you wanna dance?” Nora offered. Weiss startled, staring at Nora like she’d dropped from the moon.

“W-What?!” Weiss spluttered, feeling heat rise to her cheeks, and silently hating how casual Nora seemed.

Nora shrugged, her usual sharp grin smoothing to something softer. “It’s not fair that you’re just sitting over here all alone,” she reminded Weiss, leaning towards her slightly as if this was confidential information. “So I thought I’d offer.”

Weiss was nonplussed. “But… what about Ren?” Ren was Nora’s date. Ren was getting drinks for the two of them. Ren should be dancing with Nora.

Nora once again waved off Weiss’s comments. “He won’t mind, trust me,” Nora reassured her, and Weiss was faintly surprised when she realized she did trust her. When had that happened? “So-” Nora clambered to her feet, brushing down her floaty pink dress with one hand and holding out the other one to Weiss. “-what d’ya say?”

“I…” She hesitated, one hand lifted to take Nora’s outstretched one, the other one curled tightly in her lap. Weiss found her gaze flickering between Nora’s hand and her face. Chipped pink nail polish, of course. Freckles in a constellation across her faintly flushed cheeks. Warmth and trust and friendship in ocean-clear eyes.

Weiss found her gaze connecting with Yang’s purple-eyed one over Nora’s shoulder. The blonde was still up on the balcony, and was watching her intently. Yang had convinced Blake to take a break.

Oh what the heck.

“I would love to.” At her words, Nora grinned widely, grabbing her hand and pulling her upright. Weiss was tugged to her feet more quickly than she’d been ready for, and she distantly remembered that oh yeah, Nora Valkyrie could bench press five of me.

Over Nora’s shoulder, Yang grinned broadly.

Chattering excitedly, Nora led Weiss out onto the dance floor. Other couples were swaying there, some awkwardly, most blushing intensely. Weiss thanked her lucky stars that it was a slow song, maybe this way Nora wouldn’t kill her.

The two of them swayed together, rotating slightly. Nora’s hands at Weiss’s waist, Weiss’s on Nora’s shoulders. Nora talked about anything and everything, from school, to flowers, to candy, to friends. Weiss found herself grateful that she didn’t need to chime in too much, Nora seemed perfectly happy to keep up a running commentary all on her own.

She spotted a newly returned Jaune and Pyrrha across the dancefloor. Pyrrha had flowers in her hair, and Jaune was blushing like the sun, but they were holding hands and spinning slightly just as she and Nora were. Progress was slow, but it was happening, thank the gods.

“This is okay, right?” Weiss glanced back at Nora. The redhead was watching her intently, ocean eyes wide and discerning.

When had she learned to trust those eyes?

“This is great,” Weiss replied, smiling more sincerely than she thought she was capable of. She felt an unbidden surge of warmth when Nora’s grin returned, and Weiss very suddenly realized that maybe tonight wasn’t a total loss.