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lilithsgayadoptednephew · 4 years

Text

Holy Hands

By: This_is_my_toenail_collection

Fandoms: Shall We Date?: Obey Me! Not Rated Graphic Depictions Of Violence F/M, Other Complete Work

Chapter List

Chapter 5

Lucifer had been to earth a few times.

He never cared for it, but he went now and then for business or just a change of pace. Most often he ended up there to retrieve a wayward brother. He was sure he'd seen the worst of it.

Oh how wrong he was.

Never had he seen such a rundown street. It was more pothole than road, if you could call the one lane alley a road. The shrubs were scraggly and unkempt, the air smelled like gasoline, no one mowed their lawn. Lucifer couldn't believe MC lived in a place like this. He'd only been there for a few minutes and he'd decided it was longer than he ever wanted to spend.

The house was marginally better. Painfully small and dull, mismatched furniture and shabby carpeting. But it was warm and it was clean. It smelled like sandalwood… odd.

"Please retrieve your snake quickly, I'd like to leave as soon as possible." Lucifer couldn't help but sneer at the pathetic place.

Acacia wasn't as good with her words as MC but she knew emotions to a T. She could clearly feel the contempt radiating off of Lucifer as he scrutinized her home and it made her blood boil.

"I didn't ask for you to come here you know." She snapped. "It's not much but we worked hard for it so...fuck you!" She added the curse for extra punch.

Lucifer kept his mouth shut despite the flood of threats and comebacks that came to his mind. No need to prolong this trip by arguing.

Acacia led Lucifer up the stairs to MCs room. There wasn't a door, just a blue blanket covering the doorway like a curtain. Upon entering a wave of smells hit him, all of them pleasant. Dust and warmth and smoky patchouli, all the smells that made you want to sit down and do something simple. Like knitting or watching a nice movie.

Where the rest of the house was tidy, this room was not. Shelves had no order, the carpet was indistinguishable from the sheer amount of stuff covering the floor. The bed was unmade and there were books and paints all over it. Lucifer immediately backed out of the room.

"What now?" Acacia rolled her eyes.

"That room hurts my eyes, you retrieve the snake."

"Oh so now I'm allowed to go places alone? Now that it's convenient for you?"

"I don't have to dignify that with a response."

Acacia crossed her arms and stared Lucifer down. He stared back, making her immediately avert her eyes to the floor.

"It's because it's messy isn't it! God you're so pretentious how can you be Mammon's brother." She snapped while closely examining her shoes. Trying to hide her embarrassment with accusations.

"We can go back now and your snake can be left to shrivel." He answered coldly.

"No no MC would be heartbroken, they paid a lot for him and they've had him since he was a baby snake." Acacia sighed.

Lucifer didn't actually intend to leave the animal to die, but he was getting sick of this little girl being difficult.

They both stood there for a moment in silence.

"Well?" Lucifer prodded.

Acacia continued to stare at the ground. "Icntgthmbmslf.." she mumbled angrily.

"Could you repeat that?"

"I can't get him by myself!" She yelled and stamped one foot.

"What?" Lucifer didn't see why she couldn't have mentioned this earlier.

"He's… I mean I'm not… I'm not scared of snakes, it's… oh you'll see, just help me ok!" She grabbed Lucifer by the sleeve and dragged him back into the room.

Again he was confronted by the sweet smells and perilous organization of the room. Acacia stopped dragging him and moved to open a large glass tank on the far side of the room.

Lucifer hadn't taken the time before but now that he was standing in the room he saw the mess wasn't just a mess. All around, scattered on the floor and over the shelves were unfinished projects. Knitting, sewing, painting, drawing, crafting, clay, tape, string. Every material and craft under the sun was strewn around the room in a creative panic. A lot of finished projects as well. Fully made outfits, huge oil paintings, intricately woven tapestries. Even the wall paper wasn't what it appeared to be.

Murals lined each wall. Obviously painted at different times, large pictures of fantastical beings or landscapes. Full made-up stories depicted in acrylic. Lucifer stared in awe, the longer he stood there and took it all in the more he noticed.

Beach glass window hangings casting colorful sunlight through the room, wooden wind chimes probably hand-carved, Ragdolls and papers with poems and stories sat on the bed and...was that sheet music?

"Hey tall, dark and judgmental. Are you gonna help me?" Acacia held what looked like a large hook. Gesturing for Lucifer to approach.

"What do you need of me?" He asked upon reaching the young human.

"Just hold out your hand and...try to act like a tree"

Puzzled, Lucifer did as he was told. Acacia reached the hook into the tank and moved a cave looking structure. Underneath it was not what he was expected. He had expected a garter snake or perhaps some kind of corn snake to reside in a hovel like this.

Instead a huge, beautiful boa stared back at him. Tan with brown spots.

"I see why you may need help" he relented. Even curled up he could tell the snake was easily 7 feet long.

"Mhm" was Acacia's tense reply "I've never actually done it on my own" she confessed.

Tapping the creature twice with the hook, she scooped it up close to the head. She audibly groaned as she struggled with the creatures weight before placing it in Lucifers outstretched hand. He involuntarily flinched, not knowing the snake's temperament. He was not afraid, he'd faced much more threatening creatures. But...he'd never held a snake. It was heavy but not slimy like he expected. The scales were smooth and cool, and the creature was remarkably docile.

Acacia lifted the other end on the snake out of the cage, having to use both hands to support it with the hook. She then placed the rest of the snake on Lucifer's other arm. He noticed the tails deep red color as it coiled around his arms. It actually started to climb on his face, much to his distress.

"Oh look, he likes you" Acacia drawled sarcastically as she put the hook back.

Lucifer said nothing, he was too distracted. He had to close one eye as the snake with seemingly no boundaries started slithering through his meticulously kept hair.

"Take this thing." He finally relented.

"Nope, I gotta carry the tank" she replied. She punctuated it by hoisting the large tank up with no hesitation. She struggled slightly before settling its weight in her arms and motioning that she was ready to go.

"You're...uhgg" Lucifer held the snake away from him trying to get it to stop climbing on him. "You're stronger than you look." He finished his compliment.

"Thanks, and he's doing that cause he doesn't wanna fall." She giggled. "He wants to rap around something more secure, MC usually puts him on their shoulders."

"Ngggg…" Lucifer groaned as the snake tried to smell his face with its tongue. Carefully he lifted the reptile above his head and settled it on his shoulders. It shifted for a minute before settling. "This is an interesting pet."

They started heading back down the stairs.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure if MC does anything normal they'll go into a coma." Acacia joked.

"I see that, just their room is odd. The murals were most impressive."

"Yeah, they begged me to sketch one so I did. You saw the explosion?"

"Mhm"

"Yeah that was all me, cool right?"

They continued like this. As they walked back through the house he noticed other things. The unfinished game of cards on the table. The twin video game controllers plugged into the TV. The framed artwork adorning the walls, some of it obviously drawn by a young child.

They walked back out into the street to the gate. He noticed the sidewalk chalk and the two bikes locked to the stairs and the dog lead.

He didn't notice the potholes.

#obey me!#obey me fanfic #Holy Hands #tw snakes

2 notes · View notes

xyliane · 6 years

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watershed

summary: gon and killua might be the youngest pair of pilots in the jaeger program’s history, and they might have kind of ruined one of their jaeger’s arms in their first outing. but they kicked their first kaiju ass, and there’s almost nothing that can stop them from celebrating. almost.

notes: I love pacrim. I love it so much. also gon has a habit, and that habit is wrecking his arm and giving leorio gray hairs. pacrim au, killugon, featuring illumi zoldyck being illumi, leorio and kurapika being themselves, and cheadle really not liking how people don’t follow her orders but not willing to argue that point. T (depictions of arm injury plus f-bombs), 4700 words.

“That was fucking awesome!”

“Killua, you were amazing!”

“No, we were amazing, how did that even work?”

“I don’t know, but it did! And the kaiju—”

“—just opened its mouth and—”

“—we stuck the derigged electricity amp over the fist—”

“—and punched it right in the face and—”

“—it exploded!”

Killua can practically feel Gon vibrating through their drive suits, neither of them come down at all from the fight out at the Miracle Mile. Ten miles outside of Hong Kong, the first actual test drive for Tempest, their first real fight. And their jaeger held up to her name better than anyone could have expected, even as knocked around as her pilots got when the kaiju exploded on her fists.

She’s still sparking over on the landing pad, leaking oil and guts and wires from every hole in her right arm. Oro Tempest. Their jaeger. First of her kind, and hopefully not the last. Kite and Bisky are going to be apoplectic about the damages from the kaiju’s acidic blood, and the self-inflicted explosions that were only mostly Gon’s idea, and the way most of the armor was sheared off to allow for the explosions without killing both of them. Killua’s got some ideas about how to improve that, allowing for defense without having to sacrifice the structural integrity. But their jaeger’s definitely the best.

Gon’s got his good arm slung over Killua’s shoulders, buzzing with a mix of adrenaline and whatever painkillers his suit’s been feeding him for the last thirty minutes. Not that Killua’s much better, but at least his arm doesn’t look like their jaeger’s. The kaiju hadn’t been fast, but it had been big, a massive Category 2 that had tried to overwhelm Tempest with sheer force. Gon and Killua had responded, not with equal brutality like some of the Mark-1 and Mark-2 jaegers, but with quick reflexes and well-aimed strikes. It had worked well enough until the kaiju caught Tempest’s fist in its mouth, shredding most of the armor and crushing the metal in house-sized teeth. While Tempest had taken the worst of the impact, Gon’s right arm had been whipped out of place, the crack in the bone sharp enough that Killua’s own arm is still numb with phantom pain. He’s got a hand supporting his best friend’s waist, keeping him standing even as they stumble down the tarmac, accepting high fives and fistbumps with his free hand since Gon really shouldn’t be doing the same.

It doesn’t stop him from trying, though, nearly hiding his wince behind a wide sunny grin. Killua will chew him out later, after Leorio chews them both out in medbay, and judging by Kite’s expression towering over the rest of the crew, they’re going to get chewed out before they even clear the briefing. The only thing holding their LOCCENT officer back seems to be Bisky. The old gorilla is practically skipping with glee, crowing about something and a look in her eyes that Killua knows is going to spell at least a week of terribly, horribly painful training for him and Gon.

But Killua will take it if it means another minute basking in this. He earned this. It’s his. His and Gon’s.

“I think you’ve had enough of this game, Kil,” a voice made of black ice says through the din. It’s not a loud voice, not compared to the ear-splitting chaos erupting around the Shatterdome. But it rings in Killua’s ears over everything else, impossible to ignore and drawing his eyes back with sharpened hooks.

Illumi looks the same as he did the night before Killua left: immaculate black suit, long black hair straight and swept back, too-large and too-blank eyes sizing up everything around him and finding it lacking. He barely even blinks at the sight of Killua in a drivesuit, white hair buzzed in an undercut and bruises from sparring practice still bright and vibrant under his eye. It’s been months, but it’s as though Killua never left home, never ran away from Father’s side and Mom’s expectations and Illumi’s watchful eyes, never left Alluka alone with only a promise to come back when they can all be free. Maybe Illumi never really lost sight of him, but only pretended for long enough to make it feel like Killua was free, that Killua had something of his own, before ripping it all away again.

Killua breathes his brother’s name, and Illumi looks almost pleased as he glides through the crowd, people stepping out of the way without him ever touching them. “Come, Kil. If you’re not home soon, we’ll have to reschedule all of your coursework, and you know how that bothers Mom.”

The only thing that makes Killua remember where he is, that he’s in Hong Kong in a crowd of cheering people and not outside of Shanghai in a silent mansion filled with half-alive computer parts, or in a San Francisco highrise overlooking the ruined bay, is Gon’s good hand digging into his shoulder hard enough to dent armor.

“Killua?” Gon asks, and his voice sounds very far away.

———————

Gon’s been in the medbay for about two minutes before he stops being patient.

“Where is Killua?” he asks, barely even registering how Leorio resets his arm with practiced ease.

Leorio pulls back to let the brace take hold—it’s one of those soft ones, something to hold over until the skin wounds mend and they can start a better healing regimen—and presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I can’t tell you,” he says.

“Yes you can.” Because if Leorio says he can’t, it means he knows where Killua is.

Leorio’s eyes soften, like he’s going to break. But he says, “Fightmaster Kreuger will kill me if I did. I’m sorry, buddy.”

Gon glares at Leorio, and then darts for the door.

He’s forgotten that Leorio’s not just his friend, or his doctor, but one of the strongest people in their class. An iron-hard forearm slams into his diaphragm, knocking him back on his ass and all the air out of his lungs. His arm twinges painfully in the brace.

Leorio crouches down next to him, a firm hand on his shoulder and an exasperated look on his face. “Don’t get up, Gon.”

Something wrenches horribly in Gon’s chest, and he’s not sure if it’s his own feelings of worry and panic, or that terrible emptiness he’d felt echo from Killua on the tarmac as the man in the black suit had led him away. A feeling like loneliness, or resignation, or outright giving up. Nothing he’d ever felt from Killua before, like his best friend and drift partner has been abruptly consumed by someone else entirely. It’s not Killua. And Gon can’t let him drown in that all alone.

“Killua’s my copilot,” he tells Leorio, not caring that he sounds a little desperate. “I can’t leave him alone. That’s the deal. Jaeger pilots drift together.”

The exasperation in Leorio’s eyes deepens, and he rubs the bridge of his nose behind his glasses. It’s a little like Aunt Mito does sometimes when she’s dealing with colony administration (or with Gon on one of his bigger ideas, like running off to join the Shatterdome underage). “It’s a good thing Cheadle’s put me in charge of you, she’d tranq you until Killua’s brother leaves. Turns out the brat’s family has a massive stake in the Jaeger Program. You didn’t know about that, did you?”

Brother—? Killua’s memories of empty black eyes and emotionless threats flicker out of the drift and up to the front of his head, vivid enough to be his own. It’s terrifyingly similar to the dark loneliness ricocheting off of Killua before they’d been separated, and Gon can’t keep still anymore.

He tries to shove Leorio’s hand away. “I’ll find him myself. You can’t stop me.”

“Gon—”

“I need to see him.” He starts standing, even with Leorio working to keep him immobile. It’s hard without both of his hands, but all his time in the ring with Bisky and Killua can’t mean nothing. “Let me go, Leorio. Please.”

Leorio drops his hand so quickly that Gon falls over again. “Kite’s right, you do stop listening when you’re stubborn,” he says, laughing.

Gon growls. This isn’t funny! “I’m not—”

“I said, I can’t tell you where he is. And you can’t go running all over the Shatterdome, you’ll never find him.” Leorio rises to his feet, joints cracking as he stretches. “Luckily, I need to talk to Cheadle. And, well, Kurapika volunteered to help, but they forgot to finish their bookkeeping, so there’s no one to make sure you stay here.”

Hope flutters in Gon’s chest like a hummingbird on fire. “Then I—”

“I’m telling you to stay here. But I’m not letting Killua go anywhere without a fight.” Leorio smirks the same way he did before picking the lock on the food stores, and it makes Gon grin viciously. “He’s your best friend, but the brat owes me money. And he can’t leave without paying me back.”

Leorio shoves his hands in his pockets and stalks out the door, shoulders hunched up to his chin like he’s looking for a fight. “And remember, I told you to stay,” he calls back.

“You said that twice, Leorio,” Gon agrees, and closes the door to medbay firmly. “Can we go faster?”

They make it from medbay to Cheadle’s offices faster than Gon had thought possible without outright sprinting. Even then, Gon has to almost jog to keep up with his friend’s long legs. The Shatterdome’s pretty empty, most of the staff probably working on Oro Tempest’s multiple wounds—wounds that, if Gon thinks about, were mostly his fault, but he can’t worry about that now. The few people they come across take one look at the glint in Leorio’s glasses and scramble out of the way.

Outside Cheadle’s office, a small crowd has already gathered, but they take one look at Leorio and another at Gon and step back to let them through. Well, all of them except Kurapika, who’s standing next to the door with an expression of exasperated annoyance and a pile of paper nearly as tall as they are. They turn to Leorio and Gon, mouth set for a fight. “That certainly took long enough,” they snap.

“I had to set the arm right, or he would break it again inside the hour,” Leorio grouches right back. “And you know how stubborn he is.”

“You told him he couldn’t come?”

“Of course. Cheadle told me to.”

“Of course. Unfortunately for all of us, she’s not letting me in, despite these extremely urgent papers.”

“They’re really important!” Hanzo calls from the crowd like he’s trying to be heard in Cheadle’s office, and Kurapika makes an of course gesture.

Leorio frowns. “Have you heard anything yet?”

“Not much. The conversation remains fairly quiet. But it did not look very pleasant when they went in. Perhaps we could—”

Gon doesn’t care about any of that. Killua is right there, and no one’s done anything but wait. So he unceremoniously shoves past Kurapika, raises one booted foot, and kicks open the door.

Three people are gathered around a desk, including Marshall Yorkshire and the unfamiliar man from the docks, who looms in a shadow over Killua. Killua’s sitting with his back to Gon, shoulders tense enough that Gon can feel it cut through the air in jagged glass. He’s still in his underarmor, although someone’s given him an expensive-looking jacket without any Shatterdome insignia. It doesn’t look right, like Killua’s been shoved into ill-fitted skin. It’s not right.

Cheadle makes an exasperated noise. “Paladiknight, what did I tell you?”

“You told me I couldn’t tell him where Killua was,” Leorio says from outside the room. He’s probably hiding behind Kurapika. “I didn’t tell him. He followed me.”

“I told you to sedate him if he resisted,” she says.

Leorio shrugs. “I prioritized stabilizing the injury. Who knows what sedation would do.”

Cheadle visibly resists throwing something heavy at her underling’s head. “Even if you didn’t know—and if you don’t with the degree you have, I’m kicking your entire school into the ocean—it was an order.”

“You know we can’t stop Gon once he is set on a course,” Kurapika says. “He would simply have wandered around drugged until he found you. Leorio was concerned for his safety, and the potential damage to the Shatterdome.”

That makes Cheadle snort, even if she almost covers it up. “And Kurapika, I know you’ve been knocking at my door for fifteen minutes now. Weren’t you supposed to keep an eye on both of them?”

“I have paperwork,” they say, nudging Leorio in and closing the door behind them both.

“This isn’t important,” Gon says quietly, and everyone in the room turns to him. Everyone but Killua.

The dark-haired man with the crisp black suit turns his blank eyes to Gon. This is Killua’s brother? He has none of Killua’s warmth, or spark of curiosity, or even the grin that’s always tugging at the corners of his best friend’s mouth. There’s only studious intent, and even that is barely paper-thin. “Strangely enough, I agree with the boy,” he says. “Interim Marshall Yorkshire, let’s finish our discussion. My car is set to leave back to the city, and it would be best if Kil could get washed first.”

“Leave—” Gon starts to say, and the man’s black-eyed stare burrows further under his skin. “Killua’s not leaving. Not with you.”

Killua twitches almost imperceptibly in his chair. “It’s not your choice, Gon,” he says quietly. He doesn’t even sound like Killua.

“Kil’s right,” the man says, close enough to Killua that his shadow slithers possessively over Killua’s white hair. “Go, boy. I’ve a lot to discuss with my brother.”

Gon takes a threatening step forward, barely registering the frustrated noise Leorio makes in protest. “I’m not leaving. Not without Killua.”

Cheadle stands, hands slamming flat on the desk. She barely comes up to the black-haired man’s shoulders, but she looks down her nose at him all the same. “We’ve barely agreed on anything, Mr. Zoldyck,” she snaps.

“I think we agree that this boy shouldn’t be here.” He looks over Gon from top to bottom, taking in the sweat-drenched hair and the soft cast on his arm and the Shatterdome-issued uniform and his freckled brown skin, and dismisses him out of hand. It makes Gon’s muscles twitch, like he can’t decide if he wants to fight or hide or grab Killua and jump out a window. “This is a family matter, not one for outsiders. Even yourself, Interim Marshall.”

“I never said I agreed to either of those things,” Cheadle says. “Gon is here now, and he is Killua’s copilot. At the very least, we would need to find him another one.”

“I’ve seen Freecss’s scores. He matches well with almost anyone he drifts with. Quite a find, I’m sure. But my family needs Kil back home. He isn’t suited for places like this.” He places a pale hand on Killua’s shoulder, and Killua stiffens as though shocked. “He is the heir to the Zoldyck family, after all. We can’t have him out here playing robots versus aliens.”

Leorio jabs a finger at the man. “He’s playing at nothing, asshole! Killua’s here because he’s damn good at what he does, not because he’s some heir.”

“It is exactly why he is to come home. As successful as he is in a single kaiju attack, Kil deserves to be at home, with a family that can use those talents for something other than mindless punching. It’s not worthy of his skills to be here. And it’s certainly not worth the billions of dollars we’ve put into this program through R&D.”

Leorio spits something in Spanish that makes Cheadle turn bright red. “Paladiknight! Out, now!”

“I’m not—”

“I’ll throw you out myself. Kurapika, take him.”

“We want to help Killua,” they say, not making a move to restrain Leorio.

“By arguing? Don’t be an idiot.” She glares at Illumi, who watches the argument with an impassable stare. “Illumi. Are you threatening to pull your funding if your brother doesn’t leave.”

He shrugs. “I didn’t say that.”

“So Killua can stay.”

“I didn’t say that either.”

They keep bickering, and it’s like Gon’s not there, him or Killua. Gon’s kind of used to being ignored, because he’s young or Aunt Mito’s busy with ten thousand little tasks or he can get into places that adults can’t or won’t. If he needs to get someone’s attention, it usually doesn’t take more than saying the right thing at the right time. But they’re talking about Killua like he’s a paper in Kurapika’s pile, a thing that can be passed around, like just because he’s quiet and stiff and scared means he doesn’t get a choice. And that’s not fair. It’s not right.

They aren’t making Gon do things he doesn’t want to do. And Cheadle’s right, Gon can’t make decisions for Killua. So no one else should, either. Gon would rather risk losing everything than letting Killua give up even a grain of his own desires.

Cheadle is saying something about restrictions, or regulations, in a way that makes Illumi’s eyebrows scrunch up funny, but Gon doesn’t care. It’s not what matters.

“It’s not your choice!” Gon shouts, silencing the rest of the room.

Illumi cocks his head to one side. “Then it’s yours?” he asks, almost curious-sounding if it weren’t for the underlying scorn.

“No!” Gon’s fists clench harder, enough that he can feel blood seep under his blunt nails. “You’re supposed to be his brother, and you don’t know? It’s no one’s choice but Killua’s! Not Cheadle’s, not Leorio’s, not mine, and never yours.”

His best friend finally turns to him, face paler than usual. He still doesn’t say anything, but he meets Gon’s eyes with shock, or confusion, or—maybe Gon’s just seeing things, but he sees the same recognition in Killua’s face that he feels under his own skin. He knew it from the first time they sparred, that they don’t need to do these things without someone’s support anymore. They recognized each other even outside of the drift, and there’s nothing anyone else can do to take that moment of complete trust back.

I won’t let you do this alone.

Illumi taps a finger to his lips. “No, I think it’s still mine. Kil, come home.”

Cheadle clears her throat. “Unfortunately, Mr. Zoldyck, this is my Shatterdome, and you are a guest. And in this matter, Killua is a Jaeger pilot first and foremost.”

Gon’s heart jumps into his throat. “Then—”

“Then it’s not up to you either, Gon,” Cheadle says, not unkindly. She leans onto her desk, eye to eye with the jaeger pilot sitting across from her. “Killua, would you like to stay, or go?”

Killua’s eyes light up, and he starts to look like himself again. “I want…” He swallows, glancing back to Gon, who wishes he could do anything more than hope. “I want to stay.”

Illumi’s shadow looms over the both of them, and Gon can’t shove him away without going through Killua. “Are you sure, Kil? There will be consequences. It’s not just me and Mom you’ll be giving up.”

Something lingers in that threat that Gon can’t place, but it makes a chill run down his best friend’s spine. Killua has secrets, lots of them. So many that Gon hasn’t seen most of them, even in the drift. It’s part of Killua Gon’s long since accepted, since he knows Killua will let him know if it’s necessary or when he feels ready. But this is a secret Gon doesn’t know, and he is suddenly terrified.

But before he can say anything, Killua rises out of his chair. Standing, he’s not much shorter than his brother, and with the muscle he’s put on in training he looks just as dangerous. Not enough to win a fight, maybe, but he’s got Gon to back him up. “Don’t touch her. Either of them. I’m staying, Illu. Tell Father whatever you want, I’m not going back.”

Illumi shakes his head, like he’s amusing a guard dog who won’t let go of a stick. It makes Gon want to punch him, or break his bones, anything to get him to stop thinking of Killua like a pet. Killua’s not his. “I’ll be in Hong Kong for business this week, for when you change your mind,” he says. “Interim Marshall Yorkshire has my number. Oh, and I’ll call Mom for both of us.”

“Don’t bother,” Killua mutters. With that, he grabs Gon’s hand and pulls them both out of the office, back straight and chin up. It’s only Gon that notices the cold sweat gathered in his copilot’s palms, how his fingers tremble slightly where they’re tangled up with Gon’s. So Gon squeezes back as tight as he can, anything to not let go.

———————

Gon’s strangely quiet when they make it back to their quarters, finally clean and back in regular uniforms as Gon flops onto his bed and Killua clambers up to his own bunk. Not that Killua had much to add after they’d left Cheadle’s office, what with his heart still beating too fast and his mind racing with the mix of Illumi and Gon and Tempest and Gon and the old man and Marshall Yorkshire and Gon.

Killua’s not sure what he’d been thinking before Gon stormed into the Marshall’s office. Illumi has a way of making Killua forget everything he’s supposed to be doing, and zeroing in on what he’s not: Not researching the right mechanics, not finishing his schoolwork, not learning the differences between corporate taxes for the Zoldyck headquarters in Shanghai or Washington DC. Not keeping his promise to Alluka that he’d help her unshackle Nanika. Not keeping his promise to himself that he’d stay away from his family. Illumi made it feel like the last several months were useless. That he’d always be alone with the promises he broke and the things he didn’t finish.

But Killua is still in the Shatterdome, and he isn’t leaving. He doesn’t have to. Gon had reminded him of that.

So he says, “Illumi’s an even bigger idiot than Leorio if he thinks I’m going to do what he wants,” and hopes Gon understands what he’s saying.

He doesn’t get a response, not in words. But the next thing he knows, Gon’s climbing up to Killua’s bunk, scrambling over the railing one-handed like he’s grappling through branches in a forest and plopping onto the thin mattress hard enough to send the pillows falling to the ground. “This really isn’t big enough for both of us,” Killua says, just to argue.

Gon hums a little, not meeting his eyes. But Killua can practically feel the uncertainty buzzing under his best friend’s skin, like an echo from the drift. Gon’s usually better about the whole echoes thing—reading them or giving them off. And now he’s the one lost in thought, freckled brown hands picking at a loose thread in Killua’s sheets.

So Killua flicks him in the forehead. “Hey, those are mine, cut it out,” he says as Gon whines.

“What was that for?” Gon demands, eyes watering.

“Besides ruining your arm on a guess?” Killua says, nudging the cast.

“That was both our idea, Killua!” Gon protests.

“I’m pretty sure I know which of us it came from first. You’re the one who doesn’t think so much.”

“Only because you think too much.”

“I think more than you, that’s for sure.”

“You think enough for both of us, I guess,” Gon says.

Killua snorts. “I will not take your math exam next week, even for a mountain of chocolate.”

“That’s not—” Gon starts, but he looks so offended Killua can’t help but cackle with laughter. “Killua, I’m being serious!”

“I know, I just.” He’s not able to finish the thought because he starts laughing again. He lets Gon hit him with a pillow, it’s not just because his defenses are down and he’s laughing like he’s never laughed before in his life, all of the tension left in the day burning out and away. Killua doesn’t know how Gon does it. Just being around Gon makes things seem more doable, no matter how hard it gets. Like it’s easy for Killua to be himself and no one else.

Maybe it’s the drift. Gon knows him better than anyone, because they’ve seen inside each other’s heads, know each other’s memories like well-worn dreams. But Killua has a feeling that it would be the same even without a giant robot connecting them to each other. It’s easy, being with Gon.

He finally catches his breath before Gon can try to suffocate him with a spare pillow, and pushes his grinning best friend back. “You’re okay, right?” Gon asks.

“I should be asking you that,” Killua says, nudging Gon’s cast.

Gon winces, but doesn’t back down. “It’s only an arm.”

That earns him another, firmer nudge, and Gon yelps. Killua’s own arm twinges in sympathy. Killua himself has none. “Leorio had to hunt you down in the shower to make sure it had set properly,” he says. “You’re going to be out of a drivesuit for at least a month. Who’m I supposed to drift with if you’re not there?”

“No one,” Gon says firmly. But he pauses, a flicker of fear in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, even with Illumi breathing down their necks and threatening to take Alluka away forever. Not that Gon knew. “Unless you don’t want to—”

“No,” Killua says.

Gon goes still. “No?”

“No, I don’t want to leave,�� Killua says, the words falling out of his lips in a jumbled stream. “Or drift with someone else.”

“Why not?”

“Why—Gon, you just said you don’t want me to drift with anyone else!”

“Well, that’s what I want. What do you want, Killua?” The fear still sits in his brown eyes like a living thing, and he looks down at his bandaged arm before Killua can examine it too closely.

He sighs. “I just told you, didn’t I? I want to stay.”

I want to stay with you, Killua thinks, and he wonders if Gon can hear it even outside of the drift. The idiot probably can.

But rather than acknowledge that, Gon holds out a hand, pinkie extended. “Promise you’ll stay?” he asks.

He shouldn’t be surprised. They’d promised each other, in the stupid sort of way you’re supposed to grow out of by sixteen, that they wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. And Gon’s the sort of person who’ll kill himself before he breaks even the stupidest of pinkie swears.

Killua is drift compatible with an idiot. And he doesn’t care. Somewhere around the point of actually hooking pinkies and letting Gon chant something soft and true, when it wasn’t so much about the stupid action as it had been about trust and belief that Gon is who he is, it stops mattering at all.

He couldn’t keep his promise to Alluka. Maybe this promise, Killua will be able to keep.

“Okay,” he says, and Gon’s eyes light up brighter than all the lights in Hong Kong. “But Illumi’s my problem. I’ll deal with him on my own.”

“And you’re my problem, so Illumi’s my problem too.”

“I’m not a problem!”

Gon grins, a strand of black hair flopping across his forehead. “You kind of are. But that’s okay, Killua. Because you’re my problem.”

Killua has about a dozen ways he should reply to that, not least is that Gon is far more of a problem on any given day than Killua is, and that makes him Killua’s problem, not the other way around. But Gon’s eyes are even warmer than his hands, and it sends a wave of comfort across Killua’s skin, like he’s being wrapped in a blanket fresh out of the dryer, a fuzzy one with goofy animals on it big enough to cover the whole room. But it’s just Gon. And Killua can’t look away.

So rather than worry about that, Killua grumbles, “Fuck off, dumbass,” and shoves his best friend face-first into the mattress.

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minhthangcoi9993-blog · 6 years

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Review Games A Plague Tale: Innocence

It’s a strange thing to be known for, but A Plague Tale: Innocence [official site] will almost certainly be That One Game With The Brilliant Rats. As soon as footage starts to spread around the internet, it’s the rats that people will settle on because they are the entire point of the exercise. With all apologies to the two kids who are the actual protagonists, sneaking through a plague-ridden medieval French city and avoiding both inquisitors and rats, it’s the swarms that steal the show. Both as a game mechanic and a technical feat, the rats are king. It makes Dishonored look like a petting zoo.

Watching a slice of Plague Tale, played by a developer, reminded me of seeing the Mardi Gras crowds in Hitman Blood Money for the first time. Games often avoid depicting large groups of moving characters, preferring to treat crowds as a single entity rather than a larger entity made up of many smaller but discrete elements. I loved that in that Murder of Crows level, a gunshot would cause groups of people to separate, splitting into their own unique patterns of panic and escape.

A Plague Tale, in its current form, puts its big idea right on the menu screen. A swarm of rats, each one moving dynamically, are feasting on a corpse. You can see them squirming up and around one another, nibbling and biting and fighting for space. And then, when you press start, a carriage rattles past in the street outside the building where the body is lying and its lantern sends a pool of light splashing through the window. The rats peel away from the light, scurrying and scratching, and then slowly inch their way back to the feast once it has passed.

It’s grotesquely gorgeous and explains the game’s central conceit extremely well. You play as two children, though there’s no evidence of a smart Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons style control system at this point. It looks like you’ll always, or mostly, be in control of Amicia, the older of the two, or whether you’ll also control tiny little Hugo who is about six years old. Amicia is either pre-teen or barely into her teens, but she seems capable enough, at least in the brains department, outsmarting the chaps who are hunting her and her brother. It’s a stealth game, based almost entirely around light rather than sound.

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Rats don’t like the light, so the darkness is often a sea of teeth and eyes. Portable light sources keep them at bay, but are hard to come by, so you’ll need to stick to what light there is in the environments, while destroying the lanterns and torches that the inquisitors carry. When you do, they’re soon covered in rats, screaming and devoured. Grim.

The small chunk of the game I saw might not actually be in the game at all, with release possibly a year and a half away or more, but as a technical demonstration it was impressive. At one point, rats pour through a church’s windows like streams of oil, flooding the floor and lapping against the flicker of torchlight that protects the protagonists. They’re fluid, like a particle system with teeth and claws, and the way that they writhe and surge adds an element of horror to what might be fairly conventional environmental light-based puzzles.

It’s too early to know whether the game will live up to its rats, but I do like seeing a mechanic directly tied to exciting tech. The historical setting has clear elements of fantasy, not least in the rats themselves, but will be mostly grounded in reality, and if the environments are depicted half as well as their inhabitants, it’ll be a beautiful game if nothing else.

Side note: developers Asobo worked on a game based on the Pixar film Ratatouille and that amuses me.

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yes-dal456 · 7 years

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Just Because My Body Looks Healthy Doesn’t Mean My Eating Disorder Isn’t Real

This post originally appeared on Bustle.

By Ray Gallagher

I have strong, broad shoulders and ropy back muscles. On my better days, I imagine that I have the arms of Michelle Obama and the abs of Ronda Rousey. I have the thick, defined quads and calves of someone who has been playing sports for over two decades.

By most accounts, I adhere to conventional Western beauty standards. I am petite and trim. Since the dawn of the fitspo, athletic bodies are more “in” than ever, and I align with this idealized version of the female form. By all outward appearances, I am the Instagram-ready depiction of feminine health. I may look #swoleselfie ready, but what most people don’t know is that I actually suffer from an eating disorder. The truth is, eating disorders, like pretty much all mental illnesses, are notoriously difficult to diagnose. With overlapping symptoms, individual differences among patients, and subjective diagnostic criteria, it can be difficult for even seasoned therapists to diagnose an eating disorder.

For the longest time, I certainly didn’t truly recognize the extent of my issues. After all, I wasn’t rail-thin. I wasn’t fainting in the hallway like Miranda from that one episode of Lizzie McGuire. I certainly wasn’t ready to be laid up in a hospital bed and hooked up to a feeding tube, like that one girl from freshman year homeroom, so I couldn’t possibly have an eating disorder, right?

I was able to ignore some of the more subtle indicators that I had an eating disorder primarily because I didn’t experience too many of the very common ones. It’s the type of logic that alcoholics and drug addicts employ: if I’m not at rock-bottom, it can’t be that bad.

Like many pre-teen girls in America, my body image issues began when I hit puberty in middle school. It was easy being the cute, scrawny kid with knobby knees, adorable bangs, and a wiry torso. It wasn’t so easy being the pudgy sixth grader with awful eyebrows. But with all of the awful changes that middle school brought, it did introduce me to the one thing that changed my life: field hockey.

My eighth grade best friend encouraged me to try out for the team. “It’s not that hard, and you probably won’t get cut since you’re an eighth grader,” she told me. I made the team, and thus began my career as a varsity athlete.

Now playing a varsity sport, I noticed that I lost a little fat and gained some muscle. My body composition changed with each field hockey season, accompanied by summers spent running on the boardwalk and spring semesters filled with lacrosse. It seemed obvious, but it was the first time I made the connection that sports and fitness could mean having a conventionally attractive body.

I managed to make it through high school without having any eating disorder drama. I watched what I snacked on, I was busy with sports, and my mom cooked healthy dinners. What did I have to worry about?

Everything changed when I got to college. I wasn’t used to the freedom of an all-you-can-eat self-serve dining hall. Field hockey practice was a lot different than at the high school level, with less in-season focus on conditioning and more focus on developing technical skills. Coupled with normal late-adolescence weight gain, I began obsessing over my appearance. I would check my stomach in the mirror constantly, and assess my face for any double-chins that may have been lurking. It was also around this time that I started experimenting with diet restriction. I pretended to be a vegetarian for six weeks, but I really just wanted to see if cutting out meat would make me any skinnier. Spoiler: it didn’t.

Things didn’t truly get out of control for me until my spring semester junior year, when I studied abroad in Spain. I was excited for the program, but I was also incredibly nervous. I had signed up for a full immersion program, where I would be living with an older, unmarried señora in her apartment. As Spanish major, I knew a homestay would let me practice as much Spanish as possible. I wanted the authentic Spanish experience, and I knew that boarding with a Spanish señora was the best way to do it.

Going in, I knew I would have to be flexible with my carefully-regimented lifestyle. It would be rude to barge into her house and make dietary demands. I was eager for the immersion experience, so I ignored every instinct telling me that this living arrangement could potentially be a bad idea.

My señora was lovely, but she was also the world’s worst and unhealthiest cook. Spanish food is not known as particularly healthful, with dietary staples consisting of cured meats, rich cheeses, and fried foods. Whole grains and kale are just not a thing in Spain. My señoraalso admitted she “didn’t care to eat healthy,” and looked at me like I was a maniac when I told her some of my favorite foods were raw veggies and plain, grilled chicken.

I didn’t want to offend her, so I ate her greasy empanadas and oil-soaked lettuce for five months straight. I took full advantage of Salamanca’s bustling nightlife scene, and spent many nights drinking cocktails served by the liter and scarfing down doner kebabs at four in the morning. All of this la vida loca left me with a new reality: I was more than 15 pounds heavier.

Great, I thought, I can’t even have an eating disorder correctly.

During the semester, I kept telling myself to ignore the weight gain and just enjoy my time in Europe. Everyone gets a little pudgy when they study abroad, right? Coming back to America was a crash-landing back to reality. If gaining weight induced my anxiety, then the process of losing it drove me absolutely crazy. I had always been body-conscious, but now I was obsessive about my appearance.

As punishment, I mistreated my body in the worst ways. I starved myself, often jerking awake at 6 a.m. from hunger pangs. I experimented with bulimia, but could never even binge enough to induce vomiting. Great, I thought, I can’t even have an eating disorder correctly. For one entire summer, I cut out carbs entirely — and I mean entirely.

I gave myself migraines from messing with my blood sugar levels. If I was going out, I just wouldn’t eat, because I didn’t want to “look chubby.” Spending two hours at the gym, seven days-a-week, was standard. It only took me a few months to lose my “Spain weight,” but I kept pushing my body harder, masquerading my disordered behaviors as “physical fitness.”

I hit rock-bottom when I nearly fainted at the gym. My research meeting ran later than expected, and it was almost time to meet a friend for dinner. I was starving. I can’t eat dinner if I don’t do at least a high-intensity power lift routine, I frantically thought as I raced to the gym. The thought of only working out for only 45 minutes induced sheer panic in me. Mid-way through my work-out, I got dizzy and lightheaded from doing a set hang-cleans and almost dropped the bar on myself. I was so weak from hunger I couldn’t even clear 65lbs ― something that was once easy for me.

Earlier that day, a girl I barely even knew approached me in awe and said, “Ray, I’ve been meaning to ask you … how did you get so skinny?” At the time, I radiated from her compliment. But now, after fainting in the gym, I just felt like I was cheating myself out of health and happiness. That was my wakeup call; I soon realized that I was merely rationalizing my behavior. After doing some research, I realized that I most likely suffered from Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (EDNOS). Also called OSFED, this diagnosis describes people with eating disorder symptoms not fitting neatly into the “anorexia” or “bulimia” categories. Inconsistent purging behaviors? Anorexia minus the extreme, dangerous weight loss? Obsession with exercise as a form of weight management? Extreme preoccupation with food and physical appearance? It was like someone had studied my behavior over the last few years and created a diagnosis just for me. Most shockingly, I learned that EDNOS is hardly talked about — even though 70 percent of people with an eating disorder fall into the EDNOS category. It is the label for the standard illness of our culture.

Finding a label for my mental health issue was the first step in overcoming it. For me, the biggest obstacle was admitting I had an eating disorder in the first place. I was so consumed with the idea that my fit, muscular body was the paragon of health that the idea that I had an eating disorder was just out of the question.

In an effort to get healthy, I started doing more research and spoke to a therapist about my issues. I made a conscious effort to be mindful of my food choices by strategically planning my meals, helping me make sure that my body is taken care of after the gym. I also started testing myself with “cheat meals,” and realized that the world wouldn’t come crashing down if I ate a slice of pizza once in a while. Within months, I started seeing more positive changes in my body. I was eating more, spending less time at the gym, and was looking healthier than ever before — probably because my body wasn’t starving anymore. More importantly, I was no longer obsessing over my body or panicking if I had to skip Leg Day. Of course, when it comes to having an eating disorder, a happy ending is never so simple. I still fight the body image issues that I’ve dealt with since middle school. But one of the best ways I now combat these negative thoughts is by focusing on what my body can do, rather than just how it looks. After all, this is the body that ran a half-marathon, loves to paddle board, and has played in countless field hockey games. I should be proud of it, and treat it kindly.

Images: Ray Gallagher

If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Eating Disorder Association hotline at 1-800-931-2237.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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imreviewblog · 7 years

Text

Just Because My Body Looks Healthy Doesn’t Mean My Eating Disorder Isn’t Real

This post originally appeared on Bustle.

By Ray Gallagher

Great, I thought, I can’t even have an eating disorder correctly.

Images: Ray Gallagher

If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Eating Disorder Association hotline at 1-800-931-2237.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2iodaVq

#Healthy Living - The Huffington Post

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