#cross posted from ao3

[ultramegagigamax3]

can you read my mind? ive been watching you | toby rogers/reader

couldnt fight to save your life

but you look so cool

camo' jacket, robbin corner stores

hard odds to beat when youre on all fours

cause good men die too

so id rather be with you <3 Ugly bitch, stupid fuck those are the words that haunted your high school career, right? You lived in the middle of redneck country, born and raised yet you stood out like a sore thumb. Eye catching, like how a car crash is eye catching. Leech said dad, godless junkie adds mom. It’s not like everyone hated you; you had your lame friends, your stupid cousins, your annoying siblings… and that psycho murderer who spared your life. That counts, right?

CW: ableism, homophobia, references to racism, drug addiction, dysfunctional families, gore/violence (duh), bullying TW: sexual harassment/assault, references to rape (will be warned + not between the main couple)

chapter 1: its just not my year

chapter 2: you drank the blood and bit the meat

to be cont...

#toby rogers #reader insert #toby rogers x reader #creepypasta x reader #ticci toby #ticci toby x reader #fanfiction #cross posted from ao3 #the horror of having a body #dark romance #i am cringe but i am free

[novankenn]

Secrets Vol 1

IF you're looking for more Female!Jaune / Gender swapped Jaune I have another FIC that might suit your tastes.

Summary : Jaune Arc had never wanted to be a huntress. She dreamed of being a dance instructor and a homemaker. Very happy to live a quiet and unassuming life in the Hamlet of Ansel, surrounded by the rest of her family. Then one day, those dreams were engulfed in a raging inferno, and Jaune was thrust into a situation she didn't want to be in. Cloaked in deception, and surrounded by lies, Jaune struggles to justify it all, and remain true to who she is.

Prologue : (2151 Words)

Nathaniel Arc and his daughter Violet were busy taking inventory during one of the few days that Ansel Dry-Goods was closed for business. The medium-sized general goods and feed store was the second of the businesses the family of ten owned and ran in the well defended Hamlet of Ansel. The first was the Grimm-head tavern and Inn. A quaint and comfortable, safe place for the weary traveller and the locals to relax and enjoy good company. All in all, the tight-knit family was doing well for themselves.

The blaring of the town’s alarm, caused the pair to drop what they were doing to rush outside. The community wide alarm only went off for a couple of reasons, the first was approaching grimm, the second was fire. While the walls that surrounded that hamlet were composed of mine debris coated with imported concrete, most of the buildings contained within were made of locally harvested timber. An out of control fire would be as disastrous, if not more so, than a large scale grimm attack.

Once outside, Nathaniel saw the smoke, and broke into a dead on sprint. The distance wasn’t far, but it felt like miles for him to cover. The fire brigade was already at work, hosing down the structure in an attempt to keep the flames from spreading further. He forced his way through the small gaggle of onlookers, ignoring any complaints; all which died when they understood who had shoved them aside. 

“Jasmine!” he bellowed, hoping his voice would carry over the noise of people, water, flames and sirens. “Jasmine!”

“Nat!” drew his attention to the side, and forced a sigh of relief, at least until he closed, and noticed that his wife of 20 plus years face was a mix of fear and dread.

“Jas, what’s…” as he spoke, he took a rapid head count. He knew the twins were on wall duty today, Violet had been with him at the store, and Saphron was in Argus. That left four to be at home, and he only saw three. His three youngest. “Where?”

“She’s still inside.” Jasmine choked out, barely keeping herself composed as her daughters clutched at her clothing, seeking the security only she could bring them through contact. “I tried… but it was too much… too fast…”

“Where was she?”

“Where’s Jaune?” Violet yelled as she finally caught up to her father, and noticed the missing form of her twin sister. “Where’s Jaune?”

“She was in her room… I heard her screaming…”

Nathaniel didn’t wait to hear anymore. Grabbing Violet’s wrist, he pulled her over next to her mother and raised a single finger. The universal fatherly symbol for stay and wait. He didn’t wait for her to acknowledge before he released his grip and twisted about on his heels and dashed for the front door of the family home that sat attached to the inn. The flames were already starting to spread into the structure of the family’s second business. Calling on his partial huntsman training, he pulled on every ounce of his aura, coating his body in a protective barrier. A shield he hoped would allow him to find his missing child. He didn’t even reach the path to the door, before four members of the brigade intercepted him.

“Nat no!”

“Jaune’s still fucking in there!�� 

“There’s nothing you can do!”

“Like fuck, there isn’t!” Nathaniel cursed and struggled, but even as angry, desperate and aura empowered as he was, the combined hold of four men, who were also aura using members of the Town Watch, he made no head way. “Let me go! I have to get to…”

Before he could finish, the family home fell. Collapsing in upon itself, in a shower of soot, ash and sparks. All the fight fled Nathaniel at that point. He could hear the wails of his wife and children, as his own heart broke, and if it hadn’t been for the men who had been holding him back, that were now holding him up, he would have crumpled to the dirt. He felt hollow as  the flames continued to eat through the timbers that had once been the home of his family. Even with seven safe, he felt like a failure. What type of father would let one of his own die alone, when he could have prevented it?

“Nat, go see to Jas and the girls.” one of the men, holding him up, offered, “Let us do our job.”

Nathaniel Arc just nodded, his body heavy and unwieldy. He stumbled several times over his own feet as he crossed the short distance to his waiting and stricken family. He wrapped his arms about his daughter Violet as she launched herself at him, her small hands closed into fists, and ineffectually bouncing off his wide chest. Nathaniel would weather her anger, it was all he could do. His sorrow filled blue eyes sought out the equally hurting, sharp greens of his beloved. She was clutching the three youngest to her. Doing her best through her own pain to comfort their confusion and hurt.

/=/

The fire continued to burn into the night, gutting the family’s inn and tavern, in addition to completely consuming their home. As the now family of nine tried to come to terms with their loss, the town guard assembled in force. This was just the type of event that could draw the grimm, and they wouldn’t allow themselves to be caught unprepared. It would be a long night for them, as it would be for the Arc family.

Taking shelter in the store, Nathaniel, with some help from Violet and the twins Vert and Jade, had cleared out part of the back storeroom. Making enough room for the family to sleep within proximity of one another. Though both Jasmine and he knew there would be little in the way of sleeping this night. 

“You have to call her.” Jasmine told her husband. “She needs to know.”

“How am I supposed to do that? How do you even start that conversation?”

“I don’t know.” Jasmine replied, “But Jaune is… was special to her. She needs to know, needs to hear it from one of us.”

“I know.” Nathaniel sighed, as he attempted not to move much and disturb the sleeping form of Juniper, who had nestled into his chest. “I get it, just how?”

“Just be straight with her. Tell her what happened…”

“If I hadn’t been stopped, I could have…”

“No you couldn’t, you know that. If you had gone in there for her…”

“She’s going to want to know, how…”

“Not right away.” Jasmine reached over the sleeping form of Violet, who was firmly fastened to her mother’s waist, and patted her husband on his knee. “Call her, and I’ll take care of telling Saph.”

Nathaniel just nodded, and carefully transferred the sleeping form of Juniper to a space near her mother. The young girl whimpered, and for a moment he paused in his motions. But then he relented. With the utmost care, he placed the youngest of his family down next to her mother, before rising to his own feet, and pulling out his scroll. With a nod to his wife, he stepped out of the back room, walked through the darkened interior of the store, and out into the street. At the best of times, the link to the CCT, made video calls choppy. 

It didn’t take much for him to locate her contact info, with her being near the top of his list. His thumb hovered over the call icon, and after a deep and pained sigh, he tapped it. It rang twice before being answered. The video was like he had figured, a little choppy and delayed, and with the time difference between Ansel and Vale it was going to be early for Glynda.

“Nat, what’s…”

“I know it’s early Glyn, but there was a fire…” Nathaniel paused, out of all of his children, Jaune in particular was special to Glynda.

“A fire? Is everyone…”

“I’m sorry Glyn… I tried, but…” Nate felt the tears start to roll down his cheeks. All his bottled up emotions finally starting to seep out.

“Nat?”

“We lost… we lost…”

“Nat, you’re scaring me. What happened? Is every…”

“I couldn’t save her… I tried, but they held me back… I couldn’t…”

“Nat?”

“Jaune… Jaune was trapped inside…” Nathaniel couldn’t hold it in anymore and openly began to sob. “We…”

“No… no… no… it has to be a mistake…” Glynda’s voice was breaking up and Nat knew it wasn’t from the poor connection quality, “She can’t…”

“I’m so sorry, Glyn… I tried, I really…” Nate couldn’t continue. The sight of Glynda, his sister-in-law, finally breaking down, was the final piece, and he fell completely apart. “I tried… I tried…”

Glynda said nothing as her emotions were written all over her face. Shock, despair, disbelief, and horror. It was her tear filled sharp green eyes that were the most telling, as they were filled with absolute and utter grief.  So caught up in their shared grief, Nathaniel didn’t notice the head of the fire brigade rushing towards him, shouting.

“What?”  Nathaniel asked as in confusion when the man grabbing him by the shoulders. “I…”

“We found her!” the man, who Nathaniel remembered, was Alex Hawthorne. “We found Jaune!”

“Do I have to…”

“She’s ALIVE!”

“What?”

“We found her ALIVE!”

“Where? How?”

“I don’t have a fucking clue how, but we found her in the basement, she must have fell through the floors when the place collapsed, but she’s alive, Nate, she’s fucking alive!”

“Take me to her!” Nate snapped as he dropped his scroll to the ground and grabbed Alex by the shoulders.

“Nat, what’s going on?” Glynda shouted out over the poor connection of the scroll. She had heard some of what had been shouted, but not enough came through clearly enough for her to understand. “NAT!”

“Jasmine and the girls! Someone has…”

“I’ll take care of it. Get your ass to the clinic.” Alex ordered the confused father, as he shoved him down the road towards the town’s medical clinic. “Get there, I’ll tell Jas.” Nathaniel nodded numbly, as he took a couple more stumbling steps, and then a thought shot through his mind. He nearly tripped in his haste to grabbed his dropped scroll, and as soon as his hand closed about it, he snapped it up to his face.

“They found her and she’s ALIVE!”

“She’s…”

“She’s alive, Glyn. She’s alive.”

“I… I…” Nathaniel watched as Glynda wiped her eyes on her sleeve, taking the moment to collect her thoughts. “I’ll be there in six hours.”

/=/

Glynda, Nathaniel; and Jasmine were in the waiting room, leaving their daughters, in the recovery room with Jaune. Juniper and Blanche curled up on the bed with Jaune, while Noir and Violet stood close by, holding her hands. The final two, Vert and Jade, stood at the door, almost as if to guard their sister’s tear filled reunion.

“Her leg is broken, she has a sprained wrist, and a possible concussion. The doc thinks every injury was a result of falling two stories into the basement. There is no sign of any burns, or indications of smoke inhalation.” Nate reported to his haggard looking sister-in-law while his wife hugged her tightly. “No one has any clue how, and we’re not going to question it. It’s a miracle… a fucking miracle.”

“How did the fire start?” Glynda managed to get out as she was fighting to keep her swirling tempest of emotions under control. “Do we know?”

“No.” Nate replied, as the brigade was waiting for an official inspector to come in on the next commercial flight. “All Alex, he’s head of the brigade, would say is he never saw anything like it. A fire getting that hot, that quickly.”

“Jas, did you?”

“I heard Jaune screaming, and when I tried to rush upstairs to check on her… flames just started rolling down the hallway.” Jasmine bit her lip. “I could have pushed through it with my aura, but I had Noir, Blanche and Juniper to get out.”

“What is it, Glyn?” Nate asked, as he noticed the look that was replacing the one of relief that had been etched on Glynda’s face. “You’re thinking about something, what is it?”

“Could she have activated a semblance?” Glynda offered.

“Doubtful, unless she can do it without her aura unlocked.” Nate replied.

“Maybe it spontaneously…?”

“Again doubtful… but we can have it checked for.” Nate replied, “It would be a plausible explanation for everything… or at least most of it.”

“Do you think I can get some time alone with her?” Glynda asked as Jasmine finally released her grip on her older sister. “Do you think the girls will mind?”

“Not for their favourite aunt.” Jasmine replied with a relieved grin.

“I’m their only aunt.”

#rwby #jaune arc #female!jaune #cross posted from AO3 #updates every monday

[elydition]

Stained

After the Vision Hunt Decree ended and the Sakoku Decree was abolished, Heizou had nothing he could arrest Kazuha on. It irked him, but he let it be.

While relaxing in the city one day, Heizou spotted the samurai beaten and bleeding. He couldn't help but assist the extremely attractive samurai.

It seems something could be bubbling between them.

“It bothers you that you couldn’t arrest Kazuha, doesn’t it?” Kuki Shinobu said. The detective near her was sprawled out on the lush grass right outside of Inazuma City. He was soaking in the sun rays, eyes shut like a content cat.

“Of course, He managed to slip away numerous times and just when he was within reach, there was nothing I could charge him with.” Heizou sighed, dragging himself up into a sitting position. “He’s a good man with good intentions, but his actions at one point in time were illegal. It’s only natural, it's like an itch I can never scratch.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I had to get the Arataki Gang out of the slammer a few times already this month.”

“It’s the 8th?” Heizou turns around to face her. Her expression just shows aloofness as always. “How do they manage to do it?”

“I wish I knew, detective. If you’ll excuse me,” Kuki rose, brushing the grass from her shorts and thighs. “I have a meeting with another merchant.”

“Have fun!” Heizou called out teasingly, knowing she would not have fun.

When Heizou was content to lie back on the grass, platinum hair and a man dressed in red came into his vision. He was on the beach below the cliff Heizou was resting on.

Heizou knew Kazuha lingered after the Irodori festival, but had yet to see him since his return. However, something was wrong with the samurai. Heizou could make out a limp and several slashes along his attire. Blood was splattered across his skin and hair.

Without a second thought, Heizou leapt down to assist him. Kazuha whipped around, summoning his blade with an emotionless gaze. Upon recognizing the man before him, Kazuha sheathed his weapon.

His expression did not waiver.

“You’re injured, Kazuha.” Heizou stepped forward, but saw Kazuha stumble backwards. “What happened?”

“Nothing of your concern. I will tend to it.” Kazuha made the move to walk away, but Heizou dashed in front of him.

“At least let me help you clean your wounds. I can’t mend clothing, but I can watch your back.” Heizou’s words cracked through Kazuha’s steely stare. “Were you ambushed?”

“As I said, it is none-“

“It is!” Heizou interjected. “If the situation calls for it there can be legal action taken against them and you know it.”

“It doesn't matter. Kairagi ambushed me while I was sleeping under the assumption I had stolen something from their camp.” Kazuha murmured, swaying gently.

Heizou reached out to bring Kazuha’s arm across his back, shouldering the weight Kazuha could not handle. Kazuha crumpled into Heizou’s side immediately; the aid was welcomed.

“I know there’s a hilichurl camp nearby. I can clear it out quickly and we can station there to tend to you,” Heizou whispered. His ears were burning at Kazuha’s proximity. The man was handsome, Heizou couldn’t deny it. His main priority should be assisting the irresistible samurai, not calming his pounding heart.

“I can still fight, Heizou. I've been in worse condition,” Kazuha said, his voice rumbling deep within his chest. It was unlike the airy tone Heizou was familiar with. The new sound was a result of exhaustion most likely.

“Not on my watch. I can handle myself.”

— — —

Kazuha watched from a rock close to the camp as Heizou effortlessly battled the hiluchurls. Using the water from the sea and flame of the stove to his advantage, he made quick work of the camp.

Heizou reignited the flame he had accidentally extinguished with practiced care. Kazuha had replenished enough energy while sitting so he could make it to the camp on his own.

Kazuha always had a small bag of supplies on hand to tend his injuries with. With his current injuries, however, they were hard to reach without unraveling his clothes.

“Heizou,” Kazuha called out as he sat down. Heizou was startled by the man’s appearance.

“I was going to return-“

“Help me undress,” Kazuha said quietly. His voice wavering was a surprise to himself and Heizou.

“I- Yeah.” Heizou said, jogging over to Kazuha’s side. “You wear quite a few layers.”

“I’m predominantly outside, it's best to wear more and remove layers than freeze during the night.” Heizou chuckled to himself, not at all surprised by the sound reasoning.

In silence thick enough to slice, Heizou assisted Kazuha in undressing. His shorts weren’t in need of mending, nor were any injuries to his legs. Heizou hoped his face was not visibly flushed, it's been quite some time since he was put in a situation like this.

However, when the final white layer of Kazuha’s clothes remained, it had been stained with blood.

“You have lost too much blood, Kazuha,” Heizou immediately panics inwardly. He is not a healer and has no clue how to seriously tend to someone. Kazuha grips Heizou’s wrist within his slender fingers.

“It’s not as bad as it may seem. You’ll most likely have to cut this layer off. It’s meant to be pulled over my head, but I cannot lift my arms.” Heizou immediately found one of the loose seams due to the slash of a katana, and ripped the shirt quickly using that weak point.

“My my. Brazen, aren’t we?” Kazuha teased, laughing weakly at Heizou’s methods. The detective could feel heat rising to his cheeks at his comment. Heizou could see a bag among the layers they had removed. Grabbing it, Kazuha silently nodded in confirmation.

Bandages, alcohol, needles and thread, and more various items were within the bag. A makeshift first aid kit for his travels.

“You know this is going to sting, right?” Heizou used the undershirt he ripped as cloth to clean Kazuha’s wounds with, dousing it in alcohol beforehand.

“Of course. Do what you must,” Kazuha closed his eyes and steadied his breathing. Heizou propped one knee beside Kazuha’s hip, anchoring himself.

Heizou gently cleaned the bloody wounds. He watched Kazuha’s face to make sure he wasn’t being too aggressive with the torn skin. Heizou never would have known he was affected by the alcohol if he couldn’t feel the muscles beneath his hands twitch and spasm.

Scars littered Kazuha’s skin. There were more than Heizou could count. Some were fresh and dark in color, while others had started to fade and be overlapped with new ones.

“Alright,” Heizou sighed. “I’ll bandage you up for now, but I’d recommend asking Miss Shinobu for proper healing treatment.”

“I will entertain it.”

The same silence from earlier draped over them, although more tense than uncomfortable. Heizou quickly bandaged Kazuha’s arms and torso. Before he could remove his hands from Kazuha’s skin, the samurai once again grabbed Heizou’s wrists.

“Thank you for assisting me, detective,” Kazuha said, pressing his lips to the back of Heizou’s hand. The action sent a shiver through his body as he stumbled for what to say.

“I- It’s- There’s nothing-“ Heizou’s free hand was left waving about as Kazuha kept his eyes trained on Heizou. The samurai slowly rose to his feet, mere inches from Heizou’s face.

“To be so bold earlier then have the nerve to be flustered,” Kazuha murmured. “Most entertaining.”

“I will figure out how to arrest you if you keep teasing me,” Heizou shut his eyes, huffing indignantly. One of Kazuha’s hands came to gently rest on Heizou’s waist.

“Only you have been so determined to catch me. The other officials never cared quite as much.” Kazuha leaned in, brushing their noses together. Heizou’s mind quickly tried to come up with a reason for Kazuha’s closeness. However, the press of his lips against the corner of Heizou’s mouth left him reeling.

“Perhaps we can meet again in a different scenario.” Kazuha elicited a silent gasp from Heizou after a quick squeeze to his waist.

“Until next time.”

#kazuhei #shikanoin heizou #kaedehara kazuha #genshin impact #heikazu #cross posted from ao3 #minor injuries #tending to wounds #casual rivals #unresolved tension #almost kiss

[gutsheapofrawiron]

[GRIFFGUTS FANFIC] Only When The Crow Cried Did I See Why: Chapter 4

Kasian, you are a victim of circumstance. Life has never held you right.

Summary:

a lotta plot starts happening from this chapter on Griffith and Guts homosexually groom horses together and Mangled!Griffith is dropped back into the physical plane, leaving the torture labyrinth behind him indefinitely

Read on AO3 or continue reading below

Guts seemed to have a mutual understanding with the horse, of sorts. Griffith observed their interactions with poorly concealed fascination in between brush strokes over his own steed’s flanks.

“She really likes you, huh,” he noted as Inge gently nosed her rider before leaning against his back as Guts brushed her neck, glossy with a healthy coat. Guts looked up, a somewhat distant look in his eyes as he glanced at him.

“What?” he asked, and Griffith realised he hadn’t specified, confusing the man’s absent mind.

“Inge,” he said, nodding to the lady with soulful brown eyes, who was drooling a little in relaxation.

“Oh,” Guts looked over his shoulder to where her head was. A fond smile grew on his face, and Griffith wished he wasn’t facing his back at this moment, missing out on the complete view. An indignant whinny from his other side made him realise he stilled in his own grooming duties.

“Sigilina doesn’t like slackers,” Guts said, grinning.

“Oh, Sigi, please forgive me, won’t you?” Griffith pleaded in a rounded voice, stroking her nose through the worst of her incredulous huffs. The chuckling coming from his right would have properly ticked him off if it wasn’t Guts who was having fun at his expense. Guts was an exception, unsurprisingly.

Sigilina was satisfied after a while, no longer feeling double-crossed, and he moved on to untangling and braiding her mane.

“We’ll be proceeding with the siege as it is planned in a month,” Griffith said, looking at Guts’ back. “Will they be ready?”

Guts tilted his head in thought. “If we keep up the tempo of today’s training, yes.”

“They seemed miserable, though. You’ll be hated,” Griffith remarked, allowing the amusement to shine through his words. Guts let out a single, sharp laugh. “They’ll be more miserable if they’re dead. ‘Sides, I don’t give a shit about what they think of me, they’ll need all the training they can get if they want to get out with all their limbs.”

Griffith smiled. “That bad?”

Guts turned his head and looked at him with unflinching eye contact, something so rare Griffith froze in place like prey. “I would have beat their arses so bad as a brat they could’ve heard them yell in pain all the way over in the Kushan Empire,” he said in a low but even voice.

Griffith held his gaze for an indeterminable amount of time, or rather, an age, or more likely not even half a minute, before casting his gaze back over to Sigilina’s hair in his hands, letting out a strangled, mildly hysterical laugh.

“Yes, well, you were a violent kid. That’s no news,” he replied, his smile now tight on his face, like an ill-fitting porcelain mask.

“Like you’re any better. Fancy words don’t hide the fact that you’re a prick, Griff’,” Guts scoffed as he bent down to scrape the muck out of Inge’s hooves. Griffith suddenly felt his interest in Sigilina’s mane wane aggressively, his eyes locked on something more sodomitical.

“Hell, you were probably even worse as a child,” Guts continued, holding Inge’s hoof. Griffith was absently braiding the last hairs of the mane. Guts took the silence as affirmation and looked up.

“No way. Really?” he laughed, Griffith just about quick enough in redirecting his gaze from stern to bow for it to be passably innocuous.

“Your ma and pa must’ve had a hell of a time raisin’ you, huh?” Guts asked, moving to the other side of Inge, out of view. Griffith tried to not feel defeated as he went on to braid Sigilina’s tail.

“My mother loved me just fine,” Griffith retorted, pulling a bitter face. A distant part of his brain noted that Guts was clearly feeling comfortable with talking to him again. Sure enough, it seemed the apology of the previous night did the trick.

“Your mum,” Guts spoke after a moment. Griffith mentally prepared for a meaningful question regarding his family situation. “She hot?”

Griffith paused in the middle of an intricate five-strand braid. “What?”

Guts appeared from behind Inge, apparently done with cleaning out her hooves. “Was she a looker?” he asked, eyebrow quirked. Griffith wondered if he’d drank. He continued braiding after a deep sigh. “What does that matter? She’s dead now, so you can’t pull anything, anyway,” he replied.

“Now, look here,” Guts began, tone heavy. “I wasn’t talking about that. Just wondering where you got your genes from, that’s all.”

Griffith suddenly regretted not looking at Guts as he said this, and he felt his face flush to the rhythm of receding footsteps as Guts moved to the other side of the ‘stable’ to put his tools away.

Griffith touched his cheek with the back of his hand before tying off the neatly braided tail, letting it fall to its original position before masking his embarrassment with a cough.

“I…look like my mother, yes. I never knew my father, though, but there’s no shred of doubt my mother birthed me.”

That sounded stupid. Griffith wondered how there could be any confusion as to whose cunt one crawled out of, and hoped desperately Guts wouldn’t pick up on the idiocy of his statement.

Guts made a noise of comprehension. They were standing next to each other now, admiring their work on the ladies in front of them.

“What about you?” Griffith asked after a quiet moment. Guts glanced at him before looking away, jaw stiffening.

“No idea,” Guts said, going silent. Sigilina once again required Griffith’s attention and pushed her nose into his hands while Inge, on the other hand, started pawing the ground in unease, ears and eyes moving anxiously as she observed Guts. Griffith caressed Sigilina’s forehead as he looked at Inge, deciding to not push the matter. He gave Sigilina one last pat before putting his own brushes away too, having already cleaned out her hooves earlier.

He was about to leave the stables to brief Casca about the discussed plans for the siege when Guts spoke.

“I dream of my father.”

Griffith halted. From the corner of his eye he saw Guts clench his fists, knuckles white in their held tension.

“When,” he started, swallowing. “When I hit you, last night. I was dreaming of him, too.”

Griffith relaxed now that he knew what the other meant, turning back to face him as he took slow, measured steps in his direction, leaving a metre between them. “Well,” Guts let out a sharp huff, grimacing. “I say ‘father’, but all that bastard did was pick me up from the mud and shove a sword into my hands as soon as I could wipe my own shit.”

Griffith wanted to reach out and touch him, his hand, his arm, his shoulder, perhaps, anything, to keep him tethered, but cowardice triumphed, and he kept his hands to himself.

“Hm,” he thought about the newly-acquired information. It made a whole lot of sense. “So he’s the reason you’re a mercenary?” he asked, more to keep Guts going with confiding in him than to get an actual answer. Guts nodded.

“He, uh,” Guts glanced up at Griffith before moving to Inge, taking her head in his hands and stroking her, supposedly to calm her as much as giving himself something to do. “He didn’t like me. Said I was the reason she died, or something.”

“‘She’?” Griffith studied his face as he went back to Sigilina to ensure she felt included, and to get a better vantage point in terms of view.

“A woman named Shisu,” Guts replied, his voice a hint broken, though an untrained ear would not be able to catch it. “I asked around, y’know. They said she was the one who took me in, but then the Plague got her.”

He paused, breathing deep. Griffith averted his eyes.

“If that’s what killed her, you’re not the one at fault, Guts.”

Guts shook his head. His breath was wobbly.

“I don’t even remember her face,” Guts looked up, meeting Griffith’s eyes at last. He couldn’t stop the air from getting caught in his throat as he realised Guts’ eyes were wet.

“Griffith, I don’t even know her face,” he said, and it came out a plea. Something possessive curled in Griffith’s gut at the display of grief, and he left his duty of petting Sigilina in favour of finally, finally, touching Guts.

Something to be said about seeing a big guy cry, he thought as he took the other’s hand in his own, using his other to rub his back in comforting shapes. His mind leaped in joy at this incredible opportunity, but he pushed it down to focus on the matter at hand: Guts crying his eyes out over his dead adoptive(?) mother. Inge was determined to do her part, nosing Guts by way of petting him back, while Sigilina only huffed as she took in the sight with green eyes. Guts was a silent sobber, Griffith noted, as the man cried into his shoulder. Griffith’s hair would be ruined after this, yet he surprised himself with how little he cared. “It’s alright, it’s okay,” he hushed. It was a quick spell, broken by the sound of a group of band members laughing and chatting as they approached the stables, and Griffith felt Guts stiffen. He grudgingly let go, straightening his hair out and fixing both their clothes. Guts wiped his face, and Griffith supposed the blooming redness was more because of embarrassment rather than anything else.

Ill at ease, they waited until the voices passed, the sounds melting away and leaving them an awkward silence.

“S’rry,” Guts sniffed, looking longingly towards the exit. Griffith smiled thinly. “It’s okay,” he repeated. “It must’ve been hard.”

Guts nodded once, jerkily, his gaze searching for something to lock onto with the nervosity of an anxious dog.

“Still, doesn’t mean I can just go an’ whine about it.” to you, though the last part remained unspoken.

“Of course you can,” Griffith disagreed. “I said you belong to me, didn’t I? That includes your feelings, your dreams, and your past, as well,” he said simply.

Guts’ mouth pulled taut at one side in what looked suspiciously like a grimace. “You…,” he started, but seemed unable to figure out what he wanted to say, falling silent again as he frowned.

“Yes?” Griffith asked, watching his hands clench and unclench, and the swell of his chest expand and contract.

“...No, never mind,” Guts gave up, physically shaking his head, turning away as he moved towards the exit. “You should probably go and inform Casca about the schedule. I’ll check our weapon supplies, see if it’ll get us through the mission alive,” he said, waving away the last remnants of their previous conversation topic as he left the stables. Griffith thought that to be the end of it, but as Guts was already one step outside he paused, glancing back.

“Thanks, again,” he said with a laugh-like huff.

Then he was gone, not sparing Griffith the time to respond.

Sigilina snorted, and Griffith remembered to close his mouth as he felt how hot it had suddenly become inside the stables, now that he was the only human present. The horses looked at him in silent accusation, and he knew he’d overstayed his welcome, leaving the stables and his blissful experiences of just moments ago behind him in favour of his remaining duties of the day.

•

When he opened his eyes, it felt dreadfully similar to before, his body still very much mortal and mangled. The tip-off that he was no longer in the dragon's damp cave came in the form of brutally bright light assaulting his eyes as soon as he awoke, and the crisp air of healthy nature streaming into his lungs. The immediate flow of quality oxygen overwhelmed, and he gasped as he grovelled on the ground, grasping at soft, dewy grass as he did so. It took about twenty or so breaths before Griffith felt he had reconnected to his body a decent amount. He turned his head, neck feeling jointed like a doll's, and took in the surroundings. Had he not once gained immortality and carved a place for himself in the astral plane as a god-like figure, he would not have considered it possible, but the place was positively ephemeral, glowing in its natural wealth. Curling trees, silver-barked, scattered over hills of fresh green grass, seemed to observe him with invisible faces, just like the countless creatures he took gradual note of, one by one, in the thicket and behind the trunks. Centaurs and fairies, Griffith named every kind he saw in his mind, trying to gather his wits. Some kind of nymphs, and spellbound birds?

He stood up, limb by limb, like a rose unfurling its petals, and felt the open space free him from his mind for a happy moment, closing his eyes as his chest expanded with a fill of good air.

"Ah!"

The tranquillity of the moment was broken. A boy stood a stone's throw away from him with legs in frog-stance, sticks and leaves sticking out of his hair and his face set into an impressive mix of incredulity, awe, and surprise as he pointed an accusing finger at Griffith. "You!"

Griffith turned the rest of his body towards him. The boy's gaze flicked hysterically up and down his body, and he was physically shaking with some repressed emotion Griffith could not quite identify. "You're naked!"

The sounds of leaves rustling as they were hastily pushed aside and juvenile voices coming closer made both of them divert their attention to the bushes behind the child. Out came stumbling and tripping a handful of young girls, dressed uniformly in dark robes and hats that were holding onto their heads for dear life, barely surviving the battle through the twigs and shrubbery.

"Isidro! Why did you-"

One of the girls tried to launch into a lecturing of the boy, but stopped when her eyes followed the direction of the boy's arm. The other girls got up from the ground, equally dishevelled and covered in leaves, before matching the first girl’s expression, mouths agape.

"He's human and he's naked!" the boy, Isidro, exclaimed as he pointed at Griffith again, looking indignantly at the girls.

Ah. Indignance. That was it.

Satisfied he found the answer, Griffith relaxed his shoulders, not considering these children to be even a little bit of a threat, before recognising the shape of the girls’ hats and realising they were all carrying ornately carved and decorated sticks, in layman’s terms also known as wands. If he were in a less sorry state he would probably never admit to himself that this was the moment he started searching for an emergency exit, his eyes desperately scanning the surroundings, ignoring the fact that most of the girls were bright red and covering their eyes. Most.

"Invader!" one of the –red-cheeked but slightly less embarrassed– girls yelled out, pointing defensively at him with her wand and taking on a fighting stance. "Huh?!" Isidro exclaimed, looking between her and Griffith. The other girls followed her example and also readied their wands for battle.

"Wait, guys! He's clearly injured!" a girl with a slightly differently coloured uniform said in alarm.

"Like that matters, Schierke,” another rolled her eyes.

"Hey! She's got a point, y'know? I mean, just look at him," came from a little-voiced elf flitting around the concerned girl's head as she threw her petite arm in his direction for emphasis. Griffith saw a perfect way out in between two trees, a narrow pig trail, relatively bush-free. He looked at the swarm of witches to see if they noticed.

"I am looking," Isidro replied sorrowfully. "That's the problem."

"I bet he got injured when he was busy invading our island," yet another witch commented, earning various noises of agreement from the others. Griffith shuffled carefully towards his intended exit as the girls were too busy arguing amongst each other.

“Idiots! He’s escaping!” one of them shouted, and Griffith immediately sped up his hobbling run to freedom. The sound of multiple pairs of feet thumping behind him as they quickly got closer did wonders in unnerving him, and he knew his attempt to flee was a fool’s errand.

Suddenly he was grabbed by the waist and caught in the wind as he was hoisted several metres up in the air at once, distance between him and the children quickly increasing.

"Sheesh!" a female voice came from above him. "You sure managed to rile them up, buddy," she said, and Griffith turned his head as much as possible, ignoring his protesting neck muscles to look up at the dark-haired woman who grinned down at him. "I doubt this is gonna do your wounds any good, but hold on tight, 'kay? We'll be down again in no time," she assured him, turning her attention back to her broom-flying. Because they were, in fact, on a broom, Griffith realised hazily. He didn’t know why she’d told him to ‘hold on tight’ though, as there was nowhere for him to grasp onto. All his limbs were merely hanging quite uselessly in the open air, the only safeguard preventing him from dropping to his rather gnarly demise being the witch’s arm. He felt the familiar fatigue take hold of him again and decided not to worry about it, instead opting to take in the view. The trees seemed to stretch on forever underneath them, the crowns all sorts of shades of colours, some feasible and some less so. On the further side of the island he could make out the shy silhouettes of sharp-fingered mountains, reminding him rather rudely of his hiking trip with the black-haired child not very long ago, and he averted his eyes, attention being drawn by the lively blue of the sea, sunlight skipping on the wave crests. Even from this height he was able to discern the half-human figures jumping and playing in the waters surrounding the island.

“So, what brings you here, if I may ask?” the woman enquired, though Griffith suspected the polite speech probably did not come naturally to her, her tone only millimetres away from mocking. He noticed she still seemed completely fine with lifting a grown man (albeit a starving one) for a prolonged period of time, and he wondered whether witch education included strength training. As they flew over the forest, he saw a behemoth of a cherry tree poke out like a giant amongst men in the middle of the woods, and realised the witch was heading straight into its direction.

“Are you doin’ some sightseeing? ‘Cause we’re not exactly a tourist hotspot, but I guess I can see the appeal.”

She continued, “I mean, I’d give a rib or two to get out of here, but I suppose outsiders think all of this is super impressive, or whatever.”

Griffith was unsure whether she expected him to reply, and he did not dare risk puking his vocal cords up if he tried in his current state, so he just listened. While they got closer to the pink blossoms he saw glimpses of buildings peek out from under the dense foliage. The witch had slowed down significantly. Griffith suspected she was stalling.

“...I’m,” he rasped, his throat throwing a hissy fit. She glanced at him, surprised. “I’m not invading,” he managed, hoping she wouldn’t throw him to the lions, both literally and/or figuratively. The witch burst out in sharp but hearty laughter after a beat of silence.

“Oh, rest assured, I did not think you were, pretty boy. You look like you got mauled by an entire battalion, and we don’t have any of that here,” she laughed, and Griffith couldn’t stop the involuntary jerk of his body as he nervously looked at the ground. If she noticed, she did not show it, her breath evening out as she recovered from the mirth.

“Those brats are just a little jumpy since there’re actually some other guests from outside here right now,” she explained. “I tried killing them, but there was this one ridiculously strong fella among them who absolutely decimated my perfect little wicker guy with a single slash,” she mourned, pouting wistfully as she stared in the direction of the sea. Griffith stiffened at the mention of a stupidly overpowered man cutting down a witch’s work in one fell swoop. She definitely noticed this time, turning her attention back to him.

“Ah, I should probably set you down now, huh. You really need to get fixed up,” she slipped under the cherry blossom’s crown, the village hiding underneath revealing itself to Griffith like a timid lover at night. “You look like extravagantly fragrant shit,” she said, wrinkling her nose, adding, “No offence.”

Griffith let out a wheezing noise in reply. “None taken.”

She was a lot gentler in the landing than in the take-off (abduction), floating down to the ground gradually, holding Griffith so that he’d land feet-first. Either the child witches had warned every single inhabitant of Witchtopia and their mums, or the odd duo was just really noticeable, because a mainly pointy-hatted crowd approached as they descended, eyes locked onto him and the witch.

“Molda!” one of the elder witches yelled, and the witch dropped Griffith for the last half a metre of the way down, leaving him staggering on his decently emaciated legs, but quickly steadying him by his shoulders.

“Well,” she pursed her lips, squinting at the witches that were now running towards them. “You’re on your own for this last part, buckaroo,” she let go of him before slapping his back in greeting, making him stumble forward with the impact. “I gotta skedaddle,” she said, and with that she sped off, back into the wide sky. Griffith watched her leave before turning back to the crowd, and it just so had to happen that, like the centripetal force between the earth and the sun’s core, his eyes were immediately locked on those of a man in the back of the herd, face frighteningly familiar.

Delayed vertigo hit Griffith like a speeding stallion, and he felt his legs give up trying to achieve the impossible as he collapsed in on himself, right as the witches reached him, their concerned shouts blurring together with his dancing vision into one nauseating sludge.

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#berserk #griffguts #berserk fanfiction #guts/griffith #cross posted from ao3 #GHORI Original #Only When The Crow Cried #scheduled

[brewstersbru]

Hey folks have some huskerdust !! 🕷️♥️

“I know, I know Legs. I just need to ask you something.” Angel’s eyes scrunch closed and the rest of his expression crumples as he whines out, short and low. Husk hovers his hands over the mottling of bruises and cuts that litter his torso, some still sluggishly bleeding. He itches to bandage them up, but stays himself with the sobering thought that Angel is used to guys touching him when he’s unconscious.

“Angel.” He tries again. Angel shakes his head minutely. “-on’t wanna.” He whines.

“Look at me please? I just want to check that it’s okay that I touch you. You know it’s important to me.”

Angel, with a long, juddering sigh, pulls himself from the cusp of sleep and blinks his eyes open. He frowns, glaring a little as he yawns into his hand. Husk waits patiently at his side, knees beginning to ache with being pressed against the hard wooden floor for so long.

“I told ya I don’t care what you do when I come back doped out like this, Whiskers. Not like I’ll remember it. Hah!” His laugh comes out rough, like it hurts to push from his lips. Husk shakes his head.

“And I told you it doesn’t matter if you’ll remember it or not. I’m not going to be another man who takes advantage of you.” He says, carefully enunciating each word so the message gets through.

Angel curses and flops over onto his side which draws his face infinitely closer to Husk’s own. He meets his eyes with a burning, lidded gaze. Husk keeps his posture relaxed, but his tail puffs at the sudden movement.

“Yer a softie, Husk. I don’t think ya could take advantage of me if you wanted to.” The words are coupled with a rickety, slapped on grin. Husk desperately wants to just shake him until he gets it through his big thick head that that’s not the point. It doesn’t matter what he thinks, it matters what he wants. Does he want Husk touching him after an abusive, grueling shoot? That’s what Husk’s asking, not if he ‘trusts’ him. He sighs.

“You didn’t answer my question. Can I touch you? Just give me an answer and then you can go back to sleep. God knows you’ll be needing it.” And it’s true. Who knows what Val has in store for him tomorrow? He’s better off getting all the rest he can get, while he can.

Angel appraises him with a long, considering look. There’s a lot going on behind his eyes and though Husk is aware of the fact of it, he can’t begin to try to fathom what exactly his thoughts are in this moment. He simply sits back on his heels and awaits his verdict. Every so often his eyes are drawn down to the mess of Angel’s torso. It’s not an intentional thing, but he can feel his hackles rising with the need to Fix It. Husk crushes the feeling down.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity but in reality couldn’t have been longer than five minutes, Angel closes his eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah Husk, you can.” He says, voice as small as Husk thinks he’s ever heard it. It’s strange to hear him so soft when usually he overtakes rooms with booming confidence; he even looks small, now, tucked into himself and using all of his arms to hug himself close as he hunches over.

He doesn’t- maybe he can’t- look at Husk when he speaks. Husk takes the words for the olive branch that they are and nods.

“Okay. Thank you, Angel. S’ all I needed.”

Angel just nods, curling further into himself for a moment before abruptly turning onto his back and feigning sleep. They both know he’s awake- he’s not snoring as loudly or as endearingly as he would if he truly was asleep- but Husk doesn’t call him on it, just reaches down to the first aid kit he’d dragged over in his initial protective rage and starts unpacking the necessary materials. Alcohol (not the fun kind), gauze, tape, and Angel’s preferred- though he’d never tell you it- heart-patterned bandages.

Another glance at Angel’s stiffly unmoving form reminds him that he hadn’t even had time to remove his makeup before passing out from exhaustion. Smears of glittery pink decorate his eye sockets, smudged from what Husk can only assume were punishing bouts of sweat and exercise. Husk pushes down the surge of indignation this thought elicits and smooths Angel’s hair back, thumbing for a moment near his hairline, before standing.

“Be back in a sec. Forgot something.” He keeps his voice low, tries for soothing but probably achieves something more like a dying wood chipper. Angel- who had up until that point been tightly coiled, as if expecting a blow- eases into the cushions at the sound. He hums, “Mmk. Thanks.”

Husk doesn’t respond lest Angel figure out from the cadence of his voice that Husk doesn’t need to be thanked. That he wants to do this. That he likes it.

It’s just- Angel always looks so at peace in these moments. The usual tension in his body melts away leaving nothing but the rawest and purest version of him. Husk loves that version of him, and he loves that Angel trusts him enough to show him it.

Husk returns after a minute or two with a pack of makeup wipes, Angel’s preferred brand, that he’d bought not too long ago precisely for moments like this. Angel was always complaining about glitter getting into his eyes when he forgot to take his makeup off and Husk saw an opportunity to Fix It. There’s not a lot in Angel’s life that Husk is able to help with, but this is something. And he jumped at the chance.

Angel is snoring lightly, right back at the cusp of oblivion that Husk had so heartlessly torn him from before. He sniffs and turns toward Husk when he settles back at his side, curling slightly into his warmth. Husk can’t help the smile that infects his features at the movement.

With careful, callused fingers, Husk begins to dab at the cuts on Angel’s torso. He’s not sure how to feel about the fact that Angel only flinches at the initial sting, not the rest of the painful swipes. It speaks to a depth of experience with this kind of thing that Husk vehemently dislikes the thought of Angel having to go through. Sure, in theory he knows Angel’s been subjected to this bullshit for decades, but to see it spelt out like this? So clearly and heartbreakingly? Husk has to take a moment between cleaning and bandaging the wounds to collect himself.

Angel whines when he takes his hands away.

“Easy. Easy, Legs.” He wants to call him ‘baby’ but isn’t convinced enough of Angel’s unconsciousness to chance it. Angel huffs.

The rest of the bandages go on easily enough, with minimal protests from Angel- which, somehow only seem to occur when Husk pulls away- and Husk smooths a healthy amount of bruise cream on each of Angel’s visible bruises. He’s almost certain there are more hidden beneath the- admittedly skimpy- clothing Angel is wearing, but is unwilling to undress him like this.

Pulling the surprisingly fluffy throw blanket from the back of the couch, Husk drapes it over Angel’s form, smoothing the sides down and tucking his arms beneath its warmth so he doesn’t wake up cold.

Husk is methodical in his cleanup of the first aid supplies, drawing each movement out so that he has more of a reason to stay in the room. To look at the rare smooth openness of Angel’s expression.

Once finished, he sets the kit to the side and picks up the makeup wipes, pulling one from the pack and pinching it between his pointer and thumb as he leans over Angel’s face. He moves one hand to cup his cheek, and the other to begin swiping lightly across Angel’s left eyelid.

Angel flinches a little at the unexpected contact, eyelids fluttering as his expression scrunches, disrupting the smooth peace Husk had so adored. It strikes something sore within Husk to watch.

“Hey. Hey, you’re okay, Baby. I’m not gonna hurt you. Go back to sleep.” The ‘baby’ slips out, Husk just can’t filter his words as carefully when Angel is so close, and so clearly hurting.

Angel’s expression smooths at the sound of his voice, at first fractionally, then all at once. It’s a gift to witness.

He leans his cheek further into Husk’s hand and Husk, unable to curb the small chuckle that bursts from his chest at the sight, smooths his thumb underneath Angel’s newly cleaned eye.

This is perfect. If life was fair and they were free this could be their normal, their everyday intimacies, indulged in unrestrained bliss. Husk allows himself to live in the thought for a moment before moving to clean Angel’s other eye.

He doesn’t flinch this time, simply sinks into Husk’s hand as it cradles his face and tips his right side towards him. Husk lets his fingertips linger against smooth, cool skin as he works. Swiping tenderly with each pass, as if Angel were something worth treating carefully.

Husk finishes his work without fanfare and, with an indulgent, lingering press of his lips to Angel’s warm forehead, he stands.

Only to nearly keel over when he meets Angel’s own, lidded- but OPEN- eyes.

“FUCK!”

Angel laughs, but it’s small and syrupy. Real.

“Thanks, Babycakes.” He offers, reaching his arms above his head in a stretch before settling back, deeper under the covers. “You sure know how to treat a guy. Careful what you offer, though, okay? Might end up with a junkie on your ass if it's too sweet.”

Husk understands what he’s really trying to say and shakes his head.

“Any time, Angel.”

#huskerdust #husker hazbin hotel #angel dust #hazbin hotel #GAY PEOPLE #ive been thinking about husk taking angels makeup off for so long #brainrot #needed to write a little blurb and this helped pull me from my slump a little #please enjoy #sry i havent been writing my car got wrecked on jan 1 and the year has not gotten significantly better from there #hopefully this is the start of me writing more blurbs again #brublurbs #cross posted on ao3 as always bc i crave attention

[snaileer]

How A Ghost Town Dies

They say that if you drive down Interstate X, take the exit off of Elmerton, there’s an abandoned town.

Amity Park, they called it. ‘A nice place to live’ said the lopsided sign at the edge of the road.

‘ I’m still here’ says the graffiti on the back of the rusted metal, visible only in your rear view mirror.

They say that the town was once a city. That the long empty houses were once full, the stores once busy and the roads once clean. But by now the woods have grown back into the property lines anyways, blurring them with sidewalks cracked by roots and gates opened by creeping vines and crawling rust. Trees have sprouted thick in the middle of roads and a canopy of leaves like the cover of streetlights.

There’s no way this could have ever been a city; ‘But it once was’ they say.

When people walked the streets and children played in the yards, there was life.

There were flowers and laughter and voices on the wind.

They say that something happened.

That something changed.

It was not quick. As death rarely is.

But still.. there was an instant, where things changed. Though it wasn’t just one moment that anyone could tell you, only that it did.

They say that monsters attacked, that creatures no one could explain suddenly appeared.

They say there were protectors who fought the monsters. People who fought back, if they were people at all.

They say that’s what killed the town. The fighting.

Streets mangled by craters and walls burned by battlefire.

They say it’s still alive.

Oh there is no life, no people or children playing in the streets, though you may hear their voices on the wind.

There is no life, but it is still alive.

It must be.

Because they say that if you drive through town theres a building. Half-collapsed and charred, old metal still screwed into the side of the awning.

They say that as you enter, you’ll hear the sound of pounding footsteps down the stairs or hallway, like a child running in.

They say that if you stand too still, you’ll see your breath puff in front of you even on the hottest summer day.

They say that you’ll see the flicker of green eyes in your peripheral and the flash of black hair disappearing around a corner.

They say that if you enter the basement, there’s a hole in the wall, and from the moment you step down the stairs, a scream lingers in your ears.

Not everyone hears it, and those that do, rarely want to.

You’ll leave the house feeling chilled, tired, and afraid, though you couldn’t explain why.

And as you talk to your friends about one thing or another, you may feel a listening ear over your shoulder, eavesdropping for snippets of the world outside of the small town roads.

And they say that as you turn back on the roads, and make your way back to the highway, you’ll feel that listening ear fade away.

And they say that if you bother to look back, you might even see someone standing at the town line, watching you leave.

That’s the thing about a ghost town.

To be a ghost town, it must first die.

And when it does, when it truly becomes a ghost town, it becomes a part of a different world and it becomes unchanging to ours.

Where no one new ever truly stays.

And no one left behind ever truly leaves.

#Danny phantom #Danny fenton #cryptid Danny fenton #creepy Danny fenton #dp #Sam manson #Tucker foley #the fenton family #amity park #the ghost zone #the infinite realms #ghost king Danny #full ghost Danny fenton #maybe not but it doesn’t change anything #feel free to use this as inspo idk where it came from #cross posted on ao3 #supernatural

[afewproblems]

In My Heart is a Memory (And There You'll Always Be) Part Two

Part One

Steve spends his week in the hospital on oxygen and fighting pneumonia from his bed. A harsh wheezing sound has developed whenever he pushes too hard but Doctor Sattler isn't nearly as concerned as Steve the first time he hears it.

"It shouldn't worsen over time, but if you feel that the wheezing is becoming more frequent or that feeling of an elephant sitting on your chest comes back, you will need to use your new inhaler, today's the perfect day to learn how it works," Doctor Sattler told him with an air of nonchalance that did not match the news.

Two and two made four, the sky was blue, and Steve Harrington would need medication for the rest of his life.

Most of the time Steve sleeps fitfully, dreaming of cold grey water and kind brown eyes, but on the days he has more energy Steve walks around the ward with Claudia in between practising blowing into something called a spirometer. 

She tells him it's important to test his level of lung function and how he's improving, it should also help to reduce the wheezing sound when Steve is simply resting. He even gets one to take home with him. 

Steve listens as Claudia talks about her own son, he's eight years old and so curious about the world. It's obvious she loves him dearly.

Steve wonders if his own mother ever talks about him like that.

His mother checks in with him twice during the week. His dad has already left for his most recent work trip and Diane is planning to leave as well, at least until Sunday when Steve is expected to be discharged. 

“I’ll be gone for five days, but you’ll be here anyway, and they are taking good care of you aren’t they?” she asks, her voice uncharacteristically soft for once as she takes his cheek in her cold hand. 

Diane’s fingers brush the oxygen hosing around his cheek, Claudia had called it something weird --a canny-something-or-other. 

Diane lets go abruptly as if burned; her nose wrinkling slightly as she rubs her fingers against the palm of her hand. In one fluid motion, she stands up from her seat at the side of his bed and smooths down the blankets as she does so. 

Diane meets his gaze once, her pale blue eyes almost seem to look past him, before she hikes her handbag further up her arm.

“I’m leaving the number of the hotel with your Nurse Henry, and you’ll be home before you know it,” she nods with a forced smile and turns on her heel to slip out the door of his room before Steve can even correct her.

He hopes Claudia did get the number, that there isn’t some strange Nurse Henry with more access to his mother than even Steve is allowed. 

A small part of himself hopes that Eddie will come visit him.

It’s not likely, Eddie had seemed excited initially about showing him his Dungeons and Dragons book but how would he have any idea Steve would still be here.

That doesn't stop Steve from picturing Eddie yelling to his uncle as he bounds down the hallway, ‘Come on old man, Steve’s room’s gotta be here somewhere!’

But Eddie never materialises down the hall, armed with his players book or tales of dragons and knights.

Steve takes it in stride as much as he can.

The days blend together the longer he stays, but it isn't as though Steve has no one to talk to.

He asks Claudia more about her son and listens to the jokes the orderlies tell him when they come by with meals. Even Doctor Sattler stops by to check the machines by his bed and to watch him blow into the Spirometer.

It’s fine. 

Claudia gives him a long hug the day he's discharged. Steve isn't sure she's supposed to by the exasperated look Doctor Sattler gives her, but he says nothing and busies himself with writing something out on a small notepad.

"You be careful sweetheart, use your spirometer to practice and keep your inhaler on you at all times".

She sweeps his hair away from his face and squeezes his shoulder briefly before giving him the barest of pushes towards his mother who stands by the door.

Doctor Sattler hands Diane the two papers he's written out, "you'll have to fill these prescriptions, he'll need both of them before you head home". 

Diane nods and breathes out a clipped thank you before ushering Steve to the doors, he tries to turn to wave only for his mother to grip his shoulder firmly and walk him out.

He catches what he thinks may be concern in Claudia's eyes before the automatic doors close behind them and the familiar jingle of his mothers keys to the maroon beemer fills the air.

"We'll stop at Mevalds, you can wait in the car," Diane says as she opens the driver's side door and gets in. Steve hurriedly opens his own door as the engine starts, a small part of him wonders if she would leave him if he took any longer.

He closes the passenger door behind him, it's heavier than he remembers and a harsh wheeze fills the car as Steve breathes in slowly to halt the stuttering of his chest. 

He buckles in and looks up to find his mother watching him carefully. 

"Perhaps we should wait another week for you to go back to school," she hums, it's a voice she uses when thinking aloud but every instance of it usually happens when that thinking is about Steve.

"Why?" He asks as they pull onto the main road.

"You're making that awful noise," Diane says simply, "we should wait for it to stop, it will be distracting to your classmates".

A deep ache that has nothing to do with his lungs builds in his chest. He hadn't thought the sound was that noticeable. 

None of the other nurses or orderlies seemed to care about the new noise he made, or if they did they never said anything. Steve had been the one to ask about it,  concerned that he was the only one hearing it.

"Doctor Sattler said it should get better, but it won't go away," Steve argues with narrowed eyes, he crosses his arms over his chest and looks away towards the passenger window.

He hears Diane sigh as she signals to pull into the parking lot of Mevalds.

She turns off the engine and reaches into the back seat for her purse, leaning her hand against Steve's seat for balance.

Diane stops with her hand on the door handle, pausing as she turns to face him fully.

"I'm just looking out for you," Diane says softly, "the other children will notice eventually and the world isn't kind to people who are different Steven".

She gets out of the car, letting the words hang in the air. He watches her go into the store, already knowing he's lost. 

***

Steve's teachers welcome him back with little to no fanfare, Ms. Cuttler, the history teacher, even goes so far as to reprimand him for missing two whole weeks in front of the class. 

Steve doesn't need detention for 'mouthing off' on his first day back, no matter how unfair she's being. He manages to take his seat without speaking; he can't quite hide the angry red flush staining his cheeks though. 

Lunch is what Steve is looking forward to, he just has to make it to lunch, he can keep his head down until then.

Steve's last morning class is science. 

It's not his favourite class, but Mr. Clarke at least tries to keep it interesting for them, and he's always nice. Giving extensions on homework, half marks on tests rather than zeros with little comments in blue ink saying, 'I see where you were going with this, you almost got it!'

As soon as the bell rings, Steve grabs his backpack and books, uncaring of the homework instructions Mr. Clarke tries to yell over the clamouring kids and the last few notes of the bell.

"Oh Steve, you gotta sec?"

It takes every fibre of Steve's being not to just bolt from the room with the rest of the class, pretend he didn't hear.

It's your lungs that are screwed up now, not your ears, he thinks bitterly as he turns towards the front of the room where Mr. Clarke stands with a stack of xeroxed paper.

"Here's the homework you missed, if you can have it done for next week I think that'll keep you on track," he says with a smile that quirks his moustache.

Steve gives him a brief smile as he takes the stack of papers, "thanks, yeah I'll have it done by then," he tries for a grin, wincing at the raised eyebrow Mr. Clark gives him. 

They both know it will be late. 

Steve turns to leave again, with a forced half smile, but stops as Mr. Clarke clears his throat.

"They don't give us a lot of information about absences," he gives Steve a long look, "so all I'm going to say is if you want to chat, about anything, even if it's just homework, my door is open". 

Steve nods as Mr. Clarke gives him a kind half smile, patient like the ones Dr. Sattler or Claudia would give him after explaining how something worked. 

It's not something most adults put a lot of effort into, especially for Steve, writing him off if he doesn't understand something the first time it's explained. 

It's certainly not something his parents do for him.

"Sure Mr. Clarke," Steve mumbles as he tucks the papers into the textbook in his arms.

His teacher nods once and clears his throat awkwardly, gesturing towards the door, "Alright, you better get going," Mr Clarke says, "it's pizza day and I guarantee you the pepperoni is pretty much done at this point".

Steve snorts and takes a step back, "later Mr. Clarke," he calls over his shoulder as he makes his way past the empty desks and into the hallway, letting himself be guided by the stream of kids heading towards the cafeteria.

With the Hawkins Middle and High Schools being the only two secondary schools in the county, the buildings were naturally massive to accommodate all of the children and teens they housed on any given day during the school year.

The cafeteria was no exception.

Finding somewhere to sit was almost always impossible if you ran late to lunch, most students would give up trying to find a table and would end up settling by their lockers or sitting outside in the warmer months, but Steve was on a mission this time.

He looks around the busy room with his lunch tray, head on a swivel as he searches for a mop of curly brown hair. Eddie said he could sit at his table but he hadn't mentioned which one that was.

Steve walks along the wall, eyes scanning the tables, he begins to wonder if he had the wrong lunch period after all.

"I'm telling you, a beholder is the worst thing you could run into in a Dungeon, hands down--" 

Steve perks up at the voice, fairly certain he knows who it belongs to.

The relief is palpable as he continues forward, following the voice. A small part of Steve had begun to wonder if Eddie even went to his school, or if his muddled water logged brain had dreamed that up entirely. 

He finally spots Eddie at a table against the far back wall and has to stop himself from cheering as he makes a beeline for them, albeit more slowly than he would prefer. He's still getting winded easily and doesn't want to have to break out the inhaler the doctor gave him just yet.

There are two other boy's that Eddie is talking animatedly to, his hands gesturing wildly with a broad grin on his face.

Eddie spots him mid sentence and the effect is instant, his face lights up as he smiles and starts to wave before halting abruptly, a strange look passing over his face. 

"Hey!" Steve smiles, slightly uncertain now that Eddie's face has fallen into something unreadable. The other two boys at the table have turned to face him, their eyes scanning Steve up and down. 

The kid sitting closest to Steve, a black boy with braces and a t-shirt with something called Queen on the chest, Steve feels a spark of recognition at the name and makes a note to ask him about it later. He gives Steve a small polite smile which makes him feel slightly less nervous.

The other boy sitting closest to Eddie eyes Steve somewhat warily, he's wearing a Hawkins Middle school shirt, thick glasses with tape around the frame, and wavy brown hair that isn't as long as Eddie's but longer than Steve's mother would ever allow.

They all stare at Steve for what feels like an eternity before he clears his throat awkwardly.

"Um, my name is Steve--" he starts to say, reaching out a hand to the closest boy before Eddie stands up from the table.

"Where were you?" Eddie says, uncaring of the sudden climb in volume or the heads that turn their way. 

Steve ignores the faces turned their way and takes another step forward towards the table, a small nervous laugh bubbles up as he moves, “I was sick, remember?"

Eddie frowns, his eyes dart from Steve to the other boy directly in front of him, closest to where Steve is standing.

"I wanted to show you my book two weeks ago," Eddie folds his arms over his chest now, frowning slightly, "Ms. Allen confiscated it," he mutters darkly.

Steve winces at the tone and brings his arms around himself, taking a step back. A small part of him curses his decision to stay home another week to let his breathing find some semblance of normal.

The teen closest to Steve rolls his eyes, "if it wasn't the handbook, it woulda been something else Ed, you know Allen's been looking for a reason to punish us since you told her that you got more out of Gary Gygax than anything Mark Twain ever wrote --plus there's a literal demon on the cover,” he says with a wry grin. 

"I'm Jeff," he says with a wave before pointing to the other kid at the table, "that's Bobby, and it seems like you already know Eddie?"

Steve gives Jeff a small, thankful, smile and takes a step closer, "yeah, it's a bit of a long story--"

"A heroic tale of rescue more like!" Eddie cuts in, the familiar energy fills Steve with relief as he launches into the story.

Jeff rolls his eyes again and shoots Steve an exasperated look before patting the bench next to him, an official invitation.

Steve tries to play off the wide grin that threatens to take over his face and takes a seat next to Jeff, setting down his lunch tray with a clatter.

"So,” Eddie sits up slightly, bringing his leg up onto the table bench to curl up underneath himself, “Uncle Wayne and I were fishing, right?"

"Fishing?" Bobby cuts in with a laugh, wrinkling his nose as he looks Eddie up and down, "you?"

"Yeah fishing, not all of us can just go to the grocery store whenever we want," Eddie huffs impatiently as his ears begin to redden, he waves his hands, "anyway".

"Instead of a trout we managed to catch something a little stranger,” he grins at Steve, “he was all caught up in some old fishing line or something and--hey, you never told us why you were out on the lake by yourself?”

Three sets of eyes turn to stare for a beat though Bobby loses interest fairly quickly, averting his eyes back to the open milk carton on his own orange lunch tray. 

Steve clears his throat, unsure just how to explain his thought process that morning. 

He just had to get out of the house, he couldn’t sit there any longer waiting for his dad to finally leave--

“Well?” Eddie prompts again, the smallest of frowns pulls at his expression before Jeff snorts.

"This is not very heroic so far man, where are the X-Men, the laser battles, come on dude," Jeff grins as Eddie sputters and launches into a rant about comic books that Bobby seems to perk up at, his attention switching from the lunch tray to Eddie.

Steve breathes out a sigh of relief as the attention moves away from him.

"You don't need lasers or special powers for hero stories, Tolkien didn't need idiots in spandex, he just needed a Hobbit and a ring and made a fucking masterpiece," Eddie 

"Are you seriously comparing yourself to Tolkien right now?" Jeff asks with a knowing smirk, it grows wider as Bobby laughs.

"Who's Tolkien?" Steve says, it's not a name he's ever heard before, though they must be some kind of storyteller. Was there a new book assigned while Steve was away recovering?

Eddie blanches for a second in surprise before his face lights up, he waves his hands at the chorus of groans from both Jeff and Bobby and cackles, "Stevie, Stevie, Stevie, we have so much to teach you!"

***

As the school year comes to a close, Steve finds himself looking forward to the summer for the first time in his life.  

Summer for Steve is normally lonely.

He spends his time looking for ways to avoid his house, counting down the days when he can go back to school. Even sitting through class or trying out for the intramural leagues is better than the monotony of summer.

At least during school he had people to talk to. 

But this summer is different. 

Steve, Jeff, Eddie, and Bobby get on like a house of fire, where one of the boys is, the other three are never far behind. 

They teach Steve about Dungeons and Dragons, Tolkien and the one ring --the book certainly reads like some of the books they had assigned in class, but Eddie and Jeff looked so excited the day Steve brought it home from the library, he couldn’t disappoint them.

In turn, Steve introduces the other boys to the pool, inviting the three of them to the Harrington house on a scorching June day.

“No way,” Bobby whispers as they reach the driveway, Jeff’s mouth drops into a little ‘O’ shape while Eddie’s eyes widen in surprise before his expression shutters. 

“You’re kidding right?” Jeff asks with a laugh in his voice, “seriously, where’s your moat man?”

Steve reaches out to push Jeff’s shoulder as Bobby laughs, “shut up, it's not that bad--”

“No? Are you going to bring out a unicorn next? What else are you hiding in there?” Bobby scoffs as he takes a hesitant steps towards the edge of the driveway, as though worried the ground would fall out from underneath him at any moment. 

“Oh just wait,” Steve says, biting his lip to keep his grin in check, it falters slightly at the pinched expression on Eddie’s face, the way his eyes flick from the house to Steve, before eventually landing on their feet.

Steve opens his mouth to ask what’s wrong but he’s forced to whirl around to keep his footing as Bobby drags him up the drive, “Steve, if you do actually have a horse in there, I will still be very impressed”.

While it may not be a unicorn, Steve knows he has one other ace up his sleeve as he presents them with the crown jewel of the Harrington house, the Atari.

“Oh my god!” Bobby crows as he jumps off the last step of the basement and races towards the television. 

“You have one of these!” he hisses incredulously, snatching the attached joystick from its resting place on the top, Steve winces as the cord pulls slightly from Bobby’s exuberance. 

“I mean, it’s my dads, not mine,” Steve shrugs, he puts his hands in his jeans pockets and turns back to Jeff and Eddie, “but we can play it, he’s not home”.

Diane argues the day his father brings the machine home. 

It must stay in the basement, out of sight, determining that something so hideous has no place in their well decorated living room. 

Ignoring the fact that the only television in the house was in the basement, Diane insists on keeping the rest of the house as pristine as Good Housekeeping has taught her. 

Richard simply rolls his eyes at his wife, ‘It’s not like it matters Diane, one of the investors thinks he’s being cute, like any son of mine would waste his time with one of these, right Steven?’

Steve nods, content to keep his head down, focused on his homework, not to make waves.

‘Course dad, computer games are for losers,’ the words come easily, he’s heard them before.  He flinches as a heavy hand comes down on his shoulder and squeezes lightly.

‘God damn right’.

‘Why are we even keeping it then?’ Diane asks sharply, her tone cool as she follows him down the stairs. 

Steve trails after them to the landing; he can still hear from the wary distance he keeps while his parents continue to talk. 

"Allan and the rest of the partners are coming in two weeks for drinks, and I’m not letting that prick get one over on me”.

Diane is quiet for a beat.

Steve tilts his ear to listen intently. He knows that silence. It's something his mother usually employs while calculating all options before speaking carefully.

‘Fine, I suppose the dust will collect best down here,” Steve can almost hear the sneer that pulls at his mothers mouth as she speaks. 

‘Atta girl,’ Richard  says quietly, almost fondly. 

Jeff raises an eyebrow as he comes to stand beside Steve, “you can’t play it if your dad’s home?” 

Steve falters for a second, scrambling for something to say.

Bobby scoffs by the television, still inspecting the machine, "you know how much one of these things costs? If we had one, my dad would flip if I so much as looked at it”.

Steve settles for shrugging with a mild smile, infinitely grateful for Bobby's ability to blurt out the first thing he thinks in any given situation.

If Jeff questions it, he doesn't say anything, and instead moves to join Bobby where he crouched on the floor.

Steve turns back to find where Eddie went only to find him frozen on the last stair still.

His eyes seem to trace over the room, an unreadable expression on his face, it contorts into something sour before smoothing as his gaze eventually lands on Steve. 

"Didn't know we pulled a rich kid outta the lake," Eddie says after a beat, finally walking further into the room, his arms crossed tightly over his stomach. 

"I guess," Steve says weakly as Eddie nods and moves towards where Jeff is kneeling beside Bobby with one of the game cartridges in his hands.

A spark of annoyance crackles through Steve, licking the inside of his ribcage. If Eddie isn’t interested in playing, he just has to say so, they can do something else - work on their character sheets, go outside. The other day Eddie showed them all the best spot by the quarry for throwing rocks so that the sound seemed to echo for miles as it hit the water. They could easily go, right now. 

They aren’t supposed to be touching this anyway, it’s not like it’s a big deal. It’s not. 

Steve knows the others don’t know how much trouble he could get into for this, the risk he’s taking for even showing it to them, for having kids over unsupervised, uninvited. 

 "Well, does that thing play Asteroids or what?" Eddie asks abruptly, interrupting Steve’s train of thought. 

He nods, quietly tamping down the last fleeting sense of irritation and walks over to the shelf where the rest of the games were dumped, wincing at the impressed chorus of whoops that Jeff and Bobby let out.

It only serves to accentuate the brooding silence that has followed Eddie all morning, since they walked over the threshold of Steve’s front door.

Jeff and Bobby take turns playing the rest of the afternoon. Steve defers to them, content to simply watch his friends try out the games. They bicker back and forth, making noises at key moments to try and break each other's concentration, Steve laughs brightly as Bobby manages to make Jeff crash for the fourth time in a row by simply imitating Rod Stewart.

“If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, come on, sugar, tell me so!” Bobby croons, making his voice older and raspy as he leans close enough for Jeff to twist his head away.

“Get outta here Bobby-- oh you sonovabitch!”

Bobby cheers, lifting his clasped hands above his head, “and the crowd goes wild, what do ya say, Jeff, best two out of three?”

Jeff flops backwards onto the carpet, pretending to catch an invisible dagger to the chest, “mark my words, if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine!”

He rolls his head to the side and reaches out, pointing towards Steve with a cry, “Avenge me!” 

Steve laughs long and loud as Jeff croaks and groans and finally sticks his tongue out of the side of his mouth with a low hissing sigh as he finally pretends to die on the carpet of Steve’s basement. 

“So, what say you, Steve?” Bobby croaks as he lifts one hand to cover his mouth, and the other to hold out the abandoned joystick as he breathes out heavily, “do you dare take up the saber?”

Steve has no clue what they’re doing, a joke from something he’s sure, but he schools his face into something serious, and takes the joystick with a grave nod.

“For Jeff!” Steve cries as the digital melody fills the air.

Finally, Steve lets himself bask in the warmth and friendship that has surrounded him for the last few months, the normal chill of the Harrington home finally absent as Bobby begins to cheer while also doing his damndest to distract Steve. 

Jeff finally sits up with another hiss, “I LIVE, to see Steve beat your sorry ass Bobby!” 

He claps his hand on Steve's shoulder with a grin, “you got this!” 

It isn’t until a throat clears behind them that the three boys notice Eddie hasn’t said a word for the last ten minutes. 

He’s standing now, backpack slung over his shoulder --when did he go upstairs?

“It’s late,” Eddie mumbles quietly, “Wayne will want me home for supper soon”.

The words seem to break the spell that has fallen over the other two boys and they both stand as if summoned from their seats on the floor. 

Steve can only sit and watch as Jeff and Bobby move towards Eddie, albeit reluctantly. 

Jeff stretches out, raising his arms above his head, “yeah, I should probably go too,” he groans out as he drops his arms back at his sides. 

“Thanks for the game dude,” Bobby says with a shrug, though he looks decidedly more annoyed at the interruption than Jeff, “beats trying to escape the heat in the creek anyway”.

Jeff rolls his eyes, “It also beats shelling out quarters at the arcade on 4th Bobby, this was seriously really cool man”.

Steve grins at the pair of them before turning towards Eddie who glares at the floor in silence until Jeff elbows him. 

Eddie breathes out loudly through his nose, “yeah it was cool, but next time we should go over your characters a bit more, especially if you guys are going to survive the next encounter I designed”.

Bobby scoffs as he grabs his own messenger bag from the bottom of the stairs, “well I’m not going back to the library, Mrs. Depencier gives me the creeps”.

“The library is the only place with enough space,” Eddie argues as he turns and makes his way up the stairs.

Steve feels the words lift him up, this is his chance, he takes a step towards the other teens, “I could host?” 

Jeff and Bobby stop, turning back towards Steve with excitement in their gazes. Jeff seems to hesitate though, turning back to back to Eddie whose face is hidden by the edge of the staircase, Steve can only make out the bottom on his legs from where he’s standing.

He walks forward to the bottom of the staircase and stops short of taking the first step, “my parents aren’t home for the next four weeks so I can have you guys over, no problem”.

Bobby punches his fists into the air, "Yes! Oh my god, huge house, no parents?" Bobby jumps down the last two stairs again and nearly tackles Steve, "this is perfect!"

Perfect, is…certainly a word for it, not necessarily the one Steve would use, but Bobby wasn't here at night. 

Not when the glow of the pool would cast eerie shadows along the treeline that surrounded the Harrington backyard. Steve never felt comfortable sitting outside by himself once the sun went down, even now in middle school. 

All it took was one snapped branch in the dark or one flicker of shining eyes for him to race back into the kitchen, slamming the sliding door shut behind him.

The locked door never really feeling like enough by himself. 

"Four weeks?" Eddie says quietly as he takes a step down, his expression seems pained though Steve can't imagine why.

"I know it's not that long," Steve shrugs, "but we could do it in an afternoon right?"

Jeff's eyebrows rise, cutting shallow creases across his forehead, he and Eddie look at one another, seemingly having some kind of silent conversation before they both turn back to Steve at the same time.

"I need three days to finish it up, but that means we can meet in between to finish your characters," Eddie offers, the words slowly break the strange sudden quiet that has fallen over the basement. 

"Tomorrow?" Steve asks tentatively, 

"I'll be here, and hey if they don't come," Bobby says with a wry grin as he elbows Steve, "then I'll kick your ass at Asteroids!"

"We'll be here jackass," Jeff scoffs as Eddie nods silently.

He has a strange look on his face that Steve can't quite place, but at least he doesn't look annoyed anymore.

"Tomorrow then," Eddie confirms, grinning as Bobby blurts out a loud, 'hell yeah' as Jeff rolls his eyes once more.

The boys do eventually make their way upstairs, though at a snail's pace as the strange tension from earlier fades away. 

Steve walks them all to the door and watches as they make their way down the long drive, taking turns waving as their voices fade into the distance.

Steve swallows hard as he closes the front door, trying not to think too hard about how many hours until he'll hear his friends voices again.

Permanent Tag List: @eriquin @luvinthefreaks @cinnamon-mushroomabomination

#in my heart is a memory and here you'll always be #childhood friends au #afewproblems writes #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #jeff #baby hellfire #we have a cameo from mr clarke #I just want to give them all a hug #instead #I'll put them through the ringer #maybe next post we will do the full prompt reveal #sorry this took so long #eddie is a task master when it comes to dnd but his friends love him for it #cross posted on ao3 as well

[slicesofapple]

"Spend tomorrow night with me,” says Hawks quietly. He’s dressed now, and ready to leave.

Dabi stops pulling on his own shirt. He stares at Hawks for a long time.

“Christmas Eve?” he finally says, with incredulity. When Hawks doesn’t answer, doesn’t even look at him, he adds, “You care about that shit?”

“I just wanted,” mumbles Hawks under his breath.  He stops, gives his head a small shake.  “Forget it. See you next time.”

As he’s opening the window, however, he hesitates. Then he turns briefly, just long enough to lob a small object Dabi’s way.

Dabi, still in shock, barely catches the projectile. By the time he looks up, Hawks is gone.

He stands for a moment, unmoving, before looking back down at what turns out to be a package. It's wrapped plainly but precisely in shiny black paper.

That, however, is not nearly as surprising as what he finds inside.

It's a piece of jewelry. A bracelet. Thin, delicately wrought, silver, but when he holds it up to the light it shimmers an array of blues and purples.

He blinks, trying to catch up with what's going on:  that this is a present.

From Hawks.

For Christmas.

And it's perfect.

----

The following evening (really very early in the morning of the 25th), Hawks fumbles with the window to his apartment. He’s had way too much to drink, and it’s way too late, but he didn’t… want to come home tonight. Not to this sterile, awful apartment. Not alone.

He’s not sure why; this is how he’s always spent Christmas. For some reason, tonight it feels bad.

He should have stayed out longer, had a few more drinks.

If he had, however, there’s a very real possibility he’d have ended up crashing on the way home – actually dashing his brains out on the pavement.

And maybe… that wouldn’t have been so bad?

He shakes off the melancholy thought.

It’s only one night of the year – nothing unusual about it. No need to go overboard, to wallow in the sadness and the guilt and the regrets.

He’s enough adrift in these thoughts that it takes his bleary eyes a moment to realize that something’s amiss. There's something in the corner of his apartment that wasn’t there earlier today.

Despite the alcohol, his training kicks in; he’s much steadier as he creeps silently forward, feathers at the ready.

Still, it takes a solid minute for him to understand what he’s actually seeing.

It’s a tree: a Christmas tree.

Small and spindly, and strung with far too many lights for its tiny frame. But there it is. Nestled into the corner of his apartment. With a silver star at the top.  

A shuffling noise has him spinning around, only for him to have the second greatest shock of the year. Because there, that lump on the couch, is... Dabi??!!.

Splayed out on the cushions, fast asleep, drooling slightly.

That can’t really be – no, it can’t.  Dabi can’t be here, in his apartment, waiting for him, asleep on the couch?

No. He must be dreaming.

He lurches forward, and in doing so overbalances himself.

When he falls, it’s not onto the soft couch he expects, but, rather, the bony body of his lover.

"Ooof," says Dabi, suddenly awake.

“It’s really you!” Hawks whispers. If he were less drunk, he’d probably be embarrassed by the naked awe in his own voice. As it is, he doesn’t much care.

Dabi smiles. He lifts a hand to brush the hair off Hawks's face. There's a flash of color at his wrist: silver and blue and purple.

He's wearing the bracelet.

“Yeah,” he says softly, and his eyes are soft, too. "It's really me. Merry Christmas, Little Birdie.”

#dabihawks #dabi #hawks #bnha #soft boyz #cross-posted from ao3

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

*

#ranting in the tags like a big whiny baby #reminder to myself never to cross post a story to tumblr again #getting interaction from only one person on a fic is a big oof (don't get me wrong tho I absolutely eat that interaction up) #and i hate having to tag people to have anyone see it because then I feel like i'm forcing them to read and i dont want to do that either #writing a 70k word fic over the course of 6 months and not having the fandom interact with it at all because its not x reader hurts too #the lack of interaction is a big ouchie to the pride #makes me feel like i'm stuck being a one trick pony with kit if i want anyone to be interested in my stuff #but then i also cant just write smut all day either #writing for my self just isn't all that much fun right now. I love my story but I want others to love it too. #gotta suck it up and keep on keeping on. at least AO3 readers got my back

[gutsheapofrawiron]

[GRIFFGUTS FANFIC] Only When The Crow Cried Did I See Why: Chapter 5

Crushed orchids lay in the wake of the disaster, forming the ridges of the earth’s fresh scar with a dreadful purple.

Summary:

Guts wakes from a nightmare in a strange cavern. Familiar but unexpected faces greet him there. Meanwhile, Griffith fears for his life in the magical grove.

Read on AO3 or continue reading below

Water spilling down the rocky walls of the spelunk was the rooster’s call that woke him from his troubled dreams, unfairly gentle after the violence. The right side of his vision held off, and he remembered grimly that it ever coming back was not on the cards for him. He examined his surroundings from the bed, not moving any more muscles than necessary, and noticed blameless birds chirping in the rays of sunlight streaming into the cave, before his attention was drawn by something shimmering all over the walls.

A shit ton of crystals, he thought, surprised at how coherent his thoughts were. He turned to look to his left, and realised he wasn’t alone. Another person, heavily injured but properly bandaged and treated by the looks of it. Asleep, but alive, breath even as they seemed to be in deep slumber. The sound of footsteps redirected his focus to where the entrance seemed to be located, though from his position he could not have a good view on who entered. A short figure padded down the last few steps of the stairs, but the light from outside made it hard for him to discern a face.

“Who’s there?” he asked. His throat felt rotted out.

The person halted, turning towards him in surprise.

“Guts, you’re awake?!” they exclaimed, and Guts belatedly realised it was a young girl as she ran towards him. The dash was short-lived however, as she tripped and dropped to the ground alongside the bandages and clothes she was carrying. One of her shoes landed perfectly on top of her head, and she burst out crying as she caught up to the shock of the crash-landing. Guts recognised her now that she was not directly backlit.

“Erica…?”

Another shadow descended the stairs behind the crying girl. “Oh, Erica. You slipped because you ran too fast.”

They paused just around the corner, mirroring Erica, the second they saw Guts. This person was very much familiar to him, too.

“Rickert…? Why…?” he slurred, confused about the particular combination.

“G…Guts!” Rickert cried, starting to tremble under the weight of the emotional flood that was set free at the sight of Guts being awake.

He ran over to Guts’ bedside, exclaiming, “You’re awake now!” while Erica tugged at his tunic to get him out of the way. “Ah! No fair– I was first!” she yelled, but he took no note of it, clearly too relieved to see Guts alive and well (or well enough). Both of them did freeze as they saw something behind him, though, and Guts could hear the bed behind him creak and the blanket rustle as the other person shifted, apparently bothered by the noise. Guts turned his head as far as he could manage without rupturing something in his neck and looked at them; cropped black hair spilled out onto the pillow, normally rich cinnamon skin now a sickly grey hue.

“Casca’s sleeping, so we can’t be too loud,” Rickert whispered, explaining, “She woke up two days ago, badly injured, though not as bad as you…,” he trailed off, looking at the empty space where Guts’ arm should’ve been. Guts followed his gaze. He should probably feel a lot more upset at the significant loss, but found it hard to care much. Priorities were elsewhere.

His head felt like it was full of freshly-picked cotton. “How long have I been out?”

“Four days…,” Rickert answered, thumbing away a couple of stray tears as he continued, “You were still as a rock, I thought it might’ve been too late…”

Erica nodded at that in emphasis, whispering, “You sure surprised us! Rickrit here showed up all of a sudden with the queer Skeleton Head fella on the funked up horsie, along with you two. You looked worse than that guy, you know! Still, I saw it was you, and was super shocked!”

“I didn’t think you already knew each other, who would’ve thought,” Rickert said. “Erica means the strange knight that carried you and Casca out of that whirlwind, the one with the skull. I don’t know if you were conscious enough to remember him,” he looked away in thought.

He seemed anxious on breaching the next subject, frowning as he continued. “Guts…”

Guts shifted his head to look at him more properly, giving his left eye more sight.

“What happened in there? …What about rescuing Griffith?” Rickert asked gingerly. Erica fiddled with his sleeve, following the conversation nervously with her eyes. Guts averted his gaze, looking at the natural stone ceiling above him. Rickert swallowed.

“...Where are the others?”

“...”

Guts followed the cracks and lines in the rocks with his eye, locating the spots where crystal peeked out from behind the grey like curious little critters.

“Others…”

A silent dread creeped up his spine, unbidden in the horror it carried. The memories that came crashing in were loud, as deafening as only fresh history can be. His skin froze and his breathing started running a marathon, all at once, and he was a man without a face in a pool of thousands of faces, watching the egg take form in front of him, the embryo a ghost of a friend, stolen away right from his grasp.

“Guts? Guts!” Rickert shook him by the shoulders, trying to guide him back to reality. Erica was hiding behind him, looking upon the beginning hysteria with wide eyes.

The confines of the cave suddenly seemed far too cramped to hold the size of the carnage in his head and he shot up, before reeling at the stabs of pain in his abdomen.

“N-no, you shouldn’t move yet…! Guts!”

Guts pushed them aside and stood up, ignoring the pain that was now flaring up in every single part of his body, his breathing still speeding up as cold sweat dripped down from unknown sources.

“Guts, where are you going? In that shape…!” Rickert whisper-yelled, watching the bandages stretch around his back as Guts hobbled towards the stone stairs.

“...Should I get Godot?” Erica murmured through a cupped hand, standing on her tippy toes to speak into Rickert’s ear. They watched Guts struggle up the stairs.

“...No, you stay here with Casca,” Rickert decided after a little while, waiting until Guts was out of hearing before continuing, “I’ll trail him. He needs to be alone right now, but I don’t think he knows he can’t…”

“O—kay,” Erica drawled, pouting. “But Rickrit,” she said, “Will he be fine ‘n’ dandy ?”

Rickert looked at her mournfully.

“...It’s ‘Rickert’.”

He glanced at Casca, who somehow managed to sleep through the clamour. “I hope so, Erica. I really do.”

•

Griffith may have fallen to the ground like a badly-built puppet, but he did not lose his consciousness this time around, and he was proud of that achievement. He blinked the haze in his eyes away and saw the witches standing around him in a circle like looming trees.

"Here, can you stand?" The girl from before, the one with a differently coloured hat and cloak, held out her hand towards him to help him up. He took it, but once again his helper was half his height, and so he tried his best to not put too much weight on her.

"We need to get you to a bed…," the witch trailed off as her gaze landed on the man in front of them, the way towards him completely cleared out as the other witches uneasily looked between him and Griffith.

"Guts," Griffith rasped.

He was pushing his luck. A motley mix of emotions flashed by on Guts’ face, so fast they were hard to name in the moment. Griffith felt like he was in a free fall, as though Molda did drop him off her broom after all.

“What is—” A voice broke through the thick silence, and Griffith knew who it was before she even pushed through the crowd. Hearing Casca seemed to shake Guts out of his paralysed state, and his expression contorted into rage milliseconds before Griffith got pummelled to the earth, thrown back out of the circle of witches, out of the little girl’s grasp.

The throbbing in his head seemed to take forever to subside. He’d squeezed his eyes shut at the impact, his brain shaking in his skull as he winced in pain.

The bright light of the day would have blinded him, were it not for the shadow cast over him by the force that hit only a second ago. In a terrifying moment his eyes met those of the man above him, and the blossoms stilled in their swaying to watch his end. Gut’s face showed a confusing myriad of emotions still, his fist raised as he kept Griffith pinned with a painfully harsh hand, and Griffith could only wait for him to remember his hatred and seal the deal.

He supposed his exhaustion made him impatient.

“I thought,” came a rasping voice, from himself. “If I let you destroy me,” he breathed, then swallowed laboriously, “then, maybe, I’d be forgiven.”

His breath rattled in his chest.

“Don’t let this end in tragedy, Guts.”

Griffith reached out to touch Guts’ cheek. The man was frozen, eyes wide. Griffith dropped his arm in finality, closing his eyes again as he crawled back into the comfort of Guts’ swift breathing, his heartbeat, and his shade.

His senses seemed both sharpened and dulled; an effect of being nigh death, perhaps. The grass was soft, a strong contrast with the hand still on his wrists. No matter.

The breathing evened out yet no violence came to rip him from his calm.

Something wet, on his cheeks, Griffith assumed to be sweat. His or Guts’, it wasn’t important.

“...Griff—ith?”

Impossibly small, a whisper from above.

The weak belly of his voice urged Griffith to open his eyes. As he did, he met Guts’ gaze again, and the wave of all, repressed by forced godhood, hit the shore of his mind, making him tremble as he let out a particularly frail sob. He realised the wetness on his cheeks were his own tears, and that Guts’ expression was reflecting his own.

“NO!” a guttural shout reverberated through the sheltered space. A struggle, behind Guts, diverted their attention from each other. It was Casca.

“Guts! Don’t you,” she panted dangerously, struggling to get the witches off her as she tried to get closer to them, “fucking,” the look in her eyes was something Griffith had previously expected to see on Guts’ face instead, “DARE!”

She shook off Isidro and jumped into a sprint towards them, screaming and moving to unsheathe her sword mid-bolt. Guts finally let go of Griffith’s wrists and lifted him to a sitting position, despite the commotion still capable of gentle movements, avoiding putting pressure on visible injuries. Casca charging at them postponed it, but Griffith realised Guts was holding him in such a way as to shelter him as much as possible from the soon-to-arrive fury. A woman ran after her, slipping out of the cowering crowd. She was a witch, but one wearing flowery, elaborate robes. She was quick, grasping Casca by the arm, before managing to pull her back into a restraining hug from behind. Griffith had not yet gotten an affirmative regarding the question whether witches underwent physical training as part of their standard curriculum or not.

“Casca! Stop it!” the woman yelled, and Casca seemed to calm ever so minutely in her arms, though her attempts to break free did not cease, her eyes still set on murderous. “Let. Go!” she yelled in return.

Gut’s hold tightened. “Casca! We can’t kill him! It’s Griffith, remember?!” he shouted, something desperate in his tone. “Don’t you remember? It’s really him!”

A nasty grimace creeped up on her face as she squirmed, still, gaze unyieldingly set on the two men. “Oh, I remember, all right!” she snapped, lunging. The woman did not let go though, not giving even an inch.

“I remember everything! He killed them all, Guts, they’re all dead because of him,” she spewed, practically growling. “Why don’t you remember, huh? Cozying up when they’re all gone, where’s your damned conscience, Guts!” she shrieked. “Pippin, Corkus, Gaston,” with each name she was growing increasingly choked up, spitting them out like snake venom sucked from a wound. “Judeau, the others—,” she hung her head, and Griffith saw a stream of tears escape from behind the dark locks of hair.

Her head flicked back up, her face pulled into a tearful snarl. Her eyes were locked on Griffith. “They trusted you! We all trusted you!” she shouted, freely crying now. Griffith vaguely registered his own eyes producing copious amounts of tears, too, though the ache inside his ribcage was distracting him.

Casca wailed, the woman’s arms now a lifeline for her to hold onto. “How could you…! Why?!” The last words flowed into a multitude of sobs and screams as she went pliant in the woman’s grasp, worn out and bawling into her chest. The woman carefully sat down, taking Casca with her, and the two pairs—Casca and the witch, Guts with Griffith—were mirrored in a near-comical manner.

Griffith felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside, like a creature was trying to extract itself from his very core. He clutched his chest and cringed. Guts turned his attention back to him, grasping his hand. “Griffith? What’s wrong? What’s going on?” he asked, panicky, studying him.

The witches were muttering nervously amongst each other when a warm gust of wind swept through the village, scattering countless blossoms across the entire field. Griffith was sat in the lee behind Guts, but this did not dispel all of the force of the sudden, short-lived gale. The herd of witches once again split in two with the arrival of an immense presence, all their heads turned in the direction of the wind’s source. Griffith’s view was blocked though, with Guts still shielding him from scrutiny. Griffith managed to gather himself, ignoring the pain, and touched Guts’ shoulder by way of signalling. Guts’ head jerked back around to face him and he immediately eased his hold, not even needing to be asked. Griffith squeezed his shoulder as he sat up some more, groaning. He regulated his breath to soothe his aching ribs before daring to look up.

There was a woman, or rather, an elf, there in the centre of the crowd’s eye, stately and enchanting. She glided along the current of the wind, yet moved slowly and deliberately, halting next to the witch and Casca.

“Danan…!” the witch exclaimed in surprise. The elf held her hand up to Casca’s head, who was still crying, though quietly now, and in a moment’s notice Casca’s body drooped completely as her consciousness left her body.

“Let her sleep,” the elf said, voice unmistakably otherworldly yet also carrying hints of domesticity, apple and cinnamon scented.

The witch hastily bowed her head in gratitude, before readjusting her grip on Casca to shift their position into one a little more comfortable.

The elf-lady turned around and proceeded in Guts’ and Griffith’s direction, calm and composed.

From up close Griffith could see that her dress was made entirely out of blossom petals, though her wings were genuine fairy-wings, and not a trick of the light as he somehow initially assumed. She looked unbelievable.

It seemed hubris was a human flaw, as she had no issue kneeling in front of them, taking a better look at Griffith. He suddenly had the incredible urge to hide, feeling very, very naked, and he inched closer to Guts, hoping his state of dress would miraculously mask Griffith’s physical and emotional nudity, one way or another.

Her eyes shifted to look at Guts, whose grip on him tightened a noticeable amount.

“Guts,” she spoke, a slight smile gracing her lips. “Your companion here,” she gestured elegantly with a swipe of her hand, “is the Guardian Angel of Longing, is he not?”

The question was asked in the manner of a teacher asking their child-pupil an enlightening question about the condition of loving, albeit in no way infantilising.

“Danan, I–” Guts started, hackles raising, but she interrupted, straightening, “We’ll have to get him treated. Schierke had the right idea.” She reached out her hand to him.

Guts looked up at her, hesitant. His gaze slid to the crowd, before returning to Griffith, to then go back to her hand. Danan retreated it, turning to the witches.

“Leave us,” she dismissed them. She added, smiling, “I am certain you have better things to do than loiter around, gawking like a bunch of gulls.”

The group of pointy hats finally dispersed, although not without muted muttering and sneaky glances thrown their way. A handful of people stayed behind, however, lingering near Casca and the woman, carefully watching the elf and the two men from their position.

“Now then,” the lady turned back to Guts and Griffith, clasping her hands together and perfectly ignoring the observers. “Let’s get you someplace more private, shall we?”

•

Tall pine trees turned around as he stormed out of the cave, blind to the world but running from it at the same time. He continued running, his wounded muscles crying in protest as he entered the forest, twigs and roots digging painfully into his bare feet. His breathing was heavy, and he ripped the bandages off his face for more space. He could only feel his lungs dispel air as he screamed, the sound hesitant to reach his ears. None of it helped. The past caught up to him, no matter how fast he ran, and faces of friends were flashing by in the eyes of field mice, in between the trees, up in the dusky sky. Friends, former friends. Dead or reinvented.

Moments that seemed so mundane when they were happening, now so precious and painful it felt like he was being eaten alive.

Some of them were eaten alive. Some of them were ripped apart, limbs torn off one by one, and he could only watch. Out of reach, always out of reach.

He tripped, tumbling down a gully, landed and continued running.

The memories continued streaming through his mind, chastising. All of them, together, doing so well, working tirelessly towards their goal. His breaths came out as sobs. Then, a quiet smile, aimed towards him, only him.

He cried, blood seeping from his newly-acquired lashes, his bad eye, and only slightly older, barely-healed wounds. He felt none of it.

At some point the pine forest changed into a deciduous one, then into a rubbly mountain plateau, then into soft hills of grassland.

His legs gave in and he stumbled to the ground, turning to lay on his back as he stared blankly into the sky. It was dark now, night having set in without his notice. Rain came unhurriedly at first, but quickly intensified, drenching him to the bone.

Guts forced his mind to focus on the afterimage of the newly-born shape he had chosen, at the cost of all he had possessed before the sky had been ripped open. He tried not to think of a cut tongue, of torn tendons, a frail, bandaged body under his hands, of how he hadn’t even wanted it, not really, not in such a way, he was merely goaded into it by disemboweling demon-gods, smiling down at his misfortune of being their chosen victim. He hadn’t even wanted it.

He was gone now. In his place, where there was a tender childliness there was now only cruelty, where there had been undeniable compassion for comrades there was now nothing, a void of identity. So Guts conjured up the form of evil in falling rain as he let anger build up in his stomach.

“You shouldn’t go out.”

A voice rang out, just a ways off behind him. He turned his head.

“Casca…!”

She looked serene, almost, if one were to ignore the grimace on her face.

On further inspection, one would also notice that, though she seemed to be steady on her feet, she was swaying slightly.

He jumped up, wanting to get closer, but Casca’s body stiffened as he took a step towards her, making him awkwardly halt with one foot in front of the other. She glared at him.

“Why don’t you ever listen to what other people tell you?”

A cold sneer, her voice only raised enough to carry over the sound of the rain.

Guts didn’t understand.

“What?”

Casca let out a sharp huff. “Don’t ‘what’ me. I told you. He’s—”

A pause, her eyes glazed over in recollection, before thawing again.

“Griffith’s no good without you,” she repeated, hand held up to her forehead in pain.

She jerked up, looking at him. “Do you see now? Do you fucking get it now?”

He shrunk, clenching his fists. The frigid rain hitting his feverish skin seemed to be in support of her angle. The images were impossible to wipe away from his retina, even with one eye less. He wondered if he really understood. Casca still had both eyes, after all. He wasn’t sure, didn’t dare to be, anymore.

Guts realised they’d fallen quiet, only the heavy rainfall dampening the harshness of it.

Casca’s voice changed, low and hoarse.

“You never loved me.”

It was muddy, in his brain, and he registered her words late. He’d been staring at the ground, grass pressed down by raindrops before springing back up to repeat the motion. His head snapped up, wanting desperately to deny the accusation. “Casca- No, listen-”

But she interrupted, not giving him the chance. “No, you listen. We need to accept that whatever this was, between us, it wasn’t love. At least, not that sort of love. We were both just so desperate for Griffith that we chose to get the one nearest, the one that was actually within reach.”

She’d approached him as she said this, jabbing her finger in his chest for emphasis.

She glowered at him for a moment longer, awaiting his reply, before groaning and dropping her head in both hands. “Ugh…”

Casca rubbed her eyes, stepping away from him. He didn’t know where to put his hands. Hand.

“...I’m just—,” she muttered, voice tight, “so tired…”

Guts averted his gaze in shame.

They stood in yet another tungsten silence, and Guts deliberated what to do. They were beyond soaked, and should definitely start heading back, yet he felt he had no right to even speak to Casca, at this point.

A giggle split the rock of the quiet between them, and Guts glanced at Casca incredulously. It wasn’t her though; her mouth was still pulled into a taut line downwards. The laughter multiplied, and Casca looked up, too, sending an accusatory frown his way. When he made it abundantly clear with his eyes that that was most certainly not him, she searched about, scanning the area as a look of dreadful realisation crossed her face. Guts followed her gaze and saw mean, beady eyes staring at them from all around, the laughter growing louder and louder in sharp jabs.

Guts saw them a little better as they approached, small ugly creatures crawling in the grass. They were muttering, grinning up at Casca and him as they pronounced their organs and limbs theirs. Guts gritted his teeth, waiting for the next wave of the nightmare.

“You should take heed.”

A dark, frayed cloth billowed, the sound harmonious with the gravelly voice that spoke. Guts and Casca jerked around, neither having noticed the presence of another person aside from the little demons. It was the skull knight.

His empty eye sockets were immovably trained on the two of them. “From now on, this is your world.”

The laughter seemed to get louder.

“The boundary between the mortal world and that of the dead.”

The knight’s cape flapped sharply. The rain beat down indiscriminately on mortal skin and immortal bone.

“The ‘Interstice’.”

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#berserk #griffguts #berserk fanfiction #cross posted from ao3 #GHORI Original #Only When The Crow Cried #scheduled #guts/griffith

[schmetective]

the plant, the paper, and the powerless;

pairing: Adam du Mortain x the Detective synopsis: (After Book 2,) Adam replaces your plant. Adam-typical longing and suppression ensues.

There’s a small thump that cuts into the silence of the warehouse’s common room. 

Adam’s frown deepens, and the intention the sound is made with is reason enough to draw the vampire leader’s gaze away from the forest outside the window and to the… 

A blond eyebrow shoots up. 

“What’s that?” 

Nate challenges the skepticism with a raised eyebrow of his own. 

“A plant.” 

So it seems. Newly placed on one of the side tables in the room, the plant sits in a white ceramic pot, its large leaves a vibrant green with speckles of a slightly lighter shade of the color. A few leaves threaten to spill out of the edges of the pot, the stems connecting it soft rather than rigid. Adam eyes it as if the innocent thing has accused him of a great misdeed. 

Perhaps it has. 

“For?” 

The icy green of Adam’s eyes meet the warmth of Nate’s, hundreds of years of friendship between the gaze, yet this time there settles a lot of… Nate holds back a chuckle, recognizing the look from his friend rather quickly. Suspicion. 

Nate smothers the amusement that threatens to expose his intentions into a deadpan as if what -- or rather, who -- the plant could be for was rather obvious. The furrowing of Adam’s eyebrows as he searches Nate’s face tells the second in command that maybe the 900-year-old vampire knows exactly who the plant is for, but is hoping it’s not. 

“The Detective.” 

There’s a failed attempt to hold back laughter from Felix, who is draped across a chair a few feet away, watching the exchange with the look of one who is thoroughly entertained. He tries to pass the sound off as a cough. 

Adam stiffens, shoulders tensing as he looks away from Nate and back at the golden pothos. With the heated gaze that Adam gives the poor thing, Nate’s surprised that it doesn’t just wilt. A perseverant one, that plant. Much like someone else Nate knows. Someone who hasn’t given up on his friend just yet.

“...Why?” Adam’s tone is clipped, and Nate knows he’s stalling. Trying to appear unmoved. A tree that stands firmly rooted in the ground, refusing to bow down to the wind. Grasping at a semblance of normality; of himself before they came to Wayhaven. Before… 

Before the Detective threw him off kilter and changed everything. 

“You broke the plant in the Detective’s office, remember?” 

Felix mumbles something about a desk. 

Nate continues, “And you said that you’d --” 

“I know what I said,” Adam says in a low voice, holding back a growl because this is Nate, and Nate is just being the friend he’s always been. He doesn’t look up. 

There’s a moment of silence, and in it Nate falters a bit, wondering if this was a good idea after all. If Adam wanted to brood in silence, then maybe that was -- 

Adam’s fingers reach out around the potted plant. He gingerly picks it up, shifting his grip so that it rests in the crook of one arm. Almost cradling it. 

Nate smiles warmly at Adam, who looks as if he doesn’t quite know what he’s doing. There’s an uncertainty in those green eyes of his, one that wasn’t familiar until about four months ago. 

And then he blinks and is moving away from Nate and across the common room to the door that leads out into the hallway. 

“I’ll be back,” he says once he reaches the door. 

“Okay, we’ll be here,” Nate says with a smile and an encouraging nod. 

“Though Nate never said you had to do it right now --” 

But Adam has already closed the door before Felix can finish his teasing. 

Nate’s gaze remains on the door for a short while, deep in thought and with hope in his chest. Felix watches Nate with an unusually straight face before a glint of mischief lights his eyes. He shifts in the chair, planting both feet on the rug and resting his elbows on his knees. His fingers lace together. 

“My, my, Natey,” Felix begins. Nate turns to him. “I never thought you’d be one to scheme.”

Amusement and a hint of pride dances around the young vampire’s words as he looks at Nate with respect in his gaze. 

The tall vampire rolls his eyes. 

“I’m just helping him. Replacing the Detective’s plant after he broke the pot is the right thing to do.” A light shrug. Hands dig into pockets. “Even more so now that the Detective is part of our team.” 

“Our family,” Felix adds with a thoughtful rub of his chin, eyes searching Nate’s face. He seems to find what he was looking for, a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. “And getting our almighty leader and our wonderful Detective a moment alone had nothing to do with it?” 

Nate rolls his lips together to suppress a smirk. It’s too late, though, Felix has already seen it. Nate turns on his heels and begins to walk out of the room himself. 

“That would be a likely outcome, wouldn’t it?” Nate says, voice light as he ponders aloud, though it seems he had already considered this long before Felix suggested it.

The young vampire grins. 

.

You are bored. Bored as balls. You tap your pen against the surface of your desk repeatedly. 

Bored as… butts. 

You swivel in your chair, now tapping your pen against your knee. You eye the ceiling accusingly. Your paperwork has mostly been done, files saved and tucked into their rightful folders on your computer. And in a (normally) quiet town like Wayhaven, that left you, as the detective, with… nothing. Nada. 

Bored as books. Books can’t be bored. Bored as -- 

A knock raps against the glass partition. And then a familiar voice, one you love to hear. 

“Detective.” 

You spin around quickly, a smile on your face before you’ve even seen him. 

Adam. 

He stiffens under your gaze, shoulders rolling back and back straightening as if his posture could be any more correct. His eyes fall to the smile curling your lips, and that ice in the green… It melts. Softens. 

Your heart thumps hard against your chest. 

“Adam!” Your eyes fall from the softness in the green of his eyes to the dark green bundle held carefully in his hands. “And… plant.” 

You put down your pen and stand up from your chair, walking around your desk only to lean against it to be just that much closer to the vampire. You raise an amused eyebrow at Adam, biting a grin down. He is all too aware of the entertainment you’re finding in this, and his eyes harden, eager to find somewhere to look at that isn’t the distraction your eyes serve as. 

You want him to say it. 

But he doesn’t want to say it. 

You wait. 

He can wait too. 

You raise your eyebrows at him, chin dipping. Really?

He raises his eyebrows as well, this time challenging your gaze. 

But then your eyes are sparkling as if his sudden appearance is a gift on your birthday, just the one you’ve been excited to open; the one that’s shaped exactly like the thing you asked for. And he gives in. He loses, and he doesn’t feel terrible about it. Not one bit. 

“I told you I would replace Officer Poname’s gift to you.” 

He steps into your office, and you don’t know why your breath catches in your throat the way it does. You watch him as he moves to the file cabinet where Tina’s plant had once rested and, with a gentleness unfit of a man as strong as he, places the plant there. Almost exactly the place you remember putting the original plant. Or perhaps exactly there. 

Your stomach flips.

He turns to look at you, eyes soft and wandering slowly over your face. You hold your breath. 

Whatever state he was in, he snaps out of it and looks away. 

“That is all, Detective. I apologize once again for breaking your plant. I hope this one makes up for it.” 

You smile, and he watches from the corner of his eye. 

“More than enough, Adam. Thank you. Really.” 

His shoulders relax as if he had been afraid that you would say otherwise. He looks to you again, the intensity of his gaze startling you like always. You remind yourself of how to breathe. 

“Good.” 

He turns quickly, making to move out the door, but your mouth is quicker than that. 

“Wait!” You blurt, not really knowing what you want him to wait for. 

All you know is that you don’t want him to leave. 

He slowly turns back to you, eyes widened just a bit, enough for you to tell that maybe, hopefully, he wants to stay too. 

“Why don’t…” You fumble for a reason for him to stay. One he won’t refuse. One he’ll find tactical sense in as the leader of Unit Bravo. Think, think, think. You swallow. “Why don’t you stay until my day’s over? I could catch you up on everything that’s been going on down here. You might find something I missed.” 

Unlikely, you think, and not just because you're damn good at what you do. The action that the circus had brought along with it has finally settled, and Wayhaven has blinked and carried on as normal. But you have nothing else to go on. Damn it. This is a flimsy excuse. He’s definitely -- 

“Okay,” he nods, not even pausing a moment to consider it. “I’ll stay.” 

He’ll… stay?

He moves to the window and looks outside. 

He’ll stay.

“Okay,” you say, your voice sounding lighter than you would have liked. 

You hope he can’t hear the flutter of your heart as you move to sit back in your seat. 

.

Adam can hear your heart, its pace quicker than normal as if you had just run. He tries to ignore it, and almost successfully does, but… his own heart is harder to ignore. It pounds in his chest. 

Because he’s never been alone with you like this before. He feels restless as he stands, gazing out the window but not really looking. He needs to be doing something, but he doesn’t know what. Four months ago he would have been satisfied with staying still like this, but you’ve changed everything. 

Do you know that? 

His muscles are about to twitch in anticipation, and thoughts buzz in his mind, bouncing off its walls here and there. 

“So --” 

“Do --”

You speak at the same time that he is about to. He turns to you, hoping the surprise isn’t too evident on his face. Hoping he has caught the softness in his gaze before you can see it. But you are unlike any detective he’s ever worked with, and he knows he’s too late. You smile. 

And maybe it’s okay that he doesn't catch it in time. 

“So, I lied,” you inhale shakily, eyes darting away as if you felt guilty. He can see it on your face, lining the features he would never admit plagues his thoughts every moment he’s not with you. 

You look back at him as if seeking to gauge his reaction. He doesn’t move. 

“I’m done with today’s paperwork and… and nothing of interest or reason to be wary has occurred. I’m sorry. I…” 

It’s okay, he wants to say. I wanted so desperately to be here. More than you can know.

He bites his tongue and straightens himself. When had he leaned forward to listen to you speak? 

“It is alright.” 

You blink. 

“It-- It is?” 

He nods. 

“Oh,” you breathe, sighing in relief. “That’s good. Thanks.” 

You look away, and so does he. He is unsure of what to do now that there is technically no reason for him to be here, not as the commanding agent of Unit Bravo. That’s all he can remain to you. All he could bear to be. 

He makes to turn back to the window, but then you speak again, and he’s eager to listen. 

“Have you ever made a paper airplane?” 

“I am not Felix.” 

“So you have?” 

He can’t help the small smile that tugs at the corner of his lips. “I have. I am quite good.” 

You raise an eyebrow and lean back in your chair. “Oh? Not as good as I am, I bet.” 

“Is that a challenge?” 

“I did say I’d bet, didn’t I?” 

Oh, you are always full of surprises. 

You pull out a few sheets of paper and grin at him. 

“Are you sure this is a productive use of your time as this town’s detective?” 

You’ve already begun folding your airplane, and you don’t even look up when you reply. “You scared, old man?” 

“Never.” 

It’s far from the truth. He is terrified of the power you have over him. The power that has him sitting in the chair in front of your desk. The power that has him pulling a sheet of paper from the stack and beginning to fold it into an airplane. 

He is terrified. 

.

You are giddy. 

And prideful. 

So, so prideful. Your paper airplane sails across the precinct from your office to the other side of the large room, landing beautifully on the floor. 

Adam’s barely makes it halfway across. The nose crumples when it hits the floor.

“Again! That’s 10, me, the wonderful Detective, and 0, you. Not so good as you said you were.” 

You grin and jab him in the side with your elbow teasingly. 

He growls in frustration, jaw tensing as he looks at his crashed paper airplane as if it has betrayed him. 

You laugh softly, walking to pick up both his and your planes. You dump them in the bin under your desk. 

“Been 70 years since you flew?” 

It’s a joke, but his eyes widen for a second and it has you thinking maybe you can read minds. 

But then again, you probably can’t. Otherwise this would be so much easier. You wouldn’t second guess everything Adam does. 

“Something like that,” he says, his voice almost… fond.

Of what? You? 

You shake away the wishful thinking. 

“Thanks for staying,” you say, shrugging on your coat. 

Your workday has ended, and you are almost sad that it has. You wonder if Adam will ever be this… unguarded again. 

You thank and say goodbye to the night volunteer. 

“It is nothing,” he says as the two of you walk outside of the building. 

But it is everything. You hope he knows that. 

The two of you step outside of the precinct, and a gentle breeze greets you. “It’s not… nothing, Adam.” 

You turn to look at him, only to find he is already looking at you. He does it in a way that steals your breath from your lungs. As if you are the only thing he ever wants to look at. 

The breeze ruffles his hair that he’s let grow just a bit, and the gold of the evening that washes over the town softens the strong lines of his face. You wonder, for a moment, if there are angels, and if he has lied about being a vampire. 

But no, he is just Adam. And you are looking at him through lenses crafted by love, understanding him to be beautiful in a way that no one ever has been to you. 

And probably ever will be. 

A ghost of a smile flickers on the corner of his lips, his gaze soft as it envelops yours. 

“I will see you soon, Detective,” he says softly, the words drenched in something you don’t understand. As if he wants to say something, to reveal something, but doesn’t know how to say it. Doesn’t quite know if he wants to.

You forget how to breathe.

“Bye, Adam,” you breathe, finally remembering how and not really wanting to say goodbye. 

What is it?

He nods, looks down the street, and when seeing no one, is gone in the blink of an eye. As if he were never there. 

A warm feeling curls and uncurls in your chest. 

Hope. 

Hope to someday find out what it is.

#hahaha. you silly emotionally-constipated vampire. #also cross-posted from ao3! #adam du mortain x reader #the wayhaven chronicles #this was posted forever ago but no i still didn’t fix any typos #i’d like to explore his feelings in the LT when Detective is all about nate but #the thoughts are still brewing #let characters do ooc things because of LOVE! that is all.

[misqnon]

Royal Blue

A gen Sanji fic, around 6K words. also on ao3, here

“Hey, guys? The News Coo just dropped off a letter with the paper, but I think it was a mistake. It’s not addressed to any of us.”

“Who’s it addressed to?” Robin asks. 

“Vinsmoke.” Nami says simply, and Sanji actually staggers in his place on the deck. 

-----

Five times Sanji’s secret past as a Vinsmoke almost got revealed to the crew, and one time he can’t help but tell them.  

AKA I love dramatic character revelations and I’m bitter not everyone was there to react to Whole Cake Island. 

Disclaimer- I’ve never actually written for an active fandom before, nor have I finished reading/watching One Piece. Please forgive any blatant errors. I’m currently in the middle of Water 7 and I skip around a lot. 90% of my knowledge comes from secondary sources.

pls enjoy!

The first time it happened, it was less of a danger to his cover, and more a painful reminder that he had anything to hide at all.

After all, he’d left that history behind him so long ago that by now, more than 10 years later, he was sure he wouldn’t ever have to reveal that history. Hell, not even Zeff knew. As far as he was concerned, Sanji was just an orphan boy who’d ended up in that unlucky cruise ship kitchen, and he didn’t need to know how he’d gotten there. 

So when they’d all been traveling through the Alabasta desert, Luffy and Nami and Vivi and all the rest of the crew, Sanji hadn’t been thinking about it much at all. When they’d found out Vivi was a princess, well, it had put a little ping into his mind. That little, “You’re technically a prince, too, remember?” But he had quickly squashed it. Not anymore, and never again, so he didn’t need to dwell on the commonality between them.

That was, until weeks later, during that boundless desert trip, when they’d all been sitting around the campfire, resting up for the night on the cool desert sand. It was so much more pleasant than the heat that’d been oppressive over their heads all day. Everyone was chatting, idly enjoying the soup he’d made for everyone. Luffy had downed two bowls of it, and was now snoozing with his hat over his head to the right of them all. Zoro seemed to have a similar idea, though it wasn’t clear if he was actually asleep, or just leaning back with his eyes closed in his usual introverted manner. 

Nami and Vivi were sharing stories over the meal, shawls pulled over their shoulders, and Usopp and Chopper were messing around beside them, occasionally joining the conversation to interject one of Usopp’s grand adventures or Chopper’s impressed gasps. 

He decided to stroll over to the two women, now with his own bowl carefully balanced in his hand. The chef always ate last, after all.

“Hello, Vivi my sweet! And Nami, my swan! How is the soup?” He asked, practically floating through the air to slide in beside them both. Usopp silently rolled his eyes.

Vivi just smiled, answering for both of them. “It’s delicious, Sanji! Thank you for making dinner again.”

“Why of course! It’s my job as the chef, after all!” He sang, still balancing the soup in his hands that he has yet to even touch, now distracted. 

Then, he continued, “You know, this recipe is sometimes called ‘Marry Me Soup.’ They say it’s so good that it’ll convince you to marry the chef.” He said, wiggling his already swirling eyebrow.

Vivi just giggled. “I’m flattered, Sanji, but I don’t think my father would appreciate me getting married right now. Besides, I’ve always been told I’m expected to marry a prince.” She didn’t seem particularly happy about this, nor did she seem very enthusiastic about marriage, period- but Sanji still deflated at the undercut of a rejection. For multiple reasons.

The hopeless flirt within him almost blurted out, ‘Well, it’s your lucky day then, Princess Vivi!’

Except it didn’t, at all, because even for Vivi’s hand in marriage he wouldn’t let that secret slip. 

Instead, he just clamped his jaw shut, sat down beside them, and took a sad sip of his soup. Usopp and Chopper laughed, unaware of the true reason for his melancholy. Nami reassured Vivi he’d be fine after she momentarily worried she’d offended him, before scooching closer to inquire further if she really had to marry a prince someday, against her will. They began chatting again, Nami looking fiercely protective all of a sudden.

Sanji only had a couple more spoonfuls before he stood, silently, and walked off a few feet away from the group for a smoke.

A certain green-haired swordsman poked an eye open to glance over at him as he walked by.

That was odd. Sanji didn’t usually smoke while people were still eating. Especially the ladies. It was inconsiderate, he said, cigarette smoke wafting into people’s faces while they tried to eat, tainting the taste with the smell of nicotine.

But there he was, huffing away at the cigarette a bit too fast, in Zoro’s opinion. Then again, he didn’t really know anything about smoking. Nor did he care. He shrugged, shut his eye again, and went back to resting.

Now that Sanji thought about it, looking back, maybe it’d been on his mind more than he thought. After all, why else had he used the codename “Mr. Prince” while he impersonated Mr. 3?

—

“Liar Noland?”

“You know it, Sanji?” Nami asks, peering at this book that she’s never heard of. “But it says it was published in the North Blue.” 

“I was born in the North Blue.” He says, and actually smiles, wide and true. His memories of back then are anything but good, but…

“Didn’t I tell you?” He tries to play off, though he knows he’s done no such thing. “It’s where I grew up.”

“No, I thought you were from the East like the rest of us.” She muses, and Usopp agrees. 

Sanji continues. And a smile comes to his face again, for the same reason. “My mom used to read me that book when I was a kid.”

For a moment Nami and Usopp both think this is the first Sanji’s told them much of anything about his childhood- they know he had a pretty rough going when he met Zeff, but that’s about it. They’re too focused on the task at hand, though.

Nami opens it and begins to read, the rest of the conversation forgotten.

—

The seven of them stood around the ancient stone door as if peering at it would do anything.

“WHY WON’T THIS STUPID DOOR OPEN!?” Luffy yelled eventually, stomping his feet with impatience.

Robin stepped forward, looking closer at the intricate carvings of winged creatures and giant serpents. Most compelling was the small bowl that seemed to be carved into the center, right below a sharpened bit of rock in the enclave. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this before…” She said, hand to her chin in thought. Unlike Luffy, she wasn’t upset, only engulfed in academic curiosity. She stepped back then, walking away to inspect the other parts of the carvings, further down the wall. 

“Can’t we just break it down?” Zoro asked, poking at the old stone with little regard for its value. Nami frowned at him, slapping his hand away. 

Robin didn’t waste any emotion at his comment, still looking at the newfound bit of text she’d found behind some ivy. 

“This stuff is ancient, you idiot! It’s irreplaceable!” Nami growled, scowling as Zoro narrowed his eyes back at her. For a moment, Robin felt a bit of appreciation for the navigator. She was definitely the most levelheaded of this group so far.

“It could be booby-trapped! Besides, it’s probably worth a ton of Berry.” She said, eye’s suddenly aglow with a mischievous shine.

Nevermind, Robin thought with a sigh. 

Sanji, Usopp, and Chopper stood back with little to contribute. Usopp seemed to be trying to think of a way to get them over the impossibly tall wall, while Chopper distracted Luffy with the sighting of a big beetle.

Sanji just stood there, a lit cigarette lazily lilting smoke between his teeth. They’d probably figure it out between Usopp, Robin, and Nami. Meanwhile, he could continue to plan out what to make for the rest of the week with the meager rations of fruit and meat they’d gathered.

That was, until Robin finally stood, hand still on her chin but a look of accomplishment dancing on her features.

“Here. It says that to open the door, we must provide a drop of royal blood.” She explained, pointing to the ancient language inscribed on the ivy-covered wall.

Everyone rose their eyebrows at that, including (and especially) Sanji.

“Royal blood?” Usopp asked, confused. “Like a king or something?”

“Aw, man!” Luffy cried. “If only Vivi was still with us!”

“That doesn’t make any damn sense.” Zoro said. “How does the wall know whether the blood is royal or not?”

Robin shrugged. She was an archaeologist, not a scientist. “Who knows.” She said simply.

“I’ll just try it.” Luffy said, rolling up his sleeves and stomping over to the little enclave that held the bowl and the piercing rock. 

“Wait!!” Chopper yelled. “You can’t just go stabbing yourself with ancient rocks! Especially ones that have already had other people’s blood on it!” He cried, now trying to pull Luffy away from the wall. He continued to drone on about bacteria and blood-borne diseases as Sanji began sucking a little harder on his cigarette.

Honestly, he didn’t really see the need to get into the old temple anyway. He was starting to think they should just leave. For completely unselfish reasons.

“For once, I agree with the marimo. Let’s just break the damn thing open.” He said, stretching his leg. 

“No, damnit!” Nami said, stomping over to him. “You could set off a trap!”

He frowned at that, putting his leg down obediently. 

Usopp was next to Robin now, looking between the inscription she’d found and the spot where Chopper was still frantically pulling Luffy away from. “I don’t get it.” He decided finally. “Besides, what do they mean by ‘royal blood,’ exactly? Will any royal blood work, or only the royal blood of whoever ruled this nation?”

Robin found it to be a very good question coming from the teen. She nodded in agreement. “True. The inscription doesn’t clarify.”

As soon as Usopp said it, he began to wonder the same thing. And it made him more nervous. His poor cigarette was almost spent now. 

Would his blood work? If it did, would they suspect anything? Should he put it in now, and claim the door was just stupid, like Zoro had claimed earlier? If so, he’d better do it before Luffy, in case the rubber man’s didn’t work-

“HAHA!” Luffy exclaimed, finally pricking the tip of a rubbery outstretched finger on the rock. Chopper deflated in resignation, now joining the rest of them in peering at the bowl as Luffy’s blood fell into it. 

The drop of blood fell into the bowl, sat momentarily on the bottom, then was suddenly absorbed by the porous stone as if it was dying of thirst. Everyone looked on in various states of amazement and fear as they waited, one second, two seconds, three seconds, five, ten-

“...I don’t think it’s doing anything.” Nami finally grumbled.

“Well, the good news is, it doesn’t look like it set off any traps.” Replied Usopp, looking around anxiously for any sign of movement in the jungle around them.

Robin was peering at the bowl with curious blue eyes. “Intriguing…”

“Aw, man!” Luffy huffed. He turned suddenly to Usopp. “Usopp, you try.”

“WHAAA? WHY ME?”

“You like Kaya. And Kaya’s kinda royalty. That’s close enough, right?”

“KAYA ISN’T A PRINCESS, LUFFY! SHE’S JUST RICH! AND I’M NOT EVEN HER! THAT’S TOO MUCH OF A STRETCH.” Usopp yelled in frustration. 

Zoro, Chopper, and Nami were various degrees of frustrated and fed up listening to the two of them bicker. Sanji was still anxiously tapping his foot, hoping the captain wouldn’t systematically make them all try. And if he did, hoping that his didn’t do shit.

That is, until they heard the familiar call of Marines from up the path behind them. 

Sanji turned, eyes wide with panic. “Shit-” He said, lighting another cigarette. 

“Marines? All the way up here? How?” Someone said. Sanji wasn’t even paying attention anymore.

“HURRY USOPP! C’MON, GO!”

“NO, LUFFY! MINE WON’T BE ANY DIFFERENT!”

Zoro started unsheathing Wado, ready for a fight, though even he seemed to realize that that was far too many Marines and they were far too close to be able to run.

As the group devolved into arguing, panic, and frantic attempts to prepare for a fight, Sanji looked back one last time at that stupid door and its stupid little blood-sacrifice bowl. 

The Marines were visible now, charging from the bottom of the hill and quickly approaching- the path they’d used to get here- the only path out- now blocked. 

Sanji cursed, pushing through the mess of the crew and jabbing his thumb onto the rock. 

The group went quiet as the giant stone doors began to shake, then pulled slowly open into a dark, but open, temple. 

They all looked in surprise to Sanji, who bit down on his cigarette and began running through the opening. 

“C’mon, idiots! The Marines are right behind us!”

The group took one look back and followed, sighing in relief as the giant stone doors began to pull shut again just as they’d all made it through. 

Everyone was still running, unsure if the Marines would be able to power through, though Luffy had bound up beside him to ask,

“WOOOAH, SANJI! ARE YOU ROYALTY OR SOMETHING?”

“No, idiot. The door’s just stupid. It probably just didn’t work for you ‘cause your blood’s all rubbery and shit.”

Luffy frowned at that, though he seemed satisfied with that answer. 

Sanji didn’t turn around after that, but by the feeling of several pairs of eyes boring into the back of his head, he got the feeling the rest of the crew wasn’t quite as convinced.

—

Luckily for him, (and quite unluckily for everyone else), the temple was indeed filled with booby-traps. No one had any time to ask him why the hell his blood had worked because they’d spent the next hour or so of their lives trying not to die.

When they finally made it out the other side, sweaty and beat-up and a few crewmates still a little bit on fire, it was the last thing on everyone’s minds. Especially considering the map they’d found as spoils for their trouble.

Later that night, though, when they’d made it back to the Going Merry and everyone had feasted on grilled pork and pineapple and rice, Zoro stayed behind after dinner, arms crossed and leaning broodily against the doorframe, all despite the drinking that was now taking place out on the deck. 

“What do you want, Marimo?” Sanji spit, though he had a feeling he might already know what it was.

“Why did your blood open up that door?”

“Like I said, I don’t think that hunk of rock can actually differentiate between royal blood and not. We just got lucky.”

“Luffy’s blood didn’t work.”

“Yea, and like I said, it’s probably because his blood’s all fucked up and made of rubber.” Sanji bit back, emphasizing the fact that he’d already explained this.

“He’s still human. And I’m pretty sure I heard the Marines trying to prick themselves on it too after we got through.”

Sanji shrugged. “I guess I got some royalty in my family line somewhere, then. Like I said, lucky for us.”

Zoro glared at him. ‘Like I said, like I said.’ It was suspicious. 

“Whatever, shit-cook.” He finally replied, shoving off the wall and heading back out to deck to join the party. 

Sanji bitterly lit another cigarette.

—

“Newspaper’s here!” Someone calls from the front deck of the Sunny. Sanji’s already walking around with a tray of drinks, currently stopped at Zoro, who takes it without much of a thank you aside from a glance.

He rolls his eyes and moves on, wanting to take a peek at the paper anyway. Nami has it at the moment, so he heads over, even though he’s already given her her drink- first, as always.

“Anything interesting, Nami?” He asks, forgoing the swan~ that got him an eyeroll earlier. He’s also just genuinely curious, which has him distracted just enough to act normal around women.

She skims it and frowns. “Nah, not much. Unless you consider Buggy interesting news.” She says, throwing the stack of parchment to the nearby table without a care. She takes her drink and leaves, presumably to go work at her desk.

Sanji does not find Buggy the Clown to be worthy of his attention, but the damn weirdo happens to pop up way more than he or any of the crew seems to think reasonable. 

Regardless, he takes a peek at the newspaper anyway, since he’s already there. Nami’s right, nothing’s of interest- save for the stupid comic strip they’ve included on the last page.

Sora, Warrior of the Sea.

Sanji frowns, his face twisting up into the kind of gangster-like grimace he reserves for Zoro when he’s most exceptionally pissed him off. 

He’s not nearly as bothered about it as he should be, but the comic is included in almost every issue of the paper they’ve received since they hit the Grand Line. The first time he’d spotted the Vinsmoke name he’d nearly had a stroke, but apparently, the few crew members who actually read that bit of the paper seemed convinced it was all fictional, the villainous Germa 66 army included.

Sanji was quite fine with leaving it that way.

It’s just a shitty attempt at Marine propaganda, and the fact his family’s been written in as villains as if they aren’t a real royal family kinda does make him laugh. They’ve become so synonymous with evil that they’re written as cartoon villains by the same news company that works with them in the crime underworld. Sanji’s surprised they don’t see it as a slap in the face- maybe they do, but the strips continue to come out unchanged.

On the best days he laughs acridly at the insult it does his biological father, on the worst he bites his lip in anger that he and his crew have to be exposed to their existence.

Though…

He reads the title over again.

Even if it’s just some bullshit marine propaganda, the way they’ve named the main character who beats the evil Germa family again and again brings a small grin to his lips.

—

All in all, the various times his past had almost come out had been relatively easy to cover up.

The closest call, however, had been when they’d landed on an unsuspecting Spring island, a little too close to the North Blue for his liking.

Franky had stayed behind to work on the ship, but the rest of them had gone ahead and went inland to restock supplies, stretch their legs, and find what this island had to offer. 

And for once, they'd decided to stick together instead of splitting up. Mainly because some signs around town had said something about a big festival taking place in the square, and Nami, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper had convinced the last few less sociable crewmates to come along. 

Despite the proximity to North Blue, Sanji wasn't actually that worried. He'd never heard of this island before, and he doubted his father would be anywhere near it either. Germa may be a wandering country, but it hadn't left the North Blue in a while as far as he knew, and at the moment they were still in the Grand Line.

So when they all walked up the brick path to the town square, finding before them a wonderful spread of tents, stages, and food stalls, he actually found himself a little excited. Good food, good entertainment, and- he squinted his eyes at the closest stage, where a group of women in traditional garb were performing a folk dance.

Beautiful women? Hell yea, maybe this pit stop would be worth it after all.

“Wow, this looks amazing!” Nami cried, clapping her hands together. “I wonder what it’s all for?”

Usopp jutted a hand over his shoulder. “I think one of the signs we passed said it’s somebody’s birthday. Probably one of the kingdom’s rulers, if I had to guess.”

“Usopp, look!” Chopper interjected, pulling lightly on the leg of the sharpshooter’s pants. “They have cotton candy!”

“Cotton Candy!?” Luffy grinned, patting his hat. He ran off like a cartoon character, leaving a trail of smoke and guffaws of laughter behind him. Usopp and Chopper followed behind.

“Wait! You guys don’t have any money!” Nami said, jogging after them with her Berry pouch already half-opened to loan some out (with interest).

Eventually, she’d caught them, and handed out a bit of Berry to the rest of the crew, too. She sent Zoro back to the ship to grab Franky, both so he wouldn’t miss out and so that Zoro wouldn’t get lost on his own. (If he could even make it back to the ship, anyway).

Then she and Robin began making rounds to all the shops and stalls while they waited, leaving Sanji to do whatever he liked by his lonesome. 

And he had absolutely no problem with that. 

Obviously, he went straight over to the dancers, making obnoxious heart-eyes in the audience while he watched. 

Soon enough, though, he calmed down and ended up wandering the food stalls, trading recipes with the vendors and even picking up some local produce from others. 

He'd spent nearly an hour doing so, occasionally running into another Strawhat or two, when a man stopped him near one of the textile stalls. 

Sanji had been about to head back to the ship, looking over one last fancy gourd with a scrutable eye, when someone called out his name. Well, a name.

"Young Master Vinsmoke?"

Sanji felt his blood run cold. He snapped his head up, his eyes meeting a man he didn't recognize. 

He looked friendly enough- actually, he looked quite pleased to see him. He was posed nervously, as if he couldn't believe what was before him. 

Now that Sanji thought about it, he did look somewhat familiar- the frilly outfit and the pins, bobs, and needles stuck into his pin-cushion bottoms. Some measuring tape hung loosely from a pack on his side, and bifocal glasses sat atop his head. 

Not familiar enough, though. And Sanji didn't care who the hell he was, not after calling him that. 

"Are you talking to me?" Sanji asked, cold anger already growing, though at the moment he was trying to keep his cool. 

The man shook his head in amazement. "It is you, isn't it? Young Master Sanji? Why, they told me you'd died!"

Sanji just gaped at him, his latest cigarette falling gracelessly out of his mouth. 

He suddenly grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt and dragged the two of them behind the nearest stall, to an unoccupied alleyway nearby. The man squeaked in surprise, which Sanji ignored.

"Who the hell are you?" He gritted out, suddenly realizing his friends could be nearby. He prayed nobody had heard them. After last time, there'd be no way he'd be able to sweep it under the rug again. 

"O-Oh, you don't remember me! My apologies, sir. I'm Taloose. I work as a royal tailor. I worked for your family when you were young, Mr. Vinsmoke.”

“STOP CALLING ME THAT.” Sanji growled, resisting the urge to pull the man up by the lapels of his frilly suit. He knew the other man didn’t know any better, but it still pissed him off. 

Taloose squeaked again. “I’m sorry, sir!”

Sanji let out an irritated breath. “And stop calling me sir.” He grumbled, though with considerably less bite. 

“I don’t answer to that name anymore, and I’m not a prince either. So just Sanji is fine.”

The tailor seemed hesitant to comply, but he nodded, silently. 

There was a long and uncomfortable silence then. Sanji did recognize him, now that he thought about it. He barely saw the guy- maybe every couple months when he was really young, coming in to fix up little suits for special events for him and his siblings. At that age Sanji was still quite friendly, despite the abuse, but he didn’t form close bonds with the various workers at the beck and call of the Vinsmokes. If anything, he was too focused on his mother’s health and his failings in training. Any memories of this guy were quick snippets and stills of standing on a platform with measuring tape around his waist, and little else.

Realizing the silence had stretched a bit too far, Sanji figured he should probably say something. He had dragged the guy back here, after all.

“Tell me…If you worked for my family, then what are you doing here?” He tried not to let his anxiety seep into his question.

“Well, I’m a traveling tailor. I serve many royal families, including the family here. I helped craft the princess’s dress for this party, as well as some of the other family members. Once I was done, I decided I’d stop by and peruse the textile booths around the market- quite a fine selection if I do say so myself-!” He watched Sanji’s face become irritated and decided to shut up. “But, yes. Just here for the event, really.”

Sanji eyed him carefully. “Do you…still work for my family?” 

Taloose shook his head. “No, actually. I don’t mean to flatter you, but you were always my favorite of the Vinsmoke children. Miss Reiju was alright, but the other three boys were quite rude, and with age they only got worse.” He made an unsettled face, as if to imply ‘rude’ wasn’t the full extent of it. 

“It became increasingly difficult to work with them, and my work reflected that. I was on the verge of quitting anyway when your father fired me. I wasn’t qualified to be sewing raid suits anyway.” He scoffed.  

“So you don’t have contact with them any more? You won’t tell them that you met me here?” Now his voice was betraying his anxiety, but he didn’t care.

Taloose just shook his head, smiling kindly. “No sir. I wouldn’t go back even if they paid me a million berries!” He said, standing tall and adjusting his frilly collar with pride. 

Sanji felt himself relax a bit. He nevertheless pulled a new cigarette from the pack in his front pocket. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know where they are nowadays, would you?” He asked after a drag. His fingers twitched ever so slightly despite the coolness he now desperately attempted to front.

Taloose was luckily a man without judgement. He shook his head gently. “No, I don’t have a clue. Hard to tell with the place always on the move.” He paused then, looking over Sanji with keen eyes. 

“...I can tell you don’t wish to see them again. I apologize if my presence here made you uncomfortable. I assure you, I haven’t had contact with the Vinsmoke family in years. Should for whatever reason I come into contact with them again, I will not reveal your presence.” He says, bowing. “I promise.” A smile graces his face within the bow.

Sanji grumbles as he grabs Taloose by his collar, yanking him up to stand again. “Ya don’t gotta bow to me, idiot.” 

“...But I appreciate that. Thanks.”

—

Sanji and Taloose part ways after that. 

He’s glad to be rid of the reminder of his past, glad to have the reassurance the Vinsmokes aren’t actively searching for him or anything- but still troubled to have these memories brought back yet again. Running from your past is easy until you’re traveling the world with infamy, and suddenly the spotlight seems to put you back on the radar of harm long thought dead.

Make no mistake, Sanji didn’t regret his choice to join the Strawhats in the slightest. But he was beginning to wonder how much longer he could conceivably keep this secret.

It’s two years before it finally comes back to bite him in the ass.

—

“Hey, guys? The News Coo just dropped off a letter with the paper, but I think it was a mistake. It’s not addressed to any of us.”

Everyone’s heads pop up from their respective locations around the ship, peeking at Nami and the stack of papers now held in her hand. Luffy swings over from his spot on the figurehead. 

“What’s it say!? Open it!” He yells excitedly, now looking down over her shoulder at it himself. 

“You can’t open someone else’s mail, Luffy, it’s against the law.”

“We’re pirates!” He retorts, and for once Nami feels silly, realizing he’s right in this matter. She purses her lips and eyeballs it again, some recognition starting to come to her face. 

Sanji has come down from the galley by now, hands in his pocket as he and most of the rest of the crew approaches the only entertainment they’ve had so far on an unusually boring day of sailing.

“Who’s it addressed to?” Robin asks. 

“Vinsmoke.” Nami says simply, and Sanji actually staggers in his place on the deck. 

“Strangely enough, isn’t that the villain from that popular comic in the newspaper sometime? Why on Earth would someone try to send a fake character a letter? And how’d we end up with it?” Nami continues, though Sanji doesn’t hear her. He’s too busy falling into the depths of a panic attack here and now.

He’d say that his stomach dropped when he heard her say the name, that his blood ran cold, but with his worst trauma suddenly cropping up in front of him in real life, truly occurring and unable to be stopped, right before the gaze of his crew, his family- he just feels nothing. A switch flips in him and all he feels his nothingness, and then pure hot fear.

“...Sanji? Are you okay?” Chopper asks from beside him, his kind face full of worry at the cook’s near instant reaction. He looks pale, his face is staring straight down at the deck like if he doesn’t look up it isn’t real, and from this angle Chopper can actually see both of his eyes for once, and they’re both blown wide and full of fear. 

But he doesn’t answer, because as Chopper asks this Nami slips her thumb under the fold of the envelope and is about to rip it open, and Sanji lurches forward and has to stop himself from Diable Jambe-ing Nami’s hands and burning the letter to ash. He still does something quite out of character for him when it comes to the redheaded woman- which is that he actually yells at her to stop.

Nami, and everyone else, for that matter, freezes.

“Sanji?” Nami asks, incredulous, and a little worried.

He settles for taking it from her hands, as gently as he can manage, which is not at all.

“Don’t.” He says darkly, even though he already has the letter safely in his own hands.

Everyone is silent. They all expect someone to break the silence and yell about not being rude to Nami, but the person they expect to do so is standing right in front of them, doing exactly that. Sanji sighs, and without looking at his crew, slowly rips open the letter.

He looks it over, eyeing it as if he’s in his own pocket dimension at the moment, and no one else is there. Then, when he’s read the contents, he pauses, folds the letter, and sticks it in the pocket of his slacks. 

Everyone is waiting with a question on their lips when he finally looks up again, but no one says anything, even Luffy.

Then Sanji sighs, and crosses his arms. He looks all of a sudden more nervous and unsure of himself than they’ve seen him since before Saboady, maybe even since they’ve met him.

“Do you guys remember…back in Skypiea, when we found the book Liar Noland?”

It seems an odd place to start, but they all give various sorts of a nod.

“And I told you all how I was actually born in the North Blue.” He says, reaching an arm up to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck. He really wished he had a cigarette right now, but he didn’t want to interrupt by lighting one.

They nod again, aside from Franky and Brook, who hadn’t been on the crew yet at that time.

“Well…” He can’t help it anymore. Quicker than they’ve ever seen him do it before, he slips a cig from his pack and lights it with ease, pulling some smoke out of it like he’s thirsty for it. They’ve all started to put pieces together by now, or at the very least, realize he’s about to open up to them about something quite big.

“My real name…No. My birth name is Vinsmoke Sanji.” He says, wincing at the words put together outloud. “And I’m…I was a prince.” 

Everyone’s eyebrows raise at that, eyes widening; save for Zoro and Luffy, who stay relatively straight-faced, listening intently.

“I left when I was 8. I snuck onto a cruise ship, and then Zeff found me.” He continues, mincing the more ugly details that he doesn’t quite feel ready to tell them yet. He doesn’t want this to become a sob story.

“Basically, I’m a runaway prince. Though my father told everyone I was dead anyway…” He sucks in another breath full of smoke. He keeps stuttering and trailing off in his words in a way that so isn’t like him, it’s making him sick. He just wants to get this over with.

“The point is, this letter…It’s for me. I’ve been invited back…”

For a moment, Sanji considers not telling them the truth. He doesn’t want to put them in danger, he doesn’t want them to pity him, he doesn’t want them to feel the need to help him, to do so because he’s too weak to do it himself.

But he also trusts them. More than anyone else in the world, save for his father. His real father.

“For an arranged marriage to one of Big Mom’s daughters.” He grits out, biting down on his cigarette with distaste.

Usopp looks ready to burst with questions, Nami and Robin are incredulous, and even Zoro looks vaguely emotive. Franky and Chopper and Brook are just waiting for someone else to say something first.

But Luffy is, strangely enough, smiling. He adjusts the position of the straw hat on his head, ensuring it’s nice and tight. Then he gives Sanji a grin.

“I’ve been waiting for a reason to pick a fight with Big Mom.” He says. 

And somehow, that’s the most reassuring thing he could have heard Luffy say to all of that.

#one piece #one piece spoilers #i am a new fan from the live action. but if u are a new fan from the live action. dont read this unless ur okay with spoilers #sanji #black leg sanji #vinsmoke sanji #op #my writing #fic #fanfiction #one piece fanfiction #one piece fanfic #whole cake island #whole cake arc #whole cake spoilers #kinda. barely #strawhat pirates #the pacing in this is a little off and the ending is Eh but otherwise im pretty happy w this. yippee #cross posted on ao3

[goosethepumpkin]

Yoko: *banging a pen on the table out of frustration* Divina: Stop that. How would YOU feel if I banged you on the table? Yoko: I— Yoko: I don’t know the correct answer to that question.

#Yokovina #Divoko #Yoko #divina #incorrect quotes #cross posted from my ao3 project #I love this one #wednesday incorrect quotes

[bardic-inspo]

Midnight Chimes

Chapter One: You Look Different in the Daylight

Pairing: Astarion x Cursed! Tav

✨Full Chapter List ✨BG3 Fic Masterlist ✨

Series Summary:

It’s easier for Astarion to believe Naomi tastes so sweet because she was his first. Easier to ignore the fact that every undead in vague proximity yearns for the same blood that’s sated him night after night. Easier to pretend her music is arcane as any other bard’s, and not divine enough to wake corpses from the dirt. Easier to pretend Naomi is simply a bard, and not something more akin to a siren. One that's slowly realized she's not just another sailor, after all. Easier to bury the fact that he's already stupidly in love with her. Like she wouldn't just raise that out of the ground, too. A curse rears its head. A devil comes calling. Astarion fights for his freedom from Cazador. He and the rest of their merry little band fight to save Tav from the doom she feels she's fated for.

Chapter CW: None

A/N: First couple chapters have some time jumps, and then the story falls into a linear progression. (This is a cross-post from my prior (now defunct) sideblog and AO3 account). Dividers by @cafekitsune.

✨ Click here if you prefer to read on AO3 ✨

“Don’t often see your sort on this side of the street.”

The innkeep’s talking about drow. Like the twins. The Flophouse’s most recent newcomer is Seldarine, just like them. Pretty as the pair of them, too. All twilight skin, some pale shade between blue and violet, and moonlight hair that would glow silver with it if he could get her back outside. Astarion could tell her that while he twirled one finger in the strands and wrapped her dwindling life around another.

Darling, you make the stars so pitifully dim. It’s futile, the way they’re shining now. Not like you.

But she’d have to shed some layers to fit in at Mamzell Amira’s establishment. The drow’s armor is light and leather. At least it’s fitted enough to get a figure for her figure.

Astarion catches the flinty edge of her glare as she turns her cheek, ever so slightly, his way. Sharp as a knife. His stage smile echoes back with an edge just as keen. She might be new in town, but she gets the innkeep’s meaning well enough not to like it.

Must’ve been the tip of a blade that cut that scar curling from her cheek across the bridge of her nose. It’s hairline thin, but it interrupts the freckles powdering her face. No one’s paying her to hang over them like drapery at Sharess’ Caress. Not with that trace imperfection.

Astarion could do it. Pay her enough attention to get her loose, dangling, vulnerable. Play the role of the valiant hero. Spring forth to defend her honor. Show her about town, like a gentleman should. It’s a gambit he’s run more times then he can count.

It would go something like this: sweet words about city secrets she hasn’t seen to lure her back into the starlit streets. A pretty view, perhaps of the Chionthar glimmering, to get her eyes wide. A promise of a better one, somewhere secluded. A heated whisper to get her blushing. His breath on her skin, to start a shiver. Promises, promises tumbling out of his pretty mouth. His name, falling out of hers.

And it would end in blood, like it always does. What a night she’d have. Her first in Baldur’s Gate. Her last alive.

Her life flashes before Astarion’s eyes in a glint of golden light. Sudden, vivid, then all at once gone. Someone else spots his prey and takes a swipe before he can.

The prey, it turns out, bites back.

“Argh -- get your hands off me!”

The garbled cry of indignation doesn’t come from the drow. Her grip latches to the arm of the would-be thief and wrenches it around, forcing his hand to open. Her coin falls back, neatly, into her own waiting palm.

She tosses away her hold on her assailant in the same manner as pitching trash. The thief -- a rather burly half-elf -- cowers, cradling his throbbing hand. A hiss leaks out of him, sending a shiver down Astarion’s spine. The noise is too familiar. Too much like vampiric skin simmering in sunlight.

Astarion grimaces, a twist of pity sinking in his gut. Not for the thief, and not for her, either. For their star-crossed evening, or the fleeting notion of it, stolen away by someone else’s sticky fingers fishing into her back pocket. For a measly pair of coins, she’d bought her own life back. With a twist of a wrist, she wrenched her fate from Astarion’s nimble hands.

It’s for the best, really. Thanks to the thief, Astarion knows better. She’s too clever. Too quick. Too cunning. Violet eyes cut across the room to his watchful ones. Maybe she’d have seen through his schemes, too, and made good on the promise in that look of hers. Like she could spear him straight to the paneling behind his head, same as the curled fliers nailed near the door.

But alas, now he has to do horrible things to someone else.

Astarion’s stomach turns as he sets his sights to the Flophouse door. Finding what he needs on the other side of the street, yet again, sounds like the opposite of fun. Someone drunk, naive, unsuspecting. He thought the drow checked those last two boxes. Astarion’s eyes drift to the thieving half-elf, now stooped and sulking in a seat as far from the drow as the room allows.

Someone has to pay. It won’t be Astarion, under Godey’s biting blades. Not again. Not tonight. He’ll take his chances with whatever happens while he’s under someone, anyone else.

Astarion’s fingernails drag into the woodgrain of the table before he shoves from his seat. He lets his chair scrape back loud enough to scrape the thief’s eyes off the floor. By the time Astarion’s sauntered over to the vacant chair at the half-elf’s table, the other man’s eyes have oozed, messy and lustful, all over Astarion’s best assets. Most of them, anyway.

With one click of his tongue, like the tug of a leash, the stranger’s wide, blue eyes snap to Astarion’s. Good boy.

“Tough break,” Astarion nearly purrs, letting the words roll slowly off his tongue, letting his hips drop slower into the seat. “Not as tough as you, I’d wager.”

The other man scoffs, as if without a care. But he wets his lips before speaking, like he needs to test them first. “Shouldn’t be,” he says gruffly. “Should be, if someone’s lived their whole life somewhere, they shouldn’t have to settle for scraps while all these foreigners come rolling in.”

“You’re so right,” Astarion croons, leaning in to prop his chin with his hand. “And you should say it.”

And he does. In excess. Punctuated with chest-puffing, peppered in curse words and vaguely political bleating. Almost like he’s practiced this little diatribe as much as Astarion’s recited his best hooks. His mark seems pent-up, at least, in one sense. Before Astarion can allude to another, his ear catches on the more civilized conversation happening over at the counter.

“I’ll need a name, then,” the innkeep -- a surly dwarf -- prompts.

The drow swallows. “Tav…riel.”

It’s nearly two words, with the amount of hesitation in between. The innkeep asks again.

“Tavriel?” He mutters. She nods. He eyes her warily, scribbling the name down into his book. “You some sort of bard or something?”

“Sure." If you want me to be, the careful lilt of her voice says.

“Never heard a flute I was fond of,” the innkeep prattles irritably. The offending instrument is strapped near the drow’s waist. “Too pitchy.”

“Sounds like you’ve never met someone who knew what to do with it.”

Astarion perks a brow. It’s near enough to one of his usual lines that he stores it away in the back of his brain for later. It needs refinement. Not his fav-

“It’s not my favorite, either, but it’s easier to travel with,” Tavriel says.

“You any good with it? Can’t say I’ve heard of you.”

“Mm, you probably wouldn’t have,” Tavriel says, unperturbed. A clever sort of smile creeps onto her lips. “I’m a killer with a fiddle. Not sure anyone’s lived to tell the tale.”

Well, what a tease. Astarion’s never heard of a bard that didn’t very desperately want to be heard of. What else would she be, could she be, if not a bard? Maybe a rake, if her claws weren’t so cutting. Teeth are far better for that sort of delicate work.

She swipes the brass key from the counter. Astarion watches until her boots disappear up the stairs and she’s gone. His mark never notices Astarion’s attention was anywhere else. Suppressing a tired sigh, Astarion slips back into his shtick like a sword in a sheath.

Time to get to it, before the darkness runs out.

“Oh, yes, darling. Fuck those foreigners. But…wouldn't you rather with a real Baldurian?”

Astarion’s stomach swoops, harder than it bucked on the fall from the nautiloid. It doesn’t matter how hard he runs for the trees, for the sparse and insufficient shade they might cast. Doesn’t matter that his legs pump as fast as his exquisite body allows. He should be burning by now. Should be dead, at least twice over.

If he had a heartbeat, it’d be hammering in his throat. He feels the pressure all the same. Every swallow comes as a choke, even as he staggers to a stop in the meager shadows.

Astarion’s eyes dart towards that scorching orb hanging, searing, and ominous overhead. The light glints back like a damn guillotine. Any moment now, the drop will come. This farce will end. This figment of freedom, the barest wisp of it, will evaporate. Ashes will be all that’s left in the wake of two centuries of pure, utter, shit.

Ashes do fall. They drift in fat flakes from the sky, coating the beach in soot. The acrid tang cloys with the spray of saltwater in the air. But his body’s still whole enough to tremble. Astarion turns his palms over in silent awe, watching his own skin alight. The flames don’t come. Only…

Warmth. Dainty as a first kiss. Across his throat, flooding his cheeks, his chest, his every inch. A smile as faint as a ghost dares to grace Astarion’s lips.

He hears his own shaky, unbidden laugh like it’s that of a stranger. It came from someone else’s body, surely. This is someone else’s body. His would’ve been in cinders, barring some very, very belated divine intervention.

Or, apparently, an illithid invasion. The up close and personal kind.

Astarion rips his gaze away as it begins to water. Scorch marks stain his sight for a full minute after. Inkblots of bright, burning color. It’s as he’s blinking rapidly that he sees her, picking her way up the slope, past the wreckage.

Astarion’s seen her before. He’s sure of it, now that she’s nearer. Now that he can see her in the full, unadulterated light of the sun. (The sun. The sun. The fucking sun!)

Outside of the nautiloid’s bloody glow, her hair’s white as frost. Her complexion’s less rosy, more violet. Out here, she could be a normal drow.

He tenses, picking up the faint prickling of voices in the distance. She’s not alone. Astarion doesn’t recognize the other woman, a half-elf with a black, chained braid dangling down her back like a whip.

But he remembers the drow. She was on board that blasted ship. She knows about the damn worm lodged behind his eye socket. Maybe they both do. His fist clenches on the hilt of his blade, still tucked in its sheath.

As Astarion watches from afar, magic wakes in half-elf’s palm, vivid and blinding. It sears into the bare cerebrum of some crawling creature snapping at the drow’s heels. The creature utters a shrill screech before it slumps over, steaming. His eyes narrow. Seems the pair of them are chummy, at very least, if not co-conspirators. He creeps back further into the brush.

Both of them will pay. They’ll have to. At least half as much as Cazador will make Astarion pay for this…this…impossible escapade.

It can’t last. Astarion’s brow knits in with the stiffness in his jaw. Certain doom surrounds him like the sheer sides of a cliff. One one hand lies the inevitable, excruciating plummet into ceremorphosis. Astarion’s skin crawls with the thought. The final destruction of his body. The devouring of his mind. Someone, something else, stealing his entire self and reshaping him into a tentacled puppet.

On the other hand, Cazador would never settle for being outdone by some squid-faced freak. He’ll get creative for this. More than he ever has before. Astarion’s teeth grate against each other.

This can’t last. Oh, but it has to.

Another glow of magic, dimmer this time, catches his eye. It blinks and fades from the drow’s gloved fingers like a firefly. But it has the same radiance as the earlier spell. The same radiance as the delightful glow seeping over his skin. Though, thankfully, the sunshine has proven far less lethal. A dead trail of intellect devourers lies in their wake.

They’re clerics, then, he thinks with a swell of distaste. Fools, but capable ones. Though, the drow is perhaps less of the latter. Still, she’s hardly a victim. The both of them could very well be villains, emerging from the smoking wreckage of their mothership. They’ve come close enough, he can hear the sand crunch beneath their footsteps. Hear their heartbeats, still quickened from their fight, pumping the blood of thinking creatures through their veins.

Astarion sucks in a steadying breath. Not because he needs it to live. Because he needs to perform.

“Help! Help, I need some help!” He bellows.

Their pace hastens to a jog up the hill. In a matter of moments, their wary eyes latch to his plaintive, pleading ones.

“Hurry!” He gasps, panting for good measure. “I’ve got one of those brain things cornered! There, in the grass. You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others?”

The stronger-looking one -- the half-elf -- hangs back. She might be the smarter one, too. The drow isn’t so bothered by brains or caution. She comes within an arm's length, eyes wide and doey. She scans the brush for danger like she isn’t the prey, one hand wrapping the hilt of her rapier.

“There,” he says, slipping into step behind the drow as her feet tamp down the brittle grass. “Can you see it?”

She doesn’t see the knife drawn in a flash. Not until her back hits the dirt, and the blade bites against the pretty flesh of her throat. Astarion tumbles down with her, keeping a vice-grip on the dagger. Her pulse practically leaps against the knife, smacking in a wet, sumptuous rhythm. The back of his throat burns, raw, ragged. Thirsty.

The urge rips through him, sudden and staggering. Astarion bites back a breath, just to bite something. The drow shifts beneath his blade, grunting in indignation.

“Shh, shh shh. Not a sound,” he hisses, soft as velvet. “Not if you want to keep that darling neck of yours. And you,” he growls, louder for their little audience. “Keep your distance. No need for this to get messy.”

The half-elf isn’t half-convinced. “I need her alive,” she snaps, light flaring at her fingertips as she dares a step closer. “Stow that blade, or I’ll show you just how messy things can get.”

But one step is all she dares. Astarion’s eyes narrow wickedly. His captive has value. Good to know. “Promises, promises. But I have other business, I’m afraid.”

His gaze hardens on the drow, who’s gone so sweetly still for him. “Now, I saw you on the ship, didn’t I? Nod.”

Wordlessly, she complies. Good girl.

“Splendid. And now you’re going to tell me exactly what you and those tentacled freaks did to me!”

Her eyes flash, defiant. “We were prisoners, too!”

Astarion’s lips curl with a snarl. “Don’t lie to me -- AH!”

His own memories burst like blisters in his mind’s eye. Dark streets and darker alleys with darker endings. Unlucky souls, lured away, alone, to their fates. Except he isn’t alone. Astarion doesn’t know how, but he’s certain. She’s in his fucking head.

The connection snaps and shatters as sudden as it came. Astarion recoils, reeling as the remnants sting between his temples. “What was that? What’s going on?!”

“Stalker,” his captive spits scornfully.

“I--what?”

“You were in Baldur’s Gate,” the drow huffs. “Fraygo’s Flophouse.”

Gods, you’ll have to be more specific, he nearly sighs. But the slice of violet eyes cuts him short. Astarion’s brow pinches in thought.

“You sat there and stared at me while I was nearly robbed. Not so helpful then. Kind of acting like the opposite right about now.”

It’s ringing bells, but she doesn’t have her flute. She didn’t have that silver symbol, hanging around her neck, back in the Gate. She said she was a bard back then, and she looked like far less of a cleric when she said it.

And Astarion hadn’t noticed the tattoo curving with her left cheekbone. Little birds in flight. He wonders, fleetingly, what on earth could have possessed her to mark her own pretty little face with such a thing.

“AH-- urgh!”

Her hand grips his wrist and twists harsh enough for his vision to flood with white. His eyes burn. By the time he blinks to clear them, his own knife pokes the hollow of his throat.

Cute trick. The same fate her would-be thief suffered, he remembers ruefully. Before Astarion suffered the thief, and the thief suffered what Astarion baited him for.

She scrambles backwards, gaining as much distance as she grants him. They stagger to stand, dust caking his doublet, and dirt streaking her leathers.

“We’ve been wormed, too,” she says, stance softening. “The tadpoles can connect our thoughts. We’re trying to get rid of them. If you’re done trying to stab me, we might let you tag along for the ride.”

“We will?” Her companion mutters skeptically.

You will? Astarion wonders, equally mystified.

She turns his knife once, twice, thrice between her fingers, like she’s playing a parlor game. When the spinning stops, the blade end rests in her gloved palm.

“I’m Naomi,” she says, offering him the hilt of his own dagger like it’s a handshake. Tentatively, Astarion takes it.

“Tavriel,” he mutters faintly, the name swimming out of the depths of all the others to the forefront of his memory.

She shrugs. “If you’d prefer to stay on a surname basis. ‘Tav’ is fine, too.”

Impossible starlight seeps between the thinning veil of clouds above. Silvered blades of grass glint like so many knives under a shimmer centuries in the making.

Astarion lays beneath the clearing sky, his back cushioned by damp, flattened grass. Warmth radiates across his chest, where another impossibility rests her cheek. His free hand strokes idly, thoughtlessly, through her ivory hair. The motion comes easier than breathing ever could’ve.

This -- the two of them, tangled here -- is centuries in the making, too.

They lay fully clothed and content. His other hand wraps Naomi’s waist, tucking the heat of her against his skin like a blanket. Cuddling, of all things. Something in him still balks at the notion. Yet, here he is, yet again.

It’s something they get to do, now, when he wants to. There’s yet to be a night he hasn’t, in the weeks since he stammered out his confession and Naomi laid her hand in his.

He wanted something else to be real between them, too, tonight, when he discovered his favorite drow had wandered away from their merry band of misfits. He found her doused in the starlight she looks so good in, sat on some rock between the gnarled trees, ever oblivious to the small war she started between Astarion’s mind and body.

If there were more life in the trees, it might’ve been reminiscent of another night spent together, after the tieflings’ celebration simmered down into quiet, sleepy cinders. If it were a night like that, he’d have his hands on the small of her back, where she arched it in a stretch. He’d have the rest of her lilac skin soaking Selune’s evening shine, not just the lovely length of her neck above her collar, and that succulent slice peering from between her breasts. He’d have her pliant. He’d have her gasping.

And he’d be free. Of his trousers, at the very least. A flare of yearning ached so earnestly beneath his ribs. Memory and loathing speared it down, sharp, only moments later.

The sound of frantic scrubbing put that battle to bed, for now, and sparked a new one. She was at it again. After Shadowheart already tried to put an end to it in the camp. So that’s why she snuck away.

Astarion cleared his throat pointedly, eyes drifting to the black stains of spellwork scrawled over Naomi’s arms. The marks didn’t let up. Neither did she, until Astarion stayed her hand, and took it in his.

“Really, darling,” he chided. “At that rate, you’ll rub yourself bloody.”

He expected an eyeroll, at least, if not a snicker. But her throat merely bobbed. “They haven’t faded since our fight at the portal.”

“Oh, that was only, what? A few days ago?”

It’s normal, Gale told her. And Shadowheart, too. Well…some of it is. In a paraphrased sense.

“It’s never hung around this long before,” she said, frowning. “I’m not even sure what spell it’s from. There were so many of them, and they all rushed me at once--”

“They were trying to close the door on Halsin and Thaniel,” Astarion said, matter-of-factly. “And we stopped them like the good little heroes we are.”

Sure, their less-than-living foes seemed to aim in one particular direction, at one particular target, during the whole hold-the-gate ordeal. But they barely clipped her barely half the time. Naomi’s fleet-footed in a fight. And what she couldn’t dodge, she fluted away with that cute little ditty that steers their enemies’ arrows elsewhere. The purpling bruise at her shoulder is an exception. Her cutting words were keener than whatever wounded her.

Besides, none of them came away from the past few days without the marks to show it. But those who survived Ketheric Thorm’s final, bony bout are in far better shape than the general’s dusty remnants. Even after they had to jump down that gods-forsaken pit into rancid hell just to kill him for good. The thought alone stirs a shiver down Astarion’s spine, still.

“Now,” he said, steering her by the shoulder, “come keep your frigid lover warm and look at the good you’ve done.”

So, they set aside the notions either of them had in mind, and settled instead for…this. A piece of peace, resting among the patchy tufts of grass grown over a rooftop in what used to be Reithwin. Naomi stares up at their handiwork. The scatter of stars isn’t so different from the freckles dusted over her nose, nearly hiding the thin scar that angles over the bridge of it.

A muted glow leaks over the so-called shadow-cursed lands from the crescent cut of the moon hanging overhead. The first, hard-won taste of what this place could be now that it’s free from its curse. It’ll be different in the daylight, just like Astarion was when he stumbled into it after two hundred years apart. But they’ll be on the road again before they see it glaze over this place.

On the path, at last, to Baldur’s Gate. And to Cazador. To vengeance, absolution, ascension, and all sorts of fairytale words that were once greater than Astarion’s imagination. Now, they’re bloody nightmares in his own arsenal, two hundred years of them, on the cusp of release. Now, they’re promises. Dreams with teeth.

It brings to mind the first burst of blood on his tongue, from that soft neck that nuzzles so near him, now. With that first taste came color, life, and heat where there was only frailty and feebleness before. What fresh sweetness will Cazador’s blood bring, painting Astarion’s hands, pooling like a cloak at his feet?

A whole new world of it, he’s sure. One that’s his to claim. His to share and shape as he sees fit.

Astarion breathes in, not because he needs to, but because he wants the trace scent of lavender in his nose as Naomi’s hair tickles the tip of it. Her heartbeat flutters down from her earlier anxiousness, pattering into a steady rhythm. He feels its mark against his ribs and thinks, for the first time, he understands what might possess lunatics like her to get tattoos on purpose.

That little rhythm should settle there, at his side. Always. Like the little music boxes she’s so fond of. She didn’t take the one she found in Moonrise Towers, so Astarion did. It’s been by her bedside ever since. He sees the little glimmer of it, every night he slinks into her tent.

A gentle, but insistent tug pulls at the corner of his thoughts. He peers down at his present company with an arched brow. Her eyes are peacefully shut, but the mischievous smile gives her away.

Hesitantly, Astarion lets his head roll back to the earth, and his eyes slide shut, too. All right, love. What is it you want to show me?

The tadpole connection hums, all at once familiar and foreign. Listen, she says back, with the same smile in her thoughts as on her lips. He lets the connection pull him through and stifles a soft sound of awe in the back of his throat.

Quiet. Blessed, blissful quiet. Like none she’s ever known.

Naomi’s ear rests over his heart, but it doesn’t beat for her. Not literally, at least. He’d still heavily negotiate any figurative sense of the matter. But it doesn’t matter that it isn’t beating. It’s not what she wants. Not what she…needs.

He feels the ache of it, as she lifts her cheek, briefly, and music flits, frenetic, though her mind. Spells and stanzas and half-remembered rhymes in mangled cacophony. She lays her head back down, and lets out a long breath. Astarion echoes the sound, unbidden, as the connection withdraws, and he’s left with the pluck of her heartbeat in his head again.

It’s never quiet. Not in her head. But it can be. With him. If he hadn’t prayed so hard to them already, he’d swear the gods gifted him this woman. Astarion knows better. The illithids did.

She shifts with a sigh that echoes in his own ribs. He follows the motion and finds her staring at her palms again. Like she could will away the sooty stains. They might pass for evening gloves, if they didn’t look so veiny. But they don’t hurt. He’s asked her.

Precious thing, what on earth is wrong with you, to think there’s anything wrong with you?

“You--” Astarion stammers, brow furrowing as he begins again, incredulous. “What in all the heavens above and hells below could have ever possessed you of the notion that you’re cursed?”

The softness in his throat, his whispered words on fogged breath, curling quiet into the night air, that’s entirely her doing. Her undoing of so much of what Astarion thought was in his nature.

Naomi looks up at him, with an aged sort of sadness brimming beneath the quiet huff of her laugh. “It was all the dead people, dear.”

Astarion scoffs. “Darling, I’m hurt that you could think of my fine company as anything other than a blessing.”

“You are my silver lining,” she breathes back, as if her words themselves were fragile lace. Astarion feels the delicate brush of them over his neck. It grows suddenly taut, choking the notion of other words right out of him.

When his head rolls back to the ground again, something, perhaps that useless heart of his, is trying to punch its way straight through his chest. He feels winded, like he took a tumble without featherfall. Like she smacked him with a damn brick.

He is as much her unintended consequence as she is his. One that might’ve been impossible if fate was otherwise. Resplendent light, only made possible by ravenous shadows.

Silver linings.

And you are mine, he thinks, only to himself, as his hands find her hair again. Aren’t you?

#thank you all for the patience and support as I cross post from AO3 #astarion #astarion ancunin #tavstarion #astarion x tav #tav x astarion #bg3 fanfic #astarion fanfic #bg3 #naomi tavriel #midnight chimes #my writing

[ascendthisday]

By The Time I Knew I Truly Loved You

Pairing: Steven Adler/Reader Word Count: 800~

Info: No Smut, Fluff, Happy Ending, Emotional, Mentioned Drug Use, Post-Stroke, /reader in a way that you can imagine just about anyone as the narrator its VERY vague

Summary: The month I knew I truly loved you was cold. It was 1996, sometime around October, but after the stroke, every day seemed to blend together. I begged with God, pleaded that you'd wake up and remember how to live; to function.

Authors Note: another old one from ao3 because i have a bunch of shit i never reposted!! this was the first gnr fic i posted so yay for that, hope it isnt TOO corny

The month I knew I truly loved you was cold. It was 1996, sometime around October, but after the stroke, every day seemed to blend together. I begged with God, pleaded that you'd wake up and remember how to live; to function. I prayed that you'd remember to speak overnight. Everything was so hard now. We- you, communicated grunts and grumbles of vague words to which I would sob over in the middle of the night. We slept in different beds. Other people were always in our home because you needed caretakers, and yet I convinced myself to hold on. 

The week I knew I truly loved you was hectic. You were frantic for God knows what reason, clawing at floorboards and yourself. I watched your mop of hair get more and more matted day by day as you adamantly opposed brushing it. You smelled of musk, a smell I once relished and showered myself in by wearing your clothes while you 'recovered' in the hospital. We had five different caretakers quit that week, so I had to resort to begging in the newspaper. Eventually, I found someone new, but what would have happened if I hadn't? One day, I realized you wanted your stash. You still had something, left forgotten in the floorboards, and you were determined to find it even though you had no memory of where it may be. We had to rip our home apart, piece by piece, to make sure you didn't find that stash- if it even existed, and yet, I convinced myself to hold on. 

The day I knew I truly loved you, we had let the sunlight waste as we spent the whole day 'fighting', if you could even call it that. It was like arguing with a stubborn child, even though I knew you didn't mean to be childish. We sat at the dinner table; you at one end with a stack of blank notecards and a pen, me at the other with only my voice and frustrations. You had taken to writing so much better than you had to speaking. So far, this was the only way we had somewhat fluent conversations since the stroke. It was horrible. I missed the silly way you poorly serenaded me with love songs. I missed the joking debates we held together, arguing on why one superhero was wholeheartedly superior or something along those lines. I missed when I didn't have to monitor everything on the TV because your therapist told me anything could set you off into another relapse.  I missed when it was just us in the house with no needed caretakers, and yet, I convinced myself to hold on. 

The night I knew I truly loved you, I stormed away and sulked in what used to be our bed. You had knocked on the door at two in the morning. I groggily opened it to ogle at your disheveled form. You stood there; pajama pants barely hanging onto your skinny hips, a broken hairbrush outstretched in your hands, hair tangled to your ears with another restless night, and a quivering lip paired with the glossiest eyes I had ever seen. My eyes had pricked with tears when I saw you, really saw how scared, lost, and small you were. I spoke not a word, simply let you crawl into our bed. I needed no more convincing, I chose to hold on and never let go for as long as I could. 

The moment I knew I truly loved you, I had just finished brushing out every knot and tangle from your mane as you sat between my legs. You turned toward me and stared for a couple of minutes before beginning to climb out of bed, but I stopped you. I needed you. You needed me. So, I simply held you. I held you for hours. Then, with as much force as you could muster you muttered three words that changed me. 

"I love you." 

The moment after I knew I truly loved you, I shrieked and sobbed so loud I swore the neighborhood shook. I tried to steady myself with the burst of pure joy that overwhelmed me, but I was over the moon. I wept and wept as I held your head to my chest and repeated how much I loved you, too. Those were the first words you spoke to me for months. Finally, you pulled away and I was met with your beautiful smile. It was so different, though. It was no longer a smile that showed for when you got your high, it was a show of love and gratitude. God, I was so lucky to have held on.

#steven adler #fanfic #rock rpf #fiction #scott weilan #rpf #cross posted on ao3 #fan fiction #no smut #angst #angst with a happy ending #self insert #like kind of but you can read this from anyones perspective tbh #drug ment tw #x reader #reader insert #old but gold #ao3 fic #guns n roses fic #steven adler x reader #steven adler/reader #guns n' roses #gunsnroses #guns n roses #gnr #steven gnr

[hellsbeenbettersincehesplit]

@zestapple

(og post for context)

Ask and ye shall receive! (Aka I’ve been looking for a reason to yap abt them lol also this got away from me so most is under the read more)

Ok so. On Cherri’s end, this is a month after the final battle. Her enemy turned ally turned sort-of-crush kissed her and died, and he wasn’t reforming and she’s worried he never will. Her best friend, Angel Dust, is still clean and avoiding violence. She knows damn well that their old activities weren’t aligned well with redemption, nor were they what’s best for either of them. That doesn’t change the fact that it feels like she’s being left behind with everything else Angel is leaving in the past. He tries to make time for her, and it’s nice, but it’s just not the same as it used to be. Also, he’s trying to get redeemed and go to Heaven- where Cherri won’t be. In summary, she knows she’s losing him, or at least will eventually. She’s lonely and reconsidering all of her priorities, and thinking about if she should stay at the hotel.

On Blitzø’s end, he’s reconnected with Fizz but his sister still wants nothing to do with him. He’s caught feelings for a prince of Hell that he’s sure only wants him for sex. His daughter is distant at best. He still hates himself. 

Both of them have self-destructive tendencies, violent occupations, and have been shown relying on sex and drugs as a coping mechanism.

So. Stolas has dissolved Angel’s contract after roughly 5 minutes because Valentino misspelled a couple crucial words. At this point, Stolas is talking to Charlie about helping more sinners. Cherri is elated for Angel, and he looks so happy and free. She hugs and congratulates him, and it’s great. And while they’re sitting at the bar to celebrate and Angel is flirting with Husk, she hears Husk ask the angsty imp bodyguard if he’s sure he can handle his liquor, and the imp responds with something about out-drinking Gluttony herself.

Interesting. Cherri could vibe with this.

So, she strikes up a bit of a conversation with him. Turns out he runs a company that assassinates people on Earth, and he seemed equally fascinated when she talked about defending her turf. She showed him one of her bombs, and he let her examine one of his guns. He gives her a business card. And she puts her number on his phone, because the imp- named Blitzø apparently- is kind of a vibe.

The next time she needs backup and Angel has to apologize and can’t show up because of Val- which she totally gets but which is also annoying as fuck- she calls IMP next, promises cash, and surprisingly, he shows up. She has to hand it to him, Blitzø is an incredible fighter. They go out for drinks later, and they can match each other shot for shot.

The next time she sees him, he texts her an address. She shows up and finds out that they want her to help out with their latest conflict. She asks about how she thought they worked in the human world and they all talk over each other so she still doesn’t know what they were doing in Pride. And when her part in their plan is over, she has to admit again- the three work together incredibly well. (She wonders if she and Sir Pentious could have been that, in another world. Shit. Now she’s sad again.) Blitz hands her a bottle of tequila straight from Gluttony to thank her, and she has to admit that it was shockingly considerate. (The next time she sees him, she gives him a set of her bombs to pay him back.)

And so it becomes their thing. Whenever Cherri’s in a pickle and Blitzø is available, he comes to help out with the turf war. Whenever he’s in Pride on a job, he calls her and she gets to blow shit up with him. And usually, they end the meeting by getting fucked up together in a club or at a party somewhere. She can honestly call him something of a friend. He would say the same if he wasn’t so scared of getting close to people.

It all changes when Charlie comments about some developments with Heaven, and how Angel might be redeemed really soon. Obviously, Cherri was happy for him, but of course something like this would be bittersweet, because now losing Angel is closer than ever. So after she congratulates him, she retreats to her room and calls the first number she saw that might be a sympathetic ear without being too attached to the situation. Through her tears, she talks about everything with losing Angel, losing Pentious, and everything else in her life. On the other end, Blitzø is quiet for a moment, and after an awkward attempt to comfort her, he tells her a little bit about his thing with Stolas. ‘I guess we’re both fuckups,’ he tells her, and she laughs wetly and agrees. 

After then, they start talking more often without an external reason, and sometimes Blitzø will visit pride just to see her. It’s… really nice, honestly.

They’re a terrible influence on each other and they often egg on the other’s worst tendencies. But they also can let loose around the other. They know the other can’t judge them because frankly they both know the other’s personal life is just as messy. And there’s a freedom for both of them in that.

#cherri bomb #hazbin #hazbin hotel #blitzø #blitz #blitzo #Angel dust #cherridust #helluva #helluva boss #alternate universe #fanfic #<- for blog organization but this got away from me so I also might cross post it to ao3 lmao