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queenmuzz · 7 months ago

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Five Stages of Grief: Chapter II: Anger

Warning: Post Tearstone Island Spoilers

Read it HERE on Ao3

He grips the bridge of his nose to stop the impending headache. Worry and stress have no doubt played a large huge part in it, but a lack of sleep and a diet of nothing but Lucanis’s coffee (that’s how he knows things are getting bad, when his tea no longer can sustain him) aren’t helping. And now the rising arguments coming from his companions is making the possibility of a headache into a certainty.

There’s a loud thud that echoes through his skull as Taash pounds their fist on the table. “This is bullcrap! It’s been what, four days? And we haven’t done anything to get Bellara or Rook back!”

Emmrich bites his tongue, suppressing the urge to inform her that he has read more books in the last four days, researching everything related to the Fade, its pockets, and ancient elvish history than he has in an entire year (and possibly more books than they've read in their lifetime, but he wisely bites his tongue). Because he knows the answer to what their next question would be: Has it helped get them back? And the answer is a resounding no.

“Everyone is doing the best they can, Taash.” Harding rests her small hand on the Adari’s fist, “it’s just that these things take time”. Harding has been hard at work too working her inquisition contacts to the breaking point, not to mention attempting to mediate between the ever increasing arguments that threaten to boil over anytime the group meets to update their progress. She’s doing her best, but Harding doesn’t have the same talents as Rook, she doesn’t know when to stand firm, instead of agreeing with every idea to keep everyone happy. It’s not something he blames her for, as if he were in her tiny shoes, he’d probably do the same. The loss of the three has left a giant bloody wound in the group, and an infection of feverish anger is beginning to set in. It needs to be cleansed and stitched together in order to begin the healing process, and without Rook, there is no hope of it getting better.

“There’s also the issue of Minrathous,” Neve interjects, taking her pipe out of her mouth, which Emmrich has disapprovingly noticed she’s been puffing on much more lately. “The few Shadow Dragon contacts I still have have informed me that the Venatori have drastically increased their subjection of the city, and are seemingly preparing for… something.”

“Mierde,” mutters Lucanis, but Emmrich is close enough to hear Spite raging. “LESS TALK. MORE DOING. FIND ROOK.” He can’t disagree with that sentiment, but the problem is that no one knows where to start. It’s just more bad news after bad news.

“Sorry to break it to you, Neve,” Taash says as they spear a sausage from the central platter, “Minrathous is kinda not really important right now. Rivain’s in an uproar, the Antaam are running like a bull in a pottery shop… uh… wait, is that the correct term? Anyways, if you’re outside the cities, you’re fresh meat to those bastards, and it’s only gonna get worse.”

Neve’s eyes darken as she puts out her pipe with an ices hard. “You think MY city, which has already been attacked by a blighted dragon and taken over by the Venatori, isn’t important?”

“I’m not saying that, Neve, I’m just saying it’s not our highest priority. We already knew the place had gone to crap way before Tearstone island.”

The air around Neve drops central degrees, and Lucanis twitches, no doubt attempting to contain a VERY agitated Spite, who is chomping at the bit to let them all know what his position on the matter is.

“TOO LOUD. FIND ROOK”

“Even if we were to find Elgar’nan, what could we do except chuck rocks at him and insult his hairstyle?” Taash continues, as Harding attempts, and fails to shush them, “He has an Archdemon we gotta kill first, and Davrin’s not here to help. Not to mention the whole ‘Lyrium Dagger’ thing we don’t have.”

That brings something to Emmrich’s mind.

“Wait,” he says, as he places the coffee cup down. “Bellara said Rook allowed her to make a detailed study of the blade. And knowing how diligent she can be with ancient elvish technology, she must have made detailed notes about it. Perhaps, if I can study them, and with enough lyrium I may be able to recreate the blade, complete with the enchantments that make it so powerful… But,” he stops himself, remembering his younger colleague, whose boundless energy to learn as much as she could, was not with him, “It would require me to go through her notes, and I don’t feel…” she’d always been welcoming to the ‘Professor’ whenever he paid her a visit, but now with her gone, the thought of entering her little workshop to look for notes makes him feel like a burglar.

“I’ll go with you,” Neve offers, her voice softening, the agitation in the room slowly settles down, as the two of them slowly get out of their chairs.

“Thank you,” he replies, and he means it. Neve and Bellara have a very close bond, and it’s probably best that she accompanies him. Deep down, he knows the young elf would never mind him going through his notes, and in fact would be thrilled, but he can’t seem to bring himself to do it without someone’s permission.

He barely hears Lucanis mutter as he leaves “He didn’t even take a bite of the breakfast I made him….”

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There is only the sound of the rustling papers as they go through stacks and stacks of notes. The bust of Anaris sits there, silently mocking them with its smug face, and Emmrich has to resist the urge to knock it over. His nerves must be fraying, he realizes, if he is contemplating destroying the work of a colleague. The problem is, Bellara is a copious note taker… of EVERYTHING. Coupled with a habit of being a little scatterbrained, and no doubt the wisps mischievously moving everything around, it’s not an easy search. Twice, he catches himself asking, “Bellara, where did you put those notes on Rook’s dagger?” before realizing she can’t answer. How many times had he asked her to stop calling him ‘Professor’ and to just simply call him ‘Emmrich’. What he’d give to hear her call him ‘Professor.. I mean Professor Emmrich… I mean, sorry, Emmrich!’ right now.

“Aha!” Neve crows in triumph, as she holds up a sheaf of papers. He can make out a rough sketch of the lyrium blade, and squiggles that approximate writing. She walks over and hands them to him. His heart jumps in his chest. Yes, with these details, his studying, and a substantial amount of precious lyrium, there was a chance he could recreate what had been lost, or rather stolen from them. Deep inside he hopes that it could even bring back… her.

“Yes, this will do nicely…” he murmurs more to himself than Neve. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, he feels hope.

“I’ll need time to study this. This will be an undertaking few, if any mortal has ever accomplished. I don’t know how long it will take, but I will do my best." He begins to walk out of the room, fully intending to make a beeline to his study, but Neve stills him with a gentle, but unyielding hand.

“Emmrich,” she asks softly. “You know you don’t have to do this alone. We know how much Rook means to you…”

He knows that she means well. That it all comes from a place of friendship and concern. But right now, he needs neither, nor does he need her pity. Especially her pity.

“Thank you, but I’ll be fine.” It’s not a lie. A lifetime in the Necropolis has given him ample opportunity to work with only the dead for company. He can take care of himself, and he refuses to be a burden to anyone else.

“Emmrich…” she persists, and there’s pity laced in that name. It disgusts him.

“Leave. Me. Be.” His voice hisses like the wind that blows through the Great Hall, bringing along the grit of grave dust. He doesn’t need anyone right now. All he desires is the time and solitude to study and study a way of recreating Solas’s blade. And coffee. Lots of coffee.

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He storms off towards his room, leaving a very concerned Neve standing there.

The next three days consist of never ending study of Bellara’s very detailed notes, deciphering her… unique… handwriting (he’s grateful that he had so much practice during their correspondence that feels like ages ago) taking notes and coming up with, and scratching out multiple theories. There’s occasionally a short nap (which he makes sure to wake up from before the dreams start) and then the coffee. And more coffee.

Any interruption, save for Manfred’s delivery of the strongest stuff Lucanis can brew, is met with a glare, as in the case of Harding, who wanted to check for a status update, or a growl, like when Neve came in to ‘helpfully’ inform him that Elgar’nan had made his move and invaded Minrathous. None of which matters to Emmrich right now. He’s making good progress on which enchantments need to be applied to the blade, for how long, and in which order, but it still needs time.

Johanna’s skull and the table she’s bound to are shoved in a closet. It only took one single jab, a sarcastic ‘Oh how the mighty Volkarin is stumped by some formula created by an uneducated forest elf’, before he decided she needed to be banished from his sight and hearing, lest he do something that he would regret. He is a Watcher still, even if he is a failure at everything else, and he has a duty to protect her, even if its from himself.

Manfred is also wisely staying out of his way. He tries his best to be helpful, bringing Emmrich books when requested, or yet another cup of coffee, but even the sound of his jawbone clacking, or his occasional hiss is enough to start a raging headache in the man.

Day four (seven days since Zea was taken from him) of his studies, and he’s finally come across a working theory of how the blade is able to puncture through the protective enchantments of the gods. It requires the lyrium to be both a conduit, and an inhibitor of magical energies, depending on what the balance of magic is. If the object has more magical energy than the blade, the magic will transfer to it, leaving the would-be god, or Veil vulnerable to a mundane cutting action. Like a drop of water being absorbed into a dry cloth. It’s able to go the other way too, if the blade encounters something with very low amounts of magic, which may explain what happened to Harding. But that’s not important right now. Now, he must construct, and implement the enchantments needed to sustain said charge, and that will be the hardest part of the whole thing. Every moment spent on a dead end, every wasted moment dozing off or even sipping his coffee is a moment he could be getting closer to bringing her back, to apologizing to her, to begging for forgiveness.

So it's no surprise that he’s less than pleased when he’s interrupted by a plate of flatbread, layered with goat's cheese and sundried tomatoes being placed in front of him. He lifts up his head to angrily demand why Manfred should disobey his order to not be disturbed, and comes face to face with Lucanis, holding two coffee cups.

“I didn’t ask for food.”

“I know, but you must think I’m stupid to think that I haven’t noticed you haven’t come down for meals as you once did.”

“I’ve been sending Manfred to fetch meals for me,” a lie that the younger man instantly catches on to.

“The only thing he’s been asking for is yet more coffee.” He sees Emmrich’s eyes dart immediately to the cup in his hand, and pulls it back, clicking his tongue.

“No… the only way you’re getting another cup is after you clear this plate.”

Emmrich is astounded. Does Lucanis think he’s a child, who has to be cajoled into eating their supper? He contemplates flipping the plate off the desk, flatbread and all, before realizing that yes, it would indeed make Lucanis think he’s a child.

It’s Spite of all people, that makes him acquiesce. “CURIOSITY IS WORRIED. WITHOUT ROOK HE IS LOCKING CURIOSITY OUT. AND CURIOSITY CANNOT GET BACK IN” He hears Spite’s voice, while Lucanis nods in agreement. It’s a low move, to use Manfred’s worries as a weapon to get him to eat, but… what they say comes from a place of concern and care. Manfred is too pure hearted to guilt him into eating, and no doubt went to a fellow spirit for aid.

He sighs, and begins to nibble the edge of the bread. Like most of Lucanis’s cooking, it tastes divine…or at least it would if it wasn’t bringing back memories of the last time he last ate something similar to this. He half expects Zea’s hand to snatch one of the tomatoes off the bite he's about to take, popping it in her mouth, giving him one of those grins that would immediately melt his heart, and instantly forgive her. But no such hand, not the left one, with the calluses he knew by heart, nor the right, with the slightly shorter pinky finger, (an embarrassing accident, she had explained) appears. So he dejectedly eats, the food tasting like ash in his mouth, and forming a lump in his throat every time he swallows. Still he powers through, and to his eternal annoyance, Lucanis is right. He hasn’t been eating much, and it's affecting his body and mind. He seems more focused, the words on the page no longer running together as he attempts to read, his hands (almost) stop their trembling.

Satisfied, and more than a little smug, Lucanis sets the cup of coffee in front of Emmrich. He mutters his thanks and begins to sip. He really hates the taste, even under the expert brewing of Lucanis, but it’s the only way to keep going, to push the need for sleep away, to where he knows he will be beset by nightmares.

“This is the last cup I’m making you,” the assassin announces, after taking a sip of his own, no doubt to bolster his own courage. “I’m cutting you off. At least until you get a good night’s sleep.”

Emmrich is outraged. Yet again, he’s being treated like a naughty child who has stayed up too late.

“Lucanis, you wouldn’t dare…”

“I can… and I am.” His eyes soften. “I’m not doing this to be cruel, Emmrich. I of all people know what a lack of sleep can do to a person. And I was trained for it. You are not.” He places his empty cup down, and places a hand on his shoulder, no doubt to offer support, but it burns, like a slap to the face. “You need to sleep.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” he shoots back, barely containing the rage boiling within him, “You have someone to go to bed with…”

He regrets those words, even as they come out of his mouth. Lucanis’s reaction is immediate, and yet subdued. His eyes flash purple, and Spite lets out a single growl before it’s clamped down, and the haunting dark eyes return as the assassin regains control.

“I know you want her back, Emmrich. Perhaps more than all of us put together. But you cannot kill yourself to do so. You know she would never forgive herself if you did.”

Emmrich ought to apologize. Andraste’s Sacred Flames, he wants to apologize for such a crass insult. But he can’t bring himself to do it. Not yet. Only when she’s back in his arms, can he truly offer apologies.

“Get some sleep, Emmrich” Lucanis repeats, and it hurts that his voice doesn’t even have well deserved anger. The man ought to be furious with him, he ought to be barely resisting the urge to slap him, but instead he slowly retrieves the plate, and begins to make his way out of the room, before stopping at the threshold.

“Once, I thought I could deal with the pain on my own. But there was- is,” he hastily corrects himself, “a woman who helped me reach out, who opened doors. Take the advice she once gave me, that isolating yourself will only cause you more pain.” He vanishes, leaving Emmrich there with only a cup of coffee for company.

Lucanis means well, he knows. He’s trying to help. But until he finds Zea, he cannot let up on his research.

But, his body can only handle so much before it needs more coffee, and now the only other source is the ‘coffee’ that Neve brews. He’s not that desperate.

Yet.

#dragon age the veilguard #veilguard spoilers #emmrich x rook #emmrich volkarin #my writing #please do not hesitate to let me know of any accidental misgendering of Taash

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shadows-over-the-wastes · 5 months ago

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Shadows Over the Wastes: Chapter One

Stables. Bunkers, more or less, created to shelter ponies from the doomsday that was The Day the Bombs Fell. Or, aptly, The Final Day. Created with self-sustaining magical technology that would run until Reclamation Day. And even further beyond that. This is the environment I had known my entire life. Yellowcake Cream, an altogether uninspiring, and unassuming unicorn.

That was me. With a yellow coat, a blue-green mane that’s always too messy and sloppily tied back, and bright green eyes that have a blue discoloration to the sclera. My cutie mark is a Balefire green glass tuning fork, surrounded by a blue glow. If anything about me was unique or impressive, it was that. But it didn’t do much to compensate for my rather lacking stature, being one of, if not the, shortest mares in the entire Stable. It also didn’t explain my sad physique. I’m rather chubby, to put it lightly. Fat, to put it accurately. And worst of all, I never look like I get enough sleep, and I have a horrendous cough I can never get rid of. I’m not asthmatic, I’m just pathetic.

My special talent is… a little unclear. But I’m really good at fixing up the reactor in the Stable, and I’m unaffected by radiation, so my place is clear. I’m a reactor engineer and technician. A rather high-clearance, and low-effort job, which doesn’t help with my weight problem. Most of the time, I spend my days watching old TV shows, re-reading the Stable library’s selection, or simply hanging out in the bakery.

My sweet tooth was my friend Cherry Garcia’s fault. She’s the bakery mare, and runs the shop by herself, which she took over when her mother retired. Her coloration was that of red velvet cake. A maroon coat with a creamy white mane, striped with chocolate brown, and beautiful, crystal pink eyes. She was the Stable’s eye candy, always was for her peers, even when we were foals. All the colts thought she was the prettiest thing in the whole wide world. They weren’t wrong, but she always expressed that stallions weren’t really for her. She and I met because I was always the smartest foal in the class, and the quietest. She’s not book smart, but socially smart, so she came to me for help. We’ve more or less been inseparable ever since.

The piercings in my ears were my friend Aero Ace’s fault. He’s a punky gray stallion with a faux-colorful black mane, violet eyes, and plenty of tats and piercings to match. He’s an artist, with a needle and a brush. He’s also a troublemaker. Always has been, always will be. He’s not as big as some other stallions, built very lithe, and quick on his wings. We met for similar reasons, but moreso because he wanted to know the most effective way to prank somepony using a Mr. Handy robot. I told him all the ins and outs and how to change personality scripts. Even helped him do it. He stuck around me since then.

Today was another day of nothing, spent in my room, with a comic book sprawled on my bed. I was sat comfortably, twirling a pen in my magical grip as a notebook laid next to the comic. I wasn’t reading it, so much as I was using it as reference to draw. Another hobby I’d picked up to kill some time. I started when I was 16, and had gotten pretty good over the years. Sighing, I closed the comic book, going back to sketching. I was drawing a cowpony gunslinger, with a big chunky revolver. I always thought cowpoke were cool, that and the concept of aliens.

I heard a knock on my Stable room door. “Go away.” I called over, not peeling my eyes away.

“It’s Cherry!” Garcia called through the speaker system.

“Oh! C’mon in!” My ears pricked up, dropping my pen and looking over at the door.

The metal bulkhead door opened up, and the earth pony walked right through. She had a big, cheeky smile, a tray balanced on her back. She wore the same Stable suit we all did, dark blue and gold trim, branded with a bold 27. “Another hard day of work, huh?” She joked.

“Yeah yeah, I know. You can ask me for help if you need it, y’know.” I replied, leaning my head on a hoof.

“Oh no… don’t want you pulling a muscle.” Garcia smirks, joining me on the bed by my side, and gently setting the tray in front of us. It had three or four pastries on it, assorted. “Brought you the daily extras. Since you didn’t visit…”

I snickered, picking up an eclair with my magic. “Jeeze… this is all extras, huh?”

“Just figured I’d bring you some, since you never bothered to visit.” She chuckles, giving my side a poke.

Feeling my face flare up, I bit a sizable chunk from the pastry. “Sho what bringsh you by?”

“Well, I wanted to see your workspace! You always hang by the bakery, I’ve never gotten to see the reactor room.” She answers rather bluntly, shrugging.

I cough, almost choking on my mouthful. “You… you do?”

“Mmhmm! I wanna see what you do!” She grins, flashing her perfect white teeth.

I hesitated, eating the other half of my eclair, thinking it over. “Well… uh, I’m not really supposed to have anypony else in there. It’s a… bit of a dangerous environment.”

“Pleeeease…?” She pushes her nose up against my cheek, giving me the wettest puppy eyes she can manage. “I promise I’ll behave… I’ll even bake your favorite cake for the morning if you take me.”

My ears flopped back, “…Banana? You really don’t have to, y’know. You already brought all this.”

“Mmmhmmm…” Cherry nods, leaning on me a little more. “For my favorite nerd…”

Unfortunately, try as I might, I felt my face burn with her honeyed words. I hated how good she was at sweet talking me, it always worked. “Uhhh… y-um. Okay… I can take you in for the morning maintenance check.”

“Yes! Thank you, thank you!” Cherry gives me a tight hug, practically suffocating me with her forelegs. I didn’t really understand the excitement, but it was flattering in a sense.

I chuckled, giving her back a pat with a hoof. “I… don’t really understand why you’re so enthusiastic, but I won’t complain.”

“So what time do I need to be here?” Cherry backs up a little bit, her tail giving an excited shake.

Rubbing under my chin, I thought for a moment. “Ideally you wanna get here before security starts their morning patrol. I’d say anywhere between 06 hundred and half past. Preferably on the dot, though.” I pointed at her, “But. You need to do as I say. Any safety precaution not taken for you can mean dire radiation poisoning.”

“Promise… anything you say, I’ll do it.” She pats her chest, nodding.

Sighing, I give a nod, “Alright… be here fresh and early. And clean. Please. The decontamination protocols call for a shower at least the day before entering the reactor room.”

Nodding again, she smiles. “Showered and early, got it.”

Tapping my hooves together, I glance around the room. “So… um. Did you… wanna stick around for any other reason?”

“Of course, silly. Keep drawing, I’ll watch…” She leans on me, getting comfortable.

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The morning came unceremoniously, after a productive day of drawing and eating the pastries that Cherry brought me. Getting on my Stable suit, I clicked my Pip-Buck onto my right foreleg, using a few dials and switches to get my authorization ready. As I walked out of my Stable room, I was greeted with the sight of the Overmare, Silver Lining. In the same hallway as me, speaking to another Stable member. She shot me a look, one that was hard on the nerves. She always tested me, ever since I took my Mother’s position as the reactor tech. Makes sense, considering this job is what took my Mom from me. And as far as my Dad goes, no news. Nopony really knows who he is. My Mom had an alcohol problem, and slept around. It could be any stallion, and she simply forgot. It made me a bastard foal. Something that was tough to live with. Something that got me taunted through my school years.

Breaking me out of the stare was Cherry, tapping me on the shoulder. “Hey! You good?”

“Uh… yeah. Fine.” I shrugged it off, starting to head for the reactor room. Garcia trailed closely at my side, trying to gauge what was wrong. I could tell, by the way her eyes were burning a hole through my skull.

“By the way, your cake should be settled by the time you come back with me to the bakery!” Cherry smiled, trying to turn my mind onto something else.

Looking over, I scoffed, “Yeah? You actually made one? You didn’t have to, you know. You have other customers.”

“You’re not a customer, Cake! You’re my friend. My best friend, at that.” She bumps me, nearly sending me off balance.

Stumbling a little, I snickered, shaking my head. “Alright, if you insist.” Before we knew it, we got to the reactor room. Glancing around, I checked to make sure nopony was near. Then, once confirmation was ensured, I opened the door. “Go go go…” I waved Cherry inside, before stepping in myself. Locking the door behind us, I sighed. “Alright. Now here’s the tough part.”

“I thought that was the tough part?” Cherry cocked her head.

Moving to a rack with hazmat suits, I shook my head. “Nope. You need to put one of these on.” I tossed her one, sitting so I could watch her.

Starting to slowly pull it on, she grunts. “Don’t you need one too?”

“Nope. My body doesn’t react to the excited magi-tomic energy in the air.” I wave a hoof. “Dunno why, but it doesn’t.”

“Huh…” She fits the respirator mask over her head, and I seal the suit, starting the circulation of air. Once ready, she stomps the metal shoes of the suit against the floor. “Good to go!” Her voice is garbled through the respirator, but clear enough.

Heading to the decontamination room, it seals behind us. Misting us with a germ-scrub solution, we’re then dried off. Then, without any further delay, we walk right through, into the reactor room. The reactor itself is a technological wonder. A Balefire reactor, one of the only subjects of its kind. Most other Stable reactors rely on magi-tomic fusion. Thus, they need their core replaced eventually. However, a Balefire reactor is a perpetual magic machine. A self-sustaining dark magic reaction, exothermic, and highly radioactive. It looked like a giant metal sphere, suspended by a series of green-glowing wires, with a thrumming, bright emerald mass swirling within.

“Welcome to where the magic happens.” I motioned to the generator. “My maintenance typically consists of dark energy ventilation, sorting, and purification.” Moving to a few tubes lining the walls, three on each side, I pulled large red levers on their sides. “Using these, more or less, vacuum-based traps, I suck the excess dark energy from the reaction, and trap them in specialized battery housing.” I demonstrate, tapping on a tube swirling with green-blue energy. Then, turning a wheel on the tube, I initiate the exchange. The energy excites, then decelerates, and solidifies into bright gold strands. Pure solar fusion energy. A primitive mocking of Celestia’s godly power, in the quick of my hoof. “And… voila. Pure, unfiltered celestial energy. Ready to be cycled into an empty core. This is a gross oversimplification of the process, but… I don’t think you could really get it without years of education. Like me.”

“That’s insane! I never knew this is what you did!” Cherry sounded astonished, staring intently at the raw fusion energy.

I nodded, patting the tube. “That’s pretty much it. Do that for every tube, and it’s exchanged. Easy stuff. Those cores are cleaner and last longer.”

She and I spent the next hour or two talking and ventilating the reactor. She quizzed me on just about everything I knew, regarding magi-tomic energy at least. I’d never had anypony else be as interested in it as I was, it was refreshing. However, just as we were getting ready to leave, single file through the decontamination room, I heard something. Before I entered the room with her, my ears twitched, and Cherry looked at me through the bulkhead door. “You okay?”

“I heard something. We shouldn’t have any other unauthorized life signs in the room. It’s protocol.” I kept my voice down, eyebrows furrowing. Then, I closed the bulkhead, squinting as I turned around.

Cherry banged a hoof on the door, looking through the window. “Cake?! What’s going on??” Her voice was heavily muffled, but audible.

Looking back, I yelled through the door. “Stay here, and stay safe! I’m gonna find what’s crawling around in here!” “Cake! No! C’mon! This is a job for security!” She bangs on the door. Unfortunately for her, my curiosity was getting the better of me.

The reactor room didn’t have much in the way of weapons. For defense or no. But, a screwdriver should do the trick. I’ve read a few comics where a good screwdriver to the eye was more or less a low-end lobotomy. I didn’t wanna kill anypony, so a lobotomy would have to do. However, I found the origin of the sound. One of the metal panels on the wall of the room had been moved, revealing a long, dark corridor.

I hesitated, but I made my way within. Using my horn to light my way, a cold breeze blew over my body as the panel suddenly shut. And locked.

FIRST | NEXT

#mlp g4 #fallout equestria #mlp fanfic #mlp fanart #my little pony #mlp fim

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ashenquill · 9 months ago

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IT'S SCAR TIME BABAEYYYY HERE COME THE (head)CANONS

He's my favorite which means he suffers the most so this post is a little bit of a downer, not gonna lie. But there's silly stuff in there too I promise!!11!

Scar's full name is Scar Conn Goodtimes. You may be asking yourself: what kind of name is that? How is his middle name con? What kind of parent would do that to their child? WELL, the answer is BECAUSE I SAID SO. Idk I just thought it would be goofy if convex had the middle names "con" and "vex". Soooo yeah lol

As far as origins and backstory are concerned, Scar is half vex and half elf. His mother was a vex hybrid, and had two kids, Cub and Scar (I'll post about Cub tomorrow probably). They're technically half-brothers, but they don't really care enough to talk about the logistics of it. As far as they (and everyone else, atp) are concerned, they're just brothers. Plain and simple.

Scar and Cub grew up without their parents, and were primarily raised by their maternal grandmother, the only human in their family. She taught them anything she knew about their mother, their fathers, and their magic. Thus, Scar and Cub practiced with their vex magic until they were finally able to properly wield it. (Vex magic has many capabilities, especially among family members, but the primary way it manifests is by having a particular trait that it can amplify. Scar, for example, can amplify someone or something's strength.) Scar had a tougher time with it, and it often backfired on him. That, combined with him being incredibly accident-prone, is how he ended up suiting his name so well.

In his late teens, Scar sustained an injury that caused major nerve damage and hindered his ability to walk, but with his magic he was still able to walk with the help of mobility aids (such as canes and crutches, and after a few years, a wheelchair). He refused to believe that it was irreversible, and when Cub made him a set of magic-powered walking braces, he thought his problems were solved. But that is not how chronic pain/illness works, even in a world with magic. So, he still uses a variation of aids, but the braces have to be used sparingly, as they draw from his magic and tire him out more quickly. That's why he mostly uses them when he's HOTGUY YEAH THAT'S RIGHT THIS IS A SUPERHERO AU.

Hotguy was hired by King Ren to head the Royal Guard and protect the city (and the king) from "nefarious evildoers". Of course, he mostly uses it as an excuse to play superhero, to which Cub is unwittingly dragged into. He's Scar's "guy in the chair", and even though he mostly just complains about Scar taking unnecessary risks, they both know he loves it.

More fun facts:

Smells earthy, like grass & pine trees

Hybrid: elf & vex (mixed) ((I’m not projecting you are))

Street smart - Special knowledge of city layout, people-pleasing, manipulation tactics

Likes: coffee (only drinks black coffee on bad days, usually gets something sweet and fun, he's totally a pumpkin spice latte girly), bird-watching, movies, theme parks, cooking/baking

Dislikes: golf (he goes with Cub anyway), reading

Passions: justice/fairness, nature (landscaping, birds), Scarland

Habits/other details: skin-picks, eats water (with a spoon)

Active in his environment - takes advantage of being overlooked, sort of dejected/resigned to ableism against himself (but never others), not usually aggressive but might try to control situations in other ways, good at finding out information but doesn’t always think to do so

Special, plot-relevant skills: archery, charisma 500, magic = strength

Terrible sleep schedule, somehow a morning person

I love him dearly so I sometimes make bad things happen to him this is just the basic law of author projection <3

#goodtimeswithscar #mr goodtimes #you are not immune to the goodtimes #character headcanons #hermitcraft #hermitblr

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jdgo51 · 2 years ago

Text

God's Peace for When You Are Anxious About Tomorrow

Today's inspiration comes from:

God's Peace for When You Can't Sleep

"As you sink into bed tonight, exhausted, are you already thinking about tomorrow’s meetings, next week’s obligations, next month’s deadlines?

You’re anxious about tomorrow… and the next day… and the next.

Whether you’re a busy mom who’s worried about your child’s future, an overwhelmed college student in the throes of midterms, or a rising executive with demands pulling from every direction, it’s difficult not knowing what tomorrow will bring. This anxiety is something that keeps many people awake at night — but does it do any good?

One result of anxiety is that it can certainly make you feel productive. At least you’re keeping a running tally in your mind of things to do, scenarios that could go wrong, or new ideas to explore, right? But the problem is this: you can’t keep going all the time. Your mind and body need a break. You need a break. Your boss needs a break. Even the president needs a break sometimes.

The best thing you can do for yourself is take time to rest. True rest doesn’t look like collapsing into bed, nerves fried and adrenaline pumping, either. It looks like letting your mind, body, and soul rest in the palm of the Lord.

True rest always involves surrendering to God.

God doesn’t tell us to rest for His own good — He tells us to rest for our own good. God worked six days and rested the seventh. He was — and is — the mastermind behind the entire world, yet He took time to give Himself a break. To cease from working, to cease from creating, cease from doing.

Emulate the Lord’s pattern of work and rest tonight.

While you are in bed you can’t work efficiently and you certainly can’t get anything done. Nighttime calls for rest. There may be unforeseen challenges ahead tomorrow, and there might be things that have been left undone today. But the Lord tells us not to worry about tomorrow because each day has enough trouble of its own (Matthew 6:34).

True rest always involves surrendering to God.

Sink into your bed letting a wave of relief wash over you; tomorrow is not yet here. You have nothing on your agenda right now except for sleep.

Ask the Lord to lift the burden of anxiety off your shoulders.

As sure as the stars twinkling in the night sky, He will answer your request. As gently as the crickets sing throughout the evening, the Lord will come to you. Rest tonight, dear one. The Lord is near.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. — Philippians 4:6

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken. — Psalm 55:22

When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. — Psalm 34:17 ESV

But in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. — Leviticus 25:4 ESV

Prayer

I come to You with a troubled, anxious heart, Lord. I ask You now to take away my anxiety and fear so that I can rest deeply tonight. Please answer my prayer quickly!"

Excerpted with permission from God’s Peace for When You Can’t Sleep, copyright Thomas Nelson.

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awardenandacrow · 4 months ago

Note

And we’ve come back for prompt 8: Rook argues with someone they care about. I had this snippet kind of planned already and then randomly realized it fits well for this prompt. And then I saw a post today discussing this topic and was like, oh, yeah, I still need to post that. Hope y’all enjoy!

@skullypettibone sorry for the delay in posting the second prompt!

[Naimy tries to convince Lucanis he needs some damn sleep]

CW/TW: mild language, discussion of torture/child abuse

——————————————————————————

Lucanis stumbled a step, catching himself on the table with a white-knuckled grip. Naimeryn had already lurched forward, acting on instinct, grabbing his upper arms to steady him. His muscles tended beneath her fingers, but she was too nervous to let go.

“Lucanis,” she said quietly, tilting her head in an attempt to peer into his face, “I’m *begging* you. You need to get some sleep. You can’t keep going like this. You’ll —“

“Start making mistakes?” He straightened up and pulled away from her. She let him. “Like with Ghilan’nain, you mean?”

“That is *not* what I meant,” Naimeryn sighed and shook her head. “You’re the only one still beating yourself up about that.”

“And Davrin.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Naimeryn planted her fists on her hips. “I wasn’t going to say any of that. You’ve been dodging sleep for months now. You can’t just… caffeinate your way through this; it isn’t sustainable. You’re *exhausted.*”

Without thinking, she reached for his face. Her impulse had been to brush the dark circles under his eyes with her thumb, but he jerked back again, out of her reach. She let her arm drop back to her side.

“There has to be a way,” she tried again. “I can… I can stay and entertain Spite. I can have Neve put wards on the door to the Eluvian room to keep him in. I —“

“None of that is the point,” Lucanis said impatiently. “Spite is —“

“Your problem,” Naimeryn began to pick at her fingernails, frustrated. “You keep saying that. But he isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and him being here doesn’t change the fact that you’re *human.* You *need* rest.”

“I cannot afford to be,” Lucanis said bitterly, turning towards the fire. “I will be fine, Rook —“

“But you won’t be!” Naimeryn snapped, with more feeling than she’d meant to have. “Sleep deprivation is a form of *torture.* You’re a Crow. You know this. I pulled you out of the Ossuary, but damn it, Lucanis, you’re still treating yourself like a prisoner!”

“I am only doing what I must,” Lucanis told her.

“But this isn’t something you *must* do,” Naimeryn tried again.

“It is,” Lucanis snapped, turning his head back to her, his expression clouded. “And you are much too busy to be spending so much time worrying about me.”

“If that’s really what you think,” she ground out, “then how about helping me not have to worry about you?”

His brow scrunched. She sighed.

“The magister used to do this to us, did you know that?” She asked him. “Usually as a punishment, but sometimes just for sport. Do you know how long a child can go without sleep before they begin to fall over themselves? How long it takes them to start hallucinating? Did you know your body can just… quit? You can be standing there one minute, not having slept in three days, and then you fall over, and everyone thinks you just fell asleep finally, that you couldn’t stay awake anymore, but no, you just *died.*”

Naimeryn took a deep breath and looked away from Lucanis, a wave of emotion catching her unprepared. She held up a finger for him to wait. She took another deep breath, pushing down images she’d thought had been well and truly locked away for years.

“The short version, Lucanis,” she said firmly, turning purposely back to him to find him watching her intently, hands in his pockets, facing her fully again, “is that I’ve already let this go on long enough. I’d hoped that after a few crashes you’d realize you couldn’t do it anymore. I’ve told myself ‘I’ll give it one more time’ one too many times. If *you* won’t take care of yourself, then *I* will take care of you.”

He said nothing, but dropped his gaze to the floor with what she thought was a slight nod.

“Please,” she said softly, “go get some sleep. I will be here. If Spite comes out, I’ll entertain him and keep him calm. And tomorrow, I’ll have Neve put wards on the Eluvian room.”

“You should not have to do this, you know?” He said softly as he passed her on his way to the pantry, steps still swaying.

“Don’t make me ration your coffee,” she teased gently. “That’s the next step.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Do not forget, I have mentioned killing for coffee before.”

“Hm,” she patted his shoulder softly. “I’ll take my chances.”

A small chuckle rumbled up from his chest. “Goodnight, Rook.”

“Goodnight.”

8 or 13 for story time?

Ooooooh I’m gonna hurt ya’ll’s feelings. I’ll circle back to 8, we’re gonna tackle 13 first.

13: Rook visits a place they love

This one struck me immediately because there’s only one place Naimeryn really loves…

CW/TW: I was mean to all of us and I’m sorry. Death, blood.

——————————————————————————

“So this is…” Lucanis’s voice caught as they fully entered the large, multi-level room. Naimeryn took a shaky breath. “…the library,” Lucanis finished in a whisper.

Once, this had been the happiest place in all of Weisshaupt. Sunlight streaming merrily down from the high windows onto the tables during the day, where recruits would gather to study, constantly being shushed when they’d get to rowdy; or moonlight brushing the spines of the books at night, when older wardens might indulge an interest or just come to relax away from the younger members being to raucous in the dining hall, had been the hallmarks of this place. Now the windows were blocked by Blight tendrils, only the fireplaces and drooping candles illuminating the space. It choked the merriment out, leaving eerie, flickering shadows and an ominous red glow.

The shelves had been spotless when she left. Clean spines in neat rows organized by author and year within each section and shelf. A rainbow of wonder, knowledge waiting to be consumed, greeting passers-by with silent promises of grand adventure somewhere beyond these walls. Now they lay scattered across the floor, pages ripped and trodden, spines newly cracked, covers torn off or bent. Everything was black. Puddles of it splattered the floor and it dripped from the shelves, thick and viscous as old blood. Other than the sound of it *plop*ping to the stone floor, the room was silent.

No rowdy recruits. No whispering of turning pages. No quiet conversations or interrupted kisses behind unorganized stacks.

Naimeryn felt her shoulders droop. She struggled to breathe past the knot in her throat. Her eyes darted around the room, dread churning in the pit of her stomach. How could this be happening? How could they recover from this? Some of these books were the only copies in existence. How would the Order just… replace that? Maybe if they cleared out the Blight, the books could be repaired…?

A cough somewhere up ahead pulled Naimeryn back to the present. She hadn’t seen Davrin reaching to shake her shoulder, and before he could touch her, she was off, moving quickly through the corrupted remnants of what had been her favorite place in all of Thedas. The cough came again, from her left. Naimeryn spun, hoping she was wrong.

She wasn’t.

“Markus!” She choked out, running to the end of the aisle. The old librarian lay, half-crushed under a Blight boil. His once-green eyes glowed faintly crimson, black tears streaking his weathered face. Behind her, Davrin swore in elvish. Naimeryn slid through the muck, falling to her knees and grabbing Markus’s hand, as one arm was free of his entrapment. He gave it a weak squeeze.

“Come back after all, eh, Thorne?” He chuckled, which dissolved into another cough. There was blood at the corners of his mouth.

Naimeryn shushed him gently, tears prickling at her eyes. Her mind flooded with stern corrections, impatient lessons in literacy, grumbled approval at jobs done better than expected. “We can… we can get you out and…”

“No,” Markus wheezed. “It sings to me, Thorne. The Blight in my veins… it is overcome with this. I would not survive the extraction, I think.”

“Maker’s blood, you can’t just.. you can’t just give up!” She snapped at him. “I can’t just… leave you. You have to let me —“

“I’m not one of your projects, Naimeryn,” the librarian pulled his hand away, patting hers lightly. “I am broken beyond repair. It brings me comfort… just knowing… if anyone can find the solution… the way out… it is… you.”

Naimeryn bit down on the tears even as they ran down her cheeks. “One last lesson, eh, Markus?”

“I… told you,” he wheezed with a last, barely-there smile. “Someday… you were going to… have to… learn… to…”

Naimeryn sniffled as his hand went limp. “Learn to let things go,” she whispered bitterly.

“Rook,” Davrin said, his tone uneasy.

“I know.” Naimeryn stood, rubbing the back of her wrist across her eyes. “Let’s keep going.”

#dragon age the veilguard #fanfic #rookanis #dragon age #dragon age rook #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #my rook #rook #original character #rook x lucanis #grey warden rook #lucanis and spite #fanfic snippet #rook ask game #rook story time #rookanis fluff

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primofate · 4 years ago

Note

im feeling kinda akward since its my first time requesting,i really really really like your writings and im wondering if you could do some angst for albedo, anything you feel like tbh, but if may i be a little selfish i was thinking on something like he hurt you, so you break up with him or maybe he break up with you and regret later, im in love with the genius and your writings so why not lol, hope you are doing well, xoxoxooxox

Thanks for the request anon. <3 Sorry it took so long, but I’m feeling angst today so here goes. Let me know what you think <3

QUEUED POST

Scenario: Breaking up

Characters: gn! reader x Albedo

Warnings: angst, break ups, regrets, did I say angst?

Categories: angst in Part 1, comfort in Part 2 (It was getting too long so split it into two parts)

Read: (Part 2) (Part 3 - Final)

Albedo

Alone.

These days you found yourself alone in your shared home. It had been nearly a year since the two of you decided to live together. Maybe that was a bad idea.

You were smitten. He was such an intelligent man, and truth be told you loved how his mind worked. He was silent and mostly kept to himself at first, but with you, there were subtle touches, fleeting kisses. Oh and his eyes, the way his eyes brightened or the way his lips turned up at the sight of you. The way he held you close at nights, up until the morning.

Gone were those days.

He was hardly home. The intelligent man you had fallen in love with, was also a workaholic. Perhaps you should’ve seen it coming. There were so many signs.

Maybe he changed. Maybe you changed. But the little things weren’t enough anymore. He came home just to sleep and wake up, and he was off again.

“Bedo, have you got some time off on the weekend? We haven’t been up to Starsnatch Cliff in a while,” you had prodded him a few days ago, wondering if the problem would be solved if you made the first move.

“Sorry, Y/N, we’re just about to discover more about the properties of electro crystals... It’ll be useful if we want to sustain higher energy concentrations on...” and just like that he had gone off a tangent explaining the whole thing. You smiled a little, it was still endearing how excited he got discussing those things.

But you couldn’t help but be lonely at how he seemed to love his research more than you.

��Maybe I just need to be more proactive. That’s it! I’ll go and visit him at the lab today!’ Surprising him was one of the things that you had always wanted to do. But not a lot of things got past Albedo. He was observant like that. You made a quick run to the bakery, getting him some croissants and welcomed yourself into the Favonius Headquarters.

You looked up at the sign on his laboratory door. That sign was always there though, Klee had told you about it, and Sucrose had also talked about it once or twice before, telling you that it wouldn’t be a good idea to go in if the sign was up. But when was it ever down? So, you shrugged, and pushed the door open with a wide smile.

“What are you doing here?!” There’s a wild look in Albedo’s eyes the moment you step in. He didn’t appreciate being disturbed. You tilted your head a little at his reaction, you weren’t expecting that.

“Oh, since you’ve been so busy these days I just thought I’d drop by and give you something to--”

“Y/N, did you not see the sign on the door? No disturbances, even from you,”

“I’ll just be quick, I’m just dropping this off,” you lift the paper bag from the bakery and lay it down on the nearest table. Albedo closes his eyes with a sigh.

“...We’re working on something dangerous right now, I don’t have time to eat. Please take it back,”

Surprisingly, you obey quite quickly, and take the paper bag back into your hands. Annoyance start to pulse in your veins. “Anything else you want me to do? Maybe disappear so I don’t bother you or your research so much?”

Sucrose had been standing there the whole time, and you can see the slight wince on her face at your cold statement... But Albedo had returned it ten fold, snapping an answer back. “Yes, Y/N, that would be excellent, don’t get in the way. Stop being irritating at the wrong moment,”

You didn’t expect how much it would sting. Your shoulders slump downwards at the realization that this... had gone too far. You couldn’t take it anymore. Sucrose opens her mouth, but doesn’t know what to say looking back and forth between you and Albedo.

The Kreideprinz had continued with his task as if nothing had happened at all, but he knew what he said. He didn’t want any interferences nor accidents happening in the lab and that was the only thing he cared about at the moment.

Your foot moves to step back, but your eyes are glued to Albedo. You can only see his back. His hair tied up neatly, the shoulders that you loved to wrap your arms around and his hands that were always gentle. You took a good look, drinking the whole scene in like you hadn’t had a drop of water in days.

This was the last time you would lay eyes on him and it broke you into so many pieces. You turned away without another word, Sucrose staring at the door, before she decided that she needed to follow you. “I-I’ll be back, Master Albedo,” she rarely ever abandoned an experiment, but she knew that you needed a friend right now.

Ironic, because it should have been Albedo running after you, but instead the green-haired girl caught up to you just as you reached the fountain in the middle of Mondstadt. “Y/N!” she jogs, and stops when you do as you hear your name.

Tears prickled your cheeks, but they were more of frustration than sadness. You stand there for a moment, drying your tears and turning around towards Sucrose, gaze on the pavement. “Y/N...” Sucrose approaches carefully, hand resting on your shoulder.

“...I don’t know anything other than Albedo, Sucrose,” you start, a curtain of memories flashing through your mind. “...Without him, there isn’t much reason for me to stay in Mondstadt,” Sucrose shakes her head rather hastily. “H-He’s just... a little occupied right now, Y/N, I’m sure he doesn’t mean what he said,” You close your eyes, the scene repeating in your head.

“Anything else you want me to do? Maybe disappear so I don’t bother you or your research so much?”

“Yes, Y/N, that would be excellent, don’t get in the way. Stop being irritating at the wrong moment,”

A hard lump forms on your throat at how hard you try not to sob. How hard you try to keep yourself together and Sucrose sees it from the way your lips tremble. “Sucrose, please watch over him,” and that is also the last that Sucrose sees of you.

That night, Albedo arrives home exhausted, just as he always does. But now that he was home, he could at least expect a warm meal and a warm hug. A soft smile tugs on his lips at the thought.

When he turned the lights on, he was met with a strange stillness instead. His hand stays on the switch as his eyes scan the living room. It was...quiet. There were no plates on the table, and there were no sounds from the kitchen.

Deep in the pits of his stomach there’s an anxiety that starts bubbling up. He brushes it off, opting instead to check the kitchen. “Y/N?”

Empty.

His footsteps hasten as he opens the bedroom door, expecting you to be curled up there, asleep.

Empty.

Albedo takes in a shaky breath. You were probably just out in town, doing some late night shopping. Yeah, that’s it, perhaps you just didn’t have enough ingredients for dinner today and--his eyes land on the bedside table.

The photo frame is gone. The photo of the two of you standing side by side together with comfortable smiles on your faces, his hand on your waist, and the house on the background.

He throws open the closet doors. Your clothes are gone. Your shoes are gone. Even your scent seemed to have disappeared. The anxiety that was once a small bubble in his stomach had started to claw it’s way out, wrenching his heart in places that he didn’t know could hurt. The tears pooling in his eyes were so foreign that he didn’t even know what was happening until he hears himself gasp back a sob.

You’re gone.

Suddenly it was so hard to breathe, but he pulls himself up and out the door. There’s no way. Where would you go? Perhaps you were just around Mondstadt, trying to get a breath of fresh air to calm your nerves. He searches everywhere. The church, the tavern, the Good Hunter and even atop the rooftop of the Favonius Headquarters. There was a decent view of the city there, and his eyes roam the streets, just to get a glimpse of you.

“...Please...” There’s another lump in his throat, his eyes dart around looking for any small sign of you.

“Albedo? Tired?” you ask as he returns home one day. He merely lets out a small “Mm,” and pulls a chair out from the dining table to sit on. You walk into the kitchen to fetch him a cup of tea, and he snatches your hand to press a soft kiss on the back of it. “Thank you, love,”

“...Please!” his grip on the stone walls of the rooftop tighten. His vision blurs.

“Al! Don’t do that!” you try to swat his hand away from the pot, a short laugh coming off of your lips at how mischievous he could be sometimes, trying to dip his finger into the sauce. He has a grin on his face as he successfully tastes the sauce off his finger, making a sound of approval as he draws you in for a light kiss on your forehead, “It’s good, as always,”

His legs buckle, and he finds himself on his knees, hands fisted upon the cold stone wall. “At least tell me where you've gone! I can’t--” he doesn’t know when the last time he cried was, but whenever it was, he doesn’t remember it to be this bad. The pain was unlike any injury he had, it grasped so tightly at his heart.

“Anything else you want me to do? Maybe disappear so I don’t bother you or your research so much?”

“Yes, Y/N, that would be excellent, don’t get in the way. Stop being irritating at the wrong moment,”

He furiously shakes his head because he knows that it was his fault. “I didn’t mean it, please give them back,” as if there was someone else who took you away. As if there was a God listening to him right now.

He realizes that the worst of it was not that you had left, but that you had left no traces of you behind. No photo. Not a piece of clothing. Not a trace of your existence.

Nothing for him to hold on to.

That night, he dragged himself back home. Face flushed and hot from the tears he had shed and the ones he was attempting to hold back.

That night, he painfully got into bed.

Alone.

Taglist: @larkspyrr @rim0na @sweeti-pie @l3mon-mxshroom @hai-q-haikyuu @tkshoki @kyquu @KimbapSana @fanfictionenthusiast

Crossed out means I couldn’t tag you! Sorry!

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#albedo #albedo x reader #genshin impact #genshin #genshin reader angst #genshin x reader angst #albedo x reader angst #genshin fics #genshin short fics #genshin headcanons #albedo angst

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iwant-fuitgummi · 2 years ago

Text

Traveler Headcanons

Neopronoun haters DNI!!! This post has a lot of them.

ALSO: the numbers are their ages. If the number has ~ in front of it, that means it's their "human" age. Their actual age will be listed next to it.

I also gave them last names for fun

Aether Viator

he/she/they/nil

~19, 500+

Genderfluid, Aroace

Family: Lumine

Found Family: Paimon, Dainsleif

Other:

The traveler is mute and communicates using sign language. Paimon is pretty in tune with them, so she speaks for them a lot if the person they're talking to doesn't know or knows minimal sign.

Aether is much more reserved than Lumine. Despite this, he is also more aggressive as a traveler. Towards the beginning of his journey, he was much more understanding. After so many years of searching, however, they’ve grown tired of being used. He tries to stay optimistic, but it’s a struggle. Being kind certainly isn’t easy.

Lumine Viator

she/he/they/nil

~19, 500+

Genderfluid, Aroace

Family: Aether

Found Family: Paimon, Dainsleif

Other:

The traveler is mute and communicates using sign language. Paimon is pretty in tune with them, so she speaks for them a lot if the person they're talking to doesn't know or knows minimal sign.

Lumine is a lot more outgoing than her brother. She’s always been the more sociable of the two, and is very forgiving. However, when they’re pushed to their limits, Lumine is not to be underestimated. Aether might be aggressive, but Lumine has a lot more strength to back it up. As a traveler, Lumine is incredibly no-nonsense. She is not afraid to tell you that you’re a useless piece of shit if it’s the truth.

Paimon

she/her

~9, 500+

Agender

Family: Sustainer, Welkin

Found Family: Aether, Lumine, Dainsleif

Other:

Being smaller than everyone else, Paimon has always had a problem with being heard. Because of this, she always talks loud around people she cares about. This is why, as the traveler’s journey goes on, Paimon gets louder and louder. She’s getting more comfortable and wants to make sure we don’t ignore her like everybody else does.

Paimon also has trouble reading social situations. She’s very blunt and always says what’s on her mind, whether she’s right or not. This often makes her come off as rude, and the traveler always apologizes to the person and explains to Paimon that what she said was wrong.

Paimon has muscular dystrophy. She doesn’t just fly for fun, her legs are just too weak for walking. Even flying is exhausting sometimes, so the traveler gives her piggyback rides. This is why she’s so small, too. Her body never produced enough mass for her to grow any bigger than she is right now.

Paimon also has synesthesia and often doodles what her favorite people’s voices and names look like. They go straight to the fridge in the teapot :)

Paimon has a dog in the teapot named Doozy.

Dainsleif Asketill

he/they/xe

~35, 500+

Nonbinary Man, Asexual, Biromantic

Lover(s): Was head over heels for Halfdan and has never felt the same since

Family: None

Found Family: Aether, Lumine, Paimon

Other:

Dainsleif has aphantasia. He keeps a picture of Halfdan in a locket so he can remember what he looks like.

Dainsleif’s curse has made them partially blind in their right eye, as well as given them alien arm syndrome that affects their right arm. They’re constantly exhausted, but at the same time unable to sleep.

He is also a hypochondriac. I headcanon that a few of the archons took pity on the people of Khaenri’ah and released a disease that would kill off the majority of the population as painlessly as possible. Dainsleif saw this virus picking off his friends and family and has been incredibly germophobic ever since. Even though he can’t die, he’s still terrified of that disease.

Rifthounds are very hesitant to attack Dain; I imagine xe used to take care of them when xe was a part of the Khaenri’ahn royal guard. The rifthounds remember xem and will not attack unless xe attacks first.

Note: I believe that the word Viator is Latin for traveler and the surname Asketill is Old Norse for "the sacrifice of the gods" or something similar.

#aether #lumine #paimon #dainsleif #genshin #genshin impact #genshin headcanons #genshin traveler

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nicad13 · 2 years ago

Text

Iron & Kyber

Chapter 2: Ghosts

Chapter summary: Din is haunted by his past and gives MDMA therapy a shot.

Turns out having sex with a Jedi while high on X is mind-blowing.

And then a ghost from Rayne’s past shows up.

He has always understood the importance of what he does in these moments, to give first, so that he may receive later. He is always gentle in these moments, his one respite from violence. To prove to himself that he is capable of undoing a partner with tenderness and warmth, free of the brutality he’s had to wield against others. Free to drop the warrior from his persona and just be naked of everything else, reduced to his flesh. Still an exertion of his power over another, but a consensual one accepted with enthusiasm.

Tags: MDMA, therapeutic drug use, sexual content

Rating: Mature

AO3 link in the source at the bottom.

---

When the men on the chessboard Get up and tell you where to go… When logic and proportion Have fallen sloppy dead

Jefferson Airplane, White Rabbit

---

Din paces through the living area of his home in the dark, the night chill raising goosebumps on his bare skin.

He can’t sleep.

Too late for alcohol, too early for coffee.

The floor doesn’t creak under his feet as he walks. He wishes it would.

So it would alert him to any intruders who are unwise enough to invade the home of a Mandalorian and a Jedi.

Not that he actually expects such a thing. Not here.

And that’s exactly the problem.

Taking the man out of the fight is one thing. Taking the fight out of the man is quite another.

He knows that, for the first time, he and his family are out of danger. For the first time since his childhood, he’s not in the process of either running away from someone or chasing after someone. He’s not in the process of either avoiding or bringing death. No one is after him. He is after no one in particular.

Yes, greater threats loom on the horizon, but for now, they’re safe.

All the parts of him that have kept him alive for the last thirty-five years, that have kept him alert and aware, that have kept him strong and safe, are now keeping him awake, and he can’t seem to shut those parts down. The nervous energy that used to fuel his survival no longer has anywhere to go. Instead, it fuels his nightmares.

Training helps a little. The normal sessions he has with Rayne are enough to take the edge off. They allow him to get to sleep. But they’re not enough to keep him asleep. He knows that “passing out drunk” and “sleeping” are not the same thing. The only thing that has worked so far are all-out workouts that leave him bone-tired with barely enough left in the tank to force his dinner down and crawl into bed. Not a sustainable solution if he wants to be an active participant in his family.

Sometimes he wakes up on his own.

Sometimes it’s the nightmares.

Tonight, it was a nightmare. The mudhorn. Again. The crack of horn against durasteel. The punch of it through his lungs. Flying through the air. Landing on his back and sliding through the mud. Gasping as the beast pummeled him into the muck, struggling as it sucked him down. Whooping his breath back in as he drove it off. Drawing his knife in one last futile stand as the monster charged him, lowering his head, conceding to overwhelming failure…

In his dreams, the mudhorn completes her brutalization of him, barreling through the blade and crushing him to death, waking him up with a rush of air from his lungs. Only once he’s awake does he remember how it all ended. How the tiny green baby had reached out and saved his life…

Din crosses his arms over his chest, hugging his elbows in.

He’s wearing his helmet.

He wants to put the rest of it on. The armor. Wants the safety of sliding back under the beskar. But the price is too high. He shouldn’t need it under his own roof. He shouldn’t need it when his betrothed, with all her precognitive abilities, sleeps soundly in their bed. He doesn’t want it under his own roof. Where he should be free to hold his son close and let him pat his hands over his face, still getting acquainted with the appearance of his father after a year of looking at nothing but curved metal and tinted transparisteel. Where he should be free to know his lover’s hands on his skin and her warmth against him, to let her look him in the eye, to share a meal with her, to feel her arms around him when they share themselves. To fall asleep in those arms and stay asleep there, knowing in his heart that she can protect him, even if some primal lobe of his brain won’t let him believe it.

Another part of him is afraid to put the armor on at home.

Afraid that even if he does, that it won’t be enough. That even with all his defenses up, it will still not be enough, and he will never sleep again.

He sits on the couch and rests his helmeted head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees, and breathes out a shaky sigh.

He needs it to stop. He needs the madness in his head to stop. The woman he loves may be on the brink of facing down the root of all evil in the galaxy, and he needs to have his shit together for it.

For her.

For their son.

He closes his eyes and breathes through the meditation they have been taught at counseling.

I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. This is our Way. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. This is our Way.

Rayne finds him in the closet in the morning, curled on his side on the floor, helmet still on, having sought out the security he finds in tight spaces.

She knows he hasn’t slept well lately. Diffuse anxiety radiates off him and worms into her mind, and she knows his frustration when he can’t pin the source down. She pulls the spare blanket from their bed and spreads it over him.

He flinches awake at the sudden warmth, but it’s a sluggish, lethargic movement. “…Time’s it?” The words are thick and slurred through the modulator.

“Go to bed. Get some more rest,” she whispers. “I’ll take Yadi out for breakfast and drop him off at school. Come by the Temple once you’re up and around.”

“Mmmph.”

He sleeps through the day.

And paces all through the next night.

---

Rayne punches him in the face and the force of it knocks Din flat on his back.

They’re training at the Temple. He’s been distracted all day, and it finally catches up to him.

He stays on the floor for a while, staring up at the ceiling through the visor of his helmet as his HUD flickers and resets from the impact.

Rayne’s face slides into his field of vision from the side, looking down at him, brow furrowed in concern. “You okay in there?”

“Yeah.”

She lifts an eyebrow and tilts her head, unconvinced.

He breathes a sigh as she offers him a hand up, and he accepts. She notices a sense of displacement rolling off him, like he feels he should be somewhere else. An unmet obligation tugging at the back of his mind. “What’s up?” she asks.

He stares at the floor for a few moments, hands curling into fists before forcing them to release. She imagines what his face must look like under the helmet, brows drawn tight, mouth set in a hard line. “Sorry… my head’s not in the game today.”

“I noticed.”

“Can I just… can you pick Yadier up from school? Can I meet you at home later?” Only now that the words are out is he able to meet her gaze.

“Yeah, sure.”

He turns, gets halfway to the exit, turns to come back, takes her hand in his, and presses his forehead to hers. “Thank you.” The words come out in a desperate whisper.

“Sure,” she says, concerned, but knowing it’s best to set him free.

It’s all he can do to keep himself from breaking into a run to get home, and guilt hangs over him like a stormcloud threatening to burst open and rain down on him.

He can stand it no longer.

He has to find out what happened to Alaria.

The data stick that Reesha had given him on Coruscant, the data that Rayne had lifted from the Jedi Temple there a month ago (has it really only been that long?) sits in the drawer of his nightstand, untouched since he had brought it home from the Razor Crest the prior week. He’s been meaning to go through it, but life has gotten in the way. Settling in on Genesaria has been all-consuming: getting their flat squared away, getting their citizenship registrations in order, and all of the orientations required of living on a secret planet – how to route communications and deliveries through Jedha (the first rule of Genesaria is: do not talk about Genesaria; the second rule of Genesaria is: do not talk about Genesaria), how to register the Razor Crest so it was identifiable to Genesarian air traffic control but not traceable to Genesaria itself, and so on.

And maybe… just maybe… he’s been avoiding it.

The frequency of Alaria’s resurfacing in his memory over the last couple of months has been alarming. Gideon’s taunt about her life ending at the edge of the saber that currently rides Din’s own hip hasn’t helped. But her resurfacing in therapy last week is the last straw.

He needs the uncertainty to end.

Had she borne him a child?

Is she really dead?

He gets home, not bothering to take the helmet off, ducks into the bedroom to retrieve the data stick, and heads back to the dining table, where he’d left his tablet that morning. He powers it up, connects the stick, and takes a deep breath.

He finds her registry file easily enough. As with his file, hers includes a picture of her just before swearing the Creed. Just before she disappeared under her helmet for the rest of her life as he knew her.

And it all comes back.

Dark skin. Black hair with springy curls when it wasn’t braided. Brown almond-shaped eyes, flecked with gold. Oval face. A slight smile pulling at the corner of a generous mouth. Where he appeared half-frightened in his picture, she looked like she knew exactly what she was about to get into, and she had been ready.

The product of the long heritage of clan Kast.

They’d only been twelve years old at the time, but even then, he’d hung on her every word. Watched her every move. Nursing a crush that he dared not to reveal, only to unleash it when they came of age and she approached him to be her sol’yc.

As was custom, he’d stood at her side as she received her implant.

As with all things regarding protection, Mandalorian contraception is impervious.

There’s no way.

Din scrolls through her record.

Her date of Emancipation. The day she left the covert they’d grown up in together. Six months after her eighteenth birthday. Four months after his. A few weeks before his own Emancipation.

He continues to scroll through her brief record of service before she’d returned to the covert seven months later.

To give birth to a daughter a month after that.

Fucking hell.

He places the tablet on the table, leans back, folds his arms over his chest, and sits very still.

His natural instinct is to freeze when faced with an unknown threat. Freeze, to draw as little attention to himself as possible. Freeze, to provide a stable observation point. To study the threat. To see what he’s up against.

Only there’s nothing to hide from here.

He picks up the tablet again and double-checks the math.

She gave birth eight months after her emancipation. Eight months after she had left him.

He puts it back down.

She’d either removed the implant without telling him and was pregnant by the time she’d left, or she’d removed it right after she’d left, immediately gotten busy with someone else, and had given birth several weeks early.

He’s not sure which scenario hurts more.

Neither one of them makes a damn bit of sense.

The whole point of the sol’yc is to learn how to have a relationship with someone and then learn how to live without them. For a people of war, devotion to a partner is paramount. Knowing how to care for and gratify another person is one of the few pleasures to be had. As with everything else, they gain this knowledge through training. For a people of war, the chances of losing that partner are high. Knowing how to move on from that is only possible through the harsh but necessary lessons of Emancipation. Leaving your childhood covert behind until you proved your worth in the field. Those who are raised in a clan are welcome to return if they managed to survive it. Those who are raised in the Fighting Corps are expected to move on. For this reason, Clan kids are encouraged to choose Corps kids for their sol’yc. An assurance that they will likely never cross paths again once parted. A safeguard against expectations of an enduring relationship.

Having a child with a sol’yc was unheard of. It was damn near taboo.

Having a child during the Emancipation period was… not taboo per se. Just… not entirely ideal. The need to boost their numbers had to be balanced with incoming resources, and the point of the Emancipation period was to earn enough to buy your way back into a covert. At worst, coming home so early to bear a child was likely deemed premature, but Alaria still would have been welcomed and her child would have been cherished, if his experience at other coverts is any indication.

He picks up the tablet once more, cross-referencing to the child’s register.

Kast, Alexia Buir(Dalyc): Kast, Alaria [Clan, Emancipation Suspended] Buir(Jagyc): Djarin, Din [Fighting Corps, Emancipated]

He closes his eyes. Counts to ten. Opens his eyes.

The words are still there.

His sol’yc had brought their daughter into the world twenty-six years ago without his consent.

He’s been a father since the age of nineteen and had no idea.

He can’t decide if he’s proud or pissed.

Fatherhood for clan-less men is a murky thing, never being told of the outcome of their encounters. The one thing that is supposed to be clear, however, is consent. If a Mandalorian woman wants to bear a man’s child, she asks for it. Things are out of the men’s hands once they give of themselves, but they always have the right to choose whether or not to give in the first place. Five times, Din had been asked. Five times, he had provided. His first, when he was twenty-three. His last, when he was thirty-four. He figures that was a pretty good run. He’d felt honored each time. That someone thought he was worthy of creating a life with. The women had been worthy in their own right; each one fierce. Each one a warrior. He’d been okay with not knowing the outcomes. For a people of war, the chances of losing a child are also high, and at the time, he’d felt it better not to know. The whole thing had an air of poignant mystery about it. The idea that his blood might run in the veins of a few young Mandalorians somewhere out in the galaxy. The hope that his faults would be made up for by the blood of their mothers.

Point being, they had asked of him.

Alaria had stolen from him.

He decides he’s pissed.

Why had she done it?

Why had she gone behind his back? Why had she brought forth another life so soon? So far ahead of the schedule that was best for her and the covert?

It makes no goddamn sense.

And then his brain catches up.

One of Gideon’s three claims is true.

Din closes his eyes.

Does he really want to know about the other two?

What will he do if they’re true? If Alaria is dead? If the weapon he currently carries was the one that ended her life?

He can almost feel the scars on his right leg burn through his skin, yesterday’s discussion with Rayne ringing in his memory. Whatever he does will be observed by his son. He can no longer drown himself in the deep end. Whatever he does will be the example he sets for his son. Whatever he does will be the model for how he expects his son to handle the grief of loss that he will no doubt encounter over the several hundred years of his lifespan.

Din casts his mind about for a plan.

He opens his eyes, and the red paint coating the plate on his thigh catches his attention.

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

And if she’s alive? Or he at least can’t find any evidence of her death in the information he has on-hand or can reach easily?

He’ll let it go. He can do that. He’s done it for two and a half decades already.

Okay.

He flips back to Alaria’s file. Her service record starts back up a year after Alexia’s birth, re-joining her original crew. He guesses Alexia was raised either by Alaria’s parents or the Fighting Corps. He hopes for the former – whatever role her parents may have played in the destruction of his former life and capture, they had been good to him. They’d raised Alaria well. And the Corps was… hard. He decides to set that all aside for later.

Alaria had served on several mercenary crews. No surprise there – she’d been an amazing brawler, knowing how to use leverage and speed to her advantage to compensate for her light build.

Alas, her record is a short one. She met her end on an Underworld job. Something to do with a spice deal gone wrong – the details are murky. She’d taken three shots in the side, a large vital gap in the armor, as she’d covered her crew’s exit.

A warrior’s death, then.

They had both been twenty-five.

Around the same time he was with Xi’an.

He’d been using his memories of her as an escape while he’d fucked Xi’an and she’d already been dead.

He turns the tablet off, places it on the table, and puts his helmeted head in his hands, elbows propped on his knees.

It doesn’t hit him as hard as he expects it to. He realizes he’d already accepted the idea of her death. The possibility of it. The probability of it. The likelihood of it. The Way demands honesty in the face of such things. They had been warned against forming too close of a bond, and dammit… he’d taken it to heart. He’d let her in. He’d fallen for her. But only so far. Not all the way. Not quite.

And in this moment…

In this moment it all makes a terrible amount of sense.

He begins to wonder what it means that he has let Rayne and Yadier all the way in. He’s already experienced Rayne’s death once and it damn near ended him. But it had taken a hell of a lot to kill her. The blowback of an exploding Imperial starship and the deaths of a hundred crewmembers through the Force amplified by a canyon full of kyber-infused rock. He reminds himself that Rayne is not an ordinary woman and Yadier is not an ordinary little boy, even by Mandalorian standards. They are Jedi. They are not impervious, but they are resilient. They have an advantage in the Force that Alaria didn’t.

They also have another advantage that Alaria had not been allowed.

They have him.

If he can just… pull himself together…

He rubs his hands over the top of his helmet, taking a deep breath. Gideon was two for three, then. Alaria is the mother of his firstborn by blood. She is dead. But she had not died by the edge of the Darksaber. The last was just Gideon being a dramatic asshole.

Din gets up and heads out of the flat, down to the market below.

---

Rayne and Yadier return home at their usual time in the early evening. They see Din out on the balcony, still dressed in his armor. He’s sitting with his helmet in his hands, attention focused on it until Yadier waddles to him and wraps his arms around his father’s leg.

Din sets his helmet aside and scoops his son up into his arms, Yadier squealing as he’s lofted up into the air over his father’s head. Din brings him back down to his lap. “Did you have a good day at school, ad’ika?”

Yadi giggles and snuggles into his father’s hold for a few minutes as Rayne puts a few things away in the kitchen. When she comes out onto the balcony, he reaches up for her and Din hands him over. He heaves a tiny sigh, closes his eyes, and purrs in a manner that makes it clear he’s ready for a nap.

Rayne catches Din’s gaze in a silent question. Where?

He tips his chin to Yadier’s nap crate in the corner of the balcony. “Out here is fine.”

She gets their son settled down and he’s asleep the moment she tucks him in. Big day, apparently. By the time she makes her way back to Din, he’s picked his helmet back up. His attention is focused on it once more as he uses a small brush to paint a long, thin, gray stripe down the back of it, just to the left of the louver. He’s already added two rust-red lines to the right of it. She angles a chair before him and sits, waiting as he finishes up. His face has returned to the solemn expression he had when she and Yadi had first gotten home, so she remains quiet, allowing him to finish his work.

He’s almost finished with the stripe, his head still down, when he says, “You have a stepdaughter.” His tone is soft, hesitant, as if he’s uncertain about what she’ll think.

“Hmm.” She considers, guessing this is what was distracting him earlier. “This is the second time you’ve made me a mother in as many months.” He looks up from the helmet, anxiety pulling at the corners of his eyes, but relaxes when he sees a hint of a smile on her face. “What do you know about her?”

“She’s twenty-six.”

Rayne considers the brevity of his statement and comes to realize that’s all he’s been able, or cared, to find out. “At least this one’s younger than we are.”

A brief smile plays over his face and he returns to his work, pulling the brush down along the beskar, a gray line following behind it. When he’s done, he sets the brush aside and holds the helmet in both hands, inspecting it.

“Any news on the other possibilities?”

He shakes his head in slow turns. “No. The dates on the files we have end with the Purge. The others happened later.”

Rayne gives a silent, thoughtful nod.

Din considers the new lines painted on his helmet, pleased with how they came out, even if it hurts to look at them. “Alaria’s dead,” he says, without preamble.

Rayne leans forward and slides her foot so it presses next to his. “I’m sorry, Din.”

“Twenty years ago. Job went bad. Not the Darksaber.”

She understands that somehow, that does make it easier. She understands what the lines on his helmet mean. She knows that the red is in honor of his parents and that the gray is in mourning for Alaria.

She notices that the way he’s painted them, long and thin, that he’s left plenty of room for more.

She wonders if, someday, he’ll paint one for her on it. If she goes before he does.

“Nu kyr’adyc. Shi taab’echaaj’la.” The words fall from his lips in a quiet murmur. Not gone. Just marching far away.

A month has passed since the foundations of the Mandalorian Creed crumbled out from under him. Two weeks have passed since he broke it entirely with the revelation of his face to his enemy sorcerers. He wonders if he is still, in fact, a Mandalorian. He knows that the Tribe of his last covert would not recognize him as such. He now knows that the Tribe may not be an entirely representative sample of what it means to be a Mandalorian.

He understands that if he is not a Mandalorian, he is nothing. His entire identity rests upon his experiences as a foundling raised in the Fighting Corps, a child soldier who earned his durasteel armor one trial at a time, a grown warrior who can defend himself and anyone he chooses to take under his protection in a galaxy that leaves few unscathed. He understands that he can no longer be the kind of Mandalorian he was raised to be; faceless, nameless, subsumed in his entirety by a culture of endless war, endless battles without hope.

Death Watch took him in, molded him, hardened him, and then shattered him.

But he’s adrift without them. A man struggling to reclaim his personal identity as the broken pieces of his cultural identity sift through his fingers.

Other kinds of Mandalorians live here.

He must find them.

He knows his foundation is shattered.

He must rebuild it if he is to move forward.

---

Din sits on one end of the couch, at home, waiting for the drug to kick in.

Rayne sits on the other end, legs curled up. Yadier is in her lap, sleepy, but attentive for now, his bedtime about an hour away. They’re both wrapped in a blanket, the open windows letting the cool night air flow through. The wind chime sings its low, gentle song out on the balcony and it drifts through the open windows. The baby watches his father, cognizant of the fact that something different is about to happen, but not sure what.

Dr. Kindall has just arrived and sits in a chair facing them. His attention is focused on Din. “Anything yet?” His voice is low and calm. Soothing.

“I’m… warm.”

Din is in full beskar and is now feeling the effects of MDMA.

The Mandalorian is rolling on therapeutic ecstasy.

“That’s a normal reaction,” Kindall says. Indeed, they had anticipated it, the reason for the open windows. “Don’t fight it, Din. Just let it happen.”

He takes a long breath in, holds it, and lets it out. “I know.” Fighting it will only make it turn south. Roll him right into a bad trip.

The warmth does actually feel nice. Cozy. Still, his cloak is stifling. He unfastens it from behind his chestplate, pulls it out, rolls it all up into a ball, and hugs it to his chest.

Kindall nods. “You may start to feel restless. Feel free to get up and walk around if you want.”

Din sighs, gets up, and does exactly that, still holding his balled-up cloak. He feels the urge to… dance? Maybe? Despite the fact that he’s never danced in his life and has no idea how? The sudden image of himself dancing plays unbidden in his mind and he finds it ridiculous.

A laugh bubbles up out of him and, following the instructions to not fight it, he lets it out.

Din Djarin, one of the most feared bounty hunters in the galaxy, paces his living room, cradles his cloak, twists his shoulders to and fro in a half-assed attempt at dancing, snorts through a few giggles, and finally busts out laughing.

Rayne and Yadier look on in amazement, the baby’s mouth a round O of surprise.

Neither of them has ever heard Din laugh.

Din chuckles, on occasion. Every now and then, a wheezy huff of air will escape his lungs when he’s amused.

But not a single living soul in the galaxy has heard Din Djarin bust out laughing since he was seven years old.

The few who had before that age are long dead.

It sounds foreign in his ears. He doesn’t recognize it as his own. That… should make him sad, but it doesn’t. Instead, he finds himself amazed that it’s happening at all. He laughs, and an unfamiliar lightness wells up in him. An unfamiliar release. An energy that’s tense but open at the same time, and as it pulls the corners of his mouth back into a smile, he finally recognizes it as joy.

He knows it’s only drug-induced, but he doesn’t care.

For the first time in his memory, he is joyful.

He laughs, and the padding on the inside of the helmet grows wet, and he realizes he’s crying at the same time. He’s never laughed so hard he’s cried before. He’s never wept tears of joy before. And he’s still happy but now kind of confused and he’s breathing too hard and he’s too hot, so he takes a knee before he can fall over.

A moment later, his son is there to greet him, waddling up, arms outstretched, eyes huge dark orbs of curiosity and concern. “Yadier…” Din breathes the name as he drops his cloak and scoops up his son. The little boy lets out a trill as he snuggles into his father. “I love you so much…” Din’s laughter subsides only enough for him to get the words out. “You’re so… adorable. How are you so adorable?” The baby laughs with him, laughing with his father for the first time. “I don’t understand how you can be so green and so wrinkly and eat so many frogs and still be so cute.” Din realizes he’s running at the mouth. Again he doesn’t care. He lets the words tumble out. “I love you so much…” He presses his helmet to the top of his son’s head. “I love you so much and I’ll do whatever it takes to help you grow up strong. I promise. I promise I promise.”

Rayne crouches before him, sensing his joy, sensing his confusion at his tears thereof. She slides a hand along his arm, just below the pauldron. “Laughing and crying at the same time is a thing. It’s normal.”

“Yeah?” He lifts his head up to her, laughter still in his voice. “I want this helmet off.”

Rayne looks to Dr. Kindall, who turns his back. “Let me know when you’re ready to continue, Din. Enjoy it. Take your time.”

Din releases their son, brings his hands to the helmet, and lifts it off, revealing large, brown eyes, pupils blown wide open, a tear-streaked face, and a sloppy smile. “Rayne…” He throws his arms around her, and the heat rolls off him. “I love you so much…” he repeats. “I know I don’t say it enough. To either of you. But I mean it.”

“I know,” she whispers into the space between his neck and his shoulder, the sweat on his skin salty on her lips. This, she has never doubted, the way he has always flooded her mind with it in his own, inadvertent way. The way he is doing it right now. “I love you too.” His arms tighten around her at the words.

“Mesh’la…” he says next to her ear. Beautiful. Not whispered. Not hushed. But full-throated and vigorous, almost lusty. It’s the first time he’s ever said this word to her, and he doesn’t see the flicker of pain in her eyes when he says it. It’s the first time he’s ever said it to her, but she can’t trust it because he’s stoned out of his mind and would call a womp rat beautiful if it looked at him sideways. She locks it down, even if she knows he’s too high to sense it. Tonight is about him, not her, so she turns her face into his. He reciprocates, meeting her in a long, open kiss, not realizing she’s drawn him into it to shut him up. Instead, he’s overwhelmed by the softness of her lips on his, the gentleness of her hands tracing along his jaw, the light pineapple taste of her on his tongue, and he soaks it all in.

A memory surfaces. Long and distant, yet suddenly clear. His parents stealing a kiss. In the kitchen while they make dinner and he sits at the table, coloring on a loose piece of paper. His mother smiling as his father leans in. It seems like this kind of thing should make him sad, but it doesn’t. He only remembers the happiness they felt in that moment. The way they laughed when he, in all the wisdom of his six years, rolled his eyes and let loose with a groan of, “Eeeew, gross.” Instead of pulling apart, they kept kissing, as if to tease him, and he heaved one of the innumerable sighs he would breathe throughout his life, returning to his coloring. A moment later, his father ruffled his hair. “Watch and learn, kiddo. You’ll do the same in another ten years.” He shook his head. “No I won’t.” His mother chuckled, a warm smile on her face.

His father had, of course, been right. Ten years later, with Alaria, even if it could only happen in the dark. Following the example of caring and affection that his parents had set, even if he hadn’t remembered it on a conscious level.

The same example he’s trying to set for his own son, right now.

He pulls apart from his betrothed, catching her gaze. “I’m so lucky I found you. Of all the people I could’ve taken the Crest to, I took her to you.” He holds her face in his hands as the words spill out of him. She takes it all in, unaccustomed to hearing him like this, unaccustomed to a verbose Din Djarin. She soaks it all up while she can. “You fixed her. You healed her. You healed me. You made our son strong. You made us whole.” He presses his head to hers. “No one else could’ve done what you did.” His voice breaks, and the tremor under it is still almost one of laughter. Of gratitude. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

She presses back into him. “I’m lucky you found me, too.” The man in her arms and the baby at her knee have upended her life. Upended it, emptied out all the boring garbage, and filled it back up with more meaning than she thought her life would ever have. Filled with love she thought she would never find again. Filled with challenges she never dreamed of facing.

And now, it is time to face the challenge of her lover’s fragmented mind. Now, he is swimming in a simulated warmth and happiness that will allow him to face the horrors of his past, to face the fractures in his psyche, to face these things head-on in a state where they cannot threaten him. Now, they have work to do.

“Are you ready?” she asks him.

“Yeah,” he says, and he pulls away. He picks up his helmet, looks at it for a moment as he holds it in his hands, then brings his eyes back to hers, a soft smile still pulling at the corners of his mouth. He holds her gaze, dark eyes shining in the dim light, then settles his helmet back over his head.

Hearing Din sigh through the modulator, Kindall turns back around in his seat to face his client, and motions to the couch before him. Din and his family return to their original positions, the Mandalorian on one end, the Jedi and enemy sorcerer baby on the other. “How are you feeling now?” the doctor asks.

Din takes a moment to consider. “Artificially happy.” The words fizz up out of him on a suppressed giggle.

“Do you care that it’s artificial?”

The helmet shakes a little harder than usual. “Not at the moment. I might think differently about it tomorrow.”

“Do you understand why we’ve made you artificially happy?”

The helmet nods, a shiny bobblehead on a shiny body. “So I can talk about things I otherwise wouldn’t be able to talk about. Makes it all easier.”

“That’s right,” Kindall says. “Like the nightmares you’ve been having.”

“Yeah.” Din says it with more enthusiasm than he expected.

“Can we start with one of those tonight?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Which one would you like to examine?”

“The one I had last night,” Din says. “It’s one I’ve had a lot.” He turns his head to Rayne and Yadier. “The one about them.”

“From what happened on Ilum.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you describe it?”

Din’s head is still turned, and his son reaches his arms out for him. Din reaches back and Rayne hands the baby over. A multi-tonal trill purrs out of him as he’s transferred from one parent to the other. He tries to burrow into the top of Din’s shoulder where the cloak is normally thickest and he lets out a few grunts, perturbed at finding only the shirt below. Nonetheless, he snuggles in as Din cradles him close, absorbing the warmth radiating off of his father, and his father, in turn, relishes his son’s face so close to his skin, the tiny sounds of his breath through his tiny nose, the tiny expansion and contraction of tiny lungs, the tiny squirming of tiny muscles as he gets settled. He could hold his son forever like this, high and warm and close and together.

“Din? Can you describe the dream?”

“Right, yeah.” He gives his son a gentle squeeze as he lets the images return. As they rise up in his head, he notices that they don’t drag the fear and dread and horror with them. Not this time. “It’s mostly just a flashback, except for the end. Like the others. I ran up the slope. When my vambrace picked up Rayne’s pulse signal, I knew her heart stopped.”

He halts when he hears Rayne shift position on the other end of the couch, and he turns to see her curled up, pulling the blanket back up over her legs, a slight shiver in her arms. Her eyes are round pools of blue, and he realizes she has yet to hear the circumstances of her death in such detail.

Realizing his mistake, the words pour out of him once more. “Oh… oh, shit… I never… you’ve never… you probably don’t want to hear this. I can talk about a different one. I can-”

“It’s okay-”

“I have plenty to choose from! I don’t have to talk about this one right now. I-”

“Din,” she interrupts. “It’s fine. I should probably know.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He breathes a sigh. It comes out shorter and sharper than normal, the ecstasy still speeding him up, but not in an irritated way. Yadier squirms in closer to him, and his son’s heartbeat thumps through the robe and his glove. He touches the face of his helmet to the baby’s head with a gentle press. “You’re in this too. You okay to hear it?”

The little boy burbles a quiet “Mmm” against him. Taking it as assent, Din continues once more.

“When I got to the ledge, they were already on the ground. Rayne was on her back. Yadi was strapped to her. Face-down. I got him out of the birikad-”

“Sorry…” Kindall interrupts. “Birikad?”

“Oh, um…” Din realizes he doesn’t actually know the word in Basic.

“Child bag is the direct translation,” Rayne says. “One of those front-loader baby-wearing things. Like a harness.”

Din’s shoulders crunch in a giggle he fails to suppress, and the baby giggles right along with him. “Child bag? Oh gods, you’re right.” He shakes his head, getting back on-target. “I pulled him out of the… harness, and he didn’t have a pulse. So I tried to defibrillate his heart with the vambraces.” He pauses and swallows, thinking. “This is where the dream separates from reality. What really happened is I got Yadi’s heart started while Cara did CPR on Rayne. By the time I got to her, she was already flatlined. I… knew defibrillating wasn’t gonna work, but I had to do something, so I shocked her till the vambraces went dead.” He takes a breath, surprised at how easily it has all come out of him. The images are still just as vivid, the pain is still there, but muted. Bearable. “I knew she was gone. And I kinda lost it. I got up, walked away, took the helmet off, threw it down, had some flashbacks of our time together. Then Cara called me back when Yadi started to heal her. And he brought her back. Kinda. She was comatose, but she was alive.”

Rayne watches him as he talks, his voice betraying only a hint of a tremor, knowing what these memories would do to him under normal circumstances. She imagines the scenario he describes, imagines her own body, dead and cooling in the howling wind of Ilum’s frozen hellscape, imagines Din’s helplessness at her death, what he might have done to himself had Yadier not survived.

“What happens in the dream?” Kindall asks.

“In the dream… I can’t bring Yadi back. The vambraces drain before I can start his heart again. He’s so small… he gets cold fast. I watch as his skin frosts over. I tell Cara to stop working on Rayne. Tell her she’s gone. Watch her freeze over, too.” He pauses again, where the dream once more approaches reality, only to veer away again. “I walk away. I take my knife out of my boot.” He turns his head back to Rayne, as if asking permission to continue.

“It’s just a dream, Din.”

He nods, turning back again. “I cut my own throat.” He brings a hand up to the side of his neck. “Get through both the carotid and jugular. But I don’t pass out like I should. I just stand there with blood gushing out of me. Blood all over my hands. I stand there and watch as it keeps coming, and this big puddle forms around me. It gets to about ankle-deep before I finally wake up.”

The doctor nods.

Din strokes Yadi’s back.

Rayne pictures her own death and the near-death of her son.

“Do you think the dream means anything?” Kindall asks.

“Not sure if it means anything in and of itself, but it reminds me of things I’m afraid of.”

“Like what?”

“I’m afraid of losing my family.” Din dips his helmet in another press against his son’s head, then turns it once more to gaze at Rayne as Yadi pats the T-visor. “They’re vulnerable to the Dark Side. Even if that doesn’t get them, they could die in battle anyway.” He turns his head back and Rayne senses that he’s closed his eyes. “It would serve me right. All the people I’ve killed. Punishment for all the death I’ve caused.”

“Is that what your family deserves?”

“No. But it’s what I deserve.”

“Doesn’t your family deserve to have you?”

“They deserve better than me.”

“They seem rather enamored with you.”

“Yadier didn’t have much of a choice.” But Rayne had. She’d chosen to join him. Join them. She’d allowed him to get close. Allowed him into her life. She had to be careful about who she’d let in, who could handle being with a Jedi, who she could trust to not rat her out to the Imps. Maybe she hadn’t anticipated the bond that had grown between them after that any more than he had, but it had happened nonetheless. And when they’d admitted it to each other, when he’d asked her to marry him, she’d accepted, in her own round-about hesitant way. She’d chosen him of her own volition.

And, truth be told, if he hadn’t been up to Yadier’s standards, his son would’ve let him know by now, as well.

Dr. Kindall has the same thoughts. “Rayne seems to have chosen you. Do you trust her judgement?”

Again, Din turns his head. Again, he’s surprised by how easily it all flows through his mind. The jagged edges that normally would’ve drawn blood instead lubricated by the drug. He looks at his betrothed, curled up on the end of the couch, her face the very embodiment of chiseled Jedi calm. Ever the even-keel, tempered with just enough warmth. “Yeah,” he says. “I trust her.”

“What does she see in you?”

He sighs, remembering the conversation that happened on this very couch a couple of months ago. “She knew what I gave up to get our son to safety. She… said I was kind.”

“Sounds like someone who deserves the happiness of his family. Sounds like someone who’s earned it.”

Din shrugs, half-way ready to accept it. “What about all the people I killed?”

“Did you enjoy killing them?”

“The Imps… yeah, sorta. The others…” Again, he shrugs.

“I think it’s fair to say that killing Imperials is morally neutral.” Kindall may have been born and raised on a secret planet, but he is no stranger to the horrors the Empire rained down upon the rest of the galaxy.

“I’ll buy that as far as the Imps go…”

“And the others?” Kindall asks.

“There were a few that I… should’ve been more careful with.”

“The galaxy is a mean place. Did you do the best you could at the time?”

“Not always.”

“Do you want to be better?”

“Usually.”

They continue like this for the better part of two hours, working through the recurring nightmares, working through the worst of the atrocities he’s committed. They take breaks every now and then for Din to get up and burn off some of the restlessness, to pace the flat, swinging his arms. Yadier falls asleep an hour into it, and Rayne tucks him into bed. Even so, after the two-hour mark, Din finds it difficult to maintain focus, distracted by the physical sensations of being high, having taken the armor off at one point, unable to bear the uniform pressure it places on him. He catches himself pulling at the hem of his shirt, recalling the things he’d promised himself he Would Not Do in front of their family therapist while under the influence: take off his helmet, and take off all his clothes.

They’d gotten around the helmet thing well enough.

He really, really wants to take off all his clothes.

He really, really wants Rayne’s hands on him.

All over him.

It doesn’t take a Force user to notice Din’s preoccupation with physical sensation when he keeps sliding his own hands over his arms and chest, helpless against the compulsion to feel everything he possibly can. “You’ve made a good deal of progress tonight, Din,” Kindall says. “I think it’s time that we wrap things up.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”

“Do you remember what we talked about for tomorrow?”

“Yeah. The hangover. I don’t have anything else planned.”

“Good. We’ll go over things next week. Good night, Din.”

Din leads Rayne to their bedroom the moment the door closes behind the doctor.

He pulls the helmet off first, his shirt following, before he pulls Rayne into a tight embrace and presses his lips to hers.

God, she tastes amazing.

The rest of their clothing follows, and they lay upon their bed.

He feels everything. Her lips on his. Every wrinkle of the sheet under his back. The press of her body against his. Her ribs under his fingers. The curve of her back under his hands. The warmth of her breath on his neck. He fails to suppress his moans as she moves against him, and he drinks in every bit of it. Never before in his life has he wanted so much to connect. To merge with another. To open himself up and be swallowed whole. And he knows, it just so happens that his lover is a Jedi. His lover can make this happen, to some degree.

“Please let me in,” he begs. “I want you to know… I want you to know how this feels…” He holds her face in his hands, and she nearly loses herself in those huge brown eyes with his pupils blown wide open. She opens her mind, just a little, just enough to understand the flood that rushes over him.

Every inhibition has fallen away.

Every fear has faded to nothing.

Love has replaced them.

Love and openness and the desire to share it all with her. To pull down every barrier between them. To share every touch and emotion and thought. To banish all the loneliness and doubts.

She kisses him.

She touches him.

She runs her hands over his body. A mix of saber-worn calluses that catch and drag over his skin and soothing gentleness.

He writhes under all of it.

Paradoxically, he’s not hard. This comes as no surprise to either of them – they know this is a common side-effect. He doesn’t care. He just lets himself enjoy her. Her hands roam every inch of his body. Her mouth follows, trailing fire along her path, and his whole body is now as sensitive as the one part of him that is now so slow to respond.

An idea forms in his mind and transmits to her, and she smiles as he moves to lay her on her back. Now it’s his turn to let her in, his turn to feel her as she feels him. And when he puts his mouth on her… oh…

Oh…

He has always understood the importance of what he does in these moments. The importance of giving pleasure to a partner. To give first, so that he may receive later. He is always gentle in these moments, his one respite from violence for most of his life. To prove to himself that he is capable of undoing a partner with tenderness and warmth, free of the intimidation and threat and brutality he’s had to wield against others. In these moments, he is free to drop the warrior from his persona and just be himself, naked of everything else, reduced to his flesh. Still an exertion of his power over another, but a consensual one. One that is always accepted with enthusiasm.

For these reasons, he has always enjoyed what he does now with his mouth and his hands.

But now that he can feel what it actually feels like…

He takes the opportunity to learn everything he can.

He had been taught what corresponds to what in a textbook sense when he had come of age. But knowing such things on a factual level is a pale shadow of knowing them on the level of lived experience. To run his tongue along a fold of Rayne’s flesh and feel it against his own skin, to slide a finger into his lover and feel the pressure of it inside his own body…

Her reaction indicates that the translation is true.

He learns.

He learns and he learns.

Her first release pulses and squeezes through him, and they are both joyful.

But they can have even more.

He’s hard now. He’s metabolized enough of the drug that the side-effect has fallen away, but he still feels its other pleasures.

He brings his lips to Rayne’s, and she moans at the hard length of him against her thigh. “Again?” he whispers.

“Please… please…”

He makes her ready again.

And when he sinks his flesh into hers, they both damn near lose their minds.

They both feel everything of themselves and the other.

Her tight, velvety wetness grips both of them. His deep, stretching displacement bores through both of them.

It doesn’t take long for her next release to sweep over them both, and yet his is delayed. Another side-effect. Which is fine. He wants it to last. Wants it to last forever. Never wants it to end. Wants to be linked to the woman who has saved his life for as long as they live. He rides the edge for what feels like a long time, both of their bodies slick with sweat. The ache of impending orgasm radiates from way down low, and she feels it too, joining his moans in a low, continuous chorus. Again and again, he brings her off, and they tremble as he keeps going.

Until… finally… finally his floodgates open, gripping, seizing pulses that absorb his whole body and they both cry out and they ride the wave for as long as it carries them.

They both sleep through the night.

No nightmares.

No waking up in the small hours of the morning.

They sleep like stones.

---

Din wakes up the next morning to broad daylight filtering through the blinds.

It doesn’t hurt too much – the blinds do a good job of cutting the light, but he wishes it was darker.

He finds Yadier curled up in his arms against his chest, fuzzy green head tucked under his chin, ears folded back.

He has no memory of his son joining them. That he slept through the usual grunting and bouncing and tossing and turning and trilling usually involved with this state of affairs speaks to his level of inebriation in the earlier hours.

Rayne is pressed against his back, one arm thrown around his middle, her breath warm and steady on his skin.

He closes his eyes.

It should all make him feel warm and snug, his son in his arms, his soon-to-be-wife wrapped around him.

But all he feels is miserable.

He knows it’s just the hangover. All the serotonin and oxytocin that his body dumped into his system the night before has burned away, and it’ll be a day or two before he regains his balance.

Normally, he would savor this moment. Being the little spoon to his lover, his son warm and comfy against him.

But all he wants is to be left alone.

He heaves a sigh.

Rayne shifts against him, waking up. She presses her lips to his vertebrae for a few moments as her brain re-calibrates against the despair rolling off the man before her. “Whoah…”

“Sorry,” he whispers.

“S’okay…” she whispers back, kissing him once more. “Was it worth it?”

He thinks for a moment, about all the things he was able to talk about last night, about how they no longer seem to haunt him. Still there, still painful, but manageable. Containable. No longer threatening to overwhelm him. He knows he has more work to do with it all, more processing while his brain isn’t in high orbit, but he doesn’t dread it like he used to. He feels like he can own it, now.

And then, the mind-blowing sex.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it was worth it.

---

The Jedi and the Mandalorian stroll through the market, their tiny green baby strapped to the Jedi’s chest, facing out so he can laugh and play with the vendors.

The old man drinking coffee on the corner sits up when he feels a creeping sensation work its way up his spine.

He’s been around the Jedi enough to know a Force premonition when he feels one.

It’s in his blood.

He was designed to read the Jedi.

He was born to fight alongside them.

He looks around and sees one about fifteen meters away, sees the lightsaber clipped to her belt, sees the baby of the unnamed but universally Force-sensitive species strapped to her chest. Sees the Mandalorian at her side.

It’s them. The Lost Son and the couple who had brought him home. The Clan of the Mudhorn. The Clan of Rollins-Djarin.

Inasmuch as Genesaria has celebrities, they rank as minor ones. Everyone knows who they are, but no one really pesters them. Thanks to Moff Gideon’s public broadcasts, everyone knows that Djarin stole the baby from the Imperial remnant, making him a planet-wide hero, the bounty-hunter gone rogue. Less is known about Rollins; only that she was instrumental in bringing Gideon down on Ilum, had joined the Rebel Alliance during the war, and that she was a survivor of the slaughter at the Temple on Coruscant.

The slaughter that the old man himself had participated in.

Good soldiers follow orders.

He stomps the memory down.

He looks again at the Jedi. Chestnut curls shin in the sun. A scar from a blaster-bolt graze peeks out from the neckline of her shirt on her left shoulder.

His breath hitches in his throat.

Gods above, it’s her.

It’s Rez.

He turns his gaze away as the Mandalorian turns in his direction, as if sensing his alarm. He closes his mind, willing himself not to trigger the Jedi’s telepathy with his panic. The old man doesn’t know if Djarin saw him staring or not, but he clocks the subtle threat when the Mando tilts his helmet and tightens the fist of his right hand near the holstered blaster on his hip. The man stares at his coffee, turning the cup in a slow spin on the table until Djarin turns back to the woman and the child.

Thirty-five years have passed.

Little Rez Rohan survived his chip-induced attempted murder of her. She somehow survived, grew up, got mixed up with a Mandalorian bounty hunter and the Lost Son, and managed to find her way to Genesaria.

He gulps down the rest of his coffee, gets up, and leaves.

CT-24EGL, code name Eagle, walks away from the ghost of his past.

Away from the ghost who has haunted his nightmares for the last three and a half decades.

---

Rayne feels her gut do a little flip just before Din turns at her side, but the vendor hands over a delicious-smelling melted-chocolate-something-or-other beverage, distracting her before she can think anything of it. She takes the first sip through the straw and closes her eyes as the perfect balance of sweet, bitter, cocoa, and fruit flavors flows over her tongue.

Oh dear god it’s glorious.

An indecent moan escapes her and Din turns back around, making the vendor laugh. “Dat’s right, honey,” she says. “My cocoa-luna make aaaalllll da men jealous. Canna’ satisfy der women like I can.” She gives Din a broad smile and a good-natured wink.

Din snorts. “She’s louder with arguez.”

Rayne almost chokes but manages to swallow what she already has in her mouth as the vendor howls with laughter. Even Yadi giggles around the meat stick he’s munching on, and both parents secretly hope he has no idea what he’s actually laughing about. Rayne gives Din the meanest glare she can manage, which isn’t much at the moment. “Did you seriously just make a sausage joke?”

“Play meaty games, win meaty prizes.” His tone is dry as he directs the cant of his helm to the vendor, who is now dabbing at the tears on her face with a towel.

“Ooohhh, Mando,” the vendor shakes her head, tan skin glistening in the sunlight. “You win. You win. Here,” she hands him another cup of the same with an extra-long straw. “On da house. Your aim is true. You are da best hunter in da parsec!”

He accepts the cup with a gracious nod of thanks, having learned that turning down small tokens of generosity in this neighborhood is more insult than not, and they continue on their way. Threading the straw though the port on the helmet, he almost stops in his tracks at his first taste. “That… really is good.”

“Thank you,” she says, then pulls another sip through the straw.

“Happy birthday,” he answers. “You can’t call me old anymore.”

“You’ll still hit forty-six before I will, buddy.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh as Yadier giggles again. Din cranes his head down in the baby’s direction. “You’re not helping.” His son gives him a raspberry.

He’s forgotten about the man he caught staring at them already.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu

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stanmammon · 4 years ago

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Domestic Life Series: Lucifer

(early birthday present for Luci! Love you bby)

Who kisses the other on the nose and the one receiving the kiss blushes?

Lucifer is always surprised when you beckon him closer just to plant a kiss on his nose, asking if that was truly all you wanted out of him. When you tell him that sometimes light-hearted simple affection suits a situation better he would agree, saying he just didn’t expect you to take such a gentle approach with someone like him. He confessed that he didn’t dislike it though he knows he’d never hear the end of it from his brothers about what a cutesy demon Lucifer was turning into that he accepted such loving gestures like a kiss on the nose.

Who sits on their partners lap as they wrap their arms around their partners neck?

It doesn’t happen often enough in your opinion but you loved seating yourself on Lucifer’s lap, enjoying the shocked expression not from just him but from the others around him as well. Diavolo and Barbatos seemed to be the only two who didn’t react with surprise, likely knowing of the relationship between you and Lucifer better than anyone else (involuntarily, as Lucifer wasn’t the type to gossip). It’s something that happens more in private than not, with you trying to steal his attention in the most direct way possible short of verbally demanding it. This was hit or miss depending on his mood as it often had him effortlessly picking you up to toss you on his bed, telling you to wait patiently until he was done your work or you wouldn’t be doing much sitting for the next week when he was done with you.

Who kisses the inside of their partner’s palm before reassuring them everything is going to be okay?

You knew Lucifer could be rather high-strung and that he put a lot of pressure on himself as the oldest brother so you attempted to find little things to give him some peace of mind. For the most part Lucifer preferred action to just physical affection so you assured the chores in the house were done properly and that his brothers weren’t getting into any petty squabbles over easily solvable things; for the most part you were quite helpful in that aspect. But sometimes the stress from school or doing tasks for Diavolo, things you could not help with, piled up to the point the only thing you could do was show Lucifer you supported him. He always found it amusing when you kissed his palm, delicately removing his glove before you did so to make some sort of show out of it; he told you that surprisingly it did actually calm him, allowing him a moment of peace to gather his thoughts before he dived back in.

Who initiates the forehead touch?

It always seems to be a mutual thing, the two of you drawn to one another in a time of need. You joked that two heads were better than one and Lucifer always chuckled lightly at that, saying he doesn’t know if he could stand having two heads on his body but he’s glad he has an outside source to rely on. You like it best when Lucifer’s hands are holding your face, even more when his gloves are off and you get to feel his warm skin against your cheeks. There’s something that feels so much more intimate when Lucifer removed his gloves, as though he was removing that outside layer he showed the world and was trusting you enough to see his real self behind closed doors.

Where do they first say “I love you”?

Walking down a cobblestone pathway towards a beautiful fountain, you remember clearly that you and Lucifer had been running around trying to prepare the perfect party for the twins. It required a lot of effort on both of your parts to get enough food to even potentially satisfy Beel but you were more than happy to help Lucifer, turning to him with a bright smile as you told him you were excited to see his reaction to the carefully prepared menu you’d come up with. Seeing that fondness for his brothers sets Lucifer’s heart alight and he feels like he can’t bear to hold back his feelings any longer, suddenly grabbing you and pulling you closer to him without warning. While you’re looking up at him with a startled look on your face he confessed to you which only furthered your confusion; the moment is, of course, interrupted by Mammon and Lucifer resented the fact that his first ‘I love you’ moment was completely spoiled but you promise that you, at least, remember it fondly.

Who wraps their arms around their partner who’s cooking?

Lucifer knew you did it both as a greeting and to be nosy as it was rather unusual to see him in the kitchen, cooking seemed to be the thing he did the least around the house if he could help it. You don’t think he’s a bad cook or anything like that but fending off Beel at the same time must have exhausted him; you enter under the guise of being a guard of the unused ingredients until it was time to add them to the meal but Lucifer caught you snacking constantly, threatening to ban you from the kitchen while he’s cooking right alongside Beelzebub. He preferred you hold him from behind because then at least he knew where you were and what you were up to.

Who breaks out the first aid kit when the other gets a paper cut?

Lucifer never stressed about much and while he did think you should be more careful; he wasn’t really the overly doting type. Or at least that’s what you thought initially but when it came to your safety Lucifer seemed incredibly thorough, taking care of even the smallest wounds you sustained as he didn’t want your condition to potentially worsen into a bigger problem. He used to be able to hide this behind not wanting Diavolo’s program to fail but in the end, his care is born from the deep love he felt for you and the fact of the matter is it hurts him to see you in any sort of pain.

Who cuddles up to the other?

There’s no safer place than in Lucifer’s arms, something he seemed quite happy to hear though he told you not to stroke his ego too much or else he’d have to put even higher expectations upon you. It was almost too natural for you to curl up into his side when the opportunity presented itself and even Asmo had pouted about how you were practically glued to Lucifer’s side, saying he wanted some of your loving cuddles too. Lucifer, of course, would not allow such a thing as this affection was for him and him alone, telling Asmo as such with a threatening aura that told the Avatar of Lust that he shouldn’t push the issue.

Who falls asleep on who? What is their reaction when the other falls asleep on them?

Lucifer is almost always working, late nights not being the least bit unusual to him, which is why it’s so unfortunate he can’t seem to stay up too late when he’s actually doing something he enjoyed. You noticed it happens when he drinks a little as well, nodding off and eventually falling asleep on your shoulder while you’re in the middle of watching a movie or listening to music together. You find yourself happy at the thought that Lucifer trusted you enough to fall asleep without worrying about you taking a picture of his sleeping face (which you absolutely did, but you told him about it and it was a photo that was just for you so he allowed it to continue existing).

Who likes to be held and who likes to hold?

Lucifer liked to be the one holding you. Having you in his arms made the relationship feel even more real, a friendly reminder that you were his and his alone because you were at his side. Lucifer didn’t often initiate cuddling which is why you knew he was in a mood when he pulled you close to him, wanting to lay in silence together without any type of forced conversation. Sometimes when he woke up at night he felt like nothing around him was real, that something was just about to pull the rug out of from under him and he’d learn that all that had happened to him the past few years was just a sham. The relieved hug he gives you shows just how much you meant to him even when he couldn’t find the words to say out loud.

#Obey Me!#Obey Me Imagines #Obey Me #Obey Me x Reader #Obey Me! x Reader #Obey Me Lucifer #Obey Me Lucifer x Reader #Domestic Life Series

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etherrreal · 4 years ago

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“5:00am”

Pairing: ushijima x reader Genre: fluff Summary: looking back, you’re not sure what made you think that jogging with ushijima would end in anything but complete and utter disaster, but it’s too late to go back now WC: 5k Warnings: brief mentions of non-serious injury, a little blood, implied smut, too many paragraphs about ushijima’s hands A/N: first fic gang! this was supposed to be like 500 words but as the blog title suggests, i’m a liar -Dawn

You’re not sure what possesses you to go jogging with Ushijima at the ungodly hour of 5AM –and on a Saturday, no less– but here you are, tugging a windbreaker over your tank top and leggings while he waits for you by the door.

Most of it, you’re sure, is just because you miss him. The two of you have been so busy lately –you with your new job, him with the whole professional volleyball thing– so this is the first weekend in a while that you’ll actually be spending together.

It’s only natural that you want to spend as much time as possible with your boyfriend before your respective commitments are back to pulling you both in opposite directions, as they have more times than you’d like to admit in the past four months you’ve been dating.

Or maybe 5AM-you, lacking caffeine, sleep, and any sense of real judgment, is just losing your mind.

Ushijima certainly seems to think so, if the look he gives you when you volunteer to accompany him on his routine morning jog is any indication. He’s far from the most expressive person you’ve ever dated, but you’ve been with him long enough to register the surprise on his features; the way his pretty olive eyes widen a fraction and the way he pauses to watch you, like he’s trying to gauge how serious you are.

“What?” you ask as you join him by the door, removing your slippers.

He raises an eyebrow at you. “You hate running.”

“Running? Absolutely. Jogging, however, I think I can handle, especially if it’s with my handsome boyfriend who I haven’t spent nearly enough time with lately.”

With your slippers out of the way, you move to reach for your sneakers next. A quick glance in his direction confirms that he’s still giving you that same bewildered look, a crease forming between his eyebrows. It makes you falter as you pick up your sneakers, wondering if you’ve made a mistake.

Now that you think about it, he does usually jog on his own. The two of you are no strangers to working out together –if him doing push-ups with you perched comfortably on his back counts as working out– but you’ve never actually joined him on a morning run before.

Is this something he prefers to do alone? Are you overstepping his boundaries by inviting yourself along before checking to see if it was okay? Suddenly, you find yourself wishing you would’ve asked first.

“Do you...not want me to go with you? Because if you’d prefer to go alone, that’s totally fine, I’ll just–”

He catches your wrist before you can put your sneakers back down, and the rest of your sentence is lost somewhere between the fingertips he presses against your skin and the other hand he uses to lift yours.

It’s almost criminal, you think, the way a single touch from him is enough to completely derail your train of thought, whatever you were babbling about suddenly the furthest thing from your mind. You think you shouldn’t be as phased by it by now, not after all the time you’ve spent together, but no such luck.

Really, it’s his hands that are the problem, now that you think about it. His hands, steady and calloused and strong, but still so undeniably gentle and patient when it comes to you.

It’s hard to pick your favorite feature of Ushijima’s when he looks the way he does –all tanned skin, broad shoulders, and chiseled abs– but his hands are pretty high up on your list. They have been from the moment you met him at Iwaizumi’s housewarming party last year.

You had obviously seen him before, though you never actually spoke to him until the party. It was mostly during high school volleyball matches between Aoba Johsai and Shiratorizawa, courtesy of your childhood friendship with Oikawa and Iwaizumi.

You remember spotting Ushijima and thinking he looked so serious and unapproachable, even more imposing than he did in the photos of him featured in that Monthly Volleyball magazine you used to watch Oikawa vandalize with ridiculous-looking mustaches and devil horns.

When you saw Ushijima at Iwaizumi’s party, he still looked serious, not to mention larger and even more intimidating in person, but his hands were warm and kinder than you were expecting, careful in the way they wrapped around yours when he introduced himself. It was only hours later when those same hands reached for yours again to help you off the couch that you realized you spent the whole night with him.

Now, months later, you’re standing with him in his stupidly expensive apartment, half-panicked that you might’ve overestimated his desire to spend time with you. But Ushijima’s hands are still steady and warm against your skin, even now, reassuring in a way you don’t think you’ll ever get tired of.

“I’d love it if you joined me,” he says, pressing a soft kiss to the back of your hand, and if you weren’t smiling before, then you definitely are now.

You pull on his hand to tug him down towards you, a request that he silently obliges. You perch on your toes to reach him and deliver a chaste kiss to his lips, smiling against his mouth. When you pull away to look at him, you find him smiling, too, in that soft and subtle way of his that you’re so glad he’s chosen to share with you.

“Just promise me you’ll be careful,” he adds. “We’ll be running for a while, and I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re clumsier than most.”

Sadly, he’s not wrong. You are pretty clumsy, almost cartoonishly so. He’s watched you bang your leg on his dining room table practically every time you pass it, heard you curse to yourself after accidentally knocking down every item in his shower. At this point, holding your arm in his is as natural to him as breathing, just so he’s there to keep you from tripping over your own two feet.

And while you definitely appreciate the concern, you don’t think it’s entirely necessary, at least not for this. Sure, you have a bad habit of falling on your ass more often than not, but you’re also able to do so without sustaining any major injuries. You’re confident this time will be no different.

Besides, it’s just one jog. You’ll survive, even if your muscles might hate you for it later. Still, you know he worries about you, which is why you reach up to give him another quick kiss.

“Deal,” you assure him once you pull away. Then, you grin, voice taking on a more teasing edge as you look up at him. “As long as you promise not to be embarrassed when I leave you in the dust. You know, since I’m just so naturally athletic.”

Ushijima’s never been the best at detecting sarcasm, but with you, like so many other things, it’s different. He can tell you’re joking by the way you giggle and wink at him, and when he huffs out a quiet laugh, you smile and sit down to put on your sneakers.

He surprises you when he kneels to tie them for you before you get the chance to do it yourself.

“Careful, Wakatoshi,” you warn him, not for the first time. “If you keep being so sweet to me, you’ll never be able to get rid of me. You might just be stuck with me forever.”

“That’s fine,” he says, like he’s already considered the consequences before and has chosen to accept them. “You’re the only one I can imagine being with for that long, anyway.”

He moves on to tie the laces on your second sneaker, taking zero responsibility for the way his words make your heart flutter in your chest. He always does this: says stupidly romantic things with barely any prompting and absolutely no consideration or even awareness of the effect they have on you.

His voice doesn’t change when he says them, either. He uses the same blunt tone he always does, like it’s a simple fact, like he’s asking you to pass him his phone charger instead of alluding to a potential future with you.

It just makes you fall that much more in love with him.

Not that you’ve actually told him yet. You’re still waiting for the right moment. You wonder if maybe this might be it, but then he stands up and turns away from you to open the door and the opportunity is gone.

Maybe that’s for the best. This morning, you decide that you can handle jogging with your pro-athlete boyfriend or confessing your love for him, not both. The latter will just have to wait for dinner tonight, assuming you make it back in one piece and your legs don’t just fall off from the sudden exercise.

You stand up and follow him out the door.

Ushijima insists you both take the time to stretch before you actually start running, so you spend a few minutes doing so in the empty lobby. You pretend to struggle with a few of them, just so you’ll have an excuse to have his hands on you.

You’re almost positive he sees through your little ruse, if the amused look he gives you is any indication, but he doesn’t complain, guiding his hands over your body to help you bend and stretch like he can’t see the grin on your face.

Once you’re all warmed up, you’re ready to start jogging. You follow behind him as he leads you along his usual path down the block, the streets noticeably empty, save for the occasional passing car.

You know the only reason you’re able to keep up with him is because he’s slowing down for you, but you don’t let it bother you. He’s a professional athlete, after all, and you’re the kind of person who doesn’t even like to run to catch the bus, so it’s to be expected. Still, you give it your all, remembering to keep your breathing steady just like he taught you.

And you have to admit, your aversion to any sort of cardio aside, jogging with Ushijima is actually kind of fun.

For the first five minutes, at least.

Then it all goes to shit.

You’re not sure how it happens, either. One moment, everything is great. Sure, you’re already feeling a little sweaty, and maybe your lungs are screaming at you just a tiny bit –the price of inactivity, and all that– but you power through it because, in the words of so many great orators before you, mama ain’t raise no bitch.

But then you trip on something –a pothole in the street, your own foot, who the hell knows– and suddenly you’re wiping out for the entire world –or maybe just your boyfriend and that one stray cat you passed, which is still pretty embarrassing– to see.

Ushijima’s quite a few feet ahead of you now, because as much as he tried to slow down for you in the beginning, you figure he just can’t help but speed up a bit. He’s not the type to do anything half-assed, not even a casual morning jog. You’re almost grateful for it in a way, because it means he doesn’t actually see you trip and stumble like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time.

He does, however, hear the yelp that escapes your throat, making him glance over his shoulder just in time to see you fall forward. He runs back towards you, but he’s too far to reach you in time, and your knees hit the pavement hard, your hands shooting out to catch yourself as best as you can.

You don’t even have to look to know that the skin on both your knees and your palms is scraped up. There’s also a shooting pain that starts at your ankle and darts right up your leg, reassuring you that you most definitely stepped on it wrong.

Ushijima is by your side in an instant, normally stoic face scrunched up with worry. He helps you twist yourself into a more comfortable position on the sidewalk, though it does little to ease your embarrassment or your annoyance with your own incoordination.

“I’m okay,” you try to reassure him, but that’s not entirely the truth. Your palms are stinging and your ankle is throbbing, not to mention the fact that your knees currently resemble a cat’s scratching post. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

The look he gives you is doubtful, and you know for a fact he doesn’t believe you at all. “You’re bleeding.”

And holy crap, you are. It shouldn’t be a surprise to you, since you felt the entire thing, but the sight of the blood on your knees and palms still stuns you a bit.

“Come on.” He wraps his arms around you, pulling you up with ease you would normally marvel at if it didn’t make you feel so pathetic. “We’re going back. I’ll be able to treat your wounds and take a better look at your ankle.”

“Whaa– but we’ve barely even started jogging!” you protest, pouting despite the stinging of your cuts. “I told you that I’m fine, Toshi. I can still walk–”

You try to put pressure on the ankle you rolled and immediately wince. You almost stumble forward again, but this time Ushijima is there to catch you, holding you against him with his arms around your waist.

“No, you can’t. You need to treat your injuries, so stop being stubborn and let me help you. We’re going back.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, eyebrows drawing together in frustration –mostly at yourself– but stubborn as you are, you know he’s right. There’s no arguing your way out of this one, not that he would listen to you in the first place. He’s always been protective of you, which means he won’t be budging on this.

You heave a defeated sigh but nod at him anyway, relenting. He helps you hobble along with your arm around his shoulders and his arm around your waist for a few steps before he seems to think better of it.

In one fluid motion, he’s picking you up in his arms, holding you bridal style against his chest. And while normally his arms are one of your favorite places to be, the fact that he has to carry you like this all because you’re an idiot who can’t watch where you’re going is doing nothing to ease your already damaged pride.

You try to convince him to put you down and let you walk on your own, but unsurprisingly, he doesn’t agree. Your face, which is already warm with embarrassment, just seems to heat up even more. Your mortification only increases when you spot his apartment building a few streets later.

God, the two of you were running for what, maybe five minutes? Six? And now you’re already back home? Talk about embarrassing. And right after you promised him to be careful, too.

The fact that the pothole –which you are now deciding to blame for your fall, because you don’t think your ego can handle anything else– had the audacity to trip you and then not immediately swallow you whole to save you this embarrassment is honestly disrespectful, at this point.

Ushijima was right earlier. You do hate running. And you hate yourself even more for believing that jogging at any hour –least of all 5AM– would end in anything other than complete and utter disaster.

Your only consolation is that it’s so early, chances are that no one else saw you trip and almost eat shit in the middle of the street. It’s the little victories that count, you suppose, though you might just have to burn this outfit later to rid yourself of the reminder. You’re not sure how you’re ever going to live this one down.

Thankfully, the universe seems to take some pity on you, since you don’t pass any of Ushijima’s neighbors in the lobby. He maneuvers you into the apartment, managing to close the door behind him and remove his sneakers without putting you down.

When he does finally let you go, it’s to place you delicately on his bed. He disappears from the room and returns a moment later with a first aid kit and an ice pack, while you flop defeatedly onto your back against his pillows, pouting.

“I can’t believe I actually fell.” You groan, throwing an arm over your eyes. You feel the bed dip beneath his weight as he sits beside you, but you still don’t move. “The one time I willingly decide to run, and this is what happens. We didn’t even make it past the supermarket!”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It could’ve happened to anyone,” he says, opening the first aid kit. His voice is as straightforward as ever, but you know he’s trying to comfort you in his own way. “Besides, it could’ve been a lot worse.”

“Worse than twisting my ankle and making a fool of myself five minutes in?” You shift to prop yourself up on your elbows and raise an eyebrow at him. “How?”

“You could’ve twisted your ankle and made a fool of yourself two minutes in instead.”

The bluntness of his response makes you snort, cracking a half-smile as you push yourself to sit up fully. “Good point.”

You watch as he gets to work, mesmerized by how careful he is with you. He takes your palms in his hands, wiping away the blood gently and cleaning the small scratches it reveals. The scrapes on your knees, which he moves to next, sting more, but he moves slowly enough that it doesn’t overwhelm you. He’s always taken such good care of you, and this time is no different.

After all of your scrapes are covered, he examines your ankle, which is unsurprisingly the worst of your injuries. When he helps you tug your sneaker and sock off, you can both see it’s already swelling.

It’s not broken, he assures you, but it is lightly sprained. You’ll need to rest and compress it until you’re ready to walk on it again, but the ice should help with the swelling. He lifts your ankle on top of a few pillows to keep it elevated, covering it with the ice pack.

He moves higher up on the bed to sit beside you against the headboard, searching your face for any signs of discomfort. “How does that feel?”

“It still hurts, but it’s not as bad as before,” you answer. “Honestly, I think my pride is more damaged than anything else.”

You lean back against the pillows propped up on his headboard and sigh, unable to stop the guilty frown tugging at your lips. As grateful as you are for his help, you also feel really bad that he had to stop and take care of you at all.

If you hadn’t insisted on joining him on his run, then none of this would’ve happened. You would still have two normal-sized ankles, and he would be able to finish his run without having to worry about you and your chronic clumsiness.

“I’m sorry I ruined our jog,” you find yourself apologizing, fiddling with the hem of your shirt guiltily. “It was supposed to be cute and fun, but all I did was screw it up. I’m sorry you had to come back to take care of me.”

Ushijima shakes his head. “Taking care of you isn’t a burden. There’s no need for you to apologize.”

His hands reach for yours, large enough to engulf your own as he turns them over. His eyes follow the path his fingertips trace lightly over the band-aids covering the scratches on your palms. “If I hadn’t gone on ahead of you–”

You press a hand against his chest to stop him, his eyes flickering back up to meet your own.

As endearing as his concern is, he’s not the one at fault here. You don’t think anyone is, really, except for maybe that damned pothole you may or may not have tripped on. More importantly, you don’t want him to blame himself for this.

“Nuh-uh, nope, none of that. I’m the one who tripped, remember? It’s not your fault I suck at running. Or any kind of physical activity, actually.”

You pause, tilting your head thoughtfully as you mull over your own words. He watches the mischievous smile he’s learned to love appear on your face, hears the teasing edge seeping into your tone as you lower your voice just a bit.

“Except maybe the one that involves you railing me into the mattress,” you add with a smirk, playful and just shameless enough in a way that never fails to draw him in even more. “That one, I don’t mind, for obvious reasons.”

He sighs, though your words don’t surprise him. “I really wish you wouldn’t word it that way.”

“Too late~”

You’re practically singing as you grin at him, grabbing his chin and bringing his face closer to yours.

He mutters something about you having a one track mind, but you don’t miss the amusement in his eyes or the fond little smile he casts in your direction. He doesn’t stop you from pulling him in either, allowing you to rest your other hand on the side of his face.

“Thank you for taking such good care of me, Wakatoshi.”

You meet him halfway for a loving kiss that you hope is enough to express your gratitude, one he doesn’t hesitate to return. When you break apart, he rests his forehead against yours.

And right when you think you can’t possibly love him anymore, he promises quietly, sincerely, “Always.”

As usual, he gives you no time to recover. He kisses you on the forehead and then stands up, announcing that there’s something else he needs to go grab before leaving the room.

Honestly, you’re hoping it’s food. You’re starving, and after all of this morning’s excitement* (see also: trauma), there’s nothing more you want than to cuddle up alongside your boyfriend while enjoying a plate of your favorite breakfast food.

To your surprise –and slight disappointment– when Ushijima returns, it’s not with food or anything else to treat your injuries, but rather with a set of keys. He sits beside you again, opening his palm to offer them to you.

“Well, those aren’t pancakes.” You take the keys anyway, twirling the ring around one of your fingers before raising an eyebrow at him. “Are these what I think they are?”

“The keys to my apartment,” he confirms. “I want you to move in with me.”

Your eyes widen. It’s not the last thing you expected him to ask you when he offered you the keys, but it’s definitely not the first one either.

When he first held them out to you, you thought maybe he was just giving you a copy of your own to hold onto, just in case you ever needed them. You’ve thought about offering him the same a few times before, just so he could let himself into your own apartment whenever he comes over instead of you having to get up and open the door for him.

But that’s not what’s happening here. It looks like Ushijima’s chosen to skip the exchanging apartment keys step entirely in favor of just straight up asking you to move in with him. And while part of you is thrilled by it, your heart hammering in your chest with excitement at the prospect of getting to wake up next to him every day, of getting to come home to him, there’s another part of you that’s wondering if maybe you’re moving too fast.

It’s not that you don’t trust him, or that you doubt how much he cares for you, because you don’t. Your previous partners couldn’t even spell commitment, much less agree to it, but Ushijima’s not like them.

He told you, not too long after the first few times you went out together, that he doesn’t believe in dating casually or wasting his time. If he’s with someone, it’s because he sees a future with them. Hearing that was a bit intimidating at first, but it was also extraordinarily refreshing.

Asking you to move in with him, you know, is just another step towards that future. And while the idea excites you, making you feel more secure and adored than in any of your past relationships, there’s a part of you that’s still a bit hesitant.

After all, what sets you and Ushijima apart –more than your senses of humor, more than your completely different levels of athletic ability, as evidenced by the ice pack and bandages you’re currently sporting– is the fact that you, unlike him, often get caught up in the “what-if’s” of a situation. Whenever you have to make a decision, you psych yourself out by imagining every little thing that could possibly go wrong.

He calls your name, tearing you from your thoughts. He’s looking at you like he already knows what you’re thinking, like he can see the tangle of anxiety you feel nestling into your bones. Maybe that’s why he reaches out to take the hand that’s not holding his keys, lacing your fingers together.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “You haven’t said anything.”

“I know, I know, I’m just...processing.” You give his hand a quick squeeze, moving the keys around in your other palm. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“Since my last away game.” He answers right away like he doesn’t have to think about it, like he just knows. Not for the first time, you find yourself envying his conviction. “I went straight to your apartment from the airport, and you were already there, waiting. I realized how much I liked the idea of getting to come home to you, and vice versa. I’ve been waiting for the right time to ask you to move in since then.”

“Wakatoshi, that was last month. You’ve known since back then?” You stare at him with wide, wondering eyes, your cheeks already warming at the implication, growing even warmer when he nods. “And you don’t think it’s too soon? You’re not the least bit hesitant about living with me?”

“Hesitation is only necessary for those who are unsure of their desires. I know what I want, and that’s you, if you’ll have me.”

If you’ll have me. He says it like it’s easy. Like he’s already yours, to love and to be loved by.

And he is, you realize. He has been for a while, just like you have. You knew you were in love with him this morning, and you’ve known it for weeks before that, too. You just weren’t sure when or how to bring it up, but now you are.

“I’d like that. I like you– wait, that’s not right.” You release his hand, and he stares at you in confusion, the corner of his mouth curving downward. You’re quick to smooth it away with your thumb, your eyes earnest and full of affection as you correct yourself, “I love you, Wakatoshi.”

The confusion in his eyes quickly transforms into surprise. You’re not sure what stuns him more: your confession itself, or the confident, doubtless way you say it. You smile at him and take his face into your hands, careful to move his keys so they don’t scratch him.

“I’ve known it for a while. I just wasn’t sure when to bring it up, but now I am. I don’t expect you to say it back unless you’re ready, but–”

“I love you,” he says confidently, unwaveringly, and now it’s your turn to be stunned.

You blink, taken aback for a few seconds before your lips begin curving into a goofy smile. “Really?”

He hums affirmatively, and after that you can’t do anything besides kiss him. He’s quick to return the gesture, moving his mouth against yours and winding one arm around your waist to pull you closer. He pulls back from you right when you’re about to deepen the kiss. You try to pout, but it’s hard to do so when you feel as giddy and over the moon as you do now.

“Does this mean you’ll be moving in with me?”

“Of course.” You beam at him. “I’d love to move in with you, Wakatoshi.”

He smiles, his arm moving up to wrap around your shoulders, and your own smile grows brighter as you lean into him, cuddling against his side and resting your head against his chest. Things between you are quiet for a few moments, both of you basking in the comfortable silence.

You’re shifting his keys in your hand when a thought occurs to you, and you can’t help the laugh that escapes your chest.

“So this is why you let me go running with you this morning,” you tease. “You knew that if I did injure myself, that would just make it harder for me to leave, so I’d have no choice but to say yes to moving in. How sneaky of you.”

“You volunteered to join me–”

“I know, Toshi, I’m just kidding.” You grin, tilting your head to look up at him. “So, what do you say we go make some breakfast in your kitchen? I’m starving.”

“Our kitchen now,” he corrects, and your heart flutters in your chest for what must be the tenth time in the hour or so you’ve been awake this morning. It can’t be healthy for you. “And I’ll be the one making breakfast. You stay here and rest that ankle.”

He kisses your forehead and stands up to head into the kitchen. You frown at the loss of his warmth, but another look at the keys in your hand has you smiling again.

Maybe jogging isn’t so bad after all.

Written by: Dawn

#ushijima x reader #ushijima wakatoshi x reader #haikyuu x reader #ushijima imagines #haikyuu imagines #ushijima x y/n #ushijima x you #haikyu x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#hq x reader #our writing #ushijima fluff #ushijima wakatoshi fluff #haikyuu fluff #dawn writes

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keilemlucent · 4 years ago

Text

pretty eyes & starshine: i

(NSFW)

hawks | takami keigo x reader

ao3

part i || part ii || part iii

beta’ed: @shadowworks & @keiqos (thank you!! 💞)

word count: ~9.4k

Keigo surrenders to losing himself in the blank-walled, temporary home he inhabits. He finds familiarity in the routine of aches, pains and pills.

You’re his only solace.

warnings: bodily trauma, medical trauma, PTSD, dissociation, suicidal ideation, alcohol as a coping mechanism and graphic description of sustained injury

a/n: oh wow so here it is, big sad fic :’^) part one!! it’s canon divergent from manga chapter 296 onwards.

this one has been a long time coming. please mind the warnings!! this fic deals a lot with trauma and mental illness in tandem. the warnings are going to change with the coming parts, so please be mindful. i don’t wanna get too sappy, but this piece has been my Baby for the past few months, and i’m excited to finally share. that being said, enjoy loves 💞

Everyone is fucked up after the War.

There is no kindness in an aftermath like this one, not so soon, and certainly not with dried blood of old comrades and mud still caking under its metaphorical fingernails. The world was in shambles, and every hero is along with it.

There is something horrifying about being at the center of it all, Hawks, no, Keigo thinks solemnly, all too often.

He’s used to the attention he’s getting, touches and poking and prodding by near strangers. Except, he was used to exclamations of how great and powerful and remarkable he was. Now, all the attention he receives is followed by little sighs and sad, broken eyes.

He’s sure he looks equally as sad; Keigo had been nothing but an empty shell since the War had ended and he’d been carted off to his hospital room. Numb despite all of his burns.

It’s the shock, he tells himself, he’ll snap out of it any day.

Any day.

...

And it is any day.

He wakes up to screaming from the next room over, agonized wails that pierce the air as his morning nurse enters. She’s over-worked and haggard while checking his vitals with a forced smile. They don’t make conversation with him much anymore, and Keigo doesn’t have the energy to try and force it. There isn’t enough in him to pretend that he’s okay enough to banter with folks.

If he still had his wings, he would’ve wrapped himself up tight in the plumage and let himself rot away in some corner. He’d let the dissociated numbness fade, however long it took, and then succumb to whatever psychological wounds revealed themselves.

Waste away, all alone.

But he doesn't have that luxury. He is in an overcrowded hospital with swarms of civilians and heroes, all stuffed in one place because the world doesn’t have the time to differentiate between the wounded, nor the space or resources to give different resources. Though, Keigo is a special case, hence why he’s had healers coming to him for the past three weeks since the War trying to coax his body into genesizing a new pair of wings.

The Commission’s hospital has all the bells-and-whistles that a medical professional could need, but Keigo, and so many others, are facing problems that don’t have good and easy roads to healing.

That’s assuming healing was even possible.

Keigo is convinced, has been convinced, that there is no way to come back from the War, nor the absence on his back, nor the shouts and cries of pain that echo around the hospital like a new genre of music that Keigo so desperately wants to scrub from his brain.

Things change, it’s inevitable. Everyone falls eventually, and he was just used to flying.

It’s a harder descent.

...

Keigo doesn’t meet you on any day, he meets you on a lonely night.

The evenings and early mornings were the most peaceful at the hospital. Most folks, three weeks after the end of it all, had serious enough injuries that they had to be somewhat sedated to sleep, either for physical or mental pain keeping them from sleep.

It’s morose, Keigo thinks, quietly and privately, but he craves those hours. All he hears then is the hum of air vents and beeps of his own medical machinery. None of the audible agony of the folks he was sworn to protect.

He’s slept most of the day, not lucid enough to do much else, and the nurses haven’t been giving him sedatives unless he asked (though he always did.) Without forced quiet, he’s antsy, fingers twitching and flaring the new (and growing) pains rooted in his (empty, isn’t that horrifying—) back.

He rouses himself, adjusting his scratching hospital garb (thin sweats and a cheap crew neck with the back almost entirely cut away). With his IV pole at his side, he resolves to take a few laps and quiet himself, hopefully.

(Keigo would need sedatives, he always did, but it was nice to play pretend that he didn’t. It made things easier for a precious hour or two.)

His laps are usually quick, despite how much his body aches when he walks. So much new, burnt tissue that needed to learn how to move, how to live again, kept him throbbing and gritting his teeth.

Masochism be damned, he keeps at it during his sleepless nights. Physical therapy wasn’t an option when the world was caving in with him at the epicenter.

There’s a common room at the end of the foyer of identical (filled) hospital rooms, just a collection of stuffy, uncomfortable couches that face an aged TV and a wide bay of windows. It’s rarely used, just a formality for when the space of the hospital had regularly hurt victims and heroes. When it wasn’t bearing so much weight.

Sometimes, he would stop to idly regard the mostly barren world around the hospital. Far from the cities, a little hideaway for heroes and their loved ones to heal in privacy. Other than sheer distance, there is a thick, organic shield around the complex. It’s a towering forest, man-planted with identical types of trees in perfect rows.

It’s grim in its predictability.

(When did he get so fucking pensive?)

(Oh yeah, too much time locked in his goddamn skull.)

He hadn’t been planning to have any inner musings that night.

But, that night, he notes that he is not alone.

On one of the hard couches, you sit, with your own IV-pole companion and injuries, an arm carried in a monochromatic sling and set in a hard cast.

You turn to him, blinking wide eyes at him.

There’s a single lamp on, and the light dances in your eyes with its own unexpected rhythm.

Something compels Keigo to smile, cocky, like he used to, and greet you with a little wave, and a finger to his lips.

Your expressions melts, a hand going over your mouth to stifle a giggle.

It’s like you’re pulling him after that, he finds himself resting across from you.

You must look like a pair, he realizes. You’re greasy, he’s greasy. He’s got a fine layer of built-up stubble that shouldn’t be called anything other than impressive peach fuzz (not that Keigo’s seen it, he’s felt it. The idea of looking in a mirror makes him sick to his stomach. Though you don’t have any pseudo-beard, you’ve got your own unkempt look and feel that makes you two kindred without sharing a word.

It feels comfortable, warm.

“Hi,” you speak first, voice soft and gentle. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nah, who can?” Keigo replies, shaking his head. “But what about you? Midnight oil doesn’t burn without a cause, you know.”

Your expression is also painful in the way it’s so open, yet worn (most everyone had locked up by now, the ones in the hospital and Keigo imagined the ones outside of it too.)

“I like the sky— the stars are pretty.” You sigh, wistful. “I watch for shooting stars.”

The thought, the significance of that obvious wanting, makes something pang deep in his chest. Childlike hope in a place like this, foolish as well as frail.

“Trying to get a wish?” Keigo clicked his tongue. “Smart.”

“No, no— wishing doesn’t... suit me, right now.” You snorted, shaking your head, the light in your eyes dancing, “I just think they’re pretty.”

Keigo blinks, unable to stop the way his eyes widen.

Your posture reads nothing but earnestness and vulnerability, so freely given (so undeserved) without a hint of pullback.

“What do you want to be called?”

“... Excuse me?” Keigo is not used to his thoughts being interrupted in the blanket of dark that he feels most comfortable in. Your words shock him enough with their meaning, let alone the way you’re so brazen.

“I, uh,” You stumble on your words. “I know who you are, but I also saw that whole broadcast, which I’m going to easily assume you don’t want to talk about. But, I don’t know how much you want to be called ‘Hawks’ at this point either.”

His mouth is dry.

“So, I ask instead,” You lean forward, your IV line pulling the slightest bit and you wince. His discomfort must be very fucking apparent, because you backtrack in moments. “... Or, neither. I can call you something else, too.”

“... A nickname, for someone you don’t even know?” Keigo, Hawks, whoever he is now struggles with words. There’s too many, and they’re all too fast, and he doesn’t have his wings to catch up to them or outrun them—

“Yeah, why not?” You shrug with a lazy smile. “I’ll call you... pretty eyes. How about that?”

Keigo does have pretty eyes. They’re gold, light and glittering amber in the lowlight. Before he, ya’ know, lost them, and when things were good, but awful, but normal, he darkened the organic marks around his canthi with liquid eyeliner. He liked makeup, prettied himself up and accentuated all the good he had. Preening.

None of that is left, just what organically was on his skin, and he hasn’t seen it in its raw state in years, and like fuck if he was going to look in a mirror just to figure out if his natural eyeliner was half as good as that by his own hand.

“Sure, that works,” He relaxes, mirroring your expression like the practiced... pro he is. “What do I call you, starshine?”

You roll your eyes, but nothing about you fades as you tell him your name, something that calms and fills him, “But, you can call me starshine if you want. Sounds nice.”

It’s sweet.

So, Keigo greets you.

“Nice to meet you, starshine.”

...

That’s the first time you kept each other’s company. Most of it is quiet, you truly do just want to watch the stars. Keigo did with you, tracing the shadows of clouds and moonlight with his eyes.

(Occasionally, his gaze shifts to you, regarding your figure with the same care for only a moment before returning to the sky you both miss.)

Eventually, the quiet heat of it puts him half to sleep, and he bids you goodnight.

You wave goodbye, rising as he away.

The light isn’t in your eyes anymore, and your warmth feels a little too far away.

...

The next days are long.

He slips into that shell-state again, where he’s a husk that stares emptily at the ceiling as the Commission tries to piece him together to a fraction of what he once was.

They fail, each time, because no healer they’ve brought can regenerate quirk-formed appendages, but he commends their efforts all the same. It’s out of desperation, sure, but he’s heard whispers of the new generation. In recalling his own sidekicks, he isn’t as scared for the future.

(Everyone else’s future. He’s so terrified of his own that he turns extra numb if he thinks about it.)

Selfishly, he just wants his wings for himself. They’d keep him plenty company. If he ever did get them back, he’d fly somewhere, faraway and alone to live out his days under his feathers and feel as empty as he wanted.

They fuss over him all day, not knowing those desires. They are private, and he only puts on his old, self-confident bravado so they don’t lock him up somewhere to have his brain picked and to fill the new holes with pill-shaped gauze.

As established, Keigo was content to rot.

(He can’t fully parse all of his feelings and they consume him.)

The healers for the week all failed, doing nothing but making his back bow and burn. It’s painful. Obviously, trying to stitch a body back together, or rather making a body make when it was so tired of creating—

(Feather after feather after feather, for how long?)

He’s glad his sessions are in a different room, a spare, horrifyingly metallic exam room across the hospital. It reeks like iron and isopropyl alcohol, but Keigo doesn’t mind. The filmy paper that rolls from the exam table gets soaked with his sweat as opposed to his familiar bed dressings.

Not to mention, it’s nice, not having to hear his neighbor’s screams and pleadings to God, any god, for reprieve. Calming.

(He feels less guilty. Less like it was his own hand that scarred up their bodies. If he can’t hear them, he only thinks of his own agony under ‘helping’ hands.)

His body is exhausted at the end of each day, and even his restlessness fades with the necessities of his body.

He doesn’t see you, and practically forgets about you.

It’s a week or so later when he takes one of his strolls, and finds you tucked away into your nook, dimly lit and with a blanket over your lap.

Keigo feels it as he nears you, that comfort that your expression bleeds into his very soul. Even as he watches your healthy hand nervously toy with the thin knit in your lap, it doesn’t dim you.

The lamplight dances in your eyes as you nod to him, “Fancy seeing you here, pretty eyes.”

“You’d never know it, but I live just down the hallway— me,” He touches his chest proudly, surprised by his own jest.

You gave a fake gasp, mirroring him easily, “Never knew I had such a well-known soul in my neighborhood. Forgive my transgression.”

Bending at the waist, as much as you can with your right leg extended, straight, you choke on laughter.

Keigo follows you in it, giggling, genuinely giggling, high and light and girlish like he’d never heard from himself before.

He snapped his mouth shut, thickly swallowing and shaking his head.

“No need to be shy,” You assured him with an affectionate turn of the head. “You have a lovely laugh.”

“Now you’re just flirting with me, cute.”

Your head tilted farther, confused, “I’m simply being kind to you.”

Why didn’t he have the snark to reply to that? Probably because he was half-dead and on painkillers for nearly a month. He’d beat himself up about it later, maybe.

There wasn’t an ounce of malice in your tone, just earnestness that tugged at his own insecurities.

You backpedaled. “How was your day?”

Keigo takes a few moments to respond, shaking his head without mind to the way his too-long hair flops in his face.

The banter isn’t forced, but it’s not welcomed yet.

As comfortable as you feel to him, Keigo isn’t comfortable.

“Same old, same old,” Living hell. “Boring, mostly. Painful, but dull. It’s crazy how much hell smells like cheap disinfectant, huh?”

You agree, quietly, “I’m pretty sure there’s many hells in this place.”

Keigo doesn’t know how to respond, so he doesn’t.

You both regard the stars again with growing reverence. Specks of light dance back in your eyes as you both settle into the hard cushions like they were made of goose down and Sherpa.

...

Your conversations are... disjointed, to say the least.

There’s an inability for words and phrases to flow between you. There’s starts and stops, stalls like an engine that putters on tarry oil without ever truly firing. There are good feelings, still, safety in silence before words as you stargaze together through the comfort of a window.

It should feel disarming, to be so far from the sky yet have no way to reach it. And it is, but Keigo can swallow the reality these days. It’s easier when there’s someone on the mend close by, sharing in the discomfort of a rawed mind and the comfort of a yellow-toned fluorescent bulb.

It’s unspoken kinship. Keigo never had time for it in the past, but now it was all he had. There had to be some cruel irony in it (as if there wasn’t enough in his life), but he couldn’t make himself mind.

Everything he’d once excelled at, everything he had was gone. He was barren and stripped (don’t think about it—), exposed to the elements in all the worst ways. At least the hospital was clean and safe, relatively.

It feels safest with you near.

Sure, your conversations were clearly that of two horribly broken people, but that wasn’t new or surprising. It simply was.

“Do you know constellations?” You ask one night, a colder one, where you’ve got two blankets over your lap.

Keigo thought for a moment, “A handful, but I never took to stargazing, you know?”

You don’t relate, just chew your lip, the light of the dim lamp dancing across your irises.

“Can I show you some?”

“...Constellations?”

“What else?” You crack a smile. “Come on, pretty eyes.”

Whatever you’d like, he’d do.

He can’t refuse, he’s already getting weak for you.

Shifting, Keigo joins you on your typical couch for the first time. Your IV poles, thrumming and humming their own rhymes harmonize, quietly and mostly imperceptible.

You regard him even more warmly, so close, a little smile playing on your lips.

“What’s your sign?”

Keigo deadpans, “What?”

“Like... astrology. What’s your sign?”

You wiggle your eyebrows, knowing the double-meaning of your words.

Flirting again.

Since when had he been so bad at it?

“Capricorn,” He huffs back. He keeps his back off the stone-like cushions of the couch— his scarring had been itchy the whole day prior— so itchy—

You tap the plastic-y fabric gap between the two of you, grabbing his attention, “Hey, pretty eyes. Stick with me, let me show you where that one is.”

So, you do.

Your light-filled eyes trace the sky’s nighttime freckles, searching until you find what you’re looking for.

“There,” Your finger raises, tracing the patterns in the air. “That’s Capricorn, can you see?”

Not really, the stars are just a meaningless smatter. If there’s some sort of pattern he’s supposed to find, he comes up with none.

“Not in the slightest,” Keigo rolls his eyes. “Show me again?”

You don’t reply, but rather scoot a bit closer, mirror his hunch and pose with precision and tiny adjustments.

He doesn’t dare to breathe as you carefully grab his arm, extending it. You lay your cheek over his bicep, watching from the closest view to his own that you could.

“Do you see now?”

The only starlight he sees is right in front of him, soft cheek pressed against atrophying muscles. Sharing your heat so graciously as you would so easily come to, you chatter about the stories that are written in the stars, by all cultures, for so long.

Keigo hears, but he’s far more focused on how he wishes you were even closer.

...

After that night, you always share the same couch.

You face forward, right leg always extended and stiff-looking. Keigo doesn’t mind, hardly notices. He faces you, fragile back bandaged and kept away from the unforgiving grit of the uncomfortable couch. It looks a bit uncomfortable, the posing of it all, but with the words flowing easier, neither of you mind.

You keep showing him stars, the constellations you can remember and see in the night sky.

Keigo makes fun and crafts his own, connecting new dots and winding stories about them.

“See those three there?” He guides your hand, close enough to share your breath. “That’s the comb of the chicken. Star comb, if you will.”

You snort, rolling your eyes and pulling your hand from his grip, “There’s no cock in the stars, pretty eyes. Chickens can’t fly anyways.”

You both freeze.

Keigo’s mouth goes dry—

Chicken can’t fly.

As much as you’re both learning to be human again, there isn’t talk of your injuries. Maybe, there’s mutual curiosity (you’ve been here two months. just for a broken arm, why?), but like fuck Keigo wants to broach the subject.

“S-sorry,” you stumble over your words, physically retreating. “Shouldn’t have said that.”

It is a fact, chickens can’t fly, but Keigo isn’t a chicken. He’s a debauched, defamed hero whose home is the same set of a milky white, hospital ward walls. Once, a real hero, before the war, before selling his morals just for a chance at rest, before blue flame— burning—

“Pretty eyes,” Your voice trembles, shaking and lonesome. “Come back here, now. Come on.”

You’re holding his cheeks, unkempt nails pressing (blessedly) a bit too hard into his cheeks. The heat of you is so close, almost scalding him, but he wants more of it, more of the heat that doesn’t burn—

“You’re okay, pretty eyes, s-see?” You hold yourself together, jerking your head to the wide window and glittering stars. “We’re just stargazing.”

Keigo’s has tears leaking down his face, but neither of you acknowledge them. You release him, quietly spinning another tale about a hero hung in the cosmos. He thanks you for it silently by tugging you into his side.

(It was the first night you really touched him.)

(The light in your eyes was so close, he wanted it all for himself.)

...

They’re running out of healers to try.

From the weakest to the strongest quirk, no one could revive his dead wings. There was no root to push from the scar tissue, nor resolve left in Keigo to try and make new pins and feathers sprout.

His back isn’t fertile. It’s just as poisoned as the rest of him.

...

He wonders where you disappear to during the day. He takes his strolls then, too. Waves to nurses these days, not charming, just friendly, trying to make a little brightness.

There’s one day where he asks one of the nurses he knows best for a pair of scissors.

She looks at him, worried, “Don’t tell me we need to put you on psych watch.”

“What? No,” Keigo shakes his head, shaggy hair quivering around the frame of his face. “I just need a bit of a haircut.”

“... We can ask the Commission to bring someone in—”

“I can do it myself.”

She doesn’t argue with the firmness of his voice, rather, she hands him a pair of safety scissors with bright purple handles. They’re for a child, but Keigo’s fine with that. They’d do.

When he was younger, and in a pinch (and so poor he tried to eat grass and lick scraps from metallic packaging of discarded junk food wrappers) he’d cut his hair with his own feathers.

Safety scissors would be even easier.

It did mean that he had to confront his own visage, which he had gotten too good at avoiding.

The bathroom in his room is small, it would’ve been claustrophobic if he was still carrying a twenty-five-foot wingspan.

But, he isn’t. It was just him and the scars on his back that he definitely wasn’t ready to see.

He’s caught glimpses of himself over the past weeks, but nothing substantial. No view that would’ve given himself time to scrutinize over his imperfection.

The dull hospital mirror reveals too much about him. It feels too vulnerable, makes his chest tighten, as he stares himself in his ‘pretty eyes’.

Purple stamps below his eyes, probably not from sleeplessness itself, just the sheer exhaustion of living. The one under his left is an odd maroon color, mixing with the scar that is burned into that half of his face.

The skin was once soft, plump cheeks always tended too and well taken care of by expensive skincare products. Now, it’s charred and gaunt. Healing, but still obviously scarred heavy and deep. The weak beard he’s been growing (accidently) is patchy around the thickened tissue.

It bothers him—

It doesn’t look like him in the mirror.

It helps to take care of himself for the first time in a long while.

He shaves with the cheap foam and single blade razor they’d given him in the toiletries pack the first days he was there, while he was still numbed out and half-dead. The metal glides over his skin, stripping away the numbness just a little. The stubble and cream slide down the drain and away.

His hair is different. The waves had for so long been pushed back and held that way with the winds of his flights. The longer, feathery patches now hang around his face, dangling down and mingling with the too-long sections that curl over his ears and down his neck.

Wetting his hair, he cuts away what he can.

It’s blunt, messy, and not elegant.

All the same, the trim feels good.

Though, his mood goes sour when the screaming starts for the day.

The far wall of the bathroom was shared by him and his shrieking neighbor, and he took great care to never shower when they were singing their awful chorus. It grates on his ears; he should’ve been a bit empathetic to their suffering, but he didn’t care that much. It was so regular, that the screaming that might’ve once sent each one of his feathers (don’t think about, don’t fucking think about it) sharp as the razor in his hand, didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Just a poke at his temple, a jab and a drop of water that irks him more than anything else.

It is a... somewhat pleasant distraction. He can focus more on his fellow patient than his own haggard appearance, the scar, the lack of red at his back—

It’s all okay, ‘okay’, until the patient starts babbling.

“M-make it stop!”

Keigo stills.

A scream tears through the drywall. Even without his wings, it makes him thrum, far-too sensitive.

“Help!” The voice yelps. “HELP!”

There’s a thud and thump from the other room.

“Please, please!”

Keigo’s heart stutters in his chest, and the razor falls from his hand, clattering into the sink.

“MAKE IT STOP!”

It’s you.

It’s your screaming and shrieking that’s burrowed in his ears. It’s your voice that’s trembling in desperation that has him running out of his room, nearly pulling out his IVs as the pole teeters and follows behind him.

Why are you screaming?

Why have you always been screaming?

A nurse is trying to stop him, urging him to settle but he can’t. There's an urgency in his chest he hasn’t felt since back before and he has to heed it. He needs to.

He pulls his forearm from the nurse’s grasp, hissing in his own pain, muscles pulling and aching with disuse but he doesn’t care.

The nurses drag him back from your door, and they almost have him, almost have him on the ground.

And then he smells burning—

Cloth.

Flesh.

And something in him snaps.

He clocks the nearest nurse with a tight fist, ignoring his atrophied muscles and kicking with everything he could muster.

They release him, probably out of shock. (He’d been such a model patient, so complacent and quiet until then.)

Then, he stumbles into your room, and sees you, and wants to die.

...

There’s plenty of times in his life where Keigo felt like an animal. When the Commission first got their hands on him, they took to studying and picking his quirk about to figure out the most efficient way to rebuild it to their needs and uses. Now then, he felt very much like an experiment, only half-human. He was too young to really ‘get’ it, but the feeling persisted.

Sometimes, he felt similarly when he played celebrity. The talk shows, the modeling and media felt hoops he had to jump through just to get a decent night’s sleep. It was an additional job aside from heroics, one he excelled at and entertained him. But that didn’t mean each flash of a camera didn’t suck him dry of a bit of his dignity.

He was sure you had to be feeling similarly.

You’re writhing and arching in your bed, curls of smoke rising from your papery hospital gown. Every machine in your room is screaming with you, bloody and loud and angry—

And scared. Keigo recognized well, and it drove pins into his heart to realize it was you.

It’s even worse when he realizes some part of you is burning.

At your bedside, he freezes.

Nylon straps wrap around your wrist, around your cast, and keep you held tight to the bed. You’re tied down, held to the plastic bed frame as you wretch and scream.

You don’t even notice him.

The smoke rises from your burning hospital gown. He rips it away, tears the burning section away with his shaking hand. It’s crass, and Keigo sees a bit too much. The gauze wrapping your leg below is burning as well, in little veins of char that burns black and smoldering.

Keigo tears it all away, he tears and tears—

And then he sees the wound.

He was trained, once, to see this type of horror and not bat an eye. That training was gone, and all that remained was his starshine with a writhing, molten wound.

Keigo is numb as the nurses drag him back to his room, trying to decide if he prefers the apathy and numbness to injury that his old heroism gave him, or the blinding pain of empathy when someone you... care about is hurt.

He can’t decide which he’d rather suffer with.

...

You appear in the common room a few nights later.

Keigo still takes his walks in the late evening, even if you aren’t there. If anything, he needs them more. He’s restless, always listening for the screams or howls from the next room over. His annoyance towards them was gone, and all that remained was a concern that knotted in the pit of his stomach.

There’s a sigh of relief on his lips when he finds you, nestled into a pile of blankets with your IV pole, watching the stars with sad eyes.

He joins you on your couch, cracking a decent joke that you don’t respond to.

Then, there’s silence.

It’s as loud as the stars are bright. The expanse of sound is filled by the hum of the cold air and distant beeping.

“I’m sorry,” Your voice shakes. “You shouldn’t have seen me like that. It’s not... Easy to look at. Or, I imagine it’s not.”

Keigo wants to rip the apology from your tongue and burn it.

“No, please, it’s alright,” He’s begging too much. “I get it.”

As much as he can, anyways.

You’re quiet again, biting your lip so hard it must be close to breaking skin.

“Can we... talk about things?” You ask, softer. “I can’t keep pretending.”

“...’Pretending’?” Keigo knows, but he selfishly wants to hear you say it.

“Well, you didn’t think I’ve been here for two months for my bum arm, right?” You laugh weakly. “And I’m well-aware that you don’t have wings.”

We just don’t talk about it.

“It’s nicer to look at the stars and pretend everything’s fine,” Keigo lays the statement down and regrets it.

Your fist tightens, jaw clenching.

And there’s more silence.

It’s deafening to Keigo, he wants to speak, scream, but you’re quiet next to him. He can fill voids with his voice so, so easily, yet he turns in on himself.

“I know, it’s all hard,” Tears drip down from your words, though your cheeks remain dry. “I know, but there was a War two months ago, and we’re still holed up in a place like this, and we never talk about why.”

You turn to him, light dancing slowly in your eyes. Your lips part to speak, but no sound comes out.

“... I didn’t want to ask.” Keigo speaks, gaze shifting down to your leg. He questioned why a broken arm would keep you here, but you can’t just ask that. “It’s bad form to ask a stranger about their injuries unnecessarily when they’re traumatized.”

“But we’re not strangers, not anymore.”

Keigo can’t disagree.

...

You had been in a conbini when Gigantomakia tore through your little suburb. It was a few miles away, but the ground shook as if the goliath was just outside the automatic doors.

Your demon was near, though.

It was a man from the PLF who tore into you so badly. Just some random, emboldened civilian who ascribed to Destro’s ideology hard enough to think about taking out his frustrations on ‘weaker-quirked’ individuals.

That meant the young couple getting slushies in the corner, the old man behind the cash register, and you.

(You’d told your roommate you’d be home quick to help her study—)

(Your roommate is dead, under several tons of rubble.)

“The old man died before the heroes even started trying to rescue anyone. The couple was begging each other to hold on, but only one of them lasted. He died within a few weeks of being taken here.”

There was just you.

You’d hardly been touched by the man, the fucking villain, who’d set his mark on you. But it was more than enough to leave a writhing scar.

Keigo asks to see it, and quietly, you oblige him.

You’re in a gown, you always have been. The hem of it is pulled up by your visibility shaking fingers, and slowly reveals the scar in the lowlight of the ever-present lamp. He’d seen it once, but that didn’t change how startling it was.

It’s molten.

The skin is gnarled, twisting and scarred worse than anything Keigo’s ever seen. It was like the gore of a torn flesh was frozen over your right side, from your calf, to your thighs to your pretty hips—

“It goes higher, but that’s not exactly couth to show you,” you joke, but neither of you laugh.

“... It’s not moving anymore?”

“Oh, yeah. It calms down, when it’s dark. Nighttime and all. It stops being so ornery.”

Keigo has a laundry list of questions, but with the expression on your face that just bleeds exhaustion into the air, and the fresh burns from the restraints on your wrists, he keeps quiet.

Maybe, three months ago, he’d jabber on about the injury, try to gode some information out on the villain, profile him, track him and beat the tar out of him for touching you—

But this is the present, and Keigo is a wingless soul. All he has is a prescription for painkillers on a rigid schedule, and the awareness that you both appreciate each other.

Keigo scoots to your uninjured side, lifting his arm up and around your shoulder. It hurts, it fucking hurts, but he doesn’t mind.

You tense for a moment, turning to him with wide eyes, scared like he’s never seen.

Then, you melt into him.

...

Keigo’s busy with healers the week, though none speak his language, literally. They’re international, foreign aid that’s been flown in to try to pick up the disaster of a society that’s been left in the wake of the War and the dissolution of Tartarus.

None of them make progress.

As much as it burns (haha) him to his core, he’s accepting the reality, slowly but surely.

...

Endeavor visits him.

It’s the morning after a particularly sweet night with you. You still sit together in the starlight, though you’ve run out of constellations to show him. It’s less quiet than it used to be, just little banter that flows between the two of you. It feels more genuine than his old bluntness, welcome after so much odd tension when you first started enjoying the heat of each other’s presence and the far-off stars.

You’d taken to spending time together during the day as well... As much as you could. Strapping you to your bed was for your own safety. Your broken arm had snapped the first few days at the hospital because of the severity of your spasms and flares. The nurses keep you wrapped up, but Keigo drags a chair close to your bed and talks to you as much as he can.

It helps you relax.

Though the days fill with tension as you try to negate the inevitability of your molten scar coming to life, nights remain calm.

And so, so sweet.

You’ve taken to tucking into his side, telling him little treasured facts about the cosmos. It’s easier to guide his eyes like that, as your cheek rests over his collarbone.

It lingers with him, the feeling of your casual touch, so tentatively offered and so graciously received.

He traces his own constellations over your gown, mindful of the flesh beneath that heats beneath his palm when he gets too close.

After one of those wonderful, early nights, Enji Todoroki enters his room with all of the gusto one would expect. Which is not very much, but the sheer presence of him is enough to make Keigo quake.

Just like the little boy from Kyushu, Keigo regards him with stars in his eyes.

The hero, not a speck of flame on him (thank god) pulls up a chair near his bed. Keigo sits cross-legged and cocks his head to the side.

“What brings you to my neck of the woods, number one?” Keigo smiles.

“Number fifteen.”

“... What?”

“Since my injuries, I’m mostly on bedrest,” Enji replied, folding his hands on his chin. “I’m number fifteen now, and that number will more than likely just drop. I’m not much of a hero with only one lung. I’m planning to officially retire at the end of the month.”

Keigo’s chest goes tight and it feels like he’s joking. He tosses on a tight smile.

“This is hardly time for a pillar—“

“I’m no pillar. I never was,” Enji sighs, running a hand over his scarred cheek. “The kids can handle this.”

Keigo breaks so easily these days.

“That’s not fair—” He had been tossed into this all too early and god it fucked him up—

“Hawks,” Enji sighed. “There’s hardly anyone left to fight. They’re either dead, missing part of themselves, or gone.”

“So, you’re giving up?”

“If I didn’t, I’d die.”

Coward.

No, just honest and smart.

“Since when are you this selfish?” Keigo’s own words surprise him, but he doesn’t back down. “And this wordy, number one? You’ve changed.”

He spits the last phrase like an insult. He hates himself for it and would hate himself even more for it later.

Enji’s face remains solid and unwavering. The twitch in his brow is the only indication that Keigo’s words were even heard.

“Since we lost, Keigo. Things have changed.”

Keigo knew, of course, but it didn’t stop the anger from rolling his belly.

“Oh, like I don’t fucking know,” If Keigo still had his wings, they would’ve been extended and fluffed, angry as the pinched skin of his forehead.

This was his hero, he couldn’t be giving up too—

“Rest, Hawks,” Enji stand up, “You deserve it.”

Seems Endeavor really died. Enji’s face is worn, his expression neutral and jaw slack. He looks hollowed out and empty, not an ounce or morsel of fight left in him, even for a flightless bird in need of some encouragement.

There’s more to be said, but Keigo’s too angry to listen and Enji doesn’t have the energy to try.

Whatever news the old hero had come to bring was left undelivered.

...

You settle together the next few nights, both so damn tired, even though you’ve done nothing other than lay around a hospital for so-many weeks.

The air always vibrates between the two of you, that comfortable warmth shared between mingling breath and senses. Light dances in your eyes, twisting and bouncing like something otherworldly.

(Maybe it is.)

Your fingers lace together, held in Keigo’s lap. You trace the others hand in relaxing little lines and shapes, trying to soothe each other’s wounds, always.

“One of the doctors said the scar might start shrinking,” You break the tender silence, nosing into his jaw in the same way an affectionate cat would. “They’re not entirely sure, but it’s been stable for a few days.”

Keigo’s feathery (don’t think about it) eyebrows shot up, “That’s amazing, and there’s only a few spasms this week, too.”

(He kept good tabs on you, he had to.)

You hummed in agreement, a sad smile playing on your lips as it so often did.

With a quick blink, the light bouncing in your eyes faded, and the world felt a bit colder.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do when I get out of here,” You pressed closer to him. “There’s shelters, and some cities are taking refugees, but I don’t—”

Your jaw clicks shut, brow furrowed and mood soured.

(Keigo, mind you, is still focusing on the lack of light in your eyes and the chill of the air in the room.)

Something stirs, deep in his gut, but he doesn’t say anything. How Keigo used to have such a mouth, he didn’t know. These days, all he can is act, like somehow the loss of his wings came with the loss of his tongue.

Tugging you by the waist, mindful of the tender scar, he pulls you close, internally resolving.

...

She, the main Suit, visits him.

(It’s his last visitor at the hospital.)

There are no trumpeters, guards, or the like. It’s just the haggard president, matching Keigo with his dark circles and creased with new wrinkles and far-more grey sections in her slicked back hair.

The air stands still as she pulls up a chair, burying her head in her hands.

She, the Main Suit, has never been one to inquire as to how he is. Many of the others at the Commission were sweet, kind to him in youth, but she was all business.

Some things never change.

She breaks the silence of the room, “... do you want to be done, Hawks?”

The cords in his chest tighten, gaze going sharper.

He doesn’t answer.

They meet each other’s gazes; twenty years of fucked-up emotion being shared between the pair of them.

“We’ve done everything. Every healer, every quirk, every treatment, conventional or otherwise,” she’s too soft. “There’s nothing left to try.”

He knew that, he had to know that, right?

His throat feels sticky as he swallows down bile, the scars on his back burning anew. It’s somatic, it has to be, but his flesh crawls and writhes just like yours. His starshine. He hates the way his mind is racing, just as fast as it always has, but his body lacks the ability to keep up.

He grounds himself in the thought of you, his starshine. Your body. Your heat.

His narrow pupils refocus on the light tremble in her shoulders.

“I’m being honest, so I’ll ask again,” She meets his gaze, grey eyes as soulless and full as ever. “Do you want to be done?”

“Well, obviously I can't fight—”

“I mean it. All of it, Hawks. Maybe a few media appearances, but all this... shit. You’ve done enough.”

You’ve done enough.

The words bounce around in his skull.

“Do you want to be done?”

Done with being a hero.

That’s all he’d ever been, right? That is him, he is Hawks, for fuck’s sake, no one other than Dabi (may he rot and die and immolate in hell) even called him his actual name in years.

Keigo is Hawks.

His mouth is dry, and he tries to ignore the tears pricking his eyes. He’s not sure why he’s beginning to cry, and definitely not sure why tension is draining from his shoulders as he sighs out an answer.

“I’ll be done.”

You’ve done enough.

...

Hospital beds are a hot commodity, and now that Keigo had thrown in the towel (along with everyone else) to stop trying with his wings, he was to be discharged within a few days.

(“Just a few more days to adjust your body to your new medications—”)

He’d stopped listening after that.

...

Your last night together is so bittersweet, you taste it on each other’s tongues.

You have an episode early in the day. Your screaming wakes the floor, the burning smell of flesh cementing that it was you.

Keigo’s only half-lucid when he shoves into your room, holding your hands while nurses desperately try to administer pain medication.

It’s too much for you, the crawling edges of the scar once again consuming you in the molten, glowing amber veins of heat that tore through you so terribly.

You sleep the day away. Keigo stays with you for much of it, stroking the bones in the back of your hands.

...

He fucks you for the first time, that night.

His own IVs have been removed, he’s to be discharged first thing in the morning—

And he wants one more night of stargazing, please, please—

(Why’s he clutching at you so dearly?)

But you’re not in the common room.

Rather, you’re under a few thin blankets, eyes tired and lightless. Your arm is out of its cast, laying over the bed clothes. It scares him shitless at first as he tentatively enters. It’s you though, and the moment you see him, it’s like a flame, a good one, heats the room full and wide. A few specks of light dance in between your irises as your skin crinkles in a gentle smile.

You both know he’s leaving tomorrow.

The knowledge settles in the room like a weight that neither of you can move. So, Keigo takes to it and does what he can.

As opposed to his normal perch next to his bed, he sits beside you, removing the restraints on your wrists and helping you to sit up.

Keigo fishes around in his pocket, pulling out a folded square of paper and placing it at your bedside. It’s his phone number, an odd detail. Relationships usually shared far-earlier.

But there is nothing linear or normal about the two of you, or the situation you both sit and stewed in.

You both are making peace with it at your own pace.

The bed creaks as you move to sit beside him, legs dangling from the bed. There’s gooseflesh beneath your gown, the boring pattern obscured by the darkness of the room, but the molten lines of the scar ever-visible.

“I’m glad you’re getting out of here.”

But I wish that you weren’t leaving.

His hand finds your waist, careful like he always is, but so giving in the same breath.

“I am too. It’ll be nice to be.”

But I’m going to miss you.

It’s inherent, and has been forever. Since the moment you both stargazed in the common room and watched the worlds high above twist and shine without regard to your own hells, you’ve been ensnared in the other and neither of you have a want or need to let go.

Even with the inevitably of progress.

Keigo drowns in these thoughts, and has been since Endeavor visited and he was reminded of the harsh reality just outside of their tree-ringed prison. The reality he has to return to—

He presses his lips to yours, more desperate and needy than he had before.

Keigo had taken his share of you before, little pecks and the rub of the bridge of his nose over your jaw and cheeks. He had been a bit greedier with his hands, uncaring of the eyes of the night nurses when he’d touched you in the common room.

But he’s insatiable that last night.

The sheets of the plastic bed are too scratchy, they’re too harsh for you, and it burns Keigo to his core as he lowers you down. He cradles what he can, as your fingers latch onto his clothes (real clothes) and tug him as close as you can get.

The machines in your room cry, but they’re forgotten.

You nip at his bottom lip, dragging yours across his clean-shaven jaw before laying into his neck with kiss after kiss. His muscles shake, holding him over you, both of you atrophied but uncaring.

You suck a deep, throbbing bruise on the fragile skin of his neck. It’s something dark that won’t fade for a week. The thought stirs something in his chest, a white-hot feeling that wants to crack his ribs and consume him. He doesn’t give in, he can’t—

“Stay with me, pretty eyes,” you whisper, so sweet and gentle as you push floppy strands of hair from his face. “Stay here, just for a little while longer.”

The reminder jolts him back, back to you, and the way your body (so tired, but unwavering) jumps and rolls under his touch. He’s a glutton for attention, always has been, but your particular brand and sounds keep pulse hot and hard.

Shaky fingers pull his shirt over his head, sweaty palms push the gown over your hips. By the starlight, you’re both seeing too much of each other, but this is a goodbye, there’s no time to dwell on the discomfort.

Keigo tries to be careful as he adjusts your legs, tries to be mindful of the raw skin and flesh that makes you whine and half-writhe. You clutch at him, still trying to pull him closer despite the proximity and heat, like you need him as opposed to just wanting him.

There’s no fanfare in it, just more rushed kisses and the swirling of fingertips over covered clit. You catch each other’s gasps in the mingling of breaths you share. It’s choking, suffocating, yet entirely not enough. You beg, quietly, for more. Your fingers latch onto his wrist and urge him to help pull your panties off and away.

More, more, more.

By the time he slides into you, you're still tense, but so is he, and in a pile of tension and fear and wishful-thinking, you both come undone, and undone, and undone—

...

Keigo leaves the next morning.

The press is there, flash bulbs blinding him after so long with just fluorescents and starlight. He manages an easy wave or two, no autographs or gleaming smiles, just business and numbness that he needed to hold onto, so he didn’t fucking break.

He slips into the Commission’s car and leaves behind the hospital, you, and its wall of man-laid greenery and prays to forget it all quickly. He has enough to mourn.

...

Keigo wants to off himself when he arrives back at his penthouse.

How can he not?

His ‘home’ (if he couldn’t even call it that) is a dusty, time capsule of everything before. Before he got fucked up with the League, before the PLF, before the war, before Jin—

Every untouched bit of his life from when it was a few, precious fractions better stands unturned. A discarded jacket, wing slits visible and frayed. Scattered dead feathers that make his skin crawl. Memorabilia too, old merchandise that he never cared much about, but he definitely didn’t need to be seeing it now that ‘Hawks’ had burned up and died.

All disgusting reminders.

Something burning fills the base of his skull when his gaze fixates on one of the old plumes. He reaches out to touch the spine of it, instinctually expecting a little jolt of feeling from it, like he always had.

But there’s nothing. It’s dead, decaying, and so is he.

The reality of it breaks him, quick, hard and hot. He burns alive a second time.

He clears the liquor cabinet while blaring music from his over-priced stereo system loud enough to make his ears ache and throb. The music isn’t drowning anything out, but it’s better to pretend.

He finds a bottle of old pills and downs them with a few swigs of expensive whiskey and lets go.

...

When he comes to, he’s staring into a smashed mirror, with his own nails crusted in blood from thin welts in the skin of the scar on his face.

Much to his chagrin, he hasn’t forgotten anything. The memories of blue flames, red feathers, and the smell of your skin mixed with isopropyl alcohol feel brighter than ever. He grounds on them as he sobers up, latching onto the pain of his scar tissue and the solace you gave.

And won’t ever give him again.

Something in him wilts as he defeatedly goes to his phone, arranging any number of things to get him the fuck out.

...

The penthouse is sold, his more important belongings gathered in bland boxes.

And he leaves. There’s no sentiment holding him there, not anymore.

Fukuoka is gone and some distant memory as he drives (yes, he forgot that he had that skill) him and his things to his new home.

His penthouse had been immaculate. Crisp interior design, new shapes and colors that were on trend. He was hardly home to appreciate the modern beauty of it, but he’d received enough compliments from random hookups to know that it landed aesthetically.

But honestly?

Who the fuck cared?

His penthouse had been sold to the highest bidder and far behind as he arrives at his new, high home in the sleekness of his far-too fancy, disused car.

...

He gets a call from an unknown number, another one, on some snowy day, deep in winter.

Keigo debates answering it. He almost lets it slip to voicemail. The only calls worth answering are the handful from the Commission that he has to heed, or the odd one from Rumi, Fuyumi, and on occasion, Endeavor.

Not random numbers, he has no patience for it.

Yet, he answers it lazily.

“Washed up hero, how can I help you?”

“P-Pretty eyes?”

His heart stutters in his chest, he swears—

“Starshine?” He sounds breathless, the air leached from his chest as he white-knuckles his thighs.

He’d given up on you contacting him, yet there you were, or at least your voice, mechanical and high bouncing around preciously in the walls of the cabin

There’s a moment of silence, nearly, just your light breathing that receiver picks up.

Your voice trembles when you break it, “Y-yeah, it’s me, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to call—”

You don’t need to be sorry; he would wait for you forever, and then some.

“I d-don’t actually have a phone? Mine got trashed, uh, back then. I’m on the hospital’s line.”

Keigo hadn’t really considered that, he’s slipped the paper with his number on your bedside without a thought.

How much had you lost?

“No worries, chickadee,” Keigo is sure his smile is audible. “Why call now? Miss me too much?”

He had no idea.

You laugh, though it soured as you spoke, “I get discharged tomorrow.”

Keigo’s heart seizes again and he’s sure he’s going to go into cardiac arrest.

“The guy who gave me the scar and all? He fucked up a few other people, word eventually got here. Once the scar stops... glowing, it rests. If you make it until then, you’re good.”

And alive.

“The whole injury is stable, has been for a week now,” Surprisingly, there’s no relief in your voice. “They need my bed, so they’re releasing me.”

No, no, no.

Where will you go?

Keigo doesn’t say it, but the question hangs in the air and is quickly answered.

“They got me a spot in one of the shelters close by... It’s only a couple hours by train!” You try to sound happy, but it’s so hollow and unnatural; it makes Keigo physically sit up.

No, no, no.

That won’t do.

“... What won’t do?”

Keigo hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud.

Something is buried in his chest, something warm and molten, like the old veins of your scar, just kinder and better. It’s full of urges, so seldom used, selectively as needed throughout his career as a hero.

The need to keep something precious safe.

The thing hasn’t thrashed in months.

Yet now? It’s practically screaming.

“Pretty eyes?” You sound scared through the phone. “A-Are you alright? I can call back—”

“No, don’t, do not.” Keigo lets the flame fill his chest, welcoming it. “You’re not going to that shelter.”

He has something to protect.

“I don’t have another choice—”

Someone.

“You do.” Keigo keeps his voice even, the muscles in his back writhing. If he still had his wings, they’d be puffed out and large. Impassioned with feeling he finally let breath between his ribs. “I’ll come get you, tomorrow.”

“... P-Pardon?”

He doesn’t hesitate, and for a moment, he starts to feel like his old self.

“Come home with me, starshine.”

++++++

thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!! 💗

look out for parts 2 and 3!!!💞

ko-fi

#salem writes #hawks x reader #hawks #takami keigo #takami keigo x reader #hawks x you #takami keigo x you #hawks fanfic #hawks imagines #my hero academia #mha x reader #anyways tag wall #enjoy loves #smorch

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