bluewindsbell

[bluewindsbell]

Hope's Return - Jyuugo (Nanbaka) x Reader Oneshot

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

Hey, remember back when I used to post fics on tumblr and then completely forgot about it? Well not anymore!

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Underage Sex

You wonder, after everything, if Jyuugo still loves you.

AO3 Link

You moved from cage to cage, from a prison cell to a musty apartment, with absolutely no fanfare. Your fantasies of leaving Nanba and finally kicking your old wretched self to the side had consisted of stepping out the front gates, feeling the ocean's wind hold your face before you boarded the plane for the flight home. You would have gone to your home country, boarded up in a new home, gotten a new job and new friends and a new personality. And Jyuugo, your beautiful Jyuugo, would be by your side. You'd both grow up and you'd get to watch him see the world, face lighting up in fascination as he saw the city and its people in its glory, far more vibrant than his faded memories. Maybe then you could finally see him smile more.

And then, one day, the fantasy ended.

When the broadcast for the New Years Tournament suddenly cut off, you knew deep down that something was terribly wrong. You weren't alone in that sentiment; the discovery of these super-humans that lived among you all in Nanba put a good number of prisoners on edge, but your reasons for your fear were different. You knew Jyuugo, what he was capable of and what other people wanted from him. So you ran, fighting the need to hyperventilate as tears clouded your vision. You ran and ran through the halls, not knowing where to go and what way each path would lead you. You needed to see him. If you didn't, you felt he would slip away from you forever.

And it hit you - the underground cells he had told you about, where others like him were housed. You wiped your face, breathing deeply as you kept searching. And searching and searching and searching for what felt like hours and hours. And you saw a flash of blonde and pink following behind a sprinting figure, recognizing Uno and the rest of cell 1313. You wanted to call out to them, tell them that you were looking for Jyuugo too, but as you opened your mouth to get their attention, your voice faltered. Something pulled at your gut, and you couldn't explain it, this feeling that you were missing something important and that your ignorance was jeopardizing the both of you. Something about the groups demeanor put you on edge. This wasn't just another jailbreak for kicks. You skulked behind them, being careful to stay far behind, only close enough to hear them and gauge where they were going. Everything looked so…sterile here. The path before you stretched so far that you could not see its end, instead harboring a cloud of shadow that beckoned you forth. The white walls were smooth, so smooth that you felt no friction between your hand and the wall when you briefly touched it in curiosity. They were only broken by the uniform doors, small windows only showing dark and empty rooms. Uno, Rock, and Nico would surely get lost here, wouldn't they? Wouldn't you?

Why did everything feel so wrong?

You continued walking until a glimpse of light shining through one of these windows caught your eye. You heard what resembled yelling and general chaos, and your heart sped up as you rushed to the sight. The door was ajar, but you instinctively moved to hide beside the door frame when you saw the men in the room. You couldn't quite understand what you were seeing. The sounds and sights were moving too fast, far faster than you could register. Blood marked the entire room, a choking body of smoke and metal obscuring the figures within, but you heard a voice amongst it all.

"If I don't think of this as the place where I belong, then it will be like I was never here to begin with."

You ran forward, not caring to stay hidden any longer, and cried out Jyuugo's name. You couldn't remember if he even noticed you, and you couldn't remember if he'd spoken just before vanishing into the air. The next time your memory returned, you had been tackled to the ground by one of the unfamiliar guards that had been called in for reinforcements. Cell 1313, the young men you'd grown to call friends, did nothing as you were pinned down and handcuffed. They stared at you with looks of sorrow as you cried.

"What the fuck happened?! Where is he? Where's Jyuugo?!" You writhed around in the guards grip, doing nothing but jostling yourself as you felt every muscle in your body flex and contract in a desperate attempt to dispel this wave of rage and fear inside of you. "Uno, fucking tell me what happened! Where did he go?!"

Uno's face tensed, looking past you at someone behind you, settling on keeping his lips sealed. But his expression spoke for itself, a somber "I'm sorry" before he, Nico, and Rock were led away by Hajime.

You spent that night in a cell that was not your own. You'd witnessed something no one working in Nanba could afford to let be made known to the rest of the prison population, so they shut you away to keep you from talking. You curled up, back against the wall, eyes stuck wide open as you tried and tried to wrap your head around what you had seen. Jyuugo was gone. Uno, Nico, and Rock were hiding something. The whole goddamn prison was hiding something. Jyuugo was gone. You knew something you never should have known and you didn't know what lengths Nanba would go to make you forget. Jyuugo was gone. Jyuugo was gone Jyuugo was gone Jyuugo was gone.

You bumped your head against the wall repeatedly, making a dull thudding sound each time until you finally fell asleep. And the same thing occured the next day, and the day after that. One month, then two, three, four, five, six. An entire year went by, and gradually the guards began letting you interact with other inmates, though with them breathing down your neck. You'd began to accept that you would most likely never see Jyuugo again, and told yourself you had no choice to make peace with it. You could only hope that he didn't forget you.

One morning, a brush of wind disrupted the stagnant air of your cell.

Not needing any instruction, you took the outstretched hand before you, feeling arms of steel and cloth embrace you as you lept across matter.

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

You woke up this morning with Jyuugo next to you, the two of you cramped together in a bed made for one. He was always so cold. He joked about you being his personal space heater in the past, and thinking about it made you a little sad because you couldn't remember the last time he laughed about something. Whatever had been done to him made his words and actions seem so vacant, like he was merely responding to the stimuli of your voice and presence because it was simply what his body thought was right to do. In his sleep he snuggled closer to you, pressing his chest to your back. Despite your physical closeness, he felt miles away from you. The contradiction of him gluing himself to you in his sleep but hardly speaking a word to you while awake made you wonder just what the hell was going on in his head. You thought, as you weaseled your way out of the blankets and into the bathroom to get ready for work, that maybe this was something vestigial from when you were together in Nanba, when everything bizarre that happened could somehow be rationalized and therefore deemed not much to worry about.

But that was a selfish way of thinking, maybe. You could go about your day passing everything off as the people at Nanba just being eccentric, but Jyuugo saw it differently. You'd seen the constant anxiety in his eyes, when he'd cling onto you with a grip like you were about to be stolen away. Even so, with all his fear, you accepted him, gently laid a kiss to his blades when he revealed them to you in your secret room, a vacant cell at the far end of building 13 where he'd bring you in the late night to spend time not under the watchful eyes of inmates and guards. He confessed to you what was inside him, this thing that he felt eating away at his mind until he'd be nothing but a shell left behind, and when he talked about it you'd feel his hands retreat from you as if he was afraid he'd burn you with his touch.

"I don't want to hurt you," he cried, "I can't lose you. I can't lose anyone else."

Even then, when you knew the danger of him, you cupped his face in your hands and rested your forehead against his.

"You won't hurt me. I promise."

He'd rested his head in the crook of your neck, arms wrapped around you as he softly cried into your shoulder. You both sat there, on the cold floor of your secret room, embracing eachother as the minutes passed on and his crying ceased, something turning in you when your touches grew heavy, kisses lasting longer, and soon you were beneath him stripped bare of your uniform with the concrete floor frigid against your skin. Your faces warm, breaths shuttering as the sight of your respective naked bodies told you both that this had grown far beyond youthful puppy love. You loved him. Oh God, you loved him. And so you told him that, over and over again, the words spilling from your mouth after so long of being held back in fear of scaring him away. He had stared at you for that moment, making your stomach turn with the regret that maybe you had been right, but he dispelled your worries when he hugged you tightly, kissing you along your face and jaw, confessing just how badly he'd needed you as he trailed his hands along your body.

Pressed close enough to suffocate, you rutted feverishly against each other, as two desperate teens would, silencing your sounds with each others lips as to not alert anyone that could be near the door. You trailed your hands across his back, committing his scars to memory as your bodies grew more restless until you both stilled, clinging to each other like lifelines and gasping into each others mouths. He'd rested his head against your chest, listening for the sound of your beating heart, and you'd stroked his face and whispered into his hair, "I love you, I love you."

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

You had a boring day at work, having spent the whole day reminiscing about things that only made you more miserable, and came home to an empty apartment. You didn't know exactly what Jyuugo did when he left for the Shiki headquarters, or even how far away your home was from the building, but you knew he was incredibly important to them for reasons he was cryptic about. He would then come home and hug you, ask you how your day was, and your snipped conversations after that hardly registered as memories until it was time for bed and his coldness seeped further into you the faster you fell asleep.

You didn't have friends here. No one to ask for help or to get advice from. Despite the inherent misery of imprisonment, your time there together had been wonderful. You made each other feel whole in a way you'd never felt before. Now, despite your physical freedom, you felt like strangers.

You wanted to feel close to him again. You wanted him to sit next to you and watch you do some menial task on your laptop, simply enjoying your closeness as you typed away. You wanted to have fun with him doing the simplest of things, even if that meant only going to buy ice cream at the store. You wanted to feel like you were living together, not simply living in the same apartment.

You wanted your Jyuugo back.

But maybe the Jyuugo you knew in Nanba was never really yours to begin with.

‧˚₊꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶︶︶꒦꒷‧₊˚⊹

"Do you still love me?"

Jyuugo looked over at you from his place in the living room, watching as you paused from eating stale crackers to ask that question.

"What?"

"I said, do you still love me?" You repeated.

He continued looking at you, eyebrow raising, before saying: "Why are you asking me this?"

Embarassed, you turned your gaze to the floor. "The entire time I've been here, I feel like I'm just being a nuisance. I'm sure you have better things to worry about and I've just been hanging around you for no reason." You paused, suddenly feeling so soul-crushingly sad that you felt your tears welling up. "Why did you come back for me? After everything that happened?"

His eyes widened at that. He walked closer and sat down beside you, cautiously edging closer to you. You continued, voice beginning to waver.

"I don't know what happened, or how I can help, or if there was something I should have done, but I just feel like I've failed you somehow or that I was too busy acting like a fucking idiot to notice that something was wrong." Your cries turned into sobs, words fighting to come out like little lifeforms clawing their way through thick, dark water, "I want you to be happy, Jyuugo. And I feel like I could never give that to you."

He cautiously reached out to you, beckoning you into his arms. You leaned into his chest, trying to calm yourself with the feeling of the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest against your face. Jyuugo placed his hand under your chin, lifting your face to meet his sight.

"I…fuck," he began, turning his head away, sounding frustrated, but not towards you, "You didn't fail me, and you don't make me unhappy." He pauses, sighing sadly, "You're the only person that didn't completely lie to me the entire time you've known me."

"But didn't you think I was just a part of everything, like I was just tasked with keeping you distracted?" You interjected. With all the time that passed before he rescued you from that nightmare, you figured he'd believed you were just like his so-called friends; a liar, a tool, someone meant only to keep him asleep forever.

"I…I won't lie to you and say that I didn't think that at all. But when we were apart, I had way too much time on my hands to think about things. When more of my memory came back, I realized that I couldn't see you in any of them from before when I remember us first meeting. I learned you had no affiliation with Shiki, or Nanba, or whatever other organization was after me and the other togabito."

His grip on you tightened as he continued, "For a while I couldn't accept that. Everything else in my life had been a lie except you. I kept thinking that you had to have had some sort of goal in order to keep coming around me. But I know that wasn't true at all. You were the only person to ever care about me as a person."

You choked down the remainder of your sobs, resting your head in your hands to try and hide just how relieved you were to hear him say that.

"Jyuugo, I always loved you for who you are, even when you were just that boy in Cell 13 that spent the whole day just running around and getting chased by the guards," You smiled, remembering the first time you met, when he spotted you watching him get dragged away from one of the lower floors and he flashed you that cocky smile. Jyuugo let out a soft laugh at your recollection. You continued, "You always seemed like you were searching for something, even though everyone else thought you just looked bored. I realized that you were so much like me; I'd spent almost all my life feeling like there was something missing inside of me and that no one would ever understand, but when I met you, I didn't feel as alone anymore. You saved me, Jyuugo. You probably think you didn't do anything special for me, or that you only put me in danger, but you brought more joy to me than I'd ever had in my entire life. That has to count for something."

You looked back up at his face, to the sight of him staring back at you, mouth open slightly as he tried to figure out what to say. He settled for a strained smile as his own eyes began to water. He sniffed and wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, saying, "Jeez, we're acting like babies."

You both laughed, and he continued, "But seriously, thank you for everything. For coming with me when you could have just stayed behind for forgotten about me." He pressed a kiss to your cheek, rested his chin on the crown of your head. "I love you so much, you know that, right?"

"I know." you mumbled into his chest, the sound of his soft breathing making you sleepy. "I love you too."

[bluewindsbell]

Been a goddamn eternity since I uploaded sketches online.

Underwater model 1.1

Old Legavera thing from March

Konoe wip that might just rot for eternity

[bluewindsbell]

Embrace

Rating: Teen

Tags: Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Summary: Comforting Legato through his nightmares

I was feeling really sappy one night and just wanted to hold Legato in my arms, so I popped this out.

Often, when you woke at midnight, your brain still pulling itself from unremembered dreams, the other side of the bed would be empty. Legato was a restless man, and this was something you didn't have much trouble accepting. You'd hug your pillow a bit tighter, feeling the blankets grow colder as Legato busied himself with a book underneath the dim lamplight. You'd asked him why he did so before, and he'd waved it off each time. Yet another part of his life he didn't feel ready to share; something else you accepted quickly. You felt the mattress dip from his weight, feeling his warmth as he pressed against you and buried his face in your shoulder. His movements felt tense and restrained as his arms carefully wrapped around your waist. You don't say a word. You turn to face him and see the emptiness in his eyes, as though he were trying to detach his mind from the world and retreat into himself. You slowly move your hand to touch his face, softly running your thumb over his cheek. He closes his eyes and sighs softly, leaning into your touch before his breath begins to slow, sleep taking him once again.

More nights go on like this; Legato abandoning you in the bed before returning to embrace you, holding you closer than when he first went to bed that night. Trying again at a sound sleep, trying to see if holding you tighter will keep his demons at bay. You stave off sleep just to try and make sure that his dreams are unremarkable, holding him in your arms and praying that he could shake off the weight of his past for just one night. You knew only vague details of his past, but even those were enough to fill you with guilt and a simmering rage. When his breathing picks up again, pained whimpers falling from his lips as his eyes flutter wildly beneath his eyelids, you tighten your grasp on him. You whisper in his ear, softly coaxing him from the nightmare and back to you, wanting so badly in your soul to reach into him and take all his pain away.

He wakes with a gasp, eyes opening wide as he pulls away from you to sit up with his face in his hands. His entire body shudders with each breath he takes, and you sit up to gently place your hand on his shoulder, fingers rubbing circles into his skin to try and ground him.

"It's okay, it's okay, Legato." You say, moving to wrap your hand around his and ease it from his face. He stares into your eyes, his shaking beginning to cease. You speak again, intertwining your fingers with his. "It's okay, you're safe. I promise you're safe."

He looks at you for a moment before his eyes fall to the blankets. Tears begin forming at the corners of his face, and he's desperate to keep his voice steady.

"I'm sorry."

He sinks back down into the bed, body still and staring at the ceiling. You move to him again, looking to him for his permission to wrap yourself in him. He nods, and you nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck, arm wrapping around his torso. "It's alright."

The two of you remain focused on the feeling of each others closeness, breathing in tune and skin embracing the others warmth. When you finally fall asleep, you feel his body relax along with yours, calm in the safety of one another.

[bluewindsbell]

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeoflittlebells

Currently working on Rain Song, my self ship fic thingy with Legato.