One more and then I’ll stop but like seriously imagine this hulking brute of a man preparing to mount his dragon to return home to his Kingdom after successfully pillaging another village. The loot strapped to the sides of the dragons as he stands victorious, covered head to toe in a sheen of drying blood that for the most part isn’t his.
And as he’s preparing to leave he notices something moving in the foliage out of the corner of his eye. Immediately reaching for his axe as he holds it up high, ready to strike— when he sees a small bunny rabbit struggling beneath a wicker basket. The poor animal looks injured, its paw a deep crimson that rivals his eyes and his first thought is to put it out of its misery and take it home as part of the feast.
But then he thinks of you, and the way you tremble in front of him much like the little rabbit in front of him now. Sliding his axe back into his belt as he crouches down to pick up the struggling animal, caging it in large palms as he holds it uncharacteristicly gently to his chest. Walking back to his dragon as his men call out to him.
“That’s barely a snack for a dragon, King.” Sero calls out, grinning from ear to ear as Bakugou shoots him a glare.
“Do you want me to put it with the rest of the food?” Kirishima offers as he reaches out to take the bunny by the ears.
“No,” Bakugou mutters gruffly, opening a sachel at the side of his beast as he places the rabbit gently inside. His men raise their brows but know better than to say anything as they take off, returning back home before nightfall.
The Kingdom is in celebration as the team return, gathering the spoils as a feast is prepared for tonight. And Bakugou decides to clean himself up before seeking you out, worried that if he found you covered in the blood of his enemies you’d never talk to him again. It was much like he looked the first time he found you; and he’ll remember that terrified look for the rest of his days.
Changing into fresh cloth and furs as he makes his way towards your room, and even though he’s trying to be respectful he still doesn’t knock. Stepping inside to see you curled up by a fire with a book that you quickly put down when you notice him, the tension in your body doesn’t go unnoticed by Bakugou who tries to be less intimidating. A difficult feat for a man who’s waged wars on nations, and spilt more blood than the rivers that flow outside the Kingdom.
He’s silent as he crouches, setting his sachel down in front of him as he opens it. Rough hands reach in to take out the quivering bunny rabbit, which you stare at with wide eyes.
“It reminded me of you.” He rasps, holding the animal out to you as you crawl over to him from your position in front of the fire. Gentle hands taking the rabbit from him as you hold him against your chest, soft fingers stroking at its fur.
“You’re not going to cook him after, are you?”
And Bakugou can’t help but smile at your question, it’s the first time you’ve seen him do so and it softens the strong frown lines against his face. His eyes rounder, fierce gaze less intense as he moves to sit on the floor beside you with thick thighs outstretched.
“He looked like he needed someone to look after him.”
1K notes
·
View notes
“Come here, you dweeb. Let me fix it.”
Will pouts, dragging his feet over and slumping half on top of him. Nico allows it with a smile and a roll of his eyes, pinching Will’s shoulder. He doesn’t react except for a wounded noise, muffled in Nico’s lap, so the situation is evidently quite dire.
“It’s just hair, Will.”
“But I worked on it!” He shifts around until he’s got his head in Nico’s lap, face turned towards him, body curled up on the grass around him. Nico brushes his tangled bangs off his forehead, meeting his big sad eyes. “I spent forty minutes with a stupid brush! And yet!”
“And yet,” Nico agrees, unable to appropriately school is face into one of somber understanding. Will scowls at him for his lack of proper sympathy, a little bit of genuine hurt in his eyes, so Nico leans down and kisses right between his brows in apology. He seems mollified, if only slightly, or at least he leans into Nico’s touch and stops mumbling quite so much.
“‘S’not fair.”
“Mhm.“
“Your hair listens to your instructions.”
“Yep.”
“Even Cecil’s hair listens to him, and no one listens to Cecil.”
Nico purses his lips thoughtfully. “I think Austin listens to Cecil.”
“Yes, I know. It’s an ongoing issue. I’m trying to train him out of it.”
“And how’s that going?” Nico murmurs, curling a strand of golden blond hair around his finger.
“Oh, well, I’m doing my best, so of course it’s going horribly.”
Nico snorts. He resists the urge to hold his palms to Will’s cheeks and kiss every single freckle at light speed, because he will screech something about how Nico is one-upping him in the romance department or something stupid like that. Instead he settles for looking at his dumb dramatic boyfriend’s face and marvelling over the fact that the cutest boy in the entire world, and Nico is being totally objective, hunts around camp until he finds whatever tree Nico is hiding under and curls up into a ball around him and trusts Nico to hold him while he complains about stupid things that genuinely hurt his feelings a little. It’s nice. So many people at camp are still so rigid around him, like he’s collecting information for their judgement day or something. Will prefers to exercise his lesser-known Apollonian talent of being a bigger drama queen than the god himself.
“Stay still,” Nico says softly, moving Will around so he’s laying perpendicular to Nico, now, head centered in his lap and staring up at the sky. Will sighs and squirms a little and turns his head to press a kiss to Nico’s knee, scrunching up his face and releasing it, and then settles in the position.
Humming something soft that exists on the fringes of his foggy memories, he sinks his hands into Will’s hair.
“It’s not that bad,” he promises, moving slowly and pausing whenever he comes across a knot.
Will harrumphs.
“I mean it, Marilyn Monroe. You can tone down the histrionics.”
“I used gel.”
Nico flicks a dried clump of it onto Will’s forehead, amused. “I can see that.”
“I followed every single one of Mitchell’s instructions!”
“I bet.”
“And yet!”
“And, yet.”
Nico has a sneaking suspicion that someone made a comment about Will’s hair, in the last few weeks. He can never confirm it and Will has been shifty about it every time he asks, but Nico has noticed the uptick in hoods and hats the past month and his little flinches every time Nico reaches up and tugs on it. Despite being oddly confident about the oddest things — why he is so proud of being able to fit his fist in his mouth, Nico will never know — Will is very sensitive to how people think of him. He needs to know he’s liked, and when people don’t like him, he gets…desperate, pleasing. The opposite of Nico, who becomes worse in an attempt to push them away on his own terms.
Nico leans down and presses a long, lingering kiss to his forehead.
“I like your hair, you know.”
“It’s a stupid mess.”
He smooths down a handful of it, pressing it over Will’s eye. He manages to keep a straight face for one, two, three seconds before he huffs a laugh, batting Nico’s hands away. Nico grins.
“I like the stupid mess.”
“Yeah, well, you like a lot of weird things.”
“Like you?” Nico suggests, pressing another kiss to the tip of his rounded nose.
“Shut up.”
Another strange thing about him, that Nico has to duck his head to hide his automatic smile: he gets embarrassed easily.
Nico never expected it of him, with all the dorky, medical-themed pickup lines and general shamelessness in his affection towards everybody on Earth, but especially Nico. When the poking, prodding attraction is turned on him, however, he shuts down like an overloaded Playstation. Nico can sometimes see the error messages playing behind its eyes. It’s hilarious.
“Will.” He pokes him in the cheek. “Hey.”
“What,” Will grumbles.
“I think you’re beautiful.”
Watching the slow spread of red from below the collar of his shirt to the roots of his hair is a delight. Nico watches in glee, wrestling Will’s hands away when he tries to slap them over his face.
“Shut up! Leave me alone! Go — flirt with somebody else!”
“You’d curse them to speak in rhymes for ten years,” Nico teases.
Will makes an agonised noise. “Who! Asked you! Shut up!”
“You’d sic Kayla on anyone who so much as winks at me, you jealous bitch.”
“I would not!”
“You would so. You rolled your eyes at everything Percy said for three weeks when you found out I used to crush on him —”
“I did not!”
“— and you didn’t even have the balls to ask me out, back then.”
“You are a — peddler of falsehoods! A prevaricator, a perjurer, and a fabulist!”
“And you sound like you swallowed a thesaurus,” Nico snickers. He catches the hand Will flails at him, pressing a kiss to the wrist, which only serves to fluster him more. He decides to take mercy when the kisses he trails down his arms result in one loud, long, tortured screech, pulling back and giving him some space.
Notably, he doesn’t move from Nico’s lap.
“I like it,” Nico admits, once Will has calmed down some. “I like that you’ve liked me for so long.”
Will peeks through the fingers he has covering his eyes. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Yes.” Nico squeezes his shoulders. “And endearing, which seems to be your sweet spot.” He presses a much softer kiss to the underside of Will’s ear, lingering there until he sighs, slumping under all the tension finally leaving his body. “I love you, Will. I love your clumsiness and your rambles and your nose and your freckles and your awkwardness and your jealousy and your hair and I love you, Will, all of you. Even the embarrassing weird parts.” He kisses him again. “Especially the weird parts.”
Will breathes slowly, carefully, evenly, face pressed to the inside of Nico’s thigh. His long eyelashes tickle his skin. Nico can feel the press of his Adam’s apple when he swallows, pulsing against his calf.
“I never thought you were a freak.”
Nico brushes his knuckles over his cheek. “I know.”
“I used to — talk about you. All the time. And your oxytocin levels.”
He smiles.
“I know.”
“Lee had a — chart.” Some of the flush rises back up in his cheeks. “A ‘Days Since We’ve Heard About Di Angelo’ chart.”
Nico bites his lip. Hard.
“The number never got higher than six.”
“…I am trying really, really hard, Will.”
Will sighs.
“You can laugh.”
Nico cracks up, trying desperately to muffle his giggles in his bitten fist. It doesn’t work very well, but the glare Will sends him is somewhat softened by the smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“Gods, you are — a mess.”
“Mhm.”
Nico cups the side of his face. Will turns, slightly, enough to press a kiss to the centre of his palm and then stay there, eyes closed, breathing against his sword-callused skin.
“I love you too, by the way. Obviously.”
“I know.”
“Don’t Han Solo me, you bastard.”
“Go ahead and try to stop me,” Nico challenges, grinning into the passionately indignant kiss Will presses to his lips, finally, letting Nico curl his hands in his hair.
564 notes
·
View notes
Just a random thought about how Alastor and Vox must’ve been really good friends before everything fell apart. Because Alastor knows how to make a video ad, he knows how to set things up for a movie/video shoot, things that had nothing to do with his medium, that he probably learned how to do because of Vox, because he was willing to try and learn from or for Vox. And Vox literally welcomes Alastor back home when he finds out he’s returned, has literally counted the years Alastor’s been missing when no one else seemed to know, and fashioned his clothing style to match Alastor’s (assuming it’s not just a case of everyone gets a pinstripe suit!), uses the same techniques Alastor taught Charlie about how smiling can be a tool to keep you ahead of the game.
And how it all fell apart and it wasn’t just Vox that was hurt in the process. Because you can’t tell me the man who hates TVs and modern tech due to its association with Vox doesn’t feel anything for what friendship they had and lost. Who snarls at the mere sight of him on a screen (admittedly while also dissing Alastor), who went straight back to his radio tower to diss Vox right back (and absolutely crush him lol), before threatening him against taking action, privately, twice. Alastor’s just better at hiding how much it’s affected him, and doesn’t let the bitterness of what used to be consume his every waking thought.
And maybe that’s the difference between how they view their old relationship and how the fandom seems to view it. Alastor’s upset about it, sure. He’s bitter now about Vox and everything Vox represents because he’s a past friendship that failed, but he’s also moved on with his life. Vox hasn’t. Vox still obsesses over Alastor, in the way he dresses, the way he talks, how he presents himself. It’s all reminiscent of Alastor. And when he finds out Alastor’s returned, the first thing he does is draw attention to how Alastor’s back! Talk in a roundabout way about how much he’s missed him! Has wondered where he’s been? Sends a spy into the hotel to, well, spy on Alastor! And when that doesn’t work, Vox continues to stalk Alastor through his drones instead. (And then gets off on seeing Alastor get beat up.)
Vox very much has not moved on from whatever friendship they’d had before. He hasn’t moved on from Alastor. (Or from his heavily implied obsessive crush).
We don’t know what happened between them, aside that it’s complicated and sad, that they were friends, and now they’re very much not, and that maybe part of the reason why is because Alastor rejected Vox’s request to join his team (upend his entire life to partner with Vox, assuming Alastor always worked solo and what the Vees currently have is what Vox had wanted with Alastor with his request). We can assume maybe part of why they fell apart was because Vox wanted something more from his relationship with Alastor, something Alastor could not and did not want to give him. Or maybe they just grew apart, grew distant. Vox constantly upgrading and changing and keeping up with the newest trends, chasing whatever new Thing that’ll keep him relevant, while Alastor remained set in his ways because he’s not looking for the approval of the masses.
Anyways, all this to say: when I, and I assume most other OneWayBroadcast fans talk about one-sided radiostatic, it is specifically about how Vox has a one-sided romantic/sexual attraction/crush on Alastor, that Alastor does not return, that has now turned into a one-sided obsession over Alastor. Not that their entire friendship was completely one-sided. I think saying that Vox was the only one who was ever invested in their relationship is a rather bad faith interpretation of Alastor’s character, but also does not do their relationship justice at all. It minimizes Vox’s responsibility in the fallout of their friendship, and puts the blame only on Alastor. It takes away all the juicy complexities of Vox’s character, how he’s bad person who’s done and is doing bad things, and paints him as an innocent victim to “Alastor’s manipulation”.
That’s not to say Alastor was completely innocent in the fallout either. But I hear a lot more about how the fandom woobifies Vox in their relationship than I do Alastor.
400 notes
·
View notes
I’m just going to throw down my thoughts now real quick. Someone is obviously going to get taken over by Fyodor. This takeover seems to require blood to activate. Here are the potential options, rated lowest to highest by my own personal interest.
Random character we’ve never met - the easy and boring answer. Fyodor will body snatch one of the vampire guards he was communicating with. Fair amount of likelihood since he could easily have made the transfer of blood at any point, though I’m not sure yet if it needs to be an instantaneous thing or if his blood can lie dormant. Either way I think it’s a bit of an ass-pull with no stakes on our cast so I’m hoping this isn’t the case.
A named character outside Meursault - Probably someone he’s had a lot of contact with, so Fukuchi. This depends on the blood having a latency period and is also insanely contrived. I actually hate it more than the random guard.
The Catgirl thief - I’m assuming this is extremely unlikely since the host needs to be alive. But anyways. Women lovers here’s how we lose even worse.
Having said this now, I think it’s fairly obvious it has to be one of the other Meursault four. This is appropriately thematic and tragic, given that all of them place a lot of value on free will and self-determination, which a takeover by Fyodor would rob them of.
Chuuya - He spent a lot of time around Chuuya to be sure but there’s no blood on him. If there’s a latency period though, it is possible. I’m not feeling this one though, to be honest. I don’t see what narrative purpose it serves - Chuuya hasn’t had enough of a role in the manga for this to mean much, other than royally pissing Dazai off (which to be fair is definitely in character for Fyodor). I think it far more likely that Chuuya is going to be a witness for whatever comes next.
Sigma - High likelihood. He did get stabbed and had the memory transfer. I can’t remember whether Fyodor touched him with his wounded hand. It would be brutal for this to happen to him after he’d just broken free from his manipulation. But honestly I don’t know that Sigma getting taken over is all that interesting. For one, they’re going to need his knowledge (though that may be a reason for Fyodor to off him truthfully), and for another, I just don’t think Sigma’s… done enough as a character. I feel it would kind of render his arc in Meursault pointless to end his story here.
Nikolai - The most likely possibility to me. He is holding Fyodor’s severed hand, which he touched to his face. Fyodor’s ability probably kickstarts after his death, and Nikolai was the first to get his blood on him. Sadly, I suspect that if this is the case, this will be the end for Nikolai. If he gets taken over, I can’t see a reason or method to restore him to himself. What a horribly tragic end this would be to our favourite clown, his freedom snatched away for good by the one person he couldn’t help but get attached to.
Dazai - I dismissed this off-hand at first. Of course I did, Dazai is immune to abilities. I also want to be clear that I seriously doubt Asagiri will off his favourite boy like this. But oh man. What if Fyodor’s ability isn’t an ability, much like in the first skk manga team up? What if them both being there is a call-back to Rimbaud who snatched corpses, and Lovecraft who could hurt Dazai? What if Fyodor really has become no longer human - and this is the proof? I was kind of hoping the Meursault arc would end with Dazai (temporarily!) out of the picture, and this would be a way to do it - Atsushi and Akutagawa would have to step up, Chuuya could be more relevant. We could even have more Kyouka if what I’m starting to wonder is true - that Fyodor was involved in the death of her parents. At the same time, Dazai’s special boy plot armour nullification and mysteriousness gives us a plausible reason to bring him back. And all the while maybe they could continue their mind games, with Dazai being an annoying little pest in the back of Fyodor’s mind.
379 notes
·
View notes