#Maybe it was Thunder Storm actually and when he recounts this story to them after they're allies the Warriors are deeply amused by it

[bonefall]

You could play with the dirty part of the canon description by having Slash and his people roll in mud to hide their scent.

Parts of the Code labelling using weapons/traps as dishonorable could have started as agreements made that Slash's people wouldn't keep using their old tactics, maybe forced on Thunder's Clan to keep them from becoming too powerful, if they DID fuse.

I'm more liable to just remove the "dirty" thing entirely honestly; I just think it's so shitty I'd like to nuke it from orbit, you get me? Every single time they want you to hate someone, they make them fat and/or stinky. I'd rather just put that kind of rhetoric in the mouths of cats like Clear Sky and The Wind Runner, a lie to demonize their enemies, not really based on truth.

I think I might take the trap stuff though; that actually fits in nicely with how ThunderClan's the only one that uses spears. I won't have it be code yet, though, that's going to come a lot later. First two commandments of the code are Borders + Mercy, followed by Law 3 when Riverstar dies in some decades.

Also gonna need a name for Slash's new group. Hey, maybe THESE guys can be called Warriors, actually. Warriors of the Forest, like what the first arc used to be called before it was renamed TPB.

[vuelie-frost]

Frozen Broadway 2.16.20. Caissie and Patti’s last show.

Okay, I'm finally able to write a rundown of the show. 

Note that I'm not experienced in writing about Broadway shows- mostly because I've only seen a handful- and I apologize in advance if this comes off kitschy or redundant. Theatre is a foreign world to me, so I observe as an outsider. I mostly want to write this just to immortalize the experience, but via Tumblr I can share it (to the best of my ability) with you all! - My seat was ORCH row A, which is second row, in the right section.

- I went by myself (took the weekend as a "mini vacation" to NYC)

- I did see this show last May with Caissie & Patti, and although it's been almost a year, I do have a "normal" performance to compare it to. Mattea Conforti was right outside the door as I walked in, talking to a doorman. I realized later when exiting that a small slew of the previous young Annas and Elsas were in attendance too- they were sitting a few rows behind me. Waiting for the show to begin, I heard a lot of chatter around me regarding Caissie & Patti finishing their runs. Everyone seemed to be here intentionally for this night. A lot of young adults & older teens (?) in my vicinity. Kids too, as expected, but the number of adults was notable. As soon as the first few notes of that orchestral Vuelie hit, I started to tear up. It literally crashes into the theatre with a swell of vocal harmonies and percussive beats. It's hard to not be overwhelmed. Vuelie has always had this effect on me. It's like it's saying "Come, let me tell you this story." I was reminded of Hadestown and the motif of repetition, how we listen to the same stories over and over again even if we know the end. I wonder why that is. The first scenes with the little girls ran like clockwork- they're brilliant and funny. I remained teary through this whole sequence, because it's just childlike happiness and wholeness before everything goes to shit. Knowing what's going to happen, it just grips your empathy. And then Patti took the stage. Patti entered to the darkened back of the stage as the scenes were shifting between young Anna & adult Anna, which means her entrance itself didn't garner applause. But as soon as that spotlight hit her, it was an uproar. Wild applause. Standing ovation. The music stopped- it had to- no one could have heard it anyway. Tears visible in her eyes, she just looked out and straight ahead. Her face was flushed. It was evident she was emotional & didn't try to suppress it fully, but had to maintain some composure to get through the scene. She kept nodding slightly and pressing her hand to her chest, acknowledging us. This almost broke me. She knew. But she had a job to do, a few lines to sing (which she did perfectly DESPITE CRYING.) Eventually when it quieted she sang. The door swiveled. The light hit Caissie. All over again, a thundering standing ovation. This is where Caissie's brilliance lies, because she was borderline stoic while waiting for us to finish applauding. She gazed out at us for awhile, eventually shifting her focus upward and to her left, and to the door behind her. I don't think she smiled- she might have nodded once or twice. She waited. The emotionality displayed by Patti, which we all love for its honesty, was foiled by Caissie's ability to hold it together, which we love for its professionalism. (Don't even get me started on how in-character these contrasting displays were. I could go on and on about how these women match their characters so beautifully.)

From that second, something shifted in the audience. We were no longer spectators, we were participants in blurring the fourth wall. Not that we heckled or were addressed directly by the company. But we came alive. The actresses knew. We knew. We shared that unspoken sentiment. The show continued.

I don't have specific examples here because it's only something you can observe, but it was very obvious that both women were putting 110% into this performance. I understand sometimes in performance art that for self-preservation or focus, you make minor changes to how lines are said, or the emphasis of certain words, or how your facial expressions change. Sometimes you hold back a bit. Caissie and Patti went all out. Their acting was never compromised. Patti's hilarity as Anna hit every punchline perfectly. Caissie's portrayal of nervousness and fear was so believable. I also wish I could have captured every moment they looked at each other. I mostly saw Caissie's face from my perspective, but the way they look at each other is genuine. I get the sense they have this unspoken communication between them after doing the show so many times together. Dangerous to Dream was beautiful per always, and at the moment Patti kneels upstage, I again saw tears glimmering in her eyes. How this woman can do a whole show so obviously affected and STILL NAILING IT is genius. At the end of Love is an Open Door, Patti and Joe took a moment to just grin wildly at each other and grip each other's arms and bear-hug. I didn't realize this was Joe's last show as well, so it was their last duet of that song. Let it Go was spellbinding. Caissie took every opportunity to option up not just on the final few notes (which have been unfortunately bootlegged, and you've probably heard already) but in tiny points along the whole song. She actually did this with all her songs. If there was a half step variation she could do, she did it. It was remarkable. You get the sense she was having fun, trying to engage us. I remember an interview where she once said on certain shows or nights if she's feeling up to it, she likes to give the audience a little something extra. This was THE night. As she walked back before the dress change, I could feel people around me suddenly shift to get a better view. We all knew and we all wanted to see it. In a recent interview she said she just stands there and braces. You wouldn't know it- it looks effortless. The nanosecond the dress changed: standing ovation. This is where she started really grinning wildly and belting her lungs out. She was at the foot of center stage, riffing and optioning up a storm. Her expression was so joyous. She's said before that this is her favorite part of the show. Every time she optioned up (which was like, each one of the last four notes) there was a massive wave of cheers and applause. I expected her to do maybe one or two. She did four or five. And keep in mind this was her SECOND SHOW OF THE DAY. The song ends abruptly with her turning around with a swish of her cape & the lights going nearly out, and I get the sense that the thunderous applause wanted to keep going because we wanted her to SEE us. We wanted to face her and give her the recognition. We wanted to stop the show like in the beginning and show her how much she means to us, and how honored we are to hear her last Let it Go. But the choreography doesn't let that happen, because immediately the lights come back up for intermission, and she's gone. I wonder if she secretly likes that sequence, as Caissie seems to be the kind of person whose humility doesn't let her drink in compliments or praise. She was able to give us everything she had, and then disappear. Such an Elsa move. Monster had some riffs (which is not in any way disappointing because Caissie gave us 200% in Let it Go, which was enough to satiate me for years) but I did want to mention one in particular. If you watched Jelani's backstage videos on YouTube from the first few months of the show, he does this segment where he gets Caissie to riff. She does one from Monster for the line "Would that take the storm away/Or only make it grow." I'm not going to try and phonetically replicate it, but that. She did that. I was hoping she would, as it's one of my favorite variations of hers, and she did. I was ecstatic. The finale song is where Patti started crying again and from the moment they started walking backstage to the rising platform, it was applause all around. In that sequence they're facing away from the audience and I can only imagine the exchange- spoken or unspoken- between them. They did it. Their run was over. There are a few lines at the end that may just be me projecting, but they felt poignant in how Caissie delivered them & her expression looking at Patti (again, Patti was facing away from me, so I didn't catch her expression.) I get the sense they had a triple meaning, as they not only marked the end of the show but represent sentiments two sisterly women would have.

"The magic one is you." (This is perhaps my favorite line in the whole song.) "Let the sun shine on" "Let's fill this world with light and love/And now surrounded by a family at last/We're never going back, the past is in the past." The final "let it go" line in the song Caissie looked joyous. She was all smiles. She grinned at Patti. There was a look of pride in her eyes. At bows, apparently Caissie and Patti have this tradition where they say “I love you” at the front of the stage before bowing. I could only see Caissie, but she mouthed “I love you” to Patti with such a big smile and so much happiness. If Caissie cried at all prior to bows & acknowledgements, I didn't notice it. It's possible she's just very very good at hiding it. Even during Robert, Bobby, and Kristin talking at the very end, she only wiped her eyes once or twice. (I won't recount this part very much because many people filmed it and you can watch it yourselves. I've seen it on Instagram, though I haven't browsed Tumblr for it yet.) Patti, of course, could not hide her feelings. Caissie kept hugging her and squeezing her and holding her hand during all the kind words. At once point she wiped her thumb on Patti's cheek. Patti is a treasure. I have to respect the woman for being brave enough to show all of herself to us, even if it was involuntary. And I need to reiterate that she did the whole show perfectly even while crying & feeling a lot of feelings. She's a rockstar. Caissie, while fielding a slew of compliments from Robert & Kristin, would every once in awhile look down and do a funny little shake of her head. I get the sense she has a hard time accepting praise. Knowing she’s such a perfectionist at heart, she was probably internally fighting back with reasons why she didn’t deserve those kind words. I get it. It doesn’t matter how successful you are, you will always focus on the things you didn’t do or didn’t do enough. For someone of her caliber, it’s utterly fascinating to watch her humility.  One last thing I want to point out. I mentioned earlier that from the moment of our first standing ovation, the atmosphere in the crowd changed. We went from spectators to a living, breathing mass. It was electric. Once you felt the gravity of the cheers and claps and whoops, you realized what you were part of. I heard from a reviewer on Twitter that he hadn't been part of such a lively audience-performer relationship since the closing show of In the Heights. Because that's what was different about last night. We crossed some sort of line where the art itself was no longer performance, but we partook in it. There's something really holy about the invisible exchange between performers and the spectators. Frozen is a masterpiece on its own, and we were all blessed to watch it. But when art becomes a give-take exchange of feelings, emotes, cathartic impulses, and unspoken communication, it becomes something new entirely. This was no ordinary night. Caissie and Patti gave all of themselves to us, and we knew, and we answered back. It felt alive in a way I didn't realize theatre could feel. The fourth wall ceased to exist, but only because both sides dissolved it. It wasn't direct. It wasn't obvious. No exchange of words indicated it. We just felt it and knew. They did too. It was an honor to take up space in the St James last night. I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and I will never forget it.

[pumpkins-s]

Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink

Read on AO3 Here

Read the Other Chapters on Tumblr Here

Lance Alexander Rafael McClain is born in the middle of a summer storm, thunder cracking and rain slamming onto the roof of an old ramshackle house that had seen more than its fair share of children.

The miracle baby, that’s what the family had called Lance. The unexpected son to a mother of five daughters.

(In which family is always complicated, Lance’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, and he and Keith are really emotionally constipated for each other.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, significant platonic Lance & Hunk

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran

Chapter 10: Listen (Learn)

Lance returns home to the backdrop of the setting sun highlighting the sloping roof of the house. Always a little crooked-looking and never quite right, but sturdy and strong against the years it has housed and sheltered them from summer storms and winter snowfalls without fail.

He breathes in, the smell of grass and the sear of the August heat against his skin distinct, and decides that this is all right. While there’s a part of him that desires to flee back to the relatively safe bustle of Mavis’s apartment—where he can live a life of secrets, undiscovered among the bustling city throng, and find comfort in Mavis’s fierce protection—another, almost larger piece of Lance finds a kind of settling in being home.

There is a peace to Veradera, to the place he has spent every happy summer since his earliest days, that nowhere else can even touch. Despite every complication and each pain that can too be associated with the place, the joys outweigh the grief. Loss has been seen in this house, time and time again, but it has seen so much love too.

If Mavis’s home is the place of safety, this is the place of salvation.

…Love should win. Lance wants love to win. Even with his fears, with the secrets and things buried deep he keeps, he doesn’t want it to turn this place sour for him. Maybe, now that he has found refuge for some of his baggage—both figurative and literal—in Mavis’s own home, he can better protect the good that exists here from turning only to bitterness in his heart.

Maybe.

It’s probably not the best coping solution, he admits, but it’s…well, it’s a solution.

Somewhere in the distance, among the trees that stretch out beyond their road’s little huddle of houses, a bird chirps loudly, and Lance closes his eyes, savoring the feeling of something he’ll never fully understand, but can recognize instantaneously anyways.

This…this is good. Those three weeks away were the refresher he needed to re-piece himself into a semi-functional being.

Mavis had been right.

Distantly, he imagines her rolling her eyes, reminding him that she’s always right, and he smothers a grin behind his palm.

Nodding to himself, he opens his eyes, and goes to help Karen, the one who’d apparently called dibs on picking him up after a fervent rock-paper-scissors match with Marcie, with getting his bag from the car. She pulls it out of the boot without pause, and waves him off when he tries to take it, swinging the weight around like it is nothing to her. To someone like Karen, realistically, it probably is.

“Glad to be back, right?” she asks him, grinning down easily as her bushy bangs fall into her eyes, and Lance smiles.

Really, if anyone else in the family knows what it’s like to come back home after feeling like you’ve lived another life away from here, it’d be Karen. She’d taken what she was good at and used it to run as far as she could with it, and the older he gets, the less he can begrudge her that.

They may not be overly close, compared to their other siblings, but sometimes he thinks he might understand her more these days, just a little. Not entirely, not quite yet, but close.

It hardly matters, either way, really. They are what they are, all of them—the leavers, past and present and eventual, Karen and Mavis and himself, all for their own individual reasons.

Igraine and Lucas, too, he supposes, reminding himself that they’ve long left for training by now.

Still, he gives Karen a nod.

“…Yeah, I think so.”

She leads him inside with little fanfare—well, as little as is possible, for Karen—slamming the door open and shouting a booming “We’re home!” before promptly collapsing facedown on the sofa and not moving, even when Lance pokes her side gently. After a long moment, a quiet snore rings out, and Lance giggles. It had been an eight AM flight arrival time, and Karen has hardly ever been a morning person, despite being an athlete, so he decides she’s earned this one.

He’s just cataloguing who would be at work and who would be home at this time of the day, when Marcie’s voice calls him from the kitchen, upbeat and chipper despite the hour. “In here, Lance!”

As he enters the kitchen, he finds her in a state of frenzy; the counter littered in flour and opened tins of ingredients, with cookies resting in the oven as she whips together frosting with enthusiasm. When she sees him, Marcie’s eyes light up, and she promptly places down the bowl to sweep him up in her arms, littering his face with kisses and fussing with his hair as she draws back, smoothing out the curls and idle tufts that stick out wherever they please.

“How are you?” she asks, and his smile only feels a little forced. This is not like when everything fell apart, and every question was a statement of pity. This is different, he knows.

“Better now that I know you’re baking,” he answers, and she swats his arm, before handing him the mixing spoon regardless. He wedges it in his mouth despite the affronted wrinkle of Marcie’s nose at the ungainliness of it all, and savors the sweet taste of the batter dissolving on his tongue as Marcie picks up her icing bowl and whisk once again.

“Where’s everyone else?” Lance asks around the spoon, and Marcie snorts, freeing a hand to lean forward and yank it gently out of his mouth.

“Aunt Lupe and Mamá are out at work, Aunt Rosa’s asleep upstairs after a night shift, Uncle Jesús is in the garage, our grandparents are over at the Garretts’ for tea and the weekly aggressive Rummikub game with the Muñozes down the street, and Evie’s upstairs yelling at her computer in what I can confirm is neither English nor Spanish—though no idea what it is beyond that—again.”

“…And Karen’s asleep on the sofa,” Lance finishes for her.

“Of course she is.” Marcie rolls her eyes, looking up to the ceiling as if praying to it to give her strength. After a few idle turns of her wrist on the whisk in the mixing bowl, she pauses and blinks, looking back down to Lance. “Oh, right, and Hunk is in the garage helping Uncle Jesús with stuff, since someone conveniently got both his assistants to jump ship.” The quirk of her mouth assures Lance that his sister isn’t actually mad about him encouraging Igraine and Lucas to pursue their ambitions, but he still winces slightly, both at the intentional reminder of his role in their departure and the unconscious one that he has been ignoring Hunk while he has been away.

“You should go check in on him,” Marcie continues, unawares. “He’s been mopey since you left, and it’s only gotten worse. I think he missed you.”

The guilt rises up, and Lance swallows it back down. No, he knew this would happen, and had resolved to himself it was necessary. He can’t call himself Hunk’s best friend and continue to let himself destroy Hunk’s life with all his messes. Some time away was—is the first step in freeing Hunk from the burden of…well, of dealing with Lance.

“Yeah, maybe in a bit…”

Marcie quirks an eyebrow suspiciously at him, but otherwise doesn’t question his lack of enthusiasm, and Lance can only be grateful for it as he pointedly launches into a colorful recount of his time in New York, minus a few things here and there, to steer the conversation in another direction.

Sometime between Lance’s description of the streets of Mavis’s neighborhood, and the reassurance that no, Marcie, living alone has not in any way improved Mavis’s cooking ability, trust me, Hunk shows up in the kitchen.

Lance doesn’t even notice, at first, too caught up in his enthusiastic tale about the day Mavis managed to get them lost on the subway, twice, and then locked out of the apartment…twice, much to his sister’s evident horror. It’s not until he hears the shuffle of noise at the doorway, and Marcie looks up from her mixing bowl to chirp a friendly “Oh! Hunk! There you are,” that it registers, and Lance freezes mid-sentence, rant stalled to silence in an instant.

Turning his head suddenly feels harder than admitting to every doubt, every fear, Lance has felt bubbling under his skin both during and after his visit to see Mavis, and when he finally does, meeting Hunk’s gaze isn’t any easier. Hunk has always been of the earth—the kind of peace and comfort equivalent to skipping stones dancing along a lake or the feel of hot sand lining the surf—but in this moment, with narrowed eyes trained on Lance with a kind of fury he has never known directed at him as such, he is steel.

“Look, Lance is back!” Marcie continues on, painfully oblivious, and Lance wonders if it’s too late to just make a break for it and crawl out the window. “I was going to kick him out to the garage to see you, but I ended up accidentally hogging him so that he could tell me about New York.” She blinks, looking contrite, as if Lance hadn’t been the one to deflect with his stories of the visit. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright, Marcie,” Hunk says evenly, glare never leaving Lance, “We all know it’s pretty much impossible to get Lance to do something he doesn’t want to.”

Marcie laughs, soft and affectionate and a hundred other things Lance probably doesn’t deserve right now, and he shrinks beneath Hunk’s eyes even as Marcie cheerfully bustles on with her baking.

There is silence, cloying and borderline painful, outside of Marcie’s idle humming as she checks the oven, inspecting the cookie trays. After a long moment, she straightens up, hands on her hips, and looks back and forth between them, smile still firmly fixed in place. “Well! I’m sure you two would rather catch up without me in the way, so why don’t you go for a walk to the beach, or something?”

“Uh…I don’t think that’s—“ Lance begins, startling, but Marcie is already there, bustling him up with shooing hands off the counter and out the kitchen, Hunk along with him. She herds them out through the living room to the front door, Lance casting desperate looks to Karen’s sleeping form all the while in the hopes she might awaken and intervene, and then out onto the porch. Hunk doesn’t even look at Lance beyond one quick, scathing side-eye, walking past him with a grace that begets a sense of false diplomacy, and down the steps pointedly.

Lance turns back to Marcie despairingly, eyes pleading, and when she shoots him a blankly unamused look that clearly conveys her disappointment, he decides she’s far too good at reading a situation without actually letting on to it. Mavis may be the self-proclaimed actress of the family—among many things—but Marcie knows how to wield a customer-service smile with downright deadly intent.

Suddenly, Karen’s recurring declaration when they were all younger that Marcie could out-fake-bitch anyone makes a lot more sense.

“Don’t do this to me,” he whispers, and Marcie smiles grimly.

“Sorry little brother, this is for your own good.” She gestures for him to hold out his hand, and he does so reluctantly, Marcie dropping a pile of coin into his open palm, before shutting the door firmly in his face. The sound of the lock sliding into place is a clear reinforcement of the earlier message, and with a sigh Lance drops his head to stare forlornly at his hand, mentally counting out the change. The exact total provided is not lost on him, and when he reaches it, he winces.

…Well played, Marcie.

“So…” he drawls uncertainly, and when he turns, Hunk is staring tiredly at him over his shoulder. “…Wanna go…get ice cream?”

The walk to the beach seems to take longer than usual, steeped in an awkward silence that leaves Lance glancing at the road, the landscape, everything around them but Hunk, choosing instead to drink in the change from lightly scattered trees to the open coastline, and gravel to sand under his sneakers. It’s not as if the whole idea of nature or open spaces has suddenly become a novelty after only a few weeks in New York—if anything, he’d developed a new appreciation for it months ago, after being forced to adjust to the urban setting of Greenwood—but right now anything is better than acknowledging Hunk’s stiff frame barely five steps distance from him, and so he pretends his fascination with the scenery is significantly greater than it actually is.

Somewhere between Lance’s fourth time quickly sliding his eyes past Hunk to the tree or rock next to him, and his fifth time looking up to the sky and gasping when a bird flies overhead—not exactly an unusual occurrence, but he feels like he needs to do something to fill up the silence, or he might just fade away—Hunk grits out a quiet “Will you stop that, please,” and Lance winces, snapping his mouth shut with a near-audible click.

There’s a moment of hesitation in Hunk’s steps as he falters, half-turning to Lance with regretful eyes, a clear apology on the tip of his tongue, before he meets Lance’s own guilty, unsure expression, and just sighs, eyes mournful as he turns back away from Lance once more and continues down the path.

Things don’t much improve by the time they reach the ice cream shop tucked in the middle of the cluster of small stores across from the water, between the tiny Italian restaurant that does garlic knots Igraine swears she’d kill a man for, and the pokey old trinket shop that services the rare tourist or the local who’s forgotten someone’s birthday present until the very last minute. The ice cream shop is a little family-owned business that’s been there since before Lance’s parents arrived, well over thirty years ago, and between the summer jobs both Karen and Carlos got out of the place for three years straight, and the frankly immoral number of free samples Lance’s sisters had wiled out of the unsuspecting teenage boys working the front counters that were far too susceptible to a pretty smile for years on end, the place has firmly become established as a part of Lance’s childhood.

He’s never had a bad memory there, and usually just going in and being welcomed in by the workers that always know him by name is enough alone to put him in a good mood, but when he shuffles in with Hunk, the ring of the bell on the door feels like the toll of death. Lance smiles uncomfortably when the server on duty, a girl who’s brother had gone to school with Evie, greets them, asking him about his trip—because in a town like Veradera, everyone’s up in everyone else’s business. He answers as briefly as he can, trying to ignore Hunk’s stare lingering on him, and counts out the change with a frazzled mind when it comes time to pay.

When they leave, stilted goodbyes called over their shoulders and an ice cream cone each apiece, rainbow sherbet for Hunk and mint chip for Lance, Hunk trudges past Lance with weary silence to the edge of the shop-street pathway. Lance follows him until they hit sand, Hunk walking about ten steps in before simply plopping down upon it, crossing his legs and tucking his elbows over his knees.

The last fading of the sun against the watery horizon is still present, and Lance finds his eyes caught on it as he goes to join Hunk, sitting down next to him and curling up into his own ball not even yet two-third’s Hunk’s size, still tiny and frail by comparison even with every lie of strength and growth, both physical and mental, he tells himself.

He bites into his ice cream, tasting the sharp kiss of the mint on his tongue, and wishes his heart didn’t hurt as much as it does.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” Hunk says eventually, and Lance wants to laugh, because of course Hunk would put his worry at upsetting Lance over a perfectly normal reaction to his…Lance-ness above his own frustration at Lance’s shitty behavior towards him. Sometimes, it amazes Lance to no ends they’ve manage to be friends as long as they have, given how different they are—the selfish shadow and the ever-giving rock of stability.

“…This is the part where you apologize and explain why you ignored me for the better part of a month, Lance,” Hunk continues when Lance doesn’t respond, sounding more tired than angry at this point, and Lance looks to the ground, averting his eyes as he takes another bite of his ice cream cone. “Well?”

Lance lets his silence speak for him, and Hunk growls out into the open air, an exhausted, desperate sound.

“Thirty-six calls, Lance! I had to talk to your mother just to check you were still alive, and God, do you know what that feels like? I thought something had happened to you,” the too goes unspoken, tasting of hospital beds and funeral sunshine, but its silence echoes between them. “Thirty-six, and you didn’t answer a single one. ”

“I know,” Lance says, voice measured in a way the unsteady beat of his heart doesn’t match as his confession spills from him, unbidden. “I counted them.”

“Tell me it was an accident, a mistake!” Hunk snaps, “Tell me your phone broke or you forgot your charger, which I know you didn’t because everyone else was getting texts from you. Tell me anything. Spin me some story about why you managed to Skype Ritzie every week and not pick up my calls. Lie to me,” Hunk’s voice cracks, filled with an unspoken, worn-out grief Lance knows so well he can feel it in his bones, and it aches. “I don’t care! Just give me some bad excuse so that I can pretend I believe it and we can move on, like we always do.”

“…No,” Lance whispers, and he doesn’t quite know why, but when confronted with it, with the knowledge that Hunk knows and recognizes every false confidence from Lance’s tongue, the taste of his free out from the situation is sour.

Hunk doesn’t deserve a lot of the crap Lance puts him through on a near-constant basis—doesn’t deserve any of it, really—but he especially doesn’t deserve to be given false complacencies right now, when confronted with Lance’s half-hearted attempt to end it. End their codependence, the depth of their friendship, their…whatever. Whatever this is.

“Why not?!” Hunk screams, jumping to his feet, half-finished ice cream cone forgotten as it falls from his hand, and it is enough to startle Lance to his feet as well, with the realization that he’s never heard Hunk like this before. Not once, not when Lance’s mother got sick and things went to shit, not even when they lost Loraine and everything fell apart all over again. “You lie to everyone else! You lie to your sisters, when they ask if you’re okay. You lie to Ritzie, when she asks you why we came to Greenwood, despite the fact that she looks at you like you hung the sun, and tells you everything, and you let her. You lie to everyone, all the time! Except Mavis, apparently, for some reason—because she showed up out of the blue after three years of radio silence and gave you some stuffed toy, and that was enough to earn your trust apparently!”

“Don’t—“ Lance snaps, because Mavis is more than that, more to him in the face of all they have lost than Hunk could ever understand, despite her faults and despite her flaws, but Hunk barrels on.

“She’s the only one you’re honest with. So c’mon, lie to me! It’s what you do best, right?”

“I didn’t forget to call you,” Lance says calmly, even as his hands shake, because Hunk deserves to know. Deserves this much honesty, at least. “Hunk I didn’t—“

“Stop it!” Hunk says, “Just—stop! Tell me you forgot. Just give me that. Tell me what you tell everyone else, when you want them not to see inside. Tell—tell me you’re better all of a sudden, and you’re not m-miserable inside pretending you’re something you’re not every day, and I’ll lie in exchange and say I believe you!”

Lance’s eyes widen, any words he had left falling from grace, and suddenly this feels like a long time coming, more so than a month of missed calls and heavy silence, stretching across a year and then some of broken things swept under the rug but never actually disposed of. Hunk heaves heavy breaths across from him, hands curled into fists, and Lance’s heart catches in his throat when tears pool in his best friend’s eyes.

“Because—“ Hunk laughs, swiping ineffectively at his eyes. “Because I can’t do this anymore, alright Lance? I can’t take being the person that isn’t good enough for honesty, but isn’t given the comfort of lies either. I can’t take you being a constant presence in my life and then shoving me away the minute you think you’ve found some other coping solution. Y-you need to pick, because I don’t know what’s going on with you anymore, and it’s too much to be both.”

“Hunk…”

“Look,” Hunk sighs, crossing his arms, shoulders shaking. “I don’t know if you ignored me because you just wanted space from my hovering, or if you’ve just decided you’re sick of me, but I need some clear answer, because I can’t keep—“

“It’s not that!” Lance says, “You’re my best friend. You’re family, all right? I need you!”

“Then act like it instead of shutting me out like this!” Hunk screeches, and Lance jumps, taking a step back. Tears threatening to spill over once more, Hunk collapses back into the ground, large shoulders tucked in as he buries his face in his hands. “Make up your mind and just…tell me what you want, you idiot. I need you to tell me, I can’t read your mind. I’m not—“ He swallows, and a mountain of grief shudders out between wide fingers. “I’m not her. I’m not Loraine.” Hunk whispers it like a confession, an apology for a sin he never meant to commit, and it feels like the snap of the rope taut against open air the day Lance—the day they fell…all of them.

Lance sags, stumbling to the ground, and feels the grit of the sand against his knees as he watches his best friend break.

Loraine may have been the one that hit the ground first that day, but they all fell with her, one way or another. Igraine’s regret, Mavis’s guilt, Lance’s collapse, Hunk’s…

Hunk: his best friend, his protector, his brother of summer sun and whispering winters.

They’re all broken, were broken, are still breaking, and Lance is only just starting to see it.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles out, and across from him Hunk twitches, “I was just…I was just trying to protect you.”

Hunk laughs hoarsely, confused and desolate. “Protect me from what?”

“Me,” Lance admits, and it stings. “The things I do to myself. You’re right, I lie and I make myself miserable and I let people love me without actually letting them in, and I—I’m a self-destructive ass and a psychiatrist would probably have a field day with me, and I just thought…” He pauses, and glances over to Hunk hesitantly. “Hunk, I can’t hide from you. You’re there every day and you have to deal with all of that, and you never even complain about it. I had to get you out before I destroyed you too. Mavis is—it’s different,” he finishes lamely, and he doesn’t know how to explain it, that feeling low in his gut when he thinks of Mavis’s hollow apartment and that trundle bed and the clothes she bought for him, that he is not her destruction but, in some fucked up way, her self-decided redemption.

After a long moment, Hunk sighs, shuffling over until he is directly across from Lance, reaching out and catching Lance’s smaller hands within his larger ones, turning them over and inspecting them gently as if they’ll explain all the never-ending inconsistencies of Lance’s being to him. “…You’re an idiot.”

“I’m not gonna argue that one, you know.”

Hunk snorts, releasing Lance’s hands and leaning forward to push one palm against his cheek gently, the tiniest pressure against his jaw and cheekbone. “You remember this?”

Lance furrows his brow, trying to mentally calculate what Hunk means before it clicks, and he blinks. “…The time you slapped me? Kind of hard not to.”

“You were trying to spare me that time, too. It’s exactly the same thing. What, are we just going to go round in circles now?”

He frowns, watching Hunk carefully. “This is different.”

“No, it’s not,” Hunk says firmly, retracting his hand and dropping it into his lap. He stares at Lance sadly, those dark eyes the same as they were that first time he met them, perched in that tree on a hot summer afternoon a lifetime ago, and yet so different, and Lance wonders what the hell happened to the both of them. “You need to save everyone, to protect them, because you love them. You let them in, because you need them, but you also push them away when they get too close. You push me away, because you’re convinced if you let me I’ll run my entire existence around you.” He smiles halfheartedly. “Pretty big ego you’ve got there, buddy.”

Lance shivers, a sudden lump in his throat. “You know me,” he croaks, “I’m convinced everything’s about me.

Hunk’s mouth quirks upward, a lopsided smile, and inside Lance, something settles. “Believe it or not, I need you Lance, just as much as you need me. So yeah, I’ll fuss over you and mother-hen you, if that’s what it takes, because I don’t want to lose you, but do not think that means I’m going to become you. I’m only doing what you’d do for me, for anyone you care about.”

“You just have to go and make me look stupid, don’t you?” Lance says, but he can’t feel anything but relief, and, as his eyes track spoiled ice cream cones lying amongst soft sand, a sort of displaced grief. Even now, things still get spoiled, ruined, because of him, and he doesn’t know how to explain that to Hunk without getting the same lecture all over again.

It’s not a rational thought, he knows. It’s the kind that brings him to secrets buried in a crumbling New York apartment, under a dorm room bed, whispered to a snow-covered gravestone, and yet he can’t deny its presence.

Perhaps that is what drives him to Mavis, because in triple-locked doors and three AM cereal bowls illuminated by city lights, he senses she has those thoughts too.

“Wouldn’t be doing my job if I wasn’t,” Hunk says with a kind of tired amusement, pulling Lance from his musings, and Lance snorts, punching him gently in the shoulder.

“Jerk.”

[bungou-stray-dogs-indulgences]

Can I have headcannons of Ranpo , Chuuya and Atsushi with a s/o afraid of thunder? Like how they would comfort them? Also I just want to say I love your blog

Awww, thank you dear!💜

Edogawa Ranpo

Naturally, Ranpo deduces what’s got you in knots as soon as the first boom sends you diving for cover. Figuring out how to comfort you, though; that’s a whole different story. True, Ranpo’s got a practically encyclopedic knowledge of what makes you feel better, but actually doing any of that takes effort, and he’s not about that. After about two minutes of your whimpering, though, Ranpo gives in, deciding to shape up, actually be a good boyfriend, and soothe you.

He’s trying to be sweet; really, he is, but if you’re not out of your hiding place after the first time he asks Ranpo instantly turns into an asshole. He launches into a no-holds-barred speech about how stupid this fear is. It’s not as if thunder’s going to touch you, Ranpo points out; after all, it’s only a noise. 

Ranpo lures you onto the couch, promising that you’ll feel better if you snuggle him. After you climb next to him, he tugs you into his lap before wrapping you both in a cocoon of blankets. As you start to get comfortable, Ranpo’s hands lightly wind through your hair, gently massaging your fears away.

Ranpo eventually decides that keeping a smile on your face is worth the ultimate sacrifice. Albeit reluctantly, he offers to let you rifle through his candy stash. Ranpo’s pouting furiously the entire time you’re picking through his sweets, but he figures that if it takes your mind off the storm, abandoning a few Snickers is worth it.

Crime films are Ranpo’s go-to solution, and tonight is no different. As soon as you’re settled on the couch, snacks in hand, he picks out a mystery you two haven’t seen before. Of course he spoils the whole thing in true Ranpo style, pointing out the true criminal the moment they come on screen, but at least you’re distracted from the thunder.

Nakahara Chuuya

Poor Chuuya’s at a loss when the stormy weather transforms you into a trembling mess. You’re frightened—he figures that out easily enough, but deciphering why is entirely different. Chuuya realizes what your problem is after about the third or fourth boom of thunder gets you whimpering.

Immediately, Chuuya draws all of the penthouse curtains, hoping that if you can’t see the storm raging outside, maybe hearing it will be less of an issue, too. Just to be safe, he switches on the stereo too, settling on some soothing music that he thinks you’ll like. Chuuya blares it until he can barely hear himself think, much less any thunder.

Chuuya pulls you into his arms, squeezing your in a tight hug as he assures you that you’ll be alright. Gently, he whispers sweet nothings in your ear, rubbing comforting circles into your skin as you calm down. Eventually, his voice slowly shifts into singing. With his smooth voice, Chuuya soothes your nerves, dulcet tones chasing away your fear.

If simply holding you doesn’t seem to be working, Chuuya pulls you into a dance. Leading you around the penthouse, he lets the stereo guide you two in a slow, soothing rhythm. He doesn’t direct you into anything too intense; Chuuya’s trying to calm you down, after all, not wind you up again. He simply dances in slow circles, making sure your mind’s completely in the moment with him, and not focusing on the storm outside.

When you both collapse into bed, Chuuya tugs you so tight to his chest you can barely breathe. Normally, you’re close to him anyway, but as the storm wears on you two are practically sticking like Velcro. Anytime he feels you tense up, reacting to a boom of thunder outside, his hands travel up to tangle in your hair. Chuuya gently rubs your scalp until you’re breathing normally again, his nimble fingers lulling you to sleep.

Nakajima Atsushi

After the first boom of thunder sends you, whimpering, to the nearest room without windows, Atsushi’s completely baffled; as talented as he is, putting two-and-two together just isn’t his strong suit. Immediately, he’s following you, panic in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he prods, reaching out to squeeze your hand reassuringly. As soon as you manage to voice your fears, Atsushi’s instantly relieved. He was genuinely worried for a moment; but thunder? That’s something he can deal with!

Atsushi winds his fingers through yours, thumb massaging your hand comfortingly. He leads you to the bedroom before crawling in, motioning you to follows. As soon as you’re snuggled into your blankets he tugs you into his lap, wrapping his arms around you.

As you’re cuddling, Atsushi massages your scalp, assuring that it’s okay to be scared. After all, he’s terrified of plenty of things! Fear’s only natural. Despite that, Atsushi swears up and down he’ll keep you safe (even if the only way he can really defend from something like thunder is to stuff some earplugs in your ears before it strikes).

To keep your mind off the thunder raging outside, Atsushi tells you about all of his favorite books that he read at the orphanage. His favorite parts, he explains, were always the characters; seeing them set out on some impossible journey, told every step of the way they wouldn’t make it, only to come out on top, kept him going even when he wanted nothing more than to give up. Eyes shining, he recounts all of his favorite adventures, gushing at all the heroes that put some joy in his childhood.

If you get bored with his novel reviews, Atsushi switches to something he knows will keep your attention; telling you everything he loves about you. Smile on his face, he launches into a list of everything he adores; your eyes, your sense of humor, your kindness. He goes on and on and on until he’s completely out of breath. Atsushi doesn’t stop until you’re blushing furiously, completely overwhelmed by his sweet compliments.