#ao3fandom

[kitttcatalyst]

Some dreams are just echoes of a past that won't stay buried. 💔 Haruto wakes up with a scream lodged in her throat, heart pounding, the ghost of ash and blood clinging to her skin. Katsuki's voice still rings in her ears — a desperate cry, a hand reaching through the rubble. But when she opens her eyes, it's gone. Just a nightmare. Right?

She doesn't remember it fully. Not yet. But the fear lingers. And the worst part? She knows, deep down, that it wasn't just a dream. It was a memory.

Evermore AU has me in SHAMBLES. Reincarnation? Redemption? Trauma manifesting in dreams? Yeah, I’m feral. 🥲🔥

[ladylynse]

So the amazing @spellboundapothecary (SpellboundWriter) is working on a podcast of my Danny Phantom fic Connections. Here’s chapter three! Please give it a listen and let them know what you think.

If you want to follow along with the fic, it’s posted on FFN and the AO3.

[modusssa]

Three Headed Dragon (One Shot Smut Fic)

Read it here on Ao3

Fandom: House of the Dragon (HBO)

Rating - Explicit

(PLEASE CHECK TAGS AND TRIGGER WARNINGS!!)

Snippet:

Daemon hummed. His hands slid up her thighs to her wet center. She went to close her legs together, but Daemon forced them open. He slid his nose down the side of her face, his voice tickling her ear and neck. “Relax. Show him.” Annara relaxed into Daemon as he drug his hands up to her pussy, lightly brushing his fingers over her lips. He gingerly placed his hands on each side and slowly opened her pussy to Aemond, the unhurriedness of it and the obsceneness of it made it drip liquid heat that slid down her ass.

Aemond kneeled out of the chair and came closer, his face dangerously close to her center. Daemon dragged his finger through her folds, stopping at her entrance and gathering wetness on the tip. He removed it and held it out to Aemond. “Taste her.”

[milkteamoon]

To Scale the Stars

Read on Ao3

Fandom: Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun Rating: general audience Tags: space au, introspection Relationships: Amane Yugi & Nene Yashiro It gets lonely up in space sometimes. Maybe it's being alone that's making Amane imagine a fish outside his window. Written for Ad Lunam Zine @jshkspacezine

It’s early one morning when he first sees her.

Or late one night. The clock above his bed reads 5:53 am, but time means little when you’re floating through space, stitched between the dawn and twilight, caught up in the milky expanse of the moon’s glow. 

Amane knows he should be better about keeping time. He’s been meaning to since college- work on that whole “getting your life together” concept. But life skips stones at the speed of light, and suddenly he’s twenty-one, twenty-seven, thirty-two. Suddenly he’s picking through his hair to see if that one particular strand is blonde or gray, sifting through the infinite amount of work contacts in his phone just to find his brother’s number, staring out over the tiny lights of the world below wondering if anyone misses him up here. He already knows the answer to that last one- Tsukasa asks him every day when he’s coming home (and every day he tells him “soon.” And every day his twin tells him “not soon enough,” and every day the cycle repeats). And though his middle school teacher would sooner drink pen ink than admit it, Tsuchigomori is all too quick to take him up on the offer to go get a drink sometime.

But seriously, Amane needs to get better about the whole time thing. It’s really ruining his sleep schedule (one he barely had to begin with), but he can’t help that his body simply won’t adjust to zero gravity even after six months of living it.

So it’s 5:53 am when he straps on his helmet, attaches his lure, and makes his way out into the inky void of the universe. It’s a typical space walk, like he’s done a thousand times before. Check the meters, skim the paneling, adjust the satellite dish that came loose after the station drifted through a cloud of space debris.

The usual.

He knows how it goes.

He knows how quiet it is out there, lost in only the vibrations of his own breathing and the soft whir of his suit.

He knows where his head starts wandering when left to his own devices.

And it’s wandering he assumes it’s doing when he spots the tiny nebulous cloud on the horizon.

Something….moving.

Swishing. 

Swimming. 

At least, that’s the best way he can describe it.

It’s enough to make him rub his helmet in place of his eyes, attempting to blink away some sleep-deprived hallucination or trick of the lunar light. Trying to convince himself that it’s just his imagination. That somehow the dream he had the other night about an alien movie he’d seen with his brother had wriggled its way into reality in the most tantalizing concoction of space dust and astral debris.

The reality check fails to dissipate whatever it is, so Amane does the next most rational thing.

Winds his way back around the space station paneling. Slips his way out of the vast expanse of space and into the comfort of his quarters. Takes two aspirin – just for good measure, reminds himself to get new contacts when he returns to terra firma, and does his best to force his mind into a fitful sleep.

He doesn’t drift off until about three hours later, but when he finally does, he dreams he’s at sea.

Floating. Drifting over an infinitely vast stretch of blue. One that he can’t see the bottom of, no matter how much he squints or how hard he imagines.

Which is funny. Kind of. In the ironic non-humor sort of way that elicits more of an exhausted huff than an amused chuckle. Because Amane never really liked the ocean. And he has an inkling that the feeling’s mutual.

~

It’s a fish, he decides. Or at least, something akin to it. Something with fins and gills that twists its way in between the satellite paneling and the tail of Ursa Major. That inches its way closer with every passing sunset, to the point that it chips itself out of his imagination and into the corporeal world just outside his window.

Amane’s first thought is that he’s losing it. 

Naturally. Sure, it’s not the first time he’s been up in space alone, but it’s certainly the longest. Shijima’s team wasn’t set to dock for another three weeks, and the little human interaction he could manage were emails to his brother and the occasional check-in from mission control. 

Which was....fine, he supposed. In all honesty, Amane much preferred silence or his own choice of music to the prattle of other passengers. The lilting hum of the spaceship and the occasional beeps from the dashboard to the snores of coworkers who managed a much better sleep schedule than him.

But Amane’s not stupid. He also knows how silence gets to a person. He’s seen it many times.

But he doesn’t linger on the possibility of a dwindling psyche. He’s much too intrigued by this odd little creature that has taken up residence outside his window.

And there’s something sorta funny about the whole situation, because Amane’s never liked the ocean. Never liked the possibility of millennium-old creatures dwelling in hydrothermal vents, of things waiting to drag him down beneath the waves. Never liked the way his classmates’ stares settled into the back of his head like eyes lurking in the deep. Space isn’t like the ocean. Space is infinitely vast and infinitely empty. Space is made up of numbers and theories and rocket-fuel and rocks.

Space is dead. But he’s okay with that. Amane likes the silence. Amane likes to be alone.

Amane’s always wanted to get away.

And he’s been true to that whole “space is empty” belief until now. Sure, alien life might be statistically probable, but it was biologically impossible. Not real. A fabrication. Nothing but pipe dreams. 

Amane sends a message to Tsuchigomori before he crawls into bed that night. One he doesn’t really expect a reply to, because it’s nearly 3 a.m. in Japan. That is, unless Tsuchigomori’s been up grading again. Amane knows he has a bad habit of doing so.

And it’s nearly four hours later when he rolls over to check his smartphone and finds it blinking with a response that irks him for just how typical it is of his old school teacher, blunt as ever.

Amane: do you think there’s life out there somewhere?

Tsuchigomori-sensei: sure, why not?

~

And that weird little creature melts into his life much in the same way of cream into coffee: sweetly, slowly, and then all at once. To the point that his days feel empty the moments it drifts out of his glass canvas of the universe outside, if days can exist in a world filled with infinite sunsets. Well, about fifteen that is. Something that started awe-inspiring, then grated into a nuisance, and finally dipped their way into becoming the best part of his waking hours. 

Because every sunset the fish would resurface, and Amane took the time to sit. Watch as the sun glimmered off the switchboard at the head of the cabin and twisted its way between the creature’s translucent scales. Breathed in the much too filtered air and breathed out a stillness he hadn’t felt in years. 

It never speaks — not that he thought it would — but he comes to know its language. Its erratic swishes when he comes to peek outside, its bouncing when he tends to the zinnias. Maybe in another life, it’d have been a gardener, or a mermaid, or a novelist. Maybe that’s why it slows to a halt and allows him to bask in every glinting, rainbow scale when he finds the courage to speak.

It’s not the possibility that he’s losing it that eats at him. Of course not. Amane’s always been the weird kid, the hot topic of back-of-the-classroom conversations and breakroom gossip, and he’s used to that. It’s fine. In all honesty, finding out that he’s hallucinating sea creatures would probably be the least of his worries.

But there’s that small sliver of a chance that manages to keep him up at night. That somehow he’s.....not. That maybe, just maybe, the fish really is swimming through the stars outside the space station, and that maybe, just maybe, it’s nothing more than that.

Just a fish.

Impossibly normal.

Not some eldritch monster from one of Tsukasa’s horror manga, nor some anomalous amalgamation of undiscovered extraterrestrial life. Not some figment of a loose air tank that was slowly spinning his brain to mush.

But a fish. Just a fish. One with gills and fins and eyes glazed in nictitating nothingness. Just a fish as simple as that moon rock he had as a child, or the sun being nothing more than a ball of burning gas.

Perfectly........ordinary. 

And that frightens him, but he’s not sure why.

Amane presses his face to the glass one evening and finds it cold as ice. And as he does, the fish follows suit, bopping its nose into the window and wiggling its horns (fins? He’s not quite sure) in a sympathetic gesture.

And Amane whispers into the space between.

“Are you real?”

Even though it can’t hear him.

And the fish stares glassy-eyed and keeps its mouth shut.

Always does.

Always silent.

Why should he expect anything different?

~

It’s a Wednesday that the fish fails to show at the day’s first sunset.

Amane sits alone.

Goes about his day as one would without a fish.

Once, he thinks he catches it skirting around the edges of the paneling. Clipping the last rays of sun before dipping back into the faint luster of starlight. Swimming just as brisk as if it were navigating the inky black waves that he used to fear as a child. 

And then it’s gone. Just a blip. Just his imagination.

It’s gone again on Thursday. And Friday.

Amane sits at the window. Waiting. Watching for something that might have been a fish, or might have been just his imagination.

And when the final sunset dies on the horizon, he crawls into bed. Forces himself into a fitful sleep – or at least, he tries to. Because the whirs of the station are much louder now, much heavier and dripping into the static silence like mercury. Much more rhythmic, in a sense, that it almost reminds him of ocean waves.

Crashing. Clawing. 

And then still.

~

Amane dreams of his old middle school.

Dreams that it’s still drenched in that awful teal paint and that the old wing still sits abandoned and unrenovated. 

Amane dreams of himself. That he never grew past five-foot, squished down by some old school cap he remembers wearing on orientation day of first year. Amane dreams of a weird sticker on his face, ironically scrawled with the word “seal,” that he’s certain would itch like peeling face paint if his hands were just a bit more solid and his feet could touch the ground.

Amane dreams of a girl, one with droopy eyes and messy hair. One with a voice loud as thunder with ankles to match, and one that calls him some weird nickname he can’t remember when he wakes up. She yells a lot, and he laughs, and then she follows suit. As they should. As if they always should.

Amane dreams of the moon, stretched across the sky in luminescent majesty.

That the celestial body still holds the same wonder as it did in the tiny rock he had as a child. That rabbits still dance on its surface and that an old youthful wish still crawls beneath his skin. 

Amane knows that he’s not going to the moon in his dream, but that’s okay. It’s okay when that funny girl drags him along, adjusts his cap, and calls him things he might be embarrassed by as an adult. It’s okay when the umbrella kid comes to eat donuts (plain, no less!) with them, and they laugh about a joke he doesn’t quite get.

It’s okay that he’s not going to the moon.

Amane’s not going anywhere in his dream, but he’s not so lonely this time around.

And it’s okay. Somehow, it’s still okay.

~

It’s 5:53 am when Amane is awoken by one, two, three knocks at his window. It’s just enough to pull him from the warm haze of his mind into the chill of the cabin, just enough to do a quick sweep of the monitors and valves. And logically he knows no one should be knocking on his window some 250 miles above the earth. That realistically it’s space junk, or rogue rocks, or even more likely his imagination. But it’s still 5:53 am, and it’s much too early to go back to bed. 

So Amane does the next most rational thing. Straps on his helmet. Attaches his lure. Makes his way out into the inky void of the universe glazed in the red hue of another sunset. 

Just another day in the booming silence of non-gravity.

Until it isn’t.

Until he makes it to the rim of the plexiglass paneling and spots what he’s been searching for for the past 2 weeks.

Something moving.

Swishing. 

Swimming. 

He doesn’t even need to stretch his tether to full length, because the tiny nebulous cloud comes to meet him. 

“You’re still here huh?” he asks, not expecting a response. Because the fish never speaks, never gives him more than a shake of its star-dusted tail and a blink of those black, nebulous eyes. 

And maybe a week ago he’d have been saddened by this. Upset. Angered. Lonely, like the ocean itself far below his feet.

But it’s okay.

It’s okay when it doesn’t respond as he whispers about going to the moon like he did as a child. About his dream to get away from those bandages that tied him down, and the infinite space to do so. About the silence, conversation just through pixelated text, a sky that pulls his loneliness from his chest and knits it across the stars for all to see.

And he watches the sunset until it slips beyond the horizon yet again. Until his suit beeps at half oxygen, and until he realizes he’s alone once more in the rungs of the night’s shadow.

Amane then does three things.

Makes his way back inside and peels off his chilled suit. Catch the faintest of glimmers on the horizon, of starlight and scales and gills that breathe space dust, just before it slips off into the twinkle between Alcor and Mizar. Heads to his desk, opens his messages, and sends a quick note to his brother promising to be home soon. Even though it’s only 6 am there, and Tsukasa won’t – shouldn’t be awake for another three hours.

The response is almost immediate.

Not soon enough.

And Amane laughs, just a bit, into the silence of the cabin before typing his response.

You can’t wait a week?

But he already knows the answer.

And for once, it’s something the both of them can agree on.

[unbreakablejemmasimmons]

fic: rant man >> read it on ao3

Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe Summary: You're listening to Big Voices, Little Voices: An [Un]Official Avengers Podcast Hosted by Scott Lang aka Ant-Man. Today's guest? Everyone’s favorite scowling soldier, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. Characters: Scott Lang, Luis, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson (mentioned), Kate Bishop (background) Chapter Word Count: 1,539

Excerpt:

Scott Lang: And we’re back with Bucky Barnes, who has agreed to stick around if we agree to stick to a very specific list of safe topics. And I mean, this list is short. It doesn’t even take up a whole Post-It note. 

Bucky Barnes: I can always cross a few off.

Scott Lang: No, no need! This is plenty. Read it on AO3!

[songbvrd]

Artificial Love - Songbvrd on ao3

Fandom: Teen Wolf (TV)   Ship: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken Secondary Ships: background Tracy Stewart/Hayden Romerobackground Corey Bryant/Mason Hewittbackground Josh Diaz/Brett Talbot Rating: Mature Word Count: 172,935 Chapter: 32/32 Summary:

Prince Theo and Prince Liam are forced to spend every Summer together from age five onwards. They hate each other, and usually find ways to make each other miserable as much as possible in their six weeks together.

But when they're reunited because of intended unions as adults, things change. They're both supposed to be married to noble women, but neither of them is as interested in anyone else as they are with their childhood rival.

Please find a spotify playlist to go with this fic here!

[krokonoko]

Plus One - Chapter 3/5

Read on AO3

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia

Relationship(s): Katsuki Bakugou / Ochako Uraraka

Rating: T

Ochako reunites with estranged school friend Bakugou at Deku’s wedding. The catch: Deku isn’t marrying either of them.

 Her words, and thoughts, the whole world around them stops in its tracks as Bakugou delves down and presses his slightly parted lips to her mouth.

 This comes… as a bit of a surprise. And then again, it’s no surprise at all.

 Ochako’s heart thumps against her ribcage for one painful beat, and she can hear her own breath coming out in a huff as her fingers close tighter around the lapels of Bakugou’s jacket.

 Two calloused hands reach for her, cup her neck, travel up her cheeks and into her hair, hold onto her as if she’s a long lost lover.

 He breaks the kiss, but keeps holding onto her, and finally she can see his expression for the vulnerable, cracked open rawness that it displays. Bakugou's brows furrowed, his teeth bared, his own breath choppy and strained, like he’s barely holding back, it’s clear that he’s waiting, asking, begging - To hold her, to be held. He has been barely keeping it together these past few hours and only let out his grief for a precious couple of seconds back at the pavilion. But it’s not enough. This night is far from over for him.

[natsora]

A @badthingshappenbingo​ prompt fil for Vomiting.

A return to Kadara turns sour for Ryder as she wraps herself around the toilet bowl throwing up her guts. It's just something she ate right? Oh fuck, that's blood.

Read it on AO3

Fandom: Mass Effect Andromeda / Mass Effect. Prompt filled for Vomitting

[ham303]

🌈

[ladylynse]

So the amazing @spellboundapothecary (SpellboundWriter) is working on a podcast of my Danny Phantom fic Perplexities. Give it a listen and let them know what you think!

You can find the fic itself on FFN and the AO3.

[milkteamoon]

Bane of Our Blood

Read on Ao3

Fandom: Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun Rating: teen and up Tags: angst, character study, flower symbolism Relationships: Tsukasa & Amane Yugi When Tsukasa bleeds, it’s always purple. Written for Hanakotoba Zine @jshkflowerszine

Tsukasa bleeds purple.

He’s seven years old when he falls out of a tree and nearly skins his knee clean off. A product of a paper plane too far and a branch too weak, dropping him flat onto cold, unforgiving dirt in one dissonant crunch. Tsukasa figures he’s supposed to cry over something like this, over this burning in his leg. That’s what Amane does when he gets hurt, what the kids on the playground do, what his mother does. That’s what he determines he should do as he pushes himself from the dust and the haze and the ringing of his ears, but he gets preoccupied quickly.

Because the divot under his kneecap doesn’t bleed. Not really. If you can call purple, hood-shaped flowers sprouting from his skin bleeding.

Tsukasa thinks he should probably be crying now, but instead, he lets his curiosity build. Instead, he sits and picks at the wound, watching petals dribble down his leg and collect into a neat, violet pile at his feet. Instead, he stares at this strange occurrence and wonders if this feeling is normal, this numbness in his leg and in his finger as he pokes it.

Tsukasa’s not used to getting hurt — he’s usually on the spectator end of things (and usually in time-out long before he can see the aftermath). Amane’s the one who’s more experienced with this kind of thing. His brother might be the older one, but he’s the more clumsy, more reckless, more willing to throw himself in front of a truck to protect his twin. Amane’s the one more accustomed to pain.

Amane’s the one who starts crying for him when he comes rushing to his aid, fighting back his own empathetic tears and apologizing fifty times over. For what, Tsukasa can’t be sure — but he is sure enough of his peculiar injury to stick it out and yip in awe and wonder.

“Amane, look! Look! Petals!”

Amane isn’t looking. Amane’s fear melds into panic as he frantically checks his twin over, asking if he’s hit his head and holding up fingers to make him count.

Tsukasa doesn’t want to count, he wants Amane to look.

But no matter how much he insists, Amane doesn’t see. Amane doesn’t acknowledge the wound with anything other than concern as scoops his little brother onto his back and makes his way home.

So Tsukasa stays quiet and curls his arms around Amane’s shoulders, watching as the buds begin to wilt, shriveling and graying until they tumble from his leg and dissolve into ash.

~

Tsukasa bleeds purple, but no one else does.

He learns this rather quickly — in the knocked-out teeth of his classmate, in the papercut of his teacher. In the scrapes that decorate his brother’s arms in a kaleidoscope of blues and reds.

He learns not to speak of the flowers that blossom in his own wounds or the vines that twist and ache into old scars. He learns not to speak at all, and keeps his mouth shut as his brother patches the cut on his hand.

Tsukasa doesn’t know when he started hating those cartoon dinosaur bandages that wrap around his fingers. They’re too colorful, too childish, too hopeful for something used to cover injuries that never heal. He’d prefer his fingers stay bloody and bruised for all to see and all to judge.

But Amane insists on keeping them clean and bandaged, so he obliges. Even if Amane doesn’t do the same for himself. Even if Amane lets himself be bound and gagged by sloppily tied wrappings from just another adult pretending to care.

Disappointing.

Tsukasa doesn’t like when Amane holds back, holds his tongue tightly behind the lock of his clenched jaw. He wants Amane to open up so he can see what grows behind the mirror of his own face.

But Amane never does. He only ever bleeds red. Boring, bland, uninteresting red, just like everyone else. To the point that Tsukasa can’t imagine his brother in any other color.

Red.

Just red.

How dull.

“Why don’t we go to the movies this weekend, Tsukasa?” Amane suggests, in a feigned innocence that Tsukasa knows well. It’d make him sick if he didn’t feel so tired — tired of this mask his brother wears of a boy who’d cry when Tsukasa scraped his knees. So much so that he picks at the scab on his arm until hood-shaped blossoms form, just to see something other than red, other than lies. Something real in the most ironic of senses.

Because both of them know they won’t be going to the movies, watching monsters topple buildings in a reality far from their own. Both of them know they’re much too old for frivolous joys drowned long ago. Movies are for children, not eleven year old boys. Children get to watch movies and stargaze and paint and laugh and cry when one falls out of a tree.

Eleven year old boys are meant to stay locked in the bathroom to silently bandage each other’s wounds. He’s certain of this. It’s the only eleven he’s ever known.

But Tsukasa only nods. Picks away the aconite growing beneath his cracked nails. Lets the violet petals smear between his fingertips and crumble into dust.

As usual.

Amane’s always been a liar. Tsukasa decides he can be one too.

~

Tsukasa bleeds.

Chokes.

Tries to speak, but finds his lungs collapsed around a cavern of cold steel.

It’s dark out. It must be, because he can’t see anything. Can’t hear anything except a faint sobbing so very far away. Can’t feel anything except cold — in his chest, in his face, in his fingers still wrapped in dinosaur bandages.

There’s someone standing over him, wiping away the petals from his lips with gentle, trembling hands. Someone with wide amber eyes that look very much like his own — eyes that could only belong to his brother. Is it his brother? He’s not sure anymore. Tsukasa can’t remember what Amane looks like underneath that carefully curated mask, but he hopes it is. Prays it is. Tries his best to smile, to laugh, because finally, finally, Amane opened up.

“You finally stopped holding back, Amane.”

Tsukasa thinks that’s what he says, but it chokes out garbled through clumps of aconite. He can’t think to say anything else, can’t feel as his brother substitutes the comfort of a dull kitchen knife for a shaky hand in his own.

And for once, just this once, Amane bleeds purple too.

Not tiny bell-shaped flowers, but stalks of fierce, bursting lavender from his own matching wound. Hyacinths sprouting and wilting into puddles across the freezing tile of the bathroom floor.

Tsukasa always liked hyacinths. Tsukasa always liked Amane.

He thinks Amane is saying something, but he can’t hear him anymore. Only can follow the blurred form of his lips as they whisper and whimper and sob.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

Tsukasa bleeds purple until there’s nothing left to bleed.

~

Tsukasa bleeds monochrome in a world of black and white.

It’s a world he should know by now, so very much like his own. Same bed, same school uniform. Same homemade star map hung crooked over the door in their room. Same empty box he brings to school for lunch, same missing assignment his teacher chides him for.

Same knife that goes through his sternum every evening like clockwork. Doesn’t matter when or where or why. Doesn’t matter what path he takes home, what dying words he chokes out as he bleeds out on gritty bathroom tile that smells of bleach and copper.

Tsukasa always dies.

And Amane always apologizes.

Day in, day out.

Except it’s not really Amane. Not really. Tsukasa doesn’t know the boy wearing his brother’s face, but he knows Amane’s hands didn’t shake like that when he killed him in a burst of tears and fists and polished steel courtesy of the home ec room. Who snivels and weeps like a child when he finishes the deed in a sloppy shower of violet.

Who apologizes with remorse. Genuine remorse. So thick in his cries that it makes him want to be the one with the knife and the intent.

Because no matter how good an actor he was, Amane was never good about being sorry.

This Amane can’t see that black sticker on his face that burns into the round cheeks he never grew out of, nor the flowers that grow from a chest that never heals. The vines were annoying at first, but Tsukasa has stopped caring, stops sweeping petals underneath his bed and brandishing that smile to meet his brother’s knife. There’s no point anyway. No one ever sees. No one even exists in this world.

Just him.

Just Amane.

Just a knife between them.

Tsukasa lets the stems grow from his sternum, out his mouth. Creep across their bedroom walls to cover the childish paintings and star stickers from some distant memory that they might have once shared. He lets his fingernails tear at the incessant itch across his cheek until they break skin to bleed purple too. It’s not like there’s any point in holding back. There’s nothing else to do.

Because every day, Tsukasa dies.

And every day, Amane kills him.

~

Tsukasa bleeds purple, but no one else notices. Not for a long time. Not for a near fifty years after he crawled his way back into the world that dragged him into itself bloody and screaming and kicked him out just the same.

No one notices to the point that he thinks it might just be his imagination. Like a rabbit in the moon, or an older brother who loves him.

No one notices until Sakura, who he catches staring as he pulls at the stems prodding through his school shirt. Petals from a wound that has long since scarred over, but that doesn’t stop the stalks from rooting themselves into his veins, his lungs. It’s a good thing he doesn’t need to breathe anymore. Doesn’t stop the ache, but it makes it easier.

It’s the subtle flicker in her eyes — probably the most reaction he’s ever seen out of her — that’s just enough for him to notice. Enough for him to raise a shard of broken porcelain and chime “Sakura, watch this!” before slicing through cold, clammy skin with a sharp swipe of his hand.

It doesn’t even hurt anymore, but Sakura doesn’t know that. He can tell in the pressed twitch of her mouth, the slow deliberacy of her blink, the careful unwinding of her legs. Tsukasa used to find her boring, like a doll, but now he thinks of her as a game. A test to see how far he can push and prod and pull until she squirms, to get her to finally crack through that porcelain mask. To get her to stop holding back, because that’s when he likes people best.

Maybe one day she’ll shove her own teacup through his sternum, just to see if she can. And Tsukasa will be ready to cradle whatever expression she makes with aconite smeared hands and delight in his doing. Just like with Amane.

Always like with Amane.

But Sakura remains calm, silent as she picks up a handkerchief and moves to wipe the injury clean. He watches as vines recede into his veins and blossoms crumple into her cloth, as she plucks the broken cup from his hands so gently he nearly misses it.

“You should be more careful,” she chides and adjusts his hat as a knowing smile breaks her placid expression.

But knowing what, he can’t be certain.

~

“Is it working? Is it on?” he chirps at her, making a point to stick his nose in the impossibly small space between her face and the microphone. It earns him a sharp shove from the space but does little to dampen his enthusiasm.

“Yes yes, it’s on. See?” Sakura sighs, tapping the green light.

Tsukasa doesn’t know what that green light means, but he knows for certain that he likes green. Green is like Sakura’s hair, the stars on his bedroom ceiling, the trees that him and his brother climbed as kids. Green is fresh and crisp and vibrant, and much better than purple.

Always better than purple.

Anything is better than purple.

“So,” she asks after he’s situated himself over the desk, “what rumor are we spreading today?”

And he loves when she asks that question. So much so that he tilts his head back as he can’t help the chuckle building in his throat. It bursts from his lips with a sharp shout, and Tsukasa laughs. Laughs hard enough to jostle a clump of blossoms from his lungs that chokes its way to his lips and melts into a heavy coughing fit. Hacking, bleeding.

Purple.

As always.

Tsukasa decides he really hates purple.

But he smiles when he finishes spitting the aconite into the water around Sakura’s ankles. Rubs his hands together and peels back that grin nestled deep into the curve of his face.

Tsukasa bleeds purple, and he thinks it’s about time to show Amane. Show him that nice jagged divet in his sternum made by that very same knife he totes around like a knight’s sword. It’s only fair to let his brother see his own handiwork, he thinks, when Amane was so kind to open up to him.

“I think I have an idea,” he snickers, and leans down slowly to whisper into her ear.

Tsukasa bleeds purple, but he can’t help but wonder — what color does Amane bleed?

[milkteamoon]

From Sticks and Stones, to Lunar Seas

Read on Ao3

Fandom: Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun Rating: teen and up Tags: angst, slight body horror Relationships: Amane & Tsukasa Yugi

Amane and Tsukasa visit a beach. They've been here before. Written for Twin Stars Zine @twinstarszine

“Hey Tsukasa, did you know? Mermaids turn to seafoam when they die. It’s kinda sad, isn’t it?”

~

Tsukasa had first tasted seafoam when he was seven. 

He hadn’t quite known what it was, in all honesty, and it hadn’t at all tasted like the sugary floss he expected. It was just the childish instinct of mouth-to-foreign-object that’d propelled him, and of course, Amane had scolded him after the matter. As he should have. As Tsukasa deserved. He wasn’t so ignorant as to miss when he’d done something bad.

And it’s seafoam lapping at his ankles as he sits on the shore: silent, alone, in the same place as always. Hands dug into black coarse sand till his nails begin to bleed. Feet snuggled beneath the gentle lapping of the waves that sizzle, snap with each repeated cycle, and he wonders if it’d sting, like bleach or acid, if it could still reach his skin. 

The “alone” part isn’t completely true though, he supposes, as Amane lays beside him in his usual spot. But Amane’s not here, not awake yet. He’s always late, and that’s fine – Amane always was the last to rise in the morning.

So Tsukasa sits in silence. And waits. And listens.

And the funny thing is, Tsukasa always liked the beach. Likes. He likes the beach. Funny in the sense of getting a double yolk in an egg, or funny in the sense that Amane killed him one week before their birthday. It’s that kind of non-humor that leaves him reminiscing about times he’d like to forget, about their lives they’d long since buried.

Tsukasa liked the beach that they frequented as children, with castles at their fingertips and stars in the puddles. He liked the shaved ice they could get for free if they pouted to the man at the cart long enough. He liked the sun. The sand. The rock he claimed to be from the moon, even if he didn’t know for sure when he presented it to his twin. Amane didn’t question it, however. Amane never questioned his baby brother.

Tsukasa only tolerates this beach, one he’d only visited thrice. Once, when he’d stayed under the water a bit too long at the pool. Once after an argument some fifty years ago that ended in a knife through his sternum. And now, for no reason at all in particular.  

In all honesty, it was starting to get old.

This beach doesn’t have a sun, only an endless stretch of twilight. In place of people to sell them shaved ice, grandparents to smear them white in sunscreen, or lifeguards to whistle and shout, there were shadows. Just shadows. Most shaped like humans with arms and heads, some shaped like insects or birds or wolves. Once he spots one shaped uncannily like Amane, from the eyes, the hair, all the way down to the knife in his hand. Tsukasa doesn’t look too long at that one. Doesn’t want to. Doesn’t need to. Amane’s right there beside him, isn’t he?

The question is answered before he can even check.

“Tsukasa?”

There it is.

The name hits him with a jolt, a spark. Not in fear or pain, but in pure, fiery joy that sends him lurching to his twin. He’s awake! He knew he’d wake up! He just knew!

“Ama-”

No.

The single word sates his momentum. Not spoken, not thought. But etched across his brother’s face, scribbled between his brow and dribbling with the sweat peeling down his pale forehead. Tsukasa’s rocked back to his seat with a force like a wave, despite there being none. Just lapping. Just seafoam.

“....ne.”

The name falls flat.

“Why are we here, Tsukasa?” Amane chokes with a whimper pitched below. “Why the hell are we here again?”

Tsukasa notes this fear, this concern, but elects to ignore them both as he turns and snatches his surprise from the notch in the sand beside him.

“Look Amane. Look,” he grins, holding the stone to the glow. “It’s a moon rock, just for you – to replace the old one!”

But Amane doesn’t reach for it. Doesn’t move, breathe, blink. Only digs his fingers deeper into the black sand until they bleed, just like his mirror image before.

So Tsukasa lets his face drop into a tight line. And with a huff, he tosses the rock aside, plucking another from the pile he’d gathered.

“Here Amane, what about this one? It’s kinda red, you like red!”

Amane only stares, so he throws it to the ripples.

“Amane, what do you think of this? It reminds me of a dinosaur!”

No blink. No breath. Tsukasa reaches for another.

“Amane, what about this?

“Amane, do you like this one?

“Amane.

“Amane.

“Amane-”

“Stop it! STOP IT!”

Amane scrambles to his feet, eyes screwed shut to his skull as he tries to make distance. 

“I don’t want another moon rock, Tsukasa!” he snaps with a gasp. “I don’t want to play these games anymore!”

And it’s Tsukasa’s turn to stay silent. Tsukasa’s turn to stare, to hold his breath. Not that he needed to do either anymore. Amane had taken those away not long after he’d taken the moon rock too. 

Amane never liked the beach, and Tsukasa knew this. Amane never shared in their smuggled shaved ice, never picked starfish or crabs or sea urchins out of the tidal pools. He never dug too deeply in the sand. Never waded out past the line of seafoam. Tsukasa’s not even sure he would have taken the original rock if his little brother hadn’t insisted, and even then, he hadn’t liked it enough to keep it. Hadn’t cared enough. It wasn’t good enough.

They all weren’t good enough. Just like Tsukasa.

He knows it’s true, even before he meets Amane’s frantic gaze.

“Fine, fine,” Tsukasa swallows, “it’s okay. I have others! I have.....I have-”

Yeah, that’s right. He has that.

Amane seems to pick up on the idea digging into Tsukasa’s skull as his foot jerks forward. Hand stretches out to cast one sharp “Tsukasa don’t-”

And then it’s too late.

And then Tsukasa’s already moving.

The motion is swift and relatively undeterred as he plunges his hand into his own chest – between sloppily pinned buttons, knife-torn skin, ribs cracked and brittle. It’s not difficult to find what he’s looking for, as it wriggles and squirms beneath his clutch, fighting back when he finally tears it free from its shackles. All the while Amane watches, frozen in place and pale as snow. 

“Here Amane, just for you!” Tsukasa gives the organ a squeeze. “Did you know supernaturals have hearts like this? Even though you took mine, I still have this to give.”

And that’s enough. It’s enough. It had to be enough.

“And that’s okay. I’d have given it to you anyway,” Tsukasa laughs, hand outstretched and ready to take. The heart’s rhythm drips from it with every trickle of black and red, until it’s still. Cold. Like a rock he may have found on the beach, long ago. “So you can take this one too, okay Amane? To replace your moon rock.”

Amane only stands and stares as Tsukasa moves. But not at the heart. Not at the tear in the center of his chest. Amane’s looking at Tsukasa, who should be his twin, as if he were a stranger he’d only seen in nightmares. And that’s okay. That’s fine. Tsukasa’s used to this look. Because Tsukasa’s also looking at a stranger. Not the Amane he once knew, the Amane who left him with metal in his chest. Not the brother he grew up with who picked starfish out of tidal pools. This is Hanako-san now. This is Lord Number Seven. This is an Amane that Tsukasa doesn’t know, but he wants to. Oh, he wants to-

But he doesn’t.

He just ... can’t.

Because Amane opens his mouth and gives him eleven words. Five in voice, and six unspoken, but they’re there. They both know the words are there.

“I don’t want it, Tsukasa,” Amane states, monotone.

And I don’t want you either.

And then there’s silence.

And then there’s Amane dribbling into seafoam, pulled off by the twilight tide.

And then there’s nothing.

Just as usual.

So Tsukasa waits in the sand silently, letting the waves lap his feet as long as he can stand. The organ in his hand has long since shriveled away to black, smooth stone, tinted blue by the sky’s glow, and he turns to face the sea. To the horizon speckled in crumbling infrastructure and the stars that have fallen upon them. 

And when he’s looked long and hard enough, he throws as strong as his arm will allow.

~

Tsukasa wakes with a start and a needless, shuttering breath. It’s cold there, he’s certain by the way his gasp shutters into smoke, but he can’t feel the nip. Never can. That’s one good thing about being dead.

“Bad dream?” Sakura asks from somewhere inside the room. The smell of tea does little to calm, but he forces the feeling on himself. Past his lips. Down his throat. Until his hands stop shaking and clench back into fists.

He doesn’t answer — he never likes giving Sakura answers — but places a hand to his chest stitched back into a single piece. It feels still, empty, just as it should. Just as it always should.

Still, empty, and dead.

Mermaids fall away into seafoam when they die, and Tsukasa can’t help but wonder if humans do the same.