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grassbreads · 1 year

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I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

#followers!! I know my demographic #I know that most of y'all are Tragic Queer Romance Enjoyers #and if that describes you. you should read this post #come learn about a truly wild piece of manga history #I bring you the gift of discovering Yulma without having to read almost 200 chapters of shonen manga for context #don't pass this up <3 #dgm #d.gray-man #yu kanda #yulma #alma karma #invasion of the frogs #also I really hope that at least one of the besties reads this and has a Realization about who/what my queue tag is a reference to #maybe I flatter myself to think that anyone remembers what my queue tag is. but I just think it would be funny <3 #also also. I really did not intend for this post to turn into an entire essay when I started writing it #so uh. whoops #ID in alt text #anon #ask

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rev-wrath · 14 days

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Dropping by your inbox to ramble about my OCs (cause, the tag function lets me somewhat keep track of what I've written about them when I rb this from you) bc they're my blorbos that not many people know about.

So, as I've said before, it's a story mainly revolving around a god (Ares), a human (Genesis), and an angel (Samzaya). Basically, Gen moves to live her life as a lighthouse keeper (even though the job is mostly done by machines in modern times. but divine intervention pulled her there) and on her first night, a terrible storm brings Ares and Samzaya into her 'new' home. Somehow, neither of them can leave.

Originally, I imagined Ares to show his face from the very beginning, but looking at lore/myths, I figured it would be better if his face was hidden. By a motorbike helmet or a veil of a kind (to shove in the fact that he's not human). Samzaya's an angel who has watched humanity from afar, but never interacted or was close to them. They're a type of angel called a Watcher and those types of angels were the first to fall in love with humans and produce nephilims. They don't know shit about humans, and Gen + Ares (the most human god, as I like to call him) have to teach them how to act around humans ('don't go in all divine light ablaze, don't talk in that staticky way, etc')

Gen is... She's human. But she's also kind of not? Her mother was a Korean shaman and her father Catholic priest but before he officially became one. But she's also blessed by Diwonuso (which really shouldn't happen, and it's related to the apocalypse)

As said, the first half of the story line I have for the trio is them developing a relationship with each other, and the other half is around the mish mash of pantheons forcing hunters/exorcists/deities from different beliefs banding together to stop the angels and demons from making their own pantheon the sole one in the world.

Oh yeah, the three of them also drop into Tartarus at one point, and this results in trauma for everyone!

Have some snippets (+ some random footnotes and comments) of a WIP I was working on like three months ago.

“Not really.” Her voice sounded off to her own ears. Maybe she was dissociating a little bit. “My family’s religion is Buddhism.” “Thou dost not feel of the essence of Buddha.” She flinched at the trilling, high pitched sound coming from the incomprehensible entity’s general area as well as the sensation of their words being slammed into her mind instead of her ears. “For the love of Hades- put on a form that wouldn’t hurt the mortal’s fragile body-” the man said a word that she didn’t quite understand. But she could tell that it was an insult from the way the man’s lips curled and the way he all but spat out the last word. The incomprehensible entity seemed to turn their gaze directly to where the man was sitting. “Watch thy tongue, pagan god, lest I deem it fit to rip it from thine mouth-”

The Fates were bullshit, and Ares[1] could not care less about the children of Nyx. He hated the fact that he was all but thrown into the middle of his uncle Poseidon’s domain. He hated that he was all but fished out of the ocean by the mortal and the angel. And he hated that out of all his fellow Olympians, he was the most intimately intertwined with the mortals. Not Aphrodite. Not Hestia. Not his mother or his father. Him. Maybe Dionysus[SK1] . But his half-brother was of mortal origin, so he didn’t really count. He was Ares, God of War. He had died a thousand deaths with the soldiers on the field. He will die a thousand more. Unlike Athena, who strategized and commanded, only fighting with mortals when she deemed it needed, he had always been there. Had felt spears and arrows and bullets pierce and end the lives of soldiers. Out of all the Olympians, his ichor was the most mingled with red. The moment the angel unleashed their warning, he was shrugging off the towel- it was in Athena’s colour- and he was lunging for the mortal who had been surprisingly unperturbed in the presence of a god and a servant of ‘the Lord’. He covered the mortal’s ears with his hands, and he couldn’t help but pause momentarily when he felt how soft she was. He had forgotten how soft mortals were. Had forgotten how fragile their body and soul was. [1]Epithet to note; Ares Gynaecothoenas, the god feasted by women. The women of Tegea in Arcadia defeated the invading Spartans to defend their city, capturing the Spartan king whilst they were at it. Whilst the depiction didn’t show Ares’ involvement and seems to focus on the ability that Marpessa showed to take initiative. The women later partook in a feast that only women were invited + to honour Ares. And babe, he was literally the patron god of the Amazons. [SK1]Do I want him to be Zagreus too? He’s also Diwonuso… A god that was once mortal is such a tasty idea, no matter how many times I’ve seen it done. Maybe Gen could mimic it to a degree? She could be the immortal cursed with mortality… Cursed to reincarnate over and over and over again?

Have I told you lately you’re cool? Because you are. I love this so much. Absolute patchwork relationship with three different beings from three different backgrounds. The absolute care Ares has for Gen? Oh, I love it. Samzaya’s a “I am so far removed from humanity, I know much and so little at the same time” which is fantastic. I love them already and look forward to hearing what the fuck their apocalypse is all about.

#no idea who diwonuso is #that i will admit #reed answers #my beloved rael

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certifiedlovergirlsstuff · 2 years

Text

The Mind Flayer

pairing: Steve Harrington x Female Byers!Reader

WC: 8.8K

warning: cursing (please message me or leave a comment if i forgot something)

summary: will is having an exorcist moment. an old player enters the arena. oh also, steve and reader are getting a bit...touchy.

A/N: ALL PART UNDER THE TAG -The Byers Harrington Story-

I’m making the stancy thing go away asap cause like, just no. like steve did love nancy, but he’s getting over it quicker. THIS IS A FF IM GONNA DO AS I PLEASE

series masterlist

give applause to @alecmores for being my proof reader/beta reader/ whatever it’s called.

previous chapter next chapter

It was a whirlwind once the two cars reached your house. Everyone was rushing out, limbs being pushed and shoved against someone else. You threw the door open and jumped off Steve’s lap, rushing into the house. Jonathan was laying Will on the living room couch, Joyce fussing behind him with her hands constantly moving and not stopping. Mike and the other kids storm into the house, Hopper, and Steve close behind them. You looked around the room trying to see where Bob was, he wasn’t in Hopper’s truck so he had to be with Jonathan when they left.

“Mom, mom, where is Bob?” You grabbed her shoulders.

She was shaking, her eyes red-rimmed with tear tracks covering her cheeks. She looked frantic, her eyes were haunted and hopeless as if she were in a daze. You turned your attention to Hopper now since he seemed to be in a more stable condition to answer your question.

“Hopper, where is Bob?” Your voice was firm.

His lips were in a thin line, and his nostrils flared. A hand rested on his hip, the other ran through his hair and then rubbed at his beard. His eyes darted over the place, not once staying focused on you.

“Hopper,” you grasped the arm that was resting on his hip, “what happened to Bob?”

He sighed then pulled the both of you away, further into the kitchen. You didn’t like this. He was quiet, Joyce was shaken, and Bob physically wasn’t there. You were panicking. If it’s the answer you think he’ll give you, you would fully blame yourself.

“Hopper?”

His hands held your shoulders, “(Y/n), he helped bring the power back on, but-” You knew where this conversation was going, “No, no, no,” you refused to believe it.

“(Y/n), they got to him before he could make it.”

You started to thrash out of Hopper’s grip, the kitchen felt suffocating. The feeling of watchful eyes on you, everyone judging or throwing sympathy at your state, was too much. You shoved at Hopper’s chest to try and push him away, but all he did was pull you in tight. His arms wrapped over your shoulders, your face pressed into his chest making your vision dark. Your hands clung to the jacket he wore over the hospital scrubs. Sobs choked out from your throat, tears staining the teal shirt and wetting your lashes, streaking your cheeks.

This was why you didn’t want to bring Bob into this mess. He was such a kind man and he honestly would do anything for your mom- or even your family- after only a few months. He was your boss and slowly became a father figure for you. And now you lost him to some fucking demodogs. He was probably being eaten alive at the lab right now, dying alone. You only saw him a day ago, happy about your ‘treasure hunt’ and helping Joyce.

“(Y/n), I’m sorry… he saved us though. We wouldn’t have gotten out of there if it wasn’t for him,” Hopper tried to justify his death.

You moved out of his embrace and wordlessly left the kitchen, heading to the backyard. You just needed to be alone, the silence and fresh air hopefully would help in calming you down. Sitting on the bottom step with your feet on the grass, you pull your heels to the step and bend your body forward to make yourself small in this moment. Your face is buried in the circle of your arms, your biceps covering your ears. Everything was so quiet at that moment it was like you were the only being on the planet, your lips tugged upwards a bit without your permission. It was one of those sad smiles, ones where they come unconsciously, laughing at your pain.

You were probably alone for five minutes before you heard the loud creaking of the back door hinges indicating that someone joined you. You didn’t bother looking up, wanting to ignore them and enjoy the quiet until they spoke, since you won’t do it first. It was quiet for a minute or two before they cleared their throat, but said nothing, still, you ignored them.

Then they sighed, “(Y/n)?” It was Steve, “are…is everything-” “No, Steve, I’m not okay and everything is not alright!” You didn’t mean to shout, but your anger flared.

“Bob is dead ‘cause of me,” you hissed. “He wasn’t supposed to be involved in any of this, but we needed him to find Hopper, and being brought to that lab was practically a death sentence.”

“Woah, (Y/n), no,” Steve fretted, “Bob- Bob didn’t die because of you, it’s not your fault, (Y/n).” You ignored Steve, “first it was Eleven who died ‘cause I wasn’t there, now it’s Bob 'cause he was dragged into this,” you rambled.

A gentle hand on your shoulder, “(Y/n), we just had a similar conversation about an hour ago.”

“Steve, it’s different though.”

He removed his hand, “Oh? how is it different? Tell me,” he demanded.

You wiped at the snot and tears, “you didn’t know about the Demogorgon, you weren’t even involved with any of that yet. My mom started talking about Will with her conversations through the lights that night and the following morning. And that same day, I saw and talked with Will through our living room wall. I became involved, I saw El use her powers,” you wiped your nose, “I didn’t stay with the kids at the school that night, all of them could have gotten killed. But El was the one to sacrifice herself for them. She saved them and I never even got to thank her for finding Will.” Tears fell down your cheeks again as you recalled the memory, the feelings you felt.

Steve ran a comforting hand over your back, “But that’s not your fault either, again, it was the Demogorgon. Both times it was the Demogorgons' fault. Why are you trying to blame yourself for things out of your control?” He huffed.

You had to stop for a moment.

“My dad,” was your response.

The man who constantly beat you for such simple reasons, playing it off as discipline and punishment for your mistakes, when a simple mistake could have been dropping a plate on accident. The man who shortened your childhood with each slap, with each whipping of his belt. A man who constantly saw flaws within you and not accepting you for each crack, only creating more.

“Hey,” Steve was now in front of you.

He was on one knee and his hands rested on your knees, head dipped down to make eye contact with you. His brows were raised and he licked his lips, rubbing them together. He did it two more times. Steve then brought one hand off your knee and ran his knuckles along your cheek, catching stray tears and wiping them clean. Your breath hitched at the intimacy.

“I’m sure Wonder Woman blames herself whenever she can’t save someone, but she has people who are there to help,” Steve tried to comfort.

“Steve, I don’t think you’re good at pep talks,” you joked, a wet laugh followed.

He dropped the hand from your cheek back to your knee and squeezed, “yeah, I didn’t have many of them growing up.”

“Hey,” you knocked a finger against his chin for attention, “shitty dads club?”

He exhaled a laugh, “more like a shitty parents club.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but I only have a shitty dad. I’m grateful for my mom,” a whisper to the winds.

Your bubble was back. Just the two of you, no one else existed on the planet.

You stared down at the four hands, yours resting on your thighs while Steve squeezed and rubbed your knees. Slowly and stealthy, you stretched a finger out, your pinky on one hand and your ring finger on the other. You were scared, but you suddenly felt brave at this moment to cross another line you made in the sand. Light as a feather your two fingers touched Steve’s, a silent invitation, a question for him that only he could answer. You hesitated in looking at him, not brave enough for that.

Before Steve had time to do anything, grasp your fingers or retreat, the back door opened again. This time the patron stormed down the steps and that gave away who it was, Jonathan. Steve stood up and away when you saw Jonathan standing beside you on the last step. You braced your hands on your thighs and stood up, directing your attention to your brother. He had a nasty glare thrown at Steve, his chest huffing, you scoffed at the sight. Suddenly you remembered your earlier argument and also the car incident. So you chose to pick a fight with him right now.

“Well, looks like you finally have time for your beloved sister,” you griped.

Jonathan huffed, “(Y/n) come inside,” and grabbed your bicep.

You pulled back and away, now standing in the grass just in front of Steve. A cross of your arms over your chest is your armor at this moment.

“No, Jonathan, ‘cause we have some unfinished business to talk about. Starting with: why did you fuck off with Nancy for two days and not tell me? Cause I think we have enough time right now to discuss that. Or, or, how about you brushing me off when I wanted to join you and Nancy earlier, huh? Why did you let Nancy go with you, but not me? Your sister?”

Jonathan took the last step, both of you standing in the overgrown yard. Your nails dug into your biceps, fighting off the cold chills and also restraining yourself. Jonathan was scratching at his head with one hand while the other rested in his pocket. And you knew Steve was still there since you didn’t see him leave and you could also feel his body heat, a walking furnace.

Jonathan didn’t answer any of your questions, “Okay. Since- apparently, these are college-level questions, I’ll ask small ones. First, where did you go? What was so important that needed to happen now?”

Jonathan sighed, “(Y/n), I can’t-” “We went to Illinois,” a voice interrupted.

You turned to the back porch and saw Nancy walking down the steps, joining the three of you. You wanted to turn around and look at Steve but held yourself from doing so. It would hurt to see him looking at Nancy with a certain gaze, lovestruck or heartbroken.

“Why’d you go to Illinois?” Steve asked the question.

Nancy stopped on the last step, she was the same height as Jonathan now. And the two of them looked at each other, silently talking with their eyes only, and that’s when you started to notice it. Something changed in those two days, you could sense it. The way their hands wanted to reach out for the other, their closeness in the dim lighting, how you can tell their eyes were lingering over each other’s features.

“Jonathan…” You walked closer to the pair.

Jonathan was evidently confused, you went from being hostile to suddenly approaching him as if you were a scared mouse. You ignored the shared looks from the two and grabbed his bicep like he did to you earlier and tugged him towards the shed. You spared a glance over your shoulder, Steve and Nancy closer together and both of them watching your retreating figures.

“(Y/n)-” “Did you and Nancy have sex?” You whispered.

Jonathan blanched at your outright question, so you knew it was true.

“What- What makes you think that (Y/n)?” Jonathan brushed it off.

You rolled your eyes, “I’m pretty observant, Jonathan. People-watching is my favorite pastime at school. I notice things.”

“Oh! So if we’re talking about people watching, what about you and Steve?” Jonathan fired back.

You stole a glance at Steve, “I- I don’t know what you’re talking about.” You tried to change the topic's direction, “Steve and Nancy just broke up, and I’m not even sure if it’s official. So, you would have helped Nancy cheat on Steve.” You were talking out your ass just to ignore Jonathan.

“(Y/n), don’t play dumb. I noticed earlier, you two are touchy-feely with each other.” “We were consulting each other,” you shrugged off.

“Oh, you think douchebag Harrington will solve your problems? Is his supposed charm rubbing off on you?” He seethed.

You were taken aback, “What the hell is your problem with him, Jonathan?” “My problem is that you suddenly forgot all the shitty things he’s done!” “I didn’t forget, I’ve seen him change. If you would pay attention-” Jonathan got louder, “He didn’t even know you existed after middle school! His ‘friends’ were jackasses to you constantly, and he didn’t stop them!”

“Okay, first off, Carol and Tommy have been jackasses since fifth grade. Secondly, what about Nancy?” He got defensive now, “What does Nancy have to do with this?”

“She pretty much ignored you after seventh grade, and once all this shit happened, she’s running into your arms. Are you happy that she and Steve broke up? She broke his heart and you finally got your chance with her. Finally got the upper hand on Steve Harrington,” a harsh whisper at the end.

Jonathan sighed, his shoulders slumping, “(Y/n), I just want what’s best for you, and Steve Harrington is someone I don’t trust.”

“How about trusting me, your sister? When I say Steve has changed, why can’t you believe me? I’m the one hanging out with him, getting to see his real personality. Maybe if you made an effort, you would notice.”

“Also,” you added to your point, “Steve wants to try and work things out between the two of you, but you don’t bother.”

“Fine, whatever. After this is over, I’ll talk with Steve or some shit.” Jonathan hissed. “Whatever, I’m still pissed at you,” you rolled your eyes. “Why did you leave me behind?” Leaving the Steve/Nancy argument behind and going back to the actual one.

“I- I wasn’t thinking, (Y/n). I don’t know what you want me to say.” Jonathan argued.

“Oh, but I think you were thinking ‘cause you yelled at me to stay like you were giving a dog a command.” You gave a shove to Jonathan's shoulder.

Then you used both hands and shoved at his shoulders, using most of your strength. You did it again, and again, Jonathan stumbling slightly at your action. Then you beat your fist against his chest, your anger flaring once more.

“Why did you leave me behind? Why! Why Jonathan!” You shouted.

Something within you was ignited in a fire, “You promised we would deal with this together! You would be there for me and I would be there for you! We promised never to leave the other out of things!”

Jonathan gripped your wrist, “(Y/n)-” “Am I too weak for you? Huh? Still that useless bitch that Lonnie would always yell at!”

“No, just-”

“Worried I’ll be useless again like that night at the house!”

Jonathan then harshly tugged you into a tight hug, his arms caging you against his body, your arms immobile. You struggled against his hold, either from anger, panic, or both mixing. Eventually, your body went slack against Jonathan’s, his arms holding you up. His chin was digging into your head, your face tucked into his chest, nothing but darkness clouding your vision and Jonathan’s breathing filling your ears.

“You’re not useless, and I didn’t leave you behind ‘cause of that.” He stroked a hand over your hair. “I didn’t want to drive you into danger. Mom and Will were already in there and if you were with me, I would’ve had full tunnel vision, only worried about my family.”

You rubbed your face into his chest, an excuse for a nodding of understanding coming from his side. You fully have tunnel vision when it comes to your family or people you care about, you’ll do anything to save them from harm. But having Jonathan yell at you, push you to the side, it just felt like Lonnie was yelling at you.

“Please don’t yell at me again,” you asked, sounding like a scared child.

The two of you may have been yelling at each other not even five minutes ago, but that was different. It felt different to you, it felt like a protective sibling fight. But outside the lab, you saw Lonnie yelling at ten-year-old you. It almost felt like an actual slap to your face, something that came out of the blue.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any harm from it, I hope you know that” a hand smoothing over your shoulder blades.

“I do, just…”

“I know,” and he did.

The two of you stayed in the embrace for a moment or two longer, having resolved some problems, and maybe brought up new ones that aren’t too important tonight.

“Hey, Scooby Gang!” a booming voice yelled.

You pulled away from Jonathan and turned to the porch, Hopper standing tall and with authority, “come inside! Henderson has information,” and he walked back inside.

You and Jonathan shared a look before heading back to the house, Nancy, and Steve seemingly still outside. You flushed a bit at the thought of either one hearing your entire conversation. Jonathan rejoined Nancy and the two went back inside, and before you could follow Steve held you back with his grasp. You stared at him, bewildered at the action.

Steve’s eyes danced over your face, it was as if his fingers were caressing your cheeks. Every inch tingled, lit with fire. His eyes bored into yours deeply, like he was trying to convey a message you didn’t understand at this moment, but it was one you wanted to decipher.

“Everything…” He trailed off.

“Uh, yeah, yeah. It’s- It’s okay, Steve,” your free hand landing over his, “let’s see what Henderson’s got,” you cocked your head to the house.

…

“The Mind Flayer,” Dustin blurted as he threw Will’s d&d book onto the kitchen table.

“What the hell is that?” Hopper questioned.

Everyone except for Joyce was huddled together, listening to whatever idea came to Dustin’s mind in the past fifteen minutes. You stayed near the back, your tail end digging into the countertop with your feet crossed at your ankles and hands supported by your sides.

“It’s a monster from an unknown dimension. It’s so ancient that it doesn’t even know its true home.” Dustin answered Hopper’s question with character lore.

As Dustin continued to babble off DnD lore, you looked at everyone’s faces, watching their expressions. Hopper looked pissed and annoyed at whatever was coming out of Dustin’s mouth, Mike and Lucas were just listening, already knowing about this creature. Steve was just as confused as you were, wondering what the point of this conversation was, Jonathan quiet and stone still. Nancy was peering at Dustin, her brows furrowed with her arms crossed across her chest, and Max was just listening, blank-faced.

“Oh my god. None of this is real, it’s a kids' book,” Hopper argued.

Dustin argued back, “No, it’s a manual. It’s not for kids. And unless you know something that we don’t, this is the best metaphor-”

“Analogy,” Lucas interrupted.

“Analogy?” Dustin huffed, “That’s what you’re worried about?”

Everyone silently watched the scene, “Fine. An analogy for understanding whatever the hell this is.” Dustin flapped his hands about.

“Okay,” Nancy interrupted Dustin, “so this mind flamer thing-”

“Flayer,” you corrected the same time Dustin also fixed, “Mind Flayer.”

She just sighed and looked down at the manual, “what does it want?” Her question was directed at Dustin.

“To conquer us, basically. It believes it’s the master race.”

“Like the- the Germans?” Steve stammered.

A hand flew to your face, ‘oh god’

“Uh, the Nazis?” Dustin corrected him.

You could hear the embarrassment in Steve’s response, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, the- the Nazis.”

“Uh…If the Nazis were from another dimension, totally.” Dustin allowed. “Uh, it views other races, like us, as inferior to itself.”

“It wasn’t to spread, take over other dimensions,” Mike added.

Now Lucas spoke, “We are talking about the destruction of our world as we know it.”

“That’s great. That’s great. That’s really great. Jesus!” Steve was frazzled.

He walked away from the crowded table and joined you in the back, he copied your posture and hand rubbing at his temples. His hand digging into the counter, and his pinky brushing against yours. It causes an involuntary shiver to race up your spine, a breathy exhale in response. A glance at the table your eyes met Jonathan’s, his brows raised at your duo. A jerk of your head as your response to him, you looked away and tuned in back to Steve’s presence. A kick of your sneaker against Steve’s foot pulled his attention onto you.

“Are you okay?” You tried to convey the message with only your eyes and furrowed brows.

The hand that rested against his temple ran through his hair, and he bit his bottom lip with a sigh. That was your answer, he was frustrated but he was fine.

“We kill everything it controls,” caught your attention.

“We win.” “Theoretically.”

“Great,” Hopper tugged the manual out of Nancy’s hold, his patience waning. “So, how do we kill this thing? Shoot it with Fireballs or something?”

Dustin chuckles at that, “No. No, no fire- no fireballs. Uh, you summon an undead army, uh, because…” You saw the deadly look being thrown at Dustin, “...because zombies, you- you know, they don’t- they don’t have brains, and the mind flayer, it…it…It likes brains.” Dustin stammered through.

“What the hell are we doing here?” Hopper slammed the book down, he was over it.

“I thought we were waiting for your military backup.” Dustin retorted.

“We are!” Hopper yelled, you flinched a little.

“How are they gonna stop this?” Mike demanded. “You can’t just shoot this with guns.”

“You don’t know that! We don’t know anything!” Hopper fought back.

“We know it’s already killed everybody in that lab.” A flash of Bob crossed your eyes at Mike’s statement. Your fingers curled deeper into the cool countertop, the edge digging into your palms.

“We know the monsters are gonna molt again,” Lucas added.

“We know that it’s only a matter of time before those tunnels reach this town,” Dustin spoke.

You were so tired of this already and you haven’t even reached the final fight.

“They’re right,” Joyce’s soft voice entered the room.

Everyone turned their eyes on her, you stepped away from the counter and made your way to her figure in the hallway, “we have to kill it,” her voice was like broken glass.

You could see the tension that was held in her shoulders, and how her hair was a bit unkept. You threw an arm over her shoulders and pulled her into a side hug, wanting to comfort her at this moment.

“I want to kill it.”

Hopper walked forward, “me too,” his voice was quieter now. “Me too, Joyce, okay? But how do we do that?”

Joyce sighed at Hopper, making sense of his logic.

“We don’t exactly know what we’re dealing with here.”

“No.” Mike’s squeaky voice spoke, “but he does.” And you already know who he’s talking about.

You watched Mike leave the kitchen and entered the living room, his eyes set on Will’s unconscious body.

“If anyone knows how to destroy this thing, it’s Will. He’s connected to it. He’ll know its weakness.”

Max questioned his logic, “I thought we couldn’t trust him anymore? That he’s a spy for the mind flayer now?”

Everyone was now out of the kitchen and on the threshold of the destroyed living room, all eyes on Will as he slept.

“Yeah, but he can’t spy if he doesn’t know where he is.” Mike reasoned.

“What does that mean?” Steve asked.

“We need someplace we can blackout, a room that he wouldn’t recognize.” Mike clarified.

“We could… We could use the shed. Clear it out and cover the windows,” you supplied a place.

You and Hopper shared a look before he stormed out of the house, the back door slamming behind him.

…

Everyone split into groups.

All three Byers stuck together in finding fabric to cover the shed. Dustin and Lucas dug through the trash for something, and Mike and Max were in the kitchen. Nancy and Steve were in the shed once Hopper threw everything out.

Once everyone got what they were assigned or looking for, your groups met at the shed and went to work in making sure the shed wasn’t recognized by Will or the mind flayer. Every inch of space was covered in blankets, old carpet, and whatever was available and held together with duct tape and staples. A chair was set up for Will once Jonathan grabbed him from the house.

Everyone except you, Jonathan, Hopper, Joyce, and Mike went inside. The kids seemed hesitant but knew there were already enough people in the shed, not wanting to cause any alarm. Nancy and Jonathan let their hands graze across each other before parting ways. You watched them with broken eyes, then looked away catching Steve’s eyes before he turned away and left.

Now it was just the final touches before Will could be awoken. You tied him in white cording, you hated every second. Every twist tighter around his wrist, tying his ankles together, his torso being trapped against the taped chair. Mike set up a light that would shine directly onto his face, keeping everything and everyone hidden in the shadows.

“All right, you ready?” Hopper quietly asked Joyce.

“Yeah,” she sounded both hesitant but assured in her decision.

Hopper looked at you and Jonathan, you gave a nod of your head as his confirmation. He walked toward Will with a bottle of house cleaner in his grasp. He squared down and dosed a cotton ball in the strong smell and held it under Will’s nose.

After a second, Will’s head jerks up, his eyes blown wide. He looked everywhere, trying to decipher what was happening or where he was. He was struggling against the cording, his breathing ragged.

He didn’t look like Will. He has paled significantly, like a cold has taken hold of him and it hasn’t broken anytime since. His skin was coated in a thin layer of sweat, strands of hair sticking to his forehead.

“What? What? What is this?” He grunts against the restraints.

“What is this? Why am I tied up?” No one spoke.

Joyce walked forward, she lowered herself to his height, “Will, we just wanna talk to you. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

He ignored her, “Where am I?”

Hopper joined them, he held the mind flayer drawing Will made a few days ago, “You recognize this?”

Will didn’t answer, “Do you recognize this?” Hopper pressed. Will shook his head no.

“Hey,” Joyce cooed. “We wanna help you. But to do that, we have to understand how to kill it.”

Will got hostile, “Why am I tied up?” He yelled in her face. “Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?” He kept repeating.

You had to cover your ears, and just mumble the alphabet to yourself, a panic attack rising. Will continued his yelling, this thrashing in Hopper’s hold. The lights start to flicker, and Will’s voice gets twisted and distorted at times. You had to shrink further into an already small space, this wasn’t about you with a tiny panic attack, this was about Will who was possessed.

He soon started to slow down, his words getting quieter and his body slouching forward. Hopper released his hold on Will and Joyce moved from her crouched position to a chair sitting directly in front of Will. His breathing was ragged, it was the only thing filling the room, other than your murmurs.

“Do you know what March twenty-second is?”

Will didn’t answer, his gaze blanked.

“It’s your birthday, your birthday. When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that?”

He was so excited at the sight of getting to have every color in existence. Blabbering off different ideas he was gonna create.

“One hundred and twenty colors. And all your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn’t from a movie. It was- it was your spaceship. A rainbow spaceship is what you called it, you must have used every color in the box.”

She continued to talk about the memory, how she brought the drawing to work, and showed it off proudly to everyone who entered the store. Will just watch, just breathing and saying nothing.

“Do you…Do you remember the day dad left?” Jonathan stuttered.

Will now face him. Jonathan walked closer, moving beside Joyce.

“We stayed up all night building Castle Byers…the three of us, building it the exact way you drew it. And it took so long because you were so bad at hammering.”

A choked laugh escaped you, a delightful moment in a bad memory. He missed the nail every time.

“And then it started raining, but we stayed out there anyway. We were all sick for like a week after that, (Y/n) about two. But we just had to finish it, didn’t we? We just had to.”

Then Mike spoke to Will, talking about the first day they met. On the first day of kindergarten, both of them were alone and scared. How Will said yes to Mike being his friend. You remember Will coming home that day and animatedly talking about how he made a friend, a giant smile painted on his face, you were so proud of him.

“Will, baby…if you’re in there, just please…please talk to us,” Joyce begged. “Please, I love you so much.”

It seemed like he was about to respond to Joyce, give everyone the confirmation, but he didn’t, “Let me go,” was all you got.

Everyone sighed, you weren’t getting through with Will. Suddenly Hopper wrapped a blindfold around Will’s eyes and ears. You were perplexed, but he only crooked a finger at the four of you and walked to the door. Everyone left with Hopper just behind. You waited for Hopper, but he continued forward, walking back to the house. Hopper rushed in and hastily grabbed a notepad and a pen, sitting at the table, and began to write something.

You stuck to the back of the kitchen again, still shaken up from Will’s repetitive screaming. It brought back bad memories and started to trigger something in your mind. Your arms crossed over your chest, the palms running in soothing motions over your biceps. Hopper was talking about morse code, saying Will was talking to them, but you zoned out. You let your mind go blank, the repetitive motions calming you down.

“(Y/n),” the voice sounded garbled like they were underwater.

It was like you were a zombie, with no response and sluggish movements.

A warm, but clammy touch on your cheek made you flinch from your head and come tumbling back into reality. You leaned back, the hand dropping from your face. You were perplexed at the sight of Steve standing so close to you, his back turned to the others, only focused on you.

“Sorry. I just- Jonathan said you had a- a panic attack…in the shed, earlier. You were kinda out of it when you came back.”

“Oh.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He said every word in a whisper, a message only for your ears.

You didn’t trust your vocal cords to form words, so you nodded your head instead. The conservation and moment was over when Jonathan walked to the door with his boombox in hand. That was your cue to head back to the shed with your group.

So, with a final look at Steve, you left the house and hurried behind Jonathan, trying to get up to speed on the new plan.

…

So, the new plan was pretty simple.

The four of you would take turns with Will, each of you shares a memory with him, something that held a bit of meaning. A memory that could keep him conscious, allowing him to tap a message in morse code. Which Hopper would relay back to the others through the walkie-hidden behind his back.

Jonathan went first. He placed his mixtape into the cassette player on the boombox, Should I Stay Or Should I Go was playing through the speakers. He talked about the first time he played this song for Will, how Joyce and Lonnie were fighting in the living room and the music drowned them out.

“And it was the first time you got into music. Real music.”

You would disagree with that statement, but now wasn’t the time to argue about your music taste…yours was better.

Mike talked about a campaign they had. Big insects in a sewer and how they were still on level one when they had to defeat them. Mike was throwing out D&D terms and techniques that you didn’t understand, half the words sounding like they came from Star Wars or The Hobbit.

“Then you cast Fog Cloud and saved us. You saved the whole party.” Like he was trying to do right now.

Joyce talked about different times when Will noticed someone needed a friend. Helping a little girl that was crying in the sandbox at the park, giving some boy his Tonka Truck cause he lost his. How he was always caring about people’s well-being before thinking about himself and his own needs.

Finally, it was your turn.

“Will, do you remember that time when we were drawing?” April 1980

Will was home earlier from school this particular day and you stayed home since you weren't feeling good the past few days, but you started to feel better this day. It’s like you could smell the color in the air, finally able to breathe through your nose instead of your open mouth. And you took a shower, your hair was greasy, the skin was sticky from night sweats, and you could barely leave your bed two days ago, but you took the opportunity to shower when your legs didn’t shake from your body weight.

Walking to the kitchen was when Will entered the house, so happy to see his excited face. It lit up the warmth in your chest.

“Hey, buddy,” you ruffled his hair as he stood in front of you.

“Are you feeling better? You don’t sound like a cat anymore.” He and Jonathan joked that you were coughing up hairballs. It was hilarious to them, but you couldn’t find any energy to smack them.

“Ha ha. Yes, I feel better. I even showered, but couldn’t clean my sheets… Would you be a doll-”

“No.”

“Will, come on! Please! I just need you to get them off my bed and throw them into the washer and dryer. I’ll have Jonathan put them back when he’s home.” Your hands clasped against your chest, bottom lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout.

You knew he was gonna do it eventually, even Will knew he was gonna do it, but he was pretending to ponder over the request. Wanting to keep you on edge.

He tapped a theatrical finger on his chin, “hmm. If I do this for you, will you come draw with me?”

You grinned at the request, “I would have done that even if I didn’t ask.”

“Yeah I know, sometimes I just want to hold you hostage.” And he ran off to his room before running to yours, backpack gone. You were taken aback by the phrasing, a giggling slipping.

Once your laundry was in the dryer, you and Will made an artist mess at the kitchen table. Crayons, colored pencils, markers, and blank white paper covered every inch of that small table. Probably should have used the dining table, but it was too late.

You were doing simple designs. Flowers, grassy hills, decent mountains, sometimes just doing simple looping that formed something in the end. You would check in on Will every on and again, he was being very quiet. Every time you tried to lean over and glance at his paper, he would pull back and turn the paper away from your view.

“What are you hiding?” A sly remark.

“Nothing, it’s a surprise.”

“Oh! A surprise, for whom?” You poked fingers into his ribs.

He squirmed away from the offending digits, even moved to the chair across from you. You just grinned at the dedication to art, choosing to not bother him further, and went back to the quiet, only sounds of your breathing and the movement of whatever was in your hand against the paper.

After about two hours of drawing, mostly quiet with the radio playing in the background, you tried to get another look when you got up from the table and went to the bathroom. On your way back you tried to sneak past Will, but you didn’t do a very good job since the only thing in your field of vision was a piece of paper with the words GET BACK written in red crayon.

“Can’t I get a little peek?” You asked when leaving Will’s side and heading back to your chair.

“In a little, I’m not finished,” he murmured.

“Okay.” And you felt him alone again after that.

Jonathan came home an hour later, you immediately asked him to put the clean sheets on your bed. Better to ambush him now than to wait later. He said Joyce would be working a bit late tonight so he was gonna make the three of you dinner.

“Can’t we order out? Just tonight?” You pleaded.

Jonathan huffed, “what is it you want so badly?”

“I really want a Benny’s burger, oh, and a milkshake! Please, Jonathan! I need something cold for my throat.”

Will soon joined in on your pleading, and after a moment Jonathan dropped his head. Bingo. He grabbed his coat, wallet, and keys and headed out the front door, his car engine turning on after a second and his headlights left the living room.

“Always caves,” you chuckled.

You headed to the living room ready to watch a movie in the meantime. You popped the VHS of Grease into the player and waited for it to load the screen.

“(Y/n),” Will’s tiny voice called out.

You turned away from the tv and glanced at the kitchen, Will standing at the end of the hallway with his paper in hand.

You beckoned him forward, a hand dangling over the side, “what’s up?”

“I…I drew this…for you,” he was nervous.

You gently took the paper and held it with both hands in front of you. You scanned over the drawing, a drawing of you. He used crayons to fill the page with color, the box Joyce bought for his birthday this year. Your hair was shaded in, eyes bright with life only Will was capable of capturing in a drawing. A smile adoring your features, apples of your cheeks full.

It wasn’t until you saw a drop of water land on the paper did you realize you had tears in your eyes. Quickly you wiped your face and eyes clean, not wanting to ruin an inch more of the paper.

“I…I love it. Thank you, Will.”

You immediately stood from the couch and grabbed Will into a tight hug, not giving him an inch of space.

“I’m gonna put it in a frame and hang it on my wall,” you mumbled into his hair.

When you finished retelling the memory the house phone suddenly went off, Will’s head snapping at the noise. He was alerted. You panicked, but the phone stopped after the second ring. A sigh of relief was cut short when the phone rang again and then stopped again. You watched as Will’s eyes zoned out then started to close, his eyes zooming behind his lids.

“Will? Will, can you hear me?” You clasped your hands over his cheeks.

His breathing was heavy, he was panting.

“It knows. It knows where we are,” Hopper crouched beside Will.

Joyce came into view with the filled syringe and plunged it into Will’s upper arm. His head went limp. Everyone stood still for a moment before Hopper, Jonathan, and Mike headed out of the shed, the monsters screeching in the close distance. Jonathan came rushing back inside a minute later.

“They’re coming!”

“What?” You jumped to untie Will, everyone joining in to get the task done quicker.

“Come on. We gotta go.” Hopper commanded.

Once Will was freed Jonathan carried him to the house, and everyone rushed out. Everyone now gathered in the living room, Will’s unconscious body was in his room.

“Get away from the windows, are you guys stupid!” You yelled at Lucas, Max, and Mike.

Hopper was holding two guns and held one out to Jonathan, “Do you know how to use this?”

“What?”

“Can you use this?” Hopper repeated.

Just as you were about to step forward, Nancy beat you to the punch, “I can.” And Hopper threw her the rifle.

You went for the ax instead, lining up at the front with Nancy and the rifle, Steve and his bat, and Hopper and his gun at the end. The four of you kept an eye on the window and front door, watching and waiting for any movement. The screeching slowly was getting louder, they were getting closer.

“Where are they?” Max asked, but no one had an answer.

It went quiet, too quiet. It made your heart race faster. Then a loud thudding noise to the right of the house made you jump, everyone turning at the noise.

“What are they doing?” Nancy questioned.

There wasn’t any more noise from the dining area, a snarling noise back in the living drew the attention. They were groaning, screeching, rustling the bushes at the front of the house. They were toying with their food.

Then it all abruptly stops and it’s deadly silent again.

You held your breath before one of them crashed through the open window and was thrown across the room. Everyone screams in surprise and terror. All of you waited with bated breath for movement, any moment for it lunges and devours each one of you. But no movement, not even a twitch, it was dead on impact. Hopper trudges forward slowly, every one a step behind.

“Holy shit,” Dustin whispered.

“Is it dead?” Max voiced.

Hopper kept his gun aimed at it, his foot coming into contact with its flowering head. It rolled to the side, it was dead. Everyone’s guard lowered, sighs of relief filling the room. You lowered the ax to the floor, the handle slipping from your grasp. But your heart spiked when you heard the creaking of the front door. Guards were up, guns were pointed. You watched as the locks slowly undid themselves and the door was pushed open.

Your mouth was agape at the sight before you.

Walking through the threshold, there she stood, in all her glory.

El was dressed in a black shirt and oversized blazer with the sleeves rolled up, light denim jeans cuffed at the ankles of her white converses. Her hair was slicked back, you could tell it was longer since the last time you saw her. Her eyes were smudged with coal black shadow and she had a line of blood slowly dripping from her left nostril.

“El?” You voiced what everyone was thinking.

…

You watched the scene before your very eyes.

Mike and El walk closer to each other before they collapse into a tight embrace. Mike’s head rested on El’s shoulder, his body hunched from the year of growth. El’s hands clinging to Mike’s jacket, her tears rolling down her cheeks.

Mike pulled back, his hands on her upper arms, “I never gave up on you. I called you every night. Every night for-”

“Three hundred fifty-three days. I heard.”

She’s been alive this whole time, for a whole year she’s been alive and in Hawkins.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were there? That you were okay?”

“Because I wouldn’t let her,” Hopper’s voice interrupted.

A rage formed within your heart.

“The hell is this? Where have you been?” “Where have you been?” And Hopper pulled her into a side hug. They were arguing like they’ve…been…

“You knew?” You were irate.

Hopper knew, you’ve told him before, how you wished you stayed at the school. How you blame El’s death on your selfishness, wanting to go with your brother then watch the actual children. You’ve been beating yourself over this for a year, but it was pointless. She’s been alive this whole time and apparently staying with Hopper. “You’ve been hiding her,” Mike was just as furious as you, but his anger came from a different place, “you’ve been hiding her this whole time!” He slammed his fist into Hopper’s back.

“Hey!” Hopper grabbed his shirt, “let’s talk, alone,” and they left the living room before a door closed, shutting them off.

Lucas and Dustin throw their arms around El, her own wrapping over their shoulders.

“We missed you,” Lucas’ voice was muffled.

“I missed you, too,” El confirmed.

It was such a nice sight for once, the kids were happy to see an old face, as were you. You waited to have your moment with Eleven, content with watching them during this peaceful moment.

Suddenly El jutted a hand out and stuck her thumb into Dustin’s mouth, you were taken aback at the action.

“Teeth,” was all she said.

“What?”

“You have teeth.”

Oh yeah, Dustin grew in his front teeth over the summer. Would not stop showing them off for the first two months. “Oh. You like these pearls?” And he did a bad Chewbacca growl, which is something he also did for a few months at random.

“Eleven?” Max stepped forward, you could tell she was a bit nervous, “Hey. Um, I’m Max.” She held a hand out in greeting, “I heard a lot about you.” But El didn’t shake her hand or even smile at the girl, she just brushed past her and walked towards you.

You wanted to consult Max, but right now you needed to remind yourself El was alive. Her arms wrapped around your waist, her face hiding in the crook of your neck. Your arms over her shoulder pulled her in tightly, your face pressing into her slicked hair.

“I’m so relieved you’re alive,” you hummed in her skin.

You pulled apart, hands resting on her shoulders. A brilliant smile was on her face and you were overjoyed at the sight. A knuckle knocked playfully into her chubby cheeks.

“I love the new look.”

A wet chuckle, “bitchin’.”

“Yeah, it’s bitchin’.”

You wanted to spend more time with her, but knew she wanted to talk with Joyce. And also right now there were more pressing matters at hand, so you freed her with a quick kiss on her hair and watched Joyce embrace her.

With El now with Joyce, you walked to Max and the two boys. Her guard was up, arms protective over her chest, eyes looking everywhere, her shoes scuffing into the wood flooring. You taped a finger on her shoulder drawing her attention to you now.

“She doesn’t mean anything rude, she just wants to see familiar faces.”

Max shrugged her shoulders quickly, “yeah, yeah I- I understand.”

“I’m sure the both of you would be great friends in the near future.”

…

“It’s not like it was before. It’s grown.” Hopper sighed, “A lot. And, I mean, that’s considering we can get in there. The place is crawling with those dogs.”

“Demo-dogs,” Dustin had to clarify.

“I’m sorry, what?” “I said, uh, Demo-dogs. Like Demogorgon and dogs.”

You placed a hand on Dustin’s shoulder, “Now’s, not the time, Dustin. Please.”

“Right, yeah. Sorry,” and he shut his mouth.

“I can do it,” El said to Hopper.

“You’re not hearing me,” Hopper sighed.

“I’m hearing you,” she said firmly, “I can do it.”

“Even if El can,” Mike added, “there’s still another problem. If the brain dies, the body dies.”

“I thought that was the whole point,” Max was confused.

“It is, but if we’re really right about this…I mean, if El closes the gate and kills the mind flayer’s army-”

“Will’s a part of that army,” Lucas mentioned.

“Will could die,” anguish struck your heart.

No one knew what to say. The plan needed to happen, El had to close the gate, but if doing so caused Will to die, you would do anything to forfeit it all. Joyce stood from the table and strode to Will’s room, you followed a step behind with Jonathan on your tail. Soon everyone walked down the hall and went to Will’s room. He was still laying on his sheets, his chest moving up and down to show his breathing, but his body hadn't moved an inch.

“He likes it cold.”

“What?” You weren’t sure you heard Joyce.

“It’s what Will kept saying to me. He likes it cold.” She walked to the open window and shut it closed, “We keep giving it what it wants.”

“If this is a virus, and Will’s the host, then…” Nancy, ever the smart one.

“Then we need to make the host uninhabitable.” Jonathan finished.

“So if he likes it cold…” you stated.

“We need to burn it out of him.” A wrathful tone seeps through Joyce’s sentence.

“We have to do it somewhere he doesn’t know this time.”

“Yeah, somewhere far away,” Mike and Dustin noted.

Everyone tried to think of a place, somewhere we could stache Will without worrying about the mind flayer coming a second time.

“I know where,” Hopper’s deep voice realized.

…

“Are you coming?”

With Will waiting in Jonathan’s car, Hopper gave Jonathan the directions to his cabin in the woods where Jonathan and Joyce would burn out the flayer from Will and once that was done, radio Hopper and El would close the gate. Ending all of this for good. But when Jonathan asked if you were joining the two of them, you hesitated.

You wanted to be there for Will, so badly, but you knew you weren’t needed there. With the other three kids staying behind, you were learning from last time and staying with the kids. If something were to go wrong, you would be there to protect them from anything, even if it were to kill you.

“I’m, uh, I’m- I’m gonna stay here. You won’t need me anyway.”

“Are- Are you sure?” You heard the wariness in his voice.

“Yeah. I’ve always been the best babysitter,” you joked, trying to loosen the tension.

So, with a ‘see you later’ hug from Jonathan and an ‘I love you so much hug’ from Joyce, you headed back inside the house. The kids were waiting in the living room, the boys saying their goodbyes to El, making her promise to come back, “for real this time,” Lucas emphasized.

You made a detour into the kitchen, getting a drink, or just mindlessly walking around your house when you saw light from the backyard. Stepping closer to the sink and peering out the window, you saw Nancy and Steve standing beside each other. The two of them looked through the pile of stuff Hopper threw out of the shed earlier, looking for heaters, or anything for extra warmth. You couldn’t tell what they were talking about, and the dark distance didn’t allow you to gaze at their faces. They just stood in front of each other for a minute, maybe even two, before Steve walked away and back to the house.

You made haste to get away from the window, not wanting Steve to know you were spying on, what seemed like an intimate moment between the two. As you were making your exit from the kitchen, the back door opened telling you Steve was back. And if that wasn’t enough, his voice calling your name stopped you dead in your tracks. You spun around to face him, curiosity openly displayed on his face.

“Hey, uh, are you…are you going to Hopper’s cabin?” Then he backtracked his question before you could answer, “That’s dumb, of course, you are, he’s your-”

“Actually, I decided to stay behind,” your answer stopped his ramble.

His head tilted, a confused puppy came to mind, “oh. I just…I just thought since…”

“I know. I just…I just thought you guys would need me more.” A shrug of shoulders, “I can put up quite the fight when I’m not panicked.”

A laugh was shared between the both of you.

-----------------------

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lisatelramor · 1 year

Text

A Hand Outstretched Ch2

Hope you’re enjoying this!

Takashi wasn’t sure what he was doing here, curled up in a dead god’s shrine with a human. A human that could have been an exorcist with how strong his spirit powers felt in the brief moments he stopped shielding them. He’d called Takashi Reiko, just like so many others had before, but he hadn’t tried to hurt him for it, and he hadn’t tried to bind Takashi to his will like the exorcists had before they gave up and sealed him instead.

The man, Madara, was an anomaly and Takashi wasn’t sure where to categorize him yet, potential ally or enemy. For now, it wouldn’t hurt to keep track of him. There was something about him, something that was familiar in his spirit senses, like they’d met once a lifetime ago. The vague warmth that had flashed through him, that spark of recognition that was gone as Madara snored, curled into a tight ball in the cramped space. Humans, ayakashi, neither made sense. Not this man, not the ayakashi who recounted the story of this man as a child saving her from an exorcist that bound her when she was researching humans, and not any of the others he had run into before in his brief span of memory. They hurt without provocation and lusted for power and would walk over you to get what they wanted without remorse.

Still, Madara had unsealed him, Touru had been kind, and Madara offered shelter instead of chasing him away. It meant something, something that Takashi didn’t understand yet.

He meant to stay awake, but little by little, he drifted off, feeling strangely safe with a sleeping stranger.

o*O*o

Takashi woke to muffled swearing. At some point in the night he had slumped to the ground. One of the blankets Madara had been using was draped over him, an unnecessary gesture but surprising in its kindness. The man in question was bent over his luggage, searching through it for something. Takashi stared.

“Stupid thing has to be in here, I packed it. I know I—” Madara cut off, either feeling Takashi’s stare or some other sense catching his attention. He whipped around fast enough to make Takashi flinch. “Oh. You’re awake. Uh. Just go ahead and go sleep as long as you want I’m just...” He jerked a hand at the warped door, still most of the way shut. Takashi kept staring. Madara’s hand dropped. He grabbed a pieces of cloth from the luggage and scooted to the door. “Breakfast. I’m going to find breakfast.”

“Breakfast?”

“Food. That you eat in the morning.”

Takeshi frowned. “Every morning?”

“Yes, if possible, every morning. Eating might be optional for most ayakashi, but humans don’t exactly live long if they don’t eat.” Madara rolled his eyes like it was something obvious. Maybe it was; Takashi was hardly an expert on humans. “You should try it sometime.”

“It seems impractical.”

“Impracti—” Madara sputtered and froze in the doorway. He jabbed a finger in Takashi’s direction. “You know what, I’m getting you breakfast too. If there are three things worth living for, it’s food, sake, and sleeping as much as you want. Nothing better than that.” He stomped out of the shrine and slammed the door behind him.

Takashi stared at the closed door. He could go back to sleep, sleep for longer than he’d been sealed if he wanted to. Or he could leave and follow Madara and the vague feeling of familiarity his presence pulled at his subconscious.

He followed Madara. Yesterday it took Madara ages to realize he was being followed. Today it took all of ten minutes before he turned around and glared in Takashi’s direction. Takashi almost flinched back into the middle of a bush.

“If you’re going to come, at least do it in the open!” Madara complained. “It’s creepy being stared at behind tree trunks. C’mere.” He beckoned imperiously.

Against all instincts telling him he should head back to the shrine or run for the hills, Takashi crept closer.

Madara pointed at a plant on the ground in front of him. Its leaves had jagged edges. “Look! Shiso. You can eat the leaves in a salad.” He proceeded to pluck a bunch and stuff them into a cloth object shaped a bit like a bag. “And that—” Madara pointed to bright purple blossoms of thistle where the trees were a bit thinner. “Azami. You can eat the leaves if you boil them a bit. I can’t find my pan though, so raw food it is for this morning.”

There was something weirdly familiar about what Madara pointed out as they walked through the woods; knowledge slotted into place like it was something Takashi already knew, but had forgotten.

“And of course there are always dandelions,” Madara said, pulling up new green leaves from the tenacious weed at the edge of a clearing. “You can always find dandelions. Bitter as hell, but better than nothing.”

“Purslane,” Takashi said, the name of another common weed popping into his head. There was some growing a bit further into the clearing, paddle-shaped leaves on a low-growing plant. “You can eat it raw or cooked.”

Madara stared at him for a moment and Takashi wondered if he’d remembered wrong. Then Madara huffed. “Right. It also tastes kind of gross, but it’s healthy.”

“Isn’t the point of food to taste good?”

“Not everyone has the luxury of being something that doesn’t require food,” Madara said. “Now pay attention! I’m teaching!” He grinned. “You should call me sensei.”

“Why would I do that?” Takashi complained. Madara wasn’t terrifying anymore; the more he talked, the more Takashi thought he just liked the sound of his own voice. He wasn’t terrible company even if he was kind of annoying.

“Because I’m teaching you life skills, brat! You never know when you might need to know this!”

Those words tripped something in Takashi’s memory. A woman and a small child in the woods and a handful of warabi, the fern stems still tight and new held close to her chest. It’s a life skill, brat! Takashi blinked and the feeling of being two places at once vanished, but the moment lingered, exasperated fondness tinging his emotions. How odd.

Madara had an eyebrow raised in challenge and his hands on his hips.

That echo of fondness swelled and for a moment Takashi could see Madara as something other than a potential threat, just a ragged man with a bit of an ego and a soft heart under a gruff exterior.

“Well?” Madara said.

“Nyanko-sensei,” Takashi decided on.

“Excuse me?!” He puffed up, just like an offended cat.

“Your eyes are gold like a cat’s,” Takashi said. And Touru’s nickname of ‘fluffy’ wasn’t wrong; he was a bit fluffy.

“Why is there a ‘ko’?!”

“It sounds better,” Takashi said, amused as the man sputtered and grumbled about ayakashi and demeaning nicknames.

“Fine!” Madara threw up his hands. “Whatever! Help me find something that isn’t god-awful bitter to make up for the rest of this.”

Takashi didn’t point out that he had no idea what to look for. He’d let Madara remember that on his own.

o*O*o

In the end, Madara couldn’t say they’d found much of a meal. Food, yes, but it wasn’t exactly the most appetizing thing he’d ever scavenged. It would be better if he had a kitchen with spices and things to prepare it with, but he had a shrine and a pocket knife and (once he dug it out of his bag) a second-hand frying pan that would only be so much help in cooking. The only positive was that on the way back they’d found a mulberry tree with a lot of ripe berries. Madara picked handfuls of them, pouring them into the pillowcase he was using as a bag without care for how it stained. Seeing the fruit reminded him that somewhere in the woods were plums growing wild too, some trees left from when a farm was abandoned that his grandfather used to send him scavenging fruit from so he could make some awful, highly potent alcohol from them. He’d have to check later.

For now he had food for the morning, and food for later, and he was kind of glad for Reiko and Gramps all those years ago teaching him what he could eat without getting himself killed. Between the two of them, he’d learned enough not to starve whenever money got tight. Granted it wasn’t a skill he could use much when he lived in the city. Dumpster diving was a bit more useful there, but like hell was he stooping to that before he had to.

Madara made two sad looking salads of shiso and dandelion whatever other greens he’d been able to scrounge up. He topped them with a handful of berries and hoped the sweet berries counteracted the bitter greens. There. Breakfast.

Takashi didn’t look impressed by the result, but he did accept the sad pile of greens when Madara passed it to him. Madara kind of wished he had real food to share, but eh, good enough for what was on hand.

It was bitter, tasted like the soil it grew out of with weird bursts of sweetness that generally just made it taste a mess. Madara choked it down. He hated dandelion leaves.

Takashi nibbled on his and actually ate about half. “It doesn’t taste as bad as expected,” he said when he noticed Madara looking.

“It tastes like shit and I should have just saved the berries as a chaser.”

“Maybe. But the intention behind it’s surprisingly kind.”

Madara didn’t know what to think of that statement. In the end, he ate what Takashi hadn’t and put the whole thing out of his mind.

o*O*o

Job hunting was harder than Madara remembered it being, but then, it was probably the fact that more people remembered him than he’d ever expected that was making it so hard. He’d been kicked out of the grocery store for goodness sake and he’d only ever shoplifted there a couple of times as a teen. The old lady running it was more nearsighted than ever, but Madara did look pretty distinctive.

That meant he’d been turned down from three potential jobs now. It had been so much easier to find work back in Tokyo as a day laborer. Haul some boxes? Sure! Clean some gutters? He could do that! Was it demeaning and backbreaking work just to get enough to fill his stomach? Yeah, but it’d worked and got his foot in the door once upon a time. And then he’d lost some jobs to ayakashi incidents, and others to his temper and inability to keep his mouth shut, and made some bad choices and gone into debt, but life happened. Here Madara would think someone would need a roof patched or trash hauled or something, but even with scouring notice boards and asking shop keepers, he wasn’t finding anything. Other jobs, well, most places preferred you weren’t a high school dropout.

Madara kicked a stray can across the sidewalk with a satisfying clunk. This was only day one of searching. He couldn’t get worked up; he’d known it wouldn’t be as easy as walking into a store and getting a job. Timing and who you knew were what mattered. If Hinoe backed him...

“Hey!” someone called. “Is that Madara? Madara-san! Ma-da-ra-saaaan!”

Madara glared in the direction of whoever was screeching at him. Across the street were two people who looked vaguely familiar, dressed in business suits and clearly halfway to drunk even though it was barely past six in the evening. Names didn’t spring to mind, but Madara vaguely remembered the guy with one eye being a few years ahead of him in school. He and his friend—who looked a little like a cow, not that Madara was going to say that to his face—used to get drinks after work at Hinoe’s place. Madara was pretty sure he’d shared beers with them after he was already on his way past drunk on more than one occasion.

Before he could decide whether to acknowledge them or pretend he didn’t know them, both of the drunks were crossing the street and running at him in the vaguely uncoordinated way that only the inebriated had.

“Madara-san!” One-eye said, giving Madara the most uncomfortable hug of his life. “You came back!”

“He’s back!” Cow-face echoed.

“Uh. Yeah.” Madara pried One-eye’s arms off him as non-violently as he could manage. “And you guys...” He still couldn’t remember their names. Shit. “...are still here!”

“Where’ve you been all these years? You used to be our drinking buddy!” Cow-face nodded along with One-eye’s words as they leaned drunkenly against each other. “We missed you!”

Right, they were practically one unit, he’d forgotten about that. “I’m surprised you remember me at all.”

“Hinoe-san hasn’t held a drinking contest since you left so you still hold the record,” Cow-face said like that was a perfectly reasonable thing to remember a person by.

“Right.” Was it bad that they clearly remembered him more than he remembered them? He’d have to have been pretty drunk to be social. Then again, he’d gotten drunk a lot back then. ...And a lot since then. And a lot recently. Madara promptly ignored that little voice in his head that said he had a problem. It sounded like Touru and that was just strange. “Well I’m back for now; maybe she’ll start having contests again.”

“If she does, this time we’ll beat you!” One-eye said.

“Uh huh.” They were both so clearly still lightweights, but okay, let them dream. “You two wouldn’t happen to know of any place around here that’s hiring would you?”

Two faces scrunched in exaggerated thinking expressions. “The lunch shop...no, maybe...but there was...” they muttered to each other. “The grocery store?” they said in eerie unison.

“Nah, I got kicked out. The old lady hates me.”

“The school needs another cafeteria staff member?”

“Do you think they’d let me near children?”

“Uuuuh, maybe...trash collector...?”

Madara scowled. “You don’t think I’m qualified for anything do you?”

“Are you?” asked One-eye, giving him a doubtful one over for the first time.

Madara looked down at his shirt. It was clean and a button down at that! A bit wrinkled, but couldn’t be helped considering he was living out of a matchbox of a shrine in the middle of the woods. He might need a haircut, and maybe a proper shave. But he didn’t look like a complete bum. “I’ve worked loads of jobs. I’ve been a prep cook, a construction worker, a waiter—” some less legal jobs in there too, but who was counting?

“You’ve been an exorcist, right?” Cow-face said. “I heard Misuzu’s looking for someone to—”

“I’m not working for Misuzu. Or being an exorcist. Why does everyone keep bringing that up?” He didn’t want to deal with spirits. He didn’t even want to see them most of the time either.

“Well.” Both men looked uncomfortable. “You’re someone who...”

And just like that Madara was fifteen again hearing whispers of people talking behind his back about how he was someone who sees things. It had never mattered if people believed in spirits or not, all it mattered was that at one point or another Madara had let slip that he did and people never forgot it. And things like that either landed you in a psychiatric ward or a shrine, and life had shoved him at the latter enough times trying to keep from being eaten that people just made assumptions. Something wasn’t right with Madara, but if anyone could sort him out it would be monks at the shrine.

Madara had never been interested in being a monk. Reiko had given him an out in learning control from someone who wasn’t trying to force him into the path of being an exorcist.

“Don’t tell me you believe those old rumors,” Madara said. “I mean, if I could see ghosts and spirits and shit, I’d be way stronger than them, but you don’t actually believe in that right?”

“Uh...”

“Do I look like the kind of guy who sees weird things?” Hopefully they were both too drunk to point out that he looked like he was living out of the back seat of a car. Minus the car. Madara wouldn’t hire Madara. No wonder he wasn’t getting anywhere with this.

Thankfully they were either sloshed or dumb enough to shake their heads. “No, you’re...uh, you look fine!” One-eye said. “Taller!” He squinted past Madara. “Uh, did you have a kid?”

“What.” Madara looked. Takashi stood in a dated school uniform behind some bins like the stalker he was. He flinched as attention turned to him, but what the hell was the kid expecting? Who watched people behind garbage bins? Then the rest of the implications hit him over the head like a bag of bricks. “Me. A kid.” Takashi looked like Reiko, not like Madara. Reiko who used to be around Madara all the time...who left around the time Madara did. ...Who Madara had clearly cared about more than he meant to let on. They thought Takashi was his bastard son, didn’t they? “Uh.”

Takashi gave him a wide eyed stare. Why was he even playing human again? Was that really the only way he knew how to suppress his powers?

How else was Madara going to explain Reiko’s look alike if Takashi was going to hang around?

“Uh. Sure. My kid. Didn’t know I had him until recently though. He’s...kind of. Shy.” Madara cleared his throat. “And he’s part of why I need a job.” Technically it wasn’t a lie since Takashi seemed like he’d decided to stick with Madara for some reason. Which meant providing shelter and food because Madara wasn’t a heathen and food was important.

Cow-face looked like he was going to burst into sentimental tears. Madara took a step back in fear that he was going to get hugged again. “That’s so parental. You’re not immature after all.”

“Excuse me?” You know what? Maybe some heads needed smacking after all. Madara didn’t need to stand there and be insulted. If this was a kind of sort of acquaintance-friend, who needed an enemy? “I’m leaving. If you think of a job, tell Hinoe. I’ll bother her about it later.” He stomped toward Takashi, ignoring the spirit’s flinch. The kid wasn’t who he was annoyed at.

“Bye-bye, Madara!” One-eye called after him, leaning on Cow-face again as he narrowly avoided face-planting with his frantic waving. “Bye, Madara’s kid! We’ll look for jobs! Come drinking with us sometime!!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever!” Madara grumbled. “Buy me a drink and then we’ll talk!” They laughed. Madara would trade one of his six shirts for a drink right now. “C’mon, Takashi,” he said as he passed Takashi’s hiding place. “Might as well walk with me in the open.”

Takashi’s eyes darted around at the few people on sidewalks, the car coming down the road, the two drunks still laughing to themselves, and back to Madara in an anxious, jittery loop.

When he didn’t move, Madara grabbed his hand and tugged him along down the road one stumbling step at a time. “Since you’re in human form you could at least try to blend in,” Madara said. “You could have been in spirit form and gone unnoticed. You could have been in your true form—”

“True form?”

“I don’t know,” Madara grumbled, “but you feel like Reiko and Reiko was a fox spirit, so theoretically you might be one too.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You don’t know anything about yourself do you?”

Takashi flushed with embarrassment, or maybe anger, who knew, and dragged his feet a little bit more just to be difficult. “I’m doing fine. I can look like this can’t I?”

“And you don’t know how to hide your powers unless you’re making yourself look human. That’s stupid and impractical.”

“You’re stupid and impractical.”

“I’ve been called worse things.”

Takashi went through several scrunched up faces before he settled on annoyed. He really did look like a human teenager, Madara mused. All the more so with his powers covered up in a mortal-looking shell. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Hide your powers,” Takashi said. “Because you obviously do it.”

“Practice,” Madara said, thinking of Reiko laughing at his failed attempts years ago, and his grandfather who’d figured out what he was trying to do and gave him the foundation for starting even if he hadn’t had much spiritual power himself. “It’s like putting things in a box sometimes. Locking it all up, but you have to make sure you don’t miss anything. Other times it��s just...pulling it in like it’s snow and you’re making a snowball.”

“Those metaphors make no sense.”

“Words aren’t my specialty, kid.” Honestly it was a miracle Madara figured things out because neither Reiko nor his grandfather had ever been that good at words either. He stopped off on a side road and crossed his arms. “So what do you do to look like that?”

Takashi frowned. “I just...” His hands made a swooshing gesture before sweeping inward like folding something in on itself. “I just do it.”

“What you’re doing is something ten times harder than hiding power, so clearly you’re not lacking in ability.” Madara pointed at him, ignoring the affront the gesture caused. “You. You are in the top percentile of strength to even be able to pull off looking human.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. If I was that strong then—”

Then? Madara waited for him to continue, but Takashi’s face had gone blank as some ayakashi masks.

“Never mind. I can figure it out.”

“Sure you can, kid.”

“I can.” He looked stubborn now, but that was an improvement over blank slate.

Madara sighed. “Any reason you’re following me around?” He didn’t really expect an answer. Takashi didn’t seem like the talkative sort. He got a frown in response and Takashi rubbing at one wrist with his other hand, like a nervous tic. “You’re a spring of conversation. Great talk. Now everyone is going to think I have an illegitimate kid with a woman no one’s seen in fifteen years,” he sighed. “Damn it Reiko.”

“...Do you have a child?” Takashi asked.

“Do I look like the kind of guy that gets around?” Madara asked. “Don’t answer that,” he added, because he didn’t really want to know if he looked like that sort of person. It probably didn’t even mean the same thing to a spirit anyway. “Look, there’s a zero chance of you being my kid so jokes and spontaneous covers aside, I don’t have any more idea why you feel like Reiko than you seem to.” There was a bitter taste in his mouth. No, there was no chance that Takashi was Reiko’s child with Madara, though that wasn’t from lack of interest on his part back then. It was Reiko who hadn’t been interested in him like that, hadn’t been interested in anyone like that so far as Madara knew, and who had looked at Madara and still seen the human child he had been.

He sighed again. The past was the past. He had to deal with his current reality. “Maybe someone will take pity and give me a job because I’m apparently now a dad.” If Madara cut his hair, shaved, and bathed with soap in water that wasn’t river water... “I don’t suppose you noticed any signs for jobs while you were following me around today?”

Takashi shook his head. He was still all folded in on himself, wary and nervous even with that spark of stubbornness in his eyes. He couldn’t be further from the proud, arrogant, confident Reiko.

“Too much to hope for I guess.”

o*O*o

Takashi had never expected to be unsealed. He’d never really expected to exist as long as he had anyway, considering his earliest memories were full of fear and pain and danger. Still, he had been freed and he still existed, and he wasn’t sure what to do with himself. Rather than dwell on this, Takashi had taken to following Madara around.

Humans, in Takashi’s limited knowledge of them, were dangerous and hurtful. Either they wanted to destroy spirits simply for existing or they wanted to enslave them for their own purposes. So far Madara hadn’t made any move to do either. He was something of an oddity, grumbling and growling about this and that, dragging Takashi along to find edible things in the forest and insisting he eat too even though Takashi didn’t need to eat near so often as humans seemed to. Madara was short tempered and irritable, but he wasn’t cruel and he never took it out on Takashi. Every morning he got up, found food, and went into town—to find work according to him—and Takashi would eventually follow after and watch Madara get tossed out of buildings or walk out looking defeated or, rarely, stop and talk with other humans in a way that could almost be friendly.

Work didn’t seem to appear, or if it did, it was nothing that took more than an hour or so, like fixing a leaky roof or moving boxes.

Madara seemed happier when those days happened, but Takashi knew that it wasn’t enough. It was one of those things he knew without being sure how he knew. Like what cars were or how often humans needed to eat, or how to tell when fruit were ripe for picking. He couldn’t remember using most of what he knew, or having learned it, and it bothered him.

It also bothered him how easy it was to get used to sharing space with Madara, a human, like some part of him knew that he could trust this human at least, even before observation gave proof to support that instinct.

Takashi watched Madara shove his way through bushes to get to a biwa tree, trying to get at the ripe fruits hanging just out of reach.

“They’re good eating,” Madara said, one foot in an over-grown hosta, a hydrangea shoving flowers in his face to his left, the remnants of someone’s garden long gone wild. “You just—” He flailed for a lower hanging branch. “—have to reach it!”

He was trying so hard Takashi felt a bit guilty just standing and watching. Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to reign in his power without resorting to human form, so he couldn’t simply fly over to the tree and grab fruit without risking any strong ayakashi in the area—and exorcist besides—honing in on him.

“Sensei, I could try on the other side?” Takashi offered. The biwa tree was surrounded on three sides by hydrageas long gone wild, grown thick enough that they would be a pain to try to pass through. That was why Madara was trying to force his way through the hosta instead.

“No! I can get them! I did this loads of times as a kid, just—! Lemme—!” He tripped, squashing bushes and rounded hosta leaves in all directions. The biwa tree shook as he grabbed the trunk. “I remember this being easier,” Madara grumbled.

“Is this the tree you usually ate from?” Takashi asked. It was the only biwa tree, but there was a persimmon and a plum tree nearby with a bent over pine tree that must have at one time been carefully pruned and cultivated. There didn’t seem to be any house though, despite all signs pointing to a private garden.

“Ha, there we go!” Madara finally managed to reach the fruit, using the full extent of his limited human body to reach a branch and pull it closer. So much effort for something so little. “Yeah,” he said, answering Takashi after such a long pause Takashi gave up on it being answered. “This land was owned by a lady my gramps knew. She kicked the bucket when I was ten or so, but the land was willed to a distant relative who never really did anything with it. As far as I know, the guy still pays the taxes and all since this hasn’t been torn up and renovated into who knows what.”

Madara wasn’t careful in his picking. Some deep part of Takashi was annoyed by that; he should be using a knife to keep from bruising the ripest fruit. The loquats would go bad faster when they bruised and Madara should be making more effort to make anything he gathered last to its full potential. The clear image of slim, clawed fingers carefully slicing loquat stems free from a biwa tree clouded Takashi’s mind; another memory he couldn’t remember clearly. Another memory Madara pulled from him that raised more questions than it answered. Takashi shook it away and tried to focus on Madara’s voice instead of blurry images of a past that might not even be his.

“—ld make jam but I’m not going to do that. The old lady liked growing her own fruit and making things from it so I don’t think she’d mind me taking things again. Gramps always had me picking sour plums to pickle but he made them awful. Weird fact, Hinoe makes great umeboshi. Do you think she’d trade me some booze if I brought her back plums?”

Like most of Madara’s questions, that seemed to be rhetorical.

“Is the plum tree nearby?” Takashi asked, glancing around.

“Yeah it’s...” Madara flapped a hand east toward a line of lilacs that had grown past bush size into a solid hedge. “That direction. Closer to where the house used to be before it got caught in a fire. That was years ago though. It’s perfectly safe now.”

“Right.” Takashi left Madara picking fruit into his pillowcase-come-food-bag and headed in that general direction.

The land was actually very nice. Soothing the way well-loved, healthy plants tended to be. Even though they hadn’t been cultivated for years, they’d been tended faithfully at some point to grow so well even decades later. There was a collapsed trellis past the lilacs with a twisted-trunk wisteria that must have once been held up on it before the wood rotted. It was still alive even now, managing to drape its branches off any other plants nearby sturdy enough to hold it. When Takashi brushed past it, he felt a deep peace in it, the core of a plant spirit well on its way to full sentience. The plants, or the trees at least, aged and strong, all had that feeling. In a few decades, this might be a spirit grove. It was nice and didn’t give Takashi the somewhat paranoid feeling most spiritually charged places did.

The plum tree was a few meters from a mass of patchy ground. Closer examination showed it to be the foundations of a house, probably in traditional style since so little was left from the fire. It left a sad feeling in him, yet another frustrating emotion Takashi couldn’t put a source to. The plum tree was stooped, once pruned to be both attractive and easy to harvest from, but had gone wild enough that only the oldest branches showed its old care. Its branches were full of tiny greenish-yellow plums that Takashi knew without tasting would be sour. Unlike the biwa tree, it was easy to get to and simple to reach out and grab a handful of fruit.

There was a burst of emotion when Takashi touched the tree, and for a moment he was elsewhere, in early spring or late winter, a carefully pruned plum tree in bloom as a woman sat on a porch drinking tea. She was old and wrapped in a thick blanket to keep warm, but she looked so peaceful and happy that Takashi knew that the plum blossoms were her favorite thing in her garden and that the tree loved her back as much as she loved it. For a moment, Takashi could swear the woman stared past the tree, directly at him, but it was only a memory.

The real world returned, a rough-bark branch under his fingertips and sour plums in one hand. The tree was quiet now. Things were always quiet once they’d passed on what they wanted him to know, though he was no better at guessing how or why it happened now than he had been when it first happened.

Takashi scooped dozens to plums into his shirt hem, holding it like a basket since he had planned to use Madara’s bag if he picked anything at all. “Thank you,” he told the tree, because it felt like the right thing to do. The tree was aware enough to harbor emotion and memory; it was aware enough to process his gratitude.

Madara had worked his way halfway around the biwa tree when Takashi returned with his shirt full of plums. The hydrangea bushes were a bit worse for the wear, elbowed and stomped aside so the man could reach more fruit.

“I picked plums,” Takashi said.

Madara, who was still mumbling to himself, looked up and almost lost an eye to a wayward branch. “Ow.” He struggled free of bushes. “Thanks. I was going to go there next. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It didn’t look like I would be much help here,” Takashi said, tipping plums into Madara’s pillowcase. He kept one, and snuck a loquat. He’d kept one of the yellower plums and he nibbled the edge of it. His nose scrunched up at the sour juices. The loquat in comparison was sweet and mild.

“You got a lot,” Madara said, peering into the bag. “I might actually be able to bribe Hinoe with these.

“Or you could trade it for something you need,” Takashi pointed out. “Or money.”

“Yeah or I could have a drink and pretend not to be stressed for an evening.”

Takashi frowned at him.

“Look, sake makes the world a bit better place.”

“It tastes disgusting.”

“Obviously you’ve never had good sake.”

“All alcohol is disgusting.”

“To think,” Madara said with a sigh, “I thought you could be Reiko. She’d never pass up the chance for a drink.”

Another thing to add to the list of ways Takashi was thankfully not like her then. Speaking of Reiko though... “Did she ever come here?”

“Hm? Here as in picking fruit?”

“Or just...here in general. Visiting. You said she spent time as a human.”

“She spent time as a human because she liked messing with people,” Madara said. He turned back to the biwa tree. “But I dunno. Maybe she did come here but that was before she knew me if she did. She never wanted to come with me when Gramps sent me on plum runs but I know she’d take persimmons from this persimmon tree every year, so maybe she was just being contrary.”

“Maybe...” Takashi looked back toward the plum tree, the faintest wisp of nostalgia coursing through him. His own nostalgia or Madara’s? Or was it something else entirely? “Have you picked enough fruit?”

“Just about,” Madara grunted. “I thought I might try to dry some. There’s no way I can eat as many as I picked before they’re too ripe. I was good at drying persimmons once, so it might work out. If not, at least we won’t starve for a bit.” He shouldered his bag of fruit. “And I can come back until these are gone. I’m glad I remembered this old place. Now c’mon and help me find some greens before I take off. I have a good feeling about the interview I have lined up tonight.”

Takashi had the feeling that Madara wouldn’t get that job either, but he didn’t say it. Instead he gave the burnt foundations and plum tree one last look before trailing after Madara.

o*O*o

The interview did not go as planned. None of the attempts at jobs had gone as planned, and Madara had to wonder if it was time to raise the white flag and surrender to the world at large even though it would go against pretty much every instinct to do so. No one was hiring the guy who used to be the town black sheep, who had a spotty work record, no current recommendations, and no home address. He supposed he’d been overestimating his ability to keep presentable when he was living out of a box of a space in the middle of the woods.

At least, Madara reflected, face down on Hinoe’s bar, Takashi hadn’t been there to see this failure. Or the fact that an old man had waved paper charms in Madara’s face like he was a demon because he had remembered a gold-eyed child in his shop decades ago right before the windows blew out. That had been an ayakashi but it hadn’t really made any difference to the man. Madara was unwanted trouble. People would give him small tasks, but no one was going to hire him full time because too many people remembered the sort of accidents that plagued him as a kid.

“You know that there’s a fix for this,” Hinoe said in a pause between customers.

“I don’t want to work for Misuzu.”

“You have to face it, he’s the only one who’s going to hire you.”

Hinoe, as always, lacked any shred of sympathy. Madara pouted at her and she simply raised an eyebrow, wiping down a corner of the bar where someone had spilled a drink.

“We don’t get along,” Madara said.

“You don’t get along with anyone,” Hinoe said.

“I get along with you,” Madara protested. “Sort of. And there’s—” He couldn’t say any ayakashi names.

“So there’s me,” Hinoe concluded. “You’re a real mess, you know.”

“Shut up.” Madara had brought her most of the plums Takashi picked along with a few loquats to try to get a deal. Instead of booze, Hinoe gave him a ten kilogram bag of rice and the promise of a jar of umeboshi when she finished pickling them. It felt like a betrayal.

“Ushio mentioned you were looking after a kid,” Hinoe said pointedly. Madara flinched expecting her to rain down fire and ash at a rumor of him having a child with Reiko. Surprisingly, she just looked determined and a bit judgmental.

“Ushio?”

Hinoe nodded toward the other end of the bar at two noisy drunks—Cow-face and One-eye.

“One of them is named Ushio?”

And there was the full one flat stare he was used to receiving. “This is why you don’t have friends,” Hinoe said. She slapped down her cleaning cloth and leaned close. “Look, I don’t know what all happened between you and old man Misuzu, but if you have a child to look after, you’d better suck up your pride and fix it. Parents don’t have the luxury of avoiding a means to a steady pay check.”

Madara flinched again at the twofold meaning there; he knew enough about Hinoe’s childhood and his own to see the truth in her words. She was letting the fact that Madara might have a kid with Reiko slide, but if Madara didn’t live up to what she saw as his parental duties, she’d give him hell. This explained a lot about the bag of rice actually.

“Would he even hire me?” Madara said after an uncomfortably long pause where it felt like Hinoe was trying to bore into his soul with a glare and willpower alone. She was giving off enough scary feelings that even someone who wasn’t spiritually sensitive would be intimidated.

“He hired you once,” Hinoe said. “And no one else he’s hired since has had your skillset.”

No one else could see spirits like he could, she meant. “We really don’t get along,” he repeated, serious instead of pouting. He could be straightforward too if she was going to be. “We have different ideological views.”

“Can you compromise them enough to get a steady paycheck?” Hinoe said. “Because that’s what you need.”

“Last time he asked me to... Look, the only way I could work for him is if he actually respects my boundaries this time because last time he pushed too much and I’m not letting that happen again.”

“Only you two idiots know what happened back then so the only one who could tell you is Misuzu. So get your head together and talk to him, dumbass.”

“Why can’t you hire me?”

“I don’t need the help and I’d probably end up strangling you in a week,” she said bluntly.

“Your personality is as sour as your umeboshi,” Madara replied.

Hinoe snorted. “Stop moping and get out of here, Madara. And next time bring your kid.”

“Bringing a minor to a bar is irresponsible.”

“Since when have you ever been responsible?”

Madara sighed. If he stuck around, Hinoe might decide to dump ice on him or something...

“You’ll get over it,” Hinoe said to his back as he left, “because you have to.”

He kind of wanted to turn around and demand who’d ever gotten over themselves for him, but he knew that both Gramps and Reiko had done their best in their own ways with raising him. It was the world’s sick joke to throw him into some kind of parental role himself. Even if it wasn’t a real one. He gave Hinoe the middle finger on his way out. The door shut before she stopped laughing.

o*O*o

Misuzu’s temple was on the edge of town, close to forest in one direction and a big open field in the other. It had the same tingle of pure spiritual energy that Madara remembered years ago, and was completely empty of spirits like how Misuzu preferred it. There had been a spirit pond once, existing in Misuzu’s back yard, but even that had vanished after Madara made the mistake of mentioning it once. Its disappearance had left the temple feeling barren, lacking the odd bits of beauty spirits could add to the world even if it technically was a perfect haven from them.

Madara cleaned himself at the well before heading toward the temple proper, like Misuzu preferred from visitors. The grounds were too quiet and not as clean as they were years ago. But then if Misuzu hadn’t had help in a while, he had to be too old to keep up with all the chores like he used to.

Misuzu was sweeping the courtyard, a bit more stooped and a lot more gray in his hair than Madara remembered, with a streak of white from his left temple, all of it tied back neatly at the base of his neck. He didn’t look up as Madara stopped just outside the space he was cleaning. This too was familiar. Madara squashed down old irritation.

“Natsume Madara,” Misuzu said when he came to the end of his work. His eyes when he looked up were as sharp and piercing as ever, like he was seeing all of Madara’s flaws and finding him wanting, just like he had when Madara was young. “I didn’t think you were going to return.”

“I didn’t want to,” Madara said, shoulders tight, fighting not to cross his arms in a futile defense.

“I distinctly remember you saying you would rot in hell before you would come to my temple again.”

“Yeah, well. Life happens.” Madara shrugged.

Misuzu snorted, in a moment of humor or contempt, Madara couldn’t tell. “And you come crawling back for a job.”

“Who the hell is crawling?” Madara growled. He almost turned away then and there except he still had Hinoe’s serious look in his head and Takashi waiting back at the abandoned shrine. Takashi wouldn’t judge him for leaving but Hinoe would. Takashi should have more than a tiny shrine to live in though. He spent almost all his time in human form, and the current living conditions couldn’t be any more comfortable for him than they were for Madara. “I heard you needed some help and were hiring. You don’t have to hire me, but we both know I have the skills.”

He’d hired Madara once. He’d trained Madara once. He knew what Madara could and couldn’t do and how hard it was to find someone with even half of Madara’s abilities or potential.

“I suppose all the reasons you had for leaving mysteriously vanished over the years,” Misuzu said.

“If by reasons you mean morals,” Madara spat, “no. No I still have boundaries and I’m still not going to cross them. I’ll seal a spirit if it hurts someone. I’ll banish one if I have to. But I won’t get rid of something that isn’t doing anything just because it exists. Not when there’s other options.”

“You always were soft.” Misuzu eyed him for a moment. “I see that hasn’t changed much.”

“You haven’t seen me in over fifteen years, what the hell do you know?”

“You’re still someone who waits to get hurt before fighting back,” Misuzu said, like it was a given that Madara would get hurt. And of course he wasn’t entirely wrong. He never was and that was the most infuriating thing about him. “Come. If you’re serious about this, I can give you tasks to complete.”

“And pay me for them.”

“And pay you for them,” Misuzu said with a wry twist of his lips. He left the broom outside the temple, leading Madara to parts that weren’t available to the general public, where he kept stacks of charms and ofuda and written correspondence from exorcists around Japan. Madara left his shoes at the door, feeling a bit like an out of place teenager again. “Sit,” Misuzu said with a flick of his hand at the few cushions he had on the floor. “You’re worse off than I was expecting,” he said, eying Madara like he was covered in rats. “Have you used none of the skills I taught you over the years?”

“I’m alive aren’t I?” Between Reiko and Misuzu he’d gotten control of his powers enough to live by. He didn’t say how he’d spent most of the years away learning to pretend he couldn’t see spirits and keeping his nose out of anything that had their energy all over it. He’d get that frown directed at him, the one that said he’d failed at some moral duty he’d never signed up for. “So you got any jobs for me that aren’t going to lead to us fighting?” Madara sprawled on a cushion.

Misuzu smacked his legs with a paper fan until Madara sat up in proper posture. “I do have something that would fit your particular skillset. There aren’t many people around anymore with Sight.” Misuzu didn’t have it himself, he was just very powerfully spiritually charged. He shuffled through papers, sitting on a cushion like he wasn’t in his eighties—like he didn’t have the achy back and bad knees he really should have at his age while Madara was horribly uncomfortable despite being several decades younger. “Ah, here it is.” A paper was shoved unceremoniously in Madara’s face. “I haven’t had the time to deal with this yet, but it’s more suited to your abilities anyway.”

Madara squinted at the paper, trying to read the spindly handwriting of whoever sent it. “A missing god?”

“Missing or incapacitated. The priest at the shrine has found that his charms don’t hold the same power and blessings have been failing, but there still seems to be some sort of presence at the shrine...”

“But no one can see the god to check,” Madara concluded, connecting the dots. “You want me to go talk to the god or whatever spirit is there to find out what happened.”

“And ideally to restore the shrine’s power.” Misuzu frowned. “I’d rather not rely on you,” he said bluntly, “but I have too much to do and can’t handle the problems of some of the smaller shrines like I used to. Solve the problem and you can consider yourself hired. Fail it, and you can find some other person to bother.”

“For someone who’s doing you a favor, you could say that a bit nicer.”

“It’s not a favor, it’s a job. Act professional.”

Madara rolled his eyes, tucking the paper away. “Go to the shrine, fix the problem, report back. Got it.” He made to stand, then paused. “You’re not going to have a problem if I say I still talk to spirits are you?”

“Are they bound to you?”

“Not as shiki, no. They’re not into hurting me or any other human though.”

“Keep them off my property,” Misuzu said with a sniff, “and I won’t do anything about their existence.”

“Got it. Good talk.”

“Don’t come back until you have results.”

Madara rolled his eyes again and let himself out. Annoying, prejudiced, stupid old man. He hated that he was going to owe him one now. And have to call him his boss. What ever happened to the weird guy that looked like a frog that was always cleaning up the temple anyway? Madara glanced back after he left the building, contemplative. Maybe Misuzu was as desperate as Madara was.

#natsume yuujinchou #fanfiction #my writing

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thesilentmedium · 1 year

Text

End Of The Line || Jonas & Lil

TIMING : Early March

LOCATION: A dusty motel

PARTIES: @thesilentmedium & @the-lil-exorcist

SUMMARY: Lil and Jonas find out some unfortunate news

CONTENT WARNINGS: Emotional Abuse, Parental & sibling death

It wasn’t news to anyone that Lil was on edge, ever since she and Jonas first met the Barghest who she reminded herself quickly was named Blue. It wasn’t the ghost dog's fault really, in fact she seemed quite attached to Jonas. It just felt like she was on the edge of some big catastrophe - which to be fair was exactly what a barghest meant. Something bad was going to happen. She knew something bad was going to happen.

So, trying to seem at ease she’d pulled into a hotel that they’d decided on at lunch, her hand tapping on the steering wheel to the song playing. Although they usually would stay in one place - sometimes even for weeks, Lil hadn’t wanted to stay in one place for very long. Maybe it was the idea that if they kept moving that whatever feeling that seemed to be on the horizon couldn’t catch them. If she was being honest - it might also explain why she kept moving them closer and closer to the east coast too. It was something more akin to an instinct then something she could rationally explain. Maybe it was because she was missing something. Thinking for a moment her thoughts snapped to the rest of their family.

Fuck. She had forgotten that -

Turning off the car Lil paused for a moment, trying to remember when their dad had called last. Has it been a week already? That couldn’t have been right. He usually bugged her every other day with jobs. A moment of panic filled her as she tried to remember the last time their mom had called her - being more worried about Blue and what that could mean she hadn’t been keeping track of her days like she normally did. Still she tried to hide it with a smile to her Jonas as she took off her seat belt trying to steady her shaking hands as she realized that a harbinger didn’t necessarily mean it was the two of them that were going to suffer.

“I can go key if you want to stretch your legs and walk Blue, ” Lil signed with a small nod to Jonas turning to face him pointing lightly to Blue, who she could almost forget about when she didn’t see her. She didn’t want to worry Jonas, and figured that she was actually wrong about the last time their dad called. She just needed to make it seem not as panic-inducing as she felt. “We can go get something to eat after. I also - I think I should call dad. So it might be a minute.”

—

Jonas had his hand against the speaker, feeling the vibrations from the song Lil had been playing as they pulled up to yet another motel. It was obvious Lil had been anxious ever since they met Blue, the dog wasn’t exactly a good omen and even he had been stressed since meeting her. The dog ended up following them for about a week before Jonas decided to make a pact with her. It was strange having a symbol of misfortune attached to you but Blue was so kind and protective of the two that he couldn’t leave her alone. It was his first and only pact. The dog was bunched up in the back, being the size of a polar bear leading to her barely fitting comfortably curled in on herself, head perking up when the car came to a stop.

They both looked to Lil as she started singing, Jonas’ focusing his gaze on her hands taking in what she was saying. He’d been doing this for years now so it was easy enough though the fact her hands were a little shaky gave away her nerves. He couldn’t blame her though, he was just as nervous, the last message they’d received from their dad didn’t even go to Lil like it normally did, he had received it and it had been kind telling Jonas that he was proud of him after all, which was very abnormal for a father who normally preferred to pretend Jonas didn’t exist.

He reached over and gently took Lil’s hand, his words coming out awkwardly and a little slurred, “It’s going to be okay Lil, we’ll figure it out.” He let go so he could sign the rest of what he wanted to say, “Go ahead and call dad, if he doesn’t pick up we can try one of our siblings. Someone will know what’s going on.” Someone had to, a Ballard didn’t just disappear for no reason.

After reassuring Lil, Jonas slipped out of the car, opening the back door for Blue to join him outside. Normally he didn’t venture far from the car or the motel at night, it was just more dangerous not being able to see thing when your hearing was already gone, but Blue was here now and would keep him safe so he went a little further out to the trees that surrounded the motel, giving Lil the space she needed and Blue the opportunity to stretch.

—

Lil had paused for a moment hearing Jonas’s voice realizing that her attempt to be calm and collected had failed, yet again. Usually she was pretty good at it - getting people to calm down during exorcisms with a smile and laugh- but that never seemed to translate to Jonas. So she nodded and signed a quick thank you, getting out of the car herself.

Lil watched for a moment watching Blue trailing behind Jonas. She was still getting used to her - especially how big she was and the fact Lil couldn’t hear her. It was - disconcerting in a way that ghosts always were for her. Still, she seemed protective over Jonas, and while they were harbingers they didn’t cause the harm themselves.

Quickly going to grab a key for a room for the night Lil was soon scrolling through her phone hitting their dad’s number. She’d never bothered to save him as a contact, annoyed by the tacit connection but he was nevertheless one of the highest in her call logs.

She expected to hear Jacob, maybe him being at least a little pleased she called him first in this stand up they were having. Instead she heard a dial tone. In a moment she felt a sense of doom she wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with. Although she tried to never call him first, anytime she had Jacob Ballard had answered her. “Hey - Dad, if you get this call me back.” Lil said unsure now that she’d gotten the dial tone trying to steady. She had assumed that he’d known that she’d been pissed at his cryptic message to Jonas and had left them alone - she didn’t think he wouldn’t answer.

Still, Lil tried not to panic, her thumb going down to their oldest sibling and hitting their number. She stilled again when she reached the dial tone for them too. Eyes wide she hit the next sibling, getting the same result as she tried to stop panicking. “Hey - this isn’t funny. Call me back.” Lil said her voice getting higher with stress as she started twirling her ring. “I’m calling mom next and she’s going to be mad at all of you.” She went to touch the contact for their mom - wondering lightly if June would answer and dreading if she didn’t.

Still her finger tapped the button, and Lil held her breath listening to the dial tone when she heard a click on the line, “Mama - thank God. Are you all okay -”

Jonas paused at the woods and Blue came up behind him, turning her head to stare at Lil as she dipped inside the motel. He understood from how the large beast watched her that whatever Lil found out on that phone call wouldn’t be good news. Jonas shuffled and buried his face into

the thick fur of Blue’s neck, earning a low whine and a big head to come press against him. She reached his chin without standing up on her hind legs making the nuzzling rather easy. They were meant to be stretching their legs but Jonas just held onto his new companion for a while longer before moving back towards the car.

Jonas stopped when he saw Lil on the phone. He was facing her back so couldn’t see what she was saying but Blue’s stare got more intense. He fished his own phone out of the car and pulled up door dash before moving in front of Lil. “Did you reach someone Lil?” He was doing his best to read her lips without being too rude about it. “Mom?” That was good news if they reached June, she was normally the center of the family and would know what’s going on if anything was at all.

A barghest could mean anything was going to happen, maybe the room they were about to enter was haunted or Lil was going to get bad food poisoning from whatever they ordered tonight. He was starting to feel a little hopeful about it if that was actually his mom on the other end. She could also explain their father’s odd behavior.

—

There was a swell of hope with Lil’s heart for a moment as she turned to Jonas putting her phone into the crook of her shoulder to free her hands. After all, June usually wanted to talk to him too, and right now she didn’t think she’d mind if Lil signed to Jonas. They could after all text later.

It only lasted a moment, before Lil heard the voice on the other hand - gruff and not like her mom. “Lilian? Is that you?” Lil froze almost automatically at the voice for a moment, before realizing who it was and that it probably wasn’t a good sign that he sounded unsure and almost relieved.

“Yeah, Uncle Charlie it’s me. Where’s my mom?” Lil said her voice was going up as she tried to rationalize the call. “Jonas and I haven’t heard anything from them - why do you have her phone? Why isn’t anyone calling us back?”

“You and Jonas - oh thank God,” Charlie said, “ I thought - we didn’t even try to call you two ‘cause we assumed - Kid, you need to come home to the both of you. No one’s been able to find any of them. Okay? Wherever you are, come back.”

Lil froze again, “Missing? What do you mean missing? Uncle Charlie do you mean my dad’s missing or -”

“All of them, Kid. We need you two to come back,” He said gently, or as gently as the exorcist ever got. It wasn’t that he was mean - Lil could quite recall a few times he’d sneak candies to her during training when her dad wasn’t looking - but it was clear that he didn’t know what to do now.

“I - got it. I’ll go get Jonas and we’ll come as soon as we can,” Lil said, her eyes focusing on her brother and not sure quite what she would tell him after she heard a gruff okay and the click of the phone off. She tried not to look as shaken as she felt her brain spinning a million miles a minute as she tried to calculate how far away from their hometown they were.

—

“Missing?” Jonas frowned as he tried to pick up just who was missing, not Uncle Charlie thankfully, but that didn’t bode well if Uncle Charlie had June’s phone. His mind was piecing the clues together, mom had gone on a mission if Charlie had her phone and since his dad also didn’t answer when they called it was a good bet he was with her.

That just left his two older siblings. If both parents were missing and they hadn’t bothered calling then they were either trying to hunt them down or they too were gone. What could take out an entire section of the Ballard family?

The Ballard’s weren’t T.V. exorcists, they actually knew what they were doing when hunting ghosts and had made marriages through generations to keep the bloodline populated with strong exorcists and mediums. Not many things were going to take one Ballard down let alone four.

Jonas put his phone back in his pocket and placed his hands on his hips as he looked down. They had to go back, that much was obvious, but rushing wouldn’t help them. Lil was tired from driving and shouldn’t be driving while her mind was racing.

They needed at least 8 hours of sleep. Trying to think now while having slept so little would help no one. “We need to rest Lil, we can leave at first light. We won’t be able to help anyone if we crash because we’re tired.”

—

Lil hated to admit how much of her father’s kid she was as she pushed her hair back into a ponytail, as her brain shifted on how quickly she could get back to the town. She was pretty sure that she’d be able to get there in less than a day if they left now. For a moment she didn’t process Jonas signing to her, instead trying to figure out where in that freaky town her family could have gone. She’d have to get a list together and strong arm Uncle Charlie into giving her more details.

Still after a moment her focus did shift to Jonas, and as she hoped he had been reading her lips “They are all missing,” Lil signed. “Everyone is missing. Uncle Charlie seemed lost. I think he thought we were with them. That’s why no one called me or texted you. They thought we were missing too. ” A twinge of guilt passed over Lil, after all whatever had happened, she hadn’t been there. If she was also honest there was a bit of fear there as well. She was a good exorcist - maybe could have even been great one day, and Jonas was an excellent medium but they were the youngest. Their siblings and parents were stronger, and knew more. Whatever had happened was bad enough that they couldn’t deal with it and for tonight at least, Lil would have to deal with that fear.

She tried not to feel small, but she shifted in her boots slightly as she looked back at the motel and the car. Looking back at Jonas she sighed slightly, wanting desperately to get back into the car and drive on and knowing that wasn’t the right call. Normally, she would have done it anyway. She would have barked in laughter and said that she wasn’t tired.

She would have at least mustered an argument about how they needed to get back as soon as possible and how she’d get some coffee. Problems usually invigorated her, even when they might not be something that she wanted to deal with she always found a way to channel something akin to passion to be motivated. Even when she was on the ground, she always got back up after all. At the moment though she felt only weariness, after being on edge for so long it was hard to not recognize that she was tired in the face of the other shoe dropping instead of motivated.

So, instead of arguing she nodded slightly and reached out to give Jonas the motel key before answering. “You’re right. I’ll think we should get something to eat and get some rest. Maybe some snacks for tomorrow so we can leave right away . If I’m right we’re about a day away.” Lil’s throat felt heavy, and uncharacteristically she felt serious considering something her dad would tell her. “ That and I’m too scared.” She signed not looking at Jonas for a moment. “If we went tonight I’m sure I’d call whatever ghosts are around to me and we’d be having a world of problems. I’ll be better tomorrow.”

“Everyone?” Jonas did his best to be an optimist but that news wasn’t particularly great and dealt a heavy blow to him trying to look on the brightside. It would just be them and Uncle Charlie left to solve the case and as much as he loved the older man he wasn’t exactly reassured by the fact he was the one on the case. Not that he would ever admit such things out loud. It was rude just to think that way. He blamed such thoughts on being upset over how his family seemed to just disappear off the face of the map.

Still his earlier statement wasn’t wrong and Lil seemed to agree. He paused with what she said next, giving her an understanding look before signing, “I’m scared too, but what was it that dad always said? A Ballard persists despite it?” Granted Jonas had not been privy to many of the lessons and quotes his father had for his other siblings. He learned from his mother at his own pace rather than the rigid schedule of Jacob Ballard. That was better for everyone, Jacob couldn’t seem to keep from yelling the moment his eyes laid on what he considered a failure of a son, which just made his last text message so strange and prompted the calls.

“We’ll figure it out, we’re the smartest Ballards after all.” Jonas did his best to lighten the mood as he walked back over to the car to grab the salt they’d need to ghost proof the room for the night. Blue watched as her boy moved before walking over to Lil and planting her head against the older twin trying to offer comfort. Jonas’ mangled words came from the car as he shifted inside, “We can order your comfort food and watch a bad movie while we think it over tonight.”

—

Lil nodded a lump forming in her throat that she desperately wished would go away. Lil often thought of worst case scenarios, and she couldn’t help but feel a little sideswiped by the news. With everything she could have imagined, she just couldn’t see all of them disappearing. Even with Blue following them, she was sure it was her that was going to be on the receiving end. She should have thought about it clearer, but still she tried to let the fear go.

Looking at Jonas, Lil nodded slightly at the words she’d heard from their dad more times then she could count. Everytime she fell on the ground she could hear the smartass quips of Jacob in the back of her mind. Part of her wanted to not remember them, to pretend that she learned the skill without her dad’s help. It was a silly thought though, an indignant one brought by how her training ended. Jacob Balard might have been an awful father to Jonas, and a drill sergeant to Lil, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t an excellent exorcist.

Lil couldn’t help but snort at Jonas' statement finally releasing some of the strain in her body, a small smile going across her face, more to show her brother that she had found it a little amusing. “You’re right. Between the two of us, we have pretty much all the brain cells. We’ll just have to figure it out. Together.”

Because unlike what Jacob always thought, Jonas did make Lil a better exorcist. He was much more adept at dealing with ghosts and finding peace in situations that called for it. Proof was shown as to how Blue leaned into her. Lil would have exorcized her if Jonas wasn’t there to show that she didn’t mean harm, and that wouldn’t have been right. Lil moved her hand to the top of the ghost dog’s head as if she was petting her, grateful that she hadn’t. Now no matter what happened to her, Blue would be there for Jonas, and apparently they needed all the help they could get. “Thank you, Blue,” Lil said softly to the barghest.

Hearing Jonas, Lil leaned down rocking forward in her boots so Jonas could see her face and hands as she signed, “ Let's get something we both like, not just me. We’re both going through it. Maybe some Pizza? Sounds good? I won’t even make you watch the Minion movie again. ”

—

Jonas was a little startled by his sister’s sudden appearance, the news must have shook him a bit more than he realized, but he was quick to relax nodding at her suggestion letting out a little noise of triumph as he finally tugged a pouch of salt out of his tightly packed bag. “I think the minions would break us both.” He signed as best he could with the salt taking up one hand before tucking the pouch into his pocket, leaning over the seat to grab hold of his laptop.

“We can watch something mom likes, maybe Fox and the Hound?” Jonas had a habit of keeping everyone’s favorite movies on his laptop for moments like this, though he still refused to download the minions, he knew Lil didn’t actually enjoy the movie and was just using it to annoy him. But keeping the other movies she enjoyed counted as a way of looking out for her he supposed.

Jonas felt like that was most of his job now, looking out for his twin, it made him feel useful, always had. He’d be lying if he said Jacob’s words never got to him, they still liked to sit in the back of his mind coming out when things got too quiet. His only defense against them were the affirmations he recited to himself in the mirror every morning. Something to try and boost a self esteem that was holding on by a few threads that had been carefully stitched in place by June Ballard over the many years of raising her son. June and Lil always seemed determined to prove Jacob wrong about him, he appreciated it.

Jonas shoved his laptop under one arm to make talking easier, “Salt now or after pizza delivery?” Jonas knew that doing it sooner would be better if Lil’s defenses were going to crumble, the noise was going to pick up and he was too sensitive to it not to be affected but he also knew delivery people often got weirded out by a salt line waiting behind the door.

—

Lil frowned slightly realizing that she had startled Jonas signing sorry quickly as she nodded. She couldn’t help the bark of a laugh that came out when Jonas noted how the minions were not the move. Pulling on the door behind the driver's seat she pulled up her go-bag carefully still looking at Jonas as he was talking.

“Sure. I haven’t seen that in a bit. Might be a little sad though..” Lil wasn’t certain it would give her any sort of comfort, but she knew it would mean something to Jonas to watch the movie. While Jonas seemed to take their mother’s lessons, Lil was more like Jacob then she ever would care to admit. She tried to hold onto sentimentality - connections between people- but it was hard for her to find comfort in it.

Still, she wanted to find some sort of comfort in it. She wanted to be softer than she was, and more kind. Sometimes she looked in the mirror and saw a harder face in there than she wanted. She had to remind herself to smile and to make her hands relax. Lil wanted to remember that outside of exorcism she was still a human, for better or worse sometimes she would like to feel the bittersweet memories.

Locking the car Lil laughed and replied, her hands now freed from the keys being shifted into her pocket. Part of her was glad that Jonas couldn’t hear how strained her laugh sounded at the moment - as awful as that thought felt. “It’s not such a nice motel that they’ll notice or care that there’s a salt mark. Might as well do it now. What kind do you want?”

—

“It’s okay to feel a little sad. I just think the movie would… would calm us down.” Fox and the Hound was a tamer movie to pick among the ones on his laptop. The plot wasn’t very heavy and there weren’t really any sad parts in it. Unlike the movies he liked to watch which more often than not had sad endings. Jonas was just a sucker for movies that could make him cry. He didn’t think that was right for tonight though. Nor did he think anything action packed would be wise.

No, something gentle was best and they both knew the movie well enough that if they wanted to talk they wouldn’t miss anything while it was playing in the background. Perhaps he was over thinking it but that was what he did best. He thought things through as thoroughly as possible. It was why his seances often took so long, though it often led to him getting distracted as well. His mind was easy to get wrapped around one thought forgetting what else was needing his attention.

Jonas could remember a few cases where he ended up staying awake the whole night putting pieces together because his brain wouldn’t shut off or the ghosts were being particularly loud, preventing sleep. It was why he was a little relieved that Lil said to place the salt now. It would at least keep any unwanted guests from their door. “Hm Let’s get half cheese half what you want.”

—

“It can’t hurt to try,” Lil replied with a soft nod accompanying the hand movement. She couldn’t quite remember all the details of the movie - which wasn’t surprising. Lil often thought most of her brain was made up of old languages that no one spoke and exorcism rituals that she probably wouldn’t need. Still, she remembered enough to know it would be a good quiet movie for a loud day. It would be calming, and while it wouldn’t bother Jonas either way, Lil thought a quieter movie would let her hear anything outside the room.

Lil Tapped her fingers on her arm for a moment as they walked to the room looking at the area carefully, before responding, “ Half cheese and Half Pepperoni it is then. I’ll figure out the number in a second. Do you want to check and see if you hear anything in there before I start salting?” Lil wanted to at least make sure they weren’t trapping a ghost in the hotel room with them. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but she wasn’t feeling like she wanted to work and she doubted Jonas did either. It would be much more simple to ask them to leave the area.

—

Jonas nodded at the request and offered Lil a little smile, glad she agreed it couldn’t hurt to try the movie. He took the key from Lil and moved past her, making his way into the room. He gently placed his laptop on the bed before closing his eyes and focusing on the noise. The motel was luckily outside of town, making it as cheap as it was but it also meant there weren't as many voices as there would have been had they picked a palace more towards the center. He didn’t know if Lil picked based on the price or because she knew he got headaches when he was stuck in town all night, but he was grateful nonetheless. He took a moment to make sure there really wasn’t any ghost hiding in the room before holding the door open for Lil, “It’s all quiet in here, the noise is mostly in the woods.”

Blue moved into the room, getting on top of Jonas’ bed as soon as she figured out which one was his. The bed dipped under her weight as she flopped down, tail going and waiting for someone to join her. Jonas had never met a dog so in love with snuggles. “I don’t think there is enough room for all three of us on one bed.” He signed and the dog whined tail stopping as she huffed and stared at her partner.

—

Lil waited patiently for Jonas to finish listening for whatever ghosts could be in the hotel. While she wasn’t a beacon of patience in most cases, Lil always was a careful exorcist. While the ghost wouldn’t bother her most likely - after all she’d have to see it for it to even annoy her slightly- she knew Jonas could hear them loudly demanding him to do things. So she was as careful as she could be in making sure he could get to sleep. She made sure Blue was in the room, looking towards the ghostly dog to make sure she didn’t accidentally keep her on the outside of the room. Nodding after confirming everything she replied “Good. I’ll start sealing the room then.”

Taking one of the bags of salt she hid on her person, Lil carefully started to make a line at the front door in a continuous line that almost looked like she had drawn it in chalk. Looking back she caught Jonas talking to Blue and chuckled, moving to the windows. “Let her on the bed with you, I’m sure we can fit for the movie and besides she’s gonna end up there anyway. Look at her, she’s gotta be whining.”

Careful to not get the bag near Blue, Lil moved to the window still making another precise line and looking towards the woods. She wondered if she was seeing flickering lights of spirits - or if she was just that tired. In any case it wasn’t on their docket to deal with, and she’d rather not deal with it now. Instead she pulled her phone out and looked for a pizza place near them.

—

Jonas shook his head at Lil before turning to Blue, “Sit at the top.” The dog’s tail wagged again as she happily obliged, the chain on her foot rattling as she scooted to the top of the bed and made herself small enough to fit across it, leaving enough room for the twins to sit at the bottom of the bed. Jonas nestled in, leaning against the dog as he opened his laptop. This was normal for the two at this point, Jonas often found himself laying on top of the dog at night these days. The barghest never seemed to mind, often encouraging it as she tangled herself up with Jonas. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to get used to not having her on his bed at this point. She was a welcomed comfort especially now.

While the laptop took its time booting up he turned his eyes to his twin, watching as Lil lined the window. Jonas wondered if she was still tense, if she was it was to be expected. They had a huge task waiting for them now in a town they ran away from, for good reason. He had never regretted his decision to join Lil, he didn’t want his sister to be a demonologist as much as she didn’t want to. It was more dangerous than normal exorcism and he could tell the thought of it scared her, and if they had stayed their father would have forced it on her. He also would have had to deal with more years of verbal abuse from his father, though the total lack of communication he had been receiving now hadn’t felt much better,

His father was a constant point of contention for Jonas. He was sure he hated the man but he didn’t want to, he wanted to love him as much as his mother however it was clear that his father did not share the same sentiments. He was never enough for the older man even in the fields he excelled at Jacob Ballard would always find some sort of flaw to point out. He remembered the night he showed his father the painting of him, Jacob had stared at it then said something about the colors being off before leaving and for the first time Jonas acted out in anger. He had taken his paintbrush and dragged a red line across the man’s face. Jonas was lucky Lil indulged his urge to paint on the road, it kept his love for it alive despite everything. He supposed if Jacob had said anything true in his life it was that, ‘A Ballard persist despite it all.

#the-lil-exorcists #Other Side Of The Coin || Lil #emotional abuse tw #parental death tw #sibling death tw

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crumbingmask · 1 year

Text

Honey & Glass (Yullen, Rated T)

Chapter 1; I won't stop until I get where you are.

AO3

In light of not being as dead as he had previously expected to be, Kanda now has several problems.

Problem one, no Mugen.

Problem two, he was in a dirt pit in no mans land and again with the whole not dead thing, his next destination was in England.

Problem three, he needed to save Allen Walker or kill the Fourteenth since this awaking him business was unfortunately, mildly His Fault. With the stabbing and all.

Problem Four, he did not know how to do that. Save Allen Walker, that is. But Kanda knows he has to. After what he did for Alma and him, even though...Kanda would be the reason he loses. He still saved them anyways. Set them free.

He doesn’t feel like he deserved it.

Not that the beansprout would care about something like that. Allen had once said to him that he was moved by what was in front of him, instead of big picture stuff.

Because he’s a fucking tender hearted, idiot martyr who can’t mind his own fucking business and even though he really would have rather died then admit it. He is going to have to thank him for doing it anyways.

so, Kanda needs to have some words with him. If he was even still himself, that is. But that brat was stubborn as hell so it’s probably fine for now.

—

The staff at the clinic on the outskirts of Mater recognize him quickly. Turns out they didn’t treat scientific anomalies that healed at abnormal rates very often, go figure.

—

The long trip was good actually, gave him time to think, process? Whatever you want to call the kind peace you get when everyone you know thinks you’re dead, and you’re thousands of miles away from the fallout.

Kanda follows a well-worn path alongside the train tracks. He’ll either find the station first, or just catch the next train that passes. Not much different then the way they’d always done it at the Order before.

After using the ark’s gates so much in the past year, traveling between missions had been so much faster. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the subdued pace.

Just the sounds of his boots crunching against the gravel, and rustle of wind through the trees.

The illusionary flowers have even rescinded enough that they almost seem to meld into the already heavy floral meadow. There are a lot of flowers in the countryside, apparently.

He stops to take a bit more time to appreciate the scenery before him. Just feeling the breeze on his skin and fluttering through his hair. Just breathing.

Alma and that person, they would have liked it out here. He knows it. Kanda hopes there’s lots of flowers to enjoy whatever they are now too. Maybe they’ll even tell him all about the flowers they’ve seen, when it’s his turn to rest too. It’s a nice thought.

Kanda moves on. He has a lot of ground to cover if no trains come by today.

—

Kanda thought he’d feel more apprehension, maybe even anxiety the closer he got to Headquarters. He certainly hasn’t forgiven them. Fuck no, not even in his second death will he ever forgive them.

But he’s not as revolted by the idea of returning as he’d thought.

Maybe it’s because it's different this time. That it’s his choice, as Kanda Yu, to become an exorcist this time. Not because it was what was expected of his duty to God or whatever the scientists had said to him upon awakening.

He’s taking a page out of Walker’s book and being moved by what’s in front of him. Becoming a destroyer who saves, even. Gross.

Because Kanda can't become another tragedy in a long line of others that have taken a piece of Allen Walker’s endlessly generous heart and destroyed it.

His life's mission to find that person is done. Alma and that person. He’d love them forever, as he promised. But that part of his restless soul had finally been laid to rest.

Now his new mission is to save Allen.

The one who had bore witness to all that he was, and still saw it fit to grant him salvation.

—

Kanda realizes, a bit belatedly, as he holds Mugen’s newly evolved form in his hands. He had been searching for someone the last time he’d summoned his innocence too. What a cruel irony.

—

“So, you’re really going to go after him?” Marie asked, even though it’s not like he really needed Kanda to answer to confirm it. Kanda didn’t exactly have a knack for subtlety. He had made his intentions clear as soon as he found him and Lenalee in Provence, demanding to know the whereabouts of his sword and the beansprout.

“I have to. I owe him that much.” If he didn’t find Allen, dying peacefully wouldn’t be an option. The regret would surely eat him alive.

“Allen would never think of it that way, that’s just how he is. And you know that.” Marie is smiling when he says it, but his face still looks grim. And Kanda can’t help but wish people would stop doing that. Just don’t smile if you’re unhappy, it seemed simple enough to him.

Kanda tightens his grasp on Mugen, his next words coming out harsh and hissing. Like a snake rearing to strike. “Well, who cares what the fuck that idiot thinks anyways.”

Marie raises an eyebrow, as if to say, “you obviously do.” But he’s known Kanda long enough to know that's not a smart idea, so he wisely doesn’t say anything. Even if he probably could’ve gotten away with it.

—

“You won’t be able to call us for back up anymore.” Lenalee says.

He knows she’s sad he’ll be gone again soon. Another piece of her little world slipping away as suddenly as it had returned to her.

She looks up at him, her eyes are shiny but she doesn’t cry. She stands straight and tall, with her chin held high. “So, be more careful this time, or else.” She says with a seething glare.

He can’t promise her anything. They’re both well aware of the risk he’s taking, that he’ll likely be branded a traitor as soon as the Order catches wind of his involvement with Walker.

He nods nonetheless, nobody liked disappointing Lenalee.

“And don’t be too mean to Allen when you see him again, ok?”

“I’ll be as mean as I need to be.” Kanda states in a deliberately flat tone, to avoid sounding petulant. Though it doesn’t fool her one bit.

Lenalee huffs an exaggerated sigh and tries very hard to continue genuinely glaring at him but the illusion is broken by the amused twitch of her mouth as she fights a smile.

Lenalee is a strong woman, always has been. Kanda knows she’s going to be just fine.

He’s just as proud of her as she is of him.

—

Around the twenty-seventh bar without success, Johnny begins to lag behind though he stills seems to practically deflate when they officially make the call to end the search for the night. The only reason Kanda relents to stopping is because those science division dweebs are basically useless when exhausted anyways.

Kanda hangs back while Johnny asks for directions. Preferring to lean against a wall as the scientist makes nice with strangers.

That’s when he happens to glance into the bar across from him. In it’s dim windows he catches sight of a well-worn flag like tapestry hanging above the bottles lined against the wall. The rose cross, the same insignia embroidered onto the breast of his coat. After working under the Black Order for nearly a decade, Kanda had become somewhat familiar in how to spot supporters of the organization. There were dozens of small things that one can do to subtly indicate their loyalty.

Kanda is surprised to see it but immediately intrigued.

So, Kanda grabs the back of Johnny's jacket collar and drags him along into the establishment.

When they hear the chime ringing from above the door, the barkeep glances up. The brown of her eyes reflect the light of a candle sitting on the bar in front of them, making them appear gold. Only for just a moment.

But it still puts Kanda on edge. Hm, that’s probably an overreaction. Another problem for him to deal with at some point.

She smiles, “Sorry, gentlemen, I’m about to close up for the..” She begins to say until she catch sight of the emblems across the front of Kanda’s uniform jacket. “Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any exorcists around here. What can I do for you, sir?”

It’s all a stroke of dumb luck. Well, if it can still even be called luck anymore when the information gained was basically useless. The barkeep did recognize the photo of the beansprout Johnny showed them. Through it had been years since that bastard Cross Marian had dragged him though here.

Their disappointment. Well, Johnny’s disappointment, obviously. Must have been physically visible. Since she became very apologetic that she had no recent information on Walker.

Instead, as if in consolation, she offers them a drink, and to hear a funny story about that strange little boy she had met all those years ago.

And honestly, Kanda’s not going to turn down a free drink at this point. This search is already a fucking drag. Not like Johnny can or will stop him. He may be older than Kanda, but he knows who’d win that argument. They’d been about to find an inn anyways.

So, the two decide to stick around to hear the story.

It starts like this.

The masked priest had left the kid there, giving a vague excuse of taking care of business in the area and disappearing out the door before she could’ve argued back. This wasn’t a place for a baby. She had just started working there, and didn’t want to get in trouble but what she were supposed to do? Throw the kid outside with no supervision? No way!

“He was like ten, when he was here last.” Kanda said, raising an eyebrow at her.

Timothy was about that age too, right? And he’s an exorcist now. Kanda himself has been an exorcist nearly a decade and this body is only nineteen now. He doesn’t understand why they’re making such a big deal of the beansprout being unsupervised.

“Yes, a baby.” She insisted while nodding. Then continuing her story seeming unperturbed by his interruption.

So, she watched him. The strange kid was quiet, incredibly proper and raised no fuss. He simply sat and observed his surroundings, patting the equally strange golden toy sitting on his lap.

Once she had gotten caught up in a late afternoon rush of customers, it had been easy to forget he was even there at all. That was until some unsavory sort of men began causing a bit of scene, over the decided winnings of the poker match they’d be playing. Things had begun getting tense and everyone had been certain an ugly fight was about to unfold. The keep had been trying to keep the situation from further escalation, which seemed to catch the child’s attention far more than anything had in a few hours.

So, he had climbed down from his seat on the bar stool and wandered over to where she had been trying to calm the ruckus.

Then, ever polite, challenges the men to a game of poker.

If he won, they had to leave with no fuss and leave all the money they’d started the commotion for. If they won, his master would pay them double what they’d been playing for when he returned.

Kanda and Johnny are very certain Allen had been bluffing on his part of the deal. Cross Marian, pay double? Unlikely.

Also Kanda is possibly reconsidering his stance. Ok, so maybe he did need more supervision. What the fuck, kid? Was he trying to get maimed?

The barkeep couldn’t recall exactly how it had all gone down, because honestly, she had been a bit too overwhelmed with the situation. There must have been some further needling to get the men to raise to the bait of playing against a ten year old.

And it did not end well for those men. Allen decimated them. Absolutely slaughtered them in front of their peers, while smiling sweetly the whole time.

It was already embarrassing enough for these men, that someone that was barely four feet off the fucking ground had just wiped the floor with them. So, what were they gonna do, accuse a baby of cheating? With all these witnesses? Not a chance.

With the little pride they had left, mutually threw the cash on the table and stalked out in a quiet but obvious rage.

Then the kid neatly gathered the cash, counted it and tucked it into his pocket. He returned to his previous stool and continued to patiently wait for his master’s return.

And when said master had returned. The kid simply pulled the thick wad of cash out of his little coat pocket and handed it to the masked man.

“I played some poker while I waited for you.”

“Shit, kid. You sure did.” Visible eye widening as he counted through the bills.

The boy had simply shrugged, nose scrunched up in mild disgust. “They were being rude.”

Kanda is trying not to show his amusement. He’s well acquainted with the expression the barkeeper described on the beansprout’s face.

Surprising all of them, the General had slipped the barkeep a few bills for her trouble. Probably because it wasn’t his money. And thus, him and the kid left.

The last thing she remembers is the two had been discussing dinner as they had left. The kid had argued, since he had earned the money, he should rightfully get to choose what they ate with it. Then, that had been the end of it.

The story reminds Kanda of a similar one. Back when Krory had first joined as an exorcist. Lavi had insisted on telling him about how after some shady men pulled a fast one on the clueless pseudo-vampire in a game of cards. And so, Allen methodically and ruthlessly destroyed each of them at poker in return. Leaving them with nothing but their underwear. “And sure, he did give the clothes back, he’s such a good kid, but it’s about the message he sent, Yu-chan!”

It’s a funnier story than Kanda had previously given Lavi credit for.

As they leave and head towards the inn, Johnny seems to have bounced back into a somewhat energetic mood after their conversation with the barkeep. Which is good, he really didn’t want to deal with the scientist crying again.

Kanda, on the other hand. Well.

He’s familiar with an ache like this in his chest. As if the heart itself was bruised. But, the cause of it was new, and getting uncomfortably more frequent.

This could, potentially, be another problem. The best course of action Kanda decides, is to ignore that possibility as hard as possible.

—

Kanda was used to having nightmares, of being haunted by memories of his past. He is used to reaching out for a person just beyond his grasp.

But these nightmares are new and he’s definitely not used to them.

He’s back at that orphanage in Paris, always right when Allen’s sword had pinned it’s owner and the Level Four to the wall. Kanda disposes of Akuma, and when he looks up and connects eyes with Allen. The Fourteenth will be staring back instead.

Then he wakes up sweaty and nauseated.

Regret is familiar. It’s a weight on Kanda’s chest that has followed him from one life into the next.

Guilt was different.

What did a scientific abomination like a Second Exorcist need guilt for? He had never wanted to hurt Alma but it had been necessary. He had always regretted, but never felt like it had been his fault. It was the Order that had doomed them both from the start.

It’s not like Kanda had wanted to hurt Allen, either. Or anyone of the few people in the Order he could maybe on a good day admit to tolerating. Like Marie and Lenalee.

He’d also known that at the time, he truly hadn’t cared enough to think about them in conjunction to his desire for the Order's downfall. And after all, Lenalee may love the people working alongside her but she still hated the Order. Marie almost became a Second Exorcist. There had always been a way to find justification for the destructive revenge he sought.

He had felt no guilt.

Because more than anything else, he had wanted the Black Order to burn. Kanda had wanted to watch that hell forsaken place get leveled to the goddamn ground, then left to rot with the fucking worms just like corpses the organization had built itself upon.

But Allen Walker, now that was a different case. Wasn’t he always.

Guilt festers hot and sluggish under his skin, when he thinks of Allen. The unnatural corpse like gray of his skin, and cold eyes of gold. A cruel mockery of the soulful silver irises of the body’s true owner.

Which he was. The true owner, obviously.

And he will continue to be. If Kanda had any say about it. Regardless of whatever the Earl, or General Cross said. He’s Allen Walker, an exorcist no matter what.

Kanda presses his palms over his face and groans. This is stupid, he needs to be sleeping right now. The packet of debts that Johnny compiled was hundreds of pages. They’ll be searching all over London by the looks of it, and he needs to be able to focus if they run into more Akuma.

But when Kanda closes his eyes, all he can see is a Noah's eyes and skin, since he ignored the warning signs in Paris.

He didn't fall asleep again that night.

—

Through the spray of Akuma blood, Kanda sees a brilliant white cloak. Clown Crown.

It’s him.

If he’s able to wield innocence, it must be Allen in control. It has to be.

Kanda’s heart throbs so hard it hurts, it feels like it may just try to escape from his chest. The pounding of his heart seems to sync with his head. It only serves to make the hangover worse. He really feels like he’s going to be sick.

He looks like a dumbass dressed up like that. And there was no way Kanda was going to let it go. Once they get a hold of Walker again, it’s all over for that clown.

—

The fact that it becomes an absolute shit show the minute they find Walker, isn’t surprising. Though, Kanda is annoyed and exhausted already.

He’d definitely been too hungover for this.

—

“Why are you wearing an Order uniform? Why did you throw that freedom away?!” Walker had shouted at him, and now his words were left to ring in Kanda’s ears.

He had been free. But it hadn’t felt right. Not when he knew Allen would be imprisoned for it.

How did Kanda even convey to him that he was on his side?

How did the moron not know that already? Did he really think Kanda came back for the sake of the Order, the war? Like he’d be such a loyal lapdog to the organization that wished to extinguish them both. Not a chance in hell.

Fuck the Black Order, and the Fourteenth. And honestly, fuck their little holy war too. He really didn’t care at this point. Not like he’d even live long enough to see the end of it.

Until one of them runs out of their limited time, Kanda would be on Allen’s side.

Finding a way to tell the beansprout that, was just another problem he’d add to the unfortunately growing list.

#cross posted on ao3 #my fics #d.gray-man #yullen #kanda x allen #arekan #updated; ao3 version to be fixed up later.

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howlofhades · 1 year

Text

Irais, Barks, Bear and Laz incorrect quotes

Lazarus, to someone that angered him: *Holds two middle fingers*

Irais: Can’t say I’m surprised…

Barks: Yeah, flip em off, Lazarus !

Bear, confused: *Holds one middle finger*

Irais and Barks, both very distressed: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Lazarus: I didn’t know that air fryers are a real thing. Used to think that they were made up by the holonet as a funny joke and that their purpose was to “fry air”.

Bear: WAIT, BUT IT FRIES THE AIR TO FRY THE FOOD??

Lazarus: I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS A KITCHEN APPLIANCE, MY FIRST ASSUMPTION WAS SOMETHING AKIN TO AN AIR CONDITIONER!

Irais: IT’S NOT LIKE AN AIR CONDITIONER????

Barks: You guys clearly don’t own an air fryer.

*The gang is learning CPR on a test dummy*

Barks: So, assessing the situation. Are they breathing?

Lazarus: No, Barks. They are not breathing. And they have no arms or legs.

Barks: No, that’s not part of it—

Lazarus: Where are they? You know what? If we come across somebody with no arms or legs do we bother resuscitating them? I mean, what kind of quality of life do we have there?

Bear: I would want to live with no legs.

Lazarus: How about no arms? No arms or legs is basically how you exist right now, Bear. You don’t do anything.

Barks: Alright, well, lets get back to it. ‘Cause you’re losing him.

Lazarus: *pumps frantically*

Barks: Okay, too fast. Everyone, we need to pump at a pace of a 100 beats per minute.

Lazarus: Okay, that’s uh, hard to keep track. How many is that per hour?

Irais: How’s that gonna help you?

Lazarus: I will divide and then count to it.

Irais: Right.

Barks: Okay. Well, a good trick is to pump to the tune of ‘Staying Alive’ by the Bee Gees. Do you know that song?

Lazarus: Yes, yes I do. I love that song. *clears throat, begins to sing* First I was afraid, I was petrified.

Barks: How do Lazarus and Irais usually get out of these messes?

Bear: They don't. They just make a bigger mess that cancels the first one out.

Lazarus: We need a way to lure in new customers?

Barks: Maybe we could have some fun, interactive events!

Bear: Irais bath water.

Irais: ABSOLUTELY NOT!

*after the Squad's plan goes horribly wrong*

Irais: Now it seems we're back at square one-- finding Bear.

Lazarus: For the record, I already found them.

Barks: And you let them get away before we could have a meaningful conversation.

Lazarus: he stabbed me!

Irais: I'm surprised he waited this long, Lazarus. We've all had the urge.

Lazarus: I just watched Bear jump off of a spinning chair. Luckily, he wasn't hurt that badly. But the whole time, Irais was screaming for help, which caused Barks to run in to help Bear. Just note that all of this happened in the span of six minutes.

Irais, singing to the tune of I Kissed a Girl: I killed a guy, and I liked it-

Lazarus, whispering: Should we call the exorcist?

Barks, also singing: The taste of his cherry chapstick.

Bear, appalled: Call the exorcist.

Lazarus: Is stabbing someone immoral?

Barks: Not if they consent to it.

Irais: Depends on who your stabbing.

Bear: YES??!!?

Bear: You're smiling. What happened?

Barks: What? Can't I smile just because I feel like it?

Lazarus: Irais tripped and fell down the stairs today.

Barks: You know guys, sometimes I feel like Bear doesn't take me seriously enough.

Lazarus: "Sometimes"?

Irais: "Enough"?

Barks:

Irais: Change that to 'at all' and we'll talk.

Lazarus, spraying a melted cutting board with a tiny water gun: We gotta cool this bitch down. Cool it down.

Irais: I actually just put the cutting board in the oven...

Bear, visibly confused: Okay, so he decided to put the cutting board in the oven?

Lazarus, spraying Irais: You FUCKING DUMBASS!

Irais: Dude, I forgot-

Lazarus: OH MY FUCKING GOD! We're trying to make Chicken Alfredo right now, and you fucking MELT the cutting board in the oven at 400 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!?

Barks: *Watching in complete confusion while trying to process this whole situation.*

Lazarus, Irais and; Bear: *screaming*

Barks: *runs into the room* What's wrong, Bear?!

Lazarus: Wait, why are you asking Bear that when Irais and I are also here?

Barks: Because Bear wouldn't scream unless it's an emergency. You two scream whenever you have the chance.

Lazarus: *falls down the stairs*

Bear: Are you okay?

Barks: Stop falling down the stairs!

Irais: How’d the ground taste?

Irais: What's worse than a heartbreak?

Barks: Waking up in the morning and your datapad wasn't charging.

Lazarus: Waking up in the morning.

Bear: Waking up.

Lazarus: We call that a traumatic experience.

Lazarus, turning to Bear: Not a "bruh moment".

Lazarus, turning to Barks: Not "sadge".

Lazarus, turning to Irais: And DEFINITELY not an "oof LMAO".

Lazarus: I haven't slept in seventy-three hours.

Irais: Eighty. Democratically elected leader of insomnia.

Barks: Bitch, it's been ninety for me. I'm going for an even one hundred.

Bear: You guys are fucking terrifying.

#blue posts #blue's ocs #blue's oc rambles #bear #barks #104th clone oc lazarus “laz”#lazarus #501st clone medic barks #clone medic barks #medic barks #commander irais #irais

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house-of-laminations · 3 years

Note

I love your from afar series soo much!

For requests, if you want. You can ignore this if you're not interested.

I'm curious about demon hunters, should they track mc and try to use them to summon the demon lords to kill them. Lore wise what you may think their roles are, if they're the only ones that notice all the things that happen around mc.

Or just some angst on how the brothers would react to them going after mc.

Anon this prompt is like my catnip because I need you to know this is now one part of many. I have 5000 words I wrote in one night just waiting in a google doc somewhere thanks to this. I’m using this part to establish a ‘baseline’ of sorts, provide a little lore/insight into the idea of ‘demon hunters’ and those who would seek to do MC harm in the human world, while also having a brief look into the reverse effects of 'From Afar' - what it means for the brothers to tie themselves so tightly around MC. I hope you enjoy! 💛

Solomon, After

After The Incident, Solomon takes the time to sit you down and properly explain the world you now walk in - the one that knows of Devildom, of hell and its demons, but doesn’t view it with the same love that you have come to know.

There are sorcerers. None like him, of course, but those who use innate magic to bend instances of reality to their will. They would be more interested in the services they could gain from pacts with powerful demons, than anything you could do yourself.

Witches borrow the magics of the earth, of demons, and of the divine to cast spells. The line, you learn, between what is ‘divine’ and what is ‘demonic’, is thin to the point of arbitrary.

Then there are the more organized groups - sects and factions dedicated to the eradication of corruption on Earth. Some are driven by a kind of moral righteousness. Some are driven by revenge. They have different names, or none at all. "Exorcists," he explains, "seek to remove, destroy. Hunters, meanwhile, enjoy the chase. They’ll try to capture or enslave, though there’s no telling what comes after that." There is no set of rules, no guidelines, no expectations you could make about what they would do to achieve their goals. The ends, no matter how small or inconsequential, will always justify the means. “It’s incredibly ironic,” muses Solomon, “They don’t realize the corruption they’re trying to scourge has infected their hearts so deeply. I deeply admire the brothers for that feat.” You think that last comment should make you uncomfortable. You shouldn’t feel the fondness, the pride welling in your heart.

Each of these groups (sorcerers, witches, exorcists, hunters) would have a vested interest in keeping you, controlling you, destroying you. Unfortunately, The Incident is only the first in a string of many. To be loved by beings greater than yourself is both a Blessing and a Curse. You hold reality between your fragile, mortal hands.

The Human World, Before

To assume that no one would notice, that no one would say anything, was in hindsight probably your pride talking. It starts with the flowers. Or, at least, you think it does. You’re not entirely sure.

There are all manner of mortal (and immortal) factions and organizations that seek to summon, capture, control, or destroy demons. These come from a variety of theological and theoretical backgrounds. Solomon has mentioned a few of these to you in passing, mostly to mock their incorrect assumptions and shoddy spellcasting. That isn’t to say that they’re all incompetent.

There’s a new regular at your favourite coffee shop on campus. After a few weeks of sharing the same late-night space, wordless caffeine top-ups, and panicked study sessions, you decide to strike up a conversation. Strangers aren’t so scary to you anymore - not after that Year.

He introduces himself as Jonathan. You quickly bond over the fact you’re taking the same Religious Studies class, complaining about your taskmaster lecturer. He compliments the small, budding flower you’ve tucked into the eye of your zipper, and there’s a curl of pride in your chest. You’re still getting used to the way people eye you with interest, as if you’re an object of desire. It’s somewhat refreshing that Jonathan doesn’t seem to do that. Maybe you’re not his type. “But you’re everyone’s type! I can’t imagine not wanting you, and I happen to be an expert influencer in these things,” whispers the memory of Asmo in your mind. You ignore it. Maybe you shouldn’t have.

You invite him back to your place to go over some notes. He agrees, though not too quickly to cause concern. He marvels at the flowers growing throughout the apartment, though you notice he keeps his distance, hard as that is with so many of them clinging to the decor. You turn your back to put away your coat, and - the cawing of a crow is the last thing you remember.

Devildom, During

Mammon

Mammon doesn't know what he's looking for. All he knows is he can't find it.

His room is trashed. Tables are upturned, trinkets, clothes, and treasures strewn around carelessly. It looks like someone robbed the place and someone did, someone took it, where is it, where IS IT-

When Belphegor enters his room without knocking Mammon immediately tackles him to the ground, fingers bleeding into claws, tearing at his brother's flesh. "WHERE IS IT?" he growls. Belphegor's form shifts into something less tangible, more wicked. Still, Mammon's claws scrabble to find purchase, to keep this stupid little intruder contained. It's not hard - Mammon's form engulfs the child entirely. "I have no idea what you're talking about!" cries Belphie. He tries to slip through Mammon's claws "YOU STOLE IT FROM ME! IT'S MINE!"

It's Beelzebub's turn to burst in without warning, drawn by Belphegor's own panic, and he's quickly retrained - immobilized - too. These runts are his but if they took his stuff, his treasure, then there will be hell to pay.

Eventually the noise attracts Lucifer, and he's able to get Mammon to release the twins. They don't leave the room though, watching the Avatar of Greed cautiously, worried. Mammon snaps and growls and tears at Lucifer, but none of it finds purchase, not even the selfishness, the greed that seeps from his heart, outwards. If Mammon was less concerned about what was taken from him, he'd be surprised that all Lucifer did was drop him and close the door, pulling the twins behind him. No punishment, no scolding. Just cold indifference.

Lucifer

Many people assume that the loss of pride is shame.

Lucifer knows this isn't true. To have shame at all, there must be something to take pride in. It's not something trite like humility either. No, if you're talking about a lack of pride, you're looking for Indifference.

He knows he should be more frustrated by Mammon's attack, especially against the youngest two who are the most vulnerable to his claws. Lucifer trained Mammon himself: he knows what he's capable of.

None of it matters.

Not when for all his confidence, all his experience, all that he is, it's not enough to measure up. Why bother proving himself, when it's suddenly all not enough. All that he is, and their gaze, their longing, can be oh so easily cut.

Unseen by him, one by one the lights in Devildom's sky go out. The stars hide their faces, from demons, angels and humans. In the human world, astronomers and astrologers for once actually share one same thought - a confusion about the new moon that is weeks too early. The sky goes dark on the opposite side of the planet, and the people living there marvel at the unexpected eclipse, ignoring the terror building beneath their smiles.

Lucifer shuts the door to his room, and not even the frantic messages from Diavolo break his haze.

Leviathan

His stomach is roiling, but not because of hunger or sickness.

It feels like when the last Ruri-chan dakimakura was taken from right under his nose, handed off to a smiling lesser demon. Even now, remembering the joy on that Little D's face makes his teeth ache. Or maybe it isn't the memory of that happy little bastard causing that maw to sharpen now, venom dripping from his tongue. Maybe it's something else.

He sinks into his tub, literally into it - between the cracks in the porcelain, through the hard stone floor, right down until his very being is pressed into the freezing rivers that flow beneath Devildom.

The House is too small, and here he can writhe as he wants - tail the size of a mountain range and teeth large enough to swallow the world. He curls around and around and around and yet it's not enough, whatever this feeling is. Why isn't it enough? Why isn't he satisfied?

He knows someone back at the House is calling out for him, he can hear it between his coils.

He's tempted to tighten his hold, to constrict. The devastation in Devildom would be endless. If I can't have it, no one can.

But what, if anything, is "it"? He's not Mammon - preferring quantity, with no discernment and just the need to possess it all. Rather, he covets what isn't in his grasp - even though his reach is endless. Something, someone, has slipped between his scales and out of his hold. It doesn't matter they were stolen. Leviathan's teeth ache and his stomach roils and poison drips into the earth.

Asmodeus

There's a pile of bodies in his room. Which.... is not unusual per se. Normally, though, they're a lot more alive.

It's been a long time since he's lost control like this. To take and take and take, to become everything for someone until there is nothing left outside of him. Sure, he likes being the centre of attention, the object of someone's desire. But he also likes a repeat performance, knowing he has someone on a hook he can drag and drag and drag.

Asmodeus sighs. "What a waste..." A wave of his hand reduces dead flesh to nothing, leaving behind only the usable parts. Blood flows into a vial for later use, while bones crush and remake themselves into fine ceramic adornments. He knows he should hope there wasn't anyone too important caught up in him this time, but he can't bring himself to care.

He thinks about slipping on that cute dress he bought the other day, but can't bring himself to cover his most desirable form. Not when he needs the attention, the desire. He needs their eyes on him, to become their everything- not when his edges are sharp and bleeding through, his eyes, many and soulless, peeking from between his claws and ribs, horns and tail and wings dripping with disgusting blackened desire - Asmodeus takes a deep breath. His flesh shifts and he can't force it back into shape.

No matter. He's still beautiful. They'll all watch him. He'll ensnare the entire world if it means recapturing the gaze of that one person who's been blinded to his influ- Wait. What?

Beelzebub

Beel glares at the apple. Its brilliant red skin shines back at him.

"What peed in your cereal to make you glare like that, Beel?" Levi asks, coming into the kitchen with an aura of gloom. It seems he's pulled himself back together. Beelzebub had tried to call out to him before, when he first noticed a rumbling that wasn't coming from his own stomach, but instead the foundations of Devildom itself. "I'm hungry," he grunts. Levi looks at him oddly. "Then eat something. Like that apple you're trying to kill with your mind."

Beelzebub can't think of a worse idea.

He's craving something, he knows he is. The problem is, the idea of eating, of food disgusts him. Everything looks like Solomon's cooking right now. He just needs that one thing and it'll go back to normal, the craving will go away. But he can't work out what it is.

Levi shrugs, pulling open the fridge. Without realizing, Beelzebub's hand shoots out, slamming the fridge door shut so forcefully that the entire thing rocks. Levi yelps, having only just pulled his hand out of the way just in time.

"It's not for you," Beel growls, the words forcing themselves through his throat without the consent of his heart or mind. His wings shift uneasily at his sides, aching to cut, to mark, to claim. Levi's eyes glow at being denied something he desires. Beelzebub knows deep in his being that this would be a fight he cannot win - not against the Envy that fuels the remnants left behind from his feasting. But he craves, and maybe it's food, maybe it's a fight. Its a taste on the tip of his tongue and he needs to consume.

Belphegor

"The number you are trying to call is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the beep."

Belphegor growls in frustration before hanging up. How dare they miss his call. He had scheduled this weeks in advance. He hasn't been able to sleep for hours, and it's their voice that he knows will fix it for him. The stupid human has him all keyed up, energy shooting through his skeleton in flashes and pulses at irregular intervals. Not enough to be productive, but too much to be able to sleep. All his pillows feel like bricks - even the attic bed doesn't bring the same comfort, the smell of them still sticking to the sheets.

It's so dark, too. Perfect for sleeping.

For lack of any other solution, Belphegor seeks out Lucifer. His eldest brother has many faults and flaws, but frustratingly enough, he's still the comfiest person - besides them - he's ever fallen asleep on. Maybe it's the knowledge that he's safe in the lap of one of the strongest forces in existence. Maybe its the familiarity, the echoes of a simpler, brighter time.

The person who greets him at his brother's door is not Lucifer. Well. It is, in the sense that it's Lucifer's body and Lucifer's presence but there's nothing behind his eyes. Lucifer's pride shows itself in his love for his brothers. This love in return fuels his pride. Its a cycle that cannot be broken, strengthening the eldest as his days continue to number. Or at least, that's what Belphegor thought.

Lucifer doesn't slam the door in his face, even after Belphegor makes a crude comment about his beloved Lord Diavolo. He kind of wished he would - anything for a semblance of normal. Instead, all he receives is a blank, dead stare, like he can't be bothered - oh shit.

Belphegor drags Lucifer over to the bed, easily maneuvering the eldest into a sitting position and that's just wrong he can even do that. But he knows, better than anyone, how pliant not giving a fuck can make you. It's his whole schtick. And Lucifer's effected by it. Belphegor hasn't gotten stronger, no. It's not even a case of Lucifer weakening. His unsettled wandering to the point of sleeplessness, Lucifer's indifference, they're symptoms of a much larger, much deeper illness.

Something has gone horribly wrong.

Satan

Satan is restless. This isn’t uncommon. Normally he would spend his energy plotting to take Lucifer down a peg, but that’s not enough, not now. He’s angry and doesn’t know why and that’s not unusual either but what is strange is that he’s angry at himself. He’s barely holding onto physical form, his edges bleeding into dark, dark shadows. There’s no beating in his chest, no breath drawn into his lungs.

They all notice. There’s no way they can’t. Not after Satan disappears and they find him at the centre of a wreckage that was once the lake gazebo. There are no cuts in his flesh from the splinters, because that would mean he has flesh to be cut.

“It hurts,” he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t scream. He doesn’t say it at all, and yet they all understand.

The brothers, all watching, are grateful for Satan’s lack of physicality. They know if the Avatar of Wrath had Its usual claws, they would be tearing into Its own being.

They are the embodiment of their namesakes, for better, or for worse. They have never been in a position before in which they are at the mercy of their own Sin. And yet… This is like a disease, turning the body on itself, and yet it goes deeper than that - to their very cores, their Beings.

By loving one mortal, one among many, they are now vulnerable. They infect the hearts and minds of mankind, corrupting and destroying. Sin is self-serving. To be used selflessly, for someone else, well. That’d break reality.

Satan is the first, or more likely the most obvious, to fall prey to the backlash of that break. For his Wrath to be directed so harshly inwards? There must be some pretty strong anger, retribution, focused at-

Satan's shifting, writhing form freezes. Hell breaks loose.

This is getting a tad long so I'm gonna end it here - but I'm so inspired now to write vengeful, direct divine intervention. Thanks so much for the prompt, anon!! Let me know what you think!! 💛

masterlist | all asks

#kisses anon gently on the forehead before unleashing *this mess* into their brain #obey me #obey me fic #obey me headcanons #obey me x reader #obey me solomon #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #i talk to a real human #my writing #the amount of darlings i killed to bring it to this point is insane. im not. super happy with it but its done.

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

Note

I really haven't been paying attention because apparently season 2 of the Witcher is out. Like now. I went to Netflix randomly and there it was. Here's hoping its good.

No idea if you two are the same anon or not, but you're getting paired up!

Spoilers below.

Yeah, the only reason I didn't lose track is because I follow a couple of Witcher blogs and reminders have popped up on my dash the last few days. And I'm glad one of us is enjoying it! I'm in a 50/50 split so far regarding season two, as I've only watched the first two episodes. I thought "A Grain of Truth" was great. Yeah, there were changes, but they still fit the overall thematic questions (which I think is the key to a faithful adaptation) and I love everything they did with the bruxa. From the Exorcist walk around Ciri's bedroom to using echolocation in her bat form, I think her characterization was both entertaining and struck a nice balance between "Holy shit this is a dangerous monster I shouldn't trust" and "Is she really something to instinctively fear simply because she's different?" Good stuff there.

"Kaer Morhen" on the other hand... good god, where do I even begin. Eskel is a completely different character. Just nothing like his book or game counterpart. And I know this is a minor issue for some people, but his scars are a pretty defining characteristic, both in terms of how he got them and how they've impacted his sense of self, and when the trailer dropped there was some disgruntlement over how non-disfiguring they were. Well, in the actual episode the lighting is so dark I could barely even see that there were scars at all. If I hadn't been looking for them I likely would have missed they were there at all, outside of maybe a, "Oh yeah. A witcher. Witchers have some wounds yeah?" reaction.

He's rude. He brash. He's cursing at Ciri instead of trying to make her feel comfortable because he knows he's intimidating. He lasts for a grand total of one episode. Eskel arrives at the keep, goes back out (??), and brings a whole slew of prostitutes with him because... dragging a ton of women up the insanely dangerous looking, snow covered mountain to a place that Geralt just told Ciri is kept mostly hidden since the massacre makes perfect sense? But it's fine because they took something (???) that'll make them forget everything in the morning. They exist only to a) die and b) tell Ciri that women are meant to run when things get rough, so that she can be positioned as the outlier who stands her ground and stays. After they're all forgotten Eskel turns into a Leshen (because that's canonical) and is killed by Geralt while attacking Vesemir. And it's not even in a cool, "You really had to do it" kind of way. I mean Geralt stands there for a looooong moment debating, after Vesemir has just told Eskel that they need time to try and cure him, when Geralt could have just cut the branches holding Vesemir like they've been doing this whole fight. But nah we kill him and before he dies Eskel admits that he came back because he thought Geralt could help him, which both rubs salt into this needless wound and begs the question of why Eskel didn't tell them anything worthwhile. I mean yeah, there's this implication that whatever part of him was already Leshen was hiding his affliction out of self-preservation, but then why draw attention to the strange battle in the first place? Eskel comes back and everyone is like, "Oh yeah, a seasoned witcher with sword skills to match Geralt took 6 hours to kill a Leshen and just forgot to use fire. Classic Eskel!" Why not just have Eskel acting like everything is fine and then Geralt discovers something funky in the limb that tips him off? As it stands, both scenes don't accomplish a thing. The witchers randomly shrug off this anomaly and Geralt doesn't find anything because he's distracted by prostitutes arriving.

I've said this before, but I don't think Netflix would be in so much hot water if they'd just admitted that they were doing Witcher fanfic from the start. But advertising this as an authentic adaptation and making changes that, for most, make the series worse is just a bad combo. I don't even like most of the books. There are plenty of things I'd like to change in those... but none of that is what Netflix has done. They keep taking the things that do work, that are the heart of the story, and twisting them for seemingly no reason. At this point it's not a practical matter of, "We can't fit this in because it's a TV show and we have limited time" or "We couldn't recreate this because of budget or safety reasons." They're just making huge changes for reasons I personally can't fathom.

If I didn't know anything else about the Witcher franchise I would have had no problem with this version of Eskel. Random side character becomes a monster for the witchers to fight? Sure, that's cool! Why would I care about him outside of that? But as someone who does know a lot of the lore and, more importantly, knows the character, it's hard not to be frustrated by all this. They took a character who Ciri thought was a monster because of his disfigurements before he reveals himself to be one of the most kind and level-headed witchers... and turned him into a literal monster. Why? I'd really love a peek into the writer's room to find out what thought process they went through to hit on these changes.

#witcher #twn #witcher spoilers #eskel #mymetas

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genshxn · 4 years

Text

@/datonecanadianartist asked:

A Zhongli x reader where the reader is a chaos magnet like Bennett, but unlike him they refuse to get any help and finally Zhongli tricks them to help them? Many thanks friend!

i hope this is something like what you had in mind :,D

it’s also a little long lmao-

【ｚｈｏｎｇｌｉ】

chaos magnet s/o refuses to get help until they get tricked (ft. Chongyun)

warnings ; haunting

There was only one other person you had heard of who had your level of bullshit, and it was some poor kid who lived in Mondstadt. Apparently the events that would follow you were on par with what he’d experience.

And more often than not, your partner Zhongli would get caught in the cross fire. Treasure hoarders would always know where you are. Zhongli would just send them flying with his monoliths, however. Or maybe you’d get hit in the head by an incoming bird, also knocking into Zhongli in the process. Either way, it’s always a little messy in the end.

He was more concerned for your safety than anything. You miraculously don’t get hurt amidst the chaos, but he isn’t sure how long this is going to last. The last thing he wants is for you to get hurt.

He’s tried to get you to do all sorts of things to try and get rid of this abysmal luck of yours. He’s bought about 30 different charms supposedly imbued with energy to repel bad luck. You refused to carry any.

Another time, you walked into your bedroom with him looking like he was about to start some kind of ritual, just waiting for you to arrive. You scrambled back out the door, not having a bar of it, and he had to chase you for a very long time before he finally caught you.

So those didn’t work.

Zhongli was wandering the streets of Liyue one day, simply wondering what else he could do to try and cure this ailment of yours, if it even was an ailment.

His mind wandered to something Hu Tao was prattling on about to do with mischievous ghosts causing trouble for people in their daily lives. He had overheard her talking about this in passing the other day. Perhaps this was something going on with you.

So he sought the help of an exorcist.

Except given his current track record, no way in hell was he going to be able to get you to sit down and stay still for the exorcist to do their work. So he’d have to come up with a plan to keep you in one place.

"My darling, tonight is a beautiful night in the harbour. Would you perchance go to dinner with me?" He asks you. He hopes he’s not being too suspicious to suddenly ask you to dinner out of the blue.

“Oh, yeah sure. I’ll go get ready.” You say, getting up to get changed into something a little nicer. Your hesitation likely would have come from the fact that he asked you so suddenly. He doesn’t blame you.

When you finally emerge from your room, you look lovely. He really wonders how you always look so good. But a little part inside him feels guilty because what he has planned may ruin your clothes slightly...

You make your way to Third Round Knockout where Zhongli had already made a reservation. The two of you sit and decide what you’ll order. He wants you to eat first before he potentially ruins your evening. Zhongli casts a glance beside him, where the young, blue haired exorcist was sitting eagerly. Zhongli previously told the exorcist his plan. The exorcist was to look like another customer for the time being until Zhongli gives the signal to begin the ritual. Zhongli would take care of keeping you in place so you don’t escape anywhere.

The two of you enjoy a lovely meal together, but you couldn’t help notice that Zhongli has been looking a little fidgety the entire time.

“Are you okay? You’ve been acting suspicious all evening.” You say, finishing your last mouthful of dessert.

Zhongli exhales and opens his eyes to meet yours. He looks very guilty. “I’m sorry for this, but it’s to help you.”

Before you could question what he meant by that, a stone structure had snapped around your waist and arms, keeping you in place. It wasn’t so tight that you couldn’t breath, but you certainly couldn’t go anywhere either.

“Zhongli, what?!”

“Chongyun,” He says. A blue haired youth in white attire jumps up from his chair and quickly summons six talismans in a hexagon, which then fly out towards you.

Everyone else in the surrounding area looks at you. There you were with a stone containment and talismans attached to your head.

“Evil spirit be purged!” The exorcist slams his fist onto his palm and the talismans all quickly dissipate. With a harrowing scream from an unknown source, a weight feels like it’s been lifted off your shoulders.

“Wow! That was my first proper exorcism!” The boy exclaims. An exorcism? You were being haunted?

“What?!” You suddenly cry out. People suddenly look over in your direction.

“Ah, so my theory was correct,” Zhongli says to himself. “It was a malicious spirit following you around.”

“A ghost?”

“Yes. It was quite a potent one too. It managed to resist my pure yang energy enough to not run off in my presence,” The exorcist happily explains. “I don’t know how it got attached to you, but that should be the end of whatever harm it was causing you. Very well, I’d best be on my way now. My services are free of charge!” He says as a final note and walks off, barely containing his excitement of his first proper exorcism.

“Oh thank the gods, I forgot to pay him,” Zhongli mutters under his breath.

“Can you let me go now?” You ask.

“Oh! Yes, right. My apologies.” With a wave of his hand, your rocky constraints dissolve back into the earth.

“Right... Now what the hell was that?”

“I suppose I do owe you an explanation. It wasn’t fair of me to do something without your knowledge, but I had enlisted that exorcist on the chance that there was a ghost causing your abhorrent luck. Such events simply aren’t natural... But it turns out it was true. I’m very sorry for doing all this behind your back. I just don’t want you to eventually get hurt one day. The circumstances you could find yourself in could be perilous, and I don’t want to see the one I love suffer so often. It feels selfish since you didn’t want to do anything, but—“

You cut off Zhongli by placing a finger on his lips. “You don’t need to apologize so much. Thank you for looking out for me. It means a lot to me.” You pull him into a hug. The poor guy looked sad from guilt, so you have to show him he’s not in trouble. “But I won’t be able to have anymore crazy stories.”

“I think you’ve had enough for a life time for now.” He replies.

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #zhongli #zhongli x reader #zhongli imagines

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dinosaurtsukki · 3 years

Text

⸺𝓉𝓇𝒶𝒸𝓀 20: the ramen review

i should be over all the butterflies | a chuuya x gn!reader smau

a/n: surprise written chapter for today!! surprise for you guys and surprise for me because i don't plan things and kinda rushed this written chapter ehehe

𝒸𝑜𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝓊𝑒𝒹:

"you're overcooking the noodles!"

"i'm not! just trust me on this," you insisted. chuuya sighed and put his hands up in surrender.

"ok, fine. you're the ramen review writer."

"that's right," you giggled, checking the ramen noodles that you were simmering in milk with your pair of chopsticks. "aaand, they're done!"

"i got it from here. get the bowls out from the cupboard," chuuya moved in to pick up the pot for you before carrying it to the table while you rummaged for bowls.

it had been forever since the last time you visited chuuya's house and being here again brought back a flood of memories. aside from the initial awkward tension between you two, it had taken you time to just take everything in. a lot of things were very much the same, like the collection of pictures on some of the shelves of chuuya as a kid, that now included a picture of him during his high school graduation. the couch and living room where the two of you spent afternoons building blanket forts and marathoning movies was still there.

cooking instant ramen noodles with chuuya kind of felt like you two got your rhythm back. you knew exactly where the bowls in his kitchen were as well as the cups and the milk in the fridge in case the ramen ended up to be too spicy.

it felt good to get your friendship back on track. except, the awkward feelings that you felt between the two of you had been replaced by a a different kind of awkward.

"here you go," chuuya said, passing a bowl of noodles to you. "careful though it's hot."

"that's the best time to eat it," you protested, blowing on the noodles slightly before practically inhaling them.

"you look like you didn't burn your tongue at all," chuuya nodded slowly at your teary eyes.

"no... i didn't," you lied.

"mmm, definitely," chuuya laughed and started eating. "this is a great recipe by the way, mx. ramen review."

"thank you very much," you smiled. "it took a lot of taste-testing to perfect it."

"i still can't believe you tasted and reviewed every instant ramen brand at the general store," chuuya said.

"it's called 'dedication to my craft,'" you laughed. "and i spaced it out over a week and drank a lot of water so my kidneys are fine."

"i highly doubt that y/n," chuuya rolled his eyes. "oh, you got something on your face."

before you could react, chuuya licked his thumb and wiped at the corner of your mouth. the two of you stared at each other for what was probably a good two seconds before chuuya realized what he had done and a furious blush spread across his cheeks.

"a-ah, shit sorry about that i should have--"

"no it's okay it's not a big deal," you laughed nervously. and yet, despite that, you felt your stomach flutter and you were sure it wasn't just the dairy mixed into the spicy ramen.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

masterlist | ↞ prev next ↠

⸺𝒻𝓊𝓃 𝒻𝒶𝒸𝓉𝓈

↠ the Ramen Review is y/n's side column in the journalism club's newsletter where they review different kinds of instant ramen (it's the most popular column by far)

↠ back when they were kids, they even slept in shifts one night after watching the exorcist with flashlights to guard each other's rooms

↠ chuuya rarely makes himself instant ramen because he is a Healthy Guy but when y/n comes out with a new recipe, he can't help but try it out

⸺𝓉𝒶𝑔𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓉

@kiyoobi @atsumusdomain @laure-chan @goodfoodxoxoxo @guardianangelswings @kei-ya @loisuke @whootwhoot @liz-multifandom-hotel @kac-chowsballs @violentfarewll @fyoyacanruinmylifethanks @nightmare-light @miyakiyo0mi @whorefordazai @rirk-ke @cross-crye @alohablue @duhsies @alittlesimp @tetsustation @https-inarizaki @himboos @magpiemissy @hanazou @monochromaticelliot

reblogs and comments are much appreciated

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #bungou stray dogs x reader #bsd x reader #chuuya nakahara #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya x reader #chuuya #bungou stray dogs fluff #bsd fluff #bungou stray dogs crack #bsd crack #bungou stray dogs smau #bsd smau

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omegalomania · 3 years

Note

I think tumblr ate my ask or it just didn't sent but what are your favorite Bastille songs / what are some songs you recommend?

i did NOT get this ask im very sorry anon.

it's genuinely hard for me to narrow down cause bastille is pretty up there in terms of favorite artists. i love all their shit, but a special mention goes out to their second studio album wild world since it's the one that made me a Fan

uh so here's a primer i guess i spent too much time on this lmao.

if you wanna listen to their big hits:

flaws - their first single in the uk. if you ever listened to ship playlists on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 then you've probably heard this song or a variant on it at some point.

pompeii - this is the song that really put them on the map and you definitely know it. it dominated the charts all over the place.

happier - the marshmello song that you've definitely heard before too. i think bastille wrote this for justin bieber or some shit but then decided they liked it too much to give it to him? lmao. anyway if you're not digging the version you hear on the radio all the time i recommend trying the stripped down version

good grief - their big hit off their second album. big in the uk, didn't really make as many waves elsewhere, but it's a really solid song anyway. one of those "upbeat tunes that's actually really fucking sad" ones

things we lost in the fire - another one off their first album. if you live in a wildfire area this might not be one to turn to. or maybe you'll find it cathartic idk i certainly do!!

quarter past midnight - a song about escapism, as was fitting when it was released in 2018 and equally fitting now. running away for a night of fucking around with friends, craving any kind of brief departure from the chaos of the modern world

skulls - this one was not a hit or a single and is technically a bonus track but i'm including it because once again if you ever clicked on a ship playlist on 8tracks in like 2013-2015 you've heard this one. and you know what that was justified this one is also good

if you wanna feel existentially depressed:

their whole discography. i mean i kid but i also don't. that's just kind of how bastille does it. BUT IN ALL SERIOUSNESS ones that hit me in particular would beeee

two evils - kind of a grim, haunting one introspecting about morality of the self.

oblivion - musing about the afterlife, love, and how time changes all of us.

those nights - contemplating what it is we seek when we plunge into reckless escapism, and the inherent loneliness of it; how even when surrounded by people there's still the pressure of the world outside, continuously coming to pieces

the draw - this one was written about the pull of pursuing a career in music vs. staying home with family and friends. in a broader sense, it can apply to a lot of things. i always felt it resonated with feelings of paranoia and displacement

winter of our youth - discusses childhood, nostalgia, and regret. if it feels like everything's slipping away, is it easier to relive the past, especially if the past is tinted rose?

sleepsong - loneliness, desperation, and the cyclical, abyss-like nature of all it encapsulates

if you want discussion of serious topics:

final hour - a bonus track off their second album that also became a bonus track off their third album? anyway this song talks about climate change and gun control. happy stuff

doom days - this one talks about, uh, everything! doomscrolling, political divides, escalating national tensions, climate change again, etc.

the currents - a song centered on political rhetoric and the power that figureheads have over the masses, the way they can orchestrate hate. basically it's not so subtly aimed at donald trump lmao, dan's literally sung it as much in a few live settings

WHAT YOU GONNA DO??? - social media addiction and the way capitalism and corporate interests have annexed our online experiences, fighting desperately for our attention as they seek to monetize every available aspect of our lives

four walls (the ballad of perry smith) - well this one is about uh. perry smith. who was charged with the death penalty for killing 4 people in the late 50's. but it's less directly about him and more a discussion of the morality of the death penalty and capital punishment

snakes - burgeoning anxieties and the impulse to turn to easy outs, like ignorance or alcoholism, to escape the world's global problems

if you want some pop culture sprinkled on top:

icarus - greek mythology. i like this one because it addresses something that i feel isn't addressed enough in discussions of this myth, which is that icarus is a very young lad. less about the pride of the fall, and more about the inherent tragedy of that.

laura palmer - the whole song is a david lynch shoutout. i've never seen twin peaks myself but the song still slaps.

daniel in the den - christian mythology. discusses the biblical tale of daniel in the lion's den and links that up to themes of betrayal and family.

poet - this one's a double feature, referencing both william shakespeare's sonnet 18 and edmund spencer's sonnet 75. also one of my favorites.

send them off! - this is another one of my favorites of theirs. it's also been described by dan as "othello meets the exorcist" and it very much delivers there

if you want something uplifting:

joy - while bastille (understandably) has a bit of reputation as a band that makes sad music about sad things, they've definitely got some happier songs in their catalogue. pun intended cha ching. this one's one of their more straightforwardly happy tunes

survivin' - this was a song they wrote while they were touring and then felt weird about releasing once the panini hit because it felt a bit on the nose. they ended up releasing it anyway and i am so glad they did cause it's a mood

act of kindness - the "happy" part here is debatable but i'm gonna include it anyway. it’s when someone does something nice for you and that impulse Changes you way down deep you know???

warmth - one of those "the world's going to shit but at least we have each other" kinds of tunes

the anchor - one of those "the world's going to shit but you're the one fucking thing that's still keeping me here" kinds of tunes

give me the future - their latest single as of this writing and one of the more optimistic tracks in their catalogue imo! it's yearning, but it's also with a genuine hope for the future.

and LASTLY. because im going to take every chance i can to plug this band. im going to throw some collabs and covers at you because there's one thing this band does SUPER well and it's collabs and covers.

of the night - this is the big one. it mashes up rhythm of the night by corona and rhythm is a dancer by SNAP! and it's so good they still do this one live and it goes off every time.

no angels - a mashup of "no scrubs" by TLC and "angels" by the xx, poured into a strangely mournful tune with clips from the hitchcock movie psycho. doesn't sound like it should work but it does. kinda really does.

torn apart - with GRADES and lizzo no less!!! it's got two parts but they're both excellent listen to them both

weapon - collab with angel haze, dan priddy, and F*U*G*Z and one of my absolute favorites

remains - remix of their song "skulls" but featuring rag'n'bone man and skunk anansie that adds an entire new dimension to the song, really fucking excellent

old town road mashup - lil nas x's old town road meets lizzo's good as hell meets radiohead's talk show host meets talking heads' road to nowhere meets the osmond's crazy horse. "what the fuck that shouldn't work" i KNOW and yet here it is!! BLATANTLY BANGING!!!

we can't stop - one of the few times dan smith subtly changes the lyrics of the song he's covering (most of the time he opts to keep the original pronouns and the like, which is very nice to see). anyway this one mixes miley cyrus's we can't stop with eminem's lose yourself and billy ray cyrus's achy breaky heart. and also the lion king's i just can't wait to be king is there. yes i know it sounds batshit especially because the whole thing is surprisingly melodic and heartfelt and you know what it works.

anyone but me x nightmares - mashing up joy crookes' anyone but me with easy life's nightmares and absolutely one of my favorites.

bad guy mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "bad" in the title? we've got bad guy (billie eilish), bad decisions (bastille), bad romance (lady gaga), and bad blood (taylor swift). bastille even has a song called bad blood and they didnt use it. they used taylor swift's version. also the distinctive guitar riff from dick dale's misirlou is there.

somebody mashup - how many songs can they include with the word "some" in the title? someone like you (adele), somebody told me (the killers), somebody to love (queen), use somebody (kings of leon), and someone you loved (lewis capaldi). seriously these guys take mashups to a new level.

final song - this is a cover of MØ's final song. it also adds in craig david's 7 days and, impossibly enough, europe's final countdown. how does it work. how.

ALL RIGHT. THATS ALL IVE GOT IN ME. HOPE THIS HELPED ANON AND IM SORRY IF THIS IS TOO MUCH

#askin hours #anon #bastille #ill put this in the bastille tag why not #this is predominantly a fall out boy blog but if any bastille bloggers are out there....all like 20 of you....#i see the work u do in this fandom and i love u for it

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wesimpforxiao · 3 years

Text

Inception: Chapter 1

Author’s Note: Welcome everyone to my Childe x Reader fanfiction! Decided to post the first (and only so far) chapter since I’m happy with it. Hope you enjoy this sneak peek!!!

Now where did Mr. Zhongli run off to? Wherever you'd end up, you'd miss the man by a hair. Running errands for Hu Tao was practically the equivalent to a wild goose chase. "Wait a second!" A sudden realization stopped you in your tracks, and a few customers that were buying kites held startled expressions from your yelp. "She's pranking me again, isn't she?!"

Zhongli was inspecting noticulous jade samples behind you when he heard a female voice yell to no one in particular. He turned to see you, completely deflated for reasons unknown to him. Shouldn't you be at the parlor overseeing your duties in the presence of Hu Tao? What were you doing out here? "What seems to be the matter, Reed?"

"ZHONGLI!" Another yelp, and this time the customers nearby became more annoyed. You spun on your heel and meet your coworker's gaze. "I've been looking everywhere for you! Um, Hu Tao wanted me to give you these," you promptly handed a small stack of slightly crumpled documents to him. "She said they were really important...?"

"Let me see..." Golden eyes turned their attention to the script with the utmost focus before he heaved a tiresome sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Is...something the matter?" You could've sworn everything was in order...maybe it was possible that in your rush to find him, you had lost a paper or two without noticing?

"What is it exactly that Hu Tao instructed you to do?" His voice held a tinge of exhaustion, but it went unnoticed by you.

"She just told me to find you and give you the documents, and that you'd know what to do with them. And she also told me not to look at them. Why?"

Another sigh, and the documents were handed back to you. "I apologize, but it appears that you've fallen victim to her...childish antics yet again."

He was right. The documents were nothing more than a bunch of gibberish and what looked like to be a horrible attempt to draw Zhongli on one of the papers next to one scribble that was labelled 'doodoo.' "You've got to be joking." The scowl on your face was enough to get Zhongli to clear his throat in an effort to dissuade you from your anger. You were an incredibly nice and patient person, but Zhongli's seen you angry once before. It was not something he'd like to see again, and with every passing prank, you got closer and closer to snapping at your boss.

"My apologies," he sympathized. He couldn't exactly keep up with the parlor director's childish ways either, after all.

That was three hours of my day. You crumpled the papers in your hands before tossing them in the trash. "Sorry to bother you Zhongli, I'll be heading back to the parlor now."

You took the long way back to the funeral parlor, making a point to walk across the docs that shouldered the sea. It was well-deserved, you thought, since Hu Tao was constantly testing your patience and you had yet to snap. If she really needed you today, she wouldn't have sent you on a needless hunt to deliver unnecessary documents. So what if you showed up a little late now? It was her doing!

The docks were quiet with the occasional pigeons and seagulls cooing as they searched for their next meal--or their next pooping target. A few pigeons scattered into the wind once you reached a railing that overlooked one of the merchant ships.

It had been quite some time since your mother brought you across the sea to escape the influences of the Fatui in Snezhnaya--it had to be at least a decade by now, actually. The Fatui that were stationed near your hometown were a reckless, malicious bunch, and weren't even kind to their own people despite their cohort existing to serve the people.

'To serve the people' was more like 'to serve the Tsaritsa.' Neglect against her own people soon became a mutual feeling in your town. She let her Fatui rats run about with no punishment for falling out of line...the audacity! A god is supposed to protect and nurture their people, not toss them aside or save them to be used.

The glimmering of the ocean below the deck only briefly dragged out out of your memories before you fell into them much like a wave washes over the beach.

You still remembered the day when your best friend went missing, and when he finally turned up ragged and dirty a few days later. He never spoke of what happened, but it wouldn't surprise you if it had anything to do with the agents in your town. He changed from a hesitant boy to a rambunctious, feisty kid--and the arrogance was insanely annoying. But just as you tried to get closer to him, your mom decided his mysterious circumstances were what she needed to get herself and you out of Snezhnaya.

"I don't know what happened to you, Ajax, but I hope you're okay."

...........................................

Today's such a beautiful day! You stretched your arms with content to get the aches of walking all morning out of your shoulders. Slouching was a horrible habit of yours. But no matter, it was time to celebrate! Hu Tao finally cut you loose from her list of unfortunate victims of her shenanigans, instead setting her sights on some exorcist that went by the name 'Chongyun.' Since he wasn't related to the parlor's services--at least, not that you were aware--you didn't know him personally.

That poor soul has no idea what's coming to him, you think as you absently scan the papers in your hands that the parlor director had given you to give to Zhongli before the day's end--you had learned your lesson from last time, and inspected each stack she'd give you. But as bad as I feel for him, I can't complain since I'm finally scot-free of her.

You made your way toward Liuli Pavilion, where Zhongli had informed you earlier this morning that he'd be conducting a meeting with one of the parlor's biggest funders. There he is now! And...sitting alone?

"Mr. Zhongli?" Your quiet interruption shifted his attention from the vivid storytelling of the storyteller to you. "Did you have your meeting yet?"

"No, he should be arriving shortly," the consultant answered and placed his teacup down. "What did you need me for?"

"Hu Tao sent me on another errand, er, a valid one this time. I guess one of our customers was wondering what recommendations you had regarding these?" A quick hand-off of the documents pertaining the names of precious stones, and Zhongli shut out the story of the ventures of Rex Lapis and his former companion, Azhdaha.

Your eyes left Zhongli for a moment and watched the storyteller's movements. I've heard this one before. Azhdaha was reprimanded for turning against humanity, wasn't he? I wonder what that was like for our god. To be betrayed by a close friend-

"I see. Noticulous jade would be the best option considering it's vibrant purple tones, but the beauty of cor lapis when significantly refined to its utmost potential is a valid approach for the ceremony as well. Why don't we purchase both? You and I can inspect the nearby stores tomorrow morning."

Honestly, I don't know why I bother asking if his answer is always 'We'll take them all,' your lips twitched from restraining a laugh and you returned your sights on the consultant. "Alright, let's do that."

"Mr. Zhongli! It's great to see you," an unfamiliar man approached the table with a friendly smile. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting long." The confidence that radiated from his stride was enough to make you shrivel up on yourself. That, and the afternoon light that bounced off of his bright gray clothes half-blinded you.

"Not at all. Please take a seat. Reed, why don't you join us?" Zhongli was aware of your intense opinions of the Fatui, but then again, who in Liyue didn't have a problem with the organization at the moment? Especially after their most recent incident with Osial...and the issue himself was sitting right across the table. Perhaps meeting such a dangerous individual would dissuade you from pursuing that nighttime hobby of yours...

"Oh, I don't want to intrude. Isn't this a private meeting?"

"I don't mind," said the red-headed stranger.

Zhongli gestured toward the third chair at the table, and you hesitantly obeyed. A few minutes couldn't hurt. You used the moment to get you situated and check out the guy to your left. He didn't seem familiar, but he had this air about him that was...distinct, if that made any sense. Familiar yet unfamiliar. For someone being labelled as one of the most prominent sponsors of the funeral parlor, he didn't button his jacket properly, and a portion of his abdomen was visible while a hydro vision sat comfortably attached to his beltloop. Or perhaps that was the way the jacket was designed?

Why am I even contemplating this? You peeled your eyes away from his torso in a hurry, and they settled on your hands in your lap. Way to make a first impression.

"Reed, I would like to introduce you to Ma-"

"Ajax!" Childe's voice overtook Zhongli's introduction. "I go by Ajax, it's nice to meet you." He held out a gloved hand for you to shake. He didn't think it would be possible to ever see you again, not after your mom took you across the sea, so he spat out a lie without thinking. Then again, even as a child you hated the Fatui--rightfully so-- so it wouldn't have been a good idea to introduce himself as the very harbinger that almost drowned Liyue. Childe thought he had recognized you by your hair and the way you walked, but it was so long ago, and the memory of you had long since faded into a blurry image. But 'Reed'...It couldn't be some coincidence that he met you here.

And by your reaction, he could say his intuition served him right. "A-Ajax?" You sat up taller than before, not quite comprehending the situation at first. The name, the face, those blue eyes--it had to be him. "Ajax from Snezhnaya?"

"I would hope I'm the only Ajax you know." Childe shot you a friendly smile, but some smidge of jealousy lie in the depths of his otherwise vacant gaze. Perhaps it could even be considered threatening, or possessive. He was the only Ajax you knew, right?

"Oh thank the archons you're alright," you released the breath you didn't know you were holding in. It was all you managed to get out before remembering that a certain party was sitting to your right. "O-Oh! Zhongli! We knew each other before I emigrated to Liyue-"

"Childhood friends," the harbinger grinned slightly as he met the consultant's confused yet stern gaze. Something deadly flashed in his eyes, daring Zhongli to speak up and correct his own introduction.

Zhongli wasn't anywhere near afraid or intimidated by Childe, but despite this he did not reveal Childe's true identity. Perhaps there was a reason the harbinger was posing as his younger self, like he was protecting the image of the perfect older brother for you just as he did with Teucer.

That, and Zhongli had vowed not to meddle in these types of matters just as he neglected to tell Childe he was the geo archon. It was not his business if Childe chose to deceive you just as he deceived Childe, but if the harbinger posed a threat to you or anyone in Liyue again...Let's just say the passive Zhongli would put his foot down.

"I see," said Zhongli with a thoughtful gaze as he picked up his half-full cup of tea. "May I inquire as how you two met?"

"Well," you leaned back in your seat and stared at one of the passing clouds as you attempted to recollect old memories. "I don't remember exactly, but we ran into each other at one of the local markets that stood between our hometowns. You should've seen him back then Zhongli, he was a nervous reck!"

Childe visibly grimaced at your bluntness, but Zhongli let out a low chuckle. "Is that so?" This earned a glare from the harbinger.

"Yes! He was always second-guessing himself. I was always the one wearing the pants in the friendship whenever we got to see each other! And then..." Your expression darkened as you remembered his disappearance, and his concerning change of attitude when he returned. But just as quickly as the distasteful memory showed on your face, it was tossed away with a shake of the head. "You know, there was one time where he had gotten in trouble with one of the local fisherman because he--"

"Now, now!" Childe interrupted with a slightly aggressive--no, embarrassed--tone. "I don't think Mr. Zhongli would be interested in--"

"On the contrary, I would be more than delighted to hear of Ajax's childhood stories," Zhongli sipped away at his tea, making a point to emphasize the new name while staring straight Childe.

"Aw, you embarrassed?" Childe wanted to wipe that smug grin off your face for noticing. He thought he was great at hiding his emotions, but with your surprise appearance, he was a bit more than caught off guard. You covered your mouth and leaned toward Zhongli while whispering, "I'll tell you later, promise!"

Childe let out something of a strangled chuckle that made the corner of Zhongli's lips twitch upward. "So, what have you been up to all this time?"

"Well, I've been working at the funeral parlor with Zhongli for the past year or so," you leaned back with a thoughtful gaze. "I live by myself now; mom died a few years ago. Oh, I've been training since I got here, too. You can't trust the Fatui anywhere in Teyvat. That, and anyone that roams around late at night. Better safe than sorry."

"So you fight?" Childe's eyes lit up like a fire was lit, and you smile turned into a frown.

"Don't tell me you're still..." But with his slightly oblivious tilt of the head, you couldn't bring yourself to bring up that portion of your history. Not yet. "If need be, yes." The best option was to change the subject, especially to spare Zhongli of what could possibly turn into an argument. "How did you find yourself in Liyue?"

"I..." A glance was sent briefly in Zhongli's direction, but he purposely ignored it. "I'm a toy seller these days."

"Augh--" A sputtered cough came from Zhongli, and he dabbed at his lips with a handkerchief. "Ahem...Apologies, it appears I choked on a bit of tea."

After an awkward laugh escaped Childe, you turned back to him. "A toy seller? You?" Was it relief you felt, or a feeling of on-edge? Perhaps it'd be better if he turned out nice enough to become a toy seller, but with the way you two left things in Snezhnaya, you'd thought it be more likely that he'd end up arrested. Or join the Fatui. Or just anything involving violence. Not sure of what to make of his words, you snapped to Zhongli. "Wait, I thought you had a meeting with one of the benefactors of the funeral parlor? Why would a toy seller be involved with us?"

"Yes, I've wondered that myself," Zhongli set his empty teacup aside and faced Childe directly to bait him. "You've never told me the story. How did you find yourself involved with the parlor, Ajax?"

The hint of a smirk on the consultant's lips made the harbinger's blood boil even though he managed to keep his façade of a smile plastered on his face. "Well, I wouldn't want to bore you with the details, it's an uninteresting story!"

"Tell me," you begged, eyes sparkling in anticipation. "It might not be boring to us!"

"Yes, do tell," Zhongli encouraged.

You're enjoying this too much, Mr. Zhongli. Childe did his best to hide his annoyance under his signature grin.

........................................

The sigh that escaped the harbinger once you left to finish your duties at the parlor prompted Zhongli to raise a brow at him. "Shut up," Childe muttered without sparing a glance his way. He knew you were hateful of the Fatui; that's most likely why he lied without a second thought, but as to why he'd bother doing so since you weren't close anymore was unknown.

At least, to Childe it was. Zhongli had already figured it out by the lengthy conversation of Childe's extensive toy seller lie. "You two were more than 'close' back in Snezhnaya, were you not?"

"Don't overthink it Zhongli, we were only friends."

"And yet you wear your Harbinger status proudly on your sleeve."

"What're you implying?" Childe, growing impatient and bored of the conversation, shifted in his seat. You had left as their meals were served, so to his utmost horror, he now realized he was given chopsticks to use for his dish.

"You also don't like deceiving others unlike your fellow harbingers."

A disgusted scoff left his lips as he lifted his chopsticks. "...You think I, Tartaglia, am in love with a childhood friend? My my my, Mr. Zhongli, it seems you've finally lost your marbles after living six thousand years. Perhaps living among humans has taken a toll on your wisdom."

"There are several reasons for which a person would lie." Zhongli lowered his voice as the storyteller finished his monologue. "The only one that would make sense after observing you for so long would be infatuation."

Childe had tuned him out by now, concentrating with furrowed brows on holding his dumplings correctly in-between his chopsticks. But they were too heavy, what with his hand shaking the utensils, and they fell back on the plate with a wet plop. Curse these stupid- Childe nearly threw them at the building to his left, but restrained himself before he could lose to his frustrations. Instead he used one chopstick to stab the dumpling and in an exasperated huff, shoved it into his mouth.

"So, what is the real reason you're back in Liyue?" Zhongli set his third cup of tea aside after watching the pitiful struggle before him. "It had sounded like you'd be in Snezhnaya for quite some time before returning, yet here you are only months after Osial."

"Oh," Childe sat up, only now remembering that what he had told you earlier was a drastic lie. "I've been meaning to ask you about the matters I'm dealing with. The Fatui here are fed-up with some...vigilante that interferes with their work here. Whoever's at fault is clearly an amateur, but my subordinates here are apparently too incompetent to catch them. They're stealing important documents from the Northland Bank, setting traps on the roadsides, and even breaking into our apartments to steal the agents' uniforms."

Zhongli cradled his chin in his hand while in deep thought. He's heard of such a person; they often came to the parlor in the early morning hours to avoid getting caught since their living quarters were on the opposite side of town--he caught them more than once, out of breath, and dressed in black.

"--Basically the men are agitated at this point and threatening to leave their posts, and everyone's on edge because of another matter that may be related. A few of our agents have gone missing with no trace, so I am here to locate them. Whoever this vigilante is might know something; both occurrences started approximately three months ago." Childe grabbed his last dumpling and ate it before leaning back in his seat. "So, given that you are the wisest man in Liyue, I decided to come to you for advice. Would you happen to know of anyone or anything involved?"

"Yes," Zhongli hummed, eyes downcast and settled on his folded hands. "It's possible I hold information valuable to your search."

Childe's pupils lit up in delight. "Oh? Do enlighten me."

"But first, the vigilante is not related to your missing men," he took another sip of tea, lost in thought. "And they are more or less an amateur seeking to disrupt Fatui operations, but they don't usually harm your agents--"

"That's inaccurate to say, Zhongli. Last week three of my guys came back with broken noses or fractured arms."

--that I know of." A pointed glare just made the harbinger lean forward against the table.

"You know who I'm searching for."

"Perhaps."

"Then spill."

"Am I really obligated to tell you based on your earlier behavior?"

"Mr. Zhongli, this person poses a serious threat to the health of my men, and potentially their lives. Do you not care that human lives are at stake because of this...this...killer?"

Says the man who tried to drown my country. "As usual, you are making brash assumptions. They are not a killer, and they are not dangerous unless backed into a corner."

Childe was growing sick of beating around the bush, so he deadpanned. "Zhongli."

The former archon let out a low sigh before meeting his gaze. "As long as you remember what I just said, then I suppose I'll let you know. The person you're searching for is the same person you lied to at this table."

#inception #wesimpforxiao #genshin x reader #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin impact childe #childe genshin impact #genshin impact

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